“Band Wagon and Gravy Train”: uses and abuses along the Silk Road

Afghanistan ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
Warwick Ball
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Silk Road ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ancient Trade ◽  
International Image ◽  
Academic Discussion ◽  
The Silk Road

The Silk Road as an image is a relatively new one for Afghanistan. It appeals to both the pre-Islamic and the perceived Islamic past, thus offering an Islamic balance to previous identities linked to Bamiyan or to the Kushans. It also appeals to a broader and more international image, one that has been taken up by many other countries. This paper traces the rise of the image of the Silk Road and its use as a metaphor for ancient trade to encompass all contacts throughout Eurasia, prehistoric, ancient and modern, but also how the image has been adopted and expanded into many other areas: politics, tourism and academia. It is argued here that the origin and popularity of the term lies in late 20th century (and increasingly 21st century) politics rather than any reality of ancient trade. Its consequent validity as a metaphor in academic discussion is questioned

Wonder, Horror, Mystery: Letters on Cinema and Religion in Malick, Von Trier, and Kieślowski

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan Meis ◽  
J.M. Tyree
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Life Meaning ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Lars Von Trier ◽  
Creative Writer ◽  
Film Critic

Wonder, Horror, Mystery is a dialogue between two friends, both notable arts critics, that takes the form of a series of letters about movies and religion. One of the friends, J.M. Tyree, is a film critic, creative writer, and agnostic, while the other, Morgan Meis, is a philosophy PhD, art critic, and practicing Catholic. The question of cinema is raised here in a spirit of friendly friction that binds the personal with the critical and the spiritual. What is film? What’s it for? What does it do? Why do we so intensely love or hate films that dare to broach the subjects of the divine and the diabolical? These questions stimulate further thoughts about life, meaning, philosophy, absurdity, friendship, tragedy, humor, death, and God. The letters focus on three filmmakers who challenged secular assumptions in the late 20th century and early 21st century through various modes of cinematic re-enchantment: Terrence Malick, Lars von Trier, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. The book works backwards in time, giving intensive analysis to Malick’s To The Wonder (2012), Von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), and Kieślowski’s Dekalog (1988), respectively, in each of the book’s three sections. Meis and Tyree discuss the filmmakers and films as well as related ideas about philosophy, theology, and film theory in an accessible but illuminating way. The discussion ranges from the shamelessly intellectual to the embarrassingly personal. Spoiler alert: No conclusions are reached either about God or the movies. Nonetheless, it is a fun ride.

What is “Toxic Masculinity” and Why Does it Matter?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1097184X2094325
Author(s):  
Dr. Carol Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
The Early 21St Century ◽  
Men's Movements

Coined in late 20th-century men’s movements, “toxic masculinity” spread to therapeutic and social policy settings in the early 21st century. Since 2013, feminists began attributing misogyny, homophobia, and men’s violence to toxic masculinity. Around the same time, feminism enjoyed renewed popularization. While some feminist scholars use the concept, it is often left under-defined. I argue that talk of toxic masculinity provides an intriguing window into gender politics in any given context. However, feminists should not adopt toxic masculinity as an analytical concept. I consider the term’s origins, history, and usage, arguing that it appears in individualizing discourses that have historically targeted marginalized men. Thus, accusations of toxic masculinity often work to maintain gender hierarchies and individualize responsibility for gender inequalities to certain bad men.

Drama and Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Franks
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Societal Level

As ways of making meaning in drama strongly resemble the ways that meanings are made in everyday social life, forms of drama learn from everyday life and, at a societal level, people in everyday life learn from drama. Through history, from the emergence of drama in Western culture, the learning that results at a societal level from the interactions of everyday social life and drama have been noted by scholars. In contemporary culture, electronic and digitized forms of mediation and communication have diversified its content and massively expanded its audiences. Although there are reciprocal relations between everyday life and drama, aspects of everyday life are selected and shaped into the various cultural forms of drama. Processes of selection and shaping crystallize significant aspects of everyday social relations, allowing audiences of and participants in drama to learn and to reflect critically on particular facets of social life. In the 20th century, psychological theories of learning have been developed, taking note of the sociocultural relationships between drama, play, and learning. Learning in and through drama is seen as being socially organized, whole person learning that mobilizes and integrates the bodies and minds of learners. Making signs and meanings through various forms of drama, it is interactive, experiential learning that is semiotically mediated via physical activity. Alongside the various forms of drama that circulate in wider culture, sociocultural theories of learning have also influenced drama pedagogies in schools. In the later part of the 20th century and into the 21st century, drama practices have diversified and been applied as a means of learning in a range of community- and theater-based contexts outside of schooling. Practices in drama education and applied drama and theater, particularly since the late 20th century and into the early 21st century, have been increasingly supported by research employing a range of methods, qualitative, quantitative, and experimental.

scholarly journals Drama in Ho Chi Minh City literature and art life

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
Thuy Trung Luu
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Performance Art ◽  
Early Time ◽  
High Time ◽  
Ho Chi Minh City ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

In the history of Vietnamese drama, Saigon was one of the places absorbing Western drama from the early time. Although drama in Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City didn’t develop in a smooth and straight way, it was a continuous and unbroken process. This process brought in strong development of drama in Ho Chi Minh city in two decades of the late 20th century and the early 21st century. However, in recent years, drama in Ho Chi Minh City seems to proceed slowly, which reflects some irrational aspects from drama script, performance art to performance operation. Therefore, it’s high time to review the whole history of drama in Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City to collect experiences for the steady development of drama in this City in the future.

scholarly journals The TropD software package: Standardized methods for calculating Tropical Width Diagnostics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ori Adam ◽  
Kevin M. Grise ◽  
Paul Staten ◽  
Isla R. Simpson ◽  
Sean M. Davis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity Analysis ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Programming Language ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Software Package ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Zero Crossing ◽  
Threshold Criteria ◽  
Matlab Programming ◽  
Methodological Component

Abstract. Observational and modeling studies suggest that Earth's tropical belt has widened over the late 20th century and will continue to widen throughout the 21st century. Yet estimates of tropical width variations differ significantly across studies. This uncertainty, to an unknown degree, is partly due to the large variety of methods used in studies of the tropical width. Here, methods for eight commonly-used metrics of the tropical width are implemented in a Tropical-width Diagnostics code package (TropD) in the MATLAB programming language. To consolidate the various methods, the operations used in each of the implemented methods are reduced to two basic calculations: finding the latitude of a zero crossing, and finding the latitude of a maximum. A detailed description of the methods implemented in the code and of the code syntax is provided, followed by a method sensitivity analysis for each of the metrics. The analysis provides information on how to reduce the methodological component of the uncertainty associated with fundamental aspects of the calculations, such as monthly vs. seasonal averaging biases, grid dependence, sensitivity to noise, and sensitivity to threshold criteria.

Dainas kā Lejaskurzemes izlokšņu fonētikas un morfoloģijas iezīmju avots

Letonica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liene Markus-Narvila
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Long Time

Keywords: folksongs, subdialects, Lejaskurzeme, phonetics, morphology It has been a long time since linguists have spoken about the levelling of subdialects in Latvia, for instance, linguist Jānis Endzelīns already in the middle of the 20th century, when he spoke about the language of the district of Vidzeme said these significant words: “As elsewhere also in Latvia the standard language exterminates subdialects and partly has already exterminated them. There are many areas where it is hard to find a person who speaks only in subdialect.” Therefore, it is important to identify the most important sources of the acquisition of subdialects, which would be useful to all who are interested in subdialectic studies. One of these sources is Latvian folksongs, which vividly preserve the most prominent phonetic and morphological features. The phonetical and morphological features of the subdialects of Lejaskurzeme have been identified in both folksong materials and in later linguistic sources—in the descriptions of Anna Ābele “Par Rucavas izloksni” (On the Rucava Sub-Dialect (1927)), “Rucavas izloksne” (The Rucava Sub-Dialect (1928)), “Gramzdas draudzes izloksne” (The Sub-Dialect of Gramzda Parish (1929)) and also in the description of Emma Valtere “Pērkones izloksne” (The Pērkone Sub-Dialect (1938)) as well as in late 20th century and early 21st century linguistic sources, which allow a comparison between characteristic subdialectical peculiarities and to track their changes over the years. This article analyses the most prominent peculiarities of the subdialects of Lejaskurzeme both in folksongs and in subdialectal sources: in phonetics and morphology. The analysis of the folksongs shows that the treasures of our language are still living; moreover, especially the sources of folklore, including folksongs, are still an actual source of studying subdialects, which, if we use correctly, can reveal grammatical, phonetical, and morphological peculiarities.

25th volume celebration paper Policies for the aged in the 21st century: more ‘structured dependency’ or the realisation of human rights?

2006 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER TOWNSEND
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Older People ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Individual Market

By the late 20th century, the plight of millions of older people in many developed countries was regarded as serious and was acknowledged to require concerted cross-national remedial action. Sociologists and social gerontologists only then were beginning to put together explanations rooted in the evolution of social policy and its corresponding institutions. One thesis that attracted support was that the dependency of the aged had been ‘structured’ by long-term economic and social policies. During the final decades of the 20th century, older people were perceived and treated, according to accumulating research evidence, as more dependent than they really were or needed to be. This had been fostered by the emerging institutions of retirement, income maintenance, and residential and domiciliary care. This development had been the responsibility primarily of the State, which tried to deliver welfare but also to accommodate the market. Forms of discrimination against older people had become, or continued to be, as deep as forms of discrimination against women and ethnic minorities. Such ‘institutionalised ageism’ had to be countered. Hopes were invested in anti-discriminatory policies that reflected good reciprocal relationships between the generations in many families and the rights of individuals of any age to human dignity and opportunities to practise their skills. The globalisation of the market and affiliation to neo-liberal policies, together with the simultaneous passage of various instruments of human rights, have changed the nature of the problem, and therefore the debate, during the early 21st century. This paper argues that the release and implementation during and after the Second World War of collective liberal egalitarian values, expressed in many countries in international statements on human rights, as will be shown, had a big impact on the design of public services, including those for older people. If the claims for the elderly in the welfare states of 50 years ago were exaggerated, as we can now safely conclude, the claims for older people today are even more exaggerated – at a time of heightened emphasis on individual rights and individual market powers. The various problems of ‘structured’ dependency persist, and seem set to grow in many parts of the world. Human rights offer a framework of rigorous analysis and anti-discriminatory work. Success depends on good operational measurement, and the incorporation of international and national institutions and policies that reflect those rights.

Roderick Peattie’s Mountain Geography – A Critique and Field Study (1936)

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-242
Author(s):  
David R Butler
Keyword(s):  
Field Study ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
English Language ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mountain Landscapes ◽  
Mountain Geography

Roderick Peattie’s book, Mountain Geography – A Critique and Field Study (1936), is a classic work that established a format for English-language books on the subject of mountain geography that largely persists to the present day. Peattie’s work was based primarily on an extended period of study in the mountains of western Europe. His book reflects a strong Eurocentric view of mountain landscapes that carries over into late-20th century and 21st century English-language books on mountain landscapes.

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