Equalization in the Body and the Body Politic : From Galen to Marsilius of Padua

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Kaye
Keyword(s):  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua

The Glorious Excess of Peace in Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis

Theoria ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (159) ◽  
pp. 23-51
Author(s):  
Richard A. Lee Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Body Politic ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua ◽  
The Right

In Defensor Pacis Marsilius of Padua grounds the legitimacy of the kingdom, or the state (civitas), on the peace that rule provides the citizens. Looking at Aristotle’s claim that the civitas strives to be like an animal in which all parts in the right proportion for the sake of health, Marsilius argues that ‘the parts of the kingdom or state will be well disposed for the sake of peace [tranquilitas].’ Marsilius goes on to define peace as the agreeable ‘belonging together’ of all members of the kingdom or the state. In this way, Marsilius moves away from a theological ground of the legitimacy of the state towards one that is entirely secular. However, the ground is an unstable one in that it acknowledges the fact that the ‘members’ of the body politic are characterised by difference. As such, the ground of legitimate authority will be characterised as much by force as by peace or by the relation of force to peace.

Sovereignty

Rebel Barons ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Sunderland
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Just War ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua ◽  
The Common

This chapter argues that political thinkers across Europe in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries were negotiating the paradoxes of sovereignty when they elaborated distinctions between kingship and tyranny. New concepts of the just war, necessity, and treason conspired to allow sovereigns to crush opposition or abrogate full powers, suspending the laws. Any king, then, was a tyrant in waiting—hence the fears of political thinkers such as John of Salisbury, Aquinas, and Marsilius of Padua, who attempted to rein in sovereigns by articulating ideals such as the body politic and the common good, which argued for royal responsibilities towards society as a whole. Politics was drifting away from morality, but these writers attempted to recouple them.

The pressure of coherence and the diachronic reconfigurations of metaphorical discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Shogimen
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
Medical Context ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua ◽  
History Of

The metaphor of the body politic is diverse in the history of European political discourse yet it remains unclear why such diachronic variations occurred. Drawing on Zoltán Kövecses’s idea of “the pressure of coherence,” the present paper argues that diachronic reconfigurations of metaphorical discourses occur due to differential contextual experiences; more specifically, metaphorical discourses on the body politic, which consist of mapping between the domain of the POLITICAL COMMUNITY and that of natural BODY, are reconfigured diachronically in accordance with not only the ideological but also the medical context. In order to demonstrate this, the paper examines the texts of three key medieval political thinkers — John of Salisbury, Marsilius of Padua and Nicholas of Cusa — and the medical knowledge that was influential in their respective era. Thus this paper constitutes a contribution to the historical cognitive linguistic study of metaphorical discourse.

‘Good enough for a spot of lippy anyway’: Rape and the Body Politic in My Brother Tom

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-373
Author(s):  
Louise Wilks
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sexual Violation ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Hollywood Movies ◽  
Contemporary Cinema ◽  
Rape Narratives

The representation of rape continues to be one of the most highly charged issues in contemporary cinema, and whilst many discussions of this topic focus on Hollywood movies, sexual violation is also a pervasive topic in British cinema. This article examines the portrayal of a female's rape in the British feature My Brother Tom (2001), a powerful and often troubling text in which the sexual violation of the teenage female protagonist functions as a catalyst for the events that comprise the plot, as is often the case in rape narratives. The article provides an overview of some of the key feminist academic discussions and debates that cinematic depictions of rape have prompted, before closely analysing My Brother Tom's rape scene in relation to such discourses. The article argues that the rape scene is neither explicit nor sensationalised, and that by having the camera focus on Jessica's bewildered reactions, it positions the audience with her, and powerfully but discreetly portrays the grave nature of sexual abuse. The article then moves on to examine the portrayal of sexual violation in My Brother Tom as a whole, considering the cultural inscriptions etched on the female body within its account of rape, before concluding with a discussion of the film's depiction of Jessica's ensuing methods of bodily self-inscription as she attempts to disassociate her body from its sexual violation.

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

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