bare life Quick reference
A Dictionary of Critical Theory (2 ed.)
...life lived. Bare life refers then to a conception of life in which the sheer biological fact of life is given priority over the way a life is lived, by which Agamben means its possibilities and potentialities. Suggestions made in 2008 by Scotland Yard and the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain that children as young as five should be DNA typed and their details placed in a database if they exhibit behavioural signs indicating future criminal activity is a perfect example of what Agamben means by bare life. It reduces the prospects of the life of...
bare life
The Concept of Islamic Socialism Reference library
A. K. Brohi
Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (2 ed.)
...you want and then you have some choice in the matter. “Theistic Communism” is absurd—as is “Islamic Socialism” or “Islamic Capitalism.” To the age-old question: “What is the state to do for the individual where the individual is not able to provide for himself those bare necessities of life which he is to have if he is to survive?” Islam has its own answer to return. It is the responsibility of the State to provide conditions upon which not only the mind and character of its citizens must develop but also the conditions upon which its citizens are to win by...
South Asian Genealogy Quick reference
Abi Husainy
The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)
...procedure in accordance with the Christian Marriage Act 1892 . With the exception of Azad Kashmir, all zones of Pakistan make divorce subject to forms of arbitration. In Azad Kashmir the ‘bare talaq ’, a form of divorce in which a husband can sever a relationship with a triple declaration of the phrase ‘I divorce thee’, still has practitioners. The oral quality of the bare talaq decree may make a paper trail difficult to find. Civil courts can grant Christians a divorce in Pakistan, and copies of a specific case ruling can be obtained from the court. Many...
Reflections on Islam and the West: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Reference library
Hossein Nasr Seyyed
Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (2 ed.)
...in the world. From the Islamic point of view, how tragic it is that while Muslims protected the Jewish people throughout most of their history and provided a haven for them after their expulsion from Spain after the Reconquest, they have had to pay so dearly for the bar-baric atrocities of Hitler. Likewise, how sad it is to observe that, even at the height of their power and before the modern colonial period, Muslims never practiced “ethnic cleansing” against the many Christian minorities in their midst; they recently had to suffer a new wave of ethnic...
Music Reference library
An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age
...a good ‘second eleven’. In keeping with gentlemen-amateur traditions, these composers appeared to lack the visionary single-mindedness which activated their continental contemporaries. Though they were no feebler than their immediate predecessors, their limitations were now laid bare by contrast: creative impotence was openly mocked by fecundity throughout Europe. Only such craftsmen as Broadwood, Dodd, and Tubbs, and a few performers, particularly women, were truly fit to join the newly exalted company of musicians [ see *women musicians and composers ]....
Women Local and Family Historians Quick reference
Joan Thirsk
The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)
...and Their Posterity ( 1930 ). Practicalities were characteristically in the forefront of her mind, causing her often to cast ‘a lingering thought after the old family when I move about their kitchen’. Another remarkable example of a pedigree, showing determination to breathe life into bare names, is that of the Tempest family of Broughton, Craven, Yorkshire, by Eleanor Blanche Tempest ( 1873–1928 ). On every large page of the family tree, documents are summarized in minuscule handwriting beside the names (British Library, Add. MS 40670). Women have frequently...
Historic Churches Quick reference
David Hey
The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (2 ed.)
...for social purposes. For centuries, the parish church served also as a village hall, a centre of social life, and the administrative centre for much †local government ( see the poor ; chapel‐of‐ease ; churchwardens’ accounts ; parish registers ). The interiors of medieval parish churches were very different in appearance from what they are now. The first impression upon entering would have been of a blaze of colour. Instead of being bare stone, the walls would have been plastered over and decorated with paintings, which were used both for devotional...
Antony and Cleopatra Reference library
Michael Dobson and Anthony Davies
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (2 ed.)
...Princess’s in 1890 . Although Beerbohm Tree staged a predictably lavish version in 1907 , this approach to the play had already been superseded in Frank Benson ’s much sparer production (with himself as Antony) at Stratford, seconded by Robert Atkins ’s revolutionary, almost bare-stage production at the Old Vic in 1922 , in which Edith Evans played her first Cleopatra. Throughout the play’s stage history, productions in which both central performances have been equally praised have been rare: for many Vivien Leigh ’s Cleopatra ( 1951 ) outshone...
The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual: Traditionalism or Historicism? Reference library
Laroui Abdallah
Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (2 ed.)
...real historical framework . . . in short, a program giving rational analysis of the past, the present and the foreseeable future of the Arabs.” [We do] not treat culture per se; rather [we treat] the problems of Arab society with culture as the means of approach . . . to lay bare one of the foremost obstacles impeding the evolution of that society. . . . However important one thinks the crisis of the Arab intelligentsia, it still would not merit the attention it has been given if it did not symbolize and reveal a crisis of society as a whole. How are all the...
The Second Message of Islam Reference library
Mahmoud Mohamed Taha
Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook
...in conflict with the subconscious, unity of being is attained, and this is characterized by wholesomeness of the heart, clarity of thought, and beauty of body, thereby realizing a full and comprehensive intellectual and emotional life. “The next life is the ultimate life if they only know.” (Sura 29, Verse 64) Ultimate life, free from defects, disease, and death, indeed the opposite of death. To restore unity to one's being is for an individual to think as he wishes, speak what he thinks, and act according to his speech. This is the objective...
Land Reference library
An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age
...garden and a grave.’ And though his central focus is on the process of becoming a poet, he voices the links between the expansion of a global empire, presented as a frightening terrain of silent bats and dark scorpions, and a transformed locality left behind, where ‘even the bare-worn common is denied’. In this population movement from the country to the city, and from city to parts foreign, many of the sources for the nostalgic myth of rural England were generated. The intensity of capitalist production in the countryside in Britain precluded the absolute...
Numbers Reference library
Terence E. Fretheim and Terence E. Fretheim
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...heifer (actually, cow) perhaps symbolized blood/life (red animals were so used in the ancient Near East); it was to be unblemished ( see Lev 21:16–24; 22:20 ) and never used for work ( Deut 21:3–4 ). The burning of the entire animal (including its blood/life, v. 5 , uniquely here) may have been thought to concentrate life in the ashes which, when mixed with water and applied to the unclean person or thing, would counteract (literally thought to absorb?) the contagious impurity of death and the diminishment of life in the community. This happened, not in some...
Judges Reference library
Susan Niditch and Susan Niditch
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...is swayed by parental wishes; they defer to the strongman, a folk hero in the style of Hercules, one not bound by social convention. v. 5 , the killing of the lion with bare hands, an act kept secret ( see also v. 9 ), prepares for the hidden answer to the riddle that follows ( v. 14 ) as the story of ethnic rivalry among exogamous groups continues. The tearing apart of the lion with bare hands also helps to portray Samson as a superhero with power over the forces of the natural world. A pattern is established whereby Samson's overtures to the settled,...
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Reference library
Michael Dobson and Anthony Davies
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (2 ed.)
...despite being the most familiar play in the world, Hamlet still seems one of the most excitingly unpredictable, its ending as abrupt and tragic an interruption as ever. Critical history: It would be impossible, even in a book-length study, to do full justice to any more than the bare outlines of this play’s impact, not just in literary criticism and on the stage, but on Western culture at large: its characters have entered the realm of myth, and its motifs have been endlessly reworked, in fiction ( Gothic and otherwise), painting , opera , and film no...
Feminist Scholarship Reference library
Yvonne Sherwood
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible
...phrase) ‘pornoprophetic’. The idea that God has the right to punish his sinful people may, as Renita Weems suggests, be a ‘congenial theological point’, but what about when that punishment gets entangled with highly disturbing language about lifted skirts, exposed genitalia, bared breasts, and the story of a woman who is stripped, beaten, starved, and paraded naked in the sight of her lovers ( Hosea 2 )? For some the language is innocuous because it is ‘only a metaphor’, but metaphors have a dangerous tendency to leak into reality, and ‘some metaphors...
Hebrews Reference library
Harold W. Attridge and Harold W. Attridge
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...for Jews ( Jer 11:20; 1 Enoch 9:5 ; Ep. Arist. 132–3; Sib. Or. 8.282–5; Philo, Abr. 104; Cher. 96), and for early Christians ( 1 Cor 4:5; 1 Thess 2:4; Rom 8:27 ). The description of all as ‘naked and laid bare’ involves colourful language, used of a wrestling hold and of a sacrifice, where a victim's neck would be ‘laid bare’ to the priest's knife. The concluding remark that it is to this judge that we must ‘render an account’ involves one more verbal play on the Greek logos , which means both ‘word’ and ‘account’. ( 4:14–16 ) Transitional...
Kinship and Kingship: The Early Monarchy Reference library
Carol Meyers
Oxford History of the Biblical World
... This bare listing does not, however, reveal what literary analysis makes clear: the historiographic framework embraces segments that are highly legendary and folkloristic, if not novelistic. The account of the early monarchy is replete with traditional literary materials, including stylized motifs such as the sending of messengers or the hiding of spies; repeated type-scenes such as battle accounts and news of defeat; private dialogues in settings that preclude eyewitness records; strong interest in the private life and character of a few...
Visions of Kingdoms: From Pompey to the First Jewish Revolt Reference library
Amy-Jill Levine
Oxford History of the Biblical World
...of the governors is epitomized by their most famous representative, Pontius Pilate (26–36 ce ), who deliberately provoked the local population by bringing Roman shields, probably decorated with images of the emperor, into Jerusalem. The population protested the action by baring their throats to the soldiers; rather than risk a bloodbath, Pilate sent the standards back to Caesarea. But his problems with the locals continued. Attempting to raid the Temple treasury for funds to construct an aqueduct in Jerusalem, Pilate provoked another protest that ended...
Psalms Reference library
C. S. Rodd and C. S. Rodd
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...82, Job 1:6; 2:1 ), the main body of the psalm echoes with the voice of YHWH, repeated seven times, as he thunders against (rather than ‘over’) the primeval waters, breaks the cedars, makes the mountains quake, flashes flames of fire, shakes the wilderness, and strips the forest bare ( vv. 3–9 ). The conclusion probably describes his enthronement as king over the flood, and as the protector of his people ( vv. 10–11 ). Less certain are the date and original occasion of the psalm, and the precise meaning of the beginning and the end. Similarities with Ugaritic...
