Download or read book Culture and Society in Lucian written by C. P. Jones and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The works of the second-century satirist Lucian--of which about seventy survive--have had a marked influence on western literature since the Renaissance. Translated by Erasmus, and called "inimitable" by Gibbon, Lucian is the first to tell the famous story of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. His subjects range from the hypocrisy of philosophers to fantastic voyages in space. He is often thought the true father of science fiction and, at the same time, is one of the most important witnesses to early Christianity. C. P Jones examines Lucian's work, setting this brilliant writer in the social and intellectual context of an age that proved pivotal in Greco-Roman history. Lucian's art has been widely considered bookish, concerned with people and customs he and his readers knew only from literature. Jones argues that on the contrary his attacks on such targets as mercenary Stoics and the snake-god Glycon were aimed with mischievous precision. The result is a fresh portrait of Lucian and a vivid picture of a society whose outward assurance masked uncertainty and the onset of profound change.
Download or read book The Spirit of Chinese Politics written by Lucian W. Pye and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lucian Pye, one of the most knowledgeable observers of China, unfolds in this book a deep psychological analysis of Chinese political culture. The dynamics of the Cultural Revolution, the behavior of the Red Guards, and the compulsions of Mao Tse-tung are among the important symptoms examined. But Pye goes behind large events, exploring the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture and the stable elements of the national psychology as they have been manifested in traditional, Republican, and Communist periods. He also scans several possible paths of future development. The emphasis is on the roles long played by authority, order, hierarchy, and emotional quietism in Chinese political culture as shaped by the Confucian tradition and the institution of filial piety, and the resulting confusions brought about by the displacements of these traditions in the face of political change and modernization. In this new edition Pye adds a chapter on the basic tension between consensus and conflict in the operation of Chinese politics, illustrating the "spirit" in action, and another discussing the great gap that persists between the worlds of the political leadership and of society at large in post-Tiananmen China.
Download or read book Silent Eloquence written by Ismene Lada-Richards and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the greatest aesthetic attractions in the ancient world was pantomime dancing, a ballet-style entertainment in which a silent, solo dancer incarnated a series of mythological characters to the accompaniment of music and sung narrative. Looking at a multitude of texts and particularly Lucian's "On the Dance", a dialogue written at the height of pantomime's popularity, this innovative cultural study of the genre offers a radical reassessment of its importance in the symbolic economy of imperial and later antiquity. Rather than being trivial or lowbrow, pantomime was thoroughly enmeshed in wider social discourses on morality and sexuality, gender and desire and a key player in the fierce battles about education and culture that raged in the ancient world. A close reading of primary sources, judiciously interlaced with a wealth of interdisciplinary perspectives, makes this challenging book essential for anyone interested in the performance culture of the Greek and Roman world.
Download or read book The Political Culture of Foreign Area and International Studies written by Richard J. Samuels and published by Potomac Books. This book was released on 1992 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten essays from a June 1991 conference in Dedham, Massachusetts explore the political cultures that shape both the agenda and the content of scholarship on foreign areas, and how such political cultures have been the subject of both study and public policy. No index. Annotation copyright Book News,
Download or read book Asian Power and Politics written by Lucian W. PYE and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a major new book, Lucian Pye reconceptualizes Asian political development as a product of cultural attitudes about power and authority. He contrasts the great traditions of Confucian East Asia with the Southeast Asian cultures and the South Asian traditions of Hinduism and Islam, and explores the national differences within these larger civilizations. Breaking with modern political theory, Pye believes that power differs profoundly from one culture to another. In Asia the masses of the people are group-oriented and respectful of authority, while their leaders are more concerned with dignity and upholding collective pride than with problem-solving. As culture decides the course of political development, Pye shows how Asian societies, confronted with the task of setting up modern nation-states, respond by fashioning paternalistic forms of power that satisfy their deep psychological craving for security. This new paternalism may appear essentially authoritarian to Western eyes, but Pye maintains that it is a valid response to the people's needs and will ensure community solidarity and strong group loyalties. He predicts that we are certain to see emerging from Asia's accelerating transformation some new version of modern society that may avoid many of the forms of tension common to Western civilization but may also produce a whole new set of problems. This book revitalizes Asian political studies on a plane that comprehends the large differences between Asia and the West and at the same time is sensitive to the subtle variations among the many Asian cultures. Its comparative perspective will provide indispensable insights to anyone who wishes to think more deeply about the modern Asian states.
Download or read book Reading Fiction with Lucian written by Karen ní Mheallaigh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A captivating new interpretation of Lucian as a fictional theorist and writer to stand alongside the novelists of the day.
Download or read book Making Healthcare Safe written by Lucian L. Leape and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique and engaging open access title provides a compelling and ground-breaking account of the patient safety movement in the United States, told from the perspective of one of its most prominent leaders, and arguably the movement’s founder, Lucian L. Leape, MD. Covering the growth of the field from the late 1980s to 2015, Dr. Leape details the developments, actors, organizations, research, and policy-making activities that marked the evolution and major advances of patient safety in this time span. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, this book not only comprehensively details how and why human and systems errors too often occur in the process of providing health care, it also promotes an in-depth understanding of the principles and practices of patient safety, including how they were influenced by today’s modern safety sciences and systems theory and design. Indeed, the book emphasizes how the growing awareness of systems-design thinking and the self-education and commitment to improving patient safety, by not only Dr. Leape but a wide range of other clinicians and health executives from both the private and public sectors, all converged to drive forward the patient safety movement in the US. Making Healthcare Safe is divided into four parts: I. In the Beginning describes the research and theory that defined patient safety and the early initiatives to enhance it. II. Institutional Responses tells the stories of the efforts of the major organizations that began to apply the new concepts and make patient safety a reality. Most of these stories have not been previously told, so this account becomes their histories as well. III. Getting to Work provides in-depth analyses of four key issues that cut across disciplinary lines impacting patient safety which required special attention. IV. Creating a Culture of Safety looks to the future, marshalling the best thinking about what it will take to achieve the safe care we all deserve. Captivatingly written with an “insider’s” tone and a major contribution to the clinical literature, this title will be of immense value to health care professionals, to students in a range of academic disciplines, to medical trainees, to health administrators, to policymakers and even to lay readers with an interest in patient safety and in the critical quest to create safe care.
Download or read book Forever Young written by Lucian Boia and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forever Young offers a wide-ranging survey of the notion of longevity, from antiquity to the present. The author looks at the many manifestations of one of humanity's most powerful dreams: the prolongation of life and youth with immortality as a final objective. Using a variety of sources - religion, folk traditions, science, literature and art - the book shows on the one hand the persistence of the human spirit (the desire for longevity is revealed as an extremely stable archetype throughout history) and on the other, the innovations specific to each period or culture due to the progress of science and differing ideologies and attitudes. Nowadays, prolonging life and youth has become a major goal of society due to a combination of several factors: the spectacular increase in life expectancy; the advances of science and especially genetics; and, finally, the decline of religious belief in life after death, emphasizing the only remaining certainty - corporeal life. The author, a specialist in mythology and imagination, approaches his subject in an accessible and engaging way.
Download or read book Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses written by Todd C. Penner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays on early Christian, Jewish and Greco-Roman religious discourses in antiquity, focusing on the construction of gender in relationship to broader cultural and religious themes, argumentation and identity formation in the early centuries of the common era.
Download or read book Subversive Virtue written by James A. Francis and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much attention has been devoted in recent years to Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity. But Christianity did not introduce asceticism to the ancient world. An underlying theme of this fascinating study of pagan asceticism is that much of the work on Christian &"holy men&" has ignored earlier manifestations of asceticism in Antiquity and the way Roman society confronted it. Accordingly, James Francis turns to the second century, the &"balmy late afternoon of Rome's classical empire,&" when the conflict between asceticism and authority reached a turning point. Francis begins with the emperor Marcus Aurelius (121&–180), who warned in his Meditations against &"display[ing] oneself as a man keen to impress others with a reputation for asceticism or beneficence.&" The Stoic Aurelius saw ascetic self-discipline as a virtue, but one to be exercised in moderation. Like other Roman aristocrats of his day, he perceived practitioners of ostentatious physical asceticism as a threat to prevailing norms and the established order. Prophecy, sorcery, miracle working, charismatic leadership, expressions of social discontent, and advocacy of alternative values regarding wealth, property, marriage, and sexuality were the issues provoking the controversy. If Aurelius defined the acceptable limits of ascetical practice, then the poet Lucian depicted the threat ascetics were perceived to pose to the social status quo through his biting satire. In an eye-opening analysis of Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Francis shows how Roman society reined in its deviant ascetics by &"rehabilitating&" them into pillars of traditional values. Celsus's True Doctrine shows how the views pagans held of their own ascetics influenced their negative view of Christianity. Finally, Francis points out striking parallels between the conflict over pagan asceticism and its Christian counterpart. By treating pagan asceticism seriously in its own right, Francis establishes the context necessary for understanding the great flowering of asceticism in Late Antiquity
Download or read book The Roman Empire at Bay AD 180 395 written by David Stone Potter and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outset of the period covered by this book, Rome was the greatest power in the world. By its end, it had fallen conclusively from this dominant position. David Potter's comprehensive survey of two critical and eventful centuries traces the course of imperial decline.
Download or read book Cynics written by William Desmond and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once regarded as a minor Socratic school, Cynicism is now admired as one of the more creative and influential philosophical movements in antiquity. First arising in the city-states of late classical Greece, Cynicism thrived through the Hellenistic and Roman periods, until the triumph of Christianity and the very end of pagan antiquity. In every age down to the present, its ideals of radical simplicity and freedom have alternately inspired and disturbed onlookers. This book offers a survey of Cynicism, its varied representatives and ideas, and the many contexts in which it operated. William Desmond introduces important ancient Cynics and their times, from Diogenes 'the Dog' in the fourth century BC to Sallustius in the fifth century AD. He details the Cynics' rejection of various traditional customs and the rebellious life-style for which they are notorious.The central chapters locate major Cynic themes (nature and the natural life, Fortune, self-sufficiency, cosmopolitanism) within the rich matrix of ideas debated by the ancient schools. The final chapter reviews some moments in the diverse legacy of Cynicism, from Jesus to Nietzsche.
Download or read book The Quest for a Historical Jesus Methodology written by Michael Vicko Zolondek and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-10-13 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the "quest for the historical Jesus," there has been a parallel quest aimed at discovering new and improved methodologies for studying his life. This methodological quest was originally driven by the belief that the Gospels are so unique (even sui generis) among the literary works of their time that such "historical experimentation" (to use Schweitzer's words) is necessary for the task of reconstructing Jesus's life. Although most scholars today characterize the Gospels as a form of Graeco-Roman biography rather than sui generis literature, they nevertheless have continued this quest for new methodologies. This has left historical Jesus studies in a problematic methodological state. In this book, Zolondek argues that if the Gospels are indeed types of Graeco-Roman biographies of Jesus, then no such experimentation is necessary. Rather, historical Jesus scholars should instead be adopting the standard methodological practices that historians and classicists have for decades used to effectively reconstruct the lives of other ancient persons who were also the subjects of Graeco-Roman biographies. After providing examples of three such methodological practices, Zolondek goes on to offer suggestions as to how scholars might apply them to the study of Jesus and, in doing so, end their long-running methodological quest.
Download or read book Lucian and His Roman Voices written by Eleni Bozia and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lucian and His Roman Voices examines cultural exchanges, political propaganda, and religious conflicts in the Early Roman Empire through the eyes of Lucian, his contemporary Roman authors, and Christian Apologists. Offering a multi-faceted analysis of the Lucianic corpus, this book explores how Lucian, a Syrian who wrote in Greek and who became a Roman citizen, was affected by the socio-political climate of his time, reacted to it, and how he ‘corresponded’ with the Roman intelligentsia. In the process, this unique volume raises questions such as: What did the title ‘Roman citizen’ mean to native Romans and to others? How were language and literature politicized, and how did they become a means of social propaganda? This study reveals Lucian’s recondite historical and authorial personas and the ways in which his literary activity portrayed second-century reality from the perspectives of the Romans, Greeks, pagans, Christians, and citizens of the Roman Empire
Download or read book Satire in the Middle Byzantine Period written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores various forms, functions and meanings of satirical texts written in the Middle Byzantine period.
Download or read book Cosmopolis written by Daniel S. Richter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about the ways in which various intellectuals in the post-classical Mediterranean imagined the human community as a unified, homogenous whole composed of a diversity of parts. More specifically, it explores how authors of the second century CE adopted and adapted a particular ethnic and cultural discourse that had been elaborated by late fifth- and fourth-century BCE Athenian intellectuals. At the center of this book is a series of contests over the meaning of lineage and descent and the extent to which the political community is or ought to be coterminous with what we might call a biologically homogenous collectivity. The study suggests that early imperial intellectuals found in late classical and early Hellenistic thought a way of accommodating the claims of both ethnicity and culture in a single discourse of communal identity. The idea of the unity of humankind evolved in the fifth and fourth centuries as a response to and an engine for the creation of a rapidly shrinking and increasingly integrated oikoumene . The increased presence of outsiders in the classical city-state as well as the creation of sources of authority that lay outside of the polis destabilized the idea of the polis as a kin group (natio). Beginning in the early fourth century and gaining great momentum in the wake of Alexander's conquest of the East, traditional dichotomies such as Greek and barbarian lost much of their explanatory power. In the second-century CE, by contrast, the empire of the Romans imposed a political space that was imagined by many to be coterminous with the oikoumene itself. One of the central claims of this study is that the forms of cosmopolitan and ecumenical thought that emerged in both moments did so as responses to the idea that the natio - the kin group - is (or ought to be) the basis for any human collectivity.
Download or read book Epicurus in Lycia written by Pamela Gordon and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epicurus in Lycia is the first full-length study of this eccentric second-century C.E. philosopher from Oenoanda, a small city in the mountains of Lycia (now Turkey). Toward the end of his life, Diogenes presented his town with a large limestone inscription that proclaimed the wisdom of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who had lived five centuries earlier. This unique text, which was discovered in the late nineteenth century, has attracted many modern readers. Previous work on Diogenes, however, has concentrated on the reconstruction of Diogenes' fragmentary Greek text and on the information he offers on lost teachings of Epicurus. Gordon's study offers a new approach to Diogenes and to the history of ancient Epicureanism in general. Rather than considering Diogenes simply as an orthodox Epicurean, Gordon draws attention to his engagement with the bustling world of second-century Roman Asia Minor and demonstrates that his historical setting shaped the way he understood and promoted Epicurean philosophy. Gordon shows that Diogenes participated in the fashionable revival of traditional Greek erudition, but that he parted company with his contemporaries regarding popular religion and the general notoriety of Epicureanism.
