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European Image of China in the Seventeenth Century – Fascinating Cultures Stained with Repulsive Misbelief
No full textWhat did seventeenth century Europeans know and think about China? How were the Chinese depicted in books? Looking at a travel report by two Jesuits and the illustrations of Chinese, Nepalese and Tibetans this article examines how the foreigners have been shown in one of the bestselling and most widespread books on China at the time. China monumentis, qua sacris qua profanis, nec non variis naturae & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata (1667) by Athanasius Kircher is one of the first scientific European books on China and can be regarded as the “foundation of oriental studies” (Godwin, 2009, p.20). It describes and analyzes amongst other Chinese writing, geography, culture and religion and is based on travel reports (orally, manuscripts, writings, drawings) from European Jesuit missionaries to China during the early years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Although written and edited by Kircher who himself had never been to China, China illustrata and its translations coined the image of China in the West in early modern times. Maastricht University Jesuit Library also contains a copy of the Dutch version of China illustrata, titled Toonneel van China, Door veel, zo Geestelijke als Werreltlijke Geheugteekenen, Verscheide Vertoningen van de Natuur en Kunst, en Blijken van veel andere Gedenkwaerdige dingen, Geopent en Verheerlijkt (1668). Regarding the text this version is not significantly different from the Latin one (Szczesniak, 1952, p.389) and will be used for analysis in this article
Conclusion and Final Remarks
Get PDFTransparency can only be effective when the receptors are able to process and digest the provided information. Therefore the question arises how one can find the balance between extensive, detailed, and inclusive ways for citizens to be actively informed, and invited to participate on the one hand, and avoiding an overload of information while opting for a more targeted approach on the other. Key to increasing transparency and participation is the surpassing of the transparency illusion. This could be achieved by having particular regard for the practical hurdles initiatives may face, and the consequences they will have for the population’s knowledge, participation and trust. This challenge does not only affect political but also legal transparency. The difficulty lies in providing understandable information without threatening its quality. Following the proposed model at the legal level could constitute a first step in tackling subsequent hurdles in reaching transparency at the administrative and political level. The authors of this volume, therefore, advocate the integration of plain language in legal instruments and political communication (chapters four and five)
Preface
Get PDFIn the spring of 2013 thirteen motivated bachelor students of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences got the opportunity to study early travel books within the framework of a MaRBLeproject and an Honours programme. The travel books were selected from the ‘Jesuits Collection’ in the University Library. This collection includes many lavishly illustrated travel books, most of which date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this project we focussed, rather pragmatically, on North-America, Japan and China. The travel books bear witness of the broad interests and the highly international orientation of the Jesuits. The books do not only address Catholic missionary zeal, but deal also with trade missions and scientific expeditions. The international mindset of the Jesuits agrees well, it seems, with that of the international student population at Maastricht. Most of the students taking part in the project come from abroad and study Arts and Culture or European Studies
Tools of Measurement for European Travelers – George Staunton’s An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China (1797)
Get PDFToday the Macartney mission and the account of it written down by George Staunton is being widely regarded as a milestone in the way how the west viewed China and its people. However, such a travel report did not necessarily give an ‘objective’ account on another country or culture. Therefore it is important to consider the mindset of the travelers. The Europeans had specific knowledge about China already prior to their departure and especially what they believed to know about the attitude of the Chinese towards science and technology was important. The travelers of the embassy othered the Chinese, based on assumptions made by Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers who wrote extensively about China. This chapter will analyze the way that the Europeans othered the Chinese in that context. Two hundred years after the embassy, in 1992, the British Association for Chinese Studies presented several papers on the Macartney embassy. While the travel account has been object of studies in many different fields and papers from many disciplines were presented, none of them focuses on the underlying agenda of the Europeans; that is their approach towards science and technology. The embassy is correctly considered a collision of fundamentally different civilizations and ideologies. However, the question of in how far the approach towards science, technology and the relation that they share towards progress is responsible for this collision remains unanswered. In fact many science and technology studies focused on the advances of the sciences within a culture; the attitude of a culture towards science in general was on the other hand rarely an object of study
The Reliability of a Child as an Eyewitness in Court
Get PDFWhether eyewitness reports provided by children during a criminal court case are reliable, is frequently questioned. Factors that can influence the reliability of these reports are children’s memory capacity, their susceptibility to suggestion, and the delay between a crime and providing an eyewitness statement. Eyewitness reports provided by children can be reliable given that this delay remains within a reasonable time frame, and that the presented questions are not suggestive. Additionally, eyewitness reports provided by older children are more reliable than those of younger children. A potential mechanism to increase the reliability is to use relevant cues or objects present at the time of the incident when the child is presenting evidence in court. Taking these factors into account in future criminal court cases with children as eyewitnesses will ensure the best possible reliability in children’s statements, leading to an increased number of rightful convictions
The Effects of Mindfulness Training on Children’s Attention Skills
Get PDFIntroduction: Mindfulness Trainings (MT) have been shown to enhance participants’ attention skills by improving attention networks as well as supporting emotion regulation which may otherwise lead to distractions or biased attention. While research in adult populations shows promising results, only a few studies have examined the effects of MT in children. This investigation aims to address the gap in research by assessing the effects of mindfulness training for children at two schools (school 1: N=24, aged 9-12; school 2: N=63, age 8-11).Methods: Children were assessed on the Attention Network Task - Interference (ANT-I; N=91) and on an Attention Control Task (N=91). Furthermore, parents filled in questionnaires rating children’s executive functions. Measurements were assessed before and immediately after the 5-6-week training. School 1 MT group (N=12) was compared to an active reading control group (N=12), and school 2 MT group (N=24) was compared to an active reading control group (N=22) as well as a passive control group (N=21).Results: Performance on the ANT-I and on the Attention Control Task did not show a significant main effect for training group. In order to explore whether children’s emotional regulation improved attention, children’s performance was grouped in high and low emotional control group, which did not differ significantly pre- and post-test on main effects on ANT-I.Conclusion: While mindfulness trainings hold many promises in adult populations, this study was unable to show that mindfulness training in children enhances their attentional control. This may be due to the young age of the children or the relatively short period of MT. Further studies need to be conducted in order for sufficient conclusions to be drawn about the effects of mindfulness training with children.
The effects of mindfulness versus thought suppression instruction on the appraisal of emotional and neutral pictures
Get PDFThe present study investigated the effects of brief mindfulness and thought suppression instructions on the appraisal of emotional (positive and negative) and neutral pictures. It was expected that mindfulness would promote positive emotional reactions toward picture stimuli, whereas thought suppression would promote negative emotional reactions. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions (mindfulness, thought suppression, control). In each condition, participants rated emotional and neutral pictures on two 9-point scales, one pertaining to picture valence and the other to picture arousal. Contrary to what was expected, the present study revealed no effects of mindfulness on dealing with emotions provoked by emotional and neutral pictures. Thought suppression, on the other hand, was found to be a successful strategy in dealing with emotions provoked by negative pictures. It is suggested that thought suppression is a successful short-term emotion regulation strategy for dealing with negative emotions of low intensity
‘Walking through the hospital’, priming tolerance to enhance the approaching behavior between healthy individuals and patients suffering from psychoses
Get PDFResearch has shown that priming works, but most evidence comes from laboratory situations and may not be applicable to situations in daily life. The present study used priming for the enhancement of the quality of approaching behavior between patients suffering from psychoses and healthy young individuals. Twenty-one healthy undergraduate students (age: 18-25) were recruited. Interpersonal distance was used as an indicator for approaching behavior. Using a virtual reality setting, it was tested whether the participants keep less distance towards psychotic patients after being primed with a sentence scrambling task involving words associated with tolerance. It was hypothesized that priming of tolerance can elicit more empathy towards mentally ill. The data reveal that this method of priming has no measurable influence on approaching behavior in situations in which people encounter mentally diseased suffering from psychoses. Nevertheless, this needs further investigation. Priming for social purposes could be a convenient and supportive way to improve people’s attitude towards mental illnesses. Keywords: social distance; stigma; psychosis; tolerance priming; virtual reality
Mirror Neurons: Findings and Functions
Get PDFMirror neurons (MNs) are a set of premotor neurons that fire both during the performance of a motor action, and the observation of someone else performing the same action. Since their discovery, they have been the subject of great controversy. This survey provides a short overview of the history and the most important findings of MN research in animals and humans. Special focus is given to the latest findings on empathy and relevant disorders i.e. autism, schizophrenia and psychopathy, in the context of MNs. Finally a review of the criticism on MNs is provided and discussed
The Pirate Party: Tinkering with the Infrastructure of Transparency
Get PDFTransparency in all political processes is one of the core values and core demands of the Pirate Party. Born in 2006 as one of the numerous offsets of the Swedish mother party founded the same year the organization reacts to what it perceives as dangerous disregard established politics shows towards the emerging features of the so-called information society. In contrast, the Pirates identified the internet as the means to achieve their political vision: creating transparency in decision-making processes on all administrative levels, enabling as broad a participation in the political discourse as possible, and engaging in collaborative political action. The underlying rationale for demanding transparency in political processes and for using tools to support this demand is the ideal of a democratic system in which every individual is enabled to impact political processes as widely as possible. A full elucidation of the concept of transparency within the Pirate Party has not been undertaken, though. The need for conceptual clarity becomes apparent now that the party operates in state politics and therefore in a system whose hierarchical structures and conventions of secrecy it seeks to change. Furthermore, the emergence of the so-called “internet-party” raises the fundamental question if information technology yields the potential to alter political processes towards more citizen participation - or, in other words, if the internet can “create” democracy