Writing and Reading about Death

2021 ◽  
pp. 228-244
Author(s):  
John Parker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The North ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Prayer Books ◽  
Basel Mission

This chapter considers the transformation from a culture of speaking about death to one which included writing and reading about death. It spotlights the final quarter of the nineteenth century, from the creation of the British Crown Colony of the Gold Coast in 1874 to its expansion with the formal incorporation of Asante and the savanna hinterland to the north in 1901–2. The chapter focuses on literacy and print culture as they developed on the Gold Coast littoral, a process which would extend into Asante and beyond only in the twentieth century. This print culture comprised both vernacular African languages and, with the departure of the Dutch in 1872, the language of the remaining colonizing power: English. The former was particularly associated with the Basel Mission, whose European and African agents pioneered the transcription of Ga and Twi as written languages and produced the first vernacular printed texts: prayer books, primers, dictionaries, the gospels and, by the 1860s to 1870s, compete translations of the Bible. The Bible, of course, has a great deal to say about mortality and the ends of life, however, the chapter concentrates on a different, secular medium of entextualized discourses about death: newspapers, which, as in Europe, 'accorded mortality new openings.'

The Linguistic Situation and Vernacular Literature in British West Africa

Africa ◽  
1929 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Westermann
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The North ◽  
Religious Books ◽  
Basel Mission ◽  
School Books

The beginnings of a vernacular literature in languages spoken in British West Africa go back for more than a century. As early as 1815 the gospel of St. Matthew was published in Bulom; in 1816 part of St. Matthew in Susu (Soso), 1829 Genesis and part of Matthew in Mampua, a dialect of Bulom. A translation of the whole Bible appeared in the Ga language in 1866, in Twi in 1871, in Efik in 1868, and in Yoruba in 1880. Since that time there has been a constant increase in the number of languages into which parts of the Bible or the whole Bible and other religious books such as catechisms, hymn-books and prayer-books have been translated. Other books for use in schools and for general reading have also been produced, but only to a very limited extent; the great majority are books written by missionaries for immediate missionary purposes. I know of only two cases in which a complete set of school-books in native languages for a curriculum of about eight or ten years has been published and is in use. These are produced by the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast (Twi and Ga) and the North German Mission in Togoland and on the Gold Coast (Ewe).

Kampungs and Conflict in Colonial Semarang

1988 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Cobban
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
City Council ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
Central Java ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Semarang was a major port city and administrative centre on Java. Attainment of this position was due partly to the expansion of its hinterland during the nineteenth century. This expansion was closely related to developments in the means of transportation and the consequent ability of plantation owners to bring the products of their plantations to the port for shipment to foreign markets. By the end of the century virtually the whole economic life of central Java focused upon Semarang. The city also exercised administrative functions in the Dutch colonial administration and generally had been responsible for Dutch interests in the middle and eastern parts of the island. The importance of Semarang as an administrative centre increased after 1906. In that year the government incorporated the city as an urban municipality (stadsgemeente). In 1914 it had consular representation from the United States, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Germany, and Thailand. Subsequently, in 1926 it became the capital of the Province of Central Java under the terms of an administrative reform fostered by the colonial government at Batavia. Status as an urban municipality meant that local officials sitting on a city council would govern the domestic affairs of the city. The members of the city council at first were appointed from Batavia, subsequently some of them were elected by residents of the city. By the beginning of the twentieth century Semarang had enhanced its position as a major port on the north coast of the island of Java. It was one of the foremost cities of the Dutch East Indies, along with Batavia and Surabaya, a leading port and a centre of administration and trade. This article outlines the growth of the port of Semarang during the nineteenth century and discusses some of the conflict related to this growth over living conditions in parts of the city during the twentieth century, a conflict which smouldered for several decades among the government, members of the city council, and the non-European residents of the city, one which remained unresolved at the end of the colonial era.

Reformism and Orthodox Practice in Early Nineteenth-Century Muslim North India: Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed Reconsidered

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-198
Author(s):  
SANA HAROON
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North India ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The North ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThis paper is a reconsideration of the career of the north-Indian Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed (1786–1831). I argue that Sayyid Ahmed used a Sufi devotional premise to understand and explain principles of orthodoxy. He also applied a concept of innate spiritual knowledge to reformed practice, suggesting that ordinary people, without scholarly training, could determine and apply the principles of orthodox practice of Islam for themselves and for others. His movement modified traditional seminary-centred teaching and leadership through the creation of a popular and easily transferrable system of practice rooted in the community and imprinted with the obligation to spread reformist teachings.

The Bible and Popular Christianity in Modern China

2021 ◽  
pp. 574-590
Author(s):  
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee ◽  
Christie Chui-Shan Chow
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Influence ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Independent Churches ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Bible Reading

This essay investigates the influential role that the Bible played in the sphere of Chinese popular Christianity. It explores the widespread use of the Bible among the lay populace who were traditionally excluded from the concerns and pursuits of Chinese Christian elites in cosmopolitan cities. Beginning with an overview of the cultural influence of the Bible in the mid-nineteenth century, this study argues that the liberating power of the Word was leveraged by peasant converts looking for new cosmologies and norms to change society. The twentieth century witnessed multiple levels of direct engagement with biblical texts, unmediated by foreign missionaries, among Chinese evangelists and congregants. Some drew on new biblical inspirations to found independent churches and sectarian groups, and some relied on the practice of bibliomancy to seek guidance in times of chaos. These examples offer complex view of the symbiosis between Bible reading and conversion in Chinese popular Christianity.

Ordering Empire and Democracy, 1902–1921

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-67
Author(s):  
Tobias Harper
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
British Empire ◽  
British Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Opening Up

This chapter examines the creation of new orders at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was the culmination of a prolonged period of “unprecedented honorific inventiveness” starting in the late nineteenth century. In Britain the new Order of the British Empire was branded the “Order of Britain’s Democracy” in recognition of the fact that it extended far deeper into non-elite classes in British society than any previous honour. Between 1917 and 1921 more than 20,000 people in Britain and throughout the British Empire were added to this new Order. This was an unprecedented number, orders of magnitude larger than honours lists in previous years. While the new Order was successful in reaching a wider, more middle-class audience than the honours system before the war, which was socially narrow, there was a substantial backlash to what was widely perceived by elites to be an excessive (and diluting) opening-up of the “fount of honour.” This backlash was connected to political controversies about the sale of honours that eventually helped bring about Lloyd George’s downfall. This chapter also contains a brief description of all the components of the British honours system at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Colonial and Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction

1981 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Ying
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Judicial Power ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
International Shipping ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction

Notwithstanding the inclusion of “Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction” within the constitutional grant of federal judicial power, current Admiralty jurisdiction in Australia is based solely on a nineteenth century Imperial statute, the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act 1890. That this has remained the case for so long is regrettable, and reflects in part a traditional deference to Imperial control over international shipping (although lately there have been indications of greater legislative assertiveness over maritime matters generally), and in part a reluctance to interfere with the present allocation of jurisdiction among State courts. A concerted effort is now under way to lay the foundation for the creation of a modern indigenous Admiralty jurisdiction, and with this in mind, the author sets out to examine the nature and extent of the current colonial jurisdiction, its interrelationship with the federal jurisdiction under section 76(iii) of the Constitution, and the desirability of abandoning the rigid nineteenth century base of the former to realise the full twentieth century promise of the latter.

The Quaker Renaissance and Liberal Quakerism in Britain, 1895–1930

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-92
Author(s):  
Joanna Dales
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Liberal Theology ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Educational Initiatives ◽  
Sense Of Reality ◽  
Wrath Of God

Abstract Many Quakers who reached maturity towards the end of the nineteenth century found that their parents’ religion had lost its connection with reality. New discoveries in science and biblical research called for new approaches to Christian faith. Evangelical beliefs dominant among nineteenth-century Quakers were now found wanting, especially those emphasising the supreme authority of the Bible and doctrines of atonement whereby the wrath of God is appeased through the blood of Christ. Liberal Quakers sought a renewed sense of reality in their faith through recovering the vision of the first Quakers with their sense of the Light of God within each person. They also borrowed from mainstream liberal theology new attitudes to God, nature and service to society. The ensuing Quaker Renaissance found its voice at the Manchester Conference of 1895, and the educational initiatives which followed gave to British Quakerism an active faith fit for the testing reality of the twentieth century.

Pages from a Yellow Press: Print Culture, Public Life and Political Genealogies in Modern Brazil

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-379
Author(s):  
JAMES P. WOODARD
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Original Formulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Radical Republicanism

AbstractAn examination of the Brazilian newspaper O Combate, this article accomplishes four goals. First, it defines the politics of a periodical long cited but little understood by historians. Second, it documents O Combate's place, alongside other ‘yellow press’ outlets, in the making of a ‘public sphere’ in São Paulo. Third, it situates the same publications' role in the bringing into being of a more commercial, publicity-driven press, which would shed the yellow press's radicalism and abet the collapse of the public sphere of its heyday. Fourth, it suggests that O Combate's radical republicanism was one fount of the democratic radicalism of the late 1920s and early 1930s, as well as of the regionally chauvinist constitutionalism of 1932–7. In this rare application of the ‘public sphere’ idea to twentieth-century Brazil, readers may also detect an account closer to Jürgen Habermas’ original formulation than that found in the historiography of nineteenth-century Spanish America.

scholarly journals Finns in the Colonial World

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Raita Merivirta ◽  
Leila Koivunen ◽  
Timo Särkkä
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Racial Hierarchies ◽  
Belgian Congo

AbstractUtilizing such concepts as “colonial complicity” and “colonialism without colonies”, this chapter examines the case of Finns and Finland as a nation that was once oppressed but also itself complicit in colonialism. It argues that although the Finnish nation has historically been positioned in Europe between western and eastern empires, Finns were not only passive victims of (Russian) imperial rule but also active participants in the creation of imperial vocabulary in various colonial contexts, including Sápmi in the North.This chapter argues that although Finns never had overseas colonies, they were involved in the colonial world, sending out colonizers and producing images of colonial “others”, when they, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, felt the need to project themselves as white and European (not Russian or non-white, such as Mongols). Finns adopted, adapted, and created common European knowledge about colonized areas, cultures, and people and participated in constructing racial hierarchies. These racialized notions were also applied to the Sámi. Furthermore, Finns benefitted economically from colonialism, sent out missionaries to Owambo in present-day Namibia to spread the ideas of Western/White/Christian superiority and instruct the Owambo in European ways. Finns were also involved in several colonial enterprises of other European colonizing powers, such as in the Belgian Congo or aboard Captain Cook’s vessel on his journey to the Antipodes.

scholarly journals Coleridge’s Late Confessions: Personification, Convention, and Free Agency

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua King
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Critical Prose

In this essay, I freshly examine Coleridge’s late poems, asking how several respond to his abiding fear of authors and readers surrendering their free wills to the fashions and conditioned attitudes of nineteenth-century print culture. Connecting this anxiety to Coleridge’s views of personification, the Bible, and his own public image, I interpret his late poems as confessions of the conventional determination of writing and reading that he resisted in his critical prose. This late concession, I suggest, might also be an unexpected defense of free agency: by displaying their conventionality, these late poems appear—at least to several early and recent readers—to reflect the strategy of a self-aware and self-determining poet.

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