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AbstractFocusing on the Life of Heliogabalus in the so-called Historia Augusta or Imperial History, an anonymous late fourth century CE work, the chapter argues that beautiful rulers who cross dressed with abandon were part of late Roman imperial masculinity and its representation. This was so because the Christian emperor Theodosius was very aware of same-gender or homoerotic attraction as unifying force, which he also employed to strengthen the rule of his sons, made full co-rulers as children. However, as the highly satirical Life of Heliogabalus makes clear, gorgeous, soft young emperors had to maintain and make visible specific power relations. If they could not demonstrate that they controlled their generals rather than the other way round, the power of homoerotic attraction could backfire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the prism of a fairly recent discovery of a milestone, the present article sheds light on the Roman road in the Gennesaret Valley, particularly the span connecting Tiberias to Julias. Building on Zvi Ilan's initiative in the 1980s, the author will emphasise two milestones: IMC 694 and IMC 847. Dating to 120 ce, the latter stone’s inscription not only divulges the role of Emperor Hadrian in the artery’s construction, but establishes Tiberias as its caput viae. By delving into historical sources, contemporary research, and the broader context of Hadrian's infrastructure initiatives throughout the province of Judaea, the paper explicates the road network’s purpose and strategic importance during the Roman era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates for a focus on non-clarity and indeterminacy in Sound Studies. This idea is pursued pursuing with reference to two diverse paradigms: Daoism, in particular the writings of Zhuangzi, and agential realism, a material framework first put forward by Karen Barad in Meeting the Universe Halfway. Following Zhuangzi’s enigmatic parable of Emperor Hundun closely, this paper argues that by the very materiality of sound and our position within its becoming, listening is a creative practice which is deeply entangled with and co-constitutive of an indeterminate ontology of sound. Such an entanglement necessitates a recognition of listening as ethics-doing, enjoining us to account for the human as a co-constitutive (yet never primary) part of the materiality of sound-making, doing, and listening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe absence of moral didacticism in the Lives of the Caesars is one of the most notable features of Suetonius’ biographies. If Suetonius believes that an emperor who acts virtuously secures himself and the body politic, why does he not actively encourage the imitation of virtue? Suetonius does not offer moral exhortation because his account of the role an emperor’s character or nature plays in their political and private actions suggests that the potential for moral instruction and improvement is severely circumscribed. Therefore, this article explores the political implications of Suetonius’ account of the relationship between an emperor’s character and their political fate to illustrate the potential limitations of the mirror-for-princes genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a transnational and microhistorical approach, this article seeks to interpret the Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II’s 1876 visit to Boston, Massachusetts, with a focus on the June 10 dinner between Dom Pedro II, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and other famous literary guests. Personal and cultural factors created a bridge between the Brazilian monarch and the New England intellectual elite that resulted in a series of transnational intellectual encounters during the Emperor’s 1876 trip. The friendship between Dom Pedro II and Longfellow serves as a microcosm of the increasing cultural impact of American literature on the elite stratum of Brazilian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unpublished squeeze from the collection of the École biblique, recording a dedication to the ‘Olympian Gods’ for Hadrian's sōtēria, is here presented in conversation with two closely related inscriptions, recently identified as fakes. The authenticity and provenance of the new object are carefully analysed and discussed and a conclusion cautiously in favour of its genuine antiquity is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Urban II delivered a speech that roused the crowds against the infidels.1 Soon thereafter, the Christian sovereigns rallied the troops, targeting Jerusalem. Even in the Iberian Peninsula, the population went into raptures at the prospect of taking up arms,2 and had to be appeased by the Pope so as not to undermine the military efforts against Muslims. Urban II viewed the First Crusade as a triptych composed of the conquest of Sicily (1091), the successes in Iberia, which included the taking of Toledo (1085) and Lisbon (1093), and the conquest of Jerusalem (1099).3 However, the winds of war changed in 1086, when the Almoravids won the Battle of Zallāqa.4 The Berbers, who expanded their power over al-Andalus until 1095,5 saw themselves as defenders of the community against Christians. However, in the foundation of their movement they engaged in military jihād against Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between perceived authenticity of the tourism experience and destination image, satisfaction and loyalty, and the moderating effect of visitor expectation. Data from Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi'an, China, were analyzed via structural equation modeling. The results indicate that perceived authenticity has a direct and indirect positive impact on loyalty behaviors through destination image and satisfaction. Visitor expectation enhance the destination image and the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty behaviors. This suggests that the proposed theoretical framework predicts tourists' intentions for heritage tourism sites, offering valuable theoretical and practical implications for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emma Stebbins's untraced statue The Lotus-Eater (c.1857–60) purports to illustrate Alfred Tennyson's poem of the same title, in turn derived from an episode in the Odyssey of Homer. This essay addresses the tension between Stebbins's sculpture and Tennyson's text. It brings to the discussion a body of antique visual and literary material to which Stebbins had access, images of and references to Antinous, the youthful and tragic lover of the Emperor Hadrian. Although the great flowering of Antinous scholarship and critique for queer men developed later in the nineteenth century, this study argues that the material was readily available for Stebbins, particularly through the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and the objects in Rome, where she worked; later authors, such as John Addington Symonds, developed their commentary and fiction on Antinous from the same sources. The article brings together the thematic and visual resonances, references, and overlaps between the texts and images. It uses close attention to the formal qualities of the sculpture and the content of Tennyson's poem to consider roads not taken, and how those options demonstrate the ambiguity in Stebbins's finished sculpture: that is, its lack of clear moral or didactic content through its selection of the lotus-eater and Antinoan imagery, rather than a martial or moralizing figure from the poem. It demonstrates the complexity and subtlety of Stebbins's selection of sources for her sculpture, and her rich, multivalent play between texts and images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is an analysis of the actions and thinking of certain Napoleonic collaborators during the French occupation of the Basque provinces of Spain (1807–13). First, the author singles out the enlightened elites that collaborated with the new regime. Second, he analyses some of the letters intercepted by guerrilla forces to grasp some collaborators' opinions on the occupation. Lastly, he uses judicial documentation to analyse not only elite collaborators, but a wider social spectrum. Throughout, he draws links between a local historical analysis and wider historiographical currents to disseminate the Basque case and inspire other studies. The resulting information facilitates a better understanding of the social profile of the Napoleonic collaborators and of their attitudes during a particularly turbulent period in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emperor Hadrian is known for his passion for travels. However, his action was driven by specific political goals. These goals were related to the need to unify the Roman empire. The emperor was aware that relations between the ancient cities and the colonies founded by his predecessors had to be rebalanced. Between 134 and 138, the emperor Hadrian and the Senate minted an enormous variety of coins that featured some of the provinces, and occasionally the cities, of the Roman empire. There are essentially three types of monetary issuances representing the provinces during the reign of Hadrian: the Natio (or Provincia) type; the Adventus type; the Restitutor type. Among them, the coins depicting the personification of Judaea constitute a special issuance that needs a more detailed analysis. In particular, the unusual presence of various numbers of children has already attracted several scholars, but the meaning of their presence is still unknown. This paper aims to study these coins in order to highlight the relationship between Hadrian and Judaea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sometimes subtle and implicit connections between the stories of Christesen, Murray-Smith, and Davidson form one of the great strengths of this book. Through close personal connections to these processes and supported by a wealth of archival evidence, Jim Davidson's I Emperors in Lilliput i brings these two magazines and their founding editors to life in vivid detail. Davidson accomplishes this with alternating chapters devoted to each editor and the development of their magazines, and two chapters that combine analysis of the two during the 1960s and 1970s. [Extracted from the article]

Consequently, books on the First Emperor and his empire have been published and Barbieri-Low's new monograph is a valuable addition to the growing literature. Barbieri-Low's book is not a biography of the First Emperor; nor is it a history of the Qin Empire. In the 20th century, more scholars studied the First Emperor; in particular, Marxist historians, such as Guo Moruo, Fan Wenlan, and Yang Kuan, evaluated the First Emperor from their unique perspectives. [Extracted from the article]

This paper addresses the appropriation in Old Regime France, the First French Republic, and the nascent United States of the ritual wherein at the start of the agricultural season the Chinese Emperor ceremonially drove the plow. It argues that this cultural transfer insinuated Chinese ideals of political sovereignty into the highest political levels in Europe and the United States, even as it effaced references to China. Overturning traditional art historical definitions of chinoiserie, it posits instead dynamic, dialectical processes of cultural exchange whose scope of cultural transfer is not restricted to what can be identified through comparisons of style and iconography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Known for his shrewd and calculating nature, Emperor Hongwu faced a critical challenge concerning regime legitimacy at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, scholars generally adopted a non-collaborative attitude while Zhu's humble origin was despised by the gentry. Using official historical books, intellectuals' commonplace books, and poetry anthologies of that time, this article demonstrates that Zhu Yuanzhang's explanation for the validity of the Yuan-Ming transition comes from the perspective of scholars on the Mandate of Heaven, and reveals that Zhu took a series of measures to solve this crisis by obtaining scholars' support for the Ming court. The textual research in this article, which differs from the focus on policy, law, system, and other perspectives in previous works, offers another approach to the discussion in the field of early Ming Dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study surveys theoretical hypotheses for the choice of Chinese capital locations over 2240 years, examines the probability of 80 candidate cities and finds that relative economic security, the cultural tradition of the emperor's first seat of power, long-term climate change, political unity, nomadic nature, etc. matter in the choice of Chinese capital location. This finding is robust across different approaches, time periods and dynasties. This study confirms the validity of theoretical hypotheses in both China and the West, deepening our understanding of the wisdom of capital location and supplying missing aspects of modern theories of choice of capital location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learner agency is a key factor in success with technology-infused Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs). Focussing on informal practices unrelated to the learning agenda (off-task practices) and considered undesirable by students (school–net-conflict), this paper explores how students who experience a school–net-conflict explain their off-task practices using four conceptions of agency as a theoretical framework. An analysis of interview data from focus groups with a purposive sample of Norwegian secondary students suggests the dominance of sovereign conceptions of agency, i.e., off-task practices understood as individual self-regulation failures. Other common explanations included a) a drive-like 'pull' of social media (material conception), b) peers' off-task practices as triggers (relational conception), and c) adjustment to a grade- and test-oriented incentive regime (ecological conception). Findings also suggest a disconnect between students' explanations (situational nuance/detail) and attributions of 'blame' (dispositional default). Implications, limitations and further research are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maximus represents an alternative for Julian, as he focuses on the psychology and the possibilities of human beings, not on rules and commandments from above.[10] The potential of the individual human being is magnificent, in Maximus' view, and here the background of the historical Maximus as a theurgist magician is essential. It is said that he has slept for three years in the caves beyond Jordan, and that his brothers have been executed as heretics (Ibsen [13], 17, 18).[11] Julian and his Christian teacher Hekebolius at this stage consider Maximus to be an impostor (18), but in the second act, Julian's view gradually changes. I He wears a pointed cap and a long black robe; in his hand he carries a white staff. i (Ibsen [13], 76-77)[15] The way Maximus is described may be an allusion to the legendary Arthurian wizard Merlin the Enchanter, but with a Middle Eastern twist, showing Maximus' (probably) Anatolian heritage.[16] Julian has asked for Maximus' guidance, not only in religious matters, but also in questions and dilemmas concerning his own future. In response to this, Maximus arranges a ritual in Julian's dwelling.[17] A bronze lamp lights up by itself with a reddish flame as Maximus pours oil into a bowl, and Julian is given wine with a spark of the fire that the titan Prometheus stole from the gods (77, 78). He reminds Julian of their conversation about the three empires during the symposium in Ephesus, and he criticizes Julian for his policy as an emperor: MAXIMUS: You know I have never approved your policy as an Emperor. [Extracted from the article]

Thus it is no accident that the title of the book is not "Trade relations between Denmark and China", but "Kinafarerne", i.e. the [Danish] people who travelled to China. Between the emperor's China and the king's Copenhagen]: by Benjamin Asmussen, Copenhagen, Gads Forlag & M/S Museet for Søfart, 2019, 287 pp., 349,95 DKK, ISBN 978-87-12-05858-8 & ISSN 2245-7879 But in some cases - and the description of Boje is one of them - Asmussen perhaps moved a little too far away from the main story of the book in order to tell "the whole story" of the person in question. [Extracted from the article]

This article is an analysis of a series of texts, in prose and poetry, by German, French and Italian authors, which praise Emperor Henry III (1039-56) in the stylised form of the Latin panegyric. It argues that the rhetorical training of the authors - often on deliberate display in their praise - lent their literary products an intellectual sophistication and political resonance which are not always immediately visible in the often highly stereotypical texts. Further, it considers the interpretative problems inherent in reading texts so bound by typological and stylistic precedent. Finally, it argues that thinking about panegyric as a social practice can help us understand some of role played by the imperial court in the radical upheavals in the Western Empire in the second half of the eleventh century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single images of the coronation of historical rulers appeared in England, most famously in the thirteenth-century wall painting of Edward the Confessor in Henry III's palace at Westminster. Earlier and far more common, however, were images of the crowning and anointing of the biblical king David, above all in manuscript psalters, in particular the illustrations of Psalm 26, whose titulus 'Psalmus David priusque liniretur' ('A psalm of David before he was anointed') provided the inspiration for the pictorial subject. The continuity of the subject and the variety of pictorial representations offer the opportunity to examine the rich history of its illustration in psalters, to consider the images in their social, political and liturgical contexts, and thereby to augment our understanding of medieval concepts of kingly consecration, whether biblical or contemporary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine the iconic Zen story of a meeting of the Buddhist master known as Bodhidharma with a Chinese emperor called Wu, in a paradoxical encounter about the nature of wisdom. I use the case as an example of a "therapeutic failure" because the two parties were never in contact with each other, but instead appeared to be locked into a projective identification. I set the stage for my analysis of this case by discussing Safran's work on therapeutic impasse and my own understanding of idealization, splitting, and projective-identification as they apply to the case, as well as the many scandals in the contemporary Buddhist world that are framed by the desire for a flawless, pure and "enlightened" master. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Yungang Grottoes (Datong, Shanxi province, China), particularly the earliest Five Caves of Tan Yao (dated to 460–465 CE), outside the much-studied Buddhist narrative. Proponents of the iconographic scheme have decoded the five larger than life-sized stone Buddha sculptures carved out of a low mountain range as embodying the family cult of the Northern Wei (386–534 CE) Tuoba ruling household in its design. Advancing on the notion proposed by the Northern Wei clergy of venerating the emperor as 'the coming Buddha Maitreya', I aim to explore how the visual scheme of the Five Caves of Tan Yao created a 'presence' of the emperor at the Wuzhou Mountain to elicit different types of perceptual response from its contemporary audience. The materiality of the stone sculptures was meant to awe the viewer into submission, as the 'presence' of the emperor, instead of his words, demanded obeisance from all his subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an inquiry into the relationship between representations of space and religion, power, and territory. It argues that the manner that space is represented is intimately tied to the colonial project as the tool through which European nations could represent the world they wanted, promulgating a specific religious perspective and articulating colonizers' desired spatial, religious, and political order. This is contrasted with a set of murals that visualize an alternative perspective of space and territory found in the citramaṇṭapa of the Vēṅkaṭaramanasvāmi temple in Mysore. These murals that depict space differently contested the colonial hegemony of space by articulating an indigenous spatial order constructed upon an alternate cosmological and religious model, thereby subtly subverting colonialism by articulating India as a sacred and sovereign domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay draws on the suburban sacrifice ritual to explicate in detail how Confucianism became the state religion by reforming the ritual system as a justification of the political system holding the Emperor as the central and highest authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys the collection devoted to the memory of Emperor Nicholas II held at the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco. The author describes the cataloged materials of a unique collection of materials passed on to the Museum by Russian emigrants of the first and second waves, many of whom worked to preserve the memory of Russia's last Sovereign and also made a significant contribution to the creation of the Museum and its archival collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article describes the life of the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (1853–1920) through the correspondence with her parents: the Emperor of Russia Alexander II, the Empress and close friends. The accent is on Grand Duchess's life in Great Britain after her marriage in 1874 to Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (1844–1900), second son of the Queen Victoria but also about her life in the Duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha after 1893 with frequent visits to her family in Russia. The letters give us important information about the Grand Duchess's life, her children, and her social contacts with political and diplomatic circles of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work contends that Derrida's critique of Agamben in The Beast and the Sovereign reveals a fundamental misconception of Agamben's formulation of the notion of biopolitics. Agamben differentiates the term 'biopolitics' from biologism and argues instead that biopolitics ought to be viewed through the metaphysical inheritance of the ontological division already present in Aristotle's articulation of the notion of life. Derrida's position is one that refutes any such division. Through Agamben's reading of Aristotle's uses of the terms zoè and bios, and the distinction Aristotle makes between the simple fact of living (tou zen) and living well (tou eu zen), the article brings to light the fragility of the threshold while illustrating its operative function in the Aristotelian apparatus. Derrida contends that Agamben's notion of biopolitics does not advance the Heideggerian discourse concerning the definition of man as animal rationale. The article argues that, on the contrary, for Agamben, Heidegger's position remains biopolitical and does not overcome the metaphysical problem of presupposition. This article traces and unearths Agamben's hidden reply to Derrida and draws a connection between Agamben's formulation of a form-of-life and Deleuze's conceptualisation of life as absolute immanence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideological origin of the Emperor as symbol can be found in Walter Bagehot's book On the Imperial Family (1867) which proposed that monarchs be symbols of national unity. At a young age, Emperor Showa visited King George V and learned of this theory. While promoting the symbolic nature of the monarch, Bagehot also advocated the three rights of the monarchy, including the "right to warn" when necessary for the monarch to intervene in politics. Emperor Showa had this "right" in mind as he replaced the Army Minister selected by the army. Although this action could have put him at risk for "war responsibility," even in the postwar period, the Emperor continued this stance. As Emperor Heisei also learned about Bagehot and King George V, he engaged in the tendency to speak about the war in political terms. While studying Bagehot's theory, Yukichi Fukuzawa developed an alternative theory on the monarchy. In his work On the Imperial Family he quotes Bagehot but he does not mention the "right to warn." Rather he explains that the Emperor should honor scholarship and focus on the protection of traditional culture, without regard to politics. Whether the Reiwa Emperor will follow the path of political "warning" advocated by Walter Bagehot or adopt the cultural course promoted by Fukuzawa will be a crucial issue for the Imperial Family and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History shows that when a new emperor ascends the throne, Japanese society often transforms itself beyond anyone's expectations. What's more, this change occurs in tandem with a transformation in the way emperors behave during their reigns. I believe this flexibility has ensured the remarkable longevity of the Imperial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the gardens of Maximilian I, who was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, on the Island of Lokrum near Dubrovnikin Croatia. Lokrum is well known for its cultivated plants and became the property of Austria's Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph I von Habsburg in 1859.

Over the years, European leaders have proudly waved a social flag as one of the European Union's (EU) constituent and differentiating elements. This commitment is assessed here through the social footprint of the European 2007–2013 multiannual financial framework among the EU countries and, worldwide, using an extended multiregional input–output model. The focus is on the quantity and the quality of income and jobs generated. We find that well-known differences among its northern, southern and eastern regions threaten the EU's intentions for high social standards, enabling first- and second-class winners. Core EU countries account for the most of the Funds and, thus, most of the positive economic and social impacts, mainly through spillovers from peripheral regions. Beyond the EU borders, Funds expenditures induce capital compensation boosts in emerging countries not balanced by a similar labor compensation impulse. Indeed, China captures the bulk of low-skilled and temporary employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1970s, both the Canadian and United States federal governments introduced modern land claim agreements as a first step forward in the states' recognition of Indigenous goals for self-determination. Since then, both the United States and Canadian federal governments have incrementally expanded their recognition of Indigenous rights to include Indigenous goals for political self-determination. Yet, despite the fact that both countries began implementing broadly similar policies at approximately the same time, the degree to which Indigenous political and economic self-determination has been realized varies considerably both within and between the two countries. The variation in Indigenous self-governing power and authority suggests that the policy shift towards Indigenous self-determination is incomplete and has faced important barriers to implementation. This paper investigates two key aspects of this variation in Indigenous self-determination in the United States and Canada: (1) institutional histories embedded in geography, and (2) the temporal nature of policy frameworks. I argue that the full realization of Indigenous self-determination has been shaped in different ways and, ultimately, is limited by the intersection of embedded institutional legacies and federal political dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author scrutinizes the history of Muli (木里) as a semiautonomous political entity in the 17th century southern Sino-Tibetan borderland. By tracing Muli's improvization in the face of multiple powerful regimes such as the Naxi kingdom, the Geluk Tibetans, the Khoshut Mongols, and the Chinese dynasties, the author explores how an indigenous notion of power took shape in the wake of geopolitical turbulence. Before 1580, Muli was a colony of the Naxi kingdom and dominated by the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. After 1640, it became a stronghold of the Tibetan Buddhist Geluk school and was deeply involved in the power struggles between the Geluk and Kakyu schools as well as the Tibetans and Mongols. Despite of acknowledging multiple sovereigns, Muli rulers utilized various tactics to hold on to power and prioritize local interest. The nuanced, yet creative, strategies Muli people adopted showcases the significant role border regimes played and their agency in shaping the power dynamics in pre-modern Eastern Asian borderlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain's Second Embassy to China: Lord Amherst's "Special Mission" to the Jiaqing Emperor in 1816: Caroline M. Stevenson, Canberra, ANU Press, 2021, 404 pp., $AU 65.00 (Hardback), ISBN 9781760464080 For Stevenson, this rested on a belief that the Macartney Embassy had succeeded in establishing a new basis for diplomatic conduct between China and Britain. Central to Stevenson's analysis is a question on why the British believed that the Amherst mission would succeed in its objectives at the Qing court when the better-prepared Macartney Embassy failed. [Extracted from the article]

In self-representational strategies, Maxmilian von Habsurg (1832–1867) enlisted the carte-de-visite during his reign as Emperor of Mexico (1864–1867). A primary image, bearing the scripted title ofMaximiliano (charro), depicts him in a hybrid costume with accessories of the bourgeois gentleman and of Mexican horsemen. The clothing communicates a shift in imperial symbolism when viewed in light of cartes-de-visite of Mexican leaders, nineteenth-centurycostumbristaphotography, andcastapaintings of the previous era. InMaximiliano (charro), the imperial attire derived from that of the Mexican horseman reflects postcolonial ambiguities and the numerous hands with a role in maintaining the independence of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The eighteenth century was a peaceful era for East Asia, ruled by the emperors of Ching. However, intellectuals who refused to accept the Great Ching order appeared in Chosŏn and Japan. They developed homeland-centric ideologies. This article compares the Han Wŏn-chin (韓元震, 1682–1751)‘s Chosŏn-centrism with the Motoori Norinaga (本居宣長, 1730–1801)’s Japan-centrism. There is a lot of research about the Norinaga’s Japan-centrism in Japanese academia, which contains both aspects of the culture theory and order theory. In Korea, however, discourse about Chosŏn-centrism is still ongoing argument under the concept of ‘Chosŏn’s Sino-centrism (朝鮮中華主義)’. I would like to pay attention to that, although homeland-centrism is constructed with two aspects, which are theories of international order and culture, the Chosŏn’s Sino-Centrism related discourse only discuss about culture theory aspect. Therefore, comparing Japan-centrism, which contains both culture and order parts, I will point out the problem of Chosŏn’s Sino-centrism discourse has, and assert that when Han Wŏn-chin came up with the idea of a Chosŏn-led world, Chosŏn-centrism had born with both aspects of culture and order. In order to reveal the Chosŏn-centrism, I will use a new concept called ‘Zhonghua Community (中華共同體)’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the annual reports submitted by Russia's governors to the emperor offer general insights into the state of a given province and the administrative system as a whole, the reports often failed to fulfill the function assigned to them because they were submitted late and subject to simplification and deletions that undercut the amount of useful information they contain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Among the best preserved royal tombs in early China, the tombs of the Zhongshan state (dated to the late fourth to early third centuries bce) in present-day Pingshan county each featured a concealed earthen shaft in the middle of the tomb. Constructed with rammed earth, this gigantic structure was located above the underground burial chamber, where the deceased's casket and body were located, and below the freestanding offering hall that housed the deceased's soul. Although this empty shaft would eventually be buried and become invisible, it was carefully embellished and sometimes even decorated with false architectural elements. What role did this seemingly superfluous "hidden level" play in the tomb and what meaning did it express? Previous scholarship failed to provide a satisfactory answer to these questions due to its blindness to the shaft's function in the entire architectural space and ritual time. From the hitherto ignored spatial and temporal perspective, this article argues that this prominent ritual structure forms an intermediary space: (1) spatially it links the underground burial chamber (i.e. body) and the top freestanding offering hall (i.e. soul); (2) temporally it forms a passage that symbolically guides the soul to ascend from the underground realm upward to the high offering hall. In doing so, this article examines not only the shaft itself, but also its relationships to the structures below and above it to reveal its forgotten intermediary function. Four problems are discussed: (1) how the architectural elements in the upper shaft simulated real architecture; (2) how the shaft connected the burial chamber with the offering hall to assume its mediating role between the divorced body and soul; (3) how the shaft was built to facilitate the upward ascension of the deceased's soul. (4) Finally, this article concludes that the appearance of these shafts indicates a concrete effort to resolve the contradictory notion of posthumous life--life and death at once, which is unexplained in surviving Eastern Zhou texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I consider the brief retirement of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the Hieronymite monastery of Yuste, the paintings with which he surrounded himself, and how these have been understood by later scholars. While the Hieronymite Order was unique to Iberia, and Yuste was sited in a remote part of Spain, elements of Charles's living quarters may be connected to his childhood in Flanders. Focusing on the paintings of Titian and Michel Coxcie, especially in relation to Sebastiano del Piombo's works, I show how both Titian and Coxcie produced paintings that appealed to Charles's very particular religious sensibilities. I conclude by examining literary and painterly perspectives on Charles's retirement, particularly those from nineteenth-century Britain and Spain. En este artículo estudio el retiro de corta duración del emperador Carlos V al monasterio jerónimo de Yuste, los cuadros con que se rodeó allí, y cómo han sido entendidos por estudiosos posteriores. Mientras que la Orden Jerónima solo se encuentra en Iberia y Yuste se situaba en una parte remota de España, hay elementos de los aposentos de Carlos V que se pueden relacionar con su infancia en Flandes. Concentrándome en los cuadros de Ticiano y Michel Coxcie, en especial con relación a las obras de Sebastiano del Poimbo, muestro cómo ambos Ticiano y Coxcie pintaron cuadros que apelaron a las sensibilidades religiosas muy particulares del emperador. Termino examinando perspectivas literarias y pictoricistas del retiro de Carlos V, en particular las de Gran Bretaña y España en el siglo XIX. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Byzantine Church is often regarded as exemplifying the effects of caesaropapism. This article argues that although Church and state, or ekklēsia and basileia, enjoyed theoretical parity in a symbiotic relationship, in practice the Church – at least in the later Byzantine period – played a dominant role. Indeed, a historical survey of relations between the imperial and the patriarchal office demonstrates that the latter gained steadily at the expense of the former. The emperor’s role as epistēmonarkhēs, or moderator, of the Church, however, was never subsumed into that of the patriarch. Accordingly, the collapse of the empire in 1453 left a legacy which still accounts for some of the difficulties experienced by Orthodoxy today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ambassadors and embassies were numerous between Byzantium and its Muslim and Western Christian neighbours during the Middle Byzantine Period. This article seeks to demonstrate that these official envoys constituted major players involved in the transfer of political information between the courts considered. Ambassadors were those who travelled the most in the Mediterranean area during our period – at least between 700 and 900. Furthermore, as official envoys acting for sovereigns, they were carefully listened to by those sovereigns when they returned. Information coming from ambassadors is found in various sources and concerned military matters and foreign policy. But we also find precise data on domestic affairs and internal political information. Furthermore, news of usurpations and troubles in Byzantium may have constituted an important part of the information transferred beyond the Empire. Foreign ambassadors witnessed usurpations and palace revolutions. Their testimonies could have nourished the idea of a Byzantine government weakened by political instability and this theme became prominent during the twelfth century in some Western Christian courts. 1 I am very grateful to Alun Williams, John Tolan and Diana Maloyan for their critical remarks on this article. A shorter version was presented at the International Medieval Congress session “Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantine and Islamic Spheres: Travelling Rulers and Exploring Subjects” in Leeds in July 2010, and I would like to thank Jonathan Shepard for his kind invitation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Byzantine Empire ruled parts of southern Italy throughout the early Middle Ages, but this region was usually, and inevitably, quite low on the imperial government's scale of priorities. This situation changed during the mid-tenth century, and one factor causing this was the arrival in Italy of the Ottonian rulers of Germany (emperors after 962), who posed both an ideological and a military threat to Byzantine rule. Otto I and his son were far more concerned than is often credited with southern Italy, and both made significant attempts to invade the Byzantine provinces. However, while subsequently Western imperial interest in the region never disappeared, southern Italy became much less important for the German emperors during the eleventh century. Thus Byzantine Italy was if anything more secure on the eve of the Norman arrival in the south than it had been previously. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]