From National Bildung to Postcolonial Transnationalism

Author(s):  
Greg Forter

This chapter links colonialism, nationalism, and transnationalism/cosmopolitanism to the genre of the Bildungsroman. The chapter’s theoretical reference points are Joseph Slaughter’s Human Rights, Inc. and Pheng Cheah’s Spectral Nationality: two influential critical works that offer incommensurate analyses of the Bildungsroman in relation to postcolonial nationalism (and the transnational). I show how Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco and Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows offer more fruitful accounts of these matters than both theorists. The novels complicate Cheah’s emphasis on the emancipatory potential of national Bildung by revealing the transnational assemblages that precede and exceed the nation’s formation. But they also resist the account of transnationalism identified by Slaughter, in which apparently cosmopolitan commitments disguise the continued coercions of Bildung as a disciplinary technique for subject-formation. Finally, each novel attends to the corporeal dimension of cosmopolitan solidarities and, in Shamsie’s case, links that corporeality to linguistic translation and the concept of the untranslatable.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 258-264
Author(s):  
Chepulchenko T. О.

The article examines the modern concept of human rights as the universally accepted system of views and attitudes about the place and role of human rights in the society and the state. The list of human rights enshrined in these international instruments and the constitutions of many countries, was the result of a long historical development of samples and standards of human life and the entire community. It is emphasized that on the basis of a combination of natural and positivistic concepts of human rights and made possible the consolidation of fundamental freedoms in the constitutions of democratic States. The article focuses on the basic concepts of how to solve the problem of human rights and legal status of the individual which have developed in the history of legal theory and practice of various peoples: liberal (European) concept of human rights, collectivist, Islamic and traditionalist concept. It is emphasized that a decisive influence on the establishment of human rights made on the liberal conception of natural law doctrine, which established the priority of human rights, the new parameters of the relationship between the individual and the government. In the statement of the rights and freedoms of man played an important role in their ideological, doctrinal justification – the doctrine of natural human rights that do not depend on the discretion and arbitrariness of the government, and it is aimed at ensuring the rights defined by nature. Based on this doctrine and on the above mentioned international legal instruments, the new Constitution of Ukraine establishes a number of new rights, which were previously unknown or Constitution of the Soviet Ukraine nor the Ukrainian legislation: the right to life, right to dignity, the right to respect for private and family life, freedom of movement and free choice of residence, right to freedom of thought and speech, free expression of views and beliefs, and so on. Therefore, a new concept of the relationship between the Ukrainian state and the person with priority to the latter is brought to life, since the category of human rights operates solely in relations between man and power. Human rights are the limits of power. They define the sphere of human activity in which the power (the state) cannot interfere and the responsibilities which the state has for the human being. The article also discusses four generations of human rights, it is noted that in the XXI century. we can talk about the formation of the fourth generation of human rights, which is connected with the scientific discoveries in the field of microbiology, medicine, genetics and more. It is this generation that is at the center of intense debate precisely in terms of the naturalness of these phenomena and processes, from the standpoint of morality and worldview of a particular society, as well as based on the content of scientific doctrine. As a conclusion, the author writes that the legally enshrined legal position of a person has as its basis a liberal and natural-law concept, which stipulated as the primary principles freedom and inalienability, inalienability of human rights that belong to it from birth. Reference points are made in the relationship between the state and man - freedom, equality, the rule of law, the universality of human rights. And on these principles, principles, in addition to the actual scope of human rights and obligations, are exercised by these rights and freedoms. Keywords: constitution, concept of human rights, international legal act, human rights, natural law.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-630
Author(s):  
Mohsen Awad

The Arab Organization for Human Rights was founded in 1983, at a time when the legal, political and cultural environment in the Arab world was not at all amenable to human rights. On the legal level and when present, societies' laws ranged between banning outright and imposing restrictions, and the very concept of human rights was deeply misunderstood. This was due to the many relevant interpretations and reference points and to its use by the West to contain communist ideology and apply pressure on the Soviet Union. In the meantime, all across the Arab region, public freedoms were experiencing crises of varying degrees of severity. It is in this legally restricted, culturally dubious and politically stifled environment that efforts to establish the Organization first saw the light of day in what amounted to an effort to swim against the current.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-59
Author(s):  
Liza Tom ◽  
Shilpa Menon

This article examines the transition ritual (nirvanam) in a specific community of thirunangais, a regional transfeminine community characterized by ritual practices of worship and labor, to inquire into forms of religious worlding and subject- formation that take place at the margins of dominant systems of religion, citizenship, and gender. Unlike those who identify exclusively with the category of transgender, thirunangais’ formations of self and subjecthood draw not only from modern and secular discourses such as those of human rights and identity politics but also from religious discourses and practices. These involve embodied experiences of sacrifice and pain that are considered “premodern” and abject even within hegemonic norms of religion in India. Drawing from how thirunangai narratives of self construct the nirvanam as an encompassing assemblage of both ritual observances and more medicalized practices of sex reassignment, the article looks at how thirunangais consistently queer modern prescriptions of the relationship among political, private, and religious spheres. What can thirunangais tell us about those bodies, practices, and discourses that are seen as inimical to the constitution of the modern religious subject in postcolonial contexts?


1975 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 87-92
Author(s):  
P. L. Bender

AbstractFive important geodynamical quantities which are closely linked are: 1) motions of points on the Earth’s surface; 2)polar motion; 3) changes in UT1-UTC; 4) nutation; and 5) motion of the geocenter. For each of these we expect to achieve measurements in the near future which have an accuracy of 1 to 3 cm or 0.3 to 1 milliarcsec.From a metrological point of view, one can say simply: “Measure each quantity against whichever coordinate system you can make the most accurate measurements with respect to”. I believe that this statement should serve as a guiding principle for the recommendations of the colloquium. However, it also is important that the coordinate systems help to provide a clear separation between the different phenomena of interest, and correspond closely to the conceptual definitions in terms of which geophysicists think about the phenomena.In any discussion of angular motion in space, both a “body-fixed” system and a “space-fixed” system are used. Some relevant types of coordinate systems, reference directions, or reference points which have been considered are: 1) celestial systems based on optical star catalogs, distant galaxies, radio source catalogs, or the Moon and inner planets; 2) the Earth’s axis of rotation, which defines a line through the Earth as well as a celestial reference direction; 3) the geocenter; and 4) “quasi-Earth-fixed” coordinate systems.When a geophysicists discusses UT1 and polar motion, he usually is thinking of the angular motion of the main part of the mantle with respect to an inertial frame and to the direction of the spin axis. Since the velocities of relative motion in most of the mantle are expectd to be extremely small, even if “substantial” deep convection is occurring, the conceptual “quasi-Earth-fixed” reference frame seems well defined. Methods for realizing a close approximation to this frame fortunately exist. Hopefully, this colloquium will recommend procedures for establishing and maintaining such a system for use in geodynamics. Motion of points on the Earth’s surface and of the geocenter can be measured against such a system with the full accuracy of the new techniques.The situation with respect to celestial reference frames is different. The various measurement techniques give changes in the orientation of the Earth, relative to different systems, so that we would like to know the relative motions of the systems in order to compare the results. However, there does not appear to be a need for defining any new system. Subjective figures of merit for the various system dependon both the accuracy with which measurements can be made against them and the degree to which they can be related to inertial systems.The main coordinate system requirement related to the 5 geodynamic quantities discussed in this talk is thus for the establishment and maintenance of a “quasi-Earth-fixed” coordinate system which closely approximates the motion of the main part of the mantle. Changes in the orientation of this system with respect to the various celestial systems can be determined by both the new and the conventional techniques, provided that some knowledge of changes in the local vertical is available. Changes in the axis of rotation and in the geocenter with respect to this system also can be obtained, as well as measurements of nutation.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Kumar Tiwari
Keyword(s):  

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