In the wake of the national and political conflict in the Middle East, Arab-Jewish culture has undergone a process of marginalization and negligence, as well as a gradual descent into utter oblivion, owing to both Arab-Musim and Hebrew-Jewish-Zionist national and culural systems. Both sides, each with its own form of limited reasoning and particularistic considerations, have refused to accept the legitimacy of Arab-Jewish hybridism highlighting instead "pure" nationally, culturally, and religiously exclusive identities. The article explores the gradual demise of Arab-Jewish cultural hybridism, which, from a historical point of view, coexisted with Arab-Muslim and Arab-Christian hybridisms during some periods. Following a short era in the twentieth century during which Arab-Jewish culture flourished, especially in Egypt and Iraq, we are currently witnessing the demise of that culture. Consequently, Israeli-Arab Jews, or those seen as their offspring, currently have, or will have in the near future, three man cultural options. The first - the revival of active Jewish involvement in Arab canonical culture - is probably impossible. The second option is involvement in popular Israeli culture; this option is characterized by a strong longing for legitimacy - Jewish musicians and singers of Arab origin have accomplished a great deal in this field. The third option is participation in the activities of the canonical Hebrew culture.
The author examines the clientele of the Bratislava booksellers Anton Löwe and Philip Ulrich Mahler in the context of the Hungarian book trade from 1770 to 1800. By analysing the extant correspondence of Michal Institoris Mošovský, a protestant pastor in Bratislava, she was able to partially identify one segment of their customer base - protestant clergymen. For many years these members of the petty intelligentsia purchased from the Bratislava booksellers, in particular imported works by the German pietists and Enlightenment theologians. The author also investigated the social and geographical limits of the distribution process, some of the contact and distribution networks, and the identity of key figures., Petronela Križanová., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
This study examines how South Africans construct and negotiate racial identities in written commentaries via a forum of the Mail@Guardian website Thought Leader in response to a blog by Ndumiso Ngcobo entitled “I’m a coconut and I am proud of it – say it with me.” Ngcobo’s ironic opinion piece, written in 2008, which plays with the label “coconut” (frequently employed in South Africa among “black” people in reference to another “black” person who seemingly behaves “white”), triggered 163 responses from individual readers. An essential point made by Ngcobo is that perceptions and attitudes around “whiteness” and “blackness,” or what can be considered “white” or “black” in racial terms, vary greatly, depending on circumstances and perspective. However, the author’s irreverent and ironic style is misunderstood and misinterpreted by many of the comment writers. Relying partially on the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, I analyze the commentary texts and interpret the categories people use in their discursive constructions of race and identity by examining their stylistic choices and content markers and focusing on sociolinguistic and cultural issues. It is argued that the analyzed comments are representative not only of the pervasiveness of “rigid” race thinking but also of how intra-racial boundaries are constructed in the post-apartheid state.
The sequence diversity in the mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase I (COI) gene was evaluated as a tool for resolving differences among species of European adelgids collected from several localities across the Czech Republic. Members of 7 genera and 16 species were examined, and as outgroups, two species of Phylloxeridae were used. Sequence divergences within species were on average less than 0.15%, whereas divergences between species ranged from 0.0 to 4.12% for congeneric and to 13.24% for intergeneric comparisons. It is concluded that DNA barcoding of Adelgidae is a powerful tool for identifying genera, but at the species level it works only in those cases where there are no species complexes. Nevertheless, it can be used as a complement to traditional, morphological taxonomy.
Aleister Crowley is the most notoriously transgressive figure in modern Western esotericism, and his best known precept is "Do what thou wilt". This article seeks to elucidate the place of Crowley's precept in the history of esotericism and transgression. More specifically, it seeks to make two points. First, it shows, through an investigation of its sources and influences, that the precept had highly transgressive overtones in the period when Crowley adopted and popularised it. These overtones extended to sexual excess, religious deviancy and fascist politics. Second, it argues that the precept was repurposed in a major way in the latter part of the twentieth century. The precept became domesticated, as the founders of the Wicca movement subsumed it into their own ethical maxim, the "Wiccan Rede". This development serves as an example of how some of the more transgressive and problematic elements of the Western esoteric tradition have come to be softened and obscured in contemporary mass-market, suburban forms of practice such as Wicca.