Untimely Development, Ugly History:A Drama in Muslinand the Rejection of National-Historical Time

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Macarena García-Avello

This article examines the evolution of the borderlands as an organizing trope by focusing on how the transcendence beyond cultural nationalist perspectives traces the shift from Chicano/a to Latinx discourses. In order to address this issue, I will analyse two twenty-first-century Latinx texts that delve into the intricate ways in which transnational forces collide with economic, cultural and political processes that persistently revolve around the framework of the nation-state: Alicia Gaspar de Alba´s Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005) and Maya Chinchilla´s The Cha Cha Files: A Chapina Poética (2014). The corpus of works selected will focus on the political readings derived from textual negotiation with a changing political, social and economic reality. This results in constant tensions between globalising processes, worldwide interconnectedness and transnational interactions, on the one hand, and the regulatory power of the state, on the other.


1969 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Friesen

Historically human societies have never collectively organized, politically or socially, in any singular, standardized and/or universal way. Beginning with the Peace of Westphalia in 1647 the nation-state gradually proliferated as a legitimate manifestation of collective human organization at a global level. This proliferation has culminated in the standardization of a singular means of mobilizing and organizing human societies. The statist age that began in the 16th and 17th centuries consolidated and centralized the political power of the state. Divergent factions and regional power blocks within European states were discouraged, as politics became centralized at the national level. The proliferation of the nation-state represented the standardization of human political organization according to a single model. Given that there are, and have been, a variety of means by which humans identify and organize politically, this suggests that this universal acceptance and entrenchment of one model may be somewhat inappropriate.


1988 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Opoku Agyeman

Praetorianism has been authoritatively defined as a situation in which ‘the military class of a given society exercises independent political power within it by virtue of an actual or threatened use of military force’.1 A praetorian state, by elaboration, is one in which the military tends to intervene and potentially could dominate the political system. The political processes of this state favor the development of the military as the core group and the growth of its expectations as a ruling class; its political leadership (as distinguished from bureaucratic, administrative and managerial leadership) is chiefly recruited from the military, or from groups sympathetic, or at least not antagonistic, to the military. Constitutional changes are effected and sustained by the militaty, and the army frequently intervenes in the government.2


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques E. C. Hymans

The present article suggests that expressions of Japanese identity may be more malleable and receptive to international influences than is usually thought. Through a study of the evolution of images printed on Japanese banknotes and of the political processes behind that evolution, the article shows Japanese state elites consciously following international models of identity content. In particular, it describes the shifts in Japanese banknote iconography in the early 1980s and again in the early 2000s as the product of a drive for conformity with the iconographic norms of European currencies. The state has been the main protagonist in this story, but for a full accounting of the magnitude and pace of iconographic change on the yen, it is necessary to unpack the “black box” of the state.


Author(s):  
V. Sukhanov

The article analyzes the influence of the religious aspects on the political processes in Israel. Special attention is paid to the role of religion in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The author shows the trend towards politicization of religion and characterizes the process as unconstructive, which prevents to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.The article also discusses the interaction between secular and religious principles in the State of Israel, estimates the current situation, highlights the importance of the religious component in the political life of Israel.


Author(s):  
Liudmyla Herasina

Problem of setting. Public government – it political practice of power which is carried out within the limits of the constitutionally political system and has a direct influence on all industries of life of socium is important. An effective public management in Ukraine must provide the state of stability, implementation of social obligations the states, deserving a condition for realization of congratulatory, financial, spiritual and social necessities of citizens; but him high-quality indexes far imperfect and characterized the plural of problems. Recent research and publications analysis. The questions of modernization and reforms of the system of state administration, constructions of the legal, social state, social and political processes are actively probed in the scientific mind of Ukraine, by the necessity of achievement of balance between the vital necessities of societies and interests of the state. Quite a bit Ukrainian scientists were engaged in researches of these questions - V. Kostytsky, І. Kostytska, O. Koban, A. Kovalenko, O. Batanov, I. Reznik, G. Chapala, M. Pukhtinskiy et al. Paper objective – ground of position, that a public management in Ukraine, which is carried out by public organs, local self-government, political parties and groups of political influence, must correlate with public resonance, to support the legitimity and answer to the innovative tendencies. Paper main body. A management in the public sphere of the state is very difficult professional activity, and foresees state and legal responsibility and account of public interests and expectations. However, disfunctions and destructions of public management can draw social and political instability, cutback of economic activity or regress, even weakening of sovereignty of the state. The criteria of political modernization matter very much for modern Ukraine: capacity of the political system for perception of innovations and mobilization of resources of power, structural and functional perfection of institutes of policy, powerful «social elevators» for equal access of people to imperious positions, effectiveness of principle of «equality all before a law». To Ukraine, as to the young state which passed by democratic transit, naturally peculiar strategy of reforms. Reformation is a not workaday situation for a country, it generates calls and problems. Among them most difficult is destructive of political power, what democratic development of country and becoming of civil institutes is braked through. Sociological researches rotined that a population considered: «The state must take more responsibility in providing of life of citizens» (68,6%). Stably negative is attitude of people toward a department judicial, which loses a «social capital» through inability to the just legal proceeding and mercenary political interests. In the end, unique reform 2014, that purchased positive social resonance is the process of decentralization the public power and strengthening of local self-government, which is mainly approved by citizens. Conclusions of the research. Problems of public management and collision of reforms are the sign of modern democracies which are modernized. The political system and public management can be effectively modernized at the maintainance of their integrity, institutional memory and, at the same time, harmonious relationships with a social environment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1803-1805
Author(s):  
Dimitar Spaseski

The state has a central place in the political system. Through its structure and positioning the country has the strength to be a unifier of society against its overall division of the various classes and layers, ethnic, cultural and other groups. The legitimacy of all these processes is given by laws that determine the trajectory of all processes and the conditions under which the processes take place. The state, by adopting the highest legal acts such as: the constitution and the laws, achieves one of its most important functions, which is the management of society. The state directs society to promote development, but also punishes and sanction infringements and mistakes. Depending on who exercises power in the state, i.e. whether it belongs to the people, to an individual or to a powerful group, the political system can be determined. The political system in itself includes the overall state relations, the relations in society and the guidelines for the conduct of the policy of the state. A state in which the government is elected by the people through direct elections certainly fulfills the basic requirement for the development of a stable civil society. The political system is one of the sub-systems of the entire civil society. The political system is specific in that all the activities and relations of which it is composed are directed to the state and its functions. The structure of the political system is composed of political and legal norms, political knowledge, political culture and political structure. These elements confirm the strong relationship between the state, the law and the political system. Developed democratic societies can talk about a developed political system that abounds with political culture and democracy. It is the aspiration of our life. Investing in democratic societies we invest in the future of our children. If we separate the subjects of the political system, we will determine that the people are the basis of the political system. All competencies intertwine around people. Political systems are largely dependent not only on the political processes that take place in them every day, but also on the economic performance and the economic power of the states. Economic stagnation or regression in some countries often threatens democracy and its values. We often forget that we cannot speak of the existence of a functioning and well-organized democratic political system without its strong economic support. In conditions of globalization, it is necessary to pay special attention to international positions as the main factor of the political system, for the simple reason that the functions of the state in this process are increasingly narrowing.


Author(s):  
N.A. Beliakova

This study aims at providing an overview of the everyday life of Russian nuns in Palestine after World War II. This research encompassed the following tasks: to analyze the range of ego-documents available today, characterizing the everyday life and internal motivation of women in choosing the church jurisdiction; to identify, on the basis of written sources, the most active supporters of the Moscow Patriarchate to examine the nuns’ activity as information agents of the Russian Orthodox Church and Soviet government; to characterize the actors influencing the everyday life of the Russian nuns in the context of the creation of the state of Israel and new borders dividing the Holy Land; to present the motives and instruments of influence employed by the representatives of both secu-lar and church diplomacies in respect to the women leading a monastic life; to describe consequences of including the nuns into the sphere of interest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; to show the specific role of “Russian women” in the context of the struggle for securing positions of the USSR and the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in the region. The sources for the study were prodused by the state (correspondence between the state authorities, meeting notes) and from the religious actors (letters of nuns to the church authorities, reports of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, memoirs of the clergy). By combining the methods of micro-history and history of the everyday life with the political history of the Cold War, the study examines the agency of the nuns — a category of women traditionally unnoticeable in the political history. Due to the specificity of the sources, the study focuses exclusively on a group of the nuns of the Holy Land who came under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patri-archate. The majority of the Russian-speaking population of Palestine in the mid-1940s were women in the status of monastic residents (nuns and novices) and pilgrims, and in the 1940s–1950s, they were drawn into the geopolitical combinations of the Soviet Union. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, staffed with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, becomes a key institution of influence in the region. This article shows how elderly nuns became an object of close attention and even funding by the Soviet state. The everyday life of the nuns became directly dependent on the activities of the Soviet agencies and Soviet-Israeli relations after the arri-val of the Soviet state representatives. At the same time, the nuns became key participants in the inter-jurisdictional conflicts and began to act as agents of influence in the region. The study analyzes numerous ego-documents created by the nuns themselves from the collection of the Council on the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the USSR Council of Ministers. The study shows how nuns positioned themselves as leading a monastic life in the written correspondence with the ROC authorities and staff of the Soviet MFA. The instances of influence of different secular authorities on the development of the female monasticism presented here point to promising research avenues for future reconstruction of the history of women in the Holy Land based on archival materials from state departments, alternative sources should also be found. The study focused on the life of elderly Russian nuns in the Holy Land and showed their activity in the context of the geopolitical transformations in the Near East in the 1940s–1950s.


Author(s):  
Felicitas Acosta

This article focuses on the origins of secondary education in Argentina. Inparticular, it explores the possible relations between the modelling of educationalinstitutions intended for the formation of political elites and the fabrication of thenation-state. In Argentina, the creation of free, compulsory elementary educationwas preceded by the development of secondary education through the setting up ofthe colegio nacional. These schools were formed during the political unification ofthe national territory after domestic post-independence wars. Note the name givento these institutions: national schools. How did the nation and the state appear inthe organization of national schools? The article explores this question analyzingschool curricula and rectors’ reports during the configuration of the colegio nacionalbetween 1863 and 1890.Key words: curricula; configuration; national; territory; secondary schools.


Author(s):  
Annabel S. Brett

This introductory chapter provides a background of the conflicted relationship between nature and the city—the fraught intersection of the political and the natural world—in the natural law discourse of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the course of this extraordinary century, marked by the outward expansion of European states across the globe and simultaneously by their internal implosion into civil war, the boundaries of political space were fundamentally contested not only at a practical but at a theoretical level, and the dominant idiom of that contestation was the universalizing juridical language of natural law. What was forged in the process, culminating iconically in the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and Thomas Hobbes' masterpiece Leviathan of 1651, is commonly taken to have been nothing other than the modern, territorial nation-state.


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