Shagar’s Mystical Space: Moving between the Languages of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and Rav Kook

This paper presents an analysis of the conflictual relationship between Shagar’s [Shimon Gershon Rosenberg] use of kabbalistic and Hasidic traditions and his search for mysticism via psychoanalysis and Continental philosophy. The study will shed light upon the tension between how Shagar defined and understood mysticism and how he defined kabbalistic language and the gap between his explicit and his implicit attitudes towards Kabbalah. I propose that mysticism was the central religious space that Shagar sought to create from his conflicting stance. Nonetheless, despite Shagar’s attempt to present himself as a direct theological descendant of the kabbalistic tradition, by way of his use of terms such as “the shattering of the vessels”, “Nothingness”, and “silence”, I will attempt to expose the dissonance between his yearning for this language and his rejection of it. My main analysis, at the heart of the article, will be based on the not-yet-released recording of his introductory lecture on Da’at Tevunot. It will be accompanied by a variety of sources from his books (edited by his pupils) to complete the picture.

The Poinsett Saga

The chapter goes into detail about the tempestuous envoyship of Joel Poinsett, the undiplomatic American diplomatic representative to Mexico. He and Alamán developed a very conflictual relationship that in part was responsible for Alamán’s departure from the ministry in 1825 although the two men overlapped only for about six months; Poinsett was eventually recalled by his government at the request of Mexico in 1829. The influence of the establishment of York Rite Freemasonry in Mexico, introduced by Poinsett and which formed the basis for factional divisions in national politics, is discussed in depth.

The Age-Sex Structure of Religion as a Determinant of the Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in Maroua

We set out to find out how the sex-age structure of religion of internal migrants influences their integration in the socio-economic activities of Maroua. We used the exponential non-discriminative snowball sampling method to collect data in which each new referral provided us with more data for referral until we got enough number of subjects for the sample. We concluded that: if one is a Muslim, one will have a stable and progressing business because Muslims maintain a good relationship with their neighbors and they also practice a relationship of solidarity. However, the socio-economic activities of Catholics, Pentecostals and Protestants suffer because they lack the cultural capital that Muslims enjoy. However, age plays a major role: when they are 45–54 years old, the income of the internally migrated Muslims and Catholics drastically decline while that of Pentecostals and Protestants increases. Older Muslims and Catholics earn basically very low income unlike Protestants who earn very high salary. The income inequality among men is much higher than that among women. Generally, men have a more conflictual relationship with their neighbors than women and women diversify their relationship with the natives more than men.

Between Guinea and Cape Verde

This chapter provides the historical background for understanding not only the Cabral’s family background, but also the nature of Portuguese colonialism, particularly in relation to the formation of the two Portugal-dominated territories in West Africa, namely Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. Being born in Guinea-Bissau, from Cape Verdean parents, and growing up in Cape Verde, made Cabral a product of the conflictual relationship between these two former Portuguese colonies. For Cabral, then, forming a party that congregates Cape Verdeans and Guineans was also a way to come to terms with his own identity.

Imagination and Hermeneutics

In most eighteenth-century Anglo-American and European thought, the imagination was a dangerous faculty, at odds with ‘hermeneutics’ as a system of interpretation. This chapter, however, will argue that the sanctified imagination is key to understanding Edwards’s overall hermeneutic, which will be defined as his system of typology whereby any and everything—textual, material, or ideational—can and does point to the nature of being as God’s self-communication. It will trace scholarly debates about Edwards’s place in eighteenth-century epistemological controversies, his conflictual relationship with the idea of the ‘imagination’ within these debates (in relationship to his aesthetic theology), and scholarly attempts to understand his unique system of typology as his particular hermeneutical theory. The chapter ends by exploring future directions for scholarship by thinking of his typological system as a form of ‘imperial epistemology’ that expands how we think of Edwards’s colonial context and relationship to debates about modernity.

Записки из подполья Ф. М. Достоевского в свете литературной традиции: Семиотическая постановка вопроса

В настоящей статье повесть Ф. М. Достоевского Записки из подполья рассматривается через концептуализацию литературной традиции в семиотическом контексте, в трех взаимосвязанных аспектах: (1) дискурсивные формы отрицания и его смысловые перспективы (апофатизм); (2) семантизация идеи полноты и (3) ориентированность художественного текста на осмысление семиотической природы изображаемого мира и изображающего (мета)поэтического языка. Если апофатизм в семиотическом плане проблематизирует парадоксальность попытки уловить невыражаемое в интенсивных формах языковой динамики, и познавать перспективы существования личности в описании форм несуществования или амбивалентного / непродуктивного существования, то придавая семиотическую установку изложению характерологии, с ее личностным центром, стремлением к завоеванию опыта полного существования / полноты, в повести Достоевского происходит богатая семантизация семиотического явления беспризнаковости / лишения признаковости в определении познаваемого объекта. В статье прослеживается семантическое моделирование полноты и ее дискредитация в направлениях (а) причинно-следственной мотивации; (б) временной сегментации; (в) детализации в форме исчерпывающего деления объекта описания. Семиотическая динамика в Записках из подполья связана с проблематизацией маркированных противоречий (как в плане характерологии, так и идей – тезисов и антитезисов) и с разработкой – в качестве форм их совместного сохранения – семантического образования инклюзивности. Оно восходит к монодуалистической антиномии, имеющей глубокие корни в религиозно-философской традиции русской культуры. В итоге текстовая динамика произведения Достоевского в статье интерпретируется в рамках модели трансформации: одно то же, что другое (беспризнаковое унифицирование объектов познания) → или–или (взаимоисключительность в выборе маркированных индивидуализированных атрибутов объектов познания) → и то, и другое (соединение противопоставленностей, единство противоречий). В такой трансформационной модели заложено толкование семиотической креативности, в свете которой Достоевский определяет понятие культурной традиции. Ее динамику характеризует процессуальность и открытость. Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground in the light of literary tradition: A semiotic approach. In the paper, Dostoevsky’s novella Notes from the Underground is interpreted through the conceptualization of literary tradition within a semiotic framework, from three interconnected angles: the interpretation of (1) the discursive forms of negation (apophatism); (2) the semantization of the idea of ‘plenitude’ (fullness, totality, completeness); (3) the text’s concentrated reflection on the semiotic nature of the modelled world and its (meta) poetic language. Apophatic poetics calls attention to the conflictual relationship between the signifier and the signified, including the paradoxical situation in which intensive sign articulation/expression is given to some substance considered to be unexpressable. Signification here strives to gain epistemological knowledge about the potentials of the existence of personality through its definition in terms of non-existence or ambivalent, unproductive existence. Тhe character definition, putting in centre stage – within the problematics of personhood and personality – the protagonist’s desire to achieve the state of plenitude, also gains a semiotic orientation through the conflict between being endowed with vs. being deprived of individual semantic attributes accorded to the object of cognition (individualization vs. generalization). The paper examines the semantic modelling of ‘plenitude’ and explains the various means that this model is discredited by the object’s lack of individual semantic attributes in (a) causality; (b) temporal segmentation; (c) the forms of exhaustive detailing. Individual object identification is also interpreted as preserving oppositions at the levels of literary character (his contradictions) and abstract notions (theses and antitheses) in which conflicting elements constitute an organic whole. This can be traced back to monodualistic antinomies deeply rooted in the Russian philosophy of religion.

Revisiting German Proletarian-Revolutionary Literature

This article provides an overview of the emergence of proletarian literature in Germany, and the focuses in on the key texts, figures and debates of the Communist Party-affiliated Federation of Revolutionary-Proletarian Writers (BPRS) and the important debates about literature and politics in its journal Die Linkskurve between 1929 and 1932. At the same time, I argue for a complicated and sometimes conflictual relationship between the increasingly Hegelian aesthetic position of the journal and the more operatively-oriented work of BPRS authors.

Behind the ‘High Incidence of Lung Cancer’

After 2008, a movement opposing waste incinerators swept across many cities in China. At the time, there was already a conflictual relationship between L waste incinerator in Guangdong and surrounding residents, but the ‘Panyu incident’ caused what was originally a small local conflict to become an issue of wider and even national concern. The list of ‘cancer victims’ that circulated on the internet, and related media reports, gradually convinced the public that the waste incinerator plant was responsible for high rates of lung cancer among residents. However, our investigations found that there were numerous errors in the information about the incidence of lung cancer. The chapter discusses what we discovered about the complex background to this case, and the reasons why rumours and misinformation spread so easily at this time.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIARY WRITING IN IMPROVING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ ASSERTIVE ATTITUDES

This study aimed to apply diary writing as a therapy for low-assertive students. This study employed the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) method developed by Lester Luborsky. The data were collected using diary as an elicitation medium and analyzed using the Garnefski Emotion-Cognitive Regulation Questionnaire (CER). The results showed that(1) student low assertiveness could be improved through expressive writing therapy using a diary as the medium; (2) diary as a therapeutic medium was effective in improving student low assertiveness because diary writing tasks can be distinguished based on CCRT and CER; (3) there was a difference between male and female assertiveness patterns; (4) subjects in the category were easier to change towards normal assertiveness with diary writing therapy compared to subjects in the LSE category.