scholarly journals On Identity, Place, Dignity, and Honor: The Madonnas of Echo Park (2010) by Brando Skyhorse

Author(s):  
Amaya Ibarrarán-Bigalondo

Brando Skyhorse’s first novel, The Madonnas of Echo Park, set in Echo Park, Los Angeles, portrays the lives, thoughts and feelings of eight different and diverse characters. All of them expose their direct link to the space they inhabit: the barrio. Parting from the premise that the link between space and identity is inextricable, and the fact that the general living conditions and access to different resources is scarce in many U.S. Latino quarters, the aim of this essay is to observe whether the way the characters experience this space affects their personal identity and relation to dignity and honor. Particularly, the way barrio life affects and shapes the personality of male characters. For this purpose, we will employ Alfredo Mirandé’s conceptualization of Chicano masculinity, characterized by a strong sense of honor, dignity and pride, among other things. We thus will observe whether a tough environment produces tough men.

Author(s):  
Timothy D. Taylor

This article is based on an ethnographic study of the independent (indie) rock scene in the east side Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park. There is very little money derived from music circulating in this scene (musicians are routinely paid only about $35–40 for a show), and musicians, indie label owners, and others attach symbolic values to certain amounts of money, which are viewed in terms of what they can help the musicians purchase, such as gas for the band’s van. People in the scene also produce and exchange value in a number of ways that aren’t capitalist, from generalized reciprocity to several forms of patronage. This article ultimately argues that scenes such as this are simultaneously maintained and destroyed by capitalism: maintained because capitalism needs a reserve army of those who operate outside of it but destroyed because such scenes are deprived of their ability to reproduce themselves given how little money circulates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (13) ◽  
pp. 353-378
Author(s):  
Aikanysh ESHNAZAROVA ◽  
Beishenbek TOKTOGULOV

First generation diasporic immigrants, who have diasporic experience due to the trauma of forced migration, have a strong sense of belonging to the homeland. Even, they can transfer this sense of belonging to the next generations without losing its liveliness. In addition, the sense of belonging to the homeland is an important factor affecting the identity formation of the next generations. This study aims to investigate the second-generation member of the diasporic immigrant Özgen family, the painter Tacigül Özgen Küntüz's sense of belonging to the region of origin, her identity formation process and the way she expresses them. The study will deal with the works created by the painter in terms of identity and belonging.


Disputatio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (52) ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Harold Noonan

Abstract Eric Olson has argued, startlingly, that no coherent account can be giv- en of the distinction made in the personal identity literature between ‘complex views’ and ‘simple views’. ‘We tell our students,’ he writes, ‘that accounts of personal identity over time fall into [these] two broad categories’. But ‘it is impossible to characterize this distinction in any satisfactory way. The debate has been systematically misdescribed’. I argue, first, that, for all Olson has said, a recent account by Noonan provides the coherent characterization he claims impossible. If so we have not been wrong all along in the way he says in what we have been telling our students. I then give an account of the distinction between the reductionist and non-reductionist positions which makes it differ- ent from the complex/simple distinction. The aim is to make clear sense of the notion of a not simple but non-reductionist position — which seems an eminently reasonable possibility and something it may also be useful to tell our students about.


1975 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-69
Author(s):  
Karl Ameriks

The primary objective of this paper is to improve the defense of the thesis that(1) bodily continuity is the primary criterion of personal identity.This is to be done by establishing (in Parts Ill and IV) that there is a unique sense in which(2) bodily continuity is a necessary condition of personal identity.A secondary objective of the paper is to illustrate (in Part I) the way in which the value and validity of (2) has been obscured in recent defenses and criticisms of (1), which inappropriately interpret it in terms of the claim that(3) bodily continuity is a sufficient condition of personal identity.Since the truth of (3) will be denied, the defense of (1) will also involve arguing (in Part II) that the traditional alternative to the bodily criterion, namely the criterion of memory and psychological characteristics, not only is not a necessary condition of personal identity but also is not a sufficient condition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Silverman

Atkinson and Silverman’s (1997) depiction of the Interview Society analysed the dominance of interview studies that seek to elicit respondents ‘experiences’ and ‘perceptions’. Their article showed that this vocabulary is deeply problematic, assuming an over-rationalistic account of behaviour and a direct link between the language of people’s accounts and their past and present psychic states. In this article, using a Constructionist approach, I develop these ideas, by asking what sort of data are we trying to retrieve through interviews, i.e. what do interviews reveal? I go on to examine and discount the claimed intellectual auspices for most interview studies and the way in which interview data are usually analysed. I conclude by showing how the reliability of interview transcripts can be improved and the analysis of interview data made more robust.


Author(s):  
Ross Harrison ◽  
Edward Craig

Bernard Williams wrote on the philosophy of mind, especially personal identity, and political philosophy, where his position is staunchly liberal; but the larger and later part of his published work is on ethics. He is hostile to utilitarianism, and also attacks a view of morality associated in particular with Kant: people may only be properly blamed for what they do voluntarily, and what we should do is the same for all of us, and discoverable by reason. By contrast Williams holds that luck has an important role in our evaluation of ourselves and others; in the proper attribution of responsibility the voluntary is less central than the Kantian picture implies. Williams thinks shame a more important moral emotion than blame. Instead of there being an independent set of consistent moral truths, discoverable by reason, how we should live depends on the emotions and desires that we happen to have. These vary between people, and are typically plural and conflicting. Hence for Williams ethical judgment could not describe independent or real values - by contrast with the way in which he thinks that scientific judgment may describe a real independent world.


2020 ◽  
pp. 151-181
Author(s):  
Karen E. Shackleford ◽  
Cynthia Vinney

This chapter explores the way fictional stories impact personal identity. It discusses how identity develops with a particular focus on adolescence. Then, it sheds light on how fiction contributes to identity construction as teens gain insight into things like careers, relationships, values, and beliefs through stories and how these insights can impact their choices for their futures. The chapter also looks at the way people’s emotional investments in their favorite stories can cause them to become extensions of themselves and how this may lead them to use these stories as symbols of who they are. Finally, it explores the topic of narrative identity—the internalized, constantly evolving life story each person tells of himself or herself—and how fiction influences and becomes incorporated into people’s life stories.


Author(s):  
René Rosfort

The aims of phenomenology are to clarify, describe, and make sense of the structures and dynamics of pre-reflective human experience, whereas hermeneutics aims to articulate the reflective character of human experience as it manifests in language and other forms of creative signs. This suggests that the two approaches differ in aims, methods, and subject matter. A closer look at the two disciplines reveals, however, that in terms of history, themes, and philosophical goals they have more in common than that which separates them. This chapter examines these differences and common features in the philosophy of Heidegger and Gadamer, then demonstrates how Ricoeur’s hermeneutical phenomenology provides us with a dialectical account of personal identity that can contribute to phenomenological psychopathology. The combination of a phenomenological clarification of selfhood and a hermeneutical emphasis on interpretation paves the way for an interdisciplinary approach to mental illness.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Miller

This article contemplates the way Northern and Southern California have been used in science fiction films since the 1970s. Continuing a trend the author traces to the 1940s novels Earth Abides and Ape and Essence, Northern California represents possible utopian futures while Southern California represents dystopia. The article includes a photo essay featuring science fiction film stills held up against their filming locations in Los Angeles and the Bay Area.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-57
Author(s):  
Alissa Walker

This essay discusses the connection between land use, cars, and housing affordability, looking first at the way freeways affected Los Angeles neighborhoods, and then at the ways changing technologies might remake them once again. She argues that cleaner, quieter, self-driving cars coupled with plans to cap freeways and build parks over them could make underused land alongside busy roadways attractive for new housing.


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