scholarly journals On Whales and Giants: Images of Leviathan in New Model Army and The Unwritten

Gragoatá ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (43) ◽  
pp. 787-808
Author(s):  
André Cabral de Almeida Cardoso

Fantastic and science-fictional narratives employ specific modes of representation. In both genres, figurative language can be used in a literal sense, so that symbols acquire a concrete representation in the text. The aim of this article is to examine how a specific image, the giant Leviathan as a metaphor for the aggregation of individuals in order to form the social body, is explored in two genre narratives. In the science fiction novel New Model Army, by Adam Roberts, the image of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is used to suggest the notion of a radical democracy in which all members of the community have an organic participation in the social body. In the graphic narrative The Unwritten, by Mike Carey, Peter Gross and Vince Locke, Hobbes’ Leviathan is explored in conjunction with Melville’s Moby-Dick in order to investigate the nature of symbolic representation and the relation between culture and objective reality. The appropriation of the metaphor of the Leviathan as a concrete symbol determines the way the two narratives develop their main themes and articulate their meanings. ---DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2017n43a943.

Author(s):  
Lise Kouri ◽  
Tania Guertin ◽  
Angel Shingoose

The article discusses a collaborative project undertaken in Saskatoon by Community Engagement and Outreach office at the University of Saskatchewan in partnership with undergraduate student mothers with lived experience of poverty. The results of the project were presented as an animated graphic narrative that seeks to make space for an under-represented student subpopulation, tracing strategies of survival among university, inner city and home worlds. The innovative animation format is intended to share with all citizens how community supports can be used to claim fairer health and education outcomes within system forces at play in society. This article discusses the project process, including the background stories of the students. The entire project, based at the University of Saskatchewan, Community Engagement and Outreach office at Station 20 West, in Saskatoon’s inner city, explores complex intersections of racialization, poverty and gender for the purpose of cultivating empathy and deeper understanding within the university to better support inner city students. amplifying community voices and emphasizing the social determinants of health in Saskatoon through animated stories.


Author(s):  
Greg Anderson

To conclude the book’ s alternative account of the Athenian politeia, the chapter offers a recursive analysis of the resource flows which made this way of life possible. The result is very different from a conventional modern secular economic analysis. Instead, it treats resource transactions as the lifeblood of a cosmic ecology that united gods, land, and people in a condition of symbiotic interdependency. The most important of all these transactions were those between gods and humans, whereby the latter received secure conditions of existence in exchange for temples, sacrifices, votive treasures, and other often costly ritual offerings. The most important of the resource transactions between humans were marriages, whereby the managerial and reproductive capacities of females were transferred from one household to another, thereby perpetuating the life of the social body. Contrary to the “egalitarian” ethos which moderns believe animated “democratic Athens,” demokratia would also have been unsustainable without the innumerable contributions of resources, material and otherwise, that were made by a relatively small number of super-wealthy Athenian households. And in a polis where members typically worked only for themselves, the existence of these ecologically essential super-wealthy households would have been unsustainable without the routine exploitation of slaves.


1997 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-38
Author(s):  
Douglass Sullivan-González

No clearer testimony evidenced the social upheaval and shifting political landscape in Guatemala in February 1838 than the graphic narrative by the traveling United States' diplomat, John Lloyd Stephens. Recently arrived in the capital for the first time, Stephens witnessed the insurrectionary triumph of the military caudillo, Rafael Carrera, and his “tumultuous mass of half-naked savages, men, women, and children, estimated at ten or twelve thousand.” Stephens described how Carrera's indigenous followers, upon entering the abandoned plaza and within earshot of the terrified white elite shouted “Long live religion and death to foreigners!” Carrera's political uprising incited by religious concerns had laid siege to the power structure inherited from colonial times.


2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub Urbaniak ◽  
Elijah Otu

This study seeks to articulate the universality of the eschatological expectation, in its specifically Christian form, by interpreting it from the perspective of a radical embodiment. This can be understood in a twofold manner. Firstly, the mysterious reality of the eschatological reign of God is rooted in – and thus can be more adequately grasped through the lens of – Jesus’ own body seen as distinct yet not separate from his risen body and, mutatis mutandis, from his extended body, both ecclesial and cosmic. Secondly, for the eschatological expectation to be lived out in an incarnational way, it must be ‘enfleshed’ in actions aimed at social and ecological liberation.The article consists of four sections. Firstly, we explain in what sense body – and more specifically Jesus’ body – is used in our analysis as a hermeneutic key to notions such as ‘risen body’, ‘spiritual body’, ‘extended body’, ‘social body’, ‘ecclesial body’, ‘cosmic body’, basar/kol basar (‘flesh’/‘all flesh’), and ‘life’. Then, the universality of the eschatological expectation is being articulated on two levels, namely, (1) with regard to the social, and in particular the ecclesial, body, and (2) with regard to the cosmic body, with ecological implications inherent in such perspective. Finally, we close the loop by briefly revisiting the notion of Jesus’ body.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Krause-Jensen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse through ethnographic fieldwork the social and cultural context and (unintended) consequences of introducing a management concept from the private sector (LEAN) into the public sector. Design/methodology/approach Ethnographic fieldwork combined with reading of reports and material. Findings The major findings are: first, Lean is seen in a cultural context, it is argued that the persuasiveness of Lean depends on building a metaphorical connection between organizational aims and individual experiences and bodily ideals; second, Lean purports to be a win-win game and road to eliminating “waste” through worker participation, empowerment and enthusiasm. The research points to the contrary. Lean was met with scepticism and was seen by the social workers as a waste of time. Originality/value As demonstrated in the paper, the vast majority of research published about Lean is hortatory in nature. It is recipe books trying to convince readers of the benefits of introducing Lean. This paper, on the contrary, attempts an open ethnographic exploration of the Lean process and its social and cultural ramifications.


2019 ◽  
pp. 219-236
Author(s):  
Laura E. Pérez
Keyword(s):  

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 74-82
Author(s):  
Ye. I. Kirilenko

In the modern science, the body is an object of interest not only to the natural science and medicine, but also the humanities. Of special interest, in particular, for the medical discourse, is the ethnic body experience. The paper reveals features of the body experience in the east-slavonic culture from the analysis of the mythological tradition. This experience is characterized by the pronounced interest and ambivalent attitude to the body’s life, natural body standards; and emotional intensity. The experience of the social body is of highest priority in the culture.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 87-115
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Mochocka

Two Perspectives on the Performative Social Body: Teenage Make-up Routines in Fanfik and the Jeżycjada cycle. The article discusses make-up as an important element in a storyworld of YA fiction. It uses examples taken from novels by two Polish authors, the well-established and acclaimed Małgorzata Musierowicz, the author of the Jeżycjada cycle 1977–2015, and Natalia Osińska, who has recently debuted with a novel entitled Fanfik 2016. The article shows that Osińska’s novel can be seen as a transformative rendition of Musi­erowicz’s works. It also focuses on the paratexts adding meaningful context in the case of both Musiero­wicz and Osińska, as well as comments on the public recognition of Musierowicz’s fiction, the responses of Musierowicz’s fandom to the alleged ideological message of her novels, and the political agenda of the publishing house that put Osińska’s book on the market. The concepts of the performative social body, the cosmetic paradox, and glamour are employed to argue that Osińska’s book is intended as a critique of the world-view presented in Jeżycjada’s storyworld. Although a direct relationship between the two fictional worlds cannot be established, the article highlights some tangent points between them: in both cases, make-up serves the expression of the value system. In the Jeżycjada cycle, it is presented mostly as disguise and deception even though at the same time discreet make-up is meant to be part and parcel of womens’ lives. By contrast, featuring queer teenagers, Osińska’s debut novel highlights the transformative function of cosmetics as tools used to create the social body.Две точки зрения на перформативное социальное тело: подростковый макияж в романах Fanfik и Jeżycjada. В тексте рассматривается макияж как важный элемент мира беллетристики для юных читателей. В статье использованы примеры из романов двух польских авторов: из­вестной Малгожаты Мусерович, автора цикла Jeżycjada, и Натальи Осинской, которая недавно дебютировала c романом Fanfik. Текст объясняет тот факт, что роман Oсинской был провоз­глашен своего рода интерпретацией произведений Мусерович. В статье проанализированы паратексты, создающие значимый контекст, в произведениях Мусерович и Осинской. Автор исследования затрагивает вопрос об общественном признании литературы Мусерович. В статье прокомментированы ответы фэндома писательницы на предполагаемое идеологическое посла­ние ее романов и рассмотрена политическая позиция издательства, которое выпустило книгу Осинской на рынок. В статье также идет речь о концепции перформативного социального тела, косметического парадокса и гламура. Книга Осинской считается критикой мировоззрения, представленного в мире Jeżycjady. Хотя прямая связь между двумя вымышленными мирами не может быть установлена, между ними, безусловно, есть некоторые точки пересечения. В обоих случаях макияж служит для выражения системы ценностей. В цикле Jeżycjada макияж представ­лен в основном как маскировка и обман, но в то же время сдержанный макияж — неотъемлемая часть жизни женщин. С другой стороны, опиcывая квир подростков, Осинская подчеркивает в своем дебютном романе трансформационную функцию косметики как инструмента, исполь­зуемого для создания социального тела.


1952 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Smith

As in the Middle Ages in the West, so in Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868) men were fond of explaining the hierarchical society in which they lived by comparing it to an organism. Social classes, Confucian scholars said, were like parts of the body: each had a vital function to perform, but their functions were essentially different and unequal in value. In this scheme the peasants were second in importance only to the ruling military class. Just as the samurai officials were the brains that guided other organs, so the peasants were the feet that held the social body erect. They were the “basis of the country,” the valued producers whose labor sustained all else. But, as a class, they tended innately to backsliding and extravagance. Left alone they would consume more than their share of the social income, ape the manners and tastes of their betters, and even encroach upon the functions of other classes to the perilous neglect of their own. Only the lash of necessity and the sharp eye of the official could hold them to their disagreeable role. They had to be bound to the land; social distinctions had to be thrown up around them like so many physical barriers; and, to remove all temptation to indolence and luxury, they had to be left only enough of what they produced to let them continue producing.


2018 ◽  
Vol 536 (2) ◽  
pp. 491
Author(s):  
Marco Cocorocchio ◽  
Robert Ives ◽  
David Clapham ◽  
Paul L.R. Andrews ◽  
Robin S.B. Williams

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