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’.

scholarly journals The Unsolved Problem of Stellar Origins

1996 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 533-549
Author(s):  
Charles J. Lada
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
High Energy Physics ◽  
Gamma Ray ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Giant Molecular Clouds ◽  
Observational Astronomy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Large Telescopes ◽  
The Universe

We now stand at the threshold of the 21st century having witnessed perhaps the greatest era of astronomical discovery in the history of mankind. During the twentieth century the subject of astronomy was revolutionized and completely transformed by technology and physics. Advances in technology that produced radio astronomy, infrared astronomy, UV, X and γ ray astronomy, large telescopes on the ground, in balloons, aircraft and space coupled with advances in nuclear, atomic and high energy physics forever changed the way in which the universe is viewed. Indeed, it is altogether likely that future historians of science will consider the twentieth century as the Golden Age of observational astronomy. As a measure of how far we have come in the last 100 years, recall that at the turn of this century the nature of spiral nebulae and of the Milky Way itself as an island universe were not yet revealed. The expansion of the universe and the microwave background were not yet discovered and exotic objects such as quasars, pulsars, gamma-ray bursters and black holes were not even envisioned by the most imaginative authors of science fiction. The interstellar medium, with its giant molecular clouds, magnetic fields and obscuring dust was unknown. Not even the nature of stars, these most fundamental objects of the astronomical universe, was understood.

scholarly journals The Belief Stories in the Texts of Oral History of the People in Late Adulthood Period

2021 ◽  
pp. 423-430
Author(s):  
Damian Gocół
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Late Adulthood ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
The People ◽  
History Texts ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Devil

In my article, I analyze selected belief stories from the oral history texts. The research material contains the three biographical accounts of the people in late adulthood (over 65). The belief stories (belief tales) are one of the genres of speech typical for the accounts rooted in a folk view of the world. The demonic characters appear in them, e. g. the devil, the striga or the południca. The belief stories contain a detailed description of the world. They have an explanatory function. They are to explain how the world works. Belief stories do not appear often in the oral history texts created by the people in late adulthood who were not related to the countryside or were related to it in a limited extent. This way of shaping the narrative may be related to changes in the rationality of the narrators. The common and the scientific view of the world intersect in their narratives. The narrators add the numerous comments to their belief stories, in which they distance themselves from the folk view of the world or try to scientifically rationalize the fantastic events. Nevertheless, the fragments in which other genres of speech are realized, especially in anecdotes, reveal a clear relationship between the narrative of oral history and the common sense and belief vision of the world. The narrators often explain their own experiences by introducing elements of belief tales into other genres. Such fragments reveal the schemes of punishment and reward, non-worldly divine intervention, anthropomorphization of inanimate objects and assigning them the rank of demonic beings. Despite the intersection of different types of rationality in the narratives, a belief-based vision of the world still plays an important role in shaping of the oral narratives about the past.

scholarly journals Weighing Down the Landscape: The Quarry as a Site of Rural Modernity

2018 ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
Samuel Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
Art Galleries ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Art Works ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
A Site ◽  
Rural Industries

This chapter argues that late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artists seem to have been especially attracted by quarries, treating them as a means of exploring modernity through the lens of rural romanticism. Quarries regularly appear in paintings in many of the artists associated with rural modernity: William Rothenstein, Edward Wadsworth, Walter Bell, Roger Fry, and J. D. Fergusson, among them. Appreciating that there is no single way of categorising and representing quarries, this chapter (the first ever study of this important subject) explores many of the common themes to be found in paintings of quarries in the first half of the twentieth century. It considers a wide range of artists and art-works — the majority of which are owned by rural art galleries — in close relation to the history of rural industries in such regions as Cornwall, West Yorkshire, and Edinburgh.

scholarly journals NATIONALISM IN VIETNAM AND KOREAN LITERATURE IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES: CASES OF PHAN BOI CHAU AND SHIN CHAE-HO

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tran Tung Ngoc ◽  
Nguyen Le Thu
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Korean Literature ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
History Of Literature

East Asian literature in the early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of many great authors who gathered all personality of a patriot - writer - historian - revolutionary activist. They emphasized literature does not serve artistic purposes, but social purposes, which touch the heart. Literature at this time conveyed the stream of national consciousness, nationalism, independence and freedom to all of the people and promoted their patriotism and the spirit of fighting for the nation and the people. This paper focuses on analyzing the nationalist ideology in the works of Phan Boi Chau and Shin Chae-ho in the history of literature of Vietnam and Korea in the early twentieth century. Thereby, the research provides an overview of the common characteristics of the nationalist literature in East Asia. In the research content, this paper recognizes the nationalist ideology of Korean and Vietnamese intellectuals in the transformation of the historical, political and social situation in the early twentieth century. On that basis, this paper identifies the characteristics of nationalism in Shin Chae-ho’s and Phan Boi Chau's works.

Symposium: The History of Women in Education

1997 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. v-xiv
Author(s):  
Christine Woyshner ◽  
Bonnie Hao Kuo Tai
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Informal Education ◽  
Educational Opportunities ◽  
Common School ◽  
Education Of Women ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
School Movement

The nineteenth century saw major advances in educational opportunities for women and girls, from the common school movement in the early part of the century to multiple opportunities in higher education at the century's close. In the 1800s, women began to play central roles in education — as teachers and as learners, in formal and informal education settings, on the frontier and in the cities. What did these advances mean for the education of women and girls in the twentieth century? This Symposium looks at developments in the education of women and girls over the course of the twentieth century, including research currently being conducted by and about women who historically have been excluded from mainstream academic discourse.

scholarly journals Aesthetic Experience as a Spiritual Support of Homo Post-Secularis

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Bychkov
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Spiritual Support ◽  
History Of ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Universe

The essay begins with an analysis of the cultural situation of humanity after its transition to secular mentality and a gradual disenchantment with secularism, which leads to the formation of post-secular mentality. It further suggests that aesthetic experience traditionally served as a bridge between the secular and the religious/spiritual and can serve in this capacity again in the post-secular age. It outlines the main traits of the post-secular person (homo post-saecularis). Two aspects of aesthetic experience are emphasized: its in-depth penetration into nature in an attempt to achieve unity with it, and the aesthetic observation of artworks. In pursuing both of these aspects, the post-secular person attempts, just as Romantics and Symbolists previously, to grasp something invisible beyond visible forms and escape from banal reality into higher spiritual realms of being, ultimately experiencing him- or herself as having a place in the universe. Aesthetic experience, if it is correctly understood and practiced, can give all this to the present-day post-secular person. The rest of the essay is devoted to a brief history of twentieth-century views of art, mainly in French and Russian thought, that foreshadow its post-secular role, and to the author’s authentic theoretical framework for understanding art and aesthetic experience, as well as his, equally authentic, program of how to achieve the post-secular function of art in practice for a present-day person.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHRUTI KAPILA
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bhagavad Gita ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
Political Modernity ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Violence ◽  
The Common ◽  
Bhagavad Gītā

This essay revises the common assumption that non-violence has been central to political modernity in India. The “extremist” nationalist B. G. Tilak, through a foundational philosophical reinterpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, created a modern theology of the Indian “political”. Tilak did so by directly confronting the question of the possibility of the “event” of war and the ethics of the conversion of kinsmen into enemies. Writing in the aftermath of the Swadeshi movement and from a prison cell in Rangoon, Tilak interpreted action as sacrificial duty that created a vocabulary of violence in which killing was naturalized. Violence, whether conceptual or otherwise, was not directed towards the “outsider” but was of meaning only when directed against the intimate. Unlike the distinction between friend and foe that has been taken as central to the understanding of the political in the twentieth century, it was instead the fraternal–enmity issue that framed the modern political in India. Tilak foregrounded the idea of a de-historicized political subject, whose existence was entirely dependent upon the event of violence itself. This helps to explain both the unprecedented violence that accompanied freedom and partition in 1947 and also the fact that it has remained unmemorialized to the present day.

“Spectacles in Color”: The Primitive Drag of Langston Hughes

PMLA ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 124 (3) ◽  
pp. 798-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam See
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Langston Hughes ◽  
Down Low ◽  
Gender Differentiation ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Universe

The chapter “Spectacles in Color” in Langston Hughes's first autobiography, The Big Sea (1940), envisions modernist Harlem culture as a drag performance and offers a useful rubric for understanding Hughes's The Weary Blues (1926), a lyric history of that culture whose poems characteristically cross gender, sexual, racial, and even formal lines. The Weary Blues employs a low-down, or nature-based, and down-low, or queer, aesthetic of racial and gender crossing that I term “primitive drag,” an aesthetic that ironically coincides with the stereotypes of African Americans and queers that were propagated by early-twentieth-century sexological science and degeneration theory: namely, that blacks and queers were unnatural and degenerate because they, unlike whites and heterosexuals, exhibited a lack of racial and gender differentiation. Disidentifying with those stereotypes, the primitive drag in The Weary Blues depicts queer feeling as natural and nature as queer, thus offering a productive paradox for rethinking literary histories of modernism and theories of sexuality by the rather Darwinian notion that “the nature of the universe,” as Hughes calls it, is always subject to change, or queering.

scholarly journals From Brussels to Bogor: Contacts, Networks and the History of the Bandung Conference 1955

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wildan Sena Utama
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Asian Group ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cold War

This article discusses the roots of the Bandung Conference of 1955 by tracing the alliance of Asian and African worldwide internationalism and anti-imperialism that existed since the early twentieth century. It attempts to show that although the conference emerged during the height of the Cold War, the network behind this alliance had gradually developed since the interwar period. The solidarity of this alliance lay in the common history of the colonized people that struggled to become sovereign. Contacts, meetings and conferences that took place in Europe and Asia juxtaposed the anti-imperialist movement of Asian and African countries. This article argues that the Bandung Conference 1955 was the culmination of relationships and connections of an Afro-Asian group who had been long oppressed by colonialism, racism and class superiority.

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