Modern Authorities Research Articles

Magic and Spells in <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em> (1997-2003)

Magic and Spells in <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em> (1997-2003)

جواب الناجي عن الناسخ والمنسوخ لبرهان الدين إبراهيم بن محمد الناجي المتوفى سنة 900 ه 'دراسة وتحقيق'

This research comes as part of the Quranic studies which aims at studying and investigating the manuscriptCof Al Naji response on the abrogator and the abrogated by Burhan Edeen Al Naji who died in 900 H.The focus on the scholars' legacy and their writtings and bringing them to light is one of the reasons for choosing to study this manuscript, and it's importance comes for the high status of it's author , in addition to the scient ific value of the manuscript. The research consisted of an introduction and two parts : the first part consisted of two areas of research: the first area on studying the author life and his scientific status ,and the second on studying the manuscript and the substatiation of its attribution, discription ,methodology and resources. And the second part is on investigation of the manuscript and then the conclusion in which I mentioned the key findings like : Apprenticeship of Burhan Edeen at the important maintainers of his time which had an impact on his high scientific position and his entrenchment in Hadith sciences and multiplicity of his modern authorities like: Availability of Scientific Evidence Inherits Prevelance of Probability, this authority was by Burhan Edeen Al Naji and also Al Naji did not intend to handle all the abrogated verses in Quran but just establishment of the occurrence of the abrogation with the indication that it was from Quran and then abrogated in reciting.

The de-institutionalisation of power beyond the state

The making of modern authority centred on efforts to formalise and de-personalise power, and transnational orders such as the European Union have often been viewed as an extension of that project. As this article argues, recent developments tell a different story. More than a decade of crisis politics has seen institutions subordinated to and reshaped by individuals and the networks they form. Locating these tendencies in a wider historical context, the article argues that greater attention to informality in transnational governance needs to be paired with greater recognition of the normative questions it raises. Just as a separation between rulers and the offices of rule was central to the making of modern legal and political structures, the weakening of that separation creates legitimacy problems for contemporary authorities both national and supranational. Rather than acclaimed as flexible problem-solving, the step back from institutions should be viewed as a challenge to accountable rule.

THE COMMUNICATIVE ASPECTS OF THE SETTLEMENTS OF THE PARENT – CHILD CONTACTS AFTER THE DIVORCE (POLISH CASE-LAW AND THE INDICATION TO ECHR CASE-LAW)

The inspiration for the subsequent consideration is a strong conviction, that courts mean much more in the modern society, than just an arbiter in the disputes. They are role models in so many ways: they make legally desired standards of behavior, they give the proper meaning to the legal institutions by communicating their correct functioning, they verify in the practice the complexity and clarity of legal provisions and by its judges they can create the modern authorities to follow. There is a strong link between the role, that the domestic courts play (or should play) in the law-abiding state, and the impact they put into the society and its values, shaping the views for the young generation, through their consistent attitude in jurisprudence. Authors analyze the chosen judgments of the domestic family courts, looking for the correct legal vision of the parental authority in Polish law in the first place and for the optimal standard of exercising it by parents in practice, i.a. after the divorce. The analysis is supposed to be the part of more general consideration according to the judicial view of the family as the basic unit of society and its functioning after any kind of breakup. Authors further examine, to what extend such model of regulation in the matter fulfils the general requirements of international and European law. Those considerations have two main goals: to investigate the contribution of Polish family courts into making international standard of parental authority, and to indicate what kind of support those courts can offer to the international society in this field.

Higher education, violent modernities and the ‘global present’: the paradox of politics and new populist imaginaries in HE

ABSTRACT Higher Education (HE) constitutes a space that calls urgently for new understandings in the contemporary political moment. One way of establishing such an understanding of HE is to consider more fully the work of political theorists in relation to questions of power in the modern nation-state, particularly as these impinge upon the key problem of the rise of populism in the twenty-first century. In this task, I argue that a productive conceptual approach is to be found in the recurring idea of political paradox in the political philosophy literature, an idea which I utilize to explore the role of conflicted national politics, moralising state practices, and scientific rationalities in reconfiguring the governing rationales of HE. While most definitions of populism are remarkably consistent, the underlying reasons, processes and contextual particularities amongst institutions and groups are contested. Importantly, this definition cannot therefore suffice on its own in comprehending the place of populism in HE. Rather we need to conceptualise HE as an experimental ‘problem space’ (Scott 1997, 2004). Fundamental to this problem space are the political paradoxes that inhere within the aspirations of liberal democracy globally, within nation states, and within liberal institutions such as the university. In this paper, I engage the work of political thinkers who have sought to understand the role of modern nation building, the changing features of modern power and authority, and the rise of bureaucracy and technocratic rationalities as they impact upon political institutions – in this case, how they impact particularly upon HE. I draw chiefly from Hannah Arendt, Bonnie Honig, Chantelle Mouffe, Etienne Balibar, Frederiche Nietzsche, Michel Foucault and Achilles Mbembe, amongst others, to articulate the paradox that concerns us – to consider how and why populist strains of national and transnational governance may find a home in HE as a consequence of unresolved and contradictory political dilemmas and conflicts. Importantly, in this context, the paradox of politics in HE is not necessarily the naming of a discrete conflict between two political logics or the process of a mass movement seeking to overtake HE in the name of a popular constituency. Rather, it involves a highly complex set of forces – emerging out of the bureaucratic machinery of modernity and the fundamental paradox of liberalism itself - that positions the university as a testing ground for the tasks of politics and governance, particularly in relation to state crises, crises in knowledge making and in critique and geo-political conflicts.

Tui Chub (Siphateles bicolor) are Native to the Columbia River Basin in Washington State

Although many modern authorities hold that Tui chub (Siphateles bicolor) are native to the Columbia River basin, they are uncommon in most of the basin today, and others have called their native status into question. Here we provide evidence that the species is indigenous to lakes and streams in the Columbia River basin of Washington State, based on multiple lines of testimony. Evidence includes: 1) no record of introductions by federal or state fish and wildlife management agencies; 2) over 100 museum specimens collected from 1881 to 1930; 3) records of abundance in the tens of thousands in area lakes prior to modern management efforts in the 1940s; and 4) 62 diagnostic bones recovered from four archaeological sites dating before 1850.

Tyranny and Social Ontology in Classical Athens

Résumé Quand les autorités modernes parlent de la menace que posait la tyrannie à la demokratia athénienne, ils ont tendance à la concevoir en termes actuels, comme une menace pour des institutions protégeant les droits et les devoirs des individus. Les textes athéniens ont une vue très différente de cette menace, comme une katalysis ou « dissolution » du demos même. Que signifie exactement ce langage ? Pour répondre à la question, il nous faut repenser la façon dont nous objectifions la politeia des Athéniens de l’époque classique. Il nous faut abandonner nos catégories sociales scientifiques conventionnelles afin de tenter de comprendre la dèmokratia antique dans ses propres termes ontologiques. Ce faisant, nous verrons, à mon sens, que la politeia athénienne n’était pas une tentative idéaliste d’égalitarisme politique, comme on le croit généralement. C’était une tentative bien plus pragmatique de préserver la vie de demos , corps social unitaire, essence collective de la polis . Et c’était précisément la vie de cette entité sociale, et non pas les droits des individus, qu’un tyran éventuel annihilerait ou « dissoudrait ». La menace posée à Athènes par la tyrannie n’était pas de nature simplement institutionnelle mais ontologique.

Проблемы становления и развития местного самоуправления в России в отечественной историографии

The study is devoted to the analysis of Russian historiography of the problems of the formation and development of local self-government in Russia from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. The relevance of the study lies in the increasing role of local government in solving key issues of socio-economic development of the country and its regions at the present stage. We note the position of local self-government at the junction of many areas of scientific knowledge, it is determined that the research of problems of local self-government is often interdisciplinary in nature. The decisive significance of the changes that took place in the political system of Russia, which set the methodological and ideological foundations for scientific research from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, is revealed. As a result of the use of historical-comparative and retrospective research methods in the work, it is possible to establish the main stages in the development of the historiography of local self-government in the period under study, to determine the key problems solved at each of these stages, to identify and interpret the opinion of scientists from various fields of science regarding the problem under study. As the analysis of the historiography of local self-government has shown, despite the incompleteness of the source base in the late 1980s and early 2000s, it was during this period that fundamental works on local self-government were created, which laid the foundation for subsequent scientific research. We draw conclusions about the need for further study of historiography with the expansion of the range of sources, which will highlight the most promising directions for the development of local self-government and, possibly, will be of practical interest for modern public authorities.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the Swedish strategy: Epidemiology and postmodernism.

The aim is to outline the underlying epidemiological thinking and mentality in post-materialist and postmodern Sweden behind the Swedish strategy. The aim is not to investigate the handling of the pandemic in Sweden in the long-run. Overconfidence in herd immunity, overconfidence in individual responsibility in a pandemic needing community-centered approaches, overconfidence in evidence-based medicine and neglect to coordinate with the WHO and other countries may be associated with post-materialist values and postmodernism including opposition against modern authority, rationality and science, and also an anti-traditionalist stance towards older generations. COVID-19 epidemiology and postmodernism may be a dangerous combination.

Exchange of medicinal plant information in California missions

BackgroundMissions were established in California in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to convert Native Americans to Christianity and enculturate them into a class of laborers for Californios (Spanish/Mexican settler). The concentration of large numbers of Native Americans at the Missions, along with the introduction of European diseases, led to serious disease problems. Medicinal supplies brought to California by the missionaries were limited in quantity. This situation resulted in an opportunity for the sharing of knowledge of medicinal plants between the Native Americans and the Mission priests. The purpose of this study is to examine the degree to which such sharing of knowledge took place and to understand factors that may have influenced the sharing of medicinal knowledge. The study also examines the sharing of medicinal knowledge between the Native Americans and the Californios following the demise of the California Missions.MethodsTwo methods were employed in the study: (1) a comparison of lists of medicinal plants used by various groups (e.g., Native American, Mission priests, Californios) prior to, during, and after the Mission period and (2) a close reading of diaries, reports, and books written by first-hand observers and modern authorities to find accounts of and identify factors influencing the exchange of medicinal information.ResultsA comparison of the lists of medicinal plants use by various groups indicated that only a small percentage of medicinal plants were shared by two or more groups. For example, none of the 265 taxa of species used by the Native Americans in pre-Mission times were imported into Spain for medicinal use and only 16 taxa were reported to have been used at the Missions. A larger sharing of information of medicinal plants took place in the post-Mission period when Native Americans were dispersed from the Missions and worked as laborers on the ranches of the Californios.ConclusionsSharing of information concerning medicinal plants did occur during the Mission period, but the number of documented species was limited. A number of possible factors discouraged this exchange. These include (1) imbalance of power between the priests and the Native Americans, (2) suppression of indigenous knowledge and medical practices by the Mission priests, (3) language barriers, (4) reduction of availability of medicinal herbs around the Mission due to introduced agricultural practices, (5) desire to protect knowledge of medicinal herbs by Native American shaman, (6) administrative structure at the Missions which left little time for direct interaction between the priests and individual Native Americans, (7) loss of knowledge of herbal medicine by the Native Americans over time at the Missions, and (8) limited transportation opportunities for reciprocal the shipment of medicinal plants between California and Spain. Three possible factors were identified that contributed to a greater sharing of information between the Native Americans and the Californios in the post-Mission period. These were (1) more one-to-one interactions between the Californios and the Native Americans, (2) many of the Californios were mestizos whose mothers or grandmothers were Native Americans, and (3) lack of pressure on the part of the Californios to suppress Native American beliefs and medicinal practices.

MUI and Its Fatwa: The Articulation of Modern Authority in a Religious Democracy of Indonesia

Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI) has been politically the most influential religious organization in Indonesia since its initial establishment in 1975. By issuing a series of fatwa, this organization has religiously encouraged Indonesian Muslim to behave and take any decision within their life in accordance with Islamic stipulation based on the institutional interpretation. Though known and widely accepted as legal opinion on religious issues, one of among the most controversial fatwa recently issued by the MUI was, in fact, related to the civil participation in the last but most contentious general election. The fatwa theologically declared a religious status of being abstain (golput) in the election; that is religiously disallowed (haram). By referring to the statistic data of golput, it is shockingly evidenced that the fatwa has somehow influenced Muslim voters to use their civil rights properly in this presidential election. Considering those startling facts, this paper aims to see how religious precepts are efficaciously employed by MUI to endorse the democratic system of Indonesia. Through broader analytical observation on the dynamic of MUI’s political movement in the light of Menchikian periodization of MUI’s authority, I argued that modern strategies, such as those including mass mobilization, lobbying, and coercive power, are currently applied to claim their authority amid Indonesian society.

“Piyasa”da yaşayan eski bir peşrev: Kanbos Nazîresi

“Piyasa”da yaşayan eski bir peşrev: Kanbos Nazîresi

Euphorbia hyberna in England: native or naturalised?

Most modern authorities have considered Euphorbia hyberna to be native in Britain but with the possibility that it could have been introduced from Ireland. The results from a literature survey, on the historical occurrence of the species, strongly suggest that it was introduced and has become naturalised at a few locations in south-west England.

A dialética entre a normatização e a interpretação:

O presente ensaio tem por escopo compreender, a partir de Bauman (2001; 2007; 2008; 2010), a autoridade docente na transição da modernidade sólida para a modernidade líquida, ou seja, de uma educação legisladora para uma educação intérprete. O problema que norteará este estudo é o seguinte: quais os desafios emergentes decorrentes da modernidade líquida à autoridade docente? Trabalha-se com a hipótese de que os vários desafios estão numa relação dialética entre a normatização (característica da modernidade sólida) e a interpretação (característica da modernidade líquida). Trata-se de uma pesquisa bibliográfica ancorada no método analítico-hermenêutico como percurso de análise. Os resultados do estudo indicam que a autoridade docente, na modernidade líquida, possui suas especificidades e desafios numa dialética entre o ofício de normatizar (oferecer conhecimentos basilares e direcionar um processo formativo) e o de interpretar (compreender as relações cambiáveis, diferenças culturais, novos hábitos).

The Imagined Empire: Balloon Enlightenments in Revolutionary Europe by Mi Gyung Kim

Reviewed by: The Imagined Empire: Balloon Enlightenments in Revolutionary Europe by Mi Gyung Kim Patrick Luiz Sullivan De Oliveira (bio) The Imagined Empire: Balloon Enlightenments in Revolutionary Europe. By Mi Gyung Kim. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017. Pp. 456. Hardcover $54.95. The Imagined Empire is a welcome addition to histories of early ballooning that have flourished in the past decade. Drawing from a rich theoretical toolbox, Kim ambitiously "aims at an archaeology of mass silence, a genealogy of the mass public, and a material geography of European Enlightenment to uncover how the flying machine—both imagined and real—stirred utopian visions and patriotic sentiments in revolutionary Europe" (p. 8). In doing so, she presents a survey of early European ascents, a dense analysis of the indeterminacy of scientific artifacts, and something that could cheekily be called the aerostatic origins of the French Revolution. After hearing someone mock the balloon, Benjamin Franklin purportedly quipped: "What is the use of a newborn baby?" Kim's answer to this apocryphal bon mot is that the balloon "weakened the king-machine by opening a liminal zone in which the existing technologies of scientific demonstration, social control, and political machination could no longer contain the audience or the meaning of a mass spectacle" (p. 11). In short, the balloon's advent in 1783 fundamentally shaped the public sphere. The ancien régime was defined by its "king-machine," which molded public culture by controlling the sinews of symbolic capital. The balloon, however, was a "people-machine" that blurred the hierarchies undergirding absolutism. At stake was control over spectacle—the fullest expression of early modern authority. To make her case, Kim sets the balloon against the elitist royal theater, which had lost its capacity to convincingly represent the nation by the 1770s. The analysis unfolds through three parts encompassing ten chapters. Part one is a balloon-centered genealogy of the public sphere. Kim explains the circuitous route the Montgolfier brothers (paper manufacturers outside the realm of official science) took to stabilize the artifact and secure [End Page 628] their status as inventors—something that became more urgent with the appearance of the hydrogen balloon and its champions, led by Jacques Charles. Those in power produced a "public transcript" that minimized the dispute between "Montgolfists" and "Charlists" (each backed by different factions of the royal family), but the dispute signaled the triumph of public opinion over absolutist polity. The idolization of intrepid aeronauts compounded this process, threatening the Old Regime's hierarchical order. Part two shifts to the audiences of balloon spectacles (Parisian crowds surpassed 100,000). Kim unearths "hidden transcripts" that countered the "public transcript," arguing that balloon satires expressed republican virtues and proto-revolutionary fantasies. Pairing the balloon with mesmerism, another natural fluids-based scientific spectacle, she explains how authorities sought to control both fads, since they "multipl[ied] contact zones between the fashionable society and the populace" (p. 149). Meanwhile, provincial elites tried—and often failed—to overcome roadblocks to stage their own spectacles. Riots after failed ascents revealed the fissures in the hegemonic "public transcript," a realization that marked the beginning of the balloon's decline. Part three explores responses to ballooning across Europe. First, we visit London. According to Kim, the city's tepid reaction to the spectacular technology "reveals the importance of gentlemanly scientific culture in moderating royal power, Francophile aristocratic taste, and vulgar enthusiasm" (p. 211). The last chapters focus on Jean-Pierre Blanchard, first to fly across the Channel. His itinerant ballooning enterprise revealed the boundaries of Europe's cultural geographies. Francophile aristocracies brought ballooning to central European states, which in turn prompted patriotic resistances that foreshadowed responses to the Napoleonic Wars. The Imagined Empire covers some familiar territory addressed by works like Marie Thébaud-Sorger's L'Aérostation au temps des Lumières (2009). However, Kim's imaginative framing and meticulous readings underscore the indeterminacy of artifacts—even national symbols. The sections on France are the strongest, since that is where the evidence is richest, but forays into other regions illuminate how an artifact's meanings change as it is translated into different contexts. Kim's effort at integrating the tensions engendered by ballooning...

The Aporias of the Vicious Circle in A Political Beginning: Reflections on H. Arendt’s Thoughts on the Foundation of a Polity

[full article, abstract in English; abstract in Lithuanian] Modern revolution as the beginning of founding a new political order has to confront the vicious circle inhered in all beginnings: in so far as it is the beginning, where does its principle come from? Or, if there is no principle, how could the beginning establish one? Set in the context of modern political experience, the aporia is equal to the problem of how modern politics to be self-grounded or how to reestablish political authority in modernity? By an exploration into the relevant writings of Hannah Arendt, the article tries to investigate the vicious circle of beginning and principle in the political realm, and to point out that Arendt has told a story about the mutual generating of beginning and principle, turning the so-called vicious circle into a hermeneutic circle, in which those implicit principles become explicit through the performance of founding actions.

Modelling Seismic effects on a Sewer Network using Infoworks ICM

Objectives: The effects of earthquakes on a sewer network can be assessed using different well established methods such as flow monitoring, visual inspection, condition assessments and engineering survey. The main objective of this study is to investigate how hydraulic models were developed and used to assess the immediate devastating impacts of seismic activities on Christchurch’s sewer network. Methods: Infoworks ICM (Integrated Catchment Management) and InfoNet hydraulic modeling tools were used for this investigation. Two hydraulic models (2010 pre-quake model and 2011 postquake model) were developed for Christchurch’s sewer network as part of this assessment. Findings: Hydraulic modelling was found to be a very powerful tool engineers can use to assess the impact of an earthquake and quantify the performance of sewer network. In Christchurch earthquakes caused significant damage to the waste water network. In post-earthquake Christchurch, there was an increase of 33% in the flows to the treatment plant due to earthquake related damage in the network. Application/Innovation: This paper summarizes hydraulic-model building and calibration works for preearthquake and post-earthquake Christchurch to evaluate the impacts of seismic activities on the sewer network. This paper suggests that any modern water authority could implement appropriate hydraulic modelling tools to prepare for any unforeseen situation. Keywords: Earthquake, Infoworks ICM, Modelling, Seismic Effects, Sewer Network

Verdeckte Autorität. Moderne Gefühlsdynamiken

AbstractThe authors argue that modernity can be defined by a critique of political and social authority. Authority may be described as a form of power; it cannot be understood as an attribute of individuals, but as a form of social interaction, a clear model of which can be found in the relationship between teacher and student. Authority in this sense can be viewed as a way of giving and receiving orientation. It comes in degrees, as part of an ongoing social process of ascription, driven by emotional dynamics such as respect, esteem, admiration, fear and shame. Authority in the modern sense is not only less hierarchical than in the case of classical stereotypes, but also less dependent on traditional male images. The price paid by modern authority, however, is that it is a less visible form of authority, one that has little representation in the popular imagination.

Gossip, defamation and sodomy in the early modern Southern Netherlands

AbstractThe article discusses the role played by rumour and gossip in denouncing the act of sodomy and in trying to prosecute sodomites in the early modern Southern Low Countries. Although sodomy was considered an ‘unmentionable vice' in the early modern period, this article argues that sodomy was a popular subject among urban slanderers in the region. Consequently, denunciation was a common way of identifying sodomites, and early modern authorities were often forced to take action because of local gossip. Using trial records and bailiff accounts dating from 1400 to 1700, this article analyses the different ways in which rumours about sodomy were disseminated in early modern urban society. In doing so, this essay aims to nuance the idea that the political elites were the main engine behind the persecution of sodomites and reveals the important role urban gossip and sexual slander played in early modern sodomy trials.

The narrow approach to substantive legitimate expectations and the trend of modern authority

ABSTRACTIn the recent Privy Council decision of United Policyholders Group v Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago, Lord Carnwath supplied an interesting and helpful discussion of substantive legitimate expectations. This case note reflects on Lord Carnwath’s conclusions and how they speak to important current debates about the doctrine. In particular, it will be argued that Lord Carnwath’s conclusions provoke reflection on: (a) the status of the seminal Coughlan case in contemporary thinking about the doctrine; (b) how far claims about the advent of the protection of substantive expectations representing a worrying expansion of judicial power have been properly investigated; (c) whether it is necessary to reflect deeply on the theoretical basis of the principle; and (d) the defensibility of the ‘trend of modern authority’ to interpret the dicta in the Coughlan case ‘narrowly’.