Mythical Creature Research Articles

ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ КОНЦЕПЦИИ «РАЦИОНАЛЬНОГО» СТРАХА В ЭПОХУ МОДЕРНА

This paper outlines the phenomenon of “rational” fear arising in the modern era. The author relies on the work of Thomas Hobbes, as the creator of the concept of “rational” fear. The author makes an attempt to submit the concept of “rational” fear as the basis of the political philosophy of the English thinker. The author demonstrates how Hobbes reinterprets the traditional notion of fear and formulates his own original concept of “rational” fear, the appearance of which became possible only in the era of mo-dernity. Breaking with the “tradition”, Hobbes formulates his definition of “fear” in a mechanical way. The English philosopher turns out to be the creator of the “new political science”, in which foundation he lays the concept of “rational” fear. In the analysis of the “Leviathan” frontispiece, special attention is paid to the visual strategies of the English philosopher and to the idea of the Leviathan as a mythical monster. The author examines some problem areas of the concept of “rational” fear and possible ways to overcome it.

Late Mediaeval Plate with Dragon Depiction from Excavations in 1936 at Starokyivska Mountain

Today, a great part of documentation concerning the research of Starokyivska mountain and the surrounding areas in the first half of the 20th century are lost. This fact complicates the work with the findings which are not presented to the scientific circles. One of such findings is a casted bronze (?) plate of pentagonal shape with a relief depiction of a mythical creature, namely, a dragon. During the work with an item, it was ascertained that such type of findings belongs to the elements of design of decoration assemblage on leather bags-kalytas and was presented on them by pair wise depictions of dragons on the items of various size: appliqus, plates, cover plates of locks, etc. The ornamentation peculiarities of analogous products contain a certain heraldic implication related to the community of ancient Novgorod, which is ascertained by stylistically similar depictions on hanging lead stamps of the period from the 14th to the 16th centuries, and on products made of metal and bone. Regardless of final identification of the finding, and coming from the geography of such items’ spread, we can see that Novgorod was economically active at the known trade routes in Eastern Europe until the second half of the 16th century.

A REPRESENTAÇÃO DA MULHER CRIMINOSA NA REVISTA VEJA

The research aimed to investigate the representation of criminal woman in journalism speech of Veja magazine. Initially, it explored the theoretical discussions about crime and woman upon the marks of gender paradigm and critical criminology. The journalism was perceived as a space of construction of meaning in the form of narratives. With these foundations, a Discourse Analysis was performed from the text of four issues of the magazine Veja, between 2003 and 2013, which brought criminal women in cover stories. The analysis considered the research conducted by Yvonne Jewkes (2004), which identified eight standard narrative forms that journalism uses when speaking of female crime: 1) sexuality and sexual deviance; 2) physical attractiveness; 3) bad wives; 4) bad mothers; 5) mythical monsters; 6) “mad cows; 7) evil manipulators; e 8) non-agents. The research concluded that the eight narrative forms appear in Veja magazine, mobilized in narratives of criminal women, reinforcing values that contribute to the construction of a stereotypical and reductionist image, according to patriarchal gender patterns that undervalue women.

Nature and culture in visual communication: Japanese variations onLudus Naturae

AbstractThe neurophysiology of vision and cognition shapes the way in which human beings visually “read” the environment. A biological instinct, probably selected as adaptive through evolution, pushes them to recognize coherent shapes in chaotic visual patterns and to impute the creation of these shapes to an anthropomorphic agency. In the west as in the east, in Italy as in Japan, human beings have identified faces, bodies, and landscapes in the bizarre chromatic, eidetic, and topologic configurations of stones, clouds, and other natural elements, as though invisible painters and sculptors had depicted the former in the latter. However, culture-specific visual ideologies immediately and deeply mold such cross-cultural instinct of pattern recognition and agency attribution. Giants and mythical monsters are seen in clouds in the west as in the east; both the Italian seventeenth-century naturalist and the Japanese seventeenth-century painter identify figures of animals and plants in stones. And yet, the ways in which they articulate the semantics of this visual recognition, identify its icons, determine its agency, and categorize it in relation to an ontological framework diverge profoundly, according to such exquisitely paths of differentiation that only the study of culture, together with that of nature, can account for.

The Mythical Sphinx in the Islamic Art of Egypt

The Islamic art is distinguished by the affluence in representing mythical creatures, they are not only countless but also variant in shapes. Utilizing these creatures in the Islamic art was an outlet for the Islamic artist from any religious restrictions, strange and unfamiliar creatures, peerless in reality, so the artist will avoid mimicking God's creation. The different phases of the Islamic art of Egypt presented us with various mythical creatures such as the harpy, griffin, phoenix, sphinx, etc. This research sheds light on sphinx specifically. It appeared in many artifacts since the Umayyad period of Egypt. The research is an attempt to study both historical and artistic backgrounds of this mythical creature in the Islamic art of Egypt

Classical monsters in new "Doctor Who" fan fiction

Although a number of classic Doctor Who episodes featured story lines and characters drawn from Greek myth, no new Who episodes based on Greek myth appeared until seasons 5 and 6, in 2010 and 2011. These episodes featured Pandora's box, the Minotaur, and a Siren. They all use the mythical monster or artifact outside of its ancient Greek context, and I argue that the mythical monsters were additions to earlier story ideas. I compare this with the treatment of the myths of the Minotaur and the Sirens in five stories posted to FanFiction.net between 2008 and 2013. These stories all engage with classical myths, and the longest, "Lure of the Sirens," even engages with different versions of the myth of the Sirens. In this article I discuss how the writers use the classical myths within their stories, and how the myths fit in with the primary aims of the writers, for example in developing romantic relationships between characters.

Monsters and monstrosity in Augustan poetry

Roman poets of the Augustan period reinvented monsters from Greek myth, such as Harpies, Furies, and the warring Centaurs and Giants. These monsters represented the attractions and dangers of novelty in various contexts, ranging from social values to artistic innovation. Rome's two great epics of the early principate, Vergil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, are both filled with mythical monsters. Like the culture that produced them, these poets were fascinated by unfamiliar forms despite their potential to disturb and disrupt. This book takes a fresh approach to the canonical works of Vergil, Ovid, and their contemporaries, contributing to a very recent turn toward marvels, monsters, and deformity in classical studies. The volume proposes that monstrosity was acutely topical during the birth of the principate, having featured in aesthetic debates of the Hellenistic age, while also serving as an established, if controversial, means for public figures to amaze the population and display their power. Monsters provided a fantastical means to explore attitudes toward human nature, especially in its relationship with sex. They also symbolized deformations of poetic form. Such gestures were doomed to replay the defeat of hypermasculine monsters yet, paradoxically, they legitimized poetic innovation. Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry is the first full-length study of monsters in Augustan poetry, and the first metapoetic readingof monstrosity in classical antiquity. Intended primarily for scholars and students of classical Latin literature, it will also speak to interdisciplinary monster studies. It does not require knowledge of Latin or ancient Greek and quotations are translated.

“The Unshriven Dead, Zombies on the Loose”: African and Caribbean Religious Heritage in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

In demonstrating how scholarship has neglected African and Caribbean influences in Morrison’s work, this essay argues that there is a conspicuous gap in classifications of the character of Beloved. There is compelling evidence that African religious concepts of the living-dead, the Caribbean concept of the zombi, and the American adaptation of the zombi as zombie all bear profound influence on the composite identity of the character of Beloved. The hybrid assembly of the mythical and monstrous creature of Beloved thus establishes a new creation in an evolving transnational cultural tradition.

What Is Literary Anthropology?Novel Approaches to Anthropology: Contributions to Literary Anthropology. By Marilyn Cohen, ed. New York: Lexington Books, 2013.

ways that assumptions about who the Ipili are, how they live and organize their social networks, and who, in different contexts, might be a legitimate personation of the leviathan. The intricacies of Ipili kinship, residence, intermarriage, and claims of descent defy bureaucratic attempts to limit or restrict workable definitions that fit neatly into contractual relations between a mining corporation and a group of “landowners.” Indeed, such are the complexities that “the Porgera case is one in which the ambiguity of the local resource frontier has created a discursive space for descent claims without creating a hegemonic account of what those descent groups are or how they operate” (115). In some respects, the Ipili appear more like another mythical monster—the many-headed hydra. Throughout the book, Golub uses the notion of feasibility as a way of exploring the possibilities and practicalities of the different agents and their projects in Porgera. In the final chapters he shifts his analysis of the problem of feasible identity to the national level, scrutinizing the myths of “the Melanesia Way,” the idealized rural villager, and the “grassroots” communities who live “traditionally.” Here the full force of his argument is expressed, for just as the Ipili pursue dreams of modernity and the transformation of their villagers into modern towns with urban-style housing and amenities, so too do other rural Papua New Guineans who hope that a gold mine might be established on their land. Environmental destruction, social discord, widespread corruption, and new inequalities have been the legacies of every mining project in Papua New Guinea to date. Mining companies don’t want to abandon mines so long as the shareholders are benefiting from the profits; more surprisingly, neither do local people want mines to close. They continue to hope that they will find some feasible way of gaining more of the spoils. Golub pronounces the Porgera experiment a failure and places his hope for the valley in the post-mine era. But after decades of waste dumping in the river, vast areas of land rendered unsuitable for farming, and thousands of migrants now settled in the valley, the prospects seem grim.

Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry by Dunstan Lowe

BOOK REVIEWS 506 CAROLINE STARK Howard University, caroline.stark@howard.edu * * * * * * Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry. By DUNSTAN LOWE. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 2015. Pp. x + 278. Hardcover, $75.00. ISBN 978-0-47211951 -6. Like the figures Lowe explores in this welcome study, Monsters and Monstrosity is itself a hybrid text. Veering from the curious social practices of freak-fetishism in Augustan Rome to the metapoetics of sublime gigantomachy in Latin epic, Lowe conducts various explorations of monstrosity through a wide array of methodologies. While parts of the monograph are more successful than others at employing insights from the field of monster studies (see 27–32 for a literature review), all readers interested in the poetic techniques of Vergil and Ovid, as well as the shifting face of Augustan engagement with all that smacks of the “strange,” will find something ofinterest in this monograph. Monsters is particularlyvaluable foritscontributionstothestudyofgenderandmonstrosity,aparadigmofanalysis that surfaces in several chapters, and is a notable addition to scholarship on metapoetics and sublimity. Following a brief Introduction, in Chapter One (“Monster Theory”) Lowe defines the ancient monster, wisely eschewing a tidy conception; his analysis is replete with useful interrogation of the Greek and Latin terminology for monstrosity. He depicts the unique cultural context that allowed Roman “monsters” to shift from fear-inducing religious oddities and portentous errors of nature to objectified commodities embodying an aesthetic akin to that found in Augustan culture more widely. The monster as metaphor—for both text and object—is an extension of this transformation, and when viewed in an Augustan light, it begins to stand for novelty and innovation. Through readings of Horace’s multiform creatures, Neronian grotesques, and Vitruvian strictures, Lowe also delvesintotheAugustanaestheticsofamonstrousculturewarbetween“ancients” and “moderns.” In the second Chapter (“Real Monsters”), Lowe turns to the presence of monstrosity and deformed bodies within Roman life, particularly in the urban milieu. His analysis of the museological display culture that circulated around BOOK REVIEWS 507 mythical monsters contains much of note. Significant, if digressive, discussion is also devoted to ancient science concerned with spontaneous generation, environmental determinism, and the landscapes of monstrous birth. For Roman audiences, much of the monstrous production of these “othered” landscapes was considered eastern, exotic, and/or feminine, all features developed by the arguments of later chapters. Subsequent analysis of zoology and ethnography leads Lowe to consider modes of viewing the monstrous; the power of formlessness(and thisis key) rests in itsintractability. Lowe turns his gaze in Chapter Three (“Feminine Exteriors”) to Scylla, the Sirens, and Medusa, showing how all were reinvented and “maidenized” by Augustan poets. Psychoanalytic approaches most visibly emerge in this chapter, largely in service of exploring the “monstrous-feminine.” At the risk of generalization, for Lowe the Augustan approach to such figures is to combine misogynistic nightmare with some form of pleasurable curiosity, both visual and psychological.Within the learned poeticsofVergiland Ovid,one alsoencounters the implications ofrationalizinginterpretationsof Scylla and Charybdis (78–84), while the temptations of the Sirens tell a story particularly redolent of moral allegory(90–96). Medusa’s legacy featuresdiachronic changes similar to thoseof Scylla and the Sirens, but she largely symbolizes the visual; it is through Medusa that we encounter image-making and ekphrasis, as well as Freud, Cixous, castration, and the un-viewable face. Lowe’s analysis of Medusa in the Perseus episode of Ovid’s Met.is particularly strong(106–110). Chapter Four (“Feminine Interiors”) focuses on the Harpies and Furies, those “nightmares of femininity” (114). Unlike the previous chapter’s Scylla or Medusa, Augustan Harpies and Furies “represent sheer threat, undisguised by beauty or pathos” (115). Lowe incorporates in this chapter Bakhtin’s grotesque and carnivalesque, but the fit with Bakhtin is by no means perfect (122). In line with one of Lowe’s main points concerning monstrosity, there is a further metapoetic slant to reading these negative bodies: the blurry in-between notion exemplified by Horatian satire—the “lower” genre—is akin to a lower creature like a Harpy. Lowe suggests that within Vergil’s epic, the Harpies’ lack of shame and modesty (and their unclean excretions) pollute a poetic world in which they do not belong. Although I have some reservations about his readings...

Leveling Up to Immersive Dispute Resolution (IDR) in 3-D Virtual Worlds: Learning and Employing Key IDR Skills to Resolve In-World Developer-Participant Conflicts

As technology improves, bandwidth expands and devices proliferate, hundreds of millions of people are engaging with ever-more realistic and complex three-dimensional (3-D) immersive environments for up to thirty hours per week. The growing variety of online 3-D spaces allows individuals to try on new identities as avatars and to interact, explore and shape either reality- or fantasy-based online worlds. In some of these virtual worlds, the emphasis is on developing personal relationships through social networking while others revolve primarily around achieving competitive game objectives. Participants may engage in a laundry list of mundane or whimsical activities from decorating your virtual home and chatting with fellow avatars to slaying mythical monsters or accomplishing quests in a hero’s journey. In a review of forty-five 3-D environments, one activity typically missing within the contours of the virtual world is an effective, in-world conflict resolution process to handle developer (or owner)-participant (or player) conflicts within the contours of the virtual world. Most of these virtual environments require adversarial conflict resolution either traditional courts or arbitration to process disputes between game developers and members. A few sites’ terms of use refer vaguely to “non-appearance based” conflict resolution options without further explanation of the nature of these processes. In other instances, developers can unilaterally take action against players through a variety of self-help remedies which have led to further court challenges. Incongruously, these virtual realities often teach some of the key skills necessary for collaborative conflict resolution methods outside of traditional litigation, including strategic analysis of one’s own and third party interests, understanding other’s perspectives through shifting online identities, balancing collaborative and competitive interactions with other parties, and exploring creative solutions to achieve objectives. Yet these virtual spaces seldom offer any meaningful opportunity for these skills learned in-world to be applied using the existing 3-D infrastructure to resolve these disagreements. This article calls for a new conflict resolution approach; the utilization of “immersive dispute resolution (IDR)” to leverage both the communication and graphical technological advancements in 3-D virtual worlds and the collaborative and strategic thinking skills virtual participants readily acquire in these digital experiences. In this paper, Part I will discuss research on learning in virtual worlds with a special emphasis on the key collaborative conflict resolution skills garnered through exploration, engagement and play in virtual environments. Part II examines current dispute resolution processes in forty-five 3-D worlds which emphasize adversarial methods and illustrate a failure to leverage the 3-D immersive technologies or the collaborative skills learned in these immersive environments. Part III will call for established dispute resolution professional and organizational providers to spearhead greater integration of 3-D technologies with facilitative IDR processes to help leverage player-acquired collaborative skills in resolving owner-participant disputes.

The Cherepanova Sisters

The Cherepanova Sisters Olga Slavnikova (bio) —translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz The elder was Fyokla; the younger, Maria. Fyokla turned forty in January, but you’d never have guessed it from her appearance; Maria was twenty-two. The sisters were tall, bony, and freckled, as if they’d been sprinkled with fresh sawdust. In the brief northern summer, both burned to a crisp, and their skin peeled like a new potato’s; in winter, the sisters’ broad flat cheeks blazed with such a smart and joyful flush, you wished you could hang them on the New Year’s tree. For all her health and comeliness, Fyokla had never married. The sisters’ father, old Sashka Cherepanov, had been a nearly mythical creature in the family. After he went to prison for a drunken brawl during which he’d inflicted some non-life-threatening injuries, he never did come back for real. He basically lived in prison, like a goblin in a swamp, showing up at home only occasionally, between sentences, frightening the children he already had with his watery red eyes and making more babies. Their mother, Vera Andreyevna, whom frequent childbirth had made resemble a sad and ailing kangaroo, died in the district clinic when the youngest, Mashka, was only beginning to walk on her chubby flannelled feet and taking apart and putting together old padlocks, which she liked better than real toys. After the children’s mother died, their father vanished for good, as if he could emerge from his barred oblivion only to see her, Vera, who had always had a clean shirt and a bottle of the viscous local homebrew waiting for him—and who wasn’t waiting anymore. Fyokla became a mama to little Mashka and her three younger brothers, Fedka, Lyoshka, and Kostik. The brothers grew up and vanished into thin air, like their father. A collective image remained in the house of all the Cherepanov men: a portrait that hung in the living room, small and dark, finely rendered in oil, of an angry muzhik with a reddish beard that grew like dog’s fur, his crude round buttons buttoned up to his beard, depicted against a flat river that might have been iron and dancing sunset clouds the colors of cinders. Little Mashka was afraid of the portrait, thinking that this was her absent papa watching her. Fyokla, who remembered their father better, assumed that the rabbity red eyes and long bracket-like mouth in the portrait were her father’s, but in fact they belonged to someone else—a grandfather or great-grandfather maybe. The village of Medyanka, where the Cherepanova sisters were born and lived, consisted of four hard, humped streets, two-story brick houses smoked by time and festooned with iron lace, and outcroppings of hacked native granite right [End Page 276] in the middle of the street. When wheels of any kind rolled over them, the streets broke into granite crumbs and sent up dust like lit firecrackers. Lanes and alleys split off from these high streets, as they were called, and meandered downhill, looping and crisscrossing. Dilapidated five-story prefab apartments, which looked more like factories than human habitations, were interspersed with rotting huts that had rooted themselves in their vegetable patches all the way up to their blue doorframes. Here the gray wood of the long sheds and slanting fences were the color of iron, whereas the iron, rusting, looked like gold, red, and green duckweed. A swamp encircled the village, clinging to the granite hump on all four sides. Like a huge sleeping bear covered with a rough hide of vegetation, the swamp breathed, rustled, and stirred. Anyone who stepped across its tottery hummocks felt underfoot the deep bestial womb, which emitted a muffled intestinal gurgling from time to time. The swamp possessed an almost necromantic life force. There were bird’s nests hidden under all the hummocks, in the speckled low forest and saber-like reeds, from the meadow pipit’s fragile little nests, like embroidery hoops, to the bowls of chopped up rotting matter that belonged to the cranes; the eggs, big and small, were the color of the local green and...

Scientific Journal of Applied Computer Systems: Looking Back and Moving Forward

Precisely twelve years have passed since 2000, when the first issue of the 5 series of “Computer Science, Applied Computer Systems” was compiled into the Scientific Journal of Riga Technical University. According to the Chinese Zodiac based on a twelve year cycle, in which each year in a cycle is related to an animal sign and its reputed attributes, the Scientific Journal of Applied Computer Systems is attributed the sign of a Dragon. Dragon is a mythical powerful creature highly worshiped in Chinese culture that symbolizes strength, health, harmony, and intellectual power. Many consider Dragons extremely lucky and blessed. Most entities born or created under this Chinese Horoscope sign are generally charismatic, endued with great powers and are likely to evolve into great inventors, scientists, actors, lawyers, politicians, and managers. Likewise, we are convinced that the Journal publishing the research results in the traditional fields of Institute of Applied Computer Systems, which has been born under the Dragon’s sign, is endowed with all these features. The first 12-year cycle is over, and the co-editors of the Journal of Applied Computer Systems would like to give a brief overview by looking back into the history of the journal formation and reaching its current status. The first issue was published in 2000 in response to the appeal by professor Ivars Knets to regenerate scientific traditions and to provide an opportunity for the scientists to publish major results of their research. The volume contained 9 papers that were presented at the 40 RTU International Scientific Conference. In its turn, to go on with the tradition of publishing scientific papers in the journal next year, the editors issued the call for paper with the announcement that the applications from PhD students would be of special interest. As a result, the amount of the submitted papers doubled. The second compiled issue bridged the 20 years' gap between the so-called “old” scientific school lead by professor Janis Osis, who developed the original approach to complex technical system diagnostics based on topological models, and the young generation of scientists. It is quite significant that the first paper of this issue was the paper dedicated to the history of research on system modeling at RTU, in which professor Janis Osis in honor of 40-year anniversary of the faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology described the evolution of the faculty scientific school over the last 40 years and presented its structure. The third issue of the series opened with the five papers presented at the international conference “Information System Development” (ISD), which for the first time was held in Eastern Europe and organized by the Division of System Theory of RTU. The papers devoted to the common problems investigated by the scientists of the Institute of Applied Computer Systems were also included in the agenda. In 2002 the editorial board had already 38 submissions of papers, which required a careful review. Therefore, the evaluation of the papers for this issue was characterized, first, by two blend reviewers for each paper, where disputable papers were additionally evaluated by one of the core editors. Figure 1 shows statistical data on the number of the published and rejected papers for all 13 issues launched during the last twelve years.

Cyclopia: from Greek antiquity to medical genetics.

Cyclops are among the best-known monsters of Greek mythology, also mentioned in art and literature. According to the most recent scientific knowledge, the malformations caused by defective development of the anterior brain and midline mesodermal structures include cyclopia (synophthalmos), ethmocephaly, cebocephaly and arrhinencephaly. These severe forebrain lesions often are accompanied by severe systemic malformations, and affected infants rarely survive. Neither true cyclopia nor synophthalmos are compatible with life because an anomalous development of the brain is involved. Thus, it is difficult to assume that ancient Greeks drew their inspiration from an adult patient suffering from cyclopia. Cyclops appear for the first time in literature in Homer's Odyssey (8th-7th century BC) and one of them, Polyphemus, is blinded by the hero of the epic poem. The description of the creature is identical with patients suffering from cyclopia; eyes are fused and above the median eye there is a proboscis, which is the result of an abnormal development of the surface ectodermal structures covering the brain. The next literature appearance of Cyclops is at the end of 7th century BC in "Theogonia", written by Hesiodus. Another interesting description is made by Euripides in his satyr play entitled 'Cyclops' (5th century BC). In conclusion, though it is not certain whether Homer's description of Cyclops was based on his personal experience or the narration of his ancestors, there is no doubt that the ophthalmological disease, cyclopia, was named after this mythical creature.

Art for Plants' Sake? Questioning Human Imperialism in the Age of Biotech

We are only beginning to understand what it means to be a plant. Florianne Koechlin, ‘The Dignity of an Oak Leaf’1 The enemy of Empire is within. Tiqqun, Introduction to Civil War 2 Accepting the p...

Vampire Nation: Violence as Cultural Imaginary (review)

Anastasia Karakasidou, Wellesley CollegeThe recent violence in the Balkans has perplexed foreign analysts. The mainstream interpretation conjured images of the violent Balkan man and blamed atrocities on inherent national maladies. A few historical constructivist voices contextualized the violent events in world politics and emphasized how the peoples of the Balkans lived within or on the margins of empires. They consumed the images of aggression and brutality assigned to them by the West. Struggles to create a sense of collective identity outside of that domineering framework have been futile. Vampire Nation joins these constructivist voices, but offers a unique deconstruction of nationalism through a detailed textual analysis of the metaphor. Longinovic tells us how in 2007, a year after Slobodan Milosevic's death, a man visited his grave and planted a stake in the ground, a metaphorical second killing of sorts, making certain that the will never come back to haunt the living again. The culture and its connection to bloody Balkan history has indeed begged for an interpretation.Tomislav Longinovic grew up in Yugoslav Belgrade and has a unique perspective on society: not quite a detached ethnographer, nor a fully national participant, he critiques his own upbringing and writes an insightful analysis of the character of the nation. He chooses his informants from a wide range of fields and from throughout Balkan history, and analyzes a myriad of texts, films, plays, and orations. Although the work is reflexive, it is free from the insufferable self-reflections of the Western observer seeking local acceptance. The author is well-known from his previous writings on the metaphorical image of the vampire, but Vampire Nation is the first of his works that takes the leap into nationalism and stands as a critique of violence. The is a mythical creature with origins in the 17th century Balkans, and was well embedded in the magic and mysticism of daily life along with witches and werewolves. The was the worst demonic being of all, however, with an unsurpassed lust and thirst for blood. The stories circulated widely in western Europe as well, as did the images of the Slavs as the European other. On the far edges of civilized lands, these fearful people were perceived to be as violent as the magical creatures they themselves feared. The image of the Serbian vampire is rooted in these early European cosmologies: the Serbs are a backward, ancient people that feast on blood and fear the light of civilization. The Serbs, as Longinovic argues, had little choice but to conform to this assigned identity. They embraced it, but the Serbian vampire for internal consumption is quite different: he is a heroic figure, an individual who spills blood for the nation.Once with their own empire, the Serbs coexisted with the Byzantine Empire, but fell to Ottoman hands in the 14th century. Destabilized and without a territorial permanent base, the Serbs did not fully unite as a national collectivity until the rebellions against Ottoman rule in the early 19th century. The memory of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo united the Serbs and it was transformed into a mythical bloody battle between the invading Ottoman army and the Principality. The battle set up an ethnic memory of Orthodoxy against Islamic invaders and the defeat was considered to be a great loss for national and pride.Serbia became a republic within socialist Yugoslavia after World War II, but the cultural strength of the Serbs put them in an advantageous position within the Federation. Serbia was accused of having controlling interest in Yugoslavia, especially when leader Slobodan Milosevic became president of the ailing Federation. In 1991 Yugoslavia ceased to exist and the Yugoslav wars erupted, giving way to ethno-religious conflicts involving genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, internment camps, mass graves, and torture. …

All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible : Edward R. Hope, New York: United Bible Societies, 2005

This monograph (All Creatures Great and Small; ACGS hereafter) was published by United Bible Societies as a part of its series, Help For Translators. In ACGS’ introduction, the basic issues for reading its main portion are dealt with in relation to how to understand the classification of the animal ranks and how to translate biblical animal names in accordance with the interrelationship between the ancient world of Israel and the modern world in which we live. The second part, the major portion of ACGS, explains the animal names, which are divided into seven categories: general animals; mammals; birds; snakes and lizards; fish, frogs, and mollusks; insects, spiders, and worms; and mythical monsters. Each category provides a good number of animal names, which are explained in terms of biblical references, discussion, description, special significance or symbolism, and translation issues. In a word, ACGS examines what a name meant in the ANE context, what it meant in the Bible, and what it could mean in our contemporary context. The third part presents bibliography, glossary, and a series of indices such as general index, animal index, scientific animal name index, scripture references, etc. ACGS is an invaluable resource for Bible translators as well as for the serious readers of the Bible. It helps us to more understand the world of living things presented in the Bible. For Korean readers, ACGS should be utilized with an understanding that ACGS has been written from a viewpoint of Western culture and language. When used with an attempt that pays attention to the cultural and linguistic differences between Korea and the Western world, ACGS will surely be an asset to enhance our understanding of the Scripture. This writer urgently recommends that ACGS should be translated into Korean and be used by the hands of Bible translators and the members of the church.

Imagining Obama: Reading Overtly and Inferentially Racist Images of our 44th President, 2007–2008

In this article I analyze eight Internet images of President Barack Obama from the election campaign period of 2007–2008. These images were largely user-generated and disseminated and fall into two camps that each represent a form of anti-Black racism: overtly racist images and inferentially racist images. While representations of Obama as an ape, thug, or terrorist were generally recognized as clear forms of anti-Black racism, images I identify as inferentially racist operate within a postracial ideology in which Obama is figured as a messiah, whites' “Black best friend,” or a mythical creature. For some viewers, these inferentially racist images did not incite the controversy of those read as overtly racist because the former were read as positive portrayals of uplift and progress. Yet, these inferentially racist images are reliant upon the same stereotypes of Blackness as the explicitly racist pictures, as Obama becomes a positive figure only when he can metaphorically transcend his Blackness.

Triglavca, kraj češčenja plodnosti. Poizkus etimologije DivačeTriglavca Rock Shelter, Cult Place of Fertility. An Attempt at the Etymology of the Place Name Divača

The first known mention of the village of Divaca (feminine gender) dates from 1308/1320, where the word is of masculine gender, either Devac, Dovac or Devac(o) and 1331 Devaca. Medieval and later writers supposedly wrote down the reduced vowel in the name mostly as i, rarely with other vowels, or it was even omitted, which allows us to interpret the records in the following centuries. These appear of the type D¼vac/D¼uac, D¼uaca/D¼vaca, Deuaca and Divaca the latter being the official name today. The current pronunciation of the name by the oldest inhabitants born in Divaca is that of Devaca and D¼vaca, rarer Deuaca or D¼uaca. This led to the supposition that the original vowel of the first syllable was e (Devac, Devaca) and that the name originated from either the pre-Slavic expression deva for the mythical creature or Deva divinity. Both name variants are hypothetically related to the cult of fertility taking place in the cave or rock shelter with the mythological name of Triglavca up to the first half of the 19th century. The latter, in fact, contains a unique stalagmite formation in the form of a vulva (devaca), above which a less suggestive stalactite formation hangs in the form of a phallus (devac). The existence of the two mythical creatures or the two animistic objects, devac and devaca in Triglavca rock shelter, point to the symbolic sexual unification and fertility.

Enabling Environments: Let's explore … dragons

Put books at the heart of your activities based on a favourite mythical creature, along with art and small-world play, as Helen Bromley suggests.