Andrew Riggsby
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190632502
- eISBN:
- 9780190632533
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190632502.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical, European History: BCE to 500CE
The book examines the invention, use, and diffusion of ancient Roman information technologies. In particular, it looks at technologies defined in conceptual terms—lists, tables, weights and measures, ...
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The book examines the invention, use, and diffusion of ancient Roman information technologies. In particular, it looks at technologies defined in conceptual terms—lists, tables, weights and measures, perspective and related artistic devices, and cartography—rather than mechanical ones (e.g., “tablet” or “scroll”). Each is viewed from both social and cognitive perspectives, as well as with attention to the interaction between the conceptual and its material instantiation. The study is particularly focused on the most powerful technologies, whose uptakes are in most cases sporadic across time, space, and use context. These systems display a tolerance for error and/or omission remarkable unless they are considered in the narrowest possible use-context. Similarly, they often presuppose shared knowledge (both of form and of content) that could only have existed in highly localized contexts. Further constraints on the use of these devices arise from preferences for facts that are constituted by the record, rather than recorded, and (at least in elite circles) for linear exposition on the model of oral discourse. As a consequence, on the one hand, Romans lived in a balkanized informational world. Persons in different “locations”—whether geographical, social, or occupational—would have had access to quite different informational resources, and the overall situation is thus not controlled by the needs of any particular class or group. On the other hand, seeming technological weakness often turn out to be illusory if we set them in their actual use-contexts.Less
The book examines the invention, use, and diffusion of ancient Roman information technologies. In particular, it looks at technologies defined in conceptual terms—lists, tables, weights and measures, perspective and related artistic devices, and cartography—rather than mechanical ones (e.g., “tablet” or “scroll”). Each is viewed from both social and cognitive perspectives, as well as with attention to the interaction between the conceptual and its material instantiation. The study is particularly focused on the most powerful technologies, whose uptakes are in most cases sporadic across time, space, and use context. These systems display a tolerance for error and/or omission remarkable unless they are considered in the narrowest possible use-context. Similarly, they often presuppose shared knowledge (both of form and of content) that could only have existed in highly localized contexts. Further constraints on the use of these devices arise from preferences for facts that are constituted by the record, rather than recorded, and (at least in elite circles) for linear exposition on the model of oral discourse. As a consequence, on the one hand, Romans lived in a balkanized informational world. Persons in different “locations”—whether geographical, social, or occupational—would have had access to quite different informational resources, and the overall situation is thus not controlled by the needs of any particular class or group. On the other hand, seeming technological weakness often turn out to be illusory if we set them in their actual use-contexts.
Ethan Pollock
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780195395488
- eISBN:
- 9780190051662
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195395488.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
The story of the pervasive and resilient Russian bathhouse (banya) offers new perspectives on the evolution of Russian identity, conceptions of health and hygiene, and forms of community, sexuality, ...
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The story of the pervasive and resilient Russian bathhouse (banya) offers new perspectives on the evolution of Russian identity, conceptions of health and hygiene, and forms of community, sexuality, and sociability. The meanings that have formed around the banya over its thousand-year history make it a unique prism through which to understand the effects of broad social, economic, and political changes on the everyday lives of Russians and to understand how Russians have seemed at times barbaric and at times enlightened to outsiders. Sources ranging from the earliest recorded Russian chronicles to recent feature films, from municipal codes to highbrow Russian literature, illustrate the ways in which the banya, whether in Russia, in the Russian diaspora, or in the imagination of outsiders, has been a place to get clean and a space for intrigue, intimacy, violence, and sex.Less
The story of the pervasive and resilient Russian bathhouse (banya) offers new perspectives on the evolution of Russian identity, conceptions of health and hygiene, and forms of community, sexuality, and sociability. The meanings that have formed around the banya over its thousand-year history make it a unique prism through which to understand the effects of broad social, economic, and political changes on the everyday lives of Russians and to understand how Russians have seemed at times barbaric and at times enlightened to outsiders. Sources ranging from the earliest recorded Russian chronicles to recent feature films, from municipal codes to highbrow Russian literature, illustrate the ways in which the banya, whether in Russia, in the Russian diaspora, or in the imagination of outsiders, has been a place to get clean and a space for intrigue, intimacy, violence, and sex.
Allan Metcalf
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190669201
- eISBN:
- 9780190060794
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190669201.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, English Language
This book is about the name “Guy” and its slow, mostly unnoticed development over four centuries since it began on November 5, 1605, with the suddenly famous Guy Fawkes, who was arrested just in time ...
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This book is about the name “Guy” and its slow, mostly unnoticed development over four centuries since it began on November 5, 1605, with the suddenly famous Guy Fawkes, who was arrested just in time just before he could light the fuse on 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the House of Lords. During those four centuries, “Guy” became “guy,” the name for an effigy of Guy Fawkes burned at bonfires every November 5 since. The effigy was called a “guy,” so that more than one effigy would be “guys,” Then, slowly, “guy” extended its signification into a name for a ragged, lower-class male, then any strangely dressed male, then a neutral everyday word for just any male, a “guy.” To top it off, the 20th century extended the plural “guys” or “you guys” to include all human beings, even women speaking to groups of women. None of these developments were made deliberately; the word just quietly slipped by, except for opposition from some Southerners and feminists who objected to it on the grounds that it wasn’t “y’all” and it wasn’t gender neutral. It has become all the more entrenched because now it’s the standard second-person plural pronoun for most of us who speak English.Less
This book is about the name “Guy” and its slow, mostly unnoticed development over four centuries since it began on November 5, 1605, with the suddenly famous Guy Fawkes, who was arrested just in time just before he could light the fuse on 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the House of Lords. During those four centuries, “Guy” became “guy,” the name for an effigy of Guy Fawkes burned at bonfires every November 5 since. The effigy was called a “guy,” so that more than one effigy would be “guys,” Then, slowly, “guy” extended its signification into a name for a ragged, lower-class male, then any strangely dressed male, then a neutral everyday word for just any male, a “guy.” To top it off, the 20th century extended the plural “guys” or “you guys” to include all human beings, even women speaking to groups of women. None of these developments were made deliberately; the word just quietly slipped by, except for opposition from some Southerners and feminists who objected to it on the grounds that it wasn’t “y’all” and it wasn’t gender neutral. It has become all the more entrenched because now it’s the standard second-person plural pronoun for most of us who speak English.
Jennifer Stromer-Galley
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190694043
- eISBN:
- 9780190694081
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190694043.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Democratization
Presidential candidates and their campaigns in the United States are fully invested in the use of social media. Yet, since 1996 presidential campaigns have been experimenting with ways to use digital ...
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Presidential candidates and their campaigns in the United States are fully invested in the use of social media. Yet, since 1996 presidential campaigns have been experimenting with ways to use digital communication technologies on the Internet to their advantage. This book tells the stories of the practices of campaigning online between 1996 and 2016, looking at winners and also-rans. The stories provide rich details of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of candidates, including the influence of digital media. The stories also show how political campaigns over six election cycles transitioned from the paradigm of mass media campaigning, to networked campaigning, and finally to mass-targeted campaigning. Campaigns shifted from efforts at mass persuasion to networked persuasion by identifying and communicating with super-supporters to give them the right digital tools and messages to take to their social network. Campaigns learned over time how to use the Internet’s interactive affordances to communicate with the public in ways that structures what supporters do for the campaign that maximizes strategic benefit—what I call “controlled interactivity.” By the 2016 campaign, technology companies made it easier and more effective to engage in mass-targeted campaigning—using large-scale data analytics by campaigns and tech companies to identify target audiences for campaigns to advertise to online.Less
Presidential candidates and their campaigns in the United States are fully invested in the use of social media. Yet, since 1996 presidential campaigns have been experimenting with ways to use digital communication technologies on the Internet to their advantage. This book tells the stories of the practices of campaigning online between 1996 and 2016, looking at winners and also-rans. The stories provide rich details of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of candidates, including the influence of digital media. The stories also show how political campaigns over six election cycles transitioned from the paradigm of mass media campaigning, to networked campaigning, and finally to mass-targeted campaigning. Campaigns shifted from efforts at mass persuasion to networked persuasion by identifying and communicating with super-supporters to give them the right digital tools and messages to take to their social network. Campaigns learned over time how to use the Internet’s interactive affordances to communicate with the public in ways that structures what supporters do for the campaign that maximizes strategic benefit—what I call “controlled interactivity.” By the 2016 campaign, technology companies made it easier and more effective to engage in mass-targeted campaigning—using large-scale data analytics by campaigns and tech companies to identify target audiences for campaigns to advertise to online.
Charles S. Bullock, Susan A. MacManus, Jeremy D. Mayer, and Mark J. Rozell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190065911
- eISBN:
- 9780190065959
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190065911.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Analyzing and explaining the transformation of U.S. politics since the explosive events of 1968 requires particular attention to the South—the states of the former Confederacy. Indeed, a strong case ...
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Analyzing and explaining the transformation of U.S. politics since the explosive events of 1968 requires particular attention to the South—the states of the former Confederacy. Indeed, a strong case can be made that the South has had the greatest impact on the transformation of U.S politics and government. Since 1968 we have seen the demise of the “sold (Democratic) South” and the rise of the Republican-dominated South, the rise of the largely southern white evangelical religious right movement, and vast demographic changes that have altered the political landscape of the region and national politics. Overriding all of these changes is the major constant of southern politics—race. Demographic trends portend new major shifts in the politics of the South that will have profound impacts on US government and politics. The chapters in this book explain how the South has fundamentally changed in the past half century and how that has dramatically altered US national politics.Less
Analyzing and explaining the transformation of U.S. politics since the explosive events of 1968 requires particular attention to the South—the states of the former Confederacy. Indeed, a strong case can be made that the South has had the greatest impact on the transformation of U.S politics and government. Since 1968 we have seen the demise of the “sold (Democratic) South” and the rise of the Republican-dominated South, the rise of the largely southern white evangelical religious right movement, and vast demographic changes that have altered the political landscape of the region and national politics. Overriding all of these changes is the major constant of southern politics—race. Demographic trends portend new major shifts in the politics of the South that will have profound impacts on US government and politics. The chapters in this book explain how the South has fundamentally changed in the past half century and how that has dramatically altered US national politics.
Declan Smithies
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199917662
- eISBN:
- 9780199345588
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199917662.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? This book argues that consciousness plays an essential role in explaining how we can acquire knowledge and epistemically justified belief about ...
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What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? This book argues that consciousness plays an essential role in explaining how we can acquire knowledge and epistemically justified belief about ourselves and our surroundings. On this view, our mental lives cannot be preserved in unconscious creatures—zombies—who behave just as we do. Only conscious creatures have epistemic justification to form beliefs about the world. Zombies cannot know anything about the world, since they have no epistemic justification to believe anything. On this view, all epistemic justification depends ultimately on consciousness. This book builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. The book is divided into two parts, which approach the theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part I argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part II argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and the philosophy of mind.Less
What is the role of consciousness in our mental lives? This book argues that consciousness plays an essential role in explaining how we can acquire knowledge and epistemically justified belief about ourselves and our surroundings. On this view, our mental lives cannot be preserved in unconscious creatures—zombies—who behave just as we do. Only conscious creatures have epistemic justification to form beliefs about the world. Zombies cannot know anything about the world, since they have no epistemic justification to believe anything. On this view, all epistemic justification depends ultimately on consciousness. This book builds a sustained argument for the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, which draws on a range of considerations in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. The book is divided into two parts, which approach the theory of epistemic justification from opposite directions. Part I argues from the bottom up by drawing on considerations in the philosophy of mind about the role of consciousness in mental representation, perception, cognition, and introspection. Part II argues from the top down by arguing from general principles in epistemology about the nature of epistemic justification. These mutually reinforcing arguments form the basis for a unified theory of the epistemic role of phenomenal consciousness, one that bridges the gap between epistemology and the philosophy of mind.
William G. Gale
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- April 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190645410
- eISBN:
- 9780190939175
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190645410.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Public and Welfare, Economic Systems
America faces two distinct but related economic challenges. Steadily rising federal debt—largely fueled by rising healthcare costs and an aging population that will boost spending on Social Security, ...
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America faces two distinct but related economic challenges. Steadily rising federal debt—largely fueled by rising healthcare costs and an aging population that will boost spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—will make it harder to grow the nation’s economy, boost living standards, respond to wars or recessions, address social needs, and maintain the US role as a global leader. At the same time, an increasingly fractured society has left many people behind and let critical investments lag, even as overall prosperity has grown. How and when US citizens address these challenges will help determine the future they build for themselves and their children. This book proposes a remedy with three core elements: controlling entitlement spending in ways that preserve and enhance the programs’ anti-poverty and social insurance roles; betting on the future by stipulating major new public investments in human and physical capital; and raising and reforming taxes to pay for government services fairly and efficiently. Together, these changes would control federal borrowing, strengthen the economy, increase opportunity, reduce inequality, and build better lives for current and future generations. There is no need to kill popular programs or starve government. Indeed, a primary goal of fiscal reform is to maintain and enhance the vital functions that government provides. The country needs to act responsibly, pay for the government it wants, and shape that government in ways that serve it best.Less
America faces two distinct but related economic challenges. Steadily rising federal debt—largely fueled by rising healthcare costs and an aging population that will boost spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—will make it harder to grow the nation’s economy, boost living standards, respond to wars or recessions, address social needs, and maintain the US role as a global leader. At the same time, an increasingly fractured society has left many people behind and let critical investments lag, even as overall prosperity has grown. How and when US citizens address these challenges will help determine the future they build for themselves and their children. This book proposes a remedy with three core elements: controlling entitlement spending in ways that preserve and enhance the programs’ anti-poverty and social insurance roles; betting on the future by stipulating major new public investments in human and physical capital; and raising and reforming taxes to pay for government services fairly and efficiently. Together, these changes would control federal borrowing, strengthen the economy, increase opportunity, reduce inequality, and build better lives for current and future generations. There is no need to kill popular programs or starve government. Indeed, a primary goal of fiscal reform is to maintain and enhance the vital functions that government provides. The country needs to act responsibly, pay for the government it wants, and shape that government in ways that serve it best.
Jennifer Cole Wright (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190864873
- eISBN:
- 9780190864910
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190864873.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This volume will explore humility as a virtue from a multidisciplinary perspective. Specifically, we will explore humility within different religious/spiritual traditions, arguing that it involves an ...
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This volume will explore humility as a virtue from a multidisciplinary perspective. Specifically, we will explore humility within different religious/spiritual traditions, arguing that it involves an appropriate alignment with God and/or a higher spiritual power, one in which we occupy rightful space, have proper self-regard, and receptive intelligence to the living world around us. We will also explore humility more secularly, examining its epistemic value in the development of knowledge, as well as the important role it has to play in politics, competitive activities, and business management, helping us keep our accomplishments in proper perspective, be less self-occupied, and display a willingness to help (and forgive) others. Finally, we will consider whether humility is the most important virtue—foundational to the mature development and expression of all other virtues and to moral exemplarity more generally.Less
This volume will explore humility as a virtue from a multidisciplinary perspective. Specifically, we will explore humility within different religious/spiritual traditions, arguing that it involves an appropriate alignment with God and/or a higher spiritual power, one in which we occupy rightful space, have proper self-regard, and receptive intelligence to the living world around us. We will also explore humility more secularly, examining its epistemic value in the development of knowledge, as well as the important role it has to play in politics, competitive activities, and business management, helping us keep our accomplishments in proper perspective, be less self-occupied, and display a willingness to help (and forgive) others. Finally, we will consider whether humility is the most important virtue—foundational to the mature development and expression of all other virtues and to moral exemplarity more generally.
Antonia LoLordo (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190634384
- eISBN:
- 9780190634421
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190634384.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, General
This book is a genealogy of the concept of a person, as it is used in philosophy, ethics, the law, and everyday life. It asks, what is the concept of a person? How is the concept of a person distinct ...
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This book is a genealogy of the concept of a person, as it is used in philosophy, ethics, the law, and everyday life. It asks, what is the concept of a person? How is the concept of a person distinct from the concept of a human being? How is it distinct from the concept of the self? When and why did the concept of a person come into existence? What is the relationship between moral personhood and metaphysical personhood, and how has our conception of that relationship changed over the last two millennia? The book as a whole argues for two main claims. First, the concept of a person, like other central concepts used in philosophy and everyday life, has gained its significance not through definition but through the accretion of layers of meaning over centuries. Thus, one can only fully understand the concept by learning its history. Second, the concept of a person has five main strands: persons are particulars, roles, entities with special moral significance, rational beings, and selves. Thus, to count someone or something as a person is simultaneously to describe it—as a particular, a role, a rational being, and a self—and to prescribe certain norms concerning how it may act and how others may act toward it.Less
This book is a genealogy of the concept of a person, as it is used in philosophy, ethics, the law, and everyday life. It asks, what is the concept of a person? How is the concept of a person distinct from the concept of a human being? How is it distinct from the concept of the self? When and why did the concept of a person come into existence? What is the relationship between moral personhood and metaphysical personhood, and how has our conception of that relationship changed over the last two millennia? The book as a whole argues for two main claims. First, the concept of a person, like other central concepts used in philosophy and everyday life, has gained its significance not through definition but through the accretion of layers of meaning over centuries. Thus, one can only fully understand the concept by learning its history. Second, the concept of a person has five main strands: persons are particulars, roles, entities with special moral significance, rational beings, and selves. Thus, to count someone or something as a person is simultaneously to describe it—as a particular, a role, a rational being, and a self—and to prescribe certain norms concerning how it may act and how others may act toward it.
Andrew R. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190868963
- eISBN:
- 9780190868994
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190868963.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This book examines temple renovation as a distinct topos within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations ...
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This book examines temple renovation as a distinct topos within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations were oriented toward the past. Kings took the opportunity to rehearse the history of the temple, selectively evoking certain past traditions and omitting others. In this way, temple renovations are a kind of historiography. The particularities of each case notwithstanding, this book demonstrates a pattern in the rhetoric of temple renovation texts; namely, kings used temple renovation to correct, or at least distance themselves from, some turmoil of recent history and to associate their reigns with an earlier and more illustrious past. The main evidence for this royal rhetoric comes from royal literature of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. This evidence in turn becomes the basis for reading the story of Jeroboam I’s placement of calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:25–33) as an eighth-century BCE account of temple renovation with a similar rhetoric. Concluding with further examples in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, this book shows that the rhetoric of temple renovation was not just a distinct topos, but also a long-standing one in the ancient Near East.Less
This book examines temple renovation as a distinct topos within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations were oriented toward the past. Kings took the opportunity to rehearse the history of the temple, selectively evoking certain past traditions and omitting others. In this way, temple renovations are a kind of historiography. The particularities of each case notwithstanding, this book demonstrates a pattern in the rhetoric of temple renovation texts; namely, kings used temple renovation to correct, or at least distance themselves from, some turmoil of recent history and to associate their reigns with an earlier and more illustrious past. The main evidence for this royal rhetoric comes from royal literature of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. This evidence in turn becomes the basis for reading the story of Jeroboam I’s placement of calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:25–33) as an eighth-century BCE account of temple renovation with a similar rhetoric. Concluding with further examples in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, this book shows that the rhetoric of temple renovation was not just a distinct topos, but also a long-standing one in the ancient Near East.
The Ecology of Tropical East Asia
Essentials of Landscape Ecology
Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar
Pestilence and the Body Politic in Latin Literature
The Politics of Presidential Term Limits
The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century
The Chivalric Turn
Comparative Grand Strategy
Night Raiders
