scholarly journals Ruin philosophy, poetic discourse and the collapse of meta-narratives in Aleksandr Kushner's poetry of the 1970s

Nordlit ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Schönle
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Poetic Discourse ◽  
Philosophical Background ◽  
The Face ◽  
Creative Forces ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

This article offers an analysis of the trope of ruin in the poetry of Aleksandr Kushner (born 1936), in particular through a close reading of two of his poems: “In a slippery graveyard, alone” and “Ruins”. The analysis of these poems is preceded by an overview of ruin philosophy from Burke and Diderot to Simmel and Benjamin, with particular emphasis on the way the trope of ruin contemplation stages a confrontation between the self and what transcends it (death, history, nature, etc.). This philosophical background serves as a heuristic tool to shed light on the poetry of Kushner. Through the trope of ruin, Kushner explores the legitimacy of poetic speech after the collapse of all meta-narratives. Kushner has no truck with Diderot's solipsism, nor with Hegel's bold narrative of progress, nor with Simmel's peaceful reconciliation with the creative forces of nature. Nor, really, does he intend to bear witness to history, the way Benjamin does in the faint anticipation of some miracle. Instead, Kushner posits the endurance of a community united not around a grand project, but around the idea of carrying on in the face of everything, muddling through despite the lack of hopes for a transformational future and making the most of fleeting moments of positivity that emerge out of the fundamental serendipity of history.

Face to Face, Hand to Hand: Relations of Exchange in Hamlet

2019 ◽  
pp. 109-131
Author(s):  
Emily Shortslef
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Relation ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Mutual Awareness ◽  
The Face ◽  
Sense And Respond ◽  
The Way

In this essay, Emily Shortslef reads three linked encounters between Hamlet and Laertes in Act 5 of Hamlet—their fight at Ophelia’s grave, Hamlet’s recollection of this event in his subsequent expression of remorse, and their fatal duel before Claudius—in relationship to Levinas’s conceptualization of the face-to-face encounter as the ethical relation. She shows how Levinas’s notion of the self as constituted through the encounter with irreducible and unknowable alterity makes these scenes visible as moments in which the self is called into question by the other. At the same time, in contrast to Levinas’s famously asymmetrical concept of relationality and responsibility, the relationality that emerges in these scenes—one generated by the risk inherent in fighting on stage—necessitates mutual awareness of the other’s presence, careful attunement to movement, and reciprocal gestures of provocation and response. Each character discloses himself through the way that their facing bodies sense and respond to the other’s motion. In these antagonistic but collaborative encounters between Hamlet and Laertes, Shakespeare stages a relation of exchange that at the end of the play will also enable an exchange of forgiveness.

scholarly journals Phenomenology and the Possibility of Religious Experience

Open Theology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald L. Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Theological Turn ◽  
Human Situation ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way ◽  
Idea Of God

AbstractWork in what has been known as the theological turn in French phenomenology describes the way in which human beings are always, already open to a religious encounter. This paper will focus on Levinas as a proper transcendental phenomenologist as would be characterized by parts of Husserl and Husserl’s last assistant Eugen Fink. What Levinas does in his phenomenology of the face/other (which gets tied up in religious language) is to describe an absolute origin out of which the subject arises. This point of origin structures the self in such a way as to always, already be open to that which overflows experience and, thus, makes possible the very experience of an encounter with the numinous. Such an approach to religious experience for which I am arguing simply takes Levinas at his word when he declares “The idea of God is an idea that cannot clarify a human situation. It is the inverse that is true.” (“Transcendence and Height”) Understanding the structure of the subject as open to that which cannot be reduced/totalized/ encapsulated is to recognize that the human situation is ready for the possibility of religious experience.

The implicit theories approach to the self‐monitoring controversy

1991 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith E. Larkin
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Theories ◽  
The Self ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
The Third ◽  
Factor Analytic ◽  
The Face ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Personality Construct

In the face of uncertainty and disagreement about the meaning and measurement of the self‐monitoring construct, the author proposes an implicit theories approach to shed light on what self‐monitoring scales may be tapping. The first study explored people's notions of what high and low self‐monitors are like, based on the statements in the 18‐item Self‐Monitoring Scale (Gangestad and Snyder, 1985). The second study compared that measure with Lennox and Wolfe's (1984) Revised Self‐Monitoring Scale and examined defensive motivation within the scales. The third study consisted of two experiments to determine whether subjects perceived the items of Gangestad and Snyder's Self‐Monitoring Scale as reflecting a unitary latent entity or separate, contradictory variables. It was concluded that the implicit theories approach appears to be a useful complement to traditional factor analytic studies, providing new ways of looking at a personality construct, clarifying some theoretical issues, and generating hypotheses for future research.

Nosological Models in Psychiatry

1994 ◽  
Vol 164 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Pichot
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Way

“Nature, in the production of diseases, is uniform and consistent; so much so, that for the same disease in different persons the symptoms are for the most part the same; and the self-same phenomena that you could observe in the sickness of a Socrates you would observe in the sickness of a simpleton. Just so the universal characters of a plant are extending to every individual of the species; and whoever (I speak in the way of illustration) should accurately describe the colour, the taste, the smell, the figure, etc. of the single violet would find that his description held good, there or thereabout, for all the violets of that particular species upon the face of the earth.”

scholarly journals Memory and Sleep: How Sleep Cognition Can Change the Waking Mind for the Better

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken A. Paller ◽  
Jessica D. Creery ◽  
Eitan Schechtman
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Emotional Regulation ◽  
The Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

The memories that we retain can serve many functions. They guide our future actions, form a scaffold for constructing the self, and continue to shape both the self and the way we perceive the world. Although most memories we acquire each day are forgotten, those integrated within the structure of multiple prior memories tend to endure. A rapidly growing body of research is steadily elucidating how the consolidation of memories depends on their reactivation during sleep. Processing memories during sleep not only helps counteract their weakening but also supports problem solving, creativity, and emotional regulation. Yet, sleep-based processing might become maladaptive, such as when worries are excessively revisited. Advances in research on memory and sleep can thus shed light on how this processing influences our waking life, which can further inspire the development of novel strategies for decreasing detrimental rumination-like activity during sleep and for promoting beneficial sleep cognition.

Classifying ‘Eoliths’: How Cultural Cognition Featured in Arguments Surrounding Claims for the Earliest Human Artefacts as these Developed Between 1880 and 1900

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 341-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Ellen ◽  
Angela Muthana
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Cognitive Anthropology ◽  
Human Origin ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Comparative Ethnography ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

Abstract‘Eoliths’ were crude but purportedly humanly worked stones that exercised a great deal of scientific interest between about 1870 and 1930. They became a problem in the context of the debate surrounding the existence of pre-humans in Europe before the beginning of the Pleistocene epoch, and are now mostly reckoned to be of non-human origin. This paper addresses the way in which a network of geologists and prehistorians associated with Benjamin Harrison, the celebrated collector of the first English eoliths, attempted to make sense of barely recognizable artefacts in the period immediately following the establishment of human antiquity in the face of orthodox creationist chronologies. Harrison and his associates did so by innovating a series of criteria, names, categories and crosscutting classifications drawn from their own cultural experience, and typologies available to them through the comparative ethnography of technology. Using concepts and insights developed in cognitive anthropology, we shall attempt to shed light on a controversy in the history of science that has implications for our understanding of the way in which scientists more generally employ ‘provisional classifications’, folk categories and vernacular terminology in order to make sense of domains of intractable data at the frontiers of knowledge.

Kierkegaard and the Self-Conscious Literary Tradition: An Interpretation of the Ludic Aspects of Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship from a Literary-Historical Perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julio Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Metaphysical Principle ◽  
The Way

AbstractKierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship is characterized by a profusion of literary techniques that belong to the tradition of the ludic or selfconscious novel (the fiction that makes its fictionality manifest). In the present contribution the self-conscious literary plays carried out by Kierkegaard will be interpreted from the perspective of the philosophy of the subject, since both the self-conscious novel and Kierkegaard’s production can be related to this philosophical tradition. The article is organized as follows: first appears a very brief sketch of the way in which self-conscious literature and the philosophy of the subject are related. After this, follows a commentary on the notion of individuality in On the Concept of Irony. Kierkegaard’s dissertation is read as a work in the tradition of the philosophy of the subject that, at the same time, surpasses the idea of subjectivity as metaphysical principle. Finally, a close reading of Either/Or intends to show how Kierkegaard develops his ideas about subjectivity in a literary frame-that of the self-conscious novel

Power of Darkness: Narrative and Biographical Reflexivity in A Series of Unfortunate Events

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-212
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH BULLEN
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Project Risk ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Earning ◽  
Textual Culture ◽  
Children’S Exposure ◽  
Central Claim

This paper investigates the high-earning children's series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, in relation to the skills young people require to survive and thrive in what Ulrich Beck calls risk society. Children's textual culture has been traditionally informed by assumptions about childhood happiness and the need to reassure young readers that the world is safe. The genre is consequently vexed by adult anxiety about children's exposure to certain kinds of knowledge. This paper discusses the implications of the representation of adversity in the Lemony Snicket series via its subversions of the conventions of children's fiction and metafictional strategies. Its central claim is that the self-consciousness or self-reflexivity of A Series of Unfortunate Events} models one of the forms of reflexivity children need to be resilient in the face of adversity and to empower them to undertake the biographical project risk society requires of them.

Géographie et cartographie fictionnelles dans l’Utopie (1516) de Thomas More

Moreana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (Number 181- (3-4) ◽  
pp. 9-68
Author(s):  
Jean Du Verger
Keyword(s):  
Complex Network ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
The Third ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

The philosophical and political aspects of Utopia have often shadowed the geographical and cartographical dimension of More’s work. Thus, I will try to shed light on this aspect of the book in order to lay emphasis on the links fostered between knowledge and space during the Renaissance. I shall try to show how More’s opusculum aureum, which is fraught with cartographical references, reifies what Germain Marc’hadour terms a “fictional archipelago” (“The Catalan World Atlas” (c. 1375) by Abraham Cresques ; Zuane Pizzigano’s portolano chart (1423); Martin Benhaim’s globe (1492); Martin Waldseemüller’s Cosmographiae Introductio (1507); Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia (1513) ; Benedetto Bordone’s Isolario (1528) ; Diogo Ribeiro’s world map (1529) ; the Grand Insulaire et Pilotage (c.1586) by André Thevet). I will, therefore, uncover the narrative strategies used by Thomas More in a text which lies on a complex network of geographical and cartographical references. Finally, I will examine the way in which the frontispiece of the editio princeps of 1516, as well as the frontispiece of the third edition published by Froben at Basle in 1518, clearly highlight the geographical and cartographical aspect of More’s narrative.

Bad Dreams and Secret Artists: Translating Freud into Literature

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Popular Approach ◽  
English Reader ◽  
Creative Writer ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Way

This article addresses the increasingly popular approach to Freud and his work which sees him primarily as a literary writer rather than a psychologist, and takes this as the context for an examination of Joyce Crick's recent translation of The Interpretation of Dreams. It claims that translation lies at the heart of psychoanalysis, and that the many interlocking and overlapping implications of the word need to be granted a greater degree of complexity. Those who argue that Freud is really a creative writer are themselves doing a work of translation, and one which fails to pay sufficiently careful attention to the role of translation in writing itself (including the notion of repression itself as a failure to translate). Lesley Chamberlain's The Secret Artist: A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud is taken as an example of the way Freud gets translated into a novelist or an artist, and her claims for his ‘bizarre poems' are criticized. The rest of the article looks closely at Crick's new translation and its claim to be restoring Freud the stylist, an ordinary language Freud, to the English reader. The experience of reading Crick's translation is compared with that of reading Strachey's, rather to the latter's advantage.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document