Civilization

I knew architecture grew since the ages of prehistoric and was the goal of the appearance of architecture at first in order to meet the need and protection from surrounding risks, but with the evolution of architecture through the ages, and the concept of civilization that appeared with the development of architecture gave a special identity to architecture. like Mesopotamia in Iraqi architecture, Egyptian architecture shows African, Romanian Greek, and Islamic architecture. The Byzantine Empire which covered most regions of the world saw the emergence of a very Christian architecture in Italy and the Vatican Gothic factor was the development of this architecture. Prothera next to the religious and ideological thought and philosophy closer to the god of, this architecture was thought the mainstream has actually contributed to the development of architecture during the ages. In this study, we will study the Islamic building in the North Africa region, which spread in the 10th century and was founded by The Abadites who were Kharijites and spread in the north of the Algerian desert, specifically in the city of Ghardaia in Wadi M'zab. 550 km from Algiers. This city is designed for social life, and this city is an inspiration for urban planners today. This city has been described in the Book of Lights Mazab of the French Orientalist where he said that her charm attracts visitors to it in one of the pages of this book. This architecture was characterized by: an inherent system of architecture, a mixture of practical creativity, which was characterized by steadfastness so as to stay adapted and adapted to the difficult climate and nature of the region, and the maintenance of the neighborhood rights supported by a arsenal of ethical systems and customs expressed in the harem. Both inside the palace or at specific distances outside their walls ... Which is covered by a beautiful aesthetic touch and an almost unique architectural feature. Through this study we will explain how They were affected of the building and the urban fabric of the area and the inhabitants of Wadi M'zab affected the religious dimension, how did urban fabric Wade M'zab preserve his building authenticity in terms of the form and mix of art and creativity that appears in urban and Wadi M'zab.

This paper looks at the conditions of the emergence of "race" as a new scientific category during the eighteenth century, arguing that two modes of discourse and visualization played a significant role: that on society, civility, and civilization -- as found principally in the travel literature -- and that on nature, as found in natural history writings, especially in botanical classifications. The European colonizing enterprise had resulted in an extensive flow of new objects at every level. Visual representations of these new objects circulated in the European cultural world and were transferred and transformed within travelogue and natural history writings. The nature, boundaries, and potentialities of humankind were discussed in this exchange within the conceptual grid of classifications and their visual representations. Over the course of the century the discourse on society, civility, and civilization collapsed into the discourse on nature. Humans became classified a...

Suppose you are preacher who wants to speak a word to a polarized situation. Words take on meaning within a context and unfortunately yours is a situation divided between " right " and " left " (here meant very generally to signify the two poles of a divided society) with the result that your word will inevitably be subsumed into the narrative of one context or the other. This is unfortunate because the meaning of what you want to say is distorted when taken up into an alien context: if you speak you are bound to be misunderstood, whatever you say. Call this the preacher's dilemma. As a matter of fact, a third option is silence, but this too may be misunderstood, so it's probably more accurate to speak of a trilemma. However, this phrase is not so snappy and does not convey the tragic note that " dilemma " does, so I have decided to sacrifice pedantic accuracy in this instance. Perhaps I am caught up in the very dilemma about which I am writing. The preacher's dilemma was in my mind last week as I followed the papal visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh. Pope Francis had to decide whether or not to say the word Rohingya. He had previously shown solidarity with the Rohingya nine months ago in February calling them by their name, making clear that the Rohingya are " good people, " peaceful, and that they are unjustly persecuted. However, that word is taboo in Myanmar. The Muslims in Rakhine state are recognised neither by Myanmar nor Bangladesh, and so to refer to the stateless group is to wade into an ongoing political struggle, something that the Pope would wish to avoid. Moreover, local Catholic bishops advised him against antagonising the majority Buddhist society for fear of backlash, and the Pope would obviously regret that outcome, not only because of the harm done, but because he would aspire to work collegially, heeding local advice. On the other hand, not to use the word would upset Rohingya activists, and probably the Rohingya as a whole. In view of the attention of the world media the Pope possessed a megaphone like few others, so his words were at this moment were at a premium. Surely he should seize the opportunity for justice. What to do? If the Pope failed to speak truth to power (with the thundering volume of a Guardian editorial) that would appear an understandable betrayal. The author of the Politics once wrote that most men will what is noble but do what is expedient, and perhaps this was how western, liberal journalists framed the situation. No wonder, then, that Catholic commentators did not anticipate the visit with relish. It was planned when the de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi carried the hopes of a peaceful resolution, before the military crackdown had expelled 600,000 Rohingya. But now the situation had become notorious and the UN had spoken in terms of ethnic cleansing. So, the pope's dilemma was compared with that of Pius XII who was criticised for not speaking out strongly against the Nazis (albeit to protect the innocent). Still, Francis had tweeted that he had looked forward to the visit: there was no going back. What happened was that the Pope met the leaders of Myanmar, first the military (in a rescheduled visit on Monday) and later the Nobel Laureate. On the Tuesday he spoke up publically for the rights of all, and the need for decisive action, but to the dismay of activists, refrained from mentioning Rohingya or ethnic cleansing. Then he travelled to Bangladesh and on the Friday in Dhaka at an inter-faith gathering met twelve Rohingya including a twelve year old girl whose entire family had been murdered by the military. Unscripted, and in the midst of tears, Francis finally pronounced the word: the presence of God today is also

Vor genau 100 Jahren wurde der bis dahin weitgehend unbekannte Privatgelehrte Oswald Spengler (1880– 1936) mit seinem Monumentalwerk vom Untergang des Abendlandes auf einen Schlag berühmt und avancierte zu einem der einflussreichsten Denker der Weimarer Republik. Dem durch und durch von der Goetheschen Formenlehre und vom Nietzscheanischen Elitismus Geprägten waren die Nationalsozialisten in ihrer Pöbelhaftigkeit und Gemeinheit zutiefst verhasst.

Während das Buch in der Zwischenkriegszeit in fast jedem bildungsbürgerlichen Haushalt zu finden war und auch ausländische Intellektuelle wie etwa José Ortega y Gasset, André Fauconnet, F. Scott Fitzgerald oder Henry Miller beeinflusste, spielten Werk und Verfasser nach 1945 jahrzehntelang eine immer geringere Rolle.

Indes: Fast siebzig Jahre, nachdem Theodor W. Adorno voreilig das Vergessen Spenglers konstatierte, hält sich der Universalgelehrte immer noch hartnäckig in der Diskussion und feiert in jüngster Zeit geradezu eine Wiederauferstehung. Vom Feuilleton über die Literatur bis zur wissenschaftlichen Debatte in verschiedensten Disziplinen beeinflusst er zunehmend das geistige Leben.

Das hat seinen Grund. Mit seiner grandiosen Gesamtschau der Weltgeschichte überwand Spengler als einer der ersten Denker die eurozentrische Betrachtungsweise. Seine Prognosen erweisen sich bis heute oftmals als hellseherisch visionär. Im vorliegenden Band finden sich die Gedanken von zehn deutschen und internationalen Autoren über Spenglers Bedeutung für das einundzwanzigste Jahrhundert vereint. Ob es um seinen Stellenwert für das Verständnis der Frühgeschichte, der Geschichtsphilosophie, der Rechtsgeschichte, des modernen Finanzkapitalismus, der Rolle der USA als eines »faustischen« Imperiums oder der gegenwärtigen Identitätskrise des Westens geht – in allen Beiträgen zeigt sich: Spengler bleibt weiterhin brandaktuell.

For much of sociology’s history, few of its scholars have cared about Robert Malthus (1766–1834), and his principle that the human desire to procreate will always outstrip what nature can provide. Early interest (cf. Alexis de Tocqueville or Karl Marx; see Drolet, 2003) waned when increases in food supply during the 20th century seemed to prove Malthus wrong. But when the extent of environmental problems became more apparent towards the end of that century, the appreciation of Malthus changed. Perhaps the reverend was right about nature’s limits? As the book title reveals, Giorgos Kallis has no such doubt. Malthus’ error, according to Kallis, is not a failure to anticipate tractors and fertilisers, but assuming that nature is limited.

The international system of civilized states that came to develop in Europe in the course of the nineteenth century was formed through practices of recognition which created and affirmed similarities between all European states, but also through practices of non-recognition which created and affirmed differences between Europeans and non-Europeans. Practices of non-recognition are generally ignored in liberal accounts of the origins of international society. A theory of recognition allows us to retrieve this alternative history and make it explicit.

Peer reviewed and published quarterly, Thesis Eleven (Thesis 11, Sage Publishing) is a multidisciplinary journal that reaches across the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, philosophy, geography, cultural studies, literature and politics) and cultivates diverse critical theories of modernity. Reflecting the broad scope of social theory it encourages civilizational analysis on a wide range of alternative modernities and explores critical theory from the margins of the world system to its centre.

Portuguese art history experienced remarkable development after World War II, especially with the work of José-Augusto França, who was responsible for establishing a historiographic canon for nineteenth- and twentieth-century Portuguese art that still endures. José-Augusto França developed a narrative that held Paris up as an artistic and cultural role model in relation to which he diagnosed a permanent delay in Portuguese art. This essay analyses França’s idea of belatedness in the context of Portuguese art historiography and political history and how it is part of a genealogy of intellectual thought produced in an imperial context, revisiting previous art historians and important authors, such as Antero de Quental and António Sérgio. Moreover, it aims to address how the concept of belatedness was associated with the idea of “civilisation” and the idea of “art as civilisation.” Belatedness also has implications in the constraints and specificities of writing a master narrative in a peripheral country – a need particularly felt in the second half of the twentieth century, to mark a political standpoint against the dictatorship that ruled from 1926 to 1974. Part of the reaction to fascism expressed the desire to follow other nations’ democratic example, but the self-deprecating judgements on Portuguese art were frequently associated with the identification of essentialist motifs – the “nature” of the Portuguese people, their way of thinking, of living, their lack of capacities or skills – and of a self-image of being “primitive” in comparison with other European countries that has antecedents going back to the eighteenth century. I will address the nostalgia for the empire and the prevailing notion of belatedness throughout the twentieth century regarding unsolved issues with that nostalgia.

Until 1993 there were conducted first excavations in what promised to be the site of one of the most important buildings of Petra, the stunning capital of the Nabataean kingdom. Its construction, whose initiation century BC, several changes, reconstructions and landslides along its more than five hundred years of operation. But despite this still unknown for certain functions for which it was designed and that, regardless of the construction elements, materials have been located just still less inscriptions that shed some light on a mystery that will try here exhibit various theories that enable closer to resolution.

Lowland Maya civilization flourished in the tropical region of the Yucatan peninsula and environs for more than 2500 years (~1000 BCE to 1500 CE). Known for its sophistication in writing, art, architecture, astronomy, and mathematics, Maya civilization still poses questions about the nature of its cities and surrounding populations because of its location in an inaccessible forest. In 2016, an aerial lidar survey across 2144 square kilometers of northern Guatemala mapped natural terrain and archaeological features over several distinct areas. We present results from these data, revealing interconnected urban settlement and landscapes with extensive infrastructural development. Studied through a joint international effort of interdisciplinary teams sharing protocols, this lidar survey compels a reevaluation of Maya demography, agriculture, and political economy and suggests future avenues of field research.

В современном мире существуют три суперцивилизации – это египетско-месопотамская
разделяющая суперцивилизация, индийская суперцивилизация множества и китайская объединяющая суперцивилизация. В данной статье описаны символы, а также материальные и  духовные характеристики этих суперцивилизаций.

The city of Siena is a medieval city that was built in 30A.D, with the aim of being a military
base near Rome, by the Romans. After that, this city was developed in the medieval
time and it has continued its life with the same medieval structures. Siena is one of the
few cities with such a spatial organization. The considerable characteristic of this city is
large a urban square with the important municipality court on one side of it. The whole
city has presumably directed towards this square. The religion is considered as one of the
prominent governmental elements in the city. Accordingly the aim of this study is to find
a logical relation among the medieval beliefs and formation of Del Campo Square in the
urban design of Siena. Regarding the municipality court structure in the southern part of
the square and the direction of the square towards this building, it is found that its formation,
even in the Gothic era, is occurred, when the capitalist system was dominating the
medieval community, which has caused the formation of the community and construction
of municipality courts to support the democratic governments. The present article uses a
descriptive/analyticalresearch methodology, and data are collected through observations
and using of library documents.

Vedono qui la luce in prima edizione italiana, per le attente cure di Spartaco Pupo, gli scritti giovanili di David Hume: il Saggio storico sulla cavalleria e l’onore dei moderni, steso quando aveva meno di vent’anni e mai dato alle stampe, e i Memoranda, preziosa collezione di appunti manoscritti, consistente in più di trecento aforismi, riassunti e citazioni da classici del pensiero filosofico-politico e risalente al decennio precedente la pubblicazione delle sue opere principali. Tali scritti testimoniano un’intensa e variegata attività di ricerca bibliografica, incentrata prevalentemente su temi di politica, religione, diritto ed economia, cui il giovane Hume si accosta animato da un interesse profondo per lo sviluppo delle istituzioni sociali e politiche e il processo di civilizzazione delle nazioni moderne. Si tratta di testi dal notevole valore storico, poiché offrono un singolare e finora inedito panorama delle fonti e della genesi del pensiero del più grande filosofo britannico del Settecento.


Here they see the light in the first Italian edition, for the careful care of Spartaco Pupo, the youthful writings of David Hume: the "Historical Essay on the Chivarly and Modern honour", written when he was less than twenty years old, and never given to the press, and the "Memoranda", a precious collection of manuscript notes, consisting of over three hundred aphorisms, summaries and quotations from the classics of philosophical-political thought and dating back to the decade preceding the publication of his principal works. These writings bear witness to an intense and varied bibliographic research activity, focused mainly on themes of politics, religion, law and economics, to which young Hume approaches animated by a profound interest in the development of social and political institutions and the process of civilization of modern nations. These are texts of considerable historical value, as they offer a singular and hitherto unpublished view of the sources and genesis of thought of the greatest British philosopher of the eighteenth century.

This paper examines Alfred Kroeber’s conception of “culture” and “civilization” by comparing the two versions of his classic textbook, Anthropology.  The first version was published in 1923 and was widely used as a standard textbook in introductory anthropology courses at American universities.  The thoroughly revised and enlarged edition of some 850 pages was published in 1948, just two years after his retirement from University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for nearly a half century.
In the 1923 edition, Kroeber uses “civilization” and “civilizations” more frequently than “culture” or “cultures” as he did in his classic 1917 paper, “The Superorganic,” and in his 1919 “On the Principle of Order in Civilization as Exemplified by Changes of Fashion,” which examined the long-term trend of stylistic changes in women’s dress.  The term civilization is used more or less synonymously with the term culture.  Kroeber does not define either of the terms but his usage suggests that civilization is conceived as something social or cultural, that is, superorganic and superindividual, irreducible to heredity or psychology of organic individual.
In the 1948 edition, Kroeber adds new chapters devoted to the nature of culture.  He now uses the term culture more often than the term civilization, but he continues to use them synonymously and interchangeably.  He also continues to characterize culture as something superorganic and superindividual, although he distinguishes the social from the cultural.  His conception of civilization now focuses on patterns and styles that differentiate one civilization from another but his main concern remains in the discovery of generalized principle of civilizational processes throughout human history.
In short, Kroeber treated culture and civilization as synonyms throughout his long academic career and devoted himself to the discovery of the general patterns in the development of human culture or civilization as such.  I therefore conclude that Kroeber did not fully achieved paradigmatic shift to the modern anthropological conception of culture.  He may not be alone in this, for eminent anthropologists as Robert Redfield, Ralph Linton, Leslie A. White, and Julian H. Steward also concerned themselves with the question of the macro history of human culture or civilization.

El 1er Cabildo Digital de Xalapa surge de la necesidad de vincular gobiernos horizontales: de autoridades del ayuntamiento de Xalapa; y de la participación de los ciudadanos. Principalmente para vincular los problemas de la sociedad xalapeña con la administración municipal. En efecto, a partir de las nociones del concepto de “educación” y “comunicación” entre: Luhmann, Lyotard y Foucault –principalmente de este último– este estudio de caso se desarrolla la viabilidad e impacto de los proyectos generados, así como vulnerabilidades y riesgos en contextos de violencia e inseguridad hacia el ejercicio de comunicación y participación del 1er Cabildo Digital de Xalapa, permitiendo generar estrategias de vinculación digital entre sociedad civil y gobierno municipal, usando las redes sociales para contrarrestar los principales problemas que atañen a nuestra sociedad xalapeña; principal tema en cuestión.

The research focuses on the importance of the interrelationship between identity and heritage as a bonding factor that brings together all those who contributed to the formation of this heritage, regardless of the other ethnic, religious and linguistic affiliations within one identity, the Syrian national identity.

العنوان: الهوية والتراث الثقافي المادي في سورية

يركز البحث على أهمية الترابط بين الهوية والتراث باعتباره يشكل عامل ترابط يجمع كل من أسهم في تكوين هذا التراث بغض النظر عن الانتماءات الآثنية والدينية واللغوية الآخرى ضمن هوية واحدة هي الهوية الوطنية السورية.

Yaklaşık iki yüzyıldır köklü bir medeniyet buhranı ile karşı karşıyayız.  Sarsıcı olan bu buhran hala varlığını devam ettirirken yaşananları daha iyi anlamak için evrensel ölçekte medeniyet teorilerini irdelemeye ihtiyaç vardır. Bu çalışmada tarihsel gelişimin evrensel yasalara uygun olarak gerçekleştiğini göstermeyi hedefleyen İngiliz tarihçi ve düşünür Henry Thomas Buckle’ın (1821-1862) “İngiltere’de Medeniyet Tarihi” adlı eseri özelinde medeniyet teorisi incelenmektedir. Bu çalışmamızda tarihi bir bilim haline getirme girişiminde bulunan Buckle’ın medeniyet teorisinin yanısıra İbn Haldun, Norbert Elias, Arnold J. Toynbee, Ebu'l-Hasan Habib el-Maverdi, François Guizot ve John Searl’ün medeniyet teorilerine de karşılaştırmalı bir perspektifle yer verilmektedir. Bu çalışma ile ulaşmaya çalıştığımız husus, medeniyet teorilerini “iyi”, “kötü”, “başarılı” veya “başarısız” olarak tanımlamaktan ziyade bir medeniyet teorisinin doğuşu, gelişimi ve tekamül sürecini anlamaya çalışmak, evrensel ölçekte kapsayıcı bir medeniyet tasavvuru sunup sunmadıklarını çok yönlü bir şekilde irdelemektir.

If "two are better than one," then many brains will be better than none, right? It is going to seem bizarre and this is not going to go down well with the intellectually proud, but scientists are discovering that microbes without brains can make decisions that are wiser than those made by humans. If finding wisdom in extremely stupid creatures seems odd, bear in mind that locusts do not have much of a brain and yet the Bible mentions them as illustrations of extreme wisdom. Perhaps wisdom is quite different to intelligence as evolutionary psychologists are saying. Used wisely, intelligence is a great blessing from God, but used foolishly, as we will see, it is a terrible curse. These microbes are simple creatures without a brain and with big problems. Their environment is replete with risks. Yet they are able to thrive by assessing and responding appropriately and proportionately. How microbes cope strategically with threats is a wonder of nature. As we unfold how they do it, we will discover what they have that predisposes them to wisdom. We will also discover why it is that humans have a predisposition to poor judgement. We tend to over-react to lesser overt threats such as snakes and under-react to more insidious ones. Many would venture that a blatantly malevolent Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse-tung were the most dangerous individuals of the 20th century. However, we will see that this distinction needs to go to another who is regarded as a hero but who has caused death and suffering on an even more massive scale. He was an extremely intelligent and educated man, but a foolishly reckless one. It is, however, superficial to make him the monstrous culprit behind all the devastation because he himself is the product of insidious forces. His all-consuming faith was not in Christ, but in very toxic ideas that started to gain ground centuries earlier. We will trace those ideas and why it is that they had such terrible consequences. What we need most crucially is wisdom.  We can learn wisdom from microbes, but with our knowledge and intelligence comes the imperative for a special wisdom from the Master. Taking risks is serious even for earthly matters. How much more so for spiritual matters? We will see that knowing the Master himself is the surest path to deep wisdom and abundant and eternal life.

""En Filipo II y el Arte de la Guerra tendremos la oportunidad de conocer en profundidad a uno de los más grandes reyes de la antigua Macedonia. Gracias a su habilidad como estratega, diplomático, político y soldado, heredó un reino pobre, débil y acosado por innumerables enemigos y lo transformó en el más poderoso de toda Grecia.

A lo largo de sus páginas podremos conocer la historia del reino Macedonio, desde sus orígenes míticos hasta la formación de un imperio, de la mano del que, a la postre, se convertiría en el padre del mítico Alejandro Magno y en el forjador de un nuevo ejército que cambiaria el devenir de la guerra en la Antigüedad. Filipo II fue el creador de la falange macedonia, formación que se demostraría como inigualable en el campo de batalla y que reportaría incontables victorias sobre poderosos enemigos, como los ilirios, los tesalios, los tracios, los beocios o los atenienses. Pero no sólo eso, logró integrar en el campo de batalla a la infantería y a la caballería para emplearlos en nuevas formaciones tácticas: armó a sus soldados con las míticas sarissas y apreció como pocos las posibilidades militares que la maquinaria de guerra podía proporcionarle, siendo el mecenas de numerosos avances en este campo. Soñó con conquistar el Imperio persa, cuando ya había logrado lo que nadie antes fue capaz: el control de Grecia.

Sólo la muerte le arrebató esa hazaña, pero sentó las bases de lo que más tarde conseguiría su propio hijo. Su figura levantó tanto odios como pasiones; se le conocía como mujeriego y bebedor, pero también por su habilidad para la oratoria, por sus astucia, determinación y valor. Siempre luchó en primera línea junto a sus soldados y nunca permitió que éstos le llamaran rey, sino solo "General".

The articles presented here grew out of a year-long discussion of the spatial dimensions of historical and cultural change in various parts of Asia during the early modern and modern periods. Each essay engages the ways in which geographies—here defined as visual and verbal discourses about space—perform political and cultural work. That is, we examine how geographies in Asia were deployed strategically, whether to map, narrate, frame, relocate, or dislocate particular places, regions, “homelands,” or nation-spaces. In recent centuries, these Asian geographies have necessarily coexisted with Western (principally European) geographies, whether in the colonial or postcolonial context. As these essays show, such coexistence has taken many forms, from conflict to emulation to apparent disinterest.

Статья посвящена проблеме осмысления домонгольских и ордынских истоков русской политической культуры. Цель исследования – выявить ключевые культурно-политические
элементы, заложившие основы российской цивилизации, и дать им общую характеристику.
Делается вывод о том, что, несмотря на наличие ряда домонгольских предпосылок, определяющим в процессе становления русской политической культуры явился ордынский период, в ходе которого она сформировалась как уникальная
культура евразийского типа, включившая в свой состав три ключевых элемента: а) самодержавно-холопскую модель взаимоотношений власти и общества; б) «второсортность» как этическую основу поведения элит; в) ресентимент как фундамент национального самосознания.

Ο σύγχρονος πολιτισμός είναι συνυφασμένος με τη νέα τεχνολογία, που συνιστά σήμερα το μέσο για την αξιοποίηση και προώθηση των πολιτισμικών αγαθών. Στα πολιτισμικά αυτά αγαθά μπορούμε να εντάξουμε, όχι μόνο την πολιτιστική μας κληρονομιά, αλλά και τις σύγχρονες εκφράσεις του πολιτισμού σε θέματα επιστήμης και καλλιτεχνικής δημιουργίας, καθώς και τις πολιτισμικού χαρακτήρα δραστηριότητες της καθημερινής μας ζωής. Ο ρόλος της νέας τεχνολογίας, με τη μορφή κυρίως των Τεχνολογιών Πληροφορικής και Επικοινωνιών, διαμορφώνει μια νέα πραγματικότητα, αυτή της Κοινωνίας της Πληροφορίας, που δραστηριοποιείται σημαντικά μέσω της λειτουργίας του «Παγκόσμιου Ιστού», για τη διάδοση και προώθηση ιδεών και αγαθών.
Ιδιαίτερα για την Περιφέρεια της Ηπείρου, που συνιστά ένα γεωγραφικό χώρο αξιόλογων ιστορικών και πολιτισμικών διαδρομών, η αξιοποίηση της νέας τεχνολογίας μπορεί να αναδείξει και να προωθήσει τα πολιτιστικά αποθέματα σε διάφορες μορφές, υποστηρίζοντας παράλληλα τα κλασσικά μέσα έκφρασης, επικοινωνίας και αλληλεπίδρασης, αλλά και να διαμορφώσει νέες συνθήκες επικοινωνίας του πολίτη-χρήστη με το πολιτισμικό αγαθό ή προϊόν. Τη σημερινή εποχή, η παρουσία διαδικτυακών τόπων πληροφόρησης πολιτισμικού περιεχομένου είναι μεγάλη και αυξάνεται διαρκώς, ενώ παράλληλα δημιουργούνται διαδραστικές αίθουσες, εικονικά περιβάλλοντα και πρωτότυποι οδηγοί μουσείων και αρχαιολογικών χώρων, που έχουν ως αποτέλεσμα, την κατάργηση των χιλιομετρικών αλλά και των χρονικών αποστάσεων.
Στο πλαίσιο αυτό, γίνεται μια συστηματική καταγραφή και οργάνωση των πολιτισμικών στοιχείων ολοκληρωμένης ανάπτυξης της Ηπείρου, με την αξιοποίηση της τεχνολογίας των Γεωγραφικών Συστημάτων Πληροφοριών. Συγκεκριμένα, συλλέγονται και εισάγονται στο σύστημα πληροφορίες που αφορούν σε λαογραφικά στοιχεία, παραδόσεις (μουσικής, αρχιτεκτονικής, παραδοσιακών επαγγελμάτων, γνώσεων και δεξιοτήτων), εικαστικές και επιστημονικές δράσεις κι εκδηλώσεις, αρχαιολογικούς χώρους, ιστορικές τοποθεσίες και φυσικά τοπία, με στόχο τη συνδυασμένη αξιοποίηση όλων αυτών των στοιχείων που συνθέτουν την πολιτισμική φυσιογνωμία της Ηπείρου. Τα στοιχεία συγκεντρώνονται από βιβλία, διαδικτυακούς τόπους, και άλλες πηγές και οργανώνονται σε βάση δεδομένων με χαρτογραφική αναφορά. Στο υλικό περιλαμβάνονται επίσης φωτογραφίες, σχέδια και κάθε αναφορά που μπορεί να απεικονίσει πληρέστερα τα πολιτισμικά χαρακτηριστικά της περιοχής, σε μία multimedia εφαρμογή.
Ειδικότερα η πολιτιστική κληρονομιά, που αποτελεί για τη χώρα μας σημαντικό παράγοντα προσέλκυσης τουριστικού ενδιαφέροντος με επισκέψεις σε αρχαιολογικούς χώρους και μουσεία, δημιουργεί και αντίστοιχη οικονομική δραστηριότητα, που συνεπάγεται την ανάγκη διαρκούς αναπροσαρμογής των μοντέλων και των τεχνικών παροχής προϊόντων και υπηρεσιών για την προσέλκυση των επισκεπτών και την πληρέστερη ενημέρωσή τους (π.χ. μέσω περιπτέρου πληροφόρησης: info-kiosk). Είναι φανερό ότι μια τέτοια αναβάθμιση προαπαιτεί σοβαρές υποδομές πληροφόρησης, στην κατεύθυνση των οποίων είναι και η παρούσα εργασία.

В монографии разработаны теоретические принципы и методология изучения политического процесса (на примере Каспийского региона), который исследован как целостная система, уровни и структурные элементы которой, обладая внутренней логикой развития, могут формироваться также под влиянием буддийского цивилизационного фактора. Выделено системнострук-турное значение русской цивилизации. Предназначено для научных сотрудников и преподавателей вузов, изучающих взаимодействие культур и цивилизаций, религии и политики, для студентов, чья специализация связана с изучением культурного, историко-политического, туристского и иного потенциала народов и стран.

This book offers an enquiry into the development of meeting behaviour, that is: human behaviour during councils, assemblies, parliaments, conferences which increasingly represent more people, and other, both formal and informal, meetings to discuss and arrange the common future. The selected approach involved studying the history of meetings. However, it was the formulation of the problem from a sociological perspective which actually determined the approach. The theory which aroused my interest in meetings, and which appeared to offer many, sometimes surprising, leads for a sociological study of meetings, was the theory of civilizing processes, the basis of which was laid by Norbert Elias. Therefore, this is not a comparative history of meetings but a succession of ‘case studies’ exploring the genesis of meeting behaviour.

The meaning of civilization has changed depending on time and place during history. Current consensus on the definition of civilization is 'an advanced state of human society with developed organizations, government, and technology.' However, establishing civilizations also includes "developed" cultures and social norms. These unwritten rules force 'civilized people' to obey these norms, even if it means erasing a part of their identity. Therefore, when one examines civilizations from the aspect of individuals, it is clearly seen that personalities are suppressed due to the unwritten rules. In Freudian terms, that corresponds to repressing the unconscious.

In this paper I attempt to create a framework for understanding Islamic Art as an integral component of Islamic civilization, and an offspring of the complex and diverse political, social, economic, intellectual and spiritual traditions that lay within the umbrella of Islamic civilization. My aim is to combine a personal interpretation and analysis of various manifestations of art within Islamic civilization with a review and discussion of the views of past thinkers on Islamic art to come up with a refined framework for understanding Islamic Art. My conclusions are that a balanced understanding of Islamic Art cannot ignore the spiritual undercurrents that run through this art tradition and dismiss it as mere acethetics - a conclusion that runs counter to how certain modern thinkers have described Islamic art.
This topic has wider importance for our course objectives in that it consists of a critical evaluation of the theme of Islamic art as it relates to our understanding of Islamic civilization as a whole.

No one can deny the importance of extensive reading in learning a foreign language and therefore knowing others' literature opens a window on their culture. However, both teachers and learners of a foreign language are faced with the problem of finding the literary texts that are suitable for learning. There are two types or versions of literature to be used. There is the simplified text where there are modifications at the level of the difficult words and expressions in order to render them good material for language learning as well as to make the learner accustomed to more and more words, syntax and structure patterns of the new language. There is a second type of literary text which is shortened by cutting off all the words, sometimes even paragraphs that might be spared without reducing the value of the work as literature. (P.Gurvey, 1970) This distinction of what type of literary text should be chosen for learning a foreign language is very important. While the simplified text is appropriate for easy reading and excellent language learning, the shortened text is the most suitable material for integrating students into a foreign culture, customs and thoughts which contribute to the learner's education. Key Words: foreign language – literature – simplified text – shortened text-culture

The natures and domains of the meanings of culture and civilization
and their mutual proportions are discussed in this article. According to
author, without defining the boundaries of these cases it is impossible to
accurately assess their natures and contents. In a variety of peoples and
periods these concepts are used in different meanings. In the beginning of
the 20th century, the understanding of civilization meant a cyncretic
meaning and contained some aspects of both culture and civilization in
Azerbaijan and Turkey.
As highlighted in the article, despite of ethnic-national character of the
culture-civilization, the concept of civilization-culture has a more universal
character.

In an ecological framework, nature is both a subject to be learned and an object through which to discover. These two characteristics determine the outcome of how we approach nature in order to understand it in the most effective way; that is, as we have to comprehend the core of nature for the very basic survival grounds, we have to know how to approach it. Forrest Carter's The Education of Little Tree, in this sense, becomes an analysis of the different methods of this approach. Carter's story presents the difference between acquiring nature through a performative process so to be in harmony with the natural cycle, and learning it in order to extract the profits regardless of ecological concerns. Thus, Carter leads us to the idea that interactively experiencing the natural processes within our environment is the most effective and natural way of education, which stands opposite to the Westernized understanding of " taming " under the title of " education ". In this paper, we will analyze how human beings create a distance between their own essence and identity, beginning " with " nature and shifting towards " the " nature. Falling from the empty space of the heavens, or clinging to the dark protection of a womb, life begins with a single drop. The first reaction of the matter to the cause initiates the eternal cycle of nature. Thus the thing finds itself tasting the continuous experience of its environment, of nature, of itself. Within this natural cycle, everything has a function that somewhat affects the other, however involuntarily. Yet one thing among all the others has the capability of deliberation, intention and will, which therefore gives it a very crucial position in this cycle. Carter believes that this crucial position is to maintain the natural balance with developing methods for understanding the natural laws and interfering with distortions with a concern of global and ecological welfare. Human beings, in this sense, are the only agencies, who are able to comprehend the natural balance by deducing the exorbitances and