Dynastic Politics Research Articles

STREET THEATRE - THE THIRD THEATRE: AGENTS FOR SOCIAL ENGINEERING IN INDIA

Street Theatre in India, referred to as the 'Third Theatre' as a form of social and cultural communication, is deeply rooted in the Indian tradition. Many complex social issues be it gender related, child labor, imparting knowledge about HIV and AIDS, the need to educate a girl child, social and political systems, dynastic politics, are all enacted through the genre of 'street plays'. There is a 'stage discussion' through varying perspectives of a number of characters, bringing an 'immediacy and urgency' to the theme under consideration. It is a situation, where the audience has not come prepared to watch a play, may not have time on hand, hence the impact of a 'street play' is direct, close, intimate and effective. The impact is 'immediate'. A 'convince-convert' strategy is employed accompanied by a 'Dholak' (Indian percussion musical instrument) or a 'choir' to attract the crowd at the cross roads or any street corner. Keywords: Street Theatre, revolutionary, proscenium, complex social issues, stage discussion, revitalizing theatre using 'bhasha', instrument for immediate impact

Imperial identity in the Mughal Empire: memory and dynastic politics in early modern South and Central Asia

Introduction: Central Asian Empire - Identity and Legacy PART I: THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN IMPERIAL COURT CULTURE IN MUGHAL INDIA 1. The Development of a Dynastic Memory 2. The Timurid-Mughal Landscape and Peripatetic Royal Court PART II: THE INHERITANCE OF TRADITIONAL MODELS OF BEHAVIOUR WITHIN THE TIMURID-MUGHAL FAMILY 3. Women in Timurid-Mughal Dynastic Politics 4. Princes and the Imperial Secession Conclusion: The Timurid Kigns of India

Mauritius: The Not So Perfect Democracy

Mauritius has come a long way since independence in 1968, when observers predicted that the 'overcrowded barracoon', as V S Naipaul referred to the island, would fail to achieve peace and economic prosperity. As a result of its success in managing diversity and capitalising on protected markets and guaranteed export prices Mauritius has emerged in recent decades as a democratic and economic model for its peers on the African continent. However, with the onset of globalisation Mauritius is now entering a period of democratic stagnation as islanders confront the rise of ethnic and dynastic politics, the advent of political cronyism and patronage, the marginalisation of minorities, and growing disenchantment with and cynicism about the political class. This article highlights what can be considered the numerous deficiencies and flaws in the highly celebrated Mauritian 'picture perfect model'. Due attention must be given to addressing these if a social, economic and political implosion is to be avoided.

San Luigi Gonzaga: Princeling-Jesuit and Model for Catholic Youth

Luigi (Alvise) Gonzaga (1568–91), heir to the principality of Castiglione delle Stiviere, renounced his succession in 1585 to enter the Jesuit novitiate, in the course of which he died of plague, evidently contracted while ministering to the sick. He was beatified with extraordinary rapidity in 1605, four years before Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier. Admittedly the figure of the ‘angelic youth’ Luigi, as presented in the life written by the promoter of the cause for his canonization, Virgilio Cepari, and finally published in 1606, was more conventional and more calculated to seize the popular imagination than the uncharismatic Loyola, who enjoyed a very limited cult initially and was slow to deliver miracles. But, more significantly, the beatification was a matter of dynastic politics: it was promoted not only by the Jesuits but also, and more insistently, by the Gonzaga dynasty, supported by the Holy Roman Emperor and by allied dynasties. A phase of bureaucratization of canonization processes, already under way, was intensified shortly after Luigi’s beatification. Moreover, the criteria for sainthood would seem to have shifted somewhat in the first half of the seventeenth century. Luigi was not canonized until 1726, under Benedict XIII. In 1729 the same pope pronounced him the patron of students in Jesuit educational institutions and apparently also of students more generally. This provided the basis for the cult of Luigi in the nineteenth century as the patron of ‘Catholic youth’, that is both adolescents and young adults. This development was linked to a novel understanding of adolescence as a specific age group and also to the Church’s battle against secularism. Thus the cult acquired a new relevance long after the princely world that had pressured for Luigi’s canonization had passed away. The legal history of canonization processes substantially explains the delay in Luigi’s canonization, but this delay is also partly explicable by the very complexity and ambiguity of Luigi’s image as both child and man, which served in the long term to give ever new life to his cult.

Bronze Tsars: Ivan the Terrible and Fedor Ivanovich in the Décor of Early Modern Guns

This paper offers a cultural interpretation of two images of Muscovite royalty: the 'portrait' of Ivan the Terrible on a gun by Karsten Middeldorp (1559) and the image of Fedor Ivanovich on the famous Tsar Cannon by Andrei Chokhov (1586). It is argued that dynastic politics, Russia's military aggression and the growing interest in the figure of the tsar required the visualization of the tsar's power both in Muscovy and in the West. Royal portraiture expanded the cultural image of the Russian monarchy. The Muscovite tsar became a recognizable public figure who embodied the military might of Muscovy.

Parks-people conflicts: the case of Gonarezhou National Park and the Chitsa community in south-east Zimbabwe

National parks have been the centre piece of international conservation strategies in developing countries. The expansion in the network of national parks has enabled the conservation of biodiversity and habitats but the acquisition of vast areas into the park system has often been achieved through the displacement of resident local communities. Displaced people are exposed to a variety of impoverishment risks and this stokes up animosity towards parks. The research reported here seeks to understand the key issues involved in the occupation of a section of Gonarezhou National Park by Headman Chitsa’s people. The paper examines how the interplay between the history of displacement and dispossession, demographic pressures, limited economic opportunities, the ‘fast track’ land reform programme and dynastic politics are fomenting the land conflict between Gonarezhou and Chitsa community. Secondary actors with diverse interests have also come into the fold. Official efforts to resolve the conflict using a top-down approach have yielded little success. This culminated in a shift towards the use of traditional mechanisms of resolving a chieftaincy dispute as a step towards addressing the broader parks-people land conflict. Lessons from the case study are, inter alia, that interventions aimed at resolving parks-people conflicts should be alive to local culture, livelihood needs and power dynamics and, to the extent possible, eschew forcible relocations. Finally, we draw attention to the need to address the wider contradiction between policies promoting wildlife conservation and those promoting agriculture. The article is written to share lessons with readers interested in parks-people conflicts.

Queenship in Britain, 1660-1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics

Queenship in Britain, 1660-1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics

‘After his death a great tribulation came to Italy …’ Dynastic Politics and Aristocratic Factions After the Death of Louis II, c. 870 – c. 890

‘After his death a great tribulation came to Italy …’ Dynastic Politics and Aristocratic Factions After the Death of Louis II, c. 870 – c. 890

KING HENRY I AND NORTHERN ENGLAND

AbstractEngland north of the Humber and the Mersey in the early twelfth century has in the past tended to be discussed in the context of the development of the monarchy. The Normans moved into the northern counties later and in fewer numbers than the south, and in the wake of the Norman settlement the north came to be more fully integrated into the southern kingdom. A fresh perspective on the period is gained by comparing Henry I's rule over the north with that in other regions of England, Wales and Normandy. Its keys were old-style dynastic politics and patronage, and his achievement that of bringing peace to the region.

Presidentas and People Power in Comparative Asian Perspective

There have been a dozen dynastic female leaders in ten countries in Asia over the last half-century. They were the widows, wives, or daughters of male politicians arrested or killed by political opponents. What distinguishes Philippine presidentas from previous women in power in the region is their revolutionary role. Dynastic politics was a factor in Corazon C. Aquino’s rise to presidential leadership, but her gendered “moral capital” was decisive in defeating a dictatorship. Yet “Cory’s” moral standing proved of little help once in power as she faced male politicians claiming she should be reduced to a symbolic role, reigning but not ruling. Aquino’s fragile government could only be stabilized through a revival of dynastic politics. The revolutionary legacy of people power in the Philippines was evident when another female leader arose during a mass uprising in 2001, although this time against an elected president accused of corruption. Chosen as a constitutional fig-leaf for what was in fact a people power putsch, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had to rely more on traditional politics than Aquino because she had less moral capital. Although Arroyo has been able to fend off renewed insurrectionary challenges, corruption scandals and charges of electoral manipulation have undermined her legitimacy. Female-led people power in the Philippines has come full circle: from a moral stance against authoritarian rule to dynastic politics that threaten democratic stability.

Presidentas and People Power in Comparative Asian Perspective

There have been a dozen dynastic female leaders in ten countries in Asia over the last half-century. They were the widows, wives, or daughters of male politicians arrested or killed by political opponents. What distinguishes Philippine presidentas from previous women in power in the region is their revolutionary role. Dynastic politics was a factor in Corazon C. Aquino's rise to presidential leadership, but her gendered “moral capital” was decisive in defeating a dictatorship. Yet “Cory's” moral standing proved of little help once in power as she faced male politicians claiming she should be reduced to a symbolic role, reigning but not ruling. Aquino's fragile government could only be stabilized through a revival of dynastic politics. The revolutionary legacy of people power in the Philippines was evident when another female leader arose during a mass uprising in 2001, although this time against an elected president accused of corruption. Chosen as a constitutional fig-leaf for what was in fact a people p...

The Serenata in Early 18th–Century Rome: Sight, Sound, Ritual, and the Signification of Meaning

ABSTRACT By the turn of the 18th century serenatas performed in Rome's urban squares as political or dynastic propaganda were a well-established ritual. In this public forum the effect of sound produced by large instrumental forces was a central feature, yet the serenata was a complex performance in which music was but one element in a series of other displays. Though undoubtedly an important part of the serenata, music's role in this multifaceted performance and its effect on audiences remain unclear. Part of that ambiguity stems from the serenata's ability to service both public and private consumption. Patrons exploited this dual nature, using the more spectacular elements of the serenata to influence the public at large, while also relying on other elements (primarily word and sound) to sway elite audiences. In the context of Rome and its dynastic politics, Giacomo Buonaccorsi's and Pietro Paolo Bencini's serenata Le gare festive in applauso alla Real Casa di Francia (1704) demonstrates how the serenata's dichotomous structures and multiplicity of meaning were deeply linked to larger cultural frameworks and social tensions—in this case, brewing over the War of Spanish Succession. The serenata was both a musical work and a performed event effectively shaped by the genre's ritual practice and by history and politics in late 17th- and early 18th-century Rome. The logic of the serenata's ritual practice shows significant correspondences to the genre's narrative strategies. Within the serenata, allegory served as the catalyst to express layers of meaning to diverse audiences. But more than that, allegory provided the means by which music was contained and its delivery marked. For public audiences, sound was as much visual as it was aural, an immediate and palpable special effect. For privileged listeners, music required reflection as to how spectacular effects acquired deeper meaning when anchored in the significance of the poetic text. Thus music in the serenata was not merely an element in a multifaceted performance but was multidimensional in itself, uniquely straddling both sides of the public/private divide.

Beatrice Forbes Manz. « Women in Timurid Dynastic Politics », in : Guity Nashat & Lois Beck, eds., Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2003, pp. 121-139.

L’article est consacre a l’importance du role public joue par les femmes de la famille dynastique timouride, dont la presence a la cour, dans les occasions officielles, receptions, banquets etc., a ete non seulement notee par les chroniqueurs, mais aussi observee par les voyageurs europeens (notamment Clavijo, 1404). Apres avoir souligne la position particuliere des Timourides comme une dynastie apparentee par mariage (“in-law dynasty”, p. 122) aux Chingizides, l’A. analyse la structure et la...

Fictions of Family: The Encomium Emmae Reginae and Virgil’s Aeneid

The Encomium Emmae Reginae was written in the early 1040s to support the interests of Queen Emma as the period of Danish rule in England came tumultuously to an end. Its author was probably a Flemish monk from the foundation of Saint-Bertin. Recent scholarship suggests that the Encomiast wrote from within and for the Anglo-Danish court, whose members were intimately familiar with Emma’s role in the complex dynastic politics of the Anglo-Danish period. This article considers the impact of writing in this context for the Encomiast’s understanding of his text as historiography and argues that he uses Virgil’s Aeneid, and the tradition of commentaries on this text, to explore the nature of fiction and history. The terms of his exploration are sophisticated and reveal that he was working in an intellectual climate which would, in the twelfth century, begin to produce coherent conceptual arguments for the truth of made-up fictions.

Urban Planning and Sculptural Display in Severan Rome: Reconstructing the Septizodium and Its Role in Dynastic Politics

Located at the foot of the Palatine Hill, the Septizodium, a monumental facade fountain, was built during the reign of the emperor L. Septimius Severus. The construction of the Septizodium was part of a larger plan of urban development aimed at creating a monumentalized district honoring the imperial family. This plan included the construction of new imperial baths, the refurbishment of aqueducts, and possibly the layout of a new road. With a three-story high columnar facade, the Septizodium once dominated a large plaza at the terminus of the Via Appia. The Septizodium has been the subject of modern scholarly debate for a little over a century. Widely ranging opinions on the monument's appearance, function, and interpretation have appeared over the years. After a brief review of some earlier studies of the Septizodium's architecture, I will attempt to reevaluate the monument within the context of Severan dynastic politics. Once the architectural form of the Septizodium is established, the discussion will move to its decoration. Comparison of the structure at Rome with other monuments, particularly those with similar facade arrangements and known sculpture programs, allows for speculation about the Septizodium's decoration. Other factors for consideration in this proposal are the monument's urban setting and its role in the dynastic politics of the emperor Severus. Understanding the architecture, urban context, and possible decoration of the Septizodium leads to the conclusion that the monument had great significance within the building program of the emperor L. Septimius Severus.

Queenship in britain 1660-1837: royal patronage, court culture and dynastic politics

Queenship in britain 1660-1837: royal patronage, court culture and dynastic politics

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Provincial Towns in Early Modern England and Ireland. Change, Convergence and Divergence. Edited by Peter Borsay and Lindsay Proudfoot. Goethe and the English‐Speaking World. Essays from the Cambridge Symposium for his 250th Anniversary. Edited by Nicholas Boyle and John Guthrie. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture. An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England, 1657–1727. By William E. Burns. Etudes sur les Journaux de Marivaux. Edited by Nicholas Cronk and François Moureau. Vif. Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles. By John Earman. National Gallery Catalogues: The British School. By Judy Egerton. National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth‐Century French Paintings. By Humphrey Wine. Voicing Desire: Family and Sexuality in Diderot's Narrative. Edited by J. E. Fowler. Vif. Jane Austen and Religion. Salvation and Society in Georgian England. By Michael Giffin. Cross‐Currents in Religion and Culture. Lettres d'une Péruvienne. By Françoise de Graffigny. Edited by Jonathan Mallinson. Vif. Italy in the German Literary Imagination: Goethe's ‘Italian Journey’ and its Reception by Eichendorff, Platen and Heine. By Gretchen L. Hachmeister. Germans, Jews, and the Claims of Modernity. By Jonathan M. Hess. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Eighteenth‐Century Society. Essays from the DeBartolo Conference. Edited by Regina Hewitt and Pat Rogers. Peter the Great. A Biography. By Lindsey Hughes. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. By David Hume. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp. The Clarendon Edition of The Works of David Hume. Madame de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress. By Colin Jones. Anne Vallayer‐Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie‐Antoinette. By Eik Kahng and Marianne Roland Michel, with contributions by Colin B. Bailey, Claire Barry, Laurent Hugues, and Melissa Hyde. Die Collegia der Insulaner, Vertraulichen und Wohlgesinnten in Zurich, 1679–1709. By Michael Kempe and Thomas Maissen. The Sermons of Charles Wesley. A Critical Edition with Introduction and Notes. Edited by Kenneth G. C. Newport. Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Making of a Myth: A Study in Portraiture 1720–1892. By Robin Nicholson. Queenship in Britain 1660–1837. Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics. Edited by Clarissa Campbell Orr. Britain and Ireland in the Eighteenth‐Century Crisis of Empire. By Martyn J. Powell. Reading Goethe. A Critical Introduction to the Literary Work. By Martin Swales and Erika Swales. Glorious Causes: The Grand Theatre of Political Change, 1789 to 1833. By Julia Swindells. Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies. By Helen Thomas. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism 38. There are No Letters Like Yours. The Correspondence of Isabelle de Charriere and Constant d'Hermenches. Translated and edited by Janet Whatley and Malcolm Whatley. European Women Writers Series.

Queenship in Britain, 1660-1837: royal patronage, court culture and dynastic politics

Editor's acknowledgements List of contributors List of illustrations Introduction: Court studies, gender and women's history 1660-1837 - Clarissa Campbell Orr 1. Catherine of Braganza and cultural politics - Edward Corp 2. Mary Beatrice of Modena: the 'second bless'd of womankind'? - Andrew Barclay 3. Queen Anne: victim of her virtues? - Robert Bucholz 4. Queen Caroline of Ansbach and the European princely museum tradition - Joanna Marschner 5. Queens-in-waiting: Caroline of Ansbach and Augusta of Saxe-Coburg as Princess of Wales - Christine Gerrard 6. Anne of Hanover and Orange (1707-59) as patron and practitioner of the arts -Richard G. King 7. The daughters of George II: marriage and dynastic politics - Vanessa Baker-Smith 8. 'To play what game she pleased without observation': Princess Augusta and the political drama of succession, 1736-56 - John L. Bullion 9. Queen Charlotte, 'Scientific Queen' - Clarissa Campbell Orr 10. Queen Adelaide: malign influence or consort maligned? - A. W. Purdue Index

A company of women and men: men's recollections of childbirth in medieval England.

The events that took place in medieval English birthing chambers were witnessed and assisted by a company of women. Although these events may have been isolated, they did not exist in isolation. Rather, they interacted in complex ways with the lives and activities of the men in the manor hall. This article examines those interactions as they are evidenced in proof-of-age inquests, legal documents that record the recollections of husbands, fathers, and male relatives and neighbors regarding the events surrounding the birth of an heir to crown land. It concludes that even though men rarely entered the birthing chamber, their dynastic interests and social politics routinely penetrated its walls, blurring the boundary between private and public spheres, female and male space.

Building Arthurian Castles in Spain: William Sotheby's Constance de Castile

In Sotheby's narrative of fourteenth-century Spanish dynastic politics, which may be read as an allegory of the early nineteenth-century Peninsular War, two extensive Arthurian references play a key structural role.