Existential Void Research Articles

The space not beyond: T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939) and their musical adaptations as elemental melodrama of an upper-atmospheric limit

ABSTRACT This essay examines T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939) and its subsequent musical adaptation, Cats (1981) by Andrew Lloyd Webber, through the lens of elemental melodrama. It begins with Eliot’s envisioned but omitted conclusion, where a poet ascends with Jellicle cats, and explores its revival in the musical’s song ‘Journey to the Heaviside Layer’. This ascent melodramatises the climactic journey to a heaven, an imaginary space beyond Earth’s tangible experiences. The essay contrasts the musical’s alignment of the Heaviside Layer with a ‘heaven’ oriented toward the desires and aspirations of anthropomorphised cats with Joseph Kittinger’s 1960 high-altitude balloon ascent and Maurice Blanchot’s reflections on Yuri Gagarin’s space mission. Both Kittinger’s and Blanchot’s writings reveal the Heaviside Layer as both a real and metaphorical space of death and existential void, contrasting with the musical’s portrayal of it purely in terms of celestial ascent. Drawing on Peter Brooks’s theory of melodrama as a post-sacred mode, the essay highlights how tableau, gesture, heightened emotion and, especially, song in Cats convey a collective yearning for transcendence. Ultimately, it argues that the Heaviside Layer in Cats serves as a zone of elemental melodramatic transcendence. It is in this context that earthly limitations, particularly those relating to embodied differences of race and sex, exist in tension with feline (and, by implication, human) aspirations for an unreachable ‘beyond’.

A Model of the Optimal Fit of Resource Distribution to the Equilibrium of Life Attitudes among Participants of Hostilities in Ukraine

The article aims to analyse the model of optimal adaptation of resource distribution to the equilibrium of life attitudes among participants of hostilities in Ukraine. The multidimensional concept of meaning and purpose proposed by Gary Reker was used to define the equilibrium of life attitudes. In this context, the equilibrium of life attitudes is constituted by six dimensions of the experience of the meaning of one’s own existence: purpose, coherence, life control, acceptance of death, existential void and goal seeking. The model of optimal fit of resource distribution to the life attitudes equilibrium was developed on the basis of Stevan Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources Theory (COR). The model of optimal fit of resource distribution to the equilibrium of life attitudes included the experience of resource gains in five dimensions: resourcefulness, social status resources, resilience resources, family resources and growth resources, while reducing losses in growth resources.

Mzansi Magic

Mzansi Magic

Existential aspects of human existence and the human-centered paradigm in public administration

This article analyzes the philosophical doctrine of the spiritual nature of man as the fundamental basis of his existence. The main focus of the analysis is Viktor Frankl's book "The Unconscious God," which presents an original anthropological theory encompassing all levels of human existence. By perceiving man holistically, this perspective contributes significantly to understanding human nature as a unique form of being. According to Frankl, the spiritual dimension can manifest both consciously and rationally, as well as unconsciously and irrationally. The crucial aspect lies in awakening and activating this spiritual principle within individuals, even if they are unaware of it. In his research, Frankl delves into dreams as a means of exploring the manifestations of the spiritual unconscious, and he conducts an in-depth analysis of conscience as a spiritual existential. This study's relevance stems from the growing prevalence of noogenic neurosis among educated and developed individuals in contemporary society, characterized by a profound sense of meaninglessness and an existential void. Essential existential elements fade from people's worldviews, transforming concepts like love, faith, hope, responsibility, and conscience into mere mental categories. A deeper understanding of this nature represents a crucial step in overcoming the noogenic crisis and facilitating further human evolution.

The image of mangurt in the story ‘Grey Fierce’ (Kokserek) by M. Auezov

The article reveals the theme of mankurtising through the story of Mukhtar Auezov's “Kökserek”. Mankurtization is the loss of self-values of the individual and ontologically falling into the existential void of the individual. This decline is seen in the form of alienation of the individual from himself and the values of the society in which he lives. Mankurtization is a process of extinction in which the individual enters unconsciously Mancurtization is a process of extinction, into which an individual enters unconsciously. Under the totalitarian system, they tried to erase the ideological space of the Turkic peoples. In Soviet times, the transformation(policy of mancurtization) of a wolf (Turks) into a dog (slave) was carried out. Mukhtar Auezov uses a wolf as a symbol of this event. The study used methods of comparative analysis, discursive analysis, content analysis. As a result, the authors conclude that the image of ‘wolf’ symbolizes freedom, national values and spiritual strength of the Turkic people.

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential

THE TRAINING OF LECTURERS IN THE ECOSYSTEMIC THINKING PERSPECTIVE

Current reality perception can be characterized by different trends, such as the existential void and social conformism, which in turn impact upon the educational process. The objective of this study is to suggest a training process for lecturers in the exercise of the teaching profession in terms of more cross-sectional and inclusive projects, underpinned by ecosystemic thinking, informed by complexity and transdisciplinarity. The references for this study were the theoretical precepts of Pensamento Ecossistêmico na Educação (Ecosystemic Thinking on Education) of Moraes (2004), the binomial Estímulo Intelectual e Relacionamento Interpessoal (Intellectual Stimulation and Interpersonal Relationship) of Lowman (2004), the concepts on the transdisciplinary attitude and the transdisciplinarity of Nicolescu (1996) and Moraes et al. (2014), and the metaphors on the lecturer as a craftsman and an artist by Axelrod (1973) and of the Universidade-Semente (seed-university) and Universidade-Fruto (fruit-university) by Ribeiro (1997). The research was based on a higher education institution case study, performed in the middle of 2019 through a questionnaire and interviews with eight lecturers, whose contributions were hermeneutically analyzed. The results highlighted the possibility that good lecturers are those whose starting point is the presumption of ecosystemic thinking, integrating individual, knowledge, and agency in teaching.

Between the Village and the Void: Spatiality of (Non)Being in Jibanananda Das’s Tale of City and Village

This article examines the topological psychodynamics of spatiality vis-à-vis the myriad and complex configurations of subjectivity underpinned by the unconscious dynamics of psychosexuality operative and observable amongst the protagonists in the great modern Bengali poet and author Jibanananda Das’s short story ‘Tale of City and Village’ who find themselves in an impossibly triangulated situation attendant upon the trope of the a visit(ation) of/from the past. It concisely and closely examines the unconscious dynamics of fantasy, desire and drive mapped onto the daseinal displacement from the country to the city which answer to the existential void or originary lack in being deploying the theoretico-critical framework of Lacanian psychoanalysis, semiotics, narratology, Russian Formalism, Bakhtinian dialogism, and continental philosophy. Keywords: Being, subjectivity, fantasy, desire, drive, jouissance, displacement, anxiety, pastoral, sublime.

The Dynamics of Cultural Transition

The article is based on a 1991-92 research, published in Sole senza Sole (1998). In his book Colangelo retraced the journey and life of 110 Italian women, residing in Toronto. He followed the stages of their lives, successes and difficulties, including those arising from their retirement onwards. For these women the greatest difficulties began just when they could relax with their husbands and enjoy the well deserved retirement. After the death of their spouses these women often lived alone; they did not know how to drive; their children were adults and independent; they did not interact much with their neighbours: they lived in a neighborhood far from shops, supermarkets, churches, etc. This situation created an existential void, isolation and solitude, aggravated by long, unnerving climatic conditions and a silence that it is not golden nor a “blessed solitude!” In this article, Colangelo reflects on the dynamics of the cultural transition of the emigrant-immigrant, who encompasses two different experiences: first as one who leaves his country, and second as one who enters the country in which he or she has decided to settle.

The influence of the stress factor in the legal practice

Along with well known sources, we observe, for the modern person, that the work environment is a stress source who can contribute to the individual life quality deterioration. Professional stress, like it’s called in the law literature, is the stress generated from activities of work place and from the environment in which those activities occur. This type of stress can generate a multitude of atypical manifestations in a person and can have different durations correlated with the stress factors intensity. Maintaining the effects of the stress factors for long period of time can favor the somatic illnesses or even the organic ones. The explicit recommendation of specialists is to identify the most significant stress factors at the work place then take appropriate action to eradicate their causes, or, when possible to limit their effects. The law is a liberal professional, serving justice. So it’s a fact that without it as part of the judicial system, justice cannot prevail in an effective manner. Even if it’s essential to the judicial system, the law is internal to a dramatic decorum, open to threats. We cannot question the high degree of professional stress that is laid upon the members of this practice, and even the young attorneys at the beginning of their careers, who just graduated and have high dreams and strive to excel professionally, are at risk. Regrettably, with the beginning of the practice their dreams slowly dissipate, in the existential void, because of the long wait at the courthouse and the disappointment that deciding parties (judges and prosecutors) of the justice scene are imposing and impedes upon the justice spirit of the young attorneys.

“EU TE QUERO SÓ PRA MIM” – O PROCESSO DE SENSEBREAKING E A RUPTURA REFLEXIVA DA IDENTIDADE COMO UM MOMENTUM PARA O SEQUESTRO DA SUBJETIVIDADE

In this theoretical essay we aim to detail how organizations act to create an existential void in the neophyte, so that they can supplant a new identity perspective. Backed by the literature of sensebreaking and identity building in nontraditional organizations, we present the argument that sensebreaking generates the reflexive rupture of identity, which is characterized as a momentum for the sequestering of subjectivity. For this, we identify three routines used to generate the rupture of meaning, which are: (i) the current identity breakdown; (ii) socialization aimed at imbuing new meaning; and (iii) deprivation of the individual in the control of his/her acts, desires and dreams. In terms of theoretical contribution, we highlight the 'rescue' of the concept of subjectivity sequestration, as a way of organizing our theoretical essay to analyze the reflexive rupture of the individual's identity in his/her socialization process.

Tanguy Viel et la vitre spectrale

After a long metamorphosis dedicated to transparency, passage and opening, the window becomes obscure and, under the grip of the opacity announced by Andreea Del Lungo, we propose to articulate a study of the imaginary of the window - a spectral window - as we can find in two novels by Tanguy Viel, while exploiting several occurrences intimately related to this topos that has become a palimpsest object. By recurrence, we will try to analyze a device that we identify as renewed and multiplied in postmodernism, folded to the twists and turns of the individual, a device that can be imagined in the form of different scopic objects, such as the car window, the binoculars, the television. For an outraged character whose life has changed from one moment to the next, the window seems to be deprived of its modern functions linked to the gaze. This spectral window does not open on a landscape, a natural topography (external reality), but on the existential void resulting from a painful retrospection. After all consideration, the window misted by the Viel’s character is part of an enclosed space, even a cloister, condemning the inhabitant to loneliness and seclusion.

Humano em Søren Kierkegaard e em Viktor Frankl

Este trabalho é um estudo teórico que objetiva abordar aspectos centrais da Antropologia Filosófica presentes em dois autores existencialistas: Søren Kierkegaard e Viktor Frankl. A partir do estudo do que é o homem, apresentamos algumas importantes questões existenciais que, embora desenvolvidas pelos autores supracitados nos séculos XIX e XX, respectivamente, permanecem atuais: o desespero e a busca pelo sentido, liberdade, responsabilidade, possibilidade e necessidade, angústia e vazio existencial. Partimos da pesquisa qualitativa, por meio de uma revisão de literatura, buscando atender ao objetivo proposto. Compreendemos que a dimensão do espírito diferencia o homem dos outros seres. Ambos os autores destacam a esfera espiritual e compreendem o humano em sua integralidade. Conclui-se que Kierkegaard e Frankl, em seus pressupostos, oferecem possibilidade de conhecimento do homem e de questões existenciais
 relevantes para nossa sociedade permeada pelo desespero e pelo vazio existencial. Assim, as proposições dos autores contribuem especialmente para as ciências humanas.

ALGUM LUGAR, DE PALOMA VIDAL: DESLOCAMENTO, ESTRANHAMENTO E MELANCOLIA

São recorrentes, no romance brasileiro contemporâneo, sobretudo a partir da década de 1990, deslocamentos e mudanças espaciais de personagens que, situados temporariamente em outros países e culturas, enfrentam a solidão, o estranhamento e empreendem a busca de si mesmos. Nessa perspectiva, analisamos o romance Algum lugar (2009), de Paloma Vidal. A protagonista e seu companheiro deslocam-se do Rio de Janeiro para cumprir estágio de pesquisa em Los Angeles. A cidade norte-americana, com grandes avenidas, vazias de pessoas, e supremacia do automóvel, mostra-se hostil, semelhante ao “não-lugar”, caracterizado por Marc Augé. A cidade é o retrato de um mundo que se tornou hostil ao convívio humano; a configuração da cidade suprime a possibilidade do encontro, fato que dilacera o indivíduo, cada vez mais só, exilado de si mesmo, dividido entre o sonho e a realidade devoradora e habitado por uma falta indefinida, um vazio existencial.

A existência segundo Fernando Pessoa:

Este trabalho busca demonstrar o paralelo existente entre as ideias junguianas de si-mesmo, de função religiosa e numinoso e a angústia existencial na escrita de Fernando Pessoa. Dentro desse escopo, um aspecto na obra e vida de Pessoa merece olhar analítico: o enfrentamento do vazio existencial - o medo profundo diante da ideia da morte e da completa ausência de significado intrínseco que o mundo natural apresenta, aí incluído, para o poeta, o mundo social humano onde ele se sente eternamente deslocado. Essa é a motivação maior da sua vida e a marca universal da sua obra: a angústia existencial presente em todas as suas personalidades literárias e heterônimos, principalmente o Pessoa "ele-mesmo" ou ortônimo, resultando na Poesia, tida como valor supremo e imagem de Deus. De fato, terror e fascinação caracterizam toda imagem, ideia ou experiência de Deus, fundamento da função religiosa descrita por Jung em sua teoria do inconsciente, fenômeno que ele chama de numinoso. Na teoria junguiana, essa função é psicologicamente representada pelo arquétipo do Self ou si-mesmo, simultaneamente centro e totalidade da experiência psíquica humana, responsável tanto pela geração quanto pela contenção da angústia existencial que nos acomete quando confrontamos nossos dilemas narrativos fundamentais: vida e morte, existência e não-existência, materialidade e imaterialidade, determinismo e indeterminismo, acaso e finalidade. Assim, o fator Self é o responsável por todos os mitos e religiões desde que começamos a sepultar nossos mortos. Individualmente, no fazer imaginativo pessoano, o Self ocupou o lugar do sagrado sob a forma da Poesia.

The French Revolution and the Craft of the Liminal Void: From the Sanctity of Power to the Political Power of the Limitless Sacred

This paper argues for a political anthropological approach to the study of the French revolution. Looking at the revolution as a moment of liminality, it substantiates two interconnected points. The first is that a proper understanding of the revolutionary dynamic and its lasting effects have to engage closely with the transformation of the sacred and its relation to the existential void. Situated in post-Durkheimian sociology and post-Kantian philosophy, this argument advocates the methodological normalization of metaphysics, drawing attention to the fact that faith belongs to the symbolic, existential and representational realities of any political order, and hence also of its underlying knowledge systems. The second point argues that through the sacrifice of Louis XVI, the French revolution consecrated the ritual and existential sacrifice of the Christian Father. This historical experience is conceptualized as the people’s third body, and the new configuration of the sacred to which it gives birth is interpreted in terms of the liminal void. In this way, the French revolution is shown to constitute the transition from a political order of embodiment – participation in the divine, symbolized by the sacred royal body to a political order of bodies; participation in the liminal void, symbolized by the sacred empty place of the power of the modern democratic imagination.

Falling into the existential abyss: Ivan Franko’s realist prose in experiments with Gothic and crime fiction modes

ABSTRACTThis article examines three novels by Ukrainian realist Ivan Franko (1856–1916): Dlia domashn'oho ohnyshcha (For the Home Hearth, 1892), Osnovy suspil'nosti (Pillars of Society, 1894), and Perekhresni stezhky (Fateful Crossroads, 1900). Previous scholars saw elements of crime fiction in these works, but the actual relationship between the two genres of crime fiction and realism has not been fully developed. By studying the conventions of crime fiction, along with its antecedent, the Gothic, and their influence on Franko, the author shows the make-up of the early Ukrainian crime fiction genre and points to its importance in understanding Franko’s vacillation between realist and modernist tendencies. As she argues, the scales of his vacillation are tipped toward modernism in its decadent form, an existential void that characterized fin de siècle Europe. Hence, Franko’s “ideal” or programmatic realism (defined by Franko as a literary style with a didactic tendency aimed at educating society), which he introduced under the appealing cover of crime and Gothic motifs, ultimately failed him. The author proposes that it is the creative modes (Gothic and crime fiction) that Franko chose for voicing his ideas about social reforms that led him, unsuspectingly, away from his programmatic goal and toward the decadent aspects of modernism.

“Ceux-là Qui Partent pour Partir”: Travel as Relinquishment in Charles Baudelaire's Le Voyage

This paper explores the desire for traveling infusing the final poem of Charles Baudelaire's collection Les Fleurs du mal, the poem Le Voyage (variously translated as Travel or The Voyage). I focus on the yearning of the speaker and the poet for the abandoning of the known world, on the desire for renouncing of the underwhelming earthly existence for the discovery of the Unknown and the New. This transgressive urge, the essay argues, lies at the heart of Baudelaire's poetic sensibility, and is a powerful harbinger of modernist aesthetics. I comment on the daring, defying excess of the poem, on its dreaming of and indulging into a journey that effaces and escapes the boundaries and limitations of reality. Le voyage thus becomes a vehicle of evasion, of radical abandonment to the unknown outcomes of a journey conceived as relinquishment. Among various travelers, it is those who embark on journey for the journey's sake who receive the poet's highest commendations. I characterize the paradoxical coexistence of the yearning for a metaphysical breakthrough, and full awareness of the existential void, of the futility of any travel whose purpose lies outside of itself, as crucial to Baudelaire's artistic temperament. I also proceed to comment on the far reaching consequences of Baudelaire's pessimistic and confrontational poetics. An argument is made that interpretation of Baudelaire needs to acknowledge at all times the fierce and irreconcilable attitude of the poet, an attitude which has all too often been downplayed by more tame and conformist readings of the Fleurs du mal.

Existential attitudes and Occupational burnout syndrome in nurses

Abstract Aim. The aim of the study was to determine the relation between existential attitudes and occupational burnout in nurses. Material and methods. The research sample consisted of 120 nurses. Life Attitudes Profile - Revised (the LAP-R) adapted by R. Klamut and Link Burnout Questionnaire (the LBQ) adapted by A. Jaworowska were used in the research. Results. Psycho-physical exhaustion and relationship deterioration correlate negatively with life goals, internal consistency, life control, death acceptance and positively with existential void and goal seeking. Sense of professional failure and disillusion present a conversely proportional relation with goal, coherence, life control as well as an inversely proportional relation with existential void and goal seeking. Conclusions. The analyses performed in the course of the research proved that existential attitudes accompany burnout in nurses. The obtained results of the authors’ own research present cognitive value and can be used to develop both prevention and aid programs aimed at enhancing the quality of personal and professional functioning of nurses.

“We are like lemmings”: making sense of the cultural meaning(s) of suicide among the indigenous Sami in Sweden

BackgroundSuicide is a widespread problem among indigenous people residing in the circumpolar Arctic. Though the situation among the indigenous Sami in northern Scandinavia is better than among some other indigenous people, suicide is still regarded as a major public health issue. To adapt prevention strategies that are culturally attuned one must understand how suicide is understood within context. That is, the cultural meaning(s) of suicide.ObjectiveTo explore and make sense of the cultural meaning(s) of suicide among Sami in Sweden.DesignOpen-ended focus group discussions (FGDs) on the topic “suicide among Sami” were carried out in 5 Sami communities in Sweden, with in total 22 strategically selected Sami participants. FGDs were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed through employing content analysis.ResultsFrom the FGDs 4 themes emerged including “The Sami are fighting for their culture and the herders are in the middle of the fight,” “Suicide as a consequence of Sami losing (or having lost) their identity,” “A wildfire in the Sami world” and “Difficult to get help as a Sami.”ConclusionsFindings indicate that Sami in Sweden make sense of suicide in relation to power and identity within a threatened Sami cultural context. Suicide is then understood as an act that takes place and makes sense to others when a Sami no longer has the power to maintain a Sami identity, resulting in being disconnected from the Sami world and placed in an existential void where suicide is a solution. The findings are useful in development of culturally attuned suicide prevention among Sami in Sweden.