scholarly journals Contemporary Topics In The Suppliant Women, by Aeschylus. The Multiplication of Sin and Redemptive Differentiation

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-189
Author(s):  
Ioana Petcu ◽  
Teodora Medeleanu

AbstractOne looks, on the one hand with a slight amazement, and on the other hand with the confidence of a temporary master of the European cultural thesaurus, at how tragic poem, more than two thousand years old, vibrates under the directorial wands in the present times. One analyses the Ancient verse, the plots of the founding mythologies or the figures that seem turned into stone by the passing of time and witnesses, through the scenic hypostasis of today, that the voices of the past, singular or united in a Chorus, reach them, generating, in a single spectator or in an entire wave of interception, the feeling of nexus. But also the inquisitiveness of encountering the peculiar. Due to the fact that cultural identity, and also the conducting threads of the universalis arise like a fascinating, rich, high terrain, and one cannot see them from afar, in this century. If, thematically speaking, The Suppliants, by Aeschylus resonated with directors such as Olivier Py, Silviu Purcărete, Ramin Gray or Jean-Luc Bansard, one can notice how cultural identity is reflected in the Ancient writings, which are also multiplied on the stages of the World in minimalist of theatrical (re)interpretations. The performance of one that becomes multiple and, eventually, restrains itself, closely looked at, becomes fascinating.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (18) ◽  
pp. 16-30
Author(s):  
B.V. Markov ◽  
◽  
A.M. Sergeev ◽  

The Philosophical Dialogue is dedicated to the analysis of the historical development of Russian philosophy over the past half century. The authors investigated the attitude of ideas and people in the conditions of historical turning point in the late 20th and early 21st century. Philosophy in a borderline situation allows us to compare and evaluate the past and the present. On the one hand, archetypes, attitudes, moods and experiences, formed as a reception of the collective experience of the past era, have been preserved in the minds of thinkers of the post-war generation – in the consciousness, and may be in the neural networks of the brain. On the other hand, the new social reality – cognitive capitalism – radically changes the self-description of society. It is not to say that modernity satisfies people. Despite the talk about the production of cultural, social, human capital, they feel not happy, but lonely and defenseless in a rapidly changing world. Not only philosophical criticism, but also the wave of protests, which also engulfed the "welfare society", makes one wonder whether it is worth following the recipes of the modern Western economy. On the one hand, closure poses a threat to stagnation, the fate of the country of the outland outing. On the other hand, openness, and, moreover, the attempt to lead the construction of a networked society is nothing but self-sacrifice. Russia has already been the leader of the World International, aiming to defeat communism around the world. But there was another superpower that developed the potential of capitalism. Their struggle involved similarities, which consisted in the desire for technical conquest of the world. The authors attempted to reflect on the position of a country that would not give up the competition, but used new technologies to live better. To determine the criteria, it is useful to use the historical memory of the older generation to assess modernity. Conversely, get rid of repeating the mistakes of the past in designing a better future.


2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-378
Author(s):  
Cengiz Kırlı

Reflecting on the state of Ottoman social history poses a paradox. On the one hand, it is impossible not to appreciate the great strides accomplished over the past three decades. Earlier approaches have been challenged, topics that were previously untouched or unimagined have been studied, and the foundations of a meaningful dialogue with historiographies of other parts of the world have been established. On the other hand, the theoretical sophistication and methodological debates of Ottoman social history still look pale compared to European and other non-Western historiographies in the same period.


2021 ◽  
pp. 263380762110406
Author(s):  
Anna Sergi

In the past decade, the attention to the Calabrian mafia, the ‘ndrangheta, has been rekindled everywhere in the world. On the one hand, Italian attention to the phenomenon has increased; on the other hand, the mobility of the Calabrian clans has been the object of scrutiny in view of the clan’s wealth and ability to commit transnational criminal activities. This has also fed the presumption that (alleged) offenders of Calabrian origins around the world must belong to, and replicate the structure of, the ‘ndrangheta clans, also down under. This contribution will be a reflection on the difficulties and the complexities of a journey into researching the ‘ndrangheta in Australia from a criminological–anthropological perspective, in consideration of—but in contrast with—the mythical figures associated with the Calabrian mafia and its illicit global markets. Some of the difficulties, as well as some of the mistakes that I have made in this research, because of the involuntary (and disorganized) nature of the ethnography, directly question the narrative of the illegal global reach of this mafia and provide methodological reflections and lessons for criminological ethnographies.


1996 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 345-363
Author(s):  
Andrew Levine

Until quite recently, political philosophers routinely ignored nationalism. Nowadays, the topic is very much on the philosophical agenda. In the past, when philosophers did discuss nationalism, it was usually to denigrate it. Today, nationalism elicits generally favorable treatment. I confess to a deep ambivalence about this turn of events. On the one hand, much of what has emerged in recent work on nationalism appears to be on the mark. On the other hand, the anti- or extra-nationalist outlook that used to pervade political philosophy seems as sound today as it ever was, and perhaps even more urgent in the face of truly horrendous eruptions of nationalist hostilities in many parts of the world. What follows is an effort to grapple with this ambivalence. My aim will be to identify what is defensible in the nationalist idea and then to reflect on the flaws inherent in even the most defensible aspects of nationalist theory and practice.


2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicklas Hållén

In Native Stranger: A Blackamerican’s Journey into the Heart of Africa (1992), Eddy L. Harris explores what it means to be the person he is. What, if anything, connects him to Africa? What is the relation between the person he knows himself to be, and the person others see? Searching for answers to his questions, he finds himself caught between his attempts to remain open to new ways of seeing and understanding the world, on the one hand, and succumbing to the pressures of monolithic narratives about African otherness, race, belonging, roots and the past, on the other hand. This tension gives rise to an ambiguity and a number of contradictions which make the text fold back on itself. His literary project therefore ultimately serves to raise questions not only about his own identity and place in the world, but also about the conditions of writing about the self. Central among the contradictions that permeate the text is a doubling of epistemological perspectives, which can be described as an effect of what W. E. B. Dubois famously termed double-consciousness. While Harris is able to use the contradictions that arise from his writing to explore and represent the complexity of the questions that are foregrounded in his text, he is unable to answer them. His project is in other words a kind of failure, but as this article argues, this failure is the price that Harris pays to access the full complexity of selfhood, beyond political and social narratives about collective identity and how the present is shaped by the past.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg W. Bertram

AbstractThe concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future.


1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.


PMLA ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Leon F. Seltzer

In recent years, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a difficult work and for long an unjustly neglected one, has begun to command increasingly greater critical attention and esteem. As more than one contemporary writer has noted, the verdict of the late Richard Chase in 1949, that the novel represents Melville's “second best achievement,” has served to prompt many to undertake a second reading (or at least a first) of the book. Before this time, the novel had traditionally been the one Melville readers have shied away from—as overly discursive, too rambling altogether, on the one hand, or as an unfortunate outgrowth of the author's morbidity on the other. Elizabeth Foster, in the admirably comprehensive introduction to her valuable edition of The Confidence-Man (1954), systematically traces the history of the book's reputation and observes that even with the Melville renaissance of the twenties, the work stands as the last piece of the author's fiction to be redeemed. Only lately, she comments, has it ceased to be regarded as “the ugly duckling” of Melville's creations. But recognition does not imply agreement, and it should not be thought that in the past fifteen years critics have reached any sort of unanimity on the novel's content. Since Mr. Chase's study, which approached the puzzling work as a satire on the American spirit—or, more specifically, as an attack on the liberalism of the day—and which speculated upon the novel's controlling folk and mythic figures, other critics, by now ready to assume that the book repaid careful analysis, have read the work in a variety of ways. It has been treated, among other things, as a religious allegory, as a philosophic satire on optimism, and as a Shandian comedy. One critic has conveniently summarized the prevailing situation by remarking that “the literary, philosophical, and cultural materials in this book are fused in so enigmatic a fashion that its interpreters have differed as to what the book is really about.”


1943 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
Kenneth Scott Latourette

A strange contrast exists in the status of the Christian Church in the past seventy years. On the one hand the Church has clearly lost some of the ground which once appeared to be safely within its possession. On the other hand it has become more widely spread geographically and, when all mankind is taken into consideration, more influential in shaping human affairs than ever before in its history. In a paper as brief as this must of necessity be, space can be had only for the sketching of the broad outlines of this paradox and for suggesting a reason for it. If details were to be given, a large volume would be required. Perhaps, however, we can hope to do enough to point out one of the most provocative and important set of movements in recent history.


2021 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz

AbstractOn the rise over the past 20 years has been ‘moderate supernaturalism’, the view that while a meaningful life is possible in a world without God or a soul, a much greater meaning would be possible only in a world with them. William Lane Craig can be read as providing an important argument for a version of this view, according to which only with God and a soul could our lives have an eternal, as opposed to temporally limited, significance since we would then be held accountable for our decisions affecting others’ lives. I present two major objections to this position. On the one hand, I contend that if God existed and we had souls that lived forever, then, in fact, all our lives would turn out the same. On the other hand, I maintain that, if this objection is wrong, so that our moral choices would indeed make an ultimate difference and thereby confer an eternal significance on our lives (only) in a supernatural realm, then Craig could not capture the view, aptly held by moderate supernaturalists, that a meaningful life is possible in a purely natural world.


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