scholarly journals Cycles of Quotidien Pandemic Instances

Lateral ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulina Lanz

By silencing the knowledge of our past, it will not disappear; it transforms into a hum. The hum, as a fluid object of silence can be mournful, can represent absence. The hum that we are neglecting connects with our feelings, registering as cyclic vibrations in contact with parts of the body. The vibrato of the hum speaks of unspoken relations that, according to Tina Campt, unifies quietness with sound, surrounded by affect within a register of meaningfulness. If we don’t dare to remember, some images will enunciate—and speak to—the affective register. With the sonic integration of Radio Influenza, artist Jordan Baseman’s computerized voices narrate stories from 1918 through newspaper fragments. The audible tracks add another register to the vibrations, complicating Paul Gilroy’s “politics of transfiguration,” where the “lower frequency” is purposefully over(p)layed mainly with a different set of forgotten histories suppressed from the war narrative. Hence, the sound is felt from an audible and visual register, enacted at the level of the quotidian narratives of twentieth-century photographs and newspaper stories. If we listen to these quiet photos, to these muffled stories, can we acknowledge that just as sonic vibrations, pandemics tend to come in waves as well? In the end, the 1918 spring influenza outbreak was followed by three waves: the fall of 1918, spring of 1919, and winter of 1919. These waves of history, sound, and pandemics, can push us to resist the neglectfulness and acknowledge what we have unlearned from the cycles of quotidian instances, time and time again.

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-219
Author(s):  
Meindert E. Peters

Friedrich Nietzsche's influence on Isadora Duncan's work, in particular his idea of the Dionysian, has been widely discussed, especially in regard to her later work. What has been left underdeveloped in critical examinations of her work, however, is his influence on her earlier choreographic work, which she defended in a famous speech held in 1903 called The Dance of the Future. While commentators often describe this speech as ‘Nietzschean’, Duncan's autobiography suggests that she only studied Nietzsche's work after this speech. I take this incongruity as a starting point to explore the connections between her speech and Nietzsche's work, in particular his Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I argue that in subject and language Duncan's speech resembles Nietzsche's in important ways. This article will draw attention to the ways in which Duncan takes her cues from Nietzsche in bringing together seemingly conflicting ideas of religion and an overturning of morality; Nietzsche's notion of eternal recurrence and the teleology present in his idea of the Übermensch; and a renegotiation of the body's relation to the mind. In doing so, this article contributes not only to scholarship on Duncan's early work but also to discussions of Nietzsche's reception in the early twentieth century. Moreover, the importance Duncan ascribes to the body in dance and expression also asks for a new understanding of Nietzsche's own way of expressing his philosophy.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-96
Author(s):  
Sørina Higgins

In his unfinished cycle of Arthurian poems, Charles Williams developed a totalizing mythology in which he fictionalized the Medieval. First, he employed chronological conflation, juxtaposing events and cultural references from a millennium of European history and aligning each with his doctrinal system. Second, following the Biblical metaphor of the body of Christ, Blake’s symbolism, and Rosicrucian sacramentalism, he embodied theology in the Medieval landscape via a superimposed female figure. Finally, Williams worked to show the validity of two Scholastic approaches to spirituality: the kataphatic and apophatic paths. His attempts to balance via negativa and via positiva led Williams to practical misapplication—but also to creation of a landmark work of twentieth century poetry. . . . the two great vocations, the Rejection of all images before the unimaged, the Affirmation of all images before the all-imaged, the Rejection affirming, the Affirmation rejecting. . . —from ‘The Departure of Dindrane’ —O Blessed, pardon affirmation!— —O Blessed, pardon negation!— —from ‘The Prayers of the Pope’


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 238-262
Author(s):  
Virgil W. Brower

This article exploits a core defect in the phenomenology of sensation and self. Although phenomenology has made great strides in redeeming the body from cognitive solipsisms that often follow short-sighted readings of Descartes and Kant, it has not grappled with the specific kind of corporeal self-reflexivity that emerges in the oral sense of taste with the thoroughness it deserves. This path is illuminated by the works of Martin Luther, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jacques Derrida as they attempt to think through the specific phenomena accessible through the lips, tongue, and mouth. Their attempts are, in turn, supplemented with detours through Walter Benjamin, Hélène Cixous, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The paper draws attention to the German distinction between Geschmack and Kosten as well as the role taste may play in relation to faith, the call to love, justice, and messianism. The messiah of love and justice will have been that one who proclaims: taste the flesh.


Ruminants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Frank van Eerdenburg ◽  
Lars Ruud

Lying is an important behavior of dairy cattle. Cows should spend more than 50% of a day lying as it has a high impact on their milk yield and animal welfare. The design, size, and flooring properties of the free stalls influence the time cows spend lying, the way they lie down, and their rising movements. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the currently available information with the aim to assist farmers and advisors to come to an optimal design of the free stalls. The design of the free stalls should enable the cows to move and lie in positions as natural as possible. Cows should rest, with all parts of the body, on a clean, dry and soft bed, be able to stretch their front legs forward, lie on their sides with unobstructed space for their neck and head, and rest with their heads against their flanks without hindrance from a partition. When they stand, they should not be hindered by neck rails, partitions, or supports. A comfortable place for cows to lie down helps cows to stay healthy, improve welfare, and increase milk yield. Hence, the probability of a longer productive life for the cows increases and the number of replacements per year decreases.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1097184X2110085
Author(s):  
Sofia Aboim ◽  
Pedro Vasconcelos

Confronted with the centrality of the body for trans-masculine individuals interviewed in the United Kingdom and Portugal, we explore how bodily-reflexive practices are central for doing masculinity. Following Connell’s early insight that bodies needed to come back to the political and sociological agendas, we propose that bodily-reflexive practice is a concept suited to account for the production of trans-masculinities. Although multiple, the journeys of trans-masculine individuals demonstrate how bodily experiences shape and redefine masculinities in ways that illuminate the nexus between bodies, embodiments, and discursive enactments of masculinity. Rather than oppositions between bodily conformity to and transgression of the norms of hegemonic masculinity, often encountered in idealizations of the medicalized transsexual against the genderqueer rebel, lived bodily experiences shape masculinities beyond linear oppositions. Tensions between natural and technological, material and discursive, or feminine and masculine were keys for understanding trans-masculine narratives about the body, embodiment, and identity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 780-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydnor Roy

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventise terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri 5per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli.sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenereedita doctrina sapientum templa serena,despicere unde queas alios passimque videreerrare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae, 10certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,noctes atque dies niti praestante laboread summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.o miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis 15degitur hoc aevi quodcumquest! nonne viderenil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi utquicorpore seiunctus dolor absit, mensque fruaturiucundo sensu cura semota metuque?(Lucr. 2.1–19)It is pleasant, when the winds stir up the waters on the great sea,to watch the great struggle of another from land;not because it is a great pleasure that anyone be troubled,but because it is pleasant to observe the troubles you yourself lack.It is also pleasant to watch the great contests of war 5spread out over the plains without taking any part in the danger.But nothing is more pleasing than to hold lofty yet calm templesthat are well defended by the teachings of wise men,from which you can look down and see others everywherego astray and wander while seeking the path of their life, 10competing in wits and contending over their nobility;throughout nights and days they strive with outstanding labourto come out at the peak of riches and have power over everything.O wretched minds of men, O blind hearts!In what shadows of life and in how many dangers 15is this bit of life, whatever it may be, being spent by you! Do you not seethat nature barks for nothing other than this – thatgrief be separated from the body and far away, and that the mind enjoypleasant feelings cut off from anxiety and fear? Epicurus' advice to his young friend Pythocles to ‘flee all education, raising up the top sail’ (παιδείαν δὲ πᾶσαν, μακάριε, ϕεῦγε τἀκάτιον ἀράμενος, Diog.Laert. 10.6 = Epicurus fr. 163 Us.) contains an allusion to Circe's advice to Odysseus in Odyssey 12.37–58. For much of the Greek (and Roman) world, education was based on the Homeric epics, and thus Epicurus' statement represents a complicated position towards Homer in particular and poetry in general. Epicurean philosophy rejects poetry because it is misleading about the gods and the nature of the soul, but Epicurus and his followers, most notably Philodemus and Lucretius, engage in poetic allusion and even the composition of poetry. Much work has been done on allusions to poetry in all three writers, but I hope here to bring out a heretofore unnoticed poetic allusion at the start of De rerum natura Book 2, in which Lucretius makes a programmatic statement about not only his philosophy, but also his poetry and its place in the poetic tradition.


2015 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 302-321
Author(s):  
Marion Bowman

This essay focuses upon a significant place, Glastonbury, at an important time during the early twentieth century, in order to shed light on a particular aspect of Christianity which is frequently overlooked: its internal plurality. This is not simply denominational diversity, but the considerable heterogeneity which exists at both institutional and individual level within denominations, and which often escapes articulation, awareness or comment. This is significant because failure to apprehend a more detailed, granular picture of religion can lead to an incomplete view of events in the past and, by extension, a partial understanding of later phenomena. This essay argues that by using the concept of vernacular religion a more nuanced picture of religion as it is – or has been – lived can be achieved.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Hall

<p>In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of transhumanist philosophy. In order to do so, I focus on the work of Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, two prominent contributors to this thinking. I then move to explicate Foucault&rsquo;s work, in the early iterations of the <em>Abnormal</em> lecture series, on the concept of vile sovereignty. Foucault used the concept of vile sovereignty to critique psychiatric witnesses that had been utilized in mid twentieth-century French courts of law. Turning back to transhumanism, I analyze transhumanist discourse on the basis of Foucault&rsquo;s vile sovereignty. Transhumanists promote human enhancement in a way that rejects the body&mdash;especially the disabled body&mdash;and pose the question of what lives are worth living, as well as attempt to answer it. I conclude that because of the undeserved influence and ableism of transhumanism, it is important for feminist philosophers, philosophers of disability, and other disability scholars, who collide at the nexus of bioethical debate (especially with regard to reproductive technology and the body), to work together to intervene upon transhumanist discourse.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p>Keywords: bioethics; enhancement; Foucault; transhumanism; ableism</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>


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