Kierkegaard’s Three Spheres and Cinematic Fairy Tale Pedagogy in Frozen, Moana, and Tangled

Although Disney films are sometimes denigrated as popular or “low” art forms, this article argues that they often engage deeply with, and thereby communicate, significant moral truths. The capitalistic enterprise of contemporary modern cinema demands that cinematic moral pedagogy be sublimated into non-partisan forms, often by substituting secular proxies for otherwise divine or spiritual components. By adapting Søren Kierkegaard’s tripartite existential anthropology of the self, I analyze the subjective experiences of the protagonists in three recent animated fairy tales—Disney’s Frozen, Moana, and Tangled—to demonstrate how these princess movies bridge the imaginative gap between the mundane and the divine.

War, Displacement, and Refugeehood: Existential Encounters of Religion in the Syrian Refugee Crisis

How and to what extent does religion play into the life-rupturing experiences that characterize forced migration? This article provides a novel look at how issues of religion and identity (re/de)constructions are entangled with the Syrian refugee crisis and mirrored in the diverse experiences relating to a sample of Syrian refugees now residing in Norway. The study aims to delve more deeply into the Syrian scene of war as a determinant backdrop to the Syrian refugee crisis, thereby tracing the intersection of religion in people’s experiences of conflict, displacement, and refugeehood. It argues for a lived dimension approach when analysing the variable ways in which empowering and disempowering aspects of religion cut into their migration trajectories. Additionally, it applies a theoretical lens derived from existential anthropology to explore how narrative negotiations veer between chaos, crisis, and disruption, on the one hand, and resilience, hope, and restitution, on the other. The study reveals an ambiguous empirical reality in which the nexus between religion and forced migration involves highly contradictory identification processes. Furthermore, it provides vivid polyvocal testimonies on how Syrians have navigated the liminal in-betweens of vulnerability and agency in their escape from Syria as well as during their journeys of displacement into refugeehood.

Existence Philosophy as a Humanism?

This article examines the challenges for understanding Kierkegaard’s philosophy from the perspective of our modern, heterogeneous societies, and seeks to define a humanism or existential ethics within Kierkegaard’s existential anthropology. After examining the problems inherent in Kierkegaard’s account of neighbor-love and human equality, we question the possibility of separating Kierkegaard’s existential anthropology from his Christian ontology. Suggesting that Kierkegaard’s philosophy does not leave us empty-handed, as political and social critiques claim, we sketch out the premises for a Kierkegaardian understanding of existential ethics which is not merely an ethics of self-accomplishment, but which places concern for others at the fore.

Explicitation Interview: A Method for Collecting First Person Perspectives on Living Alone in Old Age

How can older adults (OAs) live at home alone when they have health problems? Growing numbers of OAs live with chronic health problems and yet are determined to remain in their homes as long as possible. The risks associated with living alone are a source of grave concern not only for OAs but also for those around them. Knowing how OAs cope with the risks they face is a central issue for home care and support services. The present article describes the advantages of coupling an existential anthropology approach with an explicitation interview (EI) methodology as a means of understanding the details of how OAs manage their lives at home alone. Using this introspective methodology, we encouraged 20 participants aged 80 years or older to share very detailed elements of their subjective daily life experiences of coping with the risks inherent to their solitary lifestyles. Different types of risk coexisted with one another; some risks were physical, while others were existential. Physical risks appeared to be subordinate to other major fears: loss of identity, disintegration of one’s internal coherence, lack of autonomy and control over one’s personal situation, and decline in self-esteem and self-image. These fears acted as incentives for developing various practical coping mechanisms for their daily lives, including measures that involved taking risks with regard to their physical safety. Using our existential anthropology approach, supported by the EI methodology, we closely examined the details of interviewees’ realities.

Metafictional poetics of Victor Pelevin’s novel “iPhuck 10”

The article analyzes the ways of artistic realization of the aesthetic-reflective metafictional complex in Victor Pelevin’s novel “iPhuck 10”. The metanarrative structure of the novel is traced, which is built with the use of a special type of narrator - a literary simulator, which at the same time is the sum of all the cultural forms of writing, a kind of archive thesaurus, on the other hand undermines the basis of its own narrative by exposing the empty nature and the existential problematic nature of the narrative. Metatextual issues are updated at the level of the deictic structures of the language-speech that are basic for aesthetic communication. A further subject of study is the method of isomorphic conjugation of plot-motive event dynamics with semantics of a series of ecstatically described and interpreted art objects of various medial-semiotic nature. Thanks to the dual function of the diegetic narrator as the subject of the story and its object, the equivalence effect of different metalanguages and discourses is simultaneously created within the framework of the basic conceptual metaphors and symbolic constructions of the novel. Thanks to this, we can talk about both metanarrativeness and the metafiction of the poetics of the novel. Metafictional reflection productively correlates with author's anthropological concepts. In particular, the plot of the creator-impostor combines the through Pelevinian motive of suffering and pain as the fundamental characteristics of human life with pain as an inalienable quality and source of creativity. A software algorithm is grown as a conscious person to create works of art, and its creators reinforce sorrow, anxiety, and the experience of the meaninglessness of existence so that creativity is genuine. Man is experienced by the temptation of demiurgy, by meeting with the Other, by the demand for personal self-transcendence. Thus, the author succeeds in isomorphically combining metafictional poetics and existential anthropology of the novel.