In this article I consider the presence of negative space in the form of imaginative listening spaces in Chantal Akerman's documentary South. This article examines the workings of memory and imagination from an auditory perspective, aided by two conceptions of the imagination, set out by Hannah Arendt and Toni Morrison, which I equate to a process of listening. Focusing my attention on the ‘inverted face’ or ‘back’ of the face-to-face encounter, my study brings together Don Ihde's work on relative silence (...) and the auditory imagination, Max Silverman's concept of ‘palimpsestic memory’ and Sara Ahmed's theorizing of a ‘politics of sides’. It suggests that a polyphonic mode of listening is required if the spectator is to see with doubled vision, beyond a racialized dichotomy, thereby gaining access to the ‘non-forms’ of hidden voices, stories and histories. (shrink)

El trabajo sexual durante la pandemia COVID-19 ha sufrido un impacto en cuanto a la precarización de las vidas de las mujeres que lo ejercen. Tanto el vacío de reconocimiento social y estatal, como la falta de redistribución de recursos han sido elementos recurrentes. Ambas dimensiones han acentuado la estigmatización del colectivo, que oscila entre la victimización y la criminalización. A pesar de ello, también han emergido prácticas de movilidad, solidaridad y alianzas que les han permitido desestabilizar las representaciones dominantes (...) que las encasillan en patrones estereotipados. (shrink)

BackgroundBayesian estimation with informative priors permits updating previous findings with new data, thus generating cumulative knowledge. To reduce subjectivity in the process, the present study emphasizes how to systematically weigh and specify informative priors and highlights the use of different aggregation methods using an empirical example that examined whether observed mother-adolescent positive and negative interaction behavior mediate the associations between maternal and adolescent internalizing symptoms across early to mid-adolescence in a 3-year longitudinal multi-method design.MethodsThe sample consisted of 102 mother-adolescent dyads. (...) Mothers and adolescents reported on their internalizing symptoms and their interaction behaviors were observed during a conflict task. We systematically searched for previous studies and used an expert-informed weighting system to account for their relevance. Subsequently, we aggregated the priors using three methods: linear pooling, logarithmic pooling, and fitting a normal distribution to the linear pool by means of maximum likelihood estimation. We compared the impact of the three differently specified informative priors and default priors on the prior predictive distribution, shrinkage, and the posterior estimates.ResultsThe prior predictive distributions for the three informative priors were quite similar and centered around the observed data mean. The shrinkage results showed that the logarithmic pooled priors were least affected by the data. Most posterior estimates were similar across the different priors. Some previous studies contained extremely specific information, resulting in bimodal posterior distributions for the analyses with linear pooled prior distributions. The posteriors following the fitted normal priors and default priors were very similar. Overall, we found that maternal, but not adolescent, internalizing symptoms predicted subsequent mother-adolescent interaction behavior, whereas negative interaction behavior seemed to predict subsequent internalizing symptoms. Evidence regarding mediation effects remained limited.ConclusionA systematic search for previous information and an expert-built weighting system contribute to a clear specification of power priors. How information from multiple previous studies should be included in the prior depends on theoretical considerations, and may also be affected by pragmatic considerations regarding the impact of the previous results at hand. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractCephalopods provide a unique model system to investigate how organismal novelties evolve. In article number 1900073, Elena A. Ritschard et al. discuss how co-evolutionary signatures among various genomic characters have contributed to cephalopod organismal novelties and can be used to dissect their functional organization. Cover illustration by Hannah Schmidbaur.

How genomic innovation translates into organismal organization remains largely unanswered. Possessing the largest invertebrate nervous system, in conjunction with many species‐specific organs, coleoid cephalopods (octopuses, squids, cuttlefishes) provide exciting model systems to investigate how organismal novelties evolve. However, dissecting these processes requires novel approaches that enable deeper interrogation of genome evolution. Here, the existence of specific sets of genomic co‐evolutionary signatures between expanded gene families, genome reorganization, and novel genes is posited. It is reasoned that their co‐evolution has contributed to (...) the complex organization of cephalopod nervous systems and the emergence of ecologically unique organs. In the course of reviewing this field, how the first cephalopod genomic studies have begun to shed light on the molecular underpinnings of morphological novelty is illustrated and their impact on directing future research is described. It is argued that the application and evolutionary profiling of evolutionary signatures from these studies will help identify and dissect the organismal principles of cephalopod innovations. By providing specific examples, the implications of this approach both within and beyond cephalopod biology are discussed. (shrink)

This research aims to examine the concept of haecceity conceived by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari - which has started from the notion given to the concept in A Thousand Plateaus - Capitalism and Schizophrenia 2 (Mille Plateau: capitalisme et schizophrénie 2, 1980). To illustrate this concept the philosophers turned to literature, and more specifically the Proustian literature. They affirm that the haecceity concept has found in the episode with the small group (la petite bande) of girls in the seaside (...) town of Balbec - the novel by Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu, 1913-1927) ¬- its best translation: "What's a girl, what is a group of girls? Proust at least show us and for all that their individuation, collective or singular, proceeds not by subjectivity but by haecceity, pure haecceity" (A Thousand Plateaus - Capitalism and Schizophrenia 2. Translation and foreword by Brian Massumi, Minnesota Press, 1987: 271). According to the Deleuzian thought, the fundamental question of haecceity concept is concentrated in its own definition: an individuation devoid of subjectivity, foreshadowing an individual who doesn't belong to individuation anymore, but it does to singularization. This non-subjectivated affirmation is part of an innovative philosophical proposal which has its own conceptual vocabulary: haecceity will exist in a new space (not extensive), where there's no distinction between the beginning or the end; the middle is where haecceity (formed by lines and not by points) will present itself as a rhizome. This mode of impersonal individuation reveals itself as a cartography that is made by forces - longitude - and intensities - latitude. Taking the group of girls as such a composition of forces moving, we will extract Albertine Simonet from it. She has the synonym of a group, and being adopted as an intercessor, she will leave the "group by group". The trajectory of this poetic and psychosocial entity (where the concept of haecceity originates from), will support us in the examination of the mode of existence of haecceity. (shrink)

Outre le deuil de l’être aimé, des thèmes se retrouvent de Clara à Albertine disparue. Mentionnons le franchissement de la frontière des sexes ; le rôle de l’hérédité ; les amours palimpsestes de Schelling et celles du héros proustien ; la duplicité des êtres ; la symbolique de la lune et du lac ; le lien existant entre les vivants et les morts. Enfin, le pasteur évoque la possibilité d’une connaissance qui reconstitue en un tout ce qui a été (...) ressenti par fragments, et « dont nous pouvons jouir lorsque la béatitude de la contemplation nous est retirée ». N’est-ce pas l’ambition même de l’œuvre proustienne? (shrink)

In the Commentary on the Metaphysics, Albert the Great (d. 1280) envisages the possibility that the human intellect relates to the highest realities not only as the eyes of the bat see the light of day (analogy used by Aristotle at the beginning of the second book of the Metaphysics) but also – thanks to study and gradually, already in this life – as the eyes of the eagle see the circle of the Sun. In the Summa theologiae, discussing the (...) same Aristotelian passage, Albert the Great replaces the eagle with the herodius (“golden eagle”, i.e. the eagle having supreme vision for Albert). The paper analyzes the meaning of this variation in Albertine ornithology, examining other passages of his works in which the herodius is mentioned and evaluating whether this is a sheer case of substitution of a species (the eagle) with one of its subspecies (the herodius) with the same meaning and function, or a subtle distinction between two different cognitive abilities required respectively by metaphysics and theology to know their objects of investigation. (shrink)

Kant et Schelling ont fait valoir les droits de l’imagination productive comme pouvoir de fiction auquel toute connaissance est redevable. Pareille réhabilitation pourrait être une clef pour comprendre dans quelle mesure l’œuvre de Proust repose sur la ferme conviction que l’art est ce qu’il y a de plus réel et fait appel à une géométrie projective où Albertine apparaît comme centre générateur d’une « immense construction ».

Olimpia, Hadaly, Rachael, Faustine, Samantha, Albertine…. All loving machines, like we say "washing machines" or "answering machines," machines that you may love and that have the potential of loving you back. All fictitious, of course. As emotions are starting to make their way into computing—think of the pervasive use of emoticons, or more interestingly, of IBM's Watson which, in its text-analysis tool, attempts to give an idea of what it calls "personality insights" of the writer and the "emotions and (...) communication style of the text". Think also of what is called "Affective Computing", a research area in its infancy that has focused so far on detection of... (shrink)

Legal studies and consequently legal history focus on constitutional documents, believing in a nominalist autonomy of constitutional semantics.Reconsidering Constitutional Formation in the late 18th and 19th century, kept historic constitutions from being simply log-books for political experts through a functional approach to the interdependencies between constitution and public discourse. Sovereignty had to be 'believed' by the subjects and the political élites. Such a communicative orientation of constitutional processesbecame palpable in the 'religious' affinities of the constitutional preambles. They were held as (...) 'creeds' of a new order, not only due to their occasional recourse to divine authority, but rather due to the claim for eternal validity contexts of constitutional guarantees. The communication dependency of constitutions was of less concern in terms of the preamble than the constituents' big worries about government organisation. Their indecisiveness between monarchical and popular sovereignty was established through the discrediting of the Republic in the Jacobean reign of terror and the 'renaissance' of the monarchy in the military resistance against the French revolutionary and later Napoleonic campaigns. The constitutional formation as a legal act of constituting could therefore defend the monarchy from the threat of the people (Albertine Statute 1848), could be a legal decision of a national constituent assembly (Belgian Constitution 1831), could borrow from the old liberties (Polish May Constitution 1791) or try to remain in between by referring to the Nation as sovereign (French September Constitution 1791, Cádiz Constitution 1812). Common to all contexts is the use of national sovereignty as a legal starting point. The consequent differentiation between constituent and constituted power manages to justify the self-commitment of political power in legal terms. National sovereignty is the synonym for the juridification of sovereignty by means of the constitution. The novelty of the constitutions of the late 18th and 19th century is the normativity, the positivity of the constitutional law as one unified law, to be the measure for the legality of all other law. Therefore ReConFort will continue with the precedence of constitution. (www.reconfort.eu). (shrink)

According to modern categorizations, the commentaries on the Holy Scriptures by Albert the Great are not philosophical works and therefore they have received minimal attention in the field of Albertine studies. Super Matthaeum, for example, is one of the least studied in existing research. As a result, the complexity of the relationships between biblical interpretation and the philosophical and theological disciplines are surprising to the researcher used to seeing in Albert a kind of two-headed Janus – either the natural (...) philosopher or the metaphysician, either the natural scientist or the theologian. Albert himself provided occasion for such a dichotomous view. He often held that theologica non conveniunt cum philosophicis in principiis. Nevertheless, some studies have already documented the clear presence of the “philosophical” Albert alongside Albert the “theologian” and “biblical interpreter.” The present contribution offers a particular case study by analyzing Albert’s exegesis of the words in somnis in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. This is a long passage in which the Dominican master makes extensive use of philosophical theories on divination through dreams, which he had already presented in De somno et vigilia. According to Albert’s exegesis, the visio prophetalis experienced by Joseph in Matthew’s Gospel is the same kind experienced by Socrates, the first prophet, and the natural philosopher described in De somno et vigilia. (shrink)

Françoise Bazireau, alias ‘Françoise’, the illiterate servant of the Recherche, unable to express her most intimate feelings in good French, nevertheless shows the narrator that she possesses all the codes to survive and even thrive in the Guermantes’ way. Exasperating like Albertine as a love object, she also manages, like Mme Verdurin and the Duchesse de Guermantes, the social and temporal capital of the novel. With this remarkable and underrated character, we move, as readers, from the intratextual level of (...) the narrator — watching her from his point of view — to that of the novel itself, watching the two in a kind of love/hate duet that throws some light on the function of the ‘petit peuple’ in the Recherche. (shrink)

El presente artículo investiga el misterio del «ser» en el Comentario de Alberto Magno a la Teología Mística y las Epistulas de Dionisio Areopagita, a través de una lectura circular del Corpus Dionysianum, comentado en torno a 1250 por Alberto en su totalidad a diferencia de Tomás de Aquino. Dicho comentario pone de manifiesto la estructura propia de toda la obra albertina, su forma mentis y su método. Como tal, este estudio se suma al interés renovado por la obra albertina (...) en la línea de la «ciencia mística». This article investigates the mystery of «being» in the Comment Albertus Magnus the Mystical Theology and Epistulas of Dionysius, through a circular Dionysianum Corpus reading, said around 1250 by Alberto in its entirety a difference Aquinas. This comment reveals the structure of the entire albertina work, its forma mentis and method. As such, this study adds to renewed work in the Albertine line of the «mystical science» interest. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reach Without Grasping: A Retrospective Appreciation of Anne Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet LOUIS A. RUPRECHT JR. Everything I know about love and its necessities I learned in that one moment when I found myself thrusting my little burning red backside like a baboon at a man who no longer cherished me. There was no area of my mind not appalled by this action, no part of my body that (...) could have done otherwise. But to talk of mind and body begs the question. Soul is the place, stretched like a surface of millstone grit between body and mind, where such necessity grinds itself out. Soul is what I kept watch on all that night. —Anne Carson, “The Glass Essay” (1995) It is always tricky, the question of whether to read an author’s work in light of his life or not. —Anne Carson, The Albertine Workout, no. 56 (2014) anne carson (b. June 21, 1950, in Toronto, Canada) is one of the most versatile of contemporary writers in the English language who have drawn deeply from the Classical well. She has achieved a unique place in the realm of North American letters, and much deserved recognition in the past twenty years: she was awarded the Lannan Literary Award in 1996; the Pushcart Prize in 1997; a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998; the MacArthur Foundation arion 27.2 fall 2019 “genius grant” in 2000; the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2001 (the first woman to be so recognized); the T. S. Eliot Prize also in 2001; the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation in 2010; and a second Griffin Poetry Prize in 2014 (the only person ever to receive this award twice). in 2018, she was an Inga Maren Otto Fellow at the Watermill Center in Watermill, New York, on leave from a Creative Writing position at New York University. Trained as a classicist—she received her Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Toronto in 1981, and an Honorary Degree in 2012—but better known as an accomplished poet and translator, Carson burst on the scene in 1986 with the publication of her first and most philosophical work, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay.1 What this book announced most clearly, in addition to Carson’s complex identity as a poet-and-classicist-and-philosopher-in-one, was her unique ability to work against the expectations and across the loose boundaries which define a genre, and thus to create new genres along the way. In this essay, I would like to offer a retrospective appreciation of Carson’s first book, published (it is scarcely believable to note) more than thirty years ago. There are historical precedents to her achievement in this text, as I hope to show, but her authorial voice is altogether unique, and the reach of her influence has been long. ❖ on rare occasion, a first book may give us a telling glimpse into everything that will follow. Anne Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet is such a first book. What the book does best is to announce itself, and its author, as the bearer of unconventional news, reported in an unconventional manner, all of it expressed in uncommonly luminous prose. It is a book that refuses to be categorized, a book that refuses genre— strangely enough, virtually by creating one. And along the way of creating—that is, of poeticizing—in its singular way, this book generates new desires all its own. There is a history to such literary and generic non-conformity. 138 reach without grasping When Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was invited to take up a professorship at the astonishing age of 24, without even having produced his dissertation yet, the expectations surrounding his first book were elevated, to say the least. Well aware of this, aware too of having been described by his mentor as “the future of Classics in Germany,” Nietzsche published The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music in 1872.2 He was still just 26 years old, and very few classicists knew what to make of it; even his mentor regretted the rashness of the thing. Meaner spirits mockingly called it a work of “future-philology!” suggesting that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Playtexts: Ludics in Contemporary LiteratureWalter E. BromanPlaytexts: Ludics in Contemporary Literature, by Warren Motte; 233 pp. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, $31.50.When readers early encounter such stuff as “Thus in the category of agôn, for example, hide-and-seek would tend toward paidia, whereas chess would tend toward ludus” (p. 7), they suspect that this book will be a rugged and humorless read, in spite of the fun hinted (...) at in the title. Much of the book turns out to fulfill this dread. There is no escaping the sour smell of academic jargon: “to privilege,” “to foreground,” “to marginalize,” “diegetic frame,” etc., or the tangled infelicities of academic prose.Professor Motte sets out to examine a series of texts, “... each text considered a different ludic economy with its own rules and norms, but all texts defined as language games” (p. 15). While struggling through the discussions of Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke, André Breton’s Nadja, or Albertine Sarrazin’s Astragal, one catches glimpses of a book that might have assumed sumptuous flesh. This is especially true in the chapter on Nabakov’s Pale Fire, which is quite interesting and well written. Nabakov’s is “an agonistic game that pits Kinbote against Slade, the Sladeans against Kinbote, Kinbote against us the readers, Nabakov against Kinbote, we the readers against Nabakov” (p. 81). This is a game in which Nabakov offers his readers “a full partnership in the creative process” (p. 82). I was forced to recognize that I had enjoyed reading Pale Fire, all the while only being aware of a minim of these ludic convolutions!A major problem with this book and with the books Professor Motte discusses can be shown most vividly in the chapter on Georges Perec’s La Disparition, where the game is to write an entire novel without using the letter “e.” This “literary machine” is supposed to be geared for expressing the iron impositions of life and its ineluctable loss and lack. I suspect that this semantic juice is squeezed out only by critical legerdemain. The discussion merely succeeds in convincing me that this literary tour de force might be suitable for Guinness’s Book of Records, but would likely be a boring read. It reminds me of a Rube Goldberg contraption or of Johnson’s dog walking on its “hinder legs.” Calling this a lipogram linked to Greek antiquity does little to rinse away the sweaty scent of useless exertion.Professor Motte includes a quotation from Eco referring to Swift’s book-making machine in the Grand Academy of Lagado, which provides a sinister and ludicrous image of much of this ludic literature. Eco sees the text as a “combinatory, ludic machine” (p. 191). This literature as machine and game is remarkable for its lack of any concern for the reader: “... the game is finally less vital for us than it seems to have been for Gombrowicz” (p. 68). Compare this with Dryden who took it as axiomatic that the audience’s “concernment” is of vital importance. Now, though, the readerly text is supplanted by the writerly (p. 163). René Bellato builds up “a narrative technique based on the systematic [End Page 243] frustration of the reader’s expectations...” (p. 166). A kind of apex of readerly boredom is devised in Harry Matthew’s literary machine “Matthew’s algorithm”—exemplified by the permutational poetics in Le Savoir des rois, where the same verse is given endless alterations of word order. There lurks a sniffy implication that if you don’t go along with this sort of game you aren’t a good reader. I don’t mind straining to be a good reader if the reward is commensurate with the effort. Professor Motte never explains why we ought to bother.Professor Motte presents various interesting theories of play, as diverse as Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and Freud, but his own position is not easy to discern. He seems to be sympathetic with Calvino’s notion that “all literature is play” (p. 142). For this to be true, the definition of ludics or play would have to have a Humpty Dumpty squishiness. It would have to be ample... (shrink)