scholarly journals "Unaccomodated Man": Dismodernism and Disability Justice in King Lear

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Gottlieb

King Lear's exploration of what it means to be human has significant Disability Studies implications that have not yet been examined. Through the course of the play, Lear gains awareness of interdependence, bodily vulnerability, and human-animal kinship, and his new worldview unsettles the shared ground of ableism and anthropocentrism. Analyzing three of Lear's significant speeches, I argue that King Lear's exploration of what it means to be human anticipates Lennard Davis's recent theoretical concept, dismodernism. Both Lear and Gloucester express concern for Poor Tom in ways that link disability to community and social justice. Through considering King Lear in relation to early modern contexts and current Disability Studies theory and activism, I argue that the play is an important site for developing a socially conscious Shakespearean Disability Studies.

Author(s):  
John Kerrigan

The agreed, major sources of King Lear are the anonymous history play King Leir and Sidney’s Arcadia. To these and other early modern ‘originals’ this chapter adds classical tragedies by Seneca, Euripides, and Sophocles—most conspicuously his Oedipus at Colonus, which was readily available in Latin translation. The ancient tragedies resonate with King Lear thanks to conventions of literary imitation that were well understood in the Jacobean period, but their presence is also symptomatic of a drive within the play to get back to the origins of nature, injustice, and causation. The influences of Plutarch and Montaigne are also highlighted. The portrayal of death (or the illusion of it) and the desire for death, in the play and its sources, are analysed. Focusing on the scenes at Dover Cliff and the division of the kingdom/s, this chapter moves to a new account of the complications of the play’s conclusion in both quarto and Folio texts.


1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Brown ◽  
Albert Gilman

ABSTRACTPenelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1987) have proposed that power (P), distance (D), and the ranked extremity (R) of a face-threatening act are the universal determinants of politeness levels in dyadic discourse. This claim is tested here for Shakespeare's use of Early Modern English in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. The tragedies are used because: (1) dramatic texts provide the best information on colloquial speech of the period; (2) the psychological soliloquies in the tragedies provide the access to inner life that is necessary for a proper test of politeness theory; and (3) the tragedies represent the full range of society in a period of high relevance to politeness theory. The four plays are systematically searched for pairs of minimally contrasting dyads where the dimensions of contrast are power (P), distance (D), and intrinsic extremity (R). Whenever such a pair is found, there are two speeches to be scored for politeness and a prediction from theory as to which should be more polite. The results for P and for R are those predicted by theory, but the results for D are not. The two components of D, interactive closeness and affect, are not closely associated in the plays. Affect strongly influences politeness (increased liking increases politeness and decreased liking decreases politeness); interactive closeness has little or no effect on politeness. The uses of politeness for the delineation of character in the tragedies are illustrated. (Politeness theory, speech act theory, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, theory of literature, Shakespeare studies)


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (10) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Ingrida Baranauskiene

<p>Dear authors, members of the editorial board, and readers of the scientific interdisciplinary journal <em>Social Welfare: Interdisciplinary Approach</em>. We present to you one more issue of the journal. As in previous issues, in the present issue, an interdisciplinary approach to social welfare in a national and intercultural context is important to us. In this issue, we present to your attention the works of scientists from three countries in one way or another related to social welfare, the concept of which is constructed and presented in three chapters: <em>Social Challenges</em>, <em>The Development of Professional Competences</em> and <em>Disability Studies</em>. Going deeper into the presented scientific works, it can be seen that in many of them we can name social justice as the main idea. This scientific concept and the starting point of the formation of the concept of life has reached us from ancient times. All of us know Plato, Socrates’ disciple, and his ontological concept of justice related to a virtue of the soul. Justice for Plato is one of the major virtues that encompasses both state governance and human life in general. It can be argued that he saw the benefits of justice in the life of the state and the individual, including the idea that justice unites society (Plato, 2000<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>). Aristotle gives justice the meaning of redistribution and sharing. On the other hand, although Aristotle’s justice is restricted to Greek citizens, in any case, the idea of sharing, redistributing, offsetting was spread thanks to Aristotle (Aristotle, 1990<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>). Thomas Aquinas not only linked the Christian tradition to the teaching of Aristotle, but also further developed the idea of justice and emphasized the importance of transposing the idea into law (Aquinas, 2015<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>). Immanuel Kant developed a moral theory which, in the context of our days, is, in my view, an important duty as the strongest pillar of morality (Kant, 1987<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a>). Without going into polemic about how much Immanuel Kant’s philosophy influenced John Rawls’ theory of social justice, I will quote the principles of justice defined by him: “a) each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others; and in this scheme the equal political liberties, and only those liberties, are to be guaranteed their fair value. b) Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity” (Rawls, 2002, p. 61<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a>). It can be said that Rawls’ idea that we will not achieve social welfare in the state until justice, including social justice, is ensured, has laid the foundations for a modern understanding of social justice. The dialectic of the concept of justice is also reflected in the works of our authors as the emphasis on justice as a value (Arūnas Acus, Liutauras Kraniauskas; Ilona Dobrovolskytė), the disclosure of the meaning of sharing (Jurgita Lenkauskaitė; Olga Kuprieieva, Tetiana Traverse, Liudmyla Serdiuk, Olena Chykhantsova, Oleksandr Shamych), the construct of the concept of law (Daiva Malinauskienė, Aistė Igorytė; Ingrida Baranauskienė, Alla Kovalenko, Inna Leonova), the understanding of a theory of civic morality, a duty that is a pillar of morality (Svitlana Kravchuk; Elena Kuftyak; Asta Volbikienė, Remigijus Bubnys; Simas Garbenis, Renata Geležinienė, Greta Šiaučiulytė). And it does not matter at all whether this is analyzed in the context of social challenges, disability studies or professional competences. It can be stated that the idea of social justice is the driving force behind the scientific works of this journal.</p><p>Wishing everyone to stay healthy, both physically and spiritually, I place social justice as a fundamental value in these turbulent times of a global pandemic. But life does not stand still, so we look forward to your new research works. There will be no us without you.</p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /></div>


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Frazer

King Lear intertwines two family stories: one of disinheritance and the consequent crisis of sovereignty that follows on the division of territory and political authority; the other of legitimacy, illegitimacy, resentment, and revenge against a father. The political plot of King Lear puts sovereign authority, patriarchal authority, political strategy, and violence into juxtaposition with the claims of social justice. The play puts into question the idea of a ‘sovereign body’, in particular in its treatment of economic and social transformations in attitudes to value and exchange, and in its meditation on the way sovereign power destroys human and social bodies. These themes can be reflected in interpretations of the drama that emphasize loneliness and meaninglessness. The drama also focuses on forms of violence which track social status, and instantiate forms of authority, including sovereignty.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Cabrera

Abstract Can a concept such as dignity, with roots in hierarchy and exclusion, serve as the constitutional basis for advancing egalitarian justice within a democratic political community? This article highlights some concerns, via engagement with the work of Indian constitutional architect and anti-caste champion B.R. Ambedkar. Ambedkar strongly associates dignity with upper-caste status in Hinduism, and with dispositions to haughtiness or arrogance toward lower-status persons. His analysis has implications for recent treatments which frame dignity as a property which is possessed equally by all persons and is suitable for grounding egalitarian justice within political communities. In such accounts, dignity is shown to entail a defensive disposition and indignation against others as potential rights violators. This introduces tensions between the dignitarian foundation and in some cases very expansive social justice aims. Ambedkar offers an alternative conception of innate worth or worthiness, entailing dispositions to openness and inclusiveness, rendered as fraternity, Deweyan social endosmosis, and ultimately the Buddhist maitri. Such an approach avoids some tensions between dignity/indignation and egalitarian aims, while also offering a way to conceptualize human and non-human animal relations that avoids simply reinscribing status hierarchies.


Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2024
Author(s):  
Helen Parish

The pages of early modern natural histories expose the plasticity of the natural world, and the variegated nature of the encounter between human and animal in this period. Descriptions of the flora and fauna reflect this kind of negotiated encounter between the world that is seen, that which is heard about, and that which is constructed from the language of the sacred text of scripture. The natural histories of Greenland that form the basis of this analysis exemplify the complexity of human–animal encounters in this period, and the intersections that existed between natural and unnatural, written authority and personal testimony, and culture, belief, and ethnography in natural histories. They invite a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which animals and people interact in the making of culture, and demonstrate the contribution made by such texts to the study of animal encounters, cultures, and concepts. This article explores the intersection between natural history and the work of Christian mission in the eighteenth century, and the connections between personal encounter, ethnography, history, and oral and written tradition. The analysis demonstrates that European natural histories continued to be anthropocentric in content and tone, the product of what was believed, as much as what was seen.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Helen Parish

This article explores the role played by the relationship between witch and familiar in the early modern witch trials. It positions animal familiars at the intersection of early modern belief in witchcraft and magic, examining demonologies, legal and trial records, and print pamphlets. Read together, these sources present a compelling account of human-animal interactions during the period of the witch trials, and shed light upon the complex beliefs that created the environment in which the image of the witch and her familiar took root. The animal familiar is positioned and discussed at the intersection of writing in history, anthropology, folklore, gender, engaging with the challenge articulated in this special issue to move away from mono-causal theories and explore connections between witchcraft, magic, and religion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 172 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Jane Mummery ◽  
Debbie Rodan

In 2008, the Australian Law Reform Commission journal, Reform, called out animal welfare as Australia’s ‘next great social justice movement’ in 2018; however, public mobilisation around animal welfare is still a contested issue in Australia. The question stands as to how to mobilise everyday mainstream consumers into supporting animal activism given that animal activism is presented in the public sphere as dampening the economic livelihood of Australia, with some animal activism described as ‘akin to terrorism’. The questions, then, are as follows: how to mobilise everyday mainstream consumers into supporting animal activist ideals? How to frame and communicate animal activist ideals so that they can come to inform and change the behaviour and self-understandings of mainstream consumers? This article is an investigation into the possible production and mobilisation of animal activists from mainstream consumers through the work of one digital campaign, Make it Possible. Delivered by the peak Australian animal advocacy organisation, Animals Australia, and explicitly targeting the lived experiences and conditions of animals in factory farming, Make it Possible reached nearly 12 million viewers across Australia and has directly impacted on the reported behaviour and self-understandings of over 291,000 Australians to date, as well as impacting policy decisions made by government and industry. More specifically, our interest is to engage a new materialist lens to draw out how this campaign operates to transform consumers into veg*ns (vegans/vegetarians), activists and ethical consumers who materially commit to and live revised beliefs regarding human–animal relations.


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