Quintus Curtius before his sources: the episode of Alexander and the Scythians on the Tanais

Quintus Curtius found in his sources a speech where a Scythian censured Alexander, followed by the King’s reply. Curtius drastically abridged this second discourse in order to highlight the criticism of the Macedonian. The Scythian’s words have a striking rhetorical language and some allusions taken from Greek literature, in addition to possible indirect references to Caligula. Curtius declares that he follows his source word-for-word aiming to justify these inconsistencies, but also trying to hide the manipulations he has done to achieve his own narrative purposes.

El ritual en los "Textos de las Pirámides": sintaxis, texto y significado

Este trabajo pretende explorar la dimensión ritual en los Textos de las Pirámides, el corpus de literatura religiosa extensa más antiguo de la humanidad. La naturaleza variada de sus componentes textuales ha impedido que los egiptólogos comprendan en profundidad las complejidades de la colección y los contextos originales en los que estos textos (ritos) aparecieron. La aplicación de la teoría del ritual, principalmente la aproximación de la sintaxis ritual, ofrece a los investigadores un marco excelente de análisis e interpretación del corpus, su estructura y función. Sujeto a las reglas de la sintaxis ritual es posible exponer los múltiples niveles de significado en el corpus para la resurrección y salvación del difunto.

Civic Humanism and the Classical Tradition in the Early Republic of Chile

The first decades of the 19th century constituted a period of profound change for Chile, the principal results of which were to be seen in the consolidation of the process of independence from Spanish dominion in 1818. The consequences were not limited to a revolution of military and political nature; they also included a renovation of the cultural panorama -at least among the educated patriots who made an effort to distance themselves ideologically from the Monarchy-, with the implicit challenge of establishing a new order for Chile, based on legitimate and universally recognizable foundations. The inspirational framework for these efforts is usually associated with other revolutionary examples -France and the United States- that preceded the emancipation processes in Spanish America, as well as with the discourses of illustrated liberalism. As we will attempt to demonstrate in this study, a new reading of the texts written by the Creoles that lead the Chilean independence process may, nonetheless, also reveal the relevance of the classical tradition as a model for the configuration and legitimization of the first Republican projects that especially admired the ideals of Republicanism.

Mobilising of the German 1848 Protest Song Tradition in the Context of International Twentieth Century Folk Revivals

The rediscovery of democratic traditions of folk song in Germany after the Second World War was not just the counter-reaction of singers and academics to the misuse of German folk song by the Nazis. Such a shift to a more ‘progressive’ interpretation and promotion of folk tradition at that time was not distinct to Germany and had already taken place in other parts of the Western world. After firstly examining the relationship between folk song and national ideologies in the nineteenth century, this article will focus on the democratic ideological basis on which the 1848 revolutionary song tradition was reconstructed after the Third Reich. It will look at how the New Social Movements of West Germany and the folk scene of the GDR functioned in providing channels of transmission for this, and how in this process a collective cultural memory was created whereby lost songs – such as those of the 1848 Revolution – could be awakened from extinction. These processes will be illustrated by textual and musical adaptations of key 1848 songs such as ‘Badisches Wiegenlied’ (Baden Lullaby), ‘Das Blutgericht’ (The Blood Court) and ‘Trotz alledem’ (For all that) within the context of the West German folk movement and its counterpart in the GDR.

Lucrecio, "De rerum natura": Sentido y coherencia del prólogo

El prólogo del De rerum natura de Lucrecio (1.1-148) parece ser un tema gastado: ha sido tratado decenas de veces tanto por su excelente calidad como por los problemas que plantea. Pero esperamos poder dar un nuevo sentido y solución a ambos aspectos. En primer lugar, el himno a Venus no es una mera convención, sino que respira sentimiento religioso; Venus no personifica a la naturaleza, sino al placer y la felicidad y ni la hegemonía que se dice ejerce Venus, ni las plegarias que contiene el himno contradicen la teología epicúrea. Todavía más, nos parece que el himno constituye una auténtica epifanía religiosa muy propia de la teología epicúrea. En segundo lugar, suponiendo que el autor ha tomado como tema compartido los schemata o grados de dificultad de la intellectio retórica en el texto de 1.50-148, se intentan solucionar las dificultades de coherencia del texto.

Valued tradition? Armed policing in the UK

The traditional social “contract” in the UK mainland between the public and the police involves the ideal of an unarmed police service. In recent years while the public have accepted the more visible role of specialist armed officers on security duties in airports and strategic positions, the majority of officers remain unarmed. Following 7/7 in London and the Derrick Bird case in Cumbria there have been media calls for more police officers to be armed on a routine basis .This would fundamentally change the social contract and the relationship with the British public. The principle of policing by consent and the idea of the citizen in uniform are the fundamental tenets of British policing .Historically the only forces in the UK which are routinely armed are the Police Service of Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland, the Ministry of Defence Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. In contrast all major police forces in Europe, as well as the US, Canada and Australia routinely carry firearms, the exceptions apart from Britain, are the Irish Republic, and New Zealand. In Norway officers carry arms in their cars but not on their person. Every time unarmed police officers are killed, as with the tragic case of Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone killed in the line of duty in Manchester in 2013, the question of arming the British Police is raised.So does the current balance protect the public and safeguard officers or does it fail to satisfy either. Is the current balance between unarmed and armed police in the UK suitable for the 21st Century? There appears to be competing agendas for the Police to contend with. These have been illustrated by recent controversy in Scotland about a standing authority which allowed a small number of officers to carry guns while on routine patrol .Politicians and community leaders attacked the nationwide roll-out of officers with a standing authority to carry guns on routine patrols since the formation of Scotland’s single police force. The Forces armed police monitoring group recommended keeping the standing authority in place after it was given intelligence on serious organised crime groups in 2014.The Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) in its review of the authority (2014) said the operational need for the authority is justified by national intelligence and threat levels.

Die Stadtbäder der Goldenen Zwanziger. Kommunale Prestigearchitektur zwischen Tradition und Moderne

Die Dissertation behandelt eine für das Badewesen bedeutende Epoche, die sich durch den Beginn des sportorientierten Bäderbaus auszeichnet. Es entsteht ein neuer architektonischer Hallenschwimmbadtypus und es etabliert sich eine gemeinsame Badekultur von Mann und Frau - zwei Errungenschaften, die den Bäderbau bis in die Gegenwart prägen. Viele Bauprojekte und Ideen kamen allerdings durch die Wirtschaftskrisen jener Zeit frühzeitig zum Erliegen, sodass die baulichen Leistungen der Kommunen nicht nur an den Ausführungen, sondern auch an den Entwürfen abgelesen werden müssen. Die kommunale Hallenbäderarchitektur veranschaulicht paradigmatisch die Sozialgeschichte, die Sport- und Hygienebewegung sowie die Genderentwicklung der Zwanziger Jahre. Mangels an Würdigung einerseits sowie einer seit den letzten Jahrzehnten zunehmenden Freizeitorientierung im Bäderbau andererseits wird der Erhalt der schwimmsportorientierten Bäderarchitektur durch Leerstände, Umnutzungen und Abbrüche gefährdet. Durch die Aufarbeitung der Historie und zeitgenössischen Diskurse, die Vermittlung der planerischen Grundlagen sowie durch die Analyse, Auswertung und Typologie des historischen Bäderbestandes der Zwanziger Jahre wird eine fundierte Basis geschaffen, um die Hallenbäderarchitektur als Bedeutungsträger ihrer Zeit angemessen zu würdigen.

How valuable is web 2.0 to music criticism? An investigation into the role of web 2.0 and social media in the reception of Benjamin Britten's operas

The internet is deeply integrated with many people's day to day lives, including that of musicians and musicologists. In this thesis, the impact of the internet on classical music criticism in the Web 2.0 age is examined. Using the examples of Britten's operas, Gloriana and Peter Grimes, an overview of their critical reception is examined, using printed reviews found in The Times since their premières, internet based reviews of two specific performances, and the reactions to these performances on Twitter. Theories of media behaviour including de Mul's view of the 'ludic self' are used in order to explain the content found in reviews in conjunction with citizen journalism, of which blogging is an extension. While there are some consistencies between the print reviews and those online, there are stylistic differences, and wider repercussions for the world of criticism in the wake of the democratisation of culture, as critics find their previously regarded authority obsolete to some. Music criticism is no longer the reserve of the musicologists

Creative industries in Macau innovation and tradition at USJ

International Conference Of Silk, Sugar and Spices: new directions in East-West CooperationISCAP 11-12-13 November 2015

Burkhard Poste: Schulreform in Sachsen 1918-1923. Eine vergessene Tradition deutscher Schulgeschichte. (Studien zur Bildungsreform. Bd. 20.) Frankfurt a.M./Bern: Lang 1993 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Burkhard Poste: Schulreform in Sachsen 1918-1923. Eine vergessene Tradition deutscher Schulgeschichte. (Studien zur Bildungsreform. Bd. 20.) Frankfurt a.M./Bern: Lang 1993, 654 S.

The interpretation of scholars' interpretations of confidence intervals: criticism, replication, and extension of Hoekstra et al. (2014)

Hoekstra et al. (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2014, 21:1157–1164) surveyed the interpretation of confidence intervals (CIs) by first-year students, master students, and researchers with six items expressing misinterpretations of CIs. They asked respondents to answer all items, computed the number of items endorsed, and concluded that misinterpretation of CIs is robust across groups. Their design may have produced this outcome artifactually for reasons that we describe. This paper discusses first the two interpretations of CIs and, hence, why misinterpretation cannot be inferred from endorsement of some of the items. Next, a re-analysis of Hoekstra et al.’s data reveals some puzzling differences between first-year and master students that demand further investigation. For that purpose, we designed a replication study with an extended questionnaire including two additional items that express correct interpretations of CIs (to compare endorsement of correct vs. nominally incorrect interpretations) and we asked master students to indicate which items they would have omitted had they had the option (to distinguish deliberate from uninformed endorsement caused by the forced-response format). Results showed that incognizant first-year students endorsed correct and nominally incorrect items identically, revealing that the two item types are not differentially attractive superficially; in contrast, master students were distinctively more prone to endorsing correct items when their uninformed responses were removed, although they admitted to nescience more often that might have been expected. Implications for teaching practices are discussed.