9/1/2023 0 Comments Micro macrocosmIt is the result of a conference on the same subject held in 2017 as the closing event of the European Research Council funded project AcrossBorders at Munich. The volume is intended for all specialists at settlements sites in Northeast Africa, for students of Egyptology and Nubian Studies, but it will be of interest to anyone working in the field of settlement archaeology. This new bottom-up approach applied by current fieldwork projects is demonstrated in the book. Settlement archaeology in Egypt and Nubia has recently moved away from a strong textual approach and generalised studies to a more site-specific approach and household studies. The prefix micro- is used to mean small or small in scope in words like microscope (a device used to look at small things) or micromanage (to control even the smallest details). The rich potential of well-preserved but still not completely explored sites in modern Sudan, especially as direct comparison for already excavated sites located in Egypt, is in particular emphasised in the book. The prefix macro- is used to mean large, long, or excessive in words like macromolecule (a very large molecule). Architectural studies as well as analyses of material culture and the new application of microarchaeology, here especially of micromorphology and archaeometric applications, are presented as case studies from sites primarily dating to the New Kingdom (Second Millennium BC). This combination of research questions on the micro-level with the macro-level provides new information about cities and households in Ancient Egypt and Nubia and makes the book unique. Inherent tensions found in these predecessors have left their mark on this micro-macrocosmic model to the extent that it is present in them (II) the proposed analysis in terms of this model enhances significantly our in-depth understanding of some latent aspects in current trends in LLE and related innovative university schemes at the same time this model helps us structure appropriately and without anachronisms our humanisticly-inspired critical response to them for abandoning the ideal of the 'wholeness' of the human person.As reflected in the title “From Microcosm to Macrocosm: Individual households and cities in Ancient Egypt and Nubia”, both a micro-approach introducing microhistories of individual sites according to recent archaeological fieldwork incorporating interdisciplinary methods as well as general patterns and regional developments in Northeast Africa are discussed. The main thesis is that: (I) contemporary schemes of never-ending higher education or of so-called 'transformative learning' and of 'universities-multiversities' have their intellectual underpinnings either in similarity or in direct contrast to specific predecessors. The paper is divided into four interconnected Sections each one developing a specific manifestation of the micro-macro relationship. This role is nowadays taken up by unconventional LLE, though with far-reaching changes. It is with the Neo-Humanist tradition culminating in Humboldt's reforms that an additional step was taken: the university should become itself the reflecting 'microcosm'. Such a re-enacting is a guiding theme in certain philosophies of education studied here. By getting to know the surrounding world, they re-enact it intellectually. Higher Education is a socially instituted attempt to guide human beings into forming themselves as microcosms of the whole world in its diversity. The human being as a 'microcosm' should reflect internally the external 'macrocosm'. This paper puts forward the model of 'microcosm-macrocosm' isomorphism encapsulated in certain philosophical views on the form of university education.
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