Notion Of Sacrifice Research Articles

Towards a Notion of Relational Sacrifices: Nursing During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Wuhan

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine the relationship between nursing and sacrifice in the context of Shanghai-based nurses volunteering to treat COVID-19 patients in Wuhan during the pandemic in 2019 and 2020. In the paper, we explore the relationship between metaphors, such as ‘the war on COVID’ with the notion of sacrifice among our participants. The contribution that this article makes is to examine the lived experiences of the sacrifices made by individual nurses in a wider ‘relational’ framework. This relational framework examines, not just the sacrifices of the nurses but also the sacrifices made by their families during their service in Wuhan. As such, the article explores not only the relationship (or conflict) between self-love, self-prolonging and self-preservation and ‘self-sacrifice’ in the moral philosophical tradition of Kant – through the lived experiences of our participants – we extend sacrifice and the sacrificial beyond the individual (nurse) to examine the relational and familial lived experiences of the sacrifice of the nurses and their families in the context of their nursing on the COVID-19 wards in Wuhan.

The Persistence of Sacrifice as Self-Sacrifice and Its Contemporary Embodiment in the 9/11 Rescuers and COVID-19 Healthcare Professionals

The aim of this paper is to analyze the persistence of sacrifice as self-sacrifice in contemporary societies. In order to reach this goal, firstly, we discuss how in the Axial Age (800–200 B.C.E.) an understanding of sacrifice as ritual worship or a ritual practice that involves the immolation of a victim became less prevalent and a new understanding of sacrifice emerges. This new notion of sacrifice focuses on individual relinquishment and gift exchange, that is, on a person sacrificing or relinquishing him/herself as a gift that is given in an exchange relationship for protecting a greater good (a god, a community, a person, a nation, and so on). Secondly, we analyze how this new sacrifice formula had an important impact on the understanding of sacrifice. Most notably, it led people to conceptualize sacrifice as a project or as something that persons could intentionally embrace. Thirdly, and as a result of the previous processes, we attend to the secularization of sacrifice, not in the sense of a de-sacralization of this phenomenon but in the way of sacralization of the mundane realm and mundane things, such as intentional self-sacrificial acts, in social contexts where there is religious pluralism. Insight into how the notion of sacrifice is secularized is found throughout the classic works of Marcel Mauss and Georg Simmel, and these works are discussed in section three. Fourthly, we study the sacredness of the person as a clear type of secular religiosity that develops self-sacrificial forms. Two of these self-sacrificial forms are the actions of 9/11 rescuers and COVID-19 healthcare professionals. A short analysis of both will serve us to illustrate how self-sacrifice is embodied in contemporary societies.

The idea of religion and sacrifice from Grotius to Diderot’s Encyclopédie

ABSTRACT This article outlines the concept of the early modern idea of religion through the notion of sacrifice, from Socinus on through Grotius and Spinoza to Diderot’s Encyclopedia. It is generally held that the philosophical representation of religion of the seventeenth century ‘set the stage’ for later Enlightenment philosophers. My argument runs in a different direction. I intend to show that the Enlightenment philosophers’ concept of religious history stemmed not only from the philosophical tradition, but also from their knowledge of antiquarianism. In order to understand the genealogy of the Enlightenment idea of religion it is essential to acknowledge its roots in the antiquarian history of religions of the seventeenth century when a new idea of religious belief emerged with practice of sacrifice at its core. Grotius and the antiquarians inquired into whether religion was a universal phenomenon, what were its categories – such as belief and sacrifice – and the truth and falsehood of these. Diderot considered this history of sacrifice and ceremonies as the fundamental ‘deed’ of the religious experience, which he analysed employing both the philosophical and the historical perspectives through the category of fetishism.

The Sacrifice of Heidegger

In this article, Ferraris examines the notion of sacrifice in the philosophy of Heidegger. Focusing specifically—but not exclusively—on Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie, Ferraris shows that sacrifice is a fundamental aspect of Heidegger’s thematization of human finitude. More specifically, Ferraris shows the central role played by sacrifice in highlighting the radical level of truth and authenticity that the event of death carries within itself. Hence, Ferraris argues that it is through sacrifice—and mourning—that we understand what death is, as the self-transcendence of Dasein makes the transcendence of Being possible.

'A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism'

In this article, I will put Julia Ducournau’s 2016 coming-of-age horror film Raw in dialogue with Georges Bataille’s general economic theory of transgression. The Bataillean saying ‘a kiss is the beginning of cannibalism’ is taken literally by Raw’s protagonist Justine, as she explores her sexuality while simultaneously acquiring a taste for human flesh. I will begin by mapping the interplay between the transgressions of Raw and Bataille’s general economy, moving forward to Raw’s treatment of transgression as it both converges and diverges with Bataille’s notion of sacrifice. While the film ultimately displays the pitfalls of transgression, I will conclude by evaluating how the role of eroticism in Raw illustrates the enduring importance of transgression for Bataille; as an immediate, sacred moment of inner experience in which the self luxuriates in its own death.

İnanç Boyutuyla Veganlık/Vejetaryenlik

This study analyzed the views of vegans who define themselves as Muslims, Atheists or Deists. Questions such as ‘How did you decide to be a vegan?’, ‘Please present your opinion about sacrificing an animal for God’ etc. were asked to the participants in order to evaluate their views. In-depth audiorecorded interviews were conducted with individuals over the age 18 which were then, decoded and interpreted. The interviews took place between April 9 and November 8, 2017. Upon completing the analyses, it was determined that some Muslim vegans want to live and behave according to the specific religious identity and continue life as vegans without exploiting innocent living beings at the same time. On the other hand, some of the interviewed individuals mentioned that the notion of sacrifice in Islam has changed in time and it is no longer correct to sacrifice animals for Allah in Islam. According to the obtained data, Muslim vegans do not usually put the vegan identity forward and avoid politicization. Muslim vegans also reported that they stay away from activist vegan groups. The common aspect among Muslim, Atheist and Deist groups is that they are against capitalism

Spectres of Undocumented Migration in Paris

Abstract Based on recurrent ethnographic fieldwork with West African undocumented (im)migrants in Paris (France) since 2006, this photo-essay describes one particular housing complex inhabited by a vast West African diaspora. In addition to a descriptive analysis of my work with photography in the context of anthropological research in this particular setting, the article explores the notion of sacrifice as experienced and recounted by men who have undertaken the long and perilous journey to Europe to find means to support their families back home. Finally, I argue in favour of an approach to aesthetics that acknowledges the fundamental ambiguity of the photographic image and its use within the context of undocumented migration.

Circles of Failure, Strategies of Hope: A Girardian Perspective on the Tragic Vision

This paper asks whether there are grounds for viewing Girard’s work as a tragic vision, and explores the criteria and contexts that might figure in such an investigation. Mimetic anthropology is built on references to the tragic per- spective, but its tragic aspect is complex and diaphanous in respect of its struc- turing and dynamics. Its framework is difficult to explore without engaging with contemporary Christian theological thought—something that significantly affects its implications. As for the latter, the transformative potential of Girard’s tragic anthropology, directly engendered by its critical approach to its own theses, tends to shatter the stability of its assumptions. Therefore, from the earliest interpreta- tions of ancient tragic drama, through the pitfalls of the notion of sacrifice and the dialogue with the philosophy of existence and dramatic theology, all the way to the so-called apocalyptic phase in Girard’s thought, we can observe shifting relationships between the broadening areas of human failure on the one hand, and the elusive horizon of hope on the other. Within this vision, the last strategy of hope seems to lie in the decision of the individual as a witness to a man-made apocalypse—and/or the apocalypse itself.

The Cross

ABSTRACTMy aim is a philosophical understanding of sacrifice, and especially of the Christian conception of sacrifice. Initially distancing myself a little from the strictly ritual notion of sacrifice, I work with a concept of sacrifice as 1) a voluntary choice (2) to forgo or lose or give away (3) something costly, perhaps supremely costly, (4) as an expressive action, where (5) what is so expressed typically is or includes devotion or loyalty to something exalted. I consider three historical examples of political sacrifices, sacrifices made for a cause, and three literary examples of personal sacrifices, sacrifices made by one person for another. I note that in the Christian context it is very common for sacrifices either political or personal to be taken to be imitations of Jesus’ sacrifice as presented in the New Testament, and ask therefore how we are to understand that. My conclusion is that Jesus’ sacrifice can be seen as involving both a political and a personal aspect—but that in fact, it can only be made as intelligible as may be by understanding it, as the Letter to the Hebrews does, in ritual terms.

To separate is to sustain: Sacrifice and national belonging among East Timorese in West Timor

This paper examines the way the notion of sacrifice is used to reclaim national belonging and entitlements. I particularly focus my discussion on pro‐Indonesian East Timorese who left East Timor and decided to stay in West Timor after their historic referendum. The East Timorese experience of violent colonisation, military occupation, family breakdown and separation might help explain the existence of their sacrificial narratives. But I argue that such narratives evoke life histories and shared memories, which, in turn, entail the intention of displaced East Timorese to maintain an intimate relationship with their homeland and ensure a better future for their society.

Everyday Practices of Sacrifice: A Case Study of Palestinian Women

In this article, I explore how ‘narratives of sacrifice’ shape the lives of Palestinian women living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and in exile in Lebanon and affect the choices they make. By focusing on women’s ‘everyday practice’, I argue that, in response to the dangers and apparent hopelessness of their situation, Palestinians have adopted sacrifice as a conscious mode of struggle; it also offers a way to bring meaning to senseless events. There is a tendency to identify sacrificial acts as male, but such assumptions need to be reconsidered. The concept of sacrifice is complex and is also gendered. I investigate inadvertent sacrifice – the role of the victim or resister – and deliberate sacrifice, as a way of protecting the community. The notion of sacrifice is closely linked to practices of resistance. As well, it has a strong affinity with the preservation of identity and should therefore not be interpreted solely as a symptom of powerlessness.

Between memory, didacticism and the Jewish revival: the Holocaust in Italian comic books

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to trace the development of the theme of the Holocaust in Italian comic books, attempting to frame it in the more general national memory culture. I look at both educational publications, aimed at adolescents, and those that speak to much wider social and political attempts at constructing a collective image of the Shoah. First, I explore three biographical comic books from the 1980s that focus on non-Italian historical figures, namely Maximilian Kolbe and Anne Frank, which are linked by the notion of sacrifice, in both a Catholic and universal sense. I then move on to works from the 1990s, which reveal more freedom in the way the topic is portrayed, not only at a thematic but also at an aesthetic level. Finally, I discuss several graphic novels that were published in the last few years which fit in well with the contemporary trend of rediscovering the past and constructing the collective memory around specific sites of memory, such as the concentration camp of Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste. As I show here, many of these narratives reiterate the common image of the Holocaust as a foreign (mostly German and Polish) event. This silences and underplays the Italian involvement in the atrocity. Nonetheless, more recent works demonstrate that the Shoah is slowly being adopted into the Italian historical consciousness as an important tragedy of the twentieth century.

EL SACRIFICIO ENTRE EL DEPORTE Y LA CLASE SOCIAL EN UN EQUIPO DE NADADORES MASTER

O presente artigo se propõe a analisar os diversos sentidos que um grupo de nadadores máster concede à noção nativa de sacrifício e os modos em que através dela se configuram moralidades e práticas específicas. Buscar-se-á aprofundar a especificidade do caso da natação máster, em que as representações se encontram permeadas não apenas pelas dimensões econômicas e corporais, mas também pela dimensão etária, que exerce um papel fundamental. Será dada especial atenção à maneira como, a partir do trabalho e do esforço corporal, os nadadores incorporam uma ética do sacrifício que dá conta de um universo moral particular. Nesse universo se constroem fronteiras simbólicas e distinções sociais que nos permitirão perguntar pelo modo em que o sacrifício opera como particularidade de classe na prática esportiva desse grupo particular.

Secularizing Kenosis

Secularizing Kenosis: Review of Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition: Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition, by Paolo Diego BubbioPaolo Diego Bubbio, Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition: Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014)The idea at the heart of Paolo Diego Bubbio's new book is a provocative and unusual one. It is that the Kantian transcendental turn, which foreclosed the possibility of achieving an understanding of things as they are 'in themselves,' had an intrinsically ethical or religious dimension, one best captured or symbolized by the Christian notion of kenotic sacrifice. Just as Christ was willing to renounce divinity in order make room in himself for human finitude, Bubbio reads the transcendental turn as enjoining us to give up our attempt to understand things as they are in themselves (thus rejecting the God's eye view of traditional metaphysics) in order to make room for the perspectives of others. Bubbio claims not only that this is a fruitful way to think about the Kantian revolution, but also that the notion of kenotic sacrifice played an important and explicit role in the writings of several major figures in the post-Kantian tradition: particularly, Solger, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. These thinkers, he claims, employed the concept of sacrifice as a way of coming to grips with the basic structure and significance of Kant's revolution. Bubbio shows that their reflections thus constitute a remarkable and unappreciated tradition of meditation on the nature of sacrifice-one that can allow us to see the deficiencies of more recent redeployments of the concept that we find in thinkers like Bataille, Derrida and Girard.As all of this suggests, Bubbio takes Kant's decision to reject traditional metaphysics, with its attempt to understand objects as they are in themselves, in favor of a revisionary conception of metaphysics in which reason is concerned only with itself or with its own products, as the most important event in modern philosophy. Although Bubbio clearly thinks Kant's revolution was quite justified, he thinks it left Kant and his successors with some unfinished business. The biggest remaining issue was to understand the source of the authority of the norms that reason supposedly imposes on itself. Bubbio shows that their reflections on this problem were often clothed in religious language, though the God that was invoked in these contexts was more a symbol for the kind of knowledge we should aspire to than a theological reality. We see the first instance of this kind of use of the notion of God in Kant's suggestion that we should understand the authority of practical norms by treating them as if they were issued by God himself. The Post-Kantians, who came to think that the authority was rooted in the self or in society, developed a modified conception of God. They conceive God as necessarily renouncing his transcendence or otherness or in order to become immanent in human consciousness or in social reality. Although Bubbio does not put it in just this way, Nietzsche's parable of the madman marks the clear endpoint of these quasi-theological reflections. With his announcement of the death of God, Nietzsche enjoins us to stop looking for some suitably post-Kantian equivalent of the God's eye view, encouraging us instead to fully embrace a conception of knowledge that is thoroughly and utterly perspectival. Despite the deep differences between these thinkers, Bubbio shows that in each case we can detect the basic structure of kenotic sacrifice: we are asked to give something up (an overly transcendent conception of knowledge or value) in order to make room for something else (a finite, properly human one).In Kant, however, these sacrificial themes are mostly implicit. Bubbio notes that the notion of sacrifice does not play any explicit role in Kant's theoretical philosophy, and plays only a minor role in Kant's practical philosophy, as when Kant speaks of sacrificing desire for duty. …

‘What Forced Men to Kill Their Own Kind in Religious Ceremonies’? Anthropology and Metaphysics of Sacrifice in the Work of Georges Bataille and René Girard

Traditionally used to designate bloody rituals practiced in so-called ‘primitive societies’, the notion of sacrifice is commonly understood as a strategic investment in which the renunciation of something valuable is compensated by a more advantageous return. Sharing such a functionalist perspective, social theorists describe sacrifice as a means to renewing social and/or religious bonds through the transgression of social and/or religious boundaries. However, social theorists do not explain why men need to renew such bonds – i.e. what lies behind the human desire to unite with the divine and why violence exists in the first place – and ultimately leave unresolved the question of sacrifice’s deep origins. This article examines how two French theorists, namely Georges Bataille and Rene Girard, attempt to overcome the theoretical constraints faced by their predecessors and offer an innovative answer to the question of sacrifice’s deep origins, providing Western functionalist sacrifice theories with an unprecedented depth. To read or download this article, please follow this link: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1502384 DOI: 10.14324/111.2057-2212.053

“Talk of contracts”: Gift-giving vs. Reciprocity in James Joyce’s “A Mother”

Abstract This essay measures the extent to which gift-giving fails in an economy of reciprocity. Reading James Joyce’s story “A Mother” in terms of Derrida’s notion of the gift as “absolute loss,” I consider the implications of an economy of loss for Joyce’s notion of sacrifice. Thus, I argue that the absence of an economy of sacrifice integrating “absolute loss” engenders the zero-sum game at the heart of Dubliners. I depart from other readings of the short story in the context of an economy based on the ideal of balanced reciprocity, since these versions deny the pure gratuity of gift in its connotations of sacrifice and loss. While such theories form a good starting point for analyzing the “moral economy” of Dubliners, they tend to overlook the fact that the only means to counteract the paralysis resulting from reciprocity is through the suspension of the economy of exchange.

Sacrifice as Gift: Eucharist, Grace, and Contemplative Prayer in Maurice de La Taille. By MICHON M. MATTHIESEN.

T he German Reformer Martin Luther declared his aim to ‘rid the Mass of all that reeked of sacrifice’, but as the Danish theologian Gustaf Aulén and Regin Prenter convincingly demonstrated in the mid-twentieth century, Luther himself realized that the notion of sacrifice was itself too rooted in eucharistic origins to be entirely expunged. In Roman Catholic circles the notion of eucharistic sacrifice was revisited by Maurice de La Taille in his major work Mysterium Fidei , first published in French in 1921. An English translation, minus the third book which has never been translated, was published in 1940 and received mixed reviews. In this timely study Matthiesen presents a critical and tellingly appreciative account of La Taille’s work. In nine chapters, divided into three parts, the author sets out to reappraise La Taille’s work not only in relation to his original critics and retractors, but also by bringing it into conversation with the work of contemporary sacramental theologians such as Louis-Marie Chauvet. Matthiesen amply demonstrates how the root metaphor of sacrifice is robustly persistent and cannot be discounted in any systematic treatment of the topic of eucharistic theology. Further, the notion is shown to be firmly anchored in eucharistic practice and devotion. Matthiesen’s distinctive contribution is to present La Taille’s untranslated work on the contemplative mode of eucharistic participation, a horizon of meaning that has been expounded by Godfried Cardinal Daneels in a collection of essays on liturgy in postmodernity (2003).

The Other Side of Sacrifice: Introduction

While contemporary philosophers have been content to declare the logical possibilities of sacrifice exhausted, to have finally ‘sacrificed sacrifice,’ for many people around the world the notion of sacrifice – whether religious, secular, or somewhere in between – remains absolutely central to their understanding of themselves, their relations with others, and their place in the world. From religion to economics, and from politics to the environment, sacrificial tropes frequently emerge as key means of mediating and propagating various forms of power, moral discourse, and cultural identity. This paper lays out reasons for retaining sacrifice as an analytical concept within anthropology, and argues for the importance of a renewed focus on the ‘other side of sacrifice’, as a means of understanding better how sacrifice emerges beyond ritual and enters into the full gamut of social life.

Kant’s sacrificial turns

This paper addresses the role of the notion of sacrifice in Kant’s theoretical philosophy, practical philosophy, and in his account of religion. First, I argue that kenotic sacrifice, or sacrifice as ‘withdrawal’, plays a hidden and yet important role in the development of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Second, I focus on Kant’s practical philosophy, arguing that the notion of sacrifice that is both implied and explicitly analyzed by Kant is mainly suppressive sacrifice. However, Kant’s account is fundamentally ambiguous, as sometimes the kenotic meaning of sacrifice seems to resurface, especially in the context of Kant’s discussion of the happiness of others as an end in itself. Because religious notions are regarded by Kant as necessary transitional forms (Darstellungen) to be used to make moral ideas applicable to the world, I then scrutinize Kant’s view of sacrifice as an improper symbol, and I analyze Kant’s arguments for such a dismissal and discuss the subject matter in recent literature. Finally, I examine the role of sacrifice in Kant’s account of Christ as the prototype of pure moral disposition. I conclude by arguing that Kant indeed grasped the importance of including kenotic dynamics in practical philosophy but was somehow unable or unwilling to integrate it into the formal grounding of his ethics. This tension, however, effectively provides an entry point for features that can be found in the post-Kantians.

Sacrifice In Hegel's Phenomenology Of Spirit

In this paper I rely on recent literature that emphasises the importance of recognition in Hegel's philosophy in order to apply the recognition-theoretic approach to the notion of sacrifice in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Firstly, I conduct a preliminary analysis by examining the general meaning of sacrifice as a form of determinate negation. Secondly, I focus on two phenomenological moments (the struggle between ‘faith’ and ‘pure insight’, and the cult) in order to answer the question, ‘Is a real (effective and unselfish) sacrifice possible?’ Finally, I argue that sacrifice should be considered as a Darstellung, and I explain the twofold connection between sacrifice and recognition. I conclude that there is no sacrifice without recognition, and the process of recognition is intrinsically sacrificial.