scholarly journals A Benkei for Every Age: Musashibō Benkei as Palimpsest

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-103
Author(s):  
Christopher Smith
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Climate ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Literary Characters

This article traces the history of Benkei production—the production of texts concerning Musashibō Benkei—to show that the image of Benkei is not stable, but rather has been adapted and modified repeatedly since the fourteenth century according to the social, economic, political, and cultural climate, as well as the narrative needs, of various eras. Each new instance of Benkei production does not erase or overwrite the previous instances, but rather adds another layer to the cultural construct “Benkei.” This article is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of Benkei works, nor is it particularly an attempt to unearth obscure Benkei works. Instead, the article shows how literature and literary characters can be adapted and transformed over a long time frame. It addresses relatively well-known texts, but examines them in the context of a history of Benkei texts that reveal a shifting, changing image of Benkei responsive to historicized cultural environments.

Las Yslas de Esperar en Dios: The Jesuit Mission in Moro 1546–1571

1988 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-606
Author(s):  
John Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Mission Field

The numerous and voluminous reports and letters which the Jesuits wrote on the Moro mission, as on all their missions in Asia, are perhaps of less interest to us now for what they reveal of the methods adopted by the Society of Jesus in this remote corner of their mission field or the details they contain about the successes and failures of individual missionaries, than for the wealth of information they provide on the islands where the Jesuits lived and the indigenous societies with which they came into contact through their work of evangelization. In other words, it is not theprimary purpose of this essay to analyse the Jesuit documents with a view to reconstructing the history of the Moro mission in narrative form but rather to glean from them some of the informationthey contain about the social and political conditions in Moro during the forty years or so in the sixteenth century when both the Jesuit missionaries and the Portuguese were active in the regio Because the Jesuits were often in close touch with local rulers and notables, whether or not they succeeded in converting them to Christianity, and because they lived among their subjects for long periods, depending upon them for the necessities of life and sharing their hardships, their letters and reports often show a deeper understanding of the social, economic and political conditions of the indigenous societies and, one suspects, give a more accurate and measured account of events and personalities than do the official chroniclers and historians of the time, most of whom never ventured further east than Malacca and who in any case were chiefly concerned to glorify the deeds of the Portuguese and justify their actions to the world.

scholarly journals Dreams of the Russian Revolution in the Utopias of Alexander Chayanov and Andrei Platonov

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-290
Author(s):  
Alexander Nikulin
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

The Russian Revolution is the central theme of both A. Chayanov’s novel The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia and A. Platonov’s novel Chevengur. The author of this article compares the chronicles and images of the Revolution in the biographies of Chayanov and Platonov as well as the main characters, genres, plots, and structures of the two utopian novels, and questions the very understanding of the history of the Russian Revolution and the possible alternatives of its development. The article focuses not only on the social-economic structure of utopian Moscow and Chevengur but also on the ethical-aesthetic foundations of both utopias. The author argues that the two utopias reconstruct, describe, and criticize the Revolution from different perspectives and positions. In general, Chayanov adheres to a relativistic and pluralistic perception of the Revolution and history, while Platonov, on the contrary, absolutizes the end of humankind history with the eschatological advent of Communism. In Chayanov‘s utopia, the Russian Revolution is presented as a viable alternative to the humanistic-progressive ideals of the metropolitan elites with the moderate populist-socialist ideas of the February Revolution. In Platonov’s utopia, the Revolution is presented as an alternative to the eschatological-ecological transformation of the world by provincial rebels inspired by the October Revolution. Thus, Chayanov’s liberal-cooperative utopia and Platonov’s anarchist-communist utopia contain both an apologia and a criticism of the Russian Revolution in the insights of its past and future victories and defeats, and opens new horizons for alternative interpretations of the Russian Revolution.

scholarly journals Evolution of Vegetation Fraction Cover in Agricultural Areas Affected by Prellonged Draughts in the South Regions of Romania

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 346-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catalina Bordun ◽  
Argentina Teodora Nertan ◽  
Sorin Mihai Cimpeanu
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Images ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
The South ◽  
Vegetation Fraction ◽  
South West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Agricultural Areas ◽  
Fair Balance ◽  
Evolution Of Vegetation

Abstract The draught phenomena affecting the traditional agricultural areas in south of Romania has been increasing in intensity over the time, leading to the desertification of several thousands of hectares in the south part of the country. In this study we have computed the vegetation fraction cover for the South-West and South - East regions of Romania, based on the minimum and maximum NDVI extracted from MODIS satellite images. The time frame to refer to is 2000 - 2017, perennially, with special significance given the numerous and prolonged draught intervals these areas have been facing and the social economic evolution, from small farms to large agricultural holdings. The resulted vegetation fraction cover (fc) is correlated to the SPI values in order to determine a pattern to be used in anticipating deviations from the seasonal vegetation productivity. As a conclusion, the study presents a fair balance, indicating the most sensitive areas in soil vegetation cover, due to the SPI change.

Project Report on the "Investigation of the Present Situation and Development of Ethnic Minorities in China"

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-9
Author(s):  
Hao Shiyuan
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Warring States Period ◽  
Warring States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spring And Autumn Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shi Ji

When viewed from the perspective of history, China has not had a flourishing anthropology and ethnology. However, China's traditions of ethnographic-like perspectives have flourished for a long time. Since the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and Warring States Period (475-221 BC), multiethnic structure and social relations have been recorded in China's history. Ever since Sima Qian's Shi Ji (the Historical Records), the first general history of China compiled around 100 BC, the social history and cultural customs of ethnic minorities had been covered in each dynasty's history. Moreover, some special chapters had been dedicated to keeping the records of ethnic minorities. Of course such records were not completely unbiased.

Metal Mirrors from Altai Sites of the Xiongnu Time

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-375
Author(s):  
Alexey A. Tishkin ◽  
Nikolay N. Seregin
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Metal Alloys ◽  
Visual Examination ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Made In ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Abstract Metal mirrors are important indicators when reconstructing the history of the ancient peoples of Altai on the basis of archaeological materials. Among the latter there are imported products, recorded in the mounds of the Xiongnu time (2nd century BC – 1st century AD). The article gives an overview of the results of a comprehensive study of the mirrors. Only one mirror was found intact, and the rest are represented by fragments. This collection of 19 archaeological items is divided into two groups, reflecting the direction of contacts of the Altai population in this period. The first demonstrates Chinese products that could have entered the region indirectly from the Xiongnu who dominated Inner Asia. Some of them were made in the previous period, but were used for a long time. The analyses of metal alloys from the Yaloman-II site supplements the conclusions made during the visual examination. The second group, through its origin, is associated with the cultures of the so-called Sarmatian circle, whose sites were located to the west of the Altai. A separate section of the article is devoted to a discussion of reconstruction of some aspects of the social history of the nomads and their world.

Conservative Liberalism as a Disciplinary Revolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Kenneth Dyson
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Time Consistency ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Exclusive Property ◽  
Franz Böhm ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Internal Fragmentation ◽  
Porous Boundaries

This chapter examines economic and monetary discipline. It notes that conservative liberals accorded great importance to law as the source of discipline, as exemplified by Franz Böhm, Louis Brandeis, and Maurice Hauriou. The chapter considers discipline in the history of liberalism, noting that it is not the exclusive property of conservative liberalism—though it is its predominant characteristic. It considers the social, economic, and political functions of rules, notably the work of Friedrich Hayek; the Currency and Banking Schools; the difficulties that arise in the choice, design, and use of rules; the reinforcement provided by credibility and time-consistency literature since the 1970s; the legitimacy and accountability problems of unelected power; the question of when discipline becomes the enemy of democracy and liberty; and the respective roles of the state and the market as sources of destabilizing shocks. The chapter stresses the rich and revealing use of metaphor by conservative liberals: their rejection of engineering metaphors for those of gardening, architecture, health and medicine, and religion. Ordo-liberalism is characterized as an open-ended tradition, with internal fragmentation and porous boundaries, its membership including migrants as well as natives. The notion of a mainstream is defined by a social process of selecting key texts as essential references and citations.

The Secular Appropriation of Hasidism by an East European Jewish Intellectual: Dubnow, Renan, and the Besht

2004 ◽  
pp. 151-162
Author(s):  
Robert M. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Common People ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
East European ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
The 19Th Century

This chapter studies the role that Hasidism played in the thought of the modernized Jewish intelligentsia of Eastern Europe toward the end of the 19th century. Simon Dubnow played a pivotal role in the emergence of this new image of Hasidism. In his autobiography, Dubnow describes in some detail the influence on him at that time of Leo Tolstoy and Ernest Renan. The influence of Renan's History of Christianity is quite evident in the structure of Dubnow's History of Hasidism as well as in some of Dubnow's solutions to problems of interpretation. Like Renan, Dubnow opened with a discussion of the social and intellectual background of a movement that can be traced to a founder known only for a long time through oral sources which retained the character of legend or saga. Applying Renan's statement that such pious biographies have a historical core, Dubnow stripped the life of the Baal Shem Tov, as recorded in the Shivhei ha-Besht, of its supernatural elements to reveal a simple, humble man who loved nature, especially the forests of the Carpathian mountains; a man who had immense affection for the common people and disdain for the proud, aloof scholars of his time and who preached a lofty doctrine of religious pantheism and universal brotherhood.

Greek History

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-94
Author(s):  
Kostas Vlassopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Corporate Groups ◽  
Kinship Networks ◽  
Ancient Athens ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Class And Status ◽  
Material Evidence

Pride of place in this review goes undoubtedly to Sally Humphreys’ monumental study of kinship in ancient Athens. A work in progress for four decades, it is finally published in two volumes of almost 1,500 pages. The book's coverage is vast: the first volume focuses on interactions among kinsfolk (legal, social, economic, and ritual), while the second volume explores the various Athenian corporate groups which employed kinship as their organizing principle (phratries, gene, tribes, and trittyes) and provides an exhaustive discussion of kinship networks attested across all Athenian demes. As a result of its size and encyclopaedic coverage, I suspect that most readers will approach this work in a piecemeal fashion, looking for a particular phenomenon or searching for a particular kinship network; the lack of a detailed introduction or conclusions – features that would have been essential in a work of this size and ambition – does not help in this respect. But this work needs to be assessed as a whole, for three main reasons. The first is that households were the main organizing units of Athenian society, while most Athenian groups were organized on a kinship principle. Their roles were crucial, and they need to complement the social models of Athenian society we employ, alongside class and status. The second reason is that Humphreys makes a very good job of exploring the various contradictory tendencies at work in how Athenian kinship operated: the interests of male heads; of wives, children, and relatives; of wider kinship networks; and of the political community. The third is the combination of literary, epigraphic, and material evidence of Athenian kinship, which reveals in often impressive ways the contradictions and gaps of our various sources: not only will this work be essential reading for those working on Athenian oratory, archaeology, or economy, but its accumulated detail offers the basis for writing a novel history of Athenian society. Of course, a work gestated for forty years will also show the unavoidable flaws of its piecemeal construction; but these are largely of secondary importance, compared to the value of the end product.

Schooled by Wren, or a School by Wren? The Conception and Design of Christ’s Hospital Writing School, London

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 87-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Foxall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
School Building ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
School Movement

On 2 March 1692, Sir Christopher Wren visited the governors of Christ’s Hospital in London, bringing with him a design for a new writing school to be erected on the Hospital’s Newgate Street site. Seven drawings for the school building survive in the Wren collection at All Souls College, Oxford. However, rather than suggesting Wren’s authorship, these drawings are customarily attributed to his pupil and long-time assistant, Nicholas Hawksmoor. It is generally accepted that Hawksmoor received delegated commissions from Wren by at least the early 1690s, but, although the draughtsmanship and stylistic evidence of the Writing School drawings suggest consistency with this interpretation, the surviving documentary evidence by no means proves Hawksmoor’s involvement. In fact, Wren’s name appears no less than thirteen times in the surviving Hospital minutes of 1691 to 1696, while Hawksmoor is never mentioned.The Writing School designs are briefly described in most architectural histories of the period, although they are considered remarkable more for heralding a shift in architectural taste than for the building shown in the drawings or for the social and ideological impulses that impelled its creation. This article considers the Writing School in the context of contemporary debates and anxieties concerning the provision of education for the poor, and within the wider sphere of late seventeenth-century charity-school building. Wren’s involvement is considered in relation to his philanthropic interest in the charity-school movement. The article concludes with an analysis of the designs and building history of the Writing School, and, on the basis of previously unpublished eighteenth- and nineteenth-century graphic sources, discounts Giles Worsley’s suggestion that Hawksmoor added a pediment to the final design. Wren and Hawksmoor’s specific responsibilities for the conception, design and execution of the building are considered, and it is argued that, although Hawksmoor was responsible for most of the surviving drawings relating to the project, Wren directed the process, taking responsibility for all designs produced in his office and claiming authorship for the drawings produced.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document