scholarly journals On Being Consumed: The Martyred Body as a Site of Divine—Human Encounter in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 637
Author(s):  
Peter-Ben Smit
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Literary Heritage ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Way

The manner in which humans and the divine are brought into communion with each other, a key aspect of many religious traditions, is frequently, if not always, material (or sacramental) in character. Meals and food play an important role in this; such meals can include the consumption of the deity (theophagy), as well as the consumption of the human being by the deity. This paper takes its cue from the discussion of constructions of divine–human communion and explores this subject in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (early second century CE). It shows how in the literary heritage of this bishop, the body as the physical site of martyrdom is of key importance, in particular due to its consumption in the Roman arena. This martyrdom is the way in which Ignatius hopes to enter into perfect communion with the divine. The body thus becomes, in its annihilation, the instrument through which divine–human communion is established. As this all relates to a case of martyrdom, Ignatius’ ideas about the body are also subversive in character: the punishment of his body is, through his theological imagination, transformed into a means of achieving Ignatius’ goal in life: attaining to God.

Body and Soul

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Frances Young
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Body And Soul

This chapter demonstrates how arguments about creation and resurrection in the second century ensured that by the fourth century even those Christian thinkers with the most leanings toward Neoplatonism would espouse the view that the union of soul with body was constitutive of human being as a creature among creatures, and so a necessary aspect of the reconstitution of the human person at the resurrection. Soul-body dualism is often treated as the default anthropological position in antiquity, but the fourth-century anthropological treatise of Nemesius of Emesa shows that, despite huge debts to the legacies of philosophy, creation and resurrection, though barely mentioned, in fact shape his conclusion that the body-soul union is fundamental to what a human being is; the same is true, for example, of the Cappadocian Gregories and Augustine.

Animalizing the Slave: the Truth of Fiction

2000 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 110-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Wild Animal ◽  
The Body ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Slave Owner ◽  
The Way

In his discussion of natural slavery in the first book of thePolitics(1254a17–1254b39), Aristotle notoriously assimilates human slaves to non-human animals. Natural slaves, Aristotle maintains (1254b16–20), are those who differ from others in the way that the body differs from the soul, or in the way that an animal differs from a human being; and into this category fall ‘all whose function is bodily service, and who produce their best when they supply such service’. The point is made more explicit in the argument (1254b20–4) that the capacity to be owned as property and the inability fully to participate in reason are defining characteristics of the natural slave: ‘Other animals do not apprehend reason but obey their instincts. Even so there is little divergence in the way they are used; both of them (slaves and tame animals) provide bodily assistance in satisfying essential needs’ (1254b24–6). Slaves and animals are not actually equated in Aristotle's views, but the inclination of the slave-owner in classical antiquity, or at least a representative of the slave-owning classes, to associate the slave with the animal is made evident enough. It appears again in Aristotle's later statement (1256b22–6) that the slave was as appropriate a target of hunting as the wild animal.

scholarly journals The Concept of Identity in the Technological Era

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Razec ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Way ◽  
Effective History

We are currently witnessing a process of redefinition of the social structures that we are part of, through the new technologies, which are gradually entering all sectors of our lives, influencing the way we think, live, and relate to others. Since man is essentially a “political animal”, designed to evolve within a community, what impact will the digitalization era have on his behavior, especially when the physical limits imposed by the body are progressively disappearing? The objective of this study is to explore some of the subtle, but sure transformations of human behavior in the technological era, with a particular emphasis on the process of communication, personal feelings, and identity. In a more connected world than ever, where absolutely everything can be quantified, physical reality is in danger of being replaced by the virtual one. In this dynamic, the body could gradually become the only real impediment on the way to progress. Engaged in this alert race, we risk being dehumanized, in an attempt to be as similar as possible to the machines, which, undisturbed by the feelings, experiences, and behavioral predispositions specific to the human being, operate more accurately and are more effective. History shows that man essentially remains the same, with each age illustrating another facet of him. This is why, a thorough education from an early age is needed both in terms of the consequences of digitization and the means to cope with it, thus preventing us from distorting our essence.

The Body in Contemplation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic System ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Material Body ◽  
Contemplative Practices ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
The Way

This chapter follows the process by which a highly detailed account of the human being as bodily being emerges through a series of contemplative practices described in the fifth century by Buddhaghosa in The Path of Purification, a Theravada Buddhist manual. In the first three practices studied, meditation practices are described that disrupt intuitions about the stability of subject and objects, intuitions held to lead to entanglement in suffering. The monk seeking disentanglement comes to be attentive of the way that an apparent sense of isolation of human from environment and of separation of subject from material body is dissolved. The fourth practice addresses the constitution of phenomenology, by analysis of experience through the abhidhamma categories taught by the Buddha. What results is a creative destabilization of any fixed tripartite ontology of subject–body–world, leaving a methodologically sustained practice of treating the human as a phenomenologically dynamic system of analytic categories.

“They said we ruined the character and our religion”: authenticity and legitimation of hijab cosplay

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hounaida El Jurdi ◽  
Mona Moufahim ◽  
Ofer Dekel
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Youth Subculture ◽  
Visual Impact ◽  
And Performance ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Way

Purpose This research is positioned at the intersection of youth subculture consumption and religious affiliation, through the study of observant Muslim women involved in the highly engaging and codified activity of cosplay. Given authenticity is central to the cosplay visual impact and performance, this study aims to understand the way hijab cosplayers negotiate tensions between authentic body performativity and the observance of religious dressing codes. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative interpretive approach was used to address the research questions. In-depth semi-structured online interviews were conducted with 25 members of a hijab cosplayers from South East Asia. Findings The concept of authenticity emerged as multifaceted for hijab cosplayers, where they manage three different aspect of the authentic cosplay performance as follows: authenticity as a cosplayer (social dimension of authenticity), authenticity to the character (personal dimension of authenticity) and authenticity to their religious identity (religious dimension of authenticity). The subsequent malleable authenticity is used to legitimate cosplay as an acceptable performative practice from a religious and from subcultural view. Originality/value The research highlights how tensions between identity and performativity of the body are negotiated. More specifically, the study contributes to the understanding of the way hijab cosplayers reconcile tensions between religious identity and the performativity of the body. Given the role of the body as a site for negotiating identity, this study provides important insights in the tensions and strategies at the intersection of authenticity, embodiment and religious identity in youth cultures.

Race, place and bodily difference in early nineteenth-century India*

2004 ◽  
Vol 77 (196) ◽  
pp. 254-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Bodily Difference ◽  
A Site ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
The Way

Abstract Changing ideas of race, place and bodily difference played a crucial part in the way in which the British in India thought about themselves, and more especially about Indians, in the half-century leading up to the Mutiny and Rebellion of 1857. But in seeking to make this case, this article aims to do more than merely illustrate the importance of ‘the body’ to the ideology and practice of nineteenth-century colonialism in one of its principal domains. Without, I hope, invoking too crass and simplistic a binary divide, it seeks to restate an argument about colonialism as a site of profound (and physically-grounded) difference. Binary divisions and dichotomous ideas may have passed out of favour of late among historians, with a growing barrage of attacks on Edward Said and Orientalism.1 But even if Orientalism provides an unreliable guide to the complex heterogeneity of imperial history, there is an equal danger that, in reacting so strongly against ideas of ‘otherness’, historians may too readily overlook or unduly diminish the ways in which ideas of difference were mobilized, in ideology and in practice, in the service of an imperial power.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

The Space of Difference in Law: Inquests into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody

Somatechnics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherene H. Razack
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
The Body ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
Aboriginal Community ◽  
Police Custody ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
Clear Sign ◽  
A Site ◽  
Deaths In Custody

Paul Alphonse, a 67 year-old Aboriginal died in hospital while in police custody. A significant contributing factor to his death was that he was stomped on so hard that there was a boot print on his chest and several ribs were broken. His family alleged police brutality. The inquest into the death of Paul Alphonse offers an opportunity to explore the contemporary relationship between Aboriginal people and Canadian society and, significantly, how law operates as a site for managing that relationship. I suggest that we consider the boot print on Alphonse's chest and its significance at the inquest in these two different ways. First, although it cannot be traced to the boot of the arresting officer, we can examine the boot print as an event around which swirls Aboriginal/police relations in Williams Lake, both the specific relation between the arresting officer and Alphonse, and the wider relations between the Aboriginal community and the police. Second, the response to the boot print at the inquest sheds light on how law is a site for obscuring the violence in Aboriginal people's lives. A boot print on the chest of an Aboriginal man, a clear sign of violence, comes to mean little because Aboriginal bodies are considered violable – both prone to violence, and bodies that can be violated with impunity. Law, in this instance in the form of an inquest, stages Aboriginal abjection, installing Aboriginal bodies as too damaged to be helped and, simultaneously to harm. In this sense, the Aboriginal body is homo sacer, the body that maybe killed but not murdered. I propose that the construction of the Aboriginal body as inherently violable is required in order for settlers to become owners of the land.

Myriad Aspects of Secular Thinking on Malayali Cuisine

GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-206
Author(s):  
SAJITHA M
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Social Indicators ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Healthy Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civilized Society

Food is one of the main requirements of human being. It is flattering for the preservation of wellbeing and nourishment of the body.  The food of a society exposes its custom, prosperity, status, habits as well as it help to develop a culture. Food is one of the most important social indicators of a society. History of food carries a dynamic character in the socio- economic, political, and cultural realm of a society. The food is one of the obligatory components in our daily life. It occupied an obvious atmosphere for the augmentation of healthy life and anticipation against the diseases.  The food also shows a significant character in establishing cultural distinctiveness, and it reflects who we are. Food also reflected as the symbol of individuality, generosity, social status and religious believes etc in a civilized society. Food is not a discriminating aspect. It is the part of a culture, habits, addiction, and identity of a civilization.Food plays a symbolic role in the social activities the world over. It’s a universal sign of hospitality.[1]

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