Writing and researching (in) the regions

The special issue of TEXT on writing and researching (in) the regions provides a robust portrait of the ways in which regional Australia is imagined, produced, and negotiated by writers and scholars working in a range of settings broadly understood as regional. The writing and research here gather around a range of themes: writing (in) the regions; teaching (in) the regions; and publishing (in) the regions. Together, these works contribute to the ongoing negotiations around how to understand, interpret, work within and nurture regional writing, teaching and research

'Ibadan - a model of historical facts': militarism and civic culture in a Yoruba city

The article focuses on an historical relationship between the political institution of chieftaincy and civic pride in Ibadan, a Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. It examines this relationship against the scholarly model of ‘Yoruba urbanism’ and argues that this model is empirically and conceptually flawed. Drawing on oral and documentary historical sources, the article explores how a ‘civic Ibadan’ was made through practices of settlement, civil disorder and external warfare during the pre-colonial period. The analysis adds to recent debates about the concept of ‘historical materialism’ in the urban past

The experience of pilgrimage in the Roman Empire: communitas, paideiā, and piety-signaling

Pilgrimage of various types is well attested in the pre-Christian religions of the Roman Empire, but there is comparatively little evidence for the personal experiences of pilgrims. Some recent studies have argued that typical pilgrims of this period were members of the intellectual elite highly versed in literary culture (paideia) who saw sacred places as museums of Greek culture. In this paper, I try to reconstruct what we can about the experience of pilgrimage in early Roman Empire, looking at three cases studies: a. Philo’s somewhat idealized account of Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which stresses intense common feeling (or communitas, to use Victor Turner’s term) between participants; b. Pilgrimage to the oracle of Apollo at Claros, to which cities of Asia Minor and elsewhere sent sacred delegations, largely made up choirs of children who performed hymns at the sanctuary. It may be suggested that the experience of the pilgrimage was in large part an educative one - learning about Greek culture and learning how to behave in public; itmight even be seen as a sort of rite of passage. c. The healing-pilgrimages of Aelius Aristides to Pergamum and elsewhere. Aristides’ experience at Pergamum is full of paideia, though that was not the primary motivation, and it sometimes approaches communitas, though in the end the presence of other people tends to serve the purpose of an audience and foil for his own brilliance. Key aspects of his experience seem to be: a) suffering and b) a feeling of closeness to the god, sometimes bordering on identification with him

Do nations have stomachs? Food drink and imagined community in Africa

This paper takes a rhetorical question posed by Ernest Gellner and reframes it to ask whether a sense of national identity can be forged through everyday acts of consumption – in particular, that of food and drink. The article finds value in Benedict Anderson’s conception of the nation as an imagined community, but argues that it makes little sense to privilege the printed word over other forms of consumption. The article goes on to suggest that there have been significant convergences at the level of consumption, but that not all of this has led to reflection about what it means to be a member of the nation. Some lessons are drawn from literatures about music and dress, following which the attention turns to alcoholic drinks and everyday foodstuffs. The history of the consumption of beer and wine in South Africa is used as a case study for convergence in a least likely scenario. The discussion on food observes that while cuisine is not a matter of debate in many African countries, in some countries, like Ethiopia and Senegal, it is taken very seriously indeed. In South Africa, there are ongoing efforts to posit food preferences as something distinctively South African. Although the braai is often discussed in a lighthearted manner, the promotion of a sense of awareness about what all South Africans share in terms of eating habits also has a more serious side to it.Ausgangspunkt des Beitrags ist eine abgewandelte rhetorische Frage von Ernest Gellner. Gefragt wird, ob alltägliche Akte des Konsums, insbesondere Ess- und Trinkgewohnheiten, zur Identifikation mit der eigenen Nation beitragen. Der Beitrag hält Benedict Andersons Konzeption der Nation als Imagined Community für hilfreich, argumentiert aber, dass es wenig Sinn macht, das gedruckte Wort gegenüber anderen Konsumbereichen besonders hervorzuheben. Der Autor beobachtet im Hinblick auf Konsumgewohnheiten signifikante Konvergenzen, die allerdings nicht immer zur Reflexion über nationale Zusammengehörigkeit führen. Er stellt Beiträge zu Musik und Kleidung vor und wendet sich dann der Bedeutung des Konsums alkoholischer Getränke und alltäglicher Nahrungsmittel zu. Mit einer kursorischen Geschichte des Bier- und Weinkonsums in Südafrika greift er einen auf den ersten Blick besonders unwahrscheinlichen Fall von Konvergenz auf. Die nationale Küche ist in afrikanischen Staaten zumeist kein Gegenstand von Debatten, wird in Ländern wie Äthiopien und Senegal allerdings sehr ernst genommen. Auch in Südafrika gibt es Bemühungen, die Bevorzugung bestimmter Lebensmittel als spezifisch südafrikanisch darzustellen; und auch wenn über die in Südafrika gebräuchliche Variante des Grillens (braai) oft eher scherzhaft gesprochen wird, hat doch die Förderung des Bewusstseins, welche Essgewohnheiten alle Südafrikaner miteinander teilen, auch eine ernstere Seite

R. K. Narayanswami B.A.B.L. Engine Driver : Story-Telling and Memory in The Grandmother’s Tale, and Selected Stories

Much like the Nambi of this tale, R. K. Narayan has merited his reputation as a marvelous storyteller. Noted for his laser-beam focus on the closely-imagined Malgudi, he has come to be recognized as the Indian novelist, from whose pen many readers expected all the accumulated wisdom of the subcontinent\u27s abiding concern for transcendence. While such guru-ization amused Narayan, it also elicited his quietly sustained argument against procrustean templates by which the west insisted on reading him as typically Indian.

Tuwim and 'The Chorus of Idle Footsteps'

General aim of the article is to show city in Julian Tuwim’s poetry oppositely to older perspectives. Mostly critics write about his poems that they contain images of urban life and reflections of sociocultural change. I invert this traditional order and try to prove that city is created and seen by new ways of thinking – that the city is modified (not poetics first). I use Michele Certeau’s ideas, because they are similar to Tuwim’s literary praxis. Certau writes about “walking in the city” creating by language (rhetorical devices named synecdoche and asyndeton). Moreover, Certeau describes three types of “spatial requirements”: creating own space, non-time instead of tradition and appearing of new subject (common and anonymous). Reading Tuwim with Certeau’s theses gives a new look into modern city and his literary representations.Zadanie „Stworzenie anglojęzycznych wersji wydawanych publikacji” finansowane w ramach umowy nr 948/P-DUN/2016 ze środków Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę

Walking in The City: Koji Nakano’s Reimagining and Re-Sounding of The Tale Of Genji

Imagined Sceneries is a work written by composer Dr. Koji Nakano of Burapha University, Thailand for two sopranos, koto, light percussion, narrations, soundscapes recorded in Kyoto, Japan in December 2015, and digital projections of Ebina Masao’s 1953 print series Tale of Genji. Imagined Sceneries’ reimagining and “re-sounding” of Heian Kyoto relies on a balance between what is imagined and what is experienced in performance. Its many elements collectively explore multiple layers of Japanese histories, soundscapes, environments, and sensibilities. Using Michel de Certeau’s concepts of the city, this thesis journeys through Nakano’s imagined spaces

Mad spaces

Paper presented at COMMON-PLACE Seminar, The Lighthouse, Glasgo