scholarly journals ANIMAL TURN AS A META-TURN?

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-17
Author(s):  
HANNA MAMZER
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Dynamic Changes ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Cognitive Paradigms ◽  
The Relationship

Human sciences as a reflection of social transformations fluctuate with dynamic changes of current cognitive paradigms. Following the textual and visual turn and the turn towards things (objects), there are intensified tendencies to think in terms of an “animal turn”, which becomes close not only to activists and pro-animal activists but also to scientifically engaged humanists. I believe, however, that the animal turn should be treated as a meta-turn: a process that requires a change in the relationship between the reflecting subject and the object of reflection, and not only as a specific kind of representation of the surrounding world. In the proposed text, I attempt to analyze the causes of the turn towards animals. I also address the theme of cognitive resistance in view of the recognition of animal studies as a fully-fledged theoretical and research area of contemporary humanities.

scholarly journals The Natural, the Artificial and Human Sciences

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.A. Lektorsky
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Collective Activity ◽  
Relative Independence ◽  
Cooperative Activity ◽  
The Relationship

The author analyses the possibilities of transforming human mind in connection with the appearance of “digital civilization” and the development of human sciences, in particular, cognitive and neural ones. The article argues that human sciences can promote human perfection (and will not be used as a means of its degradation) only if they take into account the principal fact: the human being is a natural/artificial creature engaged in activity and culture. In this context the author studies the relationship between individual and collective activity and analyzes different forms of the latter: relative independence of participants, distributed activity, and cooperative activity. Cooperation requires constant communication between the participants. Therefore activity and communication cannot be opposed to each other, as the act of communication matters only in the context of activity, and also because communication itself can be understood as a specific kind of activity. In this connection social constructionism in psychology and other human sciences is criticized.

Contemporary Qur'anic Studies in Iran and its Relationship with Qur'anic Studies in the West

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-72
Author(s):  
Morteza Karimi-Nia
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The West ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Religious Learning ◽  
The Status ◽  
Islamic Republic Of Iran ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The status of tafsīr and Qur'anic studies in the Islamic Republic of Iran has changed significantly during recent decades. The essay provides an overview of the state of Qur'anic studies in Iran today, aiming to examine the extent of the impact of studies by Western scholars on Iranian academic circles during the last three decades and the relationship between them. As in most Islamic countries, the major bulk of academic activity in Iran in this field used to be undertaken by the traditional ʿulamāʾ; however, since the beginning of the twentieth century and the establishment of universities and other academic institutions in the Islamic world, there has been increasing diversity and development. After the Islamic Revolution, many gradual changes in the structure and approach of centres of religious learning and universities have occurred. Contemporary advancements in modern sciences and communications technologies have gradually brought the institutions engaged in the study of human sciences to confront the new context. As a result, the traditional Shīʿī centres of learning, which until 50 years ago devoted themselves exclusively to the study of Islamic law and jurisprudence, today pay attention to the teaching of foreign languages, Qur'anic sciences and exegesis, including Western studies about the Qur'an, to a certain extent, and recognise the importance of almost all of the human sciences of the West.

scholarly journals Development and Application of the Owner-Bird Relationship Scale (OBRS) to Assess the Relation of Humans to Their Pet Birds

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Kathrin Burmeister ◽  
Katrin Drasch ◽  
Monika Rinder ◽  
Sebastian Prechsl ◽  
Andrea Peschel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Pet Birds ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Only a few birds besides domestic pigeons and poultry can be described as domesticated. Therefore, keeping a pet bird can be challenging, and the human-avian relationship will have a major influence on the quality of this cohabitation. Studies that focus on characterizing the owner-bird relationship generally use adapted cat/dog scales which may not identify its specific features. Following a sociological approach, a concept of human-animal relationship was developed leading to three types of human-animal relationship (impersonal, personal, and close personal). This concept was used to develop a 21-item owner-bird-relationship scale (OBRS). This scale was applied to measure the relationship between pet bird owners (or keepers) (n = 1,444) and their birds in an online survey performed in Germany. Factor analysis revealed that the relationship between owner and bird consisted of four dimensions: the tendency of the owner to anthropomorphize the bird; the social support the bird provides for the owner; the empathy, attentiveness, and respect of the owner toward the bird; and the relationship of the bird toward the owner. More than one quarter of the German bird owners of this sample showed an impersonal, half a personal, and less than a quarter a close personal relationship to their bird. The relationship varied with the socio-demographic characteristics of the owners, such as gender, marital status, and education. This scale supports more comprehensive quantitative research into the human-bird relationship in the broad field of human-animal studies including the psychology and sociology of animals as well as animal welfare and veterinary medicine.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
pp. xvi-22
Author(s):  
Linda Kalof
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Animal Question

This chapter introduces the field of animal studies as an interdisciplinary scholarly endeavor to understand the relationship humans have with other animals. That relationship is mapped into five major categories, reflected in the titles of each of the handbook’s five parts: “Animals in the Landscape of Law, Politics and Public Policy”; “Animal Intentionality, Agency, and Reflexive Thinking”; “Animals as Objects in Science, Food, Spectacle and Sport”; “Animals in Cultural Representations”; and “Animals in Ecosystems.” The chapters in each part are summarized and key issues in the “animal question” are explicated. Chapter topics include animals in research, entertainment, law, political theory, public policy, agency, tourism and ecology. Concluding remarks include an appeal for altruistic coexistence for all beings in the earth’s ecosystem.

scholarly journals Another Name for Liberty: Revelation, ‘Objectivity,’ and Intellectual Freedom in Barth and Marion

Open Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 430-450
Author(s):  
Kristóf Oltvai
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Intellectual Freedom ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Absolute Truth ◽  
Saturated Phenomenon ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Karl Barth’s and Jean-Luc Marion’s theories of revelation, though prominent and popular, are often criticized by both theologians and philosophers for effacing the human subject’s epistemic integrity. I argue here that, in fact, both Barth and Marion appeal to revelation in an attempt to respond to a tendency within philosophy to coerce thought. Philosophy, when it claims to be able to access a universal, absolute truth within history, degenerates into ideology. By making conceptually possible some ‚evental’ phenomena that always evade a priori epistemic conditions, Barth’s and Marion’s theories of revelation relativize all philosophical knowledge, rendering any ideological claim to absolute truth impossible. The difference between their two theories, then, lies in how they understand the relationship between philosophy and theology. For Barth, philosophy’s attempts to make itself absolute is a produce of sinful human vanity; its corrective is thus an authentic revealed theology, which Barth articulates in Christian, dogmatic terms. Marion, on the other hand, equipped with Heidegger’s critique of ontotheology, highlights one specific kind of philosophizing—metaphysics—as generative of ideology. To counter metaphysics, Marion draws heavily on Barth’s account of revelation but secularizes it, reinterpreting the ‚event’ as the saturated phenomenon. Revelation’s unpredictability is thus preserved within Marion’s philosophy, but is no longer restricted to the appearing of God. Both understandings of revelation achieve the same epistemological result, however. Reality can never be rendered transparent to thought; within history, all truth is provisional. A concept of revelation drawn originally from Christian theology thus, counterintuitively, is what secures philosophy’s right to challenge and critique the pre-given, a hermeneutic freedom I suggest is the meaning of sola scriptura.

Sekolah Islam (Islamic Schools) as Symbols of Indonesia's Urban Muslim Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yanwar Pribadi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Islamic Schools ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract This article discusses the relationship between Sekolah Islam (Salafism-influenced Islamic schools) and urban middle-class Muslims. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the City of Serang (Kota Serang), near Jakarta, this paper argues that these conservative and puritan Muslims demonstrate their Islamic identity politics through their engagement with Sekolah Islam. The analysis of in-depth interviews with and close observations of parents of students and school custodians (preachers or occasionally spiritual trainers) at several Sekolah Islam reveals that they have attempted to pursue ‘true’ Islamic identity and have claimed recognition of their identity as the most appropriate. The pursuit of a ‘true’ Islamic identity has infused Islamic identity politics, and there is an oppositional relationship between local Islamic traditions and Salafism, as seen in Sekolah Islam. The relationship between Islam and identity politics becomes intricate when it is transformed into public symbols, discourses, and practices at many Sekolah Islam. This paper shows that through their understanding and activities at Sekolah Islam, these Muslims are avid actors in the contemporary landscape of Islamic identity politics in Indonesia. By taking examples from Sekolah Islam in Indonesia, this article unveils social transformations that may also take place in the larger Muslim world.

scholarly journals Current and Emerging Biomarkers of Cell Death in Human Disease

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kongning Li ◽  
Deng Wu ◽  
Xi Chen ◽  
Ting Zhang ◽  
Lu Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cell Death ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Human Diseases ◽  
Mitotic Catastrophe ◽  
Regulated Necrosis ◽  
Early Diagnose ◽  
Multicellular Organisms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Made In

Cell death is a critical biological process, serving many important functions within multicellular organisms. Aberrations in cell death can contribute to the pathology of human diseases. Significant progress made in the research area enormously speeds up our understanding of the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of cell death. According to the distinct morphological and biochemical characteristics, cell death can be triggered by extrinsic or intrinsic apoptosis, regulated necrosis, autophagic cell death, and mitotic catastrophe. Nevertheless, the realization that all of these efforts seek to pursue an effective treatment and cure for the disease has spurred a significant interest in the development of promising biomarkers of cell death to early diagnose disease and accurately predict disease progression and outcome. In this review, we summarize recent knowledge about cell death, survey current and emerging biomarkers of cell death, and discuss the relationship with human diseases.

scholarly journals Learning to Be Employable Through Volunteering: A Qualitative Study on the Development of Employability Capital of Young People

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Luisa Giancaspro ◽  
Amelia Manuti
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Workplace Learning ◽  
Social Resources ◽  
Formal Learning ◽  
Voluntary Work ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
First Contact ◽  
The Relationship

Over the last decades, consistent research showed that voluntary work could be considered as a tool for professional development and concrete employment: volunteering could be either experienced as a desire to improve career opportunities or to acquire new skills. The study aimed to investigate voluntary work as a context of informal and non-formal workplace learning and vocational guidance, useful to develop skills and abilities, namely the capital of personal and social resources, that could promote future employability. Participants were 38 young volunteers who experienced the Universal Civil Service, a national Italian program addressed to young people aged up to 28 years, giving them both the opportunity to engage in social activities useful for the community and have the first contact with a working context. In line with the objectives of the study, participants were invited to describe their volunteering experience in a diary, highlighting if and to what extent this context contributed to enhancing their employability capital, namely the asset of skills, knowledge, and networks acquired, that they could transfer to a future professional domain. The narrative data collected were examined through diatextual analysis, a specific address of discourse analysis designed to catch the relationship between enunciators, text, and context of the talk. This qualitative analysis allowed us to investigate the meanings young people attributed to these activities. In light of these results, the paper contributed to investigate volunteers’ perceptions about the conditions that could best foster this specific kind of workplace informal and non-formal learning and at proposing a qualitative perspective on the analysis of the employability capital they developed.

Role of macronutrient intake in the epigenetics of obesity

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyadarshni Patel ◽  
Jeganathan Ramesh Babu ◽  
Xu Wang ◽  
Thangiah Geetha
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Epigenetic Alterations ◽  
Lifestyle Choices ◽  
Obesity Genes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Diet And Lifestyle

Obesity is caused by a combination of hereditary and environmental factors. Despite extensive study, contemporary through diet, exercise, education, surgery, and pharmacological treatments, no effective long-term solution has been found to this epidemic. Over the last decade, there has been a tremendous advancement in understanding the science of epigenetics, as well as a rise in public interest in learning more about the influence of diet and lifestyle choices on the health of an individual. Without affecting the underlying DNA sequence, epigenetic alterations impact gene expression. Previous animal studies have shown a link between the type of diet and expression or suppression of obesity genes, but there are very few human studies that demonstrate the relationship between dietary intake and obesity gene expression. This review highlights the effects of carbohydrates, lipids, and protein intake from the diet on obesity-related genes.

Education for potentiality (against instrumentality)

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 878-891
Author(s):  
Tyson E Lewis
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Means And Ends ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Current Challenge ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

In this article, the author problematizes two well-known positions on the relationship between means and ends in education. On the one side, there are those who problematize the means of education without necessarily redefining its ends, and on the other hand, there are those who challenge the purported ends of education while maintaining certain means. These two positions can take any number of progressive and conservative forms. While there are virtues to these projects, this article argues that both take for granted an underlying sense of education as a means to an end, and thus lend themselves to some version of instrumentality. Proposing a radically different formulation, this article turns to Giorgio Agamben and his notions of the impotential act, pure means, and use. The author suggests that the current challenge to think education beyond instrumentality ought to conceptualize education not as a means to an end or an end in itself but as a pure means. The article then offers three versions of education as a pure means: allowing, preferring not to, and contemplating. Each of these examples proposes a specific kind of inoperative, non-instrumental form of educational life for teachers and studiers, respectively.

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