Genealogical Inheritance Research Articles

REOG BULKIYO DANCE: TRADITION AND HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE JAVA WAR

The Java War, often known as De Javasche Oorlog or Diponegoro War, was an event that had an impact on national and local history. The capture of Prince Diponegoro by the Dutch on March 28, 1830, resulted in many of his troops fleeing to remote areas to avoid Dutch capture. As a result of the escape they settled in an area, disguised as ordinary people. One of the places where Diponegoro's troops escaped was in Kemloko village, Nglegok sub-district, Blitar district. The mind of the soldiers who managed to escape had a work of art in the form of Reog Bulkiyo Dance. The purpose of this study was to determine the history of the formation of Reog Bulkiyo Dance, the characteristics of Reog Bulkiyo dance, the existence of Reog Bulkiyo dance. This research uses a historical method consisting of (1). Heuristics, (2). Criticism, (3). Interpretation, (4). Historiography. The approach is carried out using cultural anthropology and the theory of cultural forms according to Koentjaraningrat to understand the origin of the creation of Bulkiyo reog dance as a form of expression, a symbol of communication and humanity to fight Dutch colonialism. The results of this study show that there are several historical facts about the emergence of Bulkiyo Reog Dance in Kemloko Village, Nglegok Subdistrict, Blitar Regency. The characteristics of Bulkiyo reog dance are influenced by Javanese, Arabic and Chinese cultures, this can be seen from the attributes and equipment used, the existence of Bulkiyo reog dance is influenced by internal factors of the Genealogical Inheritance system, and external factors of support from the community, government, and academics.

Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world's languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world's most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

A sampling technique for worldwide comparisons of language contact scenarios.

Existing sampling methods in language typology strive to control for areal biases in typological datasets as a means to avoid contact effects in the distribution of linguistic structure. However, none of these methods provide ways to directly compare contact scenarios from a typological perspective. This paper addresses this gap by introducing a sampling procedure for worldwide comparisons of language contact scenarios. The sampling unit consists of sets of three languages. The Focus Language is the language whose structures we examine in search for contact effects; the Neighbor Language is genealogically unrelated to the Focus Language, and counts as the potential source of contact influence on the Focus Language; the Benchmark Language is a relative of the Focus Language neither in contact with the Focus nor with the Neighbor language, and is used for disentangling contact effects from genealogical inheritance in the Focus Language. Through this design, we compiled a sample of 49 three-language sets (147 languages in total), which we present here. By switching the focus of typological sampling from individual languages to contact relations between languages, our method has the potential of uncovering patterns in the diffusion of language structures, and how they vary and change.

Family and Trauma: The Autobiography of Scholarship

Unpeeling what is usually concealed by professional language, this essay explores the interactive relationship between my research, on the one hand, and my personal and family history, on the other. These connections are not simply uni-directional, but dynamic and interactive, evolving over time. Although some of my research questions may have paralleled my personal challenges, the Holocaust survivors I have researched also deeply affected my emotional life and personal trajectory at different times. I briefly discuss my genealogical inheritance coupled with an in-depth focus on my scholarship.

'Hanging by A Thread': A D’var Torah on Parshat Lech Lecha

Readers of the Book of Genesis have come to take for granted that the primordial history of the Jews begins with a single pair of founders – Abraham and Sarah – and then passes through a very narrow line of successions – to Isaac and Rebekah and then Jacob and his wives – before it finally spreads out to an entire family that eventually becomes the large nation that leaves Egypt in the second founding story told in the Book of Exodus. Less clear, though, is why this should be. One Midrashic tradition, after all, claims – not implausibly in the light of the history of religious movements – that Abraham and Sarah gathered converts from the very start. And even if the narrative must focus on genealogical inheritance, why wait until the fourth generation before an entire cohort of siblings can share a single familial and then national identity? This talk suggests several possible explanations. The first is social and arguably feminist. The second is theological. The third is existential. Abraham and Sarah and a select few of their immediate descendants were for a time the only Jews on Earth, and the future of the whole enterprise hung by a thread. There is surely a lesson in this, and even an experiential imperative.

“Opportunistic” spin-offs in the aftermath of an adverse corporate event

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the inter-organisational dynamics, in terms of the triggers to spin-off formation and the genealogical inheritance of spin-offs, between a parent characterised by an adverse event and the spin-offs that emerge. The study focusses on the nature of the triggering event, exploring the heterogeneous nature of the processes by which some spin-offs are formed to exploit new opportunities created unexpectedly by an adverse event, and on the genealogical inheritance that forms the pre-entry experience of the founder. Design/methodology/approach A case study based on interview data with founders of spin-offs, supplemented with interviews with managers and industry experts, and with secondary data sources. The case study is of the spin-offs from a successful firm, Élan Corporation, reported to be the world’s 20th largest drug firm in 2002, that experienced an adverse event in 2002. The Élan case offers the opportunity to focus exclusively on what Buenstorf (2009) refers to as necessity spin-offs. Prior to collecting data it was necessary to identify the population of spin-offs from Élan. Findings This study extends existing research by identifying “opportunistic spin-offs”: spin-offs that occur in the wake of an adverse event where the entrepreneur exploits an unexpected opportunity to engage in entrepreneurship but does not feel compelled to establish the spin-off. These spin-offs are characterised by “unexpected opportunities”, “opportunistic acquisition of assets” and, perhaps reflecting the seniority and experience of those involved, “alternative employment opportunities”. Originality/value Understanding the process of spin-off formation is important because it provides insight into how and why individuals initiate new ventures. Spin-offs are an important source of new firms and an important mechanism in the process of industry evolution. The study contributes to the literature on spin-offs by providing evidence of the heterogeneous nature of spin-offs that occur in the aftermath of an adverse event, leading to the classification of some spin-offs as “opportunistic spin-offs”. The study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating that an important trigger for venture creation is unexpected changes in an individual’s employment circumstances.

Women, Genealogical Inheritance and Sufi Authority: The Female Saints of Seunagan, Indonesia

This article examines the case of two female saints who resided and are buried in the Indonesian region of Seunagan, in the province of Aceh. The entwined genealogy and Sufi lineage that links these women to the broader family of Sufis who constitute the major figures in Seunagan’s Syattariyah Sufi path is patrilineal. Nonetheless, some residents of Seunagan suggest that Seunagan’s two female saints are able to transmit preternatural powers to their descendants. Such suggestions reveal a genealogical imagination that recognises the descent of esoteric knowledge and authority via female, as well as male, genealogical links. This genealogical imagination mediates the ways in which the devotees of these women understand the transmission of religious and political authority. The article argues that this form of ambilineal succession – that is, succession drawing on both matrilineal and patrilineal descent – is informed by broader patterns of matrilocality common in Aceh. Nonetheless, it also depends upon latent possibilities that are present within Islamic genealogical idioms. As such, it challenges common assumptions that Islamic genealogies are inevitably and resolutely patrilineal.

Technique

Technique

St Margaret of Scotland: Conspicuous Consumption, Genealogical Inheritance, and Post-Conquest Authority

St Margaret of Scotland: Conspicuous Consumption, Genealogical Inheritance, and Post-Conquest Authority

Daddy's Girl—on Leo Bersani

This essay, originally delivered as a response to Leo Bersani's presentation “Father Knows Best” at UC Berkeley's “Queer Bonds” conference, provides a critical appraisal of Bersani's reading of Claire Denis's film Beau Travail, exploring both the film's neo- and postcolonial implications and its radical reconfigurations of subjectivity. Already implicit in Bersani's reading is a question about the limits of a certain psychoanalysis for reimagining subjectivities less agonistically forged than narrative traditions in the West, which Freud inherits, allow. Further, Bersani explores the possibilities of an impersonal, nonnarrative radicalization of subjectivity through analyses of form in the work of art. This essay focuses, rather, on the ways narrative and visual textualities remain agonistically tethered to embodied subjectivity in the work under consideration, and asks whether and how subjectivity might be reconceived otherwise, even as genealogical inheritance continues to haunt its instantiations.

Human Dignity: Comparative and Conceptual Debates

Are there a stable set of practices or assumptions surrounding dignity, and would these necessarily denote a single foundation sustaining that stability? Two contemporary debates offer contrasting approaches to these questions. In the first, two jurists, who share agreement over the appearances of dignity in post-1945 jurisprudence, disagree as to whether these appearances form an emerging ius commune or a contingent set of conceptions. The second, comparative, debate explores the functional consequences of dignity’s aristocratic resonances. One position posits a continuing relationship between dignity and aristocratic nobility; the other, a functional division between dignity-within-aristocracy and dignity-within-democracy. This article insists that clarification of these debates depends upon distinction between the epistemology and ontology of dignity, and, further, distinction between dignity's genealogy and its grammar. It concludes that a complex genealogical inheritance is at the heart of much disagreement, and that attention to dignity's use clarifies its deficiencies and its continuing appeal.

Human dignity: comparative and conceptual debates

AbstractIs there a stable set of practices or assumptions surrounding dignity, and would these necessarily denote a single foundation sustaining that stability? Two contemporary debates offer contrasting approaches to these questions. In the first, two jurists, who share agreement over the appearances of dignity in post-1945 jurisprudence, disagree as to whether these appearances form an emerging ius commune or a contingent set of conceptions. The second, comparative, debate explores the functional consequences of dignity’s aristocratic resonances. One position posits a continuing relationship between dignity and aristocratic nobility; the other, a functional division between dignity-within-aristocracy and dignity-within-democracy. This article insists that clarification of these debates depends upon a distinction between the epistemology and ontology of dignity, and, further, a distinction between dignity’s genealogy and its grammar. It concludes that a complex genealogical inheritance is at the heart of much disagreement, and that attention to dignity’s use clarifies its deficiencies and its continuing appeal.

A Military History of Russia, from Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya by David R. Stone (review)

550 seer, 86, 3, july 2008 were found to that end. As Herberstein noticed (orwas told by his Russian minders), the trinityof titlesTsar, Autocrat and Great Sovereign was a terrestrial reflection of the Holy Trinity. The eschatological expectations thereby generated stimulated the lettered class both spiritually and politically. If this was one means of bolstering the legitimacy of Moscow's ruler, ge nealogical inheritance was another. Ivan claimed imperial blood by virtue of his descent from the union ofGrand Prince Vladimir and theByzantine prin cess Anna. However, insurance was subsequently taken out in the form of genealogies tracing his successors' descent from the Emperor Augustus's brother, Prus and, indeed, from themythical Romulus. Ivan IV assumed the tideTsar in 1547, although a conclave ofOrthodox prelates inConstantinople did not endorse the entitlement until 1561 and it stillhad to be legitimized internationally. In 1549 the designation 'orthodox' was added; and then the preface 'By grace of God'. The phrase 'ofAll Russia', originally a term of respect, is a different case because it came to represent a claim to territory,though ithad differentmeanings for different parties. For Orthodox Russians the term came to imply an obligation to incorporate all territories whose populations had once been Orthodox, whereas forCatholic Lithuanians and Poles ithad ethnic rather than religious connotations, an example of difficulties arising from contrasting political cultures. As late as 1500, argues Fliushkin, Muscovy still regarded its territoryas a conflation of hereditary properties, and itwas slow to develop a concept of the state.However, the chief defining point ofMuscovite political culture was a theocratic idea of the ruler. The Muscovite establishment despised elective credentials. When Stephan Batory was elected King of Poland, Ivan com pared him to thebiblical King Saul who had been acclaimed by the Israelites, by contrast to the God-chosen King David. Even though exigencies of the moment compelled the Tsar to sue for peace, he insisted on adopting a posi tion ofmoral superiority,presenting itas an act ofChristian piety. This made obedience to the Tsar's commands a religious as well as a political obligation, and invested Muscovy's policies with a moral dimension. It also proclaimed the state to be an instrument of redemption. Filiushkin's is an extensive, conscientious, and occasionally illuminating account, though it isunlikely to end all arguments in the area. Unfortunately, themaps intended to show the relationship of possessions to territorial titles are very unclear. London Philip Longworth Stone, David R. A Military History ofRussia, from Ivan the Terrible to the War inChechnya.Praeger Security International. Westport, CT and London, 2006. xiv + 259 pp. Maps. Suggested reading. Index. $49.95: ?28.99. David Stone is best known for a highly regarded study of the Soviet military build-up in the early 1930s (HammerandRifle: TheMilitarization of the SovietUnion, ig26-igjj, Lawrence, KS, 2000; reviewed in SEER, 79, 2001, 4, REVIEWS 55I pp. 763-65). This era gets relatively brief attention in his ambitious new volume, which within a small compass offers the layman an accurate and objective survey of the evolution of Russia's armed forces over the last five hundred years, along with competent analyses of theprincipal campaigns they fought. The focus is quite properly on strategy and tactics, equipment, size and structure, and leading commanders' performance ? the stuff of tradi tionalmilitary history.Yet we are also told enough about the domestic scene and foreign-policy problems to understand why Russia so often found herself at war. Whether somuch belligerency was justifiable in terms of the 'national interest', however defined, is a matter of opinion. Stone wastes little time on such speculations, or in assessing the heavy burdens that 'a society organized for war' (p. xii) imposed upon civilians. Nor does he present a currently fash ionable 'view from below' of ordinary soldiers' battlefield experiences. Instead we get pungent evaluations of the quality of Russia's military leaders over the centuries. Top marks go to A. A. Brusilov, who in 1916 performed 'a masterful job' inpreparing his offensive on the South-western front,only tobe letdown by GHQand his counterparts to the north (pp. 168-70). Interestingly,his ex ample inspired the Soviet generals (latermarshals) G. K. Zhukov and A. M. Vasilevskii when they directed...

Tituly russkikh gosudarei by A. I. Filiushkin (review)

reviews 549 Filiushkin, A. I. Tituly russkikh gosudarei. Al'ians-Arkheo, Moscow and St Petersburg, 2006. 255 pp. Index of names. Footnotes. Sketch-maps. List of abbreviations. Price unknown. Despite their apparently empty formality, titles are historically important. They proclaimed a ruler's legitimacy and status, described his powers, asserted his rights to territory,and staked his claims to territories held by others. They presented a rulers' image of himself to the world, and their acceptance or rejection by other rulers defined his and his country's standing in theworld. They often reflectpolitical struggles, and issues relating to them also arose in relation to diplomacy and war. Their importance is also reflected by the attention historians have lavished on them. In theRussian case, Kliuchevskii, Kostomarov and, more recently, Vodov, Khoroshkevich, Isaevych, Poppe and Szeftel are among those who were drawn to the subject ? and still the literature proliferates. The subject embraces many uncertainties, poses formidable difficulties and, relating as itdoes to legal history, political theory and theology, history and the study of texts, requires extensive learning of scholars who address it. This latest contribution to the field aims to resolve the problems with which the subject isbeset, taking account ofmodern theory and political culture. It is a formidable undertaking. The first notables we know? of were kagans and princes. The former disap peared when Christianity became the dominant religion of the elite; the latter became commonplace as the number of princes multiplied. Hence the title grand prince to distinguish the primus inter pares. Similarly, the designation Gosudar [Sovereign lord] was firstused in the fifteenth century, apparently to distinguish Moscow's ruler from other Grand princes, and put him on a higher level (Ivan III called himself 'Sole lawful Sovereign'). So far so good. But things became more complicated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centu ries. The title tsarhad been used sincemedieval times,partly, perhaps, to avoid the designation 'king' which was tainted in Russian eyes by its Catholic associations. Ivan III got the Turks to recognize his right to the title; and visiting Greek hierarchs, needing finance from Russia and anxious to please, referred to him as such, but he contented himself with great prince and 'the only lawful sovereign'. God was the obvious source of legitimization, but there is no early reference to anointment, the accepted means by which legitimacy was conveyed probably because no chrism was available with which he could be anointed. Russia came late to the European game of royal and princely hierarchy which may explain why the government of Muscovy was so anxious to get things right. Its concern was sometimes reflected in its experimental and tentative use of titles. The unicorn, symbol of royal potency, was invoked at one stage, though never developed. Perhaps thiswas just as well (though the book fails tomake the point) since the supposed biblical source for the idea, Psalms xci, 11was flawed by mistranslation from the original Hebrew. However, it might have suggested the messianic nature of the tsar's position and this would have chimed with Moscow's view that the tsardom had glorious associations and a great historic destiny. As it was, other ways 550 seer, 86, 3, july 2008 were found to that end. As Herberstein noticed (orwas told by his Russian minders), the trinityof titlesTsar, Autocrat and Great Sovereign was a terrestrial reflection of the Holy Trinity. The eschatological expectations thereby generated stimulated the lettered class both spiritually and politically. If this was one means of bolstering the legitimacy of Moscow's ruler, ge nealogical inheritance was another. Ivan claimed imperial blood by virtue of his descent from the union ofGrand Prince Vladimir and theByzantine prin cess Anna. However, insurance was subsequently taken out in the form of genealogies tracing his successors' descent from the Emperor Augustus's brother, Prus and, indeed, from themythical Romulus. Ivan IV assumed the tideTsar in 1547, although a conclave ofOrthodox prelates inConstantinople did not endorse the entitlement until 1561 and it stillhad to be legitimized internationally. In 1549 the designation 'orthodox' was added; and then the preface 'By grace of God'. The phrase 'ofAll Russia', originally a term of respect, is a different case because it came to represent...

A Historical Appraisal of Clicks: A Linguistic and Genetic Population Perspective

Clicks are often considered an exotic feature of languages, and the fact that certain African “Khoisan” groups share the use of clicks as consonants and exhibit deep genetic divergences has been argued to indicate that clicks trace back to an early common ancestral language ( Knight et al. 2003 ). Here, we review the linguistic evidence concerning the use of click sounds in languages and the genetic evidence concerning the relationships of African click-speaking groups. The linguistic evidence suggests that genealogical inheritance and contact-induced transmission are equally relevant for the distribution of clicks in African languages. The genetic evidence indicates that there has been substantial genetic drift in some groups, obscuring their genetic relationships. Overall, the presence of clicks in human languages may in fact not trace back to the dawn of human language, but instead reflect a much later episode in the diversification of human speech.

'Tracing Again the Tiny Snail Track': Southern Protestant Memoir since 1950

This essay seeks to survey the range of themes and approaches taken by Southern Irish Protestant memoirists writing since 1950. It argues that their testimony as descendants of the former Protestant Ascendancy and as members of a small religious minority adapting to life in independent Ireland provides a unique perspective on Irish social life in the twentieth century demanding closer scrutiny. Far from the homogenous and moribund community it is generally assumed to be, Southern Irish Protestantism is depicted by its memoirists as a diverse and evolving part of the larger society. Particular attention is paid here to the writers' treatment of such questions as genealogical inheritance, relationship to the land, and participation in civic life.

Landed and Literary: Hamlin Garland, Sarah Orne Jewett, and the Production of Regional Literatures

In 1894 there appeared in Chicago a little book on literary topics, the manner of whose manufacture bore the marks of a dilettante taste in book-making.... The book should have been printed on birch bark and bound in butternut home-spun, and should have had for cover design a dynamite bomb, say, with sputtering fire-tipped fuse: for the essays which it contained were so many explosions of literary Jingoism and anarchy.(1) To readers in 1895 familiar with Garland's work and its reception, reviewer C. M. Thompson's analogy between Hamlin Garland's Crumbling Idols (1894) and a dynamite bomb reminiscent of the Haymarket Riot would have seemed like standard critical fare. But if most reviewers of the early Garland found his work too radical and artistically compromised by its focus on social conflict, no one familiar with his writing would have questioned his commitment to the nation and its foundational ideals. For Garland, the exemplary regional writer was above all a devoted American, attempting to realize the principles of democracy and decentralization within broad national frameworks, both literary and political. In this respect, his work was much like that of other local writers dedicated to celebrating rural communities as sites of national promise, where the country would achieve its ultimate fulfillment as a union of diverse cultures. Yet while Garland's regionalism could be likened to a dynamite bomb, most regional writing was described by critics as quaint and picturesque. Such discrepancies in reception suggest that a common embrace of cultural pluralism among local writers and their readers--and a shared belief in the region as redeemer of the nation--did not always point to the same discourse of nationalism. Regional writing could be adapted to alternative nationalisms; an adequate assessment of the category therefore requires consideration not only of regionalism's coherence, but of its political and aesthetic inconsistencies. This essay juxtaposes several of Garland's early stories with Sarah Orne Jewett's Country of the Pointed Firs in order to explore the nature of an ideological conflict within literary regionalism and its effect on the formal conventions that writers employed and rejected. To affirm more than one variety of regionalism is to grant the author more agency than she or he might have if such writing were limited to a single set of formal features or a single social logic. My argument assumes that writers like Jewett and Garland made important ethical choices in determining which forms of local solidarity to embrace and which to reject.(2) If they conformed to the generic limits placed on them by the major monthly magazines, they often did so knowingly, providing the sub-national communities that audiences desired while recognizing the possibility of rethinking and rewriting them.(3) Even more significantly, a writer such as Garland avoided the major markets for long stretches of time, publishing his work in alternative venues like The Arena, where the representation of rural communities was not limited to a literary tourism in the service of national incorporation and reunion. Garland's work reveals a literary marketplace that never succeeds completely in homogenizing either its readers or its writers.(4) His support for radical social reform leads him to challenge some of the crucial conventions of late-nineteenth-century realism; in particular, he often refuses to draw any clear distinction between the world that his characters occupy and the world of artistic consumption. It is the merging of these two worlds that Garland sees as a necessary precursor to the realization of his national vision. In the teleology implied by Jewett's Country, on the other hand, class stratification poses no obstacle to the fulfillment of a national destiny. At the same time, Jewett shares with Garland a common approach toward the question of genealogical inheritance and the role that it is to play in the nation's ultimate redemption. …