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Topic Review
Taoist Music
Taoist music is the ceremonial music of Taoism. The importance of music in Taoist ceremony is demonstrated by revealing how central beliefs are reflected through elements of music such as instrumentation and rhythm. Expression of spiritual beliefs through music enables followers of Taoism to enhance their path to enlightenment.
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  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Dutch Expedition to Southern Chile (1643)
The following article analyzes how the Dutch expedition to southern Chile during the 17th century (1642–1643) was narrated, in Dutch and in its translations into German, English, and Spanish, considering the interests of empires and the discursive differences that translational variations reveal. This transdisciplinary analysis, combining historiography, translation studies, and historical geography, consists of a critical reading of the original narration and a comparative reading of the aforementioned translations, and within them ethnographic representations made about the Mapuche-Huilliche people and the city of Valdivia and changes introduced by different translations are identified.
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  • 04 Jan 2024
Topic Review
Keyboard Cat
Template:Infobox internet video Keyboard Cat is an Internet meme. It consists of a video from 1984 of a female cat called "Fatso" wearing a blue shirt and "playing" an upbeat rhythm on an electronic keyboard. The video was posted to YouTube under the title "charlie schmidt's cool cats" in June 2007. Schmidt later changed the title to "Charlie Schmidt's Keyboard Cat (THE ORIGINAL)". Fatso (who died in 1987) was owned (and manipulated in the video) by Charlie Schmidt of Spokane, Washington, United States . Later, Brad O'Farrell, who was the syndication manager of the video website My Damn Channel, obtained Schmidt's permission to reuse the footage, appending it to the end of a blooper video to "play" that person offstage after the mistake or gaffe in a similar manner as getting the hook in the days of vaudeville. The appending of Schmidt's video to other blooper and other viral videos became popular, with such videos usually accompanied with the title Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat or a variant. "Keyboard Cat" was ranked No. 2 on Current TV's list of 50 Greatest Viral Videos. In 2009, Schmidt became owner of Bento, another cat that resembled Fatso, and which he used to create new Keyboard Cat videos, until Bento's death in March 2018. The owner, Charlie Schmidt, has made certain remarks that he may adopt or get a “Keyboard Cat 3.0”
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Linguistics in Science Fiction
Linguistics has an intrinsic connection to Science Fiction stories given the nature of science fiction. As mentioned in Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction by Walter E. Meyers, science fiction is almost always concerned with the idea of communication, such as communication with aliens and machines, or communication using dead languages and evolved languages of the future. Authors of science fiction at times use Linguistics and Linguistic theories as a tool for storytelling, although technical terms are rarely used with authors only going into as much detail as the reader will understand. While Linguistics can be found to be employed by writers of science fiction, it must be noted that not all uses are accurate to actual Linguistics and Linguistic Theories. Nevertheless, there still exists the lingering presence and use of Linguistics (even if inaccurate) in such cases. As mentioned by Walter E. Meyers, the ability to make a story seem more unfamiliar and exotic, and an alien seem less of a costumed human who merely differs in physical appearance, is only possible through the use of language. It is this ability that appears to draw the boundary between great works of science fiction and those lesser so. As such, Linguistics, the scientific study of language, comes to hold an important role in the genre of science fiction.
  • 1.0K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Torii
A torii (鳥居, literally bird abode, Japanese pronunciation: [to.ɾi.i]) is a traditional Japan ese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to sacred. The presence of a torii at the entrance is usually the simplest way to identify Shinto shrines, and a small torii icon represents them on Japanese road maps.[note 1] The first appearance of Torii gates in Japan can be reliably pinpointed to at least the mid-Heian period because they are mentioned in a text written in 922. The oldest existing stone torii was built in the 12th century and belongs to a Hachiman Shrine in Yamagata prefecture. The oldest wooden torii is a ryōbu torii (see description below) at Kubō Hachiman Shrine in Yamanashi prefecture built in 1535. Torii gates were traditionally made from wood or stone, but today they can be also made of reinforced concrete, copper, stainless steel or other materials. They are usually either unpainted or painted vermilion with a black upper lintel. Inari shrines typically have many torii because those who have been successful in business often donate in gratitude a torii to Inari, kami of fertility and industry. Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto has thousands of such torii, each bearing the donor's name.
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  • 06 Nov 2022
Topic Review
The Rihla
The Rihla, formal title A Masterpiece to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, is the travelogue written by Ibn Battuta, documenting his lifetime of travel and exploration, which according to his description covered about 70,000 miles. Rihla is the Arabic word for a journey or the travelogue that documents it.
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  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Sources for the Historicity of Jesus
Christian sources, such as the New Testament books in the Christian Bible, include detailed stories about Jesus but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus. The only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Non-Christian sources that are used to study and establish the historicity of Jesus include Jewish sources such as Josephus, and Roman sources such as Tacitus. These sources are compared to Christian sources such as the Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels. These sources are usually independent of each other (e.g. Jewish sources do not draw upon Roman sources), and similarities and differences between them are used in the authentication process. In a review of the state of research, the Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine stated that "no single picture of Jesus has convinced all, or even most scholars" and that all portraits of Jesus are subject to criticism by some group of scholars.
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  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Munchausen by Internet
Munchausen by Internet is a pattern of behavior akin to Munchausen syndrome (renamed factitious disorder imposed on self), a psychiatric disorder, wherein those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to themselves. In Munchausen by Internet, users seek attention by feigning illnesses in online venues such as chat rooms, message boards, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC). It is different from catfishing, where the person feigns an identity to seek attention by online dating. It has been described in medical literature as a manifestation of factitious disorder imposed on self, or if claiming illness of a child or other family member, factitious disorder imposed on another. Reports of users who deceive Internet forum participants by portraying themselves as gravely ill or as victims of violence first appeared in the 1990s due to the relative newness of Internet communications. The pattern was identified in 1998 by psychiatrist Marc Feldman, who created the term "Münchausen by Internet" in 2000. It is not included in the fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The development of factitious disorders in online venues is made easier by the availability of medical literature on the Internet, the anonymous and malleable nature of online identities, and the existence of communication forums established for the sole purpose of giving support to members facing significant health or psychological problems. Several high-profile cases have demonstrated behavior patterns which are common among those who pose as gravely ill or as victims of violence, or whose deaths are announced to online forums. The virtual communities that were created to give support, as well as general non-medical communities, often express genuine sympathy and grief for the purported victims. When fabrications are suspected or confirmed, the ensuing discussion can create schisms in online communities, destroying some and altering the trusting nature of individual members in others.
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  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Rada (Fiqh)
Raḍāʿ or riḍāʿa (Arabic: رضاع, رضاعة  pronounced [rɪˈdˤɑːʕ(æ)], "breastfeeding") is a technical term in Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) meaning "the suckling which produces the legal impediment to marriage of foster-kinship", and refers to the fact that under Sunni jurispurdence, a wet nurse is considered related to the infant she nurses. The term derives from the infinitive noun of the Arabic word radiʿa or radaʿa ("he sucked the breast of his mother"). Often it is translated as "fosterage" or "milk kinship". The concept of radāʿ derives from Islamic and pre-Islamic notions concerning the state of blood relations whereby a wet nurse (and her close relations) and the baby she is nursing (and his or her close family) are deemed related to one another (a status known as mahram) through the act of breastfeeding. One important consequence is that the wet nurse and her family are forbidden to marry the baby and members of the baby's family (e.g. the nursling's biological brother with the milk-mother's biological daughter). Conversely, the milk-relationship allows usually forbidden familiarities between the two groups, (e.g. if the nursling is male, when he becomes an adult he may view the milk-mother and her close female relatives unveiled or in private, exactly as if he were a relation). Thus, according to some Sahih hadith, nursing an adult male could be used as a workaround to Islamic gender segregation, so that a male may be allowed in proximity to the nursing woman, her sisters and her daughters.
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  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Rangtong-Shentong
Rangtong and shentong are two distinctive views on emptiness (sunyata) and the two truths doctrine within Tibetan Buddhism. Rangtong (Tibetan: རང་སྟོང་, Wylie: rang stong; "empty of self-nature") is a philosophical term in Tibetan Buddhism that is used to distinguish the majority Madhyamaka teaching on the meaning of śūnyatā or "emptiness", namely that all phenomena are empty of an enduring and/or unchanging essence or "self," and that this emptiness is not an absolute reality, but a mere nominal characterisation of phenomena. It is related to the prasangika approach, which argues that no syllogistic forms of reasoning should be used to debate the notion of inherent existence, but only arguments which show the logical implications and absurdity of positions based upon inherent existence. This position is the mainstream Gelugpa interpretation of Madhyamaka, one of the main Mahayana schools, which dominates Vajrayana Buddhism. Shentong (Tibetan: གཞན་སྟོང་, Wylie: gzhan stong, Lhasa dialect: [ɕɛ̃̀tṍŋ], also transliterated zhäntong or zhentong; literally "other-emptiness") is a position within Tibetan Madhyamaka. It applies śūnyatā in a specific way, agreeing that relative reality is empty of self-nature, but stating that absolute reality (Paramarthasatya)[note 1] is "non-dual Buddhajnana"[note 2] and "empty" (Wylie: stong) only of "other," (Wylie: gzhan) relative phenomena, but is itself not empty and "truly existing." This absolute reality is described by positive terms, an approach which helps "to overcome certain residual subtle concepts" and "the habit [...] of negating whatever experience arises in his/her mind." It destroys false concepts, as does prasangika, but it also alerts the practitioner "to the presence of a dynamic, positive Reality that is to be experienced once the conceptual mind is defeated." Shentong was systematized and articulated under that name by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361), who identified absolute reality with the Buddha-nature. Shentong was suppressed by the dominant Gelug school for several hundred years, equally for political reasons as doctrinal reasons. In 1658, the Gelug authorities banned the Jonang school for political reasons, forcibly converting its monks and monasteries to the Gelug school, as well as banning shentong philosophy and books, thus making the rangtong position the overwhelmingly majority one in Tibetan Buddhism. After this suppression various shentong views were propagated mainly by Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lamas. The 19th century saw a revival of Shentong-views, and continued with the Rimé movement. Nowadays Shentong is present primarily as the main philosophical theory of the Jonang school, although it is also taught by the Sakya and Kagyu schools, where it is identified with centerless awareness.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
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