scholarly journals The Summer Dream and the Collective Notion of Identity in Ed Bullins’s In the Wine Time

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-50
Author(s):  
Hamzeh Al-Jarrah
Keyword(s):  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
Existential Philosophy ◽  
Black Ghetto ◽  
Black Individual ◽  
Realistic Image ◽  
Black Existentialism

Abstract This article argues that Ed Bullins’s play In the Wine Time (1968) presents collective existential black consciousness. The play showcases a collective struggle against the oppressive reality through depicting a realistic image of the depressing life of the blacks in the black ghetto. This stems from the idea that Black existential philosophy and Black existential drama present a collective notion of existence rather than the individualistic notion of existence presented by traditional, European existentialism. Bullins builds this notion among his characters throughout the scenes of the play. To this end, the play characterizes a dialogue between the individualistic level of existence and the collective one through calling on for improving the oppressive reality through choice and opportunity. The collective struggle the play shows throughout the performance intends to free the black individual, as freeing the black individual is the first step toward achieving the collective freedom. Keywords: collective consciousness, black drama, black existentialism, Ed Bullins, In the Wine Time

Sufi Springs: Air on an Oud String

CounterText ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Rooney
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Initial Part ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Mimetic Desire ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Will ◽  
Arts Activism

The initial part of Caroline Rooney's essay offers an incisive account of the author's experience of Cairo in the years leading up to the 2011 uprisings that led to the end of Hosni Mubarak's rule. Rooney's narrative evinces an active Downtown cosmopolitan spirit characterised by a burgeoning sense of ‘audacity’ in forms of arts activism, and its attendant collective spirit of perseverance that increasingly rendered ineffective the repressive manoeuvres of Egypt's disciplinary State. Criticising the impulse to construe the Egyptian revolution in terms of a mimetic desire for a secular democracy on Western lines, Rooney insists that the Arab uprisings consisted, in many respects, of a revolution against Western-style free market neoliberalism. Countering the perpetual cynicism attendant to the latter, Rooney argues, requires a form of politicisation that maintains ‘the ongoing presence of the real as a matter of collective spirit’ – one that can outlast the colonial interlude by resisting the absolutist self-assertion of market fundamentalism and its collusions with ‘diplo-economic cosmopolitanism’ as a mode of class-discriminatory privilege, as well as the compromising nature of right-wing Islam. Rooney moves on to locate a counter-movement based on an alternative form of consciousness that manifests itself ‘as solidarity, as resoluteness, as genuine comradeship, as collective consciousness, as revolutionary faith and [as] festiveness.’ In the last part of her essay, Rooney raises the intriguing case of Sufism, and specifically its mulid rituals and its important role in the Egyptian revolutionary effort, as a relational cultural mode that can survive the will-to-dominance as a persistent and liberatory collective gesture.

The Concept of Palestine: The Conception Of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the Modern Period

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Masalha
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Master Narratives ◽  
The Bible ◽  
School History

The Concept of Palestine is deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of the indigenous people of Palestine and the multicultural ancient past. The name Palestine is the most commonly used from the Late Bronze Age (from 1300 BCE) onwards. The name Palestine is evident in countless histories, inscriptions, maps and coins from antiquity, medieval and modern Palestine. From the Late Bronze Age onwards the names used for the region, such as Djahi, Retenu and Cana'an, all gave way to the name Palestine. Throughout Classical Antiquity the name Palestine remained the most common and during the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods the concept and political geography of Palestine acquired official administrative status. This article sets out to explain the historical origins of the concept of Palestine and the evolving political geography of the country. It will seek to demonstrate how the name ‘Palestine’ (rather than the term ‘Cana'an’) was most commonly and formally used in ancient history. It argues that the legend of the ‘Israelites’ conquest of Cana'an’ and other master narratives of the Bible evolved across many centuries; they are myth-narratives, not evidence-based accurate history. It further argues that academic and school history curricula should be based on historical facts/empirical evidence/archaeological discoveries – not on master narratives or Old Testament sacred-history and religio-ideological constructs.

The Lessons of Poland

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Collective Consciousness

This chapter presents a compressed account of the Four Years' Diet of 1788–1792 and its background. Poland is first exhibited as a land of aristocracy triumphant. The question is then asked whether the Polish Revolution of 1791 was a revolution at all, and if so in what sense; and what observers in other countries—such as Burke in England, the revolutionaries in France, and the rulers of Prussia and Russia—thought that they learned from it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau drew lessons from Poland in 1771. With the country dissolving in civil war, subverted by Russia, and sinking into the First Partition, the author of the Social Contract, at the request of certain Polish patriots, offered his diagnosis of their situation. For Rousseau, the trouble with Poland was that it had no consistance, no staying power to resist pressure and infiltration from outside. What it needed was character, a character of its own, resting on the collective consciousness or will of its people.

Itumeleng Mosala: Giving Theology Its World, Feet and Hands

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Takatso Mofokeng
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Consciousness ◽  
History Of ◽  
Black Consciousness Movement

Worthy of celebration is the contribution made by Itumeleng Mosala (hereafter Mosala) to the Black Methodist Consultation, the theological community in Southern Africa, and the Black Consciousness Movement. This article attempts to give theology its world, feet and hands in the person of Mosala. The article departs from the narration of the history of Mosala. It locates Mosala within township life and Old Testament scholarship. Furthermore, the article searches for suitable and effective weapons of intellectual struggle in light of Mosala’s life. The aim of this article is to celebrate the indelible footprints that Mosala made as he communed with black people.

Michela de Montaigne’a filozofia człowieka

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Marek Błaszczyk
Keyword(s):  
Life Experience ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Existential Philosophy ◽  
Art Of Living ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Academic Philosophy

The article aims to show the main aspects of Michel de Montaigne’s philosophy of man, exposing the existential themes presented in it. The paper presents Montaigne’s critique of speculative (academic) philosophy, his reluctance to construct a philosophical system, to describe and explain human life experience as a whole. The article emphasizes that the French philosopher appears as a defender of religious tolerance, a spokesman of dialogue and cultural relativism, and also – considering the existential themes of his work (the problem of loneliness, moral values or art of living) – that he may be considered a pioneer of existential philosophy.

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