Towards a Byzantine Theory of the Comic?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aglae Pizzone
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Tangible Evidence ◽  
Devotional Texts

This chapter tackles the question of laughter and humour from a theoretical perspective. Rather than map out the Byzantine ‘comic landscape’ by resorting to modern theorisations, it looks at Greek medieval humour and laughter from within, in the attempt to single out elements of a Byzantine theory of the comic. Recent scholarship has gone some way towards dismantling the prejudice that there was no room for laughter in Byzantine society, combing the sources for tangible evidence of humour and jokes, or focusing on the scant traces for the survival of genres such as mimes and satires. Less reflection has been devoted to understanding how the Byzantines construed, conceptualised and justified comic features of discourse. Patristic and devotional texts, frowning upon laughter and humour, have taken the lion’s share of attention. This chapter sheds light on the other side of the coin, concentrating on secular texts used for educational purposes in middle Byzantine literature (rhetorical handbooks and commentaries), aiming to unravel the function that the Byzantines assigned to laughter, irony and humour in their literary production. Four major areas are explored, crucial to the deployment and legitimation of the comic in Byzantium: psychology, rhetorical display, didacticism and narrative.

Religieuze literatuur tussen het Middelnederlands en het Frans

2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-129
Author(s):  
Anna Dlabačová ◽  
Margriet Hoogvliet
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Devotional Texts

Abstract Making use of ideas and concepts from Barbara Cassin’s philosophy of translations and of l’histoire croisée, this essay explores the shared cultures of religious reading between the Dutch and French languages in the late medieval period. While religious literature disseminated in both Dutch and German has received a fair amount of attention in recent scholarship, religious and devotional texts that were available to readers in both Dutch and French have remained understudied. By providing an overview of the most important religious literature that was translated from French into Dutch and the other way around, and of texts originally composed in Latin in the Low Countries and translated into both vernacular languages, we argue that textual mobility between the two languages was frequent and reciprocal. Casestudies of two texts – Pierre Michault’s La Danse aux aveugles and Gerrit van der Goude’s Boexken vander Missen – further indicate that changes – or the lack thereof – in texts that moved between the two languages point to shared cultures of religious reading on equal terms.

Editorial

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (16) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Andrea Meza Torres
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intercultural Dialogue ◽  
Enrique Dussel ◽  
Point Of Departure

The essays in this dossier are the result of the course  “Interreligious and intercultural dialogue from a decolonial perspective”, which took place between May and June 2017 at the CEIICH in the UNAM. In this course, I proposed to link a decolonial theoretical perspective to the topic of “intercultural dialogue” and, beyond, to “interreligious dialogue”; anyhow, this last topic turned out to be the point of departure to explore more profound dialogues, linked no only to religious phenomena but to sacred traditions and spiritualities. During the course, emphasis was put on this last aspect due to the fact that the topic of “the Divine” (in its different expressions), although central to decoloniality, has been poorly studied. Moreover, it has been marginalized within secularized social sciences —and this not just in Mexico, but in most occidentalized universities throughout the globe. This vacuum towards the study of “the Divine” —and, beyond, its limitation through a concept of culture (which is, at the same time, associated to the colonized and to the “other” of modernity)— led the participants of this volume to research deeper that which philosopher Enrique Dussel has described as the “spaces denied and oppressed by modernity”.

Democratization in Serbia: An Analysis of Rational Choice and Structuralist Explanations

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunja Apostolov-Dimitrijevic
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
The Other ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Transitional Societies ◽  
The Face

This paper explains political democratization in Post-Milosevic Serbia, utilizing two different accounts of the democratization process: one rooted in the rational choice framework and the other in structuralism. While rational choice explains the decisive role of political leadership in overcoming path dependence, the structuralist explanations show the transnational linkages that encourage democratization in the face of domestic setbacks. This particular debate between the two types of explanations represents the larger debate concerning the role of internal factors and external linkages in propelling democratization in transitional societies. The paper concludes by integrating the two sets of explanations offered by each theoretical perspective, in order to develop a coherent understanding of Serbia's democratization.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v9i1.240

scholarly journals The Importance of Moral Behaviours in the Anthropocene Epoch

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioan Mihnea Marinescu
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The Other ◽  
Major Aspect ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Future Researcher ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
Self Transcendence

This article wishes to present a theoretical perspective which seeks to addresses the importance of moral behaviours in the current proposed epoch, characterised by the significant impact of human activity upon Earth’s geology and ecosystems, called the Anthropocene. The present paper proposes that, in the current global context, time has come for humanity to implement new adaptive answers to the problems of mutualism, and therefore, argues in favour of the idea that wishing to discover and to behave in accordance with objective moral truths represent, on one hand, a first step in the process of ensuring a collective and benevolent development for mankind, and on the other hand, a major aspect which fulfils both self-actualization needs and self-transcendence needs. In line with this view, this article hopes to inspire future researcher investigations that would aim to find out new and more practical ways of increasing the frequency of moral behaviours.

Transnationalism and Ethnonational Diasporism

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-145
Author(s):  
Gabriel (Gabi) Sheffer
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Transnational Networks ◽  
Transnational Communities ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The One

This article argues that much recent scholarship devoted to the concept of transnationalism and to the category of transnational communities is misguided. Such scholarship neglects to acknowledge the distinctions between the transnational and the diasporic, in particular the qualities and features of certain ethno-diasporas that set them apart. The article argues that “scholars need on all occasions to acknowledge, first, the difficult work that dispersed entities must conduct in order to persist” and must recognize the very different capacities possessed by, say, Latino or Muslim transnational networks and communities, on the one hand, and Jewish, Armenian, or Indian ethnonational diasporas, on the other. It also affirms that scholars must acknowledge all features of the behavior of such communities, including “the possibility that some members of these entities may be guilty of creating difficulties, unrest, conflicts, [even] terrorism,” which does not mean that scholars need neglect their obligation to emphasize the immense contributions of various dispersions to the economies and cultures of their hostlands.

Authoritarian Turnover and Change in Comparative Perspective

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Research Area ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human History ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Survival Patterns

Most people in human history have lived under some kind of nondemocratic rule. Political scientists, on the other hand, have focused most efforts on democracies. The borders demarcating ideal types of democracies from nondemocracies are fuzzy, but beyond finding those borders is another, arguably greater, inferential challenge: understanding politics under authoritarianism. For instance, many prior studies ignored transitions between different authoritarian regimes and saw democratization as the prime threat to dictators. However, recent scholarship has shown this to be an error, as more dictators are replaced by other dictators than by democracy. A burgeoning field of authoritarianism scholarship has made considerable headway in the endeavor to comprehend dictatorial politics over the past two decades. Rather than attempting to summarize this literature in its entirety, three areas of research are worth reviewing, related to change inside of the realm of authoritarian politics. The two more mature sets of research have made critical contributions, the first in isolating different kinds of authoritarian turnover and the second in separating the plethora of authoritarian regimes into more coherent categories using various typologies. How do we understand authoritarian turnover? Authoritarian regimes undergo distinct, dramatic, and observable changes at three separate levels—in leaders, regimes, and authoritarianism itself. Drawing distinctions between these changes improves our understanding of the ultimate fates of dictators and authoritarian regimes. How do we understand the diversity of authoritarian regimes? Scholarship has focused on providing competing accounts of authoritarian types, along with analyses of institutional setup of regimes as well as their organization of military forces. Authoritarian typologies, generally coding regimes by the identities of their leaders and elite allies, show common tendencies, and survival patterns tend to vary across types. The third research area, still developing, goes further into assessing changes inside authoritarian regimes by estimating the degree of personalized power across regimes, the causes and consequences of major policy changes—or reforms—and rhetorical or ideological shifts.

Neulateinische Epik zum Dreißigjährigen Krieg, oder: Wer ist der Feind?

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-256
Author(s):  
Florian Schaffenrath
Keyword(s):  
Epic Poetry ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Latin Epic

Abstract In contrast to the literary production in certain vernacular languages like French or German, the period of the Thirty Years’ War was a very productive period for Neo-Latin epic poetry. Two examples discussed in this article elucidate the different purposes of these poems: With his Turcias (Paris 1625) Francois Le Clerc Du Tremblay tried to unite the European Christian rulers and to convince them of a common and united war against the Turks. On the other hand, the Jesuit Jacques d’Amiens published in Douai in 1648 his Bellum Germanicum, the first (and only) part of an epic poem that supports the Catholic part in the Thirty Years’ War. A comparison of the depiction of the enemies in particular in these two poems makes the differences visible.

Some Recent Interpretations of John Stuart Mill

Philosophy ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 43 (163) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Halliday
Keyword(s):  
Central Place ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
Relevant Question ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Other Regarding

It is usual to interpret Mill's understanding of liberty in terms deriving from his distinction in On Liberty between self-regarding and other-regarding conduct. Granted this distinction and Mill's genuine concern to define and defend it, it remains a relevant question why he attached so much importance to it. This raises a less familiar theme in Mill, namely the inter-connection of self-regarding and other-regarding conduct. An uncommitted reading of the main texts suggests an equivalent value is attached to this. Mill clearly and constantly asserts a close connection between each person's own attempt to improve himself, to cultivate his ‘affections and will’, and the social and political structure in which he acts. Self-regarding virtue and responsible social conduct are interdependent; the quality of each depends upon the quality of the other. A fuller recognition of this and its central place in Mill's revision of Bentham may be of help in examining some of the particular problems raised by recent scholarship on Mill.

What is in Balkan History? Spaces and Scales in the Tradition of Southeast-European Studies

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Mishkova
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The Other ◽  
Southeastern Europe ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Historical Times ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Fine Tune

AbstractThis article takes a distance from the debate about 'symbolic geographies' and structural definitions of historical spaces as well as from surveying discrete disciplinary traditions or political agendas of regionalist scholarship in and on Southeastern Europe. Its purpose instead has been two-fold. On the one hand, to bring to light a preexistent but largely suppressed and un-reflected tradition of regionalist scholarship with the hope that this could help us fine tune the way we conceptualize, contemplate and evaluate regionalism as politics and transnationalism as a scholarly project. In epistemological terms, on the other hand, it proposes a theoretical perspective to regionalist scholarship involving rigorous engagement with the scales of observation, and scale shifts, in the interpretation of history. The hypothesis the article seeks to test maintains that the national and the (meso)regional perspectives to history chart differentiated 'spaces of experience' — i.e. the same occurrences are reported and judged in a different manner on the different scales — by way of displacing the valency of past processes, events, actors, and institutions and creating divergent temporalities — different national and regional historical times. Different objects (i.e. spaces) of enquiry are therefore coextensive with different temporal layers, each of which demands a different methodological approach. Drawing on texts of regional scholars, in which the historical reality of the Balkans/Southeastern Europe is articulated explicitly or implicitly, the article discusses also the relationship between different spaces and scales at the backdrop of the Braudelian and the microhistorical perspectives.

Keeping the Bombs in the Basement: U.S. Nonproliferation Policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Or Rabinowitz ◽  
Nicholas L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nuclear Materials ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nuclear Tests

How has the United States behaved historically toward friendly states with nuclear weapons ambitions? Recent scholarship has demonstrated the great lengths to which the United States went to prevent Taiwan, South Korea, and West Germany from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet seemingly on the other side of the ledger are cases such as Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, where the United States failed to prevent proliferation, and where many have argued that the United States made exceptions to its nonproliferation objectives given conflicting geopolitical goals. A reexamination of the history of U.S. nonproliferation policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, based on declassified documents and interviews, finds that these cases are not as exceptional as is commonly understood. In each case, the United States sought to prevent these states from acquiring nuclear weapons, despite geopolitical constraints. Moreover, once U.S. policymakers realized that prior efforts had failed, they continued to pursue nonproliferation objectives, brokering deals to prevent nuclear tests, public declaration of capabilities, weaponization, or transfer of nuclear materials to other states.

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