Liberating language research from dogmas of the 20th century

A commentary on the article "Large-scale evidence of dependency length minimization in 37 languages" by Futrell, Mahowald & Gibson (PNAS 2015 112 (33) 10336-10341).Comment: Minor correction

An analysis of traditional Mariology and gender equality in the Catholic Church.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Women are increasingly involved in the Catholic Church, but their participation remains restricted. They are tasked to spread God's Word along with its patriarchal interpretations without being empowered to see God's Sophia in their own wisdom. They are tasked to implement programs but are not entrusted with envisioning directions. However, the Catholic Church in the Vatican II (GS 29) teaches that every type of discrimination based on sex must be overcome and eradicated, being contrary to God's intent. This study seeks to investigate how an analysis of traditional Mariology could contribute to gender equality in the Catholic Church by analysing theological statements that find expression in Marian dogmas as well as the official documents of the Catholic Church. This study further uses Christian feminist theology as a theoretical framework in its interrogation of traditional Mariology. This is a careful, critical feminist analysis of Traditional Mariology done by a Catholic male priest in the field of systematic theology. The study focuses on Mary in relation to women's experiences, who in the Catholic Church is highly esteemed. The analysis of the study highlights how traditional Mariology fails to relate to the experiences of women and their images of God. Hence, new ways of approaching Mariology are required that will bring dignity and equality among women. Of significance to mention is that this study does not present the full teaching of the Catholic Church about Mary, which is adequately available elsewhere, but rather aims at exploring new avenues of approaching Mariology that bring about gender equality. Using Christian feminist theology, the study reveals that it is indispensable to locate Mary in the community of discipleship so that ordinary women can identify with her

A commentary on "The now-or-never bottleneck: a fundamental constraint on language", by Christiansen and Chater (2016)

In a recent article, Christiansen and Chater (2016) present a fundamental constraint on language, i.e. a now-or-never bottleneck that arises from our fleeting memory, and explore its implications, e.g., chunk-and-pass processing, outlining a framework that promises to unify different areas of research. Here we explore additional support for this constraint and suggest further connections from quantitative linguistics and information theory

The Culture of Narcissism: Cultural Dilemmas, Language Confusion and The Formation of Social Identity

The new narcissist is haunted not by guilt but by anxiety. He seeks not to inflict his own certainties on others but to find a meaning in life. Liberated from the superstitions of the past, he doubts even the reality of his own existence. Superficially relaxed and tolerant, he finds little use for dogmas of racial and ethnic purity but at the same time forfeits the security of group loyalties and regards everyone as a rival for the favors conferred by a paternalistic state. His sexual attitudes are permissive rather than puritanical, even though his emancipation from ancient taboos brings him no sexual peace. Fiercely competitive in his demand for approval and acclaim, he distrusts competition because he associates it unconsciously with an unbridled urge to destroy. Hence he repudiates the competitive ideologies that flourished at an earlier stage of capitalist development and distrusts even their limited expression in sports and games. He extols cooperation and teamwork while harboring deeply antisocial impulses. He praises respect for rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself. Acquisitive in the sense that his cravings have no limits, he does not accumulate goods and provisions against the future, in the manner of the acquisitive individualist of nineteenth-century political economy, but demands immediate gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually unsatisfied desire

TO THINK MUSEOLOGY TODAY

In the present text we intend to analyse 5 basic documents that translate the Museological Thinking in our century and that, chiefly, have led professionals of the area to apply this “science” in a less hermetic way and to understand its practice.            The option to study and analyse the documents results from the fact that they influence present day museological practice and thinking. It is impossible to speak of museology nowadays without referring to one of these documents, not to mention a few nations that have even modified and/or created specific laws for the management of their preservationist cultural policy.             Anyway, we are aware that this text intends only to carry out a preliminary approach to the documents, in the sense that the wealth of its content would allow us to slowx over an infinity of issues that they raise. I specifically refer to the documents produced at UNESCO Regional Seminar on the Role of Museums in Education, which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1958; at the Santiago Round Table in 1972, in Chile; at the 1rst New Museology International Workshop, in Quebec, Canada, 1984; at the Oaxtepec Meeting, in Mexico 1984; and at the Caracas Meeting in 1992. These are documents elaborated within the ICOM –International Council of Museums. These documents are the result of a joint reflection by professionals who seek the evolution of ideas within their areas of action, recognising that in order to do so it is necessary to leave the cocoon of the museological institutions and try to discuss their conceptual advances with professionals of related areas. It is important to be capacitated to reuse these advances in their areas of action. This is the recognition of the importance of interdisciplinarity for the museological context

Repeat Offenders: Violence and Textual Economy

L\u27acte surréalistite le plus simple consiste, revolvers aux poings, à descendre dans la rue et à tirer au hasard, tant qu\u27on peut, dans la foule. (Breton, Manifestes 155) It is difficult not to feel uncomfortable reading this well-known passage now, in light of recent events. And yet, isn\u27t this perhaps precisely the reason such a text demands our attention? By studying similar passages in Breton\u27s writing, we find that it is through a very particular use of language that the alienated subject acquires a sense of empowerment; and more importantly, that the force of such a discourse is extremely limited—dependent on a destructive relation to alterity—precisely where it promises liberation. Through close textual analysis, we observe that the terrorist writer in fact ends up reproducing, and indeed exacerbating the very process of devaluation he has set out to transcend. As the writer increasingly fixates on oppressive institutions and conventions, the insistence of his invective—a repetition compulsion we find establishing itself in the very prosodic structures of the text—generates a language which, instead of opening out onto new possibilities for meaning, produces semantic homogeneity

The University’s Roles in the Historical, Social and Cultural Context, and its Importance in the Realization of Human Rights and Brazilian Democracy

This research exposes narratives and arguments of conceptual and historical content about the conditions and purposes of the University, particularly in Brazil, seeking to describe and reflect on central aspects of this institution. It is recognized, in advance, the importance of constitutional autonomy and secularism within these institutions. This recognition is understood as fundamental in the process of actualizing human rights in public spaces for the construction of citizenship. The problem of this text is related to the question about how much the libertarian role of the University is supported in reality in the processes of construction of republican democracy. The hypothesis is that at some point the University stopped resisting prejudices, the banality of lies and the habit of bad manners in internal relations between workers and in the institution’s relationship with the community. The University, in our time, has been pressured not to bend to obscurantism, surrendering to market demands and renouncing the exercise of a critical judgment. Thus understood, the University loses consciousness of itself as an autonomous space for freedom of thought and for the development of sciences, arts and morals. Notably, when one observes the return or perpetuity of characteristic traits of neofascist movements and policies, which insist on intending the young Brazilian democracy, the urgency and challenge of rebuilding the University as a privileged locus for basic research, for the construction of advanced knowledge and for the technical application of knowledge before concrete demands is expanded. The task of students is arduous in times of authoritarianism of every order concealed by the progress idea. To carry out this research, the inductive method was used, with dialectical and historical methodological contributions, focusing on the technique of bibliographic research

Dynamics of Change in Latin American Literature: Contemporary Women Writers

Over the last twenty-five years Latin American societies have undergone profound changes. Where once the legalized abuses of dictatorships gave new meaning to the word silence for both men and women, now large segments of the population fight hard to sustain democratic regimes throughout the Continent. Repressive governments are being replaced, and shattered economies have begun to recover. Encouraged by the ever-increasing strength of international feminism, Latin American women (from Chiapas, Mexico, to Plaza de Mayo in Argentina) have risen to play key roles in this socio-political reformation. The writing of female authors has proliferated in this environment, and the literary canon of our time has been enriched. This article examines first the impact of twenty-five years of feminism in Latin America, and second, the status of contemporary Latin American women writers within a global context

Performing Culture and Breaking Rules

[Abstract] How is it possible to perform more than is required? And yet, isn’t that precisely what is required, in order for an interlocking society of human beings to function, develop and evolve? If human beings only did what we were told to do, we would live in complete monotony and enslavement. If human beings did only what we were permitted to do, nothing interesting would ever happen. Although performance has often been limited to the study of isolated artistic forms of expressions (music, visual arts, etc.), it is equally possible to analyze culture, on the whole, as a behaviour-encoding system of rules and regulations, wherein the individual actor’s performative appropriation and reinterpretation of these said (cultural, political, artistic) rules makes possible the culture’s very survival, against all odds and obstacles, over long periods of time, as a “tradition” upheld by a community of rule-followers / rule-breakers. Rules, in a very real sense, are meant to be broken. Rule-breaking, by the same token, is, as it were, legislated within the very law code itself, as its own guarantee of immortality. After all, what law could function for any period of time without undergoing reinterpretation? This is good news both for culture and for the avant garde (the creative individual or collective), because even the strictest of rules creates its own conditions of transgression, and vice versa. The performance of culture through the creative freedom of the transgressive individual – i.e. any individual qua his or her individuality – is the sine qua non for a democratic society of peers. Creativity depends upon structure, and structure depends upon that which breaks its shackles of normativity, by rebirthing structure transgressively. The whole point of interpreters is to make things alright for the reappearance of the “father” (the law code) again. This is what Islamic reformism does. Ironically, then, anarchy is the only guarantee of the rule of law