scholarly journals Liberal autonomy in a troubled context

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-109
Author(s):  
Nenad Dimitrijevic

Autonomy, understood as self-rule, is almost routinely accepted as one of the core liberal concepts. Still, a closer view reveals that both the status and meaning of autonomy are controversial. The text departs from a short summary of the main theoretical disputes surrounding the concept. A critique of the standard internalist account is followed by an attempt to offer reasons for accepting a relational reading of autonomy. The central question of the text is context-specific. It asks about the possibility and meaning of liberal autonomy in a society whose past is marked by mass regime-sponsored (and sometimes widely supported) crimes. The background assumption is that mass crime leaves actors in heteronomous condition. At stake is reestablishing individual autonomies of two types of actors, whose group-specific identities have been created by crime: the ethical community of those who share collective identity with victims, and the ethical community of those who share collective identity with perpetrators.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Hannes Peltonen ◽  
Knut Traisbach

Abstract This foreword frames the Symposium in two ways. It summarises the core themes running through the nine ‘meditations’ in The Status of Law in World Society. Moreover, it places these themes in the wider context of Kratochwil's critical engagement with how we pursue knowledge of and in the social world and translate this knowledge into action. Ultimately, also his pragmatic approach cannot escape the tensions between theory and practice. Instead, we are in the midst of both.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iara Meili ◽  
Eva Heim ◽  
Ana C Pelosi ◽  
Andreas Maercker

The expressions resilience and posttraumatic growth represent metaphorical concepts that are typically found in Euro-American contexts. Metaphors of severe adversity or trauma and the expressions of overcoming it vary across cultures—a lacuna, which has not been given much attention in the literature so far. This study aimed to explore the metaphorical concepts that the Indigenous Pitaguary community in Brazil uses to talk about adaptive and positive responses to severe adversity and to relate them to their socio-cultural context. We carried out 14 semi-structured interviews during field research over a one-month period of fieldwork. The data were explored with systematic metaphor analysis. The core metaphors included images of battle, unity, spirituality, journeys, balance, time, sight, transformation, and development. These metaphors were related to context-specific cultural narratives that underlie the Pitaguary ontological perspective on collectivity, nature, and cosmology. The results suggest that metaphors and cultural narratives can reveal important aspects of a culture’s collective mindset. To have a contextualized understanding of expressive nuances is an essential asset to adapt interventions to specific cultures and promote culture-specific healing and recovery processes.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moataz Dowaidar

Several phenotypes can come from transcription regulation. Sequence-specific transcription factors are needed to effectively execute transcriptional programs, however they are often not operating alone. Polycomb PcG proteins are a well-known class of chromatin regulators found in Drosophila melanogaster and other species, including humans. As time passed, the concept of a PCG gene or protein shifted from the original phenotypic meaning of mutant flies to the contemporary biochemical description. PCG genes and proteins are under investigation for their critical contributions to physiology and their cancer treatment potential. Adding additional PcG members, with substantial responsibilities in PRC modulation, has opened new routes of inquiry in the issue. It is still needed to discover the many PRC variations' roles and how their catalytic activity is controlled. This review covers mutually exclusive PRC2 variants and employs a technique like the one used for PRC1 variants. Based on current biochemical findings, these classifications are valid. More auxiliary PcG subunit research is needed for now. Moreover, it is unknown how many PRC cell variations occur (hypothetically, there could be more than 100 different PRC variants).In order to fully elucidate the new PcG proteins and complexes, it is necessary to perform comprehensive research. We must study context-specific genetic modifications to better provide remedies. Current anti-cancer drugs target mainly the core subunits and catalytic activity of PRC2 and PRC1, and understanding these functions is critical. Targeting each particular activity that has been deregulated might be rather beneficial. PCG proteins are involved in oncogenesis, tumor suppression, and development/congenital illness as well. PcG involvement in cancer, once revealed, would be intriguing. Successful and effective therapeutic therapies will be helped by a detailed understanding of the pathways that contain PcG proteins.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Marinelli ◽  
Andreas Mayer

ArgumentAnimals played an important role in the formation of psychoanalysis as a theoretical and therapeutic enterprise. They are at the core of texts such as Freud's famous case histories of Little Hans, the Rat Man, or the Wolf Man. The infantile anxiety triggered by animals provided the essential link between the psychology of individual neuroses and the ambivalent status of the “totem” animal in so-called primitive societies in Freud's attempt to construct an anthropological basis for the Oedipus complex in Totem and Taboo. In the following, we attempt to track the status of animals as objects of indirect observation as they appear in Freud's classical texts, and in later revisionist accounts such as Otto Rank's Trauma of Birth and Imre Hermann's work on the clinging instinct. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Freudian conception of patients' animal phobias is substantially revised within Hermann's original psychoanalytic theory of instincts which draws heavily upon ethological observations of primates. Although such a reformulation remains grounded in the idea of “archaic” animal models for human development, it allows to a certain extent to empiricize the speculative elements of Freud's later instinct theory (notably the death instinct) and to come to a more embodied account of psychoanalytic practice.


Author(s):  
K. Dmytriieva

The article outlines the factors of development of the restaurant facilities in Kyiv and surrounding areas. The status of the territorial organization of the restaurant facilities of Kyiv and Kyiv region through the review of the main indicators of the industry by districts in 2013 has been analyzed. Comparison of the industry standards due to availability of these services to population needs has been performed. The result of the difference of efficiency of the restaurant industry through calculation of concentration ratios turnover has been received. Area that can be considered as the core of the restaurant industry of Kyiv agglomeration and area with the potential of growth has been identified. The article visualized by maps.


2019 ◽  
pp. 313-325
Author(s):  
Borislav Grozdic ◽  
Valerija Dabetic

In the aggressive dominance of critical rational thinking over the mythical worldview, myth as a historical and effective force does not lose its actuality and importance, because myths often hide deeper messages than what history can offer. In such a social context, the significance of the spiritual message of the Kosovo myth - the commitment to the Heavenly Kingdom, as a lasting common value of the Serbian people, returns as a theme. In spite of its omnipresence, the opinion prevails that the myth belongs to the past, and if it is not yet obsolete, it certainly should be. The authors advocate the idea that myth, as a comprehensive experience of the world, and therefore the Kosovo myth as well, is a factor of national integration, a part of collective identity, and a common value system. Analysing the secular and spiritual understanding of the Kosovo myth, the authors point out the importance of the vivid memory of the prince Lazar?s commitment to the Heavenly Kingdom. For Christians, this represents the value and goal above all others and it forms the core of the Serbian historical consciousness and spiritual community. The paper shows that the spiritual message of the Kosovo myth is not understood or it is misunderstood nowadays, since the commitment to Kosovo is perceived as a call and an obligation to die for it. The authors conclude that the Kosovo myth is not a call to die in the war, on the contrary, it is a struggle for external and internal freedom, as well as for the highest values that are implied by the definition of the Heavenly Kingdom ? peace, love, honour, justice, dignity, and others.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1197-1202
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abdullah Abduldaim Hizabr Alhusami

The aim of this paper is to investigate the issue of intertextuality in the novel Alfirdaws Alyabab (The Waste Paradise) by the female Saudi novelist and short story writer Laila al-Juhani. Intertextuality is a rhetoric and literary technique defined as a textual reference deliberate or subtle to some other texts with a view of drawing more significance to the core text; and hence it is employed by an author to communicate and discuss ideas in a critical style. The narrative structure of Alfirdaws Alyabab (The Waste Paradise) showcases references of religious, literary, historical, and folkloric intertextuality. In analyzing these references, the study follows the intertextual approach. In her novel The Waste Paradise, Laila al-Juhani portrays the suffering of Saudi women who are less tormented by social marginalization than by an inner conflict between openness to Western culture and conformity to cultural heritage. Intertextuality relates to words, texts, or discourses among each other. Moreover, the intertextual relations are subject to reader’s response to the text. The relation of one text with other texts or contexts never reduces the prestige of writing. Therefore, this study, does not diminish the status of the writer or the text; rather, it is in itself a kind of literary creativity. Finally, this paper aims to introduce Saudi writers in general and the female writers in particular to the world literature.


Author(s):  
Matthew D. Lundberg

The introduction briefly explores Christianity’s fascination with its martyrs. It develops a series of optical metaphors—spotlight, lens, prism, mirror—to show that the core theological function of naming martyrs is to make an argument about what the faithful Christian life looks like. The martyr, from her extreme situation, illuminates and brings into clearer focus the contours of discipleship as they are supposed to be lived out in more ordinary situations. Hence the book’s central question: if martyrdom’s argument about the Christian life points to the call to suffer violence, then what are we to think about the mainstream church’s historic sanctioning of the inflicting of violence in certain circumstances?


Author(s):  
Robert Freitag

The provisions governing the euro as ‘European Single Currency’ are at the core of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union’s (TFEU) rules on the Economic Monetary Union (EMU). Since the euro has replaced the former national currencies of the participating Member States and is to substitute the national currencies of any future members of the euro area, it was mandatory to ascribe to the euro the status of exclusive ‘legal tender’ as per Article 128(1) TFEU. This status of the euro seems to be so evident as to be self-explanatory–but only at first glance since the concept of ‘legal tender’ and its implications in European Union (EU) and national private and public law are less clear. A satisfactory concept of legal tender is hard to define and hardly ever given on the EU level–resulting in a striking lack of legal certainty in a great variety of aspects of public and private law.


Author(s):  
Manuel Vogt

This chapter introduces the puzzle that the book seeks to explain. Ethnic movements—that is, organized political campaigns by groups whose collective identity is defined by language, religion, or other ethnic markers to influence state policy—have haunted politics in almost all of today’s states. Yet, while they have provoked violent conflict in some countries, they have remained peaceful in others. Strikingly, some of the most unequal societies of today’s world have experienced mostly nonviolent ethnic group mobilization. Starting from concrete case examples, the chapter presents the book’s central question: why is ethnic mobilization more likely to trigger violent conflict in some countries than in others? By discussing the merits and shortcomings of existing studies, it reveals the need for a theory that explains both why ethnic groups rebel and how they rebel. The chapter then describes the study’s empirical approach and outlines the plan of the book.


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