The Question of Intent

2021 ◽  
pp. 505-532
Author(s):  
Roger Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Political Debates ◽  
Authorial Intent ◽  
Spleen De Paris

This chapter examines how the poet employs a range of conflicting voices, opinions, and personas throughout Le Spleen de Paris. It discusses how this polyphony has been variously interpreted as a reflection of contemporary political debates, as deliberate mystification, and as a form of antagonism. The chapter argues instead for an implied ambition to wean readers from reliance on authoritative pronouncement so that they may become lawgivers themselves—and thereby enjoy the beauty of perplexity and conjecture. The question of authorial intent is discussed with reference to Baudelaire’s dedicatory letter to Arsène Houssaye, and it is proposed that the unifying voice within the polyphony of Le Spleen de Paris is that of ‘l’Étranger’. The chapter closes with a discussion of ‘Le Mauvais Vitrier’ as an example of how the poet seeks to elicit multiple readerly responses in imitation of a kaleidoscope, etymologically ‘the means of seeing beautiful forms/ideas’.

Comparing Comparisons: Political Implications of Different Notions of Difference

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Glenn Odom
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
World Literature ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
David Damrosch ◽  
Location Point

With the rise of the American world literature movement, questions surrounding the politics of comparative practice have become an object of critical attention. Taking China, Japan and the West as examples, the substantially different ideas of what comparison ought to do – as exhibited in comparative literary and cultural studies in each location – point to three distinct notions of the possible interactions between a given nation and the rest of the world. These contrasting ideas can be used to reread political debates over concrete juridical matters, thereby highlighting possible resolutions. This work follows the calls of Ming Xie and David Damrosch for a contextualization of different comparative practices around the globe.

Boatmen, Wastrels, and Demons: Figures of Literature

CounterText ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Sawhney
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Sanskrit Text ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
National Literatures

Engaging some of the questions opened by Ranjan Ghosh's and J. Hillis Miller's book Thinking Literature Across Continents (2016), this essay begins by returning to Aijaz Ahmad's earlier invocation of World Literature as a project that, like the proletariat itself, must stand in an antithetical relation to the capitalism that produced it. It asks: is there an essential link between a certain idea of literature and a figure of the world? If we try to broach this link through Derrida's enigmatic and repeated reflections on the secret – a secret ‘shared’ by both literature and democracy – how would we grasp Derrida's insistence on the ‘Latinity’ of literature? The groundlessness of reading that we confront most vividly in our encounter with fictional texts is both intensified, and in a way, clarified, by new readings and questions posed by the emergence of new reading publics. The essay contends that rather than being taught as representatives of national literatures, literary texts in ‘World Literature’ courses should be read as sites where serious historical and political debates are staged – debates which, while being local, are the bearers of universal significance. Such readings can only take place if World Literature strengthens its connections with the disciplines Miller calls, in the book, Social Studies. Paying particular attention to the Hindi writer Premchand's last story ‘Kafan’, and a brief section from the Sanskrit text the Natyashastra, it argues that struggles over representation, over the staging of minoritised figures, are integral to fiction and precede the thinking of modern democracy.

Imaging Protestant Piety: The Icons of Warner Sallman

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Original Intent ◽  
Biographical Research ◽  
Authorial Intent ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of ◽  
Humanist Tradition

Traditionally, art historians have relied on iconography, biography, and connoisseurship as the fundamental means of studying images. These approaches and methods stress the singularity of an image, its authenticity, and its authorship; therefore, they reflect an enduring debt to the humanist tradition of individualism. The image is understood principally as the product of the unique and privileged inspiration of an individual artist and is regarded as a measure of this individual's genius. Iconographical and biographical research secure authorial intent; connoisseurship authenticates the work. While this scholarly apparatus certainly offers the art historian indispensable tools, it is important to understand that its commitment to original intent is singularly ill-equipped to assess the reception of images, the ongoing history of response that keeps images alive within a culture from generation to generation.

American Insecurity

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Seth Levine
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Economic Insecurity ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
College Tuition ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Care Costs ◽  
Politically Active

Americans today face no shortage of threats to their financial well-being, such as job and retirement insecurity, health care costs, and spiraling college tuition. While one might expect that these concerns would motivate people to become more politically engaged on the issues, this often doesn't happen, and the resulting inaction carries consequences for political debates and public policy. Moving beyond previously studied barriers to political organization, this book sheds light on the public's inaction over economic insecurities by showing that the rhetoric surrounding these issues is actually self-undermining. By their nature, the very arguments intended to mobilize individuals—asking them to devote money or time to politics—remind citizens of their economic fears and personal constraints, leading to undermobilization and nonparticipation. The book explains why the set of people who become politically active on financial insecurity issues is therefore quite narrow. When money is needed, only those who care about the issues but are not personally affected become involved. When time is needed, participation is limited to those not personally affected or those who are personally affected but outside of the labor force with time to spare. The latter explains why it is relatively easy to mobilize retirees on topics that reflect personal financial concerns, such as Social Security and Medicare. In general, however, when political representation requires a large group to make their case, economic insecurity threats are uniquely disadvantaged. Scrutinizing the foundations of political behavior, the book offers a new perspective on collective participation.

Creatures of Cain

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Lorraine Milam
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
American Science ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

After World War II, the question of how to define a universal human nature took on new urgency. This book charts the rise and precipitous fall in Cold War America of a theory that attributed man's evolutionary success to his unique capacity for murder. The book reveals how the scientists who advanced this “killer ape” theory capitalized on an expanding postwar market in intellectual paperbacks and widespread faith in the power of science to solve humanity's problems, even to answer the most fundamental questions of human identity. The killer ape theory spread quickly from colloquial science publications to late-night television, classrooms, political debates, and Hollywood films. Behind the scenes, however, scientists were sharply divided, their disagreements centering squarely on questions of race and gender. Then, in the 1970s, the theory unraveled altogether when primatologists discovered that chimpanzees also kill members of their own species. While the discovery brought an end to definitions of human exceptionalism delineated by violence, the book shows how some evolutionists began to argue for a shared chimpanzee–human history of aggression even as other scientists discredited such theories as sloppy popularizations. A wide-ranging account of a compelling episode in American science, the book argues that the legacy of the killer ape persists today in the conviction that science can resolve the essential dilemmas of human nature.

Speech Acts by the Governor Candidates of North Sumatera in Political Debates

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vidya Dwi Amalia Zati ◽  
Sumarsih Sumarsih ◽  
Lince Sihombing
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
Dominant Type ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The Way ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

The objectives of the research were to describe the types of speech acts used in televised political debates of governor candidates of North Sumatera, to derive the dominant type of speech acts used in televised political debates of governor candidates of North Sumatera and to elaborate the way of five governor candidates of North Sumatera use speech acts in televised political debates. This research was conducted by applying descriptive qualitative research. The findings show that there were only four types of speech acts used in televised political debates, Debat Pemilukada Sumatera Utara and Uji Publik Cagub dan Cawagub Sumatera Utara, they were assertives, directives, commissives and expressives. The dominant type of speech acts used in both televised political debates was assertives, with 82 utterances or 51.6% in Debat Pemilukada Sumatera Utara and 36 utterances or 41.37% in Uji Publik Cagub dan Cawagub Sumatera Utara. The way of governor candidates of North Sumatera used speech acts in televised political debates is in direct speech acts, they spoke straight to the point and clearly in order to make the other candidates and audiences understand their utterances.   Keywords: Governor Candidate; Political Debate; Speech Acts

Geopolitics of Energy

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Blerina Muskaj
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Energy Market ◽  
Energy Potential ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Regional Energy ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Weapon

At the beginning of my paper I will explain the concept of "Geopolitics of Energy", this will be done for a quite simple reason, because I want everyone who can sit to read this article to understand more clearly what is at stake, therefore allow them the comprehension of what is being elaborated bellow at first sight. Geopolitics of energy is a concept that relates to policies choosing exporters to implement on importers, is the policy that has an impact on energy consumption, which includes consumer’s choice in the geopolitical context, taking into account the economy, foreign policy, the safety of energy, environmental consequences and priorities that carries the energy exporter. This concept permits the understanding of how works the politics that undertakes this initiative taking into account natural resources such as: natural gas and oil. Natural gas and oil are two main resources that produce energy but also two main elements on which arises all the topic in the energetics game. For this paper is used qualitative methodology, through which we were able to accomplish this work. I focused on scientific literature, official publications and reports on energy geopolitics. The main aim has been to show how in this decade, energy security is at the center of geopolitical agenda and has become the focus of numerous political debates. Regarding this point of view, Europe is taking the initiative to create a common energy market within the continent by creating projects, in which Albania appears as a new regional energy potential. Russia, which is aiming to play a role in the international arena, is seeking to position itself geopolitically in "its political weapon", hydrocarbon resources, in particular natural gas resources.

TURN TAKING STRATEGIES IN POLITICAL DEBATES

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-63
Author(s):  
Desi Dwi Natalia ◽  
Fajar Subekti ◽  
Ni Ketut Mirahayuni
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Strategy ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Communication Mechanism ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
Presidential Debate ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

This article reports on two separate studies—Natalia (2019) and Subekti (2019)—on  communication mechanism in political debates. Specifically these studies focus on turn taking strategies adopted in political debates by political figures during their campaign for presidency or in dealing with specific issues. Both studies adopted Stenstrom’s (1994) classification of turn taking strategies which include three main strategies: taking the turn, holding the turn, and yielding the turn, each of which was further specified into more specific strategies. The data were two Youtube videos: first, Trump and Clinton First Presidential Debate 2016 (36 minutes 22 seconds [Natalia, 2019]) and second, BBC World Debate “Why Poverty”November 30,2012 (47 minutes 16 seconds, [Subekti, 2019]). Employing descriptive qualitative, with the aim of analyzing turn taking strategies adopted in the debates, both studies found interesting points: first, Stenstrom’s three strategies appeared in the debates; second, taking the turn strategy was the dominant strategy, followed by holding the turn strategy and the least used one was yielding to turn; and third, interruption which was a specific type of taking the turn strategy seems to be most often used in the debater’s attempt to maintain the turn and present their points and thus dominate the debate.

Hail Columbia!

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Lohman
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
War Of 1812 ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Early American ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Dominance ◽  
The Government

This book examines music as political expression in the early American republic from the post-revolutionary era through the aftermath of the War of 1812. Americans used music as a discursive tool during every major political development. The nation’s leaders faced challenges ranging from threats to the structure of the government to impressment, all amid the nearly constant threat of embroilment in European war and insecurity about the republic’s viability. Americans responded by using music to protest, stifle protest, propagandize, and vie for political dominance. Through music they persuaded, intimidated, lauded, legitimated, and demonized their fellow Americans based on their political beliefs and actions. In music they debated crucial questions about the roles and rights of citizens, the structure of government, and the pursuit of peace and prosperity. They used music to construct powerful narratives about the nation’s history, values, and institutions; to celebrate the accomplishments of country, community, and individual; and to reinforce a sense of identity in national and partisan terms. Organized chronologically, chapters address musical forms of propaganda during ratification of the Constitution, musical expression of transnational revolutionary aspirations, Federalist and Republican narratives of political legitimacy in music, political debates in music during the embargo years, and musical myth-making during the War of 1812. The conclusion summarizes this music’s reception through the remainder of the nineteenth century.

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