Material World Research Articles

Cooking Your Goose: Chaucer’s Food and the Realist Mode

ABSTRACT This paper uses David Lodge’s discussion of metonymy and metaphor – based on Roman Jakobson’s theory – to explore Chaucer’s treatment of food and drink in The Canterbury Tales. Lodge demonstrates that, while poetry is basically metaphoric in its mode of representation, the realist novel is in contrast fundamentally metonymic. An object described in a realist novel is usually metonymic in the sense that it represents, or is continuous with, objects physically present in the novelist’s own material world. As opposed to the metonymic realist novel, Medieval and Renaissance texts normally use food and drink in allegorical or symbolic ways. Consumable items may represent sin, temptation, the Eucharist or the fulfilment of desire. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer often does use food metaphorically, but he also displays it in figures that are both metaphoric and metonymic to varying degrees; and, now and then, his representation of food is solely metonymic. In its trope analysis, this paper pays special attention to passages in which food or drink function metonymically, as things in a fictional material world. It demonstrates one of the ways in which The Canterbury Tales contributes to the general process that Mikhail Bakhtin calls ‘novelization’.

‘Let the dead bury the dead’ (Mt 8:22): An African theological funeral thought

In Africa, life, death and burial are issues of survival. There is a perceived connection and dialogue between the living and the dead; hence, life continues after death. Although one seizes to live in this material world, life continues in the spirit world. Like any other rite of passage, funerals are key aspects of African life. The living has a responsibility of decently burying their dead or the living dead. Failure to respect the dead during and after burial is believed to be a curse that disrupts life for the future generations. This article seeks to articulate the understanding of Matthew 8:22, considering the African understanding of death and funeral rites among Africans. There is a need to interpret Jesus’ hyperbolic statement that emphasises the need for unwavering dedication to engage in the ministry of Christ in the context of caring for one’s parents and loved ones even when they die and need burial.Contribution: The study attempts to address the dilemma that some Christians are faced with, when being advised not to consider attending funerals as an important matter of building faith and relationships, with the use or misuse of biblical verses like Matthew 8:22. This study further seeks to demonstrate that community building via funerals is one of the African- rich practices.

Spirits in the Material World: Older Adults' Personal Curation of Memory Artifacts

Memory artifacts are personal and collective belongings that elicit deliberate or involuntary memories. They are significant as objects of continuity, vessels for identity, and links to past relationships and history-for individuals, families, and communities. Drawing from in-depth interviews and cultural probe sessions with 16 individuals over 65, we consider how older adults curate and interact with their personal artifacts that embody and inform memory. Participants' hands-on experiences with memory artifacts uncover a heterogeneous set of personal curation practices and identify tensions that result from the competing goals of creating a legible narrative or legacy for themselves, their family, and their communities. The transition from physical to digital memory artifacts often perpetuates tension but can also create moments of reflection. These findings contribute a set of design considerations for supporting curation practices. This paper joins and expands upon CSCW scholarship regarding the importance of memory artifacts and the ongoing challenges of retaining individual memory and history over time, which, if managed effectively, can benefit and sustain family and community history at large.

‘First I got one tear, and then I got a whole bunch’: fluidity and plasticine solidity in the world of Barbie

I consider the role of fluidity in Barbie (2023) as a mode of exploring femininity and ecological connections through embodiment. Barbie's relationship to fluid changes throughout the film. She learns to drink, learns to cry and thus, I argue in this article, slowly moves from plastic to flesh by opening into fluidity. Through attention to the fluidity inherent within the very definition of plastic, as well as the necessary taking in and leaking out of fluid exchange within the body, the plasticine world of Barbie, positions fluidity as a vital object of power within both feminine embodiment and feminist spaces. Using Barbie's relations with embodied fluidity through its plasticine solidity, I develop the notion of fluid relations to highlight the labour of our fluid interactions as well as their environmental tendrils. For feminist theory in the age of the Anthropocene, this article highlights the ways that biological, fluid relations take labour, leave traces, happen across shifting membranes and are both altered by and alter all they touch. Through this reading, I argue for a reinvigoration of our reading of bodily fluids in relation to a feminine excess within our embodied material world. But I also suggest that such a reinvigorated fluid reading must not forget our environmental relations: the fluidity at the heart of the plastic and the plastic at the heart of fluidity.

The Therapeutic Approach To Complexes Created By The Primary Drive Of Intense Desire (Prospatheia): An Introduction To Neptic Psychology

This paper examines the concept of "prospatheia" and its relationship to the creation and management of psychological complexes, drawing on elements from both Neptic Theology and psychology. Prospatheia, as a powerful longing for connection, is considered a primary drive leading to emotional attachment and contributing to the formation of complexes. In psychology, complexes are interpreted as unconscious patterns that guide behavior, reinforcing dependence on external sources to fulfill fundamental emotional needs. The approach of Neptic Theology proposes a therapeutic process that differs from the psychological acceptance or integration of complexes. Specifically, Neptic Psychology emphasizes the prevention of complex formation from childhood through training the individual to develop a more measured relationship with the material world, avoiding excessive pleasure. In adulthood, Neptic Psychology supports controlling prospatheia through the conscious avoidance of pleasure, which sustains dependence. Thus, the treatment of complexes involves three phases: prevention, pleasure control, and gradual weakening of the complexes. Focusing on the abandonment complex, the paper illustrates how excessive reliance on security can transform into a fear of abandonment, leading to emotional insecurity and alienation from one’s spiritual nature. Neptic Theology advocates for self-control and the avoidance of pleasure that reinforces complexes, thereby fostering an inner balance. This methodology differs from modern psychological methods, as it aims at the weakening rather than the acceptance of complexes, offering a unique framework for understanding the human soul and its relationship to the material world.

EFFECTIVENESS OF ORGANIZING PHYSICS LABORATORY LESSONS AND DEMONSTRATION OF EXPERIMENTS

Scientific information has always been verified and based on practice and experience. Physics, on the other hand, expresses information about phenomena in the material world through experience. Therefore, the most effective way to check theoretical information is conducting experiments and laboratory training. In the article, special attention is paid to the main methodological approaches to the effective organization of laboratory classes, the fact that experimental demonstrations are based on scientific innovations, as well as the role of laboratory work in the formation of scientific research and practical skills in students.

Between Living and Non-living: Materiality of the Placentain Ming China.

This study explores materiality and material cultures of human placenta in Ming China (1368-1644), for it perfectly displays Chinese ambiguous attitudes towards the human body parts between living and non-living. For a long time, the Chinese had widely applied human body parts in medical treatments and ritual healings. Numerous evidences in relation to their collection, production, efficacy and application are widely recorded in medical works, in particular those found in materia medica. In the sixteenth century, the Bencao gangmu (Systemic Materia Medica, 1596) illustrates thirty-five "human body drugs." Of those, the placenta was believed effective for curing illnesses, nourishing the body and prolonging life. The questions to be answered include: how is the placenta perceived in medical and religious discourses? What is its "materiality" and "efficacy" when it becomes a drug? What ethical issues and moral concerns are involved with eating the placenta? Last but not least, how was the placenta ritually buried after childbirth in premodern China? In so doing, this essay aims to provide a better understanding of the placenta situated in both material and cosmological worlds. It helps us rethink the multiple relations of human body part to part, part to whole, and body to body.

Research on the Correlation between Quantum Entanglement and Thinking Consciousness

The development of quantum technology has profoundly influenced research on consciousness. By analyzing the interaction of various microscopic particles in the universe, the article proposed that all things exhibit interconnected non-locality in both time and space, and that the interrelated connections of everything in the universe are based on quantum entanglement. Through analysis of the cellular and nervous system functions of organisms, as well as the influence of quantum science theories on consciousness and combined with research results in related fields, this paper presents the following viewpoints: first, life bodies exhibit quantum entanglement phenomena. Second, biological electricity phenomena are closely tied to consciousness. Third, both life bodies and non-life bodies are conscious, but different entities exhibit varying degrees of strong and weak consciousness. The strong and weak thinking consciousness influences the fluctuation of quantum and the size of quantum entanglement degree. Quantum fluctuations affect the consciousness of both life bodies and non-life bodies, and the entanglement quantum influences the degree of inductance between each other. Finally, the combination of quantum entanglement technology and thinking consciousness can realize the interconnection between human beings and the universe. Consciousness may affect the results measured in quantum mechanics when people observe. However, the macroscopic world mainly adopts the laws of classical physics to solve problems in life. Under certain conditions, the law of quantum physics and the law of classical physics can affect people’s lives together. No matter what angle we view the material world, it is real, and the universe is not illusory.

Hermenéutica de la identidad humana de Jesús

The article explores the humanity of Jesus from a theological and sociological perspective. The author challenges traditional positions that exalt the divinity of Jesus to the detriment of his humanity, and argues that his message is deeply linked to social commitment. Through the analysis of biblical texts and philosophical reflections, Jesus is presented as a revolutionary who reveals divinity through his humanity, highlighting the importance of social justice and the transformation of the material world.

A productive pedagogy of liminality: a counterpoint to a limited performativity

ABSTRACT Education as a journey of human becoming involves commitment to one’s ethical life project as well as learning to live well and actively participate with others in an ever-changing socio-cultural, political and material world. This paradoxical journey is at the heart of our philosophical criticism of contemporary policy impulses to formulate risk averse pedagogies which centre on a product model of outcomes. We draw from philosophical perspectives of liminality and the Productive Pedagogy study from Australia to inform our position by indicating how students make sense of pedagogical experiences in unique, deeply personal, corporeal and limitlessness ways. We use Aquatics Education as a useful symbolic representation for the immersive, embodied and relational practices involved in human becoming; practices that we aver need to be acknowledged, while never fully defined. These practices require teachers’ localised autonomous judgements in evaluating risk for dilemmas encountered. Holistic experiences, provided by games with gravity, are consistent with such ‘aesthetic experiences’ for primacy of the subject/subjective. Our affirmative critique reveals how immersive experiences occupy a defensible position for our concept of a Productive Pedagogy of Liminality, which aims to open affordances for each student’s ethical life project by heightening subjective awareness between body and spirit.

Социально-культурная сфера русского мира. Междисциплинарный подход

The article is a continuation of fundamental research of the Russian world. This paper presents the development of the fluctuation “core” of the socio-cultural sphere of the organizational and managerial system of the Russian world. Based on the synthesis of beatitudes, gifts and fruits from the Holy Scriptures related to the ideal world, the spiritual and moral values of the material world are compared by the method of parallelism. As a result, a conceptual model of the progressive process of personal and social development on the path to truth has been developed. In the future, the model was verified with the principles of acmeology, praxiology, compliance with goals and objectives, systems of “God-manhood” and “unity”. In this regard, the work used an interdisciplinary approach, which synthesized the ideas of Russian religious philosophy, theology and modern achievements of the science of personal and social development. Consequently, a conceptual model of the socio-cultural phenomenon of Russian civilization has emerged, asserting its distinctive identity in the context of inter-civilizational dialogue.

Interpersonal Curiosity: A Missing Construct in the Field of Human Development

Children demonstrate a remarkable capacity for both intellectual and interpersonal curiosity, reflecting their desires to know about the physical, material, and natural world and about the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of other people. Yet the study of curiosity and its educational applications have focused almost exclusively on the former, even though interpersonal curiosity may be critical for social emotional learning, human connection, and the capacity to understand and take the perspective of others. In this paper, we review the research on intellectual and interpersonal curiosity, focusing on the latter and including our own research that indicates that it is associated with social emotional wellbeing, academic engagement, and a sense of common humanity (Author, 2023; Authors, 2024). We also review research on how ecological contexts (e.g., of families and schools) shape curiosity, how contextual variation may lead to individual variation (i.e., by gender and age), and offer directions for future research.

Introduction: Political Ecologies of Paper in Early Modern Art, 1500–1800

Abstract This special issue examines paper as it became the definitive material for both artistic practice and jurisprudence. European paper made from pulped rags and linens to create the mythic white empty grounds for design was foundational to early modern European ideas about both sovereignty and the creative act. The materiality of paper—as a surface created from refuse—also introduced a form of ecological thinking into both artistic practice and political theory that recognised the value and revolutionary potential of the material world to create from the detritus of failed projects and revolutions. Surveying artistic production across the European continent and into the Ottoman empire, this series of essays examines paper as both a material force that redefined the limits of the creative act while also being inseparable from the consolidation of new political regimes emerging from the rise of early modern colonialism. Paper was both the tool of dispossession and also the grounds on which the potential of artistic practice was reimagined.

Life without free will: Does it preclude possibilities?

In this partial precis of my recent book ( Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, 2023), I argue against the existence of free will, based on the clarity with which we are nothing more than the sum of the densely intertwined biology, over which we had no control, and its interactions with the environment over which we also had no control. Despite this, the vast majority people, including philosophers and psychologists, believe that free will is compatible with our materialist world. I suggest that this arises from, (a) the intense intuitive feeling of agency experienced when we form an intent and act upon it; (b) the examples of people who effortfully rise above their circumstances (or, conversely, who squander their opportunities) are so powerful and compelling that we decide that tenacity and willpower are not made of biology; (c) misinterpretation of the recent revolutions of chaoticism, emergent complexity, and quantum indeterminacy; and (d) difficulty in reconciling that the future is both deterministic and unpredictable. Finally, I suggest that a rejection of free will, rather than leading to an array of societal and existential ills, would be profoundly liberating.

A literature review of posthumanist and new materialist research in applied linguistics

ABSTRACT A growing interest in language and materiality has set in motion a paradigmatic shift in applied linguistics. In particular, increasing consideration is being given to relations between the social and material world by way of posthumanist and new materialist theories. As this scholarship is nascent, this literature review aims to understand how these theories are being put to work in applied linguistics research. To conduct the literature review, the authors reviewed a list of 237 journals and employed thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006) to code and categorize over 100 articles that made use of posthumanism and the new materialisms. Findings showed that inroads for these theories are being created on a cline of inventiveness that operationalizes assemblage thinking, moves away from representational logic, and experiments with performative inquiry practices. Implications include the need to further explore how posthumanism and the new materialisms demand a rethinking of the field’s most taken-for-granted constructs along with how they have come to structure the design, implementation, and dissemination of applied linguistics research.

Spectral ruins: Empathy with inanimate material movements

Simulations are interactive, lively models of material events. Working with simulations that require the consideration of mass, gravity, and texture becomes an embodied experience. Much like video games, simulations imitate the physics of the material world and, as such, engage us corporeally. This dynamic between interactive model and user is particularly generative when the content of a simulation is inanimate, or inorganic materials. Digital models of static matter in motion offer the user a unique opportunity to relate to things that are typically understood as inert or nonliving. While empathy with the nonliving is a complex relationship to authentically construct, the ecological implications of this interaction are significant. This paper uses critical tools from video game studies and media theory to study simulations in experimental architecture and contemporary fine art practice. The essay posits a thesis informed by ecocriticism that users can build a tactile, bodily understanding of material behaviors by designing and interacting with tools built into animation, gaming, and visual coding platforms. A series of case-studies in art and design are examined with particular emphasis on their use of digital physics engines and code libraries that imitate natural behaviors.

Eco-consciousness in Andrew Marvell’s The Garden

This paper explores ecological and environmental issues in Andrew Marvell’s poem, “The Garden.” The purpose of this paper is to subvert the anthropocentric world view by juxtaposing the Eco-centric world which provides ultimate pleasure to human beings. This paper employs qualitative and interpretative method to analyze the poem. The researcher has examined the poem from the perspective of Eco-criticism. Distancing himself from the anthropocentric world-view, Marvell highlights the Eco-centric world in order to valorize the beauty and serenity of nature. Marvell glorifies nature and natural beauty by using metaphysical conceits. The poem displays superiority of nature over trivial human culture. In addition, it shows eternity of nature by contrasting it with the transitory nature of human world. The garden is a place for refreshment and nourishment; it stands for innocence, solitude and recreation. Mistaken by the temptation of the material world, the poet seeks peace and pleasure in the human company. However; he finds such blissful states in the lap of nature. Marvell’s critique of anthropocentric and glorification of bio centrism opens an avenue for the critiques who are interested in integrating literary texts with the Environmental Studies. Thus; the present reading of the poem unveils the Eco-conscious elements of the poem from the lens of Eco-criticism.

Sections of Hell in Ancient Egypt

The ancient Egyptian mentality was characterized by endless philosophical ideas. The foundations of the sources of these philosophical ideas were born from the natural phenomena in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptian found the phenomenon of the Nile flooding and then its recession and the drought that affected the country and its positive and negative impact on crops. He also found the phenomenon of sunset at night and its interpretation was its death. The explanation for the sunrise in the morning was its revival after death. Also, in ancient Egyptian mythology, the god (Osiris) was resurrected after his death. All of this naturally had an impact on the ancient Egyptian mentality and its reality on ancient Egyptian society in particular. The concept of death and resurrection that emerged in the ancient Egyptian mentality explained that there is another life after death and this life settles in a world that separates his material world. The life after death that the ancient Egyptian believed in was settled in the underworld. What concerns us here is the section in which the guilty were punished after their trial in the court of the god (Osiris) in the underworld. It is known that criminals and outlaws in the material world were punished and held accountable according to the decisions of the court that were conducted inside or outside the temples. Among these decisions were execution, flogging, imprisonment, and others. The ancient Egyptians worked to apply them to the underworld by recording the texts of (Coffins), the Book of the Dead, the Book of (Amudat), and the Book of (Caves). He included in these books a topographical division of the underworld, the most important of which is the section of Hell, which in turn divided it into many sections, including lakes of fire, islands of flame, and hills, as well as the presence of fiery pits and fiery furnaces. These sections related to Hell played an actual role in punishing the guilty for what they committed in their earthly lives. Because of the breadth of the subject, the areas of hell in the underworld, we have chosen for this research the section (Fire Pits, Fire Furnaces), and other places that were used for torture, as this subject carries the utmost importance to know what is going on in the ancient Egyptian mentality and the extent of the religious and philosophical intellectual level that he reached to uncover the mystery of life after death, and his awareness of the topography of this hidden world and his attempt to match it with his material world, and to put forward different ideas for punishing sinners in the material world and seeking to apply it in the underworld.

Assembling tigers, dragons and hells: relational materialist geographies of curated themed spaces

Themed spaces and theme parks constitute of significant human-based desires and linguistic discourses that stabilises/destabilises their social identities and materialities. This paper draws on a relational materialist perspective to examine Singapore’s longstanding themed space, Haw Par Villa, to offer insights into its social and material stability and instabilities. Relational materialism facilitates observations and analysis of interactions of humans and their material worlds on the same ontological plane where human’s agencies are de-centred. Social and material objects are seen to operate in mutually constitutive fashions. The development of a site/theme park and its larger country context are conceptualised here as ‘assemblages’ using DeLanda’s brand of assemblage theory to reveal the operations of human-based ‘desires’ alongside material agencies. Specifically, the desires of the founder and the key discourses related to the founder’s name helped constitute and stabilise the social identity and materiality of the Haw Par Villa through its eventful history of physical destruction, reconstruction, rebranding and reimagining. Despite his eventual non-involvement with Haw Par Villa’s management due to his passing, the founder’s desires and discourses linger on in various forms, resulting in subsequent attempts to rework the identity and materiality of this themed space failing if the attempts are not congruent on some level with the founder’s desires and discourses. This resulted in the failure of first, the state and, subsequently, private endeavours in re-constituting the themed space. In doing so, this paper contributes to a socio-material understanding of the resilience and sustainability of themed spaces.

The Digital Desert: The Spiritual Struggle In Virtual Reality

This article explores the spiritual challenges faced by individuals in virtual reality, drawing parallels to the temptations experienced by Jesus in the desert. In Orthodox theology, the desert symbolizes a place of testing and spiritual purification, a notion that is transferred to the modern "desert" of virtual environments. The essay examines how humans today, much like Christ in the desert, face temptations in the digital world—temptations that promise immediate gratification, power, and control but ultimately divert them from their spiritual journey and union with God. Central to this struggle is the concept of prospatheia, the passionate attachment to the material and digital world, which is countered by the cultivation of aprospatheia, or spiritual freedom from such attachments. The article emphasizes the need for spiritual vigilance and highlights the dangers of becoming overly immersed in the illusory experiences of virtual reality, urging a return to spiritual focus and self-restraint