scholarly journals Erobots and the deterritorialization of eroticism

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Aura-Elena Schussler
Keyword(s):  
Felix Guattari ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Metaphysical Grounding ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
Accelerated Evolution ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Traditional Structures ◽  
Intimate Life

As a result of its accelerated evolution in the early 21st Century, technology has already extended far beyond mere instrumental status. In the not too distant future we can expect technology to move towards a new dimension in terms of fusing with human nature; most notably in the field of intimacy towards what are known as erobots (i.e., sexbots, augmented erotic characters, erotic chatbots, erotic avatars, etc.). Given that these erobots have every chance to become part of a future eroticism, this places erobots beyond the onto-metaphysical grounding of the Western tradition regarding objects. This is an aspect that attracts the dissolution of the anthropocentric legacy of Western metaphysics, within the parameters of OOO, by showing that, in this paradigm, so-called human uniqueness is suffering an ontological twist. To show this I am investigating, the scenario that involves the relationship between a sexbot and a human, alongside of that between two sexbots, within the limits of OOO. Consequently, I am addressing the issue of how a sexbot relates to both a human agent and to another sexbot. I am also analyzing the perspective in which a future presence of erobots in the intimate life of the individual will twist the traditional image of eroticism in Western culture. This perspective is opening a deconstructing process with regard to human exceptionalism – analyzed within the limits of the ‘deterritorialization’ of eroticism – from the traditional structures of Western metaphysical heritage. Such deterritorialization emphasizes the paradigm shift in which eroticism is leaving the familiar terrain of the metaphysics of presence and the fixed structures of societies’ ‘strata’. Thus, following the philosophical thinking of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the ‘reterritorialization’ of eroticism – in the fluid, transversal and rhizomatic network of technology – is an ongoing, ever-changing process, taking place in the immanent sphere of techno-eroticism’s ‘plane of consistency’.

scholarly journals Prudential Use of the Morally Controversial COVID-19 Vaccines

2021 ◽  
pp. 002436392110176
Author(s):  
Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Cell Lines ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Individual

In recent months, there has been a lot of debate surrounding the use of those COVID-19 vaccines that have been either tested or manufactured with cell lines that were isolated from the remains of an aborted fetal child. Most faithful and orthodox Catholic moral theologians, among whom I count myself, have concluded that their use is not intrinsically evil. Therefore, like every other decision that falls into the category of actions that are not intrinsically evil, the decision to be vaccinated with these morally controversial vaccines has to be governed by the virtue of prudence. It is a decision that calls for a wisdom that properly sees this action within the constellation of actions that propels the human agent to the heights of holiness. This is why prayer is so essential for authentic moral judgment. With prayer, we ask the Holy Spirit who is the all-prudent one to guide our actions so that we can choose and act well not only for our only well-being but for the well-being of all. Acts that are not themselves intrinsically evil are deemed virtuous or not within the narrative of the individual person’s life.

scholarly journals POETRY OF NATASHA TRETHEWEY IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL DISCOURSE

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (87) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Lukyanenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Library Of Congress ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Poet Laureate ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Individual ◽  
State Registration ◽  
The Right

The article provides an analysis of the presence of the American poet-laureate Natasha Trethewey in modern literary discourse. The publication emphasizes the need to combine the methods of linguistics and culturology, anthropology and everyday history in the study of the construction of everyday USA in the works of the poet. The author explains the relevance of certain topics in the work of N. Trethewey to understand the psychology of the African American population in the USA. The state of studying the work of the poet-laureate in domestic science is determined. Remarks were made on the specifics of the creative search for the master of the word. The article illustrates the problem of reflection and national (ethnic) consciousness through the prism of the poetic word. She became the poetic voice of black America in the early 21st century. The ambiguous African-American side of the history of the United States awoke in the pages of her collections. With the deepening equality movement that swept North America during Donald Trump’s reactionary presidency, the lines of her poetry condemning racism, showing the country's participation in the American nation's foundation, and the often painful diffusion of white and black worldviews sound rather poignant. America. These reflections gained special strength with the development of the Black Lives Matter public initiative. The author’s work is gaining weight with the emphasis of the world community on gender issues. During the existence of the award in its various forms, women struggled to fight for the right to be the face of American literature. Of the 30 poetry advisers in the Library of Congress (the award was named from 1936 to 1986), only 6 were women. Since the renaming of the award in 1986, an unprecedented wave of feminization has begun. In 2012, Natasha Trethewey became the sixth woman to work among the nineteen winners in this office at the Library of Congress since the late 1980s. The work was carried out within the framework of the research theme of the Department of Culturology of the Poltava National Pedagogical University named after V.G.Korolenko “Polylogue of the global and regional in the formation of the socio-cultural identity of the individual” (state registration number 0120U103840).

Curriculum in a Third Space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyu Wang ◽  
Jo Flory
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Third Space ◽  
Curriculum Studies ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Alternative Pathways ◽  
Pedagogical Relationships ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Dynamic Relationships

Curriculum in a third space has become an important theory in the field of curriculum studies in the postcolonial and postmodern context, in which new approaches to social and cultural differences in education have been developed. Curriculum and education in the early 21st century face the challenging tasks of responding in a time of uncertainty, complexity, paradoxes, and crisis: How do educators navigate the central relationship between the knower and the known while both are destabilized in a postmodern condition? What are curricular responses to the issue of identity, difference, and power relationships at schools in order to carve out alternative pathways beyond dualistic either/or thinking? How can differences and tensions be transformed into productive sites for curriculum and pedagogical creativity? The notion of the third space characterized by the alterity of psychical and social difference, the necessity for cultural translation, and the creativity of dynamic hybridity, addresses such critical questions. Curriculum in a third space embraces creative tensionality, decentering and estrangement, and making passages in the midst of hybridity. Translating between the planned curriculum and experienced curriculum mobilizes the highly contested site of identity, difference, and community into an ongoing process of attending to the language of the (maternal) other, building connections between the human subject and the academic subject, and nurturing a curriculum community that welcomes the stranger. As the notion of a third space is often formulated in intercultural, transnational, and global situations, internationalizing curriculum studies becomes a movement of differentiating and passaging within, between, and among the individual, the local, the national, and the global in a third space. Aligned with such a vision of curriculum, a pedagogy of a third space is also set in motion by hybrid resistance, openness to displacement, and fluid interdisciplinary collaboration. Pedagogies in specific subject areas open up third possibilities through building dynamic relationships between school knowledge and home experiences, transforming pedagogical relationships, and navigating blended classrooms of face-to-face and digital interactions.

School Choice and Educational Pluralism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Bertagna ◽  
Francesco Magni
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Educational Pathways ◽  
Subsidiarity Principle ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Private Investors ◽  
State Schools

The early 21st century is an age in which freedoms seem to expand continuously and without limits; in addition to the traditional market freedoms, there is freedom of choice related to gender, to sex, to family, to health, to life and to end of life—to name just a few domains that have embraced the ethos of individual freedom. Nonetheless, in this context of growing freedom for everybody, there is a particular freedom whose “domain” has been limited, especially in Italy: the freedom of choice related to school and education. The constraints placed upon freedom of educational choice defaults, perhaps unintentionally, to a standard orthodoxy enforced by the state and its supposedly omniscient bureaucracy. What is meant by “school choice”? It means the freedom to choose the school, the teachers, the educators, the experiences, and the educational pathways that one supposes best for one’s children, without incurring legal and economic penalties. It also means accepting that the government may regulate the system of state and non-state schools (i.e., it sets out the rules and main goals in terms of the learning and educational values with which teaching institutions should comply). Yet, to balance this, the government, except in cases of exceptional and regulated substitution according to the subsidiarity principle, may not ordinarily manage the organization and functioning of state schools and—more evidently—of non-state schools through a centralized governmental administration. These activities should be left to the individual responsibility of schools, families, companies, private investors, and the institutions of civil society. Last but not least, “school choice” means that the government bears the key responsibility of checking that schools comply with the established rules and values, and that students receive a satisfactory education, and of then making the results of those checks transparent and available for the public. This way, the government can give families very useful information that equips them to make their school choice responsibly.

Human-Agent Interruptions: A Systems Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 505-509
Author(s):  
Pouria Salehi ◽  
Erin K. Chiou
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
System Performance ◽  
Work Performance ◽  
Individual Performance ◽  
Computer Agent ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
The Individual

Detrimental effects of interruptions have been widely reported in the literature, particularly with laboratory-based studies. However, recent field-based studies suggest interruptions can be beneficial, even vital to maintaining or enhancing system performance. The literature seems to be at critical juncture; how do practitioners reconcile these perspectives? Do we ban interruptions or let them flow freely? To address this, we study how interruptions affect work performance over differing units of analysis (a dyad versus an individual) in a microworld scheduling task with 72 participants and a computer agent. We found that a team performance perspective shows more benefits from interruptions than an individual performance perspective. In other words, teams suffered less from the adverse effects of interruptions than individuals. Results show that systems-level aspects of interruptions, for both the individual and the team, plays a role in determining whether interruptions have a positive or negative effect.

Psychology of Crisis and Trauma

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Enander
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Coping With Stress ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Crisis Events ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Coping

The psychology of crisis and trauma is concerned with attitudes, reactions, and behaviors related to extreme events and conditions. Facing a crisis poses a number of challenges to the individual in terms of preparation, making sense of the situation, taking decisions, and coping with stress. Thus research on human reactions to crisis spans a broad range of theories and analytical frameworks. Traditionally there has been a strong focus on vulnerabilities and on the negative impacts of crises in terms of stress and traumatic responses. However, in the early 21st century research has increasingly moved toward investigating resilience factors and the ways in which people actually cope under extreme conditions. Although the term crisis is often used as a general concept, the reality of critical events can vary widely, each posing particular challenges to those affected. This can be illustrated by examples from natural disasters, toxic incidents, and socially generated threats of violence and terror, where the psychological contexts of such events differ considerably. While learning from the experiences of crisis events is important, research on human reactions does raise a number of practical and ethical issues of which the researcher needs to take heed.

Affect Theory and Breast Cancer Memoirs: Rescripting Fears of Death and Dying in the Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-29
Author(s):  
Jennifer Mae Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Environmental Humanities ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Affective Dimensions

Re-evaluating dominant cultural narratives around dying and death is central to new critiques of individualism and human exceptionalism. As conceptual tools for theorizing the end of the individual proliferate, the affective dimensions of this project are often overlooked, especially as they pertain to individual subjects. In contrast, a significant number of iconic queer and feminist thinkers have suffered breast cancer and written memoirs representing the subjective experience of confronting mortality. This article identifies the affective orientations towards one’s own mortality as missing from queer and feminist thinking on embodiment in the Anthropocene. As a remedy, the article reads several iconic feminist breast cancer memoirs – Sontag, Lorde, Sedgwick, Jain and Boyer – for their complex representations of affect, in particular fear, in relation to dying and death. Using the affect theory of Silvan Tomkins, this analysis contributes to critiques of cancer culture in medical humanities and of mortality and embodiment in feminist environmental humanities.

Brazilian Regionalism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
European Immigration ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Brazilian History ◽  
Provincial Autonomy

A major aspect of Brazilian history is the ongoing significance of regionalism and regional identities. To explore this history, one needs to consider how a particular space becomes a region in the first place, and how certain attributes, human and natural, become associated with that space. Regionalism emerged as a major feature of the political sphere in Brazil during the immediate postcolonial decades as liberal and conservative elites struggled over the degree of provincial autonomy under the empire. This was followed by a period of republican-federalist rule that in some ways increased political autonomy for the individual states, but also allowed certain regions to consolidate their political and economic dominance, which led to an entrenched pattern of highly uneven development. Regionalism becomes the basis for competition over political and material resources, and regional identities were increasingly implicated in debates about tradition and modernity. Regional disparities also become racialized, as prosperity in the southern states became linked with European immigration and whiteness. And even as internal migration accelerated in the period following World War II, migrants continued to bear the “attributes” of the originating region, and in some cases, such as the northeasterners in São Paulo, the experience of migration intensifies the connection with the Nordeste. These disparities produce regional resentments that have fueled regionally based political divisions in national elections in the early 21st century.

ACCELERATED INNOVATION AND INCREASED SPATIAL DIVERSITY OF US POPULAR CULTURE

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 1150011 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. ALEXANDER BENTLEY ◽  
PAUL ORMEROD
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial Diversity ◽  
Spatial Homogeneity ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Geographic Diversity ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Individual

We observe a marked increase in the spatial homogeneity of the popularity of first names across the United States in recent decades. We explain this by calibrating a modified standard model of neutral cultural evolution to the record of first name popularities for the United States as a whole since 1900 and across the individual states over the last 50 years. We obtain estimates of both the temporal and spatial diversity of the speed of cultural evolution during the 20th century and early 21st century. We find that the speed of innovation of popular baby names accelerated substantially since the end of the 20th century. We suggest that the increased inventiveness has driven a drift process that increased the geographic diversity across the United States.

scholarly journals Transformation of traditional reindeer herding technologies and pasturing practices 206on the Kola Peninsula in the 20th— early 21st century

2021 ◽  
pp. 206-217
Author(s):  
E.V. Perevalova
Keyword(s):  
Kola Peninsula ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Reindeer Herding ◽  
State Farm ◽  
Reindeer Husbandry ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Individual

The purpose of the article is to give an accent presentation of the transformation of technologies and tech-niques of reindeer grazing and value attitudes of the Kola reindeer herders in the 20th — early 21st century from an ethno-cultural perspective. The paper is based on the materials of the 2018 expedition to the Kola Peninsula. On the basis of using a system-analytical approach, the paper is structured as a narrative discourse, where the “floor” is given to the Kola reindeer herders themselves. As the studies show, the changes in the Kola reindeer husbandry brought about by the merger of the nomadic Samoyed-Izhem Culture, introduced to the Kola peninsula in the late 19th — early 20th century, with the semi-nomadic “cabin” Saami herding style, as well as by the Soviet period collective and state farm transformation of the traditional reindeer husbandry and the unfolding “snowmo-bile revolution” (the use of the reindeer sled has been reduced to one month in a year), have led not only to the loss of numerous traditional reindeer herding technologies, pasturing practices and herd control, but also to sig-nificant changes in the population composition, structure, and organization of the behavioral characteristics of the herds. Today, the Komi-Izhem reindeer husbandry is dominant in the Kola region. However, despite the major changes, the Kola herders are still quite flexible in using, depending on the circumstances, the advantages of both the Izhem and the Lapp reindeer husbandry systems. The return to the semi-free herds ranging practices and transition to rotational organization of reindeer herd tending in the post-Soviet period stimulated the economic revival of the herding industry and added more comfort to the reindeer herders' lifestyle, although the reindeer herding is not considered a prestigious occupation among young people. Rethinking the older generation's life experiences, together with the more critical perception of today's realities, is an indication of changes within the system of ethnic values, which formerly, in a sense, supported both the individual and collective identities of the Saami and Komi-Izhem ethnies. The transformation processes have had a particularly profound impact on the traditional Saami reindeer culture, almost destroying it, which causes painful memories and reactions of its last bearers. Displacement of the Lapp component is carried forward in the choice of preferred deer breeds and dis-appearance of the Saami language and Saami toponymy from the reindeer herding context.

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