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Derek Walcott wrote that "History is sea": sailing, as a movement, goes beyond the borders and in the postcolonial narratives the transatlantic is a powerful symbol of the transnational space. The essay wants to analyse the images of the marine world, of the ocean and especially of the ship, the transatlantic as the fundamental and chronotopic figure of the postcolonial theories, particularly in relation to the delineation of a contemporary cultural and global reality as a transnational space in which take shape political and aesthetical expressions that challenge the modern conceptions on nationality, ethnicity and on cultural authenticity. The theories on postcolonialism by Paul Gilroy and Édouard Glissant are here examined. Gilroy considers the ship that moves through the archipelagos as the representation of the instability and the mutability of identities that are in perpetual development, since the ship's movement is transversal, not linear, and it crosses the "Black Atlantic", transmitting multicultural, hybrid ideas during its journey. Édouard Glissant is the theorist of the 'Antillanité' as the place of choice for the crossing of different cultures in the French-speaking Caribbean, and moves from his vision of the American and Caribbean landscape towards a broader, global identity.

Anja Zimmermann Media and Metaphors of Black-and-white. History, Gender and Visual Politics in the Work of Kara Walker, Cindy Sherman, and Zwelethu MthethwaArtistic techniques of black-and-white are loaded with cultural meaning. In part referring to color and contrast, black-and-white also always connotes racial difference. The article explores this intertwined relationship of certain artistic strategies and their cultural effects. Concentrating on the work of the American artist Kara Walker, who uses silhouettes in her work, the aim is to show how this and other related techniques are used to thwart prevailing notions of gender and race. Having created a fiercely debated body of work that has been called sexist and racist by a number of critics, Kara Walker is an example of the ambiguous effects of invoking pertinent stereotypes.Another focal point is the possible consequences for analyzing artwork that does not overtly deal with race but which nevertheless – e.g. by using black-and-white techniques –should be read in this context. Cindy Sherman is a case in point, as her work deals with representations of white femininity, but was received merely as a comment on postmodern debates about gender.

The author puts forward new theories on the Soviet culture of the Great Patriotic War's period. He investigates contradictions between traditions of Russian culture in the context of Great Historical Time and clich_s of Soviet semiofficial propaganda, which served as spiritual weapon in the War against German fascism and as political foundation of Stalin's totalitarian regime. The theme of the War was the main cultural result of that time in the whole soviet history and the most important political myth of the XX century. Those works of literature and arts, those ideas and symbols, which were created in the context of Great Historical Time, became the real phenomenon of World culture, and those of them, which continued Soviet propagandist respects, were doomed to oblivion or changed into travesties and trivial anecdotes. The terrible price of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War was caused not only by many millions of human victims and destructions in very different spheres of economy, but by reason of crisis of the totalitarian culture. This crisis is explained by a correlation and a struggle between two cultural mechanism the selection and the convergence, which were different in the meaning of the Great Patriotic War and the World War II, in the context of Russian / Soviet and European / World histories.

On March 8, 2005, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a declaration on human cloning (the Declaration) by a recorded vote of 84 to 34, with 37 abstentions.1 The Declaration culminated an effort that had commenced in 2001 with a proposal by France and Germany for a convention against reproductive cloning of human beings. The three-and-ahalf- year negotiation that followed was intense and emotionally charged with religious and cultural overtones; at times, participants seemed to feel hopelessly mired. The Declaration that was ultimately adopted was often referred to as a "political declaration," apparently as a way of emphasizing the degree of compromise reflected in the text, and also as away of minimizing its normative value. The negotiation, which had originally been understood as limited to the narrow bioethics issue of prohibiting the making of cloned babies, led to profound discussions on human rights, cultural and religious diversities, and their interaction and priorities in case of conflict. Ultimately, neither the Declaration nor its negotiating history answered these difficult questions. But they provided a glimpse of the difficulties and impasses international lawmaking will confront when negotiations lose a secular tone.

Desde antiguo se sostiene que el lenguaje es una eficiente herramienta para legitimar. La palabra le permite al hombre articular un discurso mediante el cual se relaciona con otros hombres y otorga sentido a la realidad que lo circunda. En la historia reciente de América Latina encontramos un padecimiento que se expresa mediante un proceso de dominación producto de la imposición de categorías a través de las cuales pensar y concebir nuestra realidad, a partir de lo cual, se forman intelectuales en una situación de desarraigo cultural e incomprensión de su prójimo más cercano, de su propio pueblo. ; From old it is maintained that the language is an efficient tool to legitimize. The word allows the man to articulate a speech by means of which it is related to other men and it grants sense to the reality that surrounds it. In the recent history of Latin America we found a suffering which it express by means of a domination process product of the imposition of categories through which to think and to conceive our reality, from which, intellectuals in a situation of cultural uprooting and lack of understanding of their fellow form closest, of its own town.

PurposeThis article aims to develop and explore diagnostic frameworks to enhance one's understanding of the religiously‐inspired terrorist. It seeks to examine the relationship between the culture and conditions from which terrorists are recruited, as well as the psychological impact of fundamentalist religious teachings upon the minds of susceptible people.Design/methodology/approachThis paper synthesises the theories of memetics with structuration to create a diagnostic framework facilitating greater understanding of terrorism and its appeal to those being recruited to its cause. This diagnostic framework assesses the influence and power of selective religious teachings when combined with a culture and history of violence, and their impact on susceptible minds in a fractured society.FindingsBy combining the theory of memetics with structuration theory it is possible to develop a diagnostic framework that examines psychological, cultural, and religiously‐inspired factors driving the phenomenon that has been labelled as terrorism. Memetic theory assesses culture and communication of beliefs, ideas, and thoughts. Structuration theory identifies motives and drives.Originality/valueThe authors conclude that the current terrorism problem bears little relationship to US foreign policy. The concept of a free society will never be fully enacted until the religious and cultural scaffoldings that support terrorism have been dismantled.

This article is a cultural historical interpretation of the elephant carrying an Egyptian obelisk on the Piazza della Minerva in Rome. The monument was designed by Bernini and dedicated to Divine Sapience by the Pope in 1667. Emphasis is given to the role of Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit who was the leading "Egyptologist" of baroque Rome, in the construction and interpretation of the monument. The thesis is that the monument is construed as a hieroglyph. This leads to the interpretative decision of reading the monument in the context of Kircher's theory of hieroglyphics and Egyptian wisdom. Furthermore, it is shown that the monument, and the theory that grounds its iconography, is articulated with two more "traditional" schemas for translation and transference of the "culture" and "history" of the "other" in Roman and Roman Catholic thought, the interpretatio romana and the estudii translatio et imperii. While Kircher's theory sheds light on the iconography and message of the monument, the monument as a politico-religious message also illustrates the political use of Kircher's thought in the urban space of baroque Rome. The practice of translation and transference of the wisdom of Egypt on the Piazza della Minerva is examined with reference to Jan Assmann's theory of cultural semiotics and translation.

The following article tries to deal with the different meanings that the Fall of Constantinople had for the Ottoman Empire, a power that arose from a humble nomadic tribe which knew how to get the most of its moment and place in History. The conquest of what would be Istanbul, did not have a political significance coming from the end of the Byzantine Empire, furthermore, this was a fact full of mythical, religious, social and cultural keys, all of them were used positively by the Ottomans, who turned into a well-respected power in the world, gathering some aspects from the Byzantine Legacy. ; El siguiente artículo intenta estudair los diferentes significados que la Caída de Constantinopla tuvo para el imperio otomano, un poder que surgió de una humilde tribu nómada que supo sacar partido de su momento y lugar en la historia. La conquista de lo que sería Istambul no tuvo una relevancai política desde el fin del imperio bizantino, más aun, éste fue un hecho de claves míticas, religiosas, sociales y culturales, todas ellas fueron positivamente usadas por los otomanos, quienes se conviritieron en un poder respetado en el mundo, recogiendo algunos aspectos del legado bizantino

This article examines the Sudanese civil war, focusing on its causes, the dynamics of peace negotiations, and the prospects for a final settlement. Extant literature has tended to explain the Sudanese civil war in terms of the rational instrumentalism of the key players on either side of the conflict; the primordialism of ethnic and religious identity; internal colonialism and the dialectics of cultural pluralism; as well as in terms of center-periphery dynamics, with Moslem Arabs of North-central Sudan constituting the center, pitted against the periphery represented by Africans of the Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile, and Darfur. This article argues, on the contrary, that despite the apparently overarching cultural and socioeconomic dimensions, the Sudanese conflict is essentially a political one whose causes are rooted in lack of a broad based consensus on the constitutive fundamentals of the Sudanese State. (...) The article analyzes the checkered history of the elusive search for a negotiated settlement. It posits that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in Nairobi in January 2005, marks the beginning of the end of the conflict, assuming its speedy implementation, because of the boldness with which it addressed the key issues in contention. (AAS/DÜI)

Documents preserved in the archives of the Prado Museum and the Madrid Royal Palace, an announcement in the Diario de Madrid and the testimony of a foreign resident, reveal that the first sculptural works exhibited in the then still denominated Royal Painting Museum for a period of fifteen days in January 1827, were two full-length seated portrait statues executed in Rome: Carlos IV (1817) by Ramón Barba and María Luisa de Parma (1816) by José Alvarez Cubero. This must have been a major cultural and political event that until now had not been noted in the literature on the history of the museum. ; Documentos conservados en los archivos del Museo del Prado y del Palacio Real, un anuncio aparecido en el Diario de Madrid y el testimonio de un forastero, revelan que las primeras esculturas expuestas en el entonces todavía denominado Real Museo de Pinturas durante quince días de enero de 1827, fueron dos estatuas sedentes de cuerpo entero ejecutadas en Roma: el Carlos IV (1817) de Ramón Barba y la María Luisa de Parma (1816) de José Alvarez Cubero. Esto debió ser un acontecimiento cultural y político que hasta ahora no se había recogido en la literatura sobre la historia del museo.

In this article, the life story of a Polish woman in South Africa is used to illustrate that stories of exile are 'matter out of place' in host countries. Space is a central category in both the story of exiles and in the collective history of receiving countries, but it has different emotional, social, cultural and political meanings. Sometimes stories of exile are denied a place in the social memory of a society. Therefore, recollection and making sense of experienced misery in foreign contexts is often a difficult and lonely undertaking. The article links the story to macro-political processes and attempts to answer questions regarding the consequences of the lack of meaningful space for exiles to remember. Collective and national memories and ceremonies are often exclusive and offer no place for 'alien' memories. Therapeutic repertoires often fail to address the emotional value of communal sharing a socio-cultural and (meta) physical space. It is argued that because the state does not take responsibility for providing a (symbolic) space for the mourning and reconciliation of people whose memories are out of place, transcultural psychiatry – its subsystem – will have to reflect on how to provide such a space.

Cultural diffusion of a partially non-literate kind is intrinsically hard to demonstrate and document. The poles between which cultural currents flow across geographical space are not the simple loci of "high" and "low" cultures or of superordinate and subordinate civilizations. Aspects of elite culture trickle down, features of vernacular culture bubble up, to confound and subvert the orderly progression of literary and religious history beloved of conventional scholarship. And, of course, the key occasions of transfer are usually absent from the record.One such current that is, however, sufficiently documented in general and specific terms to be accepted nem. con. as truly remarkable in volume, longevity and global efficacy is the overwhelmingly one-way traffic of seminal commodities, artifacts and ideas that flowed westward from the South Asian subcontinent between at least 300 B.C.E. and 1400 C.E. Along this stream, from the Punjab via the Iranian plateau and adjacent waterways to Mesopotamia, Syria, the Mediterranean and western Europe, were borne the Gypsies, the game of chess, the mathematical concept of zero and the notation with which to use it, the literary device of the Frame Story, and a flood of stories to stock it.

Marcel Bonneff
During the Indonesian crisis, the protest against Soeharto's regime was partly focused towards the "Javanese colouring" of his way of governing, more especially its supernatural side, which is here called " demonocracy " or " political sorcery ". This component of power (not only Soeharto's) is evidenced in the very exercise of government, through the propitiatory practices of the ruling elite (from Soekarno up to Megawati), the role of some " specialists of the supernatural" (dhukun or seers) and the process of sacralization of authority. All this conduct manipulates numerous cultural references (to myths or pseudo-history, with their prophetic and messianic - or "ratuadilist" - aspects), the spectrum of which is much wider than the "classical" idea of power (as depicted by B. Anderson). The author of the present article prefers to call it an "imagined political kejawèn", referring both to the mysticism and the cultural nationalism of the Javanese, that is a common language somehow able to explain political conduct and also to legitimize it. We are then entitled to ask where the People are within this configuration of magically tinged interpretations and references; what is its capacity for an evolution or modernization of mentalities in the direction of democracy.

This study, based upon fieldwork in selected villages, examines 'new'forms of dalit asser tion in Meerut district. Despite a long history of dalit assertion, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has not been electorally successful in this region, and has had to compete with the Samajwadi Party. Dalit assertion here has taken different forms, as much socio-cultural as political. Two forms analysed here are the desire for education to compete with upper castes, and attempts to control local politics and resource distribution through the new panchayats. The study shows that the traditional structures of rural dominance based upon land and social status are undergoing change. The traditionally dominant position of the Rajputs, Jats and Gujars has been challenged by the dalits, and to a lesser extent by the 'Most Backward Castes' (MBCs), but identity assertion and desire for upward mobility have also created conflict between the dalits and the MBCs. The article concludes that socio-cultural and political assertion by dalits at the grassroots level is of greater signifi cance and more helpful to the BSP in establishing itself as a party/movement, than are its electoral successes or capture of political power in the state.

It is widely believed that nationalism in India stemmed from European domination. Imperialism, for the first time, generated the sentiment of 'nationhood' that brought together people of diverse religions, languages, and lifestyles to demand home rule. The process involved cultural revivalism, yet retained strong ties with the inheritance of two centuries of foreign domination. The spur to the writing of cultural tracts was sharp and the attempt to rewrite the 'true' history of their country became the leading preoccupation of intellectuals. Consequently, indigenous histories of different kinds emerged over a period of years preceding independence and in the years after 1947. Different generic models were used in an attempt to replace the 'inauthentic' historical accounts compiled by Europeans, featuring instead themes or motifs of writing that emphasized an assertion of a culture which was comparable, if not superior, to that of their European peers. Correspondingly, historiography and fiction-writing depicted national heroes, full of deeds of valour and bravery, engaged in wresting their 'nation' from the aggressor by an emphasis on indigenous themes. Models of writing structured around the earlier epics, the use of local dialects, the emphasis on ancient rituals and practices, all went into the making of a 'pure' tradition.