Disability and the Theodicy of Defeat

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 100-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron D. Cobb ◽  
Kevin Timpe
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Horrendous Evils ◽  
The Individual

Marilyn McCord Adams argues that God’s goodness to individuals requires God to defeat horrendous evils; it is not enough for God to outweigh these evils through compensatory goods. On her view, God defeats the evils experienced by an individual if and only if God’s goodness to the individual enables her to integrate the evil organically into a unified life story she perceives as good and meaningful. In this essay, we seek to apply Adams’s theodicy of defeat to a particular form of suffering. We argue that God’s goodness to individuals requires that God defeat the suffering to which a range of disabilities can give rise. 

scholarly journals Exploring good practice in life story work with people with dementia: The findings of a qualitative study looking at the multiple views of stakeholders

Dementia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Gridley ◽  
Yvonne Birks ◽  
Gillian Parker
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Family Carers ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Story Work ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Person With Dementia ◽  
Design And Methods

Introduction Despite growing international interest in life story work as a tool for person-centred dementia care, there is little agreement on what constitutes good practice and little evidence from the perspectives of people with dementia or their family carers. Design and methods This paper reports the findings from the qualitative element of a larger study looking at the feasibility of evaluating life story work. Ten focus groups were held with 73 participants: four groups of people with dementia (25 participants); three with family carers (21 participants); and three with staff, professionals and volunteers with experience of life story work (27 participants). Findings: It became apparent through our focus groups that, when people talk about ‘life story work’, different people mean different things. This related to both process and outcomes. In particular, a person with dementia may have very different views from others about what life story work is for and how their life story products should be used. There was general agreement that a good practice approach would be tailored to the individual needs and preferences of the person with dementia. However, in practice many settings used templates and the process was led by staff or completed by family carers. Conclusion We produced nine key features of good practice which could be used to guide the life story work process. Key elements include the recognition that not everyone will want to take part in life story work and that some people may even find it distressing; the importance of being led by the person with dementia themselves; the need for training and support for staff, carers and volunteers; and the potential for life story work to celebrate the person’s life today and look to the future.

Writing Life: Early Twentieth-Century Autobiographies of the Artist-Hero

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mhairi Pooler
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Dorothy Richardson ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Individual ◽  
First World

Writing Life offers a revisionary exploration of the relationship between an author’s life and art. By examining the self-representation of authors across the schism between Victorianism and Modernism via the First World War, this study offers a new way of evaluating biographical context and experience in the individual creative process at a critical point in world and literary history. Writing Life is also the story of four literarily and personally interconnected writers – Edmund Gosse, Henry James, Siegfried Sassoon and Dorothy Richardson – and how and why they variously adapted the model of the German Romantic Künstlerroman, or artist narrative, for their autobiographical writing, reimagining themselves as artist-heroes. By appropriating key features of the genre to underpin their autobiographical narratives, Writing Life examines how these writers achieve a form of life-writing that is equally a life story, artist’s manifesto, aesthetic treatise and modern autobiographical Künstlerroman. Pooler argues that by casting their autobiographical selves in this role, Gosse, James, Sassoon and Richardson shift the focus of their life-stories towards art and its production and interpretation, each one conducting a Romantic-style conversation about literature through literature as a means of reconfirming the role of the artist in the face of shifting values and the cataclysm of the Great War.

The workshop and working-class writing

2018 ◽  
pp. 94-110
Author(s):  
Tom Woodin
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Social Experience ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
The Individual

The writing produced in workshops explored varied forms of expression including autobiography, short stories, dialect, drama, poetry and novels. Overall there were significant debates about the nature and meaning of working class writing and whether it had any distinctive features. Divisions between forms of writing were actively challenged and new forms of subjectivity and ways of representing experience were developed. However, there were also pressures to write within existing forms. New modes of expression could become tiring after a time when different approaches were required. Overall writing in the Fed was marked by the creative interpretation of experience and vernacular voice. It reveals tensions between bearing witness and creative interpretation and between representing a collective social experience and the individual life story.

Clinical assessment in disaster mental health: A logic of case formulation

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 297-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Lee McCabe, PhD ◽  
Michael J. Kaminsky, MD, MBA ◽  
Paul R. McHugh, MD
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Clinical Assessment ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Mass Casualty ◽  
Disaster Medicine ◽  
Trauma Patients ◽  
Disaster Mental Health ◽  
Case Formulation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
First Time

Despite increased professional attention to the mental health aspects of disaster medicine in recent years, advances in clinical assessment of survivors of mass casualty incidents have been few. Contemporary assessment methods often yield little more than check lists of symptoms that, while they may lead to reliable DSM-IV diagnoses, provide no sense of the individual patient’s plight and so are inadequate for case formulation, treatment planning, and prognosis estimation. The authors describe a comprehensive model for assessing patients developed at the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Relating it to the field of disaster mental health for the first time here, the approach uses four distinct but overlapping appraisal perspectives, each of which drives a set of exploratory propositions and leads to an understanding of the essential natures of clinical disorders and their underlying etiologies. The perspectives address the following: (a) what the individual “has” (biologically based disease and physical illness); (b) who the individual “is” (graded dimensions of temperament, disposition, traits, intelligence, etc); (c) what the individual “does” (purposeful, goal-directed, conditioned behavior, etc); and (d) what the individual “has encountered” (his/ her life story and the meaning that has been given to those experiences). Following a description of each perspective from the standpoint of its underlying logic, inquiry domain, and indicated intervention, the authors highlight the potential hueristic value of the model by illustrating numerous testable hypotheses that can be generated through the juxtaposition of the four assessment perspectives with three longitudinal considerations for the management of trauma patients, ie, the stress-related constructs of (pre-incident) resistance, (peri-incident) resilience, and (post-incident) recovery.

Classifying the narrated #selfie: genre typing human-branding activity

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 1835-1857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toni Eagar ◽  
Stephen Dann
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Combined Effect ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Wave Technique ◽  
Coffee Table ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Communication Approach

Purpose This paper explores the purposive use of the selfie in the construction of personal narratives that develop and support an individual’s human brand. Selfies were divided into archetypical clusters of “genres” that reflected the combined story told through Instagram image and accompanying text captions. Design/methodology/approach The analysis drew a randomized sample of 1,000 images with accompanying text from a large capture of 3,300 English language captioned selfies. Coding for semantic and semiotic data used a three-wave technique to overcome interpretive limitations. Findings Based on their structural characteristics, seven genre types emerged from the coded sample set. These primary genres of selfie meta-narratives are autobiography, parody, propaganda, romance, self-help, travel diary and coffee-table book. Research limitations/implications The research is limited in generalization to the Instagram photo-sharing app platform by design. Samples were taken from the app due both to its popularity and its capacity to annotate images. Selfies conducted in non-public, non-annotation-based apps may produce alternative genres and classifications. Practical implications The paper presents a genre classification to examine how selfies are used to “show, not tell” a portion of the consumer’s life story. Brands, firms and marketers can apply genres to examine the selfie types that best connect with the identity of their brands and consumers, based on how their consumers communicate within the Instagram network. Social implications Selfies are an oft pathologized and moralized aspect of consumer conduct. We present a view of the selfie as a deliberate, consciously considered communication approach to maintaining social bonds between friends, family and wider audience. Selfies are presented as a combined effect of consumption of a social media service (Instagram) and the co-production of valued content (the selfie) that recognizes the individual as an active constructor of their digital self. Originality/value The paper outlines a novel framework of selfie genres to classify the deliberate human-brand narratives expressed in selfies. By taking a narrative perspective to the Instagram selfie practice, the genre type captures the combined effect of the mimesis and diegesis, where the mimesis showing of self is contextualized with the diegesis of the provided captions to capture an intentional storytelling act of image and text.

scholarly journals THREE LIVES OF NIKOLAY AGAFONOV: TRANSFORMATION OF IDENTITY IN THE AGE OF WAR AND REVOLUTION

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
Alexander I. Kazankov ◽  
◽  
Oleg L. Lejbovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Collective Farm ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Farm System ◽  
The Relationship

The article reconstructs N. P. Agafonov’s life story. It aims at determining the relationship between the individual and the social in a person’s biographical trajectory, analyzing ego-transformation process in a specific historical context. The research methodology involves the use of autobiographical narrative, formed in the process of investigative actions, carried out by the organs of OGPU–NKVD in 1929 and 1937. N. P. Agafonov’s fate is of special interest for historians because during a third of a century he changed his identity three times: at the beginning of the century N. P. Agafonov realized himself as a social democrat, an active participant of the revolutionary underground in St. Petersburg and Perm in 1905–1907. After its defeat, he chose a musical and dramatic career. During the Civil War, he got a haircut as a monk. In the pre-Soviet era, Agafonov behaves like a conformist, whose inner evolution is congenial to the changes taking place in the social circle of democratic youth. The turbulent nature of the events of the Civil War does not allow him to make an artistically reasonable and socially conditioned choice. During the Soviet regime he denounced the collective farm system as a hieromonk, called on parishioners to be strong in faith and expressed hope for the return of the good old times, for which he was subjected to repression by the punitive authorities.

scholarly journals Personal Identity of the Artist as a Condition and Result of Creativity in Art

2020 ◽  
pp. 62-67
Author(s):  
Nadezda Yurevna Mochalova
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Creative Identity ◽  
Dialectical Process ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Interpretive Process ◽  
Descriptive Method

The author outlines that the essence of the problem of personal identity is formulated in the form of a dilemma: the personality must be identical to itself, because it retains the inconsistency of all experiences, actions, plans throughout the life of the individual; the personality must not be identical to itself on the basis of its inclusion in the context of changing being, which inevitably implies its internal self-change. It is noted that this dilemma involves the use of the term “identity” in two contexts: in the context of comparison (the opposite meaning of “identical” is expressed in the following terms: “other”, “another”, “alien”, “unequal”, “reverse”) and in the context of development, temporality (the term “identity” becomes the opposite meaning of “changed”, “impermanent”, “developing”). Research methods: analysis of literature on the topic studied; comparison, descriptive method. The artist's creative identity as a dialectical process of changing the dominant forms, styles, and images is reviewed in the article. The artistic and ontological problem of self-identity of artistic personality is presented through the dialogue between “One” and “Other”. The artistic reality of a work of art allows the artist to know the essence of his identity in the context of intersubjectivity. It is concluded that the paradigm that allows us to detect intersubjective conditionality of identity is the relational ontology, which represents relationships as a fundamental form of being. It is emphasized that personal identity is discursively mediated by a person's self-understanding, so hermeneutics primarily becomes the methodological space in which this research is carried out. Hermeneutics proves that self-knowledge and self-understanding of a person is an interpretive process that forms an important part of the subject's ontology. According to this methodology, personal identity is mediated by its own interpretive activity as a narrative philosophy, as a person's story about himself, and as the formation of a life story. The author is impressed by the productive idea of E.G. Trubina's research on the reflection of the individual as a creative process of self-construction in relation to the modified personal identity of the artist.

“Why don't you think of Malaysia?” - Narratives on Educational Migration, Emotions, and Social Capital among Transnational Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Carlson ◽  
Bengt Jacobsson
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Student Mobility ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Identity Negotiations ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Transnational Students ◽  
Emotional Aspects ◽  
Educational Migration ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis contribution is about a female transnational student from Turkey, Hafize, studying for four years at an Islamic Malaysian university. She was interviewed during the research project “Transnational Student Mobility in Higher Education in Asia”, a multi-sited ethnographic project containing six sub-studies aiming to illuminate student voices and the impact of cultural processes on student-inhabited transnational spaces, identity negotiations, and networks. Through a bottom-up perspective, and with life story as the principal method, the project illustrates processes of social change and relations between the individual and society. Questions are posed about,inter alia, the motivations and reasons that may be identified in the educational stories. Hafize's narrative is discussed as a relational and contextual story, in which family relations and the significance of education, gender, ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic and political situations intersect. Education is given different meanings: instrumental and reflexive as well as emotional aspects. Turning points and the concept of capital, especially social and emotional capital, are addressed. Hafize's family of eight siblings is deeply involved in serial reciprocity, a tightly bonded network supporting all the children in their efforts to study. Hafize's story is substantially gendered and ‘ethnified’ – a reflexive emotional identity project, in which education and religion are given high priority. In Turkey secularist legislation was an obstacle. The studies abroad provided possibilities for self-development but tempered with some limitations.

The Meaning of the Future for the Oldest Old

2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margareta Nilsson ◽  
Anneli Sarvimäki ◽  
Sirkka-Liisa Ekman
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Oldest Old ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Philosophy Of Life ◽  
The Future ◽  
Wait And See ◽  
Life Story Interviews ◽  
The Individual

The aim of the study was to highlight the oldest old people's view of their future from a perspective of philosophy of life. Data was collected by means of life story interviews with 15 persons. The analysis was performed by utilizing a phenomenological hermeneutic method and the interpretation was guided by the conceptual framework of philosophy of life as designated by Jeffner (1988). The following themes emerged: future seen as everyday life; future-oriented values; and thoughts about life and death. The oldest old were found to view their future in ways that ranged from a tangible positive approach via a wait-and-see policy to a negative approach. Their perception of their future implied two different time perspectives, their immediate future and a more long-term perspective of the future. Furthermore, the future was experienced on three different levels, the individual level, the intergenerational level, and the metaphysical level.

Multiple Identities: A Theoretical and an Empirical Approach

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-404
Author(s):  
Brunhilde Scheuringer
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
Personal Awareness ◽  
Development Of Identity ◽  
The Individual

A brief summary of sociological theories concerning the development of identity states that it emerges through the interactions between individuals and society, implying that the individual is unable to attain an identity in an autonomous manner. An identity is therefore constructed and formed through contact with other individuals, groups and cultures in one’s socio-cultural environment. The concept of symbolic interactionism plays a fundamental role here. Societies establish and form social roles by means of linked expectations. In turn, an individual is introduced to these and is exposed to them throughout their socialisation. They are internalised and emerge as critical elements of identity. Explained another way, there are numerous identities in a society that are already fixed and established. The individual is confronted by those identities and must adapt to them. Individuals are seen as active participants in this process, capable of reflecting on it even constructing it and forming their own identity independently. A tension therefore exists between established social identities and the capacity of individuals to construct their own identities. This is a dynamic process that goes on throughout various life stages and differs according to social milieu. With this is mind; identity may be defined as one’s personal awareness of being a distinctive individual, with a unique life-story and being in constant confrontation with the environment in order to attain a balance between individual claims and the expectations of this environment.1

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