Amalgam Of Elements Research Articles

Poetry’s Politics in Archaic Greek Epic and Lyric

Poetry’s Politics in Archaic Greek Epic and Lyric David F. Elmer (bio) In memoriam John Miles Foley1 The Iliad’s Politics of Consensus In a recent book (Elmer 2013) examining the representation of collective decision making in the Iliad, I have advanced two related claims: first, that the Iliad projects consensus as the ideal outcome of collective deliberation; and second, that the privileging of consensus can be meaningfully correlated with the nature of the poem as the product of an oral tradition.2 The Iliad’s politics, I argue, are best understood as a reflection of the dynamics of the tradition out of which the poem as we know it developed. In the course of the present essay, I intend to apply this approach to some of the other texts and traditions that made up the poetic ecology of archaic Greece, in order to illustrate the diversity of this ecology and the contrast between two of its most important “habitats,” or contexts for performance: Panhellenic festivals and the symposium. I will examine representative examples from the lyric and elegiac traditions associated with the poets Alcaeus of Mytilene and Theognis of Megara, respectively, and I will cast a concluding glance over the Odyssey, which sketches an illuminating contrast between festival and symposium. I begin, however, by distilling some of the most important claims from my earlier work in order to establish a framework for my discussion. Scholars have been interested in the politics of the Homeric poems since antiquity. Ancient critics tended to draw from the poems lessons about proper political conduct, in accordance with a general tendency to view Homer as the great primordial educator of the Greeks. Thus Philodemus, in the first century BCE, wrote a treatise called On the Good King according to Homer, extracting lessons from both poems about the appropriate exercise of power; Dio of Prusa has Alexander of Macedon expounding to his father, Philip, Homer’s preeminent virtue as an instructor of princes (Oration 2).3 Modern scholars have tended instead to treat the poems as documents for early Greek history—or rather, prehistory. In the wake of Milman Parry’s demonstration of the thoroughly traditional character of Homeric poetry, it has come to seem plausible that the poems, by preserving a tradition that antedates our earliest written texts in alphabetic Greek, may offer a precious glimpse into the prehistory of Greek politics. Historians are thus able to offer the poems as evidence for the political forms and structures of late Bronze Age and early Iron Age Greece. Still the best-known example of this kind of argument is Moses Finley’s The World of Odysseus (1978 [1954]), which founds a number of claims about the society of the so-called Dark Age (roughly 1100–800 BCE) on nothing more than the testimony of these two literary texts.4 The appeal of such an approach is readily apparent—it holds the promise of providing access to a period for which textual sources are otherwise lacking—but so are the perils. One must always exercise caution when seeking to correlate a literary text with historical realia.5 This is particularly true when no external documentary evidence is available as a control. In the case of Homeric poetry, an additional problem arises from the very same circumstance that seemed to open up the possibility of a prehistory of Greek politics in the first place, namely, the indebtedness of the Homeric poems to a very lengthy oral tradition, as demonstrated by Milman Parry and Albert Lord. It is in the nature of such a tradition to preserve within its inherited and formulaic diction traces of chronologically diverse periods, so that the “Homeric World” described by Finley is really an amalgam of elements from very different eras.6 For example, within the world of the Iliad, the boar’s tusk helmet worn by Odysseus in Book 10—a Bronze Age piece of equipment that would not have been seen in Greece after, say, the fifteenth century BCE—can happily coexist with Iron Age weapons and implements that first came into use centuries later. A similar kind of synthesis can be observed with regard to marriage customs, burial...

Rural male leadership, religion and the environment in Thailand's mid-south, 1920s–1960s

By considering the historical significance of a southern Thai policeman, Khun Phantharakratchadet (1898–2006), I aim to shift historical writing away from the court, the aristocracy and the capital even though the social setting is not merely ‘local’ or ‘peripheral’ but an amalgam of elements found throughout the country. I also want to give credit to local historians often dismissed for being parochial, untheoretical and disposed to myth-making, and to show how tantric practices (saiyasat), the arts of self-defence, policing, banditry and masculinity intersect in the career of this policeman, a native of the unique environment in the Songkhla lakes district.

MANGA IN GERMANY – FROM TRANSLATION TO SIMULACRUM

This article does not focus on translation per se but on cultural exchange and intercultural influences as precipitated and mediated by translation. Manga is a prime example for this kind of exchange. With the translation of manga into German and the ensuing popularity, German artists started producing manga of their own. Some of these manga were (and some still are) an amalgam of elements of European comics and Japanese manga and tried to find new ways of expression within the format. Others, however, have all the characteristics of a simulacrum: They look like manga translated from Japanese into German. However, as with every simulacrum, there is no original. In the case of these manga, there is no original Japanese version.

Designing Non-National Systems: The Case of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy

The article critically assesses the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) as a potential model for solving the immense legal challenges presented by transborder activity. Inaugurated in late 1999 by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the UDRP creates a fast, inexpensive online mechanism for trademark owners to recapture domain names held by persons who, in bad faith, register and use domain names that are confusingly similar to those marks. At present, the UDRP applies only to a narrow segment of disputes between trademark owners and domain name registrants. But the UDRP has been heralded by some as the model for a new non-national approach to lawmaking and dispute settlement applicable to a broader set of legal issues that transcend national borders. In this article, we describe the conditions that led to the UDRP's formation and consider whether the UDRP can and should be replicated elsewhere. The process by which the UDRP was created, and the way in which it is structured, departs significantly from preexisting approaches to international lawmaking and dispute settlement. The UDRP is the product not of national legislation nor an international treaty, but rather of a web of contractual obligations imposed by a private, non-profit corporation with a monopoly over a valuable resource. Through its agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce, ICANN serves as the gatekeeper for anyone seeking to acquire the most commercially valuable internet addresses. Exclusive control of access to the root server enables ICANN to dictate the terms and conditions for domain name ownership. This technological control also facilitates enforcement of UDRP panel decisions compelling domain name registrars to cancel ownership of contested domain names or transfer them from registrants to trademark owners. The UDRP deviates from preexisting lawmaking and dispute settlement paradigms in other ways that make its advantages considerable (and which may make it attractive for replication). For example, the UDRP is a hybrid dispute settlement system. It contains an amalgam of elements from three distinct decision making paradigms - judicial, arbitral and ministerial - and it draws inspiration from international, supranational, and national legal systems. The UDRP thus reveals how dispute settlement structures can be tailored to the needs of new technologies and new types of legal conflicts. The UDRP is also non-national. Neither its substantive content nor its prescriptive force necessarily depends upon the laws, institutions, and enforcement mechanisms of any single nation-state or treaty regime. It thus suggests ways to bypass the often slow and cumbersome mechanisms of national and international lawmaking and to fulfil the demand for effective dispute settlement mechanisms that, like so much current social activity, transcend national borders. Even assuming the UDRP can be applied to other situations where the conditions of monopolistic technological control do not subsist, however, we do not believe that it should be uncritically extended to other contexts without first questioning how non-national systems ought to be structured. In particular, while we applaud the effort to construct a non-national model that draws upon but is not constrained by existing paradigms, the current iteration of that model fails to incorporate appropriate checking mechanisms to control the scope and pace of lawmaking and the limited powers granted to dispute settlement decisionmakers. Moreover, the tensions between national and non-national values may be more difficult to reconcile in other settings; cybersquatting, in contrast, was universally condemned, and thus competing national values were less frequently implicated. We seek to identify these and other variables that should guide the authors of new checking mechanisms for new non-national structures.

A Mood Apart: Depression, Mania, and Other Afflictions of the Self

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: MOOD DISORDERSFull AccessA Mood Apart: Depression, Mania, and Other Afflictions of the SelfLAURI R. ROBERTSON, PH.D., M.D., LAURI R. ROBERTSONSearch for more papers by this author, PH.D., M.D., New Haven, Conn.Published Online:1 Sep 1998https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.155.9.1291AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail One cannot help joining a chorus of praise—William Styron, Kay Jamison, Peter Kramer, and Maggie Scarf among the members—for this splendid book. The title, which is taken from a Robert Frost poem, sets the stage for a humanistic as well as scientific journey through our most comprehensive understanding of mood. Peter Whybrow, Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, is a well-appointed guide. He offers the perspective of a distinguished researcher, never far from that of a classically educated Englishman whose curiosity flows from the nineteenth-century naturalist tradition at its best. Whybrow identifies his approach as “that of the physiologist” (p. xvii). His thoughtfulness and sensitivity as a clinician are also readily apparent.The text is structured as an essay woven around clinical portraits of five individuals with severe mood disorders (four patients and one former classmate and friend). We are drawn to feel close to Whybrow’s subjects and their families as they speak for themselves and interact with their physician, who also shares brief autobiographical reflections. That these characters are in fact “composites,” although their stories are “real,” is no impediment to the author’s purpose in this context (p. xix). Historical, scientific, medical, and literary elaborations punctuate and frame the clinical images. Nearly a quarter of the book is devoted to an appendix and notes, which frees the body of the text from academic and technical detail while offering readers the option of further reference and more scholarly pursuit. The writing is lucid and vivid throughout. In moments, however, it strains a bit unsuccessfully toward the prose of a novelist.Although written for a popular audience, A Mood Apart contains a great deal for all mental health professionals, particularly psychiatrists, to contemplate. Functioning under shifting paradigms, we often find ourselves split into mind and brain camps or giving lip service to biopsychosocial integration. Indeed, I cannot be alone in feeling that in attending to a transference subtlety and prescribing an antidepressant in the same hour, I’ve changed hats, or, regarding a patient’s persistent, vehement complaints, in suddenly wondering if a trial of a mood stabilizer is warranted. How disheartening it is to have a patient repeat the now familiar refrain, “I have a chemical imbalance,” when, in fact, he or she seems to be experiencing an unwelcome emotion. It is equally disheartening to have a patient refuse to consider medication, saying, “This is how I am.” Yes, there is integration, but it’s hardly seamless.Employing the central evolutionary biological concepts of homeostasis, adaptation, and attachment, Whybrow presents a logical and rather down-to-earth conception of mind-brain integration. This is extremely helpful in thinking about the amalgam of elements that we call character and self. Although his focus is on severe, diagnostically unequivocal disorders of mood, Whybrow makes it clear that there is a continuum of emotional experience to which his perspective may be applied. He repeatedly emphasizes that nature and nurture are inexorably linked and that both uniquely determine what constitutes stress for a particular individual. Although he recommends concurrent pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment, I wish he had said more about the dynamics and resolution of individual conflict in the therapeutic process, especially for patients whose symptoms are less than severe. Such pursuit might inevitably necessitate “reinvention” of psychoanalysis in the twenty-first century.In summary, A Mood Apart is a superb work, an orienting compendium for colleagues, and perhaps the best overview of mood disorders that psychiatry has to offer a general audience.by Peter C. Whybrow, M.D. New York, Basic Books, 1997, 340 pp., $24.00; $13.00 (paper) FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 155Issue 9 September 1998Pages 1291-1291 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 September 1998 Published in print 1 September 1998

Holmes and His Critic Motley

N THE SPRING OF I857, Oliver Wendell Holmes sent to the historian John Lothrop Motley a private printing of a long poem written two years earlier for the opening of the I855 lecture season of the Boston Mercantile Library Association.' In I857 Holmes seems to have had no plans for publication of the poem,2 but evidently felt the need of more discriminating criticism than the newspaper reporters had been in the habit of giving him. By then his friendship with Motley had reached that degree of intimacy that made him willing to ask for criticism that Motley felt willing and free to give.3 Motley went through the private printing carefully, annotating his marks of praise and blame, and in his covering letter of May 3, he adumbrated his critical principles.4 His marginal notes and his letter provide a revealing illustration of mid-nineteenth-century sensibility. What would have been regarded in I857 as the finest taste is recognizably moribund, an amalgam of elements drawn from the eighteenth century through Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and of ingredients diluted from German sources. Blair was known