Spartan Literacy Revisited

2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen G. Millender
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political System ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Key Indicator ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Common ◽  
Written Word

According to several fourth-century Athenian sources, the Spartans were a boorish and uneducated people, who were either hostile toward the written word or simply illiterate. Building upon such Athenian claims of Spartan illiteracy, modern scholars have repeatedly portrayed Sparta as a backward state whose supposedly secretive and reactionary oligarchic political system led to an extremely low level of literacy on the part of the common Spartiate. This article reassesses both ancient and modern constructions of Spartan illiteracy and examines the ideological underpinnings of Athenian attacks on the ostensibly unlettered Lacedaemonians. Beginning with a close analysis of the available archaeological and literary evidence on Spartan public applications of literacy, it argues that the written word played a central role in the operation of the Spartan state, which utilized a variety of documents and required routine acts of literacy on the part of Spartiate commanders and ocials. Both the broad eligibility for the ephorate and the Lacedaemonians' chronic oliganthropia demonstrate that not all of the important public functionaries whose duties customarily involved reading and writing were members of the Spartan elite. The fact that Spartan office-holders acquired their literacy skills from a compulsory and comprehensive system of public education, which promoted the creation of a collective identity, further argues in favor of a literacy that was more broadly based than previous scholars have concluded. The article then accounts for these representations of Spartan illiteracy by locating them in the context of the changing relationship between orality and literacy in fifth- and fourth-century Athens. It argues that as the written word played an increasingly important role in Athenian democratic practice and ideology, it began to performtwo interconnected functions: as a signicant component in Athenian self-denition and as a key indicator of cultural and political dierence between Athens and its Peloponnesian enemies.

Collective Identity in National Anthems

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Hesham Mesbah
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political System ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
National Symbols ◽  
The Common

This chapter explores how national anthems of African and non-African Arab nations reflect a collective national identity. The national anthems of 22 Arab countries were analyzed using the textual thematic analysis to identify the common attributes of national identity in these anthems and the variance in referring to political entities, national symbols, and natural artifacts according to the political system (republic vs. monarchy) in the country. The analysis shows five thematic components of the national identity presented by those anthems, with an emphasis on the themes of religion and local political leaders in the anthems of monarchies. On the other hand, republics base their identity on religion, history, and nation-related natural and national artifacts. The anthems of the republics show a higher level of complexity (thematic richness) and more tendency to use emotionally charged, forceful language, in contrast to the anthems of the monarchies.

Zambia's Second Republic —the Establishment of a One-Party State

1974 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Pettman
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Common Enemy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Party State

Zambia inherited a system of government and administration in 1964 which was ill-suited to the tasks of political development to which her new leaders were dedicated. What little national unity and mobilisation had been achieved in the independence struggle declined with the removal of the common enemy. The Government rested on a fragile base, without the support of agreed rules and practices to limit and contain conflict, and without adequate instruments available for the implementation of its policies. So the search began for a more suitable political system, which could cope with the new needs of independence, and provide for the stability of the state and the survival of the Government.

scholarly journals Invited guest or wedding crasher?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Everhart
Keyword(s):  
Information Literacy ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Common Core ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
School Librarian ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
School Librarians ◽  
National School ◽  
Information Literacy Skills ◽  
The Common

Nationwide education initiatives are underway in various parts of the world, including a push for national curricula in the U.S. and Australia. In Australia, school librarians have been invited guests to provide input into the integration of digital/information literacy across curriculum areas. Conversely, U.S., school librarians crashed the wedding by actively responding to the Common Core Standards initiative by highlighting areas where information literacy skills, dispositions, responsibilities and assessments are integrated – even though they weren’t asked. Other examples of successful and not so successful national school librarian involvement to infuse 21st century skills and implications for professional practice are discussed.

Simple Hardworking Christian Folks, or the Self-Image of Contemporary Belarusian Kolkhozniks

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-279
Author(s):  
Anna Engelking
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Field Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Building Process ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Christian Nation ◽  
Source Materials ◽  
Insight Into

This article concerns the anthropological inquiry about collective identity of contemporary Belarusian kolkhozniks. The author had conducted her field research (1993-2011) in both west and east Belarus. Source materials consist of about seven hundred conversations with individuals overwhelmingly more than sixty years of age. By analyzing and interpreting their narrative, the author traced the implicit values, norms, rules, basic semiotic dichotomies, and distinctive attributes in search of an unbiased insight into the content, structure, and building process of collective identity of the subjects under study. She concludes that the dichotomies, constitutive for collective identity of kolkhozniks—“peasant” versus “lord,” “peasant” versus “Jew,” and “Christian” versus “Jew”—result in the self-definition of muzhik-kolkhoznik as a simple, hard-working man “from here” belonging to a “Christian nation.” Neither the nation nor motherland, state nor language, belongs to the principal values of this group, which are “working the land” and “faith in God.” As a result of the petrifaction of the old model of the serfdom manor by the Soviet kolkhoz system, in a Belarusian village we presently encounter one of the last European residuals of premodern mentality and social identity. The image of Belarusian kolkhozniks’ collective identity has little to do with the popular category of Homo sovieticus and with the common stereotype of the kolkhoz. The human subject of the author’s anthropological reflection shows up as a person dealing amazingly well with extremely difficult living conditions and the modern, vivid personification of the archaic Homo religiosus.

The Rhetoric of Heresiological Prefaces

2020 ◽  
pp. 180-197
Author(s):  
Richard Flower
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Technical Literature ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Textual Authority ◽  
Literary Phenomenon ◽  
Ancient Texts

The genre of heresiology—catalogues of heretics and their supposed beliefs—flourished in late antiquity, especially from the late fourth century. This chapter forms part of a reappraisal of this underappreciated literary phenomenon by considering the rhetorical aspects of a number of heresiologies within the context of classical technical literature. Drawing on parallels from a range of ancient texts, especially medical and encyclopaedic writings, this chapter focuses on the prefaces of heresiologies by Epiphanius of Salamis, Filastrius of Brescia and Augustine of Hippo to illuminate how they employed recognized techniques for the construction of textual authority. Through such close analysis, it is possible to trace the development of heresiology as technē, with each author drawing on both established classical tropes and also the writings of their predecessors in the genre to create their own distinctive rhetoric that advertised the reliable orthodoxy and intellectual supremacy of both writer and text.

Democracy Reloaded

2020 ◽  
pp. 302-316
Author(s):  
Cristina Flesher Fominaya
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
The Impact

This chapter presents the major contributions of the book and the question of the role pro-democracy movements can play in democratic regeneration in times of crisis. It argues that their emancipatory potential lies in critique and resignification of the meaning of democracy, and in prefigurative experimentation in democratic practice. Activists in 15-M developed shared master frames about the crisis, austerity, and democracy that enabled them to not only develop a strong collective identity, but also to effectively contest hegemonic narratives used to justify austerity politics. In this way democracy also became one core factor in enabling cross-sectoral alliances, in both form (movement practices that prefiguratively embodied a “15-M” way of manifesting democratic principles) and in content (diagnoses of deficient democracy and new imaginaries proposed to correct these deficiencies).The chapter evaluates the impact and significance of the 15-M movement, and the potential for autonomous movements to reload democracy in times of crisis.

Social Imperialism and Wilhelmine Germany

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian L. D. Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Interpretive Scheme

In recent times the historiography of the Wilhelmine Reich has clearly reflected the influence of Eckart Kehr and of later historians who have adopted and developed his work. The Rankean dogma of the Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign policy) has been replaced by a new slogan, Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic policy). The resultant interpretive scheme is by now quite familiar. The social structure of the Bismarckean Reich, it is said, was shaken to its foundations by the impact of industrialization. A growing class of industrialists sought to break the power of the feudal agrarian class, and a rapidly developing proletariat threatened to upset the status quo. The internecine struggle between industrialists and agrarians was dangerous for both and for the state, since the final beneficiary might be the proletariat. Consequently agrarians and industrialists closed their ranks against the common social democrat enemy and sought to tame the proletariat, which had grown restive under the impact of the depression, by means of a Weltpolitik which would obviate the effects of the depression, heal the economy, and vindicate the political system responsible for such impressive achievements. Hans-Ulrich Wehler and others call this diversionary strategy against the proletarian threat social imperialism; and this, it is said, is the domestic policy primarily responsible for Wilhelmine imperialism.

Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship: Arab Citizens of the Jewish State

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 432-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoav Peled
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Common ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

The citizenship status of its Arab citizens is the key to Israel's ability to function as anethnic democracy, that is, a political system combining democratic institutions with the dominance of one ethnic group. The confluence of republicanism and ethnonationalism with liberalism, as principles of legitimation, has resulted in two types of citizenship: republican for Jews and liberal for Arabs. Thus, Arab citizens enjoy civil and political rights but are barred from attending to the common good.The Arab citizenship status, while much more restricted than the Jewish, has both induced and enabled Arabs to conduct their political struggles within the framework of the law, in sharp contrast to the noncitizen Arabs of the occupied territories. It may thus serve as a model for other dominant ethnic groups seeking to maintain both their dominance and a democratic system of government.

The fire next time. Cosmology, allegoresis, and salvation in the Derveni Papyrus

1997 ◽  
Vol 117 ◽  
pp. 117-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn W. Most
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Organic Decomposition

Just in case there were any hardened sceptics who still doubted, in the second half of the twentieth century, that our world is ruled by an inept and rather junior God with immature judgment and a nasty sense of humour, He did his best to convince them by arranging for the discovery of the Derveni papyrus in 1962. The soldier who was cremated and buried in that Macedonian village towards the end of the fourth century bc had intended that the text of this papyrus be devoured by the flames of his pyre; but as it happened one of the burning logs fell onto the roll, covering and charring its top third and thereby saving that part both from immediate annihilation by the fire itself and from subsequent destruction by organic decomposition; then the Greek excavators sharp-wittedly recognized that the roll was not wood but papyrus, and the restorer of the Viennese papyrus collection managed to put together the more than 200 fragments into 26 columns of text. As A.E. Housman wrote in another connection, such a series of highly unlikely incidents can evidently not be ascribed to ‘chance and the common course of nature’, but only to divine intervention: ‘and when one considers the history of man and the spectacle of the universe I hope one may say without impiety that divine intervention might have been better employed elsewhere’.

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