Eternal Russia-Ukraine: Crimea as a “unifying birthplace”?
Crimea is still on the news. Much is said and much is not. Medias depict the story as if Russia and Ukraine have never had a shared history and geography and spirituality. And Crimea...
Crimea is still on the news. Much is said and much is not. Medias depict the story as if Russia and Ukraine have never had a shared history and geography and spirituality. And Crimea...
This map, made circa 1596, is more than interesting: before all it is the result of the age when Europe began to know the world and to try to shape it after her...
Pre-war Beirut used to be the apparent centre of the Middle East: highly specialised economy, advanced tourist services, great cultural manifestations, and a beautiful strategic geographical situation. Unfortunately this is no more the case: Beirut, in spite of the reconstruction plan, has not been able to reclaim its lost supposed-to-be-centrality. One can go far and argue that Beirut was never a “real” centre, that is, where decision is made and where real power abides.
This “amateur” map is more beautiful than many “real” and “professional” ones: it gives a possible visio mundi if Internet were ever to be sovereign powers on physical space. The most eminent names on...
La recherche du centre (et du Centre), tel est l’objectif de cet ouvrage passionnant de Mircea Eliade. L’auteur a bien cherché le centre dans ses écrits: il lui a consacré plusieurs recherches dont La nostalgie des origines (1971) et Psychologie et histoire des religions. A propos du symbolisme du “centre” (1951). Mais Le sacré et le profane peut être considéré comme le sommet de ses réflexions sur le sujet. Le livre est écrit en allemand, Das Heilige et das Profane, en 1956 puis traduit en plusieurs langues, dont le français et a eu un grand succès dans les sciences des religions et sciences sociales.
“For each jargon (each fiction) fights for hegemony; if power is on its side, it spreads everywhere in the general and daily occurrences of social life, it becomes doxa, nature: this is the supposedly apolitical jargon of politicians, of agents of the State, of the media, of conversation; but even out of power, even when power is against it, the rivalry is reborn, the jargons split and struggle among themselves. A ruthless topic rules the life of language; language always comes from some place, it is a warrior topos.”
Another year passes by. 2014, will it carry with it new centres and new centralities? Yes, I am quite sure. My research in 2014 focuses on numerous topics, the most pertinent of them are:...
Dubai has become the global city of the Middle East. This centrality is manifest in many aspects: very important transport hubbing, highly-specialised financial and banking services, great cultural manifestations, cosmopolitan population, and a growing...
New Zealand is where the trilogies of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, both inspired by Tolkien’s homonymous books, are made. New Zealand has recently become “home of Middle-earth”, after being taken, for long times, for “the Antipodes” by those who live in the “centre” of the Old World.
David Gosset, in this very interesting article, is trying to define Chinese centrality, or better in plural, Chinese centralities. It is a given that China is called the Zhongguo: the Middle Kingdom, the Central Country (For more information cf. this post on centrality of China: http://centrici.hypotheses.org/70).