Yves Bonnefoy and Jean-Luc Nancy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Change ◽  
Material Forces ◽  
Material World ◽  
The World ◽  
Creative Force ◽  
Embodied Practice ◽  
Philosophical Writings ◽  
Yves Bonnefoy

This book explores how the French poet Yves Bonnefoy (1923–2016) develops a newly affirmative, tactile, and embodied practice of poetic performance in the latter half of his career. It investigates how this shift is prompted by a conceptual change that Bonnefoy undergoes in writing Dans le leurre du seuil (1975) as he comes to perceive finitude not merely as a force of dissolution but as a dynamic of opening and exposure. Analysing how this transformation convinces the poet of the generative nature of the act of relation, this study examines how Bonnefoy no longer perceives the poem as an isolated body that reaches out to the material world from a distance but presents it as an ontological performance: an exploration of the dynamics by which linguistic, corporeal, and material forces reverberate side by side and by which worldly existence opens up in and through the poem. Using Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophical writings to cast new light on this practice of poetic performance, this book explores how the poet and the philosopher both stress the immersive nature of this kind of textual experimentation. It investigates how they insist that the text does not speak about the world but experiments with its creative force from within, exploring the spacious dynamics of exposition that bring the poem into being, asking us to situate ourselves within these dynamics and to be opened up by them, to reimmerse ourselves in an endlessly mobile and relational world.

scholarly journals Reconnecting Language and Materiality in Christian Reading: A Comparative Analysis of Two Groups of Protestant Women

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-529
Author(s):  
Britt Halvorson ◽  
Ingie Hovland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Anthropology ◽  
Analytic Approach ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Embodied Practice ◽  
Reading Texts

AbstractWhat do Christians do when they read? How can Christian reading be understood anthropologically? Anthropologists of Christianity have offered many ethnographic descriptions of the interplay among people, words, and material objects across Christian groups, but descriptions of Christian reading have often posited an androgynous reader. In response to this we begin from the observation that while reading cannot be done without words, it also cannot be done without a body. We propose that an analytic approach of placing language and materiality (including bodies) together will help clarify that reading texts is an embodied practice, while not undermining the importance of working with words. We draw inspiration from the recent interest in bringing linguistic anthropology and materiality studies together into the same analytic frame of “language materiality.” We explore a language-materiality approach to reading by comparing how the biblical story of Mary and Martha was read by Protestant women in two historical situations: 1920s Norway and the 1950s United States. We argue that in these cases the readers’ gendered, raced, and classed bodies were central to the activity of reading texts, including their bodies’ material engagements with the world, such as carrying out women's work. We suggest that paying attention to embodied reading—that is, readers’ social entanglements with both language and materiality—yields a fuller analysis of what reading is in particular historical situations, and ultimately questions the notion of a singular Protestant semiotic ideology that works consistently toward purification.

scholarly journals Beyond Entanglement: (Socio-) Materiality and Organization Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 263178772095444
Author(s):  
François Cooren
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Theory ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Material World ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The World

Although we have to welcome the renewed interest in socio-materiality in organization studies, I claim that we are yet to understand what taking matter seriously really means. The mistake we especially need to stop making consists of automatically associating matter to something that can be touched or seen, that is, something tangible or visible, an association that irremediably leads us to recreate a dissociation between the world of human affairs and the so-called material world. To address this issue, I mobilize a communication-centered perspective to elaborate that (1) materiality is a property of all (organizational) phenomena and that (2) studying these phenomena implies a focus on processes of materialization, that is, ways by which various beings come to appear and make themselves present throughout space and time. In the paper I conceptualize the contours of these materialization processes and discuss the implications of this perspective on materiality for organizational theory and research.

How words make the world: language materialities and the circulation of the Sakha algys

Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenanne Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Language ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
World Language ◽  
Material World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article investigates contemporary uses of the Sakha language algys (blessing poems) and reveals the “old” and “new” types of language materiality present in this genre of ritual poetry. Focusing primarily on one example of algys shared online in 2018, I discuss how performing algys has always involved close interconnection between language and the material world and present the changing contexts and forms of algys transmission that highlight both fixity and fluidity in the way speakers conceive of language and materiality. Despite the new mobilities and technologies that build upon the previously established written textual forms of this poetry—and contribute to its continued circulation and transmission—certain elements of traditional algys remains salient for speakers, reinforced by ideologies or ontologies of language that foreground the power of the (spoken) word. This is connected to the production of qualia and the invocation of chronotopes. Thus, while textual forms further enable processes of citationality as they are circulated online; the written words alone do not constitute an algys. Rather, here the importance of embodied, spoken language materiality is at the fore.

scholarly journals Obituary notices of fellows deceased

1908 ◽  
Vol 81 (543) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Science ◽  
Physical Knowledge ◽  
General Impression ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Practical Engineering ◽  
Creative Force ◽  
The Many ◽  
Effective Development ◽  
Lord Kelvin

It would be impossible in an obituary of ordinary length to convey any idea of the many-sided activity by which Lord Kelvin was continually transforming physical knowledge, through more than two generations, more especially in the earlier period before practical engineering engrossed much of his attention in importunate problems which only he could solve. It is not until one tries to arrange his scattered work into the different years and periods, that the intensity of his creative force is fully realised, and some otion is acquired of what a happy strenuous career his must have been in early days, with new discoveries and new aspects of knowledge crowding in upon him faster than be could express them to the world. The general impression left on one's mind by a connected survey of his work is overwhelming. The instinct of his own country and of the civilised world, in assigning to him a unique place among the intellectual forces of the ast century, was not mistaken. Other men have been as great in some special department of physical science: no one since Newton—hardly even Faraday, whose limitation was in a sense his strength—has exerted such a masterful influence over its whole domain. He might have been a more learned mathematician or an expert chemist; but he would then probably have been less activity, the immediate grasp of connecting principles and relations; each subject that he tackled was transformed by direct hints and analogies brought to bear from profound contemplation of the related domains of knowledge. In the first half of his life, fundamental results arrived in such volume as often to leave behind all chance of effective development. In the nidst of such accumulations he became a bad expositor; it is only by tracing his activity up and down through its fragmentary published records, and thus obtaining a consecutive view of his occupation, that a just idea of the vistas continually opening upon him may be reached. Nowhere is the supremacy of intellect more impressively illustrated. One is at times almost tempted o wish that the electric cabling of the Atlantic, his popularly best known achievement, as it was one of the most strenuous, had never been undertaken by him; nor even, perhaps, the practical settlement of electric units and instruments and methods to which it led on, thus leaving the ground largely prepared for the modern refined electric transformation of general engineering. In the absence of such pressing and absorbing distractions, what might the world not have received during the years of his prime in new discoveries and explorations among the inner processes of nature.

scholarly journals Psychology in an Indeterminate World

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162095800
Author(s):  
Ludger van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Ecological Approach ◽  
Material World ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
The World ◽  
Indeterminate World ◽  
Over Time

By sharing their world, humans and other animals sustain each other. Their world gets determined over time as generations of animals act in it. Current approaches to psychological science, by contrast, start from the assumption that the world is already determined before an animal’s activity. These approaches seem more concerned with uncertainty about the world than with the practical indeterminacies of the world humans and nonhuman animals experience. As human activity is making life increasingly hard for other animals, this preoccupation becomes difficult to accept. This article introduces an ecological approach to psychology to develop a view that centralizes the indeterminacies of a shared world. Specifically, it develops an open-ended notion of “affordances,” the possibilities for action offered by the environment. Affordances are processes in which (a) the material world invites individual animals to participate, while (b) participation concurrently continues the material world in a particular way. From this point of view, species codetermine the world together. Several empirical and methodological implications of this view on affordances are explored. The article ends with an explanation of how an ecological perspective brings responsibility for the shared world to the heart of psychological science.

The Clinton Administration and Africa: A View from Gaborone, Botswana

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-69
Author(s):  
Larry A. Swatuk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Material World ◽  
Existing Problems ◽  
The World

With fanfare befitting the arrival of a god of the Western material world, U.S. President Bill Clinton toured Southern Africa imparting “words of wisdom” along the way. His aim, we were told, was to see that the United States becomes Africa’s “true partner.” The reason being, according to Clinton, “[a]s Africa grows strong, America grows stronger ... Yes, Africa needs the world, but more than ever it is equally true that the world needs Africa.” To this end, the United States would pursue a mix of political and economic policies that included the African Crisis Response Initiative and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, both designed to foster “stability” and “prosperity” on the continent. Lofty goals, to be sure, but ends whose means are badly in need of interrogation. This article does just that: To wit, does Clinton, on behalf of U.S. policymakers, mean what he says? If so, in naming “peace” and “prosperity,” can he make them? Put differently, does the Clinton administration have the power to introduce order where there was chaos? Or will it only compound existing problems and visit new ones upon those who had few to begin with?

A Cultural History Of Color in the Renaissance

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Material World ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
The World ◽  
Color Technology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychology Literature

A Cultural History of Color in the Renaissance covers the period 1400 to 1650, a time of change, conflict, and transformation. Innovations in color production transformed the material world of the Renaissance, especially in ceramics, cloth, and paint. Collectors across Europe prized colorful objects such as feathers and gemstones as material illustrations of foreign lands. The advances in technology and the increasing global circulation of colors led to new color terms enriching language. Color shapes an individual’s experience of the world and also how society gives particular spaces, objects, and moments meaning. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Color examines how color has been created, traded, used, and interpreted over the last 5000 years. The themes covered in each volume are color philosophy and science; color technology and trade; power and identity; religion and ritual; body and clothing; language and psychology; literature and the performing arts; art; architecture and interiors; and artefacts. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of Color set. General Editors: Carole P. Biggam and Kirsten Wolf

scholarly journals Theophany in the Old Testament and its Interpretation in Aramaic Translations (The Concept of the Divine Word in the Targum)

2007 ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
Dmytro V. Tsolin
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Material World ◽  
The World ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
History Of ◽  
Repeated Use ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Experienced Researcher

Every reader of the Old Testament, both experienced researcher and newcomer, cannot fail to pay attention to one peculiarity in the presentation of the idea of ​​God: it is a harmonious (and, at times, amazing) combination of transcendence and immanence. The History of the Creation of the World (Genesis 1: 1 - 2: 3), which begins the first book of the Strictly Testament - Genesis - is an example of an exquisite prose genre with elements of epic poetry. In it, the Creator of the Universe appears to the Almighty, the Wise, and the All-Powerful, standing above the created world: Only one word of it evokes the material world from nothingness. This is emphasized by the repeated use of the formulas אלהים וימר / wa-yyo'mer 'ělohîm ("And Elohim said ...") and ויהי־כן / wa-yəhî khēn ("And so it became"). This use of two narrative constructs at the beginning and at the end of messages about the creative activities of God clearly emphasizes the idea of ​​reconciling the divine Word and being. God is shown here to be transcendental.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Marissa K. López
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Physical Interaction ◽  
Material World ◽  
The World

The introduction takes issue with the tendency of Chicanx and Latinx studies to read representationally. Beginning instead from the premise that both text and bodies are part of the physical stuff of the world, the author redefines reading as a mode of physical interaction with text that produces moments of affective chicanidad. To see reading as the intellectual processing of represented things is to approach text with expectations and preconception. Instead of learning what they already know, by contrast, readers of Racial Immanence will witness the objects gathered therein fostering networks of connection that deepen human attachment to the material world. Readers will be challenged to think of text as a physical engagement and to see reading as a process of connection rather than interpretation. To consider reading as merging with the stuff of the world opens the door to an ethics of shared vulnerability that reimagines the political.

Excerpt from “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Walker Bynum
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Imitatio Christi ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The World ◽  
Embodied Practice ◽  
Women Mystics

In this chapter the renowned medievalist scholar Caroline Walker Bynum brings our attention to a striking historical occurrence: in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe the concern with and attachment to Eucharistic devotion was overwhelmingly female. Why this gender bias, and at that time? Christian women were predominantly “inspired, compelled, comforted and troubled by the Eucharist” and in many different forms—from miraculous apparitions, to experiences of ecstasy connected to the attendance and ingestion of the Eucharist, to the showing of sensorial excesses in its presence. Bynum shows how material and physical receptions of the body of Christ were expressed not only as forms of ecstasy but also as gendered modes of living the Imitatio Christi. This thirteenth-century corporeal, female experience of the Eucharist is connected to a particular moment in the life of Christ—the transition between life and death. Positioned as “brides” and hence as the erotic counterparts of Christ, women and female mystics exploited the full potential of Christ’s own corporeality rather than his otherworldly nature. Bynum’s work constitutes a formative reference point for scholars of Catholicism across a range of disciplines for the obvious reason that it deals so elegantly with themes of substance, gender, bodies, and devotional forms of Catholic practice. Her work continues to be an original source of inspiration for anthropologists because of its remarkable sensitivity to religion as an embodied, practice-generative engagement with the world. Bynum should also be considered as important for the “new” anthropology of Catholicism for her pioneering work on the gymnasticity of gender and for the attention it draws to the sublimated erotic tension that exists between institutional doxa and mystical aesthetics.2 In Bynum’s work, gender is not presented as merely one among a number of potential analytical foci for elaboration of Catholicism; rather, it is the very ontological architecture of the religious, and hence an essential topic for scholars seeking to understand Catholicism as a translocal force.

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