The Ancient Origin of the East/West Controversy

This short account tries to show that the stereotype of the barbarians and an anti-Eastern discourse was developed in the literate culture of the Greeks in classical times, based on a genuine fear of the Persians, but also on an increasing smugness. The attitude towards the East was handed down to the Romans and occasionally exploited for political, private or satirical purposes by writers throughout antiquity, and thus prevailed for all those who could read. ‘The light from the Acropolis’ has never illuminated its Near Eastern neighbours, rather a nefarious shadow was cast on the East that has proved hard to dispose of

Nevada Surface Transportation

This fact sheet examines how Federal funding is allocated between Nevada counties, while also comparing to other Mountain West states. Elements of major bridge, freeway, and bypass projects in northern and southern Nevada are also compared to show the discrepancies between major infrastructure project funding within the state

All in the same boat? East Anglia, the North Sea World and the 1147 expedition to Lisbon

Unpaginated submission version of chapter published in East Anglia and the North Sea World

Time in written spaces

Time in written form pervades our social existence. From the daily news, whether on the web or in print, to wall calendars in our homes or offices, which tell us what day it is; from personal watches or cellphones to public clocks, which tell us what hour it is; from small change in our purses or pockets to use-by dates on our groceries, which remind us when things were made; and from personal or recreational diaries to bus and train timetables, which tell us when we did or should do things, we are constantly made aware of time and its passing in the modern world. And because of the means by which we tell the time in these contexts, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the ancient world did not have such persistent reminders as well. Yet archaeology and literature combine to tell us differently. In this chapter I wish to discuss aspects of this combination, focusing on time in written forms, on the collocation of the mechanisms of time and writing, and on the spatial setting in which these are found, all of which demonstrate a politicization of time in the late Republic and early Empire

Tropical Fruit Improvement Project

Document describing a proposed tropical fruit improvement project for Latin America and the Caribbean to be headquartered at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, and devoted to the collection, propagation, and post harvest issues of avocado, cashew, guava, mango, and papaya cultivars. Document sent by Professor Egbert A. Tai of the University of the West Indies, for consideration at the TAC Ninth Meeting, February 1975

The impact of the West on Arab nationalism

The main object of this thesis is to study the impact of the West on Arab nationalism during the period 1952-1958. The year 1952 saw the coup d'etat of the Free officers in Egypt - an event which marked the intensification of the struggle for Arab unity. The struggle reached its culmination in 1958 with the creation of the United Arab Republic. The choice of this particular period is justified, on the one hand, by the maturity of Arab nationalism as compared with its pre­vious phases and, on the other, by the open, far-reaching conflicts be­tween the Arabs and the West. But the period can not be properly appreciated, either in its contribution to Arab nationalism or in its bearing on the Arab-West relationship, if sufficient account is not taken of its background. The more so since what we try to differentiate and assess is not a straight chain of events but a tangled web of ideas. Thus, to make our background studv adequate to the complexity of the subject in hand, we have had to discuss at great length (in nearly one third of the thesis) the major movements of Arab thought in the nineteeneh and beginning of the twentieth century. The Western impact has made itself felt both at the theoretical and practical levels of Arab nationalism. To gauge its implications we have had to scrutinize Arab nationalism in its three different aspects: as a theory, as a historical phenomenon and as a political movement. The thesis tries to show how, on the theoretical plane, Arab nationalism has conducted Its fight against the West mainly with weapons which it has borrowed from the West, And It also tries to show how this ironical situation has resulted in multiple contradictions within both Arab poli­tical thought and practice. The attempts of Arab religious circles at removing these contradictions and inconsistencies by an out-and-out identification of Arab nationalists with Islam. have been studied at some length. But the thesis, in discussing these issues, tries also to serve another purpose: to carry a stage forward the analyses already made by other writers of the basic postulates and principles of Arab nationalism in its initial phases, and to fill a gap in the Western political liter­ature on the Arabs

Beyond the East-West divide : Balkan music and it's poles of attraction

In its engagement with Balkan music, musicology has largely conformed to the dominant cultural historiographical model of a divide between ‘East’ and ‘West’. Marked by core binary concepts, under the spell initially of theories of modernity, and subsequently of critical theories that aimed to deconstruct these oppositions, musicology on Balkan music still remains within the confines of the ‘East-West’ paradigm. Theories such as Edward Said’s Orientalism and Maria Todorova’s Balkanism have served as key methodological tools in conceptualizing Balkan music and analysing the ways in which stereotypical and ideologically-charged images of ‘the West’ and ‘the East’ are reproduced in musical praxes. Powerful as they have been, analyses of the Balkans solely withreference to ‘East’ and ‘West’ surely do not do justice to the diversity of relationships that have shaped its variegated musical space, and have inevitably rendered a distorted image of its musical landscape. This book aims to contribute to a widening of our critical understanding of a historically and spatially diverse cultural network that embraces Balkan music, and therefore invites proposals for papers that challenge and/or move beyond the ‘East-West’ paradigm. An examination of a network that would not be restricted to the West-East perspective should lead to a richer and more complex understanding of the Balkans and its interconnectedness with other regions, such as the Mediterranean and Russia. By analysing these as well as other spheres of influences, we hope to reveal affinities that have rarely been explored, and will yield a richer understanding not only of Balkan music (‘art’, ‘traditional’ as well as ‘popular’) but also of music history in general. Contributions fall under the following subtopics: – Musical Relations between the Balkans and Russia Russia has acted as an influencing agent on the Balkans over several centuries and ties between these two regions were often highly charged politically. Importantly, Moscow was perceived as the ‘Third Rome’ by the Orthodox Balkans, while the Russian Empire was deeply involved in matters of the so-called ‘Eastern Question’. The great influx of Russian émigrés following the Russian revolution played a significant role in shaping the Balkan cultural elite. Last but not least, the Russian national school and the Soviet model of socialist realism had a profound impact on Balkan music over the last two centuries. – Interactions with the Mediterranean Both the Balkans and the Mediterranean figure more as imaginary cultural spaces than firm geographical entities. Yet the way these spaces correlate musically has barely been explored. How did the culture of the Mediterranean, with its shifting empires and perpetual migrations, engage with the Balkans musically? What could be learned, for example, by exploring the great hub of Constantinople, which has been perceived both as a gateway to the Balkans and a symbol of the Eastern Mediterranean? Could a scrutiny of Balkan music’s interaction with Mediterranean music enrich our understanding of musical life of the broader area of South Eastern Europe? Jasmina Huber writes about the musical physiognomy of melodies that belong to the Sephardic vocal (liturgical and paraliturgical) heritage in the western Balkans. The author shows that the Jewish musical tradition in the Balkans was a symbiosis of Hebrew poetry and oriental(ised) melodies. Valentina Sandu-Dediu has contributed a very interesting, introspective and often self-deprecatory account on the past and present state of Romanian musicology, the discipline that has long been torn between shifting ideologies, the Riemanninspired grandiose ambitions of music historians who singlehandedly wrote monumental but often error-laden books, and the long-standing focus on domestic output, caused both by ideological restrictions, language barrier and the fact of external i.e. foreign interest in Romanian music. The author concludes that the history of Romanian music must be rewritten from next prespectives, but also warns that a compromise must be reached between two opposing extremes - the unscrupulous political engagement on the one hand (which has influenced the boys written in communist times) and avoidance of any ideological involvement the other (which has been a recent tendency). Ivana Miladinović-Prica writes about Milimir Drašković who, in the later phase of his career, Drašković, seemingly surprisinglu, turned towards Byzantine heritage and Serbian orthodox church chants of the Octoechos as a source of inspiration and combined it with his already established avantgarde procedures, but also with popular music genres such as rock and jazz. Drašković and Miloš Petrović held workshops titled Byzantium and Today in Germany, where they brought the experiences of the cultural “Other” to German audiences, but also deliberately “invented” tradition in accordance with their artistic goals. Iva Nenić addresses the dichotomy of the East-West and its ideological implications using the example of the slowly expanding world music scene in the former Yugoslav region and, more specifically, with the specific (re)interpretation of the sevdalinka genre of popular folk song, as interpreted by the young Bosnian singer Damir Imamović, an heir to a well-known Bosnian musical “dynasty”, and his Sevdah Takht band. The author discusses the origins and development of the sevdalinka genre, its “politically correct” interpretations in the socialist Yugoslavia, mostly purified of overt Oriental influences, and compares it to Imamović’s contemporary interpretations, where remnants of its Oriental origin (such as: aksak rhythms, melismatic singing, oriental modes and instrumentation that resemble maqam practices etc.) have been reinstated and even emphasised. Russian and other non-phonetic Slavic languages written in Cyrillic script have been transliterated using the simplified Library of Congress transliteration system, with some exceptions which have been duly explained in the footnotes. We must express our sincere gratitude to Srđan Atanasovski and Katerina Levidou who originated the idea of rethinking the cultural and artistic ‘poles of attraction’ in the Balkans and without whom this volume would have not been possible. Moreover, we are grateful to all contributors to this volume, for their patience and cooperativeness during the long process of preparing this book. We would also like to thank our colleagues who have assisted us in various stages of preparing this volume: Marija Ćirić, Bogdan Đaković, Jelena Janković-Beguš, Jelena Jovanović, Danka Lajić-Mihajlović, Mary McRoberts, Melita Milin, Vesna Peno, Selena Rakočević and Mirjana Zakić. Also, we are thankful to the members of the Department of Fine Arts and Music of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, in particular Academician Milan Lojanica and Academician Dejan Despić, as well as the Academician Dimitrije Stefanović, former General Secretary of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Ars and a long-standing Director of the Institute of Musicology SASA, for their support, encouragement and understanding. Finally, we would like to thank the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia for their generous financial support, without which this book would have not been published

International Musicological Conference ; Beyond the East - West divide : rethinking Balkan Music's poles of Attraction ; Belgrade, 26-29 September 2013.

Радови сарадника Музиколошког института САНУ припадају пројекту Идентитети српске музике од локалних до глобалних оквира: традиције, промене, изазови, рег. бр. 177004 који финансира Министарство просвете, науке и технолошког развоја Републике Србиј