Asceticism - The Joy of Fasting, Flagellation and Self-mutilation
In order to achieve a spiritual understanding, people have subjected themselves to extreme self denial through fasting, flagellation and self-mutilation (The Columbia Encyclopedia). This practice of self mortification is known as asceticism. Asceticism has been known to exist since the commencement of recorded religion. This zealous religious practice is associated with many religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity (The Columbia Encyclopedia). Derived from the Greek work askesis, asceticism adheres to its definition of exercise, training, and discipline- “Ascetical practices are human strategies for spiritual living. They have elements of effort and method, deprivation, and voluntary suffering” (Larkin, O. Carm).
Practicing ascetics strive for the enhancement of spiritual life as their ultimate goal. Asceticism has been implicated by many of its followers in order to “produce visions…mourn the dead…sharpen spiritual awareness…or reach accord with a god” (The Columbia Encyclopedia). The self-denying procedure is also a way in which to subdue sin within one’s life and restrain one’s evil inclinations.
Asceticism takes many forms. It can be applied broadly as an aspect of all cultures, as social asceticism. The social regulations that control society stress individual control. Without this self-control, society would fail to survive. This method of asceticism is loosely based upon the guidelines of discipline. The more severe forms of asceticism involve those who seek a profound spiritual journey. The drastic measures taken in order to fulfill the idea of self denial ofte...
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...re.com/depts/medmuseum/galleryexhibits/artthatheals/12imagesandasceticism.html
Mercier, Jacques. Art That Heals: the Image as Medicine in Ethiopia. New York: Prestel Books and the Museum for African Art, 1997.
This website is entitled “Images and Asceticism.” In Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence, Charles Strickland was a character that had an ascetic ideal in his artistic environment. These images display scenes of asceticism and the sufferings that were endured in the practice.
http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/installations/spiritual.shtml
This website also displays a painting of asceticism as was practiced in India.
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/asceticism.html
This website provides a detailed background and history of asceticism. It highlights interesting stories that account for the origination of the religious practice.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. No. 3 (1965): 524-540. http://www.jstor.org/stable/612097 (accessed December 1, 2013).
The display of Benin art in museum and galleries reflect the attitudes and perceptions of Europeans towards non-western artefacts, especially African. Thus as European attitudes change towards non-western art since the discovery of Benin art in 1897, Benin art has been revaluated and re-categorised.
The case of brown v. board of education was one of the biggest turning points for African Americans to becoming accepted into white society at the time. Brown vs. Board of education to this day remains one of, if not the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the better of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education (Silent Covenants pg 11); it was about being equal in a society that claims African Americans were treated equal, when in fact they were definitely not. This case was the starting point for many Americans to realize that separate but equal did not work. The separate but equal label did not make sense either, the circumstances were clearly not separate but equal. Brown v. Board of Education brought this out, this case was the reason that blacks and whites no longer have separate restrooms and water fountains, this was the case that truly destroyed the saying separate but equal, Brown vs. Board of education truly made everyone equal.
Before the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, many people accepted school segregation and, in most of the southern states, required segregation. Schools during this time were supposed to uphold the “separate but equal” standard set during the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson; however, most, if not all, of the “black” schools were not comparable to the “white” schools. The resources the “white” schools had available definitely exceed the resources given to “black” schools not only in quantity, but also in quality. Brown v. Board of Education was not the first case that assaulted the public school segregation in the south. The title of the case was shortened from Oliver Brown ET. Al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. The official titled included reference to the other twelve cases that were started in the early 1950’s that came from South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. The case carried Oliver Brown’s name because he was the only male parent fighting for integration. The case of Brown v. Board o...
“We conclude unanimously that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (qtd. in Irons 163). Many African-Americans waited to hear this quote from Chief Justice Earl Warren after many years of fighting for better educational opportunities by means of school desegregation. African-Americans went through much anguish before the Brown v. Board of Education trial even took place, especially in the Deep South. Little did they know that what looked like the beginning of the end was just another battle in what seemed like an endless war. Brown v. Board of Education was an important battle won during the Civil Rights Movement; however, it did have a major drawback simply because no deadline existed, an issue that author James Baldwin grasped from the moment the decision was made. The South took full advantage of this major flaw and continued to keep its segregated schools with no intention of ever integrating.
Western attitudes to African people and culture have always affected how their art was appreciated and this has also coloured the response to the art from Benin. Over time, concepts of ‘Race’, defined as a distinct group with a common lineage, and ‘Primitive’ which pertains to the beginning or origin,, have been inextricably linked with the perception of Africa. The confusion of the two in the minds of people at the end of the 19th century, and some of the 20th, caused a sense of superiority amongst the ‘White Races’ that affected every aspect of their interaction with ‘the Black’. The ‘Civilisation’ of Africa by conquest and force is justified by these views.
Patterson, James. “Brown v Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History).” Oxford University Press., 2001.
“Separate is not equal.” In the case of Plessey vs. Ferguson in 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court said racial segregation didn’t violate the Constitution, so racial segregation became legal. In 1954 the case of Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka this case proved that separate is not equal. Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was revolutionary to the education system, because colored people and Caucasians had segregated schools. The Caucasians received a better education and the colored people argued that they were separate but not equal. This would pave the way for integrated schools and change the education system as we knew it.
In 1954 through Brown V. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decided that forced segregation denied African Americans equal protection under the law as stated in the Fourteenth Amendment. Brown mandated equal access and opportunity. This decision created a wave of effects throughout the African American community. Unequal outcomes were fueled by low expectation and cultural incompatibilities along with the drainage of resources such as the removal of the best teachers through reassignment to desegregated schools or through firing (Green et al., 2005). Black students were also bused to predominately White schools disproportionately, causing many African American schools to close (Morris, 1999). Morris further state...
It was adopted in 1868, and had only given certain rights to African Americans, so African American families lead the fight for equality. Brown v. Board of Education stated that public schools must integrate, in which created an enormous controversy throughout the nation. .May 17, 1954 was an important milestone in American history, the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education unanimously outlawed racial segregation in public schools. During the trial, many experts testified the negative effects the discrimination segregation had on learning and furthering one 's’ education. I believe so as well, it makes one think that there is no hope for they themselves to be successful. To some Americans it would not matter if your intelligence outshone anyone, but because of stereotypes white Americans observed as a young child one was still misjudged. Due to the fact that white Americans grew up to believe that African Americans were filthy and uneducated human beings who do not belong in the high rank of society, it was difficult for many white Americans to accept the desegregation in public
Patterson, James. Brown v. Board of Education, A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Today, Oliver Brown’s case is deemed one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century. Brown’s case is just one of the five cases concerning the issue of segregation in public schools that all make up Brown vs. Board of Education. These five cases include; Brown v. Board o...
Kasfir, S. L. (2007) African Art and the Colonial Encounter: Inventing a Global Commodity, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION. (2009). Journal of Psychology and Theology, 37(1), 72. Retrieved April 21, 2009, from ProQuest Religion database. (Document ID: 1675034711).