bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Les Sujets Soufis Dans la Miniature Medievale Orientale (Collection du Maténadaran, Erevan)
Authors: Amirbekian Raisa
Published: June 2019

The Matenadaran, Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, is a unique repository of Armenian and Oriental manuscripts. The Oriental Collection of the Matenadaran (known usually as Arabo-Persian Collection), including manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Indian and other languages (total ca. 2,500), is formed over a long time and is regularly augmented by purchases and gifts. This collection covers nearly all subjects of human and natural sciences and culture, including theology, jurisprudence, Qur'ānic sciences, Tafsīrs, Hadīthes, lexicography, literature, poetry, history, politics, philosophy, logic, astronomy, magic, mathematics, medicine, veterinary, and agriculture. Among them there are some Sufi codices from the period of the 15th to the 19th century, illustrated and illuminated in the various ateliers in Iran and the region. The article presents the analysis of some Oriental medieval miniatures from the Matenadaran Collection connected with the Sufi motifs in their compositions. The most important are illustrative cycles of a copy dating back to 1848-1849 of the Commentaries of the Seven Qasidas by Husayn Ibn Ahmad al-Zuzani (Ms. no. 1610); of the Afghan manuscript of the 18th century Gulshan-i Afghan by 'Ali Akbar Oraqzay (Ms. no. 538); of a manuscript (no. 599) dated from 1841-1842 and containing the poem Yusuf va Zuleykha by 'Abd ul-Rahman Djami; and of a manuscript of 1629 (no.1036), the travel diary of the Iranian diplomat Muhammad 'Ali Bek Isfahani; as well a number of single miniature compositions from the collection of Louise Aslanian (Paris) (no.1999).
On the Ossetic Legend about Art’awyz
Authors: Gevorgian Narine
Published: June 2019

The Ossetic legend about Art’awyz belongs to the well-known Prometheus cycle. It is a marginal mythological episode, recorded only in a single version in South Ossetia. It bears a close resemblance to the Armenian story about Artawazd, a mythical hero from the same Prometheus cycle, attested in Xorenac‘i and in the later Armenian tradition. The author tries to show that the Ossetic and Armenian legends are actually two versions of a single saga (with further transformation of the “Scythian” (Ossetic) version on the Caucasian substratum), a common heritage of a lasting or a short-time Armenian-Scythian (Alanian) symbiosis in prehistoric period, presumably during the inroads of the Scythians to Armenia and to the South Caucasus.
On the History of Turkish Feminism
Authors: Safarian Alexander
Published: June 2019

The paper deals with the several aspects of the history of Feminism in the Ottoman Empire. It elucidates the early stages of the formation of the Feministic ideas and tendencies in the Turkish society at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to the social-political activities and the role of the Turkish women writers Halide Edib, Arife Hanım, and others. The author discusses inter alia the impact of the Armenian intellectual milieu and, especially, that of the Turkish Armenian women's literature on the inception and development of the Feministic literature in Turkey.
The Psychology of Memory and the Study of the Gospels
Authors: Bauckham Richard
Published: June 2019

New Testament scholars who have some acquaintance with the cognitive psychology of memory have tended to conclude that memory is generally unreliable. Research in cognitive psychology does not support that view. These New Testament scholars have been misled especially by failure to distinguish different types of memory, by relying heavily on study of eyewitness testimony in court (a special category from which it is not legitimate to draw broader conclusions), and by misunderstanding the deliberate focus on the failures of memory in much of the research (which is not because failures are common but because failures are interesting). For research in this field to be useful in the study of the Gospels, we need to distinguish personal event memory from other types and to specify the conditions under which this type of memory tends to be either accurate or misleading.
Mnemonic Interplay: A Response to Byrskog, Bauckham, Zimmermann, and Schröter
Authors: Le Donne Anthony
Published: June 2019

In response to the essays by Bauckham, Byrskog, Schröter, and Zimmermann concerning “memory”, Le Donne summarizes and critiques four different applications of mnemonic studies to the Jesus tradition. The author notes the different approaches to sociology relative to memory and argues that both autobiographical memory and collective memory fall under the wider category of social memory. Moreover, contra Bauckham social memory is helpful avenue of study for historical Jesus research once properly understood. Contra Schröter, he argues that the study of the social components of autobiographical memory ought to play a part in scholarship concerning the Gospels. He also challenges the false dichotomy between the “remembered Jesus” and the “historical Jesus” as posed by Zimmermann.
Defending Honor and Beyond: Reconsidering the Relationship between Seemingly Futile Defense and Permissible Harming
Authors: Kessler Ferzan Kimberly
Published: June 2019

In Helen Frowe’s book, Defensive Killing, she argues that some cases of seemingly futile self-defense are actually instances of justifiable defense of the victim’s honor. This paper explores Frowe’s claim, first by isolating the central cases and then by examining her rejection of punitive reasons. From there, the paper examines Frowe’s understanding of “defense of honor,” ultimately suggesting that Frowe’s conception is best construed as action that has expressive, but not defensive, value. From there, I turn to two more general puzzles. First, what if the defender mistakenly believes that she can successfully defend and acts for that reason, but the reason that actually supports her action is not one she is acting in light of? And, second, how ought we to understand the interests of an aggressor who has forfeited his rights?
Ethnic Identity and Immigrant Organizations
Authors: _ _
Published: June 2019

The identities of Chinese immigrants and their organizations are themes widely studied in existing literature but the link between them remains under-researched. This paper seeks to explore the role of Chinese ethnicity in Chinese immigrants’ self-organizing processes by empirically studying Chinese community organizations in South Australia. It finds that Chinese immigrants have deployed ethnic identities together with other social identities to call different organizations into being, which exerts an important influence on the emergence and performance of the five major types of Chinese community organizations active in South Australia. Moreover, the ways in which Chineseness is deployed have been heavily influenced by three factors within and beyond the community. These factors are the transformation of the local ethnic-Chinese community, changing socio-political contexts in Australia, and the rise of China. In short, the deployment of ethnic identities in Chinese immigrants’ organizing processes is instrumental, contextual, and strategic.
The Growing Interest of Indonesian Students Studying in China Post Suharto Era
Authors: Gunawan Elizabeth Susanti
Published: June 2019

In the Suharto era (1966-1998), there were eight discriminatory regulations toward regarding Chinese Indonesians that effectively banned the use of Chinese language and culture in public. For three decades, these regulations forced Chinese Indonesians to forget about Chinese language and culture and embedded anti-Chinese sentiment into non-Chinese Indonesians. After the end of the Suharto era, some regulations annulled the previous regulations, thus allowing Chinese culture including Chinese language to be practiced in public again. It created an unexpected Chinese boom. An increasing number of Indonesian students went to China to study the Chinese language. Today, many Indonesian students (Chinese Indonesians and non-Chinese Indonesians) not only study Chinese but have started to enroll in various faculties for degree programs in Chinese universities. This article uses statistical data and interviews in an attempt to explain Indonesian students’ reasons for studying in China and their degree preferences.
Sing Us the Songs of Zion: Land, Culture, and Resistance in Psalm 137, 12 Years a Slave, and Cedar Man
Authors: Joerstad Mari
Published: June 2019

This article reads Psalm 137 in light of colonial appropriation of land and culture, contextualizing the violence of verses 8 and 9 as a response to exile and as a method of protecting Judean cultural practices. Two modern art pieces serve as points of comparison: Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave, and Joe David’s totem pole Cedar Man. The article concludes by considering how the violent language of Psalm 137 may guide contemporary ethical reflection.
Visual Environment of Jewish Learning in Twelfth-Century Rouen
Authors: Ward Susan L.
Published: June 2019

The visual environment circumscribes the qualities of education both in the present day and in the Middle Ages and in both Jewish and secular education. This was true in the 1980s when Margaret Olin and I met teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was true in medieval Rouen.

In 1976 excavations in the courtyard of the palais de justice in Rouen uncovered the lower story of a building with Jewish graffiti that has been associated with Jewish learning. In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries Rouen was an important Norman center with a substantial Jewish community. The structure, now called the Maison Sublime, was associated with Jewish learning. Norman Golb has posited that the building was a yeshiva. While other scholars such as Bernhard Blumenkrantz and Dominique Pitte, have posited that the building may have been a synagogue or house, most believe it had an association with education. The Maison Sublime was built by the same masons who built the nearby Christian Abbey of Saint-Georges-de-Boscherville. Boys would also have learned writing as part of their Hebrew education. Thus the medieval Jewish community was educating their students in what would have been recognized as an up to date environment in twelfth-century Rouen.
Memory in the Present Tense: Vera Frenkel’s Diaspora Art
Authors: Zemel Carol
Published: June 2019

Vera Frenkel’s video and installation work focuses on the complexities of intercultural relations and identities, always raising issues of uncertainty, fantasy, and cultural expectations. Born in Bratislava in 1938, carried by her mother out of Europe on the eve of war, Frenkel came to Canada as a teenager, studied sociology at McGill University, and turned to art to explore the passages and perplexities of Canadian diasporic life. While there is little that is insistently Jewish in her art, the work draws unmistakeably on modern Jewish experience, and extends its impact to a wider, multi-cultural world.

My paper focuses on four works. With a ground-breaking use of internet technology, String Games (1974) plays on the game of Cat’s Cradle to link disparate and distant communities. …from the Transit Bar (1992–) constructs a train station bar as a site of social and political flight, with Yiddish prominent among a babble of languages. Body Missing (1993), an interactive internet site, continues the journey—as viewers follow clues in pursuit of the Shoah’s ‘missing bodies.’ The recent video installation Blue Train (2014) again invokes flight and promise, melding danger and opportunity. With Jewish history and experience a recurrent theme, Frenkel’s art explores the pressures of and pleasures in Canada’s cultural mosaic.
A Systematic Theory of Tradition
Authors: Alexander James
Published: June 2019

We still lack a systematic or complete theory of tradition. By referring to the works of many major figures of the last century – Arendt, Boyer, Eisenstadt, Eliot, Gadamer, Goody, Hobsbawm, Kermode, Leavis, MacIntyre, Oakeshott, Pieper, Pocock, Popper, Prickett, Shils and others – I show that a theory of tradition must include insights taken not only from the study of sociology and anthropology, but also from the study of literature and religion (and, it goes without saying here, the study of philosophy and history). The proliferation of separate academic subjects does not make it any less necessary for us to attempt to say in general what we are talking about when we talk about tradition. In this article I distinguish three elements which are found in traditions. I call these continuity, canon, and core. The argument is that traditions can be distinguished in terms of whether there is a core in addition to canon and continuity, a canon in addition to continuity, or only mere continuity. Together these form a theory of tradition which enables us to see what is necessary to all traditions and also what it is which distinguishes different types of tradition from each other.
The Necessity and Contingency of Universal History
Authors: Lundy Craig
Published: June 2019

History occupies a somewhat awkward position in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Although they often criticise history as a practice and advance alternatives that are explicitly anti-historical, such as ‘nomadology’ and ‘geophilosophy’, their scholarship is nevertheless littered with historical encounters and deeply influenced by historians such as Fernand Braudel. One of Deleuze and Guattari’s more significant engagements with history occurs through their reading and theory of universal history. In this paper I will explicate and critically analyse the nature of this universal history vis-à-vis its most pertinent counterpoint: Hegel’s philosophy of world history. In contrast to Hegel’s form of historicism, which universalizes by virtue of a unitary and totalizing force, Deleuze and Guattari develop a universalizing mechanism that is strictly devoid of any privileged essence. Following, Deleuze and Guattari’s form of universal history is marked above all by contingency as opposed to necessity. In this paper I will show precisely how. I will also go on to demonstrate how Deleuze and Guattari’s universal history offers the promise of an historical ontology commensurate with the processes of creativity and becoming, provided that appropriate steps are taken to reaffirm the radical contingency at its heart.
Frank Ankersmit as a Rationalist
Authors: Kuukkanen Jouni-Matti
Published: June 2019

This paper examines Frank Ankersmit as a rationalist. I argue that there is a theory of rationality in Ankersmit, and that rationalism is an essential feature of his philosophy of history. It is salient that, according to Ankersmit, this theory of rationality can be discovered by a priori reasoning through analysing what the concept of representation entails. Ankersmit’s view is that Leibniz has best succeeded in defining what representation is. Further, Leibniz’s theory of representation, and the idea of rationality it entails, are understood to be applicable to history writing, too. The most important standard of rationality is scope. The historian is expected to maximize the scope of her representation, or to create a maximum distance between narrative statements and a narration. The attempts to maximize scope are hampered by other values which stand in opposition to it. For this reason, the historian has to, in effect, find the best possible compromises between two opposing forces – including as much diversity while maintaining as much order as possible, for example. However, no a priori reasoning, or philosophers at large, can in practice determine the most rational representation. This is achieved through historiographical debate and discourse by comparing one representation to its rivals. In the end, I pose some questions and challenges to Ankersmit’s theory of rationality.
Ankersmit’s Dutch Writings and Their Audience
Authors: Bos Jacques
Published: June 2019

This article analyses Frank Ankersmit’s Dutch-language writings in the context of Dutch debates on historical theory. In the 1970s and 1980s historical theory became a flourishing discipline in the Netherlands; it was a compulsory part of all history programmes in the country, and all history departments employed one or more historical theorists. The Dutch theoretical debates of the 1970s and 1980s mainly dealt with the relation between history and the social sciences. In these debates Ankersmit defended the traditional historicist conception of historiography, while developing philosophical views that would remain important in his later work. Especially relevant in this respect is his critique of linguistic transcendentalism. This view is already present in his earliest writings in the 1970s, but it also informs his work on historical representation of the late 1980s and 1990s, and it is very important in his analysis of historical experience, which has its roots in his Dutch writings of the mid-1990s.
Reply to My Critics
Authors: Ankersmit Frank
Published: June 2019

In this essay I reply to the comments by Daniel Fairbrother, Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen, Chiel van den Akker, Martin Jay, Hans Kellner and Jacques Bos on things I wrote on philosophy of history in the last few decades. The reply’s main claim is that not my frequent appeals to Leibniz are surprising, but the total neglect of Leibniz by all philosophers of history since 1945. If only, because in the very first treatise on so-called ‘critical philosophy of history’ – Chladenius’s Allgemeine Geschichtswissenschaft of 1752 – Leibniz was central already. Think of his notion of the ‘Sehepunckt’ (point of view) that he had taken from Leibniz. Moreover, each practicing historian will recognize straightaway that the notion of the point of view goes to the heart of his work.
Self-Knowledge as Non-Dual Awareness: A Comparative Study of Plotinus and Indian Advaita Philosophy
Authors: Mehta Binita
Published: June 2019

The paper examines the problem of self-knowledge from the perspectives of Plotinus and the Indian Advaita (non-dual) school. Analyzing the subject-object relation, I show that according to both Plotinus and Advaita thinkers, full self-knowledge demands complete absence of otherness. Plotinus argues that if self-consciousness is divided into subject-object relation then one will know oneself as contemplated but not as contemplating (v.3.5) and no real self-knowledge obtains in this case. Śaṅkara, who constitutes an important representative of Advaita thought, points out that the self cannot know itself as an object because what is called an object to be known becomes established when it is separated from the self, the subject. I argue that at the level of the One, similar to the state of ātman consciousness in Advaita framework, the soul experiences itself in expansive non-dual consciousness. Lastly, I examine the role of non-duality as the foundation of knowledge.
The Sixth Heracleopolitan King Merikare Khety
Authors: Demidchik Arkadiy
Published: June 2019

The history of the Heracleopolitan royal “House of Khety,” comprising Manethonian Dynasties ix and x, remains unknown to us. The only monarch whose place in the Heracleopolitans’ succession is believed to be well established is Merikare, the addressee of the famous treatise on kingship. For almost eight decades he has been alleged to be the final or penultimate Heracleopolitan ruler. However, even this hardened opinion rests on erroneous presumptions. Close scrutiny of all pertaining records permits rather to identify Merikare with the sixth Heracleopolitan pharaoh, listed in the Turin King-list, v. 24, with the nomen “Khety.” Merikare’s father, the fifth king of Heracleopolis, managed to restore the capital back to Memphis. Therefore, later he was at times considered as founder of a new, Dynasty “x”, with his four “purely Heracleopolitan” predecessors forming “Dynasty ix.” Such is an explanation for Manetho’s much debated division of the Heracleopolitans into two dynasties.
La « garde du fleuve » dans l’Egypte hellénistique et romaine
Authors: Rossi Lucia
Published: June 2019

This contribution proposes a study of the river guard in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. It aims to enlighten the social, administrative, and fiscal peculiarities of this institution by which public powers ensured the security of human mobility on the Nile. This study starts from the analysis of Greek and Latin vocabulary of the “river guard” according to literary and epigraphic evidence found on papyri and ostraca. Next, it focuses on the actors ensuring the “river guard,” notably on their social and ethnic background, on their official status, as well as on the public regulations governing the “river guard.” Finally, it examines the different functions assigned to river guards, the material means for this institution’s effective functioning, and the tax system organized for its financing.

Le présent article est centré sur l’étude de la « garde du fleuve » dans l’Egypte hellénistique et romaine. Dans le cadre d’une réflexion historique large, il vise à rendre compte des spécificités sociales, administratives et fiscales de cette institution ayant assuré la sécurité des circulations humaines sur le Nil. Cette réflexion est ainsi fondée en premier lieu sur l’étude du vocabulaire grec et latin de la garde du fleuve, conservé dans les papyrus et les ostraka égyptiens, dans les textes littéraires et épigraphiques. Dans un second temps, il est question d’étudier les acteurs de la garde du fleuve, notamment les milieux socio-ethniques de recrutement, les statuts et les formes publiques de leur encadrement. Il s’agit enfin de s’intéresser aux différentes fonctions assurées par la garde du fleuve, aux moyens matériels nécessaires à son exercice et à la fiscalité préposée à son financement.

This article is in French.
Integration of Foreigners in Egypt
Authors: Giménez Javier
Published: June 2019

The relief of Amenhotep ii shooting arrows at a copper ingot target has often been considered as propaganda of the king’s extraordinary strength and vigour. However, this work proposes that the scene took on additional layers of significance and had different ritual functions such as regenerating the health of the king, and ensuring the eternal victory of Egypt over foreign enemies and the victory of order over chaos. Amenhotep ii was shooting arrows at an “Asiatic” ox-hide ingot because the ingot would symbolize the northern enemies of Egypt. The scene belonged to a group of representations carved during the New Kingdom on temples that showed the general image of the king defeating enemies. Moreover, it was linked to scenes painted in private tombs where goods were brought to the deceased, and to offering scenes carved on the walls of Theban temples. The full sequence of scenes would describe, and ritually promote, the process of integration of the foreign element into the Egyptian sphere.
Elusive “Libyans”: Identities, Lifestyles and Mobile Populations in NE Africa (late 4th–early 2nd millennium BCE)
Authors: Moreno García Juan Carlos
Published: June 2019

The term “Libyan” encompasses, in fact, a variety of peoples and lifestyles living not only in the regions west of the Nile Valley, but also inside Egypt itself, particularly in Middle Egypt and the Western Delta. This situation is reminiscent of the use of other “ethnic” labels, such as “Nubian,” heavily connoted with notions such as ethnic homogeneity, separation of populations across borders, and opposed lifestyles. In fact, economic complementarity and collaboration explain why Nubians and Libyans crossed the borders of Egypt and settled in the land of the pharaohs, to the point that their presence was especially relevant in some periods and regions during the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BCE. Pastoralism was just but one of their economic pillars, as trading activities, gathering, supply of desert goods (including resins, minerals, and vegetal oils) and hunting also played an important role, at least for some groups or specialized segments of a particular social group. While Egyptian sources emphasize conflict and marked identities, particularly when considering “rights of use” over a given area, collaboration was also crucial and beneficial for both parts. Finally, the increasing evidence about trade routes used by Libyans points to alternative networks of circulation of goods that help explain episodes of warfare between Egypt and Libyan populations for their control.
Virtuous Governance from the Imams to Their Deputies: Some Themes in Pre-modern Imami Shiʿi Writings
Authors: Marlow Louise
Published: June 2019

Abstract

This essay constitutes a brief survey of conceptions and representations of just governance among Shiʿi communities and in the writings of Shiʿi scholars, philosophers, and men of letters in pre-modern times. It covers the period from the lifetimes of the Imams to the early modern era, and traces the intellectual and literary responses among Shiʿi writers to changing historical circumstances, including the onset of the occultation, the growth and geographical spread of Shiʿi communities, the growing independence of the Shiʿi ulema, the rise of Shiʿi or pro-Shiʿi dynasties, and the establishment of Imami Shiʿism in Iran in the Safavid period. The essay’s principal purpose in this issue is to provide context and background for the more focused articles that follow. These articles consider the extent to which and ways in which themes treated in the pre-modern Imami literature contributed to specific instances of constitutionalism in Persianate societies.
Enemies beyond the Red Sands: The Bukhara-Khiva Dynamic as Mediated by Textual Genre
Authors: Pickett James
Published: June 2019

The khanates of Bukhara and Khiva had much in common, but depictions of their relationship with one another vary dramatically between historical sources. Some accounts convey deep rivalries between them, while in other sources they appear as easily traversable sub-regions within a broader, socially and culturally integrated landscape. How might we explain these wildly divergent images? This essay considers a wide range of sources to forward one simple argument: our understanding of the relationship between Bukhara and Khiva is fundamentally shaped by textual genre. Some genres—such as chronicles and legal writing—were well equipped to articulate rivalry and difference. Others—such as Sufi hagiography or chancellery documents—contained the tools for transcending these two polities. Since all of these genres were predominantly written by a single social group (the ʿolemā), this contradictory imagery was not the product of discrete constituencies with different viewpoints, but rather a single milieu performing diverse genres.
Communication and the Consolidation of the British Position in the Persian Gulf, 1860s–1914
Authors: Ahmadi Farajollah
Published: June 2019

The scale of Britain’s industrial expansion during the nineteenth century was vast and extraordinary. On the sea, Britain dominated the industrialized world both in tonnage and distance and established the largest shipping lines in the world. With the rapid increase in international trade, Britain led the world in the development of submarine telegraph cable and steamships. Although from the early decades of nineteenth century, Britain was expanding its ascendancy in the Persian Gulf, from 1860s onward, technological developments, mainly telegraph and steamship, led to a significant change in favor of British hegemony in the region. This technological progress had great impacts on the politics and economy of the area and neighboring centuries. The present article is an attempt to examine the process of communication system development in the Persian Gulf and its role in the consolidation of British position in the region.
The “Original” Kurdish Religion? Kurdish Nationalism and the False Conflation of the Yezidi and Zoroastrian Traditions
Authors: Foltz Richard
Published: June 2019

The religion of the Yezidi Kurds, which has often been inaccurately characterized as “devil-worship,” has been claimed by Kurdish nationalists since the 1930s as the “original” religion of the Kurdish people. It has likewise been asserted that the Yezidi faith is a form of Zoroastrianism, the official religion of Iran in pre-Islamic times. These notions have won official support from most Kurdish political organizations and have broadly penetrated Kurdish society. The identification of Yezidism with Zoroastrianism is historically inaccurate, however, and should be seen as a product of modern nation-building ideology. Sentimental attachment to Yezidism and/or Zoroastrianism among Kurds today is best understood in most cases as a political rejection of Islam and its perceived Arab connections, rather than in terms of genuine devotional commitment.
Constituting Love in Persianate Cinemas
Authors: Partovi Pedram
Published: June 2019

Critics have long regarded the popular cinemas of India, Iran, and Turkey as nothing more than cheap Hollywood knock-offs. While scholars have recognized the geographic and economic ties between these film industries, few have noted their engagement with themes and images particularly associated with earlier Persianate courtly entertainments. Persianate cinemas have challenged modernist ideas of love, marriage, and family life exemplified in Hollywood features and instead taken up older aristocratic conceptions of the family in order to apply them to contemporary society.
Ghazā and Ghazā Terminology in Chronicles from the Sixteenth-Century Safavid Courtly Sphere
Authors: Trausch Tilmann
Published: June 2019

In the later decades of the fifteenth century, adherents of the Safavid order started raiding the regions of the northern Caucasus and eastern Anatolia. As most of these raids involved Christian principalities, they have earned the Safavid shaikhs Joneyd and Haydar the reputation as ghāzis, as fighters for faith against the infidels. This paper explores how scribes from the sixteenth-century Safavid courtly sphere integrated the order’s early military activities into their narratives of the Safavid past. Further, it examines what sound information may be derived from the narratives on these poorly documented events. The paper concludes with the suggestions that a) those doing in history in Safavid times were much less concerned with Islamic “holy war” than modern historians are, and b) their narratives indicate that attempts to establish territorial rule may have outweighed the fight-for-faith motif.
Afterword: Religion in Public Institutions. Methodological Challenges, Institutional Comparisons, and Key Variables
Authors: Gilliat-Ray Sophie
Published: June 2019

This afterword offers some reflections on the methodological challenges of conducting research in public institutions, especially prisons and hospitals. I consider the need to take an interdisciplinary approach and to properly involve stakeholders. The second part of the discussion considers the practical implications of being a researcher in an institution, including access, self-presentation, and reflexivity. Towards the end of the article, attention is paid to the way in which public institutions enable us to see new religious discourses in microcosm.
The Passion as Public Reflexivity: How the Dutch in a Ritual-musical Event Reflect on Religious and Moral Discussions in Society
Authors: Klomp Mirella , van der Meulen Marten , Wilson Erin , Zijdemans A.
Published: June 2019

This article analyses the public significance of The Passion—a televised retelling of the Passion of Jesus, featuring pop songs and celebrities in the Dutch public sphere. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the authors demonstrate how performances like The Passion offer spaces in which the Dutch can reflect publicly on important identity issues, such as the role of Christian heritage in a supposedly secular age. The article contributes to deeper knowledge of how Dutch late-modern society deals with its secular self-understanding.
The Making of the Ornaments: Further Thoughts on the Printing of the Third Edition of Leviathan
Authors: Malcolm Noel
Published: June 2019

In a previous study the author proposed that the third edition of Leviathan (the 'Ornaments') was produced not long before 1702 (the date given in the earliest dated copy). An alternative view, dating the edition to 1670 and suggesting that it incorporated corrections by Hobbes, was put forward by the late Karl Schuhmann; it was based on both typographical and textual evidence. This article considers Schuhmann's arguments and finds them unconvincing. It also adduces some new evidence (concerning the prices at which copies of Leviathan sold, and the ornaments and type of the third edition), on the basis of which it proposes that this edition was produced in the period 1695-1702, probably by the printer John Darby.
Reason as Reckoning: Hobbes's Natural Law as Right Reason
Authors: Barnouw Jeffrey
Published: June 2019

Hobbes conception of reason as computation or reckoning is significantly different in Part I of De Corpore (entitled Computatio sive Logica) from what I take to be the later treatment in Leviathan. In the late actual computation with words starts with making an affirmation, framing a proposition. Reckoning then has to do with the consequences of propositions, or how they connect the facts, states of affairs or actions which they refer tor account. Starting from this it can be made clear how Hobbes understood the crucial application of this conception to natural law, identified as 'right reason'.
The Best Is Not Good Enough: Ecological (Il)literacy and the Rights of Nature in the European Union
Authors: Hovden Katarina
Published: June 2019

The Union has outlined a quasi-ecological vision for “living well, within the planet’s ecological limits” in 2050. To date, there is little evidence to suggest that the Union is paving the way for realising said vision. This article introduces the ecological legal approach and the rights of nature as a manifestation of ecological law. Thereafter, it reflects on the ecological (il)literacy of the Union’s approach to the sustainability crisis. Based on a civil society proposal for a Draft eu Directive on the Rights of Nature, the article offers an initial assessment of whether the rights of nature “speak to” any of the ecological shortcomings identified, and whether it might impute (elements of) ecological literacy into the Union’s governance approach.
Taking Aesthetics Seriously in Planning Law: Seeking Inspiration for Flanders in France, the Netherlands and the uk
Authors: De Somer Stéphanie
Published: June 2019

The aesthetics of the built environment in Flanders (Belgium) often faces heavy criticism. What role, if any, can planning law play in promoting beauty? An increasing number of studies claim that the appearance of buildings influences our psychological wellbeing. Yet, government intervention via aesthetic regulation remains controversial. This article looks at Flemish planning law and analyzes the position that aesthetics occupy as a material consideration. It compares Flanders to France, the Netherlands and the uk to see if the region is doing worse or better in recognizing the role of aesthetics in the system of development control. It then looks at some particular challenges that aesthetic regulation in Flanders faces and assesses possible remedies, again looking for inspiration in these other European legal systems.
Linguistic Consequences of Evangelization in Colonial Peru: Analyzing the Quechua Corpus of the Doctrina Christiana y Catecismo
Authors: Haimovich Gregory
Published: June 2019

The article deals with the analysis of phenomena of language contact between Spanish and Quechua, found in the Doctrina Christiana y Catecismo para instruccion de los Indios (1584). These phenomena include primarily loanwords, loan blends, shifts of meaning and morphosyntactic calques, encountered throughout the Quechua version of the Doctrina Christiana y Catecismo, a profound ecclesiastical work, which influenced greatly the process of evangelization of the Andes. In addition, the article concerns other issues, like the early adaptation of Quechua to writing and phonological conundrum associated with this process, origins of the verb iñiy and the use of Quechua evidential markers in
dcc
. The analysis is intended to understand better the influence of evangelization on Quechua language, both in terms of diachronic linguistics and corpus planning.
AMADOU HAMPÂTÉ BÂ AND THE WRITER ROBERT ARNAUD (RANDAU): AFRICAN COLONIAL SERVICE AND LITERATURE
Authors: Pondopoulo Anna
Published: June 2019

This article explores the possible links between the literary works of the writer and colonial administrator, Robert Arnaud (1873–1950; better known by his literary pseudonym Robert Randau) and Amadou Hampaté Bâ. The author of Wangrin and Oui, mon commandant! was well-acquainted with Arnaud who, following a career devoted largely to Islamic issues, became in 1924 an inspector of administrative affairs in Upper Volta and, in 1927–28, served as acting governor of this territory. The personal papers of Arnaud both shed new light on certain administrative incidents that are also described in the works of Hampâté Bâ and also allow us to think in new ways about the role played by Africans in French colonial rule.
History and Politics in Russia before the Revolution
Authors: Emmons Terence
Published: June 2019

An introduction to the author’s engagement with the history of historical writing in Russia and the Soviet Union, with special attention to the “new direction” studies in social and economic history that flourished in the last few decades before the revolution of 1917.
Academician S.A. Zhebelev and State Hermitage
Authors: Ananiev Vitaliy Gennad’evich , Bukharin Mikhail Dmitrievich
Published: June 2019

This article analyzes the relations between the State Hermitage Museum and Sergei Aleksandrovich Zhebelev, one of the most important ancient historians working in Russia in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on previously unpublished archival sources in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the article enlarges our knowledge of Zhebelev’s biography and scholarly activity, describes his position on preserving Russia’s cultural heritage, and sheds new light on the history of the Hermitage – in particular, on its evolving structure as a research institution.
(Re)Discovering George Vernadsky
Authors: Halperin Charles J.
Published: June 2019

Andrei Dvornichenko’s impressive Russkii istorik. Georgii Vernadskii. Puteshestviia v mire liudei, idei i sobytii is the first biography of the Russian émigré historian of Russia who was one of the founding fathers of the study of Russian history in the United States. Dvornichenko’s book surveys Vernadsky’s life and prodigious scholarly output in detail. It is now the standard work on the subject. Anyone interested in the Russian emigration, Russian historiography, or Russian history in general should read this monograph.
From Sent-down Youth to Scaled-up Town
Authors: White Thomas
Published: June 2019

In recent years pastoral regions of western China have been subjected to significant spatial transformation in the name of economic development and environmental protection. Scholarly accounts of these regions have often focused on the state’s efforts to sedentarise herding households; this article, however, examines the significance of the administrative recategorisation of a pastoral district and the relocation of its centre, in line with the state’s policy of creating towns in rural areas. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Alasha, in the west of Inner Mongolia, I show how this particular transformation involved the combination of elements from two distinct spatial formations which characterised state territorialisation in this part of China in the early socialist period: the pastoral district or commune, and the military-agricultural colony. While much recent literature has highlighted the enduring legacy of pre-socialist spatiality in the face of the modern state’s projects of spatial reconfiguration, this article attends to the ways in which the spatial transformations of the early socialist period continue to reverberate today. I show how, for local ethnic Mongolians, the meanings inscribed upon the landscape during this period, and the infrastructural orientations which were established then, today sit awkwardly with official visions of an urban future.
Physical and Social Spaces ‘Under Construction’
Authors: Kobi Madlen
Published: June 2019

Urbanisation in Xinjiang in the last two decades has been accompanied by immigration, a real-estate construction boom and changing residential patterns. This paper discusses how the construction of new residential compounds occurs simultaneously to the construction of social, spatial and ethnic belongings in oasis towns in southern Xinjiang with a particular focus on the city of Aksu. While investment considerations and the promise of a modernised urban lifestyle motivate citizens to purchase housing, the market-oriented real-estate business since the end of the 1990s also offers opportunities for Han and Uyghur residents to draw ethnic boundaries. The choice of a neighbourhood as well as the preference of interior design are frequently used to mark ethnicity. However, ethnic residential choices are restricted by work unit affiliation and the available socio-economic means. Thus, although discourses of Han and Uyghur residents display clear tendencies of ethnic segregation, urban residential spaces are in fact often ethnically mixed.
The Road to Modernisation
Authors: Shanatibieke Mayinu
Published: June 2019

In China, the pastoralism debate has always been closely connected to discourses of modernisation (xiandaihua) and development (fazhan). In recent years, sedentarisation has been intensely promoted by the central government as a way to modernise pastoralists. Sedentarisation is seen by the government as a means to urbanise pastoralists and improve their access to health facilities and educational institutions. Sedentarisation is also promoted as a way of protecting degraded rangeland ecology. However, recent sedentarisation policies have so far had ambiguous effects. While infrastructure in pastoral areas has to a certain degree improved, the policy has also created new socio-economic problems.
Making Space for Development
Authors: Ptackova Jarmila
Published: June 2019

Large transformations in the landscape and subsequent shifts of population have become an integral part of state development projects in western China. In the context of expanding infrastructures such as river damming, large-scale resettlement might appear to represent an effective solution in response to immediate or short-term needs. However, viewed from a long-term perspective it has the potential to unleash a range of major social, economic and environmental effects which may have an impact on not only the affected people and surrounding landscapes. This paper discusses major challenges of relocation evoked through the damming of the Yellow River in Qinghai Province.
The Formation and Regulations of the Military Hunt in Qing Mongolia
Authors: Chuluu Khohchahar E.
Published: June 2019

In the Mongolian tradition, hunting and war have had strong connections with each other. During the Qing Empire, Mongolian hunts were not only local practices, but were also involved in the Qing empire-building project. On the other hand, the collective hunt itself was by nature a dangerous activity that contained potential physical risks from wild animal attacks as well as human errors. It is conventionally understood that the hunt therefore must have been well organised in order to secure success and security. But how a hunt was organised and operated in reality has not yet been well examined. This study explores the organisational structure and regulations of a military hunt in Qing Inner Mongolia, a geographically important zone where both the Manchus and Mongols actively held hunts. The primary focus of this article is the nineteenth-century Alasha Banner grand hunt, a well-organised and documented Mongolian military hunt from the Qing period.
Women as Chieftains in Modern Kham History
Authors: Tsomu Yudru
Published: June 2019

Drawing on oral and written Chinese and Tibetan accounts, this paper aims to provide a preliminary discussion of the role of Khampa women in political life by examining the lives of three notable women chieftains in the first half of the twentieth century. The case studies demonstrate that there were different paths or avenues for women to rise to power, since due to traditional biases against female political leaders, limitations and obstacles hindered their ability to access and exercise power. These accounts show that at the key juncture when a family was faced with crisis in the turbulent late Qing and Republican periods, it was often the female ruler who exercised power and authority and saved the family. Their assumption of power was possible because, in situations involving the absence of male heirs, both traditional customary law in Kham and the laws of the late Qing and Republican periods allowed women to inherit titles and positions. These women were caught up in power struggles between multiple forces, notably male leaders within their lineages, competing males from other lineages, sub-state agents like provincial warlords, the Chinese state and sometimes the Tibetan government. These examples demonstrate how the fragmentary, decentralised nature of interstitial polities opened up additional spaces for local leadership and particularly for female leadership.
Wisdom in Controversy
Authors: Keeler Annabel
Published: June 2019

Sufi authors, such as Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj (d. 378/998) and Ruzbihan Baqlī (d. 606/1209), were concerned to explain the shaṭḥiyyāt, often translated as “ecstatic utterances”, of earlier mystics and defend them against the condemnation they received from those who had neither the experience nor the purview to understand them. Among the shaṭḥiyyāt explained by these two authors are a number of the most infamous utterances of Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī. Yet the controversial speech of Abū Yazīd (or Bāyazīd) appears not to have been limited to that which he uttered in a state of ecstasy, nor were those who objected to such speech solely the scholars of outward knowledge, as is commonly held. Drawing on the corpus of sayings attributed to Bāyazīd and anecdotes about him as recorded in some of the earliest available sources, this essay will look more closely at reports of his engagement with his contemporaries and reasons why he may have been at odds with certain groups in the community. It will consider the significance some of his most controversial and paradoxical sayings, as well as the contradictory nature of some of his own statements about himself, bombastic and apparently boastful on the one hand, and extremely self-critical on the other. Lastly it will consider the shatḥ (plural shaṭaḥāt or shaṭḥiyyāt), its definition by Sufis and the aptness of its translation by French scholars, starting with Henri Corbin, as “paradoxe”.
Sufi Qurʾān Commentaries, Genealogy and Originality
Authors: Coppens Pieter
Published: June 2019

This article reflects on some methodological issues in the study of tafsīr, taking the dissemination of the ideas of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) on the non-perpetuity of the chastisement of Hell in Sufi tafsīr as a case study. I show that Ibn ʿArabī’s ideas on the issue were hardly adopted by later Sufi commentators on the Qurʾān. I investigate whether just as its exoteric counterpart, and despite the claim of Sufi tafsīr being rooted in ‘experience’ and thus being more ‘original’, Sufi tafsīr is ‘genealogical’ and is thus more conservative in its content. Although the Sufi genre of tafsīr generally seems more willing to include Sufi sayings and ideas from outside the boundaries of the genre, this does not make it adaptive of the non-mainstream ideas of Ibn ʿArabī on Hell proposed outside the genre. This brings up some considerations on the use and usability of tafsīr as a source of intellectual history.