Autohagiobiography

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley K. Storin

Over the past fourteen centuries, Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 330–390 C.E.) has been the subject of more than a dozen biographical narratives and monographs, beginning with the late antique hagiography of Gregory the Presbyter and concluding with the modern biography by John McGuckin. This is likely the result of Gregory's vast autobiographical corpus, which has provided scholars with a chronological narrative and character perspective from which to start their own secondary narratives. By examining this tradition of biography, I argue that two trends remain regularly operative. First, each biographer has consistently endowed his subject with his own values, ideals, and theological commitments. Second, each biography has given pride of place to Gregory's autobiographical voice. To make a precise demonstration of the latter trend, I follow the notorious Maximus affair from its presentation in Gregory's autobiography and in the biographical tradition, showing how Gregory's narrative remains almost entirely intact and unscrutinized. Ultimately I contend that the generic boundaries between autobiography, hagiography, and biography have broken down and suggest that readers subject autobiographical texts, along with their content, structure, style, and narrative, to rhetorical analysis rather than treat them as texts that reveal, with varying degrees of transparency, the authentic personality of their author.

1976 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brown

I must begin with the words of the clergyman: ‘My short sermon for today is divided into three parts. One: God. Two: Man. Three: The Universe.’ It will be impossible to do justice to the subject in hand in the short span of one lecture. This is not only because of the vast range of time and space involved in any consideration of the parting of the ways between eastern and western Christianity in the late antique period. To embark on such a theme involves holding up for scrutiny the very nature of ecclesiastical history. For what we have to deal with is not merely what happened in the relations between east and west, but why what happened happened as it did. Once the ecclesiastical historian asks why, he will find himself sooner or later forced to grapple with the whole quality of men’s lives in the past—that is, with how they lived the full twenty-four hours of the day, not only in their books, but in their churches, not only in their churches, but in the most intimate and most monotonous rhythms of their life.


Author(s):  
Dr. Dochka Vladimirova-Aladzhova

The subject of this publication is three seals, each raising interesting questions. During the archaeological explorations of the ancient city of Serdica (now Sofia) conducted in the past ten years, 48 lead seals from the 4th – 7th A.D. period have been discovered. The scientific novelty of the discovered bullae are little-known specimens, or not described until now in the specialized literature. The description of all of the seals is given. The first one relates to John, excavated at the ‘Metro station 8 II’. The print is perfectly preserved with a very strong relief of the images of the Virgin with Child between two cypresses is relatively rare in combination with various reverses unpublished till now. It dates back to the 6th A.D. The second Byzantuim seal excavated at ‘Vesletz’ 13. (the territory of ancient Serdica) and there are there are no analogues.During the early Byzantine Empire, only the first or baptismal name was used on seals. The parents had a large choice of names: Latin names or their Hellenized versions were used in the eastern part of the empire, traditional Greek names with regional traditions were widely used, also names of Christian saints appeared, which gradually became very popular. As a result, every twelfth child was baptized with the name John, and as a result there are a large number of bulls named John , and some have the same name on both sides, which is usually explained by the kinship between the two persons . In order to identify the person, in some cases his position or title is added, but even this information is not enough to identify the owner of the seal, known to us from documentary or epigraphic sources.Another seal from ‘Vesletz’ 13 has an image of the Mother of God that is of the earliest type presented on the seals. There are different variants of the described monogram, there is no identical to the one on the seal from Serdica, also difference being in the position of the letter Р. In Bulgaria, only 3 copies of persons with the title patricius (VI–VII c.) are described, two with a block monogram and one with an inscription. In the seals discussed above, the names and the title of the owner are given in monogram form. Generally there are two types of monograms: block and cruciform. It is accepted that the first type appeared not earlier than the fifth century, when on the coins the name was also written in this way. The letters are located at the ends of the cross or at the intersection of its shoulders. This shape, as well as the angles formed, allows a large number of letters to be used. Conclusions. Usually, seals like the ones presented above dated to the period 6th-7th A.D. An important circumstance for the bullae from Serdica is that they were found during archeological excavations, in stratified sites and in layers with dated numismatic material, in which the coins of Emperor Justinian I (527–565) and Tiberius Constantine (578-582) predominate. This is an important indication, which makes it possible to specify the dating of the bulls no later than 2½ of the 6th A.D.


1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (4I) ◽  
pp. 321-331
Author(s):  
Sarfraz Khan Qureshi

It is an honour for me as President of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists to welcome you to the 13th Annual General Meeting and Conference of the Society. I consider it a great privilege to do so as this Meeting coincides with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the state of Pakistan, a state which emerged on the map of the postwar world as a result of the Muslim freedom movement in the Indian Subcontinent. Fifty years to the date, we have been jubilant about it, and both as citizens of Pakistan and professionals in the social sciences we have also been thoughtful about it. We are trying to see what development has meant in Pakistan in the past half century. As there are so many dimensions that the subject has now come to have since its rather simplistic beginnings, we thought the Golden Jubilee of Pakistan to be an appropriate occasion for such stock-taking.


Author(s):  
Daiva Milinkevičiūtė

The Age of Enlightenment is defined as the period when the universal ideas of progress, deism, humanism, naturalism and others were materialized and became a golden age for freemasons. It is wrong to assume that old and conservative Christian ideas were rejected. Conversely, freemasons put them into new general shapes and expressed them with the help of symbols in their daily routine. Symbols of freemasons had close ties with the past and gave them, on the one hand, a visible instrument, such as rituals and ideas to sense the transcendental, and on the other, intense gnostic aspirations. Freemasons put in a great amount of effort to improve themselves and to create their identity with the help of myths and symbols. It traces its origins to the biblical builders of King Solomon’s Temple, the posterity of the Templar Knights, and associations of the medieval craft guilds, which were also symbolical and became their link not only to each other but also to the secular world. In this work we analysed codified masonic symbols used in their rituals. The subject of our research is the universal Masonic idea and its aspects through the symbols in the daily life of the freemasons in Vilnius. Thanks to freemasons’ signets, we could find continuity, reception, and transformation of universal masonic ideas in the Lithuanian freemasonry and national characteristics of lodges. Taking everything into account, our article shows how the universal idea of freemasonry spread among Lithuanian freemasonry, and which forms and meanings it incorporated in its symbols. The objective of this research is to find a universal Masonic idea throughout their visual and oral symbols and see its impact on the daily life of the masons in Vilnius. Keywords: Freemasonry, Bible, lodge, symbols, rituals, freemasons’ signets.


No other talent process has been the subject of such great debate and emotion as performance management (PM). For decades, different strategies have been tried to improve PM processes, yielding an endless cycle of reform to capture the next “flavor-of-the-day” PM trend. The past 5 years, however, have brought novel thinking that is different from past trends. Companies are reducing their formal processes, driving performance-based cultures, and embedding effective PM behavior into daily work rather than relying on annual reviews to drive these. Through case studies provided from leading organizations, this book illustrates the range of PM processes that companies are using today. These show a shift away from adopting someone else’s best practice; instead, companies are designing bespoke PM processes that fit their specific strategy, climate, and needs. Leading PM thought leaders offer their views about the state of PM today, what we have learned and where we need to focus future efforts, including provocative new research that shows what matters most in driving high performance. This book is a call to action for talent management professionals to go beyond traditional best practice and provide thought leadership in designing PM processes and systems that will enhance both individual and organizational performance.


Urban Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Till Koglin ◽  
Lucas Glasare

This paper evaluates the history and cycling accessibility of Nova, a shopping centre established in Lund, Sweden, in 2002. The current situation was also analysed through observation and a literature review. Moreover, the study conducted a closer analysis of the history and role of the municipality based on further literature study and interviews with officials. The conclusion of the analysis indicates poor and unsafe bikeways caused by conflicts of interest between politicians, officials, landowners and the general public. It also depicts a situation in which the municipality’s master plan has been ignored, and, in contrast to the local goals, cycling accessibility at Nova has seen no significant improvement since the shopping centre was first established. The reasons for this, arguably, are a relatively low budget for bikeway improvements in the municipality, as well as a situation in which decision-makers have stopped approaching the subject, as a result of the long and often boisterous conflicts it has created in the past. Lastly, it must be noted that it is easy to regard the whole process of Nova, from its establishment to the current situation, as being symptomatic of the power structures between drivers and cyclists that still affect decision-makers at all levels.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Cristina Lazzeroni ◽  
Sandra Malvezzi ◽  
Andrea Quadri

The rapid changes in science and technology witnessed in recent decades have significantly contributed to the arousal of the awareness by decision-makers and the public as a whole of the need to strengthen the connection between outreach activities of universities and research institutes and the activities of educational institutions, with a central role played by schools. While the relevance of the problem is nowadays unquestioned, no unique and fully satisfactory solution has been identified. In the present paper we would like to contribute to the discussion on the subject by reporting on an ongoing project aimed to teach Particle Physics in primary schools. We will start from the past and currently planned activities in this project in order to establish a broader framework to describe the conditions for the fruitful interplay between researchers and teachers. We will also emphasize some aspects related to the dissemination of outreach materials by research institutions, in order to promote the access and distribution of scientific information in a way suited to the different age of the target students.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léon E Dijkman

Abstract Germany is one of few jurisdictions with a bifurcated patent system, under which infringement and validity of a patent are established in separate proceedings. Because validity proceedings normally take longer to conclude, it can occur that remedies for infringement are imposed before a decision on the patent’s validity is available. This phenomenon is colloquially known as the ‘injunction gap’ and has been the subject of increasing criticism over the past years. In this article, I examine the injunction gap from the perspective of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I find that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights interpreting this provision supports criticism of the injunction gap, because imposing infringement remedies with potentially far-reaching consequences before the validity of a patent has been established by a court of law arguably violates defendants’ right to be heard. Such reliance on the patent office’s grant decision is no longer warranted in the light of contemporary invalidation rates. I conclude that the proliferation of the injunction gap should be curbed by an approach to a stay of proceedings which is in line with the test for stays as formulated by Germany’s Federal Supreme Court. Under this test, courts should stay infringement proceedings until the Federal Patent Court or the EPO’s Board of Appeal have ruled on the validity of a patent whenever it is more likely than not that it will be invalidated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-140
Author(s):  
Fabio D’Orlando ◽  
Sharon Ricciotti

Escalation is a key characteristic of many consumption behaviors that has not received theoretical attention. This paper aims to propose both a definition and a theoretical treatment of escalation in consumption. We define escalation as a subject’s attempt to obtain “more” or engage in consumption behaviors that are “more intense” on a measurable, quantitative or qualitative, objective or subjective, scale (more difficult ski slopes, stronger drugs, harder sex, better restaurants etc.), even if the subject preferred less intense consumption behaviors in the past. Further, this evolution in behavior also occurs if the budget constraint does not change. We will find endogenous and exogenous theoretical microfoundations for escalation in models of hedonic adaptation, desire for novelty, acquisition of consumption skills, rising aspirations, positional effects, and envy. However, we will also discuss the possibility that the tendency to escalate is a specific innate behavior inherent to human nature. Finally, we will propose a preliminary theoretical formalization of such behavior and indicate the possible implications of taking escalation into adequate consideration. JEL codes: B52, D11, D90, D91, I31


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110201
Author(s):  
Thomas A. DiPrete ◽  
Brittany N. Fox-Williams

Social inequality is a central topic of research in the social sciences. Decades of research have deepened our understanding of the characteristics and causes of social inequality. At the same time, social inequality has markedly increased during the past 40 years, and progress on reducing poverty and improving the life chances of Americans in the bottom half of the distribution has been frustratingly slow. How useful has sociological research been to the task of reducing inequality? The authors analyze the stance taken by sociological research on the subject of reducing inequality. They identify an imbalance in the literature between the discipline’s continual efforts to motivate the plausibility of large-scale change and its lesser efforts to identify feasible strategies of change either through social policy or by enhancing individual and local agency with the potential to cumulate into meaningful progress on inequality reduction.


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