Local and imported pottery in the Neolithic Gulf: a new perspective from the site of Bahra 1 in Kuwait

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 595-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Smogorzewska

The paper presents a new perspective on pottery traditions in the Gulf during the Neolithic period, based on new data from the Ubaid-related site of Bahra 1 in Kuwait. The site yielded an assemblage containing several different pottery types, classified as Ubaid Ware and Coarse Red Ware. These pottery groups were varied in many aspects: morphological types, technology, and provenance. Their main characteristics and cultural context are discussed, as well as the cross--pottery connections. The significance of these ceramic vessels for the Gulf population and their socio-economic context are also considered in this paper, given the new evidence from Bahra 1

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Colin Lang

Recently, the effort to counter Fake News faced a counter attack: academic »postmodernism « and »social constructivism« it was said—because they say that facts are soaked in prior interpretations—are either purveyors of Fake News or set the cultural context in which it flourishes. They do so by undermining confidence in inquiry governed by simple facts. That is erroneous, argues William E. Connolly, because postmodernism never said that facts or objectivity are ghostly, subjective or »fake«. However, that what was objective at one time may become less so at a later date through the combination of a paradigm shift in theory, new powers of perception, new tests with refined instruments, and changes in natural processes such as species evolution. But the emergence of new theories and tests does not reduce objectivity to subjective opinion. Facts are real. Objectivity is important. But as you move up the scale of complexity with respect to facts and objectivity, it becomes clear that what was objective at one time may become subjective at another. Not because of Fake News or postmodernism. But because the complex relationships between theory, evidence and conduct periodically open up new thresholds. Colin Lang in turn rhetorically asks if »fake news« or »alternative facts« are a new carnival and Trump its dog and pony show? The idea of »fake news« and »alternative facts« as a carnival could not only help to see the constructedness of the media spectacle, but also provides a new perspective on Trump as an actor who is playing a particular role in this carnival, and that role is not one that any of us would describe as presidential. Many in the popular press have assumed it is just what it looks like, an infantilized narcissist, a parody of some Regan-era New York real estate tycoon straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that this description is all too obvious, and misses something fundamental about alternative facts, and the part that Trump is playing. A central assumption is, then, that the creation of alternative facts is one symptom of a more structural, paradigmatic shift in the persona of a president, one which has few correlates in the annals of political history. The closest analogy for his kind of performance is actually hinted at in the title of Trump’s greatest literary achievement: The Art of the Deal. Trump is playing the part of an artist, pilfering from the tactics of the avant-garde and putting them to very different ends.


1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Sandler

In natural communication, the medium through which language is transmitted plays an important and systematic role. Sentences are broken up rhythmically into chunks; certain elements receive special stress; and, in spoken language, intonational tunes are superimposed onto these chunks in particular ways — all resulting in an intricate system of prosody. Investigations of prosody in Israeli Sign Language demonstrate that sign languages have comparable prosodic systems to those of spoken languages, although the phonetic medium is completely different. Evidence for the prosodic word and for the phonological phrase in ISL is examined here within the context of the relationship between the medium and the message. New evidence is offered to support the claim that facial expression in sign languages corresponds to intonation in spoken languages, and the term “superarticulation” is coined to describe this system in sign languages. Interesting formaldiffer ences between the intonationaltunes of spoken language and the “superarticulatory arrays” of sign language are shown to offer a new perspective on the relation between the phonetic basis of language, its phonological organization, and its communicative content.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-320
Author(s):  
Danúbia da Cunha Antunes SARAIVA ◽  
Wanélia Vieira AFONSO ◽  
Nivaldo Barroso de PINHO ◽  
Wilza Arantes Ferreira PERES ◽  
Patricia de Carvalho PADILHA

ABSTRACT Objective Cross-cultural adaptation and content validation of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Subjective Global Nutritional Assessment questionnaire (originally in English) for use in hospitalized children and adolescents being treated in a reference institute of oncology. Methods The cross-cultural adaptation process consisted of the following stages: conceptual, item, semantic, and operational equivalence. The conceptual equivalence and item was carried out through discussion with members of an expert committee. Semantic equivalence was evaluated through initial translation, synthesis of translations, back translation, discussions with experts, and pretest with 32 patients. During operational equivalence, the experts discussed about the format of questions and instructions, setting, target populations, and mode of administration to later propose a final version. Content validation was performed by the expert committee. Results Minor modifications were made in the instrument to facilitate its use in the Brazilian socio-cultural context. Pretest results showed that the instrument is easily understood by health care professionals and the target population. Conclusion The cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Subjective Global Nutritional Assessment allowed obtaining a Brazilian version equivalent to the original. The adapted instrument will be an important tool for the subjective assessment of the nutritional status of pediatric patients hospitalized with cancer.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Michelle Yuan

Abstract The Anaphor Agreement Effect (AAE) is the cross-linguistic inability for anaphors to co-vary with Φ-agreement (Rizzi 1990; Woolford 1999), with languages making use of a variety of strategies that conspire to circumvent this effect. In this short paper, I identify and confirm a prediction arising from two previous observations by Woolford (1999) concerning the scope of the AAE, based on new evidence from Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian Inuit). I propose that anaphors in Inuktitut are lexically specified as projecting additional syntactic structure, spelled out as oblique case morphology; because Φ-Agree in Inuktitut may only target ERG and ABS arguments, encountering an anaphor inevitably leads to failed Agree in the sense of Preminger (2011, 2014). I moreover argue that this exact AAE pattern is previously unattested, yet is predicted to arise given the range of existing strategies. Finally, this paper provides evidence against previous detransitivization-based approaches to reflexivity in Inuktitut (e.g. Bok-Bennema 1991).


Author(s):  
Barış Yetkin

This study examines the orientalist influences in the media. Studies that determine the orientalist elements in media content in Turkey are not sufficient. In order to eliminate this deficiency, it was determined as the starting point of the research whether the orientalist stereotypes are still valid today and whether they contain epistemic violence. Based on this problem, some of the advertisements used in tourism promotion in the last 20 years within the framework of the official state policies of the Republic of Turkey are selected. Historical understanding and analytical thinking are adopted. In this direction, cultural context research is conducted using comparative case studies. It is aimed to find out whether the situation defined as self-orientalism in tourism promotion advertisements coincides with Western orientalist stereotypes. Thus, it is desired to provide a new perspective to researchers working on this subject and to present meta-analysis data.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Eugenio Rosati

This article examines the cross-cultural influence that worked on the absorption process of the goddess Kāmākhyā (Assam) within the Brahmanic pantheon, through a correlation of textual and historical-religious pieces of evidence. 2 2  This article is an enlarged and revised version of a paper that I presented on 18 September 2015 during the sixth Coffee Break Conference (17–19 September) held at the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies of ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome. In Assam, the cross-cultural interaction, between local tribes and Indo-Aryan speakers, began around 200 BCE–100 CE—when the Vedic culture had already changed from its earlier theological pattern. Therefore, after had been influenced by a long cross-cultural negotiation, the early medieval north-eastern purāṇas transformed the dakṣayajña myth, legitimising the temple of Kāmākhyā on Nīlācala as the greatest śākta pīṭha (seat of power), where the yoni (vulva) of Sat ī was preserved. In this way, the Purāṇas reconnected Nīlācala–Kāmākhyā not only to the sexual symbolism, but also to an ancient cremation ground and its death imaginary–a fact that the systematisation of the yoginī cult (ninth–eleventh century) into the Yoginī Kaula school corroborated. In this cross-cultural context, the early medieval Assamese dynasties emerged tied to the danger of liminal powers—linked to both the heterodox śākta-tantra sects and tribal traditions that were harnessed by the kings through the exoteric and esoteric rituals practised at Kāmākhyā.


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