Download or read book Maths Meets Myths Quantitative Approaches to Ancient Narratives written by Ralph Kenna and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With an emphasis on exploring measurable aspects of ancient narratives, Maths Meets Myths sets out to investigate age-old material with new techniques. This book collects, for the first time, novel quantitative approaches to studying sources from the past, such as chronicles, epics, folktales, and myths. It contributes significantly to recent efforts in bringing together natural scientists and humanities scholars in investigations aimed at achieving greater understanding of our cultural inheritance. Accordingly, each contribution reports on a modern quantitative approach applicable to narrative sources from the past, or describes those which would be amenable to such treatment and why they are important. This volume is a unique state-of-the-art compendium on an emerging research field which also addresses anyone with interests in quantitative approaches to humanities.
Download or read book An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion written by Claire White and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-14 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, a new scientific approach to understand, explain, and predict many features of religion has emerged. The cognitive science of religion (CSR) has amassed research on the forces that shape the tendency for humans to be religious and on what forms belief takes. It suggests that religion, like language or music, naturally emerges in humans with tractable similarities. This new approach has profound implications for how we understand religion, including why it appears so easily, and why people are willing to fight—and die—for it. Yet it is not without its critics, and some fear that scholars are explaining the ineffable mystery of religion away, or showing that religion is natural proves or disproves the existence of God. An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion offers students and general readers an accessible introduction to the approach, providing an overview of key findings and the debates that shape it. The volume includes a glossary of key terms, and each chapter includes suggestions for further thought and further reading as well as chapter summaries highlighting key points. This book is an indispensable resource for introductory courses on religion and a much-needed option for advanced courses.
Download or read book Nordic Elites in Transformation c 1050 1250 Volume II written by Kim Esmark and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-01-24 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume II explores the structures and workings of social networks within the elites of medieval Scandinavia to reveal the intricate relationship between power and status. Section one of this volume categorizes basic types of personal bonds, both vertical and horizontal, while section two charts patterns of local, regional and transnational elite networks from wide-scope, longitudinal perspectives. Finally, the third section turns to case-studies of networks in action, analyzing strategies and transactions implied by uses of social resources in specific micro-political settings. A concluding chapter discusses how social power in the North compared to wider European experiences. A wide range of sources and methodologies is applied to reveal how networks were established, maintained, and put to use – and how they transformed in processes of centralizing power and formalizing hierarchies. The engagement with and analysis of intriguing primary source material has produced a key teaching tool for instructors and essential reading for students interested in the workings of medieval Scandinavia, elite class structures, and Social and Political History more generally.
Download or read book Stepping Back and Looking Ahead Twelve Years of Studying Religious Contact at the K te Hamburger Kolleg Bochum written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-09-04 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book includes a collection of articles by leading researchers on the topic of religious contact in the study of religion. Resulting from the final conference of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg "Dynamics in the History of Religions"–one of the largest research initiatives in the interdisciplinary study of religion worldwide in recent years (2008-2020)—this book encapsulates the twofold aim of this conference: first, to "step back" and reflect upon the merits and challenges of studying religious dynamics as a result of intra-, inter-, and extra-religious contact, and second "to look beyond" and pave ways for future approaches to study religion as a social phenomenon.
Download or read book On the Origin of Myths in Catastrophic Experience vol 1 Preliminaries written by Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs and published by All-Round Publications. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Creation myths around the world reveal an intricate network of recurrent motifs. Many of these are counterintuitive and not widely known, describing a time when the sky was low, the stars did not yet shine, multiple suns appeared, the moon was brighter than the sun, no land existed, deities and mortals maintained frequent contact, a 'world axis' in the form of a tree, ladder or giant man connected the earth with the sky, a devastating flood or fire ended the old order, and so forth. The present work, in multiple volumes, aims to find an origin for this cross-culturally and internally consistent body of traditions in a series of extraordinary natural events relating especially to the earth's transition from the last glacial period to the Holocene. This first volume sets the stage for the interdisciplinary hypothesis. Essential lines of research receive a historical introduction: comparative mythology, catastrophism and the study of the mythical world axis in relation to the earth's rotation. Various astronomical and meteorological interpretations that are not strictly catastrophist are explored for several types of myths about the sun, the moon and the world axis, but leave many of the most intriguing traditions unexplained. It is argued that a structural core of the worldwide mythology of 'creation and destruction', in which the cosmic axis takes pride of place, points to a specific period of dramatic natural circumstances in real prehistoric time. A new synopsis is provided of this universal mythological substrate. It emerges that the mythical world axis cannot have been based on a single object seen or imagined at one of the poles, as has usually been supposed. This surprising conclusion paves the way for the innovative geomagnetic theory proposed in volume 2.
Download or read book Fairy Tale TV written by Jill Terry Rudy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise and accessible critical introduction examines the world of popular fairy-tale television, tracing how fairy tales and their social and cultural implications manifest within series, television events, anthologies, and episodes, and as freestanding motifs. Providing a model of televisual analysis, Rudy and Greenhill emphasize that fairy-tale longevity in general, and particularly on TV, results from malleability—morphing from extremely complex narratives to the simple quotation of a name (like Cinderella) or phrase (like "happily ever after")—as well as its perennial value as a form that is good to think with. The global reach and popularity of fairy tales is reflected in the book’s selection of diverse examples from genres such as political, lifestyle, reality, and science fiction TV. With a select mediagraphy, discussion questions, and detailed bibliography for further study, this book is an ideal guide for students and scholars of television studies, popular culture, and media studies, as well as dedicated fairy-tale fans.
Download or read book Lost Knowledge written by Benjamin B. Olshin and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies and Other Human Histories examines the idea of lost knowledge, reaching back to a period between myth and history. It investigates a peculiar idea found in a number of early texts: that there were civilizations with knowledge of sophisticated technologies, and that this knowledge was obscured or destroyed over time along with the civilization that had created it. This book presents critical studies of a series of early Chinese, South Asian, and other texts that look at the idea of specific “lost” technologies, such as mechanical flight and the transmission of images. There is also an examination of why concepts of a vanished “golden age” were prevalent in so many cultures. Offering an engaging and investigative look at the propagation of history and myth in technology and culture, this book is sure to interest historians and readers from many backgrounds.
Download or read book The Liminal Horse written by Rena Maguire and published by Trivent Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical horse is at once material and abstract, as is the notion of the border. Borders and frontiers are not only markers delineating geographical spaces but also mental constructs: there are borders between order and disorder, between what is permitted and what is prohibited. Boundaries and liminal spaces also exist in the material, economic, political, moral, legal and religious spheres. In this volume, the contributing authors explore the theme of the liminality of the horse in all of these historical arenas, asking how does one reconcile the very different roles played by the horse in human history?
Download or read book The Gaelic Background of Old English Poetry before Bede written by Colin A. Ireland and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-01-19 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventh-century Gaelic law-tracts delineate professional poets (filid) who earned high social status through formal training. These poets cooperated with the Church to create an innovative bilingual intellectual culture in Old Gaelic and Latin. Bede described Anglo-Saxon students who availed themselves of free education in Ireland at this culturally dynamic time. Gaelic scholars called sapientes (“wise ones”) produced texts in Old Gaelic and Latin that demonstrate how Anglo-Saxon students were influenced by contact with Gaelic ecclesiastical and secular scholarship. Seventh-century Northumbria was ruled for over 50 years by Gaelic-speaking kings who could access Gaelic traditions. Gaelic literary traditions provide the closest analogues for Bede’s description of Cædmon’s production of Old English poetry. This ground-breaking study displays the transformations created by the growth of vernacular literatures and bilingual intellectual cultures. Gaelic missionaries and educational opportunities helped shape the Northumbrian “Golden Age”, its manuscripts, hagiography, and writings of Aldhelm and Bede.
Download or read book Wavelets In Soft Computing Second Edition written by Marc Thuillard and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2022-09-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The comprehensive compendium furnishes a quick and efficient entry point to many multiresolution techniques and facilitates the transition from an idea into a real project. It focuses on methods combining several soft computing techniques (fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms) in a multiresolution framework.Illustrated with numerous vivid examples, this useful volume gives the reader the necessary theoretical background to decide which methods suit his/her needs.New materials and applications for multiresolution analysis are added, including notable research topics such as deep learning, graphs, and network analysis.
Download or read book A History of Irish Literature and the Environment written by Malcolm Sen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-28 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Gaelic annals and medieval poetry to contemporary Irish literature, A History of Irish Literature and the Environment examines the connections between the Irish environment and Irish literary culture. Themes such as Ireland's island ecology, the ecological history of colonial-era plantation and deforestation, the Great Famine, cultural attitudes towards animals and towards the land, the postcolonial politics of food and energy generation, and the Covid-19 pandemic - this book shows how these factors determine not only a history of the Irish environment but also provide fresh perspectives from which to understand and analyze Irish literature. An international team of contributors provides a comprehensive analysis of Irish literature to show how the literary has always been deeply engaged with environmental questions in Ireland, a crucial new perspective in an age of climate crisis. A History of Irish Literature and the Environment reveals the socio-cultural, racial, and gendered aspects embedded in questions of the Irish environment.
Download or read book The Handbook of Historical Economics written by Alberto Bisin and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2021-04-21 with total page 1004 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Historical Economics guides students and researchers through a quantitative economic history that uses fully up-to-date econometric methods. The book's coverage of statistics applied to the social sciences makes it invaluable to a broad readership. As new sources and applications of data in every economic field are enabling economists to ask and answer new fundamental questions, this book presents an up-to-date reference on the topics at hand. - Provides an historical outline of the two cliometric revolutions, highlighting the similarities and the differences between the two - Surveys the issues and principal results of the "second cliometric revolution" - Explores innovations in formulating hypotheses and statistical testing, relating them to wider trends in data-driven, empirical economics
Download or read book Cybernetic Revolution and Global Aging written by Leonid Grinin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bede and Time written by Máirín MacCarron and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded the Irish Historical Research Prize 2021. The Venerable Bede (c. 673–735) was the leading intellectual figure of the early Anglo-Saxon Church, and his extensive corpus of writings encompassed themes of exegesis, computus (dating of Easter and construction of calendars), history and hagiography. Rather than look at these works in isolation, Máirín MacCarron argues that Bede’s work in different genres needs to be read together to be properly understood. This book provides the first integrated analysis of Bede’s thought on time, and demonstrates that such a comprehensive examination allows a greater understanding of Bede’s writings on time, and illuminates the place of time and chronology in his other works. Bede was an outstanding intellect whose creativity and ingenuity were apparent in various genres of writing. This book argues that in innovatively combining computus, theology and history, Bede transformed his contemporaries’ understanding of time and chronology.
Download or read book Bede the scholar written by Peter Darby and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distilling a decade of research by leading experts on the Venerable Bede, Bede the scholar investigates the Northumbrian monk’s place within the wider intellectual developments of the early medieval world. Demonstrating the centrality of the Bible to his scholarship, chapters focus on Bede’s engagement with scriptural languages, his knowledge and use of earlier works of Latin literature, and a pastoral commitment to teaching and preaching. The book breaks new ground for our understanding of Bede’s self image by investigating his famous Ecclesiastical history of the English people alongside lesser-known works such as the Martyrology, the commentary On Genesis, and the chapter headings he developed for different parts of the Vulgate Bible. Contributors highlight the importance of appreciating Bede’s work within its local setting: the kingdom of Northumbria and the monastery of Wearmouth, whose founders, Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrith, inspired Bede in various ways. The monastery provided an environment in which Bede could flourish, and where he contributed to an intellectual enterprise which also generated the Codex Amiatinus, the earliest one-volume Vulgate to survive fully intact. Combining rigorous scholarly research with a celebration of the depth and complexity of Bede’s work, Bede the scholar deepens our understanding of the scholarly programme undertaken by one of the most important intellectual figures of the early middle ages.
Download or read book Irish Late Iron Age Equestrian Equipment in its Insular and Continental Context written by Rena Maguire and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2021-12-23 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first practical archaeological study of Irish Iron Age lorinery. The horse and associated equipment were very much at the heart of the social changes set in motion by contact with the Roman Empire; the examination of the snaffles and bosals allows us to bring the people of the Late Iron Age in Ireland into focus.
Download or read book Theater as Data written by Miguel Escobar Varela and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Theater as Data, Miguel Escobar Varela explores the use of computational methods and digital data in theater research. He considers the implications of these new approaches, and explains the roles that statistics and visualizations play. Reflecting on recent debates in the humanities, the author suggests that there are two ways of using data, both of which have a place in theater research. Data-driven methods are closer to the pursuit of verifiable results common in the sciences; and data-assisted methods are closer to the interpretive traditions of the humanities. The book surveys four major areas within theater scholarship: texts (not only playscripts but also theater reviews and program booklets); relationships (both the links between fictional characters and the collaborative networks of artists and producers); motion (the movement of performers and objects on stage); and locations (the coordinates of performance events, venues, and touring circuits). Theater as Data examines important contributions to theater studies from similar computational research, including in classical French drama, collaboration networks in Australian theater, contemporary Portuguese choreography, and global productions of Ibsen. This overview is complemented by short descriptions of the author’s own work in the computational analysis of theater practices in Singapore and Indonesia. The author ends by considering the future of computational theater research, underlining the importance of open data and digital sustainability practices, and encouraging readers to consider the benefits of learning to code. A web companion offers illustrative data, programming tutorials, and videos.
