Royal Representations

Queen Victoria was one of the most complex cultural productions of her age. In Royal Representations, Margaret Homans investigates the meanings Victoria held for her times, Victoria's own contributions to Victorian writing and art, and the cultural mechanisms through which her influence was felt. Arguing that being, seeming, and appearing were crucial to Victoria's "rule," Homans explores the variability of Victoria's agency and of its representations using a wide array of literary, historical, and visual sources. Along the way she shows how Victoria provided a deeply equivocal model for women's powers in and out of marriage, how Victoria's dramatic public withdrawal after Albert's death helped to ease the monarchy's transition to an entirely symbolic role, and how Victoria's literary self-representations influenced debates over political self-representation. Homans considers versions of Victoria in the work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, John Ruskin, Margaret Oliphant, Lewis Carroll, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Julia Margaret Cameron.

What use is it to be given authority over men and lands if others do not know about it? Furthermore, what use is that authority if those who know about it do not respect it or recognise its jurisdiction? And what strategies and 'language' -written and spoken, visual and auditory, material, cultural and political - did those in authority throughout the medieval and early modern era use to project and make known their power? These questions have been crucial since regulations for governance entered society and are found at the core of this volume. In order to address these issues from an historical perspective, this collection of essays considers representations of authority made by a cross-section of society within the British Isles. Arranged in thematic sections, the 14 essays in the collection bridge the divide between medieval and early modern to build up understanding of the developments and continuities that can be followed across the centuries in question. Whether crown or noble, government or church, burgh or merchant; all desired power and influence, but their means of representing authority were very different. These essays encompass a myriad of methods demonstrating power and disseminating the image of authority, including: material culture, art, literature, architecture and landscapes, saintly cults, speeches and propaganda, martial posturing and strategic alliances, music, liturgy and ceremonial display. Thus, this interdisciplinary collection illuminates the variable forms in which authority was presented by key individuals and institutions in Scotland and the British Isles. By placing these within the context of the European powers with whom they interacted, this volume also underlines the unique relationships developed between the people and those who exercised authority over them.

Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.--New York University, 1978).

This volume deals with the crisis in the representation of the monarchy that was provoked by the execution of Charles I.

"Representation of political power seems to have been necessary at all times in all complex urban societies. To secure order - to construct a certain social, ideological, religious, economic, and cultural stability - seems to be one of the main intentions of representation. When order breaks down or is threatened, political power comes under threat, and the cohesion of the community is also in jeopardy." "In times of impending change, crisis, or disorder, special effort is required to reassure the community of the rulers' ability to maintain stability. What those in power did to convince the affected communities of their qualities as rulers, that is, their representational strategies - especially in times of change - is the subject of this book, explored through examination of case studies drawn from the ancient Near East. The volume is divided into three thematic parts: "Reestablishment of Order after Major Disruption," "Changing Order from Within," and "Perceptions of New Order.""--BOOK JACKET.

The individual character of Kingdom of Kush has often been overshadowed by the overwhelming cultural presence of its neighbour Egypt. This handbook in our series "Handbuch der Orientalistik/Handbook of Oriental Studies" for the first time presents a comprehensive survey of the rich textual, archaeological and art historical evidence for this Middle Nile Region Kingdom of Kush. Basing itself both on the evidence and scholarly literature, this work discusses the emergence of the native state of Kush (after the Pharaonic domination in the 11th century B.C.), the rule of the Kings of Kush in Egypt (c. 760-656) and the intellectual foundations and political history of the Kingdom in the Napatan (7th - 3rd centuries) and Meroitic (3rd century B.C. - 4th century A.D.) periods.

This book collects contributions which showcase the impact of new augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies considered jointly in the fields of cultural heritage and innovative design. AR is an alternative path of analysis and communication if applied to several fields of research, in particular if related to space and artifacts in it. This happens because the neural network development strengthens the relationship between augmented reality and artificial intelligence, creating processes close to human thought in shorter times. In the last years, the AR/AI expansion and the future scenarios have raised a deep trans-disciplinary speculation. The disciplines of representation (drawing, surveying, visual communication), as a convergence place of multidisciplinary theoretical and applicative studies related to architecture, city, environment, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, are called to contribute to the international debate. The book chapters deal with augmented reality and artificial intelligence, analyzing their connections as research tools for knowing the environment. In particular, the topics focus on the intersection between real and virtual world and on the heuristic role of drawing in the enhancement and management of cultural heritage, in planning and monitoring the architecture, the environment, or the infrastructures. Scientists involved in AR and AI research applied separately or together in the field of cultural heritage, architectural design, urban planning, and infrastructures analysis, as well as members of public and private organizations make up interdisciplinary groups that fuel the discussion focusing on the priorities and aims of the research related to the disciplines of representation.

In this volume, Costache endeavours to map the world as it was understood and experienced by the early Christians. Progressing from initial fears, they came to adopt a more positive view of the world through successive shifts of perception. This did not happen overnight. Tracing these shifts, Costache considers the world of the early Christians through an interdisciplinary lens, revealing its meaningful complexity. He demonstrates that the early Christian worldview developed at the nexus of several perspectives. What facilitated this process was above all the experience of contemplating nature. When accompanied by genuine personal transformation, natural contemplation fostered the theological interpretation of the world as it had been known to the ancients.