imagined community Quick reference
A Dictionary of Journalism
...imagined community A media audience conceptualized as a form of political, national, or other type of ‘community’, which often finds expression in journalists’ use of terms such as ‘us’, ‘we’, and ‘our’ in copy. Compare imagined audience . See also ideology ; media agenda...
imagined community Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
... community A group sharing an abstract, symbolic, but distinctive identity whose members cannot collectively meet or know each other but to which its members nevertheless feel they belong. In 1983, Benedict Anderson referred to a nation as ‘an imagined political community’, emphasizing that it is imagined rather than imaginary . In modern nations, the mass media have been important in developing and sustaining a collective sense of national identity and ‘the people’, sustained through what Barthes refers to as myth —reflected, for instance, in...
imagined community Quick reference
A Dictionary of Geography (6 ed.)
... community This term was first used (B. Anderson 2006 ) to describe a nation, for even in the smallest nation, people will never know, meet, or hear about all their fellow-countrymen, but most people will have in their minds an image of their nation as a community. Thus, A. Latham et al. ( 2009 ) describe an imagined community as ‘a group of people, united in the sense of their community, this unity being aided by newspapers, magazines, poster hoardings, cinema, radio, and...
imagined community Reference library
Dictionary of the Social Sciences
... community Benedict Anderson 's term for large communities (quintessentially nations) in which the collective social bond must be imagined rather than directly experienced through face-to-face interactions. The concept is central to Anderson's account of the rise of modern nationalism and nation-state s through the spread of literacy and print-capitalism ( Imagined Communities , 1983 ). In the course of this development, newspapers, museums, and other new “technologies” become the means of representing the collective national experience—if only by...
imagined community Quick reference
A Dictionary of Human Geography
... community A collective of people who possess a common, imagined sense of political and national unity. The concept was first proposed by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities ( 1983 / 2006 ) to think about what constitutes a nation . Anderson’s argument is that at the heart of any nation is a sense of nationalism ; a sense of pride and belonging to a people rooted in place. The nation is an imagined community ‘because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in...
imagined community Quick reference
A Dictionary of Sociology (4 ed.)
... community Benedict Anderson ( 1936–2015 ), in his book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (2nd edn., 1991, originally 1983 ) referred to the nation as an imagined political community. It is imagined because: ( a ) the members never know or meet most of their fellow-members, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion; ( b ) it is limited because even the largest of them has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations; ( c ) it is sovereign because its members have the right...
imagined community Quick reference
A Dictionary of Critical Theory (2 ed.)
... community Benedict Anderson ’s definition of nation. In Imagined Communities ( 1983 ) Anderson argues that the nation is an imagined political community that is inherently limited in scope and sovereign in nature. It is imagined because the actuality of even the smallest nation exceeds what it is possible for a single person to know—one cannot know every person in a nation, just as one cannot know every aspect of its economy, geography, history, and so forth. But as Anderson is careful to point out (contra Ernest Gellner ) imagined is not the same...
imagined community
Utopianism Reference library
An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age
...‘Utopianism’ can be taken in several senses: as the aspiration to imagine, establish, or discover a more perfect society and, after Thomas More 's Utopia ( 1516 ), as the literary genre commonly associated with such aims. The utopian desire can assume many forms, such as *millenarianism , scientific enthusiasm, speculation about distant worlds, the description of model constitutions, imagined futures and communities, and conceptions of the past or ‘golden age’ of any society or mankind in general. The literary genre, in addition, is usually taken...
43a The History of the Book in Southeast Asia (1): The Islands Reference library
Edwin Paul Wieringa
The Oxford Companion to the Book
...a formative role in shaping public discourse and in forging different ‘imagined communities’ of people sharing the same world view. A printing press above a Malay advertisement for the printer in Tanah Abang (a sub-district of Central Jakarta, Indonesia), from Haji Adam’s 1926 booklet Syair Mikraj Nabi Muhammad SAW (‘Poem on the Ascension of the Prophet Muḥammad, peace be upon him’). Private collection Professor E. P. Wieringa, Cologne Bibliography B. Anderson , Imagined Communities (1983) T. E. Behrend and W. van der Molen , eds., ‘ Manuscripts of...
Socialism and Islam Reference library
Shaykh Mahmūd Shaltūt
Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (2 ed.)
...principles of socialism, given the status it accords to brotherhood, social solidarity, and equality among believers. Islam and Society Islam is not only a spiritual religion, as some wrongly imagine, thinking that it limits itself to establishing relations between the servant and his Lord, without being concerned with organizing the affairs of the community and establishing its rules of conduct. On the contrary, Islam is universal in character. Not only does it determine the relations between man and his Lord, but it also lays down the rules that...
Muslim Unity and Arab Unity Reference library
Sāti‘ Al-Husrī
Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (2 ed.)
...not possible for any sane person to imagine union among Cairo, Baghdad, Tehran, Kabul, Haiderabad, and Bukhara, or Kashgar, Persia, and Timbuctoo, without there being a union among Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus, Mecca, and Tunis. It is not possible for any sane person to conceive the possibility of union among Turks, Arabs, Persians, Malayans, and Negroes, while denying unity to the Arabs themselves. If, contrary to fact, the Arab world were more extensive and wider than the Muslim world, it would have been possible to imagine a Muslim union without Arab union, and...
Filipino Family Names Reference library
Jesus Federico C. Hernandez
Dictionary of American Family Names (2 ed.)
...Diversity and Ecology There are an estimated 1,610,000 native speakers of Tagalog in the US. This makes Tagalog one of the largest language groups in the US after English, Spanish, and Chinese. Ilokano also registers a huge speech community in the US with about 85,800 native speakers. The biggest Ilokano speech community is in Hawaii. These numbers are reflected in the Dictionary entries, where surnames of Tagalog and Ilokano origins figure prominently over other indigenous Philippine surnames. Both Tagalog and Ilokano are considered major languages in...
Islam vs. Marxism and Capitalism Reference library
Mustafā Mahmūd
Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (2 ed.)
...practice. He also asserts certain points, as when he asserts that Islamic thought is based on both Aristotelian and dialectical logic. As developing nations we normally look at two pioneering experiences only: communism in the East and capitalism in the West. We can hardly imagine that there may be another solution, so if we discover that both the two experiences are not advantageous to us we begin to search for a solution midway between the two schools and we start to manufacture an appropriate composite. If we were to look to Islam we would find a source...
Minorities in a Democracy Reference library
Humayun Kabir
Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook
...and healthier national community. In fact, the more cross associations we have, the better for everyone concerned and the better for the health of a democracy. I would like to return to the point that the essence of democracy lies in the distribution of power in a number of different centers. Such distribution of power can be on the basis of community groups; it can also be on the basis of interest. I have just suggested that where the distribution is on the basis of community groups, based on the fact of...
2 Corinthians Reference library
Margaret MacDonald and Margaret MacDonald
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...solely in a personal defence based on past events and has not been addressing important matters of community well-being. He insists that he has in fact been working for the sake of building up the community because he fears that a complete breakdown of the relationship between himself and the community will occur when he arrives ( vv. 19–20 ). Given that Paul has been responding to specific problems having to do with the false apostles and with community loyalty from 10:1 until now, it is surprising to hear him frame the situation in terms of a general...
Isaiah Reference library
R. Coggins and R. Coggins
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...their omission. ( 40:21–4 ) The address to Jacob/Israel becomes more specific, with a note of accusation. The community should have recognized the creative power and achievement of YHWH. Another motif already touched upon in 37:26 is reapplied: the mysterious and apparently meaningless development of history is in God's control. More specifically, and relevant to the overall thrust of the book, those ‘princes’ and ‘rulers of the earth’ who imagine that they control the world's destinies are ‘as nothing’. v. 24 sees a reuse of the imagery already employed...
Jeremiah Reference library
Kathleen M. O'Connor and Kathleen M. O'Connor
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...address the community's survival. In doing so, they seek to evoke repentance from the exiles, to instruct them to endure through the unavoidable suffering they face ( Kessler 1968 ), and to have confidence that God will bring them into a future they can barely imagine. In service of these purposes, Jeremiah appears as an iconic presence, not only as a prophet rejected, but as the model of the faithful sufferer whose behaviour exiles must emulate to gain their lives as ‘the prize of war’. The chapters reveal enormous tensions within the communities of survivors...
2 Thessalonians Reference library
Philip F. Esler and Philip F. Esler
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...have interpreted the letter mentioned here as 1 Thessalonians. The oral proclamation referred to was presumably teaching they had already received with which ‘Paul’ concurred. We must imagine a situation, therefore, in which the author is saying in effect, ‘Just as the Thessalonians were told by Paul to rely on his earlier letter and the teaching given them in the community, so too must you’. vv. 16–17 , moving easily from thanks to intercession, ‘Paul’ now offers a prayer that Jesus Christ and the God ‘who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort...
Ezra–Nehemiah Reference library
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher and Daniel L. Smith-Christopher
The Oxford Bible Commentary
...Note, however, that precise numbers may not be as important as the mere fact of counting, as a significant concern in itself. Galling, noting the struggle with those who sought to assist the returning community, wants to add elements of racial consciousness, or racial continuity with the past, on the part of the the returning community (‘the purified community’, so Galling 1951 ). vv. 59–63 , the words ‘and these’ clearly mark this section as separate from the list as a whole. It is possible that further reflection on this episode may help to determine the...
