scholarly journals Gender and the social imaginary in medieval Welsh law

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 267-293
Author(s):  
Robin Chapman Stacey
Keyword(s):  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Methods

This talk explores the role played by gender in the social imaginaries implicit in medieval Welsh law. It takes as its starting point the lawbooks of medieval Wales, which have narrative qualities rendering them susceptible to analyses of several different kinds, from standard historical readings, to scrutiny as law, to more literary critical methods. Of particular interest in this lecture are the ways in which ideas about male and female inform lawbook depictions of space and time, sexuality in both animal and human bodies, and everyday practices such as farming.

scholarly journals Social imaginaries and the theory of the normative utterance

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (10) ◽  
pp. 1045-1071
Author(s):  
Meili Steele
Keyword(s):  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Propositional Form

From Charles Taylor to Marcel Gauchet, theorists of the social imaginary have given us new ways to talk about the shared structures of meanings and practices of the West. Theorists of this group have argued against the narrow horizons of meaning that are deployed by deliberative political theories in developing their basic normative concepts and principles, providing an alternative to the oscillation between the constructivism and the realism. Theorists of the imaginary have enabled us to think about normatively charged collective imaginaries as logically prior to the construction of normative principles. What theorists of the imaginary have not done is make specific connections between the ontological background of social imaginaries and the normative utterance. This lacuna has left them vulnerable to the charges of ‘normative deficit’ and vagueness that Habermas and others famously make against philosophies of ‘world disclosure’. This article develops a conception of the normative utterance that enables us to reason through social imaginaries. In such reasoning, claims are not expressed in the propositional form of the Rawlsian or Habermasian justification, but through a complex engagement with the worldhood that informs normative judgements.

scholarly journals Negotiation and Discursive Conflict in Within Opinion: Public Vs. Private in the Social Romanian Imaginary

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-28
Author(s):  
Petru Ioan Marian-Arnat
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conflict Strategies ◽  
Public Versus Private ◽  
The Way

Abstract The paper approaches contemporary Romanian media in order to outline negotiation and discursive conflict strategies in public storytelling about the country’s recent history. In the so-called Romanian social imaginary, notions of public versus private highlight the way public officials resort to the language of culture-specific communication-related concepts that are a starting point for much of the discourse on decision-making

Mapping the theme of Creativity in Cornelius Castoriadis’s and Paul Ricoeur’s Social Imaginaries

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-36
Author(s):  
George Sarantoulias ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Cultural Imagination ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theories Of Action ◽  
Cornelius Castoriadis ◽  
Convergence And Divergence

This paper elucidates the notion that action is creative through the social imaginaries perspective. Hans Joas’s critique of sociological theories on action developed in The Creativity of Action (1996 [1992]) argued that creativity is an essential concept to better understand social action. Cornelius Castoriadis and Paul Ricoeur employ an understanding of action as being inextricably connected to the social imaginary and capable of bringing forth historically novel forms of being and doing. An elucidation of Castoriadis’s dichotomy between the instituted and instituting imaginaries and Ricoeur’s distinction of the ideological and utopian poles of the cultural imagination bring to the surface points of convergence and divergence in their respective understandings of the social imaginary and historical novelty. Inspired by Joas’s critique of sociological theories of action through pragmatism, which is underlined by a critique of the philosophical anthropological assumptions held by structuralism, this essay argues that Castoriadis’s and Ricoeur’s distinct insights on the creative dimension of social action and the way in which social reality emerges can elucidate further an anti-structuralist philosophical anthropology that can help inform sociological theories of action.

Human Creation, Imagination and Autonomy

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (37) ◽  
pp. 197-213
Author(s):  
Theofanis Tassis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Greek World

During the last decade Castoriadis’ questioning has become a reference point in contemporary social theory. In this article I examine some of the key notions in Castoriadis’ work and explore how he strives to develop a theory on the irreducible creativity in the radical imagination of the individual and in the institution of the social-historical sphere. Firstly, I briefly discuss his conception of modem capitalism as bureaucratic capitalism, a view initiated by his criticism of the USSR regime. The following break up with Marxist theory and his psychoanalytic interests empowered him to criticize Lacan and read Freud in an imaginative, though unorthodox, fashion. I argue that this criticai enterprise assisted greatly Castoriadis in his conception of the radical imaginary and in his unveiling of the political aspects of psychoanalysis. On the issue of the radical imaginary and its methodological repercussions, I’m focusing mainly on the radical imagination o f the subject and its importance in the transition from the “psychic” to the “subject”. Taking up the notion of “Being” as a starting point, I examine the notion of autonomy, seeking its roots in the ancient Greek world. By looking at notions such as “praxis”, “doing”, “project” and “elucidation”, I show how Castoriadis sought to redefine revolution as a means for social and individual autonomy. Finally I attempt to clarify the meaning of “democracy” and “democratic society” in the context of the social imaginary and its creations, the social imaginary significations.

Crisis, liminality and the decolonization of the social imaginary

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 493-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelos Varvarousis
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Greek Crisis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Global North ◽  
Second World

The decolonization of the social imaginary has been proposed as an important dimension of the transition towards a degrowth society. However, although omnipresent in the degrowth literature, the terms “social imaginary” and “social imaginary significations” have not been adequately explained. This creates a level of mystification that limits the analytical value of the degrowth framework. In addition, there is very little theoretical work on how actual social imaginaries can be decolonized and transformed. This paper first tries to clarify those concepts. Subsequently, it develops a theoretical framework for explaining such transitions of the imaginary. In developing this framework, the paper focuses on moments of crisis, since crises have been historically associated with change and transition. It argues that crises are important because they destabilize social imaginaries and open up a stage of suspension—a liminal stage—in which the rise of new social practices can facilitate the emergence of new social imaginary significations and institutions that can contribute to the alteration of the social imaginary at large. The paper draws on case studies related to the Greek crisis, the biggest ever faced by a country of the Global North after the Second World War.

scholarly journals The Social Imaginary of Emancipation in Entrepreneurship

2020 ◽  
pp. 104225872095925
Author(s):  
Lauri Laine ◽  
Ewald Kibler
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Social

This article contributes to the research agenda of emancipatory entrepreneurship by developing the understanding of emancipation as a social imaginary in entrepreneurship. In particular, we draw on fiction and philosophical hermeneutics to generate three ideal types of the social imaginary of emancipation in entrepreneurship theorizing. Building on our hermeneutic analysis, we introduce a framework that explains how entrepreneurship theorizing can strengthen, undermine, and shape emancipatory practices as well as the social imaginary of emancipation. We conclude our article by explicating and discussing the relevancy of emancipation in and for entrepreneurship theorizing across different social imaginaries and social practices.

scholarly journals The PowerPoint Nation: Branding an Imagined Commodity

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Göran Bolin ◽  
Per Ståhlberg
Keyword(s):  
Nation Branding ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Personal Media ◽  
Modern Nation State

In the formation of the modern nation state and the social imaginary of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the media and representational practices have, among most scholars, been ascribed a prominent position. The question is, however, how have changes in media technologies, from mass media to digital and interactive personal media, impacted on the national imaginaries over the past few decades? This article discusses what happens with the social imaginaries when national(ist) symbols are reproduced through the medium of PowerPoint, as one of the main tools for constructing images of the nation in nation-branding campaigns, i.e. promotional campaigns initiated by governments in conjunction with corporate actors with the aim of producing an attractive image of a country for foreign investors and tourists. It is concluded that the representational technology of PowerPoint produces a nation as an imagined commodity rather than an imagined community.

Bringing It Home

2018 ◽  
pp. 149-166
Author(s):  
Helena Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Universal Access ◽  
New Order ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Old Order ◽  
The Social ◽  
Access To Knowledge ◽  
Biological Outcomes

This chapter presents a synthesis of the key themes discussed in the preceding chapters. It argues that addiction is biocultural: the social imaginary determines biological outcomes, because what addicted people think of themselves and see as possible drives their risk of overdose, infection, violence, and incarceration. The question is how to cultivate social imaginaries and lattices of relationships that foster therapeutic ways of living. Pentecostalism can, at times, open spaces for marginal people to create a new order based on narratives of ascetic redemption, domesticity, and universal access to knowledge and gifts. At other times, it draws on elements of the old order—such as patriarchy—empowering some members at the expense of others.

De betekenis van het verleden in het hedendaagse debat over jongensbesnijdenis: ‘Social imaginaries’ en het geval van Paulus

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 308-321
Author(s):  
Karin Neutel
Keyword(s):  
Male Circumcision ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Social Imaginaries ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Newspaper Articles

This article explores perceptions of the past, and in particular of the apostle Paul, in recent newspaper articles that discuss male circumcision, using Charles Taylor’s category of the ‘social imaginary’. Applying Taylor’s category of the ‘imaginary’ to this contemporary debate shows that the past is constructed in several ways, sometimes in understanding history as progress, but also as a warning or a deciding factor in contemporary oppositions. Views of the past that mention Paul locate his relevance for contemporary attitudes in his presumed rejection of physical circumcision and emphasis on inner attitudes, but can draw very different conclusions from this for contemporary attitudes towards circumcision.

Liszt at the Piano: The Impact of Iconography on mid-Nineteenth Century Musicology

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Suzanne Marie Francis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Music History ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Maximum Benefit ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Iconic Status ◽  
The Impact

By the time of his death in 1827, the image of Beethoven as we recognise him today was firmly fixed in the minds of his contemporaries, and the career of Liszt was beginning to flower into that of the virtuosic performer he would be recognised as by the end of the 1830s. By analysing the seminal artwork Liszt at the Piano of 1840 by Josef Danhauser, we can see how a seemingly unremarkable head-and-shoulders bust of Beethoven in fact holds the key to unlocking the layers of commentary on both Liszt and Beethoven beneath the surface of the image. Taking the analysis by Alessandra Comini as a starting point, this paper will look deeper into the subtle connections discernible between the protagonists of the picture. These reveal how the collective identities of the artist and his painted assembly contribute directly to Beethoven’s already iconic status within music history around 1840 and reflect the reception of Liszt at this time. Set against the background of Romanticism predominant in the social and cultural contexts of the mid 1800s, it becomes apparent that it is no longer enough to look at a picture of a composer or performer in isolation to understand its impact on the construction of an overall identity. Each image must be viewed in relation to those that preceded and came after it to gain the maximum benefit from what it can tell us.

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