Beyond the Words in Print: Identity Construction in Messages of Condolence

Death is part of human existence. When a person hears the news of someone’s death, it is very common for that person to express their feelings about it. This feeling is in the form of condolences which express the speaker’s sorrow, and condolences fall into the category of speech act. Semantically, condolences have a social meaning which refers to language use. Identities are created in relationships with others, and condolences are major platforms for the construction of identities, in that, existing relationships are, clearly, manifested in the messages that sympathizers expressed. Using a qualitative approach, the study analyzed twenty condolence messages which were purposely sampled from condolence messages posted in the portals of International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), when one of its members passed away. The analysis of the data revealed two main identity types enacted for the deceased: role identity and Social Identity. The major Role identity enacted, metaphorically, was Father while the least role was Achiever. Second, identity as an International Figure was dominant with the Social roles, but Good Personality was used less frequently. The present study adds to studies in identity construction, in general, and studies in condolence messages, in specific.

The Horrors of War in the History of German Literature: From Heinrich Wittenwiler and Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen to Rainer Maria Remarque

As terrible as wars have always been, for the losers as well as for the winners, considering the massive killings, destruction, and general horror resulting from it all, poets throughout time have responded to this miserable situation by writing deeply moving novels, plays, poems, epic poems, and other works. The history of Germany, above all, has been filled with a long series of wars, but those have also been paralleled by major literary works describing those wars, criticizing them, and outlining the devastating consequences, here disregarding those narratives that deliberately idealized the military events. While wars take place on the ground and affect people, animals, objects, and nature at large, poets have always taken us to imaginary worlds where they could powerfully reflect on the causes and outcomes of the brutal operations. This paper takes into view some major German works from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century in order to identify a fundamental discourse that makes war so valuable for history and culture, after all. Curiously, as we will recognize through a comparative analysis, some of the worst conditions in human history have produced some of the most aesthetically pleasing and most meaningful artistic or literary texts. So, as this paper will illustrate, the experience of war, justified or not, has been a cornerstone of medieval, early modern, and modern literature. However, it is far from me to suggest that we would need wars for great literature to emerge. On the contrary, great literature serves as the public conscience fighting against wars and the massive violence resulting from it.

Gorgo: Sparta’s Woman of Autonomy, Authority, and Agency

Claims that Herodotus reveals himself as a proto-biographer, let alone as a proto-feminist, are not yet widely accepted. To advance these claims, I have selected one remarkable woman from one side of the Greco-Persian Wars whose activities are recounted in his Histories. Critically it is to a near contemporary, Heraclitus, to whom we attribute the maxim êthos anthropôi daimôn (ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων) —character is human destiny. It is the truth of this maxim—which implies effective human agency—that makes Herodotus’ creation of historical narrative even possible. Herodotus is often read for his vignettes, which, without advancing the narrative, color-in the character of the individuals he depicts in his Histories. No matter, if these fall short of the cradle to grave accounts given by Plutarch, by hop-scotching through the nine books, we can assemble a partially continuous narrative, and thus through their exploits, gauge their character, permitting us to attribute both credit and moral responsibility. Arguably this implied causation demonstrates that Herodotus’ writings include much that amounts to proto-biography and in several instances—one of which is given here—proto-feminism.

The Five Ancient Criteria of Democracy: The Apotheosis of Equality

Democracy in ancient Athens was different from what is implemented today even in the most advanced democracies. To evaluate this difference, this paper presents five criteria of democracy and then applies them to ancient Athens and modern advanced democracies. In comparison and according to five criteria, modern democracies are inferior to what the eligible citizens of Ancient Athens enjoyed. The ancient Greek literature on the subject has identified five criteria of democracy which neither today nor in ancient times were fully satisfied. The democracy today satisfies some but not all five criteria. This was also true for the ancient (Athenian) democracy. They differ in which criteria they satisfied. Of course, each criterion is fulfilled to a certain extent and this may differentiate modern from ancient democracy. These issues are discussed in this paper.

"Because No One Can Seize me from Behind": Sir Christopher Hatton's Double Portrait and Elizabethan Textual Paintings

Many researchers have emphasised the special use of inscriptions and texts in Tudor paintings. Especially in Elizabethan times, emblematic images emerge and contain texts which present riddles to their audience, address an implicit or explicit beholder, and also give information about their own function. The enigmatic double-sided portrait of Christopher Hatton serves as an outstanding example of the various relations that texts and images form in this era. Two elements of its composition will be discussed here: the inscription and the depiction of Father Time, both on the verso-side. One, a textual element, forms a unit with the other, a pictorial element. On their own and in combination, both built up a reference to emblem books and sources outside the picture and contextualise themselves in humanistic discourses about opportunity and time. Thus, their exclusive presentation forms a dialogue with the beholder and opens up a meta-level of artistic expression. The ancient pictorial tradition of the God Kairos is addressed in the combination, while it labels itself as a depiction of time. Overall, the object briefly examined in this study is an outstanding example of Elizabethan artistic culture and remains a desideratum in art history.

The Photo-Text in the Mussolini Era

In the 1930s, Fascism’s Mythopoeia found in propaganda photobooks a comfortable space in which to configure itself. The layout of the photobooks draws on the experiments carried out by the editors of “Campo Grafico” [1933 - 1939] and by eclectic personalities like Guido Modiano; with reference to photography, on the other hand, from the modernist style developed by the amateurs of photographic circles reworking the experience gained by the European avant-gardes since the previous decade. All these innovations led to a rethinking of the usual relationship between image and text, gaining a new and a much more dynamic interaction between visual and textual. Through the analysis of some of the most important photobooks of the Fascist Era, the following article aims to show some aspects of the verbal and visual rhetoric which the Fascist regime used to generate an articulated model of the world in which to believe, even if its appearance differed radically from what one saw with one's own eyes or experienced on one's own skin every day. In propaganda photo books, the facts are emphasized, even judged, in order to construct a specious argument that leaves no room for doubt.

An Idea of Higher Education Renewal

Beginning with the briefest reference to the state of higher education today, this paper overviews moral and philosophical concepts of and disposition to education in ancient Greece from the works of Plato and Aristotle, takes a summary view of the subjects taught, sums up the subject content of liberal arts and the principles of rhetoric. The author assumes that even if a dedicated return to the classical ideals may never happen in higher education today, a few concrete ideas might be helpful. With reference to concrete works of classical authors, a suggestion is made to stop never-ending reforms in universities, to recover the teaching of such subjects as style in language and literature programmes, to renew the subjects of history, philosophy and logic and to introduce memory-based learning while paying tribute to classical antiquity and regaining local traditions.

Approaching Social Setting when Analyzing Language Change in the Early Republic

Any study that concentrates on language change should assess factors such as historical context and social structure. However, approaching the phonetic and phonological changes that took place during the Early American Republic (1776–1861) is a complex task since it was a period of considerable social, political and economic reorganization Additionally, although many biographies and studies on selected issues have been written, the scholarship about the period remains unconnected and fragmented. As such, this article exposes the theoretical and methodological preparation for a research on sound change during the Early American Republic by discussing how to undertake data collection and how to approach data analysis.

Seven Unknown Drawings by Luigi Manini

Luigi Manini, set designer at the Nacional Theatre of S. Carlos lived in the second half of the 19th century, which was characterized, in the field of aesthetics, by the transition from romanticism to naturalism. This article aims to analyze seven unknown drawings by Luigi Manini, as an expression and illustration of this artistic period. For this, we analyse the three major periods of art exhibition by Hegel in his work Aesthetics. Integrated in this analysis the evolution of artistic expression, with more emphasis, is illustrated the study of ornamentation, its nature, its importance in stylistic participation and, along its journey, the variation between the expression plane and the content plane that the ornament, as a sign, suffered. To conclude this journey, romanticism, used ornamentation as an evocative element of cultural styles and cultures, consistent with the essence of romanticism: a sublime expression. But in its final phase, romanticism evolved into naturalism that manifests, not the differentiated architectural element, but its collective nature. Urbanism is a social response of Architecture. The ornament loses, at this time, its symbolic value, but maintains its expression plan that was developed with an appreciation of its plastic value. It’s the ornate by the ornate that keeps, still, more time in Belle Époque; in Art Nouveau and Art Deco, to disappear completely in Modernism. These drawings, from an affirmation phase of Luigi Manini’s, are integrated at this time, and their analysis will be concluded from the historical conclusion of this article.

Seeing Blackness through Black Expressive Culture: A Reading of Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama – Hail the Dark Lioness

This article examines visual and textual representation of blackness in contemporary black expressive culture. Its primary objective is to discern what blackness means and looks like when seen from the point of view of contemporary black expressive culture. To assess this, I first, briefly, analyze and interpret blackness. Second, I interrogate how contemporary black practitioners critique European ideas of blackness and mirror the complex multidimensionality of black subjecthood by conducting a formal analysis of two pieces of South African artist Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama – Hail the Dark Lioness series. Third, I explore the relationship between visual and textual imagery and their involvement in discourses on race. My intention is to reveal the role text and images play and have played in shaping the concept, perception, and representation of blackness; the visual effect they have had on the black imagination; and the heavy responsibility placed on black writers and artists not only to correct these images but to create images for the collective more often than for themselves.