scholarly journals Foucault: Madness and Surveillance in Warsaw

2018 ◽  
pp. 174-190
Author(s):  
Piotr Sobolczyk

The paper revises the biographical data about Michel Foucault’s stay in Poland in 1958-1959. The main inspiration comes from the recent very well documented literary reportage book by Remigiusz Ryziński, Foucault in Warsaw. Ryziński’s aim is to present the data and tell the story, not to analyse the data within the context of Foucault’s work. This paper fulfills this demand by giving additional hypotheses as to why Polish authorities expelled Foucault from Poland and what the relation was between communism and homosexuality. The Polish experience, the paper compels, might have been inspiring for many of Foucault’s ideas in his Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality. On the other hand the author points to the fact that Foucault recognized the difference between the role of the intellectual in the West and in communist countries but did not elaborate on it. In this paper the main argument deals with the idea of sexual paranoia as decisive, which is missing in Foucault's works, although it is found in e.g. Guy Hocquenghem.

2018 ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Piotr Sobolczyk

The paper revises the biographical data about Michel Foucault’s stay in Poland in 1958-1959. The main inspiration comes from the recent very well documented literary reportage book by Remigiusz Ryziński, Foucault in Warsaw. Ryziński’s aim is to present the data and tell the story, not to analyse the data within the context of Foucault’s work. This paper fulfills this demand by giving additional hypotheses as to why Polish authorities expelled Foucault from Poland and what the relation was between communism and homosexuality. The Polish experience, the paper compels, might have been inspiring for many of Foucault’s ideas in his Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality. On the other hand the author points to the fact that Foucault recognized the difference between the role of the intellectual in the West and in communist countries but did not elaborate on it. In this paper the main argument deals with the idea of sexual paranoia as decisive, which is missing in Foucault's works, although it is found in e.g. Guy Hocquenghem.


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 569
Author(s):  
Arpita Mitra

There has been a long-standing academic debate on the religious orientation of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa (1836–1886), one of the leading religious figures of modern India. In the light of his teachings, it is possible to accept that Rāmakṛṣṇa’s ideas were Vedāntic, albeit not in a sectarian or exclusive way. This article explores the question of where exactly to place him in the chequered history of Vedāntic ideas. It points out that Rāmakṛṣṇa repeatedly referred to different states of consciousness while explaining the difference in the attitudes towards the Divine. This is the basis of his harmonization of the different streams within Vedānta. Again, it is also the basis of his understanding of the place of śakti. He demonstrated that, as long as one has I-consciousness, one is operating within the jurisdiction of śakti, and has to accept śakti as real. On the other hand, in the state of samādhi, which is the only state in which the I-consciosuness disappears, there is neither One nor many. The article also shows that, while Rāmakṛṣṇa accepted all of the different views within Vedānta, he was probably not as distant from the Advaita Vedānta philosopher Ādi Śaṁkara as he has been made out to be.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 911-931
Author(s):  
Tomasz Zarycki ◽  
Tomasz Warczok

The article argues that Poland’s mainstream national historical narrative, at least as far as the last two centuries of history of the country is concerned, is full of ‘traumatic’ motives which are regularly used and developed in diverse current political and intellectual contexts. Polish history is imagined to a large extent as an endless chain of 200 years of suffering, caused, among other things, by occupations, wars and exploitation, which are usually seen as not fully recognized in other countries, in particular in the West. The article attempts first of all to explain this specific nature of Poland’s historical identity by the privileged role of the intelligentsia, understood as a specific type of elite based on possession and control of cultural capital. It reconstructs the historical rise of the intelligentsia and its impact on the mainstream narrative in question, pointing to a selective choice of potential ‘traumas’ which are assigned a national status. They may be seen as tools to build positions in what can be called the Polish ‘field of power’, to use the notion coined by Pierre Bourdieu. The particular configuration and recent history of the field of power in Poland is reconstructed in order to explain different strategies of what can be called the social and political construction of historical traumas in Poland.


2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1581) ◽  
pp. 3106-3114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid M. L. Kappers

In this paper, I focus on the role of active touch in three aspects of shape perception and discrimination studies. First an overview is given of curvature discrimination experiments. The most prominent result is that first-order stimulus information (that is, the difference in attitude or slope over the stimulus) is the dominant factor determining the curvature threshold. Secondly, I compare touch under bimanual and two-finger performance with unimanual and one-finger performance. Consistently, bimanual or two-finger performance turned out to be worse. The most likely explanation for the former finding is that a loss of accuracy during intermanual comparisons is owing to interhemispheric relay. Thirdly, I address the presence of strong after-effects after just briefly touching a shape. These after-effects have been measured and studied in various conditions (such as, static, dynamic, transfer to other hand or finger). Combination of the results of these studies leads to the insight that there are possibly different classes of after-effect: a strong after-effect, caused by immediate contact with the stimulus, that does only partially transfer to the other hand, and one much less strong after-effect, caused by moving over the stimulus for a certain period, which shows a full transfer to other fingers.


Author(s):  
Lala Huseynli

This article is devoted to the study of the evolution of the lyrical image in the ballets of Azerbaijani composers. The presented article emphasizes that the Azerbaijani ballet on the extension of the history of the Azerbaijani school of composition functioned indefinitely as an important component of the Azerbaijani musical culture. The theme of this article is actualized in the aspect of the historical approach, as each ballet of Azerbaijani composers, on the other hand, reflected the significant features of the artistic, historical and cultural context. On the other hand, the study of the evolution of the lyrical image in the Azerbaijani ballets reflects the dynamics of the development of the Azerbaijani school of composition. Moreover, the figurative system in Azerbaijani ballets represents the slender line of artistic connections of Azerbaijani culture. The purpose of the research is to study the role of the lyrical image in the evolution of the Azerbaijani ballet. The research methodology is based is based on the use of a historical approach to determine the basic definitions of the study. The expediency of the historical method is due to the fact that the development in the space of historical time should be based on certain basic categories that would reflect the school of composition, its national specifics. The scientific novelty of the research is that for the first time the peculiarities of the evolution of the lyrical image in Azerbaijani ballets – from its origin to modern functioning – are analyzed; the nuances of style creation in the Azerbaijani school of composers in the specified aspect are considered, and also certain art processes are systematized. Conclusions. It is proved that the combination of deep lyricism with dramatic emotions is characteristic of the transfer of lyricism in the drama of ballets at all historical stages of development, in different stylistic contexts. Lyrical images in the ballets of Azerbaijani composers have similar features and are due to the specific content of the national worldview.


Author(s):  
Garth Fowden

This book examines history and thought “before and after Muhammad” by offering a new perspective on the debate about “the West and the Rest,” about America's destiny and Europe's identity. One party explains how Europe and eventually North America—the North Atlantic world—left the rest in the dust from about 1500. The other side argues that Asia—China, Japan, and the Islamic trio of Mughals, Safavids, and Ottomans—remained largely free of European encroachment until the mid-1700s, but then either collapsed for internal reasons, or else were gradually undermined by colonial powers' superior technological, economic, and military power. In seeking to overhaul the foundations of this debate, especially as regards the role of Islam and the Islamic world, the book reformulates the history of the First Millennium, by the end of which Islam had matured sufficiently to be compared with patristic Christianity, in order to fit Islam into it. The book draws primarily on Edward Gibbon's account of East Rome and Islam.


Philosophy ◽  
1933 ◽  
Vol 8 (31) ◽  
pp. 301-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Delisle Burns

Not for the first time in the history of our tradition, we are conscious of the defects of our inheritance and look doubtfully forward to a future whose structure we can hardly surmise. There was a Decline of the West in the first years of our era and again at the close of the Middle Ages. Now once more the beliefs and customs are shaken, on which our tradition is based; and there is no certainty that we shall carry forward what that tradition has so far achieved into a new form of civilized life. But, on the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that Western Civilization will disappear.


1989 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn F. Pitts

In recent years the ‘rex sociusque et amicus’ of the Roman Empire—frequently, if mistakenly, called a ‘client king’—has been the subject of much study, notably by D. Braund. Although ostensibly Braund and others are discussing the position and role of these kings on all the Roman frontiers, they concentrate in the main on those in the east. This is perhaps inevitable, since literary and epigraphic evidence abounds for the east, while it is scarce and often ambiguous for the west. Unfortunately direct comparison between east and west is meaningless: conditions which can be seen to apply to Rome's relations with her neighbours in the east cannot always be transferred to the west. Unfortunately direct comparison between east and west is meaningless: conditions which can be seen to apply to Rome's relations with her neighbours in the east cannot always be transferred to the west. In Greece and Asia Minor Rome was dealing with developed societies who could be integrated into a Roman administrative system; in the west, on the other hand, the peoples living beyond the frontiers, and indeed within them, were culturally less well-developed; here Rome had, on the whole, to negotiate with constantly changing tribal chiefs rather than with established monarchies.


2004 ◽  
Vol 49 (163) ◽  
pp. 7-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetozar Pejovic

It has been widely observed that the same formal rules, enacted in the parliaments in the form of written laws, give vastly different results in different social and cultural environments. This phenomenon came to be particularly pronounced in the process of transition of the formerly communist countries to market economies and politically pluralized societies. Highly similar and occasionally identical institutional changes turned out to be unequally accepted by the societies under consideration and produced widely different results in the material restructuring of the economies. It became clear that the notion of institutions had to be widened so as to encompass the informal rules: the customs, the traditions, cultural values and national myths. Informal rules define the constraints for implementing the formal ones and, on the other hand, determine the actual effects of the latter once they are implemented. Forcing the formal rules upon the transition societies cannot be successful unless preceding and/or contemporaneous changes of informal rules are provided for. The paper ends with a design of the strategy for the decisively important changes in values and other components of informal rules.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 88-108
Author(s):  
Anna Walczak

What is the source and the effect of the acting subject’s identity? This question refers to difference, but not in its usual conceptualization, synonymous with a border and the need to maintain or transcend it. By reconceptualizing difference, which I see as “re-creating” the meaning and linking it with “added” meanings, this article restores its original load (importance) in being an acting subject, mediated in otherness. For this purpose, the différance of Jacques Derrida is invoked and his statements about it combined with those of other philosophers, in whom I found what is related and/or complementary and extends not only Derrida's thought, but that which constitutes the main theme of this article. On the one hand, otherness is an impulse to the “work” of the difference, and on the other hand, it is its effect. What is the role of the “work” of the difference in creating the identity of the acting subject? In connection with the “shift” of the effect of its work – otherness, into the area of the identity of the acting subject, can this subject say about itself: this is still me? In this context, what is responsive ethics, which, I believe, should be included in the contemporary humanistic and social discourse about the subject?


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