“I'm Just an Armless Guitarist”: Tony Melendez, Disability, and the Social Construction of Virtuosity

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-307
Author(s):  
DAVID VANDERHAMM
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bodily Difference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Body ◽  
Complex Subject

AbstractIn 1987, Tony Melendez—a guitarist born without arms who plays the instrument with his feet—played at a youth rally for Pope John Paul II. Immediately after his performance, the Pope kissed Melendez and instructed him to continue “giving hope” through his music. Although the guitar accompaniment of confessional, singer-songwriter music is rarely considered virtuosic, Tony Melendez's bodily difference makes his ability to sonically pass as what he calls a “common player” an impactful display of skill for his audiences. Because Melendez's body is treated as simultaneously virtuosic and disabled, his example foregrounds the social construction of both categories and challenges the tendency to isolate either in the individual body. Rather than suggesting a sort of qualified approach to “disabled” virtuosity, this article argues that there is no such thing as unqualified virtuosity. The presumed limitations and possibilities of bodies, instruments, and repertoires always inform our understandings of skill, but we are not always explicitly aware of them. Through interviews and analysis of his performances and their media representations, I show how bodily difference and the complex subject positions of both performers and audiences contribute to what counts as skill, creative labor, and agency within a particular context.

Sufism, subjectivity and parapsychology: refashioning the dirbāsha ritual among Sufis in modern Iraq

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Religious Subjectivity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bodily Practice ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Ritual Context

Abstract This paper explores the ritual of the dirbāsha as an extraordinary miracle performance and its role as a bodily practice in the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities among the Qādiriyya-Kasnazāniyya Sufi communities in Iraq. During the climax of collective dhikr gatherings, male Sufi novices perform extraordinary and dangerous acts, perforating parts of their bodies with swords or long skewers without seriously injuring themselves. From the Sufi perspective, this ritual is, first of all, interpreted as the miracle of a Sufi shaykh and not of the performing Sufi novice since it is seen as an expression and proof of God’s power as transmitted through the shaykh. Moreover, it has been argued that the ritual is constitutive for the formation of the religious subjectivity of the performing Sufi novice since it allows the embodiment of mystical concepts as emotional, sensorial and existential realities. For the individual ritual experience to work, the social construction and constant reframing of these “miracles” needs to be taken into account as well, namely the ordinary ethics of the extraordinary which allow the miracles to be perceived as such. The present case of the Kasnazāniyya will show how Sufis combined their pious with a modern, critical and self-reflexive subjectivity and successfully managed to reframe this highly controversial practice – which is criticised by religious reformists and secularists alike – beyond its traditional ritual context with the modern science of parapsychology.

Imagining the Web: the social construction of the Internet in Italy

Modern Italy ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-193
Author(s):  
Francesca Pasquali
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Internet Advertising ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Possible World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Web

SummaryThe article analyses social discourses about the Internet in Italy from the mid-1990s onwards, taking its examples from advertising. Beyond the individual campaigns and their subjects there have been two distinct trends in Internet advertising. The first has made an effort to build the Internet as a cognitive object, the second has presented the Internet as a ‘possible world'. The article aims to account for the ways in which the Web has been thematized in Italy: its fields of reference, and how its possible social and personal uses have been anticipated.

scholarly journals Crowd surveillance: The (in)securitization of the urban body

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 200-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hidefumi Nishiyama
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Unique Form ◽  
Social Body ◽  
Behaviour Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Crowd Behaviour ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Crowd Surveillance ◽  
Individual Body

The recent proliferation of the securitization of crowded places has led to a growth in the development of technologies of crowd behaviour analysis. However, despite the emerging prominence of crowd surveillance in emergency planning, its impacts on our understanding of security and surveillance have received little discussion. Using the case of crowd surveillance in Tokyo, this article examines the ways in which crowds are simulated, monitored and secured through the technology of crowd behaviour analysis, and discusses the implications on the politics of security. It argues that crowd surveillance constitutes a unique form of the biopolitics of security that targets not the individual body or the social body of population, but the urban body of crowd. The power of normalization in crowd surveillance operates in a preemptive manner through the codification of crowd behaviour that is spatially and temporarily specific. The article also interrogates the introduction of crowd surveillance in relation to racialized logics of suspicion and argues that, despite its appearance as non-discriminatory and ‘a-racial’, crowd surveillance entails the racial coding of crowd behaviour and urban space. The article concludes with the introduction of crowd surveillance as a border control technology, which reorients existing modalities of (in)securitization at airports.

scholarly journals Propuesta metodológica para analizar fenómenos socio técnicos en internet

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (15) ◽  
pp. 370
Author(s):  
Ramón Abraham Mena Farrera
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Social Construction Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
La Red ◽  
Methodological Strategy

Resumen: No podemos soslayar que las experiencias humanas están vinculadas a la vigorosa expansión tecnológica de los medios electrónicos de comunicación. Por tanto, el presente artículo presenta una revisión teórica que permite formular una estrategia en la metodología cualitativa para producir, ordenar y analizar nuevos datos empíricos que nos den cuenta del fenómeno de la interacción humana en la red de internet. La estrategia metodológica propuesta se sostiene en las tradiciones filosóficas y sociológicas de la construcción social de la tecnología (WINNER, 1993; BIJKER, 1987; PINCH; BIJKER, 1987), la teoría del actor-red (LAW, 1992; CALLON, 1998), y el modelo de los sistemas (HUGHES, 1983), usados para la comprensión de los sistemas socio tecnológicos. Se concluye con algunos posicionamientos renovadores para la metodología cualitativa y su presencia para analizar fenómenos de internet inspirados en la fenomenología, enfatizando el rol concreto del individuo en sus experiencias (mundos vividos y significativos) y el hecho de la acción intencional que tiene el interlocutor de internet para compartir sus vivencias.Palabras clave: Relaciones socio técnicas; Fenomenología tecnológica; Etnometodología; Internet. Methodological proposal to analyze sociotechnical phenomena on the internet Abstract: We cannot argue that human experiences are linked to the vigorous technological expansion of electronic means of communication. Therefore, this article presents a theoretical review that allows the formulation of a strategy in the qualitative methodology for producing, ordering and analyzing new empirical data that denounce the phenomenon of human interaction on the Internet. The methodological strategy proposed is based on the philosophical and sociological traditions of the social construction of technology (WINNER, 1993; BIJKER, 1987; PINCH; BIJKER, 1987), the actor-red theory (LAW, 1992; CALLON, 1998). , and the model of systems (HUGHES, 1983), used for the understanding of socio-technological systems. It concludes with some renewing positions for the qualitative methodology and its presence to analyze internet phenomena inspired by the phenomenology, emphasizing the concrete roll of the individual in his experiences (lived and significant worlds) and the closing of the intentional action that he has the interlocutor of internet to share your experiences Keywords: Sociotechnical relations; Technological phenomenology; Ethnomethodology; Internet. Proposta metodológica para analisar fenômenos sociotequínicos na internet Resumo: No podemos saslayar que as experiencias humanas estão vinculadas à expansão vigorosa tecnológica dos meios eletrónicos de comunicação. Por tanto, o presente artigo apresenta uma revisão teórica que permite formular uma estrategia na metodologia de cotagem para produzir, ordenar e analizar novos dados empíricos que n'água cuenta do fenómeno da interacção humana no vermelho de internet. A estrategia metodológica propôs-se sostiene nas tradições filosóficas e sociológicas da construção social da tecnologia (WINNER, 1993; BIJKER, 1987; PINCH; BIJKER, 1987), la teoría del actor-red (LAW, 1992; CALLON, 1998). O modelo dos sistemas (HUGHES, 1983), usado para a compreenção dos sistemas sócio-tecnológicos. Conclui com algumas posições os renovadores da metodologia qualitativa e sua presença para analisar fenômenos da Internet inspirados na fenomenologia, enfatizando ou papel dos indivíduos em seus experimentos (mundos e estados vividos) e realizou ações intencionais que os medos ou o interlocutor da Internet compartilham suas informações e experiências.Palavras-chave: Relações sociotécnicas; Fenomenologia tecnológica; Etnometodologia; Internet.

scholarly journals The Consumer Ideology and the Truth about Man

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Adrian J. Reimers
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Truth ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Philosophical Writings

The formation of the human conscience is a controverted question in both philosophical ethics and moral philosophy. Conscience refers to one’s conception and understanding of the moral good. An especially significant manifestation of the problem of conscience in the 20th and 21st centuries is the impact of ideology on the individual person’s moral sense. This article considers the impact of two 19th century philosophies―Mill’s utilitarianism and Marxism―on contemporary moral thought insofar as the interaction of these two produce a powerful materialist ideology to determine the modern European and American conscience. We then turn to the thought of Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła), who in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor and in his earlier philosophical writings developed an account of moral truth by which the dangers of materialistic ideology can be overcome. It is argued, with John Paul II, that only in the context of truth can a coherent account of freedom of conscience under the moral law be developed.

An Intellectual Portrait of Pope John Paul II

Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-27
Author(s):  
George Huntston Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
The Past ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Lay Women ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Patron Saints ◽  
Santa Maria ◽  
The Church ◽  
First Words

Appearing on the balcony of St. Peter's, his first words as supreme pontiff were: “May Jesus Christ be praised!” At the close of the installation eucharist John Paul II lifted high the papal crozier, redesigned by Pope Paul as a staff surmounted by the crucified Christ. In all his utterances to date the new pope has emphasized Christ as the hope of the world but has also lifted up the mankind Christ came to save. He has illuminated the variousness of this mankind, from the individual in all his loneliness, even his alienation, to persons in collectivities of family, class, race, and nation. He has described many Christians too as people often filled with doubt about their ultimate meaning to themselves or for others, both on the level of social relations of all kinds and in the redemptive community of the Church. John Paul closed his installation homily: “I appeal to all men—to every man (and with what veneration the apostle of Christ must utter this word, ‘man’)—pray for me.“Some days later John Paul visited Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and declared that he dedicated his pontificate to the Dominican tertiary St. Catherine of Siena (d. 1380). This was one further gesture of his identification with the Italian people as their national primate, for St. Catherine and St. Francis of Assisi are the two patron saints of Italy. But he was also signaling his intention, in his choice of a lay woman, a reformer, a crusader, a mystic, and a doctor of the Church (so proclaimed in 1970), to assign high positions of decisionmaking to lay women and to female religious of all orders in recognition of the prominent role women have played in the past and of the much greater role, short of the priesthood, they would be playing under his pontificate.

Governing Sexual Health

2018 ◽  
pp. 21-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Health ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Work ◽  
Social Body ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Agencies ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Body

This chapter describes how sexual health has become a touchstone in discussions about political belonging in the United States. By linking the management of the individual body to the governance of the social body, proponents of sexual health projects define healthy societies, responsible conduct, and “good” and “bad” sexual citizens. While the uptake of sexual health by federal health agencies suggests movement toward the centralized administration of the concept, other uses of the term escape the control of any central biomedical or state authority. This essay considers how projects of sexual health, some organized by the state and some the efforts of a politically diverse range of activists, circulate within worlds of politics and governance. It concludes that as proponents of sexual health work to establish the proper relations between bodily conduct and social order, they offer a range of templates for modern biocitizenship.

Lo Normal Como Categoría Sociológica

1998 ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Sandra Caponi
Keyword(s):  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Ian Hacking ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Georges Canguilhem ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Individual Body

Building on criticism directed against August Comte by Georges Canguilhem, I analyze Émile Durkheim's usage of the "normality-pathology" typology and show that these concepts do not support the organicist metaphor or the analogy between the social and the individual body. Rather, as suggested by Ian Hacking, these concepts are linked to the use of statistics and the Quetelian media, tools which allow us to understand social phenomena on populational terms. Thus, from the application of biological and statistical categories to sociological analysis, a kind of speech is born which enjoys solidarity with strategies of administration and management of the masses. This Foucault called the "biopolitics of the population."

scholarly journals As redes sociais e o uso da informação entre os pesquisadores de alimentos funcionais da UEL

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Luis Rodrigues ◽  
Maria Inês Tomaél
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Functional Foods ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Information Services ◽  
Information Resources ◽  
Social Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

As redes desenvolvem-se pelos contatos que atores mantêm, provocam a construção social do indivíduo e, quando vistas por suas relações, podem identificar coesões e similaridades, em ações coadunadas de indivíduos que agem como um único corpo social. Estudar o uso da informação na rede de alimentos funcionais da Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL) foi o principal objetivo deste trabalho. A rede estudada é caracterizada por um conjunto de pesquisadores que buscam o desenvolvimento da especialidade – alimentos funcionais. Por meio da metodologia de Análise de Redes Sociais (ARS) foram identificados os atores mais centrais na rede e os recursos informacionais utilizados por estes atores. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o uso da informação na rede ocorre no âmbito tanto formal quanto informal. As fontes de informação, elo entre a informação e a rede, provêem informações ao receptor, que dela necessita. Nessa rede as fontes e serviços de informação são representados pelo Portal de Periódicos da Capes, Internet, bibliotecas, associações, sendo portanto estes os grandes facilitadores dos canais informacionais na rede. AbstractNetworks are developed through the contacts established by its actors, provoke the social construction of the individual, and, when seen through its relations, can identify cohesions and similarities, in coadunated activities of individuals who act as a single social body. Studying information use within Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL) functional food’s network and its resources was the main goal of this work. The studied network is characterized by a group of researchers who seeks the development of this specialty – functional foods. Through Social Network Analysis’ (SNA) methodology, the central actors in the network and the informational resources used by such actors were identified. The results indicate that the use of information within the network occurs either in the formal scope and in the informal scope. The information resources, the link between information and network, provide information to the receptor, who needs it. In such network, the resources and information services are represented by Capes’ Periodicals Portal, Internet, libraries, and associations, which could be said, then, as the great facilitators of informational channels in the network.

“Inflation” of Human Rights. John Paul II and human rights

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-44
Author(s):  
Adrian J. Reimers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
John Locke ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Individual Human

One of the central principles of modern political philosophy, dating from the time of John Locke, is that of human rights. Locke characterized a right as something pertaining to the individual human being as free and equal to every other human being. To this notion of inherent rights, John Stuart Mill added that a right must be something in virtue of which a person can make a claim on another or on the state. Third, the modern notion of right presupposes the concept of dignity. In contemporary societies, we are witnessing an inflation of rights, which raises two questions: 1) are new rights truly being discovered, and 2) how can we discern the legitimacy of these rights? J. S. Mill’s utilitarianism holds the touchstone of good and evil to be individual happiness, and that over his own self the individual is sovereign. From this it follows that only the individual can know what is his own true good. Therefore, he ought to expect that society will support or at least not interfere with his own attainment of his good as he conceives it. Therefore “my” rights must encompass that “I” recognize to be my own needs. Others are responsible to grant to the sovereign individual those rights that he claims. From such a principle follows the rights to personal sexual satisfaction, suicide, and to marry another of one’s own sex without public disapproval. Paradoxically, this inflation of rights is supported also by the quasi-Marxist notion that different classes of persons are inevitably opposed to each other and that for their protection the prerogatives of different groups must be recognized as rights.To avoid and correct this inflation it is necessary to develop a richer anthropology to found the concept of human dignity and, consequently, rights. Following the example and thinking of Pope John Paul II, we propose a reexamination of Mill’s claim that a right necessarily entails some well-defined claim on another personor entity, and that a right is not so much a legal claim as a claim upon conscience.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document