“The lantern of the world rises to mortals by varied paths”: Paul Laffoley (1935–2015) and Dante

2021 ◽  
pp. 001458582110215
Author(s):  
Arielle Saiber

American artist and architect Paul Laffoley (1935–2015) had a life-long fascination with Dante. Not only did he refer to Dante and the Commedia throughout his writings and paintings, but he created a large-scale triptych illustrating the poem, as well as sketched out plans for a full-immersion Dante study center on a planetoid orbiting the Sun, complete with a to-scale replica of the medieval Earth, Mount Purgatory, the material heavens, and the Empyrean through which a “Dante Candidate” could re-enact the Pilgrim’s journey. Laffoley’s work is often placed by art critics within the visionary tradition and Laffoley himself embraced that label, even as he deconstructed the term in his writing. Among the many visionary artists, poets, and philosophers Laffoley studied, Dante was central. He was, for Laffoley, a model seeker of knowledge, a seer beyond the illusions of everyday life. The essay that follows offers a brief biography of Laffoley and his works; an overview of his two main Dante projects ( The Divine Comedy triptych [1972–1975] and The Dantesphere [1978]); and initial considerations on how Dante’s works and thought fit into Laffoley’s larger epistemological project.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
D.I Ansusa Putra

<p><em>Dajjal appearance discussion in the last decade has been the trending among Muslim. There are massive search for religious doctrines text on Dajjal in digital media. This is oriented towards certain views about the world, social and cultural conditions, political project, political subjectivity, attitudes, and practice or competence. The behavior affects social-political life through the contextualization of hadith about Dajjal. This study aims to obtain a complete picture of digital media behavior in understanding religious doctrines related to  Fitna of Dajjal among Muslims. This article combines Muslim theory of Cosmopolitanism Khairuddin Aljunied and living hadith approach, supported by data from google trend search throughout 2019. The results showed that there were four digital behaviors of Indonesian Muslim related to Dajjal hadith, first, searching instantaneously; second, reviewing from internet; third, joining the contextualisation discussion; and fourth, liking the personalization and illustration. The most frequently sought topic is about the prayer to be protected from Fitna of Dajjal. In addition, the study also tried to prove that this digital behavior is formed massively because of supply and demand pattern. It means that there are groups producing Dajjal hadith in public sphere regularly since they are supported by the many interests of consumers.</em></p>


Author(s):  
Nilmini Wickramasinghe ◽  
Rajeev K. Bali

Recently, the world has witnessed several large scale natural disasters: the Tsunami that devastated many of the countries around the rim of the Indian Ocean in December 2004, extensive flooding in many parts of Europe in August 2005, hurricane Katrina in September 2005, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in many regions of Asia and Canada in 2003, and the earthquake disaster in Pakistan towards the end of 2005 . These emergency and disaster situations (E&DS) serve to underscore the utter chaos that ensues in the aftermath of such events, the many casualties and loss of life, not to mention the devastation and destruction that is left behind. One recurring theme that is apparent in all these situations is that irrespective of the warnings of the imminent threats, countries have not been prepared and ready to exhibit effective and efficient crisis management. This paper examines the application of the tools, techniques, and processes of the knowledge economy to develop a prescriptive model that will support superior decision making in E&DS and thereby enable effective and efficient crisis management.


2019 ◽  
pp. 258-268
Author(s):  
NATALIA POPOVGA-ROGOVA

The author examines a few excerpts from Inferno (Cantos III and V) translated into Russian by V. Brusov, both in the context of perception of «The Divine Comedy» by Dante in Russia, and from the viewpoint of verse translation methods’ evolution. The text’s analysis on the metric level gives evidence of V. Brusov’s search for new poetic forms, both through renewing and overriding the world literature classical examples, which is typical for Russian modernism of early XX century.


Traditio ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 191-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Anthony Mazzeo

From the beginning of the Divine Comedy — ‘where the sun is silent’ — to the final vision of light, the poem is a carefully ordered hierarchy of light and shadows. We are not only asked to see clearly but we are asked to see qualitatively, to distinguish degrees of light and kinds of vision. It is in the last canto of the Paradiso that the degree of light is most intense and that our attention is called to a unique kind of seeing. With extraordinary insistence, Dante repeats some form of the verb vedere (to see) or a derivative there-of every few lines. The transition from time to eternity and from the finite to the infinite makes all the more sophisticated resources of language inadequate, and one must revert to a childlike form of emphasis, mere repetitions. This simplest of rhetorical devices is, by some miracle of art, adequate for the expression of the most unimaginable of possible experiences. In every line we feel something of Dante's joy in the possession of a ‘novella vista’ and his rapture in the divine vision, an effect conveyed by the very struggle to express the inexpressible. The struggles of course are those of Dante the pilgrim; Dante the poet is in perfect control of his artistic resources, and it is through the masterly rendering of inadequacy that the whole presentation becomes — paradoxically — adequate.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Shilton

Mobile phones could become the largest surveillance system on the planet. These ubiquitous, networked devices can currently sense and upload data such as images, sound, location, and motion using on-board cameras, microphones, GPS, and accelerometers. And they can be triggered and controlled by billions of individuals around the world. But the emergent, wide-scale sensing systems that phones support pose a number of questions. Who will control the necessary infrastructure for data storage, analysis, sharing, and retention? And to what purposes will such systems be deployed? This paper explores whether these questions can be answered in ways that promote empowering surveillance: large-scale data collection used by individuals and communities to improve their quality of life and increase their power relative to corporations and governments. Researchers in academic and industry laboratories around the world are currently coordinating mobile phone networks for purposes that expand the definition of surveillance. Technology movements, variously called personal sensing, urban sensing or participatory sensing, have emerged within the areas of social computing and urban computing. These research programs endeavor to make ubiquitous devices such as phones a platform for coordinated investigation of human activity. Researchers are exploring ways to introduce these technologies into the public realm, a move that anticipates sensing by people across the world. This paper uses ethnographic data collected in a sensing development laboratory to illuminate possibilities that participatory sensing holds for equitable use, meaningful community participation, and empowerment. Analyzing the motivations and values embedded within the design process and resulting technologies reveals ways in which participatory sensing builds tools for empowering surveillance and responds to the many ethical challenges these new technologies raise.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S278) ◽  
pp. 325-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siramas Komonjinda

AbstractPhnom Rung was a Khmer-style Hindu temple complex. It was built in sandstone and laterite on the rim of an extinct volcano between the 10th and 13th centuries. At the beginning, the sanctuary was built as a dedication to Shiva. Following the abandonment of Phnom Rung (which was unrecorded) the sanctuary fell into ruin, and it was not until 1971 that it was restored using anastylosis. Phnom Rung Historical Park, along with the other temples Phimai and Muang Tum, have been on the tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage since 2004.Walking from the eastern side (front) to the western side of Phnom Rung takes the visitor through 15 doorways—those of the inner cloisters, the annex, the principal tower, and the inner sanctum. The centers of these doorways are perfectly aligned, with an azimuth of 84.5°. Every year thousands of people from Thailand and around the world travel to Phnom Rung to see the sun rising through its all of its 15 doorways. This event happens only twice a year, at the beginning of April and the beginning of September. Sunsets can also be seen through the doorways, in March and October. Each pair of sunrise-sunset events is separated by one lunar month.The possible meaning of this event has been investigated by both archaeologists and astronomers. Nothing is recorded about sunrise or sunset among the inscriptions at the site. Another issue is that the many and various structures remain within the complex, showing that constructions in this area spanned several centuries. However, it seems that the overall layout did have a significance, both astronomical and religious.


1959 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Freccero

The Journey of the Divine Comedy begins with a conversion. The pilgrim “comes to” after somehow having lost his way in a dark wood. He looks up from that tangle and sees the rays of the sun striking upon a mountain-top, and knows that he must attain the summit. From that moment, the problem is no longer where to go, but rather how to get there, and the problem proves to be insoluble. Try as he may, he cannot achieve the goal which is the beginning and the cause of all joy, for three formidable beasts drive him back into the wood from which he has come, and he retreats, no longer able to help himself, exhausted, and very nearly defeated.


2019 ◽  
pp. 24-37
Author(s):  
Yuriі Boreiko

The article attempts to comprehend the phenomenon of an event in the religious dimension. An event is considered as a phenomenon characterized by a singularity, that is, an individual character of expression, belongs to the sphere of non everyday life, does not coincide with the usual framework of understanding of the world and does not correspond to empirical factual. The need for a more active philosophical and religious discourse of the correlation between everyday and non everyday life in the realm of religion led to the necessity of address to this problem. Thus, the purpose of the article is to find out the ontological status of the event, the religious context of which manifests itself as an opposition to everyday life and leads to a transformation of the established way of life of the believer.          Everyday being is characterized by features of sacredness, demonstrates the attraction to the transcendent. For this reason, the obvious and justified is the combination of the phenomena of everyday empirical world with the values ​​of another dimension of being. The presence of non everyday in everyday life is evidenced, in particular, by elements of cult practice, since they are an expression of sacral time and space, as well as a way of incarnation of eternal values. The sphere of non everyday life includes the relationship between human and God described in the Gospels, prophecies, revelation, and vision as non everyday manifestations of religious experience. Event is the opposition of the world of phenomena to beyond the exquisite world of being, the transformation, which leads to the emergence of new orders and structures. Implementation of the event contradicts the previous ideas, therefore meeting the event with standard reality is accompanied by a transformation of everyday life. Establishing the rootedness of an event into being or its transcendental origin allows us to determine the causes of an event. In a secularized world, human, for the most part, demonstrates his willingness to recognize as significant events, including those in the universe, which correspond to scientific knowledge. This happens even when the fact of the event calls into question the fundamental postulates of science. Given this discovery in science, situations in politics, art, personal life are perceived as large-scale events. Moreover, the moment of meeting with the event can be described, for example, with a poetic language that expresses certain symbols of human existence and appears as a means of objectivizing the event as an unexpected innovation. Instead, the believer perceives events of a supernatural nature as an interference of the otherworldly reality in the usual way of life. Thus, the reception of religious experience is accompanied by the transformation of the individual's everyday life. The basis of the mystical experience of the religious tradition is the experience of meeting with the Divine, which results in a change in the believer's self-consciousness, transformation of its values, senses and meanings. That is, the awareness of an event that does not belong to an established order implies the prospect of new reality emersion, which contradicts previous notions. One of the forms of gaining religious experience is the process of conversion, which results in the transformation of the ideological orientation of a person, which enables the knowledge of their own hidden depths of consciousness. Conversion, the acquisition of grace and faith express the sudden or gradual process by which the individual achieves internal harmony, awareness of his righteousness, a sense of happiness, finds support in believing in the reality of what he has discovered in religious experiences.


In opening the proceedings of this meeting Mr J. S. Sawyer of the U.K. Meteorological Office uttered the view that it is really premature as yet to ask a meteorologist to interpret the events of the last glaciation. Nevertheless, that is just what I have been asked to do and, though one must tread warily, I believe it must be attempted. Indeed, it has been attempted in a number of scientific papers in recent years and these two days’ proceedings have surely helped us to see a number of things more clearly. I have no time to do justice to all the points that appear interesting. A meteorologist looks first for the large-scale patterns, which are probably the least difficult to discern and which provide the framework into which all else must fit. Most meteorologists, oceanographers and perhaps all who are neither geologists nor palaeobotanists, will also probably echo Professor W. A. Watts’s reservations about the many names adopted for the various cold and warm stages. One must acknowledge the need which has called the multiplicity of naming systems into being, but the outsider can only accept them reluctantly as marking a provisional stage until the dating is firm and the correspondence of the events known by different names in different parts of the world has been established. This huge, and growing, vocabulary is formidable to those outside the debates about the field evidence and tends to deter other scientists who might contribute to interpreting the processes of climatic change in the Quaternary. From this point of view, and to such audiences, dates and numbered stages, or one single series of names, are much to be preferred.


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