Modern Criticism Research Articles

Roots, trees, and the re-enchantment of nature: the French new right’s eco-political utopia

ABSTRACT People on the radical right are often considered to be climate deniers. Today, however, the new right in France has embraced a radical, ecological agenda and set out to experiment with traditional, agrarian ways of life. This paper asks how the new right currently revives a far-right tradition of ecological thought and how they practice this ecological vision. To move forward with their ethno-ecological utopia and salvage European civilization, they turn away from national politics and create local communities or ‘identitarian sanctuaries’. This article explores the new right’s practiced eco-utopias from three different angles. First, it shows how the ‘native soil’ and notions of ‘rootedness’ are pivotal for their understanding of identity. Second, it examines how the new right reframes ‘biodiversity’ as a plurality of European cultures, currently threatened by global capitalism and unchecked immigration. Finally, the article argues that the new right’s critique of modernity is not only political but also epistemic. To break free from modern scientific worldviews and enable a re-enchantment of nature, they turn to fantasy literature as well as Romantic and neo-pagan spiritualities.

Prevalence and factors associated with the perpetration and victimization of teen dating violence: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Dating violence is a global health problem that affects adolescents physically, psychologically and sexually. During adolescence, there is a high prevalence and negative consequences in both perpetration and victimization, which can vary according to culture, but maintain common characteristics in traditional societies. Factors associated with the perpetration and victimization of gender-based violence among adolescents include gender inequality, discrimination, substance use, parental neglect, peer influence and exposure to family violence. Despite modern criticisms of gender expectations, traditional views that legitimize violence persist. In this sense, the collection of global data on the prevalence and factors associated with dating violence among adolescents could favour comparative studies between Western and Eastern cultures and is fundamental for informing public policies in a globalized world. It is hoped that the results will contribute to expanding scientific knowledge in the area, as well as helping managers and the academic community to target resources, identify risk groups and promote gender equality from adolescence onwards. In this sense, this study aims to globally assess the prevalence and factors associated with the perpetration and victimization of dating violence among adolescents. It is hoped that the results will expand scientific knowledge in this area.

Disavowing history

If the secession of formerly colonized countries from large imperial units is a story of political hope, the central actors in Quinn Slobodian’s story perceive the opportunities provided by the proliferation of new jurisdictions following decolonization very differently. According to the “market radicals” of the late 20th and 21st centuries, the break-up of empire is not a story of the potential for the democratization of politics and history-writing. Their ideas do however offer critiques of modernity. In this commentary, I convene critics of modernity – anticolonial leaders, historians of decolonization and the aftermath of empire, Indigenous and tribal peoples and their historians, and decolonial thinkers – in conversation with the capitalist adventurers of Slobodian’s tale, via an exploration of the limits and possibilities of history-writing and the politics of historicist discourse.

What Is Nietzschean Weakness of Will?

ABSTRACT The notions of strength and weakness of will appear at central junctures in Nietzsche’s philosophy, figuring, for example, into his critique of modernity (BGE 212) and his engagement with the free will debate (BGE 21). Despite the centrality of these notions for Nietzsche’s philosophical project, little scholarly attention has been devoted to examining how Nietzsche actually conceives of strength and weakness of will. Instead, it is commonly assumed that Nietzsche simply follows his philosophical predecessors in identifying weakness with akrasia. In this paper, I challenge this reading, arguing that the primary kind of agential failure that Nietzsche associates with weakness is irresoluteness, understood as the failure to persist in one’s intentions.

Musthalah al-Tanash Nasyatuhu wa Ta’shiluhu wa Huduruhu fi al-Adab al-‘Arabi

A number of contemporary Arab critics have sought to root many Western critical concepts by searching for their origins in the ancient Arab and rhetorical heritage, including, for example, “intertextuality.” These critics agree that the ancient Arab critical heritage is full of critical theories and concepts, and it is necessary to return to it to uncover the origins of these modern Western theories and concepts, and to reintegrate them into modern criticism. The concept of intertextuality is one of the most Western concepts exposed to rooting in contemporary Arab criticism. This concept was rooted by linking it to old concepts created by Arab critics in the past, such as quotation, inclusion, literary theft, and others. Thus, Arab critics have enriched the human critical heritage with critical theories that they produced and applied to Arab poetic creativity. Arabs knew the idea of intertextuality in its concept, dimensions, and some of its functions, but they did not naturally create this Western term. Some modern Arab critics sought to purify the concept of intertextuality from its impurities that make it a dangerous concept, so that it could be rooted and considered a new and contemporary formulation of the concept of legalized thefts, which Abdul Qaher Al-Jurjani defined as "imitation".

Bruno Latour, la modernidad y las ciencias: ¿dónde aterrizar?

This work gathers Bruno Latour’s critique of modernity and the idea of progress, giving special attention to his critique of modern science and the separation it carries out between nature and society. From these perspective, two concrete cases are analyzed that show the prevalence of this conception in current social science: the claims to the technical treatment of the coronavirus pandemic and the purely technical analysis of the water resource. In the first case, it is emphasized that the pandemic is also a political problem; in the second, that the water problem also has political and social implications. Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 163, 2024: 106-124.

Complexity, Reality and Ontological Insecurity: On Mistakes and Navigational Skills

This article explores the concept of reality and the transformation concerning the complex approach to the modes of existence based on the interrelation between diverse actants that make up our world. Considering recent ontological debates and critiques of modernity, the article argues for a shift away from ready-made suppositions about reality and the desire for simplified answers. We propose a radical idea of an actant interaction perspective grounded in Bruno Latour’s and Hartmut Rosa’s ideas of exploring an ontology embracing curiosity, imagination, and the importance of making mistakes as necessary attitudes in navigating the uncontrollable nature of reality. The article emphasizes the importance of embracing a sense of liberty when comprehending and interacting with the world. It encourages us to concentrate on the strengths and connections of living organisms.

المردود القبيح للمتغيرات الفلسفية والاجتماعية في فنون ما بعد الحداثة

The Ugly Consequence of Philosophical, and Social changes in Postmodern Art has had a profound impact on Art, Thought, and Culture by challenging established Beliefs, and raising questions about the nature of Reality, and Knowledge. And as a Reflection of those changes that occurred in the twentieth century, The Arts in turn rejected traditional concepts such as objective truth, absolute meaning, and classical beauty, and adopted Pluralism, Deconstruction, Uncertainty, Decentralization, Individualism, and Futility over Philosophical Thought, resulting in fragmented and chaotic Artistic Expression, and emphasised criticism and questioning traditional Beliefs and Values, resulting in Art that is often critical and controversial. Postmodern art has embraced Cultural Pluralism by attempting to blend different values to express Social Conditions, and has completely distanced itself from Abstraction. Postmodern concepts have been formulated on the basis of a critique of modernism, which was based on the idea of the existence a History of Thought that moves usually on the basis of possessing understandable Concepts as complete Origins, and in Postmodern Art we found out a return to representational language, and differentiated consistency that suits different tastes as it carries different messages, and artistic trends became more interactive with Society and the Public, which gives the Artwork the characteristic of spread and integration with the surrounding environment, whether Social, Cultural, Economic, or Political. These changes have also led to diverse Arts that are rich in experiences, but are often difficult to understand and unconventional, which have led to criticism of these arts for being elitist and chaotic, yet they have contributed to the development of new and interesting Art Forms. In conclusion, Philosophical and Social Changes have played an important role in the formation of Postmodern Art, and the emergence of many new features accompanied by some negative consequences.

“Good to Feel With, Good to Think With”? Troubling the Affective Encounter in Medieval Bernardine and Anselmian Marian Dialogues

ABSTRACT This article focuses on medieval dialogues in which the Virgin Mary relates the Crucifixion story to an interlocutor, particularly the traditions surrounding Sts. Bernard and Anselm deriving from the twelfth-century Quis dabit and the thirteenth-century Dialogus beatae Mariae et Anselmi. Mary often figures as the supreme medieval model for compassion, and modern critics often position these dialogues as influential models for broader medieval affective piety traditions. A closer reading, however, reveals the dialogues’ affective tensions, undermining the idea that they seamlessly generate compassion for devoted readers. Mary appears alternately impassive and impassioned, detached and sunk anew in unspeakable sorrow; her interlocutors often compassionate her inadequately and flounder in the knowledge of that affective failure. This article explores such tensions, emphasizing the texts’ troubled temporality, Mary’s traumatic experience, and the interlocutor’s affective deficiencies. It directs attention to the troubling failures of feeling at the heart of several seemingly “affecting” medieval texts.

Politics, Patronage, and Poetics in Hobbes’s Homer

ABSTRACT Taking issue with the new orthodoxy that Hobbes set about his late-career translations of Homer in order to ventriloquize political opinions he was prevented by the processes of Restoration censorship from publishing, this article reexamines the foundations and questions the textual evidence for this interpretation. Drawing on previously unexamined evidence, the article shows that Hobbes’s patrons, the Cavendish family, had sponsored the recent translations of Homer by John Ogilby, and that Hobbes’s work represented an attempt to correct errors and infelicities in Ogilby’s work while defending Homer himself against ill-conceived attacks by modern critics such as Scaliger and Rapin.

Collins’s Heart: Childlike Sympathy and Coincidence in late-Victorian Literature and Science Debates

ABSTRACT: Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time (1882– 1883) channels the controversy that surrounded debates on vivisection and animal rights at the Victorian fin de siècle . Initial reviewers homed in on Collins’s oversimplified arguments against vivisection, which villainized experimental science and scientists; modern critics emphasize the negative associations casting women of science as absurd practitioners and hysterical patients. This analysis explores how Heart and Science encourages sympathetic dialogue between the arts and science; communicates anxiety in depictions of vivisection and women; and draws meaning and hope from narratives driven by music and children. Through metaphors of acoustic science and plots shaped by border-crossing children, the novel stresses listening as a necessary and healing component in discourses of difference.

Collins’s Heart: Childlike Sympathy and Coincidence in late-Victorian Literature and Science Debates

ABSTRACT: Wilkie Collins’s Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time (1882– 1883) channels the controversy that surrounded debates on vivisection and animal rights at the Victorian fin de siècle . Initial reviewers homed in on Collins’s oversimplified arguments against vivisection, which villainized experimental science and scientists; modern critics emphasize the negative associations casting women of science as absurd practitioners and hysterical patients. This analysis explores how Heart and Science encourages sympathetic dialogue between the arts and science; communicates anxiety in depictions of vivisection and women; and draws meaning and hope from narratives driven by music and children. Through metaphors of acoustic science and plots shaped by border-crossing children, the novel stresses listening as a necessary and healing component in discourses of difference.

Italo-Soviet Architectural Exchanges and Postmodernism under Late Socialism

A global movement, architectural postmodernism cannot be reduced simply to the cultural logic of late capitalism, nor should its analysis be restricted, as in recent revisionist histories, to the geo- graphical confines of the Eastern Bloc. By revealing that the ideas, design strategies and images that make up postmodern architecture did not belong squarely to either side of the Cold War geopolitical divide, this paper argues that a full understanding of the movement requires an inquiry going beyond the scope of a single ideological context. The emergence of architectural postmodernism is to be located in the interstitial space between the 'capitalist West' and the 'socialist East'. Yet familiar narratives of knowledge transfer from the former to the latter are reductive and fail to capture historical reality in all its complexity and ambiguity. For instance, Aldo Rossi's work was known and may have been consciously replicated by Soviet architects. Less acknowledged is the fact that, in the Italian context, the rise of architectural postmodernism went hand in hand with the consolidation of a 'tradition of study of Soviet architecture'. Rossi was just one among many Italian architects —  such as Paolo Portoghesi, Carlo Aymonino or Vittorio Gregotti —  who, undertaking a critique of modernism, drew crucial inspiration from Soviet architecture, particularly Socialist Realist theory and practice.

Do Shakespeare’s characters mean what they say?

Do Shakespeare’s characters mean what they say?

Algumas notas sobre a relação entre Adorno e a Epistemologia do Sul

This paper aims to develop an understanding of how the culture industry still operates in the postcolonial era. To this end, the first part of this paper will look at Adorno and Horkheimer’s reading of modernity, touching on how instrumental reasoning can lend itself to barbarism, along with an exposition of Adorno’s analysis of the culture industry. The second part will present decolonial theory, its critique of European modernity and, particularly, its focus on neo-imperialism. This theory will then be put alongside critical theory, analyzing their differences concerning racial issues and how their critique of capitalism may represent a meeting point between the two theories. Finally, the conclusion will consider all previous elements to explain the connection between the Culture industry and its current strategy in former colonial areas.

The picture is in the collection “The Suggestion of the Wounded and the Injury of the Wounded” by Al-Husri Al-Qayrawani

The picture is in the collection “The Suggestion of the Wounded and the Injury of the Wounded” by Al-Husri Al-Qayrawani

Quid Sit Deus? Heidegger on Nietzsche and the Question of God

This article develops a hermeneutic study of Heidegger’s text The Word of Nietzsche: “God is Dead”. We attempt to read Heidegger’s remarks in the context of the “period of transition” that, according to Nietzsche, is occurring in the history of western thought and culture. This essay unfolds in the following manner: beginning with Heidegger’s contention that Nietzsche’s philosophy is the “fulfilment” of Platonism, we go over the problem of nihilism in relation to the metaphysics of the will to power, which for Heidegger requires revising Cartesian subjectivity in search of a new ontology. Heidegger’s critique of modernity encompasses a narrative that goes from “Plato” to “Nietzsche”, leading to a reconsideration of the notions of art and truth. Finally, we attempt to interpret the meaning of the “madman’s lament” voicing the passing of God.

Modern Utopia: Yuval Noah Harari

The article is devoted to the analysis of the current state of utopia, in particular, attention is paid to the problem of the crisis of utopian thought that arose at the end of the twentieth century and continues to the present. The author examines the features of philosophical criticism of modernity by the ideologist of the future and futurist Yuval Noah Harari. The purpose of this study is to find out whether Yuval Noah Harari is a utopian of our time, and the model of the near future proposed by Y. Harari, which represents a natural reaction of society to the global value and ideological crisis, is a modern utopia by signs. In the course of researching issues related to the crisis of utopian thought of our time, the author proceeds from the postulate that utopia is a special type of predictive reflection, a worldview built in orientation towards the probable future. The research is based on the concept of K. Manheim, according to which utopia is an attitude of consciousness oriented towards the future, as well as from the definition of utopia as an idealized social construct, fundamentally unrealizable as a whole. The scientific novelty of this study is as follows: the main concepts of understanding modern utopia are identified, the specifics of describing the realities of modernity are substantiated, characteristics relevant to the worldview of the XXI century are identified, proceeding from the categories of philosophizing of a new kind, the features of Yuval Noah Harari's criticism of the utopia of a new formation are revealed. The result of the study shows that Yuval Noah Harari is a modern utopian, and his project is considered an escapist-type utopia of modernity, based on social stratification. This utopia is escapist, because for one part of humanity it is unrealizable and is only a means of escape from reality, while for another part of it it can serve as a full-fledged project of the future, claiming to be realized. It also has such an ontological property as temporality, since it corresponds to the realities of its time in terms of content.

Reflections on ecological social theory marking 50 years of E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful

While not primarily a social theorist in the classical sense, E. F. Schumacher’s interdisciplinary thought helped galvanise ecological social theory and the ecological movement more broadly. In this article, we introduce a special issue of the European Journal of Social Theory dedicated to engaging with E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful on its 50th anniversary. We provide both an overview of his life and work before locating Small is Beautiful within both its contemporary context and within today’s social theoretical literature. As we show, Schumacher was a fierce critic of capitalist modernity and its ‘gigantist’ tendencies. As we discuss below, he advocated a metaphysical turn in economics, the implementation of intermediate technology and a reorientation of social practices in line with a more ecologically attuned political economy.

Integrating Contradictory Perspectives in Latin American Philosophy: A MultiAlism Approach

This study explores the integration of indigenous philosophies and postcolonial modernist theories within the framework of MultiAlism, highlighting the potential for dialogue and synthesis between these diverse philosophical traditions in Latin America. MultiAlism, a concept developed by Florentin Smarandache, is utilized to bridge the gaps and contradictions between these systems by focusing on areas of neutrality such as cultural diversity and power structure critiques. The research emphasizes the importance of incorporating both ancestral wisdom and modern critiques to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of Latin America’s rich philosophical heritage. This integrative approach offers practical insights for developing inclusive policies and advancing social justice efforts within the region. Looking ahead, the potential expansion of MultiAlism’s application to other global contexts suggests its broader relevance for addressing contemporary challenges through a flexible and holistic philosophical approach.