Time and the Other in Nineteenth-Century German Travel Writing on Africa

Transfers ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Tracey Reimann-Dawe
Keyword(s):  
Travel Writing ◽  
Linear Time ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Main Channel ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common

Between 1848 and 1914 a wave of German academic explorers traveled to Africa, enticed by the promise of geographical, anthropological and botanical discoveries. These Afrikareisende (African explorers) composed narrative accounts of their journeys, which at the time were the main channel for disseminating their experiences to the public. This article focuses on three works from the first three decades of German exploration of Africa prior to German unification in 1871. The common aim of scientific discovery unified Afrikareisende and their passage through foreign space. An inextricable feature of this scientific ideology is the connection to rational, linear time. This article demonstrates how the perception and relevance of time is employed to transfer knowledge of the Self and Other to a German readership. This knowledge reflects not only the explorers’ experience of their personal identity but also the tentative beginnings of a collective German identity as it is defined in colonial space.

scholarly journals Writing Africa, Righting America: An Experience of Otherness in J. P. Clark's America, their America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adewuyi Ayodeji
Keyword(s):  
Travel Writing ◽  
First Generation ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Self And Other

Considered one of the finest first-generation Nigerian writers, John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo, who passed away on 13th October, 2020, had been categorised as a Eurocentric writer. This work assesses the authenticity or otherwise of this critics’ perception of Clark by critiquing his America, their America. By analysing this autobiography vis-à-vis the notion of self and other which is a theoretical concern in contemporary travel writing, it was established, among other things, that every culture has its dark sides which it must not feel too proud to change as time and situation demand; that Clark vehemently rejects the Americans’ claim of sophistication and superiority of their culture over African culture. The paper concludes that contemporary travel writing should be a rightful site for negotiating cultural, political and diplomatic compromises between the Self and the Other since the gulf may be difficult to close altogether.

scholarly journals The Experienced Self and Other Scale: A technique for assaying the experience of one’s self in relation to the other

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Erel Shvil ◽  
Herbert Krauss ◽  
Elizabeth Midlarsky
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Factorial Structure ◽  
Factor Solution ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Venn Diagrams ◽  
Self In Relation ◽  
Higher Power ◽  
Perception Of Self

The construct “self” appears in diverse forms in theories about what it is to be a person. As the sense of “self” is typically assessed through personal reports, differences in its description undoubtedly reflect significant differences in peoples’ apperception of self. This report describes the development, reliability, and factorial structure of the Experience of Sense of Self (E-SOS), an inventory designed to assess one’s perception of self in relation to the person’s perception of various potential “others.” It does so using Venn diagrams to depict and quantify the experienced overlap between the self and “others.” Participant responses to the instrument were studied through Exploratory Factor Analysis. This yielded a five-factor solution: 1) Experience of Positive Sensation; 2) Experience of Challenges; 3) Experience of Temptations; 4) Experience of Higher Power; and 5) Experience of Family. The items comprising each of these were found to produce reliable subscales. Further research with the E-SOS and suggestions for its use are offered.  DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v4i2_shvil

scholarly journals „Es war kein Job, es war eine Berufung“ – Gouvernementale Führung, fragmentierte Subjekte und <i>contre-conduite</i> in der nichtstaatlichen Entwicklungspraxis

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Kirsten Linnemann
Keyword(s):  
Critical Distance ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Development Professionals ◽  
Western Values ◽  
The One ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Good Cause ◽  
Development Practice

Abstract. With their donation appeals aid organisations procure a polarised worldview of the self and other into our everyday lives and feed on discourses of “development” and “neediness”. This study investigates how the discourse of “development” is embedded in the subjectivities of “development” professionals. By approaching the topic from a governmentality perspective, the paper illustrates how “development” is (re-)produced through internalised Western values and powerful mechanisms of self-conduct. Meanwhile, this form of self-conduct, which is related to a “good cause”, also gives rise to doubts regarding the work, as well as fragmentations and shifts of identity. On the one hand, the paper outlines various coping strategies used by development professionals to maintain a coherent narrative about the self. On the other hand, it also shows how doubts and fragmentations of identity can generate a critical distance to “development” practice, providing a space for resistant and transformative practice in the sense of Foucauldian counter-conduct.

scholarly journals Othering and Selfing: Reading Gender Hierarchies and Social Categories in Michel Houellebecq's Novel Soumission

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Wening Udasmoro
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
French Society ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Gender Hierarchies

In literature, questions of the self and the other are frequently presented. The identity politics that gained prominence after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 has occupied considerable space in this debate throughout the globe, including in France. One example of a novel dealing with the self and other is Michel Houellebecq’s Soumission (2015). This article attempts to explore the processes of selfing and othering in this work. The politics of identity that seems to present Muslims and Islam as the other and French as the self is also extended to other identities and aspects involved in the novel. This article attempts to show, first, how the French author Houellebecq positions the self and other in Soumission; second, the type of self and other the novel focuses on; and third, how its selfing and othering processes reveal the gender hierarchy and social categorization of French society. It finds that the novel presents a hierarchy in its narrative through which characters are positioned based on their gender and sexual orientation, as well as their age and ethnic heritage.

scholarly journals Rethinking Hijab in Contemporary Indonesia: A Study of Hijab Community “Tuneeca Lover Community”

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-221
Author(s):  
Wardah Nuroniyah
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Veil ◽  
The One ◽  
Common Perception

Hijab (veil) for female Muslims has been subject to a debate regarding its meanings. On the one hand, it represents the virtue of religious obedience and piety. Still, on the other hand, it is associated with the form of women oppressions in the public domain. At this point, the hijab has been an arena of contesting interpretations. Meanwhile, contemporary Indonesia is witnessing the increase in the use of veil among urban female Muslims that leads to the birth of various hijab wearer communities. One of them is Tuneeca Lover Community (TLC). This community has become a new sphere where female Muslims articulate their ideas about Islam through various activities such as religious gathering, hijab tutorial class, fashion show, and charity activities. This study seeks to answer several questions: Why do these women decide to wear a hijab? Why do they join the TLC? How do they perceive the veil? Is it related to religious doctrines or other factors such as lifestyle? This research employs a qualitative method using documentation and interview to gather the data among 150 members of the TLC.  This research shows that their understanding of the hijab results from the common perception that places the veil as a religious obligation. Nevertheless, each of the members has one's orientation over the hijab. This paper also suggests that they try to transform this understanding into modern settings. As a consequence, they are not only committed to the traditionally spiritual meaning of the hijab but are also nuanced with modern ideas such as lifestyle and particular social class. Their participation in the TLC enables them to reach both goals simultaneously.

scholarly journals Knowing me, knowing you: Spontaneous use of mentalistic language for self and other in autism

Autism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136236132095101
Author(s):  
Alexandra Zinck ◽  
Uta Frith ◽  
Peter Schönknecht ◽  
Sarah White
Keyword(s):  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Unique Pattern ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Autistic People ◽  
Physical Traits ◽  
Autistic Adults

Recent studies on mentalizing have shown that autistic individuals who pass explicit mentalizing tasks may still have difficulties with implicit mentalizing tasks. This study explores implicit mentalizing by examining spontaneous speech that is likely to contain mentalistic expressions. The spontaneous production of meta-statements provides a clear measure for implicit mentalizing that is unlikely to be learned through experience. We examined the self- and other-descriptions of highly verbally able autistic and non-autistic adults in terms of their spontaneous use of mentalistic language and meta-representational utterances through quantitative and qualitative analysis. We devised a hierarchical coding system that allowed us to study the types of statements produced in comparable conditions for the self and for a familiar other. The descriptions of autistic participants revealed less mentalistic content relating to psychological traits and meta-statements. References to physical traits were similar between groups. Within each group, participants produced a similar pattern of types of mental utterance across ‘self’ and ‘other’ conditions. This suggests that autistic individuals show a unique pattern of mental-state-representation for both self and other. Meta-statements add a degree of complexity to self- and other-descriptions and to the understanding of mental states; their reduction in autism provides evidence for implicit mentalizing difficulties. Lay abstract Autistic people can have difficulties in understanding non-autistic people’s mental states such as beliefs, emotions and intentions. Although autistic adults may learn to overcome difficulties in understanding of explicit (overt) mental states, they may nevertheless struggle with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. This study explores how spontaneous language is used in order to specifically point to this implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. In particular, our study compares the spontaneous statements that were used in descriptions of oneself and a familiar other person. Here, we found that autistic and non-autistic adults were comparable in the number of statements about physical traits they made. In contrast, non-autistic adults made more statements about mentalistic traits (about the mental including psychological traits, relationship traits and statements reflecting about these) both for the self and the other. Non-autistic and autistic adults showed no difference in the number of statements about relationships but in the number of statements about psychological traits and especially in the statements reflecting on these. Each group showed a similar pattern of kinds of statements for the self and for the other person. This suggests that autistic individuals show the same unique pattern of description in mentalistic terms for the self and another person. This study also indicates that investigating spontaneous use of language, especially for statements reflecting about mental states, enables us to look into difficulties with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states.

Spatial representations of self and other in the hippocampus

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 359 (6372) ◽  
pp. 213-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruko Danjo ◽  
Taro Toyoizumi ◽  
Shigeyoshi Fujisawa
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Pyramidal Cells ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spatial Representations ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Ca1 Pyramidal Cells ◽  
Ca1 Region ◽  
Reward Information

An animal’s awareness of its location in space depends on the activity of place cells in the hippocampus. How the brain encodes the spatial position of others has not yet been identified. We investigated neuronal representations of other animals’ locations in the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus with an observational T-maze task in which one rat was required to observe another rat’s trajectory to successfully retrieve a reward. Information reflecting the spatial location of both the self and the other was jointly and discretely encoded by CA1 pyramidal cells in the observer rat. A subset of CA1 pyramidal cells exhibited spatial receptive fields that were identical for the self and the other. These findings demonstrate that hippocampal spatial representations include dimensions for both self and nonself.

Public Space, Common Space, and the Spaces In–Between: A Case Study of Philadelphia's LOVE Park

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 676-703
Author(s):  
Luke M. Cianciotto
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
General Public ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
Common Space ◽  
The Common

This study concerns the struggle for Philadelphia's LOVE Park, which involved the general public and its functionaries on one side and skateboarders on the other. This paper argues LOVE Park was one place composed of two distinct spaces: the public space the public engendered and the common space the skateboarders produced. This case demonstrates that public and common space must be understood as distinct, for they entail different understandings of publicly accessible space. Additionally, public and common spaces often exist simultaneously as “public–common spaces,” which emphasizes how they reciprocally shape one another. This sheds light on the emergence of “anti–common public space,” which is evident in LOVE Park's 2016 redesign. This concept considers how common spaces are increasingly negated in public spaces. The introduction of common space to the study of public spaces is significant as it allows for more nuanced understandings of transformations in the urban landscape.

scholarly journals Self and other in critical international theory: assimilation, incommensurability and the paradox of critique

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
VASSILIOS PAIPAIS
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
International Theory ◽  
Critical Edge ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article is principally concerned with the way some sophisticated critical approaches in International Relations (IR) tend to compromise their critical edge in their engagement with the self/other problematique. Critical approaches that understand critique as total non-violence towards, or unreflective affirmation of, alterity risk falling back into precritical paths. That is, either a particularistic, assimilative universalism with pretensions of true universality or a radical incommensurability and the impossibility of communication with the other. This is what this article understands as the paradox of the politics of critique. Instead, what is more important than seeking a final overcoming or dismissal of the self/other opposition is to gain the insight that it is the perpetual striving to preserve the tension and ambivalence between self and other that rescues both critique's authority and function.

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