Heinz Tschachler
Heinz Tschachler
Institution: English and American Studies at the Heinz Tschachler University of Klagenfurt
Email: heinz.tschachler@aau.at
When in the early summer of 1805 Meriwether Lewis for the first time sights the great mountains of the American West, he merely reports "an august spectacle." The word "august" was not then an aesthetic category, nor did it usually describe visual contact with landscape. Categories used for these pu...
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When in the early summer of 1805 Meriwether Lewis for the first time sights the great mountains of the American West, he merely reports "an august spectacle." The word "august" was not then an aesthetic category, nor did it usually describe visual contact with landscape. Categories used for these purposes were the picturesque and the sublime. Whereas there are numerous examples of the picturesque in the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the sublime draws a blank. In my contribution, I will be offering several reasons for the absence of description in the sublime mode: (1) Like their contemporaries, Lewis and Clark held nature up to the yardstick of utility, calculating the agricultural potential of the land or the navigability of a river. (2) The Lewis and Clark expedition was a military expedition, sent out by President Jefferson not to stand in awe at sublime grandeur but to document a useful landscape. (3) Seeing mountains as sublime was essentially a matter of an individual imagination. The Corps of Discovery was a group, whose success depended on cooperation. Hence, the individual imagination must take a back seat. (4) The actual experience of hardship and adversity during the crossing of the Rockies would have obviated any description in the "grand style." (5) Finally, the Corps of Discovery was not even prepared to encounter the great mountains of the West, expecting instead gentle rolling hills that would enable an easy portage to the Columbia River and, if anything, call for picturesque description.
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1 year ago
Andrés Teira-Brión
Andrés Teira-Brión
Institution: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Departamento de Historia, Praza da Universidade 1, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Email: andres.teira.brion@usc.es
The Roman economy of the Iberian Peninsula has habitually been characterised in terms of prestige goods and economic activities such as trade, mining and metallurgy. The analysis of plant-based foods –less prestigious but more essential in everyday life– has commonly been marginalised in state-o...
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The Roman economy of the Iberian Peninsula has habitually been characterised in terms of prestige goods and economic activities such as trade, mining and metallurgy. The analysis of plant-based foods –less prestigious but more essential in everyday life– has commonly been marginalised in state-of-the-art reviews. The O Areal saltworks is exceptional in terms of the large number of organic materials it preserves, and the excellent state of that preservation. After its abandonment (end of the 3rd/4th century AD), the saltworks was briefly used as a dumping ground for the surrounding area. The site's archaeobotanical remains, preserved under anoxic, waterlogged conditions, consist of the building materials used at the saltworks, tools and other artefacts, organic objects employed in activities such as fishing, and refuse. The assemblage suggests a wide diversity of species to have been introduced into northwestern Iberia during the Roman Period, including the mulberry, peach, fig, plum, grapevine, and melon. The notable presence of other edible fruit species that normally grew wild during this period, such as chestnut, walnut, stone pine, and cherry trees, might be related to the start of their cultivation.
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1 year ago
Augustine Owusu-Addo
Augustine Owusu-Addo
Institution: Dean, Faculty of Education, Catholic University College of Ghana,
Email: info@res00.com
The main aim of this paper is to visualize the historical development and the belief system of Confucianism. Confucianism is a term used in Western literature as the name for the philosophy and religion based on the teachings of its founder Confucius.). Confucius believed that political order can be...
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The main aim of this paper is to visualize the historical development and the belief system of Confucianism. Confucianism is a term used in Western literature as the name for the philosophy and religion based on the teachings of its founder Confucius.). Confucius believed that political order can be restored if the ideals, standards, and rites found in the ancient classics were put into practice. This practice developed from an ethico-political system of a paternal government based on the doctrine of humaneness. Confucianism has also spread well beyond China, and its principles and values are highly honoured in East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam (Morgan 2001). The adoption of Confucianism as the official state ideology made Confucian learning the only legitimate content of state education during the Han dynasty. Confucianism has sometimes been purely humanistic, void of any religious elements. While it is true that Confucius did not dwell much into the religious dimension, there is sufficient inferences in his writings that points to this dimension. The basic tenets of Confucianism are captured in the teachings of Confucius which deal with social and moral values. The texts of Confucianism are traditionally known as the “Four Books and Five Classics”. One common practice derived from of this religion is ancestral worship. This is probably the most recognisable influence of Confucius on Chinese culture. The last section of this review takes a comparative look at Confucianism and Christianity. It points out gaps and the bridges that’s between Christians and Confucianism and how interreligious dialogues and the preaching of the gospel relates to Confucian teachings.
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1 year ago
IVA PEŠA
IVA PEŠA
Institution: University of Groningen Contemporary History — Research Centre for Historical Studies Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat 26 9712 EK
Email: i.pesa@rug.nl
Since the early twentieth century, the copper-mining industry on the Zambian and Congolese Copperbelt has moved millions of tonnes of earth and dramatically reshaped the landscape. Nonetheless, mining companies, governments and even residents largely overlooked the adverse environmental aspects of m...
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Since the early twentieth century, the copper-mining industry on the Zambian and Congolese Copperbelt has moved millions of tonnes of earth and dramatically reshaped the landscape. Nonetheless, mining companies, governments and even residents largely overlooked the adverse environmental aspects of mining until the early 1990s. By scrutinising environmental knowledge production on the Central African Copperbelt from the 1950s until the late 1990s, particularly regarding notions of 'waste', this article problematises the silencing of the environmental impacts of mining. To make the environmental history of the Copperbelt visible, this article examines forestry policies, medical services and environmental protests. Moreover, by historically tracing the emergence of environmental consciousness, it contextualises the sudden 'discovery' of pollution in the 1990s as a local and (inter)national phenomenon. Drawing on rare archival and oral history sources, it provides one of the first cross-border environmental histories of the Central African Copperbelt.
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1 year ago
Y. L. Lucy Wang
Y. L. Lucy Wang
Institution: Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, US
Email: yw3056@columbia.edu
The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong became a named entity around 1810 and was demolished in 1994, but its architecture had long been unclassified. Not until the years just prior to its demolition did this dense slum of informal multi-story buildings receive sustained attention from architects and a...
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The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong became a named entity around 1810 and was demolished in 1994, but its architecture had long been unclassified. Not until the years just prior to its demolition did this dense slum of informal multi-story buildings receive sustained attention from architects and architectural historians. However, the architectural nature of the six-acre area predated its late-20th-century state. After its founding as a Qing military outpost, it underwent various structural additions and renovations, including an imperial Chinese administrative complex known as a yamen [衙門] and an outer wall, after which the Walled City was named. Against the grain of scholarship that has focused on the Walled City’s postwar, informal architecture, this article considers the site’s early years, arguing that the Walled City’s yamen and outer wall played a crucial role in the region’s land management practices. These two architectural structures make legible the Walled City’s evolution from a Qing administrative zone to a crowded slum. The Convention of 1898 ushered in a British-led land surveying effort throughout the New Territories region of Hong Kong, followed by the creation of an intricate bureaucracy for managing land lots. This clash of empires saw the use of two forms of land knowledge, Qing land deeds and British cadastral land surveys. In between these systems existed the Walled City, its inhabitation falling outside the British conception of land division but its historical contours very much shaped by the architectural boundaries that gave it its name.
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1 year ago
Fadlil Munawwar Manshur
Fadlil Munawwar Manshur
Institution: Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Jl. Sosio Humaniora, Bulaksumur, Sagan, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta,
Email: fadlil@ugm.ac.id
This study discusses the story of Ashab al-Kahf in the book of Fadhâ’il al-Khamsah min al-Shihahi al-Sittah by As-Sayyid Murtadha Al-Huseiny Fairuzabadi in which there are interesting and intelligent dialogues between Ali bin Abi Talib and a Jewish priest. Ali bin Abi Talib was one of the Prophet...
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This study discusses the story of Ashab al-Kahf in the book of Fadhâ’il al-Khamsah min al-Shihahi al-Sittah by As-Sayyid Murtadha Al-Huseiny Fairuzabadi in which there are interesting and intelligent dialogues between Ali bin Abi Talib and a Jewish priest. Ali bin Abi Talib was one of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions who was smart and very trusted. The story of Ashabul-Kahf contains many lessons and life’s wisdom for humans who consistently maintain their faith and stay away from the power oppressive center to their people. The formal object of this research is the story of Ashabul-Kahf which is very popular in Islamic society, both in the Arab world and outside the Arab world. The material object uses Fadhâ’il al-Khamsah min al-Shihahi al-Sittah Book. This study uses the naturalistic hermeneutic theory by Mantzavinos. The results showed that the actions of seven young men who fled to the cave due to they were being chased by the tyrannical King Dikyanus and they did not feel like sleeping in the cave for 309 years. This research reveals a series of material events since they fled from the kingdom and were chased by King Dikyanu’s army and finally they fell asleep in the cave for more than three centuries until they woke up from their long sleep and were again killed by God. Between one event material with others each other has a relationship of interrelated meaning. In this study, it is proven that the use of naturalistic hermeneutic theory can guide researchers in revealing the hidden actions meaning of the seven young men from the pursuit of King Dikyanus in the cave. The meaning revealed is that there is a causal relationship between the story of Ashabul-Kahf text and its readers (researchers). The story complexity in the story’s text is later explained through the nexus concept, which essentially looks for material that occurs in the historical reality area and expresses it through an exclusive causal relationship. Therefore, through this nexus, the problematic meaning of Ashabul-Kahf story can be revealed.
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1 year ago
GEORGE WILLIAM CULLEN GROSS
GEORGE WILLIAM CULLEN GROSS
Institution: King’s College London
Email: info@res00.com
The last Scottish coronation occurred at Scone in 1651. Charles II’s Scottish coronation has either been completely forgotten or become the subject of distorted interpretations. It has long been suggested that this coronation was a hastily arranged affair, lacking sacredness without an anointing a...
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The last Scottish coronation occurred at Scone in 1651. Charles II’s Scottish coronation has either been completely forgotten or become the subject of distorted interpretations. It has long been suggested that this coronation was a hastily arranged affair, lacking sacredness without an anointing and involving little pomp, and thus minimal cost — almost humiliating, according
to one modern view. Furthermore, historians have argued that Charles both resented this ceremony and could barely have found anything joyful in it. Yet Clarendon commented that it ‘passed with great solemnity and magnificence, all men making show of joy, and being united to serve his majesty’. How can one reconcile these positions? Why has this coronation been so neglected? In many respects, it was superseded by immediate events (Charles II’s disastrous military campaign and exile) and then overshadowed at the Restoration (and by the 1661 Westminster Abbey coronation). Nevertheless, 1651 remains of tremendous significance
because it was paradoxically both usual and unusual and carried implications for the other kingdoms of the British Isles and their religious systems, not just for Scotland. With the addition of financial archival material unused by previous scholars, this article adopts a fresh approach that challenges the received historiography: by seriously addressing the question of disparity, it identifies what really was anomalous and what, in fact, was far from untypical or surprising.
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2 years ago
