Some remarks on change and innovation in ancient Near Eastern customary law

The article presents the ways customary law could be gradually changed in the ancient Near East. They included working with existing institutions while modifying their consequences as well as their scope of application with tools such as legal fiction. However, the conservative nature of the ancient oriental culture, as well as that of the scribal education made any sudden, radical modification impossible, and even if a new contract type was created, it would keep the pretense of following a long-established practice.

SIMAETHA GOT IT RIGHT, AFTER ALL: THEOCRITUS, IDYLL 2, A COURTESAN'S PANTRY AND A LOST GREEK TRADITION OF HEXAMETRICAL CURSES

Theocritus divides his second Idyll into two roughly equal sections, each punctuated by ten refrains: in the first half, a courtesan named Simaetha describes an ongoing erotic spell that she and her servant are performing and at the same time she enacts it by reciting a series of short similia-similibus incantations; in the second half, she speaks to Selene in the night sky and tells her the story of her brief affair with and betrayal by a handsome young athlete named Delphis. Literary scholars have written much about this poem, but they are more often concerned with the second, confessional half, with its complicated narrative layers and its charmingly naïve and unreliable narrator. Historians of religion and magic, on the other hand, have focussed most of their energies on the first half of the poem, using as comparanda the much later evidence of Roman-era curse tablets (katadesmoi) and late antique magical papyri to make sense of what Simaetha does and says during her long ritual, an approach that was enshrined by Gow in the middle of the last century, when he argued that, because of the conservative nature of these later magical spells, there was little risk of serious anachronism in using them for comparison.

Politik von Unten

What characterises the phenomenon of populism, and how has it developed in recent decades? In this study, Edward Weber addresses these questions using quantitative longitudinal analyses of three areas of investigation: the responsiveness of political elites, populism among citizens and populism in party political discourse. Although the study is based on data from Switzerland, it is also relevant for West European countries in general. Its findings demonstrate that populism constantly accompanies democracy and that today’s nationalist, conservative political parties are not populist because of their nationalist and conservative nature, but because they are relatively new and have not yet integrated themselves into the political establishment.

Education: socialization vs individualization

Presented is an attempt to understand the concept of individualization of education. The article analyzes interpretations of this concept, that have emerged in recent years. Identified are elements, on which is focused attention of researchers, namely: individualization of the educational process, and individualization of the student. It is established that reasons, that prevent individualization of learning, are features of organization of educational process, while influence, that conservative nature of institute of education has effect on reducing effectiveness of the process of differentiation and individualization is not noticed. It is revealed that the need for educational system to perform functions of socialization and cultural reproduction sets tasks that at latent level contradict with requirements of individualization. Implementation of these functions is accompanied by formation of logical conformism among students and unification of their identifications that are individually and personally expressed in processes of self-typing. Thus, in order to transform education in accordance with ideas of variation, differentiation and individualization, it is necessary to study the limits of institutional possibilities for individualization of both student and learning process, as well as to explore the possibility of transformation in the context of individualization of institutional nature of the education system itself.

Pushing against the boundaries: Entertaining impoliteness and taboo discourse in the Egyptian TV show Abla Fahita

Impoliteness can be defined as the use of “communicative strategies” which are “designed to attack face, and thereby cause social conflict and disharmony” (Culpeper et al. 2003, 1564). The present study applies Jonathan Culpeper’s (2011a) model of “impoliteness” supplemented by the notions of jocular mockery, jocular abuse, and recipients’ responses (Bousfield 2008, 2010, Haugh and Bousfield 2012) to the Egyptian TV show Abla Fahita. Abla Fahita (Egyptian Arabic: أبلة فاهيتا‎ [ʾabla fāhīta]) is a puppet character that has regularly appeared on Egyptian television since 2011. The show is hugely popular and has been phenomenally successful, being watched on average by millions, according to the Egyptian Centre for Research on Public Opinion. It should be noted, however, that, due to the conservative nature of Egyptian culture, Abla Fahita and other similar TV shows are considered to violate Egyptian politeness standards radically. Hence, such shows have been condemned as degrading and of low moral standards and have been accused of causing a deterioration in the standards of Egyptian public taste. Despite all denunciations, Abla Fahita still enjoys a huge audience and dominates broadcast ratings. Part of the show’s popularity can be ascribed to its characteristic impoliteness, particularly Abla Fahita’s off-beat expressions in mocking her guests and her use of sexual innuendo, which is seen as entertaining by many viewers. The study, which reveals that Abla Fahita employs what can be called a humorous-impoliteness formula to entertain viewers, is an attempt to apply contemporary Impoliteness Theory across cultures, and to Colloquial Egyptian Arabic in particular.

O sujeito na fala fílmica brasileira

The present study, based on a corpus of contemporary Brazilian film dialogues (Sub-Corpus Carioca Urbano, Corpus I-Fala, Luso-Brazilian Film Dialogues as a resource for L1 & L2 Learning and Linguistic Research), illustrates how Brazilian Portuguese (BP) has undergone a process of change in the representation of referential subjects, with preference for overt pronominal subjects, passing from being a null subject language to being a partial null subject language. Thus, the current work revisits De Rosa (2017) by including 3rd person subjects and using film dialogue transcriptions (not scripts) and discusses the presence of null and overt subjects in the corpus, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The study also compares the filmic data to spontaneous speech and shows a basically conservative nature of the former.

Popular Religion

As communist and nationalist militants made direct contact with rural society they faced the difficulty of potential confrontation with the conservative nature of peasant ‘marabout’ culture, including rituals surrounding holy shrines, magic, and pilgrimages. The Native Affairs department made instrumental use of such traditional practices as a way of reinforcing popular support for the caids, the charismatic and patrimonial authority of chiefs like the bachaga Boualam in the Ouarsenis. However, such manipulation by the colonial state was contested in a number of ways. The annual cycle of pilgrimages, often involving thousands of peasants, was also used as an occasion by communist and nationalist leaders to address the crowds, as seen during a communist intervention during the pilgrimage to Miliana in May 1950 and 1951. Some pilgrimages, like that to the shrine of Sidi Maamar, were harnessed by anti-colonial peasant movements led by the djemâas. The reformist Ulema movement of Ben Badis, usually interpreted by historians as an urban-based movement, penetrated into the peasant communities of the Chelif region and students trained in the medersas and the great Islamic centres of Constantine, Tunisia, and Morocco returned to inject nationalism through Koranic schools that became a later support base of the FLN.

Use of Overkill Half-Cycle Qualification Data to Support Reduction of Exposure Time in Validated Ethylene Oxide Sterilization Cycles

This article details the evaluation conducted for the potential to reduce ethylene oxide (EO) exposure times using data from currently validated EO sterilization cycles. The candidate cycles used the overkill half-cycle approach detailed in Annex B of ANSI/AAMI/ISO 11135:2014. The overkill half-cycle approach is conservative and has been the method of choice with medical device manufacturers because of its ease of understanding. The analysis presented provides an understanding of the extent of this conservative nature. Based on the analysis, exposure time can be reduced and rapidly implemented. The reduction in the exposure time may improve the product EO residuals and allow for additional time for the EO processing chamber to be utilized and/or for additional off-gassing for the product, if needed.

Barriers to the adoption of green certification of buildings

Purpose This paper aims to identify the key barriers to the adoption of green certification of buildings in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts face-to-face and telephonic interviews with ten built environment professionals, using a semi-structured interview guide. Qualitative responses to the interview were thematically analysed using NVivo 11 Pro analysis application software. Findings The findings suggest that “lack of information on existing green buildings”, “lack of incentives”, “conservative nature of Ghanaians”, “lack of active government participation”, “inadequate human resource”, “lack of awareness of the benefits”, “cost and financing” and “lack of legal backing” are the eight key barriers that hinder the adoption of green certification of buildings. Research limitations/implications The research is limited to built environment professionals registered with their appropriate professional bodies. The findings cannot be generalized and extended to other developing countries that do not share similar characteristics and context with Ghana. Practical implications Practically, this study highlights, for the benefit of the construction industry and the government, the critical barriers to the adoption of green certification of buildings in Ghana. Identification of these barriers provides a pathway for the provision of pragmatic solutions towards the adoption of green buildings in Ghana. Originality/value Findings of the research make significant contribution to the debate on the barriers to the adoption of green certification of buildings. Four out of the eight barriers (inadequate awareness of the benefits of green certification of buildings, inadequate human resource, conservative nature of Ghanaian and lack of information on existing green buildings) identified are unique in the context of other related studies and advanced knowledge on the subject matter.