The Gallic Singularity

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-43
Author(s):  
Tracy Adams
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
The Past ◽  
Popular Narrative ◽  
American Counterpart ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
French Intellectuals

The popular narrative that the French relationship between the sexes is more emotionally rewarding than its American counterpart has entered into scholarly discourse over the past decades. Promoted by several well-known French feminist scholars, the narrative locates the particularity of the French relationship in its paradoxical structure: women are both equal and not equal to men. Sexual difference lies in the particular, which is subordinate to the universal value of equality. The narrative was most recently revived in the anti-#MeToo manifesto published in Le Monde in January 2018. This article surveys the narrative’s history, beginning with French feudal law and tracing it through some of its later iterations to highlight how it has long offered French women a way of performing femininity while exercising power. The emotional investment in this narrative explains why it continues to be accepted among at least some French intellectuals, whereas it is generally rejected by American feminists.

Imagining Mary Magdalene

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jodie Eichler-Levine
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Do So

In this article I analyze how Americans draw upon the authority of both ancient, so-called “hidden” texts and the authority of scholarly discourse, even overtly fictional scholarly discourse, in their imaginings of the “re-discovered” figure of Mary Magdalene. Reading recent treatments of Mary Magdalene provides me with an entrance onto three topics: how Americans see and use the past, how Americans understand knowledge itself, and how Americans construct “religion” and “spirituality.” I do so through close studies of contemporary websites of communities that focus on Mary Magdalene, as well as examinations of relevant books, historical novels, reader reviews, and comic books. Focusing on Mary Magdalene alongside tropes of wisdom also uncovers the gendered dynamics at play in constructions of antiquity, knowledge, and religious accessibility.

Kuntanshi yamikalile (The Future): speculative nonconformity in the works of Zambian visual artists

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Andrew Mukuka Mulenga
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
African Art ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Contemporary African Art ◽  
Freeze Time

In recent years, select African visual artists practising on the continent as well as in its diaspora have increasingly been attracted to themes that explore, portray or grapple with Africa’s future. Along with this increasing popularity of the ‘future’ or indeed ‘African futuristic’ themes by visual artists, such themes have also attracted academic consideration among various scholars, resulting primarily in topics described as ‘African Futurism’ or Afrofuturism. These are topics that may be used to disrupt what some scholars – across disciplines and in various contexts – have highlighted as the persistent presumptive notions that portray Africa as a hinterland (Hassan 1999; Sefa Dei, Hall and Goldin Rosenberg 2000; Simbao 2007; Soyinka-Airewele and Edozie 2010; Moyo 2013; Keita, L. 2014; Green 2014; Serpell 2016). This study makes an effort to critique certain aspects of ‘African Art History’ with regard to the representation of Africa, and raises the following question: How can an analysis of artistic portrayals of ‘the future’ portrayed in the works of select contemporary Zambian artists be used to critique the positioning of Africa as ‘backward’, an occurrence at the intersection of a dualistic framing of tradition versus modern. Furthermore, how can this be used to break down this dichotomy in order to challenge lingering perceptions of African belatedness? The study analyses ways in which this belatedness is challenged by the juxtaposition of traditional, contemporary and futuristic elements by discussing a series of topics and debates associated to African cultures and technology that may be deemed disconnected from the contemporary lived experiences of Africans based on the continent. The study acknowledges that there is no singular ‘African Art History’ that one can talk of and there have been various shifts in how it has been perceived. I argue that while currently the African art history that is written in the West does not simplistically position Africa as backward as it may have done in the past, there appear to be moments of a hangover of this perception (Lamp 1999:4). What started out as a largely Western scholarly discourse of African art history occurred in about the 1950s and the journal African Arts started in the 1960s. Even before contemporary African art became a big thing in the 1990s for the largely US- and Europe-based discourses there were many discussions in the US about how the ‘old’ art history tended to freeze time and that this was not appropriate (Drewal 1991 et al). In order to advance the discourse on contemporary African visual arts I present critical analyses of the select works of Zambian artists to develop interpretations of the broader uses of the aforementioned themes. The evidence that supports the core argument of this research is embedded in the images discussed throughout this dissertation. The artists featured in the study span several decades including artists who were active from the 1960s to the 1980s, such as Henry Tayali and Akwila Simpasa, as well as artists who have been practising since the 1980s, such as Chishimba Chansa and William Miko and those that are more current and have been producing work from the early 1990s and 2000s, such as Zenzele Chulu, Milumbe Haimbe, Stary Mwaba, Isaac Kalambata and Roy Jethro Phiri.

scholarly journals An Inquiry into the Theory of the Matrix: Subjectivity, Gaze, and Desire in Kristina Inčiūraitė’s Video the Meeting (2012)

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Diana Romanskaitė
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Matrix Theory ◽  
Lacanian Psychoanalysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Feminist Scholar ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Town

Summary This article deals with the Matrix theory of subjectivity, gaze, and desire by feminist scholar Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger. Matrixial framework is explored in comparison to Lacanian psychoanalysis. The essay denotes the differences between split Lacanian model of the subject and Matrixial subjectivity based on plurality and continuity. I argue that Lacanian model which grounds the subject in fundamental lack and loss of corporal reality is insufficient for explaining specifically feminine experience in terms of temporality and collective memory, whereas the Matrix theory provides a conceptual apparatus for positive female identification and alliances between the past and the present. Ettinger’s Matrixial model is applied in the analysis of the 2012 video The Meeting by contemporary Lithuanian artist Kristina Inčiūraitė. I claim that the mode of desire in The Meeting is based on Matrixial gaze, which allows to formulate memory as co-created by two partners who share archaic knowledge of the Real, grounded in common relation to female sexual difference and intrauterine condition. Therefore, the article interprets the imagery of the town of Svetlogorsk in the video as coemerged mental images that affect each of the partners. I conclude that the Matrix theory overcomes the phallocentrism of classical psychoanalysis, allowing to reformulate the subject in terms of connectivity, compassion, and abilities to process Other’s trauma through positive cultural change.

scholarly journals Overcoming Orientalism

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Hate Crime ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Crime Statistics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Interfaith Relations ◽  
Foreign Control ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Public Opinion Polls ◽  
Opinion Polls

The term “Orientalism” reduces Islam and Muslims to stereotypes of ignorance and violence, in need of foreign control. In scholarly discourse, it has been used to rationalize Europe’s colonial domination of most of the Muslim world and continued American-led interventions in the postcolonial period. In the past thirty years it has been represented by claims that a monolithic Islam and equally monolithic West are distinct civilizations, sharing nothing in common and, indeed, involved in an inevitable “clash” from which only one can emerge the victory. Most recently, it has appeared in alt-right rhetoric. Anti-Muslim sentiment, measured in public opinion polls, hate crime statistics, and legislation, is reaching record levels. Since John Esposito published his first book nearly forty years ago, he has been guiding readers beyond such politically charged stereotypes. This Festschrift highlights the contributions of scholars from a variety of disciplines who, like—and often inspired by—John Esposito, recognize the misleading and politically dangerous nature of Orientalist polarizations. They present Islam as a multifaceted and dynamic tradition embraced by communities in globally interconnected but substantially diverse contexts over the centuries. The contributors follow Esposito’s lead, stressing the profound commonalities among religions and replacing Orientalist discourse with holistic analyses of the complex historical phenomena that affect developments in all societies. In addition to chapters focusing on diversity among Muslims and interfaith relations, this collection includes chapters assessing the secular bias at the root of Orientalist scholarship, and contemporary iterations of Orientalism in the form of Islamophobia.

On Conflicts and Differences Among Women

Hypatia ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Muraro
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
The Past ◽  
Politics Of Difference

Jana Sawicki uses the work and methods of Foucault to explore the possibility of a politics of difference. I argue that Foucault may help us overcome some forms of dogmatism inherited from men's political philosophy of the past, but Foucault is otherwise useless, or worse: misleading. Because Sawicki presents a politics of diversity among women regardless of, and independent from, a politics of sexual difference, I believe Foucault is misleading.

Matrix

2011 ◽  
pp. 882-884
Author(s):  
Irina Aristarkhova
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Symbolic Order ◽  
Maternal Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
And Gender ◽  
As If

1. Matrix = Womb. 2. The Matrix is everywhere, it’s all around us, here, even in this room. You can see it out your window, or on your television. You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth ... that you, like everyone else, was born into bondage ... kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste or touch. A prison for your mind. A Matrix. (Wachowski & Wachowski, 1999) 3. What is Matrix? Simply ... the “big Other,” the virtual symbolic order, the network that structures reality for us. (S. Zizek, 1999) What is Matrix? In the past years, the notion of the Matrix has become dominant in figurations of cyberspace. It seems as if it is the most desirable, the most contemporary and fitting equation; however, its gendered etymology is rarely obvious. On the opposite, the gender of the matrix as a notion and term has been systematically negated in such disciplines as mathematics, engineering, film studies or psychoanalysis. It is necessary thus to explore and critique the Matrix as a most “fitting” metaphor in/for cyberspace that has conceived it (cyberspace) as a free and seamless space very much like the maternal body (Aristarkhova, 2002). The challenge today, therefore, is to reintroduce the maternal as one of embodied encounters with difference, to recover the sexual difference and gender in the notion of matrix with reference to cyberspace and information technologies that support it.

Illustrating dementia

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-250
Author(s):  
Nigel Smith
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Community Arts ◽  
The Past ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
Past Life ◽  
Scholarly Discourse

Debate about dementia commonly elicits horror and despair. Yet, dementia is a syndrome of many distinct brain disorders. While progression is expected, memory scores are highly variable in dementia. Illustration plays a part by emphasizing the shrivelled brain of advanced Alzheimer’s. Texts typically refer to wasting in the Alzheimer’s brain although it is selective and may be absent in some cases. Scans emphasize the anatomy of dementia rather than its variability and potential for relearning. Zombies have become associated with symptoms of dementia in both scholarly discourse and popular conversation. A combination of these metaphors and the implication of ‘brainless behaviour’ may contribute to the stigma around dementia and ‘malignant practices’ reported among care staff, such as mockery and disparagement, which disempower people with dementia. However, people with dementia can describe their own experience. An increasing number of memoirs, blogs and podcasts explore the subjective experience of living with dementia. Art by people with dementia reveals persistent creativity and may help them to retain a sense of identity and self-worth. My animated documentary, Mute, illustrates the past life of ‘Frank’, a man with advanced dementia. The technique of charcoal reduction, with its subtle residue of past images, is a metaphor for the selective memory loss typical of Alzheimer’s dementia. The theme of animation therapy in mental health and community arts has gained support in recent years. I discuss the scope for co-produced animations by people who have dementia and the skills required by arts health workers in this field.

Emphasis Added: Plots and Plausibilities in Women's Fiction

PMLA ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy K. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Women's Fiction ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
The Past ◽  
Feminist Literary Criticism ◽  
Mill On The Floss ◽  
Women's Novels

Feminist literary criticism over the past decade has raised the important issue of woman's relationship to the production of prose fiction. Central to the inquiry have been both the desire to identify the specificity of such a “corpus” and the reluctance to define it by inherited notions of sexual difference. Reading Mme de Lafayette's La Princesse de Cléves with George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss in the context of this double agenda suggests the possibility of deciphering a female erotics that structures the plots of women's fiction, plots that reject the narrative logic of the dominant discourse. Traditionally, the critical establishment has condemned these plots as implausible and generally assigned women's novels a marginal position in literary history. Perhaps the grounds of that judgment are less aesthetic than ideological.

Kuyper among the Lutherans?

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bräutigam
Keyword(s):  
Holistic Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Common Grace ◽  
Scholarly Discourse

This essay offers a fresh attempt to bring the neo-Calvinist tradition into dialogue with the arts. The main purpose of this contribution is to apply Abraham Kuyper’s general comments on the arts to the neglected sphere of music. It will be shown that Kuyper’s holistic approach, with his emphasis on common grace, and on art as reflecting the created order while also pointing beyond it, shows distinct affinities with Martin Luther’s view on music. In the past, Christianity has not particularly distinguished itself in its scholarly discourse about art. This study suggests that Kuyper’s neo-Calvinist agenda offers much food for thought for today’s reflections on music and listening.

Herodotus and an Egyptian mirage: the genealogies of the Theban priests

2002 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 70-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian S. Moyer
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Late Period ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Historical Past ◽  
Egyptian History

AbstractThis article re-evaluates the significance attributed to Hecataeus' encounter with the Theban priests described by Herodotus (2.143) by setting it against the evidence of Late Period Egyptian representations of the past. In the first part a critique is offered of various approaches Classicists have taken to this episode and its impact on Greek historiography. Classicists have generally imagined this as an encounter in which the young, dynamic and creative Greeks construct an image of the static, ossified and incredibly old culture of the Egyptians, a move which reveals deeper assumptions in the scholarly discourse on Greeks and ‘other’ cultures in the Mediterranean world. But the civilization that Herodotus confronted in his long excursus on Egypt was not an abstract, eternal Egypt. Rather, it was the Egypt of his own day, at a specific historical moment – a culture with a particular understanding of its own long history. The second part presents evidence of lengthy Late Period priestly genealogies, and more general archaizing tendencies. Remarkable examples survive of the sort of visual genealogy which would have impressed upon the travelling Greek historians the long continuum of the Egyptian past. These include statues with genealogical inscriptions and relief sculptures representing generations of priests succeeding to their fathers' office. These priestly evocations of a present firmly anchored in the Egyptian past are part of a wider pattern of cultivating links with the historical past in the Late Period of Egyptian history. Thus, it is not simply the marvel of a massive expanse of time which Herodotus encountered in Egypt, but a mediated cultural awareness of that time. The third part of the essay argues that Herodotus used this long human past presented by the Egyptian priests in order to criticize genealogical and mythical representations of the past and develop the notion of an historical past. On the basis of this example, the article concludes by urging a reconsideration of the scholarly paradigm for imagining the encounter between Greeks and ‘others’ in ethnographic discourse in order to recognize the agency of the Egyptian priests, and other non-Greek ‘informants’.

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