The Dialogue of Cultures
The Dialogue of Cultures
Contributor(s): Anca Mihaela Dobrinescu (Editor)
Subject(s): Philosophy, Social Sciences, Language and Literature Studies, Gender Studies, Media studies, Studies of Literature, Social Philosophy, Communication studies, Sociology, Romanian Literature, Theory of Communication, Victimology, Sociology of Culture, British Literature, American Literature
Published by: Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploieşti
Keywords: fiction as an act of resistance; fiction across cultural borders; cultural clash; identity conflict; migration issues;
Summary/Abstract: In a world subject to constant change and reconfiguring, societies, previously understood as mono-cultural, have incontestably been refashioned multicultural. The permeability of frontiers made individuals realize that, as denizens of the world, rather than citizens of a country, we live in and through the cultural encounter. Survival is about learning to live at the border, or rather across the borders, where the essential skill is to sense and value diversity and thus cherish the cultural dialogue. Fiction in dialogue with other art forms; fiction as an act of resistance; fiction across cultural borders; cultures in contact; the cultural clash; identity and the cultural and linguistic conflict and dialogue; migration and its linguistic challenges have offered the authors the chance to meet and exchange ideas.
- E-ISBN-13: 978-973-719-617-0
- Page Count: 289
- Publication Year: 2015
- Language: English
The Single Girl in the City: Dialogues with Urban Realities in Contemporary Literature and TV Shows
The Single Girl in the City: Dialogues with Urban Realities in Contemporary Literature and TV Shows
(The Single Girl in the City: Dialogues with Urban Realities in Contemporary Literature and TV Shows)
- Author(s):Vladislava Gordić Petković
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Gender Studies, Media studies, British Literature, American Literature
- Page Range:11-19
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:postfeminism; the single girl; role models; literature; TV shows;
- Summary/Abstract:The so called “third wave” of the feminist movement, often termed postfeminism, is hardly a movement anymore with its strong depoliticisation of the feminist struggle, as it abandons the “sisterhood is powerful” creed for the new politics of singledom, which has elevated from a humiliating status to the new freedom of choice. Postfeminism is focused on individualism, since the collectivity has already managed to fulfil the political goals and demands. It is aware of marriage’s sordid social and economic history and there is no pressure to rush into tying the knot, as spinsterhood ceases to be a humiliating and dismal social and economical status. The single girl is a loaded figure in American cultural history, from Theodore Dreiser’s Carrie to Truman Capote’s Holy Golightly, from the Jazz age flappers to suffragists. She was missing from the popular culture in the 1980’s, but reemerged in the last decade of the millennium as the postfeminist woman came into the focus, portrayed either as frantic and fragile Ally McBeal, or as frisky thirtysomethings in “Sex and the City”. "Sex and the City" follows four fashionable and charismatic characters on their continuum of sexual conquests and relationship disillusionment, while "Gossip Girl" deals with teenage rebellion in the lives of privileged youngsters who are living life as equally to the full as their older counterparts in "Sex and the City". The single girl raises a few eyebrows, nowadays as well as in 1900: while Dreiser was accused of failing to place any moral judgment on Carrie’s lifestyle, the authors of the TV shows of today are criticised for casting women as overly sexual. The single girl in American literature is usually guided by self-interest, emotionally blank, and fond of material things, and the same tendency is shown in “Sex and the City”, whereas the characters from “Gossip Girl” are not eager to explore the opportunities the city affords, since they feel at home there. The paper will attempt to shed some light at the interrelations of the postfeminist role models in literature and TV shows and the urban life their growth is situated within.
The Rogue and the Hooligan: Two Cultural Patterns in Dialogue
The Rogue and the Hooligan: Two Cultural Patterns in Dialogue
(The Rogue and the Hooligan: Two Cultural Patterns in Dialogue)
- Author(s):Adina Ciugureanu
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Comparative Study of Literature, Romanian Literature, British Literature, American Literature
- Page Range:20-32
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:rogue; hooligan; dialogism; literature of the exile;
- Summary/Abstract:The present paper aims at discussing the two cultural types, the rogue and the hooligan, not only as representative of a certain historical time, but also, and especially, as figures defining a specific typology in mainstream and popular literature. The so-called “loveable” rogue, a low-class character who impresses the reader through his selfless quest for an ideal in the seventeenth-, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century picaresque novel is resurrected in the twentieth century in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net, among others, while becoming an “anti-rogue”, I argue, in Lucky Jim and Hurry on Down. Meanwhile, the hooligan (from the Irish “hooley” or “hoolihan”), an unruly, anti-social young man, born in the late nineteenth-century England, becomes both the destructive person in popular sports and the alter-ego for the wondering Jew in fictional texts, such as Mihail Sebastian’s How I Became a Hooligan and Norman Manea’s The Hooligan’s Return. The talk is intended to find ways in which dialogism functions with the various types of rogue and hooligan and to discuss the hooligan type as a possible replacement for the rogue in recent exilic literature.
First as Shakespeare, then as anime: Transcultural identity in Japanese popular culture
First as Shakespeare, then as anime: Transcultural identity in Japanese popular culture
(First as Shakespeare, then as anime: Transcultural identity in Japanese popular culture)
- Author(s):Alice Teodorescu
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Media studies, Film / Cinema / Cinematography, Identity of Collectives, British Literature
- Page Range:33-38
- No. of Pages:6
- Keywords:anime; popular culture; identity; otherness; transfictionality;
- Summary/Abstract:The power of popular culture to erase the border between fiction and reality is a point in “dialogue” for many studies of culture, media and society nowadays. One of its most successful forms, Japanese animation, widely known as anime (F. Schodt, 1997), is a productive subject for academic analysis and research as it departs from another strong cultural product (Japanese comics or manga), creates complex narrative universes and manages to have a global appeal, beyond nation, race, age and so on. As Susan Napier, a renowned Japanese popular culture researcher, underlines, anime can be considered “the Other of animation” that offers “an exhilarating vision of difference in which identity can be technological, mythological, or simply an ecstatic process of constant metamorphosis” and that can be defined as a strong form of expression “in the new transnational culture” (p.292, 2005). The current paper addresses the issues of “identity” and “Otherness” as stated above in order to tap into the larger debate on culture, globalization and transnational/transcultural flows and problematize concepts such as remediation (J. Bolter and R. Grusin, 2000), transmedia storytelling (H. Jenkins, 2006) or transfictionality (M.L. Ryan, 2013). Moreover, with a focus on Shakespeare’s plays or themes in anime adaptation, the larger context of intertextuality and interculturality will be tackled with, in order to offer various perspectives on the global world and the current role that Japanese popular culture as soft power is taking in today’s mediascape.
Margaret Drabble’s Red Queen - An Attempt to Write across Cultures
Margaret Drabble’s Red Queen - An Attempt to Write across Cultures
(Margaret Drabble’s Red Queen - An Attempt to Write across Cultures)
- Author(s):Irina Toma
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Culture and social structure , British Literature, American Literature
- Page Range:39-45
- No. of Pages:7
- Keywords:dialogism; postmodern fiction; dialogue of cultures; feminism;
- Summary/Abstract:Focussing on the author’s assertion about “attempting to write across cultures”, the present paper aims at identifying those universal transcultural human characteristics that can be encountered both in the court memoirs of a Korean princess of more than two centuries ago and in the existential journey of a 20th century English academic. Drawing a rather obvious parallel between the destinies of two women situated so far apart from the historical, cultural and national point of view, Margaret Drabble has created a subtle intertwining of voices and motifs that transcends time and space, coming closer to the postmodern concept of Bahktin’s “dialogic novel”. Dialogism is present in the novel through the voices of many commentators and translators, all of whom have brought their own interpretations and imposed their personalities on the two heroines. Besides illustrating this postmodern concept, the novel unfolds against the constantly shifting dialogue of cultures, 18th century Korea versus 20thcentury Great Britain, without any of the two getting the better of the other. Taking into consideration the feminine/feminist approach dominating both the memoirs of the Crown Princess and the academic exploits of Babs Halliwell, the English lecturer, the paper aims at emphasizing those universal aspects lying at the core of all human beings, all over time and space, aspects that transcultural dialogue alone is likely to evince.
Playing Games in Harold Pinter’s Tragicomedies
Playing Games in Harold Pinter’s Tragicomedies
(Playing Games in Harold Pinter’s Tragicomedies)
- Author(s):Alina-Elena Roşca
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Gender Studies, British Literature
- Page Range:46-53
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:the abject; corporeality; performativity; renegotiation of gender contructions;
- Summary/Abstract:In Harold Pinter’s plays the characters’ primordial means of carrying their existence is by staging performances. Games allow Pinter’s characters to design social masks and to keep hidden their real motives or intentions and, consequently, their most disturbing desires and needs. The paper aims at exploring the way in which the Pinteresque setting gives more credit to those individuals that struggle to gain supremacy with their strange and unacceptable demands. As intruders or foreigners, these characters earn their status as elements of pollution. The article attempts to exemplify how these characters (women, tramps, figures from a long-forgotten past) speak in the name of what Julia Kristeva referred to as ‘the abject’. Their easy accommodation to the territory they seek to dominate makes them advance from margin to the centre and, thus, disarm those that act at the level of fabrications and abstractions. Furthermore, the debate focuses on the manner in which these intruders give voice to their perverted desires through eccentric bodily postures. Female characters illustrate best this situation as their corporeal flexibility makes them openly and unrestrictedly express their sexual energy and the physical pleasures of their bodies. Women reverse roles with men, as men abandon space and let women manipulate it physically and emotionally. By the approach on corporeality, the article takes into account Judith Butler’s study on ‘performativity’. Pinter’s feminine characters show that cultural configurations, i.e. gender constructions, can be submitted to constant renegotiation and reinterpretation.
A Multiple Inhabitance: Cultural Negotiation in Native American Autobiography
A Multiple Inhabitance: Cultural Negotiation in Native American Autobiography
(A Multiple Inhabitance: Cultural Negotiation in Native American Autobiography)
- Author(s):Holly Lynn Baumgartner
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Ethnic Minorities Studies, Identity of Collectives, American Literature
- Page Range:54-66
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:Native American culture; Native cultures; modes of persuasive discourse; international rhetorical strategies;
- Summary/Abstract:Spanning four centuries, destruction of Native American cultures has left modern Native Americans facing a host of problems from loss of land and the highest health care risks to the lowest incomes and life spans and breakdown of traditional lifestyles. Arguably one of the greatest threats remains the historical linguistic oppression. Rhetoric played a major part in the subjugation of Native tribes, through the trail of broken treaties, federal laws, newspaper and “scientific” articles, and banishment of Native languages from federally run schools. However, the linguistic context has shifted radically in the last century, changing the role of rhetoric between dominant and Native cultures, in part due to Native speakers inhabiting and subverting dominant language spheres. In an effort to mediate the ongoing effects of assimilation, Native writers draw from traditional storytelling practices to engage in the non-traditional genre of autobiography. Within the non-threatening, shared, cultural space of the creative writer, Native speakers may shape political stances that extend both invitation and boundary to the dominant culture. These pieces foreground the slippage between modes of persuasive discourse and problematize understandings of audience. More importantly, they point to the duality of Native lived experience. This paper provides specific historical background on the problem, provides close reading of autobiographical, memoir, and personal poetic texts, contextualizes and interprets them using theories from Aristotle, Bakhtin, Halasek, Farmer, hooks, and Roth among others, and finally suggests Native agency arising through intentional rhetorical strategies
Challenging the Victorian Patriarchal Ethos: the Role of the Amazons in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford
Challenging the Victorian Patriarchal Ethos: the Role of the Amazons in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford
(Challenging the Victorian Patriarchal Ethos: the Role of the Amazons in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford)
- Author(s):Dana Vasiliu
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Gender Studies, British Literature
- Page Range:67-77
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:Victorian society; gender stereotypes; gender roles; Victorian literature;
- Summary/Abstract:Quite popular throughout the nineteenth century, well known and loved by its Victorian readers, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford has more than often been unfairly dismissed by literary critics for its apparent lack of structure and dull sentimental overtones. Even though the rise of feminist criticism in the 1960s did some justice to the author, it nevertheless continued to cast shadow on some of her literary work. For the militant feminist movement of the late twentieth century, Cranford was old-fashioned, tributary to a strong, oppressive set of patriarchal values. More recently, the 2007 BBC production and its two-part sequel, Return to Cranford, broadcast in 2009, wronged Gaskell even more by presenting the viewer with a mélange of three texts (the novel and two short stories) forcibly re-articulated to add some romance into the mix. Thus, the aim of this paper is to re-contextualize and re-evaluate this Victorian novella with an eye to revealing the way in which the “genteel society” of Cranford struggles with gender stereotypes, fights male conventional claims to centrality and challenges the domestic ideology which bespeaks women’s submissiveness, frailty and ignorance.
Wartifacts. Long-term Conflict and its Transformation into Fine Arts and Arts and Crafts. A Case Study on Two (more than) Thirty Years’ Wars in Central Europe (1618 - 1648) and Afghanistan (1979 – today)
Wartifacts. Long-term Conflict and its Transformation into Fine Arts and Arts and Crafts. A Case Study on Two (more than) Thirty Years’ Wars in Central Europe (1618 - 1648) and Afghanistan (1979 – today)
(Wartifacts. Long-term Conflict and its Transformation into Fine Arts and Arts and Crafts. A Case Study on Two (more than) Thirty Years’ Wars in Central Europe (1618 - 1648) and Afghanistan (1979 – today))
- Author(s):Till Ansgar Baumhauer
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Sociology of Art
- Page Range:78-90
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:wartifact; war studies; cooperative works; installative artwork; war rhetoric;
- Summary/Abstract:Wars have always deeply influenced self estimation and cultural identities of societies involved in them. Long-term conflicts play a crucial role in this context, because after 30 years of war or longer, at least one generation of people without any experience of peace has grown up and provides the people ruling the country´s future perspectives. Fine arts, mirroring the situation of societies, give a lot of (somewhat indirect) information on the way how war is experienced and reflected. My research perspective mainly focuses on artefacts not used for governmental power or political propaganda and self representation. According to recent theories from the field of war studies, conflict structures in early modern societies in the Thirty Years´ War are astonishingly similar to those that can be found in today´s Afghanistan. So, there is a stunning possibility to openly discuss these both fields of long-term conflict (from two very different cultural and religious backgrounds). On this foil, also the visual (artistic) output of these two conflicts can be seen and discussed together. Aspects like textiles with war motives, paintings on afghan rickshaws and contemporary afghan art are confronted with European votive objects, print series on war topics and “Kunstkammer” objects. The “WARTIFACTS” (derived from “war/ artefacts”) project is a Ph. D thesis in fine arts consisting as well of artistic work as of research in the fields of ethnology, art history and everyday´s culture. It is based on reflections in the field of artistic research and follows in the meantime classical scientific discourse strategies. The artwork itself consists on one side of cooperative works with Afghan artists and carpet makers and on the other side of installative artwork dealing with war rhetoric and the translatability of historical (European) cultural heritage into Afghan-Persian cultural contexts and the other way round.
Caragialism and Post-Caragialism as Dialogue
Caragialism and Post-Caragialism as Dialogue
(Caragialism and Post-Caragialism as Dialogue)
- Author(s):Loredana Ilie
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Comparative Study of Literature
- Page Range:91-97
- No. of Pages:7
- Keywords:communicational genuineness; intertextual dialogue; parodic dialogue;
- Summary/Abstract:Recent studies focus on literature as dialogue, emphasizing the “communicational genuineness” (Roger D. Sell), seen as the essential condition for the survival of works of art. A wide range of great writers, from Shakespeare to Harold Pinter, was analyzed from the perspective of the permanently fluctuating dialogue engaged with their readers over the years. The same framework can be applied to I.L. Caragiale, Romania’s greatest playwright, whose work has fascinated generations of readers partly due to its ability to stimulate a valid dialogue between its dramatic and prose texts, mostly ironical, and “Mr. X, the Reader” (in Caragiale’s own terms). This paper does not, however, restrict itself to pointing out this type of dialogic interaction. It also aims at analyzing the way in which Caragiale’s work is continuously engaged in an intertextual dialogue with other writers, generating a kind of “second degree literature” (G. Genette), manifested as recognisable Post-Caragialian tradition. In this case, the reader is invited to decode the more or less hidden marks of Caragiale’s voice communicating with writers who deliberately host his texts within their own. In other words and paraphrasing G. Genette’s famous distinctions, this specific dialogue of texts takes the form of Caragiale’s “hypotext” enriching a constellation of “hypertexts” through innumerable insertions of quotations, allusions, or just infinitesimal “intertextual traces ” (Riffaterre) perceivable in palimpsest. Al. O. Teodoreanu’s sketches, Camil Petrescu’s play Mitică Popescu, Mircea Horia Simionescu’s short-story The Fast Train of Compliments, Ioan Lăcustă’s series of sketches Waiting at Mr. Caragiale’s Door, Cristian Popescu’ poem They Had to Have a Name are examples of texts which are based on the implied parodic dialogue with Caragiale’s work, making it, through this genuine “labyrinth of lens” (Richard Kearney), the modern reader’s centre of attention.
Lizards and Baits – Ethos, Pathos and Logos in Petre Sălcudeanu’s Biblioteca din Alexandria
Lizards and Baits – Ethos, Pathos and Logos in Petre Sălcudeanu’s Biblioteca din Alexandria
(Lizards and Baits – Ethos, Pathos and Logos in Petre Sălcudeanu’s Biblioteca din Alexandria)
- Author(s):Mihaela-Claudia Trifan
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Romanian Literature, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:98-107
- No. of Pages:10
- Keywords:censorship; communism and literature; subversive strategies; Romanian Communism;
- Summary/Abstract:Petre Sălcudeanu’s novel, Biblioteca din Alexandria (The Library of Alexandria) is one of the prose pieces about the first decade of communism in Romania which were allowed to appear during Nicolae Ceauşescu’s rule. The conditions for passing the censorship in that particular historical moment included presenting an officially accepted version of the events happened during the rule of the previous communist leader, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Part of the negative aspects of that period could be reflected in literary works because they served Ceauşescu’s attempt to justify his personal politics; other truths, more harmful for the regime, were to remain hidden. In his novel, published in a censored version in 1980, Petre Sălcudeanu managed to be subversive enough as to draw the attention of the readers towards his well-masked critique of the regime but he also deceived the censorship to such a degree that his book still included subversive fragments. In 1992, after the Romanian Revolution, Petre Sălcudeanu re-published his work in an uncensored version. By comparing the two versions of the book, we intend to identify what was detected by the Communist censorship and what eluded the officials’ vigilance. We will then analyse the strategies used by the writer to persuade the official reviewers and pass some of his anti-regime ideas through censorship.
On the Path(os) to Romanian Postmodern Logos
On the Path(os) to Romanian Postmodern Logos
(On the Path(os) to Romanian Postmodern Logos)
- Author(s):Lucia Ispas, Marius Nica
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Romanian Literature, Theory of Literature
- Page Range:108-116
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:Postmodernism; realistic convention; ethos pathos logos; metaliterature;
- Summary/Abstract:Radu Petrescu’s novel What One Can See hides, under the thick and often hard to digest crust of a realistic writing, enough elements that can propel it into postmodernism (unborn at the time of its conceiving). Following his own tradition, pre-established with his diaries, the author covers his theoretical ideas about literature within the pages of a comfortable novel, conceived in the manner proposed by Balzac and G. Cǎlinescu. This meta-novel unveils the mechanisms by which logos can be disseminated (and disguised) throughout pathos. The article deals with the particular way in which pseudo-realism becomes postmodernism mettant en abîme the position of the author (the Michelangelo or Manole the Builder complex as well as the concept of theophagy), the implication of the reader in the process of writing (and the inert hand) and the dialectics of the look (as a tool used in order to achieve the harmonization of the elements, both in literature and in real life).
Losing and Gaining Identity in the Romanian Communist Era
Losing and Gaining Identity in the Romanian Communist Era
(Losing and Gaining Identity in the Romanian Communist Era)
- Author(s):Marius Nica
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Romanian Literature, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949)
- Page Range:117-124
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:identity; communism; propaganda; indoctrination; alienation;
- Summary/Abstract:Literature became a means of communist ideology propaganda which served well to indoctrination and alienation. Writers became engineers of souls and their works are many of them constructions with poor foundations. Literature sent the message of the scientific communist reality and in many cases displayed the perfection of socialist society. This was the way in which consciences were corrupted and served to what was called “the new world”. Having been so violently corrupted (by desacralizing words for propaganda purposes), the post-bellum literature may be considered, to an extent, a means ofpsychological torture both for writer and reader. The former became prisoner of literary constructions and the latter grew up to eventually not perceive the limitations and boundaries. Thus literature was used for achieving physical and mainly spiritual metamorphosis of the individual with great efficiency
Radu Petrescu and the Textualist Condition
Radu Petrescu and the Textualist Condition
(Radu Petrescu and the Textualist Condition)
- Author(s):Oana Codarcea
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Romanian Literature
- Page Range:125-133
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:Radu Petrescu; persuasion; textualism; resumption; repetition;
- Summary/Abstract:A form of persuasion in literary discourse is the resumption and the repetition, subduing the text to some changes, especially if the phenomenon is a registered trademark of the writer’s style. A part of Radu Petrescu’ prose is based on analogy, repetition, transfer, since fictions develop identical themes, since the texts bear the reproduction, sometimes even within the same fiction, and since some characters travel from one script to another. The justification of this circularity, which can be seen as a repetition unless it is loaded with any derogatory sense, is based on the fate of literature, that although forwards in space and time, however, it is doomed to cyclicality. Treating the necessary number of repetitions in music and in fact, Rimmon-Kenan Shlomith determines that it should not exceed twice, otherwise it would not be perceived as a scheme after which the individual works constructively, but it would have a neurotic effect. The project undertaken by Radu Petrescu in terms of mirror writings seems to follow the above outline. Exemplifying recursion within the same text, Ce se vede, it should be noted that the writing is subjected to changes at both language and narrative, because the narrative voices succeed, introducing changes in the scheme. This paper aims to analyze the forms of resumed discourse in fictional writings such as Sinuciderea din Grădina Botanică, O singură vârstă, În Efes, but we will linger on the journal appeared in the volume Proze and later included in Ocheanul întors and also on Părul Berenicei, which includes some excerpts from Matei Iliescu in order to decrypt the message.
Inter-standing Bodies in Early Modern British Culture
Inter-standing Bodies in Early Modern British Culture
(Inter-standing Bodies in Early Modern British Culture)
- Author(s):Ana Maria Tolomei
- Language:English
- Subject(s):French Literature, Theory of Literature, British Literature
- Page Range:134-142
- No. of Pages:9
- Keywords:dialogue; cultural constructs; body image; Early Modern Culture;
- Summary/Abstract:My paper aims at the analysis of dialogue as a form of recuperation while re-shaping and re-organising physical and non-physical bodies (either social, political or moral) in need of a “treatment” in Early Modern British and French Cultures. This kind of dialogue implies movement starting from under-standing to inter-standing and from curing to preserving private and public, individual and collective, dominant and dissident bodies in ordinary or extra-ordinary circumstances. I am interested in the way in which bodies as cultural constructs can be activated or re-activated in a Bakhtinian dialogical manner. I am also interested in the way in which “speaking with the dead” represents in Greenblatt’s view a manifestation of the circulation of the14social energy within written and visual texts. Furthermore, my inquiry leads to the analysis of the images of the self and the other, of the centre and the margins through cultural, national or religious clichés. The physical and non-physical bodies of the self and the other as well as bodily ornaments can also be interpreted from the Derridian perspective of the double-edged “pharmakon” as both “remedy” and “poison” as well as “artificial” and “natural” cultural constructs.
Persuasiveness of the Words, Pictures and Gestures in the History of Political Ideas
Persuasiveness of the Words, Pictures and Gestures in the History of Political Ideas
(Persuasiveness of the Words, Pictures and Gestures in the History of Political Ideas)
- Author(s):Béla Mester
- Language:English
- Subject(s):History of ideas, Political history
- Page Range:145-154
- No. of Pages:10
- Keywords:early modernity; theory of gestures; interpretation; history of political ideas;
- Summary/Abstract:A historian of political ideas used to interpret the words of political communities, pictures shown by them, and their gestures as political acts. During the interpretation, the switch between the analyses of the former three is often problematic. Interpretation of the words causes the fewest problems, and we have methods for the interpretation of pictures from the history of arts. In the intellectual history, the Cambridge school had offered a method for taking “the text in context”, using the term of “writing act” in the historical analysis, based on the philosophies of “speech acts.” Deep researches of the Cambridge school have re-established the authority and role of rhetoric in political philosophy, at least in its historical concern. “Pictorial turn” has offered the term of “pictorial speech act” for the theory and history of the religious and secularised fine arts. However, the terms of “writing act” and “pictorial act” are relatively new tools for the intellectual history, and their usage is abundant in theoretical problems; the real trouble has emerged, when the picture starts moving, or the talking person makes gestures. At first we think the cause of the trouble that of the authors of our written sources; later we understand that it is in our own point of view; finally, we recognise that the theories of the history of philosophy about the relationship between the picture and word are useless for our aims. The solution is hidden in a theory of gestures, developed independently from the theories of pictures, and languages. I have met this problem at first in my researches concerning English classics. In the present lecture I will show early modern instances from the history of religion and political ideas, with an analysis of the parallel reasoning by words, pictures and gestures in historical situations of early modernity.
The Concept of Religio Duplex within Today’s Discourse of Globalization
The Concept of Religio Duplex within Today’s Discourse of Globalization
(The Concept of Religio Duplex within Today’s Discourse of Globalization)
- Author(s):Béla Mester
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Political Philosophy, Rhetoric
- Page Range:155-266
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:religio duplex; eloquent lack; Cosmopolitan thought; local identities;
- Summary/Abstract:Within the Continental theoretical tradition, Jan Assmann is an inevitable figure, concerning the questions of the relationship of the universality and particularity of cultures. His last important monograph on the history of religio duplex (2010) from its late antique origins to the German Enlightenment discusses the religious background of the tradition of the Cosmopolitan thought, with important consequences for the nowadays common political opinions. Assmann’s last achievements are focussed on the interpretation of the Egyptian culture in the early modern and modern epochs, before the decoding of the hieroglyphs. The dynamic equilibrium of the Cosmopolitan thought and local identities, offered by Assmann’s theory within the framework of the Western theological thinking, is a possibility for modelling the relationship of local and global in general. My critical contribution concerns the eloquent lack of the Kantian philosophy of religion in Assmann’s reconstruction of the reliogio duplex within the framework of the German Enlightenment, and it tries to answer the reason why of this missing topic
The Words, the Goodness and the World – Is the Dumbness really a Birth-Defect of Goodness?
The Words, the Goodness and the World – Is the Dumbness really a Birth-Defect of Goodness?
(The Words, the Goodness and the World – Is the Dumbness really a Birth-Defect of Goodness?)
- Author(s):Gábor Kovács
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Ethics / Practical Philosophy
- Page Range:167-174
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:goodness; action; speech; Hannah Arendt; world-demolishing force;
- Summary/Abstract:The interpretation of the goodness as a world-demolishing force is one of the most contested topics in the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. She returns to the problem in her books again and again. It appears in The Human condition when Arendt talks on the personality of Jesus. Goodness here is described as an absolute private phenomenon which must remain outside the public realm because entering the world it inevitably loses its special character. The problem emerges again in a different context in On revolution. Here Arendt concludes that goodness, being a worldless phenomenon, entering the stage of politics necessarily appears as a devastating natural force. Goodness dwells at the darkness of human heart; if it arises into the light of the space of appearance it leads inevitably to violence. Why? In the argumentation of Arendt it is a consequence of the inherent dumbness of goodness; it is unable for argumentative speech and persuasion. As such it must be prohibited from the public realm based on interpersonal communication. Goodness, being an emotion, cannot be communicable with words, argues Arendt. But this argumentation stands in contradiction with other contexts in The Human Condition where Jesus, the embodiment of goodness, appears as the archetypical representative of action of forgiveness which is a vital important phenomenon of public realm. Action is described here as “the one miracle-working faculty of man” and Jesus is described as a person having uniquely deep insights into this faculty. In a third context in this book Arendt declares that speechless action cannot exist. How can Jesus, the embodiment of the mute goodness, be the exemplary figure of action inseparably from speech? Is this paradox solvable within the frameworks of the Arendtian theory? It is the main question of my planned paper.
The Literary, Philosophical and Religious Dimensions of Allegory
The Literary, Philosophical and Religious Dimensions of Allegory
(The Literary, Philosophical and Religious Dimensions of Allegory)
- Author(s):Aurelian Botică
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Greek Literature, Stylistics
- Page Range:175-185
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:allegory; Hellenistic Greek literature; classical Greek literature;
- Summary/Abstract:This paper will analyze the concept of allegory as it was understood and used in classical and Hellenistic Greek literature. We will argue that Greek philosophers developed the technique of allegory partly as a reaction against the mythological worldview of Homer. As Greek thought evolved from a naturalistic expression into a more philosophical worldview, the Greek sophists felt increasely uncomfortable with the tales of violence and sexual immorality of the gods. Accordingly, the philosophers developed the method of allegorization both to save the Homeric myths from the devastating attacks of the critics and to impose the scientific worldview as a non-mythological endeavour. Since Greek culture was born out of the worldview of the Ilyad and the Oddysey some philosophers reinterpreted the myths allegorically. Hence they maintained cultural continuity with the past while allowing critical thought to reach its logical conclusions. They could honor the ancestral religion while criticizing the tales of the gods’ lying, violence and sexual immorality. The purpose of our study is to help the reader understand the origins and the power of allegory. To do so, we will analyze a number of classic texts and the way they were interpreted by contemporary scholarship. We believe that this interdisciplinary approach will help scholars from the field of literature understand better the philosophical and religious background of the birth and development of allegory.
Islamic Hermeneutics and Western Traditions: the epistemological/ontological dispute in hermeneutics
Islamic Hermeneutics and Western Traditions: the epistemological/ontological dispute in hermeneutics
(Islamic Hermeneutics and Western Traditions: the epistemological/ontological dispute in hermeneutics)
- Author(s):Yi Ren Thng
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Epistemology, Middle-East Philosophy, Hermeneutics
- Page Range:186-205
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:hermeneutics; Islamic Hermeneutics; Western Traditions; epistemological vs. ontological dispute;
- Summary/Abstract:Hermeneutics and its practice straddles a number of purportedly incompatible dualisms. Ostensibly, contestation about hermeneutics a la Gadamer and Ricoeur, revolve about resolving if an epistemological orientation, or an ontological predilection should take precedence. While this theoretical stranglehold is indubitably important, I argue that this debate masquerades and indeed distract attention away from deeper and more insidious debates about the philosophical nature and even the potential of the social sciences in general. After all, critics of Gadamer's ontological programme have attempted the creation of alternative hermeneutics with epistemological underpinnings to enable distanciation, which in turn renders critical theory that encompasses emancipatory action possible (Ricoeur and Habermas). Others have adopted epistemological foundations in hermeneutics, while dismissing the ontological characterisation of Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle, to discredit the postulation of interpretations as explanatory accounts. Adopting this strategically allows for some to discharge explanatory accounts from being beholden to constraints such as spatial temporal limitation or inherited historical legacies, while rendering yet others the possibilities of genuine intersubjectivity and argumentative diversity that does not ‘come at the cost of enforced agreement’ (Shklar). Despite the importance of these debates, I argue that this is yet another distraction from the notion of hermeneutics as an endeavour of interpretation that necessarily and indeed can incorporate the various binaries as outlined above. To illustrate my arguments, I invoke an original site of hermeneutical contestation, namely theology and its texts. Specifically, I introduce principles of Islamic hermeneutical exercises, and Ibn al-Arabi is adduced to explore modalities of comprehension (Tadhakkur vs Tadabbur, Tafalkur, Ta'aqqul) in relation to divine knowledge entities (Tanzih as compared to Tashbibh). I conclude by sketching the possibilities of a hermeneutical programme that incorporates the above schisms, and hence create more holistic hermeneutical enterprises.
Deconstruction of the Notion of Logos and Logocentric Language in Texts by Jacques Derrida
Deconstruction of the Notion of Logos and Logocentric Language in Texts by Jacques Derrida
(Deconstruction of the Notion of Logos and Logocentric Language in Texts by Jacques Derrida)
- Author(s):Paulina Kłos
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Semiology, Rhetoric
- Page Range:206-216
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:supplementarity; logos; logocentric language; Jacques Derrida;
- Summary/Abstract:The construction of logos in Derrida’s writings is expressed and effaced at the same time. It is totally in agreement with the main assumption of Derrida’s philosophy, i.e. that the characteristic of human being does not confine itself only to the clarity of reasoning but is best explained in terms of the supplement. The classical metaphysical concepts like identity, presence, sameness (which all derive its origin from the Platonian logos) are by Derrida deconstructed with the help of this notion: “the indefinite process of supplementarity has always already infiltrated presence, always already inscribed there the space of repetition and the splitting of the self.” Supplement as the relation to its other is the condition of self-consciousness, but at the same time its constant transgression beyond this what is given is the reason for the dissolution of the stable identity. In the long run this process results in the complete expropriation of the subject, because “[a]uto-affection constitutes the same (auto) as it divides the same.” This consequence of Derridian inquiry is the reason why we cannot entirely give ourselves to the defiant project of deconstruction – we still need some stable, operational language based on logos so that the language expressions can be meaningful and not dissolve in disintegration. Consequently, encouraged by Derrida to follow the path of “dangerous supplement” in finding solely human components of culture, we can say “yes” to it, but only when treating it as a regulative idea for a more logocentric struggle. In my paper I would like to indicate how logos inaugurated the metaphysical tradition in philosophy, how logocentric oppositions culminated in the writings of Husserl, had their twilight in the thought of Nietzsche and were finally deconstructed by Derrida.
Taking the Step (Not) Beyond the Infinity of Questions
Taking the Step (Not) Beyond the Infinity of Questions
(Taking the Step (Not) Beyond the Infinity of Questions)
- Author(s):Alina Vlad
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Ethics / Practical Philosophy
- Page Range:217-229
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:hospitality; crossing borders; Jacques Derrida;
- Summary/Abstract:Imagine a hopscotch game with its squares and numbers, with its limitations and the gesture of passing over a threshold, with the inevitable (un)balance that the player has while standing on one foot and then, when (s)he succeeds to touch the point where (s)he can stand on both his/her feet, the sense of balance is restored. With every gesture or every new level reached, the player can hope to arrive to the highest level of the game. This final level has no limitations, no boundaries, no unequal positions. With the help of Jacques Derrida’s gesture of not believing in a pure, unconditioned type of hospitality, underlining the fact that we don’t know what hospitality means, my article explores the facets of “hos(ti)pitality” envisioned as a coin with two facets which can always be flipped according to any change of status, to any new condition imposed on or by the host/guest. I will investigate both the conditional and unconditional hospitality, the norms that govern the concepts that concentrate on the meaning of the gift, of absolute offering and accepting, on the definition of the “threshold” as a distinctive limitation between the interior, familiar space and the exterior, the foreign one, on the “stranger’s” status and on the host’s rights and obligations. These aspects will highlight issues regarding the language, the communication barriers, the sender and the receiver of the message. The analysis will contain the reflection on the unlimited game, both conditioned and unconditioned, by the irreversible fusion between hospitality and hostility. The key concept on which I focus in my article is “the hopscotch game” as it represents, in its pureness, the clear image of crossing over a border, with small steps and several attempts to reach the highest level. This final point can symbolize the struggle to connect with the level of understanding what hospitality could actually mean. At first, the player is unbalanced as (s)he knows that (s)he needs to get on another territory and cannot stand in that territory with both his/her feet – meaning either that this is due to a limited squared space or that it is unfamiliar, thus unbalanced. Only after several efforts, of crossing over, of understanding and accepting, of learning and knowing, the player will succeed to reach the final level that is round, contains no limitations, it gathers along all the information, the cultural awareness of both the play and the player, in a globalized territory. The stone, which is the player’s tool, allows him/her to overstep the boundaries and may be assimilated to the philosophers' stone that can transform the impossibility of an unconditioned hospitality into, at least, an option.
Dialogue in the Conflict Situation: Two Types of Rhetorical Interaction
Dialogue in the Conflict Situation: Two Types of Rhetorical Interaction
(Dialogue in the Conflict Situation: Two Types of Rhetorical Interaction)
- Author(s):Agnieszka Budzyńska-Daca, Renata Botwina
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics
- Page Range:233-243
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:conflict resolution; debate; negotiation; Polish democracy;
- Summary/Abstract:The main idea of the study is to present the specifics of the two forms of communication in the event of a dispute that is a conflict in the public sphere. It is assumed that the forms of conflict resolution are debate and negotiation. The paper will present the differences in the rhetorical structure of the debate and negotiation species (in the sphere of inventio, dispositio and elocutio) and answer the question: what are the communication barriers of both forms of participation in the dispute? In addition, the authors will analyze at the goals of rhetorical actors in the debate and negotiations specifics. Finally, these insights will be applied to the rhetorical specifics of the dialogue. What is more, the authors will discuss the opposition problem - debate versus dialogue - noting that some scholars consider debating a disease of the Western civilization (Flick (1998), Tannen (1998)). The paper aims to answer the question whether the debate tends to be perceived in the same way in the budding democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. The study will be supported by the observations and examples of Polish democracy.
What’s in a House? An Analysis of Gender Specific Word Associations
What’s in a House? An Analysis of Gender Specific Word Associations
(What’s in a House? An Analysis of Gender Specific Word Associations)
- Author(s):Elena Korshuk
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Gender Studies, Sociolinguistics
- Page Range:244-249
- No. of Pages:6
- Keywords:gender specific word associations; cross-cultural studies; free word associations;
- Summary/Abstract:Throughout the century and a half of its existence, the free word association experiment first psychologists, then psycholinguists and now modern day interculturalists have used it for their scopes. However, only a few authors have undertaken attempts to analyze the gender/sex differences in the association process, and virtually no one combined it with cross-cultural studies. The present report will concentrate on cross-cultural and gender comparison in free word association. The author will offer a comparison of the 1952 results obtained from respondents in France with the 2000 data of the experiments conducted by the author in the US and in Belarus, and discuss the differences in the modern reactions. The conducted research demonstrates some common gender differences in free word associations throughout various times and cultures. Free word association experiment provides another tool for studying culture and gender variability in language use.
The Pragmatics of Verbal Irony
The Pragmatics of Verbal Irony
(The Pragmatics of Verbal Irony)
- Author(s):Raluca Elena Colțoiu
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Applied Linguistics, British Literature
- Page Range:250-257
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:verbal irony; conversational analysis; Ulysses; James Joyce;
- Summary/Abstract:The speech act theory is closely related to the pragmatic analysis. The way we speak and we use the words constitute a solid material for pragmatics. The context in which a sentence is uttered, as well as the social relation between the interlocutors, are two important aspects when trying to identify and to justify the speaker’s real message and intention. The topic of my thesis is the pragmatics of verbal irony. According to the Oxford dictionary, “verbal irony is the expression of one’s meaning by saying the direct opposite of what one is thinking but using tone of voice to indicate one’s real meaning. Irony is used in order to be amusing or to give something emphasis” (A.S. Hornby, 1995: 632). Thus, verbal irony becomes part of the conversational analysis. Irony enables the speaker to express different attitudes, such as skepticism, mockery or rejection, to an attributed utterance or thought. The exact nature of any humorous utterance is not conveyed directly. The speaker is, actually, pretending to render a real speech act. My study relies on Grice’s cooperative principle and on Levinson’s theories concerning pragmatics. What is more, I will try to identify the signals which lead to an ironic utterance and to establish if there is a connection between irony and sarcasm. These theories about irony will be applied on James Joyce’s novel, “Ulysses”. My analysis will be focused on the type of language used in the text. I will pay attention especially to the dialogue construction. I will also try to pin-point the strategies Joyce uses in order to convey sarcasm, mockery or irony.
The Many Languages of the Second Generation of Immigrants in Italy
The Many Languages of the Second Generation of Immigrants in Italy
(The Many Languages of the Second Generation of Immigrants in Italy)
- Author(s):Federico Zannoni
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Comparative Linguistics, Identity of Collectives
- Page Range:258-271
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:multiculturalism; multilingualism; immigration; building identities;
- Summary/Abstract:Migration and the ensuing multiculturalism and multilingualism are key factors of social change in our cities. The increasing presence of adolescents and young men of the second generation of immigrants is one of the most revolutionary issues related to the phenomena of migration. Grew up in silence when they were children in the Nineties, now they are asking to be recognized with their ambitions and with the unforeseen changes that they are producing. They ask to be recognized as a generation that is different from the parents’ one, which has proper specificities. The new perspectives, expressed with new languages and codes, need to be listened, to develop an innovative starting point to understand the present and to try to figure out the future evolutions. The present paper aims to analyze the many languages, strategies and codes that the immigrants of second generation in Italy use to express their ideas, to build a common identity and to strengthen their positions. In particular, the following phenomena will be analyzed: the youth associations and the public initiatives promoted by them; the “second-generation” writers; the singers, especially rappers; public icons and models; other forms of expression.
A Study of Complaint Speech Acts in Turkish Learners of English
A Study of Complaint Speech Acts in Turkish Learners of English
(A Study of Complaint Speech Acts in Turkish Learners of English)
- Author(s):Ahmet Bikmen, Leyla Marti
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Foreign languages learning, Pragmatics
- Page Range:272-289
- No. of Pages:18
- Keywords:pragmatic knowledge; complaint speech act; pragmatic transfer;
- Summary/Abstract:Pragmatic knowledge is knowing to say the right things at the right time. If a person does not know how to use the appropriate language in the appropriate context, he or she runs the risk of having their character assessed negatively. Describing the differences in pragmatics across languages and cultures is one way to help language learners to approximate correct pragmatic behaviour in the target language and culture. The current study investigates whether or how Turkish learners of English (TLEs) transfer pragmatic knowledge from their native language into English when performing the speech act of complaining. Complaints were defined as expressions of discontent that could be in the form of: hints, annoyance, ill consequences, indirect and direct accusation, modified blame, explicit blame of behaviour and explicit blame of person, and requests. A total of 3000 written complaints collected from TLEs, native speakers of English (ENSs) and Turkish (TNSs) were analysed. It was found that (1) requests, hints, and annoyance are the most commonly-used strategies by all three groups. (2) TLEs use the strategies hints, ill consequences, direct accusation, and threats/warnings at frequencies that are closer to the ENSs’ frequencies, (3) the TLEs, ENSs and TNSs are statistically indistinguishable in their use of annoyance, blame (behaviour), and blame (person), and finally (4) the TLEs use modified blame at an intermediate level with respect to the ENSs and the TNSs, reflecting weak negative pragmatic transfer.
