scholarly journals Is there, for the black person, only one destiny? A psychoanalytical approach

Vista ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 43-57
Author(s):  
Jefferson Nascimento ◽  
Giselle Falbo

This paper intends to think about how racism interferes in building the image of the black person in the process of subjective constitution, in its articulation with the discourse of the Other, as conceived by Jacques Lacan in his work, namely, as unconscious and its manifestations at the cultural level and at the level of the social bond. To this end, we will refer to the theoretical elaborations of Neusa Santos Souza, Frantz Fanon, and Grada Kilomba, authors who undertook, each in their own time and their respective readings and social contexts, powerful reflections on racism from a psychoanalysis standpoint. Through the conception of language as proposed by Lacan and the concept of blackness in Munanga, we indicate how the issue updates itself in Brazil today. To conclude, understanding that there is psychic suffering engendered by this mode of segregation, we suggest alternatives and ways that articulate the empowerment of the subject that crosses and is at the same time crossed by the collective.

1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
René Gothóni

Religion should no longer only be equated with a doctrine or philosophy which, although important, is but one aspect or dimension of the phenomenon religion. Apart from presenting the intellectual or rational aspects of Buddhism, we should aim at a balanced view by also focusing on the mythical or narrative axioms of the Buddhist doctrines, as well as on the practical and ritual, the experiential and emotional, the ethical and legal, the social and institutional, and the material and artistic dimensions of the religious phenomenon known as Buddhism. This will help us to arrive at a balanced, unbiased and holistic conception of the subject matter. We must be careful not to impose the ethnocentric conceptions of our time, or to fall into the trap of reductionism, or to project our own idiosyncratic or personal beliefs onto the subject of our research. For example, according to Marco Polo, the Sinhalese Buddhists were 'idolaters', in other words worshippers of idols. This interpretation of the Sinhalese custom of placing offerings such as flowers, incense and lights before the Buddha image is quite understandable, because it is one of the most conspicuous feature of Sinhalese Buddhism even today. However, in conceiving of Buddhists as 'idolaters', Polo was uncritically using the concept of the then prevailing ethnocentric Christian discourse, by which the worshippers of other religions used idols, images or representations of God or the divine as objects of worship, a false God, as it were. Christians, on the other hand, worshipped the only true God.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-165
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier Hernández Quezada

In this article we take a general look at four Mexican authors who have tackled the subject of animal sacrifice: Ramón Rubín, Juan José Arreola, Héctor Aguilar Camín and Alberto Chimal. Our broad approach is that one way or the other harmful and disadvantageous situations are expressed for the non-human entity, considering the social implications of the role which has been assigned to it across time, be it in the symbolic act or in today’s production logic. Departing from such Derridean considerations about the existing relationship between humans and fauna, it is evident that in the works of the authors analyzed, the topic or use of animals presents the material reach of their sacrifice, especially when the matter of the literary representation of pain or physical suffering comes into play. It is relevant at the same time to affirm that in this work we consider the reflections of several authors who, from a philosophic or anthropologic perspective, have delved into the fundamental aspects of the sacrificial act, pointing out the evocative role of the animal, rightly conceived as an important cultural event, wherein are manifested transcendental ceremonies (René Girard) or the rites of passage which strengthen the group’s ties (Clifford Geertz).


1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryeh L. Unger

The article attempts to explicate the meaning of “Sovietology.” It traces the origins of the term and discusses the uses to which it has been put in the scholarly literature. Two different meanings have been attached to the term. One reflects the understanding of Sovietology as the study of Soviet politics; the other views it as a “basket” of several, variously specified, disciplines in the social sciences and—less often—the humanities, distinguished by a common area orientation. The resultant ambiguity has blurred Sovietology's disciplinary identity. Now that the record of Western scholarship on the Soviet Union has become the subject of critical scrutiny and debate, it is especially important that the meaning of “Sovietology” be clearly stipulated.


1974 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 140-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irmgard Johnson

Readers of this journal who, like myself, have been interested by Colin Mackerras’ article on “Chinese Opera after the Cultural Revolution (1970–72)” in The China Quarterly, No. 55, may like to have some comments on the fate of traditional Peking opera in Taiwan. There, too, there has been “reform” although not generally in such an obvious or dramatic form as on the mainland. At first sight indeed, one might think that ways in which opera is treated on the mainland and in Taiwan are completely different, with the one concentrating on opera as a weapon in the social and political struggle and the other on the development of opera as an artistic form. Nevertheless, in studying aesthetic and theatrical aspects of the changes taking place in Taiwan, which is my main academic interest in the subject, I have been struck by the fact that these can in no way be disentangled from social and political forces.


PhaenEx ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-55
Author(s):  
MATTHEW LYONS CONGDON

In what we might call its particularly Christian manifestation, “guilt” denotes the feeling or fact of having offended, the failure to uphold an ethical code. Under such terms, “guilt” connotes negative consequences: shame, punishment, and estrangement. Yet, penetrating further into its meaning and value, one finds that guilt extends beyond this narrow classification, playing a productive, necessary, and ineluctable role for recognitive sociality. This paper examines guilt as it appears in Hegel’s thinking. I find that Hegel’s understanding of Schuld (guilt) in the Phenomenology, undergoes a crucial development over the course of the chapter titled, “Spirit,” culminating in a robust understanding of guilt that represents not a hopelessly broken bond, but a bond that awaits its fulfillment, its very incompleteness exerting a palpable pull upon the guilty party towards its fulfillment. I examine three key moments in “Spirit”: Hegel’s treatments of Antigone, the French Revolution, and the confession and forgiveness of evil. By comparing these moments, I distinguish between “abstract guilt,” guilt that only brings about shame and punishment, and what we might call “determinate guilt”: guilt that brings about action, reminds one of her/his indebtedness to the other. Understanding the development of guilt from the beginning to end of “Spirit” provides an entryway into a discussion of the social and political relevance of Hegel’s conception of the subject as—in a certain sense—always already guilty. I go on to argue that guilt as indebtedness and responsibility only exists as embedded within an already recognitive social structure. Re-thinking guilt as responsibility is not, therefore, a call to a new objective a priori moral system. Rather, it invites us to think through our recognitive being-together in a way that shakes off its metaphysical fetters. Such an ethics of recognitive intersubjectivity is an infinite task—not in the futile sense of the “unhappy consciousness”—but in the sense that we are responsible for constantly understanding, critiquing, and reforming ethical commitments that can only be (understood as) ours.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-75
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Marcinkiewicz-Wilk

Aim. The aim of this article is to show the significance of educational activeness among the elderly in the context of its adaptation to the ageing process itself (the psychological aspect), as well as to a rapidly changing society defined by technological progress (the social aspect). Method. The article has been formulated with the aid of critical literature on the subject Conclusion. Educational activeness is crucial in late adulthood. On the one hand it is an important element in allowing the elderly to adapt to a new stage of life, and on the other hand to keep up with a rapidly changing society, defined in the literature as the information society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-71
Author(s):  
Michał Jasny

Abstract Health, injury, and pain within the social contexts of sports remain relevant. Sociologists have repeatedly pointed out a set of factors that shape the sociocultural background of sports and aim to normalize the high risk of injury, pain, and negative impacts on health. The literature contains inspiring studies with valuable guidelines for conceptualizing this issue. Some researchers have focused on the social factors shaping athletes’ experiences with health-related risks and have proven that it is possible to oppose the deeply rooted “culture of risk.” The fact that most studies on the subject involve men’s sports increases the importance of those that address health-related risks in women’s sports. The literature includes few works concerning the sociocultural contexts of injury, pain, or health issues in handball. The aim of this study was to learn about the opinions and experiences of professional female handball players related to health in their discipline. Three main directions of research were followed: 1) health as a value; 2) significance of injury and pain; and 3) effect of health-related risks on a career in sports. The data were collected before the COVID-19 pandemic. The results do not reflect the opinions or experiences of the participants during the period of heightened epidemiological risk. The sample comprised female athletes (n=52) who participated in the Polish First League of women’s handball and represented the highest competitive level in their category in Poland.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 456-462
Author(s):  
Tayebeh Barati ◽  
Pyeaam Abbasi

In his contribution to psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan introduces three orders according to which every psychoanalytic phenomenon can be described. These three orders are the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. The imaginary is the order in which the subject thinks of everything as his/her own. For the subject there is no distinction between the other and the subject itself. In the symbolic order the subject comes to realise that there is a gap between him/her and the other. S/he, then, starts to feel a lack which for the rest of his/her life the subject tries to fill in. The real is considered as the most important order in which the subject tears away from the symbolic and tries to experience, once again, the unity it had in the imaginary order. It is in this phase that the subject experiences what is known as jouissance or the 'pleasure in pain'. The present study tries to look at the eighteenth chapter of the Holy Quran, al-Kahf (The Cave), in the light of psychoanalysis studies and Lacan's theories in order to analyse the mystical experience that the Men of the Cave go through to reach their final jouissance. 


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lawrence Loiseau

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This study addresses Lacan's comments on Marx. While much has been done towards reading Marx with psychoanalysis generally, little had has been done to unpack the meaning and extent of Lacan's own statements on Marx. For example, while Lacanian Marxists like Slavoj Zizek have wielded Lacan to great effect in a critique of post-structuralism, they have neglected the full meaning and complexity of Lacan's own stance. What is argued thereby is that Zizek not only omits the discrete knowledge within Lacan's commentary, but misses what I describe as a Lacan's theory of the social. On the one hand, it is commonly known in Lacanian thought that discourse is responsible for making the subject. On the other hand, what is less known is that Lacan defined discourse as that which makes a social link which, in contrast with Marxist thought, introduces a certain affect and materialism premised on discourse itself, commonly known, but also for providing the underlying strata of topology (namely, paradox) requisite for making any social link between subjects. Although less commonly known, we can nevertheless gain new insight into Marx. On the one hand, Lacan concedes Marx's underlying structuralism. On the other hand, Marx fails to see the true source of discourse's origins, the real itself, and consequently fails to see the true efficacy of discourse. He fails to see how discourse, although negative, stands as entirely positive and material in its distinctive effects. Discourse negotiates subjects and their inimitable objects of desire in this singularity itself. This is where true production lies; it is that which precedes any social or economic theory, which are otherwise premised on reality. Lacan rejects reality.


Author(s):  
Rosaria Filoni

The author addresses the subject of modesty, firstly by referring to an article by Alexander Lowen (IIBA Newsletter, 1994), and then an article by Umberto Galimberti, a philosopher and Jungian analyst. Lowen speaks of modesty as «natural pride”, as the expression of the degree of self-perception and self-esteem of the person. It denotes the individual’s ability to contain their feelings and therefore indicates their ability to hold a strong sexual charge. For Galimberti, the human being – who has both a body and individuality – «modesty” expresses the contrasting dialectic between the ego and their animal condition, the two dimensions that intimately constitute the person and tear him or her apart. Each dimension, in fact, hosts two subjectivities. One subjectivity that says «I”, with which we usually identify ourselves, and the other that establishes us as «officials of the species” ensuring its continuity. According to Galimberti, modesty does not limit sexuality but identifies it. The author then reflects on the social and historical aspects of modesty in Italy over the last 50 years.


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