On the Matter of Language: The Creation of the World from Letters and Jacques Lacan's Perception of Letters as Real

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tzahi Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Jacques Lacan ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Creation

AbstractJewish texts from Late Antiquity, as well as culturally affiliated sources, contain three different traditions about the creation of the world from alphabetic letters. This observation, which contradicts the common assumption that the myth of creation from letters stems from the holiness of the Jewish language, calls for comparative study. A structural approach to the letter as a founding ontological element is corroborated by the ancient Greek word stoicheion (στoιχειoν), which refers to both physical foundations and alphabetic letters. To analyze this attitude to the letter in the ancient world, I draw on the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, which addresses the question of the letter in the framework of human discourse. I use Lacan's concepts to describe and illuminate the inherent connection between letters and the very foundations of the world.

The Eye is the Lamp of the Body (Matthew 6.22–23=Luke 11.34–36)

1987 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale C. Allison
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Similar Nature ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Human Eye ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The most significant recent contribution to the understanding of Matt 6. 22–23 (= Luke 11. 34–36: Q) comes from Hans Dieter Betz. In his article on ‘Matthew vi.22f. and ancient Greek theories of Vision’ Betz claims to find in the pre-Socratics, in Plato, and in Philo the clues by which the enigmatic logion about the eye as the lamp of the body can best be elucidated. He directs attention to the following texts in particular: (1) Plato, Timaeus 45B–46A. In discussing the creation of the human body by the gods, Plato speaks of the ‘light-bearing eyes’(φωσφόραμματα), and he asserts that, within the human eye, there is a type of fire, a fire which does not burn but is, as Bury translates, ‘mild’. When we see, this fire, which is both ‘pure’ (είλıκρωές) and ‘within us’ (έντòς ὴμῶν), flows through the eyes and out into the world, where it meets the light of day. Now since like is attracted to like, the light of the eyes coalesces with the light of day, forming one stream of substance. And then, to quote Plato, ‘This substance, having all become similar in its properties because of its similar nature, distributes the motions of every object it touches, or whereby it is touched, throughout all the body, even unto the soul, and brings about the sensation which we term seeing.’ In fine, we see because we have within us a light that streams forth through our eyes.

scholarly journals The Dacians, The Wolf Warriors

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-373
Author(s):  
Mădălina Strechie
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Art Of War ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Art Of War

Abstract The Dacians, a very important Indo-European people of the ancient world, were, like all Indo-European peoples, highly trained in the art of war. The legends of the ancient world placed the worship of Ares/Mars, the god of war, in the world of the Thracians, the Dacians being the most important of the Thracians, by the creation of a state and by their remarkable civilization, where war generated rank. The Dacian leaders, military aristocrats, Tarabostes are similar to the Bharathi of the Aryans, therefore the accounts of Herodotus, the father of history, who called the Thracians (including the Dacians, the northern Thracians), “the most important of the Indo-Europeans, after the race of the Indians” (i.e. the Persians and the Aryans, their relatives), also have a military meaning. The totemic symbol of the wolf was much present in Europe, especially with Indo-European peoples, like the Spartans, the aristocrats of war, but mostly with the Romans, the gendarmes of the ancient world. But the Dacians honoured this majestic animal above all, not only as a symbol of the state, but also, apparently, as their eponym. As warriors, the Dacians lay under the sign of the wolf, their battle flag, and acted like real wolves against their enemies, whether they were Celts, during the reign of Burebista, or Romans, during the reign of Decebalus. The Dacians made history in the military art, being perfectly integrated, after the Roman conquest, in the largest and best trained army of the ancient world, the Roman army. Moreover, the wolf warriors, mastering the equestrian art, were a success in the special, though auxiliary troops of the famous equites singulares in the Roman army. If the Romans were the eagles of war, the Dacians were its wolves, these two symbols best illustrating the military art of all times.

What is to be done for Third World commodity exporters? An evaluation of the STABEX scheme

1984 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ravenhill
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
Common Fund ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Creation ◽  
A Minor

Third World economies largely dependent on commodity exports other than oil have been the principal victims of the world recession. Attempts at restructuring international commodities regimes through the creation of the Common Fund have met with little success. Accordingly, the possibility of helping commodity exporters through the provision of compensatory finance has attracted increasing attention. One possible model for a new international compensatory facility is the EEC's STABEX scheme, established as part of the Lome Convention. However, rather than operating automatically and without interfering with market mechanisms, as its proponents suggest, the administration of STABEX has depended on discretionary judgments on the part of the EEC Commission, and the scheme has introduced distortions into trade between the EEC and its partners in the Lome Convention. Transfers under the STABEX scheme have had only a minor impact on the economies of recipient countries, especially on the sectors affected by fluctuations in export earnings. STABEX is an unsatisfactory model for a new compensatory facility: additional finance to compensate LDCs for losses in export earnings might most feasibly be made available through further liberalization of the IMF's Compensatory Financing Facility.

scholarly journals Ideology and Architecture in the Portuguese ‘Estado Novo’: Cultural Innovation within a Para-Fascist State (1932–1945)

Fascism ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-174
Author(s):  
Rita Almeida de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Decision Makers ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Cultural Innovation ◽  
Christian Morality ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Head Of Government ◽  
Radical Form

This article challenges the common assumption of the fascist nature of the Portuguese Estado Novo from the thirties to mid-forties, while recognizing the innovative, modernizing dynamic of much of its state architecture. It takes into account the prolix discourse of Oliveira Salazar, the head of government, as well as Duarte Pacheco’s extensive activity as minister of Public Works, and the positions and projects of the architects themselves. It also considers the allegedly peripheral status of architectural elites, and the role played by decision makers, whether politicians or bureaucrats, in the intricate process of architectural renewal. The article shows that a non-radical form of nationalism has always prevailed as a discourse in which to express the unique Portuguese spirit, that of a people that saw itself as transporting Christian morality and faith across the world, a civilizing role that the country continued to fulfil in its overseas colonies. Taking the architectural legacy of the Estado Novo in its complexity leads to the conclusion that, while the dictatorship did not dismiss modernization outright, and though it adopted what could be superficially considered fascist traits, the language of national resurgence disseminated by the Portuguese regime did not express a future-oriented fascist ideology of radical rebirth. The country’s futural orientation would be accomplished by adopting a restrained policy of moderate modernization that lacked the dynamism and utopian ambition of fascism, a conservatism reflected in its architecture.

scholarly journals Sposoby wykorzystania napisów scenicznych jako metody przekładu spektakli teatralnych w trakcie Malta Festival Poznań 2017

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 31-45
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Czubińska
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Modern Technologies

As a result of the internationalization of theatrical art and the development of modern technologies, surtitles are currently one of the most frequently used methods of theater translation. The diversity of solutions currently proposed by theaters around the world entails the necessity of development of the common rules of the creation of surtitles. This role is to be fulfilled by the French rulebook prepared by the by the drama institute Maison Antoine Vitez, entitled "Guide du sur-titrage au théâtre" (Bataillon, Muhleisen, Diez, 2016). The following analysis is based on examples of the use of surtitles from four performances presented during the Malta Festival 2017 in Poznań. Its purpose will be to answer the question: to what extent the surtitles used during the Polish festival of theater are in compliance with the norms suggested by authors of“Guide du sur-titrage au théâtre” (2016)?

scholarly journals Gaining through Bereavement: A Comparative Study of the Literature of Bijan Najdi and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 478-486
Author(s):  
Zahra Sonia Barghani
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Gabriel Garcia Marquez ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Human History ◽  
The World ◽  
Actual Change ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Throughout human history bereavement has always imposed its undeniable and inevitable impact on the life of those affected by it. Despite all discrepancies what can be considered the common ground in bereavement among all nations regardless of cultural, ideological, religious and ethical values is the fact that bereavement infuses an indispensable change into the lives of those encountering it. The comparative study of Burial and The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World by Iranian and Colombian authors, respectively, points out the unconventional reversed handling of bereavement which results in obtaining insight into the human capacity to mature. Both authors make their characters inseminate their barren lives with grief to produce a change which is drastic and flourishing in Gabriel Garcia Marquez and soothing and stabilizing in Bijan Najdi. Through the course of the stories the childless couple in Najdi and the villagers in Garcia Marquez are gradually exposed to the truth of their lives ironically by the corpses coming up their ways quite unexpectedly and learn to develop new identities, attaching themselves to and possessing the bodies. This comparative study sheds light on how the revelation they experience inculcates a joyful, fluid mobility in the villagers and stability in the couple’s life. The study of these texts reveals the absolute notion that the actual change originates from the world within and what lies in the world without is dead.

Anachronism as a Form of Metalepsis in Ancient Greek Literature

Metalepsis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Peter Bing
Keyword(s):  
Ancient World ◽  
Audience Response ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The World ◽  
Ancient Literature ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Knight's Tale ◽  
Ancient Greek Literature

This chapter discusses anachronism as a form of metalepsis and different ways of understanding anachronism in the ancient and modern worlds. The chapter begins by highlighting potential complexities in applying Genette’s model of metalepsis to ancient literature, drawing out the differences between the case of a character about to murder a reader in Cortázar’s ‘Continuity of Parks’ (discussed by Genette) and that of a character, Helen, blinding and then healing an author in Stesichorus’ Palinode. It then turns to anachronism, a phenomenon which renders synchronous things that, from a historical/chronological perspective, do not belong to a shared temporal plane, and can thus be understood as metaleptic when the time periods involved are ‘the world in which one tells’ (the present) and ‘the world of which one tells’ (often, in the ancient world, the remote heroic past). The chapter moves from a modern instance which highlights anachronism’s pointedly transgressive potential (the use of 1970s music in Brian Helgeland’s 1370s-set movie, A Knight’s Tale) to the dominant ancient discourse about anachronism, according to which most anachronism is inadvertent and the critic’s job is to correct it. But the chapter argues that despite this, ancient sources such as Plato’s Symposium do recognize a more artful use of anachronism and potential modes of audience response to it, and concludes by asking what a pointedly erudite astronomical anachronism in a poem of Theocritus tells us about the audience envisaged by its author.

The Syntax of the Correlative οὕτως … ὥστε in John 3.16 in the Light of Parallel Constructions in the Ancient Greek Corpus

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-525
Author(s):  
Aaron Michael Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Traditional Understanding

While it has recently become a common assumption that the traditional understanding of the grammar of John 3.16 (‘For God so loved the world that …’) is misleading or simply inaccurate, this article demonstrates on the basis of parallel constructions from the ancient Greek corpus that οὕτως … ὥστε, when used with ἀγαπάω, functions as a correlative intensifier–result pair, exactly as it is presented in the traditional understanding.

Colonized through Language: The Case of Early Childhood Education

2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radhika Viruru
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
Natural Way

In this article, the privilege accorded to language as the ‘natural’ way of human expression and communication is problematized. Drawing upon multiple post-colonial sources, the author suggests that this is yet another of the ways in which dominant Western ways of viewing the world are imposed upon diverse groups of people, including young children. Questions are asked about whose interests are best served when language is privileged over other modes of communication. Acquiring language is often perceived as a crucial tool in the growth of young children; however, the question is rarely asked, what is lost when language is gained. The article also provides examples from an ethnographic study done in India that suggests that children can engage in complex forms of communication that do not involve language. Finally, the article addresses the common assumption that using language mostly means using one language. Dominant Western discourses about language are almost overwhelmingly unilingual; however, most of the world's children use and live in multilingual environments.

scholarly journals Understanding the Role of the Exodus in the Institutionalization and Dismantling of Apartheid: Considering the Paradox of Justice and Injustice in the Exodus

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 605
Author(s):  
Masiiwa Ragies Gunda
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Photographic Record ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

The Exodus played an explicit and implicit role in sustaining the policy and practice of apartheid in South Africa and in various other places that went through the pains of colonization. Interestingly, the same Exodus also played a central part in the resistance to and the subsequent dismantling of the apartheid policy and practice in South Africa. That readers on both sides of the divide found solace in the Exodus was put down to the common assumption that guided both parties. The assumption of historicity caused the Exodus to be read as if it were a photographic record of what happened and the experience of oppression and discrimination by the readers assigned the Exodus a historical status for speaking to a historical situation. The assumption of historicity was central in the destructive uses of the Exodus thereby creating a cycle of oppressed–oppressors across the African continent, as groups took turns to seek out their own advantage. An assumption of justice was proposed as an alternative guiding principle through which justice for all, in line with pivotal events of the Old Testament, can be realized in the world.

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