scholarly journals “Beautiful and New”: The Logic of Complementarity in Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 620
Author(s):  
Adam Beyt
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Dimorphism ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Theology Of The Body ◽  
Catholic Theological ◽  
Title Character

This article suggests that reading John Cameron Mitchell’s musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch as a religious classic undermines the logic of complementarity within Catholic theological anthropology, particularly the Theology of the Body of John Paul II. A religious classic, a term coined by theologian David Tracy, describes a work with an “excess of meaning” that offers hope and resistance against a normative social structure. Hedwig resists the hegemonic structure of sexual dimorphism, as represented by the logic of complementarity operative within the Theology of the Body. This theological anthropology proposes a normative framework for human beings as gendered and sexual agents who “complete” each other through heterosexual and monogamous marital acts, reinforcing heterosexist and transphobic bodily norms. The work of Judith Butler helps illuminate the embodied performance of gender that the musical so brilliantly subverts. Hedwig, while toying with gender norms, also undermines the idea of the logic of complementarity—namely, that each person has another “half” that will cause completion, bringing human flourishing. In the title character not finding a version of “completeness” by the end of the show, the musical, thus, offers hope for those who cannot fit into gendered bodily norms.

scholarly journals How does justice smell? Reflections on space and place, justice and the body

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Meiring
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
University Of Pretoria ◽  
The University ◽  
Contextual Ministry

Flowing from a joint consultation on Spatial Justice and Reconciliation on 21–22 September 2015, hosted by the Centre for Contextual Ministry and the Ubuntu Research Project of the University of Pretoria, this article reflects on the notions of space and justice from the perspective of a contemporary theological anthropology as ‘embodied sensing’, where the making of meaning is sensed in the body. The argument is put forward that spatial justice is an embodied endeavour and that it cannot be achieved disconnected from the bodies of the persons in the concrete context where justice is strived for and where bodies can flourish. The relation between spatial justice, sense of place, human flourishing and the embodied sensing of meaning is explored.

scholarly journals The (female) situated musical body

Per Musi ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Cecilia Ferm Almqvist ◽  
Linn Hentschel
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Phenomenological Studies ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
Higher Secondary Education

The starting point for the study presented in this article is constituted by experiences of using Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy and Iris Marion Young theories aiming to describe and understand the becoming of musical women in Swedish schools. Earlier research conducted outside the area of music shows that Beauvoir’s theories can help to explain – and provide means of change for – situations where there is a risk that traditional gender roles will be conserved. A majority of gender studies in the field of music education are based on the performativity theory of Judith Butler. In comparison, de Beauvoir states that repetitions and habits are stratified in the body as experiences, and that human beings are able to make choices in a situation. The aim of the study is to explore how caring is nurtured among girls in Swedish music educational settings. Material generated through two phenomenological studies conducted within specialist music programs in lower respectively higher secondary education in Sweden, constituted the empirical base for conducting re-analysis. This re-analysis followed a hermeneutical phenomenological analytical model. Examples of how caring seemed to be nurtured among girls in music education appeared at different levels and in different situations. It concerns actions made by the girls aiming to make the social and musical setting function in agreed upon ways, namely in the form of taking initiatives, filling “gaps”, and being flexible. Finally we reflect upon causes and changes in relation to actions that seem to establish and maintain female students as immanent, and non-able to run their own projects.

All Animals Are Equal, or Are They? The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Animal Epistle and its Unhappy End

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarra Tlili
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Final Outcome ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Main Text ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Privileged Status

The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s animal epistle is an intriguing work. Although in the body of the narrative the authors challenge anthropocentric preconceptions and present nonhuman animals in a more favourable light than human beings, inexplicably, the narrative ends by reconfirming the privileged status of humans. The aim of this paper is to propose an explanation for this discrepancy. I argue that the egalitarian message reflected in the body of the narrative is traceable back to the Qur'an, the main text with which the authors engage in the fable, whereas the final outcome is due to the Ikhwān's hierarchical worldview.

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

An ayurvedic tablet formulation for ulcer protection

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 35-38
Author(s):  
Shiva Kumar K ◽  
Purushothaman M ◽  
Soujanya H ◽  
Jagadeeshwari S
Keyword(s):  
Pharmacological Activity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gastric Ulcers ◽  
Antiulcer Activity ◽  
Herbal Drugs ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Synthetic Drugs ◽  
Scientific Investigations ◽  
System A ◽  
The World

Gastric ulcers or the peptic ulcer is the primary disease that affects the gastrointestinal system. A large extent of the population in the world are suffering from the disease, and the age group of people those who suffer from ulcers are 20-55years. Herbs are known to the human beings that are useful in the treatment of diseases, and there are a lot of scientific investigations that prove the pharmacological activity of herbal drugs. Practitioners have been using the herbal material to treat the ulcers successfully, and the same had been reported scientifically. Numerous publications have been made that proves the antiulcer activity of the plants around the world. The tablets were investigated for the antiulcer activity in two doses 200 and 400mg/kg in albino Wistar rats in the artificial ulcer those are induced by the ethanol. The prepared tablets showed a better activity compared to the standard synthetic drug and the marketed ayurvedic formulation. The tablets showed a dose-dependent activity in ulcer prevention and treatment. Many synthetic drugs are available for the ulcer treatment, and the drugs pose the other problems in the body by showing the side effects and some other reactions. This limits the use of synthetic drugs to treat ulcers effectively. Herbs are known to the human beings that are useful in the treatment of diseases, and there are a lot of scientific investigations that prove the pharmacological activity of herbal drugs.

A Rapture of the Nerds? A Comparison between Transhumanist Eschatology and Christian Parousia

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-367
Author(s):  
Roberto Paura
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Point Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Species ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

Transhumanism is one of the main “ideologies of the future” that has emerged in recent decades. Its program for the enhancement of the human species during this century pursues the ultimate goal of immortality, through the creation of human brain emulations. Therefore, transhumanism offers its fol- lowers an explicit eschatology, a vision of the ultimate future of our civilization that in some cases coincides with the ultimate future of the universe, as in Frank Tipler’s Omega Point theory. The essay aims to analyze the points of comparison and opposition between transhumanist and Christian eschatologies, in particular considering the “incarnationist” view of Parousia. After an introduction concern- ing the problems posed by new scientific and cosmological theories to traditional Christian eschatology, causing the debate between “incarnationists” and “escha- tologists,” the article analyzes the transhumanist idea of mind-uploading through the possibility of making emulations of the human brain and perfect simulations of the reality we live in. In the last section the problems raised by these theories are analyzed from the point of Christian theology, in particular the proposal of a transhuman species through the emulation of the body and mind of human beings. The possibility of a transhumanist eschatology in line with the incarnationist view of Parousia is refused.

Influence of Ascorbic Acid on the Structure and Function of Alpha-2- macroglobulin: Investigations using Spectroscopic and Thermodynamic Techniques

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-209
Author(s):  
Syed Saqib Ali ◽  
Mohammad Khalid Zia ◽  
Tooba Siddiqui ◽  
Haseeb Ahsan ◽  
Fahim Halim Khan
Keyword(s):  
Ascorbic Acid ◽  
Conformational Changes ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Titration Calorimetry ◽  
Spectroscopic Techniques ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Plasma Ascorbic Acid ◽  
Dietary Antioxidant ◽  
And Function

Background: Ascorbic acid is a classic dietary antioxidant which plays an important role in the body of human beings. It is commonly found in various foods as well as taken as dietary supplement. Objective: The plasma ascorbic acid concentration may range from low, as in chronic or acute oxidative stress to high if delivered intravenously during cancer treatment. Sheep alpha-2- macroglobulin (α2M), a human α2M homologue is a large tetrameric glycoprotein of 630 kDa with antiproteinase activity, found in sheep’s blood. Methods: In the present study, the interaction of ascorbic acid with alpha-2-macroglobulin was explored in the presence of visible light by utilizing various spectroscopic techniques and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). Results: UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy suggests the formation of a complex between ascorbic acid and α2M apparent by increased absorbance and decreased fluorescence. Secondary structural changes in the α2M were investigated by CD and FT-IR spectroscopy. Our findings suggest the induction of subtle conformational changes in α2M induced by ascorbic acid. Thermodynamics signatures of ascorbic acid and α2M interaction indicate that the binding is an enthalpy-driven process. Conclusion: It is possible that ascorbic acid binds and compromises antiproteinase activity of α2M by inducing changes in the secondary structure of the protein.

‘You be my body for me’

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Kellogg
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
The Body ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Current Shift

Judith Butler and Catherine Malabou’s recent exchange, ‘You Be My Body for Me: Body, Shape and Plasticity in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit’, is remarkable because in their rereading of Hegel’s famous lord and bondsman parable, rather than focusing on recognition, work, or even desire, Butler and Malabou each wonder about how Hegel contributes to a new way of thinking about ‘having’ a body and how coming to ‘be’ a body necessarily involves a kind of dispossession. Butler and Malabou’s reading of Hegel is congruent with a current shift on the left away from a liberal politics of recognition to a (post-)Marxist analytic of dispossession: a move, in other words, away from liberal ‘solutions’ of redistribution – of either goods or recognition – towards thinking through issues of settler colonialism, forced migration and empire. Butler and Malabou’s piece points towards the insight that Hegel’s parable must be thought in terms of the political history of possessive individualism, and so in terms of the history of juridically defined property relations; the history of regarding both the body and the land as property. The ‘two valences’ of dispossession, in other words, refers in fact to a logic of property relations, one between those who ‘have’ property (either land or the property of their own bodies) and those who are juridically defined as propertyless.

Medicine: Experimentation, Politics, Emergent Bodies

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Michael ◽  
Marsha Rosengarten
Keyword(s):  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Medical Evidence ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Randomized Controlled

In this introduction, we address some of the complexities associated with the emergence of medicine’s bodies, not least as a means to ‘working with the body’ rather than simply producing a critique of medicine. We provide a brief review of some of the recent discussions on how to conceive of medicine and its bodies, noting the increasing attention now given to medicine as a technology or series of technologies active in constituting a multiplicity of entities – bodies, diseases, experimental objects, the individualization of responsibility for health and even the precarity of life. We contrast what feminist theorists in the tradition of Judith Butler have referred to as the question of matter, and Science and Technology Studies with its focus on practice and the nature of emergence. As such we address tensions that exist in analyses of the ontological status of ‘the body’ – human and non-human – as it is enacted in the work of the laboratory, the randomized controlled trial, public health policy and, indeed, the market that is so frequently entangled with these spaces. In keeping with the recent turns toward ontology and affect, we suggest that we can regard medicine as concerned with the contraction and reconfiguration of the body’s capacities to affect and be affected, in order to allow for the subsequent proliferation of affects that, according to Bruno Latour, marks corporeal life. Treating both contraction and proliferation circumspectly, we focus on the patterns of affects wrought in particular by the abstractions of medicine that are described in the contributions to this special issue. Drawing on the work of A.N. Whitehead, we note how abstractions such as ‘medical evidence’, the ‘healthy human body’ or the ‘animal model’ are at once realized and undercut, mediated and resisted through the situated practices that eventuate medicine’s bodies. Along the way, we touch on the implications of this sort of perspective for addressing the distribution of agency and formulations of the ethical and the political in the medical eventuations of bodies.

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