European writer of Romanian origin, Vintila Horia - Goncourt Prize in 1960 for the novel Dieu est né enexil - was a truly awakened consciousness of his time. Wherever he was - in Bucharest or Florence, Buenos Aires or Paris, Rome or Madrid - this “polyglot nomad” never left the unyielding values of the spirit and of knowledge. His work of literary epistemology, hisnovelistic creation - fed by exile, love and by the divine -, as well as the Journal d’un (...) paysan du Danube, stand as testimony. Focal point of my approach, this text sheds light on the metaphysical realm of a way of thinking in which the undivided man and the man to come are one and the same. Since for the exiled VintilaHoria,”the peasant from the Danube” is “celui dans lequel ce qui fut rencontre celui qui sera, dans un espace-temps non-euclidien”, and his journal emphasizes this “rediscovery”, in spite of the dark times of history; an encounter in, through and beyond the broken grounds of science, art and philosophy, but nevertheless, deeply anchored in philosophy, art and science. Apparently, rediscovery and isolation of the same proportion; in fact, we are talking about an anagnorisis: the inner man and the outer man have never separated, despite the “microbial fauna of Kali Yuga”. “Nomade polyglotte” through his evolution, a result of flawless reflexive stability, Vintila Horia proves himself to be, at the same time, animmobile nomad; “the peasant from the Danube” is the plenary expression of this unusual simultaneity. (shrink)

Ecofeminism is a term coined by Françoise D’Eubonne in her book Feminism or Death to show the affinities between ecology and feminism. Both women and nature are perceived as passive elements and like women who complain about patriarchal constraints, ecologists shed light on the impacts of human exploitation over nature which is affected by pollution. Some dimensions of ecofeminism are present in Leslie Marmon Silko’s The Yellow Woman. The postmodern novel contains a female character who forges a link with the (...) natural surroundings and is in a direct contact with some natural elements like plants and animals. What is specific about the heroine is that she escapes her matriarchal society and goes back to nature in order to reconstruct her identity. At the end of the narrative, the female narrator leaves the natural setting and goes back to her family to replay social roles. The present article sets out to study the importance of Mother Nature for the female narrator and to examine the affinities between Earth Mother and the female protagonist. The first part will offer a theoretical background about the basic principles of ecofeminism. Then, my analysis will touch upon the aspects of ecofeminism in the novel. However, the last part will focus on the way the narrator goes beyond her matriarchal culture and reshapes female identity. (shrink)

This article emphasizes the importance of an altar dedicated to Jupiter Sacrum find during the archaeological survey in the ancient city of Ulpiana in 2014. The epigraphy data stored on the altar clearly indicates the existence of the Fulgur cult in Ulpiana. Therefore, with this epithet, Jupiter it is proven for the first time in Ulpiana, but also in Kosovo. The discovery of the altar dedicated to Jupiter in Ulpiana only confirms the fact that Jupiter was worshiped and widely respected (...) among the inhabitants of the city, and his appearance with the epithet Fulguri completes the corpus of epithets, with which he was worshiped and honoured in the city of Ulpiana. (shrink)

This paper examines the nexus between popular culture and the problem of corruption in Nigeria within the theoretical framework of the Socratic dictum that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. The paper argues that corruption is a social behavior that is propelled by popular culture and sustained by skewed application of logical thinking in critical decision making. Hence, the paper posits that formal education remains the bedrock upon which corruption can be curtailed and also equips people with logical tools (...) to examine their actions as individuals and its consequences on the larger society. (shrink)

The present study will introduce us into a new world of Chinese imagology in the 18th century in France. Different from the negative side of the “sinophobes” such as Montesquieu and François Melon, Sade built a universe of a perfect China in which all crimes were justified. Nevertheless, as a libertine, his point of view was also different from the famous “sinophiles”, La Mothe Le Vayer, Pierre Bayle, Leibniz or Voltaire, for example. China as imagined by Sade was full of (...) infanticide, murder and incest. The pictorial description he uses was largely drawn from the Jesuit literature of that time and some famous travelers’ “relation”, time of the famous theological quarrels about the ritual, easily interested Sade. But, was Sade faithful to these sources or not? Could a libertine moralize about public denunciation? By this foreign image as a mirror, what did he want to explain, taking China as an example, for his own culture? We will give the answers in this article. (shrink)

The indisputable success of the European integration project also prompted other regions of the world to follow suit. On the other side of coin, these regional blocs cultivated free trade within but remained protectionist vis-àvis the outside, thereby impeding the progress of the multilateral trade system. But also the soaring number of WTO member states accompanied by their incompatible interests, its ambitious agenda spanning over 20 diverse issues and, in particular, the single undertaking approach emerged as the Doha’s Round “stumbling (...) blocks”. The utter dismay over the Doha’s Round deadlock has provoked countries to opt for alternative for a outside the WTO in their endeavor to expedite far-reaching trade liberalization. Besides the vast economic growth in Asia and the rise of international production networks, this urge for deeper integration represents one of the central root causes for the most recent wave of PTAs which has been gathering force over the course of the 21st century and increasingly puts the WTO’s raison d’être under critical scrutiny. (shrink)

Eustache Deschamps writes in 1392 his Art de Dictier, an art of writing and, according to its added title, an art of “making songs, balads, virelais and rondeaux.” He introduces it, therefore, as a versification treatise that is exemplary for his generation of nonmusician poets, unlike Machaut, his most probable initiator into metrics. In so doing he introduces the concept of natural music, a genre proper to inspire poets for whom lyrical musicality is entirely produced by poetic language alone. Without (...) perceiving, perhaps, the novelty of this poetic aesthetics, he thus opens the avenue for a new poetry, freed from Rhetorics and from added music, more precisely for a poetic art. (shrink)

Eustache Deschamps writes in 1392 his Art de Dictier, an art of writing (ars dictandi) and, according to its added title, an art of “making songs, balads, virelais and rondeaux.” He introduces it, therefore, as a versification treatise that is exemplary for his generation of nonmusician poets, unlike Machaut, his most probable initiator into metrics. In so doing he introduces the concept of natural music, a genre proper to inspire poets for whom lyrical musicality is entirely produced by poetic language (...) alone. Without perceiving, perhaps, the novelty of this poetic aesthetics, he thus opens the avenue for a new poetry, freed from Rhetorics and from added music, more precisely for a poetic art. (shrink)

This study reopens the question of the nature of political commitment and its causes during a time that drastically altered the history of the 20th century, the 1920s and 1930s. Focused largely on a body of texts produced by Japanese female writer Miyamoto Yuriko who returned from a three-year long trip to the Soviet Union in late 1920s as a convinced communist, the study offers a comparison with communism renunciation writings produced by leftist Romanian French writer Panait Istrati, as well (...) as other communist and fellow travelers who experienced the same Soviet realities as Miyamoto but with opposite outcomes, such as French writer André Gide. What made those members of the intelligentsia so passionately embrace or renounce certain political ideologies that ultimately changed the face of modern history? (shrink)

This study reopens the question of the nature of political commitment and its causes during a time that drastically altered the history of the 20th century, the 1920s and 1930s. Focused largely on a body of texts produced by Japanese female writer Miyamoto Yuriko (1899-1951) who returned from a three-year long trip to the Soviet Union in late 1920s as a convinced communist, the study offers a comparison with communism renunciation writings produced by leftist Romanian French writer Panait Istrati (1894-1935), (...) as well as other communist and fellow travelers who experienced the same Soviet realities as Miyamoto but with opposite outcomes, such as French writer André Gide (1869-1951). What made those members of the intelligentsia so passionately embrace or renounce certain political ideologies that ultimately changed the face of modern history? (shrink)

When referring to values as “general principles of desirability” or as “social cohesion binders”, one should bear in mind that such notions contribute decisively to the shaping and crystallization of social representations. It would be improper to believe that there may be in-depth studies upon people, ideas and events, as this approach disregards the fact that social representations have the capacity of being strongly anchored in the dynamics of relational processes, to the symbolic relationships specific to a given social field, (...) to the values that constitute the eloquent expression of this dynamics and this specific field of research. An eloquent example in this respect is the way in which the social representation of leaders appears; data show that there is harmony between the image of power the leaders have or could have and the axiological dimensions of the group participating in the elaboration of such an image. (shrink)

Progress in neuroscience has left a central question of psychism unanswered: what is consciousness? Modeling the psyche from a computational perspective has helped to develop cognitive neurosciences, but it has also shown their limits, of which the definition, description and functioning of consciousness remain essential. From Rene Descartes, who tackled the issue of psychism as the brain-mind dualism, to Chambers, who defined qualia as the tough, difficult problem of research in neuroscience, many hypotheses and theories have been issued to encompass (...) the phenomenon of consciousness. Neuroscience specialists, such as Giulio Tononi or David Eagleman, consider consciousness as a phenomenon of emergence of all processes that take place in the brain. This hypothesis has the advantage of being supported by progress made in the study of complex systems in which the issue of emergence can be mathematically formalized and analyzed by physical-mathematical models. The current tendency to associate neural networks within the broad scope of network science also allows for a physical-mathematical formalization of phenomenology in neural networks and the construction of information-symbolic models. The extrapolation of emergence at the level of physical systems, biological systems and psychic systems can bring new models that can also be applied to the concept of consciousness. The meaning and significance that seem to structure the nature of consciousness is found as direction of evolution and teleological finality, of integration in the whole system and in any complex system at all scales. Starting from the wave-corpuscle duality in quantum physics, we can propose a model for structuring reality, based on the emergence of systems that contribute to the integration and coherence of the entire reality. Physical-mathematical models based mainly on topology can provide a mathematical formalization path, and the paradigm of information could allow the development of a pattern of emergence, that is common to all systems, including the psychic system, the difference being given only by the degree of information complexity. Thus, the mind-brain duality, which has been dominating the representation on psychism for a few centuries, could be solved by an informational approach, describing the connection between object and subject, reality and human consciousness, between mind and brain, thus unifying the perspective on natural sciences and humanities. (shrink)

Free trade denotes a state of international commercial relations premised on governments’ restraint from using policy instruments meant to favor indigenous industries against foreign competitors. According to the conventional trade theory advocated by classical and neo-classical thinkers, free trade makes little economic sense failing nations’ tendency to specialize based on comparative advantage, a concept with high persuasive influence despite the elapsing of time. Even though the comparative advantage rule has seldom been questioned per se, the free trade concept has been (...) fiercely disputed and not infrequently, bashed. Nations’ involvement in international trade often follows patterns that do not fit theoretical models but attempt to respond to circumstantial interests, most often the need to protect poorly competitive industries. In common parlance, free trade has had both proponents and enemies. (shrink)

This study investigated assessment of e-learning resources utilization by students of tertiary institutions in Katsina State. The descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. Three hundred and eighty-one students of tertiary institutions in Katsina State were randomly selected for the study. A researchers’ designed questionnaire titled “Utilization of E-learning Resources Questionnaire” with a Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.85 was used to collect data. frequency, percentage, mean, t-test and ANOVA statistics were used to analyse the data collected. Findings revealed (...) that there is no significant difference in the e-learning utilization by students of tertiary institutions in Katsina State based on gender and agebut there is significant difference based on class levels and institutions. It was recommended that Nigerian tertiary institutions general studies curriculum should be re-designed to include e-learning utilization training to help the students understand how they can utilize e-learning resources. (shrink)

For the Byzantine Empire, at the end of the first quarter of the 11thcentury, a new period starts, which in the historiography opinion is generalized as the period of the rule of bureaucratic aristocracy of the capital city. This covers the period 1025-1081, which was characterized by disintegration in the state system and failures in the field of internal and foreign politics. The political crisis at its beginning did not appear clearly, because bureaucratic aristocracy came to power following the thriving (...) period that Byzantine Empire had experienced until then, known as the golden age of the empire. After a calm developmental beginning, the period commenced to be characterized by some developments of decentralizing character. Heirs of the then Byzantine Emperor, Basil II. could not resist enough the separatist movements of feudal and military leaders. Despite these trends towards weakening and separatism, Empire reached that thanks to Komnena dynasty to successfully withstand the challenges that were created by Seljuk Turks and Norman Crusaders. It partially reclaimed its former reputation to continue with the political existence for some more centuries. In these developments, the Byzantine Emperors were supported or often were objected by the non-Byzantine feudal elements that in various cases came from Albania, Bulgaria, Rasha and Zeta. (shrink)

Using current terms, translation turns out to be one of the oldest manifestations of globalization in the world. It has also played a leading role in the civilizational development of Arab countries by filling gaps in law, philosophy and medicine. It would then be interesting to demonstrate how the interaction of Morocco and France, before and during the French Protectorate, contributed to the construction of a literature and the transmission of knowledge through translation. To do this, it would be wise (...) to reveal, first, the development of translation in Morocco before and during the French Protectorate, then to elucidate its role in the birth of a literary consciousness. As an extension, we will finally discuss the impact of the French heritage in general, in terms of language on Moroccan Arabic, in our time when the boundaries between the local and the global are blurred. (shrink)

Rural diversification strategies in Zimbabwe are wide in nature but the environment plays an important role in ensuring that sustainability and structural transformation are achieved. A good understanding of the diversity of rural livelihoods choices and income sources among rural households would therefore inform policy makers on appropriate policy interventions. This paper delves to establish the role of rural diversification strategies in promoting structural transformation in Zimbabwe using Insiza district as a case study. A mixed methods research design was used. (...) Both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were applied. The study utilized semi-structured interviews with key informants who were purposively sampled to take part in the study. A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed and 86 were returned thus giving the researcher a response rate of 86%. The study’s findings noted that rural diversification is an important component of the rural economy and it plays an important component in order to achieve structural transformation using Insiza district in Zimbabwe as a case study. The study also noted that though climate was negatively impacting on the Insiza district residents, households that diversified their income sources had enhanced income compared with farming households which do not diversify their income sources being vulnerable. The study recommends that the government should intervene by financing and educating the rural folk. Micro-policy should be targeted on rural households incomes that facilitate the provision of widening income options through small scale group schemes. (shrink)

During the night of August 2nd to 3rd 1939, the American anthropologist Buell Quain, then working among the Krahô Indians, lacerated his body, opened his veins and ended up hanging himself from a tree by using a rope from his hammock. In several letters dated 2nd August 1939 which he had written and left for his usual correspondents, he mentions a contagious disease to explain his final act. But this reason would be contradicted by many of his last comrades and (...) colleagues. This paper aims to investigate elements that contribute to the understanding of the links between the fieldworker and his subject. (shrink)

Psychological disorders such as depression are common. Many of these disorders can be evaluated and diagnosed, and above all they are preventable. This study was conducted with the aim of determining depression prevalence rate and its related factors among students of Quchan University of Technology, Quchan, Iran. In a cross-sectional study, 359 students were selected by using simple random sampling. Demographic characteristics were gathered and subjects were evaluated by the Beck’s Depression Inventory and the Beck’s Anxiety Inventory. SPSS software was (...) used for statistical analysis and logistic regression, Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests were utilized for this purpose. The age mean of students was 21.02±2.57. 93 subjects suffer from depression and 266 subjects are not depressed. There is no significant difference between depression and each of these variables: gender, body mass index, marital status, field of study, living in dormitory, and depression ; but there was significant difference between depressed and non-depressed students in terms of salary, anxiety, educational level, and satisfaction with field of study. According to the results, anxiety, educational level, satisfaction with field of study and monthly income impact depression. Improving the students’ consultancy in universities can be helpful to decrease anxiety. In addition, consultants can prepare students for selecting their favorite field of study. Also, it is suggested that university officials provide financial facilities such as interest-free loan for students. (shrink)