Introduction

Author(s):  
Simon Hobbs

This chapter outlines the approaches, definitions, and theories used throughout the book, before giving a structural overview of each chapter. Firstly, the chapter directly addresses the accusations of gimmickry that have been directed towards extreme art film, mapping the reception climate and evaluating the most popular and widespread responses. From this, it becomes clear that a lack of attention has been paid to the commercial identity of the film, and the way extremity informs its commercial persona. Thereafter, the chapter historicises extreme art cinema, positioning it as an outcome of taste slippage, and the blurring of boundaries between art cinema and exploitation cinema. By paying particular attention to representations of the body within both highbrow and lowbrow cinema, the chapter argues that convincing similarities exist between the cinematic traditions. Additionally, the chapter challenges the popular Francophile definition of extreme art cinema, broadening the geographic scope of the field by looking at films from Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Italy and Belgium. Finally, the chapter introduces paratextual theory, and details the way the preeminent ideas will be applied to the discussion of extreme art film paratexts.

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Ahani ◽  
Iraj Etessam ◽  
Seyed Gholamreza Islami

<p>Ornament has been present throughout the recorded history, revealing human's aspirations, reflections and imaginations. Correspondingly, the discussion of ornament has almost uninterruptedly been a major topic for architectural discourses; one which has led to the publication of several significant texts in which ornamental practices has been addressed from a variety of perspectives. An investigation into the key architectural texts however, reveals that the absence of a certain definition of ornament and its functions in architecture as well as the interchangeable use of the terms 'decoration' and ornament as synonyms, have always been a serious obstacle to reach a clear conception of ornament nature . In this regard, the present paper attempted to distinguish between 'ornament' and 'decoration' based on a comparative analysis of the scholars’ accounts and the way the terms were employed in the architectural texts. Results indicated that the aforementioned concepts can be distinguished by means of seven criteria including components, connection, reference source, role, field of application and reference mode. According to the most referred criteria, ornament is an essential part of architecture which creates a firm bonding with its carrier and often fulfills functions more than aesthetic one .It is mostly made up of transformed motifs and evokes natural forces that originate deeply beyond or within the body of building. Decoration on the other hand, is a pleasing arrangement of real things; a suggestion of the decorous which does not have a permanent connection with its carrier. It is also purely representational, due to its reference to external matters such as mythology, religion, history, or cultural practice.  </p>


Author(s):  
Tiago Mesquita Carvalho ◽  

Miguel Torga’s Diário constitutes a unique work in the context of Portuguese literature. Divided in 16 volumes published over 60 years of the XX Century, Diario gives its reader access to several topics of reflection dear to the author. Among these, the topic of landscape is of particular interest, given the originality of its crisscrossing with writing, rurality, the body, technological progress, and Portugal itself. These considerations notwithstanding, Diário does not present a clear and univocal definition of landscape. Given this absence, it is our goal to grasp, in dialogue with other authors, the concept of landscape which Torga himself had in mind. Finally, we will attempt to articulate Torga’s reflections on landscape with the act of diary writing and the related heuristic process of self-gnosis. In consequence, the way in which Diário foreshadows a call for and a valorization of the virtues accompanying a telluric rooting should become clear.


Derrida Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morris

Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’.


Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
David Gindis ◽  
Geoffrey M. Hodgson

Abstract In his recent book on Property, Power and Politics, Jean-Philippe Robé makes a strong case for the need to understand the legal foundations of modern capitalism. He also insists that it is important to distinguish between firms and corporations. We agree. But Robé criticizes our definition of firms in terms of legally recognized capacities on the grounds that it does not take the distinction seriously enough. He argues that firms are not legally recognized as such, as the law only knows corporations. This argument, which is capable of different interpretations, leads to the bizarre result that corporations are not firms. Using etymological and other evidence, we show that firms are treated as legally constituted business entities in both common parlance and legal discourse. The way the law defines firms and corporations, while the product of a discourse which is in many ways distinct from everyday language, has such profound implications for the way firms operate in practice that no institutional theory of the firm worthy of the name can afford to ignore it.


Human Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Slatman

AbstractThis paper aims to mobilize the way we think and write about fat bodies while drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy of the body. I introduce Nancy’s approach to the body as an addition to contemporary new materialism. His philosophy, so I argue, offers a form of materialism that allows for a phenomenological exploration of the body. As such, it can help us to understand the lived experiences of fat embodiment. Additionally, Nancy’s idea of the body in terms of a “corpus”—a collection of pieces without a unity—together with his idea of corpus-writing—fragmentary writing, without head and tail—can help us to mobilize fixed meanings of fat. To apply Nancy’s conceptual frame to a concrete manifestation of fat embodiment, I provide a reading of Roxane Gay’s memoir Hunger (2017). In my analysis, I identify how the materiality of fat engenders the meaning of embodiment, and how it shapes how a fat body can and cannot be a body. Moreover, I propose that Gay’s writing style—hesitating and circling – involves an example of corpus-writing. The corpus of corpulence that Gay has created gives voice to the precariousness of a fat body's materialization.


1973 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-215
Author(s):  
Hanns Ruder

Basic in the treatment of collective rotations is the definition of a body-fixed coordinate system. A kinematical method is derived to obtain the Hamiltonian of a n-body problem for a given definition of the body-fixed system. From this exact Hamiltonian, a consequent perturbation expansion in terms of the total angular momentum leads to two exact expressions: one for the collective rotational energy which has to be added to the groundstate energy in this order of perturbation and a second one for the effective inertia tensor in the groundstate. The discussion of these results leads to two criteria how to define the best body-fixed coordinate system, namely a differential equation and a variational principle. The equivalence of both is shown.


Curationis ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia V. Monareng

Although the concept ‘spiritual nursing care’ has its roots in the history of the nursing profession, many nurses in practice have difficulty integrating the concept into practice. There is an ongoing debate in the empirical literature about its definition, clarity and application in nursing practice. The study aimed to develop an operational definition of the concept and its application in clinical practice. A qualitative study was conducted to explore and describe how professional nurses render spiritual nursing care. A purposive sampling method was used to recruit the sample. Individual and focus group interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. Trustworthiness was ensured through strategies of truth value, applicability, consistency and neutrality. Data were analysed using the NUD*IST power version 4 software, constant comparison, open, axial and selective coding. Tech’s eight steps of analysis were also used, which led to the emergence of themes, categories and sub-categories. Concept analysis was conducted through a comprehensive literature review and as a result ‘caring presence’ was identified as the core variable from which all the other characteristics of spiritual nursing care arise. An operational definition of spiritual nursing care based on the findings was that humane care is demonstrated by showing caring presence, respect and concern for meeting the needs not only of the body and mind of patients, but also their spiritual needs of hope and meaning in the midst of health crisis, which demand equal attention for optimal care from both religious and nonreligious nurses.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-128
Author(s):  
Elliott Karstadt

Many scholars argue that Hobbes’s political ideas do not significantly develop between The Elements of Law (1640) and Leviathan (1651). This article seeks to challenge that assumption by studying the way in which Hobbes’s deployment of the vocabulary of ‘interest’ develops over the course of the 1640s. The article begins by showing that the vocabulary is newly important in Leviathan, before attempting a ‘Hobbesian definition’ of what is meant by the term. We end by looking at the impact that the vocabulary has on two key areas of Hobbes’s philosophy: his theory of counsel and his arguments in favour of monarchy as the best form of government. In both areas, Hobbes’s conception of ‘interests’ is shown to be of crucial importance in lending a new understanding of the political issue under consideration.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID DWAN

Intellectual historians often invoke “romanticism” to account for the origins and conceptual shape of nationalism. In an Irish context, however, this approach has yielded false genealogies of influence and an impaired political understanding. Cast through a “romantic” prism, nationalism is divorced from its conditions of intelligibility, becoming unhelpfully isolated from questions about sovereignty, democratic legitimacy and the nature of modern citizenship. Thus all too often the irrationality that is made part of the definition of “romantic nationalism” is a function of the way that it is interpreted.


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