scholarly journals The Representation of Masculinity and its Reflections in the Short Narrative Discourse of Badriya Al-Beshr

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 507
Author(s):  
Nidal Al-Shamali
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Pattern ◽  
Feminine Discourse ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Masculine Discourse

The short stories of the Saudi writer Badriya Al-Beshr focus on her constructive criticism of conventional social power that governs society. This is actually the most obvious feature of her short story collection that was published in 1993 and the other two collections, “Wednesday Evening” (1994) and “Cardamom” (2004). Social power, as Badriya Al-Beshr shows, is best demonstrated in different representations of masculinity which the researcher believes to be the key to understand intertextuality of the text and its deconstructive features. In this context, Al-Beshr faces usurpation by a counter usurpation; a usurpation through writing fiction which deprives her imaginative narrative of the usual masculine discourse. The writer has represented masculinity as a general, distorted, feature that resorts towards negative attitudes, absolute control, deprivation, disability and corruption. This extremity resulted in much complexity that is deeply rooted in the social mentality. This has deepened the ideas of absolute power and controlling discourse which are based on the concept of masculine representation as a usurpation of the other and a limiting of its presence. These ideas and the concepts they have produced have indeed generated a stable cultural pattern in the social mentality; a pattern that has developed a system of values, beliefs, visions and tendencies which are deeply rooted in the subconscious of the individual and social groups. This stable cultural pattern has specified the way the individual views himself and other social groups. This is due to the fact that representations of masculinity provide the social group with an image of itself and of the other. This, in turn, forms the collective narrative identity which represents a coherent system of pre-thinking, indications or signs and rules that are all deeply rooted in the collective mentality of the specified social group. Here comes the role of the female writer who introduces her own point of view as she deviates from the usual pattern that is so much rooted in the mentality of her society. In this respect, Al-Beshr’s short stories represent the voice of the silent subaltern that has long been controlled by masculine representations and deprived of its right to represent its feminine voice. The masculine voice has long spoken for the feminine silent voice. The female writer here is the one who introduces a genuine vision that best depicts her world and that of all women like herself. This voice faithfully represents the suffering of the silent subaltern, consequently, it has become a distinguished cultural voice that forms a counter and a rebellious discourse resisting all the other dominating contexts. This paper applies feminist criticism to discuss the previous ideas through three different dimensions. The first dimension discusses the representations of masculinity in the short stories of Badriya Al-Beshr, its symbols and the vocabulary, philosophy and visions which she uses to depict the dominating masculine discourse. The second dimension traces the general features of the counter feminine discourse that shakes the stable masculine institution, its discourse and deeply rooted images. The researcher will show to what extent this feminine discourse can form an independent active institution that competes with the masculine one and whether it would be able to replace it and speak for itself. The third dimension is a stylistic one that shall discuss the features of Al-Beshr’s narrative discourse and how persuasive it may be. In addition, the researcher focuses on the means and stylistic techniques used by the writer to face the dominating masculine discourse. 

scholarly journals Content and stylistic peculiarities of non-canonical Orthodox Internet Sermon in modern Russia

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-96
Author(s):  
Konstantin S. Sharov
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Goals And Objectives ◽  
Technical Professions

The paper is concerned with a study of the changing content and style of non-canonical Christian religious preaching in the digital age. Special attention is paid to the analysis of modern rhetoric Christian preachers practice in their Internet channels, forums and blogs. It is shown that the content of the Internet sermon is largely determined by the Internet users themselves and the topics of their appeals. The fundamental characteristics of the content of the Internet sermon are: 1) focus on the individual, their private goals and objectives, not just on theological problems; 2) rethinking the phenomenon of the neighbour; 3) a shift from the Hesychast tradition of preaching the importance of inner spiritual concentration to the preaching of religious interactivity. The observed stylistic features of the digital preaching can be summarised as follows: 1) moving away from simple answers to the rhetoric of new questions addressed to the audience; 2) empathy, co-participation with a person in his/her life conflicts and experiences; 3) desire to share religious information, not to impose it; 4) resorting to various rhetorical techniques to reach different audiences; 5) a tendency to use slang, sometimes even irrespective of the audience’s language preferences and expectations. It should be pointed out that the Orthodox Internet sermon in the Russian Internet space has a dual and contradictory nature. On the one hand, this phenomenon can be regarded as positive for the Orthodox preaching in general, since it is a means of spreading Christian ideas in the social groups that do not constitute a core of parishioners of Orthodox churches, for example, schoolchildren, students, representatives of technical professions, etc. On the other hand, the effectiveness of such preaching is still unclear. Lack of reliable statistics as well as the results of the survey related to the Orthodox Internet preaching gives us no opportunity to judge about effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the phenomenon at this stage of its development.

scholarly journals La cuentística erótica de Jaramillo Levi a través de sus máquinas deseantes

LETRAS ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 147-161
Author(s):  
Fátima R. Nogueira
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
The Other ◽  
Death Instinct ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Sexual Drive ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

Se estudia la narrativa de Jaramillo Levi centrada en la relación entre el erotismo y la muerte, desde el intercambio de dos fuerzas que actúan en la producción del deseo: una, de naturaleza libidinosa e inconsciente, la otra de filiación social. Estos relatos exploran el vínculo entre las pulsiones sexuales y el instinto de la muerte revelando el exceso y la violencia ocultos en el erotismo; además, plasman la magnitud del deseo que al exceder los límites del cuerpo y del individuo deviene una experiencia de la sexualidad inhumana reafirmada sólo por un campo saturado de intensidades y vibraciones. Partiendo de la teoría lacaniana del deseo, y de conceptos de Deleuze y Guattari, en los relatos tal encuentro de fuerzas objetiviza el sujeto y cuestiona la noción antropomórfica de sexualidad. This study deals with Jaramillo Levi’s short stories centered on the relationship between eroticism and death, examining the exchange of two driving forces which create desire. The nature of one of these forces is unconscious and libidinous while the other is social. These stories explore the link between sexual drive and the death instinct, disclosing overindulgence and violence hidden behind eroticism. In addition, they depict the magnitude of desire, which upon exceeding the boundaries of the human body and the individual, becomes an experience of inhuman sexuality that can reaffirm itself only in a field permeated with intensity and vibrations. Considering Lacan’s theory of desire and other concepts from Deleuze and Guattari, the exchange of forces in these stories objectifies the subject and questions the anthropomorphic notion of sexuality.

Positive regard for difference without identity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Nicholas
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contact Theory ◽  
Contact Hypothesis ◽  
Trans People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Cis And Trans

The contact hypothesis has been the go-to social psychology concept for promoting better relations between unequal social groups since its inception in the context of ‘racial’ de-segregation in the USA. The idea that contact between groups reduces prejudice has been applied to a range of dominant / subordinate social groups such as ethnic groups, homo/heterosexuals, cis and trans people. This chapter will question whether the aims and premises of contact theory are still useful in the context of increasingly subtle and systemic biases and inequalities, and whether and how it might be usefully extended to relations between more complex identities than simple pre-defined oppositional ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups.  To do so, it considers some examples of intergroup othering using case studies pertaining to backlashes against gender, sexual and ethnic diversity in the contemporary Australian context. This chapter proposes the fruitful combination of queer ethics, post-tolerance political theory and the social psychology concept of ‘allophilia’ (love for the other) to move towards fostering ‘positive regard’ as an alternative way to tackle prejudice. It suggests that queer ethics can lend a convincing strategy here, which I call ‘reading queerly’, that is, being able to approach an other with an openness that neither homogenises nor subordinates difference.

Mobile Communication Tools as Morality-Building Devices

2015 ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
André H. Caron ◽  
Letizia Caronia
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Communication ◽  
The Other ◽  
Communication Tools ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Function ◽  
Everyday Communication

The rise of Mobile Devices (MD) in the last two decades is noteworthy not only for the unprecedented rate at which they have spread, but for the vast number of countries in which they have so quickly been adopted, blind to both culture and economic stature. Moreover, the accelerated nature of their constantly-evolving design and function adds additional layers of complexity to the already-complicated topic of behavior in public places and during face-to-face communication. Drawing on extant literature and research, this article focuses on a specific but underexplored consequence of the mobile turn in everyday communication: MDs enhance the stage dimension of the social interactions they are embedded in, and therefore elicit a moral reasoning on the rights and duties of the individual in public places. They cooperate in building the bases of intersubjectivity: a sense of the other.

A Feminist Defense of Political Liberalism

John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 249-262
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley ◽  
Lori Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Subordination ◽  
Equal Citizenship

Some feminists claim that liberal theories lack the resources necessary for fully diagnosing and remedying the social subordination of persons as members of social groups. Part of the problem is that liberals focus too narrowly on the state as the locus of political power. However, equal citizenship is also affected by systems of power that operate in the background culture and that construct social hierarchies in which persons are subordinated as members of social groups. This chapter argues that political liberalism, properly understood, entails a commitment to substantive equality such that it has the internal resources to address the kinds of inequality produced by unjust forms of social power. Although some will claim that if the basic structure is the subject of justice, political liberalism will still fall short of securing gender justice, we explain why this worry is misplaced.

Who is my stranger?

2018 ◽  
pp. 176-201
Author(s):  
Richard M. Titmuss
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Gift Exchange ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Social Facts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Material Gain ◽  
The Future ◽  
Traditional Societies

This chapter explores the social and economic aspects of gift-exchange as a universal phenomenon. Examples drawn from both complex and traditional societies indicate that the personal gift and counter-gift, in which givers and receivers are known to each other and personally communicate with each other, is characterised by a great variety of sentiments and purposes. At one end of the spectrum, economic purposes may be dominant as in some forms of first-gifts which aim to achieve a material gain or to enhance prestige or to bring about material gain in the future. At the other end are those gifts whose purposes are predominantly social and moral in that as ‘total social facts’ they aim to serve friendly relationships, affection, and harmony between known individuals and social groups. Meanwhile, social gifts and actions carrying no explicit or implicit individual right to a return gift or action are forms of ‘creative altruism’.

Peasant Resistance in Ethiopia: the Case of Weyane

1984 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gebru Tareke
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pastoral Communities ◽  
The Government ◽  
Peasant Resistance

Weyane was a spontaneous, localized peasant uprising with limited objectives. It occurred in 1943 because several disaffected social groups in the eastern part of Tigrai believed that they could defeat or at least extract substantial concessions from a weak transitional government. The multiplicity of objectives roughly correspond to the divergent interests of the participants: the sectarian nobility wanted a greater share in the regional reallocation of power, the semi-pastoral communities of the lowlands were interested in pre-empting feudal incorporation, and the highland cultivators wanted to terminate the excessive demands of officialdom and militia. The convergence of these forces made Weyane possible; the disorganization of the ruling strata and the subsequent defection of a segment of the territorial nobility enormously enhanced the peasants' capacity for collective action. But this very heterogeneity comprised the peasants' objectives. The revolt lacked a coherent set of goals, nor did it have a specific program for social action. The rebels attacked neither the legitimacy of the monarchy nor the ideological basis of the Ethiopian aristocracy. In the end, Weyane buttressed the feudal order, and was probably instrumental in strengthening Ethiopia's neo-colonial link with the West. In the aftermath of rebellion, the Tigrai nobility did get its rights and prerogatives recognized, to the same extent that the nobility in the other northern provinces did. The government undercut the nobility's political autonomy, but paid the price of reinforcing their social position. On the other hand, in reaction to Weyane, the state destroyed the social basis of clan authority and autonomy, and reduced the Raya and Azebo to landless peasants. Weyane marked the end of conflict between centrifugal and centralizing forces, but did not eliminate the social roots of popular protest.

The Great Illusion: Ignorance, Informational Cascades, and the Persistence of Unpopular Norms

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Bicchieri ◽  
Yoshitaka Fukui
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Informational Cascades ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Choices

Norms of discrimination against women and blacks, norms of revenge still alive in some Mediterranean countries, and norms that everybody dislikes and tries to circumvent, such as the invisible norms of reciprocity that hold among the Iks studied by Turnbull, are all examples of unpopular and inefficient norms that often persist in spite of their being disliked as well as being obviously inefficient from a social or economic viewpoint. The world of business is not immune to this problem. In all those countries in which corruption is endemic, bribing public officials to get lucrative contracts is the norm, but it is often true that such a norm is disliked by many, and that it may lead to highly inefficient social outcomes (Bicchieri and Rovelli 1995).From a functionalist viewpoint such norms are anomalous, since they do not seem to fulfill any beneficial role for society at large or even for the social groups involved in sustaining the norm. In many cases it would be possible to gain in efficiency by eliminating, say, norms of racial discrimination, in that it would be possible to increase the well-being of a racial minority without harming the rest of society. To social scientists who equate persistence with efficiency, the permanence of inefficient norms thus presents an anomaly. They rest their case on two claims: when a norm is inefficient, sooner or later this fact will become evident. And evidence of inefficiency will induce quick changes in the individual choices that sustain the norm. That is, no opportunity for social improvement remains unexploited for long. Unfortunately, all too often this is not the case, and this is not because people mistakenly believe inefficient norms to be good or efficient.

Seeing Invisible Religion: Religion as a Societal Conversation about Transcendent Meaning

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Besecke
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Empirical Ground ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
Religious Communication ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Contemporary sociology conceptualizes religion along two dimensions: the institutional and the individual. Lost in this dichotomy is religion's noninstitutional, but collective and public, cultural dimension. As a result, theories of religious modernity, including both sides of the secularization debate, are unable to recognize or evaluate the social power of noninstitutionalized religious communication. This article offers a reconceptualization of religion that highlights its cultural, communicative dimension. Original research on religious talk provides an empirical ground for a theoretical discussion that highlights: (1) the “invisible” nature of religion in modern societies, as theorized by Thomas Luckmann and (2) the social power attributed to communication by contemporary cultural sociologists and cultural theorists. I argue that conceptualizing religion as an evolving societal conversation about transcendent meaning broadens the empirical and theoretical grasp of the religion concept.

The Acceptability of Physical Restraint Procedures for People with a Learning Difficulty

1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew A. McDonnell ◽  
Peter Sturmey ◽  
Bob Dearden
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Physical Restraint ◽  
Treatment Evaluation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Acceptability ◽  
Learning Difficulty ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Evaluation Inventory

Three methods of physical restraint were videotaped and presented to two groups of subjects (undergraduate students and teenagers). Two of the methods recommended restraining a person with a learning difficulty on the ground; the other method proposed seating the individual in a chair. Subjects were asked to rate the social acceptability of the procedures using the Treatment Evaluation Inventory (TEI). Both undergraduate students and teenagers rated the chair method as more acceptable. The implications of these findings for the use of physical restraint procedures were discussed.

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