Clothing and the oceanic identity in Melville’s Redburn

Herman Melville’s Redburn approaches the topic of corporeal coding via the outer layer of clothing. Throughout the novel, the young protagonist consciously uses clothing as a means of self-representation and expression, deploying fashion to create and position himself in different contexts; for example, taking pride in his ragged clothes amongst well-dressed ship passengers becomes a form of social protest. But Redburn is also used to comic effect because his choices are often based on incorrect assumptions of propriety, such as his notion of the way a sailor is supposed to dress not matching the onboard reality. The rules of appearance that construct and restrain an identity are paradoxically bolstered at the same time they are broken, which allows Melville the opportunity to explore rebellion alongside the performative aspect of the self as a body constituting both a visible sign and a living vehicle for the mores, beliefs and ideologies that shape a society.

Frontera Sur: Behind and beyond the fences of Ceuta and Melilla

Ceuta, Melilla, and the neighboring Moroccan territories can be imagined as testing grounds where different policies and acts of resistance, spectacles, and economies are assembled, configuring a borderland peculiar for the turbulence of contemporary migrations. Are these enclaves, European outpost in Africa, functioning as places of confinement and buffer zones, as theaters in which to stage the narrative of invasion? Exploring the internal logic of these borderlands is not a matter of looking only at the Great Wall, the most visible sign of the European fortress. It is worth observing the backstage, that is, the routes and informal camps in Morocco, shadow zones where policies against migration act without much regard for human rights. This article is inspired by a visual and filmic ethnography project, based on field encounters with several activists and volunteers (both in Morocco and in Ceuta–Melilla) who support the transit of migrants and asylum seekers.

A Cultural History of Sport in the Renaissance

A Cultural History of Sport in the Renaissance covers the period 1450 to 1650. Outwardly, Renaissance sports resembled their medieval forebears, but the incorporation of athletics into the educational curriculum signalled a change. As part of the scientific revolution, sport now became the object of intellectual analysis. Numerous books were written on the medical benefits of sport and on the best way to joust, fence, train horses and ride, play ball games, swim, practice archery, wrestle, or become an acrobat. Sport became the visible sign of the mind’s control over the physical body, such control often becoming an end in itself with some sports shaped more by decorum than exercise. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training, and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion, and segregation; minds, bodies, and identities; representation.

Teologiczne wątki maryjne mozaik Centro Aletti w sanktuarium św. Jana Pawła II w Krakowie

Theological Marian Themes of the Centro Aletti Mosaics in the Sanctuary of Saint Paul II in Krakow The post-conciliar liturgical indications, of which the free-standing altar with the priest celebrating the liturgy „facing the faithful” became a visible sign, freed the presbytery walls of newly built churches from large altar extensions. The situation became a kind of call for the creators of sacred art, providing an opportunity to return to the noble mosaic art, whose monumental works of the first millennium have survived to this day. It is enough to mention the temples of Ravenna, Palermo or Rome itself. Their iconographic programs, rich in form and content, are continued in the large-format, contemporary altar mosaics by Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, in which a refined artistic form intertwines with a well-thought-out theological concept, showing the vitality of tradition at the threshold of the third millennium. The aim of this article is to present the basic Marian theological themes present in the largest complex set of mosaics that has been built in Poland in recent years. Abstrakt Posoborowe wskazania liturgiczne, których widomym znakiem stał się wolnostojący ołtarz z kapłanem sprawującym liturgię „przodem do wiernych”, uwolniły ściany prezbiteriów nowobudowanych świątyń od wielkich nadstaw ołtarzowych. Zaistniała sytuacja stała się swego rodzaju wezwaniem dla twórców sztuki sakralnej, stwarzając możliwość powrotu do szlachetnej sztuki mozaikowej, której monumentalne dzieła pierwszego tysiąclecia przetrwały do dziś. Wystarczy wspomnieć chociażby świątynie Rawenny, Palermo czy samego Rzymu. Ich bogate w formę i treść programy ikonograficzne znajdują swoją kontynuację w wielkoformatowych, współczesnych mozaikach ołtarzowych o. Marko Ivana Rupnika, w których wyrafinowana forma artystyczna splata się z przemyślaną koncepcją teologiczną, ukazując żywotność tradycji u progu trzeciego tysiąclecia. Niniejszy artykuł stawia sobie za cel ukazanie zasadniczych teologicznych wątków maryjnych, obecnych w największym kompleksowym zespole mozaik, jaki w ostatnich latach powstał w Polsce.

Katolicka doktryna o sposobie obecności Chrystusa w postaciach eucharystycznych wyrażona w mszale dla byłych anglikanów

The ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion is one of the most important and difficult part of activity of both communities. Eucharist is the main goal of ecumenism because in the common celebrating of the sacred liturgy the Christ’s Church is a visible sign of the unity for the world. One of the most important theological problems in the dialogue is the problem of transsubstantiation. For the Anglican Church this Catholic doctrine is against the biblical and rudimental teaching of primitive Christendom. The article shows the problem of trans- substantiation in the ecumenical perspective and in the context of Divine Worship: The Missal. The Catholic Eucharistic teaching is present in this new Western liturgical book, but the term of trans- substantiation does not exist there.

The origin of visibility: Marie-José Mondzain, André Leroi-Gourhan on the establishment of image, speech and desire

This article examines the elements of the philosophy of image of Marie-José Mondzain in light of the problem of relation between image, speech and desire. Although the main subject of Mondzain’s research is the iconic image and correlation between patristic concept of depiction and the modern technical regimes of its production and circulation, in a number of work she turns from the analysis of iconic image to studying the phenomenon of rock painting, analyzing interrelation and difference of the ability to production and performance of the image and speech. In these works, proceeding from the paleoanthropological theory of André Leroi-Gourhan, Mondzain analyzes the process of production and performance of rock painting as an event that defines the movement of anthropogenesis and forms human as a “desiring and speaking spectator”. The philosophy of image of Marie-José Mondzain is usually analyzed in the context of constructs of the modern French phenomenology and its “theological turn”. At the same time, a synthetic in its nature project of Mondzain sidesteps from the unambiguous affiliation with one or another philosophical tradition. This article reviews the elements of Mondzain’s philosophy of image not only in the context of paleoanthropological theory of André Leroi-Gourhan, but also a number of position of the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard, genetically connected with the phenomenological tradition of projects, but overcoming it in their own way. The analyzed in such context research of Marie-José Mondzain allow clarifying the meaning of invisibility, hollowness in structure of the image, attribution of the image to a speech or visible sign, and transformation of desire in the process of production and performance of the image.

An Outward and Visible Sign of an Inward and Spiritual Grace

Drawing on Headlam’s sermons, pamphlets, and letters, this article explores his theology of the ballet, a theology made possible by his conception of sacrament and sacramental bodies. Headlam’s incarnational sacramentalism not only enabled a support of the stage as divinely created and a sacrosanct space, but created an approach to dancers, particularly women, that was distinct in its treatment of all bodies as the same in potentiality before God. His sacramentalism defied the standard conflation of dance with female transgression and male danger. Accordingly, Headlam’s vision of the earthly kingdom of God was one in which there was truly neither male nor female, and in which the stage and its ballerinas could act as models of the grace of Christ rather than as reflections of fallen humanity.

Unknown structure of the Chephren pyramid

The Cheops and Chephren pyramid have been in Giza for about 3500 years. Their view is enjoyed by many people around the world who ask questions: how and why were the pyramids built? Cheops and Chephren pyramids are very similar on the outside. According to what we know, however, they are diametrically different in their internal structure. In the Chephren pyramid the internal structure was not discovered while the Cheops pyramid has many internal chambers, like: The King's Chamber, the Queen's Chamber. However, according to current knowledge, the Mummies of Pharaoh and his wife were never buried there. So, why were the internal structures of this pyramid built? Were the pyramids supposed to be a visible sign of Pharaoh's power? Are there any undiscovered chambers in both pyramids, which could give us answers to many questions?