Excavations in Homer

2019 ◽  
pp. 143-160
Author(s):  
Georgina Paul

The essay offers a comparative examination of Alice Oswald’s Memorial (2011), which re-works material from the Iliad, and the German poet Barbara Köhler’s poem cycle Niemands Frau (Nobody’s Wife, 2007), which responds to the Odyssey. I argue that in dissolving the narrative line that characterizes Homer’s epics, both poets perform ‘speculative archaeologies’. Oswald’s treatment brings to the fore traces of lament and pastoral lyric forms that may have predated Homer’s narrative organization, recollecting the function of formal poetry in social rituals of mourning. Through her handling of the similes in particular, Oswald draws out of Homer’s text those moments in it which encapsulate connectivity and collectivity. Köhler’s differential treatment of grammatical gender likewise highlights connectivity, encapsulated in the female figures in the Odyssey and their complex interrelations (also a figure for poetic speech), which contrasts with linear narrative as projected by the male hero’s story.

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 158-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Boll ◽  
Tom Michels ◽  
Dieter Ferring ◽  
Sigrun-Heide Filipp

Despite its importance for basic and applied psychology, only a few longitudinal studies have examined whether parental differential treatment (PDT) is a persistent or a transient phenomenon, these studies being confined to childhood or adolescence. Based on latent state-trait theory, the present study identified the amount of variance in three dimensions of perceived PDT in middle adulthood attributable to stable interindividual differences (trait variance) and to intraindividual changes (state variance). At two occasions of measurement (2 years apart), 709 middle-aged adults rated how often they and a sibling currently received parental recognition, nurture, and demand to assume filial responsibility. Tests of latent state-trait models for these three dimensions of PDT by structural equation modeling revealed that trait variance represented the largest proportion of the systematic variance in all observed indicators of perceived maternal and paternal differential treatment. Yet there was a considerable increase in state variance for the dimension of differential parental demand for assuming responsibility. Results are discussed with respect to the conditions accounting for the high overall stability of actual and/or perceived PDT in adulthood, and different approaches for determining their role are proposed.


Author(s):  
Lisa Irmen ◽  
Julia Kurovskaja

Grammatical gender has been shown to provide natural gender information about human referents. However, due to formal and conceptual differences between masculine and feminine forms, it remains an open question whether these gender categories influence the processing of person information to the same degree. Experiment 1 compared the semantic content of masculine and feminine grammatical gender by combining masculine and feminine role names with either gender congruent or incongruent referents (e.g., Dieser Lehrer [masc.]/Diese Lehrerin [fem.] ist mein Mann/meine Frau; This teacher is my husband/my wife). Participants rated sentences in terms of correctness and customariness. In Experiment 2, in addition to ratings reading times were recorded to assess processing more directly. Both experiments were run in German. Sentences with grammatically feminine role names and gender incongruent referents were rated as less correct and less customary than those with masculine forms and incongruent referents. Combining a masculine role name with an incongruent referent slowed down reading to a greater extent than combining a feminine role name with an incongruent referent. Results thus specify the differential effects of masculine and feminine grammatical gender in denoting human referents.


Author(s):  
Chantal Jaquet

Although it excludes interaction, the equality of body and mind is not parallelism, in which everything repeats itself identically and interchangeably. Equality is not uniformity; it allows differential treatment of the body and mind, according to the constitutive principle of affect.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Élodie Dupey García

This article explores how the Nahua of late Postclassic Mesoamerica (1200–1521 CE) created living and material embodiments of their wind god constructed on the basis of sensory experiences that shaped their conception of this divinized meteorological phenomenon. In this process, they employed chromatic and design devices, based on a wide range of natural elements, to add several layers of meaning to the human, painted, and sculpted supports dressed in the god’s insignia. Through a comparative examination of pre-Columbian visual production—especially codices and sculptures—historical sources mainly written in Nahuatl during the viceregal period, and ethnographic data on indigenous communities in modern Mexico, my analysis targets the body paint and shell jewelry of the anthropomorphic “images” of the wind god, along with the Feathered Serpent and the monkey-inspired embodiments of the deity. This study identifies the centrality of other human senses beyond sight in the conception of the wind god and the making of its earthly manifestations. Constructing these deity “images” was tantamount to creating the wind because they were intended to be visual replicas of the wind’s natural behavior. At the same time, they referred to the identity and agency of the wind god in myths and rituals.


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