Power of Darkness: Narrative and Biographical Reflexivity in A Series of Unfortunate Events

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-212
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH BULLEN
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Project Risk ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Earning ◽  
Textual Culture ◽  
Children’S Exposure ◽  
Central Claim

This paper investigates the high-earning children's series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, in relation to the skills young people require to survive and thrive in what Ulrich Beck calls risk society. Children's textual culture has been traditionally informed by assumptions about childhood happiness and the need to reassure young readers that the world is safe. The genre is consequently vexed by adult anxiety about children's exposure to certain kinds of knowledge. This paper discusses the implications of the representation of adversity in the Lemony Snicket series via its subversions of the conventions of children's fiction and metafictional strategies. Its central claim is that the self-consciousness or self-reflexivity of A Series of Unfortunate Events} models one of the forms of reflexivity children need to be resilient in the face of adversity and to empower them to undertake the biographical project risk society requires of them.

scholarly journals The role of the Other in getting to know the self

KÜLÖNBSÉG ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eszter Rembeczki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Practical Life

The paper investigates the role of the other in the emergence and understanding of the self both in Descartes’ philosophy and in phenomenological theories based on Descartes. For Descartes, the thinking entity is almost closed into itself, but upon close inquiry it turns out that ideas of other entities filter into its thinking and eventually influence it. Therefore, the ego’s experience of itself depends of its experience of other ideas, while the ego active in practical life is constituted through its relation to things encountered in the world. In some twentieth-century approaches the ego can only understand itself through another ego. For Husserl, the self comprehends itself as the not-Other, while for Levinas the face of the Other constitutes the self of the Ego receiving it, through their radical difference.

Oneness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Ivanhoe
Keyword(s):  
Health Benefit ◽  
The Self ◽  
Relational View ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The Core ◽  
Human Happiness ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Central Claim ◽  
New View

At the core of this work lie the oneness hypothesis, which is not a single theory but a family of views found in different forms in a wide variety of disciplines, and its implications for theories of virtue and human happiness. The oneness hypothesis concerns the nature of the world, but it entails a view about the nature of the self and its relationship to other people, creatures, and things. Its core assertion is that we are inextricably intertwined with other people, creatures, and things. The connections the oneness hypothesis advocates are specifically those that conduce to the health, benefit, and improvement of both individuals and the larger wholes of which they are parts. The relational view of the self at the heart of the oneness hypothesis offers an alternative to more individualistic accounts. This new view of the self is a more expansive conception of the self, a self that is less self-centered and instead is seen as intimately connected with other people, creatures, and things. A central claim of this work is that a proper understanding of the underlying oneness of the world will lead one to a greater awareness and appreciation of innate inclinations and resources that when fully developed generate a distinctive set of virtues. A life guided by such virtues enables one to locate oneself within grand natural and social orders that facilitate greater spontaneity, security, and metaphysical comfort, resulting in a special, resilient, and enduring form of happiness.

Topologies of the Classical World in Children's Fiction

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Nelson ◽  
Anne Morey
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Cognitive Poetics ◽  
New Era ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adolescent Readers ◽  
Classical World ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Small Parts

This book draws upon cognitive poetics and uses an assortment of works written in Britain and the US for preteen and adolescent readers from 1906 to 2018 to argue that authors typically employ a limited and powerful set of spatial metaphors to organize the classical past for young readers. Popular models include palimpsest texts, which see the past as a collection of strata in which each new era forms a layer superimposed upon a foundation laid earlier; map texts, which use the metaphor of the mappable journey to represent a protagonist’s process of maturing while gaining knowledge of the self and/or the world; and fractal texts, in which small parts of the narrative are thematically identical to the whole in a way that implies that history is infinitely repeatable. While a given text may embrace multiple metaphors in presenting the past, we argue for associations between dominant metaphors, genre, and outlook. Map texts highlight problem-solving and arrival at one’s planned destination; they model an assertive, confident outlook. Palimpsest texts position character and reader as occupying one among many equally important temporal layers; they emphasize the landscape’s continuity but the individual’s impermanence, modeling a more modest vision of one’s place in time. Fractal texts work by analogy, denying difference between past and present and inviting readers to conclude that significant change may be impossible. Thus each model uses the classical past to urge and thus perhaps to develop a particular approach to life.

scholarly journals SELF-CENSORSHIP LICENSED RELIGIOUS OF NEWS MEDIA FOR BALANCED JOURNALISM TO SUPPORT HARMONY AND HUMAN PROGRESS

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amar Ma’ruf
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
News Media ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Self ◽  
Good Image ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Universe

Religion is a belief in the existence of a supernatural power who created and controls the universe. These days, Islam is often associated with terrorism so as to create Islamophobia. Distortion of information by the media decrease the good image of Islam. These days, many acts of terrorism going on in the world, but if not too highlighted if terrorists are not Muslims. Many civilians have been killed in Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries have been killed, but it is not too claimed to be an act of terrorism as well as acts of terrorism that occurred in western countries which incidentally is known culprit is Muslim. One of the ways that have a major impact is the need to be made regarding the rules of self-censorship licensed religious for the news media. Technical implementation of the self-censorship licensed religious use of risk management. The principle is prevention. Prevention of the media to present imbalance in the news much better benefits than giving punishment to the media which wrong in presenting the news. If self-censorship is implemented, not only the equal of news that will be obtained, but the moral improvement of mankind will be achieved, given the media is a tool that easily influence the human mind. Thus proved that the acts of terrorism that confront terrorist act of taking his religion is just a scapegoat in the group seemed to be the face of the religion. Key words: self-cencorship, religious, news, journalism, harmony

The Republicans Pivot

Crackup ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 152-190
Author(s):  
Samuel L. Popkin
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
White House ◽  
Inaugural Speech ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One ◽  
Trade Wars

President Trump’s inaugural speech, a dark vision of “American carnage,” foreshadowed the administration to come. He considered presidential power a monetizable asset to convert into a family fortune, and the GOP—in unified control of Congress but deeply divided as a party—needed him and his voters so much that they exercised only minimal checks and balances. Chapter 6 charts the tempestuous relationship between the president and GOP leaders during a term marked by chaos in the White House and complicity in Congress. Despite a fervent desire to disrupt government, Trump’s West Wing staff was woefully unprepared for the task. In two years of unified control, the one major accomplishment was a massive tax cut for the top 1 percent of the country. His trade wars damaged exports, bankrupted farmers, and hurt American steel producers. His preferences for dictators rattled NATO and set back efforts to control North Korea and Iran. The GOP could not even repeal Obamacare, let alone replace it with something better. Republicans were blown out in the midterm election, losing control of the House, but they maintained their loyalty to Trump, forsaking the rule of law in favor of the rule of public opinion, and acquitting him of impeachment charges in the Senate without calling a single witness. However, the self-inflicted wounds from Trump’s administration were nothing compared to his abdication of leadership in the face of a true global crisis: COVID-19. Soon, the country with the world’s best science and medicine had the most cases and the most deaths in the world.

Streams of the Self

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-116
Author(s):  
Kris Fallon
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Digital Photography ◽  
Smartphone Application ◽  
The Self ◽  
Photographic Observation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Social Profiles

This article offers a working draft of a larger qualitative analysis of the popular smartphone application Instagram. It offers a reading of the ubiquitous contemporary form of self-portraiture, the selfie, locating its origin in the longer evolution of digital photography into a form of social media. Though its function as a basic self-portrait and signifier for our various social profiles appears straightforward, it has somehow become the ‘face’ of online sociality and subjectivity, a portrait of the promise and peril of our online existence. And yet, a closer look at the various feeds and streams in which the selfie appears reveals that it is one genre amongst many, no more or less common than a variety of landscapes, still-lifes, and other modes of photographic observation. Taken together, these various views of the world reveal an emplaced mode of image-driven autobiography, one far more complex and nuanced than a straightforward meme would appear to be. Image Credit: Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Liberation in the Face of Uncertainty

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert J. M. Hermans
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
The Self ◽  
Pursuit Of Happiness ◽  
Dialogical Self ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Dialogical Self Theory ◽  
The Relationship

In this volume, Dialogical Self Theory is innovatively presented as a guide to help elucidate some of the most pressing problems of our time as they emerge at the interface of self and society. As a bridging framework at the interface of the social sciences and philosophy, Dialogical Self Theory provides a broad view of problem areas that place us in a field of tension between liberation and social imprisonment. With climate change and the coronavirus pandemic serving as wake-up calls, the book focuses on the experience of uncertainty, the disenchantment of the world, the pursuit of happiness, and the cultural limitations of the Western self-ideal. Now more than ever we need to rethink the relationship between self, other, and the natural environment, and this book uses Dialogical Self Theory to explore actual and potential responses of the self to these urgent challenges.

scholarly journals Teenage Identity in the Face of the Other in Nnedi Okorafor’s Organic Fantasy

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-139
Author(s):  
Ewa Drab
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Children And Young Adults

The present paper aims at discussing What Sunny Saw in the Flames by Nnedi Okorafor as a fantasy novel for children and young adults focused upon the question of self-identification. In the framework of fiction for younger audiences, the fantasy mode becomes a tool which allows to examine the topics important to young readers, such as identity and their place within the society, by providing a confrontation with the Other. The example of Nnedi Okorafor’s book, known in the USA as Akata Witch, shows how the instrumentation of a fantasy novel enables an exposition of the process in which the protagonist grows on the intellectual, emotional and cultural levels. In other words, the fantasy mode aids in the exploration of Sunny’s American-Nigerian origin, her albinism, coming of age and the comprehension of her identity. Simultaneously, as additional topics emerge from the analysis, it becomes visible that the question of the Self cannot be separated from the concept of the Other, with the lesson of empathy and respect for what is different.

Faciality and Sensation in Hardy's The Return of the Native

PMLA ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Physiological Psychology ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
The Self ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face

In Thomas Hardy's fiction, the human body is the untranscendible foundation of putatively ethereal interior entities such as mind and self. The emerging sciences of physiological psychology and evolutionary biology, with which Hardy was familiar, provide a context in which to understand his bodily materialism. Hardy explores these interests in The Return of the Native through a striking emphasis on the faces of characters and landscape and particularly on sensory perceptions–primarily associated with organs located in the face–as means of bringing the world into the human interior and of dissolving distinctions between subjects and objects. Reading Hardy's materialism with the tools provided by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of faciality elucidates both the fiction and the theoretical model, for the writers share an idea of depsychologized character. For Hardy, as for Deleuze and Guattari, experience of the self and the world is fundamentally corporeal, and perceptual experience makes landscape inextricably contiguous with the human. (WAC)

scholarly journals Escisión, simbolización e integración de la identidad

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-399
Author(s):  
Carlos Rodríguez Sutil ◽  
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Identity And Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The inner-outer dualism, with its associated conception that the mind is a reality isolated from the world, permeates our everyday thinking. This article begins by demonstrating from the philosophy of the twentieth century the unreality of this separation and the stability of internal constructions. Once we isolate the mind in our imagination, we feel authorized to dream of magical shortcuts to overcome the isolation, such as telepathy or, in the psychotic, transparency or the sounding of thoughts, the theft of ideas, the imposition of ideas from the external world. We are not minds, permanent or eternal, inserted in a world that we see passing around us; we are temporary beings. The self is a representation, an internalized metaphor that we turn into a stable but fragile metaphor in the face of a changing reality, which endows us with immortality and consoles us. The psychotic is the one who lives the split because he has not been able to handle the conventionality of that double language, and accept that reality is at the same time fixed and changing, for this reason they need to adhere to permanent objects, with the quality of stable things. The psychotic is the one who believes in the official language at face value, is sick of conventions. If everyone knows the patient's thoughts, in some way this means that the thoughts are not locked in the head, an idea contrary to cultural belief, which produces terror because it is experienced as unnatural, cancels the division of interior and exterior, which means the experience of loss of identity and agency, the lost of control. Delirium is developed as a way of clinging to reality in the face of extreme disavowal of one's perceptions or feelings.

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