Whilst the field of contemporary art has been impeded until recently by Saudi Arabia’s blasphemy laws and heavy censorship, the last decade has seen a rapid growth of art networks and institutions. Incidents such as the conviction of internationally lauded artist and curator Ashraf Fayadh in 2015 on charges of apostasy show that Islamic authorities still claim to define what is acceptable and not acceptable in the field of cultural production, but several renowned Saudi artists have started to question the (...) hegemony of the Islamic field. This article discusses these processes in the context of radical economic reform led by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Why do state actors see an investment in art and creativity as a necessity for economic renewal? What role does contemporary art play in strategies to rebrand the negative image of Saudi Arabia? How do artists relate to Islamic narratives and material culture to claim authority in Islamic debates and provide legitimacy for their concerns? By focusing on the interactions between economic reform and new spaces of Islamic critique, the paper aims to shed light on the way in which the drive for economic transformation is remapping the social boundaries between Islamic authorities, the creative economy and the state. (shrink)

Analyses of household urban agriculture have demonstrated a wealth of personal, economic, social, moral or political uses for self-provisioned food, yet have often understood the practice itself as merely a production process. This ‘means-to-an-end’ perspective is especially pronounced in studies of locations undergoing economic hardship. Urban gardening in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has been framed as an element of an informal economy, enabling household savings, access to informal networks and avoidance of industrial goods deemed (...) ethically dubious. In this article, I present evidence from participant observation and interviews with urban gardeners conducted in 2014–2015 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where urban agriculture proliferated during the European debt crisis that began in 2009. I interpret the material through an ecological perspective that focuses on labour in nature and highlights the interconnected, situated role of the gardener. My analysis of gardening styles, behaviours, attitudes and life-narratives of long-term urban growers challenges the utilitarian interpretation by arguing that urban agriculture in Ljubljana is in fact a means in itself—not an informal economy, but a narrative practice. While undertaken to ameliorate the effects of economic hardship, household urban agriculture first and foremost promotes individual wellbeing and restores a stable sense of self. I outline a series of self-making benefits of working with cultivated, edible nature that helped gardeners reconstruct their biographies after their previously established self-making processes collapsed in the economic downturn. (shrink)

In this work we propose the partial Wiener index as one possible measure of branching in phylogenetic evolutionary trees. We establish the connection between the generalized Robinson–Foulds (RF) metric for measuring the similarity of phylogenetic trees and partial Wiener indices by expressing the number of conflicting pairs of edges in the generalized RF metric in terms of partial Wiener indices. To do so we compute the minimum and maximum value of the partial Wiener index WT,r,n\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} (...) \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$W\left(T,r, n\right)$$\end{document}, where T\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$T$$\end{document} is a binary rooted tree with root r\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$r$$\end{document} and n\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$n$$\end{document} leaves. Moreover, under the Yule probabilistic model, we show how to compute the expected value of WT,r,n\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$W\left(T,r, n\right)$$\end{document}. As a direct consequence, we give exact formulas for the upper bound and the expected number of conflicting pairs. By doing so we provide a better theoretical understanding of the computational complexity of the generalized RF metric. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Seit der Entdeckung des Gilgamesch-Epos am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts wird von der Forschung angenommen, dass dieses Epos den Inhalt der homerischen Epen beeinflusst habe. Der Beitrag legt dar, wann und auf welchem Wege der kulturelle Transfer zwischen Mesopotamien und Griechenland stattgefunden haben kann. Ferner werden mehrere Passagen aus den homerischen Epen diskutiert, in denen die Forschung eine Beeinflussung durch das Gilgamesch-Epos erkennen möchte. Gezeigt wird, dass diese Ansicht zum Teil subjektiv ist und zum Teil auf veralteten Ausgaben des (...) Gilgamesch-Epos beruht. In einem Exkurs wird zuletzt eine aktuelle These zur Datierung der Ilias analysiert. (shrink)

Trotz aller Kontroversen um die Person Carl Schmitt, ist das Interesse an seinen Werken ungebrochen. Ein Grund für diese anhaltende Faszination dürfte in Schmitts hermetischen Gedanken zur Politischen Theologie liegen. Diese Studie geht der Frage nach, was Carl Schmitt unter seiner Politischen Theologie versteht und welche theologische Provenienz diese aufweist. Dabei wird aufgezeigt, dass innerhalb der Politischen Theologie Carl Schmitts ein Primat des Politischen herrscht und die theologische Dimension in Gänze eine "unkatholische Ausrichtung" besitzt.

Sve do 20. stoljeća filozofija religije na Zapadu bila je zaokupljena religijskim konceptima koji su proizlazili iz judeo-kršćanske ili islamske tradicije. No, danas je jasno kako filozofija religije nema teologijskih i konfesionalnih granica te kako mora uzeti u obzir najširi mogući spektar religijskih fenomena. Pritom se kao jedan od centralnih problema pokazuje upravo pluralizam religija: može li filozofija religije ravnopravno pristupiti svih religijskim tradicijama i ponuditi zadovoljavajuću analizu? Jedan od najznačajnijih živućih filozofa religije, John Hick, želi dati jednu novu »interpretaciju (...) religije« i to ograničavajući je kako od naturalističkih tako i konfesionalnih interpretacija. Naziva je »filozofijom religijskog pluralizma« te je smješta u širi kontekst filozofije religije nastojeći pritom uvažiti fenomen religije u »pluralizmu njegovih formi«. Takva »pluralistička hipoteza« želi biti prihvatljiva »globalno-mislećim vjernicima svih tradicija«.Until the 20th century Western philosophy of religion was solely preoccupied with Judeo-Christian and Islamic religious traditions. However, it is clear today that philosophy of religion has no theological and confessional boundaries and that it is bound to consider religious phenomena in variety of its forms. One of its central problems is in fact religious pluralism: can philosophy of religion approach to all religious traditions on equal terms and offer an acceptable analysis? One of the greatest living philosophers of religion, John Hick, proposes a new “interpretation of religion” free of naturalist and confessional interpretations. Hick calls it “philosophy of religious pluralism” and sets it in broader context of philosophy of religion. His main concern is to encompass religious phenomenon in “pluralism of its forms”. This “pluralistic hypothesis” tends to be acceptable for the “global-thinking believers of all traditions”. (shrink)

Njemački filozof Karl Jaspers, promišljajući smisao ljudske egzistencije, usmjerava svoju pažnju na transcendentnu stvarnost u kojoj pronalazi izvor egzistencije. Jedan je od simbola-šifri koji transcendenciju uprisutnjuje i pojam «Bog». Polazeći od filozofsko-povijesnih poticaja, Jaspers uobličuje na temelju filozofske i, Zapadu bliske, biblijske koncepcije božanstva svoj pojam Boga kao šifre transcendencije – to je nespoznatljiv Bog pojedinca-egzistencije, o kojem ne znamo ništa jer je ne-misliv, ali možemo živjeti iz njegove stvarnosti do koje dolazimo putem filozofskog vjerovanja. U njemu mi dosižemo izvor (...) svoje egzistencije.Tako poimanog Boga Jaspers suprostavlja Bogu religijskih sistema, koji guši istinsku egzistencijalnu slobodu. Dogme o religijskom Bogu isključuju sve koji drukčije misle i stoga su neprihvatljive jer je njihova bezuvjetnost apsolutna. Bog kojem se obraća egzistencija nužno ostaje skriven, jer to je jedini uvjet slobode. Religijske dogme i institucije moraju postati svjesne svoje povijesne uvjetovanosti.German philosopher Karl Jaspers, in contemplating the meaning of human existence, points his attentionto transcendent reality, which is the origin of existence. One of the symbols-markers whichmakes that transcendence alive, is the concept of ‘God’. Starting with philosophical-historicalurges, Jaspers, on the basis of philosophical and Western-Biblical conception of divinity, makes hisconcept of God as the marker of transcendence. This is unknowable God of single human existence,of whom we do not know anything because he is unthinkable, but we can live within his reality,that is reachable by the way of philosophical faith. In this God, we reach the origin of our existence.Jaspers confronts such a God to a God of religious systems, which suffocates real existentialfreedom. Dogmas on religion God exclude everybody of different opinion, and are therefore unacceptable,because their unconditionality is absolute. God to whom existence is addressed to, remainshidden by necessity, because this is the only condition for freedom. Religious dogmas and institutionshave to become aware of being historically conditioned. (shrink)

This research was carried out on a sample of third year pupils of vocational schools and gymnasiums. Of the surveyed pupils, 253 of them attended gymnasiums, while 352 attended vocational secondary schools. The goal of this research was to examine specificities in secondary school pupils’ perceptions of the importance of subjects in the field of the fine arts. A separate analysis was undertaken for only two selected dependent variables: the importance of subjects in the field of the fine arts for (...) developing memory and the ability to learn other subjects, and interest in and satisfaction with participation in fine arts activities. The results show that there is no statistically significant difference between the estimation of gymnasium and vocational school pupils regarding participation in fine arts activities or in their estimation of the importance of fine arts activities in developing memory and the ability to learn other subjects. There is a statistically significant gender difference in the estimation of participation in fine arts activities, as well as in the estimation of the importance of fine arts activities in developing memory and the ability to learn other subjects. It can be concluded that respondents were unable to estimate how much or why they would use competencies gained in fine arts teaching in their continued education or their future careers. (shrink)