Challenges in the Valorization of the Funerary Heritage. Experiences in the Municipal Cemetery of Murcia (Spain)

The cemetery is a cultural landscape that represents themes of great relevance to interpret the structure of a society, roles, and hierarchies, as a reflection of its social life. The cemetery gathers a whole symbolic universe where local social histories are represented, beyond the history of art and the architectural aspect. As a heritage element, the cemetery shows us the socio-cultural changes of a territory: religious questioning, changes linked to the family, individualization of contemporary society or broader questions about socio-economic structure. This article presents the experience conducted during the last 6 years in the Cemetery “Nuestro Padre Jesús” in Murcia (Spain), through a collaboration among the Sociedad Murciana de Antropolgía (SOMA), the University of Murcia and the Municipality of Murcia, developing the project “Funerary Cultures”, whose main objective is to promote the heritage, cultural and historical values of the funerary culture. Specifically, as a result of this teaching innovation experience, the six thematic guides to visit the cemetery are presented as an experience of patrimonialization of elements of the cemetery and its consequent selection and consensus exercise to determine what was considered as heritage in the context of the cemetery. Finally, a proposal of a systematic process in the valuation and selection of the material objects in the cemetery is presented; this proposal allows us to establish a debate on what considerations to take into account when considering the relationship between cultural heritage and the cemetery as a cultural landscape in permanent transformation.

The great social experiment: when dreams did not turn into reality

The great social experiment in building socialism, which was supposed to develop into communism, was based on a number of attractive political myths, for the creation of which a special symbolic universe was created, a wide range of various sign systems were involved, among which language played the most important role: as a means of creating a political myth and the means of its constant feeding (the myth-making function of the language). This allowed (in conjunction with other means of subjugating the totalitarian state) for a long period to manipulate the consciousness of the masses, educating the younger generation in the given ideological framework. However, being the most important means of creating myths, language at the same time has enormous potential for its destruction. An analysis of texts criticizing the political ideology prevailing in the Soviet empire allowed us to single out two main types of myth-destroying texts: 1) texts criticizing the existing order (anecdotes, caricatures, parodies, political fables, etc.) and 2) texts that destroy the “information vacuum» (photographic documents, archival documents, autobiographies, etc.). The artistic works of dissidents of socialist ideology (Vladimir Vysotsky, Nikolai Guberman, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Bulgakov, etc.), which often combined both functions, had a special appellative-influencing force. Analysis of the role of language in the creation of myth as a socio-cultural phenomenon on the example of the myths of the Soviet era in the context of modern globalization of knowledge and the interdisciplinary scientific paradigm demonstrated the semiotic mechanism of myth creation and the dynamics of their destruction.

Conversion, apostasy, or hybridity? The terrible, troubled, transformative experience of Paul as exemplar for missiology in an age of multiplicity

Scholars and practitioners alike celebrate the Apostle Paul as an exemplar of Christian mission. But few emphasize how the ministry and practices of the biblical author developed amid incredible intrareligious conflict and relational wreckage. Embroiled in tension over doctrinal and ritual changes, plagued by vitriolic attacks on his character, and caught up in a web of splintered relationships, Paul offers contemporary people of faith a lesson on unity in diversity for mission in an age of hybridity. Embracing the “terrible and troubled” experience of Paul enables us to bring into relief a transformative hermeneutical strategy for negotiating new forms of religious life and multiplicity in belonging. This article will show how competing cultural and religious codes shaped the Apostle’s symbolic universe, causing violence, tension, conflict, and rejection, before reconciling in an ethic of love in hybridity. After making a case for the reclamation of the troubled textual Pauline experience over an idealized picture of early Christian mission, I will argue for the critical importance of Paul’s Damascus Road experience by narratively resituating it from typological “conversion” story to mystical encounter with the Holy Other that catalyzed a new religious imagination for cultivating a revolutionary egalitarian, inclusive pattern of religious life. Then, I will use Paul’s narrative from Galatians and his treatment of holiness in 1 Corinthians to show how ruptures in the Apostle’s journey led him through fractures and failures into spiritual maturity. By welcoming the gendered, classed, and cultic other into fellowship, Paul also found his quintessential theological insights: the new creation and life in the Spirit. Paul’s response to the invitation of the risen Jesus and his record of the missional life that followed offers missiology a way through monocultural approaches and theological exclusivism into a constructive spirituality that unifies radically different factions into one holy, hybrid body.

Comparative study on the social representations of cancer and breast cancer

Background The symbolic universe of cancer is associated with death, but its treatment has undergone innumerable innovations, which may lead to a new meaning for social representations. The theory of social representations seeks the new, which changes in the knowledge of common sense (Guareschi & Jovchelovitch, 1994). Thus, the objective of this work is to identify the social representations of cancer and breast cancer, identifying their changes and their meanings based on the central nucleus and the peripheral system. Methods Qualitative and descriptive study, based on the structural approach of the theory of social representations. The sample was non-probabilistic and due to accessibility. The collection instrument was a Word Evocation Test with two inducing words, ‘cancer’ and ‘breast cancer’. The subjects were asked to mention three words that came to their mind immediately and spontaneously. The SPSS and IRAMUTEQ software were used. Results 753 subjects participated and 2316 words were evoked for each inducing word. In the central core of cancer the words pain, illness, death, suffering. Central core of breast cancer: treatment, pain, feeling, woman, strength. Conclusions The social representation of cancer is still strongly death, while in breast cancer it is the treatment. Suffering and pain are part of the central core of the two words and continue to characterize the disease, but in breast cancer the word strength appears. It is concluded that the social representation of breast cancer is being reframed.

SYMBOLIC UNIVERSE OF THE MODERN WORLD

The article deals with examples of symbolic, virtual artifacts as part of the social reality of the modern world. The author analyzes the influence of symbolic reality on a person, the transformation of forms of perception, reflection of the world. The symbolic world, the world of simulacra is considered as an instrument of influence on various spheres of society. Examples of symbolic structures involved in various forms of social life, the involvement of symbolic forms of reflection of the world in the mechanisms of perception, decision-making are given. We consider the relationship between the conditionally real and conditional virtual worlds, their interweaving, reciprocity. The article shows the relationship between the symbol and the simulacrum as a more modern and more complex form that characterizes the state of current social reality, various phenomena of post-modern types of societies, and their historical variability. The ethical aspects of the expansion of symbolic human spaces, the reasons for their appearance and development, and the consequences of their existence for human civilization are considered.

The Institution of the Akal Takht: The Transformation of Authority in Sikh History

The Akal Takht is considered to be the central seat of authority in the Sikh tradition. This article uses theories of legitimacy and authority to explore the validity of the authority and legitimacy of the Akal Takht and its leaders throughout time. Starting from the initial institution of the Akal Takht and ending at the Akal Takht today, the article applies Weber’s three types of legitimate authority to the various leaderships and custodianships throughout Sikh history. The article also uses Berger and Luckmann’s theory of the symbolic universe to establish the constant presence of traditional authority in the leadership of the Akal Takht. Merton’s concept of group norms is used to explain the loss of legitimacy at certain points of history, even if one or more types of Weber’s legitimate authority match the situation. This article shows that the Akal Takht’s authority, as with other political religious institutions, is in the reciprocal relationship between the Sikh population and those in charge. This fluidity in authority is used to explain and offer a solution on the issue of authenticity and authority in the Sikh tradition.

The configuration of happiness and unhappiness as part of the auditory landscape: the work of Albert Camus

This essay aims to analyze the poetics of the soundscape in Albert Camus’ work, based in the notions of happiness and unhappiness. Our purpose will be to define the characteristics of the symbolism of auditory perception, which are elaborated on the double configuration between happiness and unhappiness. The fact that the symbolic universe of Camus outlines a total sensory experience does no longer need to be demonstrated. Starting from his first lyrical writings to the Notebooks, his writing appeals arouses all the senses. Through a comparative study of examples relating to happiness and unhappiness and while underlining the predominant place of silence in Camus’ aesthetics, we will come off to the conclusion that Camus’s work constitutes a real kind of field recording.

Le paysage thanatique et féminin chez Gustave Moreau. Étude mythocritique de Orphée sur la tombe d’Eurydice

This article proposes to define the thanatic landscape as the manifestation of Hermes-Mercurius archetype within the symbolic universe of Gustave Moreau, specifically on Orphée sur la tombe d’Eurydice (1891) and his preserved writings. This is defined according to the duality that is so present in Moreau’s pictorial and literary work; between the text and the image, the tangible and the spiritual, the sacred and the profane, the masculine and the feminine. How do the human and sepulchral landscape elements, of religious and mythological origin, merge in the imaginary of the decadent literary painter? In response, this study includes a myth criticism approach and aims to apply the archetypal theory to the symbolic hermeneutics of landscape

Gdynia i Żydzi w antysemickich rysunkach z prasy II Rzeczypospolitej

The issue of the defence of Polish interests on the Baltic against the threat that could be seen in the sudden inflow of Jewish business people and merchants to the coast, seeking new space and new opportunities for their activities, emerged in the anti-Semitic discourse of the Second Polish Republic already in the year in which the independent Polish state was born. However, it was only in the 1930s that the question of the ‘Jewish invasion’ of the ‘Polish coast’ in the anti -Semitic campaigning by means of a word and a cartoon (often the combination of both) was fully displayed. Then Gdynia also became the leading motif. In the paper analysis of selected press cartoons, most frequently published in such nationalistic magazines as ‘Samoobrona Narodu’, ‘Pod Pręgierz’, ‘Orędownik’, or ‘Kurier Poznański’ has been presented; their task was to convince the public that it was necessary to ‘de -Jewishize’ Gdynia and bestow a ‘Polish national character’ on it. The cartoons have to be treated as a very effective tool of nationalistic campaigning in press, since they referred to the perception of Gdynia shared by all the Polish people as one of the most important elements within the symbolic universe of the Second Polish Republic.

The Gospel of Matthew and Apocalyptic Discourse

This study considers how ‘apocalyptic discourse’ functions within Matthew’s Gospel. Of the four gospels, Matthew has been called the most ‘apocalyptic’ in nature but most of the discussion of this literary feature has been limited to chapters 24-25. However, the violent scenes in Matthew 2 along with 24-25 form an inclusio for the whole of Matthew’s Gospel and provide a basis for relating other apocalyptic discourses. This study maintains that Matthew is a bios with elements of apocalyptic discourse woven throughout it. This paper offers a theological interpretation of Matthew that integrates the concepts of apocalyptic warfare and a three-tiered symbolic universe.