Renewal Of Culture Research Articles

Real Presence: The <i>Numina</i> in Italian American Poetry

In an influential essay, Dana Gioia asserts: full range and quality of Italian-American poetry ... remains inadequately understood in any critical environment (n. pag.). With few exceptions, environmental literary criticism has remained indifferent to ethnic literature, in part, I suspect, because nature writing and the literature of environmental crisis is thoroughly Anglo-American; thus, when ecocritics enter multicultural discourse, tends to mean Anglo. Italian American poetry has been lost at the margins of whiteness. This is not surprising because, as scholarship in Whiteness Studies has shown, many of the peoples now considered ethnics--Ashkenazi Jews, southern Italians, the Irish--were not entirely when they arrived in the United States during the great migrations that ended in 1924. (1) The assimilation of these groups into middle-class whiteness after World War If--the creation of dark white ethnicities--has occluded the difference between immigrants and groups present during the continental phase of nation-building. (2) For American Indians, African Americans, Chicanos, and Anglo-Americans, the creation of the American was a shared, if agonistic, experience. The dramas of Emancipation, the Indian Wars, and the annexation of the Southwest coincide with the creation of nature's nation in the narrative of Manifest Destiny, the new multicultural history, and the environmentalist narratives of industrial devastation and conservationist repentance? For immigrants whose influx peaked in the early-twentieth century, however, the question of participation in these racialized histories of nature remains open. Can the narratives, plots, tropes, and aesthetic principles that drive the literature of these earlier groups account for the post-immigrant relationship to American environments? What new forms of cultural poiesis have been fashioned by the environment of diaspora, by the interchange between old and new immigrant worlds? In this essay, I will begin to answer these questions relative to Italian American poetry by considering the work of John Ciardi and Diane di Prima. If, as Josephine Gattuso Hendin asserts, [e]thnic heritage is history in action and subjects the fact of immigration to a scrutiny of its ongoing (13), it makes sense to ask what difference that heritage has made to poets who encountered the United States as a diasporic environment. To put it another way, we can scrutinize the ongoing effects of Italian heritage on American poets in their encounter with the presence, or presences, of the nonhuman world. From such an angle, we discover a striking dynamic in Ciardi's and di Prima's poetry: an encounter with the numina--divine powers the spirits of place, that founds a theophanic aesthetics quite distinct from the Emersonian transparent eyeball, in which the nature of the other is subsumed in the All; from the Dickinsonian microcosmos, in which Vesuvius is contained by the domus; and from T. S. Eliot's adventures in Indic religion, in which rivers are, necessarily, brown gods. I call this poetic principle the aesthetic of real presence because the voice of the poet arises from an encounter with a creature whose role as an instance of the divine roots the diasporic speaker in place, despite any claim of Anglo-American dominion. Real presence is, of course, a reference to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a Christian idea of incarnation through liturgical action. I suggest, however, that the Catholic heritage of Italian American culture can be used to talk about religious experiences that are not strictly Christian. The incarnational imperative to encounter the divine in the world of the senses through the mediation of art radiates from the official sacraments, but is not confined to them. Aisthesis, the sensory experience of the divine in or as a creature, founds ethnesis, the production and renewal of culture. The idea of the Mediterranean peasant and her/his offspring as closer to nature is not so much displaced as revealed to be an alternate origin for civilization itself. …

Superstition or Modernity?

Superstition or Modernity?

RELIGIOUS REASONS AND POLITICAL ARGUMENTATION

ABSTRACTIn Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul II calls for a renewal of culture to combat the culture of death. He criticizes various aspects of a pluralistic, liberal society—a type of society that he claims is based on moral relativism and a view of democracy that becomes a substitute for moral law. He maintains that such a view trivializes moral choice. In this essay I argue that John Rawls's notion of a liberal society as an overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines can avoid relativism while allowing for reasonable debate among opposed positions. While Rawls maintains that comprehensive doctrines, including religions, should employ a form of public reason that is not a unique feature of any one comprehensive doctrine, I argue that this requirement is too strong. One is often justified in appealing to features of comprehensive doctrines other than one's own, features that are unique to the doctrines themselves. Such an appeal does not pretend to be neutral as public reason would seem to be. In the final section of the paper I discuss some suggestions made by the Pope regarding actions in civil society that are independent of debates about legal change and suggest some ways in which they might contribute to desired cultural transformation.

‘Intelligent Design’ Poses continued threat to science

Science education in the United States has been the subject of more than usual attention, especially since 1 August 2005 when President George W. Bush stoked the fire by responding to a reporter's question about the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ (ID) in science classrooms by saying that “both sides ought to be properly taught…so people can understand what the debate is about.”Prior to the 20 December 2005 ruling against the teaching of ID in public schools, by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III in the Pennsylvania case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, anti‐evolutionists and ID proponents seemed to be enjoying a new momentum in the aftermath of President Bush's statements. William Dembski, senior fellow with the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture in Seattle, Wash., a group that supports intelligent design, wrote on 4 August 2005 at http://www.designinference.com that President Bush “is to be commended for his courage, wisdom, and foresight” for supporting the teaching of ID alongside evolution.

Irving Babbitt's "New Humanism" and Its Potential Value to Humanistic Psychology.

The New Humanism (1900–1940) is a cultural and intellectual call to renewal of American culture and academy that is based on classical Eastern and Western sources. This article provides a biographical sketch of Irving Babbitt, the movement's founder, and an introduction to the major ideas behind it. Particular attention is paid to Babbitt's unique anthropology and methodology. It is argued that an acquaintance with the New Humanism, as well as its similarities and differences with humanistic psychology, can be particularly valuable for psychologists working in the humanistic tradition.

Modernity, Postcolonialism, and Theatrical Form in Uzbekistan

In this article Laura Adams examines cultural change in Uzbekistan through the evolution of European-style theater during the twentieth century. The adoption of this theatrical form was part of a broader project of cultural modernization undertaken first by the Jadids and then by the Soviets. It was also an example of a colonial hierarchy of cultures, which deemed European forms to be more advanced than indigenous ones. In spite of a pervasive discourse about the renewal of national culture, however, European-style theater continues to be strongly supported in Uzbekistan today. Adams argues that both modernization and colonialism contributed to an internationalist orientation among Uzbekistan's cultural elites. This orientation makes an investment in indigenous cultural forms less desirable, since they are only intelligible on a local level. European-style theater, however, enhances the value of national culture both by marking its modernity and by communicating national content in an internationally understood and valued medium.

The “Bosom of Proof”: Criminal Justice and the Renewal of Oral Culture during the French Revolution

Just days into the most widely publicized trial of the Directory, the conspiracy trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals, lead defender Pierre-Francois Real stopped the examination of the first witness to demand that stenographers cease transcribing testimony. The stenographers, whose presence in a revolutionary courtroom was unprecedented, had been working steadily since the prosecutors’ opening statements. “Citizens,” Real interrupted, “the law contains a very important passage. Article 352 states that: ‘. . . the witness will testify orally and his deposition may not be written.’” Invoking arguments made at the beginning of the French Revolution, when the Constituent Assembly created the criminal jury and established the conditions under which it would function, Real warned, “The law insists that the system of written depositions not be restored in any way. That system will undoubtedly return if any means are used to save testimony given orally.”1 Real’s opponent, prosecutor Rene Viellart, denied that a courtroom transcript would vitiate the oral quality of the trial. Looking across the channel, toward the jury that had served as the constituents’ model, he argued: “In England . . . where, as well, the founding principle of the jury is that testimony be heard orally[,] . . . there are stenographers to record witnesses’ statements. Here is the account of the trial of my lord Preston and Sir Acton[,] . . . printed by order of the Constituent Assembly when it wanted to establish the jury in France. And look! . . . We see statements, the questioning of witnesses, the responses of the accused.”2 This exchange was resolved in the short term by the court’s decision to

In the shadow of Goethe: Wittgenstein's intellectual project

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) had considerable influence on the ‘modern’ world but did not consider himself part of it. His search for a way of thinking, to give a deeper understanding than the science of his day, has considerable analogies with that of Goethe. He was less sanguine than Goethe about the possibility of a renewal of culture in his own day but his philosophical work, in its stress on restraint and concreteness, is permeated by the ethical ideals that he attempted to realize in his life and that of his friends. He also shows some kinship with Goethe's non-theistic mysticism. His philosophical work is a guide that, perhaps rightly, requires readers to find the answer for themselves.

Intelligent Design, Darwinism, and the Philosophy of Public Education

Intelligent Design, Darwinism, and the Philosophy of Public Education John Angus Campbell The present issue of Rhetoric & Public Affairs is dedicated to exploring the question of Intelligent Design (ID). ID is at once an argument against the orthodox Darwinian claim that mindless forces—principally variation, inheritance, natural selection, and sufficient time—can account for the principal features of the biological world; a critique of the prevailing philosophy of science that limits explanation to purely physical or material causes; and a public movement to make Darwinism, its evidence, philosophic presuppositions, and rhetorical tactics a matter of informed, broad, and spirited public discussion. Central to all three aspects of ID— as argument, critique, and movement for public debate over Darwinism—is its claim that if science education is to be other than state-sponsored propaganda a clear and principled distinction must be drawn between empirical science and the patently materialist philosophy that drives contemporary Darwinian theories of origin and development.1 Because the ID movement is just now coming into public awareness—chiefly through the tireless publication, speaking, and debating of its leader, Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, and the publication of Lehigh University biochemist Mike Behe's Darwin's Black Box—its more detailed technical arguments are not yet well known.2 Since a central aim of Rhetoric & Public Affairs is to engage public issues and not just wait for them to happen (and to awaken the postmodern university from its theory-induced spectatorish political torpor) our current issue provides Intelligent Design a forum. Our aim is not to advocate ID but to advance public understanding of the nature of science, science policy, and the rhetoric of science. The best plan for the present issue would have been to offer equal time to representatives of Darwinism. Because of limitations of space, and because the Darwinian position is well known, we have given the floor to the "newcomers"—though intelligent design is hardly new—and have invited six respondents representing a variety of John Angus Camphell is Professor of Communication at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, and a Fellow in the Discovery Institute Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture in Seattle, Washington. He is immediate past president of the American Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology. © Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 1, No. 4, 1998, pp. 469-502 ISSN 1094-8392 470 Rhetoric & Public Affairs disciplinary perspectives to offer opinions, critiques, cautions, or rejoinders. In place of our regular book review section we have asked our rhetoric of science colleague Tom Lessl to write a review essay of recent works relevant to questions raised by ID, by Darwinism, and by the rhetorical dimensions of science. To set forth the case for ID we have asked the five, predominantly young philosophers and philosopher-scientists who are its chief architects, to make their case. The philosopher, scientist, and theologian Bill Dembski (Ph.D. Mathematics, University of Chicago, Ph.D. Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago, M.Div. Princeton Theological Seminary) will set forth the basic logic of ID. The philosopher and historian of science Steve Meyer (Ph.D. History and Philosophy of Science, St. Catherine's College, Cambridge), building on Dembski's argument, will review origin -of-life research and argue how the nature and specificity of information preclude Darwinian arguments based on chance, necessity, and deep time. The scientist and theologian Jonathan Wells (Ph.D. Religious Studies, Yale, Ph.D. Developmental Biology, University of California, Berkeley) and the philosopher-scientist Paul Nelson (Ph.D. Philosophy of Biology, University of Chicago), who is founding editor of the ID movement's journal Origins & Design, will take issue with Theodosius Dobzhanski's famous observation that "nothing in biology makes sense without evolution." The biochemist Mike Behe (Ph.D. Biochemistry, University of Pennsylvania) will conclude our ID forum by summarizing his case for the "irreducible complexity" of microbiological structures. Responding to these papers are the philosopher and rhetorician of science David Depew; the biochemist and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at California State University, Fullerton, Bruce Weber; law professor and ID founder Phillip Johnson; rhetorical critic and rhetorician of science Celeste M. Condit; philosopher of argument and rhetorician of...

The Indianness of Louise Erdrich's The Beet Queen: Latency as Presence

Ojibway (Chippewa/Anishnabeg)’ myth and ceremony in relation to Louise Erdrich’s fiction has been the subject of seminal literary study of her works. James McKenzie’s tracking of “the traditional Chippewa trickster hero and powerful spirit, Nanabozho,” or Nanapush, in Erdrich’s Love Medicine was written in evident distress at the lack of comprehension by early reviewers. McKenzie concludes, The pattern of the novel’s development in the June-GerryLipsha stories suggests not only the survival but also a renewal of Chippewa culture “in the wake of the catastrophe,” as Erdrich so aptly describes the case . . . . The novel knows and celebrates the human wealth of each of its separatecharacters as wellas thecollective wealthof theChippewa nation, a culture still present in the face of several centuries of murderous opposition.2 Ann Braley has documented Ojibway myth and ceremony in Love Medicine (1984),3 Ojibway Mother Earth characters, a Weendigo (the insatiable one), Odaemin (the culture’s first medicine man), Geezhig (a voyager to the Land of the Dead), Sky Woman, widespread water imagery reflecting Ojibway myth, and turtle and deer myth. Moreover, McKenzie and Lydia Schultz

LONGING FOR COMMUNITY: PHENOMENOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS AND THE DILEMMAS OF EUROPEAN CULTURE

Phenomenology enjoys striking popularity in Eastern Europe. For those concerned with phenomenology before the collapse of communism it was an antidote to Marxism in its Soviet version. Its popularity was due to the perhaps naive striving for a true philosophy not manipulated by politics, in that its idealism was interpreted as a protest against the materialistic degradation of the human being. What would Husserl say if he was told about this role of phenomenology? Perhaps he would it consider it as self-evident. His allegedly completely apolitical philosophy had political ambitions, since the struggle for phenomenology was for him not merely a philosophical discussion, but a political struggle with pragmatists, advocates of Realpolitik, nationalists and traditionalists. This paper analyses phenomenology as a radical social philosophy which aimed at the revolutionary renewal of European culture. Well-known for his inclination to work on details and for an arduous theoretical analysis, Husserl was not an advocate of small steps in politics. His political philosophy is then contrasted with that of Helmuth Plessner. From Plessner's point of view Husserl's programme can be seen as a manifestation of the striving for the abolition of society and its replacement by community. In his defence of society, Plessner developed a philosophy of the public sphere as a sphere of social roles, prestige ceremonial, tact and diplomacy, in which the absolute character of the Ego is negated in contact with others. The paper poses questions such as which of these philosophies is more adequate for our time and whether the way shown by Husserl in his programmatic writings is still open to us today.

La Vie culturelle sous Vichy ed. by Jean-Pierre Rioux

B o o k R ev iew s Nevertheless, this collection deals with a wide range of authors and topics, and it offers a reasonable overview of the conflicting esthetic and ideological currents of the period. Va n Ke l l y University o f Kansas Jean-Pierre Rioux, ed. L a V ie c u l t u r e l l e so u s V ic h y . Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1990. Pp. 412. This collection of sixteen essays, the culmination of a 1987 round table discussion at the Institut d’Histoire du Temps présent, explores cultural life in Vichy France, 1940-45. It gives special attention to the breaks and continuities between the Vichy regime and the Popular Front. Divided into three parts, the book opens with essays by H. Rousso and J.-P. Rioux that map out the issues in terms of a cultural politics of the State and of actual cultural practices of the population. W hat were the “ National Revolution’s” conception of culture and its attempts to implement it? How did the arts—painting, theater, film, radio —manage to retain their autonomy despite Vichy’s efforts? Why did the public flock to the theater, movies and art exhibits during the difficult years of penury, oppression and deprivation? Rioux’s essay points to three basic directions in the book’s understanding of French culture under Vichy: (1) a broadening of French curiosity and a mass consumer culture; (2) the decentralization (promoted by Vichy) o f cultural activities; (3) the affirma­ tion of new or renewed cultural practices (radio, film, theater, sports, fashion...) to be enjoyed by all rather than by an elite. La Vie culturelle sous Vichy repeatedly brings out the paradoxical benefits of the Vichy legacy—the way resourceful groups used Pétainist tradi­ tionalist ideology to open cultural activities to a wider French public—while simultaneous­ ly underscoring the repressive, abhorrent policies of the regime. The collection’s second section includes essays on Vichy’s censorship of the media (D. Peschanski); the development of enduring sports programs under Vichy (J.-L. GayLescot ); the broadening of the library network in France from the Bibliothèque Nationale to the war prisoners’ camps (N. Richter); the survival of modernist explorations in art alongside an “ art maréchal” (L. B. Dorléac); the creation of youth associations to foster a renewal of French culture—“ Jeune France” to promote young artists (V. Chabrol) and the “ Ecole d’Uriage” to form France’s future leaders (B. Comte); the Nazi influence on the theaters of Strasbourg (I. Bogen). P. Ory’s concluding essay on cultural politics makes the bold and convincing case that the lasting traces of Vichy’s “ popularisation culturelle” (par­ ticularly in education, sports programs and youth concerns) are a direct continuation of the Popular Front’s efforts. He also argues that Vichy’s traditionalist ideology inadvertently promoted modernist activities by stressing decentralization. In the third section, the essays consider the historian’s profession under Vichy (O. Dumoulin); the development of radiophonie art (H. Eck); French film’s curious golden age during the Occupation (F. Garçon); the success of theater in occupied Paris (S. Added); fashion under Vichy (D. Veillon); Marseilles, the artists’ and writers’ refuge (J.-M. Guiraud). Although these essays often bemoan the insufficiency of data available to the researcher, they nevertheless reach several interesting conclusions. Dumoulin demonstrates, for example, that the vast majority of professional historians during the war avoided using their profession either as a tool for resistance or for collaboration. F. Garçon effectively deconstructs the nostalgia for the supposed golden age of French film by showing that the French film industry’s success was in part due to the total elimination of any competition from Hollywood and Great Britain. He also points out that the plethora of film jobs during the war was a direct result of laws prohibiting Jews and foreigners from working. On the VOL. XXXIII, NO. 1 121 L ’E s pr it C réa te u r other hand, Garçon notes that, contrary to the French productions of the thirties in which anti-semitic caricatures and anglophobia were frequent, the French films...

The Renewal of Quebec's Distinct Legal Culture: The New Civil Code of Quebec

The Renewal of Quebec's Distinct Legal Culture: The New Civil Code of Quebec

John Oldham and the Renewal of Classical Culture

Preface A note on texts Prologue 1. Origins 2. Indirections 3. 1678: A Letter from the Country to a friend in Twon, The Desk, Poems on the Popish Plot 4. Horace: Horace His Art of Poetry, An Imitation of Horace Book I. Satyr IX, Two paraphrases from Horace: Carmina I.xxxi and II.civ 5. Juvenal: Juvenal in the seventeenth century, The Thirteenth Satyr of Juvenal, Imitated, A Satyr, in Imitation of the Third of Juvenal 6. Boileau: The Eighth Satyr of Monsieur Boileau, Imitated, A Satyr Touching Nobility: out of Monsieur Boileau, A Satyr Dissuading from Poetry, A Satyr addressed to a Friend Epilogue: To the Memory of Mr. Oldham Chronological table Notes Bibliography Index.

To Evangelize American Culture: A Franciscan Approach

ESSAYS TO EVANGELIZE AMERICAN CULTURE: A FRANCISCAN APPROACH The task of evangelizing American culture can be intimidating. Ours is a complicated way of living that seems impervious to the message of the Gospel. Moreover, many of us still suffer from that "immigrant inferiority" which cripples our ability to bring the insights of our faith to bear in the public order. This reflection is an attempt to overcome that intimidation and to suggest that the Franciscan vision offers some helpful ways of renewing our understanding of "work," an activity which sociologists and philosophers judge to be the key to a renewal of American life and culture.1 The first object of evangelization is ourselves. Before we presume to bear witness, we need to involve ourselves in the power of the Gospel. Secondly, we are commissioned to involve others in the power of the Gospel by helping them to construct new ways of thinking and doing things. As Francis showed during his "silent sermon"2 walking through Assisi with Brother Leo, we do this best by insinuating ourselves into the fabric of life, creating as imperceptibly as salt flavors and yeast makes rise a new vision and a new embodiment of God. When I was a novice I met a friar who collected the memorial cards my province issues when a friar dies. These cards are simply photos of the deceased with dates of birth, profession, and death inscribed on the back. I was only twenty-three and thought it weird that someone was so preoccupied with a somewhat morbid project like this. But today I have my own collection of such cards. Franciscans are a "community of memory" that is flesh and blood. As 1 Robert Bellah, ed. Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) 287-88. 2 Pirmin Hasenohrl, Meditations on the Rule and Life of the Friars Minor (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1945) II 473. IODANIEL MCLELLAN often as I look at these men, I come to a better sense of who I am. I realize that these men developed ways of thinking and doing that involved black Americans, Jamaicans, college students, Franciscan novices, New Jersey Catholics, and peoples of the Orient in the power of the Gospel. These men were cut from the same flesh and blood as ourselves. They came from the streets of Manhattan, the coal fields of Pennsylvania, the neighborhoods of Buffalo. But in their own time and place they learned to embody Someone that captivated me. Ghrough these men I came to know Jesus as Francis knew him. In a simple, straight-forward way, these friars had done what God gave them to do. I remember these men, not because I am sentimental (some I loved, some disappointed me), but because I dare not forget that God's pastoral care is still incarnate; I need to trust that flesh and blood, recreated in baptism, can transform the world. I can never forget that I live amid the stuff of creation which, however scarred by human sin, is also scarred with the vestigium Dei. This "community of memory" helps me never forget that the care of that scarred creation is work entrusted to me. Moreover, this community of memory is testimony that the work of evangelizing American culture can be successfully undertaken by those who are products of that culture. AMERICAN AND FRANCISCAN: HOW COMPATIBLE? Perhaps when we are asked to evangelize American culture out of our Franciscan heritage we might wonder what an 800-yearold tradition rooted in Umbria has to say to a way of life only 200 years old. It ought to be clear that an evangelizer needs to speak the language of those among whom he goes. The way a person walks, dresses, combs his hair, votes, spends her money, the art he admires, the movies she walks out of—all this is language. Language is a device for communicating meaning: the meaning of our thoughts, our feelings, our fears and hopes. Do we American Franciscans "speak" a language our fellow Americans can understand? Believing that actions, our habits of living, are our most powerful words, let us explore the possibility of Americans understanding the Gospel as it...

Reviews

Reviews John Oldham and the Renewal of Classical Culture . By PAUL HAMMOND . Pp. xii + 251 . Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne : Cambridge University Press , 1983 . £19.50. P. E. HEWISON P. E. HEWISON Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 32, Issue 2, June 1985, Pages 265–266, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/32-2-265 Published: 01 June 1985

REVIEWS

REVIEWS John Oldham and the Renewal of Classical Culture. By PAUL HAMMOND. Pp. xii+252. Cambridge: University Press, 1983. £19.50 net. GRAHAM MIDGLEY GRAHAM MIDGLEY Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume XXXVI, Issue 144, November 1985, Pages 570–572, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XXXVI.144.570 Published: 01 November 1985

Toward a Renewal of Culture

This writer suggests that the school has a moral impera tive to face up to society's problems and to exercise its unique capability for being the custodian of values. He discusses the three false gods of success, scientism, and efficiency.

Religion as An Instrument of Culture Change: The Problem of the Sects in the Soviet Union

The Russian Old Believer and sectarian movement, as it appears in history, can be thought of, in anthropological terms, as a nativistic movement: that is, a movement of resistance to outside (in this case Western) cultural influence, and a reaffirmation and renewal of the native culture. In this sense, the movement comprised Old Believers, with or without priests, and an assemblage of sects of indigenous origin—Dukhobors, Subbotniki, Molokans, Skoptsy, and others. During the first period of its existence, the Old Believer and sectarian movement, besides being a nativistic movement, was at the same time a focus of resistance to the regime, as any form of religious dissidence must be under an essentially theocratic state.