Search results

This research develops a much-needed approach to the study of glazed ware production in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain and Portugal) during the early Middle Ages. The introduction of glaze to the Iberian Peninsula was a long and complex process involving three waves of technology transfer arriving from the eastern Islamic regions between the ninth and eleventh centuries. In this paper, the main glaze workshops of each technological wave have been characterised in order to understand how the medieval technological transmission took place and how political and economic factors influenced this gradual dissemination. ; Postprint (published version)

Arab culture and the religion of Islam permeated the traditions and customs of the African sub-Sahara for centuries. When the early colonizers from Europe arrived in Africa they encountered these influences and spontaneously perceived the African cultures to be ideologically hybridized and more compatible with Islam than with the ideologies of the west. This difference progressively endorsed a perception of Africa and the east being "exotic" and was as such depicted in early paintings and writings. This depiction contributed to a cultural misunderstanding of Africa and facilitated colonialism. This article briefly explores some of the facets of these early texts and paintings. In the first place the scripts by early Muslim scholars, who critically analyzed early western perceptions, were discussed against the textual interpretation of east-west perceptions such as the construction of "the other". Secondly, the travel writers and painters between 1860 and 1930, who created a visual embodiment of the exotic, were discussed against the politics behind the French Realist movement that developed in France during that same period. This included the construction of a perception of exoticness as represented by literature descriptions and visual art depictions of the women of the Orient. These perceptions rendered Africa as oriental with African subjects depicted as "exotic others".

The issue of Oriental linguistic elements in Albanian literature is considered as a very sensitive and complex period because it has been abandoned for ideological and political reasons. Such approach cannot pass easily because we all now start from a later point. The name of this period is known as " The period of Baytajes", and it implies the fact that this literary school was formally and substantially under the influence of oriental languages and thoughts. Oriental words are numerous and can be divided into Arabic, Ottoman and Persian, but mostly in Arabic because it was treated as a lingua franca of the artistic expressions of this group of Albanian literary creators that lasted for almost two decades until the literary Albanian renaissance.

La Pologne et les autres contrées qui touchaient jadis le Proche Orient ont beaucoup emprunté à la civilisation orientale. Mais jusqu'au XVIIIe siècle, ces emprunts consistaient surtout en objets matériels, tels que costumes, armes, harnais, et n'avaient qu'une influence mineure sur la civilisation de l'Europe Orientale. Ils étaient l'expression d'un état d'esprit appelé couramment « sarmatisme ». Par contre, à l'époque des « lumières », d'autres éléments de la civilisation orientale pénètrent dans l'Europe de l'Est, non pas, il est vrai, venus directement d'Orient, mais — paradoxalement — par le truchement de l'Occident, où l'orientalisme s'était intégré au style rococo, alors très à la mode. Cet orientalisme rencontre, en Pologne, des éléments préexistants; il les assimile, et donne naissance à un grand courant inspirateur, particulièrement fécond et bénéfique, que nous voudrions évoquer ici dans toute son ampleur.

Factors that have impeded Russia's development of a comprehensive Asian foreign policy are studied. Although Russia enjoys closer relations with the People's Republic of China, it is stressed that the Chinese state's regional interests, coupled with Russian-Sino historical relations, could jeopardize the Russian state's economic, geopolitical, & security interests. It is asserted that Russia should attempt to further develop better relations with other nations in the Asia-Pacific region to address its concerns with the Chinese state. However, it is noted that Russia's tumultuous foreign relations with Japan, caused primarily by Russia's appropriation of the South Kuriles from Japan during WWII, will likely stifle efforts to enhance Japanese-Russian economic & political relations. Even though other circumstances could additionally diminish Russia's foreign policy toward Asia, it is concluded that petroleum exports to energy-hungry Asian nations could enhance Russian economic & political influence across Asia. J. W. Parker

Malebranche and Chinese philosophy / David E. Mungello -- The pre-established harmony between Leibniz and Chinese thought / Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont -- The sinophilism of Christian Wolff (1679-1754) / Donald F. Lach -- Voltaire, sinophile / Basil Guy -- The possibility of oriental influence in Hume's philosophy / Nolan Pliny Jacobson -- Herder and German Romanticism / Ronald Taylor -- Hegel / Wilhelm Halbfass -- Schelling and Schopenhauer / Wilhelm Halbfass -- The influences of eastern thought on Schopenhauer's doctrine of the thing-in-itself / Moira Nicholls -- Emerson and Indian philosophy / Dale Riepe -- Thoreau's India : the impact of reading in a crisis / David H. Albert -- Thoreau's Hindu quotations in A week / Ellen M. Raghavan and Barry Wood -- Nietzsche's trans-European eye / Mervyn Sprung -- Nietzsche and the laws of Manu / Thomas H. Brobjer -- Taoism and Jung : synchronicity and the self / Harold Coward -- Martin Buber and Taoism / Irene Eber -- Heidegger's hidden sources : East Asian influences on his work / Reinhard May.