36 research outputs found
Effects of anti-TNFα treatment on lipid profile in patients with active rheumatoid arthrits
No full textA possible deliberate Mahābhārata-echo in the imagery of the Buddhacarita compounded-rūpakas
No full textThe main focus of the paper is to tentatively document traces of hypertextuality between the Buddhacarita and the Mahābhārata, under the assumption that Aśvaghoṣa probably knew this latter work, albeit non-definitive version of it. The selected methodological approach is a comparison between Bc and MBh in-compound-rūpakas. Indeed, since it is plausible that he benefited from an erudite court audience, Aśvaghoṣa is here assumed to take for granted that even indirect hints at MBh passages would be promptly understood. Therefore, he sometimes re-uses Mahābhārata expressions, and merely changes the word-order or replaces a single constituent in the matching figurative phrases or compounds, and sometimes plays with the MBh rūpakas in a more complex way. On the basis of the survey and analysis of all the Bc’s rūpakas and their supposed inspirational MBh source, the present inquiry tries to show how the singled-out cross-references are not only aimed at building a generic sophisticated literary pattern for his mahākāvya and his learned audience, but they are also intentionally targeted at evoking Epic heroic imagery as clues for the kingly commitment the author attributes to Buddha
Per un’analisi preliminare della poiesi di Aśvaghoṣa: fra epica, retorica ed estetica
No full textAśvaghoṣa (I-II C.E.), the multifaceted buddhist author of the mahākāvyas Saundarananda and Buddhacarita, seems to have mastered the rhetorical devices of metaphora in absentia (rūpaka) and simile (upamā) in both of his works. These aspects will become systematised only until much later (VI-VII C.E.) and eventually investigated in contemporary cognitive linguistics studies (Black 1962; Levin 1977; Lakoff 1980). By means of a diachronic and synchronic approach, this article analyses the poetics and poiesis of the author through the lens of intertextuality and the dynamics of literary reuse in South-Asian and Buddhist literature. In this context, applying a synchronic approach means interpreting different types of rūpakas and upamās, foregrounding the author’s self-consciousness on rhetoric and stylistic forms. Similarly, the diachronic approach imposes a bidirectional criterion, namely a) the evaluation of a pre-systematised use of analogy forms in texts belonging to the epic genre (Itihāsa), and b) the assessment on already systematised analogy forms in later canonical alaṃkāraśāstras, from Bhāmaha’s Kāvyālaṃkāra (VII C.E.) to Mammaṭa’s Kāvyaprakāśa (XI C.E.)
Book review, Oliver Gerstenberg, Euroconstitutionalism and Its Discontents
No full textWhile discussing several issues, the book chooses as its main theme the role courts – specifically, those beyond the state – and judicial review have acquired in contemporary constitutionalism. To address the criticism concerning judicial imperialism, made by political constitutionalists against national experiences as well as against the CJEU and the ECtHR, the author highlights the positive features of the «democratic experimentalist conception» of constitutional adjudication. In G.’s words, «constitutional dialogue occurs around and through processes of judicial interpretation. Without claiming for themselves the final word, courts can exert a more indirect – forum-creative and agenda setting – role in the process of an ongoing clarification of the meaning of a right. In exerting this role, courts rely less on a pre-existing consensus, but a potential consensus is sufficient: courts can induce debate and deliberation that leads to consensus» (p. viii). An example is the ECJ and ECtHR case law, which is considered «able to constructively re-open and re-politicize controversies that are blocked at the national level, or which cannot be resolved at the domestic level» (pp. ix-x). Conclusively, G. registers the emergence of a Euroconstitutionalism beyond the state, which also fulfils «the project of radical (or deep) democracy
Gustav Meyrinks Raumkonzepte: Der Amsterdamer Jodenbuurt im Vergleich zum Prager Ghetto
No full textThe essay is focused on interpretations of space depiction in Gustav Meyrink’s (1868–1932) work.
The interest of the author for this topic is as evident in his novels as it is in his short stories, and
his most famous work, Der Golem (1915), has been thoroughly analyzed in the field of literary
space, especially concerning his representation of the former Jewish district of Prague. This
depiction is the subject of several studies about space deformations in phantastic literature and of
transcultural research, especially in regards to the interactions between Czech, German and
Jewish elements throughout his novel. Using these studies as main methodological sources,
Meyrink’s space depiction in other novels and stories, which are not set in Prague but still show
traces of a Prague “paradigm”, are analyzed – in particular Das Grüne Gesicht (1916), which also
shows a Jewish district, albeit in Amsterdam, a city that Meyrink apparently never visited before
writing his story. This article introduces the methodological premises of my research and puts
forward a preliminary and very brief reflection on the Amsterdam Jewish district in Das Grüne
Gesicht
Prospects of intertextual relations between Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita and Saundarananda rhetorical-stylistic forms and epic sources
No full textAśvaghoṣa (1st-2nd century CE) is the earliest known author of Indian poetry (kāvya) and a major contributor to the Brahmanical and Buddhist cultural and literary heritage. Nevertheless, we still do not have a clear picture of the sources that may have primarily influenced the composition of his works - namely the two court epic poems (Mahākāvya) Saundarananda 'Handsome Nanda' and Buddhacarita 'Acts of the Buddha' - and even less certain are the ways in which Aśvaghoṣa may have interacted with the epics, viz. e. the Mahābhārata 'The Great Bhārata' and the Rāmāyaṇa 'Rāma's Path'. Although the contribution of epic sources to his works has often been debated in the field of cultural-historical reconstruction studies, it has never been approached from a strictly philological-textual perspective. The present study provides a comparison of one hundred stanzas of Aśvaghoṣa's poems and the epic sources to demonstrate that an intertextual philological relationship between them is indisputable. The chosen methodological approach focuses on cross-referencing the main rhetorical and stylistic forms in the epic sources, the so-called alaṃkāras 'ornaments' used in the Mahākāvyas - i.e. the simile (upamā) and the metaphor (rūpaka). It analyses the logical structure of the ornaments that make the poems and epics similar, namely the relationship between the subject of comparison (upameya), the object of comparison (upamāna) and the common property (sādhāraṇadharma). This could help to determine the role that the two epics played in influencing the compositional process of Aśvaghoṣa, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Furthermore, the analysis of cross-references can lead to the identification of the sections from which Aśvaghoṣa may have borrowed. By presenting the most striking case of intertextuality, centred on the ornaments mentioned above, the proposed approach examines the ways in which Aśvaghoṣa seems to rework, adapt and manipulate the epic model from a diachronic perspective. The underlying aim is to shed light on the general framework of the dynamics surrounding the genesis of the Mahākāvya genre itself, which is so intertwined with the epic (Itihāsa)
Implementing eco-social policies: Barriers and opportunities. A preliminary comparative analysis
No full textDespite the global consensus on the importance of shifting to a model of sustainable development, identifying pathways that can simultaneously and equally fulfil social, economic and environmental goals remains extremely arduous. This paper analyses opportunities for and barriers to the effective adoption of eco-social policies in national programmes by undertaking a comparative analysis of three case studies: Payment for Ecosystem Services in Costa Rica, the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputin (ITT) proposal for Yasuní National Park in Ecuador and the Virunga Alliance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The three programmes had varying degrees of success. The Payment for Ecosystem Services was a successful national programme that led to unprecedented forest recovery in Costa Rica. On the contrary, the ITT proposal for the Yasuní National Park was a governmental policy initiative that failed due to various national and international issues. The promising Virunga Alliance, a development project implemented in Virunga Park is at risk due to regional insecurity and a fragile national economy. The author looks at the different approaches taken in each country, analysing the benefits and trade-offs as well as the factors that led to their adoption or defeat. She then examines how the actors involved, the economic agenda, the national and international contexts, and the national policy framework influenced the success or failure of ecosocial policies. Drawing from this, she identifies topics for future research on the topic. At the time of writing, Diletta Carmi was working as a Civil Servant at LVIA (Lay Volunteers International Association) in Burkina Faso, dealing with communication, coordination and research for a project on food security
The city of tar. Pictorial imagination and apocalyptic landscapes in Gustav Meyrink's poetics
No full textThe dissertation “The city of tar. Pictorial imagination and apocalyptic landscapes in Gustav Meyrink's poetics” analyzes Gustav Meyrink’s space depiction in the perspective of the categories of revelation, deconstruction, eschatology, timelessness and cyclicity that are proper of the apocalyptical space as noted in studies related to the genre apocalypse. The spaces considered in the analysis are metropolitan milieus, specifically Meyrink’s depiction of Prague, Amsterdam and of a generic anonymous city. The choice of Meyrink’s researched corpus (the novels Das grüne Gesicht (1916) and Walpurgisnacht (1917); the short stories Die Stadt mit dem heimlichen Herzschlag (1928) and Die geheimnisvolle Stadt (1929); the fragmentary novel Das Haus des Alchemisten (1973)) respects the parameters of the metropolitan space and of the apocalyptic perspective understood in both its eschatological and revelatory quality. Two comparative studies are also involved in the dissertation, including the two novels Die andere Seite (Alfred Kubin, 1908) and Der Tod des Löwen (Auguste Hauschner, 1916). This selection allows to observe the relationship between an apocalyptic model present in biblical and apocryphal texts, of which Meyrink’s texts appear to be reminiscent, and the apocalyptic model of metropolitan literature in the Moderne, where the concept of final collapse reminding of the biblical Armageddon interacts with the representation of the alienating urban milieu.
The thesis is divided into two parts, the first one concerning the theoretical aspects of the research, Meyrink’s programmatic attitude to the concept of Schilderung, and the meaning of the space of Prague for Meyrink’s spatial poetics.
The methodologies chosen for this dissertation are the studies on the metropolitan space of Fin de Siècle literature, the investigations on the categories of the Phantastik genre and the studies concerning the spatial and temporal models of the genre apocalypse.
Special attention is given to Meyrink’s depiction of Prague as eccentric city, an interpretation reflecting both the nuances of the apocalyptical space to analyze in this research – the revelatory and the eschatological aspect. It is possible to observe how the space of Prague conceived by Meyrink presents traits that can be traced back to a paradigm used by the author as a basis for the conception of several literary spaces of his production, including the ones of Amsterdam in Das Grüne Gesicht and of the heterotopic Haus zum Pfau in Das Haus des Alchemisten. This paradigm involves the conception of a space possessing a double dimension of rationality and irrationality, but also of conscious and unconscious thought, a space where a truth invisible to the rational investigation can be revealed. To this space are also attributed characteristics of timelessness and immanence that are commented in the thesis.
The first chapter of the thesis explains the main methodological areas of the research: the first section is dedicated to the depiction of urban space in the texts of the Moderne starting from the first experiments in this direction made throughout the 19th century ; the second section examines the
definition of fantastic literature starting from the premise of the theorization of the Unheimlich proposed by Sigmund Freud and identifies the categories of uncertainty and threshold as constitutive of this literary genre. After this introduction, a more in-depth analysis of the fantastic literary space is proposed. The third section focuses on the representation of space in apocalyptic literature starting from the very definition of the genre apocalypse and of its characteristic traits. After this premise, the main theories on spatiality and temporality in apocalyptic literature and an introduction to their relation to Meyrink’s space representation are provided.
The second chapter examines the cultural landscape of the city of Prague during Meyrink’s time and especially during the Fin de Siècle and the first decades of the 20th century. In this instance it is introduced the concept of Prager deutsche Literatur and to the tropes constituting the literary imagery of Prague in German literature during the considered period. After this introduction, another section provides a definition of the concepts Prager Roman and Prager Text. Here is also presented Jurij Lotman’s theory of the eccentric and concentric cities which is fundamental for the following text analysis.
The third chapter presents, in its first half, the main aspects of Meyrink’s poetics and especially his relationship with the notion of visuality and image. To do so, are examined his programmatic texts Der Lotse and the Exposé to Das Haus des Alchemisten and the material collected during the archive research in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München and in the Deutsches Literatur Archiv Marbach (DLA). In particular, a section is dedicated to the analysis of the manuscript of Meister Leonhard researched in the DLA. In the second half of this chapter is presented the concept of Prague paradigm based on the texts Die Stadt mit dem heimlichen Herzschlag, Die geheimnisvolle Stadt and Das Haus des Alchemisten, and this paradigm is put in relationship with the Meyrink’s concept of Bild.
The fourth chapter analyzes the novel Das grüne Gesicht starting from the notion of Zeitlosigkeit provided by the character Chider Grün, and presents the main topic of the identity search that is fundamental in the novel. The main topics in this analysis are the eccentricity of the space of Amsterdam, the representation crowded spaces, the concept of anonymity related to the urban environment and the use of psychotops in the novel.
The fifth chapter continues the analysis of Das grüne Gesicht adding a comparative level by providing an investigation of Alfred Kubin’s Die andere Seite. The analysis observes how the dialogue between the two author seems to have continued after their first intellectual encounter during the first conception of Meyrink’s Der Golem, and highlights how their eccentric cities (Perle and Amsterdam) present an equally apocalyptic quality based on heterotopic and heterochronic traits.
The sixth chapter constitutes the final comparative study of the dissertation: the analysis of Meyrink’s Walpurgisnacht and Auguste Hauschner’s Der Tod des Löwen, two Prague novels where the
historical matter is treated in a peculiar way that suggests, when interacting with space depiction, an eschatological quality highly influenced from the contemporary political fragility experienced by the authors during their writing
Author Correction: Unveiling the underlying structure of awe in virtual reality and in autobiographical recall: an exploratory study
No full textOver the last two decades, awe has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers. The use of virtual reality has been identified as one of the most effective techniques for eliciting awe, in addition to more personalized methods for inducing emotion, such as autobiographical recall. However, previous measures of awe were unable to uncover the hidden structure of this experience. Awe experience scale (AWE-S) has been validated as a comprehensive measure of contingent awe in English, providing new opportunities for analysis. In this two-phases study, we investigated whether the latent structure of the experience of awe evoked by the autobiographical recall technique (Study 1) overlapped with that induced by exposing participants to a validated virtual reality awe-eliciting training (Study 2). The original English AWE-S structure held both in autobiographical recall induction and virtual reality-based elicitation. Despite evidence of overlap between English and Italian structures, low correlations were found between Italian trait measures used to test the concurrent validity of the AWE-S in the Italian sample and AWE-S state dimensions. This study highlights cultural differences in awe experience, trait, and state variations, and provides new insights into the standardized induction of this emotion through simulated environments
Italy: Legal Response to Covid-19
No full textScholarly report and analysis of national legal responses to Covid-19 around the world. The Compendium is composed of reports by country teams, headed by one or more Country or Territory Rapporteurs, who coordinate the production and updating of the relevant Country Reports. The reports are written by reference to a comprehensive Author Guidance Code (AGC). The AGC covers five topics:
I. Introduction
II. Applicable Legal Framework
III. Institutions and Oversight
IV. Public Health Measures, Enforcement and Compliance
V. Social and Employment Protection Measures
VI. Human Rights of Vulnerable Group
