scholarly journals When Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-42
Author(s):  
Emma Wilson

Death in Venice turns fifty in 2021. The moment of the pandemic may be one reason to look back at this film about cholera in Italy. The release of the documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (2021), about Bjorn Andrésen who starred as Tadzio, is another. But what is most enduring is Visconti’s engagement with the family, and above all with the mother. This calls for reflection in the present moment when maternal eroticism and its relation to maternal subjectivity are newly illuminated in feminist writing. Through extended analysis of Silvana Mangano’s presence in the film, her wardrobe, and her gestures, this article argues that Visconti opens a space for feelings of heartbreak, love for the mother, and grief at her desire. In its vision of madness in the family, beyond its images of cholera in Venice, this is a pandemic film unafraid to look into the vortex.

Author(s):  
Michael Ellis

From the moment you discover that you are going to be a parent, the hopes, dreams, and expectations you have for your­self and your child flood your mind. No matter how your child is to arrive, your heart is full of hope and promise. You begin to let yourself plan your future. Will your child become president, a doctor, a lawyer, work in the family business, or win the Nobel Peace Prize? Will he or she possess a special talent or skill? Your mind wanders and daydreams of all that is to come. The moment they place your beautiful child in your arms, you realize that there is no greater feeling. You are in love. There is no feeling deeper or grander. The unimaginable joy and gratitude for the blessing of your child is overwhelming. We all know those moments where your heart surged out of your body in awe of the blessing you were given. You may have even asked yourself, “How did I get so lucky?” I can relate. The moment they placed my daughter in my arms for the first time, I knew I had a greater purpose. I would not find out how much for another two years. I devoted myself to her; her care, her introduction to the world, and to the very amazing person I knew she would become. I gave everything of myself tirelessly to her. Her every whimper, cry, or gesture was met with a response. I could anticipate her needs and wants before she fully expressed them. I thought I had an undeniable bond with my daughter. I did. I had a bond that needed no words. That was the problem: we did not need words. If you are like me, you noticed at first subtle differences in your child, and then later there were glaring and alarming indications something was not developing correctly. But, no matter your education or your intelligence level, denial can be a powerful thing.


2021 ◽  
pp. 39-68
Author(s):  
Svetlana V. Voloshina ◽  
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Tatiana A. Demeshkina ◽  
Maria A. Tolstova ◽  
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...  

The aim of the article is to analyze the implementation of the concept “family” in the speech genre of an autobiographical story. The research material is 200 oral autobiographical stories, which were recorded in the villages of Tomsk Oblast during dialectological expeditions from 1946 till 2021. The informants are residents of villages of Tomsk Oblast; they are representatives of different types of speech culture (native speakers of dialect and literary language). All stories are characterized by a relatively stable theme, means of language implementation, and structure, which allows qualifying them as a speech genre whose communicative purpose is to tell about life from the moment of birth to the moment of communication. The novelty of the article is connected with: (1) its appeal to the problem of interaction and mutual influence of the concept and the speech genre in oral everyday discourse, (2) the identification of cognitive features of the concept, (3) the definition of factors of transformation of ideas about the family in ordinary consciousness. The analysis of the concept makes it possible to obtain new data about the speech genre of the autobiographical story and its construction. The speech genre shows the dependence of the features of the content and implementation of the concept “family” on the sphere of functioning. This factor determines the theoretical significance of the results obtained. The analysis of the concept in the speech genre is carried out using the method of modeling and description of the conceptual, figurative, and value layers in the structure of the concept. As a result of contextual analysis, 16 cognitive features were identified; they are represented in the conceptual layer of the concept “family” and actualized in the speech of informants (family size, social status, compliance with moral norms, relations between family members, attitude to work, etc.). The conceptual layer is developed in detail in the oral everyday communication of Siberians. It is represented by a large number of lexical units. The figurative layer of the concept is characterized by single actualizations. At the same time, the variety of their expression is noted: metaphor, metonymy, comparisons are used. The world of the family can form the initial and resulting spheres of metaphorical models. In the initial sphere, the world of plants (roots, mushrooms), products (noodles) is mainly reflected; the semantics of unity and kinship is actualized in the initial sphere. The value layer of the concept “family” is well represented in the oral autobiographical discourse. It indicates that the family occupies one of the main places in the system of life values of peasants. The specifics of structuring this concept in the oral everyday discourse are determined mainly by the attitudes, norms of traditional culture (the family should be large, friendly, hardworking, young members of family honor the older ones, etc.). At the same time, changes in the system of family values determined by sociohistorical processes are noted. These changes are evaluated ambiguously by informants, and the family is still one of the main values of life for them. Regional (natural, social, historical, geographic) specificity is reflected in the actualization of the concept.


2005 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 789-801
Author(s):  
Immanuel Wallerstein

One of the aspects characterizing the state of International Relations at the moment is the increasing emphasis on political economy. This is the approach of the present paper. It is more in the form of succinct propositions than detailed analysis, since the latter is available in the author' s previous writings. Specifically, the paper concentrates on five aspects: the nature of the world economy, its mode of functioning, its basic tendencies, the crisis of the global system, and future prospects of evolution the paper emphasizes both the interconnectedness of the different levels of analysis (from the family to the world system) as well as the importance of a diachronic and macro-structural approach.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Kristupas Sabolius

Kitybės klausimas dažniausiai kyla iš ego santykio su kitais arba su pasauliu. Šiame straipsnyje daroma prielaida, kad įsivaizdavimo funkcija ištirpdo subjektą ir jame pačiame atveria intersubjektyvią perspektyvą. Šiuo tikslu sugretinami Sartre’o, Husserlio bei Merleau-Ponty įsivaizdavimo funkcijos tyrimai, kuriuose išryškėja vaizdo kaip iš ego centro išslystančios ribos statusas, ir Holivudo filmo „Kovos klubas“ siužetas. Viename iš šios juostos epizodų pasirodantis pingvinas žymi egologinės schizmos akimirką ir tampa fantazijos apsireiškimu ir įsikūnijimu.Išgryninus žaidybinį, savarankišką ir multiformišką charakterį, galime konstantuoti, kad įsivaizdavimas, jei kalbėtume Kanto terminais, yra ne papildanti tarpinė funkcija, bet transcendentalinio subjekto genezėje atlieka paradoksalų „svetimos vidujybės“ arba „vidinės svetimybės“ vaidmenį. Vaizduotė yra katalizatoriaus, kuris, likdamas šalia, įgalina transcendentalinių formų išsikristalizavimą.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: vaizduotė, įsivaizdavimas, fantazija, ego, kitybė, sąmonė.PENGUIN AND PROTEUSImagination as Otherness in meKristupas Sabolius SummaryThe question of Otherness is usually taken into account while discussing the Ego’s relation with Others as well as with the World. This article is based on the premises that the function of phantasy melts the subjectivity, revealing the perspective of intersubjectivity within it. On this purpose Sartre’s, Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s researches on the function of imagination, which elucidate the image as the boundary slipping from the centre of Ego, are compared to the story of Hollywood’ movie „Fight Club“. The penguin, which appears in one of the episodes, registers the moment of egological schism, thus becoming the revelation and incarnation of phantasy. While the playful, autonomous and multiform character of imaginary is cleared out, we can ascertain, speaking in Kantian terms, that it has not a complementary or intermediary function, but, in the genesis of transcendental subject, plays the paradoxical role of „allien innerness“ or „inner alienity“. Thought remaining always beside, imagination is a catalyzer which enables crystallization of transcendental forms.Keywords: imagination, imaginary, phantasy, ego, otherness, consciousness.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Petr Kouba

This article examines the limits of Heidegger’s ontological description of emotionality from the period of Sein und Zeit and Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik along the lines outlined by Lévinas in his early work De l’existence à l’existant. On the basis of the Lévinassian concept of “il y a”, we attempt to map the sphere of the impersonal existence situated out of the structured context of the world. However the worldless facticity without individuality marks the limits of the phenomenological approach to human existence and its emotionality, it also opens a new view on the beginning and ending of the individual existence. The whole structure of the individual existence in its contingency and finitude appears here in a new light, which applies also to the temporal conditions of existence. Yet, this is not to say that Heidegger should be simply replaced by Lévinas. As shows an examination of the work of art, to which brings us our reading of Moravia’s literary exposition of boredom (the phenomenon closely examined in Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik), the view on the work of art that is entirely based on the anonymous and worldless facticity of il y a must be extended and complemented by the moment in which a new world and a new individual structure of experience are being born. To comprehend the dynamism of the work of art in its fullness, it is necessary to see it not only as an ending of the world and the correlative intentional structure of the individual existence, but also as their new beginning.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Jörg Zimmer

In classical philosophy of time, present time mainly has been considered in its fleetingness: it is transition, in the Platonic meaning of the sudden or in the Aristotelian sense of discreet moment and isolated intensity that escapes possible perception. Through the idea of subjective constitution of time, Husserl’s phenomenology tries to spread the moment. He transcends the idea of linear and empty time in modern philosophy. Phenomenological description of time experience analyses the filled character of the moment that can be detained in the performance of consciousness. As a consequence of the temporality of consciousness, he nevertheless remains in the temporal conception of presence. The phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, however, is able to grasp the spacial meaning of presence. In his perspective of a phenomenology of perception, presence can be understood as a space surrounding the body, as a field of present things given in perception. Merleau-Ponty recovers the ancient sense of ‘praesentia’ as a fundamental concept of being in the world.


Screen Bodies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Lara Bochmann ◽  
Erin Hampson

This article is a theoretical, audiovisual, and personal exploration of being a trans and non-binary person and the challenges this position produces at the moment of entering the outside world. Getting ready to enter public space is a seemingly mundane everyday task. However, in the context of a world that continuously fails or refuses to recognize trans and non-binary people, the literal act of stepping outside can mean to move from a figurative state of self-determination to one of imposition. We produced a short film project called Step Out to delve into issues of vulnerability and recognition that surface throughout experiences of crossing the threshold into public space. It explores the acts performed as preparation to face the world, and invokes the emotions this can conquer in trans and non-binary people. Breathing is the leading metaphor in the film, indicating existence and resistance simultaneously. The article concludes with a discussion of affective states and considers them, along with failed recognition, through the lens of Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism.”


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