Journal articles on the topic 'German Prophecies'

PurposeTo provide an informative and stimulating view of some key issues in interdepartmental conflict.Design/methodology/approachBased on the first study in the German‐speaking world, of the impact of interdepartmental conflict, in the period 2002‐2003, 300 enterprises participated. Respondents were at all levels of business hierarchy and all sizes of enterprise and ranged from junior manager to chairman and from the smallest firms to global market leaders.FindingsSeveral conclusions: it is a common illusion that an enterprise is one big happy family. It is a mixture of groups and people with aims, perceptions and preferences which can easily and frequently conflict with one another. This is clearly a major and often underestimated source of stress, demotivation and inefficiency.Practical implicationsDemonstrates ways of using conflict productively. The first step is a self‐critical appraisal of one's own role in terms of interdepartmental cooperation. The next step of self‐reflection entails the reader coming to terms with any possible prejudices he/she may have towards other departments. These stereotypes form and colour behaviour at departmental interfaces and frequently become self‐fulfilling prophecies. A limitation of the study is that small firms with up to ten employees were not included.Originality/valueThe paper offers many new insights through the survey and primary research on which it is based. Also, the German experience is highly relevant to the UK and USA, while at the same time, providing some useful bases for cross‐cultural comparison.

While the histories of chemical and nuclear weapons are often categorically demarcated, this paper presents the transitional history between the development of early chemical weapons and the first atomic bomb in order to reveal both the institutional and imaginary connections between the two. In the wake of World War I, nationalized chemical weapons research provided one blueprint for the kind of large-scale military-industrial-academic complex required to build the atomic bomb. The German chemical weapons laboratories at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical and Electrochemistry (KWI), directed by Fritz Haber, were particularly successful in creating a hierarchical mobilization of people, funds, and materials that the Americans were able to replicate both in their own chemical weapons production and when building the atomic bomb in the early 1940s. Institutional and cultural similarities between these weapons programs were further fertilized by a strikingly similar interwar imagining of both chemical and radiological weapons. These prophecies prefigured certain eye-witness reports from the dropping of the first atomic bombs, where radioactive clouds supposedly spread over the bomb site. In reality, there were important distinctions in both power and method of destruction between chemical weapons and the atomic bomb, but the post–World War II positing of a newly demarcated “Atomic Age” created a conceptual distance between poison gas and nuclear weapons. By pointing to chemistry’s significant contributions (both real and imaginary) to the creation of the atomic bomb, this article reminds readers of the rhetorical similarities and institutional connections between the two weapons with an eye toward broadening our categorical understanding of the atmospheric weapons that still threaten the world today.

The author considers the relevance of the appeal to the Salome image in the realities of the new wave of expressionism at the beginning of the 21st century. The research was carried out with a comprehensive analysis of the dramaturgical, musical, plastic and choreographic, scenography components of the stage incarnations of Jewish princess image in Richard Strauss's opera "Salome". The author determined the methodology of the key aspects of the study: the interpretation of the image of Salome by O. Wilde and Richard Strauss, that provides a basis for conducting a comparative and analytical examinations. The study of musical dramaturgy peculiarities in this opera leads to a genre-stylistic analysis. The most significant stage incarnations of the 21st century relate to interpretive investigation. Two concepts of the justification of the main conflict that led to the death of the Prophet are outlined. The first concept is political, since the Herodians' expectation of a Messiah from their dynasty was hindered by the prophecies of John the Baptist; the second concept is biblical, it is the rejection of Herodias's image of the Prophet for accusing her of incest and vices. The author proved the similarity of the text of Richard Strauss's opera libretto and O. Wilde's play on the theme of Salome, but he found stylistic differences between the two works: O. Wilde's is a drama of a symbolic direction, Richard Strauss's is an expressive and psychological musical poem. As a result of the analysis, the author proves that the dramaturgical structure of the opera is built on the Wagnerian principle of subordinating musical, poetic and scenic elements to the development of the storyline and reinterpreting leitmotif in terms of its individualization. Three versions of the opera performance "Salome" staged by Norwegian, German and Ukrainian directors are described, they are solved in the aesthetics of postmodernism with the extrapolation of the time and place of action to the present, an ironic attitude to the operatic images of the characters, and the synthesis of traditional and innovative means of expression. It was established that the Norwegian version is more characterized by the use of the latest art technologies in the formation of the artistic image of the performance; German production gravitates to the creation of a psychological drama with Freudian undertones; the Ukrainian performance based on Richard Strauss's opera "Salome" has a hi-tech solution. Prospects for further research in the aspect of integration of traditional theater and modern multimedia technologies are outlined.

Any historical period called “late” is headed for interpretive trouble, and one called “late medieval” is probably doomed. Periodization is an artifice, as we know, yet also an art. Historians have entirely reconceived “late antiquity” over the past generation, transforming Roman decadence into an imperial and Christian culture three centuries long embracing the whole Mediterranean world, creative in its culture and foundational for societies that followed. But what of “late medieval”? In most textbooks the term comes paired still with “decline.” Humanists and Reformers first created the artifice of a “middle time,” a dismissive gesture toward the thousand years that separated them from the golden ages of antiquity and/or the early church. Nineteenth-century scientific historians introduced art into this artifice by dividing that amorphous millennium into semi-coherent sub-periods: “early” (400–1000), “high” (1000–1300), and a rump called “late” (1300–1500). Church history entered importantly into the characterizations, with the “late” period traditionally told as a series of catastrophes beginning with destructive confrontations between Pope Boniface VIII (d. 1303) and King Philip the Fair. The storyline for the two centuries that followed, whether treated as deepening darkness (traditional) or as an overripe autumn (Huizinga), depended on what came before and after. Early in the twentieth century, church historians introduced ecumenical and even ironic reversals: Catholic scholars, looking to their own reforms, conceded late medieval deviance and the need sometimes for reform; Protestant scholars, looking to a reform born of strength rather than decline, found a late Middle Ages full of flourishing religiosity and even modernizing initiatives. Others, skeptical of the Reformation as marking any decisive turn toward modernity (vs. Hegel), delighted in finding all manner of cults, relics, prophecies, and zealots still among these new Protestants. Oberman and McGinn by contrast have reconceived the fields of theology and mysticism, Huizinga's autumnal evanescence becoming a golden harvest. All the same—and this only a bit overstated—many Reformation histories still essentially start the world anew in the 1520s, now speaking German, and too many medieval histories still close their story with fourteenth-century “decline,” an apocalyptic onslaught of plague, revolt, schism, and war.

The compilation known as the Extract of Various Prophecies (Auszug etlicher Practica und Prophezeiungen) was the most popular prophetic pamphlet in Germany in the decade between 1516 and 1525. While the Extract was known to contain excerpts from the Prognosticatio of Johannes Lichtenberger and the Speculum of Johannes Grünpeck, this article identifies the sources of the introduction (Simon Eyssenmann’s annual prognostication for 1514) and the concluding verse (an annual prognostication for 1508) and clarifies the process of compilation. In contrast to earlier views that see it as a clumsy and illogical collection of excerpts, this article finds in the Extract a coherent near-term apocalypse. Hans Stainberger, a bookseller from Zwickau, played a decisive role in the pamphlet’s early dissemination, while its later circulation provides a case study in the circulation of apocalyptic ideas and the interaction between prophetic texts and prophetic preaching at the time of the Reformation. La compilation connue comme Extraits de diverses prophéties (Auszug etlicher Practica und Prophezeiungen) consiste en un libelle prophétique, qui fut des plus populaires en Allemagne durant la décennie 1516–1525. Alors que l’on sait déjà que l’Extrait contient des extraits de la Prognosticatio de Johannes Lichtenberger et du Speculum de Johannes Grünpeck, cet article identifie les sources de son introduction — Prognostications de 1514 de Simon Eyssenmann —, ainsi que de ses versets de conclusion — Prognostications de 1508 —, et contribue ainsi à clarifier le travail de compilation. Contrairement aux jugements considérant cet ouvrage comme une collection maladroite et illogique d’extraits, notre analyse y perçoit l’annonce cohérente d’une prochaine apocalypse. Hans Stainberger, un libraire de Zwickau, a joué un rôle central dans les débuts de la diffusion du pamphlet, alors que sa diffusion ultérieure représente plutôt un cas de figure pour saisir la circulation des discours apocalyptiques et l’interaction entre les textes et la prédication prophétique à l’époque de la Réforme.

в статье рассматриваются концепция позднего О. Шпенглера в ракурсе социологии культуры и политики, изучаемая в период публикации второго тома «Заката Европы» и его политического завещания «Годы решений». Анализ социально-политических и социокультурных идей и озарений мыслителя опирался на такие методы, как сравнительно-исторический и компаративистский, структурно-функциональный и системный, культур-социологический и историко-социологический методы. Речь в статье идет о финальном развитии Шпенглера как социального мыслителя в социально-политическом и социокультурных аспектах, нередко дополняющих и определяющих друг друга, о рассмотрении России, русских как не-белой расы, за счет которой должно выстроиться будущее германской расы как сердцевины фаустовской цивилизации, об опасности троцкистско-ленинской технологии экспорта революции как эффективного распространения левых идей в мире, о биологизаторстве, его схемах как инструменте формирования государства, о феодально-патриархальной консервативной утопии и социально-политическом идеале Шпенглера, о новой терминологии автора второго тома «Заката Европы» на основе национализма, воинствующего консерватизма и экспансионизма, о социолого-исторической концепции прохождения в мир истории через растительный, животный и человеческий мир как цикличности, о предыстории, истории и послеистории, о социальном расслоении как отрыве от традиций и почвы, и преодолении его последствий в модели прусского госсоциализма, об избыточном потенциале привилегированных сословий, о четвертом сословии люмпенской массы, о денатурализации человека и его жизни в социуме параллельно с процессом извечной вражды космического масштаба как сути развития истории во множестве сражений любви и ненависти между странами, обществами, социальными группами и людьми, о семени войны в личности в рамках социологии любви и войны, о войне как творце общества и политики, о бессистемности структур и расовом единстве, об оправдании расизма в рамках биологизма и натурализма, о 1930-х как Рубиконе выбора между социальной деградацией и пруссачеством в германском обществе, о ницшеанско-языческой трактовке Шпенглером традиционных ценностей немецкого общества, о игре в кости как схватке цветной и белой революций, о либеральных и социалистических ценностях общества как иллюзиях против реалий традиционного иерархического общества, об армии как консервативном институте социума, о социальных пророчествах Шпенглера. Выявлено – идеи позднего О. Шпенглера творчески развили представления Ф. Ницше и В. Дильтея, в ультраправом духе преодолели пессимизм в рассмотрения будущего фаустовской культуры, выявленный в первом томе «Заката Европы». Интербеллум в условиях роста левого и правого революционного радикализма, привел мыслителя к отрицательному отношению к России вкупе с развитием натурализированного дарвинизма и эволюционизма с упрощенными биологизаторскими схемами, построением консервативной утопии, неоязыческим пониманием ценностей и морали, апологетике абсолютизма, воли к власти и войны, позитивному восприятию реванша белой революции как расовой и ультраконсервативной, предсказанию деструктивности и отчуждению личности в современном социуме, а также краха либерализма и его идей и возникновения военных хунт неоконсервативного толка у власти, что ставит Шпенглера в ряд мыслителей, стоявших у истоков концепции антропологического перехода, объединяет его с идеями Г. Гегеля, Ф. Фукуямы, Г. Лебона, З. Фрейда и неофрейдистов, социологов Франкфурсткой школы, и даже некоторых идей К. Маркса (концепция отчуждения). the article examines the concept of late O. Spengler in the context of sociology of culture and politics, studied during the publication period of the second volume of "The Decline of the West" and his political testament "Years of Decision". The analysis of the social-political and socio-cultural ideas and insights of the thinker was based on methods such as comparative-historical and comparative, structural-functional and systemic, cultural-sociological and historical-sociological methods. The article discusses the final development of Spengler as a social thinker in social-political and socio-cultural aspects, often complementing and determining each other, on the consideration of Russia and the Russians as a non-white race, on which the future of the German race as the core of Faustian civilization should be built, on the danger of Trotskyist-Leninist technology of revolution export as an effective dissemination of leftist ideas in the world, on biologism, its schemes as a tool for state formation, on the feudal-patriarchal conservative utopia and Spengler's social-political ideal, on the new terminology introduced by the author in the second volume of "The Decline of the West" based on nationalism, militant conservatism, and expansionism, on the socio-historical concept of passing through the vegetal, animal, and human worlds as cyclicality, on prehistory, history, and post-history, on social stratification as a detachment from traditions and soil, and overcoming its consequences in the model of Prussian state socialism, on the surplus potential of privileged estates, on the fourth estate of lumpen masses, on the denaturalization of man and his life in society parallel to the process of eternal cosmic enmity as the essence of historical development in multiple battles of love and hatred between countries, societies, social groups, and individuals, on the seed of war within the individual within the framework of the sociology of love and war, on war as a creator of society and politics, on the lack of system in structures and racial unity, on the justification of racism within the framework of biologism and naturalism, on the 1930s as the Rubicon of choice between social degradation and Prussianism in German society, on Spengler's Nietzschean-linguistic interpretation of traditional values of German society, on the game of dice as a clash of colored and white revolutions, on the liberal and socialist values of society as illusions against the realities of traditional hierarchical society, on the army as a conservative institution of society, on Spengler's social prophecies. It has been revealed that the ideas of late O. Spengler creatively developed the views of F. Nietzsche and W. Dilthey, in an ultraright spirit went beyond the pessimism in the consideration of the future of Faustian culture, identified in the first volume of "The Decline of the West". The interwar period, under the conditions of the growth of left and right revolutionary radicalism, led the thinker to a negative attitude towards Russia, together with the development of naturalized Darwinism and evolutionism with simplified biologistic schemes, the construction of a conservative utopia, neo-pagan understanding of values and morality, absolutism apologetics, will to power and war, positive perception of the revenge of the white revolution as racial and ultra-conservative, the prediction of the destructiveness and alienation of personality in modern society, as well as the collapse of liberalism and its ideas, and the emergence of military juntas of the neoconservative nature in power, which puts Spengler among the thinkers who stood at the origins of the concept of anthropological transition, and aligns him with the ideas of G. Hegel, F. Fukuyama, G. Le Bon, S. Freud and neo-Freudians, sociologists of the Frankfurt School, and even some ideas of K. Marx (the concept of alienation).

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the leitmotif of the theme of the end of St. Petersburg is the so-called “curse of Evdokia”: “Petersburg to be empty.” This is a contamination of two quotes from the Petrine era. Both of them, when they appeared, did not have any distinct eschatological sound, and both were not known in the era of romanticism. From the 1860s to the beginning of the 20th century the prophecy “Let it be empty” was cited as a formula of the retrograde of the reign of Peter the Great, moreover as a prediction or threat, but not a curse. Actual eschatological sound was given to him by Merezhkovsky in the novels “Peter and Alexei” (1904–1905), “Alexander I” (1911–1912) and the article “Petersburg to be empty” (1908). The formula “St. Petersburg to be empty” entered the political agenda on the eve and after the February Revolution, in connection with rumors about the surrender of Petrograd to the Germans and the government moving to Moscow. Afterwards the 19th centuries prophecies were perceived by the eyes of the creators of the Russian symbolism. The result of such distorted optics was the idea of the formula “Let it be empty” as the original curse that gravitates over St. Petersburg, as well as identification of this formula with the eschatology of the Old Believers.

القرآن والمتغيرات الاجتماعية والتاريخية، محمد أبو القاسم حاج حمد، بيروت: دار الساقي للطباعة والنشر، 2011م، 141 صفحة. حوار حول: الإسلام هو القرآن وحده، محمد توفيق صدقي،رشيد رضا، طه البشري، جمع وتحقيق: هشام عبد العزيز، الرياض: جداول للطباعة والنشر والتوزيع، 2011م، 308 صفحة. نحو نظرية قرآنية، محمد سلمان غانم، بيروت: دار الفارابي، 2011م، 504 صفحة. الجدلية التاريخية في القرآن الكريم، عبد الله عيسى لحيلح، بيروت: منشورات زين الحقوقية، 2011م، 608 صفحة. الله والإنسان في القرآن: علم دلالة الرؤية القرآنية للعالم، توشيهيكو إيزوتسو، ترجمة وتقديم: هلال محمد الجهاد، لبنان: المنظمة العربية للترجمة، 2007م، 387 صفحة. الرحمانيةديموقراطية القرآن، محمد سلمان غانم، بيروت: دار الفارابي، 2008م، 246 صفحة. الانتماء الحضاري والهوية الثقافية في ضوء عروبة القرآن أو الإسلام العربي، معالم في طريق الوحدة والتعايش والاعتدال لتدبّر القرآن وفهمه بلسان عربي مبين، علاء الدين المدرس، العراق: دار الرقيم، 2008م، 191 صفحة. The Impact of the Qur'anic Verses on Mass Communication Practices: A Case Study, Aliy Abdulwahid Adebisi, Germany- LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2011, 72 pages. The Dream in Islam: From Qur'anic Tradition to Jihadist Inspiration, Iain R. Edgar, Berghahn Books, 2011, 172 pages. Qur'anic Hermeneutics: Al-Tabrisi and the Craft of Commentary (Routledge Studies in the Qur'an), Bruce Fudge, UK- Routledge; 1 edition, 2011, 176 pages. Communication Strategies in the Qur'an: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Christian Tamas, Germany- LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2011, 252 pages. Al-Ghazali and the Qur'an: One Book, Many Meanings (Culture and Civilization in the Middle East), Martin Whittingham, UK- Routledge; Reprint edition, 2011, 154 pages. Beyond The Quran, Responding to Islam’s Claim on Bible Prophecies. James Paul-Magidi, Longwood, FL- Xulon Press, 2011, 464 pages. In Search of Our Origins: How the Quran Can Help in Scientific Research, Jamshed Akhtar, Seattle, WA- CreateSpace, 2010, 164 pagesز Sounds of Qur'anic Recitation in Egypt: A Phonetic Analysis, Mohammed R. Elashiry See search results for this auAre you an author? Learn about Author Central (Author), Bruce Ingham (Foreword), New York- Edwin Mellen Pr, 2009, 352 pages. Textual Criticism and Qur'an Manuscripts, Keith E. Small, Lanham, MD.: Lexington Books, 2011, 244 pages. Life, The Universe & The Quran, Dr Saddique, Bloomington, IN.: AuthorHouse, 2011, 156 pages. Women, War & Hypocrites: Studying the Qur'an, Robert A Campbell, Sydney: Cape Breton University Press, 2010, 244 pages. للحصول على كامل المقالة مجانا يرجى النّقر على ملف ال PDF في اعلى يمين الصفحة.

RESUMENLa historia del cristianismo no se entiende sin el complejo fenómeno mariano. El culto mariano ha afianzado la construcción de identidades colectivas, pero también individuales. La figura de la Virgen María estableció un modelo de conducta desde cada contexto histórico-cultural, remarcando especialmente los ideales de maternidad y virginidad. Dentro del imaginario católico, la Europa contemporánea ha estado marcada por la formación de una cultura aparicionista que se ha generadoa partir de diversas apariciones marianas que han establecido un canon y un marco de interpretación que ha alimentado las guerras culturales entre secularismo y catolicismo.PALABRAS CLAVE: catolicismo, Virgen María, cultura aparicionista, Lourdes, guerras culturales.ABSTRACTThe history of Christianity cannot be understood without the complex Marian phenomenon. Marian devotion has reinforced the construction of collective, but also of individual identities. 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Abstract This article discusses how a method of legal reasoning employed first by French and Spanish legislators and judges and, subsequently, by their Latin American successors hindered the economic development of their respective countries.1 It suggests that significant economic development would be possible if legislators helped enact honest, reasonable, and fair versions of successful market practices in a manner consistent with their nations’ or regions’ developmental goals.2 It further suggests that Latin American judges can contribute to the attainment of such goals by adopting a method of reasoning that differs from their present method. The proposed method requires that in disputes caused by the disabling effects of obsolete statutory, case, or customary law on promising new customs and practices, the judge acts as a quasi-legislator. In that capacity, he should carefully consider not only the pivotal facts of the dispute and the applicable law but also his nation’s socio-economic conditions and economic development goals. Then, by placing himself in the archetypal position of a reasonable merchant, always having in mind the interest of his contractual and third-party ‘others’, the judge’s decision should enable Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s ‘prophecies’ of what courts will decide in future cases with similar facts and legal issues.3 Thus, he will also be heeding the advice of the distinguished Mexican legal philosopher Eduardo García Máynez, who urged judges to fill the inevitable obsolete and unfair normative gaps with equitable judicial ‘individual’ norms.4 Finally, in updating practices and correcting injustices, the judges’ methods of reasoning should be guided by a broad definition of good faith adopted by 19th-century German Civil and Commercial Codes as well as by the 20th-century US Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), as will be discussed throughout this article. In essence, it requires that legislators and judges take into account the honesty, reasonableness, and fairness of the new practice before it becomes a binding norm.

AbstractThe iconography of the biblical story of Balaam and the she-ass, told in Numbers 22-24, dates right back to the early Christian era. It depicts the confrontation of Balaam with the angel, whom he did not see blocking his way until his donkey opened his eyes by speaking to him. The simple scene, composed of a donkey rider beating his mount with raised club opposite an angel with raised sword, never before included a pouch containing papers and a kind of stick. From the fact that Rembrandt added this motif to the traditional image and gave it a prominent place in his composition (fig. 1) one may conclude that he meant to convey by this something very significant.Balak, king of Moab, induced the famous magician Balaam to come and curse the Israelites who had entered the plains of Moab. God, using Balaam as his temporary prophet, allowed him to go, provided that he would speak His words and bless Israel instead of cursing it. It was to this stringent condition that the angel reminded him halfway his journey. Upon his arrival Balaam blessed Israel three times. Beside himself with anger Balak sent him home without paying him. Before he went the prophet cursed the king, speaking the famous words: "I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth" (Numbers 24:17). This enunciation has always been taken as a Messianic prophecy.During the middle ages the sheer image of Balaam and the she-ass sufficed to evoke the Messianic prophecy. However, in some versions of the fifteenth-century Speculum Humanae Salvationis and Biblia Pauperum a star is added to the scene (fig. 2), obviously in order to remind one of the true meaning of the image.Depictions of Balaam and the she-ass had always been statical and emotionless but in the sixteenth century the dramatic potential of the story was recognized and fully exploited (fig. 3). At the same time the meaning of the scene was confined to the miracle of the speaking donkey, like any other miracle a sign of God's omnipotence. Moralistic interpretations were also possible. Maerten van Heemskerck, for instance, focussed on Balaam's reputation as being a miser (fig. 5). By the time Pieter Lastman painted Balaam and the she-ass (fig. 4) in 1622, the subject had become polyinterpretable.By adding a pouch with papers and a kind of stick Rembrandt indicated how his Balaam picture had to be understood. The leather pouch is an interesting object in itself, which Rembrandt and some of his contemporaries used several times in their work between 1615 and 1635 (figs. 7 and 8a-g). The papers with illegible writing in quasi-Hebrew letters represent Balaam's prophecies, one may assume, and the stick, in point of fact a commander's baton (figs. 9-11), metaphorically indicates which prophecy exactly is at issue. Unquestionably the Messianic one about the star coming out of Jacob and the sceptre rising out of Israel. In the late middle ages the star had been used occasionally as reference mark but this was no option for Rembrandt, because Balaam travelled by day. The alternative was the sceptre. The fact that Rembrandt depicted a commander's baton instead of a sceptre proves that he did not use a reformatory bible translation but either a catholic one or the Vulgata itself. Reformatory translations (all based on Luther's translation in German, which has 'Zepter') have 'scepter' (sceptre), whereas catholic translations (based on the Vulgata) have 'roede' (baton). The Vulgata has not 'sceptrum' but 'virga', i.e. verge, baton.Why did Rembrandt revive the Messianic meaning of the Balaam story? Most probably because his commissioner wanted him to do so. For Alfonso López, up to now known only as the first owner of the painting and who is supposed to have purchased it directly from Rembrandt, may very well have ordered it from him. Recent research has shown that he, a financial agent of Richelieu in Holland, was a 'morisco', a Spanish Muslim converted to Christianity. A convert may be interested in speaking donkeys but certainly more so in the coming of Christ.