Marcel Proust and Transcendent Encounter

1979 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 907-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Swartz

Proust's moment bienheureux is a special case of transcendent being-in-the-world. The permanent essence of things supplies the transcendent properties. In the moment bienheureux time retains its place and person and world do not merge. Awareness is presentic, like movement in the prototypical transcendent act, the dance. Through the medium of the true self the personality returns to wholeness. Music furnishes the closest equivalent to the suggestions of personal truth that in the moment bienheureux betoken the possibility of living authentically.

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-409
Author(s):  
Michael Lucey

Even Though the Range of Aesthetic Objects that Have Captured Leo Bersani's Attention Over the Years is Wide, The Novel remains one of the more privileged objects among them and could arguably be taken as the point of departure for many of his reflections. His attention has been on the modern French novel in particular, from Honoré de Balzac to Marcel Proust and Samuel Beckett—Proust and Beckett being two of the writers to whom Bersani has returned with the most frequency and inventiveness over the years. In the 1960s Bersani began elaborating a critical agenda for the reading of novels in books such as Marcel Proust: The Fictions of Life and Art (1965) and Balzac to Beckett: Center and Circumference in French Fiction (1970). His critical references in these books are also mainly French or francophone. He positions himself in various kinds of opposition to literary critics of the time like Jean Starobinski, Georges Poulet, and Jean-Pierre Richard, as well as the early Roland Barthes. This is also the moment when a certain number of other now familiar French thinkers were beginning to be read in the United States, and so Balzac to Beckett opens with a favorable reference to Michel Foucault, the author of The Archaeology of Knowledge, and Jacques Derrida, the author of Of Grammatology. Bersani notes that these two books represent “in recent years … the most brilliant analyses of the history and consequence of those habits of thought” that believe that “significance precedes experience, which is both expressive and deceptive and which therefore needs to be decoded or interpreted” (4). For Bersani it is a failure of critical imagination to assume that present experience comes to be meaningful solely or primarily in relation to prior structures of meaning, which are simply rehearsed or repeated, instantiated or exemplified, by way of new experience. One could do worse than imagine that at the core of all Bersani's work is an effort to challenge the priority or precedence given by many writers and critics to significance over experience, and it is in this light that an association with some of the critical impulses (impulses that strive after yet-to-be-determined futures) of Derrida and Foucault makes a certain sense. Starobinski, Poulet, and Richard are often grouped together as “phenomenological critics,” critics who view a literary work as the expression of the patterns and structures by means of which a particular consciousness apprehends the world and who view the critical task as that of revealing the patterns or structures of apprehension that characterize a particular artistic subjectivity and allow it to produce a particular image of the world. Bersani's disagreement with these critics had to do with their focus on the “secret thematic selves which inform the writer's work but which the language of the work does not explicitly express.” Thus, “the writer's self” is equated to the work's “principal theme,” and such criticism places an emphasis on “centers … from which particular performances ‘radiate’ and back to which the critic draws the work” (Balzac 16–17). Bersani's preference, in opposition to this “centripetal” critical impulse, has been for “centrifugal” forces, both in art and in criticism: “My commitment to … open-ended, projective, and self-contesting art … will be expressed by a critical emphasis on those occasions in fiction which tend to disintegrate theme” (19).


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Kristupas Sabolius

Kitybės klausimas dažniausiai kyla iš ego santykio su kitais arba su pasauliu. Šiame straipsnyje daroma prielaida, kad įsivaizdavimo funkcija ištirpdo subjektą ir jame pačiame atveria intersubjektyvią perspektyvą. Šiuo tikslu sugretinami Sartre’o, Husserlio bei Merleau-Ponty įsivaizdavimo funkcijos tyrimai, kuriuose išryškėja vaizdo kaip iš ego centro išslystančios ribos statusas, ir Holivudo filmo „Kovos klubas“ siužetas. Viename iš šios juostos epizodų pasirodantis pingvinas žymi egologinės schizmos akimirką ir tampa fantazijos apsireiškimu ir įsikūnijimu.Išgryninus žaidybinį, savarankišką ir multiformišką charakterį, galime konstantuoti, kad įsivaizdavimas, jei kalbėtume Kanto terminais, yra ne papildanti tarpinė funkcija, bet transcendentalinio subjekto genezėje atlieka paradoksalų „svetimos vidujybės“ arba „vidinės svetimybės“ vaidmenį. Vaizduotė yra katalizatoriaus, kuris, likdamas šalia, įgalina transcendentalinių formų išsikristalizavimą.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: vaizduotė, įsivaizdavimas, fantazija, ego, kitybė, sąmonė.PENGUIN AND PROTEUSImagination as Otherness in meKristupas Sabolius SummaryThe question of Otherness is usually taken into account while discussing the Ego’s relation with Others as well as with the World. This article is based on the premises that the function of phantasy melts the subjectivity, revealing the perspective of intersubjectivity within it. On this purpose Sartre’s, Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s researches on the function of imagination, which elucidate the image as the boundary slipping from the centre of Ego, are compared to the story of Hollywood’ movie „Fight Club“. The penguin, which appears in one of the episodes, registers the moment of egological schism, thus becoming the revelation and incarnation of phantasy. While the playful, autonomous and multiform character of imaginary is cleared out, we can ascertain, speaking in Kantian terms, that it has not a complementary or intermediary function, but, in the genesis of transcendental subject, plays the paradoxical role of „allien innerness“ or „inner alienity“. Thought remaining always beside, imagination is a catalyzer which enables crystallization of transcendental forms.Keywords: imagination, imaginary, phantasy, ego, otherness, consciousness.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Petr Kouba

This article examines the limits of Heidegger’s ontological description of emotionality from the period of Sein und Zeit and Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik along the lines outlined by Lévinas in his early work De l’existence à l’existant. On the basis of the Lévinassian concept of “il y a”, we attempt to map the sphere of the impersonal existence situated out of the structured context of the world. However the worldless facticity without individuality marks the limits of the phenomenological approach to human existence and its emotionality, it also opens a new view on the beginning and ending of the individual existence. The whole structure of the individual existence in its contingency and finitude appears here in a new light, which applies also to the temporal conditions of existence. Yet, this is not to say that Heidegger should be simply replaced by Lévinas. As shows an examination of the work of art, to which brings us our reading of Moravia’s literary exposition of boredom (the phenomenon closely examined in Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik), the view on the work of art that is entirely based on the anonymous and worldless facticity of il y a must be extended and complemented by the moment in which a new world and a new individual structure of experience are being born. To comprehend the dynamism of the work of art in its fullness, it is necessary to see it not only as an ending of the world and the correlative intentional structure of the individual existence, but also as their new beginning.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Jörg Zimmer

In classical philosophy of time, present time mainly has been considered in its fleetingness: it is transition, in the Platonic meaning of the sudden or in the Aristotelian sense of discreet moment and isolated intensity that escapes possible perception. Through the idea of subjective constitution of time, Husserl’s phenomenology tries to spread the moment. He transcends the idea of linear and empty time in modern philosophy. Phenomenological description of time experience analyses the filled character of the moment that can be detained in the performance of consciousness. As a consequence of the temporality of consciousness, he nevertheless remains in the temporal conception of presence. The phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, however, is able to grasp the spacial meaning of presence. In his perspective of a phenomenology of perception, presence can be understood as a space surrounding the body, as a field of present things given in perception. Merleau-Ponty recovers the ancient sense of ‘praesentia’ as a fundamental concept of being in the world.


Screen Bodies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Lara Bochmann ◽  
Erin Hampson

This article is a theoretical, audiovisual, and personal exploration of being a trans and non-binary person and the challenges this position produces at the moment of entering the outside world. Getting ready to enter public space is a seemingly mundane everyday task. However, in the context of a world that continuously fails or refuses to recognize trans and non-binary people, the literal act of stepping outside can mean to move from a figurative state of self-determination to one of imposition. We produced a short film project called Step Out to delve into issues of vulnerability and recognition that surface throughout experiences of crossing the threshold into public space. It explores the acts performed as preparation to face the world, and invokes the emotions this can conquer in trans and non-binary people. Breathing is the leading metaphor in the film, indicating existence and resistance simultaneously. The article concludes with a discussion of affective states and considers them, along with failed recognition, through the lens of Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism.”


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (23) ◽  
pp. 4403-4434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susimaire Pedersoli Mantoani ◽  
Peterson de Andrade ◽  
Talita Perez Cantuaria Chierrito ◽  
Andreza Silva Figueredo ◽  
Ivone Carvalho

Neglected Diseases (NDs) affect million of people, especially the poorest population around the world. Several efforts to an effective treatment have proved insufficient at the moment. In this context, triazole derivatives have shown great relevance in medicinal chemistry due to a wide range of biological activities. This review aims to describe some of the most relevant and recent research focused on 1,2,3- and 1,2,4-triazolebased molecules targeting four expressive NDs: Chagas disease, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Leishmaniasis.


Designs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Pyrrhon Amathes ◽  
Paul Christodoulides

Photography can be used for pleasure and art but can also be used in many disciplines of science, because it captures the details of the moment and can serve as a proving tool due to the information it preserves. During the period of the Apollo program (1969 to 1972), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully landed humans on the Moon and showed hundreds of photos to the world presenting the travel and landings. This paper uses computer simulations and geometry to examine the authenticity of one such photo, namely Apollo 17 photo GPN-2000-00113. In addition, a novel approach is employed by creating an experimental scene to illustrate details and provide measurements. The crucial factors on which the geometrical analysis relies are locked in the photograph and are: (a) the apparent position of the Earth relative to the illustrated flag and (b) the point to which the shadow of the astronaut taking the photo reaches, in relation to the flagpole. The analysis and experimental data show geometrical and time mismatches, proving that the photo is a composite.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Amaku ◽  
Dimas Tadeu Covas ◽  
Francisco Antonio Bezerra Coutinho ◽  
Raymundo Soares Azevedo ◽  
Eduardo Massad

Abstract Background At the moment we have more than 177 million cases and 3.8 million deaths (as of June 2021) around the world and vaccination represents the only hope to control the pandemic. Imperfections in planning vaccine acquisition and difficulties in implementing distribution among the population, however, have hampered the control of the virus so far. Methods We propose a new mathematical model to estimate the impact of vaccination delay against the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on the number of cases and deaths due to the disease in Brazil. We apply the model to Brazil as a whole and to the State of Sao Paulo, the most affected by COVID-19 in Brazil. We simulated the model for the populations of the State of Sao Paulo and Brazil as a whole, varying the scenarios related to vaccine efficacy and compliance from the populations. Results The model projects that, in the absence of vaccination, almost 170 thousand deaths and more than 350 thousand deaths will occur by the end of 2021 for Sao Paulo and Brazil, respectively. If in contrast, Sao Paulo and Brazil had enough vaccine supply and so started a vaccination campaign in January with the maximum vaccination rate, compliance and efficacy, they could have averted more than 112 thousand deaths and 127 thousand deaths, respectively. In addition, for each month of delay the number of deaths increases monotonically in a logarithmic fashion, for both the State of Sao Paulo and Brazil as a whole. Conclusions Our model shows that the current delay in the vaccination schedules that is observed in many countries has serious consequences in terms of mortality by the disease and should serve as an alert to health authorities to speed the process up such that the highest number of people to be immunized is reached in the shortest period of time.


1966 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Holden

If an important part of the political scientist's mission is to anticipate and explain “the critical problems that generate turbulence” in that part of the world which attracts his attention, then, in the study of administration, bureaucratic “imperialism” must be of compelling interest. If systematic data directly assembled for the purpose are lacking, and if there are some signal problems of theory which have been little investigated, there is still enough evidence from studies of other political problems that it seems worthwhile to set out some trial-run ideas in the hope that they will elicit further discussion.Bureaucractic imperialism seems pre-eminently a matter of inter-agency conflict in which two or more agencies try to assert permanent control over the same jurisdiction, or in which one agency actually seeks to take over another agency as well as the jurisdiction of that agency. We are thus primarily concerned with the politics of allocation and shall, except incidentally, bypass some other interesting aspects of inter-agency politics such as cooperation between agencies sharing missions, competition for favorable “one-time-only” decisions which do not involve jurisdictional reallocation, or the critical problems of the “holding company” administrative organization and its internal politics. For the moment, our concern with the politics of allocation leads to a focus on what would appear to be the likely behaviors of those decisionmakers who have both inclination and opportunity to look after the institutional well-being of agencies.


1992 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-281
Author(s):  
Robert Siekmann

Especially as a consequence of the termination of the Cold War, the détente in the relations between East en West (Gorbachev's ‘new thinking’ in foreign policy matters) and, finally, the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the number of UN peace-keeping operations substantially increased in recent years. One could even speak of a ‘proliferation’. Until 1988 the number of operations was twelve (seven peace-keeping forces: UNEF ‘I’ and ‘II’, ONUC, UNHCYP, UNSF (West New Guinea), UNDOF AND UNIFIL; and five military observer missions: UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNOGIL, UNYOM and UNIPOM). Now, three forces and seven observer missions can be added. The forces are MINURSO (West Sahara), UNTAC (Cambodia) and UNPROFOR (Yugoslavia); the observer groups: UNGOMAP (Afghanistan/Pakistan), UNIIMOG (Iran/Iraq), UNAVEM ‘I’ and ‘II’ (Angola), ONUCA (Central America), UNIKOM (Iraq/Kuwait) and ONUSAL (El Salvador). UNTAG (Namibia), which was established in 1978, could not become operational until 1989 as a result of the new political circumstances in the world. So, a total of twenty-three operations have been undertaken, of which almost fifty percent was established in the last five years, whereas the other half was the result of decisions taken by the United Nations in the preceding forty years (UNTSO dates back to 1949). In the meantime, some ‘classic’ operations are being continued (UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNFICYP, UNDOF, and UNIFIL), whereas some ‘modern’ operations already have been terminated as planned (UNTAG, UNGOMAP, UNIIMOG, UNAVEM ‘I’ and ‘II’, and ONUCA). At the moment (July 1992) eleven operations are in action – the greatest number in the UN history ever.


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