Everyday transcendence? Robert Musil,William James,and mysticism

ABSTRACT

In the early twentieth century, as a reaction against scientific positivism, a widespread interest in mysticism developed, especially among German writers. Mystical experience in the form of ‘epiphanies' was described by the psychologist William James and explored by the novelist Robert Musil. In his novel The Man without Qualities, Musil proposes an approach to mysticism which captures the phenomenology of the experience and makes it available for scientific study without subjecting it to a religious, or any other, interpretation.     

‘Seeing in the Dark’: Franz Joseph Thun and his Encyclopedia

Abstract

In the late 1790s the extravagant Bohemian aristocrat Franz Joseph Thun (1734–1801) composed a massive encyclopedia containing his wide-ranging and esoteric knowledge, which was not discovered until 2009. In this article I discuss the contents of his encyclopedia and investigate Thun’s place within the broader intellectual climate in Central Europe. I argue that Thun was an exceptional case in the Habsburg context, where scientists generally rejected outright the sort of excesses his encyclopedia contains. None the less, he became famous for his experiments with a spirit named ‘Gablidon’ and for his sessions in Mesmerism. His encyclopedia focuses on three topics: human ethics, man’s place in nature, and the sins of the French Revolution. He saw man as the middle link in the ‘great chain of being’, whose morality must be based on submission to God. Although he distanced himself from the Catholic Church, he rejected the French Revolution as an attempt to establish a state without religious basis.     

春赏加拿大 无处不飞花

<正>不经意间,冬去春来,春天步姿婀娜地来到我们身边。阳春时节,大洋彼岸,加拿大正慢慢从积雪中苏醒,绿意悄然爬上枝头,早春的各色花朵亭亭玉立。加国的春景向来迷人,各处的春色各有千秋,很难以用一两个词语去笼统概括。辽阔的地域,各异的地貌,造就了缤纷多彩的加拿大之春。     

餐芳饮露

《诗经·幽风》云：＂采紫祁祁＂,这里的＂紫＂即白色小野菊。古人于入秋之际大批采集,既可入馔,又能入药。这被认为是食用花卉的最早记载。     

Commemorating a Rural African-American Family at a National Battlefield Park

The Robinson House site is situated within the Manassas National Battlefield Park in northern Virginia. The original Robinson House was constructed in the 1840s and was occupied until 1936 by the same free African-American family. The National Park Service recognizes and interprets the Robinson House since it was part of the Civil War battlefield landscape during the First and Second Battles of Manassas. The original house went through a series of structural additions and alterations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The house stood until 1993 when arsonists burned it, causing 60% damage to the structure. Today, the east chimney and the stone foundations remain. Amidst the many Civil War monuments at the battlefield park the interpretation of a century of occupation by the Robinson family through the remaining foundations adds meaning and depth to the area's local history. The Robinson House remains symbolize an African-American family's way of life as well as their struggle to survive during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. The foundations and site are a steadfast symbol of African-American cultural persistence that has prevailed for over 100 years on a battlefield landscape.     

Mixing Religious Rituals and Mystical Experience with Modern Democracy: Indonesia's Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX

Abstract

Religion is the most divisive, even violent, issue dividing Indonesians both in the past and today. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the Western-educated Sultan's mystical experiences and religious rituals were used as tools for creating democratic traditions, preserving peace and religious tolerance in religiously diverse Yogyakarta province, the national educational center. As the Muslim King who ruled the Mataram kingdom from 1940–1988, Sultan Hamengku Buwono (HB) IX strived to combine elements of rationality with both his Muslim faith and Javanese mysticism. He primarily invoked traditional Javanese ethics and mysticism, rather than Islamic orthodoxy, to appeal to the cultural legacy of the indigenous citizenry, and invoked western democratic values to reassure the Indonesians from other provinces and foreigners engaged in Yogyakarta's colleges and universities. Research findings explain how the Sultan shared with many educated/uneducated persons this particular worldview in which there is no conflict between modern scientific education and a traditional religious worldview and practice     

三星堆青铜树象征性研究

对三星堆遗址二号祭祀坑出土的青铜神树的研究现状进行回顾,从宗教人类学与萨满艺术的角度对其作了新的探讨,认为树与鸟相结合的表现形式是萨满艺术中“世界之轴”或“萨满树”的典型特征,是萨满和巫师进行祭祀时沟通天地的主要道具.文章呼吁,对这类意识信仰的产品我们除了文献资料以外,还应该利用宗教人类学方法来深入解读其深层的涵义.     

The Pleistocene art of Asia

While the Pleistocene art of Europe has been described, discussed, analyzed and explained in thousands of publications, that of Asia has attracted almost no interest at all. This paper is a brief summary of all known Ice Age art of Asia, both rock art and portable art. The current evidence is critically reviewed, region by region, and hundreds of specimens purported to be art are rejected by the author. Those considered to be authentic are often extremely isolated, in both time and space. It is argued that this record can only be explained effectively as having been greatly distorted by several factors. The geographical distribution, for instance, is clearly conditioned by such factors as intensity of research activities and local preservation conditions. Thus the pronounced paucity of available evidence is, at least in part, imposed by taphonomic biases of various types.     

追寻隐匿在青藏高原的四大名花

<正>在被称为“世界屋脊”和地球“第三极”的青藏高原上,在人迹罕至的高寒山区,生长着许多美丽的珍稀野生观赏植物,大名鼎鼎的绿绒蒿、报春、龙胆、杜鹃就是它们的典型代表。每当冰雪消融、春回大地时,这些美丽的花卉便竞相绽放,让人流连忘返。     

和谐风催放幸福花——互助盐昌村致富纪实

盐昌村地处互助土族自治县哈拉直沟乡,近年来,这个村在积极调整农业产业结构,提高单位面积生产效益的同时,大力拓展玉石、石膏、红粘土等优势产业,拓宽了农民增收渠道。2006年农民人均纯收入达2800元。一个门户开放,卫生整洁,群众安居乐业,村风健康向上,各业和谐发展的新农村正呈现在人们面前。     

青春绽放靓丽花朵访国航股份浙江分公司青年文明号

在民航事业高速发展的今天,品牌服务成为各航空公司打造核心竞争力的重要手段。国航股份浙江分公司的两支青年文明号队伍：西子空乘组和春晓乘务组就是其中典范。两支队伍由一群朝气蓬勃、才华横溢的优秀乘务员组成,各有33人。他们怀着对乘务工作的热爱和满腔激情,以旅客需求为导向,不断提升服务质量,把迷人的微笑、真诚的服务、细微的关怀带给每一位旅客,努力打造和谐空中旅程。     

三门峡虢国博物馆形式设计综述

三门峡虢国博物馆在空间、整体造型与色彩、环境辅助设施等方面力求艺术性,在造型和色彩设计上具有象征性,而且在功能设计的各个环节强调其功能性,因此取得了良好的效果。     

A new era and new themes in Italian politics: The case of Padania

Abstract

By calling for the independence of Padania from the rest of Italy, the Lega Nord has recently drawn a great deal of attention to itself. In support of this campaign the Lega has actively introduced mythical and Utopian models onto the Italian political scene, combining a degree of cultural innovation with a certain political adventurism. This article focuses on these elements, beginning with the events of the autumn of 1996 when the Lega organized a ‘grande festa’ along the banks and in the towns of the River Po aimed at marking the birth of the new nation of Padania. The principal events of the festival were dominated by the many performances of the League's founder and leader, Umberto Bossi, whose speeches were full of pseudo‐religious or pseudo‐prophetic elements. Though the festival ended in Venice with a unilateral declaration of independence by the Lega and its followers in the north, it did not lead to any immediate political consequences. Nevertheless, the situation in Padania is marked by a complex mixture of identities. The Lega has not just introduced new methods of political opposition, it has also brought many subjects (local cultures, regionalism, the right to self‐determination) into the Italian political debate. Furthermore, it has used the language of the sacred and of ‘origins’ to create new characters, new calendars and new sacred sites.     

春天正在绽放

三月,当第一抹暖阳照耀在大地上时,蛰伏了一冬的春开始慢慢绽放。在这个山水含笑、草长莺飞的季节,每一株树木都有肆意生长的自由,每一朵花都有尽情绽放的权利,每一只鸟儿都有自在欢唱的资格。这是属于春天的协奏曲,音乐已经响起,狂欢party才刚刚开始。     

赴一场“多点开花”的约会

＂桃花＂朵朵开 又是一年光棍节,还是一条光棍汉。依旧单身或者变成单身的你,要如何度过这个寂寞的节日？或许,美美地吃上一些桃花食物,让自己转个运,没准从此就告别光棍生活了呢!     

Symbols, Myth-Making, and Identity: The Red Hand of Ulster in Late Nineteenth-Century Paterson, New Jersey

Symbols are manipulated to express social identity and to reaffirm or create a sense of place. Smoking pipes recovered from late nineteenth-century privies in the Dublin Section of Paterson, New Jersey, bear the symbol of the Red Hand of Ulster. Today, the Red Hand of Ulster is ubiquitous on Unionist murals throughout Northern Ireland symbolizing Northern Irish Protestant identity. Originally, the Red Hand symbolized the dawn of the Irish High King of Ulster. In late-nineteenth-century Paterson, it is argued here, the symbol was embedded in ethnic politics involving the Irish Diaspora and Irish–American identity developed through the Gaelic revival and Irish–American organizations and labor unions.