The Appreciation and Study of Qur’an Manuscripts from Southeast Asia: Past, Present, and Future

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-212
Author(s):  
Annabel Teh Gallop
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The West ◽  
Artistic Creativity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Arts

The focus of this paper is not on theological aspects of the Qur’an, or on the study of the Qur’anic sciences in Southeast Asia over the past centuries, but rather to attempt to trace the path of the appreciation of old copies of the Qur’an in Southeast Asia as part of the historical record of the Islamic heritage of the region.  In this light, Qur’an manuscripts are viewed as objects of material culture which can cast light on the societies which produced them, and as works of art which testify to the heights of artistic creativity in the region, for illuminated Qur’an manuscripts represent the pinnacle of achievements in the arts of the book in Southeast Asia. This historical record can be measured through a survey of how, where, when and by whom Qur’an manuscripts in Southeast Asia were collected, documented, studied and published, both in Southeast Asia itself and in the west.

Savoring Polishness: History and Tradition in Contemporary Polish Food Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542110634
Author(s):  
Agata Bachórz ◽  
Fabio Parasecoli
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
The West ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Current Concerns ◽  
Food Media

This article examines the future-oriented use of the culinary past in Poland’s food discourse through a qualitative analysis of popular food media (printed magazines and TV). We analyze how interpretations of food and culinary practices from the past are connected to contemporary debates. We contend that media representations of the culinary past co-create projects of Polish modernization in which diverse voices vie for hegemony by embracing different forms of engagement with the West and by imagining the future shape of the community. We distinguish between a pragmatic and a foodie type of culinary capital and focus on how they differently and at times paradoxically frame cultural memory and tradition. We observe the dynamics of collective memory and oblivion, and assess how interpretations of specific periods in Poland’s past are negotiated in the present through representations of material culture and practices revolving around food, generating not only contrasting evaluations of the past but also diverging economies of the future. Finally, we explore tradition as a set of present-day values, attitudes, and practices that are connected with the past, but respond to current concerns and visions of the future.

Cash and Customers: Theatre Revenue and the National Economy

1988 ◽  
Vol 4 (15) ◽  
pp. 258-263
Author(s):  
Paul Huntington
Keyword(s):  
Arts Administration ◽  
Commercial Sector ◽  
Consumer Expenditure ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Arts ◽  
National Economic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

While statistical information on certain sectors of the British theatre is slowly becoming available – notably from the Arts Council and the Society of West End Theatre, as also from researchers in the Department of Arts Administration at the City University – few attempts have yet been made to draw useful conclusions from these figures, or to deduce how they might be helpful in terms of forward-planning and projections. In the following article. Paul Huntington examines the relationship between theatre revenue and total consumer expenditure, in the context of published figures which illustrate the changing national economic picture of the past decade. He examines not only the way in which these figures tend, naturally enough, to confirm certain expectations – for example, concerning the impact of tourism on the theatre – but also less expected findings, such as the relative upsurge in the fortunes of the regional theatres at a time of slump in the commercial sector of the West End.

Creativity in Art

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Alperson
Keyword(s):  
Characteristic Feature ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Artistic Creativity ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Arts

Perhaps no other concept seems as fundamental to common thinking about the arts as the concept of artistic creativity. This is not because creativity seems to most people to be unique to art. Quite the contrary: we speak freely of creative activity in the sciences, in academic disciplines, in cooking, in sports, and, indeed, in virtually every area of human productive endeavour. Nor is this surprising. Creating and making are closely associated etymologically (from the Latin creare) and in the popular mind, and it does no violence to common sense to say that what can be made or done can be made or done creatively. Nevertheless, creativity, if not a necessary condition of artistic practice, seems at least a hallmark or a characteristic feature of art generally. And so we think of artists as creating their works, we think of works of art (including physical things, performances, events, and conceptual objects and structures) as artistic creations, and we praise artists, their works, and even entire artistic epochs for their creativity. Many people take artistic creation to be the quintessential human creative activity.

Becoming Spiritual: Documenting Osing Rituals and Ritualistic Languages in Banyuwangi, Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hadzantonis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Symbols ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Spirituality And Religion ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Witch Hunts ◽  
Insight Into

Banyuwangi is a highly unique and dyamic locality. Situated in between several ‘giants’ traditionally known as centres of culture and tourism, that is, Bali to the east, larger Java to the west, Borneo to the north, and Alas Purwo forest to the south, Banyuwangi is a hub for culture and metaphysical attention, but has, over the past few decades, become a focus of poltical disourse, in Indonesia. Its cultural and spiritual practices are renowned throughout both Indonesia and Southeast Asia, yet Banyuwangi seems quite content to conceal many of its cosmological practices, its spirituality and connected cultural and language dynamics. Here, a binary constructed by the national government between institutionalized religions (Hinduism, Islam and at times Chritianity) and the liminalized Animism, Kejawen, Ruwatan and the occult, supposedly leading to ‘witch hunts,’ have increased the cultural significance of Banyuwangi. Yet, the construction of this binary has intensifed the Osing community’s affiliation to religious spiritualistic heritage, ultimately encouraging the Osing community to stylize its religious and cultural symbolisms as an extensive set of sequenced annual rituals. The Osing community has spawned a culture of spirituality and religion, which in Geertz’s terms, is highly syncretic, thus reflexively complexifying the symbolisms of the community, and which continue to propagate their religion and heritage, be in internally. These practices materialize through a complex sequence of (approximately) twelve annual festivals, comprising performance and language in the form of dance, food, mantra, prayer, and song. The study employs a theory of frames (see work by Bateson, Goffman) to locate language and visual symbolisms, and to determine how these symbolisms function in context. This study and presentation draw on a several yaer ethnography of Banyuwangi, to provide an insight into the cultural and lingusitic symbolisms of the Osing people in Banyuwangi. The study first documets these sequenced rituals, to develop a map of the symbolic underpinnings of these annually sequenced highly performative rituals. Employing a symbolic interpretive framework, and including discourse analysis of both language and performance, the study utlimately presents that the Osing community continuously, that is, annually, reinvigorates its comples clustering of religious andn cultural symbols, which are layered and are in flux with overlapping narratives, such as heritage, the national poltical and the transnational.

Prehistoric Social Groups in North Norway

1956 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 84-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gutorm Gjessing
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Study ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Answering Questions ◽  
North Norway

‘They have accused the archaeologist of tatting endless taxonomic rosettes of the I same old ball of “material culture” and maintained that his findings are next to useless for the purpose of history and culture study. It seems that the archaeologists are becoming as Tolstoy once said of modern historians, like deaf men answering questions which no one has asked them. In their broader implications these accusations are all too true’ (Taylor, 1948, p. 95). Certainly this not too kind, ironical remark was explicitly aimed at archaeologists in the United States; yet it may, perhaps, be suspected that even some of their European colleagues feel somewhat uneasy on being confronted by such an unflattering mirror. One has, undoubtedly, the feeling that relatively few archaeologists in the West have ever really scrutinized critically what they and their field of study are ultimately aiming at, apart from the somewhat loose and undefined aim of ‘reconstructing the past’. Now, this ‘past’ obviously does not consist of ‘taxonomic rosettes’ for their own sake, nor of economic techniques only. There can be little doubt of the validity of V. Gordon Childe's remark that the cultures established by archaeology represent societies, and in other of his writings, most explicitly in his intriguing book, Social Evolution (Childe, 1951), he has laid down the foundations of a ‘socio-archaeology’.

scholarly journals Arctic Arts with Pride: Discourses on Arctic Arts, Culture and Sustainability

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Huhmarniemi ◽  
Timo Jokela
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Arts And Culture ◽  
Artistic Training

There has been growing interest in Arctic arts and culture as well as in sustainability among artists, researchers, and policy makers. However, until recently, the comprehension of Arctic arts and culture within the framework of sustainable development has remained vague. In this study, by analysing diverse debates from the Arctic Arts Summit 2019 in Rovaniemi, we investigate how the arts and culture sector promotes Arctic sustainability. An analysis of abstracts, conclusions, blogs and newspaper articles reflecting the presentations, art events, exhibitions and dialogues showed that the discourse on sustainability is organised around five themes: (1) global politics and ecological crises as part of the cultural politics of the Arctic; (2) indigenous and non-indigenous Arctic arts and culture; (3) ‘handmade’ and the material culture of the Arctic; (4) place-making, revitalisation and regional development; and (5) economy and sustainability. These partly interlinked themes have relevance for policy making, defining principles for arts and culture funding, artistic practice and research on the Arctic. In addition, education and artistic training are important for all of the five themes; therefore, resources for educational institutions are crucial for the sustainable future of the Arctic. Arts, culture and education have the potential to empower people in the Arctic, increase cultural pride, educate and inform global audiences and create connectedness between the past, present and future. Arts, culture and education contribute to Arctic sustainability.

scholarly journals Paratexts Seeking Understanding: Manuscripts and Aesthetic Cognitivism

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 523
Author(s):  
Garrick V. Allen ◽  
Anthony P. Royle
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Manuscript Studies ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the relationship between manuscripts of ancient religious literature and aesthetic cognitivism, a normative theory of the value of art. Arguing that manuscripts both contain and constitute works of art, we explore paratextuality as a phenomenon that connects manuscript studies to both qualitative and quantitative sides of aesthetic cognitivism. Focusing on our work with a single unpublished gospel manuscript (Dublin, CBL W 139) in the context of a larger project called Paratextual Understanding, we make that case that paratexts have aesthetic functions that allow them to contribute to the knowledge yielded by the larger literary work of which they are a part. We suggest a number of avenues for further research that engages with material culture, non-typography, paratexts, and the arts.

scholarly journals The first quantitative assessment of radiocarbon chronologies for initial pottery in Island Southeast Asia supports multi-directional Neolithic dispersal

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0251407
Author(s):  
Ethan E. Cochrane ◽  
Timothy M. Rieth ◽  
Darby Filimoehala
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Demographic Expansion ◽  
The West ◽  
Environmental Diversity ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Work Supports ◽  
Neolithic Expansion

Neolithization, or the Holocene demographic expansion of farming populations, accounts for significant changes in human and animal biology, artifacts, languages, and cultures across the earth. For Island Southeast Asia, the orthodox Out of Taiwan hypothesis proposes that Neolithic expansion originated from Taiwan with populations moving south into Island Southeast Asia, while the Western Route Migration hypothesis suggests the earliest farming populations entered from Mainland Southeast Asia in the west. These hypotheses are also linked to competing explanations of the Austronesian expansion, one of the most significant population dispersals in the ancient world that influenced human and environmental diversity from Madagascar to Easter Island and Hawai‘i to New Zealand. The fundamental archaeological test of the Out of Taiwan and Western Route Migration hypotheses is the geographic and chronological distribution of initial pottery assemblages, but these data have never been quantitatively analyzed. Using radiocarbon determinations from 20 archaeological sites, we present a Bayesian chronological analysis of initial pottery deposition in Island Southeast Asia and western Near Oceania. Both site-scale and island-scale Bayesian models were produced in Oxcal using radiocarbon determinations that are most confidently associated with selected target events. Our results indicate multi-directional Neolithic dispersal in Island Southeast Asia, with the earliest pottery contemporaneously deposited in western Borneo and the northern Philippines. This work supports emerging research that identifies separate processes of biological, linguistic, and material culture change in Island Southeast Asia.

scholarly journals Conversations about Home, Community and Identity

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theano Moussouri ◽  
Eleni Vomvyla
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Public History ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
The West ◽  
Black British ◽  
The Past ◽  
Museum Exhibitions

Despite an increased interest in how societies produce, present and interpret the past, empirical studies of how people make sense of and use the past in their everyday life are less common in public history. This paper explores how people use material culture to make sense of their recent past by (re)constructing personal, family and community histories both in museum exhibitions and through everyday engagements at home. We use two case studies: The West Indian Front Room – Memories and Impressions of Black British Homes exhibition at the Geffrye Museum, London, and the homes of six families of Albanian heritage in Athens, Greece. In both cases, objects play a key role in mediating and reflecting identity and meaning-making.

On The Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. W. Small
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

It is generally accepted that history is an element of culture and the historian a member of society, thus, in Croce's aphorism, that the only true history is contemporary history. It follows from this that when there occur great changes in the contemporary scene, there must also be great changes in historiography, that the vision not merely of the present but also of the past must change.

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