title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Dunham and her son moved in with her parents at their house. She continued with her studies, earning a B.A. in anthropology in August 1967, while her son attended kindergarten in 1966–1967 at Noelani Elementary School.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: In 1967, Obama and his mother moved to Jakarta to rejoin his stepfather. The family initially lived in a newly built neighborhood in the Menteng Dalam administrative village of the Tebet subdistrict in South Jakarta for two and a half years, while Soetoro worked on a topographic survey for the Indonesian government. From January 1968 to December 1969, Obama's mother taught English and served as an assistant director of the U.S. government-subsidized Indonesia-America Friendship Institute, while Obama attended the Indonesian-language "Santo Fransiskus Asisi" (St. Francis of Assisi) Catholic School around the corner from their house for 1st, 2nd, and part of 3rd grade.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Obama's mother met a transgender person named Evie (who was known as Trudi at the time), at a cocktail party in 1969. Dunham was so impressed by Evie's beef steak and fried rice that she offered her a job in the family home. It did not take long before Evie was also caretaker for then eight-year-old "Barry", as Obama was often referred to as then, and his baby sister Maya. As a caretaker, she also spent time playing with Obama and bringing him to and from school, which she continued to do for about two years.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: In 1970, Soetoro took a new job at higher pay in Union Oil Company's government relations office. From January 1970 to August 1972, Obama's mother taught English and was a department head and a director of the Institute of Management Education and Development. Obama attended the Indonesian-language government-run Besuki School, one-and-half miles east in the exclusive Menteng administrative village, for part of 3rd grade and for 4th grade. By this time, he had picked up on some Indonesian in addition to his native English. He also joined the Cub Scouts.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: In the summer of 1970, Obama returned to Hawaii for an extended visit with his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. His mother had also arranged an interview for possible admission to the Punahou School in Honolulu, one of the top private schools in the city. On August 15, 1970, Dunham and Soetoro celebrated the birth of their daughter, Maya Kassandra Soetoro.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: In mid-1971, Obama moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend Punahou School starting in fifth grade. In December 1971, Obama was visited for a month by his father, Barack Obama Sr., from Kenya. It was the last time Obama would see his father. This was followed by his mother visiting her son and parents in Honolulu from late 1971 to January 1972.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: In 1972, Dunham returned to Hawaii, bringing along the young Maya, Obama's half-sister. Dunham started graduate study in anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. From sixth grade through eighth grade at Punahou, Obama lived with his mother and Maya.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Obama's mother completed her coursework at the University of Hawaii for an M.A. in anthropology in December 1974. After three years in Hawaii, she and Maya returned to Jakarta in August 1975, where Dunham completed her contract with the Institute of Management Education and Development and started anthropological fieldwork. Obama chose to stay with his grandparents in Honolulu to continue his studies at Punahou School for his high school years.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: In his memoir Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother's middle class family. His knowledge about his African father, who returned once for a brief visit in 1971, came mainly through family stories and photographs. Of his early childhood, Obama writes: ""That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind"." The book describes his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He wrote that he used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind". Obama was also a member of the "choom gang", a self-named group of friends that spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana. Obama has said that it was a serious mistake. At the Saddleback Civil Presidential Forum, Barack Obama identified his high-school drug use as his greatest moral failure. Obama has stated he has not used any illegal drugs since he was a teenager.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Some of his fellow students attending Punahou School later told the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin" that Obama was mature for his age as a high school student and that he sometimes attended parties and other events in order to associate with African American college students and military service people. Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles in 1979, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. On February 18, 1981, he made his first public speech, calling for Occidental's divestment from South Africa. In the summer of 1981, Obama traveled to Jakarta to visit his mother and half-sister Maya, and visited the families of Occidental College friends in Hyderabad (India) and Karachi (Pakistan) for three weeks.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a speciality in international relations and in English literature. Obama lived off campus in a modest rented apartment at 142 West 109th Street. He graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then worked at Business International Corporation and New York Public Interest Research Group.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: After four years living in New York, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer. He worked for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side. During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute. In the summer of 1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks then to Kenya for five weeks where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. In an interview with "Ebony" in 1990, he stated that he saw a degree in law as a vehicle to facilitate better community organization and activism: "The idea was not only to get people to learn how to hope and dream about different possibilities, but to know how the tax structure affects what kind of housing gets built where." At the end of his first year he was selected as an editor of the "Harvard Law Review" based on his grades and a writing competition. In February 1990, his second year at Harvard, he was elected president of the law review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the law review's staff of 80 editors. Obama's election as the first black president of the law review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles. He got himself elected by convincing a crucial swing bloc of conservatives that he would protect their interests if they supported him. Building up that trust was done with the same kind of long listening sessions he had used in the poor neighborhoods of South Side, Chicago. Richard Epstein, who later taught at the University of Chicago Law School when Obama later taught there, said Obama was elected editor "because people on the other side believed he would give them a fair shake."


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: While in law school he worked as an associate at the law firm Sidley & Austin in 1989, where he met his future wife, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, and where Newton N. Minow was a managing partner. Minow later would introduce Obama to some of Chicago's top business leaders. In the summer of 1990 he worked at Hopkins & Sutter. Also during his law school years, Obama spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course on Alinsky methods of organizing. He graduated with a J.D. "magna cum laude" from Harvard in 1991 and returned to Chicago.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: The publicity from his election as the first African American president of the "Harvard Law Review" led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. In an effort to recruit him to their faculty, the University of Chicago Law School provided Obama with a fellowship and an office to work on his book. He originally planned to finish the book in one year, but it took much longer as the book evolved into a personal memoir. In order to work without interruptions, Obama and his wife, Michelle, traveled to Bali where he wrote for several months. The manuscript was finally published as "Dreams from My Father" in mid-1995.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: He married Michelle in 1992 and settled down with her in Hyde Park, a liberal, integrated, middle-class Chicago neighborhood with a history of electing reform-minded politicians independent of the Daley political machine. The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998; their second, Natasha (known as Sasha), in 2001.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: One effect of the marriage was to bring Obama closer to other politically influential Chicagoans. One of Michelle's best friends was Jesse Jackson's daughter, Santita Jackson, later the godmother of the Obamas' first child. Michelle herself had worked as an aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley. Marty Nesbitt, a young, successful black businessman (who played basketball with Michelle's brother, Craig Robinson), became Obama's best friend and introduced him to other African-American business people. Before the marriage, according to Craig, Obama talked about his political ambitions, even saying that he might run for president someday.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Obama directed Illinois Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive, officially nonpartisan, that helped Carol Moseley Braun become the first black woman ever elected to the Senate. He headed up a staff of 10 and 700 volunteers that achieved its goal of 400,000 registered African Americans in the state, leading "Crain's Chicago Business" to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be. Although fundraising was not required for the position when Obama was recruited for the job, he started an active campaign to raise money for the project. According to Sandy Newman, who founded Project Vote, Obama "raised more money than any of our state directors had ever done. He did a great job of enlisting a broad spectrum of organizations and people, including many who did not get along well with one another."


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: The fundraising brought Obama into contact with the wealthy, liberal elite of Chicago, some of whom became supporters in his future political career. Through one of them he met David Axelrod, who later headed Obama's campaign for president. The fundraising committee was chaired by John Schmidt, a former chief of staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley, and John W. Rogers Jr., a young black money manager and founder of Ariel Capital Management. Obama also met much of the city's black political leadership, although he didn't always get along with the older politicians, with friction sometimes developing over Obama's reluctance to spend money and his insistence on results. "He really did it, and he let other people take all the credit", Schmidt later said. "The people standing up at the press conferences were Jesse Jackson and Bobby Rush and I don't know who else. Barack was off to the side and only the people who were close to it knew he had done all the work."


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, as a Lecturer for four years (1992–1996), and as a Senior Lecturer for eight years (1996–2004). During this time he taught courses in due process and equal protection, voting rights, and racism and law. He published no legal scholarship, and turned down tenured positions, but served eight years in the Illinois Senate during his twelve years at the university.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: In 1993 Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 12-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2007. The firm was well known among influential Chicago liberals and leaders of the black community, and the firm's Judson H. Miner, who met with Obama to recruit him before Obama's 1991 graduation from law school, had been counsel to former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, although the law firm often clashed with the administration of Mayor Richard M. Daley. The 29-year-old law student made it clear in his initial interview with Miner that he was more interested in joining the firm to learn about Chicago politics than to practice law.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: During the four years Obama worked as a full-time lawyer at the firm, he was involved in 30 cases and accrued 3,723 billable hours. Obama was listed as counsel on four cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Two of these cases involved ACORN suing Governor Jim Edgar under the new Motor Voter Act, one involved a voter suing Mayor Daley under the Voting Rights Act, and one involved, in the only case Obama orally argued, a whistleblowing stockbroker suing his former employer. All of these appeals were resolved in favor of Obama's clients, with all the opinions authored by Obama's University of Chicago colleague Chief Judge Richard Posner.


title: Early life and career of Barack Obama

text: Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993. He served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund Obama's DCP, from 1993 to 2002, and served on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation from 1994 to 2002. Membership on the Joyce and Wood foundation boards, which gave out tens of millions of dollars to various local organizations while Obama was a member, helped Obama get to know and be known by influential liberal groups and cultivate a network of community activists that later supported his political career. Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999. He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center. In 1995, Obama also announced his candidacy for a seat in the Illinois state Senate and attended Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March in Washington, DC.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Oryx and Crake is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. She has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, because it does not deal with things "we can't yet do or begin to do", yet goes beyond the amount of realism she associates with the novel form. It focuses on a lone character called Snowman, who finds himself in a bleak situation with only creatures called Crakers to keep him company. The reader learns of his past, as a boy called Jimmy, and of genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering that occurred under the purview of Jimmy's peer, Glenn "Crake".


title: Oryx and Crake

text: The book was first published by McClelland and Stewart. It was shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, as well as for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction. "Oryx and Crake" is the first of the MaddAddam trilogy, followed by "The Year of the Flood" (2009) and "MaddAddam" (2013).


title: Oryx and Crake

text: The novel focuses on a character called "Snowman", living in a post-apocalyptic world near a small group of primitive and innocent human-like creatures whom he calls "Crakers". Flashbacks reveal that Snowman was once a boy named Jimmy who grew up in a world dominated by multinational corporations that built privileged walled compounds to isolate and protect their employees and the employees' families from a degenerating outside society. The companies had operated by developing and marketing advanced technology products such as medical treatments and genetically engineered hybrid animals, but now no other humans are evident, and the compounds have become decaying ruins.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Near starvation, Snowman decides to return to the ruins of a compound named RejoovenEsense to search for supplies, even though his excursion risks encountering dangers including feral populations of the hybridized animals. He concocts an explanation for the Crakers, who regard him as a teacher, and begins his foraging expedition.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: In Snowman's recollection of past events, Jimmy's family moves to the HelthWyzer compound, where his father works as a genetic engineer. Jimmy meets and befriends a brilliant science student named Glenn. Jimmy begins to refer to him as Crake when he uses that name in an online trivia game called "Extinctathon". Jimmy and Crake spend much of their leisure time playing online games, smoking "skunkweed", and watching underground videos such as live executions, graphic surgery, Noodie News, frog squashing, and child pornography. During one of their child pornography viewings, Jimmy is very much lovestruck by the gazing eyes of a young girl seen in the porn.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: After graduating from high school, Crake attends the highly respected Watson–Crick Institute, where he studies advanced bioengineering, but Jimmy ends up at the loathed Martha Graham Academy, where students study humanities, only valued for their propaganda applications. Jimmy gets a job writing ad copy, while Crake becomes a bioengineer at RejoovenEsense. Crake uses his prominent position to create the Crakers, peaceful, gentle, herbivorous humanoids, who have sexual intercourse only during limited polyandrous breeding seasons. His stated purpose for the Crakers, actually a deliberate deception, is to create "floor models" of all the possible options a family could choose in the genetic manipulation of their future children. Crake's bio-engineering team consists of the most expert players gathered from the online "Extinctathon" community.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Crake tells Jimmy about another very important project, a Viagra-like super-pill called BlyssPluss, which also promises health and happiness, but secretly causes sterilization in order to address overpopulation. Crake officially hires Jimmy to help market it. At the Rejoov compound, Jimmy notices a human in the Craker habitat and thinks he recognizes her as the girl from the pornographic video. Seemingly unaware of Jimmy's obsession with her, Crake explains that her name is Oryx and that he has hired her as a teacher for the Crakers. Oryx notices Jimmy's feelings for her and makes herself sexually available to him, despite also being Crake's romantic partner. As their relationship progresses, Jimmy becomes increasingly fearful that Crake has found out about it or has known all along. He also makes a promise to both Oryx and Crake that he will look after the Crakers if anything happens to them.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: After Crake's wonder drug BlyssPluss is widely distributed, a global pandemic breaks out and begins wiping out the human race and causing mass chaos outside of the protected Rejoov compound. Realizing that the pandemic had been deliberately introduced by Crake and was distributed by including it within BlyssPluss, and sensing further immediate danger, Jimmy grabs a gun and goes to confront Crake, who is returning with Oryx from outside the compound and needs Jimmy to let them in. Crake presents himself to Jimmy with his arm around an unconscious Oryx, saying that he and Jimmy are immune to the virus. Jimmy lets them in, whereupon Crake slits Oryx's throat with a knife. Jimmy then immediately shoots Crake dead.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: During Snowman's journey to scavenge supplies, he encounters aggressive hybrid animals and retreats into the RejoovenEsense compound. He finds some indications that other humans have survived seeing smoke on the horizon near the compound and briefly hearing voices on radio receivers in the compound. He carelessly breaks a scavenged bourbon bottle after binge drinking its content, and cuts his foot on a sliver of the glass. The cut becomes infected. His treatment of the wound with the medications he can find has some initial success, but the infection later gets worse again. He returns to the Crakers' camp and learns that three other humans have recently encountered the Crakers and are camping nearby. Snowman follows the smoke to where they are gathered around a campfire. Snowman is unsure of what to do, and considers killing them. Whether he introduces himself or quietly flees, and whatever happens afterwards, is left open to question at the end of the book.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Margaret Atwood started writing the novel much earlier than she expected, while still on a book tour for her previous novel, "The Blind Assassin". In March 2001, Atwood found herself in the Northern region of Australia, birdwatching with her partner during a break from the book tour. Here, while watching the red-necked crakes in their natural habitat, she was struck with inspiration for the story. However, Atwood explained that the work was also a product of her lingering thoughts on such a scenario throughout her life, as well as spending a great amount of time with scientists throughout her childhood. She stated


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Several of my close relatives are scientists, and the main topic at the annual family Christmas dinner is likely to be intestinal parasites or sex hormones in mice, or, when that makes the non-scientists too queasy, the nature of the Universe.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Atwood continued to write the novel through the summer of 2001 while visiting the Arctic North, witnessing global warming's effect on the region. However, shaken by the September 11 attacks, she stopped writing for a few weeks in the autumn, saying, "It's deeply unsettling when you're writing about a fictional catastrophe and then a real one happens". However, with the looming questions of the end, Atwood finished the novel for release in 2003. These questions in "Oryx and Crake", Atwood explained, are "simply, What if we continue down the road we're already on? How slippery is the slope? What are our saving graces? Who's got the will to stop us?"


title: Oryx and Crake

text: The cover of some editions contains a portion of the left panel of Hieronymous Bosch's painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights". The cover of other editions contains a modified portion of Lucas Cranach the Elder's painting "The Fall".


title: Oryx and Crake

text: The french translation of the title to "Le dernier homme" (The Last Man) is an allusion to Mary Shelley's work of the same name, both set in the apocalyptic genre as a plague results in the near-extinction of humanity.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: "It is the strict adherence to daily routine that tends towards the maintenance of good morale and the preservation of sanity," he says out loud. He has the feeling he's quoting from a book, some obsolete, ponderous directive written in aid of European colonials running plantations of one kind or another.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: One of Snowman's musings, "Now I'm alone [...] All, all alone. Alone on a wide, wide sea" is an allusion to part four of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Crake finds as Hamlet does, that his father was probably killed by his mother and step father. Like Hamlet he plots to avenge him.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: The book alludes to green fluorescent protein multiple times in the book. The Children of Crake are described having green eyes from a jellyfish protein, indicating that Crake used this gene in their creation. Green rabbits are wild animals in this world, alluding to Alba, a rabbit created by the scientist Louis-Marie Houdebine with the gfp gene in order to glow green.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: The book received mostly favourable reviews in the press. "The Globe and Mail", "Maclean's", and the "Toronto Star" ranked the novel high among Atwood's works and Helen Brown, for the "Daily Telegraph", wrote "The bioengineered apocalypse she imagines is impeccably researched and sickeningly possible: a direct consequence of short-term science outstripping long-term responsibility. And just like the post-nuclear totalitarian vision of "The Handmaid's Tale", this story is set in a society readers will recognise as only a few steps ahead of our own." For "The New Yorker", Lorrie Moore called the novel "towering and intrepid". Moore wrote, "Tonally, 'Oryx and Crake' is a roller-coaster ride. The book proceeds from terrifying grimness, through lonely mournfulness, until, midway, a morbid silliness begins sporadically to assert itself, like someone, exhausted by bad news, hysterically succumbing to giggles at a funeral." Joyce Carol Oates noted that the novel is "more ambitious and darkly prophetic" than "The Handmaid's Tale". Oates called the work an "ambitiously concerned, skillfully executed performance".


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Joan Smith, writing for "The Observer", faulted the novel's uneven construction and lack of emotional depth. She concluded: "In the end, Oryx and Crake is a parable, an imaginative text for the anti-globalisation movement that does not quite work as a novel."


title: Oryx and Crake

text: In a review of "The Year of the Flood", Ursula K. Le Guin defended the novel against criticism of its characters by suggesting the novel experiments with components of morality plays.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: On 5 November 2019, the "BBC News" listed "Oryx and Crake" on its list of the 100 most influential novels.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: Darren Aronofsky's company Protozoa Pictures were developing a television adaptation of the entire MaddAddam trilogy, under the working title "MaddAddam". Aronofsky was to serve as executive producer and possibly director, with the script written by playwright Eliza Clark. The project was formerly being developed for HBO; in 2016 Aronofsky said that the network was no longer attached, but confirmed that the scripts were written and the project was still underway. In January 2018, Paramount Television and Anonymous Content announced they had won the bidding war for rights to the trilogy and planned to bring the series to cable or video on demand. No network had yet agreed to carry the series.


title: Oryx and Crake

text: "The Year of the Flood" was released on 7 September 2009 in the United Kingdom, and 22 September 2009 in Canada and the United States. Though chronicling a different set of characters, the follow-up expands upon and clarifies the relationships of Crake with Oryx and Jimmy with his high school girlfriend Ren. Glenn makes a brief appearance. It also identifies the three characters introduced at the end of the original, and finishes the cliffhanger ending.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The mind–body problem is a philosophical debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. The debate goes beyond addressing the mere question of how mind and body function chemically and physiologically. Interactionism arises when mind and body are considered as distinct, based on the premise that the mind and the body are fundamentally different in nature.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The problem was popularized by René Descartes in the 17th century, resulting in Cartesian dualism, and by pre-Aristotelian philosophers, in Avicennian philosophy, and in earlier Asian traditions. A variety of approaches have been proposed. Most are either dualist or monist. Dualism maintains a rigid distinction between the realms of mind and matter. Monism maintains that there is only one unifying reality as in neutral or substance or essence, in terms of which everything can be explained.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Each of these categories contains numerous variants. The two main forms of dualism are substance dualism, which holds that the mind is formed of a distinct type of substance not governed by the laws of physics, and property dualism, which holds that mental properties involving conscious experience are fundamental properties, alongside the fundamental properties identified by a completed physics. The three main forms of monism are physicalism, which holds that the mind consists of matter organized in a particular way; idealism, which holds that only thought truly exists and matter is merely a representation of mental processes; and neutral monism, which holds that both mind and matter are aspects of a distinct essence that is itself identical to neither of them. Psychophysical parallelism is a third possible alternative regarding the relation between mind and body, between interaction (dualism) and one-sided action (monism).


title: Mind–body problem

text: Several philosophical perspectives have been developed which reject the mind–body dichotomy. The historical materialism of Karl Marx and subsequent writers, itself a form of physicalism, held that consciousness was engendered by the material contingencies of one's environment. An explicit rejection of the dichotomy is found in French structuralism, and is a position that generally characterized post-war Continental philosophy.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The absence of an empirically identifiable meeting point between the non-physical mind (if there is such a thing) and its physical extension (if there is such a thing) has been raised as a criticism of dualism, and many modern philosophers of mind maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body. These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, particularly in the fields of sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology, and the neurosciences.


title: Mind–body problem

text: An ancient model of the mind known as the Five-Aggregate Model, described in the Buddhist teachings, explains the mind as continuously changing sense impressions and mental phenomena. Considering this model, it is possible to understand that it is the constantly changing sense impressions and mental phenomena (i.e., the mind) that experiences/analyzes all external phenomena in the world as well as all internal phenomena including the body anatomy, the nervous system as well as the organ brain. This conceptualization leads to two levels of analyses: (i) analyses conducted from a third-person perspective on how the brain works, and (ii) analyzing the moment-to-moment manifestation of an individual's mind-stream (analyses conducted from a first-person perspective). Considering the latter, the manifestation of the mind-stream is described as happening in every person all the time, even in a scientist who analyses various phenomena in the world, including analyzing and hypothesizing about the organ brain.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Philosophers David L. Robb and John F. Heil introduce mental causation in terms of the mind–body problem of interaction:


title: Mind–body problem

text: Contemporary neurophilosopher Georg Northoff suggests that mental causation is compatible with classical formal and final causality.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Biologist, theoretical neuroscientist and philosopher, Walter J. Freeman, suggests that explaining mind–body interaction in terms of "circular causation" is more relevant than linear causation.


title: Mind–body problem

text: In neuroscience, much has been learned about correlations between brain activity and subjective, conscious experiences. Many suggest that neuroscience will ultimately explain consciousness:


title: Mind–body problem

text: "...consciousness is a biological process that will eventually be explained in terms of molecular signaling pathways used by interacting populations of nerve cells..." However, this view has been criticized because "consciousness" has yet to be shown to be a "process", and the "hard problem" of relating consciousness directly to brain activity remains elusive.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Since 1927, at the Solvay Conference in Austria, European physicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, realized that the interpretations of their experiments with light and electricity required a different theory to explain why light behaves both as a wave and particle. The implications were profound. The usual empirical model of explaining natural phenomena could not account for this duality of matter and non-matter. In a significant way, this has brought back the conversation on the mind-body duality.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The "neural correlates of consciousness" "are the smallest set of brain mechanisms and events sufficient for some specific conscious feeling, as elemental as the color red or as complex as the sensual, mysterious, and primeval sensation evoked when looking at [a] jungle scene..." Neuroscientists use empirical approaches to discover neural correlates of subjective phenomena.


title: Mind–body problem

text: A science of consciousness must explain the exact relationship between subjective conscious mental states and brain states formed by electrochemical interactions in the body, the so-called hard problem of consciousness. Neurobiology studies the connection scientifically, as do neuropsychology and neuropsychiatry. "Neurophilosophy" is the interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy of mind. In this pursuit, neurophilosophers, such as Patricia Churchland, Paul Churchland and Daniel Dennett, have focused primarily on the body rather than the mind. In this context, neuronal correlates may be viewed as causing consciousness, where consciousness can be thought of as an undefined property that depends upon this complex, adaptive, and highly interconnected biological system. However, it's unknown if discovering and characterizing neural correlates may eventually provide a theory of consciousness that can explain the first-person experience of these "systems", and determine whether other systems of equal complexity lack such features.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The massive parallelism of neural networks allows redundant populations of neurons to mediate the same or similar percepts. Nonetheless, it is assumed that every subjective state will have associated neural correlates, which can be manipulated to artificially inhibit or induce the subject's experience of that conscious state. The growing ability of neuroscientists to manipulate neurons using methods from molecular biology in combination with optical tools was achieved by the development of behavioral and organic models that are amenable to large-scale genomic analysis and manipulation. Non-human analysis such as this, in combination with imaging of the human brain, have contributed to a robust and increasingly predictive theoretical framework.


title: Mind–body problem

text: There are two common but distinct dimensions of the term "consciousness", one involving "arousal" and "states of consciousness" and the other involving "content of consciousness" and "conscious states". To be conscious "of" something, the brain must be in a relatively high state of arousal (sometimes called "vigilance"), whether awake or in REM sleep. Brain arousal level fluctuates in a circadian rhythm but these natural cycles may be influenced by lack of sleep, alcohol and other drugs, physical exertion, etc. Arousal can be measured behaviorally by the signal amplitude required to trigger a given reaction (for example, the sound level that causes a subject to turn and look toward the source). High arousal states involve conscious states that feature specific perceptual content, planning and recollection or even fantasy. Clinicians use scoring systems such as the Glasgow Coma Scale to assess the level of arousal in patients with "impaired states of consciousness" such as the comatose state, the persistent vegetative state, and the minimally conscious state. Here, "state" refers to different amounts of externalized, physical consciousness: ranging from a total absence in coma, persistent vegetative state and general anesthesia, to a fluctuating, minimally conscious state, such as sleep walking and epileptic seizure.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Many nuclei with distinct chemical signatures in the thalamus, midbrain and pons must function for a subject to be in a sufficient state of brain arousal to experience anything at all. These nuclei therefore belong to the enabling factors for consciousness. Conversely it is likely that the specific content of any particular conscious sensation is mediated by particular neurons in the cortex and their associated satellite structures, including the amygdala, thalamus, claustrum and the basal ganglia.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The viewpoint of interactionism suggests that the mind and body are two separate substances, but that each can affect the other. This interaction between the mind and body was first put forward by the philosopher René Descartes. Descartes believed that the mind was non-physical and permeated the entire body, but that the mind and body interacted via the pineal gland. This theory has changed throughout the years, and in the 20th century its main adherents were the philosopher of science Karl Popper and the neurophysiologist John Carew Eccles. A more recent and popular version of Interactionism is the viewpoint of emergentism. This perspective states that mental states are a result of the brain states, and that the mental events can then influence the brain, resulting in a two way communication between the mind and body.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The viewpoint of epiphenomenalism suggests that the physical brain can cause mental events in the mind, but that the mind cannot interact with the brain at all; stating that mental occurrences are simply a side effect of the brain's processes. This viewpoint explains that while one's body may react to them feeling joy, fear, or sadness, that the emotion does not cause the physical response. Rather, it explains that joy, fear, sadness, and all bodily reactions are caused by chemicals and their interaction with the body.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The viewpoint of psychophysical parallelism suggests that the mind and body are entirely independent from one another. Furthermore, this viewpoint states that both mental and physical stimuli and reactions are experienced simultaneously by both the mind and body, however, there is no interaction nor communication between the two.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Double aspectism is an extension of psychophysical parallelism which also suggests that the mind and body cannot interact, nor can they be separated. Baruch Spinoza and Gustav Fechner were two of the notable users of double aspectism, however, Fechner later expanded upon it to form the branch of psychophysics in an attempt to prove the relationship of the mind and body.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The viewpoint of pre-established harmony is another offshoot of psychophysical parallelism which suggests that mental events and bodily events are separate and distinct, but that they are both coordinated by an external agent, an example of such an agent could be God or another deity. A notable adherent to the idea of pre-established harmony is Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz in his theory of Monadology. His explanation of pre-established harmony relied heavily upon God as the external agent who coordinated the mental and bodily events of all things in the beginning.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The viewpoint of Occasionalism is another offshoot of psychophysical parallelism, however, the major difference is that the mind and body have some indirect interaction. Occasionalism suggests that the mind and body are separate and distinct, but that they interact through divine intervention. Nicolas de Malebranche was one of the main contributors to this idea, using it as a way to address his disagreements with Descartes' view of the mind-body problem. In Malebranche's occasionalism, he viewed thoughts as a wish for the body to move, which was then fulfilled by God causing the body to act.


title: Mind–body problem

text: The Buddha (480–400 B.C.E), founder of Buddhism, described the mind and the body as depending on each other in a way that two sheaves of reeds were to stand leaning against one another and taught that the world consists of mind and matter which work together, interdependently. Buddhist teachings describe the mind as manifesting from moment to moment, one thought moment at a time as a fast flowing stream. The components that make up the mind are known as the five aggregates (i.e., material form, feelings, perception, volition, and sensory consciousness), which arise and pass away continuously. The arising and passing of these aggregates in the present moment is described as being influenced by five causal laws: biological laws, psychological laws, physical laws, volitional laws, and universal laws. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness involves attending to this constantly changing mind-stream.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Ultimately, the Buddha's philosophy is that both mind and forms are conditionally arising qualities of an ever-changing universe in which, when nirvāna is attained, all phenomenal experience ceases to exist. According to the anattā doctrine of the Buddha, the conceptual self is a mere mental construct of an individual entity and is basically an impermanent illusion, sustained by form, sensation, perception, thought and consciousness. The Buddha argued that mentally clinging to any views will result in delusion and stress, since, according to the Buddha, a real self (conceptual self, being the basis of standpoints and views) cannot be found when the mind has clarity.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Plato (429–347 B.C.E.) believed that the material world is a shadow of a higher reality that consists of concepts he called Forms. According to Plato, objects in our everyday world "participate in" these Forms, which confer identity and meaning to material objects. For example, a circle drawn in the sand would be a circle only because it participates in the concept of an ideal circle that exists somewhere in the world of Forms. He argued that, as the body is from the material world, the soul is from the world of Forms and is thus immortal. He believed the soul was temporarily united with the body and would only be separated at death, when it, if pure, would return to the world of Forms; otherwise, reincarnation follows. Since the soul does not exist in time and space, as the body does, it can access universal truths. For Plato, ideas (or Forms) are the true reality, and are experienced by the soul. The body is for Plato empty in that it can not access the abstract reality of the world; it can only experience shadows. This is determined by Plato's essentially rationalistic epistemology.


title: Mind–body problem

text: In the end, Aristotle saw the relation between soul and body as uncomplicated, in the same way that it is uncomplicated that a cubical shape is a property of a toy building block. The soul is a property exhibited by the body, one among many. Moreover, Aristotle proposed that when the body perishes, so does the soul, just as the shape of a building block disappears with destruction of the block.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Working in the Aristotelian-influenced tradition of Thomism, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), like Aristotle, believed that the mind and the body are one, like a seal and wax; therefore, it is pointless to ask whether or not they are one. However, (referring to "mind" as "the soul") he asserted that the soul persists after the death of the body in spite of their unity, calling the soul "this particular thing". Since his view was primarily theological rather than philosophical, it is impossible to fit it neatly within either the category of physicalism or dualism.


title: Mind–body problem

text: In religious philosophy of Eastern monotheism, dualism denotes a binary opposition of an idea that contains two essential parts. The first formal concept of a "mind-body" split may be found in the divinity–secularity dualism of the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism around the mid-fifth century BC. Gnosticism is a modern name for a variety of ancient dualistic ideas inspired by Judaism popular in the first and second century AD. These ideas later seem to have been incorporated into Galen's ""tripartite soul"" that led into both the Christian sentiments expressed in the later Augustinian theodicy and Avicenna's Platonism in Islamic Philosophy.


title: Mind–body problem

text: His posited relation between mind and body is called Cartesian dualism or substance dualism. He held that "mind" was distinct from "matter", but could influence matter. How such an interaction could be exerted remains a contentious issue.


title: Mind–body problem

text: For Kant (1724–1804) beyond "mind" and "matter" there exists a world of "a priori" forms, which are seen as necessary preconditions for understanding. Some of these forms, space and time being examples, today seem to be pre-programmed in the brain.


title: Mind–body problem

text: Kant views the mind–body interaction as taking place through forces that may be of different kinds for mind and body.


title: Mind–body problem

text: For Huxley (1825–1895) the conscious mind was a by-product of the brain that has no influence upon the brain, a so-called epiphenomenon.


title: Mind–body problem

text: A. N. Whitehead advocated a sophisticated form of panpsychism that has been called by David Ray Griffin "panexperientialism".


title: Mind–body problem

text: For Popper (1902–1994) there are "three" aspects of the mind–body problem: the worlds of matter, mind, and of the creations of the mind, such as mathematics. In his view, the third-world creations of the mind could be interpreted by the second-world mind and used to affect the first-world of matter. An example might be radio, an example of the interpretation of the third-world (Maxwell's electromagnetic theory) by the second-world mind to suggest modifications of the external first world.


title: Mind–body problem

text: For Searle (b. 1932) the mind–body problem is a false dichotomy; that is, mind is a perfectly ordinary aspect of the brain. Searle proposed Biological naturalism in 1980.


title: Mind–body problem

text: With his book, "The Concept of Mind", Gilbert Ryle "was seen to have put the final nail in the coffin of Cartesian dualism".


title: Mind–body problem

text: In the chapter "Descartes' Myth," Ryle introduces "the dogma of the Ghost in the machine" to describe the philosophical concept of the mind as an entity separate from the body:I hope to prove that it is entirely false, and false not in detail but in principle. It is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category mistake.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Shunga Empire (IAST: "") was an ancient Indian dynasty from Magadha that controlled areas of the central and eastern Indian subcontinent from around 185 to 73 BCE. The dynasty was established by Pushyamitra, after taking the throne of the Maurya Empire. Its capital was Pataliputra, but later emperors such as Bhagabhadra also held court at Besnagar (modern Vidisha) in eastern Malwa.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Pushyamitra ruled for 36 years and was succeeded by his son Agnimitra. There were ten Shunga rulers. However, after the death of Agnimitra, the second king of the dynasty, the empire rapidly disintegrated: inscriptions and coins indicate that much of northern and central India consisted of small kingdoms and city-states that were independent of any Shunga hegemony. The dynasty is noted for its numerous wars with both foreign and indigenous powers. They fought the Kalinga, the Satavahana dynasty, the Indo-Greek Kingdom and possibly the Panchalas and Mitras of Mathura.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Art, education, philosophy, and other forms of learning flowered during this period including small terracotta images, larger stone sculptures, and architectural monuments such as the stupa at Bharhut, and the renowned Great Stupa at Sanchi. Shunga rulers helped to establish the tradition of royal sponsorship of learning and art. The script used by the empire was a variant of Brahmi script and was used to write Sanskrit.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Shunga Empire played an imperative role in patronising culture at a time when some of the most important developments in Hindu thought were taking place. Patanjali's "Mahābhāṣya" was composed in this period. Artistry also progressed with the rise of the Mathura art style.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The last of the Shunga emperors was Devabhuti (83–73 BCE). He was assassinated by his minister (Vasudeva Kanva) and is said to have been overfond of the company of women. The Shunga dynasty was then replaced by the subsequent Kanvas. The Kanva dynasty succeeded the Shungas around 73 BCE.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The name "Shunga" has only been used for convenience to designate the historical polity now generally described as "Shunga Empire", or the historical period known as the "Shunga period", which follows the fall of the Maurya Empire. The term comes from a single epigraphic inscription in Bharhut, in which a dedication to the Bharhut stupa is said to have been made "at the time of the Suga kings" ("Suganam raje"), with no indication as to whom these "Suga kings" might be. Other broadly contemporary inscriptions, such as the Heliodorus pillar inscription, are only assumed to relate to Shunga rulers.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Bharut epigraph appears on a pillar of the gateway of the stupa, and mentions its erection "during the rule of the "Sugas", by Vatsiputra Dhanabhuti". The expression used ("Suganam raje", Brahmi script: 𑀲𑀼𑀕𑀦𑀁 𑀭𑀚𑁂), may mean "during the rule of the Shungas", although not without ambiguity as it could also be "during the rule of the Sughanas", a northern Buddhist kingdom. There is no other instance of the name "Shunga" in the epigraphical record of India. The unique inscription reads:


title: Shunga Empire

text: Dhanabhuti was making a major dedication to a Buddhist monument, Bharhut, whereas the historical "Shungas" are known to have been Hindu monarchs, which would suggest that Dhanabhuti himself may not have been a member of the Shunga dynasty. Neither is he known from "Shunga" regnal lists. The mention "in the reign of the Shungas" also suggests that he was not himself a Shunga ruler, only that he may have been a tributary of the Shungas, or a ruler in a neighbouring territory, such as Kosala or Panchala.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The name "Sunga" or "Shunga" is also used in the "Vishnu Purana", the date of which is contested, to designate the dynasty of kings starting with Pushyamitra circa 185 BCE, and ending with Devabhuti circa 75 BCE. According to the Vishnu Purana:


title: Shunga Empire

text: According to historical reconstructions, the Shunga dynasty was established in 184 BCE, about 50 years after Ashoka's death, when the emperor Brihadratha Maurya, the last ruler of the Maurya Empire, was assassinated by his "Senānī" or commander-in-chief, Pushyamitra, while he was reviewing the Guard of Honour of his forces. Pushyamitra then ascended the throne.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Pushyamitra became the ruler of Magadha and neighbouring territories. His realm essentially covered the central parts of the old Mauryan Empire. The Shunga definitely had control of the central city of Ayodhya in northern central India, as is proved by the Dhanadeva-Ayodhya inscription. However, the city of Mathura further west never seems to have been under the direct control of the Shungas, as no archaeological evidence of a Shunga presence has ever been found in Mathura. On the contrary, according to the Yavanarajya inscription, Mathura was probably under the control of Indo-Greeks from some time between 180 BCE and 100 BCE, and remained so as late as 70 BCE.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Some ancient sources however claim a greater extent for the Shunga Empire: the "Asokavadana" account of the "Divyavadana" claims that the Shungas sent an army to persecute Buddhist monks as far as Sakala (Sialkot) in the Punjab region in the northwest:


title: Shunga Empire

text: Also, the "Malavikagnimitra" claims that the empire of Pushyamitra extended to the Narmada River in the south. They may also have controlled the city of Ujjain. Meanwhile, Kabul and much of the Punjab passed into the hands of the Indo-Greeks and the Deccan Plateau to the Satavahana dynasty.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Pushyamitra died after ruling for 36 years (187–151 BCE). He was succeeded by son Agnimitra. This prince is the hero of a famous drama by one of India's greatest playwrights, Kālidāsa. Agnimitra was viceroy of Vidisha when the story takes place.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The power of the Shungas gradually weakened. It is said that there were ten Shunga emperors. The Shungas were succeeded by the Kanva dynasty around 73 BCE.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Following the Mauryans, the first Brahmin emperor was Pushyamitra, and is believed by some historians to have persecuted Buddhists and contributed to a resurgence of Brahmanism that forced Buddhism outwards to Kashmir, Gandhara and Bactria. Buddhist scripture such as the "Asokavadana" account of the "Divyavadana" and ancient Tibetan historian Taranatha have written about persecution of Buddhists. Pushyamitra is said to have burned down Buddhist monasteries, destroyed stupas, massacred Buddhist monks and put rewards on their heads, but some consider these stories as probable exaggerations.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Pushyamitra is known to have revived the supremacy of the Bramahnical religion and reestablished animal sacrifices (Yajnas) that had been prohibited by Ashoka.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Later Shunga emperors were seen as amenable to Buddhism and as having contributed to the building of the stupa at Bharhut. During his reign the buddhist monuments of Bharhut and Sanchi were renovated and further improved. There is enough evidence to show that Pushyamitra patronised buddhist art. However, given the rather decentralised and fragmentary nature of the Shunga state, with many cities actually issuing their own coinage, as well as the relative dislike of the Shungas for the Buddhist religion, some authors argue that the constructions of that period in Sanchi for example cannot really be called "Shunga". They were not the result of royal sponsorship, in contrast with what happened during the Mauryas, and most of the dedications at Sanchi were private or collective, rather than the result of royal patronage.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Some writers believe that Brahmanism competed in political and spiritual realm with Buddhism in the Gangetic plains. Buddhism flourished in the realms of the Bactrian kings.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Some Indian scholars are of the opinion that the orthodox Shunga emperors were not intolerant towards Buddhism and that Buddhism prospered during the time of the Shunga emperors. The existence of Buddhism in Bengal in the Shunga period can also be inferred from a terracotta tablet that was found at Tamralipti and is on exhibit at the Asutosh Museum in Kolkata.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Two dedication by a king Brahmamitra and a king Indragnimitra are recorded at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya, and have been claimed to show Sunga support for Buddhism. These kings however are essentially unknown, and do not form a part of the Shunga recorded genealogy, but they are thought to be post-Ashokan and to belong to the period of Sunga rule. A Brahmamitra is known otherwise as a local ruler of Mathura, but Indragnimitra is unknown, and according to some authors, Indragnimitra is in fact not even mentioned as a king in the actual inscription.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Cunningham has regretted the loss of the latter part of these important records. As regards the first coping inscription, he has found traces of eleven Brahmi letters after ""Kuramgiye danam"", the first nine of which read ""rajapasada-cetika sa"". Bloch reads these nine letters as ""raja-pasada-cetikasa"" and translates this expression in relation to the preceding words:


title: Shunga Empire

text: "(the gift of Kurangi, the wife of Indragnimitra and the mother of living sons), "to the caitya (cetika) of the noble temple", taking the word raja before pasada as an epithet on ornans, distinguishing the temple as a particularly large and stately building similar to such expressions as rajahastin 'a noble elephant', rajahamsa `a goose (as distinguished from hamsa 'a duck'), etc."


title: Shunga Empire

text: Cunningham has translated the expression by "the royal palace, the caitya", suggesting that "the mention of the raja-pasada would seem to connect the donor with the king's family." Luders doubtfully suggests "to the king's temple" as a rendering of "raja-pasada-cetikasa."


title: Shunga Empire

text: On the basis of Ashokavadana, it is presumed that the stupa may have been vandalised at one point sometime in the 2nd century BCE, an event some have related to the rise of the Shunga emperor Pushyamitra who overtook the Mauryan Empire as an army general. It has been suggested that Pushyamitra may have destroyed the original stupa, and his son Agnimitra rebuilt it. The original brick stupa was covered with stone during the Shunga period.


title: Shunga Empire

text: According to historian Julia Shaw, the post-Mauryan constructions at Sanchi cannot be described as "Sunga" as sponsorship for the contruction of the stupas, as attested by the numerous donative inscriptions, was not royal but collective, and the Sungas were known for their opposition to Buddhism.


title: Shunga Empire

text: During the later rule of the Shunga, the stupa was expanded with stone slabs to almost twice its original size. The dome was flattened near the top and crowned by three superimposed parasols within a square railing. With its many tiers it was a symbol of the dharma, the Wheel of the Law. The dome was set on a high circular drum meant for circumambulation, which could be accessed via a double staircase. A second stone pathway at ground level was enclosed by a stone balustrade. The railing around Stupa 1 do not have artistic reliefs. These are only slabs, with some dedicatory inscriptions. These elements are dated to circa 150 BCE.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The buildings which seem to have been commissioned during the rule of the Shungas are the Second and Third stupas (but not the highly decorated gateways, which are from the following Satavahana period, as known from inscriptions), and the ground balustrade and stone casing of the Great Stupa (Stupa No 1). The Relics of Sariputra and Mahamoggallana are said to have been placed in Stupa No 3. These are dated to circa 115 BCE for the medallions, 80 BCE for the gateway carvings, slightly after the reliefs of Bharhut, with some reworks down to the 1st century CE.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The style of the Shunga period decorations at Sanchi bear a close similarity to those of Bharhut, as well as the peripheral balustrades at Bodh Gaya, which are thought to be the oldest of the three.


title: Shunga Empire

text: War and conflict characterised the Shunga period. They are known to have warred with the Kalingas, Satavahanas, the Indo-Greeks, and possibly the Panchalas and Mathuras.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Shunga Empire's wars with the Indo-Greek Kingdom figure greatly in the history of this period. From around 180 BCE the Greco-Bactrian ruler Demetrius conquered the Kabul Valley and is theorised to have advanced into the trans-Indus to confront the Shungas. The Indo-Greek Menander I is credited with either joining or leading a campaign to Pataliputra with other Indian rulers; however, very little is known about the exact nature and success of the campaign. The net result of these wars remains uncertain.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Several works, such as the Mahabharata and the Yuga Purana describe the conflict between the Shungas and the Indo-Greeks.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Scriptures such as the "Ashokavadana" claim that Pushyamitra toppled Emperor Brihadratha and killed many Buddhist monks. Then it describes how Pushyamitra sent an army to Pataliputra and as far as Sakala (Sialkot), in the Punjab, to persecute Buddhist monks.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Indo-Greeks, called Yavanas in Indian sources, either led by Demetrius I or Menander I, then invaded India, possibly receiving the help of Buddhists. Menander in particular is described as a convert to Buddhism in the "Milindapanha".


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Hindu text of the "Yuga Purana", which describes Indian historical events in the form of a prophecy, relates the attack of the Indo-Greeks on the Shunga capital Pataliputra, a magnificent fortified city with 570 towers and 64 gates according to Megasthenes, and describes the impending war for city:


title: Shunga Empire

text: However, the Yuga Purana indicates that the Yavanas (Indo-Greeks) did not remain for long in Pataliputra, as they were faced with a civil war in Bactria.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Western sources also suggest that this new offensive of the Greeks into India led them as far as the capital Pataliputra:


title: Shunga Empire

text: An account of a direct battle between the Greeks and the Shunga is also found in the "Mālavikāgnimitram", a play by Kālidāsa which describes a battle between a squadron of Greek cavalrymen and Vasumitra, the grandson of Pushyamitra, accompanied by a hundred soldiers on the "Sindhu river", in which the Indians defeated a squadron of Greeks and Pushyamitra successfully completed the Ashvamedha Yagna. This river may be the Indus river in the northwest, but such expansion by the Shungas is unlikely, and it is more probable that the river mentioned in the text is the Sindh River or the Kali Sindh River in the Ganges Basin.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Ultimately, Shunga rule seems to have extended to the area of Ayodhya. Shunga inscriptions are known as far as Ayodhya in northern central India; in particular, the Dhanadeva-Ayodhya inscription refers to a local king Dhanadeva, who claimed to be the sixth descendant of Pushyamitra. The inscription also records that Pushyamitra performed two Ashvamedhas (victory sacrifices) in Ayodhya.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Greeks seem to have maintained control of Mathura. The Yavanarajya inscription, also called the "Maghera inscription", discovered in Mathura, suggests that the Indo-Greeks were in control of Mathura during the 1st century BCE. The inscription is important in that it mentions the date of its dedication as "The last day of year 116 of Yavana hegemony ("Yavanarajya")". It is considered that this inscription is attesting the control of the Indo-Greeks in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE in Mathura, a fact that is also confirmed by numismatic and literary evidence. Moreover, it doesn't seem that the Shungas ever ruled in Mathura or Surasena since no Shunga coins or inscriptions have been found there.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The "Anushasana Parva" of the Mahabharata affirms that the city of Mathura was under the joint control of the Yavanas and the Kambojas.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Later however, it seems the city of Mathura was retaken from them, if not by the Shungas themselves, then probably by other indigenous rulers such as the Datta dynasty or the Mitra dynasty, or more probably by the Indo-Scythian Northern Satraps under Rajuvula. In the region of Mathura, the Arjunayanas and Yaudheyas mention military victories on their coins ("Victory of the Arjunayanas", "Victory of the Yaudheyas"), and during the 1st century BCE, the Trigartas, Audumbaras and finally the Kunindas also started to mint their own coins, thus affirming independence from the Indo-Greeks, although the style of their coins was often derived from that of the Indo-Greeks.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Very little can be said with great certainty. However, what does appear clear is that the two realms appeared to have established normalised diplomatic relations in the succeeding reigns of their respective rulers. The Indo-Greeks and the Shungas seem to have reconciled and exchanged diplomatic missions around 110 BCE, as indicated by the Heliodorus pillar, which records the dispatch of a Greek ambassador named Heliodorus, from the court of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas, to the court of the Shunga emperor Bhagabhadra at the site of Vidisha in central India.


title: Shunga Empire

text: After the death of Agnimitra, the second king of the dynasty, the empire rapidly disintegrated: inscriptions and coins indicate that much of northern and central India consisted of small kingdoms and city-states that were independent of any Shunga hegemony.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The last king of Sungas, Devabhuti was assassinated by his minister Vasudeva Kanva, who then established Kanva dynasty. According to the Puranas: "The Andhra Simuka will assail the Kanvayanas and Susarman, and destroy the remains of the Sungas' power and will obtain this earth." The Andhras did indeed destroy the last remains of the Sunga state in central India somewhere around Vidisha, probably as a feeble rump state.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The Shunga art style differed somewhat from imperial Mauryan art, which was influenced by Persian art. In both, continuing elements of folk art and cults of the Mother goddess appear in popular art, but are now produced with more skill in more monumental forms. The Shunga style was thus seen as 'more Indian' and is often described as the more indigenous.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Art, education, philosophy, and other learning flowered during this period. Most notably, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and Mahabhashya were composed in this period. It is also noted for its subsequent mention in the Malavikaagnimitra. This work was composed by Kalidasa in the later Gupta period, and romanticised the love of Malavika and King Agnimitra, with a background of court intrigue.


title: Shunga Empire

text: Artistry on the subcontinent also progressed with the rise of the Mathura school, which is considered the indigenous counterpart to the more Hellenistic Gandhara school (Greco-Buddhist art) of Afghanistan and North-Western frontier of India (modern day Pakistan).


title: Shunga Empire

text: During the historical Shunga period (185 to 73 BCE), Buddhist activity also managed to survive somewhat in central India (Madhya Pradesh) as suggested by some architectural expansions that were done at the stupas of Sanchi and Bharhut, originally started under Emperor Ashoka. It remains uncertain whether these works were due to the weakness of the control of the Shungas in these areas, or a sign of tolerance on their part.


title: Shunga Empire

text: The script used by the Shunga was a variant of Brahmi, and was used to write the Sanskrit language. The script is thought to be an intermediary between the Maurya and the Kalinga Brahmi scripts.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: Girl, Interrupted is a best-selling 1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relating her experiences as a young woman in an American psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: The memoir's title is a reference to the Johannes Vermeer painting "Girl Interrupted at Her Music". Kaysen draws a parallel between the Vermeer painting and her own life by equating music interrupting the girl, with the struggles of female adolescence interrupting healthy development, both serving as an impediment to personal evolution. Kaysen draws on the painting as a source of inspiration for critical analysis of the female teenage experience.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: While writing the novel "Far Afield", Kaysen began to recall her almost two years at McLean Hospital. She obtained her file from the hospital with the help of a lawyer.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: A film adaptation of the memoir directed by James Mangold, and starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, was released in 1999.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: In April 1967, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen is admitted to McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Massachusetts, after attempting suicide by overdosing on pills. She denies that it was a suicide attempt to a psychiatrist, who suggests she take time to regroup in McLean, a private mental hospital. Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and her stay extends to 18 months, rather than the proposed couple of weeks.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: Fellow patients Polly, Cynthia, Lisa Rowe, Lisa Cody, Georgina and Daisy contribute to Susanna's experiences at McLean as she describes their personal issues and how they come to cope with the time they must spend in the hospital. Through including personalized descriptions of supporting characters the reader generates an idea of how severe each of their circumstances are which in turn draws a dichotomy between Susanna and the other admittees. Susanna also introduces the reader to particular staff members, including Valerie, Dr. Wick and Mrs. McWeeney. The staff members play a vital role in her awakening of whether or not the doctors have genuine intentions to successfully treat their patients due to the lack of health progression amongst her peers. Susanna and the other girls are eventually informed that the recently released Daisy died by suicide on her birthday. Daisy's death deeply saddens the girls and they hold a prolonged moment of silence in her memory.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: Susanna reflects on the nature of her illness, including difficulty making sense of visual patterns, and suggests that sanity is a falsehood constructed to help the "healthy" feel "normal" in comparison. She also questions how doctors treat mental illness, and whether they are treating the brain or the mind. During her stay in the ward, Susanna also undergoes a period of depersonalization, where she bites open the flesh on her hand after she becomes terrified that she has "lost her bones". She develops a frantic obsession with the verification of this proposed reality and even insists on seeing an X-ray of herself to make sure. This hectic moment is described with shorter, choppy sentences that show Kaysen's state of mind and thought processes as she went through them. Also, during a trip to the dentist with Valerie, Susanna becomes frantic after she wakes from the general anesthesia, when no one will tell her how long she was unconscious, and she fears that she has lost time. Like the incident with her bones, Kaysen here also rapidly spirals into a panicky and obsessive state that is only ultimately calmed with medication.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: After leaving McLean, Susanna mentions that she kept in touch with Georgina and eventually saw Lisa, now a single mother who was about to board the subway with her toddler son and seemed, although quirky, to be sane. Susanna's static mental health state and uncertainty about being "cured" when she is officially released from the institution sheds light on the subjectivity of mental illness. Individuals who exhibit emotions not commonly expressed are ostracized from society when in reality as humans we are all capable of being on the spectrum of insanity if strictly analyzed by a professional. Being "crazy" was her natural response to life's stressors at an especially vulnerable time dedicated to healing her inner child.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: "Girl, Interrupted" does not follow a linear storyline, but instead the author provides personal stories through a series of short descriptions of events and personal reflections on why she was placed in the hospital. Kaysen works on encapsulating her experience by providing descriptive, concise illustrations of her time at the hospital as well as her own interpretation of the social classification of "insanity". She begins by talking about the concept of a parallel universe and how easy it is to slip into one, comparing insanity to an alternate world. Kaysen then details the doctor's visit before first going to the hospital and the taxi ride there at the beginning of the book before launching into the chronicles of her time at the hospital. She equates insanity in this instance with a mere alternate conception of reality; someone with mental illness possesses a different perception of the world as compared to an individual classified as neurotypical. She later discusses how some people fall into insanity gradually and others just snap. As discovered, her goal with the memoir is to overtly express how inculcated variations of mental illness are present in our daily lives and our social circles.


title: Girl, Interrupted

text: There are two main groups of characters, the patients and the staff. In addition to those there are her parents, her boyfriend and various other minor characters such as her former boss.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: In Brazil, Pardo, ( or ) is an ethnic and skin color category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in the Brazilian censuses. The term ""pardo"" is a complex one, more commonly used to refer to Brazilians of mixed ethnic ancestries.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Pardo Brazilians represent a diverse range of skin colors and ethnic backgrounds with a skin tone darker than white and lighter than black. It can also be used for people from Asia with darker skin tones or other ethnicities with the same color.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: The other categories are "branco" ("white"), "preto" ("black"), "amarelo" ("yellow", meaning East Asians), and "indígena" ("indigene" or "indigenous person", meaning Amerindians). The term was and is still popular in Brazil.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), "pardo" is a broad classification that encompasses Multiracial Brazilians such as "mulatos" and "cafuzos", as well as assimilated Amerindians known as "caboclos", mixed with Southern Europeans or not. The term "pardo" was first used in a Brazilian census in 1872. The following census, in 1890, replaced the word "pardo" by "mestiço" (that of mixed origins). The censuses of 1900 and 1920 did not ask about race, arguing that "the answers largely hid the truth".


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: In Brazil, the term "pardo" has had a general meaning since the beginning of the Portuguese colonization. In the famous letter by Pero Vaz de Caminha, for example, in which Brazil was first described by the Portuguese, the Native Americans were called "pardo": "Pardo, naked, without clothing".


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: A reading of colonial wills and testaments also shows it. Diogo de Vasconcelos, a widely known historian from Minas Gerais, mentions, for example, the story of Andresa de Castilhos. According to the information from the 18th century, Andresa de Castilhos was thus described: "I declare that Andresa de Castilhos, pardo woman ... has been freed ... is a descendant of the natives of the land ... I declare that Andresa de Castilhos is the daughter of a white man and a native woman".


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: The historian Maria Leônia Chaves de Resende also explains that the word pardo was employed to name people with native ancestry or even Native Americans themselves: a Manoel, natural son of Ana carijó, was baptized as a 'pardo'; in Campanha several Native Americans were classified as 'pardo'; the natives João Ferreira, Joana Rodriges and Andreza Pedrosa, for example, were named 'freed pardo'; a Damaso called himself 'freed pardo' of the 'native of the land'; etc.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: According to Maria Leônia Chaves de Resende, the growth of the pardo population in Brazil includes the descendants of natives and not only those of African descent: "the growth of the 'pardo' segment had not only to do with the descendants of Africans, but also with the descendants of the natives, in particular the carijós and bastards, included in the condition of 'pardo'".


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: The American historian Muriel Nazzari specifically pointed out the "pardo" category absorbed those of Native American descent in São Paulo: "This paper seeks to demonstrate that, though many Indians and mestizos did migrate, those who remained in São Paulo came to be classified as pardos"


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: The question about race reappeared in the 1940 census. In this census, "pardo" was not given as an option, but if the answer was different from the options "white", "black" and "yellow", a horizontal line would be drawn into the "color" box. When the census data was tabulated, all responses with horizontal lines were collected into the single category of "pardo". The term "pardo" was not used as an option as an assurance to the public that census data would not be used for discriminatory purposes due to rising South European racist sentiment at the time. In the 1950 census, "pardo" was actually added as a choice of answer. This trend remains, with the exception of the 1970 census, which also did not ask about race.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: The 20th century saw a large growth of the "pardo" population. In 1940, 21.2% of Brazilians were classified as "pardos". In 2000, they had increased to 38.5% of the population. This came only partially due to the continuous process of miscegenation. In the 20th century, a growing number of Brazilians who used to self-report as Black in earlier censuses chose to move to the Pardo category. Also a significant part of the population that used to self-report as white also moved to the Pardo category. This indicates not so much a changing of demographics but an evolution of perceptions and ideologies prevalent at each historical moment, and a growing racial and social awareness. Magnoli describes this phenomenon as the "pardização" ("pardoization") of Brazil.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: According to an autosomal DNA study (the autosomal study is about the sum of the ancestors of a person, unlike mtDNA or yDNA haplogroup studies, which cover only one single line), the "pardos" in Rio de Janeiro were found to be predominantly European, at roughly 70% (see table). The geneticist Sérgio Pena criticized foreign scholar Edward Telles for lumping "blacks" and "pardos" in the same category, given the predominantly European ancestry of the "pardos" throughout Brazil. According to him, "the autosomal genetic analysis that we have performed in non-related individuals from Rio de Janeiro shows that it does not make any sense to put "blacks" and "pardos" in the same category".


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Another autosomal DNA study has confirmed that the European ancestry is dominant throughout in the Brazilian population, regardless of complexion, "pardos" included. "A new portrayal of each ethnic contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific magazine 'American Journal of Human Biology' by a team from the Catholic University of Brasília, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as skin, eye, and hair color have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, as has been shown in previous studies". "Ancestry informative SNPs can be useful to estimate individual and population biogeographical ancestry. The Brazilian population is characterized by a genetic background of three parental populations (European, African, and Brazilian Native Amerindians) with a wide degree and diverse patterns of admixture. In this work we analyzed the information content of 28 ancestry-informative SNPs into multiplexed panels using three parental population sources (African, Amerindian, and European) to infer the genetic admixture in an urban sample of the five Brazilian geopolitical regions. The SNPs assigned apart the parental populations from each other and thus can be applied for ancestry estimation in a three hybrid admixed population. Data was used to infer genetic ancestry in Brazilians with an admixture model. Pairwise estimates of F(st) among the five Brazilian geopolitical regions suggested little genetic differentiation only between the South and the remaining regions. Estimates of ancestry results are consistent with the heterogeneous genetic profile of Brazilian population, "with a major contribution of European ancestry (0.771) followed by African (0.143) and Amerindian contributions (0.085)". The described multiplexed SNP panels can be useful tool for bio-anthropological studies but it can be mainly valuable to control for spurious results in genetic association studies in admixed populations." It is important to note that "the samples came from free of charge paternity test takers, thus as the researchers made it explicit: "the paternity tests were free of charge, the population samples involved people of variable socioeconomic strata, although "likely to be leaning slightly towards the ‘‘pardo’’ group"".


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: According to another autosomal DNA study conducted on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro the "pardos" there were found to be on average over 80% European, and the "whites" (who thought of themselves as "very mixed") were found out to carry very little Amerindian and/or African admixtures. "The results of the tests of genomic ancestry are quite different from the self-made estimates of European ancestry", say the researchers. In general, the test results showed that European ancestry is far more important than the students thought it would be. The "pardos" for example thought of themselves as 1/3 European, 1/3 African and 1/3 Amerindian before the tests, and yet their ancestry was determined to be at over 80% European.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: An autosomal study from 2011 (with nearly almost 1000 samples from all over the country, "whites", "pardos" and "blacks") has also concluded that European ancestry is the predominant ancestry in Brazil, accounting for nearly 70% of the ancestry of the population. "In all regions studied, the European ancestry was predominant, with proportions ranging from 60.6% in the Northeast to 77.7% in the South". The "pardos" included were found to be predominantly European in ancestry on average. The 2011 autosomal study samples came from blood donors (the lowest classes constitute the great majority of blood donors in Brazil), and also public health institutions personnel and health students.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: The formation of the Brazilian people is characterized by the mixing of whites, blacks and Indians. According to geneticist Sérgio Pena ""with the exception of immigrants of first or second generation, there is no Brazilian who does not carry a bit of African and Amerindian genetic"". "The correlation between color and genomic ancestry is imperfect: at the individual level one cannot safely predict the skin color of a person from his/her level of European, African and Amerindian ancestry nor the opposite. Regardless of their skin color, the overwhelming majority of Brazilians have a high degree of European ancestry. Also, regardless of their skin color, the overwhelming majority of Brazilians have a significant degree of African ancestry. Finally, most Brazilians have a significant and very uniform degree of Amerindian ancestry.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: The high ancestral variability observed in whites and blacks suggests that each Brazilian has a singular and quite individual proportion of European, African and Amerindian ancestry in his/her mosaic genomes" (geneticist Sérgio Pena). The colonization of Brazil was characterized by a small proportion of women among the initial settlers. As there was a male predominance in the European contingent present in Brazil, most sexual partners of those settlers were, initially, Amerindian or African women, and, later, mixed-race women. This sexual asymmetry is marked on the genetics of the Brazilian people, regardless of skin color: there is a predominance of European Y chromosomes, and of Amerindian and African MtDNA. Haplogroup frequencies do not determine phenotype nor admixture. They are very general genetic snapshots, primarily useful in examining past population group migratory patterns. Only autosomal DNA testing can reveal admixture structures, since it analyzes millions of alleles from both maternal and paternal sides. Contrary to yDNA or mtDNA, which are focused on one single lineage (paternal or maternal) the autosomal DNA studies profile the whole ancestry of a given individual, being more accurate in describing the complex patterns of ancestry in a given place. In the Brazilian "white" and "pardos" the autosomal ancestry (the sum of the ancestors of a given individual) tends to be largely European, with often a non-European mtDNA (which points to a non-European ancestor somewhere up the maternal line), which is explained by the women marrying newly arrived colonists, during the formation of the Brazilian people.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: In the first century of colonization, there was interbreeding between Portuguese males and Amerindian females in Brazil. However, the Amerindian population was decimated by epidemics, wars and slavery. Since 1550, African slaves began to be brought to Brazil in large numbers. Miscegenation between Portuguese males and African females was common. European and Asiatic immigrants who came to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries (Portuguese, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Arab, Japanese, etc.) also participated in the process. Among many of the immigrant groups in Brazil, there was a large predominance of men.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: In all Brazilian regions European, African and Amerindian genetic markers are found in the local populations, even though the proportion of each varies from region to region and from individual to individual. However most regions showed basically the same structure, a greater European contribution to the population, followed by African and Native American contributions: "Some people had the vision Brazil was a heterogeneous mosaic. ... Our study proves Brazil is a lot more integrated than some expected". Brazilian homogeneity is, therefore, greater within regions than between them:


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: An autosomal study from 2013, with nearly 1,300 samples from all of the Brazilian regions, found a pred. degree of European ancestry combined with African and Native American contributions, in varying degrees. 'Following an increasing North to South gradient, European ancestry was the most prevalent in all urban populations (with values up to 74%). The populations in the North consisted of a significant proportion of Native American ancestry that was about two times higher than the African contribution. Conversely, in the Northeast, Center-West and Southeast, African ancestry was the second most prevalent. At an intrapopulation level, all urban populations were highly admixed, and most of the variation in ancestry proportions was observed between individuals within each population rather than among population'.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: A 2015 autosomal genetic study, which analyzed data of 25 studies of 38 different Brazilian populations concluded that European ancestry accounts for 62% of the heritage of the population, followed by the African (21%) and the Native American (17%). The European contribution is highest in Southern Brazil (77%), the African highest in Northeast Brazil (27%) and the Native American is the highest in Northern Brazil (32%).


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Not all descendants of this mixture of peoples are included in the "pardo" category. Since racial classifications in Brazil are based on phenotype, rather than ancestry, a large part of the self-reported white population has African and Amerindian ancestors, as well as a great part of the Black population has large European and Native American contributions. Besides skin color, there are social factors that influence the racial classifications in Brazil, such as social class, wealth, racial prejudice and stigma of being Black, Mulatto or Amerindian.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Racial classification in Brazil is very complex. According to africanologist Alberto da Costa e Silva, many mixed-race politicians were perceived as white due to being part of the elite, including presidents Nilo Peçanha, Rodrigues Alves, and Washington Luís. Another president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, also had some African ancestry and described himself as "slightly mulatto". He allegedly once said that he had ""a foot in the kitchen"" (a nod to 19th century Brazilian domestic slavery).


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Since the end of the military dictatorship, the political participation of pardos has increased. Senator and presidential candidate Marina Silva is a descendant of Portuguese and black African ancestors in both her maternal and paternal lines.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Many important names of Brazilian literature are or have been pardos. Machado de Assis, generally considered the most important Brazilian writer of fiction, was himself "pardo". Other remarkable writers include Lima Barreto (a novelist, master of satire and sarcasm, and pioneer of social criticism); João Ubaldo Ribeiro (a novelist and short story writer); João do Rio (a journalist); and Paulo Leminski (a poet).


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Other remarkable artists include Father José Maurício Nunes Garcia (a baroque conductor and composer), and Aleijadinho (an outstanding sculptor and architect) attained high prestige as artists.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Pardos in soccer include Ronaldo, popularly dubbed "the phenomenon", is considered by experts and fans to be one of the greatest soccer players of all time. Arthur Friedenreich, Ademir da Guia, Romário, Neymar are well known names in Brazilian soccer.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Important athletes in other sports include Serginho (volleyball), Thiago Monteiro and Teliana Pereira (tennis), Felipe Lima and Guilherme Costa (swimming), Thiago Braz and Joaquim Cruz (athletics), Alex Garcia (basketball), Yamaguchi Falcão and Esquiva Falcão (boxing), Rayssa Leal (skateboard), etc.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: In daily usage, Brazilians use the ambiguous term "moreno", a word that means "dark-skinned", "dark-haired", "tawny", "swarthy", "Brown" (when referring to people), "suntanned". "Moreno" is often used as an intermediate color category, similar to "pardo", but its meaning is significantly broader, including people who self-identify as black, white, Asian and Amerindian in the IBGE classification system. In a 1995 survey, 32% of the population self-identified as "moreno", with a further 6% self-identifying as "moreno claro" ("light brown"), and 7% self-identified as "pardo". Telles describes both classifications as "biologically invalid", but sociologically significant.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: According to IBGE's data for 2009, of the ten states with greatest percentual "pardo" population, five were in the North and five in the Northeast.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: Between 2000 and 2010, the states of Goiás, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, together with the Federal District moved to the group of majority nonwhite states, of which "pardos" are very likely to be the new majority if trends continue as they perform the greatest nonwhite group in all Brazilian states. The next to be minority-majority is probably Mato Grosso do Sul (51.78% white), followed by Rio de Janeiro (54.25% white). The four southernmost states were all >70% white in the 20th century, nevertheless in the last 2010 census São Paulo turned to be almost exactly 70.0% white, and according to the contemporary demographic trends it is likely to be less than 70% now.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: It should be pointed out that self-identification and ancestry don't correlate well in Brazil. A predominantly self-identified "pardo" state like Goiás turned out to be mostly European in ancestry according to an autosomal study from the UnB undertaken in 2008. According to that study, the ancestral composition of Goiás is 83,70% European, 13,30% African and 3,0% Native American.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: In Fortaleza, for example, both "whites" and "pardos" displayed a similar ancestral composition, according to a 2011 autosomal study: a predominant degree of European ancestry (>70%) was found out, with minor but important African and Native American contributions.


title: Pardo Brazilians

text: IBGE's data for 2000. Of the ten municipalities with the greatest percentual "pardo" population, eight were in the Northeast and two in the North.


title: Harmony

text: In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches (tones, notes), or chords. However, harmony is generally understood to involve both vertical harmony (chords) and horizontal harmony (melody).


title: Harmony

text: Harmony is a perceptual property of music, and, along with melody, one of the building blocks of Western music. Its perception is based on consonance, a concept whose definition has changed various times throughout Western music. In a physiological approach, consonance is a continuous variable. Consonant pitch relationships are described as sounding more pleasant, euphonious, and beautiful than dissonant relationships which sound unpleasant, discordant, or rough.


title: Harmony

text: The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them.


title: Harmony

text: Counterpoint, which refers to the relationship between melodic lines, and polyphony, which refers to the simultaneous sounding of separate independent voices, are therefore sometimes distinguished from harmony.


title: Harmony

text: In popular and jazz harmony, chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. In many types of music, notably baroque, romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension is an additional chord member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass.


title: Harmony

text: Typically, in the classical common practice period a dissonant chord (chord with tension) "resolves" to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between consonance and dissonance. Simply put, this occurs when there is a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments. Dissonance is an important part of harmony when dissonance can be resolved and contribute to the composition of music as a whole. A misplayed note or any sound that is judged to detract from the whole composition can be described as disharmonious rather than dissonant.


title: Harmony

text: The term "harmony" derives from the Greek "harmonia", meaning "joint, agreement, concord", from the verb "harmozō", "(Ι) fit together, join". Aristoxenus wrote a work entitled "Elements of Harmony", which is thought the first work in European history written on the subject of harmony. In this book, Aristoxenus refers to previous experiments conducted by Pythagoreans to determine the relationship between small integer ratios and consonant notes (e.g., 1:2 describes an octave relationship, which is a doubling of frequency). While identifying as a Pythagorean, Aristoxenus claims that numerical ratios are not the ultimate determinant of harmony; instead, he claims that the listener's ear determines harmony.


title: Harmony

text: Current dictionary definitions, while attempting to give concise descriptions, often highlight the ambiguity of the term in modern use. Ambiguities tend to arise from either aesthetic considerations (for example the view that only pleasing concords may be harmonious) or from the point of view of musical texture (distinguishing between harmonic (simultaneously sounding pitches) and "contrapuntal" (successively sounding tones). According to A. Whittall:


title: Harmony

text: The view that modern tonal harmony in Western music began in about 1600 is commonplace in music theory. This is usually accounted for by the replacement of horizontal (or contrapuntal) composition, common in the music of the Renaissance, with a new emphasis on the vertical element of composed music. Modern theorists, however, tend to see this as an unsatisfactory generalisation. According to Carl Dahlhaus: