The Virile Bride of Bernard of Clairvaux

2000 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn M. Krahmer
Keyword(s):  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Cultural Stereotypes ◽  
Male Privilege ◽  
Active Service ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Feminine Virtue ◽  
Psychological Integration ◽  
Made In

That feminine metaphors dominate Bernard of Clairvaux's treatment of the contemplative soul who as loving Bride marries Christ in prayerful ecstasy, and as Mother nurtures the world in active service, is indisputable. And much has been made in recent years of the significance of a medieval male “assuming” the role of the female, both in relation to society at large and in relation to God. These latter arguments might be summarized by the claims that the appropriation of feminine images to the medieval male self is frequently either a conscious play on cultural stereotypes to signal spiritual renunciation or the rejection of worldly values, or reflects a need, whether conscious or unconscious, for psychological integration of the feminine and masculine in the lives of those confined to a homo-social world. In Bernard's Bride, then, we discover either the male appropriation of feminine weakness as a sign of spiritual strength or the rational male appropriation of the counterbalancing feminine virtue of affective love. What has not been recognized, however, is the possibility that the figure of the Bride in Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs might function paradoxically as a “virile woman,” a female “figure” or type who serves appropriately to represent the highest spiritual attainments of the human soul (whether of biological male or female), precisely because she has overcome any stereotypically “womanly” weaknesses and become typologically “male” or “virile.” Our interpretation of this seminal figure must thus not only take into account the confluence of masculine and feminine in her nature in ways we have not previously suspected. We must also consider the paradoxical reality that this figure may simultaneously represent a soul who is virtuous for having renounced male privilege and become a weak woman and a soul who is valorized for having overcome feminine weakness and become virile. It is this thesis that I will argue in what follows.

scholarly journals THE EXISTENTIAL ALIENATION OF THE FEMININE SELF IN THIS HOUSE OF CLAY AND WATER BY FAIQA MANSAB

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-78
Author(s):  
Amna Saeed ◽  
Aiman Rehman
Keyword(s):  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
True Self ◽  
Cultural Stereotypes ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Narrative Description

Purpose of the study: The present study aims to analyze the text This House of Clay and Water (2017) by Mansab, through the Existentialist Feminist lens in the light of Simone de Beauvoir’s theory as explained in her revolutionary work, The Second Sex (2009). The purpose of the study is not only to highlight women’s oppression/ othering in marriage due to patriarchy but also to mark the role of the ‘husband’ as crucial to the understanding of women’s emotional abandonment in marriage. Methodology: The study is qualitative and uses a descriptive analysis of the selected text. The method of literary analysis used in the text is based on a close reading of the narrative description and events of alienation of the identity persona of the protagonist in the text. Main Findings: The present study draws on Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas about how women are treated as others by the male subject in marriage resulting in a feeling of frustration, identity loss alienation, and existential crisis. Moreover, the role of the husband is crucial to avoid this crisis in women after marriage. Application of the study: This study can have many applications in various fields. The study demonstrates the impacts of social and cultural stereotypes on women as well as the role of patriarchy and resulting alienation. This study can have many applications in gender and feminist studies. This study can also be helpful in the academic setting for research purposes especially in feminism, gender studies, and female existentialism. The novelty of the study: The present study demonstrates how the protagonist feels entrapped and suffocated in her home, forced to live a life of false hope due to the impositions placed on her by her parents, her husband, her in-laws, and the patriarchal society which resultantly creates a feeling of alienation. The study concludes how dissuading a woman from her true self and forcing her to exist as an object results in a feeling of dissatisfaction, existential crisis, and alienation. The selected text has not been explored through the lens of Existential Feminism before.

Ivan Ozhienko about the role of religion in Ukrainian national life

2001 ◽  
pp. 54-61
Author(s):  
K. Nedzelsky
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Terrestrial Life ◽  
Dedicated Service ◽  
National Life ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Spiritual Unity

Ivan Ogienko (1882-1972), also known as Metropolitan Hilarion, devoted much attention to the role and place of religion in the national life of Ukrainians and their ethnic identity in their scholarly and theological works. Without exaggeration it can be argued that the problem of national unity of the Ukrainian people is one of the key principles of all historiosophical considerations of the famous scholar and theologian. If the purpose of the spiritual life of a Ukrainian, according to his views, is to serve God, then the purpose of state or terrestrial life is the dedicated service to his people. The purpose of heaven and the purpose of the earthly paths, intersecting in the life of a certain group of people through the lives of its individual representatives, give rise to a unique alliance of spiritual unity, the name of which is "people" or "nation." Religion (faith) in the process of transforming the anarchist crowd into a spiritually integrated and orderly national integrity serves as the transformer of the imperfect nature of the human soul into perfect.

Disruptions of the Local, Eruptions of the Feminine: Local Reportage and National Anxieties in Egypt’s 1890s

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Booth
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Female Images ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Advocacy Role ◽  
Representations Of Women ◽  
Gendered Expectations

This chapter demonstrates that inscriptions of female images in Cairo’s late nineteenth-century nationalist press were part of a discursive economy shaping debates on how gender roles and gendered expectations should shift as Egyptians struggled for independence. The chapter investigates content and placement of ‘news from the street’ in al-Mu’ayyad in the 1890s, examining how these terse local reports – equivalent to faits divers in the French press – contributed to the construction of an ideal national political trajectory with representations of women serving as the primary example in shaping a politics of newspaper intervention on the national scene. In this, an emerging advocacy role of newspaper correspondents makes the newspaper a mediator in the construction of activist reader-citizens.

ASPECTS IN BUILDING A COMPANY WEB-SITE AND ITS ROLE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS

2018 ◽  
pp. 117-124
Author(s):  
Petar Halachev ◽  
Victoria Radeva ◽  
Albena Nikiforova ◽  
Miglena Veneva
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Web Site ◽  
The Internet ◽  
A Company ◽  
The Web ◽  
Design Construction ◽  
Made In ◽  
Site Types

This report is dedicated to the role of the web site as an important tool for presenting business on the Internet. Classification of site types has been made in terms of their application in the business and the types of structures in their construction. The Models of the Life Cycle for designing business websites are analyzed and are outlined their strengths and weaknesses. The stages in the design, construction, commissioning, and maintenance of a business website are distinguished and the activities and requirements of each stage are specified.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

The Role of the Endothelium in Premature Atherosclerosis: Molecular Mechanisms

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 1041-1051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Spartalis ◽  
Eleftherios Spartalis ◽  
Antonios Athanasiou ◽  
Stavroula A. Paschou ◽  
Christos Kontogiannis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Low Density Lipoprotein ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Density Lipoprotein ◽  
Number Of Genes ◽  
Causes Of Mortality ◽  
Artery Disease ◽  
Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽  
Made In

Atherosclerotic disease is still one of the leading causes of mortality. Atherosclerosis is a complex progressive and systematic artery disease that involves the intima of the large and middle artery vessels. The inflammation has a key role in the pathophysiological process of the disease and the infiltration of the intima from monocytes, macrophages and T-lymphocytes combined with endothelial dysfunction and accumulated oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL) are the main findings of atherogenesis. The development of atherosclerosis involves multiple genetic and environmental factors. Although a large number of genes, genetic polymorphisms, and susceptible loci have been identified in chromosomal regions associated with atherosclerosis, it is the epigenetic process that regulates the chromosomal organization and genetic expression that plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Despite the positive progress made in understanding the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, the knowledge about the disease remains scarce.

Freedom and Responsibility in Neoplatonist Thought

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Coope
Keyword(s):  
First Principle ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
The One ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility

The Neoplatonists have a perfectionist view of freedom: an entity is free to the extent that it succeeds in making itself good. Free entities are wholly in control of themselves: they are self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing. Neoplatonist philosophers argue that such freedom is only possible for nonbodily things. The human soul is free insofar as it rises above bodily things and engages in intellection, but when it turns its desires to bodily things, it is drawn under the sway of fate and becomes enslaved. This book discusses this notion of freedom, and its relation to questions about responsibility. It explains the important role of notions of self-reflexivity in Neoplatonist accounts of both freedom and responsibility. Part I sets out the puzzles Neoplatonist philosophers face about freedom and responsibility and explains how these puzzles arise from earlier discussions. Part II looks at the metaphysical underpinnings of the Neoplatonist notion of freedom (concentrating especially on the views of Plotinus and Proclus). In what sense (if any) is the ultimate first principle of everything (the One) free? If everything else is under this ultimate first principle, how can anything other than the One be free? What is the connection between freedom and nonbodiliness? Part III looks at questions about responsibility, arising from this perfectionist view of freedom. Why are human beings responsible for their behaviour, in a way that other animals are not? If we are enslaved when we act viciously, how can we be to blame for our vicious actions and choices?

Conclusions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Strecker
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
World Heritage Convention ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
State Obligations ◽  
Made In ◽  
Landscape Protection

The final chapter of this book advances four main conclusions on the role of international law in landscape protection. These relate to state obligations regarding landscape protection, the influence of the World Heritage Convention and the European Landscape Convention, the substantive and procedural nature of landscape rights, and the role of EU law. It is argued that, although state practice is lagging behind the normative developments made in the field of international landscape protection, landscape has contributed positively to the corpus of international cultural heritage law and indeed has emerged as a nascent field of international law in its own right.

scholarly journals Simultaneity and Precise Time in Rotation

Universe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Koks
Keyword(s):  
Time Coordinate ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Precise Time ◽  
Made In

I analyse the role of simultaneity in relativistic rotation by building incrementally on its role in simpler scenarios. Historically, rotation has been analysed in 1 + 1 dimensions; but my stance is that a 2 + 1 -dimensional treatment is necessary. This treatment requires a discussion of what constitutes a frame, how coordinate choices differ from frame choices, and how poor coordinates can be misleading. I determine how precisely we are able to define a meaningful time coordinate on a gravity-free rotating Earth, and discuss complications due to gravity on our real Earth. I end with a critique of several statements made in relativistic precision-timing literature, that I maintain contradict the tenets of relativity. Those statements tend to be made in the context of satellite-based navigation; but they are independent of that technology, and hence are not validated by its success. I suggest that if relativistic precision-timing adheres to such analyses, our civilian timing is likely to suffer in the near future as clocks become ever more precise.

scholarly journals The Role of Cultural Beliefs, Norms, and Practices in Nigerian Women’s Experiences of Sexual Abuse and Violence

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110001
Author(s):  
Chinyere Elsie Ajayi ◽  
Khatidja Chantler ◽  
Lorraine Radford
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Rape Myths ◽  
Framework Analysis ◽  
Women’S Experiences ◽  
Male Privilege ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
Bride Price

This study aims to explore if and how cultural beliefs, norms, and practices might contribute to Nigerian women’s experiences of sexual abuse and violence. In-depth narrative interviews were conducted with 12 women of Nigerian origin living in the Northwest of England who had experienced sexual abuse and violence. Women’s accounts were analyzed thematically, and drawing upon a feminist-intersectional conceptual framework, analysis reveals that male privilege defined by gendered role and expectation, religious beliefs, rape myths, and bride-price with the associated practice of libation may have contributed to women’s experiences of sexual abuse and violence.

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