Erotic desire as a woman’s way of knowing the divine

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruka Umetsu Cho

This article examines a Japanese novel written by Arishima Takeo, A Certain Woman (first published in Japanese in 1919), in order to explore women’s ways of knowing, focusing on the body and erotic desire as a locus where the human–God relationship is embodied. This novel shows a way of knowing the Divine beyond language and the sanitized notion of love, describing the life of a modern Japanese Christian woman who refuses both Japanese colonial woman-hood and Christian (Victorian) sexual ethics. Depicting the divine presence in the protagonist’s promiscuous and stigmatized body, Arishima asks theological questions about the role of eros and violence in the pursuit of God, and seeks radically free God and humans who may go beyond any existing boundaries.

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Martens

The central role of the body in producing music is hardly debatable. Likewise, the body has always played at least an implicit role in music theory, but has only been raised as a factor in music analysis relatively recently. In this essay I present a brief update of the body in music analysis via case studies, situated in the disciplines of music theory and music cognition, broadly construed. This current trajectory is part of a broader shift away from the musical score as the sole focus for analysis, which admittedly—though, in my view, delightfully—raises a host of challenging epistemological questions surrounding the interaction of performer (production) and listener (perception). While the concomitant research methodologies and technologies may be unfamiliar to scholars trained in humanities disciplines, I advocate for a full embrace of these approaches, either by individual researchers or in the form of cross-disciplinary collaboration.


Author(s):  
David W. Kling

The concluding chapter provides summary observations of the book’s themes that highlight the complex, multifaceted dimension of conversion throughout twenty centuries of Christian history. These include the convert’s cognizance of divine presence; the crucial importance of historical context (political, religious, institutional, and socioeconomic factors); continuity and discontinuity (how much of the new displaces the old in conversion?); nominal, incomplete, and “true” conversions; personal testimonies and narratives (the autobiographical impulse attests to the converted life); the role of gender; identity and the self; agency (are converts actors or are they being acted upon?); the mechanisms behind and the motivations for conversion; the body as a site of conversion; the role of music; conversion as event and process; coercive practices; and forms of communication in the converting process.


2021 ◽  
pp. 102986492110627
Author(s):  
Melissa Forbes ◽  
Kate Cantrell

Creativity in the form of musical improvisation has received growing attention from researchers informed by the literature on embodiment. To date, this research has focused on the embodied experiences of improvising instrumentalists rather than those of improvising singers. This article investigates the experience of embodiment during improvisation through a systematic analysis of the metaphorical language used by an artist-level jazz singer in her reflections on practice. Extensive interview data with the participant were analyzed to identify and reconstruct metaphorical expressions into conceptual metaphors. In this process, the metaphor of IMPROVISATION IS AN ADVENTURE was identified as the overarching conceptual structure that the participant used to make sense of her experiences of improvisation. This metaphor and its mappings illuminate the cognitively embodied dimension of vocal jazz improvisation. These findings will be of interest to jazz singers and vocal jazz educators who are encouraged to explore more fully the role of the body–mind’s interactions with its environment in order to establish expertise in improvisational ways of knowing. This research illuminates the multidimensional nature of an expert singer’s experiences of improvisation and is presented as a provocation for future research to include singers as participants when investigating musical improvisation and cognitive embodiment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192
Author(s):  
Minna Opas ◽  
Anna Haapalainen

The special issue Connected with God: Body, the Social, and the Transcendent addresses the very topical question of the architecture of religious, especially Christian, experiences. Specifically, it examines the processes in which Christians experience the connection with, and gain knowledge of, God in and through the body, and, in particular, the role of social relatedness and morality in generating and informing these experiences. The issue challenges the view of an individual subjective relationship with God, and argues that Christian experiences of God’s presence are not solely a matter of an individual’s relationship with the divine but are very much made possible, guided, and conceptualised through corporeal relationships with social others – believers and other fellow-humans. Through detailed ethnographic and historical examination, the issue also addresses the question of whether and how the form of Christianity practised influences people’s experiences of divine presence.


Author(s):  
Birgit Meyer

This chapter argues that deeper knowledge about Catholic religiosity – regarding theological ideas, rituals as well as everyday practice – is important to allow for a shift in perspective so as to bring into the picture aspects that remain blind spots as long as religion is explored through a mentalistic (Protestant) lens. Turning to Catholicism as an alternative archive allows for a critique of the Protestant legacy that shaped the master narrative of modernity as well as the study of religion across the world and offers fresh insights for conceptualizing and approaching religion from a material angle. The point is that paying attention to Catholic religiosity is helpful to further flesh out an approach to religion that acknowledges the role of the body, objects and human practice in generating a sense of divine presence. This approach should ultimately transcend the mental-material distinction, as well as the spectrum of Christianity.


2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 228-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Serafini ◽  
Giuseppa Morabito

Dietary polyphenols have been shown to scavenge free radicals, modulating cellular redox transcription factors in different in vitro and ex vivo models. Dietary intervention studies have shown that consumption of plant foods modulates plasma Non-Enzymatic Antioxidant Capacity (NEAC), a biomarker of the endogenous antioxidant network, in human subjects. However, the identification of the molecules responsible for this effect are yet to be obtained and evidences of an antioxidant in vivo action of polyphenols are conflicting. There is a clear discrepancy between polyphenols (PP) concentration in body fluids and the extent of increase of plasma NEAC. The low degree of absorption and the extensive metabolism of PP within the body have raised questions about their contribution to the endogenous antioxidant network. This work will discuss the role of polyphenols from galenic preparation, food extracts, and selected dietary sources as modulators of plasma NEAC in humans.


1990 ◽  
Vol 29 (04) ◽  
pp. 282-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. van Oosterom

AbstractThis paper introduces some levels at which the computer has been incorporated in the research into the basis of electrocardiography. The emphasis lies on the modeling of the heart as an electrical current generator and of the properties of the body as a volume conductor, both playing a major role in the shaping of the electrocardiographic waveforms recorded at the body surface. It is claimed that the Forward-Problem of electrocardiography is no longer a problem. Several source models of cardiac electrical activity are considered, one of which can be directly interpreted in terms of the underlying electrophysiology (the depolarization sequence of the ventricles). The importance of using tailored rather than textbook geometry in inverse procedures is stressed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-383
Author(s):  
Vasily N. Afonyushkin ◽  
N. A. Donchenko ◽  
Ju. N. Kozlova ◽  
N. A. Davidova ◽  
V. Yu. Koptev ◽  
...  

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a widely represented species of bacteria possessing of a pathogenic potential. This infectious agent is causing wound infections, fibrotic cystitis, fibrosing pneumonia, bacterial sepsis, etc. The microorganism is highly resistant to antiseptics, disinfectants, immune system responses of the body. The responses of a quorum sense of this kind of bacteria ensure the inclusion of many pathogenicity factors. The analysis of the scientific literature made it possible to formulate four questions concerning the role of biofilms for the adaptation of P. aeruginosa to adverse environmental factors: Is another person appears to be predominantly of a source an etiological agent or the source of P. aeruginosa infection in the environment? Does the formation of biofilms influence on the antibiotic resistance? How the antagonistic activity of microorganisms is realized in biofilm form? What is the main function of biofilms in the functioning of bacteria? A hypothesis has been put forward the effect of biofilms on the increase of antibiotic resistance of bacteria and, in particular, P. aeruginosa to be secondary in charcter. It is more likely a biofilmboth to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and provide topical competition in the face of food scarcity. In connection with the incompatibility of the molecular radii of most antibiotics and pores in biofilm, biofilm is doubtful to be capable of performing a barrier function for protecting against antibiotics. However, with respect to antibodies and immunocompetent cells, the barrier function is beyond doubt. The biofilm is more likely to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and providing topical competition in conditions of scarcity of food resources.


Author(s):  
Sucharita BENIWAL ◽  
Sahil MATHUR ◽  
Lesley-Ann NOEL ◽  
Cilla PEMBERTON ◽  
Suchitra BALASUBRAHMANYAN ◽  
...  

The aim of this track was to question the divide between the nature of knowledge understood as experiential in indigenous contexts and science as an objective transferable knowledge. However, these can co-exist and inform design practices within transforming social contexts. The track aimed to challenge the hegemony of dominant knowledge systems, and demonstrate co-existence. The track also hoped to make a case for other systems of knowledges and ways of knowing through examples from native communities. The track was particularly interested in, first, how innovators use indigenous and cultural systems and frameworks to manage or promote innovation and second, the role of local knowledge and culture in transforming innovation as well as the form of local practices inspired innovation. The contributions also aspired to challenge through examples, case studies, theoretical frameworks and methodologies the hegemony of dominant knowledge systems, the divides of ‘academic’ vs ‘non-academic’ and ‘traditional’ vs ‘non-traditional’.


Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.


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