Universal Myth Research Articles

Mayotte, The Epitome of Insular Syndrome

As A Result of The Rupture and Confinement Effects Experienced Following Arrival on The Island, Some Individuals Studied, Despite Having Been Unaffected By Psychiatric Disorders In The Past, Go On To Develop Some Particular Psychiatric Symptoms. We Will Show How the Discovery of An Exotic Insular Psychic Space Can Lead to The Emergence of Different Clinical Syndromes. This Study Was Born from The Psychiatric Treatment of Expatriate Patients On The Island Of Mayotte, Using Psychodynamic Techniques And Methods. The Island Is Associated with Specific Symbolisms That Are Sources of Vulnerability: Separation, Lack of Space, Promiscuity, Discontinuity of The Human Bond, Paradoxical Temporality. Moreover, The Mental Representation of Such A Confined, Limited Space, Invested With An Ancient Imaginary, Is Influenced By Some Universal Myths. As An Object of Desire, The Island Is The Source Of Phantasmatic Projections, And One’s Arrival There In Reality Proves To Be Potentially Pathogenic And Can Reveal A Previously Dormant Psychic Precariousness.

Pertinence of Literature in Destroying Menstrual Taboos

The impurity of menstrual blood is a universal myth that spans across all societies and cultures. This notion has also established a barrier to gender equality, as females are instructed, throughout cultures, that menstruation is disgraceful. This belief restricts their capacity to conduct regular duties when they are bleeding, hence making them organize their lives around their menstrual period. The need to fill the inadequate understanding of the menstrual cycle in society is a necessity. The third wave of feminism encouraged society to discuss certain challenging topics, which led to considerable breakthroughs in beliefs around menstruation. The day when feminist discussions were limited to people who could pay to express their opinions has long since passed. The concept of feminism in the twenty-first century encompasses a larger spectrum of opinions. Strong arguments on women’s cleanliness and the need for understanding menstruation only serve to emphasize how crucial and significant the issue is. The present paper attempts to explore the myths and taboos, cultural and political perspectives on menstruation, and the role literature is playing in altering society’s attitudes about menstruation. The paper will attempt to comprehend how important literature is in eradicating the stigma associated with menstruation and how it contributes to raising awareness of menstrual hygiene among people.

Indian Concept of Sound: the “Universal Myth” in India and the West

The Indian concept of sound became well-known in the West in the 1960s and was understood in a particular way. While many issues may be discussed regarding the Western interpretation of Indian sound, this study focuses on two specific elements: an assertion of the superiority of sound to vision and excessive emphasis on the “non-linguistic” nature of sound in Indian culture. In the West, emphasizing the aural dimension of Indian culture was linked with the opposition of sound to vision and, in some form, to language in its communicative and informative aspects. However, although sound is indeed an essential and exceptional part of Indian culture, it is opposed neither to sight nor to language within it. The difference between these two approaches led to the conclusion that the Western view of the Indian concept was a misinterpretation of indigenous ideas. Within this position, it was understood as an imperfect imitation of the original, with an unequivocally negative connotation. The authors attempt to go beyond such critique, overcoming the tendency to contrast things rather than to see their complicated interrelation. With this purpose, the question about the reasons for the difference between the two approaches is raised. The Indian concept of sound and its Western interpretation are treated as the two “universal myths,” each having a specific function in the corresponding culture. It becomes obvious that, in the social and cultural context of the counterculture era in the West, the Indian concept of sound was destined to fulfill the cultural demands of a host culture.

Stylistics of Abiku, of Mwènè or the Isotopies of Fire and Air in L’Ame Blessée d’un Eléphant Noir by Mwènè Gabriel Okoundji

The concepts of Abiku in yoruba language and Mwènè in tegue language (Congo Brazzaville) have many significations and use, according to the authors. In Mwènè Gabriel Okoundji, their use wins values which put them in an edifying relationship with the four elements of nature. On this basis, L’âme blessée d’un éléphant noir appears as a gnomic work whose four poems seem to symbolize the four fundamental elements of nature that Abiku and Mwènè are the cruciferous and/or six figures. The poet allegorizes the four cosmic figures (Fire, Air, Water, Earth) and plays with the elliptisation of the two formers. So, it’s interesting to know how those various symbols contribute to the elaboration of the six figures. Does the number 6 intervene in the four figures to link together the worlds and to set an homeostasy, an ataraxia? The stylistic analysis borrowed from François Rastier here is applied to numeroligical and universal myths, to the use of pronouns, and to the punctuation in order to read the Seal of Solomon.

A Philosophy of First Contact: Stanisław Lem and the Myth of Cognitive Universality

Within science fiction the topic of ‘first contact’ is a popular theme. How will an encounter with aliens unfold? Will we succeed in communicating with them? Although such questions are present in the background of many science fiction novels, they are not always explicitly dealt with and even if so, often in a poor way. In this article, I will introduce a typology of five dominant types of solutions to the problem of first contact in science fiction works. The first four solutions are the more dominant, but also the least interesting ones. There is a fifth category that addresses the question of first contact in a more interesting way, exemplified by the work of Stanisław Lem. This fifth option defines itself as a critique of the four previous categories, or of their shared assumption of what Lem (1967) has called ‘the myth of cognitive universality’. Lem is sceptical of the common optimism that first contact will always be successful. In books such as Solaris (1961), His Master’s Voice (1967) and Fiasco (1986), humanity makes first contact with an alien phenomenon, but fails to comprehend the phenomenon. Fundamentally, it will be argued that Lem’s work shows that in such an encounter we will typically not only lack the right answers to our questions, but that we also often lack the correct questions: we simply do not have the right categories or instruments to even recognize, let alone meaningfully interrogate, the alien phenomenon. The article ends with an exploration of the implications of Lem’s pessimism and whether it is the most plausible option for first contact. Moreover, the article will draw some lessons for philosophy of science, by exploring the parallel with the confrontation of novel or deviant phenomena in science. Lem’s work is helpful here because it succeeds in articulating what has not always been appreciated in the philosophy of science, namely that the right questions by which to interrogate scientific phenomena are not given, but that their articulation always requires work.

Other people’s gaze encoded as implied motion in the human brain

Keeping track of other people's gaze is an essential task in social cognition and key for successfully reading other people's intentions and beliefs (theory of mind). Recent behavioral evidence suggests that we construct an implicit model of other people's gaze, which may incorporate physically incoherent attributes such as a construct of force-carrying beams that emanate from the eyes. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivoxel pattern analysis to test the prediction that the brain encodes gaze as implied motion streaming from an agent toward a gazed-upon object. We found that a classifier, trained to discriminate the direction of visual motion, significantly decoded the gaze direction in static images depicting a sighted face, but not a blindfolded one, from brain activity patterns in the human motion-sensitive middle temporal complex (MT+) and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). Our results demonstrate a link between the visual motion system and social brain mechanisms, in which the TPJ, a key node in theory of mind, works in concert with MT+ to encode gaze as implied motion. This model may be a fundamental aspect of social cognition that allows us to efficiently connect agents with the objects of their attention. It is as if the brain draws a quick visual sketch with moving arrows to help keep track of who is attending to what. This implicit, fluid-flow model of other people's gaze may help explain culturally universal myths about the mind as an energy-like, flowing essence.

Lemmy Kilmister and milk from Finland: On remembering, online spaces and corporate branding

Abstract In this article, we show how new (social) media dynamics condition the way remembering and mourning play out online. We analyse commenting with regard to the Finnish dairy-product company Valio’s advertisement-turned-tribute to rock idol Lemmy Kilmister, who had passed away some days earlier. Our study shows that ambiguous and fluid power relations in online spaces can sustain facile and simplified corporate messages. We offer an example of how the context of representation shifts in online exchanges and highlight how local repertoires of meaning making are overpowered by universal myths. This offers a new perspective to metal music studies. More generally, our study elucidates contextual shifts as one of the ways in which contemporary capitalism operates as consumers such as metal music fans are engaged in co-production of corporate brand meanings.

The Myth of Flexible Universality: Human Rights and the Limits of Comparative Naturalism

Abstract Many writers reject the notion of universal human rights, insisting on their historically recent, Western-secular character. Other theorists emphasise mutual exchange between human rights and systems such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Islam. They celebrate a common ground that would appear, moreover, to enhance the case for universality. This article acknowledges that common ground but rejects the view that it can strengthen the case for universality. Any such ‘exchange’, far from being mutual, turns out to be dictated entirely by human rights. Familiar rhetoric about the supposed flexibility of human rights law, which would suggest genuinely interactive relationships between it and other belief systems, flatly contradicts its higher-law claims. Genuinely flexible human rights could only ever arise either (i) in the trivial sense that any broadly formulated legal rule ends up applied to a range of situations or (ii) in the untenable sense that human rights law would accommodate serious violations.

Mystical historiosophy of Velimir Khlebnikov

In this article the mystical historiosophy of Velimir Khlebnikov is considered as a form of Russian historiosophical thought. Religious, philosophical, historical and cultural prerequisites of formation of the concept of historicism in Russian mysticism of the beginning of the 20th century are analyzed. Special attention is paid to “Boards of Fate”, a collection of notes and observations about the universal laws of time discovered by Khlebnikov. In the article general principles are formulated of assessment of both the mystical historiosophy of Khlebnikov, and other attempts of mystic-occult development of the principle of historicism. Progress in the humanities and cultural anthropology makes it easy to see the limitation of such attempts and to establish some of their initial attitudes, reproduced by default. When these attitudes remain ignored, mystical historicism not only is reproduced in this or that form again and again, but also naturally finds admirers. In particular, we consider the idea of “the universal myth” which for a long time was an attractive reference point for anthropology and for other humanities. Modern anthropological theories (for example, M. Godelye), see in such construction of the universal myth the reproduction of old speculative idealism in new forms of ethnology and psychoanalysis. As the current state of domestic culture is characterized by deviations from scientific and philosophical historicism (various versions of folk history, “new chronology” of A. Fomenko, conspiracy theories, etc.), analysis of sources of Russian mystical historicism acquires natural relevance. A conclusion is made about the need to study Russian historiosophical mysticism for deeper understanding of the principle of historicism and of peculiarities of its perception in Russia.

The Myth of Universality: The UNESCO “Philosophers’ Committee” and the Making of Human Rights

This article reexamines one of the most enduring questions in the history of human rights: the question of human rights universality. By the end of the first decade after the end of the Cold War, debates around the legitimacy and origins of human rights took on new urgency, as human rights emerged as an increasingly influential rubric in international law, transnational development policy, social activism, and ethical discourse. At stake in these debates was the fundamental status of human rights. Based in part on new archival research, this article offers an alternative interpretation of the rediscovery by scholars in the late 1990s of a 1947 UNESCO survey that purported to demonstrate the universality of human rights through empirical evidence. The article argues that this contested intellectual history reflects the enduring importance of the “myth of universality”—a key cultural narrative that we continue to use to find meaning across the long, dark night of history.

Learning from Brazilian Indigenous Peoples: Towards a Decolonial Education

This study argues that western societies have to learn from the cosmological vision of first peoples. In the Brazilian context, despite the genocide of these peoples, there still remains a rich variety of cultures, keeping their traditions and lifestyles based on the concept of buen vivir, in Spanish, or Tekó Porã as the Guarani people say. From a decolonial intercultural approach, we can learn a sustainable way of life from indigenous peoples, and create relevant policies and educational frameworks. Principles of buen vivir such as cooperation and reciprocity are incorporated by Paulo Freire in his dialogic pedagogy. Freire has incorporated these principles due to his engagement with social and communitarian movements. For this reason, his pedagogical proposal is not limited to school contexts only; it is rather linked to community and social praxis. This political transformation of educational praxis involves changes in the modern-colonial matrix of power and knowledge. Deconstructing racism and the myth of universality is necessary for recognizing epistemic rationalities developed by indigenous communities, in order for us to establish with them critical dialogue and mutually enriching interaction. In this sense, the newly introduced term neologism ‘conversity’ indicates intercultural dialogue resulting from the recognition of indigenous peoples and social movements as producers of legitimate knowledge and autonomous organisation.

The Geography of the Imagination: Thoughts on the Work of Rick McKee Hock

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Born in 1947, Rick McKee Hock was a prominent artist and educator, former director of exhibitions and program design at George Eastman House (1978-2008), and exhibitions and events coordinator at Visual Studies Workshop (VSW). He died on January 18, 2015. A memorial exhibition of his work, Curious Reality of Images: Rick McKee Hock, was presented at VSW, September 4-December 19, 2015. To accompany this exhibition, VSW published two catalogs of his late work, Artists vs. Charlatans and Interrupted Bestiary (both 2015). Rick might not have been The World's Most Interesting Man of recent advertising renown, but he would have been on my short list for photography's version of that tide. Widely read, deeply thoughtful, and opinionated in an understated but firm way, he lived with a memorable combination of seriousness and wit. He had wide intellectual interests and a rich and sardonic sense of humor. Above all, he was devoted to human need to create--the power of imagination to reshape our understanding of reality. In this regard he was an eternal optimist, always excited about possibility of new ways of seeing and thinking. Rick had broad interests in literature, art, and music. Music was a consistent topic of conversation for us over decades. We regularly shared our current passions, with Rick's list usually much more interesting and varied than mine. In late 1970s, he introduced me to significance of Lee Morgan and Eric Dolphy, Devo and Elvis Costello. Later, it was King Sunny Ade and Burning Spear, Bob Dylan, bluegrass, and much more. His music collection was already remarkable when we met in 1978, and it evolved steadily over years, reflecting his voracious appetite for all things new and nourishing. Rick came to photography in his later twenties. He dropped out of college after his first year, in 1966, and was employed in publishing field for nearly a decade. Inspired by photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, he renewed his studies at University of Connecticut, where he majored in art. Accomplished in drawing, lithography, and etching, Rick's interest in photography was amplified by his first elective course in medium. After that, he enrolled in every studio photography and photo history class that UConn offered. In this formative period, he was guided by Professor William E. Parker, a mentor of great intellectual range and energy. In addition to his expertise in history of art and photography, Parker was active in C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology in New York City. Not surprisingly, Rick's interest in universal myths and archetypes was strongly shaped by Parker's teaching. Rick's first recognition as a photographer came in June 1975, in an exhibition juried by Parker and Carl Chiarenza, Pro/Contra: A Selection of Connecticut Photography, part of Greater Hartford (CT) Civic and Arts Festival. Rick had two pictures reproduced in show's slim catalog: one of a tangled mass of weeds, other of a beatific sheep looking directly at camera through a wire fence. Both have a direct, bull's-eye compositional simplicity. Rick greatly respected Parker's brief introductory text to this catalog. Parker began by emphasizing two points: medium's protean nature and its essential connection to ideas. He described medium's unique ability to visually arrest the facts and possibilities of an existentially fugitive world and quoted philosopher Stanley Cavell's observation that the camera has been praised for extending senses; it may... deserve more praise for confining them, leaving room for thought. Parker then proposed a series of foundational propositions or axioms, including: * A photograph is not o picture of, but an object about world. * A photograph serves to reaffirm our contact with reality, to rediscover an all-too-often missing world; a photograph reaffirms our grand desire to eventually transcend world. …

Spectres of Shakespeare

Located within the myth of Shakespeare’s universality is a belief in the power and poeticism of his language. If we acknowledge Richard Eyre’s assertion that ‘the life of the plays is in the language’, what becomes of this myth when Shakespeare is ‘transferred’ across cultures? What happens to Shakespeare’s ‘universality’ in these cultural re-articulations? Using Ong Keng Sen’s Search Hamlet (2002), this article examines the transference of myth and/as language in intercultural Shakespeare. It posits that intercultural imaginings of Shakespeare can be said to expose the hollow myth of universality yet in a paradoxical double-bind reify and reinstate this selfsame myth.

Wikipedia and the Myth of Universality

Introduction I write from the U.S., where the removal of "women writers" from the more general and inclusive "writers" category in 2013 drew national ire and debate (Filipacchi, 2013). The episode heightened visibility of the fact that Wikipedia entries are not only predominantly created and edited by men, but that the categories that organize the content are also gendered and hierarchical. Indeed, classification is arguably at the root of some of the most critical questions regarding Wikipedia's functions and limitations. The construction of categories for access to knowledge and information is inherently paradoxical-it is by way of categories that we organize and access information in any information retrieval system. But categories are by definition limiting and exclusionary, and they operate on the basis of membership and nonmembership: an inside and an outside. Membership and the terms by which we name those categories-especially with regard to humans and human subjectivities-are almost always political and contested.

From amnesia to fable: historical memory, pulp fiction and political consensus

ABSTRACTPopular culture and the film industry have changed our perception of the past. But perhaps more relevant is the way they show history to be an area of conflict where meaning is continually negotiated. Among the fictional narratives that deal with the Spanish Civil War, non-realist novels, films, comics and videogames comprise a special category. While some of these aim to recover the memory of the victims of fascist repression, others ignore or conceal the ideological implications of historical fact. The latter may be achieved through the conversion of history into a universal myth or human drama. In this article, I will examine Albert Sánchez-Piñol's science-fiction story “El bosc” (2001) and its film adaptation by Óscar Aibar (2012), Sebastià Alzamora's noir gothic novel Crim de sang (2012), and Rafael Jiménez and José A. Sollero's superhero comic 1936: la Batalla de Madrid (2014). These narratives implicitly transform the Civil War into a legendary origin for the new democratic nation, a fratricidal struggle that resulted in a productive period of peace and that is apparently disconnected from the present. In this respect, they conform to the principles of post-Francoist Spanish democracy's culture of consensus, which regards ideology-laden discussion of the past as a threat to national cohesion.

"Raíñas de pedra": unha revisión humanizadora e feminista da vida e morte de Inés de Castro

El amor trágico de Don Pedro I de Portugal e Inés de Castro se convirtió desde muy temprano en un tema recurrente en el panorama cultural portugués, español y europeo. La reina muerta se erigió como el mito universal de la mujer inocente sacrificada por la Razón de Estado y se transformó en la personificación de la victoria del amor más allá de la muerte. Sin embargo, a pesar de su fuerte vinculación con Galicia, su figura se mantuvo apartada de la literatura gallega durante muchos años. Este artículo pretende revisar y analizar la principal obra que marcó la intromisión de Inés de Castro en el panorama literario gallego, Raíñas de Pedra, de Cándido Pazó, haciendo hincapié en su originalidad e innovación con respecto al resto del corpus inesiano.

Myth and Creolisation of Cultures and Performing Arts in the Mediterranean

Theatre today speaks for a new type of cultural manifoldness, for a broad range of new differences that are developing. Creolisation is the intermingling of two or several formerly discrete traditions or cultures; it is an interweaving of similar and different threads of various colours, deriving from myths shared throughout the Mediterranean basin. Within such an understanding of culture theatre needs to speak out not only against domination but also needs to highlight the importance of marginality, otherness, and local contexts. It should not be hemmed in by literary-minded applications.As Benjamin Lee writes, “we have reached a time when no values from any single cultural perspective can provide frameworks adequate to understanding the changes affecting all of us”, which entails the decolonisation of cultural practices. We must think globally and act locally, be aware of universal myths, while remaining aware of the local circumstances and myths that surround us. In other words, a fruitful dialectical relation can ensue. In Slovenia, scholars often complain that, aside from specialists, nobody is “internationally” interested in local myths or national topics. This is not true: what is necessary is to find an appropriate way to present local or national topics within an international and global setting.

Myth and Creolisation of Cultures and Performing Arts in the Mediterranean

Theatre today speaks for a new type of cultural manifoldness, for a broad range of new differences that are developing. Creolisation is the intermingling of two or several formerly discrete traditions or cultures; it is an interweaving of similar and different threads of various colours, deriving from myths shared throughout the Mediterranean basin. Within such an understanding of culture theatre needs to speak out not only against domination but also needs to highlight the importance of marginality, otherness, and local contexts. It should not be hemmed in by literary-minded applications.As Benjamin Lee writes, “we have reached a time when no values from any single cultural perspective can provide frameworks adequate to understanding the changes affecting all of us”, which entails the decolonisation of cultural practices. We must think globally and act locally, be aware of universal myths, while remaining aware of the local circumstances and myths that surround us. In other words, a fruitful dialectical relation can ensue. In Slovenia, scholars often complain that, aside from specialists, nobody is “internationally” interested in local myths or national topics. This is not true: what is necessary is to find an appropriate way to present local or national topics within an international and global setting.

Music and the Myth of Universality: Sounding Human Rights and Capabilities

This article interrogates prevalent romanticized understandings of music’s role in human rights, and suggests new theoretical and practical approaches that foreground questions of efficacy and impact. Music is often described as a ‘universal language’, a notion that suggests that music is both inherently progressive and able to transcend cultural differences. I argue instead for a more complex, constrained view of music and its role in human rights, with a greater emphasis on methods and practice. Based in part on my research and observations in West Africa, I describe and critique common uses of music in human rights and development projects, and outline suggestions for more focused and effective projects. I also suggest conceptualizing music within the capabilities framework, as set out by Sen and Nussbaum. In so doing, the aim of this article is to stimulate new discussion on how music can protect and promote human rights and human capabilities.

Una recreación narrativa del Quijote de mediados del siglo XX: Don Quijote en las Améscoas, de Martín Larráyoz Zarranz

Este artículo analiza una recreación narrativa del Quijote de mediados del siglo XX, Don Quijote en las Améscoas, de Martín Larráyoz Zarranz, quien traslada a don Quijote y Sancho Panza a tierras navarras. La novela, publicada en 1954 en una revista diocesana pamplonesa y luego en forma de libro en 1993, constituye un eslabón más en la larga y fecunda cadena de recreaciones del inmortal personaje cervantino y sus aventuras, una prueba más de su enorme vigencia como mito universal.