This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challenge is (...) to consider the poem expressive of a plural subject, which frees us from looking for a particular individual whose voice we hear in the work, whether she be fictional or actual. Some lyrics give voice to a group whose experience is attended to in the work. This may be done through a posited fictional speaker, but the ontology of the speaker is shown to be less important. Attending to a group whose concerns are voiced allows us to explain how poems can manage to address our-worldly concerns even when lacking actual persons whose expressions we encounter in the poems. (shrink)

This is a study of the nature of time. In it, redeploying an argument first presented by McTaggart, the author argues that although time itself is real, tense is not. He accounts for the appearance of the reality of tense - our sense of the passage of time, and the fact that our experience occurs in the present - by showing how time is indispensable as a condition of action. Time itself is further analysed, and Dr Mellor gives answers to (...) most of the metaphysical questions it provokes, concerning the relation of time to space, the dissection of time, and its relation to change and causation. (shrink)

A fundamental link between system theory and statistical mechanics has been found to be established by the Kolmogorov entropy K. By this quantity the temporal evolution of dynamical systems can be classified into regular, chaotic, and stochastic processes. Since K represents a measure for the internal information creation rate of dynamical systems, it provides an approach to irreversibility. The formal relationship to statistical mechanics is derived by means of an operator formalism originally introduced by Prigogine. For a Liouville operator L (...) and an information operator $\tilde M$ acting on a distribution in phase space, it is shown that i[L, $\tilde M$ ]≡KI (I=identity operator). As a first consequence of this equivalence, a relation is obtained between the chaotic correlation time of a system and Prigogine's concept of a “finite duration of presence.” Finally, the existence of chaos in quantum systems is discussed with respect to the existence of a quantum mechanical time operator. (shrink)

Se os romanos começaram a desenvolver tardiamente sua literatura, é porque, desde os primórdios, necessi-taram firmar-se como nação e solidificar princípios e valores que se perpetuariam em sua cultura. De início, cuida-ram da expansão e da organização da urbs e da civitas. Com a anexação de outros povos e novas culturas, tomaram conhecimento de outros valores, os quais foram submetidos ao gênio da assimilação e da universalização, sua marca inconfundível. Foram capazes de desenvolver um sistema de escrita que é seguido (...) até hoje. Sua literatura, mesmo nascendo com o carimbo da literatura grega, infunde as marcas características da cultura latina e se torna modelo pelos séculos vindouros. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Metaphorical Pharmacology of Cannabis Cannabis Effects and Meanings Applied.

A poesia lírica mediolatina desenvolve-se a partir dos poetas latinos que a antecederam, mas elabora novas formas de expressão que acompanham, pari passu, o desenvolvimento da língua latina, com a perda gradativa o acento musical. Novo ritmo e novas formas de expressão foram introduzidos. A poesia, a princípio vista como forma especial de linguagem, ganha especial tratamento entre os goliardos, que também nos legaram o maior e mais característico acervo da lírica profana mediolatina.

Cipriano, atuante bispo de Cartago em difíceis tempos de grandes perseguições aos cristãos, compõe um texto, um discurso apologético, no qual se dirige ao pagão Dimitriano, defendendo os cristãos de acusações a eles imputadas como responsáveis pelas desgraças e dificuldades por que passava o Império Romano. Aborda a temática do fim do mundo de modo original invertendo as acusações que o poder público atribuía aos cristãos.

O ato de alimentar-se deixa de ser apenas uma satisfação de necessidades biológicas e torna-se um dos grandes prazeres da vida do homem. Apresentamos aqui as principais refeições e o modo de alimentar-se dos antigos romanos, amantes da boa mesa, e um alguns comentários sobre aquele que é o mais famoso dos seus cozinheiros e nos legou a obra De re coquinaria: Apício.

O ensino na Idade Média compreendia um conjunto de disciplinas pertencentes ao Trivium e ao Quadrivium, matérias conhecidas como artes. A estes se opunham as artes mechanicae, de cunho prático. Focalizamos, neste artigo, as questões relativas ao ensino da linguagem verbal, centrando nosso interesse na ars gramatica e na ars retórica. Um texto latino exemplificará as atividades de um famoso mestre da Idade Média.

Résumé Biographies et biographes de Savonarole constituent l’un des indices de la réception de celui-ci dans la France d’Ancien Régime. Ces biographes dominicains appartiennent au mouvement de la réforme toulousaine de l’Ordre au xvii e siècle, mouvement qui s’inspire de la réforme du couvent de Saint-Marc par Savonarole. Aussi le couvent parisien de l’Annonciation devient-il le centre de l’érudition comme de la dévotion vouées à Savonarole, et les apologistes s’attachent-ils à défendre la mémoire de Savonarole contre ceux qui le tiennent (...) pour un dangereux simulateur. (shrink)