scholarly journals A Review of MATT TOMLINSON, JULIAN MILLIE (eds.), THE MONOLOGIC IMAGINATION. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, X+272 pp.

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (47) ◽  
pp. 216-228
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Khonineva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
Social Imagination ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Speech Genre ◽  
Religious Cultures ◽  
Significant Opportunity ◽  
Analytical Program ◽  
Special Language

Due to the influence of Mikhail Bakhtin on the Western anthropology of the last decades, researchers focused their attention on polyphony and the dialogic bases of social life that resulted in a neglect of monologic speech forms and practices. Meanwhile, in many political and religious cultures, monologic genres attribute to some value; the authors of the reviewed collection of articles suggest not to ignore this fact. In the outlined studies based on observations in various ethnographic contexts, the monologue is seen as a special language ideology, a category of social imagination, a speech genre, and a metaphor. The book also aims to recall, once again, the dialogic dimension of monologic practices and connect them to other relevant anthropological concepts and theories. This project should be recognized as successful and unique in its design, but it seems that the authors are inspired by Bakhtin’s language and see in it a significant opportunity to reflect on the usual anthropological problems of social control, resistance, community formations in new terms rather than continuing Bakhtin’s work and fitting into his analytical program.

The Monologic Imagination

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Design ◽  
Do So

The pioneering and hugely influential work of Mikhail Bakhtin has led scholars in recent decades to see all discourse and social life as inherently “dialogical.” No speaker speaks alone because our words are always partly shaped by our interactions with others, past and future. Moreover, we never fashion ourselves entirely by ourselves but always do so in concert with others. Bakhtin thus decisively reshaped modern understandings of language and subjectivity. And yet, the contributors to this volume argue that something is potentially overlooked with too close a focus on dialogism: many speakers, especially in charged political and religious contexts, work energetically at crafting monologues, single-voiced statements to which the only expected response is agreement or faithful replication. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from the United States, Iran, Cuba, Indonesia, Algeria, and Papua New Guinea, the authors argue that a focus on “the monologic imagination” gives us new insights into languages’ political design and religious force, and deepens our understandings of the necessary interplay between monological and dialogical tendencies.

scholarly journals Una luna velata sul ‘Tetto del Mondo’

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Pedrini
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Genealogical Tree ◽  
Mountain Communities ◽  
The North ◽  
Mountain Agriculture ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Cultures

Afghanistan is an ancient land, rich in traditions and cultures having their roots in the millennial history of this country. Situated along the ancient caravan routes of Central Asia, by its caravanserais and markets it has represented an important point for exchange, communication and cultural interaction between the East and the West. Afghanistan is partly linked to the complex genealogical tree of Central Asia, full of intricate branches; one of those branches, at its eastern extremity, is knotted with the ‘Roof of the World’ (Bam-e Dunya): the vast orographic area of Pamir bordering on Tajikistan, Pakistan and China. This Afghan border territory (Wakhan Woluswali) includes different ecological areas: from the high-altitude valleys to the pastures in the plateaus, as far as the highest mountains of Pamir. Wakhan is populated particularly by Wakhi and, in its easternmost part, by Kyrgyz people. The Wakhi follow a subsistence strategy based on mountain agriculture combined with pasturage; they are Ismaili Nizaris and they speak a language (khik-zik, khik-wor) belonging to the north-eastern branch of the Iranian languages. Identity and religious cultures significantly influence the social life of those small mountain communities cut off on the ‘Roof of the World’.

scholarly journals Women Judges, Private Lives: (In)visibilities in Fact and Fiction

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Thornton ◽  
Heather Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Women Judges ◽  
The Public ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
The Public Sphere

Throughout the Western intellectual tradition, the separation of public and private life has been ubiquitous.[footnote* See, eg, Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumar (eds), Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy (University of Chicago Press, 1997); Margaret Thornton (ed), Public and Private: Feminist Legal Debates (Oxford University Press, 1995); Ruth Gavison, ‘Feminism and the Public/Private Distinction’ (1992) 45 Stanford Law Review 1; S I Benn and G F Gaus (eds), Public and Private in Social Life (Croom Helm, 1983); Frances E Olsen, ‘The Family and the Market: A Study of Ideology and Legal Reform’ (1983) 96 Harvard Law Review 1497.] Although the line of demarcation changes according to time and circumstance, the conjunction of the public sphere with the masculine and the private sphere with the feminine has remained a constant in political thought.

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