Hybridity: A Privilege of a Few or the Necessity for All in Amin Maalouf's In the Name of Identity

Somatechnics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-39
Author(s):  
Khalid Alhathlool
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
World View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subsequent Stage ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Dialogic Process ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Migrant People

This paper critically engages with Amin Maalouf's understanding of identity in his book In the Name of Identity (1997). Maalouf's intervention in the contentious discussion of identity consists of four principle points. Firstly, identity is composite. Secondly, identity is constructed through dialogic process. Thirdly, the understanding of identity today is predominately ‘tribal.’ Finally there is a need for the prevalence of the universal in the ‘era of globalization’. Maalouf's analysis rightly transcends the limitation of essentialist and singular conceptions of identity—in particular- cultural identity—in today's ‘postcolonial’’ world; however, his proposed alternative, and the assumptions upon which it rests, are equally problematic, especially for ‘postcolonial’ societies and immigrants/migrants in ‘Western’ countries. Maalouf's perspective on hybridity is riddled with contradictions: above all, the contradiction between understanding hybridity as a foundational position and as a deconstructive force of fixed identities and naturalised categories. This confusion arises when, on the one hand, cultures are understood as bounded and territorialised and, on the other, individuals are thought to belong simultaneously to these different, bounded cultures in full composite terms. In the first place there is an argument for sustaining purity, while the subsequent stage of identity formation advocates hybridity. Maalouf rejects purity as well as hybridity by appearing to sustain the two simultaneously. He cannot maintain this contradiction except through individualising the conception of identity. This paper argues that while Maalouf is able to problematise notions of ‘essentialist’ identities—what he dubs as ‘murderous identities’—and presents a moderately plausible case for ‘hybridity’, he fails to depart from a hegemonic and reified notion of a ‘universal’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ definition of identity which in effect operates as a code for Eurocentric ideas of identity and being. Thus, Maalouf's ‘speaking for’ postcolonial and migrant people/cultures and ‘speaking back’ against neo-conservative world-view is never quite able to escape the latter's ideological moorings.

scholarly journals DINAMIKA ARSITEKTUR INDONESIA DAN REPRESENTASI ‘POLITIK IDENTITAS’ PASCA REFORMASI

NALARs ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Kemas Ridwan Kurniawan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Time History ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRAK. Menguatnya politik identitas di Indonesia pasca reformasi telah melahirkan formasi arsitektur baru yang tersebar di berbagai daerah di Indonesia. Identitas budaya terkait indigenitas menjadi bagian dari politik identitas yang menurut sebagian pengamat politik disinyalir dimanfaatkan para elit dan penguasa untuk kepentingan politik kekuasaan. Ironisnya, dalam bidang arsitektur, definisi tentang identitas ini justru semakin tidak jelas. Definisi-definisi ini berputar pada debat tentang pencarian jati diri yang tidak pernah selesai dan sering diasosiasikan dengan proses untuk memunculkan jati diri kebudayaan sebagai jawaban atas tantangan universalitas arsitektur modern, globalisasi dan kemajuan teknologi. Makalah ini mencoba mengambil dari sudut pandang yang berbeda yaitu politik identitas dalam silangannya dengan arsitektur (‘space’), waktu (sejarah) dan aspek sosial-politik. Isu yang muncul adalah bagaimana politik identitas perlahan-lahan melanjutkan pengaruhnya dalam formasi arsitektur di Indonesia pasca reformasi, di balik kesalah-pahaman tentang definisi ‘identitas’ dalam debat-debat arsitektur di Indonesia. Hal ini terjadi karena banyak arsitek atau teoretikus arsitektur di Indonesia membatasi dirinya hanya dalam lingkup arsitektur, dan gagal berinteraksi secara lebih luas dengan isu-isu sosio politik. Konsekuensinya, di satu sisi, istilah ‘identitas’ kehilangan pengaruh sosio-politiknya dan direduksi kepada masalah-masalah estetika visual semata, yang mengaburkan identitas arsitektur sebagai suatu konsep sosial budaya. Sementara itu, di sisi lain pemanfaatan identitas sebagai bagian dari komoditas politik juga melanjutkan dinamika yang terjadi di daerah (regional) yaitu warna kekuasaan (power) dalam formasi arsitektur di Indonesia sebagai imbas dari Desentralisasi. Makalah ini mengkritisi perilaku politik identitas yang cenderung berubah menjadi ‘regime’ dalam formasi identitas arsitektur saat ini, dan kurang terangkatnya isu identitas arsitektur dengan dinamika sosio-politik dan keseharian (‘everyday-life’) masyarakat. Kata Kunci: subjektivitas, hibrid, indigenitas, pasca-nasionalisme ABSTRACT. Straighthening the politics of identity in Indonesia after the 1997 political reformation has increased the formation of new architecture which are scattered in various regions in Indonesia. The cultural identity on indigeneity and become part of identity politics. It was exploited by elites and rulers for the sake of power politics. Ironically, in the field of architecture, the definition of this identity is even more unclear. These definitions spin on the debate about the search for identity that was never finished and is often associated with the process to bring a cultural identity as a response to the challenges of modern architecture such as universality, globalization and technological progress. This paper tried to look at architecture (space) in the intersection with time (history) and socio-political aspects. The issue that arises is how the politics of identity is slowly continuing influence in the formation of architecture in Indonesia after the 1997 political reform, under misconceptions about the definition of 'identity' in debates of architecture in Indonesia. This happens because many architects or architectural theorists in Indonesia restricts itself only in the sphere of architecture, and failed to interact more broadly with social and political issues. Consequently, on the one hand, the term 'identity' loss of the socio-political influences and are reduced to a visual aesthetic problems alone, which obscure the identity of architecture as a socio-cultural concept. Meanwhile, on the other hand the use of identity as part of a political commodity also continue the dynamics that occur in the area (regional) is the color of power (power) in the formation of architecture in Indonesia as the impact of decentralization. The paper criticized the behavior of identity politics that tends to turn into a 'regime' in the current architectural identity formation, and less lifting of architecture with issues of identity and everyday social and political dynamics ( 'everyday-life') of community. Keywords: subjectivity, hybrid, indigeneity, post-nationalism

China's Universities since Tiananmen: A Critical Assessment

1993 ◽  
Vol 134 ◽  
pp. 291-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Hayhoe
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Western Influences ◽  
The One ◽  
Considerable Support ◽  
Scientific And Technological Development

China's present leadership sees universities as being of key importance for the country's economic development and for its relationship with Western countries. This is a kind of two-edged sword. On the one hand, considerable support and encouragement for scientific and technological development is provided, together with pressures for scientific findings to be applied to specific economic development needs. On the other, the reflective and theoretical social sciences and the humanities are being purged of Western influences in efforts to mobilize all resources against what is seen as the Western strategy of fostering “peaceful evolution” towards capitalism. The kinds of tension that arise out of this highly contradictory situation are severe.

scholarly journals FOREST IN THE BASHKIRS' VIEW OF THE WORLD

2022 ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
Ю. А. Абсалямова
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
The Other ◽  
Aesthetic Perception ◽  
Food Protection ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Other World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

В статье анализируются особенности восприятия лесного пространства башкирами. На основе языковых, фольклорных материалов сделана попытка раскрыть различные аспекты взаимоотношений лес - человек, образ леса в картине мира башкир. Как и в большинстве традиционных культур, в целом мифологический образ леса носит отрицательный характер. В фольклоре он часто описывается как тёмный, мрачный, неизвестный, таящий опасности, противопоставляясь обжитому и освоенному пространству селений. Лесной пандемониум также представлен в основном отрицательными персонажами. В целом образ леса в традиционной картине мира башкир предстаёт довольно неоднозначным. С одной стороны - это категория, связанная с потусторонним миром, неизведанная, «чужая» территория. С другой - лес издавна являлся источником различных благ - в виде строительного материала, пушнины, различных продуктов питания, укрывал от врагов. The article analyzes the features of Bashkirs' perception of the forest space. On the basis of the materials of the epos, folklore, folk ideas, an attempt was made to reveal the various aspects of the relationship between forest and man, the image of the forest in Bashkirs' world view. As in most traditional cultures, the mythological image of the forest as a whole is negative. In folklore, it is often described as dark, gloomy, unknown, fraught with danger, being contrasted with the inhabited and developed space of the villages. The forest pandemonium is also represented mainly by negative characters. On the other hand, in the domestic perception forest is valued for the benefits derived from it: shelter, food, protection from enemies. In addition, Bashkirs, distinguished by a developed aesthetic perception and contemplative thinking, appreciated its beauty, which is also reflected in folklore. In general, the image of forest in the Bashkirs' traditional view of the world appears rather ambiguous. On the one hand, it is the category associated with the other world, unknown, «foreign» territory. On the other hand, the forest has long been a source of various benefits - in the form of construction materials, furs, various food products, and it sheltered them from enemies.

scholarly journals Emotionally evaluative attitude of parents in the high conflict families to each other and the child

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 126-141
Author(s):  
S.S. Kulakov
Keyword(s):  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Semantic Differential ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dysfunctional Families ◽  
Psychiatric Examination ◽  
High Conflict ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Conflictual Relationship

The increasing number of dysfunctional families causes an increase in the number of civil litigation on the education of the child, where the relationship between the persons are highly conflictual. The actual task is study the one of components in the structure of the psychological relationship - emotional and semantic constructs underlying semantic perception of each other and the child's parents. Examination of 42 testees (parents) from harmonious families and 54 testees (parents) during the forensic psychological and psychiatric examination (regarding the definition of child`s residence or the order of meetings for the child and the parent who don`t live with it) by methods "Geometric test of relations" and "Semantic Differential" showed that in families where is highly conflictual relationship, there is positive assessments of herself and her child, while assessment of the spouse (wife) characterized inversion. This negative attitude toward the spouse (wife) is not the other parent's negative characteristics. It is the ignoring the other parent's positive characteristics. The positive acceptance of all family members was revealed in harmonious families.

scholarly journals Handling i narratologien, litteraturen og livet

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (101) ◽  
pp. 122-139
Author(s):  
Thor Grünbaum
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

Action in Narratology, Literature, and LifeIn this article I argue that the representation of simple, bodily action has the function of endowing the narrative sequence with a visualizing power: It makes the narrated scenes or situations ready for visualization by the reader or listener. By virtue of this visualizing power or disposition, these narrated actions disrupt the theoretical divisions, on the one hand, between the narrated story and the narrating discourse, and on the other hand, between plot-narratology and discourse-narratology. As narrated actions they seem to belong to the domain of plot-narratology, but in so far as they serve an important visualizing function, these narrated actions have a communicative function and as such they can be said to belong to the domain of discourse-narratology. In a first part of the article, I argue that a certain type of plot-narratology, due to its retrospective epistemology and abstract definition of action, is unable to conceive of this visualizing function. In a second part, I argue that discourse-narratology fares no better since the visualizing function is independent of voice and focalization. In a final part, I sketch a possible account of the visualizing function of simple actions in narratives.

Self-Cognizing Intellect and Negative Attributes in Maimonides' Theology

1994 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Kasher
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Guide Of The Perplexed ◽  
Negative Attributes

In his introductory essay on the philosophical sources of The Guide of the Perplexed, Shlomo Pines points out a well-known contradiction between two conceptions of God in Maimonides' theology. On the one hand, Maimonides borrowed the Aristotelian definition of God as the intellect that cognizes itself; on the other, in line with Avicenna's Neoplatonic theory of attributes, Maimonides denied the possibility of saying anything positive about God. Pines proposes two possible solutions; first, that Maimonides was well aware of the contradiction, or, second, that he fell into the contradiction inadvertently. As Pines himself admits, however, neither solution is satisfactory.

Boltanski, L. (2019). Mysteries and conspiracies. Translated by A. Zakharevich. St. Petersburg: Izdatelstvo Evropeyskogo universiteta. (In Russ.)

2021 ◽  
pp. 264-269
Author(s):  
P. A. Moiseev
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Police Procedural ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

The review deals with Luc Boltanski's Mysteries and Conspiracies [Enigmes et complots]. The following is noted as defects of the reviewed book: detective fiction is associated with anxieties that question the framework of modern reality. Such attribution, it is argued, results from inaccurate comparison of detective fiction to a spy novel. The reviewer identifies contradictions in the definition of detective fiction: on the one hand, it is characterised by the proverbial anxiety. On the other, the writer suggests that unravelling a mystery normalises the ‘integrity of predictable expectations.' In addition, Boltanski confuses detective fiction with police procedural novels as well as the concepts of genre and theme with regard to spy novels (as a result, he dwells on ‘the genre of the spy novel,' even though spy novels are written in a number of genres). The review particularly criticises Boltanski's assessment of A. Conan Doyle's prose.

Vladimir Titov’s Letter to Vladimir Odoevsky as a Well-Known Response to Ivan Turgenev’s Article “Hamlet and Don Quixote” (Contemporaries’ Reception of Turgenev’s Interpretation of the Image of Hamlet)

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-116
Author(s):  
Ivan O. Volkov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Library ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
First Time

For the first time, in the article, Vladimir Titov’s letter (dated 12/24 February 1869) is published and commented. In the 1820s, in Russia, Titov was well-known as a writer and literature theorist, the author of a romantic novella The Remote House on Vasilyevsky Island (1829) close to Society of Lyubomudriye. The letter extracted from the archives of the National Library of Russia is addressed to Duke Vladimir Odoevsky whose relationship with Titov was friendly from the very beginning of their acquaintance. The letter focuses on Ivan Turgenev’s speech published in the first issue of Sovremennik and titled “Hamlet and Don Quixote”. Reacting to Turgenev’s article, Titov shortly and critically accesses the comparison concentrating mainly on the image of Hamlet and thoroughly expresses his opinion on the essence of his tragic state. Titov’s opinion is just the opposite of Turgenev’s complex and multidimensional interpretation. Having experienced the great impact of the philosophy of German idealism at the beginning of his career, Titov to a great extent idealizes Shakespeare’s character whom he long knows and whom he is clearly eager to vindicate. Meanwhile, Titov does not pursue the aim to absolutely advocate the romantic halo of Hamlet as a Titanic personality (grandiose intellect and scale of feeling) and to enact the tragic pathos of the inner fight only. Developing Goethe’s definition of the essence of the character’s inner conflict, Titov, on the one hand, approaches its real understanding underlying the prince’s necessity to stay in a derogatory position of a “pitiful semiclown, indecisive grouch and shred”. On the other hand, the assessment can not be absolutely objective because Titov wants to see Hamlet as a victim of the fatal fortune which turns him into a character of an almost classical tragedy of fate. Titov’s bright and developed reaction (in the document of private nature) to Turgenev’s article is attractive and important first of all for its vividly demonstrated novelty and creativity of the writer’s view, wideness and multimodality of the author’s perception of Hamlet’s image. For the first time, Turgenev gave a developed interpretation of Shakespeare’s image in the tale “Hamlet of Shchigrovsky Province” (1848). Continuing his searches in the area of “Russian” (or “steppe”) Hamlet, Turgenev creates moral and philosophical problems of the English tragedy in the crisis socio-historical and cultural atmosphere of Russia of the 1840s. However, the principles of the artistic generalization and the peculiarities of the new reading, not mentioned and not fully comprehended by his contemporaries, were surprising and rejected when the speech “Hamlet and Don Quixote” appeared, in which Shakespeare’s character is presented ultimately vividly and lively in the then current interpretation.

Die Erklärbarkeit von Erfahrung

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Renz
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Subject Theory

Spinoza's ethics is grounded by a conviction which is as simple as it is programmatic: Subjective experience can be explained, and its successful explanation is of ethical relevance. For it makes us smarter, freer and happier. This is the programmatic conviction behind Spinoza's ethics and motivates many of the theses it puts forward. Ursula Renz shows which kind of a theory of the human mind informs this program. The systematic differentiation of theory parts in the architecture of ethics proves to be a decisive move: A theory part that deals with questions of the ontology of the mental is followed by a definition of the human mind as a kind of subject theory, which in turn is separated from a theory part dealing with the constitution of content. This structure makes it possible to deal separately with different problems that arise in the course of the explanation of experience. In the end, Spinoza succeeds in avoiding both reductionisms and skepticisms right from the start. In this way, two intuitions are brought together that are often considered incompatible: on the one hand, the view that experience is something irreducibly subjective, and on the other hand, the assumption that there are better and worse explanations of experience.

Approaches to a Concept of Simulation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Hinterwaldner
Keyword(s):  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Computer Simulations ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
The Other ◽  
Single Spectrum ◽  
Media Philosophy ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

It can be shown that the different conceptions of ‘simulation’ (the one of culture critique on the one hand and the denomination of technical applications on the other) that seem to be incompatible with each other can be reconciled on a single spectrum. Its basis in models, its replacement of reality, its lack of reference and of precession of the referent are some pejorative characteristics often emphasized in media philosophy with regard to simulations, for which the sciences applying computer simulations have no use for. It helps crossing over the views that first seem opposite to each other, but that turn out to be compatible if its root in reality is recognized and thus the representational logic is accepted at least according to the intention. The chapter combines ideas of the 'simulacrum' retrieved in the natural sciences with traces of cybernetic thinking in media studies. The whole study builds on a definition of computer simulation in the technical sense as the involvement with and the act of execution f a dynamic mathematic or procedural model that projects, depicts, or recreates a system or process.

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