A Thirteenth-Century Scholar in the Eastern Mediterranean: Sirāj al-Dīn Urmavī, Jurist,Logician, Diplomat

This essay examines the career of the Shafi?ī jurist and logician Sirāj al-Dīn Urmavī (1198–1283), who combined his scholarly and judicial activities with ambassadorial appointments to Frederick II, King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor, and the Ilkhan Hülegü. Originally from Azerbaijan, Sirāj al-Dīn spent most of his professional life in Ayyūbid Cairo and, from 1257, in Seljuk Konya, where he spent the final decades of his life as chief qadi. Through a contextualised reading of the extant biographical information for Sirāj al-Dīn, the article draws particular attention to two aspects of his physical and professional trajectory. First, the essay situates Sirāj al-Dīn's career in the context of processes of cultural change in thirteenth-century Anatolia. It seeks to demonstrate both the transfer and adaptation to the Anatolian urban milieu of social–cultural patterns attested for the a?yān in neighbouring predominantly Muslim societies, and the shaping of the social and cultural functions of immigrant scholars to Anatolia by local conditions. Second, the article identifies Sirāj al-Dīn as a prominent participant in an intellectual community engaged in inter-cultural exchange across political and confessional boundaries in the thirteenth-century eastern Mediterranean.     

Fixing a Misbegotten Biography: Ziryāb in the Mediterranean World

The generally accepted biography of the famous Cordovan musician and composer, Alī b. Nāfi? Ziryāb (d. 242/857), contains evident problems of chronology and content and is based almost entirely upon one source, al-Maqqarī's Naf[hdot] al- ?īb min ghu?n al-Andalus al-ratīb, written in the eleventh/seventeenth century. Modern scholarship generally has overlooked the fifth/eleventh-century source for this late version of his biography and has not taken other, earlier, sources into account. The result is a misbegotten biography that distorts both its subject and the Mediterranean world in which Ziryāb lived. This article refines the biography of Ziryāb by using the earliest available Arabic sources, including works by Ibn ?Abd Rabbih (d. 328/940), Ibn al-Qūtiyya (d. 365/977), Ibn [Hdot]ayyān (d. 469/1076), A[hdot]mad al-Tīfāshī (d. 651/1253) and Ibn Khaldūn (d. 803/1402). By comparing these accounts and attempting to reconcile their inconsistencies, the paper proposes a more logical chronology for Ziryāb's career that not only resolves obvious problems with the standard biography, but also portrays this important artist in relation to the network of political and economic institutions that united the eastern and western ends of the Islamic Mediterranean world in the early third/ninth century.     

Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500–1860: Rethinking the Origins of the Welfare State. By Larry Patriquin.

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's notion of narrative identity and on his observations concerning testimony in Memory, History, Forgetting, this article explores the operation of memory under two aspects, that of narrative identity and that of witness. This exercise involves some related discussion both of the history/memory problem and of the relationship between written and spoken traces in engaging the past. The methodological focus for the work is a written text of an unusual kind, comprising an extensive and detailed eyewitness account written, forgotten and re-discovered by the same individual – Lionel Curtis – after an intervening period of half a century.     

Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators

In this article Abraham Lincoln is considered as an alternative to the usual type of patriot's hero. He reminds us of our great historical failings. He remains a figure of controversy, a national hero in only some corners of society. He is the heroic President who serves as the first compassionate defender of the downtrodden, and he is a hero in those subcultures as well. Lincoln's treatment in the movies is discussed, focusing particularly on the recent movie Lincoln. Lincoln is seen as a match for the usual movie hero. His famous immunity to casual treatment in popular culture is discussed as well.     

Superior–Subordinate Communication Dimensions and Working Relationship: Gender Preferences in a Malaysian Organization

This paper attempts to investigate the Western proposition on the communication preferences of male and female employees in a Malaysian organization. Based on the literature, Western scholars suggest that male employees prefer working communication with their superior that will allow them to accomplish their jobs. On the other hand, female employees prefer relationship communication with their superior in order to maintain and develop their relationship with their superior. Our findings show the combinations of working and relationship communication emerging from Malaysian male and female respondents. The consequences of these findings are discussed and elaborated.     

Theaters of war: Tracing the strange careers of Shina No Yoru in the military contact zones of the Pacific, 1937–1954

This article examines the ways in which multiple traditions of camp shows and the overlapping and relational layers of Imperial Japan and U.S. presence in Korea shaped Korean entertainers’ lives after 1945, producing their idiosyncratic performances in response to rapid shifts in Korea’s relations with Japan and the United States in the 1940s–1950s. When the United States sought to reposition Japan at the top of the newly emerging American hegemonic order of Asian countries, Korean entertainers who served the Imperial Japanese Army a few months earlier found themselves performing for American soldiers. The stage of the Korean native camp shows became a “strange and exotic” yet “familiar and even comforting” place where inconsistent logics, such as Imperial Japan’s pan-Asian ideology and American Orientalist fantasy, mingled. Under the complicated legacies of overlapping militarization and colonization in Korea, militarization has constituted a structuring force that enabled Korean women camp show entertainers generating their hybrid performance styles in ironies, contradictions, and complexities. Building on postcolonial theorists’ notion of hybridity, I argue that Korean entertainers’ performances were being shaped or negotiated in contact with different audiences and expectations as well as Korean entertainers attempted to navigate the acceptable ground of performances and womanhood in the constantly changing political and ideological environment.     

The Impact of Receivers’ Nationality and Cultural Orientation on the Effects of Fear Appeals in Health Communication

Participants from the Netherlands (n = 52), China (n = 50), and South Africa (n = 166) either read a self-targeted or a family-targeted fear appeal message about chlamydia. Seven aspects of individual cultural orientation were measured, and six effects of the different messages. Interactions between nationality and target of threat were found on perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and danger control. Only for perceived susceptibility, a difference in cultural orientation partly explained this interaction. The outcomes add to the doubts about claims in earlier literature about the relevance of receivers’ nationality and cultural orientation for developing a fear appeal message.     

Examining the work–life balance of immigrants in Australia: An anomie theory perspective

Against the backdrop of significant migration changes and the predicted further diversification of the workforce, we present the concept of anomie to explain how different sociological and cultural settings influence migrants’ work and family experiences. Anomie refers to the feeling of disorientation and alienation from society caused by a sense of absence of supporting social systems. This article integrates cross-cultural management research into the migration and work–family interface and presents findings from a study of migrants residing in Australia. Through a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews and open-ended surveys, our study explored participants’ experiences of social and cultural adaptation orientations and behavioural anomie shifts. The findings and theoretical explanation lend strong support to the understanding that sociological influences and cultural orientation moderate migrants’ experiences. We also present an argument for refining Durkheim’s anomie theory to incorporate strains of social, cultural and behavioural consequences concerning migrants’ work and life experiences across cultures.     

Beyond the Rule of Thumb: The Materiality of Marital Violence in England c. 1700–1857

This article examines how marital violence was articulated in and around particular places, spaces, and objects, to reveal the tensions embedded in the physical structure of the household and its control. It also demonstrates that space and objects shaped marital violence both as an idea and an act and did ‘emotional work’ in the sense that they operated upon people’s emotions and behaviour. Finally, it argues that an imagined material culture of marital violence contributed to the construction and maintenance of class stereotypes.     

Islam,Jews and Eastern Christianity in Late Medieval Pilgrims’ Guidebooks: Some Examples from the Franciscan Convent of Mount Sion

The Holy Land was described, not just in the accounts of the pilgrims who visited the most sacred land of Christianity, but also in several compilations and collections of texts conceived as guidebooks for clerics and pilgrims. From the fourteenth century onwards, many of these collections are clearly linked to the Franciscan Convent of Mount Sion. These assemblages often include texts on customs and religious beliefs of the peoples of the Near East and on the history of the Holy Land. One of the aims of the compilers seems to have been to prepare the reader to meet unorthodox practices and beliefs, emphasising the contrast between Latin Christianity and Eastern Christianity or Islam.     

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Continuity and Change of the Lex Rhodia's Jettison Principles in Roman and Medieval Mediterranean Rulings

Jettison is the practice of throwing goods overboard in order to lighten and consequently save a vessel, as well as the lives of those on board. This phenomenon has long been part of seafaring, with the dangers of navigation not having changed since ancient times. Accordingly, various bodies of maritime law emerged in the medieval era to handle the consequences of such events. This article will discuss how the principles of jettison and general average introduced by the Lex Rhodia and maintained in Roman law were understood in some medieval regulations. Although most legal texts indicate a common understanding of the principles of general average, opinions vary widely on details of procedure and events covered by the rulings. This analysis will show how the rules of jettison and general average are treated in different contexts and by the diverse societies administering them.     

Culture = politics: the emergence of new cultural forms of protest in the age of freeter

This paper examines new cultural and political movements that have developed outside of traditional leftist politics since the early 1990s in Japan. The new movements, including Dame‐ren, the Cardboard House Art movements in Shinjuku and recent anti‐war protests on the Iraqi war, were mainly led by young people, in particular, the freeter generation, who did not experience the leftist politics of the 1960s. These movements are different from traditional Marxist political ones and even from the new social movements in the 1960s and 1970s in the sense that they incorporate more cultural practices such as art, music, dance and performance into their political activities. The paper also explores the historical background against which the new movements were born and have developed since the end of the Bubble economy. It sees freeters, young part‐time workers, as emerging, new political actors that have appeared through the transition of a mode of production from Fordism to post‐Fordism. The transformation of society, economy and politics, known as ‘post‐modernization’ or recently as ‘globalization’, has asked us to re‐consider and re‐define the basic concepts such as class, proletariat, power, labour and work which we once shared. The paper tries to locate, through a critical examination, the new movements within a broader context of anti‐neo‐liberalism and anti‐globalization and find political potentiality within it.     

‘The Charlatanry of the Learned’: On the Moral Economy of the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Germany

The notion of charlatanism is central to the social workings of the eighteenth-century republic of letters. Starting with Johann Burkhard Mencke's famous treatise The Charlatanry of the Learned, this paper traces how accusations of academic and scientific misconduct put in terms of ‘charlatanry’ initially helped to produce the new species of the erudite ‘charlatan’. Facing a growing complexity of scientific culture, this new frame of meaning, structured by numerous examples of scientific misconduct, offered a way of mapping the world of learning. But besides its cognitive impacts, the discourse of charlatanry allowed the creation of symbolic boundaries, which determined decisions as to the affiliation or non-affiliation to this recently forming scientific community by separating honourable from dishonourable scientific personae. Speaking of charlatanry therefore always implied a social distinction as much as a scientific one. The discourses on charlatanry also mirror differentiations within the scientific field. At first dominated by a critique built on courteous or bourgeois values, the scientific field later developed its own criteria of appraisal, such as authorship, originality, transparency, etc. Attracting the attention of a growing public sphere, the explicit verbalization of claims which were not related to the value system of a republic of letters primarily concerned with the production and distribution of knowledge finally led to a more implicit moral economy of science.     

Superior – Subordinate Request Email in Workplace Communication of a Malaysian Organisation

Email is key in workplace communication. This study examines structure of request emails and display of politeness by Malaysian superiors when writing to subordinates. Authoritative and solidarity-oriented structures with corresponding linguistic strategies were found to reflect different leadership styles, autocratic and democratic. Language and communicative style were influenced by situational context of a request. When face threat and imposition were low, superiors were authoritative and when face threat and imposition were high, they were egalitarian. Email functioned as an equalising medium that enabled superiors to be democratic as well as a channel for power enactment that reinforced hierarchical structures.     

Long Song: Sound of Nature in the Mongolian Grasslands

Urtiin duu is believed to date back to the era of the Hun (about 2000 years ago) and became one of the most important cultural expressions of Mongolians when this nation took shape, according to China's historical documents. The origin of this old folk art is closely connected with religious and other major rituals of Mongolians. On those rituals, singing was an integral part, and some old songs are still sung today. For example, joyous crowds shout their praises and auspicious wishes, and b…