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Kollektiv zum Recht
(2022)
At different times and places, civic engagement in nonviolent resistance (NVR) has repeatedly shown to be an effective tool in times of conflict to initiate societal change from below. History teaches us that there have been successes (Mahatma Gandhi in India) and failures (the Tiananmen Square protests in China).
Along with the recognition of the duality between transformative potential and stark consequences, the historical development of NVR was accompanied by the emergence of scholarly debate, fractured along disputes around purpose, character and effectivity of nonviolent actions taken by civil society stakeholders engaged in making their voices heard. One of the field’s current points of interest is the examination of the long-term effects of NVR movements resulting in societal transformation on the stability and adequacy of a subsequently altered or emerging democracy, suggesting that NVR contributes positively to the sustainable and representative design of an egalitarian governing system.
The conclusion of the Nepalese civil war in 2006 should pose as an unambiguous example for the illustration of this phenomenon, but simultaneously raises the question why there was no successful implementation of a transitional process focusing on the needs of the victims.
Transitional justice is conventionally theorized as how a society deals with past injustices after regime change and alongside democratization. Nonetheless, scholars have not reached a consensus on what is to be included or excluded. Recent ideas of transformative justice seek to expand the understanding of transitional justice to include systemic restructuring and socioeconomic considerations. In the context of Nicaragua — where two transitions occurred within an 11-year span — very little transitional justice took place, in terms of the conventional concept of top-down legalistic mechanisms; however, distinct structural changes and socioeconomic policies can be found with each regime change. By analyzing the transformative justice elements of Nicaragua’s dual transition, this chapter seeks to expand the understanding of transitional justice to include how these factors influence goals of transitions such as sustainable peace and reconciliation for past injustices. The results argue for increased attention to transformative justice theories and a more nuanced conception of justice.
While the concept of transitional justice and its range of measures have gained importance on an international level to come to terms with major crimes of the past, colonial crimes and mass violence committed by Western actors have not been addressed by transitional justice so far. In this chapter, the Herero’s and Nama’s struggle for justice for the genocide on their ancestors by Germany from 1904 – 1908 and the arising challenges are set in relation to conceptual debates in the field of transitional justice. Building on current debates in the field, suggesting more structural and transformative conceptualizations of transitional justice and an approach ‘from below’, it is argued that decolonial activism of formerly colonized communities and transitional justice debates can inform each other in a dialogic and fruitful form to formulate suggestions for a process towards post-colonial justice.
This paper aims to contribute a different approach to transitional justice, one in which political decisions are rocketed to the forefront of the research. Theory asserts that, after a transition to democracy, it is the constituency who defines the direction a country will take. Therefore, pleasing them should be at the fore of the responses taken by those in power. However, reality distances itself from theory. History provides us with many examples of the contrary, which indicates that the politicization of transitional justice is an ever-present event. The first section will outline current definitions and obstacles faced by transitional justice, focusing on the implicit ties between them and the aforementioned politicization. An original categorization of Transitional Justice as a method of analysis will also be introduced, which I denominate Political Opportunism. The case of Argentina, a country that is usually described as a model to export but that after 35 years is still dealing with the consequences brought by the contradictions of using several methods of justice, will then be reinterpreted through this perspective. At the end of the paper, the inevitable question will be posed: can this new angle be exported and implemented in every transition?
This chapter deals with the problem that theories of peace building, conflict resolution and reconciliation were predominately created in the West and, therefore, do not necessarily fit the understanding of peace, conflict, and resolution in non-Western societies and cultures. Within these societies, the acceptance of suffering may also be higher, which leads to different priorities of conflict resolution approaches. Furthermore, this chapter deals with the question of whether the current understanding of wars and the nature of conflict change the basis of established conflict theories. These theoretical approaches are then applied in Sierra Leone as a non-Western negotiation scenario.
Beim Resonanzenergietransfer werden Fotonen von einem angeregten Donator über einen Wechselwirkungsabstand auf einen Akzeptor übertragen. Nach der quantenmechanischen Theorie von FÖRSTER kann dieser Abstand mit Hilfe des Überlappungsintegrals von Fluoreszenzspektrum des Donators und Absorp-tionsspektrum des Akzeptors berechnet werden.
Eine andere Möglichkeit der Bestimmung erhält man mit Hilfe von statistischen Modellen, die in einem Überblick zusammengestellt sind. Dabei kann der Abstand durch Auswertung der Löschkurve bestimmt werden.
In dieser Arbeit wird dazu eine weitere statistische Variante der Bestimmung des Wechselwirkungsradius hinzugefügt und an einem Beispiel ausführlich demonstriert.
Legolas in Troy
(2022)
The Lord of the Rings movies were a cinematic phenomenon, extremely popular. They are not often considered as works of Classical Reception. These films’ influence on subsequent ancient world movies has been understudied, and undervalued. A common model of cinematic Greece and Rome in the twenty-first century looks solely back to Gladiator. Undoubtedly Gladiator, and its commercial success, is important to how ancient world movies developed; but focussing solely on Gladiator does not explain a move away from Roman history towards Greek mythology, culminating in a flurry of movies about Greek mythological heroes. Lord of the Rings is an overlooked factor. Already in Troy two LOTR stars are in key roles, and the battle scenes seek to imitate those of Jackson’s trilogy. 300 mythologizes far beyond Frank Miller’s graphic novel, adding several monsters; LOTR’s influence is at play here. LOTR’s influence was one factor in a complex process that saw ancient world movies change in the twentyfirst century. LOTR fed into an atmosphere that moved ancient world movies towards Greece, away from Rome, through promoting the appeal of a combination of epic and the fantastic.
G. B. Smith’s “Elzevir Cicero” and the Construction of Queer Immortality in Tolkien’s Mythopoeia
(2022)
Following the death of J. R. R. Tolkien in 1973, an obituary appeared in The Times quoting Tolkien as having said that his “love for the classics took ten years to recover from lectures on Cicero and Demosthenes.” This contentious relationship between Tolkien and the Greco-Roman past contrasts with the work of unabashedly classicizing poet Geoffrey Bache Smith, a school friend of Tolkien’s who was killed in the Great War. When Tolkien collected Smith’s poems for posthumous publication, this paper shows, Smith’s engagements with the ancient world became part of Tolkien’s own philosophy of immortality through literary composition. Within his 1931 poem “Mythopoeia,” and his 1939 speech “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien articulated a unified method of mythmaking by looking back to his lost friend’s understanding of mythology as a type of ancient story-craft that enabled poets to preserve the dead against the ravages of time. By tracing a triangular path through the relationships between Tolkien, Smith, and the classical past inhabited by figures like Cicero, this paper argues that Tolkien not only recovered a “love for the classics,” but used classical texts to “recover” his lost friend, granting Smith a queer, classical immortality in return.
The Throne of the King
(2022)
A conspicuous feature of Tolkien’s description of the city of Minas Tirith in The Return of The King is the depiction of two thrones in the Great Hall; one empty throne reserved for the king, and one seat for the steward of Gondor. This paper aims to ascertain the late antique and mediaeval sources of inspiration behind Tolkien’s creation of the throne room in Minas Tirith. As a starting point, we shall compare the setting of the two thrones in Minas Tirith with a motive in Christian iconography, the hetoimasia, and its architectural expression in the Chrysotriklinos, the throne room in the Byzantine Great Palace in Constantinople. Next, we shall show that Tolkien intentionally obscured his appropriation of the Byzantine throne room to create a multi-layered image of rulership, in accordance with his aesthetics of applicability and allegory. In conclusion, we shall formulate some remarks on the interpretation of the association between the Byzantine Chrysotriklinos and the Gondorian Great Hall. As a form of Tolkien’s literary process of sub-creation, the description of the throne room in Minas Tirith serves to emphasise the significance of The Return of the King as a retelling of Christ’s restoration of the fallen world, placing the work of Tolkien in the context of a strong personal Catholic piety.
Seneca the Younger, in his Letters, describes a sacred grove as a “thick grove of ancient trees which rise far above the usual height and block the view of the sky with their umbrella of intertwining branches” (Seneca the Younger, Letters 41.3). Fangorn Forest is clearly a sacred site as defined by Seneca, made even more sacred by the presence of the Ents. Thus, to violate it would be a terrible act of desecration, not unlike Lucan’s narrator’s shock at Caesar’s desecration of the sacred grove at Massilia (Lucan BC 3.447 – 8, quoted in the title of this paper). After exploring the relationship between Ents and sacred groves, the paper will compare the fate of Caesar to that of Saruman, who violated Fangorn Forest. Just as Augoustakis (2006) argues that the violation of the grove foreshadows Caesar’s death, so too Saruman’s death at the hands of Wormtongue becomes a fitting punishment for his violation of Fangorn.
This paper examines the intertext between Tolkien’s Ithilien episode in Two Towers and artistic presentations of plants in the art and literature of Augustan Rome. We argue that the evident ‘superbloom’ depicted in the ekphrasis of the flora of Ithilien recalls both Vergilian botanical adynata (especially in the Georgics) and Roman wall paintings of the Augustan period.
Roman Heroes at Helm’s Deep?
(2022)
This article analyzes Tolkien’s narrative of the Battle of Helm’s Deep as a retelling of the Horatius Cocles episode from Livy’s AUC, which contains descriptions of the defenses and the bridge, a rally encouraged by Horatius, his bold stand both with his companions and alone, and the honors paid to him after the battle. Tolkien’s Battle of Helm’s Deep contains the same elements split across two narratives: the defense of the causeway leading to the gates of the Deep by Aragorn, Éomer, and Gimli; and, after the fall of the Deeping wall, Aragorn’s defiant stand alone on the stairway leading to the inner doors of the Hornburg. Aragorn’s double action demonstrates a fulfillment of Livy’s exemplary arc. Tolkien’s knowledge of Macaulay’s “Horatius” provides a possible intermediary that accounts for various additions to the story. However, the larger structure of Tolkien’s narrative as well as the imagery that resonates throughout the text distinctly evoke the vivid descriptions of Livy. While both sets of heroes make brave stands against their enemies, Tolkien’s warriors represent a civilizing force in their efforts to build and restore their defenses while Livy’s Roman heroes destroy the bridge to save their state.
Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings employ traditional races from fairy tales: elves, men and dwarves. These peoples are differentiated principally by their dominant desires, but also by their speech, diet, and realms. I argue that these three races are significantly inspired by the three aspects that characterize the Republic’s tripartite soul—logistikon, thumoeides, and epithumetikon—along with their respective principal desires: desire for truth, greatness, and material goods. For Tolkien, therefore, these races have a corporate or political psychology that explains who they are as peoples in the history of Middle-earth. I offer a comprehensive view of the major races, connecting the dwarves with the appetitive artisans of the Republic, humans with the honour- and glory-seeking auxiliaries, and elves with the ruling guardians. This treatment explains the artisanal dwarves, as well as the battle-loving men (and women) of Rohan and Gondor, and the nostalgic, ‘anamnetic’ condition of exile that distinguishes the elves. Indeed, the condition of elves in many descriptions recalls a Platonic philosopher returned to the Cave, as well as the Neo-Platonic sagacity pictured in the biographies of Plotinus and Proclus.
"Orfeo out of Care"
(2022)
The paper focuses on an example of multiple-step reception: the contribution of the classical story of Orpheus and Eurydice and the mediaeval lay Sir Orfeo to Tolkien’s work.
In the first part, I compare the lay with Virgilian and Ovidian versions of Orpheus’ myth. This comparison shows the anonymous author’s deep knowledge of the ancient texts and complex way of rewriting them through stealing and hybridization.
The lay was highly esteemed by Tolkien, who translated it and took inspiration from it while describing the Elven kingdom in The Hobbit and building the storyline of Beren and Lúthien in The Silmarillion. Through this key tale, Orpheus/Orfeo’s romance has a deep influence also on Aragorn and Arwen’s story in The Lord of the Rings. The most important element that Tolkien takes from the Sir Orfeo figuration of the ancient story is undoubtedly the insertion of political theme: the link established between the recovery of the main character’s beloved and the return to royal responsability.
The second part of the paper is, thus, dedicated to the reception of Sir Orfeo and the classical myth in Tolkien. It shows how in his work the different steps of the tradition of Orpheus’ story are co-present, creating an inextricable substrate of inspiration that nourishes his imagination.
The paper investigates Tolkien’s narratives of decline through the lens of their classical ancestry. Narratives of decline are widespread in ancient culture, in both philosophical and literary discourses. They normally posit a gradual degradation (moral and ontological) from an idealized Golden Age, which went hand-in-hand with increasing detachment of gods from mortal affairs. Narratives of decline are also at the core of Tolkien’s mythology, constituting yet another underresearched aspect of classical influence on Tolkien. Such Classical narratives reverberate e.g. in Tolkien’s division of Arda’s history into ages, from an idealized First Age filled with Joy and Light to a Third Age, described as “Twilight Age (…) the first of the broken and changed world” (Letters 131). More generally, these narratives are related to Tolkien’s notorious perception of history as a “long defeat” (Letters 195) and to that “heart-racking sense of the vanished past” which pervades Tolkien’s works – the emotion which, in his words, moved him “supremely” and which he found “small difficulty in evoking” (Letters 91). The paper analyses the reception of narratives of decline in Tolkien’s legendarium, pointing out similarities but also contrasts and differences, with the aim to discuss some key patterns of (classical) reception in Tolkien’s theory and practice (‘renewal’, ‘accommodation’, ‘focalization’).
Vergil was a fundamental source of inspiration for Tolkien, not only when writing the Lord of the Rings, but also at the beginning of his “world-building”. The Fall of Gondolin, written in 1916, was modeled upon the Aeneid, whose second book shares many similarities with the description of Gondolin’s last day. For instance, the attack that seals the fate of the city takes place during a feast in both works, whereas both protagonists (Aeneas and Tuor) leave wives and sons to fight the enemy and witness deaths of their kings (Priam/Turgon). Other analogies include the topos of the fall of the tallest tower of the city as well as the scenes of Creusa/Idril clasping the knees of her husband and begging him not to go back to the battle. Tolkien chose the Aeneid as his main model because, in his opinion, the Aeneid and The Fall of Gondolin evoked the air of antiquity and melancholy. Vergil’s nostalgia for a “lost world” conveyed in the Aeneid greatly resembles the nostalgia pervading both Tolkien’s writing and life.
The following introduction sketches the status questionis of the research on the influence of Greco-Roman antiquity on the works of Tolkien and provides details about the volume’s theoretical impetus and its broad themes. The editors discuss Tolkien’s complicated and indirect relationship with classical models, underscoring certain emergent themes in volume’s contributions, such as decline, multifocal reception and relationship with nature.
Beim Resonanzenergietransfer werden Fotonen von einem angeregten Donator über einen Wechselwirkungsabstand auf einen Akzeptor übertragen. Nach der quantenmechanischen Theorie von FÖRSTER kann dieser Abstand mit Hilfe des Überlappungsintegrals von Fluoreszenzspektrum des Donators und Absorp-tionsspektrum des Akzeptors berechnet werden.
Eine andere Möglichkeit der Bestimmung erhält man mit Hilfe von statistischen Modellen, die in einem Überblick zusammengestellt sind. Dabei kann der Abstand durch Auswertung der Löschkurve bestimmt werden.
In dieser Arbeit wird dazu eine weitere statistische Variante der Bestimmung des Wechselwirkungsradius hinzugefügt und an einem Beispiel ausführlich demonstriert.
From the fluid dresses woven from precious materials evoking the iconic statues of Antiquity to the revival of Spartan shoes, two emblematic fashion trends will help us study the place of Greek Antiquity in contemporary women’s fashion collections. Ordinary as well as extraordinary, what do these reminiscences tell? Can they permit to understand the boundaries that structure and govern the fashion’s worlds? Numerous and diverse, the differences and the similarities of the ways in which classical references are used allow us to study the relations of power in which the specificities of haute couture and ready-to-wear are defined. The values, the entry criteria, the operating hierarchies as well as the very acceptance of the word “fashion” are different from one environment to another. From the catwalks of big fashion houses on Avenue Montaigne such as Chanel to the youngest brands, the differentiated readings and uses of Antiquity raise the question of the symbolic value of classics in fashion.
In March 2021, the IMAGINES Project – an international and interdisciplinary research network for the modern reception of antiquity in the visual and performing arts – held their seventh conference online. The event focused on PLAYFUL CLASSICS, and was hosted from Göttingen University by the organizers Juliette Harrisson, Antje Kuhle and Martin Lindner.
The keynote by Dunstan Lowe on „The Danger of Seriousness: Play and the Future of Classics“ outlined the potential of researching classical reception as a creative process. The following sections brought this to life with in-depth treatments of the underlying mechanics of constructing and deconstructing, playful learning, the „Faces of Antiquity“, forms of interaction and national/nationalistic traditions. The programme combined scholarly contributions with presentations and workshops by various artists and open discussion elements.
The shift to an online format allowed the participation of an unusually international audience, while the interactive elements – including a thematic game as a continuous side event – especially encouraged a large number of students to participate actively. Therefore, this conference report will not just summarize the content of the event, but also provide a student perspective on attending a conference on classical reception – a research area which is mostly neglected in the teaching curriculum.
Demagogen dichten
(2022)
Manipulative rhetoric is a common issue in ancient sources. As the issue of political populism and rhetoric still attracts a high degree of interest among a wide range of people, the author, a singer-songwriter, attempts to ‘revive’ these ancient sources and to adapt them into a lyrical/musical format for modern audiences, in order to test different strategies of manipulation and gauge the reactions of modern audiences. The following article describes the process of adapting and performing two of these experiments, as well as the results and feedback from audiences. The ancient case studies chosen for this are Thucydides’ description of how Alcibiades lead the Athenians into a fatal expedition to Sicily, and Xenophon’s blames of two public orators for executing Athenian generals after the battle of Arginusae through their manipulative speeches.
Given the immense ethnic and cultural diversity as well as the vast geographical dimensions of the Roman Empire, the teaching of Roman antiquity comprises an enormous potential to deal with the increasing heterogeneity in German-speaking classrooms. This article aims to show how the majority of contemporaneous Latin textbooks, however, fail to use this potential by being limited to mono-perspective and Eurocentric approaches to the ancient world.
In spite of didactical claims to foster students’ intercultural competence, most of the textbooks depict the city of Rome as an ethnically and culturally homogeneous sphere. At the same time, they present the Roman Empire nearly exclusively from the perspective of representatives of Italian-born, powerful upper-class families firmly connected to ‘Roman’ culture. In doing so, the Latin textbooks falsify the ancient historical realities and deprive students of the perspectives of figures like provincials or slaves. Furthermore, the textbooks’ narrative scope clearly focusses on Rome and Greece, still paying noticeable attention to West-European provinces, with the African and Asian ones being remarkably excluded. Only few exceptions among the textbooks apply alternative approaches which allow students to engage with the Roman Empire’s intercultural dynamics in a more differentiated and multi-perspective way.
Within Persona 5’s modern Tokyo setting, imagined worlds are created that represent the cognitive processes of various characters. These ‘palaces’ allow the player to explore locations far removed from the game’s real-world, contemporary backdrop. One episode creates an ancient Egyptian world. This article examines how this world has been produced and the different transmedial tropes and other influences that its developers have drawn upon. Many references are recognisable to a broad audience (pyramids, gods, hieroglyphs), while others reflect Japanese pop-cultural trends (in various manga and anime), including the mention of an obscure Egyptian god, Medjed. The intentionally fictitious nature of these ‘palaces’ means that the Egypt that appears in this game is not bound by the need to replicate an ‘accurate’ landscape. Instead, the developers were free to design a gamescape that combines multiple and diverse receptions of ancient Egypt.
»Plus outre« – immer weiter
(2022)
American occupying forces made the promotion of Jewish-Christian dialogue part of their plans for postwar German reconstruction. They sought to export American models of Jewish-Christian cooperation to Germany, while simultaneously validating and valorizing claims about the connection between democracy and tri-faith religious pluralism in the United States. The small size of the Jewish population in Germany meant that Jews did not set the terms of these discussions, and evidence shows that both German and American Jews expressed skepticism about participating in dialogue in the years immediately following the Holocaust. But opting out would have meant that discussions in Germany about the Judeo-Christian tradition that the American government advanced as the centerpiece of postwar democratic reconstruction would take place without a Jewish contribution. American Jewish leaders, present in Germany and in the US, therefore decided to opt in, not because they supported the project, but because it seemed far riskier to be left out.
Nero – Kaiser und Künstler
(2021)
Der deutsche Mineraloge und Bergingenieur August
Schmidt (1802 – 1832) nahm im Jahr 1829 an einer Etappe der „Russisch-Sibirischen Reise“ Alexander von Humboldts teil. Bisher war über Schmidt so wenig bekannt, dass die Forschungsliteratur nicht einmal seinen richtigen Vornamen verwendete. Dieser Artikel präsentiert neue Erkenntnisse über seine Biografie und verfolgt den Weg, der ihn zu einer Anstellung als Bergwerksdirektor in den Ural und zur Teilnahme an Humboldts Reise führte. Humboldt erwartete ebenso wie die anderen an der Reise teilnehmenden Mineralogen, im Ural Diamanten zu finden. Diese Erwartungshaltung war bereits in den Jahren vor der Reise durch einen internationalen Wissensaustausch zu den geologischen Ähnlichkeiten der Kontinente entstanden, an dem Alexander von Humboldt maßgeblich beteiligt war.
Ausgehend von einem Brief Alexander von Humboldts an die Schriftstellerin Therese von Bacheracht(1804 – 1852) wird die Geschichte der Herausgabe der Briefe seines Bruders Wilhelm an Charlotte Diede im Jahr 1847, nach dem Tod beider Korrespondenten, nachgezeichnet. Besonders wird dabei auf die bisher unveröffentlichten „Tagesblätter“ Karl August Varnhagens von Ense zurückgegriffen, aus denen hervorgeht, dass Alexander von Humboldt seine anfangs ablehnende Haltung aufgibt, Varnhagen mit der Prüfung und Korrektur des Manuskripts betraut, und dass Therese von Bacheracht durch Hartnäckigkeit und Charme ihr Ziel erreicht, die nicht unbeträchtlichen Einnahmen aus der Veröffentlichung zugesprochen zu bekommen.
(Auf) Humboldts Spuren
(2021)
Vor seiner Besteigung des Antisana in Ecuador verbrachte Alexander von Humboldt mit seinem Expeditionsteam die Nacht vom 15. auf den 16. März 1802 in einer Hacienda am Fuße des Vulkangipfels, deren letztes bauliches Zeugnis eine steinerne Hütte darstellt. Bauforscherische Untersuchungen eines internationalen Forscherteams konnten die mehrschichtige Bau- und Reparaturgeschichte dieses Baudenkmals ermitteln und über eine Auswertung von Reiseberichten mehrerer Andenforscher die Nutzungsgeschichte des einzelnen Gebäudes und des gesamten Anwesens klären. Schließlich ergaben sich daraus neue Erkenntnisse zu Humboldts Aufenthalt am Antisana.
Es handelt sich hier um eine Replik auf Frank Holls Artikel „La cooperación inolvidable de Aimé Bonpland y Alexander von Humboldt“, erschienen in der argentinischen Zeitschrift Bonplandia Volumen 29 Nr. 2 (2020). Es wird versucht, die von Holl gemachten schweren Vorwürfe gegenüber Avé-Lallemant, wie z. B. eine „tendenziöse Geschichtsschreibung“ zu praktizieren und Bonpland über Jahrhunderte hinweg schwer geschadet zu haben, nicht nur zu entschärfen, sondern auch in seinem eigenen Artikel als widersprüchlich aufzudecken. Die Ausführungen basieren vor allem auf den 7 Seiten, die Avé-Lallemant Bonpland und seinem Besuch bei demselben auf seiner Estancia Santa Ana 14 Tage vor seinem Tod in seinem zweibändigen Reisewerk „Reise durch Süd-Brasilien“ (1859) widmet, und einem kurzen Nachruf im 2. Band nach dessen Ableben im Jahre 1858.
Alexander von Humboldt bewertete wiederholt Leibnizens wissenschaftliche Errungenschaften und Projekte. Insbesondere war er an dessen Beiträgen zur Erforschung des Erdmagnetismus, an dessen Schriften über die Erdgeschichte und an dessen Erfi ndung der Differentialrechnung interessiert. Der Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit diesen drei Themen. Er erklärt deren historischen Hintergrund, bevor er Humboldts Kommentare und Bewertungen darlegt. Zu diesem Zweck werden einige historische Dokumente oder Briefe zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht, vor allem Theodor Wittsteins Brief an Humboldt aus dem Jahre 1851.
Während seines Aufenthalts 1803 in Mexiko machte von Humboldt die Bekanntschaft von Dupaix, einem spanischen Soldaten luxemburgischer Herkunft und Liebhaber präkolumbischer Altertümer. Die Entdeckung verschiedener Manuskripte Dupaix’ sowie die Untersuchung diverser Archive und persönlicher Aufzeichnungen des Freiherrn und von Dokumenten unterschiedlicher Institutionen beiderseits des Atlantiks erlauben es, den außergewöhnlichen Weg eines berühmten mexikanischen Objekts, der Chalchiuhtlicue, nachzuvollziehen, die der preußische Forschungsreisende 1810 als „aztekische Priesterin“ in seinem Buch Vues des cordillères … beschrieben hatte. Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht, die verschiedenen Besitzer und die Umstände nachzuzeichnen, welche die Wanderung dieser emblematischen prähispanischen Statuette von Mexiko-Stadt nach London fast ein halbes Jahrhundert lang begleitet haben.
A few months before his death, A. v. Humboldt attended the celebration in honor of the 127th birthday of George Washington at the US legation in Berlin. A letter to the American Envoy, Joseph A. Wright (1810 – 1867), underlines Humboldt’s admiration for the fi rst president of the United States. At the same time Humboldt asked the diplomat to mail a letter to the German-American Bernard Moses (1832 – 1897) in Clinton, Louisiana, who had named his son Alexander Humboldt Moses (grave on the Hebrew Rest Cemetery #2 in New Orleans, burial plot A, 12, 5). It appears to be possible that the Moses family still owns Humboldt’s letter.
A Secular Tradition
(2021)
This article focuses on the social philosopher Horace Kallen and the revisions he made to the concept of cultural pluralism that he first developed in the early 20th century, applying it to postwar America and the young State of Israel. It shows how he opposed the assumption that the United States’ social order was based on a “Judeo-Christian tradition.” By constructing pluralism as a civil religion and carving out space for secular self-understandings in midcentury America, Kallen attempted to preserve the integrity of his earlier political visions, developed during World War I, of pluralist societies in the United States and Palestine within an internationalist global order. While his perspective on the State of Israel was largely shaped by his American experiences, he revised his approach to politically functionalizing religious traditions as he tested his American understanding of a secular, pluralist society against the political theology effective in the State of Israel. The trajectory of Kallen’s thought points to fundamental questions about the compatibility of American and Israeli understandings of religion’s function in society and its relation to political belonging, especially in light of their transnational connection through American Jewish support for the recently established state.
In Search of Belonging
(2021)
More than 200,000 Jews left the Habsburg province of Galicia between 1881 and 1910. No longer living in the places of their childhood, they settled in urban centers, such as in New York’s Lower East Side. In this neighborhood, Galician Jews began to search for new relationships that linked the places they left and the ones where they arrived and settled. By looking at Galicia through the lens of autobiographical writings by former Jewish immigrants who became established residents of New York, this article emphasizes the role of regionalism in the context of transnational conceptions of a new American Jewish self-understanding. It argues that the key to analyzing the evolution of “eastern Europe” as a common place of origin for American Jewry is the constant dialogue between the places of origin and arrival. Specifically, philanthropic efforts during and after the First World War and the proliferation of tourism both enabled these settled immigrants to gradually replace regional notions, such as the idea of Galicia, with a mythical image of eastern Europe to create a sense of community as American Jews.
When the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau opened its doors in 1854, it established a novel form of rabbinical education: the systematic combination of Jewish studies at the seminary in parallel with university studies. The Breslau seminary became the model for most later institutions for rabbinical training in Europe and the United States. The seminaries were the new sites of modern Jewish scholarship, especially the academic study of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums). Their function and goal were to preserve, (re)organize, and transmit Jewish knowledge in the modern age. As such, they became central nodes in Jewish scholarly networks. This case study highlights the multi-nodal connections between the Conservative seminaries in Breslau, Philadelphia, New York, Budapest, and Vienna. At the same time, it is intended to provide an example of the potential of transnational and transfer studies for the history of the Jewish religious learning in Europe and the United States.
As mid-19th-century American Jews introduced radical changes to their religious observance and began to define Judaism in new ways, to what extent did they engage with European Jewish ideas? Historians often approach religious change among Jews from German lands during this period as if Jewish immigrants had come to America with one set of ideas that then evolved solely in conversation with their American contexts. Historians have similarly cast the kinds of Judaism Americans created as both unique to America and uniquely American. These characterizations are accurate to an extent. But to what extent did Jewish innovations in the United States take place in conversation with European Jewish developments? Looking to the 19th-century American Jewish press, this paper seeks to understand how American Jews engaged European Judaism in formulating their own ideas, understanding themselves, and understanding their place in world Judaism.
Confidence Counts
(2021)
The increasing reliance on online learning in higher education has been further expedited by the on-going Covid-19 pandemic. Students need to be supported as they adapt to this new learning environment. Research has established that learners with positive online learning self-efficacy beliefs are more likely to persevere and achieve their higher education goals when learning online. In this paper, we explore how MOOC design can contribute to the four sources of self-efficacy beliefs posited by Bandura [4]. Specifically, we will explore, drawing on learner reflections, whether design elements of the MOOC, The Digital Edge: Essentials for the Online Learner, provided participants with the necessary mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and affective regulation opportunities, to evaluate and develop their online learning self-efficacy beliefs. Findings from a content analysis of discussion forum posts show that learners referenced three of the four information sources when reflecting on their experience of the MOOC. This paper illustrates the potential of MOOCs as a pedagogical tool for enhancing online learning self-efficacy among students.
This article explores the multi-directional geographic trajectories and ties of Jews who came to the United States in the 19th century, working to complicate simplistic understandings of “German” Jewish immigration. It focuses on the case study of Henry Cohn, an ordinary Russian-born Jew whose journeys took him to Prussia, New York, Savannah, and California. Once in the United States he returned to Europe twice, the second time permanently, although a grandson ended up in California, where he worked to ensure the preservation of Cohn’s records. This story highlights how Jews navigated and transgressed national boundaries in the 19th century and the limitations of the historical narratives that have been constructed from their experiences.
Ziel des folgenden Beitrages ist es, anhand der Game-Industrie verschiedene Marketingstrategien von Unternehmen vorzustellen, die sich zur Einbindung von Inhalten der Betriebswirtschaftslehre in die Erwachsenendidaktik eignen. Dazu wurden besonders anschauliche Teilaspekte ausgewählt, die den videospielenden Menschen in vielfältigen Formen begegnen: Die Herstellung und länderspezifische Anpassung von Produkten, die Werbung, die sich an die Endkund*innen richtet, und der Zusammenschluss von Interessensgruppen zur Verfolgung gemeinsamer Strategien zur Stärkung der Absatzmärkte.
Der vorliegende Artikel nimmt den aktuellen Stand zur Integration von digitalen Medien und insbesondere Videospielen in der Lehrer*innenausbildung in den Fokus. Dabei soll in einem Dreischritt vorgegangen werden: Zunächst wird ein allgemeiner Blick auf den aktuellen Stand der digitalen Ausstattung an Schulen und Hochschulen vorgenommen. Im Anschluss wird auf die formalen Vorgaben der Modulprüfungsordnungen eingegangen und folgend das didaktisch perspektivierte Konzept von Matthis Kepser (2012) vorgestellt. Darauf aufbauend wird ein Konzept für das Seminar „Narrative Computerspiele im Deutschunterricht“ vorgestellt, welches den Einsatz des RPG Maker vorsieht. Nach diesen theoretischen Vorüberlegungen wird dargestellt, welche Ergebnisse im Rahmen des Seminars, welches von 2016 bis 2019 jährlich an der Universität Kassel durchgeführt wurde, entstanden sind und an einem Beispiel verdeutlicht, welche Chancen und Herausforderungen ein solches Seminarformat sowohl für die Lehramtsausbildung als auch für den Deutschunterricht mit sich bringt.
Spiele, auch Computerspiele, funktionieren nach Regeln. Jedoch sind digitale Spiele doppelt „geregelt“: über die Regeln im Spiel und jene des Games. Wenn sich unser Verständnis von Moral über die Bewusstwerdung von Regeln entwickelt, wie es Jean Piaget beschrieb, so ist zu fragen, welchen Einfluss dieses doppelte Geregelt-Sein auf die Moralentwicklung hat und welche Schlussfolgerungen daraus auf den Einsatz von Computerspielen in (schulischen) Bildungsprozessen gezogen werden können.
Der Beitrag widmet sich der im Verhältnis von Spiel und Computer so besonderen Rolle von Regeln und der Frage, wie mit ihnen umgegangen werden kann. Das „Casual Game“ Angry Birds wird hier zum Beispiel und Anlass, grundsätzlich über Games als Funktionen des Computers sowie über Algorithmen und Programmierung nachzudenken.
The article is a review of Patrick Gray's latest monograph: Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic: Selfhood, Stoicism and Civil War. Gray analyzes Shakespare's and his characters' representation of the 'self' in Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, with Coriolanus used for comparative purposes. The book induced a lively discussion of its content in academic community.
Whether you open a manga, a French-language comic strip or a North-American comic strip with Classic subject, it seems normal to the reader to encounter many representations of sculptures, paintings or object of daily life from this period throughout the story.
These images are taken from catalogues notably available online. The artists also seem to have drawn their inspiration from museum publications or directly from the collections exhibited by these cultural institutions. This article will review the masterpieces used in comic strips and the reasons why they are chosen. Depending on the formats and cultures that stage them, these works do not constitute decorative elements of an ancient past but contribute to the narrative.
Ringing trumpets announcing the arrival of a Roman emperor, an oriental flowing and delicate harp reverberating inside the intimate palace of an Egyptian queen, a rude aulos singing in a bucolic Greek landscape: where are these familiar sound images coming from? Are these creations inspired by archaeological data or built after modern fantasy? The scarcity of ancient musical data necessitated, in fact, to reinvent the films’ soundscape taking place in the Ancient world. It is therefore a question of seeing on which models a peplum’s soundtrack is conceived and what it can reveal on our way of perceiving the ancient and contemporary world. Far from wanting to gauge the historicity of the sound backgrounds offered to the spectator of dark rooms, it is rather a question of seeing the imitation phenomena that can appear from the sound clichés created by the peplum itself and of also deducing from them thought patterns which, contextualized, influence these compositions. This article will focus on post-2000 productions.
Très peu d’originaux nous permettent de connaître la statuaire grecque ancienne. Eu égard à la grande production de statues en bronze, un nombre très limité d’oeuvres a été sauvé de la fureur du temps et des hommes. Le reste nous est connu de manière partielle et imparfaite par les copies romaines en marbre ou par des notes rapides d’auteurs anciens, qui mentionnent des artistes et des oeuvres dont le seul nom demeure. La découverte de statues en bronze de production grecque est donc un événement exceptionnel d’un point de vue scientifique. Les « Bronzes de Riace » ont notamment eu, dès leur découverte en 1972, une immense influence dans la culture populaire, que nous allons aborder dans cet article sous l’angle des Reception Studies, en essayant d’intégrer ces réflexions au débat sur leur perception dans le monde contemporain, déjà abordé par deux volumes sortis en 1986 et 2015 (Gli eroi venuti dal mare/Heroes from the sea et Sul buono e sul cattivo uso dei Bronzi di Riace1), en portant une attention particulière au Web et aux réseaux sociaux.
1 Je remercie Maurizio Paoletti et Fabien Bièvre-Perrin pour la relecture de cet article ; Domenico Benedetto D’Agostino pour m’avoir fait connaître, il y a quelques années, le poème de Felice Mastroianni dédié au Bronzes de Riace ; l’Archivio du Musée Archéologique National de Reggio Calabria, Mike_art04, le collectif La Psicoscimmia et Emanuela Robustelli pour les images qu’ils ont partagées.
This paper aims to analyse the figure of the Venus of Milo in (extreme) contemporary art productions. The reception of this sculpture has already been studied in the past, but without considering the last ten years (2010 – 2020), during which artists like Yinka Shonibare, Fabio Viale, or Daniel Arsham decided to use the Venus for their new productions. The paper also explains how the Venus of Milo became a globalised icon and an inspiration for artists from all over the world.
Despite its fame, the Winged Victory of Samothrace keeps on fascinating not only every visitor of the Louvre museum, but also the eye of the connoisseur. Despite its recent restoration in 2014, some of its mysteries might indeed never be solved, like the identity of its sculptor. But this fascination also comes from the statue itself, its majestic aesthetics and lack of head, in a similar fashion perhaps to the loss of the Venus of Milo’s arms. Since her discovery more than 150 years ago by Charles Champoiseau, she’s been on the throne at the top of the Daru stairs at the Louvre Museum. This hellenistic masterpiece, that Champoiseau called a ”mousseline de marbre”, became a must see in the Paris museum, together with the Mona Lisa and its other chefs d’oeuvre. But this statue’s fate is not set in stone. Many modern artists, like Omar Hassan or Xu Zhen, have tried to make it their own and give it a new depth. Recently, Beyonce and Jay-Z also offered a new perspective by including this Louvre masterpiece, among others, in their political masterstroke, the video clip ”Apeshit”. This paper seeks to decode the meanings and symbolism of these new versions of the Nike.
Laocoon Relooké
(2021)
This article focuses on the reception of the ancient statue of Laocoon in the arts and popular culture of the 21st century. It looks into why this icon has remained continuously present in the public’s collective imagination and covers, in particular, the recapturing of this motif by four contemporary painters : Richard Wallace (2002), Ron Milewicz (2005), Gilles Chambon (2008), Kent Monkman (2008). The article examines as well the new meanings associated with its treatment and finally explores the way our contemporary world deals with the notion of monument and the concept of academicism.
The Laocoön group, a famous source of inspiration for modern artists and a crucial masterpiece for historians of art and philosophers, is also a popular figure in queer contemporary art and culture, both distorted and celebrated through camp performative devices. After remarks about 1. “queer gaze” and the complex relation of queer or LGBTQIA+ culture and politics to the dialectics of kitsch/camp and classical / contemporary / pop art, and 2. (not straight but) queer classics, using “anachronisme raisonné” (Loraux”) and “écart” (Dupont), this article focuses on case studies from the 2010’s: 1. The untold gay history of Vatican guided tour; the music video Falling, by the “queer cowboy” Drew Beckman. 2. Paintings by Richard Wallace (esp. Laocoön); photographic series of Danil Golovkin (Modern Heroes : Photographing Bodybuilders in the Digital Age), 3. Julien Servy (Collages : Photo vs. Statues) ; the design firm modern8 (for the 2017 Utah Pride Festival). 4. The indigenous Canadian artist Kent Monkman, who, in paintings (The Academy), performances, installations, altogether stages and questions the violence of historical and cultural colonization and its impact on issues of gender and identity, and promotes dynamic interactions of aesthetics and politics, as well of pathos and camp.
A quote from Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk, 1996) may seem unusual for a Classicist. Nevertheless, this famous sentence summarises the contents of this special issue of thersites perfectly. As specialists in classical reception frequently witness, there is a sort of déjà-vu effect when it comes to the presence of Antiquity within popular culture. In 2019, to try to better understand the phenomenon, Antiquipop invited researchers to take an interest in the construction and semantic path of these “masterpieces” in contemporary popular culture, with a particular focus on the 21st century.
The COVID-19 pandemic emergency has forced a profound reshape of our lives. Our way of working and studying has been disrupted with the result of an acceleration of the shift to the digital world. To properly adapt to this change, we need to outline and implement new urgent strategies and approaches which put learning at the center, supporting workers and students to further develop “future proof” skills. In the last period, universities and educational institutions have demonstrated that they can play an important role in this context, also leveraging on the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which proved to be an important vehicle of flexibility and adaptation in a general context characterised by several constraints. From March 2020 till now, we have witnessed an exponential growth of MOOCs enrollments numbers, with “traditional” students interested in different topics not necessarily integrated to their curricular studies. To support students and faculty development during the spreading of the pandemic, Politecnico di Milano focused on one main dimension: faculty development for a better integration of digital tools and contents in the e-learning experience. The current discussion focuses on how to improve the integration of MOOCs in the in-presence activities to create meaningful learning and teaching experiences, thereby leveraging blended learning approaches to engage both students and external stakeholders to equip them with future job relevance skills.