scholarly journals The Myth of Resurrection: Reimagining Mahabali through the Semiotics of Select Folk Songs

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 209-324
Author(s):  
Anitta Anna Moncy
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
Sociocultural Practices ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Written history, being the vehicle of dominant or hegemonic culture, often neglects sub cultural art forms whereas oral or folk culture acts as a reservoir of residual cultural practices. When written history is narrated, unwritten history is sung or performed. The importance of regional folk songs in delineating the subtleties of a particular culture can never be overlooked. Folk songs carry the emotions of the era as well as their associated sociocultural practices. Mahabali is the central mythical hero of a very prominent traditional festival of Kerala- Onam. Conceptual pluralities in the history of onam festival stand in the way of explaining onam in a unidimensional fashion. Yet, the popular myth goes like this- Mahabali (affectionately called by people as 'Maveli'), the benevolent asura king rules his land in abundance, peace and prosperity, with no instances of theft or murder. Jealous of King Mahabali's popularity and his power, the Gods conspired to end his reign. They sent Lord Vishnu to earth in the form of a dwarf Brahmin (Vamanan) who trampled Mahabali to the netherworld. But Lord Vishnu granted the king's sole wish i.e. to visit his land and people once every year. This visit is celebrated as onam festival in the Malayalam month of Chingam . The just and noble Mahabali in the myth is not just a symbol of peace and prosperity, but a true image of resurrection from oppression, as the history of Kerala would like to tell. Myths and folklore depicts the hope of a generation. This paper tries to probe into the intricacies of the Mahabali myth through select Malayalam folk songs, to bring out the essence of that hope.

The Beginnings of Islam in Afghanistan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arezou Azad
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Political System ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Conversion ◽  
The Way

Covering the period from 709 to 871, this chapter traces the initial conversion of Afghanistan from Zoroastrianism and Buddhism to Islam. Highlighting the differential developments in four regions of Afghanistan, it discusses the very earliest history of Afghan Islam both as a religion and as a political system in the form of a caliphate.  The chapter draws on under-utilized sources, such as fourth to eighth century Bactrian documents from Tukharistan and medieval Arabic and Persian histories of Balkh, Herat and Sistan. In so doing, it offers a paradigm shift in the way early Islam is understood by arguing that it did not arrive in Afghanistan as a finished product, but instead grew out of Afghanistan’s multi-religious context. Through fusions with Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, early Abrahamic traditions, and local cult practices, the Islam that resulted was less an Arab Islam that was imported wholesale than a patchwork of various cultural practices.

All in the space of a poem: Spatial logics in poetry

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-258
Author(s):  
K. Arunlal ◽  
C. Sunitha Srinivas
Keyword(s):  
Print Culture ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Contemporary Poetry ◽  
Living History ◽  
Modern History ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Human Sense ◽  
Spatial Logics ◽  
The Way

One of the oldest cultural practices of human societies, poetry, simultaneously responded and contributed to the evolution of human sense of spaces. Before print culture became ubiquitous, poetry was a time-art: all classic poetic techniques and devices were meant to hold a piece of verse permanently in a person’s memory, and by extension, in a community’s living history. However, contemporary poetry has little use for the chronologic dimension of poetry. The correlation of spatialized poetry with the new proliferation of ideas regarding space can be explored in multiple angles. The way space is looked at has changed in all art forms due to certain contingencies of modern history. This paper is a mapping of these alterations in the spatial turn of poetry, and a further application of ideas of space in understanding contemporary poetry.

scholarly journals Anders Sørensen Vedels Marsk Stig-håndskrift. To kommentarer til Svend Clausens afhandling i Fund og Forskning 55, 2016

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Ivan Boserup ◽  
Karsten Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Folk Songs ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
The One ◽  
The University ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

Ivan Boserup & Karsten Christensen: Anders Sørensen Vedel’s manuscript about Marshal Stig. Two comments on Svend Clausen’s thesis in Fund og Forskning 55, 2016 Svend Clausen has in vol. 55 of Fund og Forskning called attention to a lost and “forgotten” parchment manuscript described by Anders Sørensen Vedel in 1595 as “The History of Marshal Stig” containing key documents related to the trial which followed the assassination in Finderup Grange of King Eric V ‘Glipping’ of Denmark (1259–1286). Clausen’s evidence consists of registrations of manuscripts known only through their titles, which had been available to the Danish historians Anders Sørensen Vedel (1542–1616), Niels Krag (1550–1602), and Jon Jakobsen ‘Venusinus’ (1563–1608), but appear ultimately to have burned in the fire of Copenhagen in 1728. The sources referred to by Clausen were published in one case by H. F. Rørdam in 1874, in all other cases in the appendix to S. Birket Smith’s History of the University Library of Copenhagen, 1882, reprinted 1982. Apparently inspired by a casual remark made in 1891 by the then very young historian Mouritz Mackeprang, Svend Clausen argues that despite the lack of extant copies and quotations etc., the manuscript’s supposedly exclusively judicial contents and allegedly very considerable volume reveal the “existence” of such an important source that future research on the background and consequences of the royal assassination must take much more account of this lost source than has been the case until now. Reviewing Svend Clausen’s arguments, Ivan Boserup corrects Rørdam’s and Clausen’s incomplete reading of the source on which the latter builds his identification of Vedel’s manuscript with descriptions of a lost manuscript “Concerning King Eric [Glipping],” and rejects Clausen’s interpretation of “… cum adversariis ac diversis” (Clausen seems unaware of the literary concept of adversaria), on which all his further arguments are based. From his professional standpoint as a historian, Karsten Christensen refers to Vedel’s strong focus on Marshal Stig in his collection of One Hundred Danish Folk Songs (publ. 1591), to Vedel’s idiosyncratic manner of describing his manuscripts from the point of view of his own main interests, and to the fact that in contrast to the Jens Grand trial held before the Pope in Rome in 1296, one should not expect written actiones to have been delivered at the meeting of the Danish grandees in Nyborg Castle in 1286 subsequent to the murder of Eric Glipping. Christensen therefore suggests that it is much more probable that the manuscript referred to in Vedel’s registration refers to a lost manuscript that, contrary to the one associated by Svend Clausen with Vedel’s lost manuscript, can be followed closely all the way up to 1728, and the contents of which have been detailed by the historian Stephanus Stephanius (1599–1650).

Maroon Art in Guyane New Forms, New Discourses

2018 ◽  
pp. 168-182
Author(s):  
Sally Price
Keyword(s):  
Final Part ◽  
Government Subsidies ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks at the way Maroons who enjoy either French citizenship or legal residence permits have responded to the rapidly changing opportunities, turning to the production of new art forms (essentially, painting rather than woodcarving). The chapter foregrounds the role of the cooperatives (often directed by Europeans rather than Maroons) that profit from their eligibility for government subsidies and ties with other financial supporters. And it shows how young Maroons, with help from the cooperatives, have created a new narrative of both the meaning and the history of Maroon art that sells well in the context of longstanding Western stereotypes. The greater part of the chapter, then, is concerned with delineating these changes in form and discourse. The final part develops a critique of imposed interpretations of the meanings of symbols. It debunks the claim (by men) that Maroon art transmits messages from the male artist to the female recipient of the finished product, showing how women have never participated in the promotion of this idea and that, in fact, they unanimously deny knowing what meaning any of the motifs might carry.

Rorschach Assessment of Complex Trauma in Youth

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
David Ephraim
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Assessment ◽  
Complex Trauma ◽  
Personality Development ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Abstract. A history of complex trauma or exposure to multiple traumatic events of an interpersonal nature, such as abuse, neglect, and/or major attachment disruptions, is unfortunately common in youth referred for psychological assessment. The way these adolescents approach the Rorschach task and thematic contents they provide often reflect how such experiences have deeply affected their personality development. This article proposes a shift in perspective in the interpretation of protocols of adolescents who suffered complex trauma with reference to two aspects: (a) the diagnostic relevance of avoidant or emotionally constricted Rorschach protocols that may otherwise appear of little use, and (b) the importance of danger-related thematic contents reflecting the youth’s sense of threat, harm, and vulnerability. Regarding this last aspect, the article reintroduces the Preoccupation with Danger Index ( DI). Two cases are presented to illustrate the approach.

Life as a Raw Material: Illusions of Control

Somatechnics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oron Catts ◽  
Ionat Zurr
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Cognitive Engineering ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Short History ◽  
Know How ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

The paper discusses and critiques the concept of the single engineering paradigm. This concepts allude to a future in which the control of matter and life, and life as matter, will be achieved by applying engineering principles; through nanotechnology, synthetic biology and, as some suggest, geo-engineering, cognitive engineering and neuro-engineering. We outline some issues in the short history of the field labelled as Synthetic Biology. Furthermore; we examine the way engineers, scientists, designers and artists are positioned and articulating the use of the tools of Synthetic Biology to expose some of the philosophical, ethical and political forces and considerations of today as well as some future scenarios. We suggest that one way to enable the possibilities of alternative frames of thought is to open up the know-how and the access to these technologies to other disciplines, including artistic.

FBI and Religion

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interdisciplinary Assessment ◽  
Civic Religion ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

This volume is an interdisciplinary assessment of the relationship between religion and the FBI. We recount the history of the FBI’s engagement with multiple religious communities and with aspects of public or “civic” religion such as morality and respectability. The book presents new research to explain roughly the history of the FBI’s interaction with religion over approximately one century, from the pre-Hoover period to the post-9/11 era. Along the way, the book explores vexed issues that go beyond the particulars of the FBI’s history—the juxtaposition of “religion” and “cult,” the ways in which race can shape the public’s perceptions of religion (and vica versa), the challenges of mediating between a religious orientation and a secular one, and the role and limits of academic scholarship as a way of addressing the differing worldviews of the FBI and some of the religious communities it encounters.

La Traviata Affair

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilde Roos
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
Colored People ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Group A ◽  
La Traviata ◽  
Apartheid Regime ◽  
Opera Production ◽  
The Way

Opera, race, and politics during apartheid South Africa form the foundation of this historiographic work on the Eoan Group, a so-called colored cultural organization that performed opera in the Cape. The La Traviata Affair: Opera in the Time of Apartheid charts Eoan’s opera activities from its inception in 1933 until the cessation of its work by 1980. By accepting funding from the apartheid government and adhering to apartheid conditions, the group, in time, became politically compromised, resulting in the rejection of the group by their own community and the cessation of opera production. However, their unquestioned acceptance of and commitment to the art of opera lead to the most extraordinary of performance trajectories. During apartheid, the Eoan Group provided a space for colored people to perform Western classical art forms in an environment that potentially transgressed racial boundaries and challenged perceptions of racial exclusivity in the genre of opera. This highly significant endeavor and the way it was thwarted at the hands of the apartheid regime is the story that unfolds in this book.

On Purpose

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Thought ◽  
The Way

Can we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Kant thought we were stuck with it, and even Darwin, who profoundly shook the idea, was unable to kill it. Indeed, purpose seems to be making a comeback today, as both religious advocates of intelligent design and some prominent secular philosophers argue that any explanation of life without the idea of purpose is missing something essential. This book explores the history of purpose in philosophical, religious, scientific, and historical thought, from ancient Greece to the present. The book traces how Platonic, Aristotelian, and Kantian ideas of purpose continue to shape Western thought. Along the way, it also takes up tough questions about the purpose of life—and whether it's possible to have meaning without purpose.

The Art of Chinese Philosophy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Goldin
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Han Feizi ◽  
Textual History ◽  
Classical Chinese ◽  
History Of ◽  
Crucial Characteristic ◽  
The Way

This book provides an unmatched introduction to eight of the most important works of classical Chinese philosophy—the Analects of Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi. The book places these works in rich context that explains the origin and meaning of their compelling ideas. Because none of these classics was written in its current form by the author to whom it is attributed, the book begins by asking, “What are we reading?” and showing that understanding the textual history of the works enriches our appreciation of them. A chapter is devoted to each of the eight works, and the chapters are organized into three sections: “Philosophy of Heaven,” which looks at how the Analects, Mozi, and Mencius discuss, often skeptically, Heaven (tian) as a source of philosophical values; “Philosophy of the Way,” which addresses how Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi introduce the new concept of the Way (dao) to transcend the older paradigms; and “Two Titans at the End of an Age,” which examines how Xunzi and Han Feizi adapt the best ideas of the earlier thinkers for a coming imperial age. In addition, the book presents explanations of the protean and frequently misunderstood concept of qi—and of a crucial characteristic of Chinese philosophy, nondeductive reasoning. The result is an invaluable account of an endlessly fascinating and influential philosophical tradition.

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