scholarly journals At the Crossroads of Modernity: Critical Anthropology in Contemporary Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-70
Author(s):  
Monika Baer

This article addresses anthropological involvement in a political sphere constituted by the politicization of “difference” in European modernity projects, and in this context, especially conflicts related to gender, sexuality, race, nationality/ethnicity, or religious beliefs, which result in visions of antagonized, political Others. The author refers to the autoethnographic perspective and discusses her own disciplinary practices from the mid-nineties to today, pointing to the positive and negative sides of those practices. She first discusses the idea of critical anthropology as an element of academic activist debates within gender and queer studies. Then she looks at a more academic position, which makes critical anthropology into an instrument for creating images of a better future. Ultimately, she advocates a vision of critical anthropology that focuses on affective agency, thanks to which conflicting factions may perceive shared experiences and feelings. She does not assume that this kind of critical engagement is capable of bringing about broader social or political change, but believes it could make a contribution to acceptance of the Other on the micro-scale.

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-89
Author(s):  
Mohammed El-Msaoui

Many debates between Islamists and secularists have taken place in the Arab political sphere with the aim of building bridges of communication between the two actors who contributed to the transformations that have taken place in the Arab world. Despite the multiple dialogues between Islamists and secularists, conflict and tension have prevailed on both sides, with conflict taking on all forms of material and moral violence. One of the most significant indicators of the crisis in communication is the emergence of violence. That being so, this study broaches the problem using Habermas’s basic idea, which focuses on violence as a disease of human discourse and communication. According to Habermas, violence is the result of distorted discourse between fundamentalists and others; it is a distorted discourse because it does not recognize the other as it is. The study employs the Habermas communicative action theory as a central concept. Accordingly, Habermas’s theory of communication is invoked to understand the causes of the escalation of violence in the Arab political sphere.


Author(s):  
J. C. D. Clark

Paine showed throughout his career a historically well-informed awareness of the shortcomings of English monarchs after 1688 and 1714, whom he regarded as usurpers: it was a practical critique that fed his antipathy to monarchy in general. Rather than republicanism, this chapter establishes Paine’s personal links with the ‘Patriot’ opposition to Sir Robert Walpole’s ministry, a movement that had a religiously freethinking element and drew on reconfigured Jacobitism. By contrast, Paine employed none of the other political languages available to him. Instead, Paine spoke a language of anti-Jacobitism; this chapter explores how many of his contemporaries trod a path ‘from Jacobite to Jacobin’. Nor were these old world preoccupations only; this chapter shows how they were shared in the American colonies.


Author(s):  
Adrian Curtis

Knowledge of the religion of ancient Syria has increased significantly in recent years thanks to key archaeological discoveries. Particularly important have been those from Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), which may offer the best window available for an understanding of Canaanite religious beliefs and practices. Excavations have revealed structures of religious significance, such as temples, sanctuaries, and tombs, as well as numerous texts. Of special interest are those mythological texts which tell the exploits of Baal, El, and the other great gods. There are also legends, sacrifice lists, pantheon lists, and prescriptions for various rituals. Some of these, notably the legends of Keret, and of Danel and his son Aqhat, provide evidence for beliefs about the religious status and significance of the king. This material enables a more considered understanding of ideas and practices that may have impacted upon Israelite religion.


Babel ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Ivo R.V. Hoefkens

Marguerite Yourcenar, known as an author, is also the translator of about a dozen works. My purpose here is to trace the evolution of her oeuvre in the field of translation in relation to her literary output. I have divided the former into three distinct periods, the first of which covers the closing years of the 1930s, when Marguerite Yourcenar translated Virginia Woolf's The Waves and Henry James's What Maisie Knew. Her interest in these authors is to a large extent stylistic. On the other hand, the translation of Constantin Cavafy's poetry, which was begun during the same period, reflects the intimist themes to be found in Marguerite Yourcenar's early narratives {Alexis and the others), although she was then already seeking out other thematic sources. The translation was only published in 1958. It consequently falls within a second period: that of the "présentations critiques" (critical commentaries). These major efforts in translation {Présentation critique de Constantin Cavafy, La Couronne et la Lyre, Fleuve profonde, Sombre rivière) are marked by a manifest preoccupation with the aesthetic. But themes of a more universal character and engagement in the socio-political sphere also enter into the choice of the texts for translation (negro spirituals, Présentation critique d'Hortense Flexner). These translations were contemporaneous with the creation of Marguerite Yourcenar's most important novels, namely Mémoires d'Hadrien and L'OEuvre au Noir. The last of the three periods, the 1980s, finds her tackling far less ambitious projects, the function of which tends increasingly towards ethical communication. The only one of them that bears any resemblance to the "présentations critiques" is the essay on Yukio Mishima and the translation of Cinq Nô Modernes, assuming that these are to be considered as an ensemble. Here, as elsewhere, it also emerges that Marguerite Yourcenar is largely indifferent to the existence of other translations.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512110285
Author(s):  
Tim Snelson ◽  
William R. Macauley

This introduction provides context for a collection of articles that came out of a research symposium held at the Science Museum's Dana Research Centre in 2018 for the ‘ Demons of Mind: the Interactions of the ‘Psy’ Sciences and Cinema in the Sixties' project. Across a range of events and research outputs, Demons of the Mind sought to map the multifarious interventions and influences of the ‘psy’ sciences (psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis) on film culture in the long 1960s. The articles that follow discuss, in order: critical engagement with theories of child development in 1960s British science fiction; the ‘horrors’ of contemporary psychiatry and neuroscience portrayed in the Hollywood blockbuster The Exorcist (1973); British social realist filmmakers' alliances with proponents of ‘anti-psychiatry’; experimental filmmaker Jane Arden's coalescence of radical psychiatry and radical feminist techniques in her ‘psychodrama’ The Other Side of the Underneath (1973); and the deployment of film technologies by ‘psy’ professionals during the post-war period to capture and interpret mother-infant interaction.


Author(s):  
Svetlana M. Klimova ◽  

The article examines the phenomenon of the late Lev Tolstoy in the context of his religious position. The author analyzes the reactions to his teaching in Russian state and official Orthodox circles, on the one hand, and Indian thought, on the other. Two sociocultural images of L.N. Tolstoy: us and them that arose in the context of understanding the position of the Russian Church and the authorities and Indian public and religious figures (including Mahatma Gandhi, who was under his influence). A peculiar phenomenon of intellectually usL.N. Tolstoy among culturally them (Indian) correspondents and intellectually them Tolstoy among culturally us (representatives of the official government and the Church of Russia) transpires. The originality of this situation is that these im­ages of Lev Tolstoy arise practically at the same period. The author compares these images, based on the method of defamiliarisation (V. Shklovsky), which allows to visually demonstrate the religious component of Tolstoy’s criticism of the political sphere of life and, at the same time, to understand the psychological reasons for its rejection in Russian official circles. With the methodological help of defamiliarisation the author tries to show that the opinion of Tolstoy (as the writer) becomes at the same time the voice of conscience for many of his con­temporaries. The method of defamiliarisation allowed the author to show how Leo Tolstoy’s inner law of nonviolence influenced the concept of non­violent resistance in the teachings of Gandhi.


2007 ◽  
pp. 18-26
Author(s):  
Dmytro V. Bazyk

At the present stage of scientific research, one of the undefined problems in religious studies is, first of all, the problem of the expediency and relevance of the use of the term "primitive religions" or "primitive religious beliefs" in relation to both representatives of Aboriginal peoples of the present and the analysis of the development of religions in the history of forms of religion. discovered in general. The problem of determining the original religion and its forms of expression is somewhat compounded by the fact that the use of special terminology in theoretical developments depends not only on the various features of research methodological approaches, but also on the language in which studies are commonly published. Therefore, the use of one or the other terminology requires the isolation of a possible synonym for relatively adequate nomination (naming) of these religious manifestations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 609-610 ◽  
pp. 64-67
Author(s):  
Xiao Ni Ma ◽  
Li Hua Zhang ◽  
Li Xue Zheng ◽  
Zhan Hua Yang ◽  
Qing Gao ◽  
...  

Anodic spark deposition (ASD) is a novel technique to deposit bioceramic films on the surface of titanium (Ti) and its alloys, and the films prepared with nano/micro scale pores are characterized by high-quality performance for dental implant. Among the process parameters, electrolyte provides a leading role owing to its vital influence not only on the films chemistry but also on the electrical conductivity of the circuit, which affects the film properties. In this study, titania porous films were synthesized by ASD and the effect of electrolytic temperature on microstructure and chemical composition of the films was studied. The results show that the electrolytic temperature could significantly influence the surface topography, thickness and chemical composition of the oxidation films produced by ASD and, therefore, determined the layered hydroapatite (HA) deposition as the other process parameters were fixed.


Author(s):  
Arnold Anthony Schmidt

This chapter takes an original approach to Byron’s much-discussed engagement with the early Risorgimento by focusing not on biographical aspects, but rather on formal issues. It centres on The Two Foscari in the context of the highly politicised contemporary Italian critical debates about the dramatic unities. In this fashion, it teases out the political implications of Byron’s adherence to the unities by comparing his play to Alessandro Manzoni’s Il conte di Carmagnola, which programmatically violates them. Focusing specifically on the playwrights’ representations of the fifteenth-century mercenary leader, Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola, the chapter explores these writers’ use or abuse of the unity of time, in particular. In doing so, it throws light on, and contrasts, Manzoni’s Risorgimento agenda on the one hand and Byron’s generally sceptical attitude about leadership and uncertainty about social and political change on the other.


Author(s):  
Joseph Arthur Mann

After the Parliamentarian faction defeated, captured, and executed Charles I in the last years of the 1640s, their quest for political power shifted to establishing and maintaining a new cultural orthodoxy based in Calvinist morality and to solidifying their new-found political power. At the same time, the recently defeated and oppressed Royalist faction sought to maintain their own culture in the face of this new Calvinist orthodoxy. Chapter two examines and exposes how both of these groups made use of musical propaganda to support these conflicting agendas. Parliamentarians hired propagandists or otherwise sanctioned and promoted publications that endorsed psalm-singing (an integral part of the new orthodoxy) and defended it from the even more radical religious beliefs of the Quakers, who were even against psalm-singing in worship services. Royalists, on the other hand, kept the court culture of wine, pastoral imagery, and (now covert) support for the monarchy alive while also reliving their glorious antebellum period through the publication of old antebellum songs and masque libretti and the publication of new songs that comment on the current state of their community, urging perseverance and unity in the face of oppression.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document