Academic literature on the topic 'Lessico ideologico'

Abstract The study aims to demonstrate the significance of Friedrich Nietzsche for ›Weltanschauungsliteratur‹ (ideological literature) in the early 20th century. ›Weltanschauungsliteratur‹ adopts thematic elements of Nietzsche’s cultural criticism. Nietzsche’s habitus of the outmoded academic outsider becomes important for the writers’ self-staging. ›Weltanschauungsliteratur‹ closely observes Nietzsche’s combination of philosophical reasoning and literary writing and develops it further. Finally, the article examines exemplary ›Weltanschauungsliteratur‹ by Salomo Friedländer, Theodor Lessing, Rudolf Pannwitz, and Ernst Bertram.

ResumenEntre dolor y placer, demencia y recuperación mental, The Golden Notebook de Doris Lessing es un compendio enciclopédico y literario sobre la introspección psicológica, la autonomía asertiva con fines reivindicativos, la despenalización ideológica y la desmitificación artística de la sexualidad femenina en Inglaterra durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX. No obstante, esta obra polifónica y poliédrica se debate entre su empuje pionero como panacea de la Revolución Sexual en este período y su reserva al proclamar el hito histórico de la equiparación de los derechos civiles, fisiológicos y emocionales de la mujer contemporánea con respecto a los del hombre.Palabras clave: sexualidad, mujer, hombre, amor, coito, liberación, dependencia, locura.English title: Between Reluctance and Insistence. The Incomplete Sexual Revolution inThe Golden Notebook by Doris LessingAbstract: Ranging from pain to pleasure, madness to mental recovery, British writer Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook is an encyclopaedic, literary compendium regarding women’s psychological introspection, self-assertion, and search for validation, ideological decriminalization and aesthetic demythologizing of female sexuality in post-war England. Nevertheless, this polyphonic, polyhedral novel struggles between its decisive impetus towards the 1960s Sexual Revolution, and the author’s alleged reluctance to proclaim - by comparison with the powerful position of men - the historical landmark of women’s egalitarian rights in terms of social status, bodily enjoyment, emotional fulfilment and independence.Key words: sexuality, woman, man, love, coitus, emancipation, dependence, madness.

SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND THE PROTESTANT TRADITION: Retracing the Origins of Conflict by James C. Ungureanu. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. x + 358 pages. Hardcover; $50.00. ISBN: 9780822945819. *Mythical understandings about historical intersections of Christianity and science have a long history, and persist in our own day. Two American writers are usually cited as the architects of the mythology of inevitable warfare between science and religion: John William Draper (1811-1882) and Andrew Dickson White (1832-1919). Draper was a medical doctor, chemist, and historian. White was an academic (like Draper), a professional historian, and first president of the nonsectarian Cornell University. Ungureanu's objective is to show how Draper and White have been (mis)interpreted and (mis)used by secular critics of Christianity, liberal theists, and historians alike. *Ungureanu opens by critiquing conflict historians as misreading White and Draper. The conflict narrative emerged from arguments within Protestantism from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, and, as taken up by Draper and White, was intended not to annihilate religion but to reconcile religion with science. Consequently, the two were not the anti-religious originators of science-versus-religion historiography. Rather, the "warfare thesis" began among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant historians and theologians attacking both Roman Catholics and each other. By the early nineteenth century, the purpose of conflict polemics was not to crush religion in the name of science but to clear intellectual space for preserving a "purified" and "rational" religion reconciled to science. Widespread beliefs held by liberal Protestant men of science included "progressive" development or evolution in history and nature as found, for example, in books by Lamarck in France and Robert Chambers in Britain. For Draper, English chemist and Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was a model of faith without the burden of orthodoxy. *So conflict rhetoric arose not, as we've been taught before, in post-Darwinian controversies, but in contending narratives within generations of earlier Protestant reformers who substituted personal judgment for ecclesial authority. Victorian scientific naturalists and popularizers often rejected Christian theological beliefs in the name of a "natural" undogmatic "religion" (which could slip into varieties of Unitarianism, deism, agnosticism, or pantheism). In effect, the conflict was not between science and religion, but between orthodox Christian faith and progressive or heterodox Christian faith--a conflict between how each saw the relationship between Christian faith and science. Draper, White, and their allies still saw themselves as theists, even Protestant Christians, though as liberal theists calling for a "New Reformation." Given past and present anti-Christian interpretations of these conflict historians with actual religious aims, this is ironic to say the least. *Ungureanu's thesis shouldn't be surprising. In the Introduction to his History of the Warfare, White had written: "My conviction is that Science, though it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand with Religion … [i.e.] 'a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness' [quoting without attribution Matthew Arnold, who had actually written of an 'eternal power']." *As science advanced, so would religion: "the love of God and of our neighbor will steadily grow stronger and stronger" throughout the world. After praising Micah and the Epistle of James, White looked forward "above all" to the growing practice of "the precepts and ideals of the blessed Founder of Christianity himself" (vol. 1, p. xii). Ungureanu quotes White that the "most mistaken of all mistaken ideas" is the "conviction that religion and science are enemies" (p. 71). *This echoed both Draper's belief that "true" religion was consistent with science, and T. H. Huxley's 1859 lecture in which he affirmed that the so-called "antagonism of science and religion" was the "most mischievous" of "miserable superstitions." Indeed, Huxley affirmed that, "true science and true religion are twin-sisters" (p. 191). *Chapter 1 locates Draper in his biographical, religious, and intellectual contexts: for example, the common belief in immutable natural laws; the "new" Protestant historiography expressed in the work of such scientists as Charles Lyell and William Whewell; and various species of evolutionism. Comte de Buffon, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, John Herschel, Thomas Dick, Robert Chambers, and Darwin are some of the many writers whose work Draper used. *Chapter 2 examines White's intellectual development including his quest for "pure and undefiled" religion. He studied Merle d'Aubigné's history of the Reformation (White's personal library on the subject ran to thirty thousand items) and German scholars such as Lessing and Schleiermacher who cast doubt on biblical revelation and theological doctrines, in favor of a "true religion" based on "feeling" and an only-human Jesus. As he worked out his history of religion and science, White also absorbed the liberal theologies of William Ellery Channing, Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, and Lyman Abbott, among others. *The resulting histories by Draper and White were providential, progressive, and presentist: providential in that God still "governed" (without interfering in) nature and human history; progressive, even teleological, in that faith was being purified while science grew ever closer to Truth; and presentist in that the superior knowledge of the present could judge the inferiority of the past, without considering historical context. *Chapters 3 and 4 situate Draper and White in wider historiographic/polemical Anglo-American contexts, from the sixteenth-century Reformation to the late nineteenth century. Protestant attacks on Roman Catholic moral and theological corruption were adapted to nineteenth-century histories of religion and science, with science as the solvent that cleansed "true religion" of its irrational accretions. Ungureanu reviews other well-known Christian writers, including Edward Hitchcock, Asa Gray, Joseph Le Conte, and Minot Judson Savage, who sought to accommodate their religious beliefs to evolutionary theories and historical-critical approaches to the Bible. *Chapter 5 offers a fascinating portrait of Edward Livingston Youmans--the American editor with prominent publisher D. Appleton and Popular Science Monthly--and his role in promoting the conflict-reconciliation historiography of Draper and White and the scientific naturalism of Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and John Tyndall. *In chapter 6 and "Conclusions," Ungureanu surveys critics of Draper's and White's work, although he neglects some important Roman Catholic responses. He also carefully analyzes the "liberal Protestant" and "progressive" writers who praised and popularized the Draper-White perspectives. Ungureanu is excellent at showing how later writers--atheists, secularists, and freethinkers--not only blurred distinctions between "religion" and "theology" but also appropriated historical conflict narratives as ideological weapons against any form of Christian belief, indeed any form of religion whatsoever. Ultimately, Ungureanu concludes, the conflict-thesis-leading-to-reconciliation narrative failed. The histories of Draper and White were widely, but wrongly, seen as emphatically demonstrating the triumph of science over theology and religious faith, rather than showing the compatibility of science with a refined and redefined Christianity, as was their actual intention. *Draper's History of the Conflict, from the ancients to the moderns, suggested an impressive historical reading program, as did his publication of A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (rev. ed., 2 vols., 1875 [1863]). But one looks in vain for footnotes and bibliographies to support his controversial claims. White's two-volume study, however, landed with full scholarly apparatus, including copious footnotes documenting his vivid accounts of science conquering theological belief across the centuries. What Ungureanu doesn't discuss is how shoddy White's scholarship could be: he cherrypicked and misread his primary and secondary sources. His citations were not always accurate, and his accounts were sometimes pure fiction. Despite Ungureanu's recovery of German sources behind White's understanding of history and religion, he does not cite Otto Zöckler's Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft (2 vols., 1877-1879), which, as Bernard Ramm noted in The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954), served as "a corrective" to White's history. *Ungureanu certainly knows, and refers to some of, the primary sources in the large literature of natural theology. I think he underplays the roles of Victorian natural theologies and theologies of nature in reflecting, mediating, criticizing, and rejecting conflict narratives. Ungureanu seems to assume readers' familiarity with the classic warfare historians. He could have provided more flavor and content by reproducing some of Draper's and White's melodramatic and misleading examples of good scientists supposedly conquering bad theologians. (One of my favorite overwrought quotations is from White, vol. 1, p. 70: "Darwin's Origin of Species had come into the theological world like a plough into an ant-hill. Everywhere those thus rudely awakened … swarmed forth angry and confused.") *Ungureanu's is relevant history. Nineteenth-century myth-laden histories of the "warfare between Christianity and science" provide the intellectual framework for influential twenty-first century "scientific" atheists who have built houses on sand, on misunderstandings of the long, complex and continuing relations between faith/practice/theology and the sciences. *This is fine scholarship, dense, detailed, and documented--with thirty-seven pages of endnotes and a select bibliography of fifty pages. It is also well written, with frequent pauses to review arguments and conclusions, and persuasive. Required reading for historians, this work should also interest nonspecialists curious about the complex origins of the infamous conflict thesis, its ideological uses, and the value of the history of religion for historians of science. *Reviewed by Paul Fayter, who taught the history of Victorian science and theology at the University of Toronto and York University, Toronto. He lives in Hamilton, ON.

Perché il titolo. All’opera di Maurizio Vitale l’Istituto Lombardo dedica questo secondo momento di riflessione, per ripercorrere sulle sue pagine la storia della «lingua nostra» dalle Origini alla Contemporaneità. Muovere dal Medioevo delle autonomie comunali, significa analizzare i punti di attrito e di innesto della tradizione classica nel rinnovamento della cristiana res publica d’Europa, della letteratura e della grammatica di Roma in altre grammatiche e letterature, della ricezione del lessico dell’alta e rinascente, non solo infima e corrotta, latinità nei repertori dei volgari diversamente osmotici, che davano ciascuno un suo nome a non tutte le cose e a non tutte le idee, quelle proprie alla teologia dei chierici, alla scienza degli arabi, al fervore degli uomini di governo, alla industria dei mercanti e degli artigiani, allo stile degli scrittori. La lingua formata sul canone trecentesco fiorentino, che è divenuta italiana, a partire dal secolo xvi della scrittura colta, dal Risorgimento in poi della nazione, ha difeso la propria identità nelle opere letterarie storiche e scientifiche, nelle dispute accademiche e nei ludi grammaticali, nei testi legislativi e della informazione, l’ha arricchita e corretta a confronto con le emergenti classi sociali da una parte, con il quasi generale progresso ideologico e culturale dall’altra. Continua ansiosa, forse stanca, appena oltre la soglia del suo secondo millennio, gravata dal peso di molte parole tradite, dall’esaurirsi nel vacuo delle valenze semantiche, quelle identitarie e rigenerative trasmesse al nostro oggi dai sommi poeti e dai grandi pensatori anche in altra lingua, come dal disperso popolo che le ha sapientemente reagite: a chiedere che si partecipi, con voce italiana, al dialogo ecumenico. (a. s.)

The main objective of this paper is to study the novel called the Fifth Child (1988) by Doris Lessing from a cultural materialist perspective in terms of reflecting the subversion of the traditional family pattern, creating alternative family structure instead of it and eliminating gender roles imposed on women and men. According to cultural materialist theory, meaning is created culturally and some stories or some representations are tried to be more plausible than others. In this regard, the Fifth Child will show how Victorian morality and values were understood and subverted in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of Britain. This novel is chosen to be studied from this perspective because there is a wish for returning back to Victorian values in 1980s in the novel represented by the couple of Harriet and David. They get married and have children by sticking their gender roles imposed on them by Victorian morality. That is, David is the money provider and Harriet is looking after children and doing households in a Victorian house. Although hegemonic ideologies of Victorian morality such as emphasis on the gender roles and on the family bond exist in this period they are challenged and subverted with the birth of the fifth child called Ben into the family. As a result, the subversion of family bond with the coming of Ben and the subversion of gender roles with Harriet who brings Ben back against the consent of her husband will be illustrated in the paper.

This article aims to clarify some points of view and aspects on the relationship between multiculturalism and migration, and the relationship between minor and major normative jurisprudences, against the dynamic background of historical and anthropological processes, in a criminological perspective, and using some theories that argue why the phenomena of deviance are associated with intercultural and ethnic contexts. The interaction between outgroup and ingroup, while modern societies are engaged in solving problems related to the management and control of regulatory deviance, seems to bring out spaces to think, thanks to the onset of the ethnographic method in criminological studies. Criminology and ethnography can therefore profitably experiment with a scientific relationship, in the light of the sociology of deviance. New concepts invite to formulate a different approach, less constrained by specializations, but tending to obtain a result of a balanced scientific exchange full of perspectives. In this way, some of the reasons behind the deviant behavior among minorities will appear clearer. It can be argued, for example, that concepts of proximal and distal stress expand the translations of the problem. The cessation of the social bond, the semantic differences between landless and native minorities, seem to have a role in the dynamics of deviance, psychopathology, and crime. The sub-cultural community, the training and educational conditions are all recurrent themes, but they often assume an unexpected value in the eternal struggle for space. The class struggle and the reasons behind the enormous amount of laws appear to be the result of contrasting relationships between majorities and minorities. The problem of cultural deviances does not always seem clear and complete, if interpreted by the individual sciences, they easily run into scientific reductionism and redundancy. Stitching together edges that tend to remain far away could be possible only provided that the different perspectives can be connected, and that the tool of comparative ethnography is regarded as a fruitful link with criminology. Semantics is enriched with concepts, such as the syndrome of socio-cultural adoption, probes the implications of the cultural bond that redefines the existential plots of the condition of the migrant in modernity. The disruptive effects of the stress of minorities, or the disbelief of minorities towards the normative majority, are only some of the concepts with which I have tried to represent the motivations that are at the base of a basic hostility of some social communities to the rules. A multi-scientific approach has an experimental structure, a crossroads of different experiences, which aims to build lexicons and widen and diversify the semantics of deviance, questioning the particularisms and the singular exasperation of the perspectives of hermeneutic excesses. As Europe prepares to deal with the impact of epochal migration, the comparative method is able to provide empirical considerations for a reading consistent with history, and less involved with academic speculation, and ideological needs. Understanding the dynamics that underlie the criminal deviance between minorities, is not only an exercise of absolute social vanguard, but tends to build new bases and theoretical and practical references better systematized, which dictate complex work agendas, expanding the knowledge on the real relationship between criminal deviance and ethnic communities. RiassuntoQuesto articolo si propone di chiarire alcuni punti di vista e aspetti sulle relazioni tra multiculturalismo e migrazione, e il rapporto tra minoranze e maggioranze normative, sullo sfondo dinamico di processi storici e antropologici, in una prospettiva criminologica, e utilizzando alcune teorie che argomentano i motivi per i quali le fenomenologie della devianza si associano ai contesti interculturali ed etnici. L'interazione tra outgroup ed ingroup, mentre le società moderne sono impegnate nella soluzione di problemi legati alla gestione ed al controllo della devianza normativa, sembra far emergere spazi di riflessione grazie all’irruzione del metodo etnografico negli studi criminologici. Criminologia ed etnografia, possono dunque proficuamente sperimentare una relazione scientifica, alla luce della sociologia della devianza. Nuovi concetti invitano a riformulare un approccio meno costretto dalle specializzazioni, ma tendente ad ottenere un risultato di uno scambio scientifico equilibrato e denso di prospettive. Appariranno più chiare in tal modo, alcuni delle motivazioni retrostanti alla condotta deviante tra le minoranze. Si può sostenere, per esempio, che concetti di stress prossimale e distale, ampliano le traduzioni del problema. La cessazione del legame sociale, le differenze semantiche tra minoranze senza terra e minoranze native, sembrano avere un ruolo nella dinamica della devianza, della psicopatologia, della delinquenza. La comunità sub culturale, la formazione e le condizioni di istruzione, sono temi ricorrenti, tuttavia assumono sovente un valore imprevisto nella lotta eterna per lo spazio. La lotta di classe e le ragioni che stanno dietro alla enorme mole di normativa, appaiono il frutto di rapporti di contrasto tra maggioranza e minoranze. Non appare sempre chiaro e completo il problema delle devianze culturali, se interpretato dalle singole scienze, incorrono facilmente nel riduzionismo e nella ridondanza scientifica. Un lavoro di ricucitura di margini che tendono a mantenersi lontani, è possibile a patto che le prospettive sappiano comunicare tra loro, e lo strumento dell’etnografia comparata si profila una proficua connessione con la criminologia. La semantica si arricchisce di concetti, come ad esempio la sindrome dell’adozione socioculturale, sonda le implicazioni del legame culturale che ridefinisce le trame esistenziali della condizione del migrante nella modernità. Gli effetti dirompenti dello stress delle minoranze, o la diffidenza delle minoranze verso la maggioranza normativa, sono solo alcuni dei concetti con cui ho cercato di rappresentare le motivazioni che stanno alla base di un'ostilità di fondo di alcune comunità sociali, rispetto alle regole. Un approccio multi scientifico ha un assetto sperimentale, incrocio di esperienze diverse, che mirano a costruire lessici e ampliare e diversificate le semantiche della devianza, mettendo in discussione i particolarismi e l'esasperazione singolare delle prospettive degli eccessi ermeneutici. Mentre l'Europa si appresta ad affrontare l'impatto di una migrazione epocale, il metodo comparativo è in grado di fornire le considerazioni empiriche per una lettura coerente con la storia, e meno coinvolte con la speculazione accademica, e le esigenze ideologiche. Capire le dinamiche che sotto intendono la devianza criminale tra le minoranze, è un esercizio non solo di assoluta avanguardia sociale, ma tende a costruire basi nuove e riferimenti teorici e pratici meglio sistematizzati, che dettano agende di lavoro complesse, allargando la conoscenza sul rapporto reale tra devianza criminale e comunità etniche. ResumenEste artículo se propone aclarar los puntos de vista y aspectos sobre las relaciones entre multiculturalismo y migración, y la relación entre minorías y mayorías normativas, en el fondo dinámico de procesos históricos y antropológicos. En una perspectiva criminológica, y utilizando algunas teorías que argumentan los motivos por los cuales las fenomenologías de las desviaciones se asocian a los contextos interculturales y étnicos. La interacción entre outgroup e ingroup, mientras las sociedades modernas están ocupadas en la solución de los problemas ligados a la gestión y al control de la desviación normativa, parece que hacen surgir espacios de reflexión gracias a la introducción de la metodología etnográfica en los estudios criminológicos. Criminología y etnografía, pueden entonces experimentar rentablemente una relación científica, bajo la luz de la sociología de la desviación. Nuevos conceptos invitan a reformular un enfoque menos forzado por las especializaciones, pero con la tendencia en obtener un resultado de un intercambio científico equilibrado y lleno de perspectivas. Aparecerán más claras de esta manera, algunas de las motivaciones que están detrás de la conducta desviada entre las minorías. Se puede sostener, por ejemplo, que conceptos como stress proximal y distal, amplían las traducciones del problema. La ruptura del lazo social, las diferencias semánticas entre minorías sin tierra y minorías nativas, parecen tener un rol en la dinámica de la desviación, de la psicopatología y de la delincuencia. La comunidad sub-cultural, la formación y las condiciones de instrucción, son temas recurrentes, sin embargo, asumen a menudo un valor imprevisto en la lucha eterna por el espacio. La lucha de clase y las razones que están detrás a la gran masa normativa, parecen el fruto de relaciones de contraste entre mayorías y minorías. No parece siempre claro y completo el problema de las desviaciones culturales, si es interpretado por las ciencias individuales, incurren fácilmente en el reduccionismo y en la redundancia científica. Un trabajo de reparación de márgenes que tienen la tendencia a mantener la distancia, es posible siempre y cuando las perspectivas sepan comunicarse entre ellas, y el instrumento de la etnografía comparada pueda conectarse rentablemente con la criminología. La semántica se enriquece de conceptos, como por ejemplo el síndrome de la adopción sociocultural, sondea las implicaciones del lazo cultural que redefinen la parte existencial de la condición del migrante en la modernidad. Los efectos disruptivos del stress de las minorías, o la diferencia de las minorías hacia las mayorías normativas, son solo algunos de los conceptos con los que busqué representar las motivaciones que están en la base de la hostilidad de algunas comunidades sociales, con respecto a las reglas. Un enfoque multicientífico tiene un corte experimental, cruce de experiencias diferentes, que velan por construir léxicos, ampliar y diferenciar las semánticas de la desviación, poniendo en discusión los particularismos y la exasperación singular de las perspectivas de los excesos hermenéuticos. Mientras Europa se alista para afrontar el impacto de una migración épica, la metodología comparativa puede suministrar las consideraciones empíricas para una lectura coherente con la historia, y menos involucrada con la especulación académica, y las exigencias ideológicas. Entender las dinámicas que definen la desviación criminal entre las minorías, es un ejercicio no solo de absoluta vanguardia social, sino que tiene la tendencia en construir bases nuevas y referencias teóricas y prácticas mejor sistematizadas, que dictan agendas de trabajo complejas, engrandeciendo el conocimiento sobre la relación real entre desviación criminal y comunidades étnicas.

A slash manip is a photo remix that montages visual signs from popular media with those from gay pornography, creating a new cultural artefact. Slash (see Russ) is a fannish practice that homoeroticises the bonds between male media characters and personalities—female pairings are categorised separately as ‘femslash’. Slash has been defined almost exclusively as a female practice. While fandom is indeed “women-centred” (Bury 2), such definitions have a tendency to exclude male contributions. Remix has been well acknowledged in discussions on slash, most notably video remix in relation to slash vids (Kreisinger). Non-written slash forms such as slash vids (see Russo) and slash fanart (see Dennis) have received increased attention in recent years. This article continues the tradition of moving beyond fiction by considering the non-written form of slash manips, yet to receive sustained scholarly attention. Speaking as a practitioner—my slash manips can be found here—I perform textual analysis from an aca–fan (academic and fan) position of two Merlin slash manips by male Tumblr artist wandsinhand. My textual analysis is influenced by Barthes’s use of image semiotics, which he applies to the advertising image. Barthes notes that “all images are polysemous”, that underlying their signifiers they imply “a ‘floating chain’ of signifieds, the reader able to choose some and ignore others” (274). That said, the advertising image, he argues, constructs an “undoubtedly intentional […] signification”, making it ideally suited for analysis (270). By supplementing my analysis with excerpts from two interviews I conducted with wandsinhand in February and April 2013 (quoted here with permission), I support my readings with respect to the artist’s stated ‘intentional reading’. I then contextualise these readings with respect to canon (Merlin) representations and gay pornography—via the chosen sexual acts/positions, bukkake and doggystyle, of the pornographic base models, as selected by the artist. This approach allows me to examine the photo remix qualities of slash manips with respect to the artist’s intentions as well as how artistic choices of inclusion function to anchor meaning in the works. I describe these choices as the ‘semiotic significance of selection’. Together the readings and interviews in this article help illustrate the value of this form and the new avenues it opens for slash scholars, such as consideration of photo remix and male production, and the importance of gay pornography to slash. My interviews also reveal, via the artist’s own assessment of the ‘value’ of his practice, a tendency to devalue or overlook the significance of this particular slash form, affirming a real need for further critical engagement with this under-examined practice. Slash Photo Remix: Famous Faces, Porny Bodies Lessig defines remix culture as based on an activity of “rip, mix and burn” (12–5); while Navas describes it as a “practice of cut/copy and paste” (159)—the latter being more applicable to photo remix. Whereas Lessig is concerned primarily with issues of copyright, Navas is interested in remix’s role in aesthetics and the political economy. Within fan studies, slash vids—a form of video remix—has been a topic of considerable academic interest in recent years. Slash manips—a form of photo or image remix—however, has not attracted the same degree of interest. Stasi’s description of slash as “a non-hierarchical, rich layering of genres” points to the usefulness of slash manips as an embodiment of the process of slash; whereby artists combine, blend and mutate graphic layers from popular media with those from gay pornography. Aesthetics and the slash manip process are central concerns of this article’s consideration of slash photo remix. Slash manips, or slash photo montage, use image manipulation software (Adobe Photoshop being the community standard, see wandsinhand’s tutorial) to layer the heads of male fictional characters from stills or promotional images with scenes—static or moving—from gay pornography. Once an artist has selected pornographic ‘base models’ anatomically suited to canon characters, these models are often then repositioned into the canon universe, which in the case of Merlin means a medieval setting. (Works not repositioned and without added details from canon are generally categorised as ‘male celebrity fakes’ rather than ‘slash manips’.) Stedman contends that while many fan studies scholars are interested in remix, “studies commonly focus on examples of remixed objects rather than the compositional strategies used by remix composers themselves” (107). He advocates moving beyond an exclusive consideration of “text-centred approaches” to also consider “practice-” and “composer-centred” approaches. Such approaches offer insight into “the detailed choices composers actually make when composing” (107). He refers to recognition of the skills required by a remix composer as “remix literacy” (108). This article’s consideration of the various choices and skills that go into the composition of slash manips—what I term the ‘semiotic significance of selection’—is explored with respect to wandsinhand’s practice, coupling my reading—informed by my experience as a practitioner—with the interpretations of the artist himself. Jenkins defines slash as “reaction against” constructions of male sexuality in both popular media and pornography (189). By their very nature, slash manips also make clear the oft-overlooked connections between slash and gay pornography, and in turn the contributions of gay male participants, who are well represented by the form. This contrasts with a tendency within scholarship to compare slash with heterosexual female forms, such as the romance genre (Salmon and Symons). Gay pornography plays a visible role in slash manips—and slash vids, which often remix scenes from popular media with gay cinema and pornography. Slash as Romance, Slash as Pornography Early scholarship on slash (see Russ; Lamb and Veith) defines it as a form of erotica or pornography, by and for women; a reductive definition that fails to take into account men’s contribution, yet one that many researchers continue to adopt today. As stated above, there has also been a tendency within scholarship to align the practice with heterosexual female forms such as the romance genre. Such a tendency is by and large due to theorisation of slash as heterosexual female fantasy—and concerned primarily with romance and intimacy rather than sex (see Woledge). Weinstein describes slash as more a “fascination with” than a “representation of” homosexual relationships (615); while MacDonald makes the point that homosexuality is not a major political motivator for slash (28–9). There is no refuting that slash—along with most fannish practice—is female dominated, ethnographic work and fandom surveys reveal that is the case. However there is great need for research into male production of slash, particularly how such practices might challenge reigning definitions and assumptions of the practice. In similar Japanese practices, for example, gay male opposition to girls’ comics (shōjo) depicting love between ‘pretty boys’ (bishōunen) has been well documented (see Hori)—Men’s Love (or bara) is a subgenre of Boys’ Love (or shōnen’ai) predominately created by gay men seeking a greater connection with the lived reality of gay life (Lunsing). Dennis finds male slash fanart producers more committed to muscular representations and depiction of graphic male/male sex when compared with female-identifying artists (14, 16). He also observes that male fanart artists have a tendency of “valuing same-sex desire without a heterosexual default and placing it within the context of realistic gay relationships” (11). I have observed similar differences between male and female-identifying slash manip artists. Female-identifying Nicci Mac, for example, will often add trousers to her donor bodies, recoding them for a more romantic context. By contrast, male-identifying mythagowood is known for digitally enlarging the penises and rectums of his base models, exaggerating his work’s connection to the pornographic and the macabre. Consider, for example, mythagowood’s rationale for digitally enlarging and importing ‘lips’ for Sam’s (Supernatural) rectum in his work Ass-milk: 2012, which marks the third anniversary of the original: Originally I wasn’t going to give Sammy’s cunt any treatment (before I determined the theme) but when assmilk became the theme I had to go find a good set of lips to slap on him and I figured, it’s been three years, his hole is going to be MUCH bigger. (personal correspondence, used with permission) While mythagowood himself cautions against gendered romance/pornography slash arguments—“I find it annoying that people attribute certain specific aspects of my work to something ‘only a man’ would make.” (ibid.)—gay pornography occupies an important place in the lives of gay men as a means for entertainment, community engagement and identity-construction (see McKee). As one of the only cultural representations available to gay men, Fejes argues that gay pornography plays a crucial role in defining gay male desire and identity. This is confirmed by an Internet survey conducted by Duggan and McCreary that finds 98% of gay participants reporting exposure to pornographic material in the 30-day period prior to the survey. Further, the underground nature of gay pornographic film (see Dyer) aligns it with slash as a subcultural practice. I now analyse two Merlin slash manips with respect to the sexual positions of the pornographic base models, illustrating how gay pornography genres and ideologies referenced through these works enforce their intended meaning, as defined by the artist. A sexual act such as bukkake, as wandsinhand astutely notes, acts as a universal sign and “automatically generates a narrative for the image without anything really needing to be detailed”. Barthes argues that such a “relation between thing signified and image signifying in analogical representation” is unlike language, which has a much more ‘arbitrary’ relationship between signifier and signified (272). Bukkake and the Assertion of Masculine Power in Merlin Merlin (2008–12) is a BBC reimagining of the Arthurian legend that focuses on the coming-of-age of Arthur and his close bond with his manservant Merlin, who keeps his magical identity secret until Arthur’s final stand in the iconic Battle of Camlann. The homosexual potential of Merlin and Arthur’s story—and of magic as a metaphor for homosexuality—is something slash fans were quick to recognise. During question time at the first Merlin cast appearance at the London MCM Expo in October 2008—just one month after the show’s pilot first aired—a fan asked Morgan and James, who portray Merlin and Arthur, is Merlin “meant to be a love story between Arthur and Merlin?” James nods in jest. Wandsinhand, who is most active in the Teen Wolf (2011–present) fandom, has produced two Merlin slash manips to date, a 2013 Merlin/Arthur and a 2012 Arthur/Percival, both untitled. The Merlin/Arthur manip (see Figure 1) depicts Merlin bound and on his knees, Arthur ejaculating across his face and on his chest. Merlin is naked while Arthur is partially clothed in chainmail and armour. They are both bruised and dirty, Arthur’s injuries suggesting battle given his overall appearance, while Merlin’s suggesting abuse, given his subordinate position. The setting appears to be the royal stables, where we know Merlin spends much of his time mucking out Arthur’s horses. I am left to wonder if perhaps Merlin did not carry out this duty to Arthur’s satisfaction, and is now being punished for it; or if Arthur has returned from battle in need of sexual gratification and the endorsement of power that comes from debasing his manservant. Figure 1: wandsinhand, Untitled (Merlin/Arthur), 2013, photo montage. Courtesy the artist. Both readings are supported by Arthur’s ‘spent’ expression of disinterest or mild curiosity, while Merlin’s face emotes pain: crying and squinting through the semen obscuring his vision. The artist confirms this reading in our interview: “Arthur is using his pet Merlin to relieve some stress; Merlin of course not being too pleased about the aftermath, but obedient all the same.” The noun ‘pet’ evokes the sexual connotations of Merlin’s role as Arthur’s personal manservant, while also demoting Merlin even further than usual. He is, in Arthur’s eyes, less than human, a sexual plaything to use and abuse at will. The artist’s statement also confirms that Arthur is acting against Merlin’s will. Violence is certainly represented here, the base models having been ‘marked up’ to depict sexualisation of an already physically and emotionally abusive relationship, their relative positioning and the importation of semen heightening the humiliation. Wandsinhand’s work engages characters in sadomasochistic play, with semen and urine frequently employed to degrade and arouse—“peen wolf”, a reference to watersports, is used within his Teen Wolf practice. The two wandsinhand works analysed in this present article come without words, thus lacking a “linguistic message” (Barthes 273–6). However even so, the artist’s statement and Arthur’s stance over “his pet Merlin” mean we are still able to “skim off” (270) the meanings the image contains. The base models, for example, invite comparison with the ‘gay bukkake’ genre of gay pornography—admittedly with a single dominant male rather than a group. Gay bukkake has become a popular niche in North American gay pornography—it originated in Japan as a male–female act in the 1980s. It describes a ritualistic sexual act where a group of dominant men—often identifying as heterosexual—fuck and debase a homosexual, submissive male, commonly bareback (Durkin et al. 600). The aggression on display in this act—much like the homosocial insistency of men who partake in a ‘circle jerk’ (Mosher 318)—enables the participating men to affirm their masculinity and dominance by degrading the gay male, who is there to service (often on his knees) and receive—in any orifice of the group’s choosing—the men’s semen, and often urine as well. The equivalencies I have made here are based on the ‘performance’ of the bukkake fantasy in gay niche hazing and gay-for-pay pornography genres. These genres are fuelled by antigay sentiment, aggression and debasement of effeminate males (see Kendall). I wish here to resist the temptation of labelling the acts described above as deviant. As is a common problem with anti-pornography arguments, to attempt to fix a practice such as bukkake as deviant and abject—by, for example, equating it to rape (Franklin 24)—is to negate a much more complex consideration of distinctions and ambiguities between force and consent; lived and fantasy; where pleasure is, where it is performed and where it is taken. I extend this desire not to label the manip in question, which by exploiting the masculine posturing of Arthur effectively sexualises canon debasement. This began with the pilot when Arthur says: “Tell me Merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees?” Of the imported imagery—semen, bruising, perspiration—the key signifier is Arthur’s armour which, while torn in places, still ensures the encoding of particular signifieds: masculinity, strength and power. Doggystyle and the Subversion of Arthur’s ‘Armoured Self’ Since the romanticism and chivalric tradition of the knight in shining armour (see Huizinga) men as armoured selves have become a stoic symbol of masculine power and the benchmark for aspirational masculinity. For the medieval knight, armour reflects in its shiny surface the mettle of the man enclosed, imparting a state of ‘bodilessness’ by containing any softness beneath its shielded exterior (Burns 140). Wandsinhand’s Arthur/Percival manip (see Figure 2) subverts Arthur and the symbolism of armour with the help of arguably the only man who can: Arthur’s largest knight Percival. While a minor character among the knights, Percival’s physical presence in the series looms large, and has endeared him to slash manip artists, particularly those with only a casual interest in the series, such as wandsinhand: Why Arthur and Percival were specifically chosen had really little to do with the show’s plot, and in point of fact, I don’t really follow Merlin that closely nor am I an avid fan. […] Choosing Arthur/Percival really was just a matter of taste rather than being contextually based on their characterisations in the television show. Figure 2: wandsinhand, Untitled (Arthur/Percival), 2012, photo montage. Courtesy the artist. Concerning motivation, the artist explains: “Sometimes one’s penis decides to pick the tv show Merlin, and specifically Arthur and Percival.” The popularity of Percival among manip artists illustrates the power of physicality as a visual sign, and the valorisation of size and muscle within the gay community (see Sánchez et al.). Having his armour modified to display his muscles, the implication is that Percival does not need armour, for his body is already hard, impenetrable. He is already suited up, simultaneously man and armoured. Wandsinhand uses the physicality of this character to strip Arthur of his symbolic, masculine power. The work depicts Arthur with a dishevelled expression, his armoured chest pressed against the ground, his chainmail hitched up at the back to expose his arse, Percival threading his unsheathed cock inside him, staring expressionless at the ‘viewer’. The artist explains he “was trying to show a shift of power”: I was also hinting at some sign of struggle, which is somewhat evident on Arthur’s face too. […] I think the expressions work in concert to suggest […] a power reversal that leaves Arthur on the bottom, a position he’s not entirely comfortable accepting. There is pleasure to be had in seeing the “cocky” Arthur forcefully penetrated, “cut down to size by a bigger man” (wandsinhand). The two assume the ‘doggystyle’ position, an impersonal sexual position, without eye contact and where the penetrator sets the rhythm and intensity of each thrust. Scholars have argued that the position is degrading to the passive party, who is dehumanised by the act, a ‘dog’ (Dworkin 27); and rapper Snoop ‘Doggy’ Dogg exploits the misogynistic connotations of the position on his record Doggystyle (see Armstrong). Wandsinhand is clear in his intent to depict forceful domination of Arthur. Struggle is signified through the addition of perspiration, a trademark device used by this artist to symbolise struggle. Domination in a sexual act involves the erasure of the wishes of the dominated partner (see Cowan and Dunn). To attune oneself to the pleasures of a sexual partner is to regard them as a subject. To ignore such pleasures is to degrade the other person. The artist’s choice of pairing embraces the physicality of the male/male bond and illustrates a tendency among manip producers to privilege conventional masculine identifiers—such as size and muscle—above symbolic, nonphysical identifiers, such as status and rank. It is worth noting that muscle is more readily available in the pornographic source material used in slash manips—muscularity being a recurrent component of gay pornography (see Duggan and McCreary). In my interview with manip artist simontheduck, he describes the difficulty he had sourcing a base image “that complimented the physicality of the [Merlin] characters. […] The actor that plays Merlin is fairly thin while Arthur is pretty built, it was difficult to find one. I even had to edit Merlin’s body down further in the end.” (personal correspondence, used with permission) As wandsinhand explains, “you’re basically limited by what’s available on the internet, and even then, only what you’re prepared to sift through or screencap yourself”. Wandsinhand’s Arthur/Percival pairing selection works in tandem with other artistic decisions and inclusions—sexual position, setting, expressions, effects (perspiration, lighting)—to ensure the intended reading of the work. Antithetical size and rank positions play out in the penetration/submission act of wandsinhand’s work, in which only the stronger of the two may come out ‘on top’. Percival subverts the symbolic power structures of prince/knight, asserting his physical, sexual dominance over the physically inferior Arthur. That such a construction of Percival is incongruent with the polite, impeded-by-my-size-and-muscle-density Percival of the series speaks to the circumstances of manip production, much of which is on a taste basis, as previously noted. There are of course exceptions to this, the Teen Wolf ‘Sterek’ (Stiles/Derek) pairing being wandsinhand’s, but even in this case, size tends to couple with penetration. Slash manips often privilege physicality of the characters in question—as well as the base models selected—above any particular canon-supported slash reading. (Of course, the ‘queering’ nature of slash practice means at times there is also a desire to see such identifiers subverted, however in this example, raw masculine power prevails.) This final point is in no way representative—my practice, for example, combines manips with ficlets to offer a clearer connection with canon, while LJ’s zdae69 integrates manips, fiction and comics. However, common across slash manip artists driven by taste—and requests—rather than connection with canon—the best known being LJ’s tw-31988, demon48180 and Tumblr’s lwoodsmalestarsfakes, all of whom work across many fandoms—is interest in the ‘aesthetics of canon’, the blue hues of Teen Wolf or the fluorescent greens of Arrow (2012–present), displayed in glossy magazine format using services such as ISSUU. In short, ‘the look’ of the work often takes precedent over canonical implications of any artistic decisions. “Nothing Too Serious”: Slash Manips as Objects Worth Studying It had long been believed that the popular was the transient, that of entertainment rather than enlightenment; that which is manufactured, “an appendage of the machinery”, consumed by the duped masses and a product not of culture but of a ‘culture industry’ (Adorno and Rabinbach 12). Scholars such as Radway, Ang pioneered a shift in scholarly practice, advancing the cultural studies project by challenging elitism and finding meaning in traditionally devalued cultural texts and practices. The most surprising outcome of my interviews with wandsinhand was hearing how he conceived of his practice, and the study of slash: If I knew I could get a PhD by writing a dissertation on Slash, I would probably drop out of my physics papers! […] I don’t really think too highly of faking/manip-making. I mean, it’s not like it’s high art, is it? … or is it? I guess if Duchamp’s toilet can be a masterpiece, then so can anything. But I mainly just do it to pass the time, materialise fantasies, and disperse my fantasies unto others. Nothing too serious. Wandsinhand erects various binaries—academic/fan, important/trivial, science/arts, high art/low art, profession/hobby, reality/fantasy, serious/frivolous—as justification to devalue his own artistic practice. Yet embracing the amateur, personal nature of his practice frees him to “materialise fantasies” that would perhaps not be possible without self-imposed, underground production. This is certainly supported by his body of work, which plays with taboos of the unseen, of bodily fluids and sadomasochism. My intention with this article is not to contravene views such as wandsinhand’s. Rather, it is to promote slash manips as a form of remix culture that encourages new perspectives on how slash has been defined, its connection with male producers and its symbiotic relationship with gay pornography. I have examined the ‘semiotic significance of selection’ that creates meaning in two contrary slash manips; how these works actualise and resist canon dominance, as it relates to the physical and the symbolic. This examination also offers insight into this form’s connection to and negotiation with certain ideologies of gay pornography, such as the valorisation of size and muscle. 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Analisi formale e stilistica delle iscrizioni reali di età medio e neo-assira con particolare riferimento all'uso di epiteti celebrativi, metafore e similitudini, strutture sintattiche e compositive, messaggio ideologico
Analysis of language and style of Assyrian royal inscriptions, especially as far as epithets, similes and metaphors, syntactical and compositional structures, ideological message are concerned.

Consolation has always played an uncomfortable part in the literary history of loss. But in recent decades its affective meanings and ethical implications have been recast by narratives that appear to foil solace altogether. Illuminating this striking archive, Discrepant Solace considers writers who engage with consolation not as an aesthetic salve but as an enduring problematic for late twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction and memoir. Making close readings of emotion crucial to understanding literature’s work in the precarious present, David James examines writers who are rarely considered in conversation, including Sonali Deraniyagala, Colson Whitehead, Cormac McCarthy, W.G. Sebald, Doris Lessing, Joan Didion, J. M. Coetzee, Marilynne Robinson, Julian Barnes, Helen Macdonald, Ian McEwan, Colm Tóibín, Kazuo Ishiguro, Denise Riley, and David Grossman. These figures overturn critical suppositions about consolation’s kinship with ideological complaisance or dubious distraction, producing unsettling perceptions of solace that shape the formal and political contours of their writing.

In A Proper Marriage (1954), Martha Quest wants to ‘break the nightmare of repetition’ that has shaped the twentieth century — the seemly unending cycle of patriarchy, nationalism, war, colonialism, and rigid political ideologies. In The Golden Notebook (1962), Lessing enacts this disruption through an experimental crossing of genres, documenting, as if fulfilling Virginia Woolf’s wish in Professions for Women (1931), the ‘sexual lives of women’ in the context of collective histories. Through her combination of fiction, documentary material, political theory, and memoir, Lessing offers a nuanced reading of the connections between state violence, sexual hierarchies, and political crises. Using textual hybridity to resist closed formal and political structures that reinscribe authority, Lessing writes women as central narrators and subjects of twentieth-century politics and history, subverting the boundaries of gender and genre. However, Lessing’s radical textual and political project is not a singular one. This chapter considers new ways of reading Lessing’s text alongside works by Virginia Woolf, Muriel Rukeyser, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Arundhati Roy, and Claudia Rankine, arguing that the The Golden Notebook is not only better understood within these networks, but is pivotal for understanding the formal and political possibilities of hybridity in the hands of women writers.