The Posthumanist Dimension of the Novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

This commentary aims to place the novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk within the framework of posthumanism, focusing on selected aspects of the theory. Particular attention shall be given to Tokarczuk’s criticism of human attitude towards nature, notably animals, as well as her unique perception of material objects which in the novel are endowed with uncanny agency. Not only does the novel’s protagonist exist in a close interconnectedness with all sentient beings, but she also displays a profound sensitivity to matter’s vitality. Tokarczuk stresses the importance of human corporeality which unites us intimately with all of existence and provides us with a deeper understanding of the world.

Language and the Sensing Body: How Sensoriality Permeates Syntax in Interaction

This article explores the grammar-body interface by examining the intertwinement of embodied practices and turns at talk, where the sensing body permeates the ongoing syntax, in particular in activities in which the participants are engaged in talking about sensorial features while at the same time experiencing them, for instance in tasting sessions. So, the question tackled concerns how situated feelings, sensory experiences, and perceptive actions are embedded in the ongoing talk, and how they shape its emergent syntax, possibly affecting its smooth progressivity. The study shows how the choice of specific syntactic formats can be systematically related to the complex ecology of embodied actions, namely to publicly accountable ways of sensing material objects, to ways of showing and addressing an audience, and to visible ways of referring to standard documents normatively defining tasting descriptors. The syntactic formats described and their specific temporal realizations are thus deeply rooted in the local material ecology, in which they not only reproduce a normative model but reflexively express the senses with words and sensuously feel the words.

Philosophy of Science: Definition, Object of Study, Scope, and Method

Philosophy of Science is the study of all human life and thought phenomena critically and described in basic concepts. Philosophy is necessary for proving an accident or phenomenon and substance because, with philosophy, it can be proven that something exists or might exist. After all, with reason, a substance can be proven, and that the substance was formed from philosophy. There are two objects of study in the philosophy of science: a) material objects and b) formal objects. The scope of the philosophy of science is threefold, namely: a) Ontology, b) Epistemology, and c) Axiology. There are ten basic methods of philosophy of science, but in this study, the author only discusses three methods: a) Positivism Method, b) Phenomenological Method, and c) Critical Method. The purpose of the philosophy of science is to break the confinement of the human mind. By understanding and studying philosophy, humans can break the ice, rigidity, and even confinement of their minds by re-questioning everything that exists. Abstrak: Filsafat Ilmu adalah studi tentang seluruh fenomena kehidupan dan pemikiran manusia secara kritis dan dijabarkan dalam konsep mendasar. Filsafat sangat dibutuhkan dalam membuktikan suatu aksiden atau fenomena dan Subtansi karena dengan filsafat bisa terbukti sesuatu itu ada atau mungkin ada, karena dengan akal bisa dibuktikan suatu substansi dan substansi itu terbentuknya dari filsafat. Objek Kajian dalam Filsafat Ilmu ada dua, yaitu: a) Objek Material dan b) Objek Formal. Ruang lingkup filsafat ilmu ada tiga, yaitu: a) Ontologi, b) Epistimologi dan c) Aksiologi. Metode filsafat ilmu pada dasarnya ada sepuluh metode, akan tetapi dalam kajian ini penulis hanya membahas tiga metode, yaitu: a) Metode Positivisme b) Metode Fenomenologi dan c) Metode Kritis. Tujuan filsafat ilmu sebagai pendobrak keterkungkungan pikiran manusia. Dengan memahami, dan mempelajari filsafat manusia dapat menghancurkan kebekuan, kakakuan, bahkan keterkungkungan pikirannya dengan kembali mempertanyakan segala yang ada. Kata-kata kunci: filsafat ilmu, pengertian, objek kajian, ruang lingkup, metode

Williama Goldinga Siłą bezwładu w perspektywie ontologii zorientowanej na przedmiot

The paper applies selected devices of the methodology of Object-Oriented Ontology to study William Golding’s novel Free Fall. Particular attention is given to Graham Harman’s project, whose definition of an object accounts for all beings, humans included. Within the ontological structure of an object two components can be distinguished: the “sensual object”, which can engage in relationships with other objects, and the “real object”, which refrains from any connections. The author aims to show how the main protagonist of Golding’s novel is impacted on by material objects, how other humans are perceived by him as inherently dual beings, but most importantly how the protagonist himself discovers the thing-like quality of his own human condition.

Educational Context of a Literary Text

This article presents an analysis of two paratextual features which are occasionally found on material objects (ostraca and papyri) containing The Teaching of Khety, namely drawings and marginalia, in other words, hieratic signs written in the margin representing writing exercises or corrections. Inspired by Material Philology, the various examples are discussed in order to gain insights into the scribal environment in which Khety was produced. The paper focuses especially on the educational context of this literary text.

Equivalence and Difference of Semantic Relations in Black Panther Movie Script

This study used the Black Panther movie script by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole as the object of the study. The aim of this study was to find out equivalences and differences of semantic relations used in the Black Panther movie script. This study used Norman Fairclough’s theory that was equivalence and difference of semantic relations. The method used in this study was descriptive qualitative study methods. The primary data was taken from the Black Panther movie script, and secondary data was taken from the audiovisual movie related to the material objects. Techniques of the data collection were downloading Black Panther movie scripts on the internet, reading all the movie scripts repeatedly and comprehensively, checking the words or utterances spoken in the movie script, identifying the semantic relations between clauses and sentences in the form of addition, elaborating, and contrasting in the movie scripts, and then coding the data. Techniques of the data analysis were presenting the data, describing and interpreting the data in the form of words, clauses, and sentences, and then concluding the data. The result of the study showed that there were 55 data found, they were Elaboration consists of 14 data, Addition consists of 9 data, and Contrast consists of 32 data. Equivalences of semantic relations were used with the repetition in the form of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences where the purpose has the same perspective or vision. While differences of semantic relations were used by writing a different meaning from the previous clause or sentence.

(De)Constructing the Madonna’s Cloth of Honor

The present study centers on pieced textiles included in Marian paintings of the Proto-Renaissance era rendered in Tuscany. The complex geometric patterns of these cloths mimic those found in the Islamic textiles that were then being imported into Europe, consumed by the aristocracy, and later imitated by Italian cloth makers. On a basic level, their colors and patterning reference the virtues of the Virgin, her mission to bring about the Incarnation of Christ, her selflessness, virtuous character, and majesty. They also contribute to her humanization since these are material objects that belonged in the aristocratic domestic setting and which were familiar to the patrons who paid for the works. On a deeper level, they provide complex layers of meaning, some of which derive from Moorish iconography. They reference the perfection of God’s creation and the promise of an affable afterlife. They also evoke the remote lands where the lives of the Virgin and Christ unfolded. By inserting pieced cloths into Marian iconography, artists were following a long established tradition of utilizing the piecing technique in Early Medieval sacred practice, an issue that until now has not been recognized.

Skulls, Tree Bark, Fossils

Studies of material objects in the field of memory studies have followed diverse epistemological and disciplinary trajectories, but their shared characteristic has been the questioning of philosophical assumptions concerning human relations with inanimate things and lower-level organic objects, such as plants, within the Aristotelian hierarchy of beings. Rather than accept at face value their categorizations as passive or deficient in comparison to the human subject, critical scholarship has reformulated the place and role of nonhuman entities in culture. This essay examines the nexus of materiality and memory in the work of the French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, with the focus on the questions of mnemonic affordance of things and plants. The essay proposes that Didi-Huberman’s project can be approached from the perspective of “undoing” the key binaries of Western historiography of art and material culture: surface/depth, exteriority/interiority, visibility/invisibility, and malleability/rigidity. Focusing on imaginal representations of memory objects in Didi-Huberman’s two essays Bark and Being a Skull, the essay situates these texts within the context of his philosophical reading of Aby Warburg’s iconology, and argues that Didi-Huberman’s undoing of the binaries that have traditionally structured thinking about materiality and memory could be productively approached as a philosophical project of transvaluating surface.