In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 415-427 [Access article in PDF] Wisdom, Wine, and Wonder-Lust in Plato's Symposium M. Andrew Holowchak PLATO EMPLOYS A VARIETY of literary and philosophical tools in Symposium to show how eroticism, properly understood, is linked to the good life. These have been a matter of great debate among scholars. Cornford, for instance, argues that Symposium must be read along with Republic, in that the (...) latter examines mostly the lower education of gymnastics and music (the "lesser mysteries"), while the former elucidates principally the higher education of philosophers (the "greater mysteries"). 1 Thus, stylistic differences correspond to differences in philosophical aims between the two works. Neumann says that Diotima's teaching is essentially sophistic. Eros by nature aims at the good without the "guidance of reason," which subserves eros. There is no need of conceptual oneness with the good as an independent formal entity, for the aim is reproduction is "always the particular good of a particular being." 2 Dover states that Symposium presents a consilience of reason and desire, which then continually reinforce each other, through a quest for good, which, if reached, is a fusion of reason and desire. Eros, then, is the cosmic force that "propels us on that road." 3 Bretlinger says that the eulogies of Symposium proceed in the manner of the Dionysian cycle of birth, struggle, death, and rebirth. 4 Markus maintains that the confusion of philosophical and literary exposition [End Page 415] and aim is a result of Plato insisting on a philosophy of love, based on eros, that greatly transcends eros in interest and scope. 5 Socrates' own perplexity in the dialogue as well as his insistence that he knows what he is talking about are perfect illustrations of a dialectical growth that eventually even transcends language. In short, the literary style mimics the philosophical maturation and understanding of Socrates' transcendent path. Thus, scholars themselves are far from general consensus on just what Plato was trying to do in this work.This difficulty is compounded by there being, as Dover observes, "so much unjustified and implausible assertion and so little rigorous argument." 6 These are reasons enough why many philosophers neglect the work. The problem is that in Symposium the rich philosophy of love that Plato expounds is nearly eclipsed by his multifold array and skillful use of literary tools. This makes bringing to light the philosophical merits of the work a much more difficult task than with other works. In consequence, a precise articulation of Plato's own thoughts on love seems an impossible task, or nearly so.In this article, I argue that Plato's philosophy of love unfolds primarily, though not exclusively, through his exposition of two sets of erotic contrasts: one concerning the proper method of eulogizing (rhetoric versus Socratic dialectic, Socratic dialectic versus "Platonic" eroticism); another concerning character (Socrates versus Alcibiades). If so, then Symposium distinguishes itself from the ethically driven, "Socratic" dialogues of Platoin two ways. First, not only does Plato in Symposium appeal to a much broader spectrum of philosophical interests, he also gives a non-dialectical account of love that is passed on to the symposiasts through Socrates qua "pupil" (and messenger) of the priestess Diotima. Second, in Symposium, Plato uses Socrates the man, not Socrates the dialectician, as a model of excellence of character in order to illustrate the very ideals sketched within the work. I A correlate of my thesis is that Symposium itself reads like an act of copulation that climaxes both in literary and philosophical senses. On the one hand, Plato artfully builds sexual tension through the story line. First, Socrates delays in seeing the Lenaian victor Agathon by one day. This lends itself to erotic frustration both in the obvious sense of Socrates not being able to see the handsome young orator immediately after his success and in terms of Socrates having to put off practice of [End Page 416] his true love—philosophy. Second, when he does go to see Agathon, Socrates' preparation is uncommon: he bathes and even puts on sandals. 7 Furthermore... (shrink)

Die Apokalypse und apokalytische Denkbilder haben seit Jahren und Jahrzehnten Konjunktur. In einer immer neuen 'Lust am Untergang' wurden und werden in schöner Regelmäßigkeit Endzeiten beschworen und Katastrophen prognostiziert. Ganz augenfällig greifen diese Konjunkturen dabei auf Bildtraditionen zurück, die ihre Herkunft aus der biblischen Überlieferung kaum verbergen. Der Band versammelt die Vorträge einer Ringvorlesung, die an der Universität Koblenz-Landau in Landau veranstaltet wurde. Ziel war die Zusammenführung von Forschungsinteressen, die in den verschiedenen Fachrichtungen in der einen oder anderen Weise (...) auf das Themenfeld sowie im engeren Sinne auf die Johannesoffenbarung und die unterschiedlichen Wahrnehmungen dieses wirkungsmächtigen Kulturdokuments gerichtet waren. Besonderes Gewicht galt den Untergangsszenarien und deren Wahrnehmung in der Moderne. Aus dem Blickwinkel der Theologien werden die biblisch-antiken Grundlagen des apokalyptischen Denkens und deren Fortschreibung in der gelehrten Diskussion bis in die Gegenwart vorgestellt. Die Bildersprache der Johannesoffenbarung und die vielfältig anschließenden Bildtraditionen werden in literatur- und kunstgeschichtlichen Überblicksdarstellungen entwickelt und in Einzelstudien vertieft. Analysen zur produktiven Aufnahme und Verarbeitung der biblischen Muster in der Literatur, Musik, Graphik, im Film und nicht zuletzt in der jüngeren Klimadiskussion zeigen die Apokalypse und das Apokalyptische als Deutungsmuster, auf die bei der Beschreibung von Untergangsszenarien in der Moderne bis heute immer wieder zurückgegriffen wird. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 513-516 [Access article in PDF] Deborah Tarn Steiner. Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. xviii + 360 pp. 28 black-and-white figures. Cloth, $39.50. The production of sculpture in metal, stone, and other materials was a craft that virtually disappeared from the Greek world for several centuries after the end of the Bronze (...) Age. Small, solid cast bronze figurines reappeared in the ninth century B.C.E., but it was not until the middle seventh century that the first large-scale stone statues of women and men were created. From that point on, freestanding and architectural sculpture played a central role in Greek society and its artistic expression. While the stylistic evolution of Greek sculpture has been traced many times, in this provocative and ambitious book, Deborah Steiner sets out to examine, from a literary standpoint, "how archaic and classical Greek poets, philosophers, dramatists, and historians introduce statues as cognitive and hermeneutic devices in their texts" (xi). The investigation leads her to analyze what the statues "looked like, how they functioned," and "what they were credited with doing." The resulting book "aims to tell two stories, one about objects, the other about texts, and to show how each proves crucial to the other." The examination is somewhat lopsided, since the intellectual use of the visual material is given far greater emphasis than the statues themselves.The book is divided into five lengthy chapters and an epilogue. The first chapter, "Replacement and Replication," focuses on the physical resemblance of statues to people but not their inner natures. Chapter 2, "Inside and Out," examines, instead, the ways that a statue's exterior can relate more or less exactly to its inner truth. Chapter 3, "The Quick and the Dead," suggests that statues, by their very inertia, closely resemble the dead and therefore mediate in our imagination between the two states. Statues as erotic (or anti-erotic) art objects form the subject of chapter 4, "For Love of a Statue." The fifth and final chapter, "The Image in the Text," returns to the literary relation of sculpture to the production of memory: the similarity between victory odes and victors' statues, funerary epigrams and monuments, and the creation and regulation (on both the social and political levels) of honorary statuary and decrees. The retrospective epilogue is followed by twenty-eight black-and-white illustrations: Most of them depict well-known pieces of sculpture, but there are also several photographs of vase paintings and one of a drachma.In all the chapters, Steiner continually draws attention to the multivalent aspects of statues. The Greeks developed and applied a large and nuanced vocabulary to describe different types of image that embody differences only [End Page 513] poorly translated by our term, "statue": agalma, eidolon, eikon, kolossos, xoanon, and sema. Most of these have provoked extended discussion among modern scholars. The functions that statues played are even more diverse: they could serve as replacements for the absent or deceased individual, as votive offerings, as cult images, as commemorative monuments, as apotropaic devices, as protective symbols, as minatory agents, and occasionally as deadly entities (some statues could madden their viewer and even kill those who abused them or their creators by toppling over). They were also focusing devices that could evoke a wide range of emotional responses, from pity to lust. As exempla they served to instruct, and some could speak with their own voices, sometimes comically (e.g., the herms in Attic comedy) or poignantly through the words inscribed on their bases (e.g., the famous lines of Phrasikleia, the dead maiden who will never be a bride). The repeated use of the first person by funerary figures is particularly evocative. The inscriptions on other figures (like the very early Mantiklos Apollo statuette) make it clear that images could serve as bargaining chips with the gods for past services rendered or debts owed for the future.Other statues defy simple categorization—the Athena Parthenos, for example... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 24.1 (2004) 3-22 [Access article in PDF] Love, Lust, and Sex: A Christian Perspective John Berthrong Boston University School of Theology Prologue When I was assigned the topic of love and sex (and I decided to add lust/desire as the link between the two), I immediately consulted with a number of my colleagues at the Boston University School of Theology.1 The response of my colleagues (...) was uniform. Representing different theological disciplines and denominational backgrounds, they noted that the answer as to the Christian perspective on sex was simple: don't; but if you do, be sure not to enjoy it. If this seems a vast and hasty overgeneralization, please consult Mark Jordan's new book (2002) on Christian sexual ethics to see that this confident and consistent rejection of sex and pleasure has been the dominant and main position for the entire history of the cumulative Christian tradition.2 As Clifford Bishop has noted, the West has held "a wounded body" in ambiguous embrace as chronicled by the history of its written discourse and artistic representation of sex.3 Once my colleagues had delivered this ironic teaching, they did go on to give me good advice as to how to grapple with the topic, as well as to wish me well in the attempt.I then decided to take solace in Daoism, often a good idea for a despondent Christian with strong Confucian tendencies, but came across this quote from Livia Kohn's new study of the tradition: "Anyone who commits debauchery and indulges in sex will suffer from insanity. Having passed through this, he will be born among the sows and boars."4 So much for differences between Daoism and Christianity—though I should point out that Kohn blames Buddhist influence for such a retrograde teaching. One wonders what will happen to women who act in a similar fashion. However, I was cheered in my search when I read the great Tiantai master Zhiyi's account of the matter: "It is like fighting bandits. Bandits are the root of glory; it is because a general is able to destroy bandits that he attains fame and reward. Infinite lust is a seed of the Tathagata in just the same way. It makes the bodhisattvas come up with an infinite number of Dharma-ages in response."5According to Mark Heim, Dante had a slightly more charitable view: "Lust is a type of shared sin; at its best, and so long as it remains a sin of incontinence only, there is mutuality in it and exchange."6 At least Dante thought we were in it together. [End Page 3] Moving on to a history of early modern Christian views of sex, which makes sense because this is probably the set of views that informs the modern period as well, I discovered why mainstream Christians were so concerned about the proper teaching of sexual ethics when I read the following: "... as the Ranters in seventeenth-century England proclaim, 'What act soever is done by thee in light and love, is light and lovely, thought it be called adultery....No matter what Scripture, saints, or churches say, if that within thee do not condemn thee, thou shalt not be condemned.'"7If Daoists, Buddhists, and early modern Christians all agree and then disagree, then this is serious business indeed.Then I started to read about the contemporary history of sex, which I discovered was born, with a vengeance, about the same time as the new theology of dialogue, circa 1970. Even the scholarly, and hence most serious in tone, literature on sex is vast.8 I commend it to anyone who is not convinced that we have lived through and probably are still experiencing a new paradigm shift in the Christian worldview. My thesis is that the worldview transformation is the imaginative articulation of the shifting social grounds that have cried out for a new ethics of sex.9 But perhaps things are not so simple. Does the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s demand a new worldview or did... (shrink)

- Wo liegt Osteuropa? Mental mapping, Osteuropageschichte und Slawistik - Literaturen exemplarisch: russische und polnische Literatur im Kontext nationaler, ost- und gesamteuropäischer Geschichte - Literatur und nationale Identitätsbildung: Staat und Zensur, Subversion und Emanzipation - Aufklärung von oben, Romantik und Realismus, Moderne zwischen ästhetischem Aufbruch und sozialistischem Realismus, Postmoderne und die neue Lust am Fabulieren - Orientalismus, Stadt und Land, Genderdiskurs.

In the sacred texts, human beings are described as being created in the most beautiful way. In order to understand and define its integrity of existence in the most accurate way, it is necessary to know both its biological and spiritual aspects. In addition to the well-known and generally accepted characteristics of humans such as will and responsibility, there are also basic realities that constitute humans such as nafs, soul and mind. One of the most powerful factors that make a (...) person virtuous or worthless both in the presence of the Creator and in the eyes of people is the nafs. The nafs has many different meanings such as ”the essence of man, soul, person, self-being, mind, life, lust, desire, the source of bad habits".Philosophers, Sufis and theological scholars with different philosophical ideas in different periods in the history of thought have discussed and evaluated the subject of the nafs. Pythagoras considered the nafs as a substance separate from the body, Democritus as fire or heat, Plato as a substance that gives movement to the body. Aristotle, on the other hand, pointed out the difficulty of defining the soul and talked about three types of the nafs: vegetative, animal and human. The concept of nafs, on whose definition philosophers cannot agree, has a strategic importance as it is accepted as the point of separation of good and evil in religious literature. Because the human nafs, by its nature, has a structure that is prone to worldly pleasures, human desires, wishs and passions. Likewise, human beings are creatures of will, and thanks to this feature, they have the ability and freedom to establish positive and negative relationships and evaluate the beings and events around them. What should be the attitude of a person who has these characteristics towards pleasures, desires and passions? The main theme of our study is Mawardi's answer to this question and the solutions he identified. It was stated that having will makes humans different and superior to other living creatures. In this context, what is expected from a person is to use his will to control his nafs by displaying a sensitive, conscious and astute attitude towards the desires of his soul. It is observed in real life that failure to control one's nafs creates undesirable consequences both individually and socially. If the nafs cannot be controlled consciously, a person may become a victim of excessive passion for the world and the things in it. It is possible for humans to become arrogant and proud and to corrupt the environment, society and the world and make it uninhabitable as a result of pursuing their desires. Therefore, there is a need for a constantly dynamic and active consciousness regarding this feature of the nafs. There is no positive situation that an uncontrollable, undisciplined nafs that is a slave to its desires and passions will bring to its owner. The undisciplined and uncontrolled nafs causes individual, religious, moral and social traumas such as taqiyya, insincere words and actions, formal religious attitudes and behaviors, and alienating others for simple, primitive reasons. This is the point that the thinker focuses on and draws attention to. If a person can manage to control and discipline the passions and desires of his nafs by using his will, space will be opened for virtues that will bring happiness to individual and social life, such as brotherhood, solidarity, altruism. Mawardi evaluated this issue in the fifth chapter of his work Edebü'd-Dünyâ ved-Dîn. Mawardi, who thinks that education is an important factor in the reformation of the nafs, says that the mind and revealed knowledge given to man by God are indispensable elements of this struggle. Because he thinks that the alliance of reason, revelation and knowledge is necessary in distinguishing between right and wrong and in being patient with the harmful and evil tendencies of the nafs. A person who takes revelation, reason, knowledge and wisdom as a guide and whose emotions, thoughts and behaviors are shaped by this guide will not be defeated by his nafs. For this reason, Maverdi emphasizes especially when evaluating the subject of “Literary of the soul” that a person needs decency in adulthood as well as in childhood. In this context, he identified issues such as arrogance, pride, false envy and wrath, which he thought could hinder the evolution of virtue and virtue in individual and social life, and also showed the reasons for these and how to combat them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“The Blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven Will See the Punishments of the Damned So That Their Bliss May Be More Delightful to Them”: Nietzsche and AquinasJames Lehrberger O.Cist.NO DECENT HUMAN BEING can read those words of St. Thomas Aquinas, which Frederick Nietzsche quotes in On the Genealogy of Morals1 (GM) without feeling horror, shock, and disgust: “‘The blessed in the kingdom of heaven,’ he [Aquinas] says meek as (...) a lamb, ‘will see the [End Page 425] punishments of the damned so that their bliss might be more pleasing to them.’” Nietzsche scholars regularly notice and comment on this passage from the Summa theologiae.2 The typical gloss takes it to show the spirit of hatred that lies at the heart of Aquinas’s Christianity. Thus Walter Kaufmann reads the quotation as showing how the Christian faith enables its adherents “to indulge their lust for revenge by hoping for the eternal torture and destruction of their persecutors.”3 Weaver Santinello echoes this sentiment when she claims that “‘the great teacher and saint [Aquinas]’ had a ‘bloodthirsty vision of Hell.’”4 Even so sensitive a Christian as Merold Westphal reads Nietzsche’s Aquinas in this way. “[I]t is hard to deny that the spirit of resentment and longing for vengeance burns hot in these passages... in them the final judgment makes the Final Solution seem almost moderate.”5 Similar comments and observations so abound in the scholarship that they form a virtual consensus on this Summa passage’s teaching.6This proliferation of such statements on Aquinas’s meaning, however, contrasts sharply with the absence of careful analyses [End Page 426] of the passage. I do not know, in fact, of a single article, book chapter, or study that takes Nietzsche’s quotation of Aquinas for its theme. More generally, despite the vast literature on Nietzsche and Christianity, comparative studies of Nietzsche and Aquinas are rare.7 The absence of substantive studies on the Genealogy’s use of the Aquinas quotation is doubly unfortunate. First, it silences or at least muffles the voice of Nietzsche. He cites Aquinas’s text in the specific context of Treatise I of the Genealogy. The quotation reveals the full meaning that Nietzsche intended it to convey only when it is read in that context. Second, it obscures and distorts the thought of Aquinas: the quotation must be read in its own context in the Summa theologiae to grasp the teaching that Aquinas intended his words to express.In light of Aquinas’s importance as a Christian theologian and the crucial role he plays in the Genealogy’s critique of moral values, I intend to examine Nietzsche’s presentation of this text. Careful study of this matter can shed light on a key question which has long been discussed and debated: Is Nietzsche’s account of Christianity as life-inimical rooted in an extraordinarily perceptive reading of the Christian psyche? Or is it based, rather, on a profound misunderstanding of that psyche? I will argue for two points: (1) that Nietzsche has utterly misconstrued Aquinas’s teaching; and (2) that Aquinas’s Christian morality, far from being life-inimical, is life-affirming. [End Page 427] More specifically, I will show not only that Aquinas is completely free from the hatred, envy, and vengefulness that Nietzsche attributes to him, but also that the virtues and beliefs he embraces, such as meekness, mercy, and divine justice, are strong and supportive of human flourishing.I will proceed in the following steps. First, I will investigate Nietzsche’s understanding of the Aquinas quotation in terms of the role it plays in the Genealogy’s First Treatise. As already noted, recognizing Nietzsche’s purpose in quoting Aquinas requires understanding the objections he develops to Christianity throughout that Treatise. Hence I will highlight the principal criticisms of Aquinas’s Christianity found there. Second, I will analyze the quotation from Aquinas in its own context in the Summa theologiae. Lastly, I will compare and contrast Nietzsche and Aquinas in terms of those issues which the quoted passage has brought to the fore. Nietzsche’s take on Aquinas, however, is the only question I will address. I do not... (shrink)

This publication discusses how modernist techniques for depicting characters' thoughts, feelings, and desires have been reinvented by some of the most influential and innovative writers of the postwar period, including Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison, John Banville, J.M. Coetzee, and Eimear McBride.

The Roman Sodom -- City of destruction -- The end of the world -- Laws -- Histories -- Lust and morality in the (long) eighteenth century -- The discovery of Sodom, 1851.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:T. S. Eliot, Dharma Bum:Buddhist Lessons in The Waste LandThomas Michael LeCarnerMany critics have argued that T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land is a poem that attempts to deal with the physical destruction and human atrocities of the First World War, or that he had somehow expressed the disillusionment of a generation. For Eliot, such a characterization was too reductive. He replied, "Nonsense, I may have expressed for them (...) their own illusion of being disillusioned, but that did not form part of my intention." He did not want to be the poet of a "lost generation" of war survivors, but rather, he wanted, like most poets, to write for all ages. To that end, Eliot sought to transcend time and space by bringing to The Waste Land scores of literary, cultural, and artistic allusions from a variety of sources including the Upanishads, Greek mythology, the Bible, Chaucer, Dante, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Leonardo Da Vinci. Ironically, within this menagerie of literary homages, Eliot has created a vast emptiness, a world of pain, suffering, desolation and despair, as if to suggest that even in the presence of all the greatest artistic and cultural achievements of mankind, we must understand that life is transitory and material things ephemeral.The idea that life is fleeting and filled with suffering is at the core of Buddhist thought and one that Eliot surely learned from his graduate studies at Harvard. Several scholars have examined the influence of Eastern philosophy, and in particular Buddhist thought, on Eliot's work, largely in the past forty years.1 My argument departs from this scholarship in two significant ways. First, I will read The Waste Land through the lens of Eliot's graduate studies, and in doing so will show how the poem functions as a didactic, artistic representation of the Buddhist doctrine of samsāra, an idea that views the world as transitory, overcome [End Page 402] with lustful desires, and forever bound to a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. From this perspective, we can see how Eliot's understanding of the original Buddhist texts, which informed much of his writing of The Waste Land, allowed him to see through the all-too-common misconceptions about Buddhism during the early part of the twentieth century. Lastly, we will see that Eliot looked at these misconceptions as a psychological projection of Europeans' discontent with their own lives in an uncertain time.Over the past three decades an increasing number of scholars have studied Eliot's graduate work. In 1985, Jeffrey Perl and Andrew Tuck published a study that examines the impact that Eliot's coursework and professors had on during his studies at Harvard.2 Perl and Tuck point out that Eliot devoted nearly one third of his graduate program to the study of Asian philosophy and philology. Eliot studied Sanskrit and Pali under C. R. Lanman, the preeminent Sanskrit specialist of the age. In his third year, Eliot took a course entitled "Schools of Religious and Philosophical Thought in Japan" with Professor Masaharu Anesaki, a course that had a profound impact on him. Eliot was exposed to several schools of Buddhism in his studies including the Kegon, Shingon, and Tendai, which are characterized as "descendants of the Madhyamika School, which was founded in the second century A.D. by Nāgārjuna, the Indian Buddhist philosopher." Nāgārjuna is widely considered the most influential Buddhist philosopher after Siddhartha Gautama himself and is the leading proponent of the Mādhyamika ("Middle Way") philosophy.The central teaching of Nāgārjuna was the doctrine of śūnyatā, or as it is often translated, "emptiness." For Mahāyāha Buddhists, all things are totally empty of any defining essence. Thus, all things are void of any fixed identity or inherent existence and remain in a constant state of impermanence, change, and flux. This is the fundamental premise of Mahāyāha Buddhism. Only through the realization of this emptiness in material things can one achieve Buddhahood. According to one standard text, "the real knowledge of Buddha nature is empty of empirical content, and it is the discovery of that emptiness or void, śūnyatā, of the true Buddha... (shrink)

In the tenth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses there is a moving story which explores the relationship between the artist and his work of art. It is the myth of the sculptor Pygmalion. The story of the Cypriot artist for whom the ivory statue of his ideal woman came to life knew a very widespread transmission. The myth inspired authors and artists to reflect about love, idolatry, lifeless matter, the artist vis-à-vis the one Creator, and so on. The secondary literature which (...) has been published on the reception of this metamorphosis is proportionately plentiful. However, it mainly takes Pygmalion as its starting point. Scant attention has been paid to the other figure: the woman, who is silent in Ovid’s tale, but increasingly became the mouthpiece for a Western vision of the image of women. The Middle Ages ascribed to Pygmalion all the vices they could come up with. Already in the early Christian period there was mention of a Cypriot artist who had intercourse with a statue of Aphrodite. He was adduced as an exemplum warning of the madness of idolatry in Antiquity. With the development of humanism these Christian interpretations are swept away and the simple love-story comes into its own again. Pontormo paints the female figure as a woman of flesh and blood who gazes, not towards the kneeling Pygmalion, but towards the viewer and the painter. For various reasons this painting fits into the so-called paragone, which was in full swing at this time: the struggle for rank between the arts of sculpture and painting. For the art of painting can do what the art of sculpture cannot: paint skin, suggest movement, paint the art of sculpture itself, etc. The influence of the Pygmalion myth reaches a peak in the eighteenth century. Rousseau gives the female figure what Voltaire, in his poem of love for an actress, had not: a name. She is Galathea, after the nymph, the image of perfect inner and outer beauty. The beloved thus acquires an identity? Well, she does speak, in any case. Rousseau’s musical play – in the eighteenth century the arts of the stage recognize new challenges in the Pygmalion theme – endswith the words of the beloved: “c’est moi” , “ce n’est pas moi” , “aussi moi” . This points to a complete amalgamation of the beloved with her creator. Diderot subscribes to the same body of ideas, and again relates them to the paragone. But for him it is sculpture, and not painting, which provides the ultimate access to Nature, and thus to the Divine. For the third dimension is the most direct emanation of the internal image of the artist, his muse, in reality. For him, Falconet’s Pygmalion et Galathée is the sculpted group which on all fronts revives the supremacy of the discipline. He even claims that Falconet is the eighteenth-century Pygmalion. In the nineteenth century we see the first signs of change. Galathea begins to reject Pygmalion. In literature she is portrayed a the cold and unattainable woman. From the point of view of gender we see indeed that women’s self-image had come to a crisis. She could not mirror herself in the past. The woman of the nineteenth century had to put an end to a male ideal image. Christina Rossetti’s poems express this impasse. Galathea – who had in the meantime herself become a “metaphor” for the plastic arts – becomes the fitting cue to mark the beginning of the new, “modern” art. Rodin has her looking away from Pygmalion in disgust. Goya portrays himself as the sculptor who, as it were, rapes Galathea. This moribund Galathea was intended to express criticism of the academic “dictatorship” of mimesis, but also the social responsibility of the artist in a society wracked by civil war. Paul Delvaux reads another subjection into his Pygmalion . The domination of the artist by his mother, who segregates him from the female sex. He puts himself in Galathea’s place as a helpless torso; his mother embraces him. Here we pick up the trail of the psycho-analytical archetypes in the myth. They are not so clearly established as in the case of Narcissus, for example, but they relate to the feminine attributes which the beloved has personified throughout the ages: from lust-object to frigidity. Ever since her awakening, the story of her tranmission has been fed on the evolving images of woman herself. (shrink)

In classical Latin, luxuria means 'desire for luxury'; it is linked with the ideas of excess and deviation from a standard. It is in most cases labelled as a vice which contrasts with the innate frugal nature of the Romans. Latin authors do not see it as endemic but as an import from the East in the aftermath of military conquests--and as a cause of fatal decline. Following these etymological and semantic origins, Roman Luxuria: A Literary and Cultural History discusses (...) the influence of Greek culture on the Roman concept and the peculiar characteristics of Roman luxuria. It analyses Roman views on luxuria through close readings in historical order from Cato the Elder, who regards luxuria as the opposite of the ideal Roman way of life, to the Christian poet Prudentius, who represents it in an allegorical fight with Sobriety. The book attends both to key authors and to wider literary genres, such as historiography and satire. Particular consideration is given to the rhetorical device of personification, which can be traced from the first appearances of luxuria in Latin literature to those of late antiquity. Berno devotes detailed attention to Seneca the Younger, whose work is often preoccupied with this passion. Seneca both defends himself from the charge of luxuria and violently attacks it in others, describing it as the archenemy of a philosophical life. Along the centuries, the focus on luxuria shifts from the economic sphere (and the waste of money) to the erotic, to the extent that in the Christian world it becomes one of the Seven Capital Sins representing the vice of lust. (shrink)

Examining the images of war displayed on front pages of the New York Times, David Shields makes the case that they ultimately glamorize military conflict. He anchors his case with an excerpt on the delight of the sublime from Edmund Burke’s aesthetic theory in A Philosophical Enquiry. By contrast, this essay considers violence and warfare using not the Burkean sublime, but instead the beautiful in Burke’s aesthetics, and argues that forming identities on the beautiful in the Burkean sense can ultimately (...) shut down dialogue and feed the lust for violence and revenge. (shrink)

The end-state comfort effect refers to the consistent tendency of healthy adults to end their movements in a comfortable end posture. In children with and without developmental coordination disorder, the results of studies focusing on ESC planning have been inconclusive, which is likely to be due to differences in task constraints. The present pilot study focused on the question whether children with and without DCD were able to change their planning strategy and were more likely to plan for ESC when (...) demanded by complex object manipulations at the end of a task. To this end, we examined ESC planning in 18 children with and without DCD using the previously used sword-task and the newly developed hammer-task. In the sword-task, children had to insert a sword in a wooden block, which could be relatively easily completed with an uncomfortable end-posture. In the hammer-task, children had to strike down a nail in a wooden pounding bench, which required additional force and speed demands, making it relatively difficult to complete the movement with an uncomfortable end-posture. In line with our hypothesis, the results demonstrated that children with and without DCD were more likely to plan for ESC on the hammer-task compared with the sword-task. Thus, while children with and without DCD show inconsistent ESC planning on many previously used tasks, the present pilot study shows that many of them are able to take into account the end-state of their movements if demanded by task constraints. (shrink)

Achille Mbembe has followed a singular path that led him to live and think in several continents at once: Africa, Europe, North America. He is one of the most innovative contemporary thinkers today, liberating the analysis of Africa from the classic economic and institutional approach, freeing this approach from its privileged axes, and displacing the point of view of rationality to the imaginary. From book to book, from position to position, he has developed an intra- and intercontinental migrant thought that (...) has recently given birth to a “critique of negro reason [critque de la raison nègre],” since the Negro [le Nègre], he explains, is the only one whose flesh was made, under the empire of race, into a commodity. How does Achille Mbembe understand his work? How does he accomplish it? That is the guiding thread of this interview. (shrink)

By analysing three paradigmatic passages, this paper explores how Prudentius uses classical love motifs and imagery not only to lambast paganism, but also as a powerful rhetorical tool to convey his Christian message. The ‘fire of love’ imagery is conspicuous in Psychomachia 53–57, which wittily blends Christian and erotic language. In an entirely different context, the flamma amoris is also fully exploited to depict lustful young Vestal Virgins, in combination with other classical metaphors of passion, such as the ‘wound of (...) love’ and the signa amoris. Additionally, the contrast between heat and cold is a central element in the description of the Vestals’ tardy nuptials, redolent of classical satirical portraits of vetulae libidinosae. Finally, in Hamartigenia 628–636 the relationship between the soul and God draws from a Christian tradition of bridal representation, but the lapse into sin is portrayed as the love triangle, typical of the Latin love elegy. These examples illustrate how Prudentius creatively and consciously frames love and sex imagery in new contexts, exploring their potential and infusing clichés with new meanings and forms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:192 HUME'S REFUTATION OF — WOLLASTON? Recently while rereading Book III of Hume's Treatise I was struck by an anomaly in the text that I had never noticed before. It consists in the juxtaposition of two arguments Hume offers regarding the source of the moral qualities of our actions. At first I dismissed Hume's arrangement of these arguments as being of little consequence — one of them appears in (...) a footnote — but the more I thought about the juxtaposition the more it intrigued and puzzled me. Expecting that it must have been noted by other readers I checked through the literature to find some discussion of it. Since after a long search I have failed to uncover anything, and believing the point, which relates to Hume's central view concerning morality, to be of some interest, I have decided to write this brief paper. Two passages from § 1, entitled "Moral Distinctions not deriv'd from Reason," of Part I, Book III, are involved. Hume begins the section by arguing that, because of the limited scope of its capacities, reason cannot distinguish between right and wrong or, as he puts it, between virtue and vice, and therefore that it is a mistake to speak of actions as being reasonable or unreasonable. Since Hume's views on this question are well-known and since they are not directly relevant to the point of my paper, I shall not pursue them further, but turn directly to the issue at hand. After having stated his argument at the beginning of § 1 and reached the conclusion that "actions may be laudable or blameable, but they cannot be reasonable or unreasonable," Hume turns to answer an objection that might be made against him by a rationalist ethicist. He writes: 193 But perhaps it may be said, that tho' no will or action can be immediately contradictory to reason, yet we may find such a contradiction in some of the attendants of the action, that is, in its causes or effects (T 459). Pursuing this objection, Hume first considers the causes of our actions. He acknowledges that we can be led astray in what we do in two ways; by making mistakes of fact, first, about the nature of some object we desire (e.g., thinking some fruit delicious when it really is not) and, second, about the means we should employ to gain the object (e.g., attempting to pluck the fruit when it is beyond our reach). Although these errors cause us to act in ways that may be termed unreasonable in a "figurative and improper way of speaking" (T 459), they cannot be the source of any immorality in what we do because they are committed involuntarily and innocently. A person who falls into such errors and acts on them is "more to be lamented than blam'd" (T 459). To conclude his answer to the rationalistic objection he has raised, Hume turns next to the issue of whether the immorality of our actions can be explained in terms of the unreasonableness of any of their effects. In a memorable passage he denies that the fact that false judgments are the effects of our actions can be the source of immorality in what we do. As to those judgments which are the effects of our actions, and which, when false, give occasion to pronounce the actions contrary to truth and reason; we may observe, that our actions never cause any judgment, either true or false, in ourselves, and that 'tis only on others they have such an influence. 'Tis certain, that an action, on many occasions, may give rise to false conclusions in others; and that a 194 person, who thro' a window sees any lewd behaviour of mine with my neighbour's wife, may be so simple as to imagine she is certainly my own. In this respect my action resembles somewhat a lye or falshood; only with this difference, which is material, that I perform not the action with any intention of giving rise to a false judgment in another, but merely to satisfy my lust and passion. It causes, however, a mistake and false judgment by accident; and the falshood... (shrink)

Richly illustrated study drawing on art, literature and science to explore Victorian attitudes towards sight.

In the long river of human history, if one person can represent the civilization of a whole nation, it is perhaps Master Kong, better known as Confucius in the West. If there is one single book that can be upheld as the common code of a whole people, it is perhaps Lun Yu, or The Analects. Surely, few individuals in history have shaped their country's civilization more profoundly than Master Kong. The great Han historiographer, Si-ma Qian, writing 2,100 years ago (...) said, "He may be called the wisest indeed!" And, as recently as 1988, at a final session of the first international conference of Nobel prize-winners in Paris, the seventy-five participants, fifty-two of whom where scientists, concluded: "If mankind is to survive, it must go back twenty- five centuries in time to tap the wisdom of Confucius." This a man whose influence in world history is truly incomparable. His sayings form the basis of a distinct social, ethical, and intellectual system. They have retained their freshness and vigor for two and a half millennia, and are still admired in today's China. Compiled by pupils of Confucius's disciples half a century after the Master's death, The Analects of Confucius laid the foundation of his philosophy of humanity--a philosophy aimed at "cultivating the individual's moral conduct, achieving family harmony, bringing good order to the state and peace to the empire. Containing 501 very succinct chapters and organized into twenty books, the collection comprises mostly dialogues between the Master and his disciples and contemporaries. The ethical tenets Confucius put forth not only became the norm of conduct for the officialdom and intelligentsia, but also profoundly impacted the behavior of the common people. The great sage's unique integration of humanity and righteousness struck a powerful chord in all who attempted to understand his moral philosophy. As translator Chichung Huang contends, "What ethical principle laid down by man could be more sensible that none which blends the best our heart can offer with the best our mind can offer as the guiding light for our conduct throughout our lives?" Ever timely, Confucius's teachings on humanity and righteousness may well serve as a ready-made cure for today's ills in an era which human beings are blinded by force and lust, not unlike Confucius's own day. Far more literal than any English version still in circulation, this brilliant new rendition of The Analects helps the reader not only to acquire and accurate and lucid understanding of the original text, but also to appreciate the imagery, imagery, parallelism, and concision of its classical style. The translator Chichung Huang, a Chinese scholar born in a family of Confucian teachers and schooled in one of the last village Confucian schools in South China, brings to this treasure of world literature a sure voice that captures the power and subtleties of the original. Vivid, simple, and eminently readable, this illuminating work makes the golden teachings of the sage of the East readily available to anyone in search of them. (shrink)

In this brief excerpt from a forthcoming translation of L’Afrique et ses fantômes and Singe de Kafka, Seloua Luste Boulbina shows how French opposition to the Islamic hijab, as described by Fanon, mirrored British opposition to the Indian practice of sati by claiming to defend women while really defending the interests of European men. This made it difficult, if not impossible, for women to define and assert interests of their own, apart from the perspectives imposed by politically opposed groups of (...) men. Fanon recognized this complex silence. But Fanon also failed to read the perspective motivating the writings of fellow Martinican author, Mayotte Capécia, which prevented him from seeing any independence in women’s capacity for interracial love and prevented him from giving a more complex psychological and political meaning to mixed ancestry. (shrink)

How does literature illuminate the way we live? Maurice Natanson, a prominent champion of phenomenology, draws upon this method's unique power to show how fiction can highlight aspects of experience that are normally left unexamined. By exploring the structure of the everyday world, Natanson reveals the "uncanny" that lies at the core of the ordinary. Phenomenology--which involves the questioning of that which we usually take for granted--is for Natanson the essence of philosophy. Drawing upon his philosophical predecessors Edmund Husserl, Alfred (...) Schutz, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Natanson paves his own way with stories and examples that themselves bear witness to how phenomenology occurs in literature. In considering such works as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Natanson shows how literature opens us to the domain of possibility and how metaphor offers philosophical power when we think about freedom and change. This book, written by one of the twentieth century's leading phenomenologists, will interest students in philosophy and in literature. They will value the work particularly for its clarification of concepts and terms that frequently emerge in the contemporary intellectual climate. (shrink)

(1996). Surprise in literature. Angelaki: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 58-68.

Numinous spaces in British literature from William Wordsworth to Samuel Beckett -- Jesus figures in American literature from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Edward Albee -- Using Bakhtin's definitions to discover ethical voices in Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy -- René Girard's categories of scapegoats in literature of the American South -- Hopkins's metaphysics of nature as sacred disclosure -- The book of job as mirrored in Hopkins's metaphysics -- Beckett's mythos of the absence of God.

This paper finds its origin in a debate between Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Octavio Paz (1914-1998) on what is central to the idea of eroticism. Bataille posits that violence and transgression are fundamental to eroticism, and without prohibition, eroticism would cease to exist. Paz, however, views violence and transgression as merely intersecting with, rather than being intrinsic to, eroticism. Paz places focus on imagination, and transforms eroticism from a transgressive, to a ritualistic act. Eroticism thus functions as an intermediary, turning (...) animal sexuality into ceremony and rite. In this paper, I argue that Paz and Bataille are not fundamentally at odds in their conceptualisation of eroticism. Instead, Paz redefines the locus of eroticism by subverting its unsettling aspects. His conception of eroticism gives precedence to the imagination, which in itself is an act of violation. Imagination transgresses normal life, but this transgression – the violation of the habitual world – also introduces a glimpse of the numinous that Paz associates with belongingness. The paper further explores eroticism, as this is perceived today, and argues that it ultimately eliminates the threshold marked by transgression. The rise of the contemporary pornographic society is marked by a loss of imagination and transcendence, which ultimately reduces the subject into a mere automaton that demands instant gratification. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dune(s)Michel Pierssens, co-founder of SubStance (bio)Any great work of art, be it literary or otherwise, is made of intricate enigmas that admit infinite solutions, indifferent to their content, true or false, since no one holds the key (or Occam style razor) to judge, not even its author. In the best of cases, indeed, the author has produced his œuvre precisely to confront the unknown and face the deadly monsters (...) that make the labyrinths worth exploring in the first place. The reader of the work, or watcher of the painting or film, cannot escape the perilous attraction of the cognitive maelstrom he, hesitantly or trustfully, enters at his own risk. Every word or stroke on canvas or chord or instant shutter of the camera or unending gros plan may hide unexpected doors to impossible worlds, each of them possible nonetheless. Love, hate, crime, lust, power, etc.: every facet of human experience can become scary or exciting forces to be faced, for just an instant or for an inconclusive lifelong struggle. Time is possibly the most intractable of those forces as only unconceivable gods can make of it their plaything. Similar to the desert planet of Frank Herbert's Dune, it harbors unpredictable monsters that destroy anything that moves—unless one learns to dance in an equally unpredictable fashion, winning a reprieve only to end up inescapably a fatality, having met the unavoidable fatum.SubStance has been travelling a much populated and cacophonic desert for fifty years, maintaining, despite the times' ubuesque twists and turns, its acrobatic démarche and tracing its empirical path through the intellectual dunes of two or three generations, collecting as it went many stimulating spices that it shared, avoiding its sale to the highest academic bidder. Editing a journal cannot be compared to the creation of a work of art, but it partakes in its aspiration to question the Known and face the Unknown, with the support of an army of minds devoted to the intriguing study of any cognitive coup de dés. [End Page 13]Michel Pierssens Michel Pierssens is co-founder of SubStance, with Sydney Lévy, and co-founder of the journal Histoires littéraires. He is Emeritus Professor of French literature, Université de Montréal.Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and SubStance, Inc.... (shrink)

Monographic issue on the Philosophy of Emotions. Contents: Resentment, Empathy and Indignation; Jacqueline Taylor / Compassion without Cognitivism; Charlie Kurth / “I Don’t Want Your Compassion!”. The Importance of Empathy for Morality; Manuel Camassa / Making sense of emotional contagion; Carme Isern-Mas, Antoni Gomila / On Pride; Lorenzo Greco / Envy and its objects; Alessandra Fussi / Admiration, moral knowledge and transformative experiences; Maria Silvia Vaccarezza / Fear as Related to Courage: An Aristotelian-Thomistic Redefinition of Cognitive Emotions; Claudia Navarini, Ettore (...) De Monte / On Courage. The Sense Of θυμός; Tiziana Migliore / Shades of Schadenfreude. A phenomenological account of pleasure at another’s misfortune; Danilo Manca / Concern and the Structure of Action; Alexander A. Jeuk / On Sexual Lust as an Emotion; Larry A. Herzberg / Emotions and Literature in Musil; Zeynep Talay Turner. (shrink)

Relationalität und Selbstdiskursivierung in den lebens -- und Sozialwissenschaften -- Selbstreflexion und Relationalität in der literatur.

In book 9 of Plato's Republic, Socrates describes the nature and origins of the ‘tyrannical man’, whose soul is said to be ‘like’ a tyrannical city. In this paper, I examine the nature of the ‘government’ that exists within the tyrannical man's soul. I begin by demonstrating the inadequacy of three potentially attractive views sometimes found in the literature on Plato: the view that the tyrannical man's soul is ruled by his ‘lawless’ unnecessary appetites, the view that it is ruled (...) by sexual desire, and the view that it is ruled by a lust for power. I then present my own account. On the view I defend, the tyrannical man's soul is to be understood as ruled by a single, persistent, powerful desire for bodily pleasure: as much as he can get, and however he can get it. Finally, I show how understanding the tyrannical man's soul in the way I recommend helps resolve some commonly expressed concerns about this part of the Republic. I suggest, on this basis, that Plato's procedure in constructing his catalogue o.. (shrink)

M'illumino/d'immenso - I'm lit/with immensity is Geoffrey Brock's translation of Giuseppe Ungaretti's poem Mattina. In the poem's minimalism, Ungaretti points to the maximal: the richness of poetry's expressive possibilities and the power of thinking in literature. This book addresses the fascination of readers to transcend the boundaries of their own in fiction, and literature's capacity, according to Kant, even to evoke, with the help of the development of aesthetic ideas, representations that exceed what is empirically and conceptually graspable - in (...) case studies about myths of creativity, images of death and the beyond after the 'death of God', of the soul, of melancholy as the dark ground of genius, of metamorphoses of both evil and good, of ecstasy, of the economy of self-sacrifice, of the art of resistance, and, among others, about figurations of biography and the portrait as approaches to singularity, what is particular and cannot be fully subsumed to any universality. (shrink)

Placed in a historical context, sexuality was once so prominent in psychoanalytic writing that sexual drive and psychoanalysis were synonymous. The exciting discovery of childhood sexuality filled the literature. Then other discoveries came to the fore until sexuality slipped far in the background. This book evokes the excitement of the original discoveries of childhood sexual experience while linking childhood sensuality and sexuality to adult attachment, romantic, and lustful love. This revised perspective offers the general reader insight into contemporary psychoanalytic thought, (...) and presents clinicians with a perspective for exploring their patients sensuality and sexuality with renewed interest and knowledge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 199-206 [Access article in PDF] Notes and FragmentsArt and Friendship Noël Carroll YASMINA REZA'S PLAY Art is about one man, Serge, who buys a painting, and the reactions of his friends, Marc and Yvan, to his purchase. 1 Marc's response is quite volcanic; for him, Serge's purchase of the painting threatens to wreck their friendship. Yvan tries to mediate the disaffection between Serge and (...) Marc, often at the cost of redirecting their hostilities at himself.As the play opens, Marc addresses the audience directly. He says: My friend Serge has bought a painting. It's a canvas about five foot by four: white. The background is white and if you screw up your eyes, you can make out some fine white diagonal lines. Serge is one of my oldest friends. He's done very well for himself, he's a dermatologist and he's keen on art. On Monday, I went to see the painting; Serge had actually got hold of it on the Saturday, but he's been lusting after it for several months. This white painting with white lines. 2This prelude explicitly connects the two major themes of the play—art and friendship (Serge is one of Marc's oldest friends), and the relation thereof. After this brief exposition, then, there is a flashback to the scene where Marc first sees Serge's painting, a painting by Antrios, a famous artist. At first Marc reacts warily, tentatively, but, in almost no time at all, he denounces the painting as shit, despite its whiteness. Marc tries to pass off his vituperation as humor and invites Serge to [End Page 199] laugh along with him. But Serge finds nothing funny about the situation, which deteriorates throughout the play as everyone's nerves fray and angers mount.The action of the play raises an immediate question. Why is Marc's reaction to the painting by Antrios so intense, so violent? Why would a painting endanger a friendship? Why do Marc and Serge seem to be willing to split apart after fifteen years over a matter of taste? Can't they just agree to disagree and leave it at that?But Marc, at least, cannot. He says, "It's a complete mystery to me, Serge buying this painting. It's unsettled me, it's filled me with some undefinable unease." And that undefinable unease is enough to motivate Marc to attack Serge and Yvan savagely to the point where the friendship among them seems no longer possible. But what is the nature of this undefinable unease and what does its existence tell us about the relation of art to friendship?Marc and Serge obviously see the painting very differently. Marc keeps referring to the Antrios as white, prompting Serge to correct him—pointing out that it has diagonals as well as bits of various other colors in it. Perhaps this is author Yasmina Reza's way of signaling that Serge, so to speak, sees something in the painting—sees that there's something to it—whereas for Marc, it's a blank, it's empty, it's nothing, it's worthless. Marc continues to be amazed that Serge has paid two hundred thousand francs for the painting. But it's not the money, as such, that bothers Marc; it is what the money symbolizes: that Serge sees something worthy in that which Marc finds worthless. And this threatens their friendship. Why?One of the earliest conceptions of friendship in Western thought is Aristotle's notion of what he calls the friendship of character or character friendship. This is not the only type of friendship there is—there are also friendships based on such things as expediency—but, for Aristotle, character friendship is the highest sort. This is the type of friendship that obtains between equals—people of equal virtue and excellence.Now you might think that people who are virtuous and excellent already should have little need of friends. They already have it all. 3 But Aristotle suggests that without friends—friends who are... (shrink)

Intense ethnic, racial, and religious violence led many to classify South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel/palestine as intractable conflicts. Yet they diverged, with only South Africa achieving a lasting settlement. The authors explain why. The authors analyze them as a distinctive type of negotiated transition. The ancién regime is an imperfect democracy, subject to electoral constraints and legitimated by democratic principles that it violates. This constrains negotiations but helps manage difficult commitment problems. The authors show how the principals navigated constraints (...) and took advantage of opportunities in South Africa but have failed—so far—to do so in the other two conflicts. (shrink)

Very little research into women farmers in developed countries has been produced by economists, but much of what has been studied by scholars in other disciplines has economic implications. This article reviews such research produced by scholars in all disciplines to explore to what extent women farmers are becoming more equal to men farmers and to suggest further contributions to the literature. As examples, topics that has been widely researched in developing countries but have received almost no attention in developed (...) countries include comparisons of men and women farmers’ productivity and their access to and use of resources. Discoveries in these and other areas will be important not only for their insights into the agricultural industry in developed countries, but also because they will inform, and be informed by, research on women farmers in developing countries. (shrink)

This dissertation is an effort to describe the effects of Postmodern thought in a variety of narrative forms, including novels, film, and computer games. Using Brian McHale's description of the focal point of Modernist narratives as being epistemological and Postmodernist narratives as being concerned primarily with ontological issues, I trace the possible meaning of the changing understanding of these concepts in the twentieth century. In addition, I interrogate the ramifications of the Postmodern resolution to the crisis of epistemology presented through (...) the work of Modernist writers to test whether or not the Postmodern idea of "claiming worlds" is, indeed, a reasonable or viable resolution to this crisis. ;It is my contention that a changing sense of the relationship between the definitions of epistemology and ontology in traditional literary narrative has been affected by and has affected the narratives of less traditionally "literary" media. In order to show that this change has occurred, I use a number of texts to serve as examples, first, of the conception of epistemology as presented in Modernist works like James Joyce's "The Dead" and Edith Wharton's A Son At the Front and then of the conception of ontology as presented in Postmodernist work like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. I then examine more popular narrative forms to examine how Postmodernism's focus on what I term an "epistemologically derived ontology" has crept into the general culture. My specific examples in these cases are Norman Spinrad's cyberpunk novel Little Heroes , the film The Matrix, and a number of video games, particularly online games. ;My final conclusions are exemplified by the film Memento, which contains many of the Postmodern tenets I propose are typical of mainstream Postmodern works and which also serves as a basis for revealing some of my ethical concerns about the ramifications of this shift in understanding of the aforementioned philosophical categories. (shrink)

Volume 23, Issue 2, June 2019, Page 120-123.