Academic literature on the topic 'Blood – Symbolic aspects'

AbstractAnimal sacrifice was a central component of ancient Roman religion, but scholars have tended to focus on the symbolic aspects of these rituals, while glossing over the practical challenges involved in killing large, potentially unruly creatures, such as bulls. The traditional explanation is that the animal was struck on the head with a hammer or an axe to stun it, then had its throat cut. Precisely how axes, hammers, and knives were employed remains unexplained. This article draws upon ancient sculpture, comparative historical sources, and animal physiology to argue that the standard interpretation is incomplete, and, in its place, offers a detailed analysis of exactly how the killing and bleeding of bovines was accomplished and the distinct purposes of hammers and axes within these rituals.

Tantric rituals are often concerned with the manipulation of life fluids. The Bengali Durgā Pūjā, an annual worship celebration for the Hindu Great Goddess, is an example of an essentially Tantric ritual with orthodox Vedic and Puranic features. Although the overt rationales for the ritual have undergone changes over the centuries, from its martial origins to socio-economic display, the liturgy offers an underlying rationale that reveals its Tantric interests. Ritual features, symbolic elements, and the states and statuses of the actors during the enactment of the Durgā Pūjā demonstrate its concern with orchestrating the flow of female reproductive fluids through a ritual manipulation of the divine feminine. This paper will articulate the most salient of those aspects. Although often overlooked, because of its non-Tantric façade, the Bengali Durga Pūjā points us to a valuable resource for the study of Hindu Śākta Tantrism.

Background: Psychoneuroendocrinology is a nascent and vibrant field of endocrinology, revealing the unexplored paths of the diversifying field relating to cognitive functions and blood indices which is an interesting learning arena. This work, establishes the relationship of cognitive status and blood indices across parturition among the same subjects.Methods: The experimental design aimed at administration of cognitive assessment function tests as per Wechsler’s memory scale to pregnant subjects and getting specific blood parameters analysed across parturition. The statistical analysis included regression analysis to eliminate the effect of age on the parameters considered and a paired T test to establish relationship across parturition among the same subjects.Results: Cognitive assessment of the subjects clearly revealed that the following aspects of cognitive functions during conception are significantly impaired post parturition general memory, mental control 1, 2, 3, immediate recall memory. (Mental control 4 and 5). Symbolic memory (observations). Whereas the following cognitive functions of the same subjects during conception, are NOT significantly impaired post parturition, orientation, digit cognition (mental control 6 and 7). In the case of blood indices, as per the results obtained, it is quite clearly evident that the following blood parameters of the same subjects showed statistically significant difference during conception compared to post parturition. Mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC), mean corpuscular volume (MCV). Whereas the following blood parameters of the same subjects showed NO statistically significant difference during conception compared to post parturition, haemoglobin (Hb), total count (TC), platelet count (PC)Conclusions: The domain of cognition related to immediate and recent memory functions, Mean corpuscular blood indices have shown significant variation during pregnancy compared to post parturition. Therefore, the parameters considered in this study indirectly reflects upon the hormonal influence on cognition and blood indices, further studies will help venture more into this newer field of psycho endoneuroimmunology.

The present work was aimed at characterizing picture priming effects from two complementary behavioral and functional neuroimaging (positron emission tomography, PET) studies. In two experiments, we used the same line drawings of common living/nonliving objects in a tachistoscopic identification task to contrast two forms of priming. In the within-format priming condition (picture-picture), subjects were instructed to perform a perceptual encoding task in the study phase, whereas in the cross-format priming condition (word-picture), they were instructed to perform a semantic encoding task. In Experiment 1, we showed significant priming effects in both priming conditions. However, the magnitude of priming effects in the same-format/perceptual encoding condition was higher than that in the different-format/semantic encoding condition, while the recognition performance did not differ between the two conditions. This finding supports the existence of two forms of priming that may be subserved by different systems. Consistent with these behavioral findings, the PET data for Experiment 2 revealed distinct priming-related patterns of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) decreases for the two priming conditions when primed items were compared to unprimed items. The same-format priming condition involved reductions in cerebral activity particularly in the right extrastriate cortex and left cerebellum, while the different-format priming condition was associated with rCBF decreases in the left inferior temporo-occipital cortex, left frontal regions, and the right cerebellum. These results suggest that the extrastriate cortex may subserve general aspects of perceptual priming, independent of the kind of stimuli, and that the right part of this cortex could underlie the same-format-specific system for pictures. These data also support the idea that the cross-format/semantic encoding priming for pictures represents a form of lexico-semantic priming subserved by a semantic neural network extending from left temporo-occipital cortex to left frontal regions. These results reinforce the distinction between perceptual and conceptual priming for pictures, indicating that different cerebral processes and systems are implicated in these two forms of picture priming.

Since D. B. Quinn's The Elizabethans and the Irish, the history of early modern Ireland has been the subject of a wide range of studies, but only recently has women's role in that history received attention. Similarly, Nicholas Canny's article on “Edmund Spenser and the Development of an Anglo-Irish Identity” initiated a debate about whether sixteenth-century tracts on Ireland express a unified colonialist ideology, but only recently has the construction of sexuality in these texts come under scrutiny. It is not surprising that those who study the history of women in early modern Ireland do not often turn to the English tracts for evidence, except with great caution and reservation. So much related in these documents is indebted to the stereotypes of a colonialist discourse, initiated by Giraldus Cambrensis in the twelfth century, rather than to observation or encounter. Recent work on the history of women in early modern Ireland presents us with a sense of what is not being represented in the English settlers' descriptions. Such aspects of women's lives in Gaelic Ireland as their right to hold and acquire their own land and to keep their own names while married are not referred to in these tracts. These tracts do not yield transparent information about actual Irish women of the period, although there are fascinating references to their activities. Spenser writes that Irish women had “the trust and care of all things both at home and in the fields.” And at least one woman, the foster mother of Murrogh O'Brien, is said to have drunk the blood of her child's head as she grieved when he had been drawn and quartered by the English. The character of these texts as colonialist discourse makes the representation of women as a symbolic category or “gender” the more useful focus rather than some unmediated sense of “women.”

Background. Domestic cultural space is in urgent need of selfpreservation, and a renaissance of national self-identity of the Ukrainian cinema is connected with the state interest in this topic. There are the discussions around the attempts to revive the Ukrainian poetic cinema with its inherent mythological outlook erasing the boundaries between imaginary and real. It is logical, that the further development and studying of national cinema is impossible without revise of creative work of actors of the past; they were the bearers of poetic worldview, guided by folk traditions and customs. The tendency to the study of the forgotten names would help to bring back to their proper place the classics of Ukrainian cinematography. In the national scientific circles, there is an interest in the revival of forgotten names of cultural figures, and theater and filmmakers, in particular. Nevertheless, creativity of some Kharkiv actors, among them, Polina Kumanchenko and Lidia Krynytska, undeservedly deprived of attention in the scientific environment. The object of this research is the creativity of representatives of the Kharkiv acting school – Polina Kumanchenko and Lidiya Krynytska. The aim of the author is to study the performing manner of the actresses, to identify the peculiar facets of their playing, and, as a result, the certain traditions that are inherent the Kharkiv local artistic environment. The interpretation of the image of a mother in the performance of the mentioned actors is the subject of studying. Methods of analysis, synthesis, classification are the basis of this study and used for the scientific validity of the findings. We used the method of comparison in the considering of the mother images created by Kumanchenko and Krynytska. Research results. As the key in the cultural aspect, should be considered the fact that the image of the mother in Ukrainian mentality is iconic, associated with the image of the Earth, since the essence of both is the function of the “giver of life”, fertility. The worldview of Maria, the personage of P. Kumanchenko, is fixated on owning the land, because thanks to her, a person exists and continues his family. Like her ancestors, Maria is going to become a link in the further transfer of land to her descendants, passing to them the “genetic code” of love of Ukrainian peasants for the Earth. She is expecting a second child, and therefore, through her actions, she seeks to provide her children with stability, which is possible only with land. The actress focuses the attention of the viewer on expressive gestures, sudden movements to emphasize the active behavior of her heroine; at the same time, the extremely expressive regard of P. Kumanchenko, shown in close-up, convey the true thoughts and feelings of Maria, whose soul inhabits somewhere in her own, unreal world. In the first of the films of the trilogy by M. Makarenko (director) –“Human’s blood is not water”, – the actor’s decision of P. Kumanchenko presents a presentiment of happiness and stability that arises in her heroine’s soul against the background of her everyday suffering life – just like the Earth awaits spring blossoming after a long winter. Later we observe the changes that have occurred in the character of Maria along with her motherhood and confidence in the future. The actress gives her heroine a new external expressiveness: smooth movements, a gentle mysterious smile, elusive tenderness. The second part of the trilogy (“Dmytro Horytsvit”), presents P. Kumanchenko in a small episode. We see her in the light national costume, with tragic wringed hands, against the background of the burning home, where her child remained. The episode can be interpreted as an allegory: a mockery of fertile land devastated by fires, wars, destruction. However, just as a new cycle is needed for a ravaged Earth to bloom again, so for Maria the salvation of her daughter becomes the impetus for a new rebirth. The main idea of the film is embedded in this episode – the eternal pain of the Ukrainian land and its eternal revival. Based on the analysis of the role of Maria in the interpretation of P. Kumanchenko, we can talk about the embodiment in the mother image the idea of cyclicity of nature and life, coming from the ancient cults of the Earth. Thus, the influence of mythopoetics traced in the images created by the actresses, due to their symbolic similarity with the image of the mythological Mother Earth. In the film “Lymerivna” (directed by V. Lapoknysh) the image of a mother was created by actress L. Krynytska, which played Lymerykha – the mother of the main heroine. This is a passive woman, broken by life circumstances, who is going with the stream and is not able to deal with everyday problems. It would seem that both, Maria and Lymerykha, are united by a love for children and a desire to give them happiness. However, each of them has its own strategy of behavior. Unlike Maria, Lymerykha made tears the main tool on the way to her aim – to break the will of her daughter. It was her tears pushed Lymerykha’s daughter to a tragic death. The game of L. Krynitska outlines the “two-faced” path of the heroine’s behavior, reveals the “white” and “black” sides of her nature. That is, the actor’s task of L. Krynitska was to embody the image of a person with a “double bottom”. The manner of performing of this role may be partially explained by the etymology of the surname “Lymar”, which the heroine received when she got married. Lymar is a manufacturer, which make the harness for horses. Such a sign surname symbolizes her life – “horse harnessing”, a yoke that Lymerykha is afraid to throw off, because she does not know how to bear responsibility for her own destiny. There are also unifying links between the heroines of P. Kumanchenko and L. Krynytska: both manipulate by their motherhood. The cycles in the life events of both heroines are also clearly outlined. In Maria’s case, it is association with modifications in the state of the Earth due to natural changes in the seasons or terrible destructions, because of war or natural disasters. For Lymerykha, the cyclic existence is characterized, limited by the inability to overcome slavish psychology – to throw off the yoke, the “sword of Damocles,” which dominates her. In one of the scenes, the scenery symbolically emphasizes the essence of her being: a windmill, whose wings are constantly spinning. P. Kumanchenko and L. Krynytska are the Kharkiv actresses of the Drama Theater named after T. G. Shevchenko, and the influence of the actor’s system of his outstanding director Les Kurbas on the performing style of both cannot be overlooked. In the acting of the performers, the use of the “laws of Kurbas” is clearly traced: “the law of thrift”, “the law of fixation”, “the law of light-andshade”, etc. Conclusions. We analyzed both the differences and the unifying features in the interpretation of the image of the mother by Kharkov actresses. In the images created by P. Kumanchenko and L. Krynytska there is a relationship with the mythopoetic worldview. Тhanks to a number of artistic and meaningful associations, we can talk about the embodiment in the image of a woman-mother of the symbolic hypostases of Mother-Earth and the idea of the cyclical nature of life, which comes from ancient agricultural cults. The work with imaginary symbolism (a horse harness appears as a symbol of the enslavement of Women-Mother Earth) take place, as and a complete organics embodiment of the mythopoietic aspect inherent the Kharkiv acting school (Les Kurbas’s aesthetics) and, in general, the Ukrainian drama and cinema (A. Dovzhenko). A deeper analysis of various aspects of the performing work of Kharkiv actors, in particular, searching for the traditions in the actor’s game of Kharkovians, as well as more detailed studying of Les Kurbas’s methodological influence makes up the prospects of our study. The specifics of actor’s art of the Kharkiv school can serve as an example to follow in the training of actors and directors.

There are certain structures in cities that exemplify the grandiose designs of the city builders at the turn of the twentieth century. The Prince Edward or Bloor Viaduct is one of these structures crossing Toronto’s key landform, the Don Valley, immortalized in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion. Plans to build the bridge emerged as early as 1897, although the construction did not begin until 1913. The Bloor Viaduct can help us consider the progressive era by examining how discussions of nature/culture and country/city were incorporated into the discourses of its planning and construction. Technically, the bridge was an engineering feat spanning three valleys, making east-west travel in the growing city more efficient, improving the transportation of food and lumber. Symbolically, this monument highlighted the ability to overcome nature with a bridge and bring an aestheticized nature to the city. This contradiction between overcoming and improving access to nature is built into the bridge’s planning and construction history. By exploring the symbolic and material aspects of this bridge, the contradictions of nature in the process of nation building appear more striking.

Between agape and blood sacrifice. Kurban in the religious life of Orthodox Christian (Western Rhodopes, Bulgaria)The article is an excerpt of the dissertation „Religious syncretism and anti-syncretism in the light of the coexistence between Muslims (Pomaks) and Orthodox Christians in the Western Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria”. Dissertation is based on field research I did in 2005–2009 in the area of Gotse Delchev, a town in Blagoevgrad Province. I have interviewed community members invested with considerable symbolic potential, such as the mayor and the mufti, Orthodox clerics, hodjas, teachers and quack doctors. I conducted a total of 63 in-depth interviews with 76 people.My findings show that the local Orthodox population is more susceptible to the influence of Islam than vice versa. What is quite striking in this context is that examples of deep syncretism can actually be found among the Christians. This includes the practice of kurban or blood sacrifice, which they regard as a replication of Abraham’s sacrifice and invest with a level of importance that makes it a central aspect of their religious life (possibly more important than the Eucharist). Although Balkan Slavs had practiced blood sacrifice even before the arrival of Islam in the region, the Christian interpretations of the practice evince deep parallels with the Muslim practice of kurban. Both religious groups identify Abraham’s sacrifice as the origin of the practice, and treat the sacrificial lamb as a substitute for a specific human life.Although the scholar Florentina Badalanova has interestingly suggested that the narrative of Abraham’s sacrifice, which is popular in Bulgarian folklore, may have persisted in an unchanged form ever since it originally emerged in ancient Ur and became transmitted orally to the Balkans, her thesis must remain purely conjectural. Where it comes to the Western Rhodopes, I suppose that the motif of Abraham’s sacrifice filtered into Christian religious symbols and narratives via the traditions of adat Islam, many of which had retained close links with Judaism. By adopting the Ottoman Turkish term (kurban) rather than its Semitic variant (qorban), the Christians also adopted the related set of ideas about the sacrifice and its sacred aetiology. The precise ramifications of this example of deep syncretism for the religious experience of Orthodox Christians, though interesting, would require additional in-depth research.

AbstractWhile states undertook railway construction targeting economic and military objectives, this article questions whether and to which extent their symbolic territorial cohesion was also at stake. The hypothesis we aim to verify is that railway buildings acted as recurrent visual signifiers of territorial coherence and had, therefore, the potential of being instrumental as state-building tools. This research explores how an architectural reading of railway networks can inform our understanding of state-building projects and processes. We expect that geographically scoped railway architectural history is capable of cross-fertilizing political and planning history, through a better understanding of empire, state, and regional building discourses. The investigation focuses on the stylistic architectural choices of edifices on two trunk lines in Transylvania, North-West Romania, before World War I, while this territory belonged to the Habsburg then, as of 1867, Austro-Hungarian Empire. The large-scale analysis of railway architecture is discussed in relation to railway-line ownership, political (central, regional, and local) agency, economic development, and architectural Zeitgeist, highlighting state-building and territorial integration patterns. The mapping carried out reveals two successive architectural layers. These denote a shift in the role of railway architecture from an initial liberal phase, before the 1880s, to a bloom phase, prior to World War I. While during the former there was little state control over architectural aspects, during the latter architecture became a foremost representation instrument for the state railway administration. At the same time, the extant railway architecture appears as a palimpsest, a genuinely cross-border, European heritage, documenting the dynamics between imperial, state, regional, and local agencies.

The article deals with a topical problem of general semasiology, namely the investigation of phenomenon of semantical development regularity in the vocabulary of two groups into Indo-European genetic family of languages. The approach with regard to analysis of semantics with taking into account of coverage of several lexical-and-semantic systems enables a researcher to imagine a fuller picture about extension of lingual phenomena and gives the solid ground for synthesis. Especially interesting is observing the vocabulary of languages, whose speakers are bearers of different cultures, including cultures and traditions of communication. Typological analogies in semantics of communication of ethnic groups, which have different cultures, indicate either typology of language thinking or implementation of common patterns, which have been formed in the epoch of the Proto-Indo-European language, either language contacts in different times. Lexicon of Iranian and Slavic languages is used as the object of observing because it hasn’t been widely devised in the aspect of its comparative semasiological description and highlighting of typologically common peculiarities in correlation of basic and derivative meanings. Preliminary observing entitles the author to highlight the semasiological parallels: 1) role-play situation when a child should be found on the road as a way to trick death, which hunting down all newborns in the family; 2) conferring of symbolic importance to a knot, tying, which can be taken as an agreement, an oath, a vow for consolidating all subjects of legal relationship; 3) very close link of hand with the idea of help (perhaps, also in ritual sense). Other semasiological parallels: human desire to reflect in lexical semantics the objects of environment by the way of comparison these with body parts; traces of an archaic view on relations between family members through blood, saved in semantics; change verba facere - verba dicere; figurative usage of the verbs with etymological meaning ʻsway, rockʼ as ʻgoʼ, ʻwolk, strollʼ; implementation of semantical potential to denote something useless through caritive prefix and root with meaning ʻcase, thingʼ; change ʻsweep, broomʼ - ʻstealʼ and ʻsweep, broomʼ - ʻchase awayʼ and other.

The current work is an intellectual history of how blood permeated early modern Spaniards' conceptions of morality and purity. This paper examines Spanish intellectuals' references to blood in their medical, theological, demonological, and historical works. Through these excerpts, this thesis demonstrates how this language of blood played a role in buttressing the church's conception of good morals. This, in turn, will show that blood was used as a way to persecute Jews and Muslims, and ultimately define the early modern Spanish identity.

Notre lecture de la première partie de la Vita Nova, fondée à la fois sur le symbolisme du sang présent dans la première vision de Dante et sur la scène initiatique du mariage (le rire des femmes), nous permet de pénétrer dans le réseau symbolique de l'œuvre. Ainsi le sang versé par Paolo et Francesca fait écho au sang de Béatrice, et ne peut être compris que par rapport à une symbolique du livre présente dès la Vita Nova, non seulement avec l'image du "livre de la mémoire", mais surtout avec un cœur mangé compris dans le sens d'un engendrement de l'œuvre. Si la courtoisie ne peut être chez Dante qu'une courtoisie infernale, une courtoisie tournée non seulement vers les morts mais aussi vers le centre de la terre, il faut alors rejeter toute interprétation moraliste et théologique des valeurs courtoises chez Dante. En ce sens, notre travail invite à une reconsidération de la théologie chez Dante, et surtout du rapport entre Béatrice et la théologie. Et si nous invitons le lecteur de Dante à se montrer prudent non seulement envers des lectures trop moralisatrices de Dante au vingtième siècle, mais aussi envers toute tendance à idéaliser la figure de Béatrice, c'est pour mettre en évidence une double figuration de la différence sexuelle dans l'œuvre du poète: celle d'une union portant à un engendrement et rendant nécessaire la périlleuse traversée de l'Enfer, et celle d'une opposition terrifiante des femmes à l'initiation du poète (dans la Vita Nova)et à la traversée de l'Enfer. C'est ici que nous rencontrons non seulement la figure de Méduse, qui nous conduira à une longue réflexion sur la pétrification chez Dante, mais aussi le mythe d'Orphée, avec une opposition des femmes conduisant, après son voyage dans les régions mythiques de l'Hyperborée, à sa mort tragique lorsqu'il est déchiqueté par les femmes thraces. Ces réflexions nous auront porté non seulement à reconsidérer le sens de la figure d'Orphée dans le deuxième livre du Banquet, mais aussi le sens de l'allusion aux monts Riphée dans le chant XXVI du Purgatoire, en rapport à une symbolique du vent du Nord et du vent du Sud qui traverse une grande partie de l'œuvre du poète. Ainsi prend sens notre étude du cycle des "Rime Petrose", avec la figure pétrifiante de la Dame Pierre (rapprochée de Méduse), et la mise en évidence d'un symbolisme solsticial rendant plus complexe encore la question du dévoilement de Béatrice. Notre travail commençait avec le sang de Béatrice, il s'achève avec le reproche de la dame quant à l'esprit pétrifié et "teint" du poète("impetrato, tinto"), point de convergence d'un double parcours dans l'œuvre, que nous avons appelé le chemin du sang et le chemin de la pierre
Our interpretation of the first part of the Vita Nova, based on the symbolism of blood present in the first vision of Dante and the initiatic wedding scene (the "gab"), enables us to get an insight of the Dante's symbolic system. One of the main ideas of this work is that love not only leads to death, but also to the experience of the Inferno. In other words, in Dante's work the dialectics of love and death is solved by a confrontation to the realm of the dead, which the poet first experiences when he both witnesses and takes part in the initiatic female rite during the wedding scene of the Vita Nova. Dante's courtly love does not simply come down to the dialectics between passionate love and purified love; thus, the ideal path from Eros to Caritas is being questioned, since Dante's courtly love, which reveals the initiatic structures revolving around Beatrice's unveiling, opens onto the realm of the dead. so any moralist or theological interpretation of Dante's courtly love shouldn't be accepted, whether in the Vita Nova or in the Fifth Canto of the Inferno: love is first and foremost an access to knowledge. We move on to the figure of Medusa and the question of petrification, linked not only to the blood symbolism but to a complex solsticial system. Petrification turns out to be a necessary step of the journey towards Lucifer

In early modern Spain, raza (race) signified the stain of Blackness, while casta (chaste, caste) signified purity of blood—Whiteness. But with its empire in decline, eighteenth-century Spain enacted its dreams of sovereignty and autonomy by impersonating a dark Other, whose Semitic and south-Saharan African antecedents were now wrapped within an imaginary Gitano. Majismo, emulating the fashions of the urban underclass, adopted the fandango, an American dance of slaves and outlaws, as an emblem of pure-blooded Spanishness. Adopting fandango dances such as the profane Mexican panaderos, an Africanist belly-to-belly dance incorporated into the bolero school repertoire, majismo figured the deeply political dissonance between the determinism of Christian blood purity and the possibility of redemption implicit in the bobo’s equivocal confusion. Ironically, the fandango was adopted throughout the Western world as a symbol of freedom and class mobility, a metaphor that soon inflected every aspect of the world’s perception of Spain.

This chapter focuses on The Company of Wolves, as a dark fantasy film about the horrors of the adult world and of adult sexuality glimpsed through the dreams of an adolescent girl. It analyses how The Company of Wolves amalgamates aspects of horror, the Female Gothic, fairy tales, werewolf films and coming-of-age parables. It also illustrates how The Company of Wolves is drenched in atmosphere and an eerily sensual malaise that boasts striking imagery immersed in fairy-tale motifs and startling Freudian symbolism. The chapter mentions Neil Jordan as the director of The Company of Wolves, his second film and his first foray into the realms of Gothic horror. It cites several short stories from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber from 1979 as the basis for The Company of Wolves.