Prosthetic Vision and Postmortem Cinema

Screen Bodies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-118
Author(s):  
Anthony Enns
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Visual Perception ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Century Science

The nineteenth-century science of “optography” was based on the idea that an image of the last thing seen at the moment of death would be imprinted on the retina. This idea was inspired by the invention of photography, which reinforced the mechanistic notion of the eye as a camera, and it was frequently criticized in nineteenth-century literary texts, in which eyes more often record images generated from within the mind. Belief in optography began to wane at roughly the same time that cinema became a popular form of entertainment, but it continued to appear in several films in which severed eyes function as cameras or optical implants are used to record visual impressions that can be viewed after the death of the subject. This article examines how these optographic narratives continued to reinforce the mechanistic notion of visual perception on which film technology was thought to depend.

The Russian Futuristic Experiment: the Language of the Poetic Resistance

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-272
Author(s):  
Magdalena Kostova-Panayotova
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Artistic Expression ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Creative Mind ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The World ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind

The main Avant-garde trend in the first third of the 20th century, Futurism, through its various groups and creative personalities, upholds its own conception of art and creator, strives to give a contemporary image of the world, to reveal the hidden essence of things, the inner relation of the elements. According to Futurism, art is meant to change lives, but not as it seems in the writings of nineteenth-century realists: by influencing the rational and changing the mind of the reader. The development of a new artistic expression, in a new poetic language, the use of contemporary forms of artistic conditionality have become major tasks for the generation of poets and artists from the 1910s. Poet futurists reduce the language of literature to its traditional understandings, neglect its inherent rules and laws, because they accept it as something external to the subject, which impedes the expression of its essence. From the depiction of the object to its expression - this is how the break in the creative mind of the futuristic author can be characterized. The linguistic revolution, effected with poetic means by the futurists, is a desperate and utopian attempt to acquire the organic integrity of the world, thirsting for its transformation. Thanks to futurism, the register of poetic techniques was expanded in the 20th century and directions were created for the creation of new expressive means of writing poetic text.

Courting the Cerebellum: Early Organological and Phrenological Views of Sexuality

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Shortland
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment ◽  
First Time ◽  
To Receive ◽  
British Culture ◽  
Valuable Function

Although phrenology has begun to receive serious attention as a doctrine of mind, as popular science, as part of medical history, as a vehicle for social and ideological interests, and as an important component of American and European (especially British) culture in the early nineteenth century, there is one aspect of it which has evaded the eye of contemporary historians.’ This is the place within phrenology of the understanding of human sexuality. This is a subject of manifest general historical interest, and one whose neglect by scholars seems all the more striking once it is recognized that phrenologists themselves often judged it the most crucial, the best evidenced, and the most impressive part of their system of beliefs. In turning for the first time to phrenological attitudes to sex, my objective in what follows is not to offer an exhaustive treatment but rather to set down the broad lines of development followed by organological and phrenological doctrines. It is hoped that this will encourage and enable historians to consider the subject in further detail and from other perspectives. Other topics of research may also be suggested by the material that is presented here. For example, if phrenology was as important in the early decades of the nineteenth century as is now widely accepted, and if the views of sexual instinct within the theory and practice of phrenology were of the kind which I shall suggest, then it may be that our general attitudes to sexuality during the period under consideration stand in need of reassessment. This is an issue to which I hope to devote a further article; for the moment, a presentation of materials within a mainly expository framework may serve a valuable function.

Poets and their Philosophies

Philosophy ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 26 (97) ◽  
pp. 114-120
Author(s):  
Meyrick H. Carré
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Rational Systems ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Ideal

Poets, like other men, have their speculative moods. Some poets have been widely read in the literature of philosophy and have wrestled continuously with the intellectual problems of their times. From Euripides to Mr. Eliot large expanses of dialectical argument have appeared in verse, and in our own tongue Spenser, Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth and many other supreme writers have questioned the semblance of nature and mind, and have sought to trace the ideal forms of reality. Men of letters in every generation have naturally discussed the problems of knowledge and existence and have offered emphatic opinions on them. The views of poets have been accorded particular honour and attention. Illustrious poets have declared that poetry opens a more penetrating road to truth than that which is provided by science or academic philosophy. Certain modern critics repeat these claims. “The mind of man,” writes one, “has a knowledge of truth beyond the near-truths of science and society. Poetry tells us this truth.” I will not pause here to inquire whether anything of value can be observed of poetry in general any more than can be stated of prose in general. Nor do I wish to enter into the subject of poetic truth. The questions I desire to raise concern assumptions about the philosophical ideas of poets. Recent criticism has shown a notable tendency to fasten on these ideas. The tendency revives the practice of the nineteenth century when theologians, philosophers and literary thinkers were fond of expounding the rational systems of Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning. The present vogue of this prosaic treatment of poetry may be due to a strong recoil from the literary fashion prevalent a generation ago which minimized the intellectual feature in the art of poetry.

The Semantic Theory of James Harris

1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Subbiondo
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Semantic Theory ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Century Science

Summary Although the semantic theory proposed by Harris in Hermes (1751) was not well received in 18th-century England and has been generally neglected by scholars ever since, it is certainly deserving of our attention because it is a perceptive analysis of the logico-semantic structure of language. In the tradition of philosophical or universal grammar, Harris argued that the subject matter of the linguist should be the conceptual level or the deep structure of language rather than the utterance or the surface structure. Therefore, Harris reasoned that an adequate explanation of meaning required a description of the relationship of language and thought. Furthermore, since he recognized that the study of language was necessary for the advancement of learning, which he considered to be the essence of science, he regarded the limits of 18th-century science too narrow in that they excluded semantics. Harris’ theory advanced that an analysis of the sentence, the basis of the synthesis of the mind and language, was crucial to a semantic theory. Since the number of utterances is infinite, Harris attempted to discover a finite and universal set of psychological principles which he believed generated sentences. Although he concluded that a notion of general and particular ideas would ultimately explain verbal communication, he hoped that identifying the source of these ideas would be the work of future scholars.

scholarly journals Archaisms in D. Lyndsay’s play of the Early Modern English period “A Satire of the Three Estates”: problem of identification and stylistic assessment

Litera ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 11-19
Author(s):  
Alina Alekseevna Khavronich
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
English Language ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Statistical Interpretation ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Approximate Frequency ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment

The subject of this research is the method of identification and problem of statistical interpretation of archaic lexis in literary texts of the Early Modern English period, namely in D. Lyndsay’s play “A Satire of the Three Estates”. The article discusses the capacity of attracting the data from diachronic corpus and corpus-based dictionaries for determination of archaic elements in literary works of the XVI century. Leaning on the commentaries of reputable philologists of the Early Modern English period and modern research, the article explores the trends of relevant perception pertaining to introduction of archaisms into the literary text by the authors of that time. An algorithm is proposed for identification of outdated units in literary material, created on Scottish (considering the obsolescent character of this dialect), based on juxtaposition of the approximate frequency indexes of reproduction of the element in the Early Modern English and Scottish sections of Helsinki corpus, as well as data from the corpus-based dictionaries of Middle English and Scottish. For stylistic assessment of archaisms in the play of D. Lyndsay, the author applies the method of linguo-stylistic analysis, in which linguistic element is viewed from the contextual perspective. The scientific novelty is substantiated by the fact that for solution of the problem of analysis of archaisms in the texts of Early Modern English period, the author elaborates an algorithm that allows clarifying if a unit is obsolescent in a specific moment of development of the English language. It is established that the prevalent proportion of words in Lyndsay’s play was not archaic within the framework of Scottish dialect; and only few of the involved units were outdated at the moment of creation of text in the standard Early Modern English. The archaisms determined in the play allows stating the Lyndsay considered archaisms a part of elevated lexis. The practical values of this work is defined by the possibility to apply the proposed algorithm for detecting archaisms in any literary text of the Early Modern English period, as well as conduct stylistic assessment of archaisms from the perspective of the trends of their perception by the authors of the XVI century.

The Art of Drawing Distinctions

2019 ◽  
pp. 407-433
Author(s):  
Alexander Kluge
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Cerebral Hemispheres ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Alexander Kluge ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Mind

This chapter highlights the individual's capacity for differentiation. Imagine the human body: take, for example, the mouth, whose capacity for differentiation would be called a sensation. The largest organ, the skin, also has sensation. The ear: therein lies musicality, the sense of balance, the sense of hearing, and rhythm. These sensations are divided between two cerebral hemispheres. All of these sensations play a role in an encounter with another person. The moment when related sensations reach a decision about another human being is called feeling. This is not something sentimental, but rather is subject to the sentimentalization and commercialization of the nineteenth century. In reality, feeling is something very human. It is what a person adds to an objective relation. In order to be able to convey more clearly the difference between sensation and feeling, Alexander Kluge introduces another term: passion. There is the passion of the mind and there is the mind of passion. This is the intensification of the will, feeling, the sum of various feelings pointed in a single direction.

العربية المقاربة المقاصديّة في ردّ ابن فودي على القادح في جلستهم الدعويّة

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alawiye Abdulmumin Abdurrazzaq ◽  
Ahmad Wifaq Mokhtar ◽  
Abdul Manan Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Analytical Methods ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Subject

This article is aimed to examine the extent of the application of Islamic legal objectives by Sheikh Abdullah bn Fudi in his rejoinder against one of their contemporary scholars who accused them of being over-liberal about the religion. He claimed that there has been a careless intermingling of men and women in the preaching and counselling gathering they used to hold, under the leadership of Sheikh Uthman bn Fudi (the Islamic reformer of the nineteenth century in Nigeria and West Africa). Thus, in this study, the researchers seek to answer the following interrogations: who was Abdullah bn Fudi? who was their critic? what was the subject matter of the criticism? How did the rebutter get equipped with some guidelines of higher objectives of Sharĩʻah in his rejoinder to the critic? To this end, this study had tackled the questions afore-stated by using inductive, descriptive and analytical methods to identify the personalities involved, define and analyze some concepts and matters considered as the hub of the study.

John Lloyd Williams (1854–1945): profile of a Snowdonian botanist

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Dewi Jones
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Plant Physiology ◽  
Marine Algae ◽  
Plant Distribution ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Major Study ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

John Lloyd Williams was an authority on the arctic-alpine flora of Snowdonia during the late nineteenth century when plant collecting was at its height, but unlike other botanists and plant collectors he did not fully pursue the fashionable trend of forming a complete herbarium. His diligent plant-hunting in a comparatively little explored part of Snowdonia led to his discovering a new site for the rare Killarney fern (Trichomanes speciosum), a feat which was considered a major achievement at the time. For most part of the nineteenth century plant distribution, classification and forming herbaria, had been paramount in the learning of botany in Britain resulting in little attention being made to other aspects of the subject. However, towards the end of the century many botanists turned their attention to studying plant physiology, a subject which had advanced significantly in German laboratories. Rivalry between botanists working on similar projects became inevitable in the race to be first in print as Lloyd Williams soon realized when undertaking his major study on the cytology of marine algae.

Siren canora: the mermaid and the mythical in late nineteenth-century science

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. BRINK-ROBY
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
British Association ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Darwinian Theory ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Century Science

This paper argues that, for a number of naturalists and lay commentators in the second half of the nineteenth century, evolutionary – especially Darwinian – theory gave new authority to mythical creatures. These writers drew on specific elements of evolutionary theory to assert the existence of mermaids, dragons and other fabulous beasts. But mythological creatures also performed a second, often contrapositive, argumentative function; commentators who rejected evolution regularly did so by dismissing these creatures. Such critics agreed that Darwin's theory legitimized the mythological animal, but they employed this legitimization to undermine the theory itself. The mermaid, in particular, was a focus of attention in this mytho-evolutionary debate, which ranged from the pages of Punch to the lecture halls of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Crossing social boundaries and taking advantage of a range of venues, this debate arose in response to the indeterminate challenge of evolutionary theory. In its discussions of mermaids and dragons, centaurs and satyrs, this discourse helped define that challenge, construing and constructing the meanings and implications of evolutionary theory in the decades following Darwin's publication.

Gender, Technology and the New Woman

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena Wånggren
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Woman ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gender And Technology ◽  
The New Woman ◽  
Grant Allen

This book examines late nineteenth-century feminism in relation to technologies of the time, marking the crucial role of technology in social and literary struggles for equality. The New Woman, the fin de siècle cultural archetype of early feminism, became the focal figure for key nineteenth-century debates concerning issues such as gender and sexuality, evolution and degeneration, science, empire and modernity. While the New Woman is located in the debates concerning the ‘crisis in gender’ or ‘sexual anarchy’ of the time, the period also saw an upsurge of new technologies of communication, transport and medicine. This book explores the interlinking of gender and technology in writings by overlooked authors such as Grant Allen, Tom Gallon, H. G. Wells, Margaret Todd and Mathias McDonnell Bodkin. As the book demonstrates, literature of the time is inevitably caught up in a technological modernity: technologies such as the typewriter, the bicycle, and medical technologies, through literary texts come to work as freedom machines, as harbingers of female emancipation.

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