Fryderyk Chopin’s correspondence from the perspective of body studies. The discovery of corporeality

The author analyses Fryderyk Chopin’s correspondence within the context of the new humanities field of body studies. The socio-cultural anthropology of the body has been an object of study since the 1980s. It has enabled the extraction of the picture of a cultural body inscribed in Chopin’s correspondence, and it has also shown how his conception of his own soma and of the bodies of other people diverge from the Romantic convention of writing about corporeality. In the age of romanticism, sickness and physical weakness were glorified like a gift and a badge of spiritual aristocracy. A suffering and frail complexion became a value in the salons – a laissezpasser to the world of artistic sensitivity. Chopin never succumbed to that fashion. His record of his corporeal experience is strikingly un-Romantic, as can be seen, for example, when comparing it with the narration of sickness contained in the correspondence of Zygmunt Krasiński. The corporeal experience displayed by the great musician is striking in its modernity. Chopin rejects the Romantic lyricisation of sickness; his utterances are pithy, dominated by sarcasm and even physiological brutality, and the style of his description of corporeality employs grotesqueness, irony and absurdity. Human subjectivity sensed through the body paints a picture of a fragmentary, disharmonious self; people reveal themselves to the eyes of others not as a whole, but as an abbreviation, a representative detail. Visions of mechanised bodies, whose behaviour and actions are hyperbolised by the musician, bring us – especially during the last years of Chopin’s life – into a world where corporeality is a source of strangeness, and even repugnance. In the conclusion of the article, the author denies that Chopin’s music can be directly translated into a moving picture: she states that neither his illness nor any other experiences of his bodily existence can be treated in an illustrative way that purports to “illuminate” his music directly

Świat duchowy Josefa Váchala w pryzmacie roku 1920

Josef Váchal’s Spiritual World Through the Prism of the Year 1920 The article presents the spiritual search of one of the most original Czech artists of the 20th century. The first part of the text presents a general outline of the author’s views on the matters of God, Satan, Catholicism, the Church, Nature, Occultism, and Mysticism. The radical changes in Váchal’s worldview and the aporias of his concepts are emphasized. An important thread in this part of the text is to show the spiritual connections between Váchal’s beliefs and fears on the one hand and criticism of contemporary civilization on the other. In the second part of the article, the author’s attention was focused on one year of the artist’s life. The art and literary works produced in 1920 were created with unusual intensity and in great moral tension resulting from the fact that he had started an extramarital relationship, but this did not diminish their quality. Apart from introducing the reader to these extraordinary works, the second part of the article examines in detail Váchal’s attitude as a critic of ‘modern’ man: thoughtless and destructive towards nature, cruel towards animals. It also presents the artist’s countercultural project related to the idea of the Book as a literary labyrinth that should be traversed slowly with humility and effort, in spite of the endless rush of modern culture.   Świat duchowy Josefa Váchala w pryzmacie roku 1920 Artykuł prezentuje duchowe poszukiwania jednego z najbardziej oryginalnych czeskich artystów XX wieku. Materiałem interpretacyjnym są zarówno teksty literackie autora, jak i jego prace plastyczne. W pierwszej części tekstu przedstawiono ogólny zarys poglądów autora na sprawy Boga, Szatana, katolicyzmu, Kościoła, natury, okultyzmu, mistyki. Podkreślono radykalne zwroty światopoglądu Váchala, a także aporie i niekonsekwencje jego przekonań. Ważnym wątkiem w tej części tekstu jest ukazanie związków spirytualnych wierzeń i lęków Váchala z krytyką współczesnej cywilizacji. W drugiej części artykułu uwaga autora skupiła się na jednym roku z życia artysty. Powstałe w 1920 dzieła plastyczne i literackie tworzone były z niezwykłą intensywnością i w ogromnym napięciu moralnym wynikłym z nawiązania pozamałżeńskiego związku z kochanką. Nie obniżyło to ich literackiej i malarskiej jakości. Poza przybliżeniem czytelnikowi tych niezwykłych dzieł druga część artykułu poddaje szczegółowej analizie postawę Váchala jako krytyka „nowoczesnego” człowieka: bezmyślnego i destrukcyjnego wobec natury, okrutnego wobec zwierząt. Prezentuje też kontrkulturowy projekt artysty związany z ideą Księgi jako czytelniczego labiryntu, przemierzanego powoli, z pokorą i wysiłkiem, na przekór cywilizacji rządzonej przez bożka pośpiechu

Fryderyk Chopin’s correspondence from the perspective of body studies. The discovery of corporeality

The author analyses Fryderyk Chopin’s correspondence within the context of the new humanities field of body studies. The socio-cultural anthropology of the body has been an object of study since the 1980s. It has enabled the extraction of the picture of a cultural body inscribed in Chopin’s correspondence, and it has also shown how his conception of his own soma and of the bodies of other people diverge from the Romantic convention of writing about corporeality. In the age of romanticism, sickness and physical weakness were glorified like a gift and a badge of spiritual aristocracy. A suffering and frail complexion became a value in the salons - a laissezpasser to the world of artistic sensitivity. Chopin never succumbed to that fashion. His record of his corporeal experience is strikingly un-Romantic, as can be seen, for example, when comparing it with the narration of sickness contained in the correspondence of Zygmunt Krasiński. The corporeal experience displayed by the great musician is striking in its modernity. Chopin rejects the Romantic lyricisation of sickness; his utterances are pithy, dominated by sarcasm and even physiological brutality, and the style of his description of corporeality employs grotesqueness, irony and absurdity. Human subjectivity sensed through the body paints a picture of a fragmentary, disharmonious self; people reveal themselves to the eyes of others not as a whole, but as an abbreviation, a representative detail. Visions of mechanised bodies, whose behaviour and actions are hyperbolised by the musician, bring us - especially during the last years of Chopin’s life - into a world where corporeality is a source of strangeness, and even repugnance. In the conclusion of the article, the author denies that Chopin’s music can be directly translated into a moving picture: she states that neither his illness nor any other experiences of his bodily existence can be treated in an illustrative way that purports to “illuminate” his music directly

Seismology and activity of the F type star HD 49933

A 10-night asteroseismic observation programme has been conducted in January 2004 with the spectrometer Harps at the ES0 3.6-m telescope. The selected target, the 6th magnitude F5V star HD 49933, was chosen among the prime candidates of Corot, the European space mission dedicated to characterize stellar oscillations mode with high precision photometry measurements. This star shows important line profiles variations, indicating a surprisingly high activity with respect to its low rotation rate. However, with the help of tools developed for disentangling the signatures of activity and oscillations, we are able to observe its oscillation spectrum in the frequency range [1.2, 2.2 mHz]. We measure the large separation (88.7+-0.4 microHz) and the maximum amplitude (around 0.4+-0.1 m/s rms), respectively in agreement and marginal agreement with the predicted values.Comment: accepted in A&A Letter

Oscillations on the star Procyon

Stars are sphere of hot gas whose interiors transmit acoustic waves very efficiently. Geologists learn about the interior structure of Earth by monitoring how seismic waves propagate through it and, in a similar way, the interior of a star can be probed using the periodic motions on the surface that arise from such waves. Matthews et al. claim that the star Procyon does not have acoustic surface oscillations of the strength predicted. However, we show here, using ground-based spectroscopy, that Procyon is oscillating, albeit with an amplitude that is only slightly greater than the noise level observed by Matthews et al. using spaced-based photometry

Influence of diabetes on ambulation and inflammation in men and women with symptomatic peripheral artery disease

AbstractObjectiveTo determine whether diabetes and sex were factors associated with ambulatory function, endothelial cell inflammation, oxidative stress, and apoptosis, and with circulating biomarkers of inflammation and antioxidant capacity in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) and claudication.Materials/MethodsAmbulatory function of 180 symptomatic men and women with PAD was assessed during a graded maximal treadmill test, 6-minute walk test, and 4-meter walk test. Patients were further characterized on endothelial effects of circulating factors present in the sera using a cell culture-based bioassay on primary human arterial endothelial cells, and on circulating inflammatory and vascular biomarkers.ResultsMen and women with diabetes had greater prevalence (p = 0.007 and p = 0.015, respectively) of coronary artery disease (CAD) than patients without diabetes. To assure that this difference did not influence planned comparisons, the data set was stratified on CAD. Diabetic men with CAD had a lower peak walking time (PWT) during the treadmill test and a slower 4-meter gait speed compared to non-diabetic men with CAD (p < 0.05). Diabetic women with CAD had a lower PWT compared to their non-diabetic counterparts (p < 0.01). Additionally, diabetic men with CAD had higher pigment epithelium-derived factor (p < 0.05) than their non-diabetic counterparts, and diabetic women with CAD had higher leptin (p < 0.01) and interleukin-8 levels (p < 0.05).ConclusionsIn patients with PAD, diabetic men and women with CAD had more severe claudication than their non-diabetic counterparts, as measured by shorter PWT, and the men had further ambulatory impairment manifested by slower 4-meter gait speed. Furthermore, the diabetic patients with CAD had elevations in interleukin-8, leptin, and PEDF