Lessing’s Laocoon as Analytical Instrument

Author(s):  
Luca Giuliani

Luca Giuliani evaluates Laocoon as an ‘analytical tool’ for twenty-first-century classical archaeology. In doing so, he returns to some of the same literary case studies that so engrossed Lessing 250 years ago—and none more so than Homer’s Iliad. By probing Lessing’s theories of the respective workings of art and text, and exploring them in the context of ancient depictions of the Iliad (especially seventh- and sixth-century BC vase-paintings), the chapter explores both the virtues and the problems of Lessing’s account. As Giuliani argues, this historical perspective can help us formulate the analytical importance of Lessing’s framework; at the same time, the perspective of ancient art can help us see how Lessing’s text is as much a treatise against as about the visual arts.

Author(s):  
Paul Hedges

This chapter explores the development of Anglican inter-faith relations since 1910 which has been shaped by a number of factors including: the ecumenical context, changing dynamics within the global Communion, globalization issues, and moves from mission to dialogue. The chapter begins with a historical overview and traces developments in key Anglican Communion texts and meetings, especially in recent times the Lambeth Conferences of 1988, 1998, and 2008. The ecumenical context which has shaped thought on inter-faith relations in this period is also given strong attention. The chapter concludes with two case studies. The first explores relations with Buddhism in the Sri Lankan context, while the second looks at relations with Islam focusing on the Middle East. While charting some general trends, it is noted that very different dynamics and varying standpoints exist in Anglican attitudes on inter-faith relations and have been part of the historical development throughout the period surveyed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-75
Author(s):  
Dr. Anke Iman Bouzenita

The current discourse on bioethical questions often reveals a certain patchiness or seeming inability to answer contemporary bioethical problems within an Islamic epistemological paradigm. Attempting to analyze the causes of this phenomenon, the author describes the decontextualization of Islamic concepts from a background of secularized medical care and the ethics in the Islamic world—as well as the estrangement due to these questions of Islamic law from its holistic framework of application as a pervasive phenomenon, which brought about the dilemmas of bioethics in the twenty-first century. The author discusses chosen bioethical case studies in this light, with a focus on the concept of brain death. Doing so, the author takes into consideration the paradigmatic relationship between science, bioethical models, and the implications of the relevant different worldviews. The author shows how constructed realities related to the life sciences have been imported from the secular setting into an already estranged Islamic context to be answered, and describes the evolving dilemmas that make Islamic bioethics appear like a stranger moving in a strange land.


2020 ◽  
pp. 271-286
Author(s):  
Eric Robertson

The notion of the formless found a lasting definition in Documents, the dissident Surrealist magazine led by Georges Bataille, Carl Einstein and Michel Leiris from 1929 to 1931.  In an unassuming short entry for its ‘Dictionnaire’, Bataille presents the informe emphatically not as a system or a structure, but as ‘un terme servant à déclasser’; yet neither the disruptive impulse of the 'Dictionnaire', nor the more recent exhibitions it has generated, can avoid a measure of taxonomic organisation (L'Informe: mode d'emploi, 1996; Undercover Surrealism, 2006). In the realm of poetry, free verse has eroded the boundaries of the poetic, but its freedom from formal constraints is limited too; as Jay Parini (2008) contends, ‘formless poetry does not really exist, as poets inevitably create patterns in language that replicate forms of experience.’  Through  a small number of case studies, this chapter will consider the legacy of Bataille’s definition while assessing the ongoing tension between form and its undoing in textual and visual art of the twenty-first century.


Author(s):  
Vincent Delmas ◽  
Jean-François Uhl ◽  
Pedro F. Campos ◽  
Daniel Simões Lopes ◽  
Joaquim Jorge

2020 ◽  
Vol 983 ◽  
pp. 41-45
Author(s):  
James Scott Lyons

Japanese swords have long been a source of fascination for metallographers both Japanese and Western, but most studies lean toward functional explanations of metallurgical features or description of how features correspond to historical and ethnographic accounts of production. At the same time, there is a long tradition of sword connoisseurship that through its visual and historical perspective offers insight about particular smiths and their traditions. In a metallographic examination of a 15th century Japanese sword of the Bizen tradition, I take a chaîne opératoire approach and draw on aspects of both of the aforementioned scholarly traditions in order to better understand how late medieval Japanese sword smiths related to their materials and to their clientele. Based on my observations, I compare the apparent choices made by this sword’s smith to historical and ethnographic accounts of traditional sword production, and other published metallographic sections of Japanese swords. Then, I contextualize these choices in relation to contemporary production for export and for local consumption. Specifically, I will discuss possible reasons this sword’s metallurgical profile deviates from common practice according to twentieth and twenty-first century accounts of traditional Japanese sword smithing.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1219-1234
Author(s):  
Jarula MI Wegner

The concept of countermemory is frequently used in various, sometimes contradictory ways. This essay aims at further clarifying the concept of countermemory by highlighting its potentials and limits. After revisiting Michel Foucault’s initial use of countermemory, the concept is analysed in three case studies of Black-Jewish negotiations in US Rap music. The analysis shows that the discourse of Black-Jewish relations entered rap music in the 1980s and continues well into the twenty-first century. The concept of countermemory has at least four characteristics. It is necessarily related and in opposition to another memory. It employs two different time horizons and enables transcultural memory negotiations. Finally, there are instances of moderate and radical uses of countermemory. Some characteristics are essential to the concept, while others only occasionally appear. Countermemories can be reactionary or progressive, constructive or destructive, factual or fictitious.


Author(s):  
Cristina Leston-Bandeira ◽  
Louise Thompson

Exploring Parliament offers a fresh perspective on an ancient institution. It provides a real-life insight into the inner workings, impact, and relevance of twenty-first century Parliament. Short academic and practitioner chapters are combined with relevant and practical case studies, to provide an introduction to Parliament's structures, people, and practices. As well as covering the broader structure of UK Parliament, this text explains the role of small parties in law-making, the design and space of Parliament, and offers illuminating case studies on highly topical areas such as the Backbench Business Committee, the Hillsborough Inquiry and recent pieces of legislation such as the Assisted Dying Bill.


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-318
Author(s):  
Vassiliki Kaisidou

Between the years 2000 and 2015 novels on the Greek civil war (1946–9) flooded the Greek literary market. This raises important questions as to why the burden of the civil conflict weighs heavily upon generations with no experiential connection to these events. This article begins by offering an interpretation for the literary upsurge of the civil war since the 2000s. Then it uses Marianne Hirsch's concept of postmemory to illustrate the authors’ ethical commitment to ‘unsilence’ and redress the past through the use of archival evidence and testimonies. The case studies of ThomasSkassis’Ελληνικόσταυρόλɛξο (2000), Nikos Davvetas’ Λɛυκή πɛτσέτα στορινγκ (2006),and SophiaNikolaidou's Χορɛύουνοιɛλέφαντɛς(2012) serve to illustrate my argument.


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