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Botticelli: Inferno\u27s Cartographer
No full textThis paper investigates Sandro Botticelli’s Chart of Hell by drawing on select canti and scenes from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. The chosen episodes of Hell are examined to determine how Botticelli chose to represent them visually. Throughout this analysis, Botticelli’s knowledge and familiarity of The Divine Comedy and especially Inferno is made clear as he depicts key exchanges and characters whenever possible. Although it is a map, the image created is far from flat and static. This paper argues that Botticelli was able to create movement and narrative in his map. With the continued appearances of Dante the pilgrim and his guide Virgil, viewers are able to keep track of and follow these figures throughout their journey in Hell. Sandro Botticelli’s chart can therefore be interpreted in varying ways: chronologically (following their descent further into Hell, as is narrated in the poem) or all at once (as a visual overview of their journey).
english
No full textThe idiosyncratic structure of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) provoked many critics to discuss it with reference to both established and new literary forms. Conversely, this essay shows that the notion of the (narrative) network is best suited to encompass its varying themes and sprawling shape. Egan utilizes the network’s apparent formlessness to probe numerous surprising convergences among characters, times and places. Crucially, Goon Squad’s appropriation of the network exceeds the digital context and stimulates reflections about a posthumanist sociality of relationality and interdependence. Engaging the age of “network culture,” the text both calls attention to the readers’ own posthumanist networked condition in an increasingly connective world and performatively deliberates a nostalgia for the analog era. Goon Squad does not merely express a longing for the past, however, but ultimately inspires an imagination of a future beyond the double binds of network culture
A Shrewdness of Apes: Technosocial Transition on Screen
No full textThis paper presents a schematic media hermeneutic for which we have coined the term technandrology. Technandrology seeks to promote the intelligibility of technosocial transition represented in cultural artefacts by identifying aesthetic and narrative strategies that both reflect on and reflexively perform key technologies and techniques of a particular period. Focusing on the period of neoliberal policy in the U.S. from the 1980s to the 2000s, we historicize filmic representations of human-machine interactions in relation to notions of (post)human subjectivity. This article is an initial effort to explicate the theoretical and conceptual parameters of technandrology, and to showcase its analytical methodology through the close reading of films according to the indexical categories presented here
\u27Thinking with Sticks\u27: Autistic Life Narratives and their Material Components
No full textThis article analyses two videos by nonspeaking autistic self-advocates, In My Language (2007) by Mel Baggs and S/Pace by Adam Wolfond and Estée Klar (2019), to underscore the more-than-human manifestations of narrative. Showcasing embodied interactions with ‘inanimate’ things and paying attention to the physical properties of artistic creation, the videos encourage a dynamic and multifaceted approach to narrative, challenging conventional notions of text as static ‘words on a page.’ Posthumanism and new materialism, regarding existence as inherently relational, provide a pertinent framework for analysing the works outside cognitivist and medical frameworks, which pathologize dependence and privilege verbal expression. Considering how posthumanist and new materialist theory has challenged medical and scientific authority, S/Pace and In My Language are placed in dialogue with these developments. With special attention to formal techniques and structural qualities, their potential to enrich posthumanist criticism, diversify narratological theory, and dissociate autism from the pathology paradigm is considered
Developing Your Students\u27 Emotional Intelligence and Philosophical Perspective Begins With I-CORT
No full textA mixed methods study analyzed responses from a target population of teacher- candidates based on completion of pre-and post-instructional surveys and reflective written responses. Results identified a relationship between the instructor\u27s demonstrated intentionality, care, optimism, respect, and trust (I-CORT) to invite personal and professional development and the teacher-candidates\u27 emotional intelligence subskills and embrace of an educational theory that promotes equity and social justice. Implications suggest educational leaders seeking to improve Educator Preparation Programs should ensure curriculum explicitly expects teacher-candidates are able to demonstrate high emotional intelligence skills, tenets of Invitational Education theory, and dispositions that promote equity and social justice
Entraîner un regard critique. Une pratique de l’« erreur » en création littéraire
No full textDans le cadre d’un doctorat en études littéraires (recherche-création) à l’Université Laval, l’auteur de l’article documente et analyse des ateliers somatiques d’écriture qu’il anime depuis 2015. Il questionne ce que l’expression corporelle apporte à la pratique de la création littéraire. Durant un atelier, des écrivain⸱e⸱s exécutent des exercices de respiration, du yoga et des automassages Do-In ; chacun⸱e explore par le mouvement son anatomie osseuse et charnelle, se déplace dans l’espace avec les yeux fermés, puis iel commence à écrire. Aux automnes 2018 et 2019 Mattia Scarpulla a été chargé du cours « Écritures nomades » pour étudiant⸱e⸱s de premier cycle. Certaines séances débutaient avec de la méditation et du yoga assis. Ensuite, il proposait des exercices d’écriture automatique. Ces activités étaient un préambule au travail théorique et créatif sur le thème du voyage, et permettaient aux étudiant⸱e⸱s de lever leurs inhibitions. Il leur demandait aussi d’observer leurs compositions, de les commenter. Les étudiant⸱e⸱s identifiaient des « erreurs » dans leurs textes en prose et dans leurs poèmes. Pourtant, pendant la conversation, ces « erreurs » se révélaient être des possibilités créatives. L’article retrace cette expérience didactique pour questionner une rencontre des pratiques corporelle et écrite entraînant un regard critique, mettant en doute les conventions de production du texte, encourageant les étudiant⸱e⸱s à expérimenter plus librement la création littéraire
Unpacking the Prison Food Paradox: Formerly Incarcerated Individuals’ Experience of Food within Federal Prisons in Canada
No full textThis paper presents findings from a survey conducted with formerly incarcerated individuals on their experiences of food and food systems within federal prisons in Canada. Beyond affirming the many problems with the quality and quantity of food provided to incarcerated individuals, the findings discussed in this article highlight the multi-faceted and paradoxical role of food behind bars. Food was a tool of punishment and a site of conflict, yet it simultaneously provides an important source of community and camaraderie. While there can be no “just” carceral food system because carceral systems are inherently unjust systems, a conversation about food provisioning within prison helps bring into focus opportunities to improve the material conditions of incarcerated individuals in the short-term as well as openings to question the logic and legitimacy of carceral institutions more broadly. As we are all bound-up in carceral food systems, there is a collective responsibility to interrogate and make visible the realities of carceral food systems in order to work towards non-carceral futures
The Hypocrisy of the Monroe Doctrine : An Insight into Nineteenth Century American Imperialism
No full textOn December 2, 1823, the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, announced the most important declaration regarding American foreign policy. His seventh annual message to Congress, more commonly known as the Monroe Doctrine, asserted the Western Hemisphere as America’s rightful sphere of influence. This paper argues how later federal administrations, under John Tyler and James K. Polk, manipulated the Monroe Doctrine’s terms to justify territorial expansion across North America. By examining four instances of American imperialism during the mid-nineteenth century, including the Texas Annexation, the Oregon Treaty, the Mexican-American War, and Cuban-American relations, this paper addresses how the United States turned a defensive declaration into an aggressive policy fueling socioeconomic and territorial gains. Although American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere remains undoubted, in great part due to the Monroe Doctrine, an insight into its controversial origins demonstrates the ironic nature of present-day American foreign policy. As global geopolitical tensions between the West, China, and Russia increase, the Monroe Doctrine may perhaps reemerge as a focal point in the United States’ grand strategy
The Mimicking of Mesoamerican Culture in Europe Through Chocolate
No full textThe consumption of chocolate in Europe serves as a way to observe the flow of Mesoamerican culture into Europe. Cacao and chocolate played a central role in Mesoamerican society as it was used for rituals, tribute, and consumption. The interest in consuming chocolate gained a foothold only after a significant population within Spain had experienced chocolate in Mesoamerica, but then quickly spread through the rest of Europe. The diffusion of chocolate consumption across Europe retained elements of Mesoamerican culture that left a lasting impact. Cacao and chocolate ultimately remain products of Mesoamerican culture, while European contact leveraged the mystical properties, mimicking and hijacking indigenous beliefs and manifesting in different shapes within European society