scholarly journals Poggio and Alberti Revisited

Author(s):  
David Marsh

The careers of the Curial secretaries Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) reveal many parallels. In 1437-1438 the Este court of Ferrara, where Eugenius IV convoked a church council, provided a focal point for their friendship. It was to the Ferrarese canon Francesco Marescalchi that Poggio dedicated Book 1 of his Latin epistles (1436), and Alberti his Hundred Apologues (1437). Both men were inspired to critiques of contemporary society by the Greek satirist Lucian, and both indulged in composing brief witticisms that expose human vice: Poggio in his Facetiae (Jests) and Alberti in his Apologi (Fables) and Vita (Autobiography). From Lucian, they also learned to dramatize human foibles on the imagined stage of the theatrum mundi, or theater of the world: Poggio in his dialogues, and Alberti in both the Intercenales and Momus. Despite such literary affinities, their approach to ethical questions differed, especially concerning the validity of allegory, which Poggio rejected but Alberti embraced. As a tribute to his colleague, Alberti dedicated Book 4 of his Intercenales to Poggio; he prefaced the work with an ironic Aesopic fable that asserts the superiority of recondite scientific research over commonplace humanistic studies. Eventually, Alberti’s status as an outsider in Florence was reflected in the deterioration in his relations with Poggio. The rift was widened in 1441, when Alberti organized the Italian poetic competition called the Certame Coronario that was held in the Florence cathedral on October 22. Poggio was a member of the jury that, to Alberti’s chagrin, refused to declare a winner.

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-310
Author(s):  
Sabine Wilke

Every late spring since 1951, the Wiener Festwochen bring performers from around the world to Vienna for an opportunity to share recent developments in performance styles and present them to a Viennese public that seems to be increasingly open to experimentation. These festival weeks solidify a specific form of Viennese self-understanding and self-representation as a culture that is rooted in performance. This essay seeks to link two recent Austrian performances—one of them was part of the Wiener Festwochen in 2016, the other was staged in downtown Linz during the past few years—to this Austrian and specifically Viennese culture of performance by reading them as contemporary articulations of a tradition of radical performance art that can be traced back to the Viennese Actionism of the sixties and later feminist articulations in the seventies and eighties. They play on the dramatic effect of these actions, specifically their joy in cruelty, chaos, and orgiastic intoxication, by staging regressions and thus making visible what has been dammed up and repressed in contemporary society.1 Just as their historical models, these two performances merge the performing and the fine arts and they highlight provocative, controversial, and, at times, violent content. But they do it in an interspecies context that adds an entire layer of complexity to the project of societal and cultural critique.


2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-240
Author(s):  
Nita Mathur

The plethora of M. N. Srinivas’s articles and books covering a wide range of subjects from village studies to nation building, from dominant caste in Rampura village to nature and character of caste in independent India, and from prospects of sociological research in Gujarat to practicing social anthropology in India have largely influenced the understanding of society and culture for well over five decades. Additionally, he meticulously wrote itineraries, memoirs and personal notes that provide a glimpse of his inner being, influences, ideologies, thought all of which have inspired a large number of and social anthropologists and sociologists across the world. It is then only befitting to explore the major concerns in the life and intellectual thought of one whose pioneering contributions have been the milestones in the fields of social anthropology and sociology in a specific sense and of social sciences in India in a general sense. This article centres around/brings to light the academic concerns that Srinivas grappled with the new avenues of thought and insights that developed consequently, and the extent of his rendition their relevance in framing/understanding contemporary society and culture in India.


2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-417
Author(s):  
Nicu Dumitraşcu

In this article I briefly examine chapter 6 of the document For the Life of the World issued by the Ecumenical Patriarchate concerning “ecumenical relations and relations with the other faiths.” In the first part, I discuss the relationship between the Orthodox Church and other Christian denominations, and in the second, the dialogue with Judaism and Islam. The document has an optimistic, inspiring, and hopeful tone, but it will simply remain an idealistic statement without a major echo inside of the Christian world and contemporary society.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 94 (6) ◽  
pp. 1085-1087
Author(s):  
Patrick Olin MD, PhD ◽  
B. N. Tandon ◽  
Julius S. Meme ◽  
E. Lee Ford-Jones ◽  
Mark Belsey ◽  
...  

If we are committed to the health and development of children, we need to recognize that the vast majority of the world's women are working women. In Africa, 80% of the women are actively engaged in economic activities outside the home. The "economic miracle" in Southeast Asia was made possible by the nimble fingers of thousands of women working in textile and electronics factories. There is need for pre-day-care advocacy for infants, through promotion of breast feeding and maternity leave. When the mother returns to work, the standard of the International Labor Organization should be applied, namely "...the care of children while the parents are working cannot be ignored because it forms a focal point on which three main concerns of development policy—work, health, and education—converge." Several principles emerged from the presentations in the international panel: 1. Child-care programs must be community based, using the resources of the families and the community organizations themselves. 2. Programs require the active involvement of the communities, women's groups, and other partners. 3. Programs are modified by innovations created by community organizations, universities, and other groups. 4. Programs require the mobilization of trained young men and women into the field of early childhood education and development. This international panel provided an overall uniting theme, that throughout the world the hope for the survival and better life for children unites parents of every country and every creed. This is one of the most powerful and strongest motivational resources in the world. We need to recognize the power of this hope and address that hope, providing with a certain degree of humility that there exist no single model, and no single country has all the answers. By respecting the ideas of the many innovations and different approaches of women, parents, and families, we can find the answers. There is a clear need for national networks as well as for international networks, exchanges of information, sharing of experience, and mobilization of the social resources in advocating early childhood education and development for the world's children.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 323-334
Author(s):  
Inga V. Zheltikova

The concept of O. Spengler suggests that the history of any culture goes through certain stages of development, the last of which is civilization. During this period creative activity in culture is replaced by mechanical imitation and lost connection with the culture formed by the «pra-phenomenon». The author correlates Spengler’s postulates with the processes of actual social reality and comes to the conclusion that contemporary Russia is going through the stage of civilization. The article raises the question of how the future is seen in this situation. The author uses the term “image of the future”, introduced by F. Polak to understand the disinterest of modern post-war Europe in its future. Thus, the lack of interest in the future can be recognized as another characteristic of the state of civilization. The existence in contemporary Russia of distinct images of the future is an open question. Using the methods of content analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that in Russian contemporary society there exists a retrospective image of the future, focused on conservative values, hierarchy of society and its closed nature to the world. Thus, it is concluded that it is wrong to talk about complete absence of images of the future in contemporary Russia. But the nature and content of these images demonstrate the low level of interest in the future, which also indicates the transition of Russian culture to civilization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-152
Author(s):  
Nikoleta Mihaleva ◽  

The focus of the article is a philosophical and methodological reflection of V.S. Styopin on three main components of the foundations of science: ideals and norms of scientific research, the scientific picture of the world and the philosophical foundations of science. Each of them, in turn, has a rather complex internal structure. Therefore, the task of the article is not limited to the development of perceptions of these three "blocks" of foundations, which has been thoroughly achieved by a number of authors, including Styopin, but mainly to what extent these grounds express important values and goals and dimensions of science.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-33
Author(s):  
Otabek Allayarov ◽  
◽  
Hasan Yarbaev

The articledescribes thatit is impossible the development of society without the development of science, in this senseour state pay attention to in the field of science in the context of science and social-political reform, spiritual renewalasin all countries of the world. Scientifically and practically defined the role of information technology in the development of science and technology, as well as the creation of effective mechanisms for stimulating research and innovation, the introduction of science and innovation achievements. Moreover, the role and significance of information technology in the development of scientific research in the field of technologywas stated


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Erickson ◽  
Vinicius Taguchi ◽  
John Gulliver

The methods for properly executing inspection and maintenance of stormwater control measures are often ambiguous and inconsistently applied. This paper presents specific guidelines for inspecting and maintaining stormwater practices involving media filtration, infiltration, ponds, and permeable pavements because these tend to be widely implemented and often unsatisfactorily maintained. Guidelines and examples are based on recent scientific research and practitioner experience. Of special note are new assessment and maintenance methods, such as testing enhanced filtration media that targets dissolved constituents, maintaining proper vegetation coverage in infiltration practices, assessing phosphorus release from pond sediments, and the development of compressed impermeable regions in permeable pavements and their implications for runoff. Inspection and maintenance examples provided in this paper are drawn from practical examples in Northern Midwest USA, but most of the maintenance recommendations do not depend on regional characteristics, and guidance from around the world has been reviewed and cited herein.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry F. Recher

As a people, Australians have lost contact with the world of nature, risking the collapse of civilisation. One factor in the alienation of nature in Australia is the failure of the scientific community to take responsibility for the technology created by the knowledge generated from scientific research. Science has failed to protect Australia’s flora and fauna. Scientists must communicate more widely with society, but need to be educated on how to communicate and on their ethical responsibilities to others and other species. Government needs to show leadership in environmental management and nature conservation, while conservationists need to ‘invert the paradigm’, taking a new, less anthropocentric approach to conservation. None of this is possible in a market-place economy and Australians must move to an economic system that is ecocentric. This will not be easy as it requires a reduction in the consumption of resources and a smaller population.


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