The “Root of a National Culture”

2021 ◽  
pp. 162-176
Author(s):  
Kirk A. Denton
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Taiwan History

Chapter 7 concerns the National Museum of Taiwan Literature (國立台灣文學館‎) and its efforts to assert literature as a cultural foundation for a national polis. It presents a close reading of the exhibit when the museum first opened in 2003 and the 2011 revised exhibition. Like the National Museum of Taiwan History, this museum emphasizes Taiwan’s linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as its strong sense of openness and cultural tolerance.

scholarly journals E-working: Country Versus Culture Dimension

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Michal Beňo
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Power Distance ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Comprehensive Model ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Geert Hofstede ◽  
Different Cultures

Globalisation and increasing digitisation mean that companies must increasingly orientate themselves internationally in order to become (more) competitive or to remain competitive. Promoting e-working can revitalise rural development. The issue involved is always interaction between people from different cultures, between people who, according to their cultural backgrounds, feel, think and act differently. When cultural diversity and differences are taken into account, greater creativity, more diverse ideas and faster problem solving are achieved. The cultural dimensions, according to Geert Hofstede, offer a comprehensive model for capturing the various expressions of intercultural values. This paper examines the motives for applying e-working in selected European countries in 2018 according to Hofstede’s six dimensions of national culture. Twenty-eight countries from the Eurostat database were analysed (Finland and the Netherlands were excluded, and software detected them in the e-working variable as outliers). Correlation with e-working is statistically significant at PDI (power distance index - negative: the lower the PDI index, the higher the proportion of e-working) and IVR index (indulgence versus restraint - positive: the higher the IVR index, the higher the proportion of e-working).

Equity and Amerindians in Montaigne’s “Des cannibales” (1, 31)

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-228
Author(s):  
Shannon R. Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
New World ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Legal Procedure

Since the first publication of the Essais in Bordeaux in 1580, readers of this work have recognized skepticism underlying the judgment of its author, Michel de Montaigne. Arguing that the Pyrrhonist school of skepticism relies upon cultural diversity, or that Montaigne was influenced by sixteenth-century proto-ethnographic accounts of European travellers to the New World, many scholars of the Essais have read “Des cannibales” (1, 31) as proto-anthropological. In my close reading of this chapter, however, I contend that Montaigne’s rhetorical use of equity, and not his debated practice of a proto-anthropological cultural relativism, shares a special reciprocity with his skeptical judgment in the Essais. Equity, a para-legal procedure that Montaigne used to judge while he was a magistrate in the Bordeaux parlement (1557–70), remains largely underdeveloped in scholarship on the Essais.

Patrick Moore, Arthur C. Clarke and ‘British Outer Space’ in the mid 20th century

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Dunnett
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Audience Participation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Television Programme ◽  
Human Destiny

This article seeks to explore a notion of ‘British outer space’ in the mid 20th century with reference to the British Interplanetary Society and the works of Patrick Moore and Arthur C. Clarke. Geographies of outer space have been examined following early work by Denis Cosgrove on the Apollo space photographs. Cosgrove’s work has encouraged a growing body of work that seeks to examine both the ‘Earth from space’ perspective as well as its reciprocal, ‘space from Earth’. This article aligns itself with the latter viewpoint, in attempting to define a national culture of ‘British outer space’. This is found to have an important connection with the British Interplanetary Society, founded in 1933 near Liverpool, which went on to influence the works of Patrick Moore, who edited the magazine Spaceflight and presented the television programme The Sky at Night, and Arthur C. Clarke, who became known as a science fiction writer through his early novels in the 1950s. The themes of audience participation and human destiny in outer space are examined in a close reading of these two case studies, and further engagement with cultures of outer space in geography is encouraged.

The Voyage Home

2018 ◽  
pp. 237-260
Author(s):  
Alasdair Pettinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Shipping Company ◽  
William Lloyd Garrison ◽  
To Come ◽  
New Phase ◽  
Distinctive Role

Through a close reading of Douglass’s farewell speech in London, the newspaper coverage of the racist discrimination he faced once again from the Cunard shipping company, and his subsequent account of the episode, this chapter shows how Douglass returned to the United States, equipped with the skills and confidence to embark on a new phase of his career, breaking away with his mentor William Lloyd Garrison with a strong sense of his own, distinctive, role in the antislavery struggle to come.

The Qur'an Made Linear: A Study of the Geschichte des Qorâns' Chronological Reordering

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuelle Stefanidis
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Historical Accuracy ◽  
Narrative Context ◽  
Main Entrance

The chronological reordering of the Qur'an remains one of the main entrance gates to the Muslim sacred text for researchers today. However, if chronology produces a strong sense of coherence by providing both an organising principle and a narrative context, its historical accuracy is difficult to assess. Recurrent criticism points to its dependence on traditional materials, the circularity of its argumentation, and the inability to appreciate, and account for, the present state of the Qur'anic text. This article engages these questions through a close reading of one of the most influential chronological reorderings, that of the Geschichte des Qorâns by Nöldeke and Schwally, taking the different versions of this seminal text into consideration so as to explore its assumptions, methodology and originality. Particular attention is paid to the textual impact of this linear reading on the Qur'anic text and to the inherent difficulties encountered in any chronological arrangement of the Muslim scripture.

scholarly journals An Indonesian Democracy: limits of a majoritarian democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Ben Kristian Citto Laksana
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
National Security ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Majoritarian Democracy

<p style="text-align: justify;">Indonesia has continuously been praised as a successful post-authoritarian country transitioning to democracy. However, seeing the numerous human rights violations in the past decade alone especially towards alternative political, religious and sexual identities, the success of democracy in Indonesia has been put under the spotlight. This raises the question of the development of democracy and the use of democracy in Indonesia in practicing and upholding principles of social equality for all. In this article I wish to provide an overview of majoritarian democracy, a form of democracy that is understood and practiced in Indonesia. A form of democracy that rather than upholding values that safeguards individual rights and diversity, may in fact undermine religious and cultural diversity, enforcing a homogenized national culture and values, which in return may engender human rights violations in the name of national security that it in itself is defined by the majority.</p>

scholarly journals ‘Reflections on Italy’s contemporary approaches to cultural diversity: The exclusion of the ‘Other’ from a supposed notion of ‘Italianness’

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Armillei
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Italian Society ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Immigration Policies ◽  
The Many

For many years Italy has been described as a country of emigration. Only since the 1970s Italy has moved from being a net exporter of migrants to a net importer. Despite growing cultural and religious diversity, the implications of the pluralisation of the Italian society on national identity have been largely ignored. Italy has been recently described as a country without an established model of integration or pluralism.1 The so called ‘Italian way’ towards cultural diversity remained predominantly theoretical in character and not supported officially, in the sense of being incorporated into the nation’s history (as it is in Canada or Australia). The rise of ‘ethnonationalism’ and legacies of past colonialism contributed to create an institutional notion of supposed ‘Italianness’, which is based on the exclusion of the ‘Other’. During the Liberal and Fascist periods, colonialism was used to create and re-produce a strong sense of nationhood, re-composing the many internal divisions by racialising ‘otherness’ outside rather than inside the nation’s borders. This study suggests that, due to historical amnesia and a weak national identity, a similar logic is now informing the implementation of anti-immigration policies in Italy.

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