Language and the Subject

Joseph Conrad ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 51-70
Author(s):  
Yael Levin

The chapter focuses on Conrad’s scenes of suspension as sites for an investigation of language and its role in the creation of the modernist subject. Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and Victory are read as the serial restaging of an unsolicited encounter with the language of the other. These unwarranted interruptions contribute to an exploration of a particularly passive and fragmented subjectivity that relinquishes the agency and cohesion afforded the Cartesian cogito. The insistence on the oral tradition is thus read not as an attempt to resurrect speech within an essentially silent medium but as a dramatization of the role of language in the evolution of the modernist subject and the narrative that houses him. Those same experimental narrative techniques that are often associated with Conrad’s commitment to an inherently epistemological philosophical inquiry are attributed here to the author’s effort to chart the ontological coordinates of character and narration.

Author(s):  
Iryna Rusnak

The author of the article analyses the problem of the female emancipation in the little-known feuilleton “Amazonia: A Very Inept Story” (1924) by Mykola Chirsky. The author determines the genre affiliation of the work and examines its compositional structure. Three parts are distinguished in the architectonics of associative feuilleton: associative conception; deployment of a “small” topic; conclusion. The author of the article clarifies the role of intertextual elements and the method of constantly switching the tone from serious to comic to reveal the thematic direction of the work. Mykola Chirsky’s interest in the problem of female emancipation is corresponded to the general mood of the era. The subject of ridicule in provocative feuilleton is the woman’s radical metamorphoses, since repulsive manifestations of emancipation becomes commonplace. At the same time, the writer shows respect for the woman, appreciates her femininity, internal and external beauty, personality. He associates the positive in women with the functions of a faithful wife, a caring mother, and a skilled housewife. In feuilleton, the writer does not bypass the problem of the modern man role in a family, but analyses the value and moral and ethical guidelines of his character. The husband’s bad habits receive a caricatured interpretation in the strange behaviour of relatives. On the one hand, the writer does not perceive the extremes brought by female emancipation, and on the other, he mercilessly criticises the male “virtues” of contemporaries far from the standard. The artistic heritage of Mykola Chirsky remains little studied. The urgent task of modern literary studies is the introduction of Mykola Chirsky’s unknown works into the scientific circulation and their thorough scientific understanding.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adnan Kabaalioglu ◽  
Nesrin Gunduz ◽  
Ayse Keven ◽  
Emel Durmaz ◽  
Mine Aslan ◽  
...  

Kidney cysts are quite common in adults. Though small simple renal cysts in an adult over 30-40 years of age are not too unusual, however, if the same cysts are seen in a child, and especially if there are additional findings, then several diagnostic possibilities may come to mind. The role of ultrasound, together with the help of intravenous contrast agents and Doppler mode, are very critical in describing the morphologic features and follow-up of the complex or multiple and bilateral renal cysts. These sonographic signs are occasionally specific for diagnosis, but in many cases sonographic clues should be evaluated together with the other genetic and clinical data to reach diagnosis.The first part of this pictorial essay included the introduction into the subject and the classification of non-genetic cystic renal diseases. The key features for the non-genetic cystic renal diseases are illustrated. In the second part, eye-catching features of genetic cystic renal diseases are demonstrated.


Author(s):  
Elena Kravtsova

L. S. Vygotsky’s principal idea, lying in the base of cultural-historical theory, is the primacy of sense over meaning. There are serious reasons to believe that this part of cultural-historical theory was not completely understood both by his disciples and his opponents. That’s why many Vygotsky’s conclusions and discoveries remained untapped. while others were implemented in science and practice quite di˙erently from what he suggested. Vygotsky once wrote that features of the particular science deeply related to its method. That’s why he introduced the experimental-genetic method (projective method in modern psychology), which allows modeling the processes of development. One of the basic concepts of cultural-historical theory is the concept of “cultural de-velopment”. A Cultural person, for Vygotsky, is the person, who can control not only their own behavior and actions but also their own psychic processes. On the one hand, modern psychology doesn’t deny the role of volition in child’s development. But on the other hand, the volition itself is typically understood as one’s ability to submit to laws and rules. More than that – it’s rather easy to create conditions where a person will submit to laws and rules, but it doesn’t develop his ability to control himself. In Vygotsky’s opinion, there are natural psychic functions, which in the process of learning transform into cultural ones. In this context, the main goal of learning is to create conditions for developing person’s ability to be the subject of his own behavior, activity and psychic.


Author(s):  
M. Nur Erdem

Violence has been a part of daily life in both traditional and digital media. Consequently, neither the existence of violence in the media nor the debates on this subject are new. On the other hand, the presentation of violence in fictional content should be viewed from a different point of view, especially in the context of aesthetization. Within this context, in this chapter, the serial of Penny Dreadful is analyzed. As analyzing method, Tahsin Yücel's model of the “space/time coordinates of narrative” is used. And the subject of “aestheticization of violence” is analyzed through a serial with the elements of person, space, and time. Thus, the role of not only physical beauty but also different components in the aestheticization of violence is examined.


Author(s):  
Neal Robinson

Ibn al-‘Arabi was a mystic who drew on the writings of Sufis, Islamic theologians and philosophers in order to elaborate a complex theosophical system akin to that of Plotinus. He was born in Murcia (in southeast Spain) in AH 560/ad 1164, and died in Damascus in AH 638/ad 1240. Of several hundred works attributed to him the most famous are al-Futuhat al-makkiyya (The Meccan Illuminations) and Fusus al-hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom). The Futuhat is an encyclopedic discussion of Islamic lore viewed from the perspective of the stages of the mystic path. It exists in two editions, both completed in Damascus – one in AH 629/ad 1231 and the other in AH 636/ad 1238 – but the work was conceived in Mecca many years earlier, in the course of a vision which Ibn al-‘Arabi experienced near the Kaaba, the cube-shaped House of God which Muslims visit on pilgrimage. Because of its length, this work has been relatively neglected. The Fusus, which is much shorter, comprises twenty-seven chapters named after prophets who epitomize different spiritual types. Ibn al-‘Arabi claimed that he received it directly from Muhammad, who appeared to him in Damascus in AH 627/ad 1229. It has been the subject of over forty commentaries. Although Ibn al-‘Arabi was primarily a mystic who believed that he possessed superior divinely-bestowed knowledge, his work is of interest to the philosopher because of the way in which he used philosophical terminology in an attempt to explain his inner experience. He held that whereas the divine Essence is absolutely unknowable, the cosmos as a whole is the locus of manifestation of all God’s attributes. Moreover, since these attributes require the creation for their expression, the One is continually driven to transform itself into Many. The goal of spiritual realization is therefore to penetrate beyond the exterior multiplicity of phenomena to a consciousness of what subsequent writers have termed the ‘unity of existence’. This entails the abolition of the ego or ‘passing away from self’ (fana’) in which one becomes aware of absolute unity, followed by ‘perpetuation’ (baqa’) in which one sees the world as at once One and Many, and one is able to see God in the creature and the creature in God.


1993 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kruger

Business ethics in business training: Oratory or the actuality. This article is the culmination of an in-depth literature study. On the one hand an attempt is made to incorporate the views of different authors, while on the other hand an attempt is made to take part in the debate which is initiated by the current renewal of interest in the subject Business Ethics. Within this framework attention is paid to the question of whether business ethics can be taught and if so, to what extent it's influence will be felt. Secondly, an insight into the teaching of business ethics in the future is provided. Within this context the approach to the teaching, the content, the role of the student and the responsibility of the educator in particular are addressed. Opsomming Hierdie artikel is die resultaat van 'n indringende literatuurstudie. Daar word gepoog om enersyds verskillende skrywers se standpunte saam te vat, maar andersyds ook kritiese kommentaar te lower en deel te neem aan die debat wat deur die huidige opiewing in die belangstelling in Bestuursetiek bestaan. Binne die raamwerk sal aandag aan die volgende geskenk word: Die beantwoording van die vraag of Bestuursetiek onderrig kan word en indien wel die trefwydte daarvan. Tweedens 'n toekomsblik op die onderrig van Bestuursetiek. Binne die konteks word die benadering tot die onderrig/ die inhoud en die rol van die student en die verantwoordelikheid van die dosent bekvk.


1983 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 53-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Conrad ◽  
Humphrey J. Fisher

“The land took the name of the wells, the wells that had no bottom.”In Part I of this paper we examined the external written sources and found no unambiguous evidence that an Almoravid conquest of ancient Ghana ever occurred. The local oral evidence reviewed in this part of our study supports our earlier hypothesis, in that we find nothing in the traditions to indicate any conquest of the eleventh-century sahelian state known to Arab geographers as “Ghana.” Instead, the oral traditions emphasize drought as having had much to do with the eventual disintegration of the Soninke state known locally as “Wagadu.”An immediate problem involved in sifting the oral sources for evidence of an Almoravid conquest is that a positive identification between the Wagadu of oral tradition and the Ghana of written sources has never been established. Early observers like Tautain (1887) entertained no doubts in this regard, and recently Meillassoux seems to have accepted a connection, if not an identification, between Ghana and Wagadu when he notes that “les Wago, dont le nom a donné Wagadu, sont les plus clairement associés à l'histoire du Ghana.” However, much continues to be written on the subject, and the question remains a thorny one. On the lips of griots (traditional bards) and other local informants, Wagadu is a timeless concept, so a reliable temporal connection between people and events in the oral sources on one hand and Ghana at the time of the Almoravids on the other, is particularly elusive. Indeed, any link between the traditions discussed here and a specific date like 1076 must be regarded as very tenuous, as must any association of legendary events with Islamic dates. In western Sudanic tradition influenced by Islam, the hijra (A.D. 622) is both prestigious and convenient, a date with which virtually any event in the remote past can be associated, though such a claim may have nothing to do with any useful time scale.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Adrijana Marčetič

Just after the end of the Great War Miloš Crnjanski wrote a poem dedicated to Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, in Sarajevo, on 28 June 1914. The title of the poem is “A Tribute to Princip” (“Spomen Principu”), and it was first published in Crnjanski’s early book of poetry Lyrics of Ithaca (Lirika Itake, 1919). Forty years later Crnjanski wrote a commentary on the poem, a sort of its prose paraphrase, and entitled it “On the Poem about Princip” (“Uz pesmu o Principu”); it was published in his Commentaries on Lyrics of Ithaca (Komentari uz Liriku Itake, 1959). Although by no means as significant as his famous poem “Sumatra”, and equally famous “Explanation of Sumatra”, that is considered a kind of Crnjanski’s personal poetic manifesto, as well as a poetic manifesto of Serbian modernism in general, “A Tribute to Princip” and its explanation represent an equally important testimony to Crnjanski’s poetic sensibility and his literary inspiration. The subject of the poem, the manner of poetic expression, on the one side, and the prose style of its commentary, on the other, clearly indicate what was considered by young Crnjanski the main role of the new, modern poetry he was advocating for: the break with the tradition, the rejection of the old and no longer productive poetic and national myths, and the affirmation of the new role of poetry in the everyday life. Therefore, opposing the standard interpretation of the poem, in this paper I argue that “A Tribute to Princip” is not a political poem but a “poem about poem”, which we could read as metapoetry or a poetry poem, providing that we apply the term with a little more freedom.


2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-585
Author(s):  
Sinja Graf

This essay theorizes how the enforcement of universal norms contributes to the solidification of sovereign rule. It does so by analyzing John Locke’s argument for the founding of the commonwealth as it emerges from his notion of universal crime in the Second Treatise of Government. Previous studies of punishment in the state of nature have not accounted for Locke’s notion of universal crime which pivots on the role of mankind as the subject of natural law. I argue that the dilemmas specific to enforcing the natural law against “trespasses against the whole species” drive the founding of sovereign government. Reconstructing Locke’s argument on private property in light of universal criminality, the essay shows how the introduction of money in the state of nature destabilizes the normative relationship between the self and humanity. Accordingly, the failures of enforcing the natural law require the partitioning of mankind into separate peoples under distinct sovereign governments. This analysis theorizes the creation of sovereign rule as part of the political productivity of Locke’s notion of universal crime and reflects on an explicitly political, rather than normative, theory of “humanity.”


Author(s):  
Charles O. Jones

The creative work involved in writing the Constitution of the United States in Philadelphia in 1787 has been interpreted and analysed in political and policy debate ever since. ‘Inventing the Presidency’ considers how the Founders of the United States tried to create unity in a separated system. Why was the title of president selected? What was the role of president going to look like? How long should the single executive serve? Should the person be term-limited? Providing a legislative or law-making role for the president was the subject of considerable debate at the beginning. Inventors solve problems: they tinker until they have a workable device. The creation of the presidency was a process of trial and error.


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