The Primal Scattering of Languages

1998 ◽  
pp. 51-56
Author(s):  
Karin Littau
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Accidental Release ◽  
Creation Myth ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Positive Light

In After Babel, George Steiner recounts ‘two main conjectures’ in mythology which explain ‘the mystery of many tongues on which a view of translation hinges.’ One such mythic tale is the tower of Babel, which not only Steiner, but also Jacques Derrida after him, take as their starting point to approach the question of translation; the other conjecture tells of 'some awful error [which] was committed, an accidental release of linguistic chaos, in the mode of Pandora’s Box' (Steiner). This paper will take this other conjecture, the myth of Pandora, first woman of the Greek creation myth, as its point of departure, not only to offer a feminized version of the primal scattering of languages, but to rewrite in a positive light and therefore also toreverse the negative and misogynist association of Pandora with "man’s" fall. But, rather than exposing the entrenched patriarchal bias in mythographers’ interpretations of Pandora, my foremost aim is to pose, through her figure, questions about language and woman, and, by extension, the mother tongue and female sexuality.

scholarly journals Pandora’s Tongues

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Littau
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Creation Myth ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Pandora's Tongues — This paper looks at translation not from the perspective of Babel, the "male god" as Jacques Derrida and George Steiner do, but from the perspective of Pandora, the first woman of the Greek creation myth, in order to offer a feminized version of the primal scattering of languages. The aim is to pose through the figure of Pandora questions about language and woman, and by extension, the mother tongue and female sexuality. Whilst the myth of the tower of Babel makes visible the filiations of translation and the word of the Father, the myth of Pandora allows us to uncover the matrix between translation and the mother tongue, presents us, in other words, with new possibilities for translation and gender.

scholarly journals The Seduction of the Name: Universal Marranism and the Secret of Being-in-Language

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 359
Author(s):  
Adam Lipszyc
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Primal Scene

The author combines Walter Benjamin’s speculations on language, naming, and horror with Jean Laplanche’s general theory of seduction and his notion of the enigmatic signifier in order to reconstruct what he identifies as the primal scene of initiation into language. Further, the author develops this construction by linking it to a similar structure which he extracts by means of interpretation from Jacques Derrida’s commentaries to the Biblical stories of the Tower of Babel and of the Binding of Isaac. Finally, the author shows how the primal scene thus reconstructed should be seen as the transcendental condition of being in language as described by Derrida in his seminal essay on Monolingualism of the Other and how this very condition should be understood as a universalized form of the Marrano condition. The most far-reaching conclusion of the argument is, then, that at least for Jacques Derrida, every subject of language is a Marrano.

Jean Hotman’s Syllabus of Eirenical Literature

1979 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 175-193
Author(s):  
G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes ◽  
J.C. Grayson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Development Step

If one wishes to investigate the history of the development of an idea, two approaches are possible. One is to begin at the beginning, following the development step by step until one reaches the stage at which the idea attains its fullest flowering. The other approach is precisely the reverse. One chooses a point of departure in the final phase and then works backwards to the moment at which the idea first appeared. This latter method has many practical advantages in research. One can see the phenomenon in its most mature form, and thus more easily recognise its components and their earlier relationship.When, some years ago, I decided to devote a lecture to eirenism in the sixteenth century, my preparation followed the second approach. I chose as my starting point the work of a renowned eirenist of a later generation, Hugo Grotius. Leafing through the fourth volume of the Basel edition of his Opera Theologica, my attention was drawn to an entry Via ad pacem ecclesiasticam. It proved to comprise a number of miscellaneous documents, some of them by Grotius himself, some of them his annotations on the work of others, and yet others evidently added to the dossier because they fitted into the framework of eirensim. I decided to delve more deeply into this collection, which was first published as a separate work in 1642.

scholarly journals Fragmentation Echoes in Modern Translation Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Rawad Alhashmi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
The Other ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Wall

The paradox of the Tower of Babel and the underlying story behind the confusion of tongues are inextricably intertwined with various linguistic differences across the world. The tool of language, regardless of whether it is a gift of God, or a purely human artifact, or whatever one may choose to believe regarding its origins, is a tool that allows us to communicate with each other, thereby opening the door for dialogue with the ‘Other.’ As the myth of Babel began influencing several scholars in the twentieth century, linguistic theories inevitably elicited great interest among many acclaimed scholars, including Franz Kafka (1883–1924), Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) and Jacques Derrida (1930–2004). To that end, the fragmented mode of languages is a fundamental principle in their discourse on the confusion of tongues. In this article, I argue that Kafka’s writing, particularly the notion of the “piecemeal construction” in “The Great Wall of China,”1 has influenced Benjamin’s theory of translation and echoed Derrida’s respective view thereof.

scholarly journals Basic assumptions of feminist criminology in the results of the implementation of law on prevention of family violence

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-120
Author(s):  
Branislav Ristivojević ◽  
Stefan Samardžić
Keyword(s):  
Family Violence ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Factors ◽  
Control Female ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Feminist Criminology ◽  
The Law ◽  
Radical School

First two years of implementation of the Law on prevention of family violence is a just an occasion to try to bring together results of its effects. Starting point for this analysis was presumption that the radical feminism and its counterpart in criminology, radical school of feminist criminology, shaped the Law. According to it family violence is a product of alleged male wish to control female sexuality. This control is conducted through social institutions such as family and marriage. As long as these institutions persist violence is repeated. Consequently, recidivism must be present as a rule. So, these institutions are to be destroyed. Some other personal factors of criminal behaviour within family do not exist. Other forms of family violence are not acknowledged and distinction between them is not made. At the beginning author gives detailed description of a numerous methodological obstacles which hamper analyses. In the next part basic presumptions originating from radical school of feminist criminology was summarily proved by brief analysis of a several provisions of the Law itself. In the third part author summarize effects of a Law by using 9 individual surveys of practice of a 9 different police departments in Republic of Serbia. Despite serious methodological obstacles and relatively scarcity of a survey sample, author's assessment of a practice shows that basic presumptions of the radical school of feminist criminology are not proved in context of a Serbian society. If this presumption were, proven violence between partners must have been dominant in comparison with violence between relatives in analysis. In reality, violence between relatives exists in almost one-half of all cases: 43%. Furthermore, a division between three possible partner relations, a marriage, extramarital relations and a simple romance (and then on existing ones and former) shows that more formal and more stable type of relations are more represented in analysis: 51% of all cases happened in existing marriages, further 19% in existing extramarital relations and 8% in existing romances. Likewise, all existing relations are more represented in analysis in relation to former ones: 20% of cases happened in former marriages and former extramarital relations and a simple romance are represented in analysis with only 1% of all cases respectively. It is quite possible that people, educated and raised in Serbian culture, are more violent in relations in which they "invested" more. Their "investment" is a spiritual and material energy spent in relation. Those who want to have kids, raise family and acquire property and the other way round choose more formal and stabile types of relations. When faced with deprivation of these investments (kids and property) or when these are endangered, it is quite possible for people to become violent. In relations that are temporary, ephemeral or lightly perceived there is no such a kind of "investment", and, it seems, no violence. Other possible personal factors of violent criminality are present in analysis. Perpetrators of violence are in 37% of cases unemployed. On the other hand, only 18% of them are repeated offenders, so recidivism is not high. When it comes to so called "urgent measures" as a specific type of sanctions for family violence they are issued in 2/3 of all cases. Restrain of approach and communication with victim is more frequent in comparison with eviction from home. This is understandable. With so broad definition of a member of a family, Law offers protection to persons who are in such a type of relations in which joint living is not an option. Therefore, there is not a joint accommodation from which a perpetrator should be evicted. The same applies for all former relationships, which also enjoy protections of the Law although former partners, by definition, do not live jointly any more. Ratio between measures is 35% eviction orders to 65% restrain orders. In all cases where eviction order is issued, the other measure is also issued. Out of these two facts it is possible to draw conclusion that eviction order is only measure necessary in Serbia. In Serbian culture, the notion family comprises only of relationships in which people share "table, bad and roof". Author argues that only this type of a relation is a family, which, as a case may be, needs protection. This is one proof more that radical school of feminist criminology shaped the Law. Its teaching tries to force all relations between man and a woman, existing and former, within the notion of a family. However, concludes the author, results of implementations of the Law in Serbia speaks, on the contrary, that such a teaching is a strange body in Serbian culture, society and, consequently, legal practice.

The Final ‘Thank You’

Derrida Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Grant Farred
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Cup ◽  
The Core ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Black President ◽  
The Moment

‘The Final “Thank You”’ uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to think the occasion of the 1995 rugby World Cup, hosted by the newly democratic South Africa. This paper deploys Nietzsche's Zarathustra to critique how a figure such as Nelson Mandela is understood as a ‘Superman’ or an ‘Overhuman’ in the moment of political transition. The philosophical focus of the paper, however, turns on the ‘thank yous’ exchanged by the white South African rugby captain, François Pienaar, and the black president at the event of the Springbok victory. It is the value, and the proximity and negation, of the ‘thank yous’ – the relation of one to the other – that constitutes the core of the article. 1

AFRICAN WOMEN AND FORBIDDEN GROUNDS: FEMALE SEXUALITY AND SELF-DETERMINATION IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Oyeh O. Otu
Keyword(s):  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
African Women ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Sexual Repression

This article examines how female conditioning and sexual repression affect the woman’s sense of self, womanhood, identity and her place in society. It argues that the woman’s body is at the core of the many sites of gender struggles/ politics. Accordingly, the woman’s body must be decolonised for her to attain true emancipation. On the one hand, this study identifies the grave consequences of sexual repression, how it robs women of their freedom to choose whom to love or marry, the freedom to seek legal redress against sexual abuse and terror, and how it hinders their quest for self-determination. On the other hand, it underscores the need to give women sexual freedom that must be respected and enforced by law for the overall good of society.

Considerations about Semitic Etyma in de Vaan’s Latin Etymological Dictionary: Terms for Plants, Domestic Animals, Tools or Vessels

Philology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2018) ◽  
pp. 35-156
Author(s):  
EPHRAIM NISSAN
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Animals ◽  
The Other ◽  
Etymological Dictionary ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract In this long study, our point of departure is particular entries in Michiel de Vaan’s Latin Etymological Dictionary (2008). We are interested in possibly Semitic etyma. Among the other things, we consider controversies not just concerning individual etymologies, but also concerning approaches. We provide a detailed discussion of names for plants, but we also consider names for domestic animals.

Editorial

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (16) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Andrea Meza Torres
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Intercultural Dialogue ◽  
Enrique Dussel ◽  
Point Of Departure

The essays in this dossier are the result of the course  “Interreligious and intercultural dialogue from a decolonial perspective”, which took place between May and June 2017 at the CEIICH in the UNAM. In this course, I proposed to link a decolonial theoretical perspective to the topic of “intercultural dialogue” and, beyond, to “interreligious dialogue”; anyhow, this last topic turned out to be the point of departure to explore more profound dialogues, linked no only to religious phenomena but to sacred traditions and spiritualities. During the course, emphasis was put on this last aspect due to the fact that the topic of “the Divine” (in its different expressions), although central to decoloniality, has been poorly studied. Moreover, it has been marginalized within secularized social sciences —and this not just in Mexico, but in most occidentalized universities throughout the globe. This vacuum towards the study of “the Divine” —and, beyond, its limitation through a concept of culture (which is, at the same time, associated to the colonized and to the “other” of modernity)— led the participants of this volume to research deeper that which philosopher Enrique Dussel has described as the “spaces denied and oppressed by modernity”.

Når styringens ambitioner udfordres af praksis. Om at analysere rummet imellem styringens intentioner og situationel praksis

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Herup Nielsen ◽  
Niklas Andreas Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The Other ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Men I ◽  
Unemployment Policy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Local Employment

Studier, der analyserer det sociale med inspiration fra Foucaults tanker om governmentality, kritiseres i stigende omfang for at afskære sig fra at analysere de praktiske relationer, som politisk styring konkret indlejres i. I artiklen tager vi afsæt i denne kritik og viser, med et studie af forholdet mellem et kommunalt jobcenter og et lokalt beskæftigelsesråd, hvordan governmental magtanalyse kan indfange styringens uforudsigelige, mangefacetterede og immanente karakter ved at fokusere på styringsintentionernes møde med den praktiske virkelighed, der søges styret. Formelt er rådet nedsat til at overvåge og kontrollere jobcentret, men i den praktiske relation er det snarere jobcentret, som overvåger og kontrollerer rådet. Artiklen viser, hvordan dette er muligt ved at analysere jobcentrets arbejde med rådet ved hjælp af en række centrale begreber fra Foucaults forfatterskab. Empirisk trækker studiet foruden formelle myndighedsdokumenter, der beskriver rådets tiltænkte rolle, på praksisinformerende empiri i form af kvalitative interviews og mødereferater over en fire-årig periode. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Mathias Herup Nielsen and Niklas Andreas Andersen: When Praxis Challenges the Ambitions of Governing. Analyzing the Space between the Intentions of Governing and Situational Praxis Studies working with the Foucauldian concept of ”governmentality” are frequently criticized for their apparent disregard of empirical reality. This article takes this critique as its point of departure and demonstrates the application of the concept of governmentality in a concrete empirical case study in order to grasp the unpredictable and multifaceted nature of modern day power. The case investigated here is the relationship between a Danish Jobcentre and a so-called local employment council (LBR). The latter was created to ”control” and ”monitor” the former organization. However, in practice, it is rather the other way around – the Jobcentre is controlling and monitoring the members of the LBR. This article draws on a number of well-known Foucauldian concepts to show how this relation of power is practically structured. Empirically the article draws on documents from central authorities as well as on a number of qualitative interviews with the actors involved – hence, the article attempts to meet with the dominant overall critique of the governmentality perspective for disregarding empirical reality. Keywords: governmentality, Michel Foucault, unemployment policy, jobcentre.

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