Bodies, theology and Dante’s Divine Comedy

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 159-182
Author(s):  
Rozelle Robson Bosch

Placing the words Comedy and Africa in the same sentence, is like laying claim to two expansive and complex entities which do not immediately bear relation to another and yet, there is ample opportunity for engagement. The article begins by showing how a young South African’s reading of the Divine Comedy through the lens of her own preoccupation with the body and its theo-performative demeanour can bring fresh perspectives to the fore. A primary instance of the intersection between the body, God and theological performance is the Ethiopian artist Aïda Muluneh’s interpretation of Inferno, canto xx. Muluneh’s performative expression transforms the scope and meaning of tears in the Comedy by bringing to bear her own particularity. Here, tears become central in unveiling the truth that the Comedy speaks. The article explores the significant role that gestures have in giving form to the Divine Comedy. As the logic of relationality, love forms the spine of this article while drawing together the themes of creation and incarnation. The article ends by suggesting that if one has a proper understanding of the relationship between humans and the created order, one might find a theology from below latent in the Comedy.

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-52
Author(s):  
Marina G. Kurgan ◽  

The House of the Dead was repeatedly compared with the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy even in F.M. Dostoevsky’s lifetime. However, his contemporaries usually focused on general analogies, while later scholars paid more attention to the narrative features or individual reminiscences. This research studies the main aspects of the artistic structure of the Dante code, constructing the space of Hell in Dostoevsky’s novel. 1. The organization of space. Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov, the narrator in The House of the Dead, recreates a three-dimensional image that resembles a gradually narrowing funnel: from a bird’s-eye view, where the prison is seen in its entirety, the focus slowly descends, passing to smaller objects, and finally reaching the “three boards”, which limit Goryanchikov’s personal space. The same principle is employed to construct the space of Hell in Dante’s poem. In The House of the Dead, there is another significant indication of the spatial affinity of Dante’s hell and Dostoevsky’s katorga – active imagery associated with cobwebs and spiders. In the centre of the system of images associated with the designated semantic network is the parade- major, the head of the fortress and the owner of the inmate web. 2. The character system as an element constituting the space of Hell. The character system of The House of the Dead follows the compositional principle of Divine Comedy, where sinners are located in different circles in accordance with their main passion. There are three circles in the prison: the first is formal, according to the court decision; the second is informal, internal, formed by crafts and occupations; the third represents Goryanchikov’s perspective as an exponent of human and humane judgment, which distinguishes another person’s moral state. 3. Torment. The House of the Dead demonstrate a hierarchy in describing the tortures, while freedom becomes a fundamental category to embody the most important motif of physical and moral torment connecting Dostoevsky’s novel with Dante’s experience. The bodily torment ceases to be only the torment of the body to become a pain of the soul, comparable to physical torment, so the soul suffers and burns. Hell as a moral topos was the key for Dostoevsky. In The House of the Dead, he chooses the same way as Dante in The Divine Comedy: vivid corporeality conveys an esoteric metaphor of moral suffering and deep inner movements of the soul.


2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Laffitte

A partire dalla seconda metà del secolo scorso, la Chiesa si è trovata a dover ripensare i rapporti tra fede, teologia e antropologia in problematiche nuove come, ad esempio, la sessualità umana. Interprete privilegiato di questa rielaborazione è stato, senza dubbio, Giovanni Paolo II che in più occasioni ha avuto modo di riflettere e illustrare la teologia, la antropologia e l’etica che sostengono la visione cristiana della sessualità umana. Di questa vasta produzione, l’articolo prende in esame soprattutto le Catechesi di Giovanni Paolo II con frequenti richiami e illustrazioni del pensiero del filosofo Karol Wojty´la. L’analisi dell’autore prende le mosse dall’esposizione di Giovanni Paolo II dei dati creaturali dei tre primi capitoli del libro della Genesi, esaminando, in particolar modo, i significati fondamentali della solitudine originaria dell’uomo verso la creazione e poi il rapporto maschio-femmina. Vengono illustrati quindi l’esperienza dell’amore e l’ethos del dono: l’esperienza cristiana è presentata dal Pontefice come evento e saggezza e legata all’esperienza di amore che l’uomo sperimenta nel rapporto di filiazione che lo unisce a Dio; l’esperienza dell’amore coniugale ruota attorno alla corporeità umana e ai suoi valori/significati. Il corpo assume dunque un significato sponsale che conserva anche dopo la caduta, testimonianza dell’innocenza originaria e della libertà del dono. In tale contesto l’esperienza dell’amore è vissuta come mediazione di una conoscenza che va al di là della persona dell’amato aprendo l’orizzonte al dono divino anteriore. Nella seconda parte del contributo si prendono in esame i significati dell’amore e l’esperienza etica della sessualità così come sviluppati da Giovanni Paolo II: nella corporeità umana, in cui è impressa la complementarietà biologica, vi è una chiamata alla comunione che non è solo comunione tra i due sessi, ma che rimanda a una divina comunione di Persone. L’autore esamina anche l’esercizio della sessualità in rapporto alla legge naturale intesa come conformità alla ragione umana protesa verso la verità. Tale conformità conduce alla retta comprensione dell’intima struttura dell’atto coniugale, la cui “verità ontologica” si manifesta nell'inscindibilità delle due dimensioni unitiva e procreativa. In questa ampia visione della sessualità è compreso anche il mistero dell’amore nuziale tra Cristo e la Chiesa: la comunione di vita e d’amore tra l’uomo e la donna ha come missione propria di significare e rendere attuale l’unione tra Cristo e la sua Chiesa. L’articolo termina con l’analisi del legame tra corpo e sacramento e della dimensione sacrificale e nuziale del dono eucaristico. ---------- Since the second half of the last century, the Church has found herself having to rethink the relationship between faith, theology, and anthropology within new problems concerning, for example, human sexuality. Without any doubt, a privileged interpreter of this reprocessing was John Paul II, who on more occasions had a way of reflecting upon and illustrating the theology, anthropology, and ethics that support the Christian vision of human sexuality. Out of the vast work produced, the article examines especially the Catecheses of John Paul II with frequent appeals to and illustrations of the thought of Karol Wojty´la. The author’s analysis begins its quest with John Paul II’s exposition of creatural data in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, examining in particular the fundamental meanings of the original solitude of man toward creation and then the relationship between male and female. The experience of love and the ethos of gift thus come to be illustrated: Christian experience is presented by the Pontiff as event and wisdom and is connected to the experience of love that man experiences in the relationship of filiation that unites Him to God. The experience of conjugal love revolves around human corporeity and its values/meanings. The body thus assumes a spousal meaning that remains even after the Fall, serving as testimony of original innocence and the freedom of gift. Within such a context, the experience of love is lived out as the mediation of knowledge that goes beyond the person of the loved, opening up the horizon to the earlier divine gift. In the second part of this contribution, the meanings of love and the ethical experience of sexuality as such are examined as developments by John Paul II: In human corporeity, upon which biological complementarity is impressed, there is a call to communion that is not only communion between the two sexes, but which refers back to a divine communion of Persons. The author also examines the exercise of sexuality in relation to a natural law intended as conformity to a human reason reaching toward truth. Such conformity leads to the proper understanding of the intimate structure of the conjugal act, whose “ontological truth” manifests itself through the inseparability of the two dimensions: unitive and the procreative. Within this comprehensive vision of sexuality also resonates the mystery of nuptial love between Christ and the Church: The communion of life and love between man and woman that has as its own mission to signify and render present the union between Christ and His Church. The article ends with an analysis of the connection between body and sacrament and of the sacrificial and nuptial dimension of the Eucharistic gift.


2020 ◽  
pp. 175069802092775
Author(s):  
José Aguirre Pombo ◽  
Erma Nezirevic

This article examines the relationship between the family archive and Memory Studies. It analyzes the archive of a young woman, Florence Elizabeth Conard, whose writings of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) are archived in the Kautz FamilyYMCA Archive in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her story is narrated and edited by her father affirming her existence as a literary witness. We, the authors, use Borges’ reading of The Divine Comedy as a productive analogy to approach memory through the lens of literature, opening a path for further interrogation of narrative and moving from that which is narrated to that which is narratable and redactable. It illustrates how the mnemonic practices of memory reside in their narratability. Just the same, the academic field of Memory Studies grappling with these practices is not a fashionable product of the twentieth-century traumas, but has existed as a practice before the archive, which gives it a space.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Antonio Williams ◽  
Sungwook Son ◽  
Patrick Walsh ◽  
Jin Park

Despite sport rebranding becoming an emerging topic for both academia and industry, there has been a limited number of investigations on how sport rebranding influences sport fans. The aim of this study is to investigate how sport rebranding in the form of logo redesign influences fan loyalty. Through an experimental approach, the results indicate that attitude toward rebranding plays a significant role in fan response when sport rebranding occurs. Additional findings suggest that logo evaluation partially mediates the relationship between logo change and brand loyalty. This study makes significant contributions to the body of knowledge on sport rebranding by revealing how fans’ attitudes toward rebranding affects brand loyalty. The proposed model suggests directions for future sport rebranding research, and the paper provides implications for how sport marketers can use various rebranding strategies to improve rebranding outcomes and diminish negative responses from sport fans.


2006 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Goede ◽  
Fika J. Van Rensburg

Paul’s body metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12 in literary contextThe purpose of this article is to place and describe Paul’s use of the body metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12 in its literary context. By way of introduction, the importance of a proper understanding of Paul’s use of the body metaphor is indicated. The first part of the article deals with the origin and use of the body metaphor in ancient times, thereby establishing the literary context within which Paul used the metaphor. Greek, Roman and Jewish usage is described. In the second part of the article the focus moves to Paul’s use of the metaphor within its literary context. It is concluded that the body metaphor was well-known to Greek, Roman and Jewish readers, and was thus ideally suited to Paul’s unique communication of the relationship between Christ and his church.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65
Author(s):  
Maria Maślanka-Soro

“Non vide mei di me chi vide il vero”: L’art “verace” in the circle of proud as a mise en abyme of Dante’s art in the Comedy The purpose of this study is to discuss the problem of meta-poetic themes in the Divine Comedy, focusing in particular on the relationship between God’s art and Dante’s art in the context of the impression caused by the sight of the rock reliefs in the cornice of the proud in the Purgatorio, where the poet, presenting and imitating the art of God, in fact shows the mastery of his own art. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the examples of humility and pride carved on the walls and the rock path – the perfect work of God-the Artist, vibrant with life and called by Dante visibile parlare – are, on the one hand, a mise en abyme of its macroscopic version, which is the Universe created by him, and, on the other hand, a mise en abyme of the universe narrated with the simile perfection by Dante.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Antonio Williams ◽  
Sungwook Son ◽  
Patrick Walsh ◽  
Jin Park

Despite sport rebranding becoming an emerging topic for both academia and industry, there has been a limited number of investigations on how sport rebranding influences sport fans. The aim of this study is to investigate how sport rebranding in the form of logo redesign influences fan loyalty. Through an experimental approach, the results indicate that attitude toward rebranding plays a significant role in fan response when sport rebranding occurs. Additional findings suggest that logo evaluation partially mediates the relationship between logo change and brand loyalty. This study makes significant contributions to the body of knowledge on sport rebranding by revealing how fans’ attitudes toward rebranding affects brand loyalty. The proposed model suggests directions for future sport rebranding research, and the paper provides implications for how sport marketers can use various rebranding strategies to improve rebranding outcomes and diminish negative responses from sport fans.


2021 ◽  
Vol E4 (2021) ◽  
pp. 132-149
Author(s):  
João Victor Santos

With the intention of studying the relationship between Being and Eternity, the present study sought to bring together As metamorfoses, by Murilo Mendes, and The divine comedy, by Dante Alighieri. With the support of texts such as those by Carvalhal (1986) and Nitrini (2015), we used Comparative Literature as a theoretical framework in order to compare the lyric verses of one and the epics verses of the other, in order to analyze how it was the process of receiving the Italian work by the Brazilian. Based on Lucchesi (2013), for whom the dantesque comedy is seen in a diluted way in 20th century Brazilian poets, we undertook the appreciation of murilian verses and raised hypotheses about how they would associate with Italians through thematic and sonorous relationships imagery. With that, we were able to conclude that As metamorfoses absorbs traces of The divine comedy and is different from it, managing to maintain the balance between influence and originality.


Author(s):  
Shirazu I. ◽  
Theophilus. A. Sackey ◽  
Elvis K. Tiburu ◽  
Mensah Y. B. ◽  
Forson A.

The relationship between body height and body weight has been described by using various terms. Notable among them is the body mass index, body surface area, body shape index and body surface index. In clinical setting the first descriptive parameter is the BMI scale, which provides information about whether an individual body weight is proportionate to the body height. Since the development of BMI, two other body parameters have been developed in an attempt to determine the relationship between body height and weight. These are the body surface area (BSA) and body surface index (BSI). Generally, these body parameters are described as clinical health indicators that described how healthy an individual body response to the other internal organs. The aim of the study is to discuss the use of BSI as a better clinical health indicator for preclinical assessment of body-organ/tissue relationship. Hence organ health condition as against other body composition. In addition the study is `also to determine the best body parameter the best predict other parameters for clinical application. The model parameters are presented as; modeled height and weight; modelled BSI and BSA, BSI and BMI and modeled BSA and BMI. The models are presented as clinical application software for comfortable working process and designed as GUI and CAD for use in clinical application.


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