1,625 research outputs found
The sense of a beginning : Bakhtinian dialogic criticism on 'the gospel' in Mark.
No full textContemporary literary approaches have caused paradigm shifts in Biblical Studies in the last two decades as it appears in a great deal of Markan studies using narrative, reader-response, deconstructive, feminist, and new historicist approaches. However, literary studies on the Gospel of Mark have not taken into account theoretical questions underlying those approaches. As a result biblical critics are driven by new trends without ever having a chance to examine the critical baggage of the approaches. Consequently, there is a gap of communication between the old and the new one. Therefore this thesis is an attempt to meet the need of enhancing the quality of critical endeavour in biblical studies. In the light of most recent competing critical theories of literature, the first contribution of this thesis is the methodological finding that Bakhtinian dialogic criticism contains the most profound philosophical and practical foundations for solving some crucial theoretical problems in contemporary literary theories. It is a critique to a Saussurian linguistic system of language which becomes the very foundation of modern and postmodern literary criticism. Bakhtinian literary theory shifts the foundation of literary criticism on linguistic signs into the creative activity of the socio-cultural production of human communication. The shift into socio-cultural reality of language communication makes the notion of 'genre' very important to unlock the problem of text and context in literary studies. Since the Gospel of Mark has fascinated most literary critics in Biblical Studies, the problem of 'genre' of this gospel is chosen as the focus of this study. Secondly, as no agreement is reached as to what 'genre' the Gospel of Mark belongs, this thesis makes its contribution to the discussion by locating the problem of 'genre' of Mark in the context of genre theories and argues that the Bakhtinian suggestion to find genre in the socio-cultural sphere by analysing artistic intercourse between narrative agents in Mark has freed the competing analysis from the unresolved problem between the kerygmatic (content oriented) approach and the analogical (form oriented) approach. To achieve finding 'genre' in the socio-cultural sphere, this thesis focuses on Bakhtinian analysis of the process of artistic intercourse between narrative agents. The narrative communicative interrelationships between narrative agents is constructed in this thesis as a 'stereophonic' Bakhtinian model of dialogic communication. This model is an original contribution of this thesis for revising the traditional two dimensional model of narrative communication. Based on this dialogical model of communication, a special role is given to the Bakhtinian 'author-creator' in the realization process of genre through the interaction of polyphonic voices. Through the interaction of voices of the author-artist and the hero we are led to discover a relatively stable type of portraying and controlling reality in Mark, known as the genre of Roman 'satire'. The closest literary affinity is Satyrica by Petronius. This narrative strategy of 'satire' in Mark has its root in the prophetic discourse of the Old Testament which is saturating the speech of the narrator, John the Immerser, the centurion, the people, and even Jesus. Finally, the whole search for Markan 'genre' culminates in the analysis of the realization of genre through the analysis of Bakhtinian chronotope. The reality of the genre of Mark is its social reality that is in its role as dpxrj/ 'beginning'. As the Gospel of Mark proclaims itself as 'a beginning', it defines its claim of socio-cultural 'authority' in early Christianity. It is this 'sense of beginning' which enables the narrating and the narrated world of Mark to interact dialogically
Lending to the borrower from hell: Debt and default in the age of Philip II, 1556-1598
No full textWhat sustained borrowing without third-party enforcement, in the early days of sovereign lending? Philip II of Spain accumulated towering debts while stopping all payments to his lenders four times. How could the sovereign borrow much and default often? We argue that bankers’ ability to cut off Philip II’s access to smoothing services was key. A form of syndicated lending created cohesion among his Genoese bankers. As a result, lending moratoria were sustained through a ‘cheat the cheater’ mechanism (Kletzer and Wright, 2000). Our paper thus lends empirical support to a recent literature emphasizing the role of bankers’ incentives for continued sovereign borrowing.Early modern state finances, incentive compatability, Philip II, serial default, sovereign debt, state capacity
The Gospel on the Margins: The Ideological Function of the Patristic Tradition on the Evangelist Mark
No full textIn spite of the virtually unanimous patristic opinion that the evangelist Mark was the interpreter of Peter, one of the most prestigious apostolic founding figures in Christian memory, the Gospel of Mark was mostly neglected in the patristic period. Not only is the text of Mark the least well represented of the canonical Gospels in terms of the number of patristic citations, commentaries and manuscripts, the explicit comments about the evangelist Mark reveal some ambivalence about its literary or theological value. In my survey of the reception of Mark from Papias of Hierapolis until Clement of Alexandria, I will argue that the reason why the patristic writers were hesitant to embrace the Gospel of Mark was that they perceived the text to be amenable to the Christological beliefs and social praxis of rival Christian factions. The patristic tradition about Mark may have little historical basis, but it had an important ideological function in appropriating the text in the name of an apostolic authority from the margins or periphery
"Free and equal": human rights in the global imagination
No full textHistorian Prof Mark Philip Bradley examines the origins of the concept of human rights. He also discusses the development of a language around this construct. Presented by Elisabeth Lopez.
“The Reagan people weren\u27t particularly interested in human rights at all but they begin to realise that human rights polls, well, that it can become a justification for policy and so quite quickly the Reagan people have a human rights policy.” — Prof Mark Philip Bradley -
•
Prof Mark Philip Bradley
Mark Philip Bradley is the author of Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam (University of North Carolina Press, 2000), which won the Harry J. Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009) and is the co-editor of Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights (Rutgers University Press, 2001) and The Familiar Made Strange Iconic American Texts after the Transnational Turn (forthcoming 2015). His work has appeared in the Journal of American History, the Journal of World History, Diplomatic History and Dissent. A recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Fulbright-Hays, Professor Bradley is currently completing a book that explores the place of the United States in the twentieth century global human rights imagination for Cambridge University Press. He is the past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and serves as a co-editor of the Cornell University Press book series The United States in the World. Bradley is the Director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago
Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt and Default in the Age of Phillip II
No full textPhilip II of Spain accumulated debts of over 50% of GDP. He also failed to honor them four times. We ask what allowed the sovereign to borrow much while defaulting often. Earlier work emphasized either banker irrationality or the importance of sanctions, in line with Bulow and Rogoff (1989). Using a unique dataset on 438 lending contracts derived from the archives, we show that neither interpretation is supported by the evidence. What sustained lending was the ability of bankers to cut off Philip II’s access to smoothing services. Lenders contracted with the king in overlapping syndicates, effectively creating a network of bankers. We analyze the incentive structure that supported the cohesion of this bankers’ coalition, and examine how it survived across the biggest defaults in Philip’s reign. In particular, we argue that the effectiveness of lending moratoria was sustained through a ‘cheat-the-cheater’ mechanism, in the spirit of Kletzer and Wright (2000). Since the king needed to smooth his expenditure in the face of major revenue and spending shocks, the ability of bankers to cut him off from funding was sufficient to sustain cross-border lending.sovereign debt, default, lending coalitions, sanctions, reputation
Incomprehension or resistance? : the Markan disciples and the narrative logic of Mark 4:1—8:30
No full textThe characterization of the Markan disciples has been and continues to be the object of much scholarly reflection and speculation. For many, the Markan author’s presentation of Jesus’ disciples holds a key, if not the key, to unlocking the purpose and function of the gospel as a whole. Commentators differ as to whether the Markan disciples ultimately serve a pedagogical or polemical function, yet they are generally agreed that the disciples in Mark come off rather badly, especially when compared to their literary counterparts in Matthew, Luke, and John.
This narrative-critical study considers the characterization of the Markan disciples within the Sea Crossing movement (Mark 4:1–8:30). While commentators have, on the whole, interpreted the disciples’ negative characterization in this movement in terms of lack of faith and/or incomprehension, neither of these, nor a combination of the two, fully accounts for the severity of language leveled against the disciples by the narrator (6:52) and Jesus (8:17–18). Taking as its starting point an argument by Jeffrey B. Gibson (1986) that the harshness of Jesus’ rebuke in Mark 8:14–21 is occasioned not by the disciples’ lack of faith or incomprehension but by their active resistance to his Gentile mission, this investigation uncovers additional examples of the disciples’ resistance to Gentile mission, offering a better account of their negative portrayal within the Sea Crossing movement and helping explain many of their other failures.
In short, this study argues that in Mark 4:1–8:26, the disciples are characterized as resistant to Jesus’ Gentile mission and to their participation in that mission, the chief consequence being that they are rendered incapable of recognizing Jesus’ vocational identity as Israel’s Messiah (Thesis A). This leads to a secondary thesis, namely, that in Mark 8:27–30, Peter’s recognition of Jesus’ messianic identity indicates that the disciples have finally come to accept Jesus’ Gentile mission and their participation in it (Thesis B).
“Chapter One: Introduction” offers a selective review of scholarly treatments of the Markan disciples, which shows that few scholars attribute resistance, let alone purposeful resistance, to the disciples.
“Chapter Two: The Rhetoric of Repetition” introduces the methodological tools, concepts, and perspectives employed in the study. It includes a section on narrative criticism, which focuses upon the story-as-discoursed and the implied author and reader, and a section on Construction Grammar, a branch of cognitive linguistics founded by Charles Fillmore and further developed by Paul Danove, which focuses upon semantic and narrative frames and case frame analysis.
“Chapter Three: The Sea Crossing Movement, Mark 4:1–8:30” addresses the question of Markan structure and argues that Mark 4:1–8:30 comprises a single, unified, narrative movement, whose action and plot is oriented to the Sea of Galilee and whose most distinctive feature is the network of sea crossings that transport Jesus and his disciples back and forth between Jewish and Gentile geopolitical spaces.
Following William Freedman, “Chapter Four: The Literary Motif” introduces two criteria (frequency and avoidability) for determining objectively what constitutes a literary motif and provides the methodological basis and starting point for the analyses performed in chapters five and six.
“Chapter Five: The Sea Crossing Motif” establishes and then carries out a lengthy narrative analysis of the Sea Crossing motif, which is oriented around Mark’s use of θάλασσα (thalassa) and πλοῖον (ploion), and “Chapter Six: The Loaves Motif” does the same for The Loaves motif, oriented around Mark’s use of ἄρτος (artos).
Finally, “Chapter Seven: The Narrative Logic of the Disciples (In)comprehension” draws together all narrative, linguistic, and exegetical insights of the previous chapters and offers a single coherent reading of the Sea Crossing movement that establishes Theses A and B.
When do special interests run rampant ? disentangling the role in banking crises of elections, incomplete information, and checks and balances
No full textThe author investigates the political determinants of government decisions that benefit special interest groups - especially government decisions to deal with banking crises. He finds that the better informed the voters, the more proximate elections, and the larger the number of political veto players ( conditional on the costs to voters of relevant policy decision), the smaller the government's fiscal transfer are to the financial sector and the less likely the government is to exercise forbearance in dealing with insolvent financial institutions. The results suggest that policies thatmight be appropriate for mitigating banking crises in the United States might be less effective in settings where voters are less informed, where elections are less competitive, and where there are fewer veto players, because in these settings checks and balances are missing. These policies include: a) Disseminating information about the costs of inefficient government decisions. b) Improving the structure of legislative regulatory oversight. c) Intervening early in insolvent banks. The author concludes that the more veto players there are, the less likely policies are to favor special interest groups (contrary to previous views). Moreover, the closer the elections, the less likely policies are to favor special interest groups.
Other endings of Mark as responses to Mark : an ideological-critical investigation into the longer and the shorter ending of Mark's Gospel
No full textThe Longer Ending and the Shorter Ending of Mark's Gospel are the ancient Markan readers' responses to Mark's Gospel. This leads us to the question of how the authors of these endings read their Mark's Gospel. These endings reflect the ideologies of their authors. The ideologies are related to the interests of the author or the authorial community (ideological primary group), and are embedded within the text. The Longer and the Shorter Ending were produced within a social context where the matter of apostolic authoritative leadership was a sensitive issue. A potential conflict is found in many contemporary texts from the NT and the extra- canonical texts, especially with regard to the apostolic authority of Mary Magdalene and Peter. Their struggles for apostolic authority are often found in the post-Easter narrative context. The assumed ideological primary community of the Longer Ending is Pro- Magdalene. It acknowledged Mary Magdalene as its authoritative leader who enjoyed apostolic authority especially over Peter. This community was interested in mission, and re-authenticated the mission of the Eleven. The LE provides a certain guideline for the qualification of leadership in the LE's community, which is the visual experience of the resurrected Jesus. The assumed ideological primary community of the Shorter Ending is Pro- Petrine. It was in favour of Peter, and suggested him as holding authoritative apostolic authority. This community wanted to clarify the resurrection of Jesus, and emended the empty tomb narrative of Mark's Gospel. It was also interested in mission, and the authority of disciples, especially that of Peter, in their performing mission tasks is highlighted in the Shorter Ending
Philip K. Dick’s Suburban Jeremiad
No full textBetter known as a science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick was, during the fifties, also the author of numerous mimetic novels, mostly published posthumously, set in the years of the rise of suburban communities in the American West. The aim of this essay is to show how these novels address and foreground one of the main concerns in Dick’s fiction: the theme of community-building. Present in a number of his science fiction novels, which often connect the suburban ideal with images of the Cold War, here this theme becomes the central focus. At least until the mid-sixties, in Dick’s highly polyphonic fictional worlds, the early fifties leave their mark as the memory of a time of troubled healing after the trauma of World War Two, and the suburb is a site of necessary reconstruction after an experience of societal and psychological breakdown
Financial safety nets and incentive structures in Latin America
No full textThe literature on safety nets has become technically more precise by drawing on advances in contract theory and optimal governance structure. This paper begins with a treatment of some aspects of the theory. The author's approach draws more on institutional economics, and more precisely on the approach taken by Kindleberger (1978), in the sense that he believes the design of good financial safety nets for Latin America depends upon an understanding of the way that formal ex-ante safety nets have broken down during times of crisis over the past one hundred years. In this paper then author explores issues surrounding safety nets for financial systems in small open economies like those in Latin America. The starting point in Section 2 is the idea that asymmetric information will generally restrict the scope for lending to potential borrowers. Section 3 shows that government regulation of financial intermediaries can frequently lower the cost of lending. Section 4 discusses the creation of central banks in Latin America in the 1920s as an innovation to promote financial deepening. Section 5 shows that the extension of the safety net to depositors is a relatively new and untested development. Section 6 concludes with a discussion of the design of safety nets that takes into account the principles developed in the paper.Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform
- …
