Sensing the next battle: An overshadowed prehistory of creative dissent in Tunisia

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-192
Author(s):  
Joachim Ben Yakoub ◽  
Sami Zemni

When analysing the Tunisian uprising through its aesthetics, the premonitory and subversive agency of the artistic sphere becomes intelligible. This contribution, therefore, engages in a reconstruction of an often overlooked local and historical sequence of aesthetic contention and asks if this sequence prefigured the Tunisian uprising. This seditious premonitory subversion grew into a generalized practice as it emerged into full daylight during the liberation phase of the uprising as an important mediator of the fundamental changes the country was taking itself through. The specific practices that structured the aesthetics of Tunisian uprising were thus already formed a decade before the self-immolation of Tarek el-Tayeb Mohammed Bouazizi. This insight is not only fruitful in relation to the ongoing debates reconstructing the historical dynamics that preceded the revolution, but also gives important insights into the visionary subversive dynamics the artistic sphere is still engaging in today, maybe sensing the next battle coming.

Open Theology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Soboslai

AbstractThe paper investigates the conceptual dichotomy of violence and nonviolence in reference to the self-immolations that have been taking place in Tibet for the last several years. First using the insights of Hannah Arendt to distinguish between the categories of violent, nonviolent and peaceful, I approach the question of violence as the problem of acts that transgress prohibitions against causing harm. Using that heuristic, I examine the ways multiple ethical systems are vying for recognition regarding the selfimmolations, and how a certain Buddhist ambivalence around extreme acts of devotion complicate any easy designations of the act as ‘violent’ or ‘nonviolent’. I conclude by suggesting how any such classification inculcates us into questions of power and assertions of appropriate authority.


Author(s):  
Michel Biron

L’écrivain devient rarement écrivain par les voies traditionnelles de l’école. En ce sens, il constitue toujours à quelque degré un autodidacte. Toutefois, la valeur sociale d’une telle figure, qu’il s’agisse de l’écrivain lui-même ou d’un personnage de fiction, varie considérablement selon les cultures et les époques. Dans La Nausée de Jean-Paul Sartre, l’Autodidacte est un personnage complexé qui envie le savoir et la culture de Roquentin. À l’inverse, on trouve nombre de textes littéraires où la figure de l’autodidacte est valorisée. C’est particulièrement vrai dans l’histoire de la littérature québécoise, depuis le XIXe siècle jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Cet article propose d’en faire la démonstration à travers une série d’exemples tirés de chacune des périodes, mais en insistant sur la figure de « l’autodidacte exemplaire » propre à la Révolution tranquille, qui oppose la culture comme désir à la culture comme héritage scolaire. Abstract A writer becomes rarely a writer through studying at school. Speaking of a self-made writer would seem tautological since every writer could pretend to be one at some extent. Nevertheless, the social value of the self-made writer and of it’s literary representations vary a lot from a country to another, and from a period of time to another. In La Nausée from Jean-Paul Sartre, the character of “L’Autodidacte” envy Roquentin’s background and try to walk in his step. At the opposite, there are many examples of literary texts where the self-made is appreciated, if not admired as the true possessor of culture. It’s often the case in the history of Quebec’s literature, from 19th century up to now. This article try to demonstrate such fortune of the self-made by studying examples of Quebec literature chosen in each of the main periods, but especially during the “Révolution tranquille” around the “autodidacte exemplaire” who refuse the culture as inheritance and worship culture as personal desire.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-196
Author(s):  
Tom Le

The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has not only changed how the USA engages in warfare but also how it maintains its military supremacy and how other nations budget and strategize. The very idea of the RMA has impacted how nations manage their technological advantages and raises the questions of can the RMA be monopolized and if not, which nations can adopt their own RMA? In September 2000, the Japan Defence Agency (now the Ministry of Defence [MOD]) produced a report titled ‘“Info-RMA”: Study on Info-RMA and the Future of the Self-Defence Forces’ to explore the prospects of implementing RMA principles in the Japan Self-Defence Forces. In this article, I explore to what extent can RMA principles be implemented in the Self-Defence Forces? I argue that although several significant changes have been implemented in technology, doctrine, operations and organization, various normative and technical constraints have directed the MOD to craft an RMA with Japanese characteristics, emphasizing defence and interconnectedness with the US armed forces. These findings suggest that current efforts to ‘normalize’ the Self-Defence Forces can succeed if crafted to appeal to the sensibilities of the Japanese public.


Worldview ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Harlan Cleveland

The triple revolution in the “underdeveloped areas” -the revolution of rising economic expectations, of rising resentment at inequality, and of rising determination to be free and independent—is plain to see in the words and actions of leaders all through Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These deep desires are all, of course, the product of Western example and Western philosophy. The rationalism of Greece, the Christian idea of the dignity of man, the self-confidence of Europe after the Renaissance, the American demonstration that equality and independence can succeed, and the objective success of the scientific method in producing power and prosperity in industrial nations—these elements in our tradition have converted the world. After uncounted centuries of ignorance and apathy, the ancient societies of Asia and Africa want to participate in the good things that seem to result, from these alien ideas.


Author(s):  
Urszula Tes

Tes Urszula, Human on fire as a gesture of self-offering in Polish documentary films “Images” vol. XXV, no. 34. Poznań 2019. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pp. 172–179. ISSN 1731-450X. DOI 10.14746/i.2019.34.12. One of strongest acts of personal protest in the communist era was self-immolation, which was the subject of two Polish documentaries. Maciej Drygas in Hear My Cry invoked the figure of Ryszard Siwiec, who immolated himself on September 8, 1968 as a sign of protest against the Soviet army invasion of Czechoslovakia. In his documentary, Drygas shows a fragment of the film with the burning man, juxtaposing it with the testimony of witnesses to the tragedy and the account of the family. This documentary restores the memory of the whole society, who due solely to the film, learned about the radical gesture of a common man. Holy Fire by Jarosław Mańka and Maciej Grabysa in turn invokes the heroic but forgotten Walenty Badylak, who immolated himself in March of 1980 in Cracow as an expression of his objection to distortion of the truth about Katyń. Both acts of self-immolation had for many years been perceived as totally futile acts, while the directors show that the self-immolation of these now has a deep and symbolic meaning. In my analysis, I shall invoke historic and cultural contexts, conduct a multifaceted interpretation of self-immolation act and discuss the complex imagery included in the films.


Author(s):  
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi

This chapter scrutinizes the transformation of Foucault’s conception of history and the question of the subject after his encounter with the Iranian Revolution. The chapter illustrates that how the revolution informed Foucault’s writings toward the end of his life on questions of ethics, subjectivity, and the hermeneutics of the self.


2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-623
Author(s):  
Beth Baron ◽  
Sara Pursley

We are thrilled to present this special issue of IJMES on “Maghribi Histories in the Modern Era” with guest editor Julia Clancy-Smith. The issue was conceived as an effort to bring scholarship on the Maghrib and Mashriq into closer dialogue. We issued the call for papers in December 2010, weeks before the self-immolation of Muhammad al-Buʿazizi in Tunisia triggered the string of upheavals often referred to as the Arab Spring. That North Africa took the lead in upending authoritarian regimes makes this issue especially timely. Although none of the pieces deals directly with contemporary events, they provide innovative ways for thinking about historical transformations and genealogies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (24) ◽  
pp. 4574-4578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taejun Eom ◽  
Wonjae Yoo ◽  
Yong-Deok Lee ◽  
Jae Hyung Park ◽  
Youngson Choe ◽  
...  

Triggered cellular uptake of a synthetic graft copolymer carrying an anticancer drug is achieved through self-immolation of the side-chain azobenzene groups.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 1777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Meyer ◽  
Jean-Alexandre Richard ◽  
Bruno Delest ◽  
Pauline Noack ◽  
Pierre-Yves Renard ◽  
...  

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