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Item Open Access A NATION’S HOLY LAND: KAZAKHSTAN’S LARGE-SCALE NATIONAL PROJECT TO MAP ITS SACRED GEOGRAPHY(Nationalities Papers, 2022) Tsyrempilov, Nikolay; Bigozhin, Ulan; Zhumabayev, BatyrkhanThis article focuses on the project Sacred Geography of Kazakhstan, launched in 2017 in Kazakhstan as part of the nationwide program Ruqani Zhangyru (Modernization of Spirituality). The officially stated goal of the project is to cultivate a sense of patriotism in the country’s residents related to places and geographic sites that are important for the historical memory of independent Kazakhstan. The authors assume that the real goal of the project is national territorialization, or recoding of the semantics of space, by selecting, codifying, and articulating some symbols and practices, while leveling and “forgetting” others. The analysis, which is based on expert interviews and official documents, shows that this postcolonial process fits into the tendency toward ethnonationalization of Kazakhstan, in which discourse on the civil nation continues to be reproduced at the official level, while real activity is more focused on reinforcing the idea of Kazakhstan as the state of the Kazakh nation. The institutionalization of organizing and recoding the sacred landscape involves a wide variety of groups and actors. These factors may explain the success of the project in comparison to other projects being implemented under the Ruqani Zhangyru program.Item Open Access ВОСТОК ВНУТРИ «ВОСТОКА»? ЦЕНТРАЛЬНАЯ АЗИЯ МЕЖДУ «СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКИМ ЭССЕНЦИАЛИЗМОМ» ГЛОБАЛЬНЫХ СИМВОЛОВ И ТАКТИЧЕСКИМ ЭССЕНЦИАЛИЗМОМНАЦИОНАЛЬНЫХ НАРРАТИВОВ(National Research University, Higher School of Econoimics, 2020) Шелекпаев, Нари; Чокобаева, АминатВ своей статье «Разыскивая Глобальный Восток: мышление между Севером и Югом» Мартин Мюллер предлагает ряд радикальных, хотя и не новых, мыслей о роли, ко-торую постсоциалистические страны играют в современном мире, их восприятии, а также производстве знания о самих себе в этих странах. Данная статья является от-ветом на текст Мюллера и размышлением над историографией Центральной Азии — составной части «Глобального Востока». В первом разделе этого текста мы разберем собственно подход Мюллера и объясним, почему он кажется нам проблематичным с исторической точки зрения. Во втором сфокусируемся на производстве «внешнего» и «внутреннего» знания о Центральной Азии и предложим ответную парадигму — «тактический эссенциализм» — которая, как нам кажется, лучше всего описывает производство исторических нарративов в регионе на настоящий момент. Несмотря на различия между двумя понятиями, нам представляется, что «стратегический» и «так-тический» эссенциализм по сути являются проявлениями одного и того же процес-са — а именно попытками вытеснения советского прошлого из этоса постсоциалисти-ческих исследователей (либо его замещения другими нарративами).Ключевые слова: «Глобальный Восток», Центральная Азия, Советский Союз, постсо-ветское пространство, транснационализм, национализм(ы), историографияItem Open Access ВОСТОК ВНУТРИ «ВОСТОКА»? ЦЕНТРАЛЬНАЯ АЗИЯ МЕЖДУ «СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКИМ ЭССЕНЦИАЛИЗМОМ» ГЛОБАЛЬНЫХ СИМВОЛОВ И ТАКТИЧЕСКИМ ЭССЕНЦИАЛИЗМОМ НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫХ НАРРАТИВОВ(National Research University Higher School of Economics, 2020) Шелекпаев, Нари; Чокобаева, АминатВ своей статье «Разыскивая Глобальный Восток: мышление между Севером и Югом» Мартин Мюллер предлагает ряд радикальных, хотя и не новых, мыслей о роли, которую постсоциалистические страны играют в современном мире, их восприятии, а также производстве знания о самих себе в этих странах. Данная статья является ответом на текст Мюллера и размышлением над историографией Центральной Азии — составной части «Глобального Востока». В первом разделе этого текста мы разберем собственно подход Мюллера и объясним, почему он кажется нам проблематичным с исторической точки зрения. Во втором сфокусируемся на производстве «внешнего» и «внутреннего» знания о Центральной Азии и предложим ответную парадигму — «тактический эссенциализм» — которая, как нам кажется, лучше всего описывает производство исторических нарративов в регионе на настоящий момент. Несмотря на различия между двумя понятиями, нам представляется, что «стратегический» и «тактический» эссенциализм по сути являются проявлениями одного и того же процесса — а именно попытками вытеснения советского прошлого из этоса постсоциалистических исследователей (либо его замещения другими нарративами). Ключевые слова: «Глобальный Восток», Центральная Азия, Советский Союз, постсоветское пространство, транснационализм, национализм(ы), историографияItem Open Access EMBODIED COGNITION: DIMENSIONS, DOMAINS AND APPLICATIONS(Adaptive Behavior, 2021-02-01) Farina, MirkoThis article is intended as a response to Goldinger et al. and to all those, an increasing minority in the sciences, who still belittle the contribution of embodied cognition to our understanding of human cognitive behaviour. In this article (section 1), I introduce the notion of embodiment and explain its dimensions and reach. I review (section 2) a range of embodied cognition theories and highlight the principles and criteria on which they rely or draw from. I focus (section 3) on three crucial empirical domains in which an embodied perspective has driven novel insights about the relationship between mind and cognition. I argue that embodiment is not just a philosophical mantra empty of empirical content. I draw attention (section 4) to some of the recent ways in which principles underlying embodied cognition have begun to be applied in different fields (contemporary psychology). I review some of these interventions and suggest that discussing these applications not only provides additional evidence against any poverty claim but can also help moving the field forward in important ways. Contra Goldinger et al., I therefore conclude (section 5) that embodied cognition is a very fruitful research programme for the empirical sciences and that can adequately explain many aspects of human cognitive behaviour.Item Open Access The Role of Experts in the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Limits of Their Epistemic Authority in Democracy(Frontiers Media, 2020-07-14) Lavazza, Andrea; Farina, MirkoIn the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, medical experts (virologists, epidemiologists, public health scholars, and statisticians alike) have become instrumental in suggesting policies to counteract the spread of coronavirus. Given the dangerousness and the extent of the contagion, almost no one has questioned the suggestions that these experts have advised policymakers to implement. Quite often the latter explicitly sought experts' advice and justified unpopular measures (e.g., restricting people's freedom of movement) by referring to the epistemic authority attributed to experts. The main goal of this paper is to analyze the basis of this epistemic authority and the reasons why in this case it has not been challenged, contrary to the widespread tendency to devalue expertise that has been observed in recent years. In addition, in relation to the fact that experts' recommendations are generally technical and supposedly neutral, we note that in the COVID-19 crisis different experts have suggested different public health policies. We consider the British case of herd immunity and the US case of the exclusion of disabled people from medical care. These decisions have strong axiological implications and affect people profoundly in very sensitive domains. Another goal is, therefore, to argue that in such cases experts should justify their recommendations-which effectively become obligations-by the canons of public reason within the political process because when values are involved it is no longer just a matter of finding the “best technical solution,” but also of making discretionary choices that affect citizens and that cannot be imposed solely on the basis of epistemic authority.Item Open Access FACT-TRACKING BELIEF AND THE BACKWARD CLOCK: A REPLY TO ADAMS, BARKER AND CLARKE(Manuscrito, 2018-09-08) WILLIAMS, JOHNIn “The Backward Clock, Truth-Tracking, and Safety” (2015), Neil Sinhababu and I gave Backward Clock, a counterexample to Robert Nozick’s (1981) truth-tracking analysis of knowledge. In “Knowledge as Fact-Tracking True Belief” (2017), Fred Adams, John Barker and Murray Clarke propose that a true belief constitutes knowledge if and only if it is based on reasons that are sensitive to the fact that makes it true, that is, reasons that wouldn’t obtain if the belief weren’t true. They argue that their analysis evades Backward Clock. Here I show that it doesn’t. Backward Clock likewise shows their analysis to be too weak. The broader lesson seems to be that Backward Clock tells us the time is up for purely modal analyses of knowledge....Item Open Access Московская епархиальная революция(RUSSIAN PRESIDENTIAL ACAD NATL ECONOMY & PUBLIC ADM, 2019) Scarborough, DanielIn the months after the February Revolution, the Church was convulsed by a general revolt against ecclesiastical authority. The Church survived this revolt, and organized an " All- Russian Council ( Sobor)" from September of 1917 untilAugust of 1918, which re- established the Patriarchate of Moscow and negotiated a reform of the Church's authority structure. The ultimate success of the reform process depended on the ability of the Church's various communities to forge a compromise in the midst of a political and ecclesiastical revolution. This article traces the development of that compromise through the discourse of canon law.Item Open Access The Sangho in the Age of Degradation. Responses of the Russian Buddhists to the Russian Revolution and Civil War(Nazarbayev University School of Sciences and Humanities, 2019-01) Tsyrempilov, NikolayThe Buriat Buddhists who constituted the majority of the Buddhist population of the former Russian Empire did not stay away from the revolutionary events. The secular segment of the Buriat society viewed the collapse of the monarchy as the unfolding opportunity to get rid of the colonial legacy, including discrimination of their reli‑ gion. However, already in 1918 the deviation of the positions of cleri‑ cal and secular segments of the Buriat society became obvious. If the Buriat nationalists remained hostile to the idea of Restoration, the official Buddhist circles supported admiral Kolchak, whereas a part of rank‑and‑file lamas consolidated around the idea of Buddhist the‑ ocracy. After the Soviet regime firmly established in Trans‑Baikal area, a part of the Buddhist monks, the Buddhist renovationists un‑ der leadership of Agvan Dorzhiev, attempted to come to terms with the Bolsheviks. These attempts ended in the total defeat of the organ‑ ized Buddhist community by the late 1930s.Item Open Access The Ismaili of Central Asia(Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History., 2018) Beben, DanielThe Ismailis are one of the largest Muslim minority populations of Central Asia, and they make up the second largest Shiʿi Muslim community globally. First emerging in the second half of the 8th century, the Ismaili missionary movement spread into many areas of the Islamic world in the 10th century, under the leadership of the Ismaili Fatimids caliphs in Egypt. The movement achieved astounding success in Central Asia in the 10th century, when many of the political and cultural elites of the region were converted. However, a series of repressions over the following century led to its almost complete disappearance from the metropolitan centers of Central Asia. The movement later reemerged in the mountainous Badakhshan region of Central Asia (which encompasses the territories of present-day eastern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan), where it was introduced by the renowned 11th-century Persian poet, philosopher, and Ismaili missionary Nasir-i Khusraw. Over the following centuries the Ismaili movement expanded among the populations of Badakhshan, reaching a population of over 200,000 in the 21st century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Ismailis suffered a series of severe repressions, first under local Sunni Muslim rulers and later under the antireligious policies of the Soviet Union. However, in the decades since the end of the Soviet period, the Ismailis of the region have become increasingly connected with the global Ismaili community and its leadership. While many aspects of the history of Ismailism in the Badakhshan region remain obscure and unexplored, the discoveries of significant corpuses of manuscripts in private collections since the 1990s in the Badakhshan region have opened up wide possibilities for future research.Item Open Access «Зловредное суеверие» или «Лучшая из языческих религий»? Буддизм в православной публицистике XIX – начала XX вв(Религиоведение., 2012-10) Цыремпилов (Tsyrempilov), Н. (N).Попытки рационального осмысления буддизма, пред- принимавшиеся православными интеллектуалами, всегда были сугу- бо формальными. Исследовательский поиск был для них лишь удоб- ной формой, с помощью которой они могли эффективнее добивать- ся целей идеологического доминирования и утверждения своего ав- торитета. Их осмыслению буддизма мешало интеллектуальное и психологическое недопущение возможности другой веры не как лож- ной, а как принципиально иной. Несмотря на то, что после несколь- ких десятилетий официальной секуляризации православные христи- ане, мусульмане и буддисты России нашли платформу для дальней- шего сосуществования и даже активного взаимодействия, эта не- способность до сих пор препятствует полному взаимопониманию между христианством и буддизмом в современной России.Item Metadata only A neonatal perspective on Homo erectus brain growth(Journal of Human Evolution, 2015-04-01) Cofran, Zachary; DeSilva, Jeremy M.; Zachary, CofranAbstract The Mojokerto calvaria has been central to assessment of brain growth in Homo erectus, but different analytical approaches and uncertainty in the specimen's age at death have hindered consensus on the nature of H. erectus brain growth. We simulate average annual rates (AR) of absolute endocranial volume (ECV) growth and proportional size change (PSC) in H. erectus, utilizing estimates of H. erectus neonatal ECV and a range of ages for Mojokerto. These values are compared with resampled ARs and PSCs from ontogenetic series of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas from birth to six years. Results are consistent with other studies of ECV growth in extant taxa. There is extensive overlap in PSC between all living species through the first postnatal year, with continued but lesser overlap between humans and chimpanzees to age six. Human ARs are elevated above those of apes, although there is modest overlap up to 0.50 years. Ape ARs overlap throughout the sequence, with gorillas slightly elevated over chimpanzees up to 0.50 years. Simulated H. erectus PSCs can be found in all living species by 0.50 years, and the median falls below the human and chimpanzee ranges after 2.5 years. H. erectus ARs are elevated above those of all extant taxa prior to 0.50 years, and after two years they fall out of the human range but are still above ape ranges. A review of evidence for the age at death of Mojokerto supports an estimate of around one year, indicating absolute brain growth rates in the lower half of the human range. These results point to secondary altriciality in H. erectus, implying that key human adaptations for increasing the energy budget of females may have been established by at least 1 Ma.Item Open Access ‘Alien’ Lamas: Russian Policy toward Foreign Buddhist Clergy in the Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries(Inner Asia, 2012) Tsyrempilov, NikolayThis article analyses the Russian policy towards foreign Buddhist clergy who penetrated into the Russian Empire from Mongolia and Tibet between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on archive materials, the origins of this policy are identified. The attitude of the official Buddhist administration of East Siberia led by Khambo Lama to the so- called alien lamas is discussed.Item Open Access On the Soviet discovery of rural Central Asia. The Karp commission in context(Revue Monde(s). Histoire, Espaces, Relations, 2013) Penati, BeatriceIn 1925, the USSR communist party’s Central Asian Bureau ordered an inquiry on the countryside, resulting in the series The Modern Central Asian Village. It combined pre-revolutionary methods with Soviet attention to social stratification, while the benchmark of the pre-1917 economy and the composition of the commission revealed the heritage of Tsarist colonial rule.Item Open Access On the Local Origins of the Soviet Attack on “Religious” Waqf in the Uzbek SSR (1927)(Acta Slavica Iaponica, 2015) Penati, BeatriceThis article studies when, how, and by whom the decision to nationalise land properties the rent from which supported mosques, shrines, and hostels (rather than schools) was first taken in Soviet Uzbekistan. Through a quasi-philological reconstruction of the drafting process behind the land reform decree in a peripheral area of Fergana, the article demonstrates how local power dynamics produced incentives for provincial Party and Soviet leaders to prove themselves better Bosheviks than their neighbours. A close scrutiny of chains of command is essential for capturing the importance of local political agency, pace top-down interpretations that privilege Moscow's or Samarkand's viewpoints instead.Item Open Access The Constitutional Theocracy of Lubsan- Samdan Tsydenov: An Attempt to Establish a Buddhist State in Transbaikalia (1918–22)(State, Religion and Church, 2016) Tsyrempilov, NikolayThe paper examines the causes and circumstances of the establish- ment of a Buddhist theocratic state by Lubsan-Samdan Tsydenov, an outstanding figure of Buriat Buddhism. Drawing upon some hitherto unedited Tibetan, Mongolian and Russian sources, the paper undertakes a detailed reconstruction of the events in Siberian Transbaikalia in the period of the Russian Civil War. An analysis of personal notes by Tsydenov and the text of the constitution of the Kudun Buddhist state shows that “Kudun theocracy” was a syncretic fusion of the traditional Buddhist understanding of the Buddhist “Dharmic state” and modernist conceptions of republicanism and constitutional democracy. The Kudun theocracy should also be interpreted as a response of Buddhist circles to attempts by Buriat secular nationalists to build Buriat statehood based upon the idea of national self-determination. The Kudun project shows that Buddhism could serve as a foundation for state-building at the time of the early twentieth-century Russian political crisis.Item Open Access Noble Paganism. Orientalist Discourse on Tibetan Buddhism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Polemic Literature(Inner Asia, 2016) Tsyrempilov, NikolayTibetan Buddhism, in the eyes of Orthodox Christian polemicists, was always seen as a harmful paganism, and fifighting against this ‘superstition’ was a high priority. Based on analysis of nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox missionary articles, this paper examines the stereotyped portrayal of Tibetan Buddhism as a civilisational opponent to Christianity, and the ways Russian scholars, ethnographers, philosophers, and offiffcials either supported or challenged this view. In this paper, I argue that, in Russia, the Orientalist paradigm is common to a greater degree among Christian clergy than in academic circles due to the status of a dominating religion the Orthodoxу enjoyed in Russia. The Russian missionaries’ support of imperial power was the essential fac-tor. The clerics viewed themselves as carriers not only of Christian values, but also of the idea of Russian statehood and European civilisation in general. Russian Christian intellectuals repeatedly attempted to comprehend Buddhism rationally, but these attempts were highly formalistic. For them, academic study was never an end in itself, but, I argue, a convenient tool to achieve ideological domination and establish moral authority. However, their intellectual and psychological inability to view other reli-gions as different, rather than false, was, and still is, an obstacle to mutual understand-ing and respect between Christianity and Buddhism in today’s Russia.Item Open Access Introduction(Etudes Mongoles et Siberiennes, Centrasiatiques et Tibetaines, 2016) Tsyrempilov, NikolayPresent-day scholarship on the Buryats, or Buryat-Mongols, consciously or otherwise considers the people in question and the areas they inhabit as a marginal part or periphery of the Mongolian or Russian worlds ; the logic of this marginality is determined by the history of this ethno-cultural group formation at the civilizational juncture between Asia and Europe, and furthermore acquires its historical and cultural identity from this marginality. Indeed, most of the few Western Buryatologists approach their area specialization from one of two dominant perspectives. The majority of them initially had, and still have, an established basic interest in Russian studies or, to be precise, studies in Russian Siberia. In this perspective the Buryats are viewed as the largest indigenous people of Siberia, culturally and historically one of the most curious minorities of Asiatic Russia.Item Open Access Ulan-Ude Manuscript Kanjur: An Overview, Analysis and Brief Catalogue(Buddhist Studies Review, 2017-01) Tsyrempilov, NikolayThis study investigates the Mongolian manuscript Kanjur preserved at the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The manuscript previously be- longed to the Chesan Buddhist monastery of Central Transbaikalia and was brought to the Buruchkom, a rst academic institute of the Republic of Buryat-Mongolia (Ulan-Ude) by the eminent Buryat writer Khotsa Namsaraev. The manuscript is an almost complete copy of the Ligdan Khan’s Kanjur presumably made in the late sev- enteenth to early eighteenth century in Beijing. The article presents a description, analysis and brief catalogue of Ulan-Ude manuscript Kanjur.Item Open Access The intended perception of the Imperial Gardens of Chengde in 1780(Routledge, 2012-05-31) Forêt, PhilippeThe 'Record Written by the Emperor on the Mountain Manor to Escape the Heat' is a preface to an album of poems by the Qian Long Emperor (Qing Gaozong, r. 1735-96) illustrated by a series of engravings of vistas...Item Open Access Temperature and precipitation effects on agrarian economy in late imperial China(IOP Publishing Ltd Environmental Research Letters, 2016-06-09) Pei, Qing; Zhang, David D; Li, Guodong; Forêt, Philippe; Lee, Harry FClimate change has been statistically proven to substantially influence the economy of early modern Europe, particularly in the long term. However, a detailed analysis of climate change and the economy of historical China remains lacking, particularly from a large-scale and quantitative perspective. This study quantitatively analyzes the relationship between climate change and the economy in late imperial China (AD1600–1840) at the national level. This study also compares the findings on the relationship between climate change and the economy in late imperial China with those in early modern Europe. Results of multivariate regression and Granger causality analyses indicate that (1) climate change induces economic fluctuations in late imperial China, particularly in the long term; (2) given that the economic center is located in South China during the study period, temperature has a greater influence on the economy than precipitation; (3) the population of China is statistically proven to primarily act as consumers in the long term; and (4) given the long-term role of the Chinese population, the economic vulnerability in late imperial China under climate change is further increased and is higher than that in early modern Europe, whose population mainly acts as producers in the long term. In conclusion, the late imperial Chinese society has a high economic vulnerability to climate change. These findings revisit Malthusian theory and ‘Great Divergence’ theory by including the perspective of economic vulnerability under climate change during the study period. The role of the population must be investigated further to address the socioeconomic vulnerabilities under climate change.