Capitalising on Nepal’s Soft Power Heritage in the 21st Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-206
Author(s):  
Amish Raj Mulmi

As Nepal forges ahead in the 21st century, linked to two Asian powers by thousands of years of shared cultures and histories, it is time for Nepal to capitalise on its heritage and look to the future. Nepal must claim and revitalise our shared histories of Hinduism and Buddhism, and create a soft power potential that emphasises traditional religious practices, natural and cultural heritage, and sustainability in a time of climate change. The paper argues that Nepal should anchor itself in the past - invoking the idea of a shared civilisation - and look to the future. The potential of religious and cultural tourism must be fully realised while being sustainable. Private sector entrepreneurship in culture must be encouraged, especially as culture itself - or the many cultures within Nepal - must be thought of as a tool to emphasise Nepal’s soft power. Nepal stands to lose US$ 460 million in the tourism sector alone due to the Covid-19 pandemic and it must diversify its tourism offerings if a recovery is desired. Building on a study of historical literature and contemporary trends in filmmaking, brand marketing and perception building, this paper argues that Nepal must invest in its culture and heritage to build an export policy around geographical indications (GIs), establish a new film production template, making it easier for foreign filmmaking companies to come to Nepal, and finally, reinvent its tourism policy in a world ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Reynolds

One of the many memorable memes and thought slogans associated with the late theorist Mark Fisher is “the slow cancellation of the future.” What does this evocative and melancholy phrase signify? In this talk Fisher’s blogging comrade and Retromania author Simon Reynolds reexamines the belief that the 21st century so far has been a Zeit without a Geist: an atemporal time of replicas, reenactments, reissues, revivals, and other syndromes of cultural recycling that put the “past” into pastiche. Are there reasons to be cheerful about music and pop culture as the 2010s limp to the finish line, if not so sanguine about politics or the environment? If society is deadlocked or, worse, heading in reverse, can we even expect music to surge forward like it once did?


Paleo-aktueel ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 73-81
Author(s):  
Froukje Veenman

Out of Archaeology. Even if we may still hope to decrease our ecological footprint in the years to come, our archaeological footprint has increased rapidly over the past years. We still discover, map and excavate archaeological sites and patterns, but at the same time our archaeological ‘stock’ will decrease dramatically. Maybe all that we will have left in the near future in the Netherlands will be restricted to some archaeological reserves, which will be strictly protected areas, with no possibilities for excavation. A picture of the future (2054) is outlined in this article. We have strived to reserve (preserve?) archaeological resources since 2007, but what was actually happening in the field in the first quarter of the 21st century? And what if we run out of archaeology?


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Rachel Wagner

Here I build upon Robert Orsi’s work by arguing that we can see presence—and the longing for it—at work beyond the obvious spaces of religious practice. Presence, I propose, is alive and well in mediated apocalypticism, in the intense imagination of the future that preoccupies those who consume its narratives in film, games, and role plays. Presence is a way of bringing worlds beyond into tangible form, of touching them and letting them touch you. It is, in this sense, that Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward observe the “re-emergence” of religion with a “new visibility” that is much more than “simple re-emergence of something that has been in decline in the past but is now manifesting itself once more.” I propose that the “new awareness of religion” they posit includes the mediated worlds that enchant and empower us via deeply immersive fandoms. Whereas religious institutions today may be suspicious of presence, it lives on in the thick of media fandoms and their material manifestations, especially those forms that make ultimate promises about the world to come.


2002 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Hilary M. Carey

Time, according to medieval theologians and philosophers, was experienced in radically different ways by God and by his creation. Indeed, the obligation to dwell in time, and therefore to have no sure knowledge of what was to come, was seen as one of the primary qualities which marked the post-lapsarian state. When Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of delights, they entered a world afflicted with the changing of the seasons, in which they were obliged to work and consume themselves with the needs of the present day and the still unknown dangers of the next. Medieval concerns about the use and abuse of time were not merely confined to anxiety about the present, or awareness of seized or missed opportunities in the past. The future was equally worrying, in particular the extent to which this part of time was set aside for God alone, or whether it was permissible to seek to know the future, either through revelation and prophecy, or through science. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the scientific claims of astrology to provide a means to explain the outcome of past and future events, circumventing God’s distant authority, became more and more insistent. This paper begins by examining one skirmish in this larger battle over the control of the future.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-10 ◽  

AbstractIn this analysis of the future of our profession, Barbara Tearle starts by looking at the past to see how much the world of legal information has evolved and changed. She considers the nature of the profession today and then identifies key factors which she believes will be of importance in the future, including the impact of globalisation; the potential changes to the legal profession; technology; developments in legal education; increasing commercialisation and changes to the law itself.


Author(s):  
Thomais Kordonouri

‘Archive’ is a totality of records, layers and memories that are collected. A city is the archive that consists of the conscious selection of these layers and traces of the past and the present, looking towards the future. Metaxourgio is an area in the wider historic urban area of Keramikos in Athens that includes traces of various eras, beginning in the Antiquity and continuing all the way into the 21st century. Its archaeological space ‘Demosion Sema’ is mostly concealed under the ground level, waiting to be revealed. In this proposal, Metaxourgio is redesigned in light of archiving. Significant traces of the Antiquity, other ruins and buildings are studied, selected and incorporated in the new interventions. The area becomes the ‘open archive’ that leads towards its lost identity. The proposal aims not only to intensify the relationship of architecture with archaeology, but also to imbue the area’s identity with meanings that refer to the past, present and future.


2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Jelin

Opening the newspapers in South America at the beginning of the 21st century can feel like being caught in static time: so many of the contemporary news stories point to the persistence of a past which is definitely not "over". The attempts to try Pinochet, the continuing searches for the disappeared, or a child of murdered parents' struggle to discover their real identity, the Truth Commission in Peru - across the continent, societies continue to come to terms with the past. This book provides an introduction to the complexity of ideas and approaches which have been brought to bear on memory and its importance for understanding social and political realities. Elizabeth Jelin draws on European and North American debates and theories to explore the ways in which conflicts over memory shape individual and collective identities, as well social and political cleavages. The book exposes the enduring consequences of repression and enriches our understanding of the conflicted and contingent nature of memory.


Author(s):  
Elliot R. Wolfson
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  
To Come ◽  

This chapter addresses the co-dependence of people's conceptions of end and of beginning. To comprehend the beginning, one must think of it from the perspective of futurity, from the perspective, that is, of the ultimate end. Consequently, the beginning lies not in the past but, rather, in the future. The chapter then relates this mode of philosophizing with the way people understand Jewish eschatology, which lies at the center of Jewish theorization about time. In Jewish eschatology, what is yet to come is understood as what has already happened, whereas what has happened is derived from what is yet to come. Martin Heidegger has dismissed Judaism as a religion that by its very nature cannot experience temporality authentically. Yet his own understanding of temporality accords well with rabbinic conceptions of temporality and later kabbalistic eschatologies.


Cyber Crime ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 1016-1042 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debarati Halder ◽  
K. Jaishankar

In this chapter, an attempt is made to operationally define cyber crimes against women, as we have found that the definitions of cyber crimes have changed in the past decade and we presume that even this will change in the future decades to come. In addition, the current definitions do not specifically fit in to the nitty-gritty issues of cyber crimes against women and a succinct operational definition is provided. A new set of typology is made with regard to the cyber crimes against women as not all type of crimes fit to the category of cyber crimes against women. The patterns of victimization of women in cyberspace are dealt by qualitative case studies along with the typology.


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