Laughter and Grief in Twelfth-Century Accounts of the Death of William Rufus

The death of King William Rufus while hunting in August 1100 is often acknowledged as a fitting end for an unpopular and ineffective monarch, based largely on descriptions of the event in several twelfth-century texts. While it will never be possible to arrive at a definitive explanation of what happened, near-contemporary representations of the king’s behaviour and death reveal much about perceptions and expectations of medieval kingship. By examining varying descriptions of the king’s laughter – sometimes cynical and manipulative, sometimes generous and inclusive – and the corresponding portrayals of the extent of his subjects’ grief at their monarch’s passing, it is possible to reconstruct the outlines of a debate over appropriate emotional performance and its contribution to successful – or unsuccessful – rulership. The very positive depiction of Rufus’s emotional regime in Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis sits in stark contrast to the more negative mainstream view, represented especially in the Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis.

All Is Burning: Buddhist Mindfulness as Radical Reflection

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part (Section 1, part of Section 2), I put forward a critique of what I refer to as the ‘received’ or ‘standard’ view of mindfulness in the Western cultural milieu. According to the received view, mindfulness is the acontextual ‘core’ of Buddhism whose determining characteristic is bare (present-oriented, non-judgmental) attention to the flow and content of experience. As noted by many researchers, this conception is in stark contrast to the traditional Buddhist understanding, where mindfulness is not only embedded in a broader context that provides it with a specific philosophico-existential orientation (normative aspect) but is also construed as a reflective activity (noetic aspect). In the second part (part of Sections 2–4), I argue that one of the main issues with the standard view is that it frames experience in terms of what Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls ‘objective thought’ (using objectivity, or ‘thinghood’, as an onto-epistemological standard of reality), which makes the two aspects of the traditional conception (normative and noetic) unintelligible. I then provide an alternative view based on the phenomenological work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty that attempts to integrate the two aspects into a broader conception of experience. By drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s notions of ‘phenomenal field’ and ‘radical reflection’, I argue that mindfulness needs to be understood as a reflective attitude that allows one to discern not only the content but also, and primarily, the context of each experience, and that this also includes seeing itself—the act of reflection—as an act that stems from, and returns back into, the pre-reflective current of existence.

An Analysis and Commentary on Riddah in Malaysia

Riddah originally from the Arabic language Al-Riddah means apostasy while in Malaysia it is commonly referred to as murtad. Riddah is part of the hudud offences whereby the punishments are clearly spelt out by Al-Quran and Hadith which cannot be added and deducted, or altered because it has been determined by Allah. For riddah, most of the Islamists jurists hold on to ahad hadith (a single hadith) which is still disputed as a basis of law but most of them agreed that only when an apostate act against Islam then he or she must be killed. In the practical aspect, application of Islamic law in Malaysia is predominantly derived from statute and even for the riddah punishment the Syariah Court can only impose a punishment not more than 3 years of imprisonment, fine not more than RM5,000 and whipping not more than 6 strokes which is in stark contrast with the punishment agreed upon by Islamists jurists. Apart from this sentencing power, other issues surrounding riddah will be discussed in depth in this article with the aim to find the best practise which is acceptable for the whole of Malaysia.

Social Connections: Transformative Experiences Amid Disruptive Times

Today many older adults are experiencing intensified social isolation and loneliness as they attempt to “stay safe at home.” The notion, is a stark contrast from our understanding of the importance of social connections on health and well-being. This session highlights: first hand experiences caring for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications of social isolation on the health of older adults. The speaker will offer perspectives for ESPO members on the role of community engagement in orienting research agendas, both now (amid the pandemic) and into the future.

The manifestations of secularism in the Arabic literature of the Jahiliyyah period: A study prioritizing the views of Gus Bin Zaydah

Jahillayath means ignorance. The Arabic word Jahiliyyah refers to the zealous culture and civilized society in the Islamic case. It is against Islam. The Jahiliyya community is a brutal society with human characteristics cut off. Gus bin Zaydah was a literary figure who lived in the so-called Jahiliyya social period. It can be observed that Islamic thought is often exaggerated in his poetry and prose literature. Much of his literature, prose and poetry, speaks of the triviality of worldly life and the permanence of the afterlife. Death is expressed in many of his speeches and poems. This is in stark contrast to pagan literature. Therefore, this study seeks to introduce Jahiliyyah and express the uniqueness of Arabic literature and to reveal the secular expressions of thought in the literary aspects of the Jahiliyya period writer Gus bin Zaydah. For this purpose descriptive and analytical methods were used and studied.

How Tibetan Nuns Become Khenmos: The History and Evolution of the Khenmo Degree for Tibetan Nuns

Tibetan Buddhist nuns are making history in numerous ways. They now meet in classrooms instead of tents, earn the title “Khenmo” after many years of dedicated study, and take exams that are standardized, frequent, and both written and oral. Additionally, the new educational system encourages Tibetan Jomos to take on more responsibility, increase their scholarship and practice, and obtain superior monastery/nunnery status. This article chronicles over two and a half decades of extensive fieldwork, covering the advances in monastic education and the rising standing of women in Larung Gar and contemporary China. These advances are in stark contrast to the limited opportunities for women in the past.

Membership Eligibility in a Divided Europe, 2006—2020

This chapter uses extensive evidence from press reports to demonstrate how the breakdown of the community membership norm in late 2005 and the EU’s failure to re-converge on a new norm in later years enabled member states to engage in hard bargaining in pursuit of their enlargement preferences, all in stark contrast to the pattern in prior decades. In the Turkish case, hard bargaining among the member states has produced policy deadlock, as member states favourable to Turkish accession or unwilling for other reasons to antagonize Ankara keep the country’s candidacy alive while sceptical member states blocked progress towards accession. Meanwhile, the collapse of the EU’s liberal democracy norm and the rise of hard bargaining among member states made it impossible for Ukraine to be recognized as eligible for eventual membership despite domestic developments that would almost certainly have sufficed in earlier decades.

Migration Multiple? Big Data, Knowledge Practices and the Governability of Migration

This chapter explores the big-data-based production of knowledge on migration. Following Mol (2002) and Scheel et al. (2019), it is analysed how migration and migrants are enacted through big-data-based research papers. The emerging sub-discipline of big-data-based migration research enacts migration and migrants in multiple ways that open up possibilities to rethink migration. However, this multiplicity of migration is held together by reference to three migration narratives—demography, integration and humanitarianism—which stand in stark contrast to these alternative enactments, as they all frame migration as something that needs to be governed. As the research papers aim at contributing to these research fields, they inscribe themselves into these migration narratives and thereby adopt the assumption of migration as an object of government.

Derivational Syntax: a Minimalist Approach to Affixation in Bahasa Indonesia Predicates

<p>This thesis focuses on verbal phrase aspect (vP-aspect) in Bahasa Indonesia (BI). In BI, vP-aspect is morphologically marked on the predicate. I claim that the sufiix -kan marks an aspect, which I refer to as kan-aspect, indicating that the object undergoes change. This is in a stark contrast with i-aspect, where the object is stationary and unchanged. The analysis is based on the notion that the semantics and syntax of a predicate should be analysed within the vP (for instance, Tenny 1987, 1994, Chomsky 1995, Arad 1998, Croft 1998, among others), with the core argument determining the aspectual property of an event structure (Tenny 1987, Arad 1998, Ritter and Rosen 1998). Since this thesis proposes to take into account the -kan and -i distinction as an important aspect in the analysis, the structural location of the two suffixes will take centre stage. This has not been done in the literature on BI that looks at these derivational suffixes. This thesis further develops the analysis beyond verb phrases: it takes into account the syntax of Voice Phrase of sentence structures that include (temporal) Aspect Phrase, Wh-extractions, and Relative Clauses.</p>

Derivational Syntax: a Minimalist Approach to Affixation in Bahasa Indonesia Predicates

<p>This thesis focuses on verbal phrase aspect (vP-aspect) in Bahasa Indonesia (BI). In BI, vP-aspect is morphologically marked on the predicate. I claim that the sufiix -kan marks an aspect, which I refer to as kan-aspect, indicating that the object undergoes change. This is in a stark contrast with i-aspect, where the object is stationary and unchanged. The analysis is based on the notion that the semantics and syntax of a predicate should be analysed within the vP (for instance, Tenny 1987, 1994, Chomsky 1995, Arad 1998, Croft 1998, among others), with the core argument determining the aspectual property of an event structure (Tenny 1987, Arad 1998, Ritter and Rosen 1998). Since this thesis proposes to take into account the -kan and -i distinction as an important aspect in the analysis, the structural location of the two suffixes will take centre stage. This has not been done in the literature on BI that looks at these derivational suffixes. This thesis further develops the analysis beyond verb phrases: it takes into account the syntax of Voice Phrase of sentence structures that include (temporal) Aspect Phrase, Wh-extractions, and Relative Clauses.</p>