Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Horsemen and horsewomen, fiction"

This paper surveys some of the developments in apocalyptic writing in recent decades, and then examine the use of apocalypse in George Turner's science fiction novels. Global events such as World War Two, terrorism, the Cold War, and increasing environmental problems have contributed to a growth in apocalyptic fictions. While novels warning about the dangers of nuclear war were prolific in post-WWII speculative literature, other issues such as technological and ecological disaster have since become dominant threats. Apocalypse literally means revelation, but the popular imagination more frequently associates it with widespread destruction. The form therefore offers a useful approach for writers keen to protest against political systems, harmful environmental policies, and reckless technological and scientific experimentation. Apocalypse allows authors to extrapolate from current events and imagine a terrible future should certain actions be taken. In Turner's novels, seemingly utopic societies have arisen after future catastrophes have devastated the world. Yet in reality these new societies are brutal and totalitarian regimes. Turner utilises apocalyptic themes and imagery to interrogate scientific, social and environmental policies and warn about looming environmental catastrophes if society does not address current problems of complacency and short-sighted governing.

The image of a phantom coach is very common in British folklore and, like its predecessors – Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Wild Hunt, it is closely associated with death and bad omens. Quite understandably, it was widely used in ghost stories written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are stories close to the folk tradition of storytelling, but much more often the authors create their own versions where the legends about phantom coaches are contaminated with other sources (such as ballads about demonic lovers) and lose certain elements which are essential for archaic mentality but can be easily neglected in modern fiction, e. g. death as punishment for doing or seeing something forbidden, church service as something that can drive away ghosts and demons. According to the rules of the genre, a coach turns into a kind of liminal zone, a subspace where the laws of the rational world do not work, a time capsule where the logic of a folktale prevails. There are versions where a coach is a means of communication between the world of the living and the world of the dead or demonic creatures. In later texts a coach gives way to a car, with all the functions preserved; this change is not connected with fears caused by the relatively new means of transport, the old image is merely transformed according to certain changes in everyday reality. The ancient themes of revenge, punishment, meeting the dead are recreated here, but sometimes the symbolism changes, it becomes more closely connected to the idea of time and memory. The analysis of how the image of a phantom coach works in ghost stories can help to understand certain tendencies in the development of the genre (what happens to folkloric sources, narrative principles, the ideas of time and death etc.).

The article explores the Buddhist components of the image of Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg in the works of Leonid Yuzefovich. The analysis is carried out within the framework of the concept of the “Buddhist text” in modern Russian literature. The author of the article discovers and comprehends Buddhist ideas and motifs present in the story Horsemen of the Sands and the documentary novel The Autocrat of the Desert. Indirectly, the article also uses the essay “The Six-Armed God and His ‘Sons’ ” from Yuzefovich’s The Most Famous Impostors. The story and the novel were reprinted several times, and each time the writer made significant edits to them, which fixed significant changes in the image of the main character and reflected the writer’s deepening knowledge about Buddhism. The image of Baron Ungern in the story and in the novel is a complex and synthetic image, it combines the signs of a positive hero and of an infernal being, each of which is rooted in Buddhist metaphysics. The image of the baron as a character in Yuzefovich’s fiction correlates with the image of the real Roman Ungern von Sternberg. The real Baron Ungern looks no less exotic than his literary reflection. He is a participant in the White Movement, a religiously motivated warrior for the Buddhist faith, who comes into conflict with the West. He realizes himself inspired by Buddhist hierarchies and exists in the space of the approaching apocalypse. At the same time, in connection with the image of Baron Ungern in the story Horsemen of the Sands, the writer turns to the problems rooted in Buddhist philosophy, in particular, he raises questions of the illusory nature of being, karma and nonviolence. The image of horsemen of the sands fixed in the title of the story is a metaphor of time absorbing people and events, of the illusory space, of the unreliable human ontology, and of the unseemly vanity. Another idea of the story is the impossibility of avoiding the consequences of what has been done both at the level of the history of nations and of the fate of an individual due to karma, that is, the Buddhist law of created causes and matured consequences. The writer interprets both the appearance of Ungern in Mongolia and his passing away as a manifestation of bad karma. Finally, another important idea of the story is the idea of the essential discrepancy between the ethics of Buddhism and the idea of its violent, military propagation. The convergence of Buddhism and war in Horsemen of the Sands looks wrong and inappropriate, and leads people who have embarked on such a road to collapse at the level of their own destiny and to a historical defeat.

This article focuses its attention on the functioning of the biblical motifs in American fiction and their penetration in American public speeches and non-fiction through literary journalism techniques. The findings of this work illustrate that biblical motifs and religious lexicon as a whole have been used steadily in the speeches of all U.S presidents. Taking into account that the majority of Americans (73%) relates to Christians, the biblical motifs belong to important rhetorical and stylistic tools of all U.S. presidents in their search for the support of voters. Since Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), there has been an apparent tendency to employ more religious words and biblical motifs. The most active users of them were Donald Trump, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama who applied 7.3, 4.8, and 4.1 religious words per one thousand in their speeches. While monitoring the biblical motifs in American mass media and multimedia, we identified the most periodically applied: God, All-Mighty, Lord, Supreme Being; Satan, Devil, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Baphomet; Saint Mary; Archangels; Angels; Four Horsemen of Apocalypses; The Three Wise Men; Messiah, the Chosen One; All-loving hero; Cain and Abel; Samson and Delilah; False prophet; Nephilim, giants. According to our findings 136 names of angels were determined in American fiction and non-fiction. As for the theological angels, whose names differ sometimes, their number is 123. The total number of Archangels, mentioned in America mass media, is 17. However, in the Bible and Enoch book just only seven archangels are named. The research results could be used by the specialists in media studies, journalism and philology, as well as by practical journalists and multimedia authors, including Ukrainian students, who plan to sharpen their skills in writing English content.

This paper examines the image of the First World War that the Spanish writer and journalist Vicente Blasco Ibáñez creates in his works of history and fiction. The paper deals with journalistic texts written by Blasko Ibáñez, collected in a multi-volume history of the First World War (Historia de la Guerra europea de 1914) and the novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis). We interpret the representations of the causes of war, with a special reference to the issue of "modern war" and the news it brings, we find parallels, similarities and differences between the representations in the novel and the historical work. The aim is to question the historical and cultural context in which the author pronounces certain judgments about the war, and then about the German people, with an emphasis on how pre-war Germanophilia turns into Germanophobia expressed in the analysed novel and History.

El dinamismo militar del Imperio Británico generó una profunda cultura ecuestre y unos caballos fuertes, acostumbrados a los ritmos de las guerras. Los periodos de paz propiciaron que militares y mercenarios desarrollaran un nuevo tipo de equitación espectacular que les permitiría una nueva fuente de ingresos. En 1768, el inglés Thomas Price actuó en Madrid, siendo aquellas las primeras representaciones documentadas en España de un nuevo género, el de la equitación espectacular; que atraería más de setenta centenar de troupes ecuestres especializadas en tales ejercicios a lo largo de un siglo y medio. La total inexistencia de un estudio histórico al respeto hace que hoy nos preguntemos: ¿Cuál fue la actividad de aquellas compañías ecuestres en España y qué papel desempeñaron en la construcción del espectáculo circense en su forma actual? La evolución de las exhibiciones a campo abierto de aquellos jinetes de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII conllevó la invención de la pista, el círculo que permite inferir al caballo un ritmo de trote regular controlado por el látigo del director ecuestre situado en el centro de la circunferencia. En su continuo desarrollo, las compañías ecuestres, las que dieron razón de ser a la pista, estrenaron procesos de maridaje primero y captación después con varios espectáculos basados, por lo general, en la pericia del hombre: los personajes de la comedia dell’arte y el clown isabelino mutarán a payasos, los volatines a funámbulos, los gimnastas atléticos se convertirán en acróbatas y saltadores, los exhibicionistas de animales en amaestradores, etc. La hipótesis de que fue a partir de las compañías ecuestres cómo se vertebró el circo moderno nace de la exigencia de aquellas en ostentar un espacio propio: el del círculo de la pista que, progresivamente, integraría los elementos citados anteriormente. Vinculada a la función ecuestre, la palabra “circo” no lo definirá más que de forma tardía -en España no se usa hasta 1830- y en un primer momento ni tan sólo será aplicada al espectáculo sino simplemente al nuevo espacio de representación: al edificio cuya techumbre cobija la pista. En una metonimia clarísima, a partir de mediados de siglo XIX, “circo” empieza a designar aquel género que inicia muy lentamente su desapego al elemento ecuestre. De esta forma, esta tesis aporta una propuesta teórica y metodológica que permite abordar un tema ignorado llenando un vacio en la historiografía española del espectáculo. La presente investigación nace con el objetivo de identificar, localizar, aglutinar, sistematizar, ordenar e interpretar el conjunto de fuentes útiles para la elaboración de una historia de la actividad de las compañías ecuestres, origen de las artes circenses en España. Para sistematizar y ordenar según varios parámetros útiles la información localizada a través de nuestras consultas se procede a confeccionar un archivo único que, en forma de ficha, recopila los datos de la estancia de la compañía ecuestre en la ciudad: nombre de la troupe, director/a, fechas y lugar de actuación, elenco artístico, programa, cantidad de caballos, precios de entrada, etc. Informaciones extraídas de soportes múltiples: prensa, documentación administrativa, libros, publicidad y fotografía. La recogida de aquellos datos primero y el minucioso estudio posterior de cada una de las compañías ecuestres que actuaron en España desemboca en el conocimiento de las pautas que gobernaban su permanente trashumancia: las leyes internas que regían las familias de artistas, base de la compañía; los medios de transporte empleados; las rutas y sus principales paradas; la temporada de actuación con las peculiaridades de su calendario; su repertorio de ejercicios; sus métodos de aprendizaje, publicidad y administración; las competencias y frecuentes dificultades y, por supuesto, la composición de sus públicos.
The military dynamism of the British Empire generated a deep-tooted equestrian culture and bred strong horses accustomed to the rhythms of warfare. The periods of peace led military men and mercenaries to develop a new type of spectacular riding that would provide them with a new source of income. In 1768 in Madrid, the Englishman Thomas Price gave the first documented performances in Spain of a new genre, that of “show riding,” that would attract more than seventy of equestrian troupes specialising in these exercises for a century and a half. The total absence of a historical study on this topic leads to ask ourselves today: what was the activity of those equestrian companies in Spain, and what role did they play in the construction of the circus in its present form? The evolution of open-field exhibitions of those riders in the second half of the 18th century brought about the invention of the ring, the circle that makes it possible to impose on the horse a regular trotting rhythm controlled by the ringmaster’s whip from the centre. In their continuous development, the equestrian companies, which gave the ring its reason for being, premiered processes first of pairing and then of capture, with various spectacles based in general on the skill of men: the characters of the comedia dell’arte and the Isabelline jester mutated into clowns, the acrobats into tightrope walkers, the athletic gymnasts into acrobats and divers, animal exhibitors into tamers, and so on. The hypothesis that it was the equestrian companies who gave form to the modern circus arises out of their demand to have their own space: that of the ring, which would progressively incorporate the figures mentioned above. Linked to the equestrian function, the word “circus” would not define it until later on – in Spain it was not used until 1830 – and initially it was not even applied to the show itself but simply to the new performance space: the building whose roof covered the ring. In a very clear metonym, from the mid 19th century onwards, “circus” began to refer to that genre that was very slowly beginning to move away from its equestrian basis. This thesis therefore contributes a theoretical and methodological proposal that makes it possible to explore a theme ignored so far, filling a void in the Spanish historiography of popular entertainment. The present investigation comes to life with the aim of identifying, localising, grouping, systematising, ordering and interpreting the mass of useful sources for drawing up a history of the activity of the equestrian companies, the origin of the circus arts in Spain. In order to systematise and order, based on various useful parameters, the information located through our consultations, we are proceeding to create a single archive which, in the form of data sheets, compiles the data of the equestrian company’s stay in the town or city: name of the troupe, director, dates and place of performance, cast of performers, programme, number of horses, admission prices, and so on, using information drawn from multiple supports: press, administrative documentation, books, publicity material and photographs. The gathering of this data, firstly, followed by a meticulous study of each one of the equestrian companies that performed in Spain, will enable us to discover the patterns that governed their permanent itinerancy: the internal laws that ruled the artists’ families, the base of the company; the means of transport used; the routes and their main stops; their performance season, with the peculiarities of its calendar; their repertoire of exercises; their methods of training, publicity and administration; their skills and frequent difficulties; and, naturally, the composition of their audiences.

Conflict among recreationists in natural resource settings is a long-term problem that continues to grow in many areas. This study was conducted to provide an assessment of conflict between hikers and horseback riders in the Mount Rogers High Country of Virginia. Conflict was examined using three separate measures: crowding, impacts and interference. Examination of an index measure of conflict revealed that 64% of hikers experienced conflict toward horseback riders, while only 3% of horseback riders reported conflict due to hikers. Because of the clearly asymmetric nature of the conflict, the conflict predictor variables (past experience, wilderness involvement, place attachment and perceived similarity) were examined for the hiker population in the study. Discriminant analysis revealed that the model tested can predict with more than 68% success whether hikers will experience conflict due to horses. The perceived similarity of values variable was shown to be the most important and perceived similarity of socio-economic status the second in importance in explaining conflict. Hikers that perceived horseback riders to be different from themselves in how they value the High Country and in their socio-economic status were more likely to experience conflict with horseback riders than hikers that perceived horseback riders as similar to themselves. Measures of past experience and wilderness involvement were also significant predictors of conflict. However, relative to the perceived similarity items, these variables did not contribute much information or "predictive power" to the model. The two place attachment factors, place identity and place dependence, were not significant in the model.
Master of Science

Dissertation submitted in compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Chiropractic, Durban University of Technology, 2013.
Background: Horses are unlike most animals as they take part in equine sports and thus are athletic animals. Comparable to a human athlete, horses are prone to sports related injuries and disease. Equine chiropractic has shown to be one of the most utilized forms of complementary and alternative veterinary medicine (CAVM) worldwide, providing a drug free approach to equine health care and maintenance. However, equine chiropractic lacks research and therefore a wide gap in the literature exists. Studies on CAVM therapies have shown that these therapies are largely driven by the public and the public’s perceptions towards these therapies. However, little is known of the public’s perceptions towards equine chiropractic in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Horse riders represent the primary contact with the horse and are in the best position to note the outcome of post equine chiropractic treatment. For this reason they have influence on the utilization of equine chiropractic. It is, therefore, important to attempt to close the gap through ascertaining the horse riders’ knowledge, perception and utilization of equine chiropractic, particularly in KZN, where no such data exists. Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the knowledge, perception and utilization of equine chiropractic amongst horse riders in the KZN region. Method: The research design is a descriptive, quantitative, self administered survey based study. The study population included all horse riders in KZN (N= 500). There is no available list that details the number of horse riders in KZN, therefore, it was estimated that there are 500 horse riders in KZN (This was based on the number of horses stabled in KZN). The study sample included all horse riders at stable yards in KZN that had given written permission for the research to take part at their yard (N= 330). This was estimated by the number of horses stabling at the yards where owners had given written permission. Results: The response rate was 25% (n=83). The respondents were predominantly white (98%) and female (81%), and between the ages of 41- 50 years. Most respondents had previously been treated successfully by a chiropractor and had tertiary education. The majority of respondents were part of a horse society and participated predominantly in show- jumping. Most respondents had ridden horses for 0-10years, and currently rode only one horse. Their main horse (the horse they rode the most), for which most respondents were both the owner and rider, stayed predominantly in a stable and was between the ages of 5- 10 years. Most respondents had not sought alternative veterinary care for this horse, but had sought alternative veterinary care for their other horse(s) that they rode. Out of all the alternative veterinary therapies respondents reported to utilize, equine chiropractic showed to have the highest utilization. Equine chiropractic reported to have an overall high success rate with both the respondents’ main horse (92%) and their other horse(s) (87.5%). Respondents’ overall subjective knowledge of equine chiropractic was ‘that they knew something about it’. Respondents’ objective knowledge score was 75%. Most respondents had gained their knowledge of equine chiropractic through a friend and stated that the information they had gained was favourable towards equine chiropractic. It was interesting to note that 90% of respondents had some knowledge of equine chiropractic. Most respondents knew of one or more equine chiropractor(s), and were referred to them predominantly by a riding instructor. Just under half (49.4%) of the respondents had utilized an equine chiropractor, yet most respondents showed to have accurate knowledge of what equine conditions chiropractors treat. The majority of respondents supported the future utilization of equine chiropractic, but would like more information on equine chiropractic techniques. The research data revealed a trend showing that the utilization of alternative equine therapies or equine chiropractic corresponded with an increased knowledge of equine chiropractic. The data revealed graphically that the more equine chiropractors a respondent knew of, the more they utilized equine chiropractic. Conclusion: Respondents showed predominantly to have a positive perception towards equine chiropractic. Their knowledge of equine chiropractic was overall accurate and they showed to utilize and support the future utilization of equine chiropractic.

Among the Hollywood luminaries who found success as Thoroughbred owners were Fred Astaire, Betty Grable, and Bing Crosby. Astaire was more than smitten with the sport, having discovered the pleasures of betting on the ponies when performing in London’s West End. He quickly gravitated to ownership and achieved his greatest success in California with Triplicate, winner of the Hollywood Derby at Hollywood Park and the San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita. The highest-paid actress in Hollywood in the mid-1940s, Betty Grable, in partnership with her trumpet-playing husband Harry James, owned major stakes winners Big Noise and James Session, who ran for them in the Kentucky Derby. After selling his interest in Del Mar, Crosby concentrated on racing in Europe, where he was co-owner of Meadow Court, who would win the Irish Derby and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes.

The simultaneous rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and transhumanism was key to the science fiction and pop science emergence of Apocalyptic AI in the U.S. and Europe. In the mid-20th century, AI emerged as a science in the U.S. and became critical to American hopes for a new world. Simultaneously, transhumanist thought took root. This chapter describes the rise of Apocalyptic AI within the U.S. and Europe, exploring this through the contributions of four key individuals who provided key scientific, technological, and pop culture interventions. In different ways, each is crucial to the popular belief that human minds might be transferred to machines and the world undergo a transformation from one dominated by biological lifeforms to one inherited by the machines.

This chapter looks at Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men in terms of one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Pestilence. It explains how Children of Men is described between apocalyptic and dystopian, two concepts that are often used interchangeably, but are actually different. It points out that dystopia suggests the perfection of a pernicious order, such as the rise of a dictatorial regime and oppression of minorities, while the apocalypse suggests the End-of-the-World. The chapter discusses the End-of-the-World fiction that exploded in the wake of 9/11 as it revealed breaches in security. It mentions Kirsten M. Thompson, who states that apocalypticism has a close connection to the science-fiction genre.