Platon Research Articles

Whose life is it anyway? Shakespeare's prick

I had intended to argue in this essay that life writing is futile and to illustrate the argument with references to the reception history of Shakespeare's Sonnets, but after some reading in the she...

Friends with Benefits: Vermont's Relationship Classifications and the Common Benefit Clause

Vermonters share a variety of personal, emotional, and economic bonds. They forge these bonds by choice and by chance. Platonic friends live together for companionship; strangers live together for economic convenience. Onto this panoply of relationships the State of Vermont imposes three mutually exclusive classifications for legal recognition. Every relationship, no matter how diverse, is eligible for one set of benefits or none at all. This unequal distribution of benefits does not comport with the Vermont Supreme Court's interpretation of the common benefit clause of the Vermont Constitution. This paper argues that it is time for Vermont to recognize and support close personal relationships, whatever form they take.

Platonic crystals: Bloch bands, neutrality and defects

We consider the properties of flexural waves in a periodically-constrained thin elastic plate. A square array of rigid pins is embedded into the plate. We show that such a system supports a stop band commencing at zero frequency, and we evaluate analytically the frequency limits of its first three bands. We show that each band has neutral directions, in which its dispersion relation and group velocity coincide with those of two corresponding plane waves. We construct the stop band Green’s functions and analyse strongly localized defect modes, and we also find the frequency of the resonant defect mode lying in the first band gap.

Dishes (review)

Reviewed by: Dishes Elizabeth Bush Wallace, Rich. Dishes; Viking, 2008 [160p] ISBN 978-0-670-01139-1 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 10–12 Dad’s only in his late thirties, pretty young for the father of a twenty-year-old, and he’s always hovered somewhere off on the margins of Danny’s life. This summer, though, he gets Danny a kitchen help job at Dishes, where he tends bar, and Danny hopes they’ll get to hang out and know each other better there. Dad, however, turns out to be too busy chasing his own slipping youth to do the father thing very well; paternal words of wisdom on offer are “If you can’t get laid in Ogunquit, you’re not trying very hard.” Not that this sounds bad to Danny; frankly, he has his eye on Mercy, a waitress at another local establishment, and platonic friendship is not part of his plan. Mercy, though very interested, has some reservations about Danny’s sexual orientation, since he gets along so well with the openly gay waitstaffers and patrons at Dishes. There’s not much going on here plotwise, and the slim novel plays out like a prime-time sitcom as the audience watches Danny chase Mercy, Hector lust after studly, cold-hearted Chase, pudgy, sweet-tempered Sal pine for Hector, and Dad fondly recall a time when he hit on Mercy, even though he’s now settling into a relationship with Sonia. What this title lacks in substance, though, it makes up in affable randiness, and older teens looking for a quick read with fauxmosexual appeal have come to the right place. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Excessive reassurance seeking, depression, and interpersonal rejection: A meta-analytic review.

Coyne's (1976a, 1976b) interactional theory of depression predicts positive associations between excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) and both depression and interpersonal rejection. A growing body of research has supported the ERS model, but this work has yet to be systematically reviewed. A meta-analysis of 38 studies (N = 6,973) revealed an aggregate effect size (r) of .32 between ERS and concurrent depression. Moderator analyses showed effect sizes were significantly stronger for studies with self-report measures, compared with interviews, and for samples with higher percentages of women and were marginally stronger for studies with community samples, compared with clinical samples. A second meta-analysis of 16 studies yielded a weighted mean effect size of .14 between ERS and concurrent rejection, with studies assessing target-reported rejection showing stronger effect sizes than studies assessing informant-reported rejection and studies examining romantic relationships yielding marginally stronger effect sizes than studies examining nonromantic relationships. Prospective studies are qualitatively reviewed. Results support the ERS model (with several important caveats) but underscore the need for methodological diversity in future research.

O ciúme em “Sarapalha”

O estudo do “ciúme”, paixão que se manifesta no conto “Sarapalha”, de João Guimarães Rosa, é objeto de análise deste trabalho. Os pressupostos teóricos são os da semiótica francesa. Objetiva-se descrever a dimensão sintática do ciúme, que revela a intensidade do sofrimento dos sujeitos afetados pela paixão – Primo Ribeiro e Primo Argemiro – em relação à perda do objeto-sujeito amado, Prima Luíza, para um rival comum. Busca-se descrever também o esquema passional canônico do ciúme na cena enunciativa, que capta o momento da revelação de Argemiro a Ribeiro a respeito do amor platônico que nutrira por Luíza. Ribeiro, ciumento caracterizado pelo apego exclusivo, assume o papel do observador avaliador social e não perdoa Argemiro, apesar de o papel de rival, que ele atribui ao primo, ser uma construção de seu imaginário.
 
 Palavras chave: Paixão. Ciúme. Esquema passional canônico.

Platão e os Guaranis: uma análise da obra de Joseph Perramás à luz das utopias européias renascentistas e das teorias ilustradas sobre o Novo Mundo

This article analyzes the work Platon y los Guaranies , written by the Jesuit, Joseph Perramas in 1793, after many years living among the Guaranis. It intends to establish a comparison between Perramas, some Renaissance utopias (More, Campanella) and especially some theories on the New World by European Enlightenment philosophers, published in the second half of the eighteenth century, whose presupposition and conclusion were the inferiority of the American continent in comparison with Europe. It argues that, although Perramas considered an opponent of the Enlightenment, he incorporated much of its reasoning and, in his defense of the Jesuit missions among the Guaranis, he is sophisticated enough to use the arguments of European authors against each other in order to better prove his own theory. Keywords: Joseph Perramas, Guarani missions, dispute around the New World, Jesuits, Enlightenment.

De l'intime à la fiction : une ébauche en français de Polin´ka Saks d'Aleksandr Družinin

От интимного к вымыслу : набросок Полиньки Сакс А. Дружинина на французском языке Публикация четырех неизданных текстов А. В. Дружинина, написанных по-французски (из РГАЛИ); - Роман в письмах, Платоническая любовь (1842), являющийся первым наброском Полиньки Сакс (1847), в котором обманутый влюбленный мстит, следуя советам черта; - Отрывок неизвестной пьесы, в котором рассказывается о мщении ребенка; - Стихотворение 1842 г. об «обманчивых иллюзиях»; - Пролог к Полиньке Сакс, написанный под Рабле. Первые три текста имеют общую автобиографическую основу (обманутая любовь), и представляют разные более или менее остраненные виды литературного переложения интимного опыта. В них доминирует мотив мщения, тогда как в Полиньке Сакс оно будет преодолено великодушием.

Drinking to regulate negative romantic relationship interactions: The moderating role of self-esteem

A 30-day diary study examined the relations among trait self-esteem, negative romantic relationship interactions, and alcohol consumption. Multilevel analyses revealed that people with low trait self-esteem (compared with people with high trait self-esteem) drank more on days when they experienced more negative relationship interactions with their romantic partners. In addition, daily increases in state self-esteem buffered people with low trait self-esteem from the desire to drink in response to negative romantic relationship interactions. In contrast, participants with high and low self-esteem both decreased their drinking in response to negative non-romantic relationship events, but people with low self-esteem decreased their drinking less. These findings suggest that people with low trait self-esteem may drink as a way to regulate unfulfilled needs for acceptance.

Plato's Symposium: issues in interpretation and reception

In his Symposium, Plato crafted a set of speeches in praise of love that has influenced writers and artists from antiquity to the present. Early Christian writers read the dialogue's 'ascent passage' as a vision of the soul's journey to heaven. Ficino's commentary on the Symposium inspired poets and artists throughout Renaissance Europe and introduced 'a Platonic love' into common speech. Themes or images from the dialogue have appeared in paintings or sketches by Rubens, David, Feuerbach, and La Farge, as well as in musical compositions by Satie and Bernstein. The dialogue's view of love as 'desire for eternal possession of the good' is still of enormous philosophical interest in its own right. Nevertheless, questions remain concerning the meaning of specific features, the significance of the dialogue as a whole, and the character of its influence. This volume brings together an international team of scholars to address such questions.

Men, Sex, and Homosociality

Male-male social bonds have a powerful influence on the sexual relations of some young heterosexual men. Qualitative analysis among young men aged eighteen to twenty-six in Canberra, Australia, documents the homosocial organization of men's heterosexual relations. Homosociality organizes men's sociosexual relations in at least four ways. For some of these young men, male-male friendships take priority over male-female relations, and platonic friendships with women are dangerously feminizing. Sexual activity is a key path to masculine status, and other men are the audience, always imagined and sometimes real, for one's sexual activities. Heterosexual sex itself can be the medium through which male bonding is enacted. Last, men's sexual storytelling is shaped by homosocial masculine cultures. While these patterns were evident particularly among young men in the highly homosocial culture of a military academy, their presence also among other groups suggests the wider influence of homosociality on men's sexual and social relations.

Invisible Cords and Ties That Bind

SUMMARY This short piece rethinks compulsory heterosexuality through an examination of the invisibility of the erotics of female friendship. The author uses narrative to investigate the privileges of straight relationships and their impact on queer forms of relating. Heterosexism reifies the boundaries between platonic friendships and erotic relationships so that the contested space between the two is erased. What might the landscape of these in-between spaces look like?

The boundaries between attachment and personality: Associations across three levels of the attachment network

This research examined the associations between measures of sociotropic and autonomous personality, romantic attachment anxiety and avoidance, and corresponding attachment ratings across a range of different specific relationships with people whom participants regularly interacted (including romantic partners, friends, family members, and colleagues). Analyses using hierarchical linear modeling showed that sociotropy and autonomy were directly associated with respective ratings of relationship-specific anxiety and avoidance within non-romantic relationships. In contrast, domain-specific romantic attachment predicted relationship-specific attachment with romantic (but not non-romantic) partners, and, as hypothesized, mediated the associations between sociotropy and autonomy and relationship-specific attachment within this domain. Implications for the operationalization of sociotropy and autonomy as broad-bandwidth (personality-level) measures that assess more global summaries of regularities in the same dual dimensions identified in the attachment literature (i.e., attachment anxiety and avoidance) are discussed.

Expectations and Outcomes with Gastric Bypass Surgery

Bariatric surgery is widely accepted as the effective treatment option for morbid obesity. However, the extant literature does not provide mental health clinicians with consistent guidance for evaluating candidates for surgery, nor for preparing patients for postsurgical adjustment. Among both bariatric clinicians and patients, there are commonly endorsed expectations about who will do well postoperatively and what the psychosocial impact of the surgery and weight loss will be. The current study surveyed our patient population regarding the accuracy of these expectations. Medical charts were reviewed and surveys mailed to all 194 patients who had undergone the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP) at University of New Mexico Hospital prior to April 2003. Surveys explored patients' expectations and actual experiences with RYGBP and the subsequent changes in their physical and psychosocial status. Completed surveys received from 47.9% of the patients reported significant improvements in physical health, emotional status, and binge eating. These improvements were seen across the entire sample, regardless of the presence of preoperative psychological distress, and were unrelated to the degree of weight loss. Professional and non-romantic relationships benefited from the impact of weight loss, but romantic relationships appeared unaffected. There were no significant changes in occupational status. The impact of bariatric surgery appears sufficiently potent to negate whatever preoperative differences might otherwise affect weight management. It may be time for the field to cease its search for surgical outcome predictors and focus instead on improving postoperative support.

:Lyric Poetry: Etna

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), scholar and critic, was one of the most admired Latinists of his day. After some years at the court of Urbino, where he exchanged Platonic love letters with Lucrezia Borgia, he moved to Rome and served as secretary to Leo X (1513-1520). Later he retired to Padua and a life of letters. He was made a cardinal in 1539. The poems in this volume come from all periods of his life and reflect both his erudition and his wide-ranging friendships. This verse edition is the first time they have been translated into English. This volume also includes the prose dialogue Etna, an account of Bembo's ascent of Mt. Etna in Sicily during his student days.

Religiosity, Relationship Quality, and Other Determinants of Living Arrangements Among Cohabitating and Other Unmarried First-Time Mothers One Year After Childbirth

This study of unmarried first-time mothers and their children's fathers (n= 600) was based on data from the Fragile Families Study. Greater religiosity among unmarried fathers was found to increase the odds of marrying vis-à-vis cohabitating with their children's mothers one year after childbirth. Fathers who cited “spending time together” often as a source of conflict were more likely to be in a cohabitating relationship than to marry. Mothers who reported that they were more distrustful of men were more likely to be in visiting (romantic but living apart) or in non-romantic relationships than to marry. Findings suggested that unmarried first-time mothers seeking stable relationships with fathers of their children could benefit from intervention efforts that focus on religious characteristics and quality of relationships of the parents.

Working models of romantic attachment and the subjective quality of social interactions across relational contexts

AbstractTwo diary studies examined the effects of domain‐specific representations of romantic relationships (assessed using the Relationship Questionnaire in Study 1 and the Revised Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire in Study 2) on the subjective quality of social interactions across four relational contexts: those with a romantic partner, family member, platonic friend, or acquaintance/other. In both studies, domain‐specific romantic attachment, particularly attachment avoidance, was more strongly related to subjective experiences of social interactions involving a romantic partner than those with family members, platonic friends, or acquaintances/others. These results complement previous diary research using earlier categorical measures of attachment and elaborate upon the contextual effects of the attachment behavioral system in naturally occurring social interactions with different relational partners. The conditions under which working models of different relationship domains should influence interpersonal functioning are discussed, and a context‐congruence hypothesis of attachment effects, which encompasses the current findings and generates further predictions, is detailed.

Hofmannsthal. Skizzen zu seinem Bild by Ulrich Weinzierl

Reviews more secular contemporaries in his search for answers to broader, existential questions drawn from theJewish spiritual world. In an especially insightful essay,Mark Gelber probes how interfaces between Young Vienna and the lesser-known Young Jewish Poetic Movement, two streams in Viennese literature normally regarded as completely separate, call into question the viability of 'Young Vienna' as a category in itsown right. Through discussion of both texts and their reception, Gelber explains how the writings of Stefan Zweig and Richard Beer-Hofmann, as members of both groups, were incorporated into various literary strategies with differing goals, such as the promotion of Zionism or attempts to create unified, modern, Jewish national expressions. By examining how interpretations of Young Vienna and Young Jewish texts shifted significantly according to the sites inwhich they appeared, whether in journals intended for a Jewish audience or as part ofmore general Viennese publications, Gelber's thought-provoking analysis questions the extent towhich Jewish' aspects of any literary or cultural movement can truly be separated from other, broader concerns. His essay, along with a number of others, provides a solid basis for further inquiries into the literature of the period from other critical perspectives such as gender and class. Collectively, thisvolume reveals that explorations ofJewish identity, spirituality and anti-Semitism in the texts and narrative histories of Young Vienna writers continue to be relevant in examinations of the literature of thefin de si?cleand reminds us that the insightful questioning of standard frameworks of literary analysis alongside new textual interpretations can lead to even greater insight into the complexities of theYoung Vienna group. Whitman College Lisa Silverman Hofmannsthal Skizzen zu seinem Bild. By Ulrich Weinzierl. Vienna: Zsolnay. 2005. 319 pp. 21,50. isbn 3-552-05340-9. We have no Hofmannsthal biography. Critics apparently have taken to heart Hofmannsthal's dictum 'Wer eine Biographie macht, stellt sich gleich' ('Ad me ipsum'). Weinzierl does not claim that his highly readable study,modestly labelled 'sketches' in the subtitle, is a substitute for a biography, but it is the first extensive discussion that does not focus on Hugo von Hofmannsthal's works but rather on various aspects of his personal life and character. Among these Weinzierl singles out his ambivalent attitude to his Jewish heritage, his mostly unreciprocated attraction to the nobility and his early homoerotically charged friendships (Weinzierl prefers the term 'homophil'), his relations with other Young Vienna writers, the friendships he formed later in his life, and last but not least his courtship of and marriage with Gerty Schlesinger, and his platonic relationship with Ottonie Gr?fin Degenfeld-Schonburg. The book is rounded off by a discussion of Hofmannsthal's relationship with his children ? Christiane, Franz and Raimund. In exploring these major themes Weinzierl draws on Hofmannsthal's correspondence, notes and diaries, on statements and recollections of contemporaries, and on unpublished materials; the last notably include letters AUSTRIAN STUDIES, I4, 20 6 361 tohis parents and toGerty Schlesinger, as well as portions ofHarry Graf Kessler's diaries. Other aspects that are touched upon or discussed in some detail include Hofmannsthal's symbiotic relation with his mother (he was convinced that he would die inMarch just as she had done), his military service (it partly appealed to him because he was serving in the prestigious Dragonerregiment AlbrechtPrinz von Preu?en No 6 with itsaristocratic flair), his behaviour in World War I (he was saved from the trenches though the intervention of friends but tried to put a heroic mask on his actions), his wartime patriotic writings (rightly labelled 'Brokatprosa' byWeinzierl [p. 68]), the conscious creation of a kind of aristocratic lifestyle in Rodaun (Rudolf Alexander Schr?der, half in jest, referred to him as Count Rodaun), his obsession with money (according to Kessler's diary he talked incessantly about money), and the points of contact between him and the radical right. Hofmannsthal's attitude to his Jewish heritage, which I first analysed in a 1993 article ('Zwischen Bewu?tsein und Verdr?ngung. Hofmannsthals j?disches Erbe', Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 67 [1993], 466-83), is delineated in all its complexity. It spanned the entire spectrum from an early identification with his Jewish heritage (p. 31) to troubling outbursts of anti-Semitic...

Plato's dialectic at play: argument, structure, and myth in the Symposium

Contents Introduction 1. Apollodorus's Prologue: An Imitation of an Imitation 1.1 Historical Frame 1.2 Apollodorus and Mimetic Narrative 1.3 Force of Hybris 1.4 Malakos versus Manikos: Soft or Mad? 1.5 Anachronisms? 2. Aristodemus's Prologue: Destruction and Transformation of the Factual Frame of Reference 2.1 Story 2.2 Sufficiency and Beauty: Emerging Criteria for Judgment 2.3 Spatial Order? 2.4 Mimetic versus Hubristic: Destruction of the Factual Narrative 2.5 Sophistic Education in the Context of Other Dialogues: Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic 2.6 Between Religious Observance and the Cycle of Opposites 2.7 The Father of the 3. Order of the Speeches: Formulating the Problem 3.1 Eros 3.2 Encomium 3.3 Problem of the Significance of the Early Speeches 4. From Character to Speech: Early Speeches and Their Significance 4.1 Phaedrus: Ardent Apprentice, but Confused Mythologue 4.2 Pausanias: Sophistic Sociologue 4.3 Hiccups and Eryximachus, the Homogenic Doctor-Scientist 4.4 Aristophanes: Poet as Educator 4.4.1 Aristophanes' Speech and Socrates' Criticism of Mimetic Art in the Republic 4.4.2 Possibility of Anachronism and Plato's Vanishing Signature 4.4.3 Aristophanes' Speech as a Parody of Philosophical Dialectic 4.4.4 Aristophanes' Speech and Individual Identity 4.4.5 Aristophanes' Hiccups Revisited 4.5 Agathon: Sophistic Theologue as the Climax of an Unselfcritical Tradition 4.5.1 Advance over the Previous Speakers? 4.5.2 Agathon as Theologue Without Need 4.5.3 Shadow of the Good: Agathon's Portrait in the Context of the Republic 4.6 Conclusion 5. Diotima-Socrates: Mythical Thought in the Making 5.1 Introduction: Problem 5.2 Elenchus of Agathon and the Question of Truth 5.3 Role of Diotima 5.4 Eros-Daimon 5.5 Diotima and the Art of Mythmaking Revisited: Birth of Eros 5.6 Relation or Substance? 5.7 Rhetoric and Dialectic 5.8 Criticism of Aristophanes and Agathon 5.9 Curious Case of Procreation in the Beautiful 5.10 Concluding Sections of the Lesser Mysteries 5.11 Preliminary Conclusion 6. Greater Mysteries and the Structure of the Symposium So Far 6.1 Movement of Ascent: Structure 6.2 Movement of Ascent and the Earlier Speeches 6.3 Immortality and God-Belovedness 6.4 Overall Conclusion 6.4.1 Platonic Love: View So Far 7. Alcibiades and the Conclusion of the Symposium: Test and Trial of Praise 7.1 Figure of Dionysus and the Face of Socrates 7.2 Role of Alcibiades 7.3 Test of Praise 7.4 Trial of Praise 7.5 Eros, the Tyrant, and His Revelers 7.6 Identity and Diversity: Uniqueness of Socrates 7.7 Logoi Opened Up: An Image for the Symposium? 7.8 Concluding Scenes: Rest and the Self-Motion of Thought-Socrates Standing Seeking 8. Conclusion: Plato's Dialectic at Play 8.1 Character, Voice, and Genre 8.2 Bakhtin and the Dialogical Character of Novelistic Discourse 8.3 Symposium as the First Novel of Its Kind in History 8.4 Plato's Dialectic at Play: Art, Reason, and Understanding 8.5 Plato's Positive View of Art 8.6 Structure, Myth, and Argument 8.7 Soul-Body and Human Identity 8.8 Platonic Love and Plato Select Bibliography Index

Adolescent Peer Networks as a Context for Social and Emotional Support

The findings reported here emerged from a larger study of the social support networks and help-seeking experiences of low-income, Mexican-origin adolescents in San Diego, California. This larger study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and included special attention to those instances in which participating adolescents found in their friends the support necessary to withstand emotionally challenging circumstances (e.g., school-related problems) and to cope in effective ways. The analyses presented in this article highlight such instances but also examine those instances in which peer relationships failed to provide the safety and consistent support adolescents sought. Among the key findings, we describe how platonic (non-romantic) relationships between adolescent males and females emerged as an important avenue for acquiring the multiple and positive benefits of mature adolescent friendship (e.g., emotional support), particularly for the males. Study participants who reported platonic friendships also tended to report ample and diversified peer networks.