Imaginary Space Research Articles

Cosmopolitan Ethics and the Politics of Religious Identity in Leila Aboulela's Novels: an Interdisciplinary Perspective

Leila Aboulela is a prolific Anglophone Muslim writer whose narratives inscribe in the postmodernist tradition of literary production. She engages with Muslim religious identity renegotiations in a transnational imaginary space. Literary critics consider her writings as an arduous write back to the underpinning discourses of Islamophobia, which gained momentum in the metropolitan cities of the West in the aftermath of 9/11. In doing so, Leila Aboulela overstresses the religious identity at the expense of other forms of affiliation and identity. In my thesis, I will invite philosophers of cosmopolitanism across disciplines to account for the inverse relationship between constructing religious identity and cosmopolitan ethics.

Evocations of China in the Music of György Ligeti

This paper traces the shifting significance of China in the music of Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006). In early instances of chinoiserie from the 1940s—including a black-key piano exercise and incidental music for the puppet play Spring Flower—Ligeti resorts to pentatonic essentializing to evoke childlike visions of a fairytale Orient. A half-century later, in his 2000 song cycle Síppal, dobbal, nádiheged vel, China reemerges as a far more nuanced, though no less imaginary space. Ligeti’s settings of Chinese-themed verses by Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres function as coded expressions of alienation and foreignness from an exile composer separated from his homeland.

Blurred lines in AC Jordan’s novel Ingqumbo Yeminyanya (The Wrath of the Ancestors): a literary geography of factual and imaginary spaces

ABSTRACT This article serves to fill a theoretical lacuna in African language literary scholarship. To date there have been very few literary geographic analyses related to South African literature and there are none that deal with African language literature. The purpose and objective of this article is to apply theoretical aspects of literary geography to an isiXhosa novel, Ingqumbo Yeminyanya. This novel, written by AC Jordan is perhaps the best known and most widely read and translated novel written in isiXhosa. The authors of this article aim to contribute to postcolonial studies by reading the novel of A.C. Jordan spatially, using Hones’s conceptual framework of the novel as a spatial event, considering the complex relationship between the author, the text, and the readers. The background of the author and the historical circumstances that surround the writing of the novel are also explored to see how Jordan’s own spaces are reflected in the novel through characterization and other techniques. The core focus of the article lies in the descriptions and relationship to real or imaginary or in-between spaces and places in relation to the research question, namely how space and places are depicted in Ingqumbo Yeminyanya, as part of the spatial event.

Constitution and Jurisdiction in Neal Stephenson’s Speculative Fiction

A common feature of Neal Stephenson’s speculative fiction is the richly imagined political communities inhabited by his characters. Geographically defined constitutional states are reimagined, often with a focus on associations based on shared social identity or beliefs, as opposed to nation-state citizenship. Stephenson’s works offer an imaginative space for exploring possibilities of alternative political communities, and questions of constitution and jurisdiction. Modern territorially sovereign nation-states have presented constitutional scholars with a fixed framework. People sharing physical space constitute a political association stemming from a moment of legal constitution. Thus constituted, the nation-state authorises governmental entities to oversee the populace within the shared geographical space. Stephenson’s rich imagination offers constitutional scholarship an imaginary for exploring alternative conceptualisations of constitution and jurisdiction. This article proposes that recovery of medieval conceptualisations of overlapping networked jurisdictions might aid in sensemaking of models of political communities beyond the territorially sovereign nation-state.

Multispecies homescapes

This paper proposes a change in the conceptualisation of home, as part of a wider paradigmatic transformation in the understandings of the boundaries between humans and animals, and nature and culture. A new concept of multispecies homescapes is suggested, building on recent work on human–animal relationships as well as writings on the home in human geography. Multispecies homescapes are approached as imaginary spaces, including experiences of sharing home with other species, the limits and liminalities of homeness, and the loss of a multispecies home. Imagining home as multispecies will widen the scope of research beyond anthropocentric understandings of domestic space.

A Brief Analysis of the Perfect Integration of Narrative Elements and Space-time Construction

As a comprehensive art, film often has the dual attributes of time and space. "Time and space" is one of the most special and free features of film, and it is also the basic element and main content of film narrative, and it is also the necessary condition for the audience to establish the imagination space. From the perspective of narratology, this paper will analyse the text of several domestic films in terms of their thematic narrative space-time construction and the design features of narrative elements, study the specific integration and practical application of lens narrative and space-time construction, and through the examination and analysis of the film's thematic content, reveal the imaging expression and thinking mode of different films, so as to help people better understand and explore the narrative art of different contemporary films. Structure. The construction of film narrative space-time should become a basic instinct of creative practice, conveying the performance of narrative space-time in specific works and clarifying the diverse forms and nature of the film and television means presented, as well as putting forward further effective suggestions on the time-space dimension and elemental shaping of film narrative in line with the requirements of the times, and endeavouring to incorporate this kind of experience into the creation of more specific film narrative practice in the future. The film will also endeavour to incorporate such experiences into the creation of more specific film narrative practices in the future.

Understanding the Spatial Narratives of Puzzle Films Using Cognitive Maps

Spatial narratives are becoming increasingly significant in contextualizing geographical phenomena. Whereas many studies focus on spatial narratives of real spaces projected from the Earth’s surface, this article examines the imaginary spaces in the narrative of Hollywood puzzle films, arguing that cognitive maps are more effective in understanding and navigating these spaces. Through an analysis of well-known puzzle films, the article demonstrates how cognitive maps can encode imaginary spaces, draw the audience’s attention to key landmarks, and guide both the filmmaker and the audience through the film’s narrative. Beyond films, this study underscores the potential of cognitive maps in decoding complex space–time relationships in real-world context. By bridging the gap between cinematic imagination and geographical exploration, this article aims not only to inspire filmmakers but also to encourage geographers, cartographers, and GIScientists to look beyond their own fields and draw inspiration from other areas, such as cinematography, to envision a terra incognita that extends beyond the real world.

The Absence of Father/Mother and Postmemory in Rawi Hage’s Carnival (2012)

This article aims to explore the consequences of parents’ absence in transmitting the memory of homeland in Rawi Hage’s Carnival (2012). This narrative demonstrates how storytelling could reflect on the protagonist’s memory of home and origins as an Easterner. Besides, it analyzes the significance of using the transmission of memory and how it could shape the second generation’s identity. In such a diasporic literary work, the protagonist, Fly, attempts to construct their own identity even in the absence of their parents; however, traumatic memories about childhood cause a deep disparity in the mind. Hage’s Carnival identifies the circus life where the protagonist was born and raised as an old memory. Further, it identifies the flying carpet, inherited from the protagonist’s father, as a path to an imaginary space. The latter represents an escape from a miserable life. In this respect, the memory transmission of Fly is studied based on Hirsch’s conception of postmemory and Erikson's theory of psychosocial development and identity formation.

Measuring the auditory bubble: How mobile music listening affects personal space

Research on mobile music listening (through headphones while on the move) revealed that people use music to create an imaginary space around themselves that cannot be breached by others. This concept recalls the zone around each person called personal space. Thus, the questions posed in this exploratory study were as follows: How does music listening through headphones influence personal space? Is there a difference between air-conduction and bone-conduction headphones? Thirty people (M_age = 34.6, SD_age = 15.4; 11 male, 19 female) took part in the experiment. They were each approached by either a female or male assistant while listening to self-chosen music and were instructed to ask them to stop at two points: firstly, when an ideal conversation distance had been reached, and secondly, when the assistant should not come any closer. The distances between assistant and participant were measured first without music and then randomly while listening through air-conduction or bone-conduction headphones. Results indicate that listening to music influences personal space: when music was listened to through headphones, the ideal conversation distance was smaller, whereas the second distance measurement was only affected by air-conduction headphones. Apart from music, no other factor was found to influence the size of personal space. The findings of the present study reveal that listening to music and even the kind of headphones used have a measurable influence on personal space. The smaller personal distance required when listening to music can be explained by the fact that the listener is distracted from unpleasant situations and can instead focus on something positive.

Radical imagination and reimagining the space of curriculum for democracy

School-level education in Australia, and in other parts of the world, is currently directed by forces of conformity and compliance. These forces are typically characterised by doctrines of standards and standardisation, and metrics of accountability and performance. Yet, education in Australia is simultaneously underwritten by values of democracy, equity and justice. The tension between conformity and compliance, and education for democracy produces an ethical and practical struggle for teachers. Recent research tells us that education driven by conformity and compliance de-democratises the experience of schooling for both teachers and young people, while also undermining efforts to cultivate democracy across generations. Drawing on Lefebvre, this paper offers a spatial account of curriculum that opens new spaces of possibility and imagination for doing curriculum work beyond compliance. Curriculum in this paper is theorised across a triad of conceived, perceived, and lived space. This theorisation offers a way to describe how the administrative and regulatory spaces of official curriculum and policy cut across and entangle with the everyday and lived curriculum spaces of teachers and young people. The situated intersections of these spaces shape the way curriculum is enacted and experienced in local settings. I bring bell hooks’ pedagogy of imagination into conversation with this theorisation to propose how the perceived and lived spaces of curriculum might be reimagined as radical spaces of possibility that enable an education that is at its heart democratic, and that works for democracy and social justice.

Indigenizing Blankness in the Works of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Gerald Vizenor, and Jordan Abel

ABSTRACT The article examines the strategic use of blankness in the literary works of Indigenous authors Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg), Gerald Vizenor (White Earth Nation Anishinaabe) and Jordan Abel (Nisga’a). The study begins by tracing the broader tradition of blank books, blank works of art, and blank pages in English language literature, discussing the techniques that have evolved to make blankness speak. We then trace the potential implications of blanks in work specifically by Indigenous artists, where it can be made to speak as a commentary on erasure, genocide and epistemicide. However, in our readings of all three writers, we discover that each uses strategies of blanking to take the audience through such a trauma-centered reading, but also to go beyond it. By emphasizing the creative renewal that blankness embodies, each author uses it as a (literal) space of healing and imagination. This space is then linked via various narrative associations, most importantly by invoking the ancient art of petroglyphs, to Indigenous land sovereignty and survivance.

A Trip to Jerusalem

Medieval and Renaissance depictions of the episodes of Christ’s Passion often seem to invite the devout beholder to participate in the events portrayed. To explain how such an approach can be extended to the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlands, this essay shows how Gerbrand van den Eeckhout’s Last Supper invites the beholder to take the seat that Judas has left vacant. A comparison with other Last Supper scenes shows how effectively Van den Eeckhout’s composition invites viewers into the imaginary space and time represented in the painting.

From ‘Roving’ to ‘Stationary’ Actors: Understanding the Territorial Logic of Al Shabaab in Somalia

ABSTRACT Non-state armed actors’ (NSAAs) control of territory is not a completely new phenomenon in international politics. However, NSAAs resurgence in the conceptualization and demarcation of both physical and imaginary territorial space has raised the need for a further understanding of their territorial logic. Non-state armed actors continue to seize, occupy, and control territory in a manner that undermines Westphalia tenets of statehood, including sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence. This article attempts to shed some light on the understanding of the territorial logic of NSAAs by innovatively combining three independent and interrelated components that have emerged from NSAAs territorial control. These components include NSAA territorial governance, relations with local civilian populations and ideology guided territorial tactics and strategies. We apply the results to the typical and contemporary case of Al Shabaab in Somalia to generate critical insights into NSAA conceptualization, control and demarcation of physical and imaginary space.

Virtual Music Idol, the Chinese Leitkultur and the Making of the World’s First Virtual ‘Red Diva’

Luo Tianyi is currently the most popular virtual music idol in China, a product of the collective imagination of her fans. She has attracted many fans because of her cute image, her music works, and the space for imagination it brings to people. The development of virtual singers in China is deeply influenced by the Japanese ACGN (anime-comic-game-novel) culture. At first, most of Luo Tianyi's fans were fans of the Japanese virtual singer Hatsune Miku or other anime fandoms with a strong subcultural nature. However, in recent years, Luo Tianyi has gradually attracted the attention of the Chinese official media and gradually shifted from subculture to mainstream culture. As a result, it has not only had a significant impact on the Bilibili Site, the largest interactive Internet platform for teenagers in China but also interacted with the official media, thus becoming an extraordinary music idol.

Overall signature of the metric and the cosmological constant

We consider a little known aspect of signature change, where the overall sign of the metric is allowed to change, with physical implications. We show how, in different formulations of general relativity, this type of classical signature change across boundaries with a degenerate metric can be made consistent with a change in sign (and value) of the cosmological constant Λ. In particular, the separate “mostly plus” and “mostly minus” signature sectors of Lorentzian gravity are most naturally associated with different signs of Λ. We show how this general phenomenon allows for classical solutions where the open dS patch can arise from a portion of AdS space time. These can be interpreted as classical “imaginary space” extensions of the usual Lorentzian theory, with a 2 < 0.

에메 세제르 시의 장소 정체성 연구

Aimé Césaire, in opposition to France's colonial policies, vividly portrays the inner consciousness of the poetic subject resisting colonial politics through his work, Notebook of a return to My Native Land. Also embodies the place identity, which is inevitably separated from the alienation of the colony, with extreme negativity. As a result In the study of Aimé Césaire's poetry, an examination of the place identity within the poetic imaginary space serves as a crucial indicator of the Négritude poet's foundational identity, as well as playing a significant role in interpreting the poet's worldview. The poetic representational spaces depicted in Notebook of a return to My Native Land are filled with negativity, characterized by forgetfulness, anger, confinement, fear, and hunger. This study can derive meaningful research result to identify the driving force of Négritude's counter-discourse to recover Négritude's poetic identity and black identity, which is paradoxically embodied through the internality of negativity expressed by self-sacrifice and twisted self-consciousness such as plateaus, islands, moor hills, underground caves, cities, and ponds, appearing in Notebook of a return to My Native Land.

AQUEOUS POSTHUMAN FEMINISM IN PAOLO BACIGALUPI'S THE WATER KNIFE

Climate fiction has intractably delved into the ecological dismay about the imminent disastrous repercussions of anthropogenic climate change. The posthuman propensities of these texts actualized by the depiction of imaginative worlds digressing from manifest conditions subvert anthropocentric standpoints and point out nonhuman agencies. Detailed analysis of climate fictions by employing feminist posthumanist figurations foregrounding a feminist ethic of difference, mutuality and care can bring to light their potential to offer imaginative realms outside the fallacies of human supremacy. The present work endeavours a watery incursion into Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife and attempts to view it through posthumanist feminist aqueous imagery put forward by the cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis. It also explores how water in the novel engenders a fresh imaginative space through its diversified techniques.

Imaginary Space

Summary&#x0D; &#x0D; The work of the dancer, the aesthetic recreation of the viewer and the creation of the choreographer share the same importance: successful and mutual understanding is the completion of the circle in the composition process. The author reflects on his work Imaginary Space from the perspective of the choreographer through the exploration and analysis of its genesis and inspiration and its title.&#x0D;

Project for Strengthening the Profile of Pancasila Students (P5) Eco Print Creation: The Role of Students of Kampus Mengajar Program Batch 6

The Program Kampus Mengajar not only carries out the mission of numeracy literacy, but also contributes to every activity in implementing the independent curriculum, one of which is the the Projek Penguatan Profil Pelajar Pancasila (P5). Through the development of the Pancasila Student Profile which contains the characters and competencies needed to become good world citizens, it needs to be introduced from an early age, at all levels of education. The aim of this research is to see the role of teaching campus students in carrying out P5 activities at SDN Petukangan Selatan 05 in making eco prints using the pounding technique. The research method used is a qualitative approach, namely by describing the conditions of P5 activities descriptively. The results of this research are that P5 activities by making eco prints make students more active, creative and create space for imagination by utilizing the environment around the school. The novelty of this research is that the P5 program is currently happening in the independent curriculum so that the research follows current trends.

REDDER.COM

I want to take you on a Space Odyssey-Oddity to the fourth rock from the sun—to planet Mars.&#x0D; The ‘voice echo’ reflecting upon practice and pandemic will be relayed to you as a countdown sequence from lift-off to landing on the red planet, courtesy of REDDER.COM duty-free shopping on Mars. &#x0D; REDDER.COM brings you this experience through a subjective exploration of how space is perceived metaphorically, spiritually, and physically.&#x0D; Projects for current PhD research, ‘Articulating Space’, explore the parallels between real and imagined space.&#x0D; Printmaking, both analogue and digital, evokes knowledge and human history. The act of printmaking reveals not only the image, but also the embedded techniques, revealing analogies to science, language, and the machine.&#x0D; To travel into outer space, within the context of our human existence, “I am setting up shop” and building an installation to house various departments within it.&#x0D; I will be travelling back to the future, setting out my stall, describing processes and practices, revealing my methodology.&#x0D; ‘We’re leavin’ together, But still it’s farewell, And maybe we’ll come back, To Earth, who can tell?’