Melania

The lives of Melania the Elder and Melania the Younger span one of the most important periods of Christian history, reaching from the reign of Constantine through the reign of Theodosius II. They and their family members were well known to some of the most influential political and cultural figures of the period; their patronage promoted the work of major Christian thinkers from both before their time and during it. Their property and travels connected the political, economic, and religious worlds of the late antique Mediterranean. This volume examines the history of early Christianity as it was created and imagined through the lives of the two Melanias. The volume overlays the history of Christianity with a set of narratives that explore themes in the lives of the Melanias, such as constructions of gender, asceticism, orthodoxy and heresy, family and wealth, travel, patterns of memory, worship and hagiography. The resulting collaborative portrait of this family, its influence, and its interests offers a new window on to early Christian history, not by portraying Christianity as a timeless entity unfolding over centuries, but by considering in more complex ways the lives, representations, and later reception of two late ancient persons who attempted to be Christian.

2006 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Horsley

This article investigates the origins and development of the earliest Jesus movements within the context of persistent conflict between the Judean and Galilean peasantry and their Jerusalem and Roman rulers. It explores the prominence of popular prophetic and messianic movements and shows how the earliest movements that formed in response to Jesus’ mission exhibit similar features and patterns. Jesus is not treated as separate from social roles and political-economic relationships. Viewing Jesus against the background of village communities in which people lived, the Gospels are understood as genuine communication with other people in historical social contexts. The article argues that the net effect of these interrelated factors of theologically determined New Testament interpretation is a combination of assumptions and procedures that would be unacceptable in the regular investigation of history. Another version of the essay was published in Horsley, Richard A (ed), A people’s history of Christianity, Volume 1: Christian origins, 23-46. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.


1965 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Koester

I. The Crisis of the Historical and Theological Criteria.Already Walter Bauer, well known as a lexicographer, but unfortunately little known as a historian of the Ancient Church, in his ingenious monograph Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (1934), had demonstrated convincingly that such Christian groups which were later labelled “heretical,” actually dominated in the first two or three centuries, both geographically and theologically. Recent discoveries, especially those of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, have made it definitely clear that Walter Bauer was essentially right and that a thorough and extensive re-evaluation of early Christian history is called for.


Author(s):  
R.V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar

This book chronicles the history of education policymaking in India. The focus of the book is on the period from 1964 when the landmark Kothari Commission was constituted; however, to put the policy developments in this period into perspective major developments since the Indian Education Commission (1882) have been touched upon. The distinctiveness of the book lies in the rare insights which come from the author’s experience of making policy at the state, national and international levels; it is also the first book on the making of Indian education policy which brings to bear on the narrative comparative and historical perspectives it, which pays attention to the process and politics of policymaking and the larger setting –the political and policy environment- in which policies were made at different points of time, which attempts to subject regulation of education to a systematic analyses the way regulation of utilities or business or environment had been, and integrates judicial policymaking with the making and implementation of education policies. In fact for the period subsequent to 1979, there have been articles- may be a book or two- on some aspects of these developments individually; however, there is no comprehensive narrative that covers developments as a whole and places them against the backdrop of national and global political, economic, and educational developments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-124
Author(s):  
Larisa Orlov Vilimonović

This paper deals with the ideas of queer experiences in the Early Christian movement, seen through early Christian epistemologies of gender and patristic thought focused on sex differences. The lives and passions of transgender nuns are used in discussing various aspects of gender fluidity in early Christianity. Theoretically, the paper rests on the idea of the performativity of gender, that is, on the ways gender was constructed and how body modifications enabled renegotiation of gender categories. It also focuses on the social context of queer experiences in the late antique period with regard to Roman social norms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 250-253
Author(s):  
A.A.Erkuziev

Central Asia has played an important role in the political, economic and cultural relations of different nations and countries since ancient times as one of the centers of the world civilization. The Great Silk Road, which passed through this region, brought together the countries on the trade routes, the peoples living in them, and served to spread information about their traditions, lifestyles, location, historical events. These data, in turn, brought different peoples closer and served as the basis for the establishment of mutual economic and cultural relationships between them. One of the important scientific issues here is the study of the spread of information about the Central Asian region, where most of the Great Silk Road passed, to Western Europe through other countries.


Author(s):  
Susan Brewer-Osorio

Coca is deeply interwoven into the political, economic, and social history of Bolivia from the Inca Empire to the 21st-century rise of President Evo Morales Ayma. As such, generations of Bolivians, from powerful hacendados to peasant farmers, have resisted efforts to destroy the coca leaf. Coca is a mild herbal stimulant cultivated and consumed by indigenous Andeans for centuries, and the primary material for making the potent drug cocaine. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish colonizers promoted coca production on large haciendas to supply mining towns, giving rise to a powerful class of coca hacendados that formed part of Bolivia’s ruling oligarchy after independence. In the early 20th century, the coca hacendados shielded coca from international drug control. Following the 1952 Revolution, agrarian unions replaced hacendados as guardians of the coca leaf. The unions formed a powerful social movement led by Evo Morales Ayma, an indigenous leader and coca farmer, against US-led efforts to forcibly eradicate coca. During the 1990s, Morales and his allies created a political party called the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). In late 2005, Morales was elected president of Bolivia and his new government deployed state power to protect the coca leaf.


Antichthon ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 63-73
Author(s):  
R.A. Bauman

Luigi Labruna makes a number of proposals, in his recent Vim fieri veto: alle radici di una ideologia, of considerable importance to both the legal and the political history of the later Republic. The basic theme of the work is the possessory interdict uti possidetis, but in furtherance of his avowed purpose of illuminating the juridical, political, economic and social background to this early possessory remedy the author moves freely and knowledgeably in a number of fields. It is well that it should be so. The delimitation of the boundaries of Roman private law in a purely juridical setting is and will always be an indispensable and rewarding discipline, but it is more and more coming to be realized that the law of a given society needs also to be seen in a wider ambit, not only for the better understanding of the law but also for the better understanding of the society. His successful application of this wider approach to the rather austere problems of the possessory interdicts marks Labruna’s work out as one of considerable significance and merit.


Author(s):  
Ravinder Gargesh ◽  
Pingali Sailaja

This chapter traces the history of English in the countries of South Asia, including the political, economic, educational, and social impact of the language on the region. The major debates and processes that led to the institutionalization of the language are highlighted. It then presents an outline of the typical linguistic features and also their variation across the region. Some of the consequences of the multilingual context and the need to communicate by a wide spectrum of groups led to the development of sub-varieties and widespread code-switching; the chapter discusses these phenomena as well. Some theoretical approaches that aim to explain some of the aspects of the linguistic features rather than merely describe the data are then presented.


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