Sleeping through Class to Success

Japanese high-school students often study until late into the night and sacrifice their sleep in order to pass entrance and other exams. On the other hand, they often take a nap in the (late) afternoon, and daytime napping or inemuri is widely tolerated. This article asks what cultural and social sense it makes to keep students up for studying, when they cannot concentrate on what is being said in class. It examines notions of time and diligence based on the ethnographic findings and analyses sleep, especially inemuri, from sociological perspective

Piazza Armerina. The So-Called Personifications of Mauretania and India at each end of the great hunt portico

Que signifient les décors des absides du portique de la Grande Chasse ? Les personnifications au centre des deux mosaïques font-elles allusion à des entités géographiques comme cela a été proposé jusqu’à présent ? Et, dans ce cas, lesquelles ? L’analyse iconographique de chaque pavement est suivie d’un bref récapitulatif et d’une discussion des hypothèses proposées à ce jour. En nous appuyant sur un ensemble de parallèles iconographiques et textuels, nous nous efforçons de mieux cerner la signification de ces images. Nous proposons quelques pistes sur la façon dont ces mosaïques s’insèrent dans le programme décoratif du portique de la Grande Chasse auquel elles appartiennent.Büyük Av koridorundaki apsislerdeki görüntülerin anlamı nedir? İki mozaiğin ortasındaki kişileştirmeler, şimdiye kadar ortaya konulduğu gibi coğrafi varlıklara mı gönderme yapmaktadır? Eğer öyleyse, bu “hangileri?” sorusunu akla getirmektedir. Her bir döşemenin analizi yapıldıktan sonra, mevcut hipotezlerin kısa bir özeti verilecerek tartışılacaktır. Bir dizi ikonografik ve metinsel paralellikten destek alarak, bu görüntülerin daha iyi anlaşılması sağlanmaya çalışılacaktır. Son olarak, bu mozaiklerin ait oldukları Büyük Av koridorunun dekoratif programına nasıl uyum gösterdiğini açıklamak için bazı bilgiler sağlanacaktır.What is the meaning of the images in the apses on the Great Hunt Corridor? Are the personifications in the center of the two mosaics alluding to geographical entities, as has been the case put forward so far? If so, this begs the question “which ones?”. The analysis of each pavement is followed up by a short round-up and discussion of current hypotheses. By taking support from a set of iconographical and textual parallels, we have sought to achieve a better understanding of these images. Lastly, we provide some insights to show how these mosaics fit into the decorative program of the Great Hunt corridor to which they pertain