The article is devoted to the problem of studying the relationship between language and ethnic culture. It analyzes Bashkir toponyms associated with the cult of fire. The Bashkirs, like many nations, including the Turkic and Mongolian, have thought that fire symbolized home and was the protector of the family. The Bashkirs worshiped fire as cleansing and healing power, while at the same time the fire represented formidable and dangerous force. Fire in the Bashkir mythology (...) is closely related to its opposite element - Water, with the gods of the upper world - the Sun and the Moon and the deity of Earth, geographical names of Bashkortostan testify this. On the material of Bashkir toponymy and related beliefs it was attempted to do a semantic etimological-onomasiological reconstruction of the Bashkir deity of fire Otukan, which dates back to the old Turkic deity Yduk Otuken//Otukan. In Mongolian mythology, it corresponds to the deity Etugen//Otuken, associated with the cult of the mother goddess, earth and fire, and in Japanese mythology - with the god, the owner of the land, - Ootukonu-si-no kami. According to the author, the formation of names connected with ‘fire‘ in the Bashkir toponymy was promoted by the worship of the deity of fire, the tribal fire, the tribal habitat and the family by Tatar-Mongols. Interesting is the fact, that the base ‘ut‘, which is connected with the ancient Turkic beliefs, also builds a theonym, a toponymic term, a geographic name, an ethnonym and anthroponym, i.e. it permeates the entire onomastic and appellative vocabulary. However, at the appellative level, this lexical item has no religious significance. For example, Otukan, TÓ©kÓ©n, Ò®tәgәn, Ò®tәk, otaq in Turkic languages have the meanings of ‘home‘, ‘yurt‘, ‘mountain valley‘, ‘flat place in the mountains on the hillside‘, ‘southern winter quarters‘. This relationship is explained by the fact that, initially, perhaps, yet there was the worship of a female deity Otukan that embodied fire and was associated with the earth, with the habitat and the ancestral hearth, where the original base morpheme was ‘fire‘, then it was associated with the deification of family and tribal territory, and later with the deification of the person of the ruler, this lexic item has spread throughout the onomastic vocabulary and in the appellative lexicon within the meaning of the place of residence. (shrink)

Persae et Magi omnes qui Persicae regionis incolunt fines ignem praeferunt et omnibus elementis ignem putant debere praeponi. The Persians and all the Magi who dwell in the confines of the Persian land give their preference to fire and think it ought to be ranked above all the other elements.Iulius Firmicus Maternus was a Latin writer who lived in the fourth centurya.d. In the 340s, following his conversion to Christianity, he wrote theDe errore profanarum religionum, which has been preserved (...) only in the tenth-century manuscript Vaticanus Palatinus Latinus 165. In this work he argues against the pagan cults, calling for the emperors to suppress them. The first sections are dedicated to the pagan worship of the natural elements: objects of a cult are water among the Egyptians, earth among the Phrygians, air among the Assyrians. The chapter we are dealing with, the fifth, is dedicated to fire, a central element of the Zoroastrian religion. Greek and Roman writers, pagans and Christians alike, were aware of this, and references to some sort of fire-cult among Persians are numerous in literature and are found as early as Herodotus. Just like Firmicus Maternus, some authors also state that the Magi worship fire as a god or divine element and that they conduct fire-related rituals. In Greek and Latin authors there is a view that the Magi, these specialists of the rituals of the Persian religion, were originally a Median tribe. As shown by the passages of Ammianus and Basil, such knowledge was also available to Firmicus Maternus’ contemporaries, and there do not appear to be particular differences in the way in which Greek and Latin authors viewed the Magi in Achaemenid and Sassanid times. Regrettably, one cannot know for certain which of these sources Firmicus Maternus knew. (shrink)

Written at the end of the 1960s, this book introduces a whole series of themes. problems and perplexities which have come to obsess Don Cupitt permanently. However at that stage he was still ready to align himself with that mainstream of theological writing which almost identifies orthodox faith with the quest for objectivity, whereas now he is not. In the case of God the considerations that were leading him to question received assumptions had to do with the problem of analogy (...) and the dynamics of the spiritual life. In the case of Christ they had to do with the resurrection. Above all it was hard to take a realist view of the 'Christ' of present experience. `Somehow I felt that the notion that faith is a matter of intuitive acquaintance with an invisible person, inside one's head or behind the scenes, is epistemologically and psychologically deeply wrong. No satisfactory sense can be made of it. In fact I think it has only developed since the seventeenth century and is an aberration, the chief symptom of modern Christianity's dangerous slide into irrationalism and the cult mentality. This book fires the opening shots in a struggle to check that slide and restore rationality to the spiritual life.' Don Cupitt is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. (shrink)

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) is surely one of the more remarkable figures in the story of global electrification. Rivalling Thomas Edison for the title of chief Wizard, both in his own time and ours, almost every invention of modern life has at some point been attributed to Tesla: from the communications media of telephone, fax, radio, and television, through the military utilities of radar and remote-control weapons, and (most plausibly) the systems of alternate current generation and transmission that power our world. (...) And yet Tesla died impoverished and alone in a New York hotel room with his greatest plans for wireless power transmission abandoned and derided, if they were remembered at all. Tesla’s image as something of a martyr to an ungrateful world has indeed generated a cult following in recent decades, doubtless fired in part by the Serbian nationalism that has justly helped raise the profile of Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Marić (e.g. M. Popović, In Albert’s Shadow: The L .. (shrink)

In this article the author provides new external evidence demonstrating that the correspondence between the philosopher Seneca and the apostle Paul is a forgery. The author compares archaeological data offered by inscriptions, graffiti and regionarii with information conveyed by the apocryphal letters. The setting of the epistles, as well as information about the duration and damages of the Neronian fire, contrast with the archaeological data, indicating that the text should be considered a forgery. The contribution shows that the forger (...) worked rather in a literary mode. Conversely, the only archaeological date that scholars have brought to support authenticity is probably not a Christian inscription and does not prove anything regarding a meeting between Seneca and Paul or Seneca’s conversion. The origin of the correspondence should instead be traced to the cult of the apostles Paul and Peter during the 3rd and 4th centuries. (shrink)

Retrato de uma jovem em chamas, filme de Céline Sciamma, propõe a discussão sobre o “olhar feminino”, tanto na pintura quanto no cinema. O artigo parte da perspectiva dos Estudos Feministas e busca correlações entre o filme e o cânone da literatura, da pintura e do cinema e o sistema patriarcal que lhes dá suporte. Observa como esse cânone instrumentaliza um culto à passividade feminina e sua inscrição enquanto objeto na História, estetizando “a mulher morta” como índice dessa representação. Parte (...) da hipótese de que a imagem da mulher pode ser aprofundada pela narrativa de autoria feminina enquanto lugar de resistência política. Busca posicionar-se contra o apagamento das experiências lésbicas, ao torná-las visíveis e construir sentido sobre elas.Palavras-chave: Olhar Feminino. Cinema. Pintura. Cânone. Experiência Lésbica. AbstractPortrait of a lady on fire, film by Céline Sciamma, proposes a discussion on the “female gaze”, both in painting and in cinema. The article is based on the Feminist Studies perspective and seeks correlations between film and the canon of literature, painting, and cinema, and the patriarchal system that supports them. It observes how this canon instrumentalizes a cult of female passivity and its inscription as an object in history, aestheticizing “the dead woman” as an index of this representation. It is based on the hypothesis that the image of women can be deepened by the female authorship narrative as a site of political resistance. It seeks to position itself against the erasure of lesbian experiences, by making them visible and building meaning upon them.Keywords: Female Gaze. Cinema. Painting. Canon. Lesbian Experience. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 5 focuses on the cults of Hermes, Dionysos, Hestia, Hephaistos, Ares and several minor figures. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 1 covers the Aniconic age, the Iconic age, and the cults of Cronos, Zeus, Hera and Athena. (shrink)

The article «The Cults of Nature of the territory between the Dnipro-Danube water basin in the light of modern researhh» by I.Zavaliy is based on the research of leading foreign and domestic scientists consider the issues of pre-Christian spiritual heritage of the territory between the Dnipro- Danube water basin.

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 4 focuses on the cults of Poseidon and Apollo. (shrink)

One of the central places in the cult of the Catholic Church is the virgin Mary, the Virgin. She is revered as a woman who gave life to the son of God Jesus Christ and brought him up.

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 1 covers the Aniconic age, the Iconic age, and the cults of Cronos, Zeus, Hera and Athena. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 3 focuses on the cults of Ge, Demeter, Hades, and Rhea. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 2 Seiten: 495-525.

Early followers of Jesus and later rabbinical Jews, two divergent branches of Judaism emerging respectively from the Second Temple and Post-Second Temple eras, both drew upon the cultural memory of Sinai to establish their identity. This article examines how the author of Acts used the Sinai imagery of theophanic fire in the Pentecost narrative of Acts 2 to reinforce a continu­ation of Judaism and offer an inclusive expansion of it to gentile believers. Then it looks at how later rabbinic (...) sources used Sinai images of fire and multiple languages to reinforce the authority of the Torah and their exclusive identity within the Sinai relationship. (shrink)

Description: The common western understanding of Buddhism today envisions this major world religion as one of compassion and tolerance. But as the author Droit reveals, this view bears little resemblance to one broadly held in the nineteenth-century European philosophical imagination that saw Buddhism as a religion of annihilation calling for the destruction of the self. The Cult of Nothingness traces the history of the western discovery of Buddhism. In so doing, the author shows that such major philosophers as Schopenhauer, (...) Nietzsche, Hegel, Cousin, and Renan imagined Buddhism as a religion that was, as Nietzsche put it, a negation of the world. In fact, says the author, such portrayals were more a reflection of what was happening in Europe at the time-when the collapse of traditional European hierarchies and values, the specter of atheism, and the rise of racism and social revolts were shaking European societies-than an accurate description of Buddhist thought. The author also reflects on how this history continues to echo in contemporary western understanding of Buddhism. The book includes a comprehensive bibliography on books on Buddhism published in the west between 1638 and 1890. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 2 focuses on the cults of Artemis, Adrasteia, Hekate, Eileithyia, and Aphrodite. (shrink)

At the end of his life of Aratus Plutarch recounts the death of the Achaean statesman in 213 BC, the subsequent transport of his body — after a consultation of the Delphic oracle — from Aigion to his native Sicyon, his burial inside of the city, and the annual festival established in his honor. Although Plutarch’s account of the retrieval of the body is for several reasons highly suspect historically, his description of the festival rings true and appears to derive (...) — not directly, I argue, but indirectly through an intermediate source — from an inscription. Most of the content and language finds close parallels in surviving inscriptions concerned with the conduct of sacrifices and, especially, with the large, organized processions that very often preceded them. I use material from these inscriptions to supplement and shed light on Plutarch’s brief account and to offer a tentative reconstruction of the festival and its procession, in the context of what is known of the topography of Hellenistic Sicyon. I also make a suggestion, again tentative, of the identity of Plutarch’s source for the passage. (shrink)

Some organisations make vaccination a condition of employment. This means prospective employees must demonstrate they have been vaccinated (eg, against measles) to be hired. But it also means organisations must decide whether _existing_ employees should be expected to meet newly introduced vaccination conditions (eg, against COVID-19). Unlike prospective employees who will not be _hired_ if they do not meet vaccination conditions, existing employees who fail to meet new vaccination conditions risk being _fired_. The latter seems worse than the former. Hence, (...) objections to vaccination mandates commonly centre on the harms that will be visited on existing employees who are unwilling to be vaccinated. However, because this objection does not necessarily entail the claim that vaccination is unnecessary for the effective and safe performance of certain jobs, those making this objection should have less of an objection, or no objection at all (at least on these grounds), to introducing vaccination requirements in some cases for _prospective_ employees. Yet, in this paper, I shall argue that if one has reason to believe vaccination requirements can be justified for prospective employees, one should also believe they are justified for existing employees _despite_ any asymmetry in consequences experienced by the two groups. As a consequence, common objections made against vaccination mandates grounded solely in the harms that may be experienced by existing employees who are unwilling to be vaccinated should be considered unpersuasive. (shrink)

Shortly after the Vandals took Carthage in 439, the city's Catholic bishop, Quodvultdeus, and a large number of his clergy were said to have been placed “naked and despoiled on broken ships” and put to sea, banished from Africa. By God's mercy, the exiles made their way safely to Naples, where Quodvultdeus quickly came to be regarded as a saint: a fifth-century mosaic from the catacombs of St. Januarius in Capodimonte seems to depict the African bishop, and by the middle (...) of the ninth century his feast day was celebrated in the local liturgical calendar. A similar story could be told of Gaudiosus of Abitina, another fifth-century African bishop who was said to have fled the Vandals and who also achieved sainthood in Campania. The flight of refugees like Quodvultdeus and Gaudiosus from the political turmoil that wracked North Africa between the fifth and the eighth centuries, however, has long been seen as having a far greater significance than the reinvention of exiled African bishops as southern Italian holy men. In late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the cults of numerous saints who had been martyred in Africa and whose cults had originally developed there spread beyond the shores of the southern Mediterranean to the rest of the Christian world. In seeking to explain the diffusion of these cults, historians have long focused on the movements of refugees—and, above all, those who fled the Vandals' conquest of Africa and their subsequent persecution of the region's Catholic population—as displaced Africans such as Quodvultdeus are thought to have brought the relics of their local saints with them into foreign exile. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 96 Heft: 1 Seiten: 183-217.

The author’s idea is to stress the contradictory nature of the security phenomenon and to emphasize that excessive security — desired, required, or achieved — turns into its own destructive opposite and becomes a totalitarian threat. Real security that is essential for a meaningful life is achieved through a closely reasoned self-confidence and trust-based relationships with just a few others. Alienation by an individual of a self-defense resource in favor of third parties and structures leads to a totalitarian cult (...) of security that turns it into a farce. (shrink)

The fire safety of industrial buildings has always been a great concern. An excellent evacuation indicator system can guide the personnel to escape quickly, thus reducing the casualties. In this study, we present a virtual simulation fire scene based on virtual reality to explore the impact of different colors, brightness values, and flashing frequencies on escape time in case of fire emergencies. The presented scene can help shorten the time required for evacuation in an industrial plant by (...) identifying the escape path under the fire and smoke environment and improve the escape efficiency. The results show that the green color is the most suitable color for evacuations; the escape efficiency increases with an increase in brightness, and there is no significant difference between the escape times under high and medium brightness; the evacuation time decreases with an increase in the flicker frequency. Based on these experimental results, the fire evacuation indicating system is designed. A virtual reality verification experiment is used to compare the escape efficiency of the improved design with an original factory’s indicating system. The verification results show that the improved scheme reduces the evacuation time and significantly improves the psychological stress on the evacuees. This work provides a theoretical basis for safe evacuation designs. (shrink)

In the twentieth century, celebrations of historical anniversaries abounded. There was the bicentennial of the French Revolution, the 150th anniversary of photography, Bach's 300th anniversary, and the 200th anniversary of the American Constitution, to name just a few. Every year hundreds of anniversaries still attract media attention and government investment in ever greater degrees. Deploying an astonishing array of insights, Celebrations explores the causes and consequences of this major phenomenon of our time. As Johnston shows, anniversaries fulfill a number of (...) needs. They provide the kind of experience of regularity across a lifetime that the weekly cycle supplies in daily life. The use of anniversaries for political ends emerged during the French Revolution and expanded to promote nationalism during the nineteenth century, although there are differences in how they are used. Europeans tend to celebrate cultural heroes, while Americans tend to celebrate events. Entire nations exploit anniversaries of founding events in order to promote national identity. Commercially, there are whole industries built around commemoration, and they provide intellectuals an opportunity to take center stage. Using methods of cultural history, sociology, and religious studies, Johnston shows how the cult of anniversaries reflects postmodern concerns. It fills a void left by the disappearance of ideologies and avant-gardes. In an era when there is little consensus about styles or methods, anniversaries allow intellectuals, businesses, and governments to acknowledge and celebrate every nuance of opinion. By suggesting ways to use anniversaries more creatively, this book offers a broad range of insights. (shrink)

The Vestal Virgins are one of the most famous elements of Roman religion, yet despite their perennial appeal and the importance of some smaller scale studies of the priesthood, the priestesses have not received a monograph-length study since F. Giuzzi, Aspetti giuridici del sacerdozio romano. II sacerdozio di Vesta (Naples, 1968). Now we have books by R.L. Wildfang and M.C. Martini that could not be more different. The former offers a thorough survey of what the sources can tell us about (...) the priesthood in the period from the end of the Second Carthaginian War to the first century C.E. The latter is an analysis of early Roman historiography and the role the Vestals, in particular their periodic unchastity, played in the creation of the traditional account of the development of Rome. W's book puts forward two main arguments: (1) the Vestals were charged with the ritual purification of the city and with the storage and preparation of ritual materials, and (2) many aspects of the priesthood that have long puzzled scholars are tied to the Vestals' status as Roman citizens, but citizens who existed outside the traditional family structure. The book will be accessible to those new to the topic, but the notes will repay specialists. Ancient sources are quoted in translation, with original texts provided in an appendix. A second appendix provides a list of known Vestals. This slender volume could have been even thinner if the frequent repetitions were cut down. W's work might have been better as a hefty article, so little is there to know about the Vestals. The Classical Review vol. 58 no. 1 C The Classical Association 2008; all rights reserved This content downloaded from 204.235.148.90 on Sat, 26 Jul 2014 11:47:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 213 In the Introduction, W makes a welcome distinction among types of rituals often lumped together in discussions of 'fertility' rituals, with which the Vestals are often associated (p. 4). W reserves 'fertility' to describe only those rites that deal with the reproduction of people, livestock and the growth of crops. Harvest rituals are linked to the harvesting of crops, while another set of rites, 'storage rites', are tied to the preservation of the harvest. The final group, purification rituals, aim at the cleansing of an individual, place or object of 'all forms of pollution that would render it or them unfit to come into contact with the religious sphere'. The book is arranged thematically. The first two chapters lay out all we can know about the priestesses' ritual obligations performed in the seclusion of the temple and out amongst the people. While a reader may not find W's interpretation of each of the Vestals' actions equally persuasive, the overall argument that the priestesses' activities were, by and large, purificatory is convincing. Two of the more interesting aspects of W.'s discussion are her considerations of Vesta's fire and of the water required for some of her rituals (pp. 8-11). Fire was seen by the Romans as both a fertile and a sterile force, and scholars have emphasised one or the other, or the contrast between them, in their interpretation of the Vestals. W points out that fertile fire is always described in masculine terms and is associated with Vulcan. Vesta's fire, however, is always associated with sterility and purity, and so should be understood as having a purificatory significance. W points out that Vesta's fire was used only in the manufacture of ritually necessary items: roasting spelt for mola salsa, baking brine for muries and burning ashes from the fetal cow from the Fordicidia and the tail of the October horse, both of which were used at the Parilia. For other rituals, the Vestals were required to use water, the purificatory substance par excellence, drawn only from the spring of Juturna and carried only in vessels that could not be set down. These restrictions ensured that the water was always fresh, running water that never touched profane earth. Chapters 3-5 trace out the unique position the Vestals occupied in Roman society, arguing that they existed outside the standard Roman familial and other social structures, yet remained fully part of the Roman state. W suggests that the initiation rite of captio removed the new priestess not only from her family but, more importantly, from her family cult, thus avoiding any potential contamination of familial and public cult. Virginity was required for multiple reasons, the most significant being that such a status allowed the priestess to remain a full member of the Roman state, but prevented her from being a member of a traditional family structure. Throughout the book, W makes much of the idea of Vestals as represen tatives of Roman citizen women without ever really dealing with the question to what extent any Roman woman, priestess or not, was a ciuis. Though W is probably correct, it is not entirely certain to what extent women were citizens in the Republic, and at least a reference to some key ancient sources and to recent scholarship on this question should be made (e.g. L. Peppe, Posizione giuridica e ruolo sociale della donna romana in eta repubblicana [Milan, 1984]). The sixth chapter, 'The Vestals in the Romans' History', looks at the appearance of Vestals in the early history of Rome, refining the common assumption that accusations of, and convictions for, incestum arose only in periods of great stress and danger. W adds that a priestess's involvement, or her family's involvement, in one of the groups taking part in the conflict or struggle of the moment also played a role. This chapter traces changes over the course of 300 years in the attitudes of the priestesses and the Romans more generally toward the priesthood, its role in society This content downloaded from 204.235.148.90 on Sat, 26 Jul 2014 11:47:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 214 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW and its requirement of 30 years of chastity. The argument hangs on even less evidence than other sections of the work. In contrast to their central place in W's book, the Vestals play only a small (though crucial, in her interpretation) role in M.'s work. The basic argument of the book is that episodes of Vestal incestum are linked in the historiographic tradition to key moments in the development of the Roman state: the separation of augurium from regnum, the development of a mixed patrician-plebeian aristocracy, the creation of a monetary system and the expansion of the colonial system outside Italy. The history of Rome can be seen as alternating phases of stasis and transformation; instances of Vestal incestum mark the transitions (p. 95). The work falls into two parts that are not well integrated. The first is a useful discussion of the historiography of the Roman Republic, taking in turn each element of the story of the founding of Rome from the arrival of Aeneas to the death of Remus. M. traces how early Roman writers, especially Fabius Pictor, reshaped the tradition already present in some Greek authors, distancing Rome from the Greek world and adding an Italic element to the tale. This detailed analysis is well worth consulting and will be of interest to those working on many aspects of cultural life in the Republic. The second, larger, section of the book comprises a series of studies of the Vestals known to have been convicted of incestum during the Republic. After dealing with issues of dating and sources, M. links each case of incestum to a major event in Roman history. Not all the events are equally important for the creation of the Rome of the middle and late Republic. One wonders why M. chose to tie the conviction of Minucia, somewhere between 339 and 332, to the admission of plebeians to the praetorship in 337 rather than to the conclusion of the Latin War in 338. Some explanation is warranted. The connection M. draws is often very vague, as in the case of Sextilia (pp. 144-54), convicted and interred alive in either 275 or 274. M. sees this as marking the end of any meaningful distinction between patricians and plebeians, following as it does the first time a plebeian censor completed a lustrum. The gap of five or six years between Sextilia's conviction and Cn. Domitius Calvinus Maximus' censorship in 280 passes unremarked. Similarly, in discussing the three Vestals accused of incestum in 114-113 (pp. 188-210), M. steps away from the commonly accepted interpretation of the event as part of the continuing struggle between Gracchan and senatorial forces, arguing instead that it is tied to the establishment in 118 of the colony of Narbo Martius, Rome's first colony in Gaul. Here, as elsewhere, there is no evidence that any ancient author linked the founding of the colony and Vestal unchastity; the temporal gap makes an association even more unlikely. Ultimately, it is not possible to accept M.'s argument that Vestal incestum punctuated key stages in the development of the 'cosmo Romano' in the way she imagines. Even so, M.'s effort to reintegrate the Vestals into the larger narrative of Rome's history is thought-provoking, and it is to be hoped that it will spark further work in the same vein. The field is perhaps in a better position to undertake work on this scale now that we have W's careful and comprehensive collection and interpre tation of what there is to know about the Vestals. Yale University CELIA E. SCHULTZ celia.schultz(yale.edu This content downloaded from 204.235.148.90 on Sat, 26 Jul 2014 11:47:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions. (shrink)

Vietnam is a country with many spiritual beliefs that reflect the values of its inhabitants, being an important component of their traditional culture. A special place is occupied by faith in the Mother Goddess. This kind of beliefs, which is completely unique for Vietnam, has a long history and emphasizes the feminine principle through the image of a woman with the power and ability to create, enrich and develop everything that exists. Faith in the Mother Goddess reflects the values and (...) high human qualities of the Vietnamese, and it has been recognized by UNESCO as an object of representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Confucian ethics was adopted in Vietnam, but it was influenced by the Vietnamese belief in the Mother Goddess. The cult of the Mother Goddess also had a great influence on the ideas about the role of women in society. The study analyzes the origins, features and values of this cult and indicates its influence on the Vietnamese Confucian ethics. It is established that the activities of the worship of the Mother Goddess contribute to strengthening the sense of community of the Vietnamese nation. In connection with the development of Confucian ethics within the framework of Vietnamese culture, the attitude towards women has changed to a more humane and open one. In modern times, the cult of mother worship has acquired secular features and can be seen as a sign of gender equality. (shrink)

Within educational philosophies that utilise the Heideggerian idea of ‘authenticity’ there can be distinguished at least two readings that correspond with the categories of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ utopianism. ‘Strong-utopianism’ is the nostalgia for some lost Edenic paradise to be restored at some future time. Here it is the ‘world’ that needs to be transcended for it is the source of our inauthenticity, where we are the puppets of modernist-capitalist ideologies. ‘Authenticity’ here is a value-judgment, understood as something that makes you (...) a better person. The ‘inauthentic’ person is simply deceived. ‘Weak-utopianism’ is recognising the forces for change in the ‘everyday-immanent’ where we do not look to overcome the world but own it as ‘heritage’. ‘Authenticity’ here is an ontological choice, a modification of inauthenticity, not its opposite. The ‘cult of the authentic’ relates to the ‘strong utopianism’ where ‘authenticity’ has become fetishized, harking back to a purer, pre-modern state, untainted by the ideals of the Enlightenment and ethos of capitalism. ‘Authentic education’ is the overcoming of our environments and socio-historical contexts, opening up new horizons of meaning. The radical notion of freedom that this implies, where one is free from rather than free in the realisation of constraint, may also be another dividing line between the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ readings, which lend themselves to a Messianic narrative. It will be argued that if ‘authentic education’ is understood through a ‘strong utopianism’ it actually re-enforces those very same dystopian ideals they look to overcome as characterised by ‘enframing’. (shrink)

The publication of FRAGMENTS OF A POETICS OF FIRE is a milestone in Bachelard studies that will influence the way we think about his themes & method for a long time to come. Dissatisfied with his earlier attempt to come to terms with the element of fire in "The Psychoanalysis of Fire" (1937), Bachelard returned to this theme in the book he was working on at the time of his death in 1962. Because of delays in &, (...) eventually, the abandonment of a projected edition of his complete works, these FRAGMENTS OF A POETICS OF FIRE remained unpublished & their very existence unknown to all but a handful of Bachelard's readers. The author's daughter, Suzanne Bachelard, edited them for separate publication over a quarter-century later in 1988. For the first time we have an insight into the way Bachelard constructed his remarkable books. Miss Bachelard's introduction & extensive notes are an indispensable guide to the workings of his mind as "he shapes a meandering series of observations on the phoenix, Prometheus, & Empedocles into a coherent & engaging structure that respects the fluidity & openness of a living image - the powerful image of fire.". (shrink)

Pese embora o facto de se tratar de um culto cristológico, e nesse sentido fora do âmbito específico dos santos portugueses, a designação popular de “Santo Cristo dos Milagres”, pela sua natureza taumatúrgica e cariz vivencial, representa uma forma específica de devoção, expressa num culto bem tipificado e localizado no espaço português, fixado e difundido por uma notável iconografia.