In Search of a Perfect Match: Jian’an (196-220) Writing about Women and the Formation of a Literati Community

NAN Nü ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-223
Author(s):  
Qiulei Hu
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Perfect Match ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Beautiful Woman ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Representations Of Women ◽  
Divine Beauty

AbstractThe pursuit of divine women or women with divine beauty is a common theme in the earliest works of Chinese literature. Many fu (rhapsodies) composed at the Western Han courts feature the speaker’s failed pursuit of a beautiful woman. Yet during the Jian’an period, the image of a seductive yet inaccessible woman lost its prominence in the literary imagination and was replaced by a lonely beauty yearning for a worthy match and lamenting the swift passage of time. This transformation had much to do with the social and cultural transitions of this particular historical moment. This article places Jian’an representations of women in the context of group composition and literary communication at the Cao courts, and discusses the literary and political implications of these representations in comparison with previous court writing about women. The article argues that under a new environment of court writing, Jian’an literati transformed the image of beautiful women from the embodiment of imperial power and privilege into the symbol of their ideal personality and shared values. Writing about women became a crucial means to forming a literary and political community, and defining that community’s values and principles in a troubled time.

Artmaking in the Age of Global Capitalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Bryant
Keyword(s):  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Historical Antecedents

What strategies are visual artists and filmmakers using to criticise the social and economic conditions shaping our particular historical moment? This question is answered by considering the methods and political implications of artists or filmmakers working in a contemporary western art context today. Leading into extended analyses of works by Frances Barrett, Claire Denis, Angela Brennan, and Alex Monteith, the book considers two forces that have informed contemporary artmaking: the economic conditions that began changing social realities from the 1970s forward; and the current tendency of the political aesthetic to move away from direct political content or didacticism to a concern for the sensate effects of materials. This is framed by Jacques Rancière’s ‘distribution of the sensible’ and Walter Benjamin’s historical materialism. As historical ground for understanding the contemporary condition, Artmaking in the Age of Global Economics pays particular attention to the divisions that opened up between progressive writers, theorists and artists in the late 20th century. Suggesting an alternative approach to understanding art’s historical antecedents, it avoids received art-historical narratives or canonical figures, refuting both the autonomy of art as well as the separation of artist from the work they produce. It locates, instead, contemporary art in a worldly context of responsibility that opens up to an ethics of practice. [211]

PENSAMENTO POLÍTICO EM GIORGIO AGAMBEN

Professare ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Claudemir Aparecido Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Political Freedom ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Control ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social

<p class="resumoabstract">O professor Giorgio Agamben tem elaborado críticas à engenhosa estrutura política ocidental moderna. Avalia os mecanismos de controle estatal, nos quais os denomina ‘dispositivos’, cuja força está na imbricação às normas jurídico-teológicas com seus similares ritos e liturgias. Suas ocorrências e legitimidade preponderam no tecido social cuja organização sistêmica se põe quase como elemento natural e não cultural. O texto tem por objetivo explorar a concepção política de Agamben sobre a política contemporânea, especialmente considerando seu livro: ‘Estado de Exceção’, cuja investigação apresenta a possibilidade de atenuação dos direitos de cidadania e o enfraquecimento da prática da liberdade política e o processo de relação dos indivíduos no meio social através da redução das subjetividades ‘autênticas’. Analisamos ainda a transferência do mundo sacro elaborado pelos teólogos católicos presente na modernidade à política cuja democracia moderna faz do homem (sujeito) tornar-se objeto do poder político. Faz também, reflexão dos conceitos de subjetivação e dessubjetivação relacionando-os às implicações políticas do homem moderno. A pesquisa é bibliográfica com ênfase na análise dos conceitos elaborados por Agamben, especialmente quanto ao ‘dispositivo’. Conclui que o indivíduo ocidental, de modo geral, sofre o processo de dessubjetivação e está ‘nu’, indefeso e alienado politicamente. Ele precisa voltar-se ao processo de ‘profanação’ dos dispositivos para libertar-se das vinculações orientadoras que forçosamente o descaracteriza enquanto ser ativo e livre.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Política. Liberdade. Subjetivação.</p><h3>ABSTRACT</h3><p class="resumoabstract">Professor Giorgio Agamben has been criticizing the ingenious modern Western political structure. It evaluates the mechanisms of state control, in which it calls them 'devices', whose strength lies in the overlap with legal-theological norms with their similar rites and liturgies. Its occurrences and legitimacy preponderate in the social fabric whose systemic organization is almost as a natural and not a cultural element. The text aims to explore Agamben's political conception of contemporary politics, especially considering his book 'State of Exception', whose research presents the possibility of attenuating citizenship rights and weakening the practice of political freedom and the individuals in the social environment through the reduction of 'authentic' subjectivities. We also analyze the transfer of the sacred world elaborated by the Catholic theologians present in the modernity to the politics whose modern democracy makes of the man - subject - to become object of the political power. It also reflects on the concepts of subjectivation and desubjectivation, relating them to the political implications of modern man. The research is bibliographical with emphasis in the analysis of the concepts elaborated by Agamben, especially with regard to the 'device'. He concludes that the Western individual, in general, suffers the process of desubjectivation and is 'naked', defenseless and politically alienated. He must turn to the process of 'desecration' of devices to free himself from the guiding bindings that forcibly demeanes him while being active and free.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Keywords</strong>: Politics. Freedom. Subjectivity. </p><p> </p>

Arabic in Modern Hebrew Texts

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Population Displacement ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Hebrew

In the late 1950s, Iraqi Jews were either forced or chose to leave Iraq for Israel. Finding it impossible to continue writing in Arabic in Israel, many Iraqi Jewish novelists faced the literary challenge of switching to Hebrew. Focusing on the literary works of the writers Shimon Ballas, Sami Michael and Eli Amir, this book examines their use of their native Iraqi Arabic in their Hebrew works. It examines the influence of Arabic language and culture and explores questions of language, place and belonging from the perspective of sociolinguistics and multilingualism. In addition, the book applies stylistics as a framework to investigate the range of linguistic phenomena that can be found in these exophonic texts, such as code-switching, borrowing, language and translation strategies. This new stylistic framework for analysing exophonic texts offers a future model for the study of other languages. The social and political implications of this dilemma, as it finds expression in creative writing, are also manifold. In an age of mass migration and population displacement, the conflicted loyalties explored in this book through the prism of Arabic and Hebrew are relevant in a range of linguistic contexts.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet O'Shea
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Competitive Sports ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physical Play ◽  
The World ◽  
Right Wing Populism

This section contends with a central irony: Americans are among the most competitive people in the world, and yet we are among the least likely to play competitive sports in adulthood. This exercise gap is usually treated as a public health problem; the goal of this section is to treat it as a social and cultural concern. The conclusion therefore investigates the social and political implications of an American tendency to outsource physical play to experts: higher levels of fear, increased preoccupation with success at all costs, decreased creativity, and increasing rigidity of perspective and position. Specifically, the conclusion maintains that a neglect of fair play has dire consequences for democracy, a suggestion born out by the recent swing toward right-wing populism in politics.

The Curious Eye

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Webster
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Vision ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Moment

The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? Today, in our everyday lives we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, The Curious Eye explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but rather an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.

The Social and Political Implications of Moral Conviction

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 95-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Skitka ◽  
G. Scott Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Conviction ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social

‘It ain’t nothing like America with the Bloods and the Crips’: Gang narratives inside two English prisons

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coretta Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
Narrative Interviews ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Male Prisoners

This article explores recent concerns about the emergence of gangs in prisons in England and Wales. Using narrative interviews with male prisoners as part of an ethnographic study of ethnicity and social relations, the social meaning of ‘the gang’ inside prison is interrogated. A formally organized gang presence was categorically denied by prisoners. However, the term ‘gang’ was sometimes elided with loose collectives of prisoners who find mutual support in prison based on a neighbourhood territorial identification. Gangs were also discussed as racialized groups, most often symbolized in the motif of the ‘Muslim gang’. This racializing discourse hinted at an envy of prisoner solidarity and cohesion which upsets the idea of a universal prisoner identity. The broader conceptual, empirical and political implications of these findings are considered.

scholarly journals The economics of free

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 563-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Evans
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Gaming Industry ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Simpsons ◽  
The Social ◽  
Casual Games ◽  
Branding Strategies

The gaming industry has seen dramatic change and expansion with the emergence of ‘casual’ games that promote shorter periods of gameplay. Free to download, but structured around micropayments, these games raise the complex relationship between game design and commercial strategies. Although offering a free gameplay experience in line with open access philosophies, these games also create systems that offer control over the temporal dynamics of that experience to monetize player attention and inattention. This article will examine three ‘freemium’ games, Snoopy Street Fair, The Simpsons’ Tapped Out and Dragonvale, to explore how they combine established branding strategies with gameplay methods that monetize player impatience. In examining these games, this article will ultimately indicate the need for game studies to interrogate the intersection between commercial motivations and game design and a broader need for media and cultural studies to consider the social, cultural, economic and political implications of impatience.

Materials for SDI

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-29
Author(s):  
Gerold Yonas
Keyword(s):  
Technology Policy ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
Business News ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Materials Research ◽  
Strategic Defense ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
Wide Dissemination

Al the plenary session held December 4, 1985 during the annual MRS Fall Meeting in Boston, Dr. Gerold Yonas was the keynote speaker. He was introduced to the packed ballroom by 1985 MRS President Elton N. Kauftnann.Kaufmann: To introduce our plenary address this evening, I would like to make a few remarks on the context in which it is being presented. Iam sure you are all aware that materials research, as most fields of science, is a field where it is rare indeed that one can cleanly separate the technical aspects of a program from the social, economic, and political aspects. This evening's topic is certainly no exception. It involves the U.S. government's Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI for short. It has broad technical and political implications and has raised highly contentious issues of both technical feasibility and political appropriateness. It is in every source of news available today. This evening we want to focus on those technical aspects of SDI which involve materials and which should therefore be of interest to this audience.Recently, in Space Business News, John McTague, Acting Director of OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), indicated that “the technology of Swords and the technology of Plowshares have much in common.” Of course the degree of commonality between the Swords and the Plowshares becomes greateras one goes to more fundamental research. In the same article Gerold Yonas indicated that “several aspects of SDI are likely to have enormous implications in the private sector with spinoffs directed into every part of the economy.” In addition to the technical materials aspect of the program those larger issues will certainly impact our lives. In that spirit we want to make this presentation so you can evaluate the program with a maximum amount of information. Of course, because this is a publicly controversial issue, I need to stress that the Society is not endorsing one particular view or another. But, we are strongly advocating the wide dissemination of information on a topic such as this.

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