Figures Of World Research Articles

Cardinal Stanislaw Nagy’s Ecumenical Ecclesiology

The systematic theology of the 20th and 21st centuries has experienced revolutionary changes. The tremendous effort of theologians – which was already evident on the eve of Vatican II to experience order and confirmation during its deliberations – is still bearing fruit today. It seems that interpretations of the Council’s teaching have now become more problematic than the doctrine of Vatican II itself.
 One of the great figures of the theological world is Prof. Stanislaw Nagy, whose create efforts were honoured with a cardinalate, and to whom we are all indebted. Indeed, it is worth discovering his difficult path from the pre-council rigorous spiritual and intellectual formation to formal apologetics, thus paving the way for fundamental theology in Poland during the Communist period, to the ecumenical commitment of the times of freedom. In this respect, it is not without reason to speak of his ecumenical vision of the Church.

The Pope in Poland: The Pilgrimages of John Paul II, 1979–1991. By James Ramon Felak.

On April 2, 2005, Pope John Paul II passed from this world to the next. His funeral at Vatican City was attended by a host of political and religious leaders—many of whom were, like John Paul himself, central figures of the post-Cold War world and the late twentieth century. Attendees included George H.W. Bush, a World War II veteran, who has been called the last of the old school “WASP” American presidents; his son, George W. Bush, the then-president who represented the watershed of power of both the neoconservative as well as the evangelical movements; William Jefferson Clinton, who, prior to Barack Obama, was the quintessential New Left Baby Boomer president; as well as a host of other figures, such as Tony and Cherie Blair, who in various ways represented iterations of the American Century that was only then slowly coming to its end in the first decade of the...

‘Alī bin al-Ḥusayn’s View on Asceticism: Analysis and Review with a Mystical Approach

Asceticism as a lifestyle is highly esteemed by leaders, scholars, and mystics due to its prominent position in Islam. A survey into the lifestyle of the most significant historical religious figures of the Islamic world shows their detachment from the world and luxurious living. The main question of the research is around this issue in the thought of one of the descendant of Prophet Muhammad whether his noble behavior is the same as asceticism in mystical texts and to know whether asceticism is wearing old clothes, poverty, and abstaining from the lawful blessings. This article intends to explore the concept of asceticism based on content analysis and by referring to main Islamic mysticism texts as well as ‘Alī bin al-Ḥusayn. Asceticism has effects and signs that are mentioned in some words of ‘Alī bin al-Ḥusayn, such as avoiding the apparent, yearning for death and eternal reward of the Hereafter, and striving to obey God. We have discovered and analyzed these words and compared them with its mystical concept. The result of the study indicates the main approach of ‘Alī bin al-Ḥusayn towards the world and emphasizes that Muslim mystics follow the Prophet and his lineage in their ascetic method.

Tyranny under Alexander the Great and the Diadochi: the Clearchids of Heraclea Pontica

Résumé La dynastie des Cléarchides d’Héraclée pontique a su se maintenir au pouvoir au cours d’une des périodes les plus troubles de l’histoire antique : l’invasion de la Perse par Alexandre le Grand et les guerres qui ont suivi entre les successeurs d’Alexandre. Le régime a fini par être aboli, mais non sans laisser le temps à Denys et à ses successeurs de mener des négociations politiques complexes avec quelques-unes des figures les plus haut placées du monde hellénistique : Antigone, Monophtalmus, Antipater, Lysimaque et Cléopâtre, sœur d’Alexandre, entre autres. Les relations entre Héraclée et les successeurs d’Alexandre étaient cruciales pour assurer sa survie et illustrent bien la nature très personnelle des dynamiques de pouvoir qui jouaient entre le dirigeant hellénistique et les représentants des cités au sein de leur ἀρχὴ. Le présent article examine le succès de la tyrannie cléarchide pour se maintenir au pouvoir, en nous concentrant en particulier sur l’invasion de l’Asie mineure par les Macédoniens et le décret sur les exilés, les relations entre la tyrannie et les diadoques dans la période suivant immédiatement la mort d’Alexandre, et les conclusions qu’on peut tirer à partir des Cléarchides sur la nature de la tyrannie au cours de la période hellénistique.

Problems and Perspectives of a Theory of Transformational Processes of Bildung

AbstractIn this essay, Hans‐Christoph Koller presents a concept of transformational processes of Bildung in an attempt to redefine the German notion of Bildung referring to actual social conditions of educational processes. According to this conception, Bildung is a transformation of world‐ and self‐relations that can come about when subjects are confronted with problems for which they have no established routines of engagement. With reference to theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Bernhard Waldenfels, and Ulrich Oevermann, Koller looks for answers to three questions: (1) Which concepts and theories are able to adequately grasp the world‐ and self‐relations of subjects going through processes of Bildung? (2) How can the problems that trigger processes of Bildung and that challenge subjects to transform be determined more precisely? (3) How exactly does the emergence of new figures of world‐ and self‐relations take place when we “successfully” complete a process of Bildung? Finally, the essay concludes with an attempt to clarify the normative implications of this theory.

Review of Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology by Adrienne Mayor (Princeton University Press)

In God and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology, Adrienne Mayor opens up ancient history to new interpretations by adopting a rather capacious definition of technology, one that many scholars of the ancient world—according to Mayor—may reject out of hand. Focusing on biotechne, or artificial life, Mayor accepts any figure from the texts and artifacts of the ancient world which was “made, not born” as a technological creation. Mayor argues that ancient cultural constructions of technology were less about the inner workings of a black box (e.g., a giant metal robot) than about the imagining of such things existing in the first place. In nine chapters, Mayor recasts various myths and figures of the ancient Greek world in this new light. Gods and Robots serves as an important step in revealing how the idea of technology has functioned in ways both mythic and material from the beginning of recorded history.

Æthelred II ‘the Unready’ and the Role of Kingship in Gunnlaugs saga Ormstungu

Episodes of travel to foreign courts are a feature of Íslendingasögur — Icelandic family sagas. It is a trope particularly ubiquitous of the skáldasögur — poets’ sagas — where a skáld’s reputation as warrior and hero is augmented through interactions with historical figures of the Scandinavian world. The resultant depictions of various cultures and societies are one of the interesting features of the corpus. The late thirteenth-century Gunnlaugs saga provides a notably rich exemplar of the motif of the travelling skáld. The hero, Gunnlaug Illugason, travels widely, visiting the royal courts of England, Viking Dublin and Sweden, alongside various non-royal courts including that of Norway. Of particular interest is the portrayal of Æthelred II (978–1016) and the English court, which is not only at odds with the depictions of other courts within the narrative, but with the historical tradition of Æthelred’s fraught kingship. This article examines the differing portrayals of kingship within Gunnlaugs saga, questioning how Icelanders perceived English rulers in contrast to their Scandinavian counterparts, and whether Æthelred’s characterisation as a good king is authorial invention, or remnant cultural memory of his kingship.

The Origins of the Crisis of Christian Democracy: The End of Catholic Italy or the End of Cold War Italy?

ABSTRACTThe article aims to provide a political reading of the phenomenon of secularization, examining, in particular, the relationship between the Christian Democracy (D.C.), the Italian Catholic world, and the process of secularization. It is divided in four different levels of analysis. First of all, it investigates: (1) contemporary discussion, reconstructing the assessments and readings most common in the circles of the D.C. and the varied world of Italian Catholicism. Then, it analyses: (2) the reactions of Christian Democrats and leading figures of the Catholic world, particularly identifying what solutions they proposed to respond to the challenges posed by the process of secularization. It seeks, then, to compare: (3) the perspectives of these leading figures, with some possible hypotheses of the real effects of secularization on the political attitudes of Italians, paying particular attention to its consequences on the identity of the Christian democratic membership and on the electoral choices of citizens. By way of conclusion, the article formulates: (4) some hypotheses to help reconsider a shared interpretation about the existence of a causal relationship between ‘secularization-crisis/end of the DC’, identifying instead in other processes (specifically the role the Cold War played in the sacralization/desacralization of political cultures) the key factors underlying the identity of the D.C., the support it gathered, and the party’s collapse.

Two Maps of Rainfall. Semiotic Analysis of Data Visualisation

The article offers a comparison of two visual texts, maps which use different means of expression to visualize a single phenomenon, namely the projected change in rainfall in Europe in the period from 2071 to 2100. These are projections of qualitative data that reflect the relation between a natural phenomenon and a particular geographic location. Rainfall described in figures is presented to the viewer via graphic, verbal, and even material means of expres-sion that help create the impression of the phenomenon’s exist-ence. Map 1 (fig. 1) is a visualisation of rainfall on a completely flat surface created mostly through abstract graphic means of expression. Map 2 (fig. 2, 3, 3a) is a three-dimensional installation consisting of a horizontal map, made of moss and their life-support infrastructure. The latter ensures proper dosage of water and light, thus creating a local ecosystem to control the growth of the moss.The semiotic method of analysis is used to disclose and compare the structure of maps of different expression, their plastic dimension as well as elements of the figurative level. Visual semiotic analysis has been employed here to detect the meaning effects created by different means of expression and identify their differences in the signifying process.The analysis opens up with an overview of the plastic dimension which discusses the chromatic, eidetic, topologic, and haptic characteristics of the map surface. Later, the analysis continues with the overview of the figurative level, focusing on the figures and their thematic values.The last stage of the analysis is dedicated to the generalization of the tensions and oppositions of the plastic level and thematic values of the figures as well as consideration and comparison of the peculiarities related to the perception of meaning.The overall analysis leads to the conclusion that in both maps at-tempts are made to represent the data-based natural phenomenon of rain by means of reinstating the rich sensual experience that was abandoned once the phenomenon was reduced to mathematic values. In addition, it is stated in the conclusions that Map 1 is an object where we can observe constructed signifying system, as meanings here are assigned “artificially”, whereas Map 2 consists of figures of the natural world, namely moss, therefore its language is the natural language.

At the Border of Life and Death: The Ghost of Anne Boleyn

Encounters with the ghost of Anne Boleyn are one of the strangest, yet persistent, aspects of her literary afterlife, as well as the folklore associated with her memory. Writers have continually imagined (or believed) the enticing prospect of being able to directly question the executed queen about the circumstances of her life and death. What unites all these accounts of a post-mortem Boleyn is their conviction that the past can be made to signify in the present: that historical figures of the early modern world can be made to explain themselves and provide an interpretive lens for understanding historical events.

Critique of Arab Reason; Epistemology of Islamic Awakening

Abdul Mukti Rouf, Kritik Nalar Arab: Muhhamad ‘Abid Al-Jabiri, Yogyakarta: LKiS, 2018Reading the book Critique of Arab Reason of Muhammad Abid Aljabiri from the writings of Abdul Mukti Ro'uf requires sufficient intellectual energy. This book is classified as fairly serious research. Its material objects that touch the historical and philosophical aspects that are integrated together make the reader trapped and faced with the arguments of the great figures of the Islamic world with various dynamics that take place in it. Perhaps the involvement of the great figures of the Islamic world is an inevitable choice. Even not only the great figures of internal Islamic community, but a number of large external figures who concentrate in Islamic studies are also involved to present sharp analysis with sufficient weight in breaking down Al-Jabiri's great thought.

Critique of Arab Reason; Epistemology of Islamic Awakening

Abdul Mukti Rouf, Kritik Nalar Arab: Muhhamad ‘Abid Al-Jabiri, Yogyakarta: LKiS, 2018Reading the book Critique of Arab Reason of Muhammad Abid Aljabiri from the writings of Abdul Mukti Ro'uf requires sufficient intellectual energy. This book is classified as fairly serious research. Its material objects that touch the historical and philosophical aspects that are integrated together make the reader trapped and faced with the arguments of the great figures of the Islamic world with various dynamics that take place in it. Perhaps the involvement of the great figures of the Islamic world is an inevitable choice. Even not only the great figures of internal Islamic community, but a number of large external figures who concentrate in Islamic studies are also involved to present sharp analysis with sufficient weight in breaking down Al-Jabiri's great thought.

РЕМІНІСЦЕНЦІЇ ЛІНГВІСТА ДО ТЕОРІЇ ІДЕНТИФІКАЦІЇ: EПІСТОЛЯРІЙ ПАНТЕЛЕЙМОНА КУЛІША. СТАТТЯ 2

The article is devoted to the analysis of the complex process of evolution of Panteleimon Kulish's worldview. Panteleimon Kulish was a polyphonic personality who left in the history of the Ukrainian culture the heritage of a writer, publisher and translator. P. Kulish's epistolary and creative work are investigated in the categories of E. Erickson's theory, which has become an intellectual matrix for understanding the processes of a subject's development in certain psychosocial conditions and circumstances. In E. Erickson's theory of identification the article analyses the epistolary of Panteleimon Kulish – an outstanding Ukrainian culturologist, publisher, writer and translator. The author states that E. Erickson's theory created the intellectual matrix of a person's development analysis in the system of psychosocial conditions and circumstances. The scholar studies E. Erickson's main postulate, namely the correlation of a personality with psychosocial identity. The stages of evolution of P. Kulish's national self-consciousness (from assertion of slavophilе positions in his youth to evolutionary extension of the author's worldview) are considered. Accordingly, the dominant of the artist's Ukrainian-centricity, enrichment of his worldview with European ideas, ideals, cultural facts and, as a consequence, a formed outlook with understanding of the identification perspective of the nation in European history and culture are analyzed. The major problem in the analysis of P. Kulish's creative person is the problem of ethnic identification. The article explores the criteria of P. Kulish's ethnic identification: existential choice, ways of self-realization, achievement of internal freedom, solving individual-psychological problems of belonging to a certain social strata, realization of a person's powerful intentions in the national language. The analytics of the article is based on P. Kulish's epistolary that is a representative form of the author's communication with the leading writers and public figures of the Slavic world in the middle of the 19th century. The epistolary enables to build a panorama of ideas and concepts that have been developed by intellectuals in the context of analyzing the problem of national identity.

Keywords


 The spectre of fascism currently haunts liberal democracy. This ‘keywords’ entry explores the expansion of Right-populism, white nationalism, and the alt-Right, examining the consolidation of a ‘post-fascist constellation’. I outline a five-featured ideal-type of fascism, before turning to explore post-fascism’s utopian dimensions, drawing on the work of Ernst Bloch. Against liberal attempts to mock, pathologise, or re-educate post-fascists, I argue we must attend to both the multitude of fears and the figures of a better world expressed within this formation of thought.

СПЕЦИФИКА ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННО-ПУБЛИЦИСТИЧЕСКИХ ЖАНРОВ НАСЛЕДИЯ И. ГАСПРИНСКОГО

The article deals with the genre nature of the journalism of one of the most famous figures of the Turkic world of the end of the XIX - the beginning of the XX century, educator, reformer of education in the Muslim region, writer, publisher, publicist Ismail Gasprinski. The author focuses, in particular, on the literary-journalistic genres of Gasprinski’s newspaper essays and on specific excerpts from his articles that were published in various years in the newspaper “ Терджиман ” (“Translator”), which had been printed for more than thirty years in Bakhchisarai, the Crimea, and shows the main genre direction of Gasprinski’s journalism. As the confirmation of the stated thesis, the author gives quotes from the original source - Gasprinski’s articles that were issued in “ Терджиман ” in different years of its publication.

Verbalization of the Value Component Image of a Person of Culture in the Works by V. Sukhomlynsky for Children

The education of a person of culture is an urgent social problem: its decisions will help to respond to the key challenges of the present and successfully overcome them, will allow humanity to look confidently in the future. The scale of this problem requires the use of an multidisciplinary approach in its study, the cooperation of specialists from different fields: teachers, philosophers, cultural scientists, linguists.
 The formation of children's image of a person of culture will be facilitated by appealing to the figures of world and national education, science and art, which themselves are or were the expressions of this image. The object of our interest was the verbal representatives of the image of a person of culture, in particular his axiological aspect, in the works by V. Sukhomlynsky for children.
 The research used general scientific (analysis, comparison, observation) and the actual linguistic methods (descriptive method and its main methods - inventory and systematization of linguistic units, linguogenetic method - reception of cultural-historical interpretation) methods, as well as elements of the statistical method. The content of the concept "image of a person of culture " which we propose to consider as a general, the perfect aggregate conception of a person as a positive, active, thinking, harmonic person, having a developed cultural component, constantly striving for self-development and self-improvement.
 The names of the persons and their attributes are described in various ways; analyzed phraseologisms, synonyms, antonyms, comparison, emotionally colored vocabulary - which in the complex represent the value aspect of the image of a person of culture and contribute to the formation of moral and ethical convictions, spirituality rise of young readers. Proved why the image of human culture should be one of the key benchmarks, philosophical and axiological level in the formation and education of personality. In general V. Sukhomlynsky's works which fully represented the image of a person of culture can become a matrix for modern society, a system of coordinates that will help to educate, on the one hand, the beautiful representative of any nation, on the other – a citizen of the world.

Ogień w filozofii Heraklita

The author sketches the most important aspects of Heraclitean theory of fire as the ‘principle’, ‘beginning’ or ‘origin’ (arché) of existing things. The presentation puts his concept of arché in the background of Heraclitean famous aphoristic dicta (‘everything flows’ – panta rhei, among others) and his theory of universal logos. Although the philosophy of Heraclitus is not very distinct from other theories by archaic philosophers of nature (Anaximander, Anaximenes, Thales, Parmenides, Empedocles), its specificity makes Heraclitus one of the most influential and inspiring figures of Ancient world.

Pop Theory: The Architecture of Late Night Shopping

Inviting audiences into the late-night, precarious world of (photo)shopping, we explore the way in which the ghostly figures of the Photoshop world – its exhausted architects, indebted consumers, and the two-dimensional cut-outs that populate its spaces – are all put to use in a project of producing subjectivities through environments. Feminist critiques of visuality provide a basis in understanding the play between bodies and worlds that set this production in motion. By looking at the mechanics of “pre-occupation” that allow us to inhabit such images, we speculate: could a re-theorization of this most commercial of “extra-architectural services” (visualization) allow the activity of shopping be put to more radical use?

РОДРИГО ДУТЕРТЕ - КТО ОН?

This paper touches upon one of the most odious political figures of modern world - Philippine president Rodrigo Roa Duterte who has been at his post for a year so far. The author aims to take a closer look into his personal and political qualities, figure out in which manner they influence and determine his decision-making process. The article analyses the most significant steps taken by Duterte in his presiden-tial career in order to predict further development of his international and domestic policies alongside with the possible changes in the political layout in the Philippines. Using mostly theoretical methods of analyses and induction the author makes a number of conclusions stating that despite the image of a straight-forwarded brute, Rodrigo Duterte is a much more complex politi-cian, who uses such an image for his own purposes. Being a cunning and wise leader, he knows the bounda-ries that are not to be crossed - this way even his unprecedented behaviour does not undermine his at-tempts to maintain balance among the most influential nations in the world. Massive critique from the outside world does not seem to matter to Duterte since in his politics he firstly relies on the support of his own people, who despite his unconventional methods see him not as a dictator, but as a rather unusual reformist ready to introduce in the Philippines some changes instead of maintaining status-quo. Such policy and determination adds to Duterte’s popularity among his people on the background of the former presidents’ indecisive political moves.

The construction of the Cidian myth

The author reviews Cidian “mythology”, beginning with mythical Cidian figures of the contemporary world. He then deals with the creation of two mythical images that were created by the Middle Ages in order to respond to very specific ideological ends.