Mapping Shikoku: Picturing Buddhist Pilgrimage in Contemporary Japan

In this research, we will address this question: Do the modern methods of practicing the Shikoku Pilgrimage stay true to the ancient intent of the pilgrimage? People who embark on the journey to each of the 88 Shikoku temple sites do so to escape to another world of peace and tranquility that they cannot obtain in their regular daily lives. Unfortunately, there is a large gap in scholarship on the topic of the Shikoku Buddhist Pilgrimage: little is written about how the shift from ancient to modern practices of the pilgrimage has changed pilgrims’ experiences. Little is known by Westerners about the art objects that pilgrims encounter along the way to the temples, because some of the available artworks that pilgrims would encounter and view on their route to the temple sites cannot be removed from the route. We will demonstrate how walking the pilgrimage is more fulfilling than experiencing the pilgrimage by modernized transportation

Temperature acclimatisation of swimming performance in the European Queen Scallop

The phenotypic plasticity of muscle performance and locomotory physiology allows the maintenance of essential activity capacity in the face of environmental change, and has been demonstrated in a wide phylogenetic range of eurythermal vertebrates. This study used the scallop, Aequipecten opercularis, as a model eurythermal invertebrate. Animals caught in different seasons demonstrated marked differences in their swimming performance and the relationship between, temperature and performance. When stimulated to swim at natural ranges of temperature, Winter (cold acclimatised), animals accelerated faster than autumn collected animals swimming at the same temperature (x 2 at 11degreesC) and attained higher velocities during jetting. The effects of acclimatisation were confined to the jetting phase and may be a mechanism for the maintenance of acceleration during predator-prey interactions. This is the first demonstration of the thermal acclimatisation of muscle performance in a mollusc and one of very few studies in invertebrates

Fire in the Soul of Zurga: Bizet\u27s The Pearl Fishers and Male Sati

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. Although in recent years Georges Bizet’s “other” opera, Les Pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), has been performed on occasion, scant attention has been paid to it, compared to his world-renowned masterpiece Carmen. Even those who are not avowed opera goers have at least heard of the Habañera (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle) and more so, the ever-popular Toreador Song. Bizet penned The Pearl Fishers at age 25, and enthusiasts of this early work praise the “freshness of inspiration” which contributes to its “perennial success.” (9). The Pearl Fishers takes place on a “wild, arid beach on the island of Ceylon [modern-day Sri Lanka]” (10), where bold divers brave death every year (18). It is a French Orientalist opera, as is Carmen, although there is not yet the mezzo-soprano to embody the “exotic” seductress (in the case of Carmen, the Andalusian Gypsy). We only have the pure coloratura soprano, the opposite end of the narrow spectrum allotted to female characters who do not come from “our” world. The late Dr. Edward Said bases his main argument on the distinction between “our” world and the inaccessible “Orient”: “Indeed, my real argument is that Orientalism is – and does not merely represent – a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our’ world” (12)

The Pillar of the World: The Eschatological Role of the Seventh Antediluvian Hero in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch

The later Jewish mystical lore often portrays Enoch-Metatron as thecosmic foundation sustaining the world or even as the pillar linking thelower and upper worlds.The current paper argues that the roots of this tradition about therighteous antediluvian hero as the cosmic foundation of the world can bedetected already in 2 Enoch where Enoch is portrayed as the first fruit ofthe future eschatological aeon of the righteous and the link between theupper and the lower worlds.Although in 2 Enoch the seventh antediluvian hero is never directlynamed as either the foundation or the pillar, his eschatological role andparticipation in the eschatological aeon depicts him as the counterpart ofthe primordial foundation, the luminous aeon Adoil. In view of the lateroffices of Enoch-Metatron in the Hekhalot materials where in his celestialversion the seventh antediluvian hero is portrayed as the sustainer of thecreated order, it is possible that in the Slavonic apocalypse one can see therudimentary theological unfolding toward understanding Enoch-Metatronas the eschatological foundation of the world. These intriguing traditionsagain point to the formative value of the conceptual developments found inthe Slavonic apocalypse that in many ways serve there as a bridge betweenJewish apocalypticism and early Jewish mysticism