Modern Debate Research Articles

Youth Is Going to Study in a Metropolis: How Not to Stay Alone

The needs of young people who have moved to study from other cities are often overshadowed by numerous studies of international students, traditionally considered by sociologists and practitioners to be among the most vulnerable groups. In this article, we focus on the migration paths of out-of-town students in megacities and what they face on their way to discovering a new city. The aim is to reconstruct scenarios of social inclusion for nonresident students. How and in what way do young people cope with feelings of isolation and loneliness, and is it really becoming a problem for them? In conceptualizing the scenarios, we rely on the "social drama" approach. By social inclusion scenarios we understand idealized models that summarize similar narratives of student youth about the period of moving to a big city and the way to find their place in it, having their own scenario with a lead, main action and a finale. We interpret social inclusion with reference to the modern debate on citizenship, understood as a wide field of youth involvement, not limited to politicized forms. This article uses the results of a qualitative analysis of 63 interviews with students who moved to study at two universities - the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg and KFU in Kazan. In each case an average of 31 interviews was conducted with graduate and undergraduate students. We distinguish 6 scenarios associated by the type of plot with film genres. In each of the identified scenarios we record different types of narratives related to experiences of loneliness or isolation in the first months or even years of acquaintance with a new city.

Mavīzāb and Fuqqāʿ: An Ilkhanid-Period Dispute as Evidence in the Sphero-Conical Vessels Debate

Abstract The monolithic designation of “sphero-conical vessels,” chosen to circumvent the long-standing modern debate around the function of these objects, does not satisfy the multiplicity of terms and uses that they had in the past. A munāẓara (disputation) by Zangi al-Bukhari titled “Dispute between the mavīzāb and the fuqqāʿ of the Iranians” (presented here in full translation) provides new insight into one such use, while also expanding our understanding of everyday life in late thirteenth–early fourteenth-century Baghdad. Drawing from this Persian work and from Arabic medieval cookery books, this essay connects the physical qualities of drinks and associated etiquettes of consumption to the materiality of surviving objects. Still raisin drinks were ladled from large metal bowls into smaller ones. Earthenware sphero-conical vessels, perhaps a group among those resembling pinecones, were used individually, to gulp down the foam of effervescent drinks.

Prelingual Deafness and the Manualist/Oralist Controversy in the Dutch Republic

This essay discusses the life and career of the prelingually deaf painter Jan Jansz. de Stomme (1615-1658) in the context of early modern debates on deafness, oral speech, and gestural communication. A son of a Franeker burgomaster, Jan moved to Groningen in 1643, where he became known for his portraits of Frisian aristocracy, got married twice, and lived in wealth in a prestigious neighbourhood. The theologian Samuel Maresius and scholar Anton Deusing described Jan’s devout attendance of services in the Reformed Church, which defended his right to participate in Holy Communion. A similar account was given in a family chronicle written by Jan’s grandnephew, who further specified that Jan joined the church as a communicant member expressing his understanding of the doctrine through gestures. By examining these various sources, I argue that church membership played an important role in bolstering Jan’s social status and undermining the alleged intellectual and mental inferiority of prelingually deaf people. I further show that despite the belief that oral speech was a sign of intelligence necessary to perform functions deemed normative, Jan established a successful career communicating only through gestures.

Women’s gifting of their inheritance share to male kin is void: a study of late Ottoman fatwas on social coercion

ABSTRACT This paper explores the juristic discussions about women’s access to their financial rights during late Ottoman Egypt. Taking fatwa collections as a source of social history, one can recognize that women sometimes gave up their financial entitlements to their male relatives voluntarily. This concession is thought to have occurred due to the influence of deeply ingrained social customs in some tribes. While various historical and anthropological studies have explored this social practice, this paper focuses instead on the Islamic law ruling concerning this phenomenon. I discuss in this paper how some ostensibly conservative ulama in nineteenth-century Egypt, in pursuit of upholding women’s financial rights against patriarchal oppression, recognized an important principle of social coercion. By considering fear of social stigma as a constraint on women’s free will and thus as a form of legal duress, those ulama enabled women to reclaim their rights when possible— likely following the death of their male relatives. This paper urges us to rethink the position of the ulama in nineteenth-century Egypt regarding women’s rights. Furthermore, it illuminates an overarching concept of coercion in Islamic law, which holds relevance to various modern debates.

Daddy-Daughter, Hitler-Jews in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry: Exploring Paternal Influence and Holocaust Imagery

This study investigates the metaphorical connections between the Daddy-Daughter relationship and the Hitler-Jews dynamic in Sylvia Plath’s poetry. Plath is renowned for her evocative and melancholic poetry, which explores intricate topics of Holocaust imagery and paternal influence. The purpose of this research is to examine the complex interactions between historical trauma, familial ties, and individual suffering in Plath’s poetry. Plath’s confessional technique allows her to infuse her very personal issues with wider socio-political implications. Plath explores the tense relationship between a daughter and her father while tying Nazi Germany and the Holocaust into the story. The figure of the father becomes a symbol of oppressive authority, reminiscent of both her father and the tyrannical figure of Hitler. The amalgamation of personal and historical pain mirrors Plath’s personal battles with authoritative fatherhood and the aftermath of World War II. Plath’s poems conjure themes of persecution, pain, and the quest for identity through allusions to Hitler and the Jews. Her mastery is evident in the manner in which personal and historical narratives overlap and inform each other in her work by looking at the issue of “Daddy-Daughter and Hitler-Jews”. This study strives to expand comprehension of her poetic vision and its continuing relevance in modern debate through an analysis of her use of language, imagery, and symbolism. Thus the goal is to offer new perspectives on Plath’s work that both captivate and challenge readers across generations, inviting them to engage with her poetry in a more nuanced and profound manner.

Berkeley on true motion

Studies of the Early Modern debate concerning absolute and relative space and motion often ignore the significance of the concept of true motion in this debate. Even philosophers who denied the existence of absolute space maintained that true motions could be distinguished from merely apparent ones. In this paper, I examine Berkeley's endorsement of this distinction and the problems it raises. First, Berkeley's endorsement raises a problem of consistency with his other philosophical commitments, namely his idealism. Second, Berkeley's endorsement raises a problem of adequacy, namely whether Berkeley can provide an adequate account of what grounds the distinction between true and merely apparent motion. In this paper, I argue that sensitivity to Berkeley's distinction between what is true in the metaphysical, scientific, and vulgar domains can address both the consistency and the adequacy problems. I argue that Berkeley only accepts true motion in the scientific and vulgar domains, and not the metaphysical. There is thus no inconsistency between his endorsement of true motion in science and ordinary language, and his metaphysical idealism. Further, I suggest that sensitivity to these three domains shows that Berkeley possesses resources to give an adequate account of how true motions are discovered in natural science.

“A Conscience Rightly Informed”: Puritan Casuistry and the Theological Justifications for Religious Establishment

Abstract In the early modern debates over religious liberty and toleration, religious dissenters often raised the issue of an individual’s conscience as a primary support for disestablishment. Dissenters like Roger Williams contended that establishmentarian policies persecuted tender consciences. God, according to dissenters, had not granted authority over the conscience to civil rulers; thus, religious establishment was both theologically specious as well as politically perilous. Much attention has been given to how religious dissenters discussed the human conscience and its place within the civil society. This essay, however, focuses on how magisterial Protestants developed their theological system of religious establishment in concert with their own understanding of the human conscience. Proponents of establishment utilized their own theology of the conscience as grounds for religious establishment, and this essay seeks to understand how they reconciled their soteriological convictions and their conception of the human conscience with their belief in the magistrate’s authority in matters of doctrine and religion.

Islamic Multiplicities in Kashmir: Debates about the Food Practices of a XVIth-Century Sufi Saint and the Modern Cult

Abstract The spread of Islam to the South Asian region of Kashmir and its role in shaping the socio-religious and political contours in the region is a highly charged debate in academic as well as popular circles. This article examines the early modern debates about the vegetarian food practices of a sixteenth-century Sufi saint of Kashmir, Baba Hyder Rishi (b. 1504) and contemporary debates around the modern cult mainly centered around his shrine in the Anantnag (locally known as Islamabad) town of south Kashmir. It is divided into two parts; the first focuses on debates during the saint’s own lifetime and the second analyses modern debates about what has by now emerged as a cult around the saint’s shrine. We begin with a critical re-evaluation of the wide-spread notion that the saint’s practice of vegetarianism was, much like his predecessors in the local Rīshī Sufi order, grounded in local Buddhist-Hindu customs and thus exemplifies the syncretic nature of Islam in Kashmir. Instead, we argue that both the defence and contestation of the saint’s practice as well its modern cult was and continues to be located within the Islamic tradition itself. We use this discussion for a critical reflection on the widely prevalent idea of religious syncretism in Kashmir and the over-simplified and ahistorical view of Islam as a monolith, and then explore the possibility of using Islamic ‘multiplicity’ as an alternate analytical category.

Lucan and Republican Promagistrates

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that Lucan’s use of the word privatus to refer to the proconsuls Caesar and Pompeius corresponds to the republican formal definition of promagistrates as privati vis-à-vis magistratus (the existence of such a definition is, however, a subject of modern debate). Additionally, Lucan uses the label privatus to highlight Caesar and Pompeius’ unusually proactive role in the sphere domi , outside their sphere of competence. Building on this analysis, it becomes possible to better appreciate Lucan’s distortions in his representation of Caesar as a proconsul.

Some Benefits and Limitations of Modern Argument Map Representation

Argument maps represent some arguments more effectively than others. The goal of this article is to account for that variability, so that those who wish to use argument maps can do so with more foresight. I begin by identifying four properties of argument maps that make them useful tools for evaluating arguments. Then, I discuss four types of argument that are difficult to map well: reductio ad absurdum arguments, charges of equivocation, logical analogies, and mathematical arguments. The difficulties presented by these four types appear unrelated to one another, but I show that, in each case, the difficulty can be traced back to the use of metalinguistic reasoning. The need to represent a transition between object language and metalanguage can undermine one or more of the benefits that argument map representation would otherwise confer.

Genrefication in Secondary School Libraries

Most school libraries organize fiction books alphabetically by an author’s last name. In order for a student to find and compare potential fiction reading material, the traditional school library model would have the student either search the library system for the topic and then go from stack to stack looking for books about the topic from any number of locations or seek advice from school library staff who would direct the student to potential titles as part of a reader’s advisory. In an effort to make fiction book selection easier for students, some school librarians have turned to genrefied fiction collections. However, there are many school librarians who feel that organizing fiction books by genre first rather than author’s last name creates more problems than it solves. This paper will explore the history behind genrefication, discuss the Paradox of Choice and patron browsing habits, and present the modern debate regarding genrefication of fiction books in school libraries.

Вечные споры о «Калевале». Рецензия на книгу М. Ниеминена «Моя “Калевала”. Что? Зачем? Откуда? Когда? Чья? Разговоры об эпосе»

The article reviews the book “My Kalevala. What? Why? Where from? When? Whose? Discussions About an Epic” by the Finnish writer, researcher, and public figure Markku Nieminen published in Finland in Finnish in 2023. The book is dedicated to the history of the controversy surrounding the poem “Kalevala” created by Elias Lönnrot. Various interpretations of Kalevala — as a national Finnish epic, a Karelian-Finnish folk epic, and an author’s poem — give rise to endless discussions and determine the relevance of the work under review, which also makes its contribution to the modern debate. The article presents a brief description of the work, identifying pairs of the main participants in the discussion over an almost 200-year period: E. Lönnrot — K.A. Gottlund, A. Ahlquist — J. Krohn, T. Rein — J. Aho, K. Krohn — V. Salminen and I. K. Inha, K. Kron — E.N. Setälä, M. Kuusi — V. Kaukonen, A. Tuomi — A. Mishin, M. Nieminen — T. Kondie. Particular attention is paid to the disputes between Russian participants and M. Nieminen’s response to the controversy in Finland at an online seminar in 2022. M. Nieminen consistently reveals the essence of the Kalevala discussions in which researchers, journalists, and public figures occurred in Finland and Russian Karelia. A structured presentation of such extensive material (dozens and hundreds of publications have been analyzed), in which the author’s broad outlook is felt at every step, certainly deserves the attention of readers.

Integrity of Quranic Legislations

Abrogation is claimed to be required to resolve alleged contradictions between legislations in the Qu?ran, the Prophet’s Sunna, or both. The opponents of abrogation find the alleged contradictions imaginary because the Qu?ran is coherent and the legislative Sunna is its perfect implementation that God endorsed. Accordingly, the Quranic legislations are fully consistent if their different conditions and ultimate goals are considered. Different legislative verses were revealed in different circumstances to be applicable later in similar circumstances. Applying the Quranic legislations and the Prophet’s Sunna carefully in appropriate contexts can prove the integrity, consistency, universality, and eternity of the Quranic legislations. This article critically reviews the debate on the abrogation claim in Arabic literature, both classical and modern—debate that has important theological, legal and practical implications.

Trans Visual Narratives: Representing Gender and Nature in Early Modern Europe

Abstract: This article studies the portraits of two gender-ambiguous individuals, the seventeenth-century Spanish soldier Antonio (née Catalina) de Erauso and the eighteenth-century French diplomat the Chevalier (Chevalière) d’Eon, as they offer a window into early modern debates on the representation of nature through its wonders. Making sense of the representations of Erauso and d’Eon requires viewing them as depictions of nature that belonged to the genre of the cabinet of curiosities. When seen as part of the cabinet of curiosities, their paintings appear as part of the artistic and scientific explorations that negotiated changing concepts of nature in early modern Europe. While Erauso’s portrait belonged to a tradition that embraced the sitter’s gender ambiguities, d’Eon’s portrait appears instead as a transitional object between two ways of organizing knowledge of nature. D’Eon’s portrait reflected a grown interest in the eighteenth century of representing nature in an objective way with a clear separation between the genders.

Cartilage Restoration of the Patellofemoral Joint: Techniques and Outcomes

Patellofemoral cartilage injuries present a complex challenge due to the unique anatomy and biomechanics of the joint. The daily activities involving the knee, such as weight-bearing, stair ambulation, and squatting, impose high loads on the joint, increasing the risk of cartilage overload and subsequent cartilage injury. Additionally, several anatomical abnormalities, including patellar malalignment, patella alta, and trochlear dysplasia, can influence the behavior of the patellofemoral joint, leading to instability and further elevating the risk of cartilage injuries. Surgical management of patellofemoral cartilage injuries remains a topic of modern debate. The effectiveness and suitability of different techniques depend on individual indications and the characteristics of the cartilage defect. This chapter explores the use of cartilage repair and restoration techniques for patellofemoral cartilage defects. Here, we discuss aspects of the surgical techniques, their outcomes, and provide insights into when staging arthroscopy or concomitant stability surgery should be considered.

Human Interest: Usury from Luther to Bentham

This article revisits a set of classic political, theological and economic scenes in the (early) modern debate on usury from Luther to Bentham. To summarize, I argue that this theory of usury – which polemically mobilizes counter-Aristotelian tropes of the breeding, reproduction and husbandry of money – might also be read as a theory of what Foucault famously calls pastoral power. If this debate nominally concerns the ‘repeal’ of the ancient prohibition against money-lending at interest, I argue that what is really at stake here is the pastoral production of a new theory of the subject as ‘human interest’: a self whose allegedly intrinsic self-interest expresses itself paradigmatically through financial interest. In conclusion, I situate this genealogy of human interest within the larger history of the self-interested, capitalist and indebted subject from Hirschman, through Foucault, to Lazzarato.

Historical Processes of Power, Knowledge, and Identity Change in Gurungs: With Relevancy to Identity Conflict and Modern Debates in Nepal

The major theme of this paper is to demystify prior theoretical concepts of cultural identity in Gurungs and tries to establish new arguments regarding identity. Most of the previous theoretical contributions found that identity always remains the same and is fixed in a single blood, land, or territory. However, this paper claims that identity cannot be understood as a fixed form, it is always changed and constructed in a historical time frame. Even different forms of cultural and ritual practices in societies have been created in certain time frames and are also being changed. Based on this, the construction of Gurungs’ identity was the consequence of long historical processes and power formation. Recently, many social scientists have argued that culture and identity should not be understood as observing the only objective reality but need to be subjected. It can be interpreted as understanding the long historical migratory processes, contacting different clans, and groups, studying the historical power formations, new knowledge establishments, economic relations, and changes. Gurungs’ identity and culture can only be interpreted by understanding the historical migratory roots in the northern foothills from Mt. Kailash to Kaski, Lamjung, and Gorkha and contact with different kings’ (local king (Kroh) powers, Ghale king powers, Hindu kings’ powers, and modern economic powers) and their formation of knowledge in a historical timeframe. Power is the major key factor in the creation of culture and identity but it does not mean only political power, rather understood as established new knowledge formation in the society.

Harvesting Underground: (re)generative theories and vegetal analogies in the early modern debate on mineral ores (I)

The early modern use of vegetal terms to explain the origin and growth of ores was widespread in mining industry, alchemy, and natural philosophy. In the writings of authors from many different backgrounds, mineral veins were often described as ‘trees’ which moved upwards, bore fruits, and underwent a life cycle. Accordingly, the existence in ores of ‘seeds’ (and, therefore, of a (re)generative power) was frequently invoked to explain the apparent similarities between minerals and plants. This method of describing mineral processes—called here the botanical model —also had a lasting terminological influence, as is attested by various expressions that are still common among miners and scientists. The notions underlying these terms are part of a larger body of ‘organic interpretations’ of mineral resources that endured into the eighteenth century and contributed to the development of the Earth sciences, mining industry, and the human–environment relationship. In focusing mainly on the rise of the botanical model in Renaissance Europe, this essay is the first part of a more extensive study (to be completed in a forthcoming paper) on the evolution of this important concept and its interaction with the new science throughout the early modern period.

Schuld en schaamte sociologisch bezien

Is shame in late modernity more important than guilt? In this article I look for answers to this question by analysing the main contributions of sociological theorists to the late modernity debate. The most dominant vision is that shame is taking the place of guiltin the life of an individual, especially when he does not reach the goals set by himself. Sociologists who have a more structuralist vision on society, stress that feelings of shame are the result of the dominant discourse on gender, success and career in our neoliberal society. Hartmut Rosa links shame to social alienation, one of the newest contributions to the debate. He pleads for resonance as a better and a more receptive way to connect to the world. An interesting point of view and helpful to give way to a moretheological approach to shame, guilt and salvation.

Public order: limit or value? Inequality and poverty in the relationship between credit concession, child support, manners, education and accomplishment of the human being

Inequality and poverty are frequent topics in the modern debate. Despite, in fact, global opulence is in constant increase, it is known to all that the contemporary world continues to deny basic freedoms to a high number of human beings. Such evidence, moreover, is set to stay that way, since civil society will continue to obstruct the access to one of the fundamental requirements for a full professional success, which is represented by the opportunity to achieve an adequate education. An opportunity that, in turn, is strongly linked to the family environment, in which one lives, as well as to the level of income that one possesses. The purpose of research is to show that in a finance which is proclaiming itself respectful of ethical values, the purpose of research is to show that in a finance which is proclaiming itself respectful of ethical values, possible requests for financial support, which are intended to allow the full accomplishment of the individual, must be always considered worthy, finding directly in the order's fundamental principles their right foundation., which are intended to allow the full accomplishment of the individual, must always be considered worthy, finding directly in the order's fundamental principles their right foundation.