scholarly journals Becoming God: Cycles of Rebirth and Resurrection in Their Eyes Were Watching God

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-18
Author(s):  
Kaitlynn N Milvert
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
External Control ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Concept Of God ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
American Novels ◽  
The Individual ◽  
External Forces

This paper reexamines African-American writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston’s presentation of the self in Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), generally considered one of the most important African-American novels of the twentieth century. Originally criticized by Hurston’s contemporaries as a retrograde folk portrait of African-American life, Their Eyes presents the oral narrative of Hurston’s protagonist, Janie, a woman surrounded by natural and social cycles. Building on the novel’s allusive title and the convergent Biblical and folkloric frameworks of the work, I trace the evolving concept of “God” throughout the novel as external forces continually shape and reshape Janie’s world for her, questioning whether she can retain any individual agency navigating through these cyclical, predetermined pathways. The redefined vision of the individual that emerges from this reading counters the criticism of Hurston’s contemporaries, as Janie herself assumes the role of “God” at the novel’s conclusion and gains the power to create her own cycles, free from external control. I thus argue that the novel transcends its supposed function as a depiction of the African-American self to make a broader, humanistic claim for the power of the individual, not contingent on social distinctions. 

scholarly journals Indirectness in the Age of Globalization: A Social Network Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 930-949
Author(s):  
Marina Terkourafi
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American English ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Network Ties ◽  
British English ◽  
Theoretical Predictions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Self

Indirectness has traditionally been viewed as commensurate with politeness and attributed to the speaker’s wish to avoid imposition and/or otherwise strategically manipulate the addressee. Despite these theoretical predictions, a number of studies have documented the solidarity-building and identity-constituting functions of indirectness. Bringing these studies together, Terkourafi 2014 proposed an expanded view of the functions of indirect speech, which crucially emphasizes the role of the addressee and the importance of network ties. This article focuses on what happens when such network ties become loosened, as a result of processes of urbanization and globalization. Drawing on examples from African American English and Chinese, it is argued that these processes produce a need for increased explicitness, which drives speakers (and listeners) away from indirectness. This claim is further supported diachronically, by changes in British English politeness that coincide with the rise of the individual Self. These empirical findings have implications for im/politeness theorizing and theory-building more generally, calling attention to how the socio-historical context of our research necessarily influences the theories we end up building.

scholarly journals The Logical Basis of a Literary Text, or What Does Porfiry Petrovich Hide in F. M. Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”?

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-259
Author(s):  
Valentina E. Vetlovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Literary Text ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Logical Basis ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Individual

<p>The article explores the role of logical connections in an epic text. It is these connections, according to the author of the article, that connect the individual components of the narrative (motifs, complexes of motifs) and make up in the reader&rsquo;s perception for the missing elements. The reticence and failures to mention, common in fiction, appear in the narrative for various reasons. Sometimes due to the aesthetic principles of the writer who prefers ambiguity to a completed statement depriving readers of the opportunity to finish thinking over a vague idea. And sometimes, due to the author&rsquo;s conviction that there is no need to explain the idea implied by what has been earlier said. But it also happens that the omissions in the narrative are engendered by the requirements for the presentation of a chosen topic, for example in crime fiction. But these reasons may go together as it occurs in Crime and Punishment. These ideas are illustrated by the analysis of one of the themes of the novel Crime and Punishment.</p>

Corruption: ‘Culture’ in the Dock

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vineet Sahu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Individual Agent ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
Holistic Perspective ◽  
Cultural Milieu ◽  
The Individual

Corruption in public life1 needs to be examined in greater detail as not only an individual lapse but also a feature of the collective that either does or does not put pressure on the individual to lapse. This paper takes a methodological holistic perspective exceeding the methodological individualistic perspective in understanding corruption. The claim is that the locus of responsibility cannot be restricted to the individual alone and the collective (if there be such an entity) be left scot-free. This claim is premised on the conception that an individual’s act which is in deviation of expected and established norms cannot be faulted only at the level of the individual, and careful consideration needs to be made to assess the role of the collective in precipitating the lapse(s) in the actions of the individual. This paper argues for sharing the liability of corruption in public life between the legally responsible individual as agent and the cultural milieu in which the agent operates. At a foundational level this paper calls for a reconceptualization of individual agency and decision making from being isolated and discrete, to being construed by the collective that the individual agent is a part of.

scholarly journals Lingual Aspects of Mystical Narration in V. Shevchuk’s Novel “The Beginning of Horror”

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Florij Batsevych
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Unreliable Narrator ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
Christian View ◽  
Flow Of Time ◽  
The Individual

In recent decades, the researchers of artistic stories have paid their attention to the narrative analysis of a set of weird texts of mystical and absurd content, works of “black humour”, fantastic (khymerna) prose created by a non-anthropic narrator or by an author in a changed state of consciousness. These texts serve the field of actualizing atypical and non-usual narrative structures, the sphere of meaningful changes within the bounds of narrative categories and, which is important, of forming special communicative senses of aesthetic nature. The basic problems of the linguistic analysis of “unnatural” stories are identifying the types of changes in the narration constituents, reasons of these changes and narrative categories (first of all, events, participants, objects, chronotope characteristics, points of view, moduses, modalities, etc.). The article analyses one of the texts of mystical content aiming at the revealing of some specificities of the structure and functioning of the so-called “unnatural artistic narrations”. The object of the research is V. Shevchuk’s novel “The Beginning of Horror”. The subject of the analysis is lingual means of the narrative structure formation, the author’s objectification of the mystical artistic sense and lingual “signals” of a reader’s perception of these senses. The most important semantic means of creating mystical atmosphere of the story are predicates that ascribe the names of their referents atypical dynamic and static features connected with the Christian view of the infernal world. It helps to form narrative events that root in weird situations, which cannot take place in reality. Non-dispositional nature of these situations correlates with the reference to the mystery that goes far beyond the bounds of a usual perceptive and psycho-mental background. Among the pragmatic means of creating mystical atmosphere of the main hero’s story as well as of the novel in general, we specify the individual inimitative perception of the flow of time and modality of “real unreality” formed by the role of an unreliable narrator and a vague point of view of the described event with its perceptive, ideological and time planes of objectification. Due to the increasing interest to various expressions of the esoteric, the increase of the number of artistic works of such content and growth of their popularity, we consider it topical to proceed in further investigations of lingual-narrative aspects of “unnatural” stories, in particular, the ones with the modus of mystical in them.

scholarly journals UPBRINGING RESOURCE OF FOLK TALES ABOUT TREASURES AND TREASURE HUNTERS IN FICTION FOR CHILDREN (BASED ON THE NOVEL BY A. N. RYBAKOV "BRONZE BIRD")

2018 ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Елена Панова ◽  
Elena Panova
Keyword(s):  
Mark Twain ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
American Novel ◽  
Folk Tales ◽  
Folk Wisdom ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Goals And Objectives

The article discusses the problem of relations between literature and folklore, as well as the role of folk tales about treasures and treasure hunters in the artistic structure of texts for children. Writers often turn to the genre of legend, not only in order to create an adventure intrigue, but also with the ideological and upbringing goals and objectives. Appeal to the folklore helps the author to revive people’s ideals and folk wisdom in the new direction, corresponding to its ideological and artistic, ethical and aesthetic preferences. P. Bazhov echoes folk wisdom, legends about treasures and treasure hunters in his "Tales". The poor is rewarded as a rule, for his best qualities: tolerance, humility, diligence and kindness. In "the Bronze bird" by A. Rybakov, the treasure is distributed in accordance with other ideological and artistic goals and objectives that the author aims to solve. The New Soviet government gets the treasure, because in accordance with the new ideology not a specific person must be rich, but the society as a whole. The individual is understood the moral in that case, if he cares not about personal enrichment and prosperity, but about the construction of the new Soviet State. In American novel for children by Mark Twain «The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" finding the treasure by the guys has a different meaning: pragmatic ordering money guys ensure themselves a prosperous future. In General, the author&apos;s appeal to the genre about treasures and treasure hunters in children&apos;s literature is not only hedonistic, but also upbringing in nature.

Modulation of factor VII levels by intron 7 polymorphisms: population and in vitro studies

Blood ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 95 (11) ◽  
pp. 3423-3428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Pinotti ◽  
Raffaella Toso ◽  
Domenico Girelli ◽  
Debora Bindini ◽  
Paolo Ferraresi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mrna Expression ◽  
Fold Increase ◽  
Factor Vii ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Expression Studies ◽  
Sequence Variations ◽  
Fvii Deficiency ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Previous studies have established that factor VII gene (F7) polymorphisms (5′F7 and R353Q) contribute about one-third of factor VII (FVII) level variation in plasma. However, F7 genotyping in patients with cardiovascular disease has produced conflicting results. Population and expression studies were used to investigate the role of intron 7 (IVS7 ) polymorphisms, including repeat and sequence variations, in controlling activated FVII (FVIIa) and antigen (FVIIag) levels. Genotype–phenotype studies performed in 438 Italian subjects suggested a positive relation between the IVS7 repeat number and FVII levels. The lowest values were associated with theIVS7 + 7G allele. The screening of 52 patients with mild FVII deficiency showed an 8-fold increase in frequency (8%) of this allele, and among heterozygotes for identical mutations, lower FVII levels were observed in the IVS7 + 7G carriers. This frequent genetic component participates in the phenotypic heterogeneity of FVII deficiency. The evaluation of the individual contribution of polymorphisms was assisted by the expression of each IVS7variant, as a minigene, in eukaryotic cells. The novel quantitative analysis revealed that higher numbers of repeats were associated with higher mRNA expression levels and that the IVS7 + 7Gallele, previously defined as a functionally silent polymorphism, was responsible for the lowest relative mRNA expression. Taken together, these findings indicate that the IVS7 polymorphisms contribute to the plasmatic variance of FVII levels via differential efficiency of mRNA splicing. These studies provide further elements to understand the control of FVII levels, which could be of importance to ensure the hemostatic balance under pathologic conditions.

Creativity in Action: Exploring Cross-Cutting Models of Self-Organization and Emergence in Science and Technology

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
Manfred Euler
Keyword(s):  
Open Systems ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
External Control ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Complex Functions ◽  
Unifying Principles ◽  
The Individual

This review presents a sequence of exemplary experience-based encounters with self-organizing systems on different levels of difficulty. Based on hands-on experiments and creative modeling it provides a viable educational road to build up a deeper understanding of self-organization principles and their comprehensive nature. Theories of self-organization describe how patterns, structures and new types of behavior emerge in energetically open systems, resulting from the local interaction of many components. As an external control instance is missing, the underlying philosophy is counterintuitive to our habits of causal thinking. This thematic and conceptual framework impacts on many STEM domains and presents a blueprint for modeling emergent structures and complex functions in natural and technological systems. It reveals unifying principles that can help in reducing, in structuring and, finally, in understanding and controlling the emerging complexity. An overview across diverse STEM domains highlights the role of this overarching concept. This cross-disciplinary approach can help in improving the dialogue and the knowledge exchange between the individual fields. Moreover, in a self-referential fashion, the modeling of self-organization provides us with fresh perspectives to reflect our own creative processes.

Individual author’s phraseology in I. S. Turgenev’s novel "Home of the Gentry" ("Dvoryanskoe gnezdo")

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (5) ◽  
pp. 56-66
Author(s):  
E. A. Shumskikh
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Space ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Common Variants ◽  
Continuous Sampling ◽  
Language System ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual

The paper focuses on a variety of methods used by I. S. Turgenev to transform the phraseological units (PU) in his novel "Home of the Gentry" ("Dvoryanskoe gnezdo"). It is noted that it is those phraseological unities which in the language system display variation that are, as a rule, subject to transformations in the novel. Continuous sampling was employed to detect and analyse the individual author’s phraseological units while studying the text of the novel. Additionally, the common and occasional variants of such phraseological units were compared by means of referring to dictionaries. The paper highlights the mechanism of the author’s transformation of Russian phraseological units, i. e. shows the peculiarities of building occasional phraseological semantics in the text. Moreover, word-forming and morphological modifications of the common variants of phraseological units, the syntagmatic peculiarities of individual author’s idioms are described. The study investigates the role of occasional phraseologisation in the semantic space of the novel and comprehensively defines the structural-semantic and expressive-stylistic characteristics of occasional phraseological units.

scholarly journals An ideological analysis of sustainable careers: identifying the role of fantasy and a way forward

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Matthijs Bal ◽  
Lee Matthews ◽  
Edina Dóci ◽  
Lucy P. McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Future Research ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
The Individual

PurposeScholarly and general interest in sustainable careers is flourishing. Sustainable careers are focused on the long-term opportunities and experiences of workers across dynamic employment situations, and are characterized by flexibility, meaning and individual agency. The current paper analyzes and challenges the underlying ideological assumptions of how sustainable careers are conceptualized and advocates the inclusion of the ecological meaning of sustainability and the notion of dignity into the sustainable careers concept.Design/methodology/approachUsing Slavoj Žižek's (1989, 2001) conceptualization of ideology as fantasy-construction, the authors explore how the use of sustainable careers is influenced by fantasies about the contemporary workplace and the role of the individual in the workplace. This is a conceptual method.FindingsThe authors argue that the concept of sustainable careers is grounded in the neoliberal fantasy of the individual. The paper concludes by presenting an alternative concept of sustainable careers grounded in a dignity-perspective on sustainability, which offers an alternative theoretical understanding of sustainable careers in the contemporary workplace, sharpening its contours and usefulness in theorizing careers.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to systematically analyze the use and conceptualization of sustainable careers in the literate and to expose the ideological underpinnings of the concept. Propositions are developed to be explored by future research.

The Power of Client Engagement: “Contextual Healing” Research and Implications for Treatment of Depression

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-119
Author(s):  
Pamela E. Guess
Keyword(s):  
Health Care Providers ◽  
External Control ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Client Participation ◽  
Holistic Model ◽  
Antidepressant Medications ◽  
Treatment Of Depression ◽  
Common Causes ◽  
The Individual

The pervasive incidence of depression is predicted to increase even more exponentially over the next 2 decades; by 2030, depression will likely be among the most common causes of disability (Mathers & Loncar, 2006). Although efficacious interventions for depression have been established, these treatments are, paradoxically, accessed by and/or available to only a small percentage of affected individuals. Furthermore, the most frequently used interventions—traditional psychotherapy and antidepressant medications—are conceptually based within an external control model as opposed to a holistic model of care. Interventions are reactive as opposed to proactive, and they highlight the role of agents external to the individual. This conceptualization opposes a more expansive approach that incorporates medical, psychological, and social factors as equivalent contributors to health. An alternative lens through which prevention and management of depression can be viewed emphasizing the influence of client participation is described. Citing results from research in which outcomes from use of antidepressant medications only slightly exceeded the influence of placebos (Kirsch, 2010), an often overlooked intervention resource, the influence of the patient himself/herself and the “contextual healing” suggested through placebo research is highlighted. Presenting literature on hope models (Jacoby, 2003) and positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), the role of the individual as a powerful resource for depression intervention, is emphasized. Examples of therapeutic strategies that capitalize on this resource are described along with a discussion regarding the ethical responsibility of health care providers to include such strategies in practice.

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