"Ett löfte om lycka"

In this essay, I explore an innovative theme in the interfaces between theology, gender studies, aesthetic theory, and literary studies. More specifically, my aim is to shed light on fundamental theological conflicts underlying the immensely complex subject of the elevated status of "the beautiful woman" as image and idea in Western society. This will be implemented through a close reading of the influential short story of French nineteenth-century novelist Honoré de Balzac, Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece), from 1831. By virtue of this theologically informed reading, important facets of modern Western society's fantasy of the beautiful woman come to the fore. The essay discloses how this fantasy has far-reaching tentacles and ramifications, by which the beautiful female becomes identified with beauty per se, with art, nature, the divine, and even with life itself. Balzac's short story presents the reader with a strong statement of the scopophilic tendency of Western visual arts, but in its final peripeteia it also provides us with the tools to bring forth a contrary reading, and a direct confrontation with the traditional understanding of the task of the painter.

Sana’a and Women in Al-Maqalih’s Book of Sana’a Yemen

This paper aims to find out Sana'a's imageries in Al-Maqalih's book of Sana’a. It argues that Al-Maqalih has intensely and extensively used Sana’a as a metaphor. The analytical method has been used to analyze the Al-Maqalih's poems. Interviews with Al-Maqalih was carried out to clarify ambiguity in some of his poems. This study finds that Sana’a is metaphorically used by Al-Maqalih as poet’s beloved, as Ageless (Eternal Beautiful woman) and as a revolutionary and fighter woman, as Eve the wife of Adam (Ghaiman), the mother of poets and poetry, as a nymph, and an older woman.

A Multimodal Discourse Analysis in Pantene Advertisement

Advertisement is a persuasive media aimed at persuading and influencing the public. Every day, the advertisement can be found anywhere, such as in a newspaper, television, radio, and also magazine. Pantene is a shampoo product that is very famous especially among women. Its advertisement can be found almost in every media. In this research, the researcher aims to investigate how Pantene Indonesian ads verbally and visually represent the image of women with beautiful strong hair and the ads’ differences by means of Halliday’s transitivity system (2014) and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) point of view. This research also focuses on what the differences signify. The research analyzes Pantene’s advertisements. The data taken for this research are the Pantene Indonesian ads, focusing on the ads that show their brand ambassadors. The results of this research show that Pantene Indonesian ads describe women with strong hair as something that is coveted by women in Indonesia. Similarly, in Pantene International ads, the figure of a woman with strong and beautiful hair is described as a beautiful woman. In the Pantene Indonesian advertisement, it can be seen that ads makers use the implicit persuasive method, whereas, in the International Pantene, the method is explicit declarative employed which can be seen by viewers directly. These differences verify the stereotypes attached to the Indonesian and International market, namely being communal and individual, respectively.

Can Sexual Appeal, Beauty, or Virtue Increase the Opportunity for a Woman to Be Selected as a Spouse? The Mediating Role of Human Uniqueness

High mating value is believed to correspond with high mating opportunities. On that premise, this study explores three cues that are linked to women of high long-term mating value, namely a “beautiful” facial appearance, “sexually attractive” body shape, and “virtuous” behavior. With exclusive attention focused on the above cues, this study examines what kind of human attributes would make a contribution to women’s mating opportunities. The results reveal that both “beautiful” women and “virtuous” women were assessed (in this study) as having greater mating opportunities than “sexually attractive” women. In regard to the human attributes, only the “beautiful” woman was assessed as having high levels of human uniqueness and human nature. Meanwhile, “virtuous” women were assessed as having higher levels of human uniqueness but lower levels of human nature. In contrast, “sexually attractive” women were assessed as having lower levels of human uniqueness but higher levels of human nature. In addition, the results of a mediation analysis show that the trait of human uniqueness, and not human nature, was the mediator between the three types of women and women’s mating opportunities. This finding means that, when women have higher levels of human uniqueness, they can acquire more mating opportunities. These findings contribute an improved understanding to why and how “beauty” or “virtue” increases the opportunity for woman to be selected as a spouse.

City Literature in Abdu al-Aziz al-Makkali’s Poetry

World literature teems with the portrayal of famous cities throughout the world. This kind of literature is unanimously known as city literature. It does not merely describe and portray places, objects, and landscapes for their own sake, it, however, gives readers a revisionist perspective to look afresh and introspectively into self, history, and culture. This paper aims to shed light on a city that witnessed great changes throughout its history. It is called Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, and it is one of such world-famous and ancient cities about which interesting and rich literature has been written. Sana’a has been immortalized in the prose and poetry of local and international prolific and intelligent writers such as Abdu al-Aziz al-Makkali, a famous contemporary Yemeni poet. Sana’a is magnificently portrayed in different exotic images in al-Makkali’s collection of poetry entitled Book of Sana’a. The poet engages in a kind of dialogue with the city in a personal experience and unique particularity, but in the process, this particularity becomes cosmopolitan. Each poem is located in a particular space which gives the poet and reader alike a sense of the place, history, and culture, and an intense feeling of wider identification and empathy. Sana’a is anthropomorphically portrayed as a beautiful woman, sad woman, beloved lady, spirit, and city of heaven. It is fantastically depicted as a unique piece of artifact molded and designed by the hands of God. So, this piece of research attempts to analyze social and political imports and the different images of the city employed by al-Makkali in his poetic work: Book of Sana’a. As a theoretical framework, the paper adopts both historical theory of criticism as well as the formalist theory, so the analysis is focused on both context and text of the selected poems.

Greed in Hamka's Novel Merantau ke Deli

Merantau ke Deli is a novel written by Hamka published in 1939. The main theme of this novel is about Minangkabaunese culture and the conflict in the marriage of Leman, a Minangkabaunese, and Poniem, a Javanese. Adat law makes Leman married Mariatun, a Minangkabaunese as his second wife. The focus of this study is on the act of Greed performed by Leman and Mariatun. This is descriptive qualitative research based on Miles, Huberman, and Saldana (2014). The theory of Greed stated by Kets De Vries (2016) was used to analyze the data obtained. The results show two kinds of Greed in the novel; the Greed for the woman's beauty and the Greed for poverty. Leman performs the Greed on the woman's beauty to marry Poniem, although it is forbidden for Minangkabaunese man to marry a non-Minangkabaunese woman. Poniem's beauty makes him break the adat law. The greediness of a beautiful woman also happens when he meets Mariatun, a beautiful young woman from the Minangkabaunese tribe. The greediness on poverty showed by Mariatun for taking the batik and also for dominating Leman's poverty. However, the acts of Greed performed by the characters in the novel create tragic flaws in their future life.

Of Easy

It may be easy to marry a beautiful woman but difficult to hold her for long, just like easy earning money is not always easy to keep in safe custody. In both the cases it needs stamina. It demands intellect. Thus those who do lack in stamina and intellect as well and are poor both in appearance and wealth are well advised neither to dream for beautiful wife nor should they earn easy money. Yet man runs after beautiful woman and easy money whether he can hold it or not it matters little. It is greed that provokes man to achieve the desired thing. Man enjoys holding instinct and boasts of for the same. Holding is owner’s pride, neighbor’s envy. Failure ignites the craze more violently. Craze is an easy avenue to enjoy the life to the lees at ease and easily.

Peredaran Kosmetik Pemutih Ilegal di Indonesia dan Upaya Penanggulangannya

Whitening cosmetics are still popular in Indonesia, along with the stigma that white skin is idealized skin color. Woman with white skin acknowledges as beautiful woman. The increasing public demand for whitening cosmetics is exploited by crime offenders who produce and distribute illegal whitening cosmetics. The study was conducted by collecting inspection data and law enforcement data carried out by the Indonesian FDA and other criminal justice systems, direct research in the field, and online mapping through cyber patrol and Google Trends analysis to capture the distribution model of illegal whitening cosmetics in Indonesia, both those distributed offline as well as distributed online. The result of the study shows that illegal whitening cosmetics are produced then distributed offline and online in all provinces in Indonesia with various types of modus operandi, in line also with the high interest of searching for whitening cosmetics in online media. Illegal whitening cosmetics are known to have no marketing authorization and also contain prohibited ingredients, such as mercury, hydroquinone, tretinoin, and steroid. Many factors influence the supply chain stages of this illegal whitening cosmetics from upstream/supply (producers and distributors) to downstream/demand (consumers). Indonesian FDA must take the strategic step to minimize or reduce each of these factors, with repressive actions towards manufacturers and distributors, and preventive actions against consumers of illegal whitening cosmetics or through system/policy intervention.

The first Russian female soil scientist

The year 2021 is marked by the 175-th anniversary of the birth of Anna Egorovna and Vasiliy Vasilievich Dokuchaevs. This is a wonderful occasion to recall an amazing and remarkably modest woman who played an important role in the life and work of the great Russian natural scientist, the founder of genetic soil science. If many works were written about her outstanding world-wide known husband, films were made, pictures were created, his photos are preserved, then the life of his wife is undeservingly poorly described, and the appearance of this very beautiful woman is depicted in the only one famous portrait. This article, dedicated to the memory of Anna Egorovna Dokuchaeva, is based on both the quotations from the already published memoirs of the follower and the friend of V.V. Dokuchaev – Franz Yulievich Levinson-Lessing, and the excerpts from Anna Egorovna’s letters to Varvara Ippolitovna – the wife of F.Yu. Levinson-Lessing. These letters were collected from the archives of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and copied by the employee of the V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute – Sergey Petrovich Lyalin – in the 1980s, and they are now kindly provided by the Central Soil Museum by V.V. Dokuchaev (the Branch of the Federal Research Centre “V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute” in St. Petersburg).