scholarly journals The Myth of the Jedi: Memory and Deception in the Star Wars Saga

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Rónán L. MacDubhghaill
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Social Imagination ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
The World ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Do So

The importance of science fiction in contemporary cultural studies can hardly be underestimated, no more than it can be denied. Many narratives emerging out of the world of science fiction have become fully integrated within the contemporary cannon of popular understanding, mythology and reference. Amongst these narratives, perhaps no story is more fully integrated with contemporary culture than the original Star Wars saga. More current in the contemporary social imagination than the norse sagas, or those of ancient greece, Star Wars shares many of their epic qualities. The focus on the heroic characteristics of individuals, for example, against the backdrop of a great conflict between forces of good and evil, in which the righteous and the virtuous prevail is the standard narrative of many epic cultures. Indeed, this is the origin of classic notions of virtue, which stay with us to this day (MacIntyre, 2007). In that sense, this saga could be understood as yet another permutation of a story which has been told since time immemorial. Yet, as with the classical sagas, one must be sensitive to problematic aspects within their narratives; to the version of morality which they promote, and the ways in which they do so. This main focus in this essay will be just one such problem: the (mis)use of memory within the narrative of the original Star Wars saga, and deception as it relates to the myth of the Jedi.

Good and Evil, Joy and Pain

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Michalski
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Genealogy Of Morals

This chapter posits an understanding of Nietzsche's “genealogy of morals.” The genealogy of morals is an attempt to show the dynamic hidden behind our moral concepts, the intractable tension that arises from the fact that these concepts are an expression of life and, accordingly, that each one of them is also a kind of power that can injure or destroy, as well as aid or liberate. It is an account of human life as it is, here and now, of the terror that lurks in its depths, as well as of our flight from it, if only, as today, into the pleasant slumber of contemporary culture; of the power of human life, which introduces into the world the only kind of meaning one can find there, and of its irremediable weakness, which adds falsehood and deception to the world and thereby makes it both habitable and interesting.

scholarly journals Editorial

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
Chris Healy ◽  
Stephen Muecke
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Complex Phenomena ◽  
Do So

One of the tasks of the humanities academic—the philosopher, the cultural studies researcher—is to devise informed judgement through the exercise of a complex intelligence. It’s a matter, one might think, of sorting out the truth from bullshit and telling it how it is. If only the world would just stay simple … This directness has some appeal, until you start trying to specify the appropriate criteria, grounding and form for judgement. Disciplines address precisely these issues, and to the extent to which they do so successfully, they specify complex phenomena in particular ways; they authorise certain kinds of enquiry and speech as they productively cultivate their own patch of knowledge. Cultural studies has made interdisciplinarity its business, bewitched and distracted by the complexities of actual existing cultural practices, by spatial and temporal mobility and seepage, by authority and exclusion, ownership, belonging and boundaries.

The Persistence of Hope in Dystopian Science Fiction

PMLA ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 119 (3) ◽  
pp. 518-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaella Baccolini
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Modernism ◽  
The World ◽  
Genre Writing ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Do So

It is widely accepted todaythat, whenever we receive or produce culture, we do so from a certain position and that such location influences how we theorize about and read the world. Because I am an Italian trained in the United States (specializing in American modernism) in the 1980s, my reading of science fiction has been shaped by my cultural and biographical circumstances as well as by my geography. It is a hybrid approach, combining these circumstances primarily with an interest in feminist theory and in writing by women. From the very beginning I have foregrounded issues of genre writing as they intersect with gender and the deconstruction of high and low culture. Such an approach, however, must also come to terms with the political and cultural circumstances that characterize this turn of the century.

Comparing Comparisons: Political Implications of Different Notions of Difference

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Glenn Odom
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
World Literature ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
David Damrosch ◽  
Location Point

With the rise of the American world literature movement, questions surrounding the politics of comparative practice have become an object of critical attention. Taking China, Japan and the West as examples, the substantially different ideas of what comparison ought to do – as exhibited in comparative literary and cultural studies in each location – point to three distinct notions of the possible interactions between a given nation and the rest of the world. These contrasting ideas can be used to reread political debates over concrete juridical matters, thereby highlighting possible resolutions. This work follows the calls of Ming Xie and David Damrosch for a contextualization of different comparative practices around the globe.

Speculative Realism and Science Fiction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Willems
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Cormac Mccarthy ◽  
Doris Lessing ◽  
Speculative Realism ◽  
Neil Gaiman ◽  
The World ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Quentin Meillassoux

A human-centred approach to the environment is leading to ecological collapse. One of the ways that speculative realism challenges anthropomorphism is by taking non-human things to be as valid objects of investivation as humans, allowing a more responsible and truthful view of the world to take place. Brian Willems uses a range of science fiction literature that questions anthropomorphism both to develop and challenge this philosophical position. He looks at how nonsense and sense exist together in science fiction, the way in which language is not a guarantee of personhood, the role of vision in relation to identity formation, the difference between metamorphosis and modulation, representations of non-human deaths and the function of plasticity within the Anthropocene. Willems considers the works of Cormac McCarthy, Paolo Bacigalupi, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Doris Lessing and Kim Stanley Robinson are considered alongside some of the main figures of speculative materialism including Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux and Jane Bennett.

A Compact Embodiment of Pluralities and Denial of Origins: Atwood’s The Year of The Flood

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Near Future

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.

THE ROLE OF CHILDREN'S ARTISTIC LITERATUR IN THE ASSIMILATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL CATEGORIES BY PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 20-24
Author(s):  
Ponomareva L.I. ◽  
Gan N.Yu. ◽  
Obukhova K.A.
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
The World ◽  
Culture And Health ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Good And Evil

In the presented study, the authors raise the question of the need to include in the educational process of a preschool institution to familiarize children with some philosophical categories. The educational system in which the child is included, starting from preschool childhood, provides him with the opportunity to gradually and continuously enter the knowledge of the world around him. It is in preschool childhood that the child is exposed to various relationships, values of culture and health, diverse patterns in the field of different knowledge. This contributes to a broader interaction of the preschooler with the world around him, which, in turn, ensures the assimilation not of disparate ideas about objects and phenomena, but their natural integration and interpenetration, which means understanding the integrity of the picture of the world. The authors prove the idea that the assimilation of philosophical categories by children contributes to the understanding of the structure of the surrounding world. The analysis of research is presented, proving that children's fiction in an understandable and accessible language, life examples and vivid images is able to explain to children the laws of the functioning of nature and society, as well as to reveal the world of human relations and feelings. Fiction surrounds the child from the first years of his life. It is she who contributes to the development of thinking and imagination, enriches the sensory world, provides role models and teaches you to find a way out in different situations. Philosophical categories such as "love and friendship", "beautiful and ugly", "good and evil" are represented in children's literature very widely, and the efficiency of mastering philosophical categories depends on the skill of an adult in conveying the content of a work, on correctly placed accents.

The Challenge of Sustaining Peace

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Necla Tschirgi ◽  
Cedric de Coning
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Entire Spectrum ◽  
The World ◽  
Effective Instrument ◽  
International Peacebuilding ◽  
Do So

While demand for international peacebuilding assistance increases around the world, the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA) remains a relatively weak player, for many reasons: its original design, uneasy relations between the Peacebuilding Commission and Security Council, turf battles within the UN system, and how UN peacebuilding is funded. This chapter examines the PBA’s operations since 2005, against the evolution of the peacebuilding field, and discusses how the PBA can be a more effective instrument in the UN’s new “sustaining peace” approach. To do so, it would have to become the intergovernmental anchor for that approach, without undermining the intent that “sustaining peace” be a system-wide responsibility, encompassing the entire spectrum of UN activities in peace, security, development, and human rights.

Jude the Obscure

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
The World ◽  
The University ◽  
Jude The Obscure ◽  
Do So

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?' Jude Fawley, poor and working-class, longs to study at the University of Christminster, but he is rebuffed, and trapped in a loveless marriage. He falls in love with his unconventional cousin Sue Bridehead, and their refusal to marry when free to do so confirms their rejection of and by the world around them. The shocking fate that overtakes them is an indictment of a rigid and uncaring society. Hardy's last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure caused outrage when it was published in 1895. This is the first truly critical edition, taking account of the changes that Hardy made over twenty-five years. It includes a new chronology and bibliography and substantially revised notes.

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