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Where Does the State End and the Church Begin? The Strange Career of Richard S. Devane
Get PDFRichard S. Devane (1876-1951) was a Jesuit priest, a campaigner on a variety of social issues and a prolific author. He was also a key figure in the legislative landscape of post-1922 Ireland. He was invited as an expert witness to the Committee on Evil Literature in 1926 which enshrined a regime of literary censorship in the newly independent Ireland and he was the only witness personally invited to submit evidence to the Carrigan Committee in 1932, the infamous government commission that helped lay the groundwork for the Criminal Law Amendment Act that banned the sale, manufacture or importation of contraception in Ireland. In both his presence as a witness and in his voluminous journalistic writings on social issues, Devane provided a politico-theological legitimacy for this kind of draconian legislation. Drawing on Devane’s published works, his collected papers in the Irish Jesuit Archive and government papers in the National Archives of Ireland, this biographical paper analyses Devane’s central role in the Irish Free State’s project of social control and raises questions about the borders dividing Church and State in the period after 1922. Moreover, I trace Devane’s later political development in the 1930s and ‘40s; by this period, Devane had far less input in the State’s legislative agenda but was producing far more detailed political writings; his two later books, Challenge from Youth (1942) and The Failure of Individualism (1948), as well as showing a clear Fascist influence also highlight the soft authoritarianism inherent to the politics of post-1922 Ireland
The Island of the Saints and the Homeland of the Martyrs: Monsignor O’Riordan, Father Hagan and the Boundaries of the Irish Nation (1906-1916)
Get PDFThe priests Michael O’Riordan and John Hagan led the Pontifical Irish College in Rome in the early decades of the twentieth century. At a crucial time for the birth of the Irish State, they promoted the demands of the Irish Church to the Vatican and participated actively in the debate on the political events of their nation. Thanks to the study of the writings they published in Italy from 1906 to 1916, we can determine what their ideas on the Irish homeland were, and why these ideas changed over the years. Their thoughts were not always the same, but the two Irishmen finally elaborated a more common national vision after the trauma of the Great War and a resounding episode as the 1916 Easter Rising
Lesbian Migrant Writing: From Lesbian Nation to Queer Diaspora
Get PDFThe paper examines selected texts of Anna Livia and Shani Mootoo, whose diasporic experiences allowed them to discuss lesbian desire from a non-stigmatised point of view. It also portrays how writing from white, western countries towards the end of the twentieth century, privileged the Irish lesbian narrative to represent a more globalised approach towards lesbian desire. Firstly, the paper will illustrate how distance from Ireland allowed authors to discuss issues affecting and disturbing Lesbian Nation and lesbian community of the 1980s, and secondly, it will discuss how queer diaspora and hybridity shaped lesbian diasporic writing in non-western societies at the turn of the century
Selection of open pollination progenies in some pear species in order to achieve dwarf and drought tolerant rootstocks
Get PDFOne of the important products in Iran and Isfahan province is the pear that its cultivation has been limited by drought stress and global warming in recent years. The use of drought-tolerant rootstocks is one of the available solutions for pear orchards in semi-arid regions. In addition, the lack of dwarf or semi-dwarf rootstocks, which are appropriate and compatible with Iran climatic conditions, limited high density pear orchards. In order to obtain drought tolerant rootstocks, in this research fruit of Pyrus glabra, Pyrus syriaca, and Pyrus salicifolia, along with P. communis cv. Spadona, Dargazi, as well as Khoj n. 1 and n. 2 species were collected from different regions of Iran in August and September of 2016. The seeds were separated from the flesh and dried at room temperature. The seeds were cultivated in uniform and light texture of soil in November in the field condition to break the seed dormancy. Seedlings were irrigated regularly for three months in order to establish in the soil; drought stress began in July. In order to apply drought stress, irrigation time was considered based on 80% of allowed water depletion. Morphological traits of seedlings were recorded before stress and at the end of the stress period (late September). The viability percentage of seedlings after drought stress was between 14.28% (P. communis cv. Dargazi progenies) to 82.55% for P. salicifolia. Comparison of the means and cluster analysis, among populations showed that the three populations of P. salicifola, P. glabra and P. communis cv. Khoj n. 2 had the lowest height and were placed in the same group. After studying single genotypes in these three populations, genotypes no. 31, 32, 41, 57 and 12 from P. salicifolia, genotypes 10, 11, 7, 3 and 9 of P. glabra and genotype 4 of P. communis cv. Khoj n. 2 populations were selected as drought tolerant and dwarf genotypes and were taken to the propagation phase for future evaluation
Nanosilver, salicylic acid and essential oils effects on water relations of gerbera ‘Rosalin’ cut flowers
Get PDFThe effects of pulse and permanent treatments were studied on vase life, water content and hydraulic conductivity of gerbera cut flower cv. Rosalin. This study was conducted as a factorial experiment based on completely randomized design with three replications. The first factor was pulse treatments, using nanosilver (NS) 5 and 10 mg/L, salicylic acid (SA) 50 and 100 mg/L and distilled water as control, and the second factor was permanent treatments applying distilled water, sucrose, peppermint, thyme and clove essential oils (EO). The results showed that NS 10 mg/L + peppermint EO 100 mg/L and NS 10 mg/L + thyme EO 100 mg/L treatments had the best effect on longevity and maintaining the water content and hydraulic conductance of Rosalin cut flower, compare to other treatments. These solutions enhanced life of gerbera cut flowers to about 14 days. Flower water content was high (about 90%) except in 4% sucrose permanent treatment flowers which decreased more rapidly during the vase life. The effective hydraulic conductivity was observed in NS 10 mg/L + peppermint EO 100 mg/L (0.16 cm/min) and NS 10 mg/L + thyme EO 100 mg/L (0.21 cm/min) solutions and had nearly stable trend even in day 8 after pulsing
Playing with pattern. Aesthetic communication as distributed cognition
Get PDFThis article’s main thesis is that aesthetic communication has evolved from animal social play to forms of extraordinary complexity such as traditional arts, helping to preserve and transfer survival oriented information in a preverbal, or embodied form. Following this line of argument, aesthetic communication provides the basis for an adaptive modeling of reality wherein the agents engaged simulate potential exchanges and outcomes with factual or fictive entities, further enhancing – by proxy – their ability to predict and adapt to natural and intentional contingencies. By means of aesthetic communication human cognition has become distributed, i.e. off-loaded in the practices, customs and emotional templates readily available in culture. In this light, the decline of traditional societies and the isolation of art practices that results from it, are to be considered subjects of scientific concern in addressing the societal and ecological crisis we confront today
The mimetic creation of the Imaginary
Get PDFYoung children learn to make sense of the world through mimetic processes. These processes are focused to begin with on their parents, brothers and sisters and people they know well. Young children want to become like these persons. They are driven by the desire to become like them, which will mean that they belong and are part of them and their world. Young children, and indeed humans in general are social beings. They, more than all non-human primates, are social beings who cannot survive without the Other. In mimetic processes the outside world becomes the inner world and the inner world becomes the outside world. The imaginary is developed and the imaginary develops ways of relating to the outside world. In a mimetic loop, this in turn affects the inner world of the imaginary. These processes are sensory and governed by desire. All the senses are involved which means that the imaginary has multiple layers. Since there is an intermingling of images, emotions and language, these processes are rooted in the body and at the same time transcend the body as they become part of the imaginary. Human beings create images of themselves in all cultures and historical periods. They need these images to understand themselves and their relationship to other human beings and to develop social relations and communities. Images of the human being are designs and projections of the human being and his or her relationship to other people and to the world. They are formed to visualize representations of individuals or aspects of them. They arise when we communicate about ourselves. They support us to live with diversities and to develop similarities and feelings of belonging with other people. They are the result of complex anthropological processes, in which social and cultural power structures play an important role