Cynthia Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390209
- eISBN:
- 9780199866670
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390209.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This biography follows three generations of ministers' mothers, daughters, and wives as their family—one of America's foremost Unitarian dynasties—spreads out across the continent and their liberal ...
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This biography follows three generations of ministers' mothers, daughters, and wives as their family—one of America's foremost Unitarian dynasties—spreads out across the continent and their liberal denomination evolves. The oldest Eliot women remember its quickening in the early 1800s, and the youngest, its formal consolidation in 1961 with the kindred Universalist Church of America. Shifting the focus from pulpits to parsonages, and from sermons to doubting pews, Tucker lifts up a long‐ignored female perspective and humanizes a famously staid and cerebral religious tradition. The narrative organizes itself as a series of stories, all shaped by defining experiences that are interrelated and timeless. These range from the deaths of young children and the anguish of infertility to the suffocation of small parish life, loneliness, doubt, and financial distress. One woman survives with the help of a rare female confidant in the parish. Another is braced by the unmet friends who read magazines that publish her poems. A third escapes from an ill‐fitting role by succumbing to neurasthenia, leaving one wasting condition for another. It is left to the matriarch's granddaughters to script larger lives for themselves by bypassing marriage and churchly employment to follow their hearts into same‐sex unions and major careers in public health and preschool education. Thematically, these stories are linked by the women's continuing battles to make themselves heard through the din of clerical wisdom that contradicts their reality.Less
This biography follows three generations of ministers' mothers, daughters, and wives as their family—one of America's foremost Unitarian dynasties—spreads out across the continent and their liberal denomination evolves. The oldest Eliot women remember its quickening in the early 1800s, and the youngest, its formal consolidation in 1961 with the kindred Universalist Church of America. Shifting the focus from pulpits to parsonages, and from sermons to doubting pews, Tucker lifts up a long‐ignored female perspective and humanizes a famously staid and cerebral religious tradition. The narrative organizes itself as a series of stories, all shaped by defining experiences that are interrelated and timeless. These range from the deaths of young children and the anguish of infertility to the suffocation of small parish life, loneliness, doubt, and financial distress. One woman survives with the help of a rare female confidant in the parish. Another is braced by the unmet friends who read magazines that publish her poems. A third escapes from an ill‐fitting role by succumbing to neurasthenia, leaving one wasting condition for another. It is left to the matriarch's granddaughters to script larger lives for themselves by bypassing marriage and churchly employment to follow their hearts into same‐sex unions and major careers in public health and preschool education. Thematically, these stories are linked by the women's continuing battles to make themselves heard through the din of clerical wisdom that contradicts their reality.
Elliott Antokoletz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195365825
- eISBN:
- 9780199868865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195365825.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter looks at Door V, Bluebeard's Domain, which represents the culminating point for the polarity of darkness and light, based on large-scale and local use of geometrically expanding ...
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This chapter looks at Door V, Bluebeard's Domain, which represents the culminating point for the polarity of darkness and light, based on large-scale and local use of geometrically expanding proportional structure. An aphorism of Nietzsche on independence is also presented, which pertains to Bluebeard's strength and loneliness. The chapter discusses isometric text-verse of ancient Hungarian folk music as structural framework for the final phase of character development and transformation. It also includes an aphorism of Nietzsche on women and its reflection in the dual illusion of Balázs's Judith.Less
This chapter looks at Door V, Bluebeard's Domain, which represents the culminating point for the polarity of darkness and light, based on large-scale and local use of geometrically expanding proportional structure. An aphorism of Nietzsche on independence is also presented, which pertains to Bluebeard's strength and loneliness. The chapter discusses isometric text-verse of ancient Hungarian folk music as structural framework for the final phase of character development and transformation. It also includes an aphorism of Nietzsche on women and its reflection in the dual illusion of Balázs's Judith.
Eviatar Zerubavel
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195187175
- eISBN:
- 9780199943371
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195187175.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This chapter explores the costs considered for the benefits of conspiracies of silence. Silence is not just a product, but also a major source, of fear (which also explains why it impedes the ...
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This chapter explores the costs considered for the benefits of conspiracies of silence. Silence is not just a product, but also a major source, of fear (which also explains why it impedes the recovery of persons who have been traumatized). One often needs to discuss the undiscussables that help produce it in the first place in order to overcome fear. Conspiracies of silence may lead to loneliness. They produce problems not only for individuals. Indeed, many of those problems are unmistakably social. It is noted that the deeper the silence, the thicker the tension that builds around it. Conspiracies of silence enable the prevention of confrontation, and consequently the clarification of problems. Ironically speaking, it is precisely the effort to collectively deny their ubiquitous presence that makes “elephants” so big.Less
This chapter explores the costs considered for the benefits of conspiracies of silence. Silence is not just a product, but also a major source, of fear (which also explains why it impedes the recovery of persons who have been traumatized). One often needs to discuss the undiscussables that help produce it in the first place in order to overcome fear. Conspiracies of silence may lead to loneliness. They produce problems not only for individuals. Indeed, many of those problems are unmistakably social. It is noted that the deeper the silence, the thicker the tension that builds around it. Conspiracies of silence enable the prevention of confrontation, and consequently the clarification of problems. Ironically speaking, it is precisely the effort to collectively deny their ubiquitous presence that makes “elephants” so big.
Cynthia Grant Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390209
- eISBN:
- 9780199866670
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390209.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
With the marriage of Abby's oldest son Thomas Lamb Eliot (1841–1936) and Henrietta Robins Mack (1845‐1940), the scene shifts to Portland, OR, where the new pastor virtually replicates his father's ...
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With the marriage of Abby's oldest son Thomas Lamb Eliot (1841–1936) and Henrietta Robins Mack (1845‐1940), the scene shifts to Portland, OR, where the new pastor virtually replicates his father's career in St. Louis. Tom also tries to enforce the words on the Eliot coast of arms: Tace Et Face (“Keep Silent and Work”) but Etta, full‐throated and resolute, is indomitable. Constrained from confiding in lady friends and unable to get the ear of her spouse, she is prone to depression and loneliness and begins covertly to write for herself and for readers of ladies' magazines. Her first success as a published author, a resounding polemical essay, is picked up by several religious papers, but Tom objects, and again, she goes under cover in using her talent. Etta helps write her husband's sermons, and she speaks before embryo congregations without presuming to characterize it as preaching.Less
With the marriage of Abby's oldest son Thomas Lamb Eliot (1841–1936) and Henrietta Robins Mack (1845‐1940), the scene shifts to Portland, OR, where the new pastor virtually replicates his father's career in St. Louis. Tom also tries to enforce the words on the Eliot coast of arms: Tace Et Face (“Keep Silent and Work”) but Etta, full‐throated and resolute, is indomitable. Constrained from confiding in lady friends and unable to get the ear of her spouse, she is prone to depression and loneliness and begins covertly to write for herself and for readers of ladies' magazines. Her first success as a published author, a resounding polemical essay, is picked up by several religious papers, but Tom objects, and again, she goes under cover in using her talent. Etta helps write her husband's sermons, and she speaks before embryo congregations without presuming to characterize it as preaching.
Jill Stauffer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231171502
- eISBN:
- 9780231538732
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231171502.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Ethical loneliness is the experience of being abandoned by humanity, compounded by the cruelty of wrongs not being heard. It is the result of multiple lapses on the part of human beings and political ...
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Ethical loneliness is the experience of being abandoned by humanity, compounded by the cruelty of wrongs not being heard. It is the result of multiple lapses on the part of human beings and political institutions that, in failing to listen well to survivors, deny them redress by negating their testimony and thwarting their claims for justice. Jill Stauffer examines the root causes of ethical loneliness and how those in power revise history to serve their own ends rather than the needs of the abandoned. Out of this discussion, difficult truths about the desire and potential for political forgiveness, transitional justice, and political reconciliation emerge. Moving beyond a singular focus on truth commissions and legal trials, she considers more closely what is lost in the wake of oppression and violence, how selves and worlds are built and demolished, and who is responsible for re-creating lives after they are destroyed. Stauffer boldly argues that rebuilding worlds and just institutions after violence is a broad obligation and that those who care about justice must first confront their own assumptions about autonomy, liberty, and responsibility before an effective response to violence can take place. In building her claims, Stauffer draws on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Améry, Eve Sedgwick, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as concrete cases of justice and injustice across the world.Less
Ethical loneliness is the experience of being abandoned by humanity, compounded by the cruelty of wrongs not being heard. It is the result of multiple lapses on the part of human beings and political institutions that, in failing to listen well to survivors, deny them redress by negating their testimony and thwarting their claims for justice. Jill Stauffer examines the root causes of ethical loneliness and how those in power revise history to serve their own ends rather than the needs of the abandoned. Out of this discussion, difficult truths about the desire and potential for political forgiveness, transitional justice, and political reconciliation emerge. Moving beyond a singular focus on truth commissions and legal trials, she considers more closely what is lost in the wake of oppression and violence, how selves and worlds are built and demolished, and who is responsible for re-creating lives after they are destroyed. Stauffer boldly argues that rebuilding worlds and just institutions after violence is a broad obligation and that those who care about justice must first confront their own assumptions about autonomy, liberty, and responsibility before an effective response to violence can take place. In building her claims, Stauffer draws on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Améry, Eve Sedgwick, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as concrete cases of justice and injustice across the world.
Anne Allison
- Published in print:
- 1953
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479889389
- eISBN:
- 9781479830893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479889389.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
In postwar Japan, durable attachments—to workplace and family—were the normative ideal. In post-Bubble Japan, the family-corporate system, along with its logics of time and security, has started to ...
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In postwar Japan, durable attachments—to workplace and family—were the normative ideal. In post-Bubble Japan, the family-corporate system, along with its logics of time and security, has started to disintegrate leading to a form of (social) precarity quite unique to Japan/ese. Looking at lonely death as one symptom of this precarity, the essay also looks at news forms of social connection and belonging (beyond the workplace and heteronormative family) that are arising in post 3.11 Japan. How hope is calculated, in both the older and newer terms, is discussed and how to think about the hopeful possibility of a post-precarious Japan is raised at the end.Less
In postwar Japan, durable attachments—to workplace and family—were the normative ideal. In post-Bubble Japan, the family-corporate system, along with its logics of time and security, has started to disintegrate leading to a form of (social) precarity quite unique to Japan/ese. Looking at lonely death as one symptom of this precarity, the essay also looks at news forms of social connection and belonging (beyond the workplace and heteronormative family) that are arising in post 3.11 Japan. How hope is calculated, in both the older and newer terms, is discussed and how to think about the hopeful possibility of a post-precarious Japan is raised at the end.
Kimberley Brownlee
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- July 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198714064
- eISBN:
- 9780191782510
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198714064.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
To survive, let alone flourish, we need to be sure of—securely tied to—at least one other person. We also need to be sure of our general acceptance within the wider social world. This book explores ...
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To survive, let alone flourish, we need to be sure of—securely tied to—at least one other person. We also need to be sure of our general acceptance within the wider social world. This book explores the normative implications of taking our social needs seriously. Chapter 1 sketches out what our core social needs are, and Chapter 2 shows that they ground a fundamental, but largely neglected human right against social deprivation. Chapter 3 then argues that this human right includes a right to sustain the people we care about, and that often, when we are denied the resources to sustain others, we endure social contribution injustice. Chapters 4–6 explore the tension between our needs for social inclusion and our needs for interactional and associational freedom, showing that social inclusion must take priority. While Chapters 5 and 6 defend a narrow account of freedom of association, Chapter 7 shows that the moral ballgame changes once we have made morally messy associative decisions. Sometimes we have rights to remain in associations that we had no right to form. Finally, Chapter 8 exposes the distinct social injustices that we do to people whom we deem to be socially threatening. Overall, the book identifies ways to change our social and political practices, and our personal perspectives, to better honour the fact that we are fundamentally social beings.Less
To survive, let alone flourish, we need to be sure of—securely tied to—at least one other person. We also need to be sure of our general acceptance within the wider social world. This book explores the normative implications of taking our social needs seriously. Chapter 1 sketches out what our core social needs are, and Chapter 2 shows that they ground a fundamental, but largely neglected human right against social deprivation. Chapter 3 then argues that this human right includes a right to sustain the people we care about, and that often, when we are denied the resources to sustain others, we endure social contribution injustice. Chapters 4–6 explore the tension between our needs for social inclusion and our needs for interactional and associational freedom, showing that social inclusion must take priority. While Chapters 5 and 6 defend a narrow account of freedom of association, Chapter 7 shows that the moral ballgame changes once we have made morally messy associative decisions. Sometimes we have rights to remain in associations that we had no right to form. Finally, Chapter 8 exposes the distinct social injustices that we do to people whom we deem to be socially threatening. Overall, the book identifies ways to change our social and political practices, and our personal perspectives, to better honour the fact that we are fundamentally social beings.
Michiel Heyns
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182702
- eISBN:
- 9780191673870
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182702.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Since the manifest design of a Charles Dickens novel is directed at redemption and restoration, the heroine is most often and most overtly the agent of such. In accordance with a simple compulsion or ...
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Since the manifest design of a Charles Dickens novel is directed at redemption and restoration, the heroine is most often and most overtly the agent of such. In accordance with a simple compulsion or narrative law, any single character, if permitted to interact for a while with the rest of the cast, will tend to attach itself to another character. In Dombey and Son, the plot is structured towards the redemption and vindication as well. Facile scapegoating is firmly placed by its provenance but it does mimic that simplifying tendency of the narrative movement itself. If Dombey and Son is about pride, David Copperfield is about love and its possible variations. Partnerships are at the centre of Dickens's design, but at its base is that loneliness and exclusion from one's own kind to which almost anything seems preferable. Our Mutual Friend is perhaps the most redemption-directed of all Dickens's novels.Less
Since the manifest design of a Charles Dickens novel is directed at redemption and restoration, the heroine is most often and most overtly the agent of such. In accordance with a simple compulsion or narrative law, any single character, if permitted to interact for a while with the rest of the cast, will tend to attach itself to another character. In Dombey and Son, the plot is structured towards the redemption and vindication as well. Facile scapegoating is firmly placed by its provenance but it does mimic that simplifying tendency of the narrative movement itself. If Dombey and Son is about pride, David Copperfield is about love and its possible variations. Partnerships are at the centre of Dickens's design, but at its base is that loneliness and exclusion from one's own kind to which almost anything seems preferable. Our Mutual Friend is perhaps the most redemption-directed of all Dickens's novels.
Jill Stauffer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231171502
- eISBN:
- 9780231538732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231171502.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Establishes what ethical loneliness is and why it is a problem. Supports its argument both with a phenomenology of the concept and support from concrete cases of injustice.
Establishes what ethical loneliness is and why it is a problem. Supports its argument both with a phenomenology of the concept and support from concrete cases of injustice.
Janne Flora
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226610429
- eISBN:
- 9780226610733
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226610733.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
The aim of this monograph is to understand kinship and relatedness among Greenlandic Inuit (Kalaallit) through the lens of loneliness and longing, asking what happens when relations disappoint, fail, ...
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The aim of this monograph is to understand kinship and relatedness among Greenlandic Inuit (Kalaallit) through the lens of loneliness and longing, asking what happens when relations disappoint, fail, and cease to exist. Loneliness is a social process with its own degrees and temporalities. Among the most extreme forms of self-detachment is suicide of which, Greenland has one of the highest rates in the world. Instead of seeing suicide as caused by colonization and rapid modernization, this monograph locates suicide within the conceptual framework of loneliness and relatedness, and asks what it means to live and die (by suicide) within a culture where all humans are, and will become, partial reincarnations, as their names are passed to newborn infants. Though extreme and unpleasant, suicide does not as we might expect, emerge as permanent, betwixt and between, form of death. Total rejection of society does exist however, but this form of death is projected onto an un-dead being known as qivittoq: a human person who walks into the wilderness forever and continues to exist in an uninhabitable space as a dangerous un-dead being, unable to return to human form and society. The book argues that relatedness and loneliness are not merely dualistically opposed concepts or social practices, but co-constituted, and should be considered concurrently in order to grasp the meaning of kinship in the everyday lives of Greenlanders today.Less
The aim of this monograph is to understand kinship and relatedness among Greenlandic Inuit (Kalaallit) through the lens of loneliness and longing, asking what happens when relations disappoint, fail, and cease to exist. Loneliness is a social process with its own degrees and temporalities. Among the most extreme forms of self-detachment is suicide of which, Greenland has one of the highest rates in the world. Instead of seeing suicide as caused by colonization and rapid modernization, this monograph locates suicide within the conceptual framework of loneliness and relatedness, and asks what it means to live and die (by suicide) within a culture where all humans are, and will become, partial reincarnations, as their names are passed to newborn infants. Though extreme and unpleasant, suicide does not as we might expect, emerge as permanent, betwixt and between, form of death. Total rejection of society does exist however, but this form of death is projected onto an un-dead being known as qivittoq: a human person who walks into the wilderness forever and continues to exist in an uninhabitable space as a dangerous un-dead being, unable to return to human form and society. The book argues that relatedness and loneliness are not merely dualistically opposed concepts or social practices, but co-constituted, and should be considered concurrently in order to grasp the meaning of kinship in the everyday lives of Greenlanders today.
Diane Enns
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231178969
- eISBN:
- 9780231542098
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231178969.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
In a brief Afterword, the author reflects on friendship love as sustaining in ways that are often underestimated in a contemporary social realm that emphasizes coupledom at the expense of all other ...
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In a brief Afterword, the author reflects on friendship love as sustaining in ways that are often underestimated in a contemporary social realm that emphasizes coupledom at the expense of all other relationships, once again bringing together a philosophical account—Aristotle’s analysis of friendship—with personal experience.Less
In a brief Afterword, the author reflects on friendship love as sustaining in ways that are often underestimated in a contemporary social realm that emphasizes coupledom at the expense of all other relationships, once again bringing together a philosophical account—Aristotle’s analysis of friendship—with personal experience.
Kim Iryop
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838782
- eISBN:
- 9780824871468
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838782.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea's encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and ...
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The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea's encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and understanding the changing role of women in Korean society. As an influential Buddhist nun, she examined religious teachings and strove to interpret modern human existence through a religious world view. Originally published in Korea when Iryŏp was in her sixties, this book makes available for the first time in English a rich, intimate, and unfailingly candid source of material with which to understand modern Korea, Korean women, and Korean Buddhism. We see through her thought and life experiences the co-existence of seemingly conflicting ideas and ideals—Christianity and Buddhism, sexual liberalism and religious celibacy, among others. The book challenges readers with Iryŏp's creative interpretations of Buddhist doctrine and her reflections on the meaning of Buddhist practice. In the process it offers insight into a time when the ideas and contributions of women to twentieth-century Korean society and intellectual life were just beginning to emerge from the shadows, where they had been obscured in the name of modernization and nation-building.Less
The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea's encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and understanding the changing role of women in Korean society. As an influential Buddhist nun, she examined religious teachings and strove to interpret modern human existence through a religious world view. Originally published in Korea when Iryŏp was in her sixties, this book makes available for the first time in English a rich, intimate, and unfailingly candid source of material with which to understand modern Korea, Korean women, and Korean Buddhism. We see through her thought and life experiences the co-existence of seemingly conflicting ideas and ideals—Christianity and Buddhism, sexual liberalism and religious celibacy, among others. The book challenges readers with Iryŏp's creative interpretations of Buddhist doctrine and her reflections on the meaning of Buddhist practice. In the process it offers insight into a time when the ideas and contributions of women to twentieth-century Korean society and intellectual life were just beginning to emerge from the shadows, where they had been obscured in the name of modernization and nation-building.
Cicely Saunders
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- November 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198570530
- eISBN:
- 9780191730412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198570530.003.0043
- Subject:
- Palliative Care, Palliative Medicine Research
This chapter presents the 2004 foreword to the third edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. Here, Cicely Saunders gathers up much of these influences and thoughts about development ...
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This chapter presents the 2004 foreword to the third edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. Here, Cicely Saunders gathers up much of these influences and thoughts about development touched on in so many of her later writings. This chapter is a good reading for anyone new to and learning about the field of palliative care and the mode of its development. Characteristically, she gives the final word to a patient: ‘Loneliness is not so much a matter of being alone as of not belonging’.Less
This chapter presents the 2004 foreword to the third edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. Here, Cicely Saunders gathers up much of these influences and thoughts about development touched on in so many of her later writings. This chapter is a good reading for anyone new to and learning about the field of palliative care and the mode of its development. Characteristically, she gives the final word to a patient: ‘Loneliness is not so much a matter of being alone as of not belonging’.
Samuel Kimbriel
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199363988
- eISBN:
- 9780199378500
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199363988.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This work addresses itself to the modern experience of isolation. Stories of loneliness amidst the fragmentation of community are familiar in this age, as are tales of alienation provoked by the ...
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This work addresses itself to the modern experience of isolation. Stories of loneliness amidst the fragmentation of community are familiar in this age, as are tales of alienation provoked by the insistent indifference of the scientific cosmos. This book delves beneath such stories, arguing that the crisis of isolation in the present age betokens a more fundamental incoherence within the modern rational subject. Part I seeks to work through the structure of this crisis by examining both its historical origins and its current difficulties. Its central argument is that the deep habits of modern life were put into place by a series of explicit attempts to carve out a realm of secure internality disengaged from commitments of love or friendship. Whilst the splitting off of reason from intimacy contributed to a sense of invulnerability, it also created the conditions which have served to undermine rational enquiry and intimate relationship alike. Part II of the work then seeks to juxtapose this contemporary tradition over against older, more porous ways of interacting with reality drawn from antique and early Christian philosophical texts. The examination of this older tradition not only enables an understanding of alternative possibilities, but also facilitates a proper assessment of our own habit of loneliness.Less
This work addresses itself to the modern experience of isolation. Stories of loneliness amidst the fragmentation of community are familiar in this age, as are tales of alienation provoked by the insistent indifference of the scientific cosmos. This book delves beneath such stories, arguing that the crisis of isolation in the present age betokens a more fundamental incoherence within the modern rational subject. Part I seeks to work through the structure of this crisis by examining both its historical origins and its current difficulties. Its central argument is that the deep habits of modern life were put into place by a series of explicit attempts to carve out a realm of secure internality disengaged from commitments of love or friendship. Whilst the splitting off of reason from intimacy contributed to a sense of invulnerability, it also created the conditions which have served to undermine rational enquiry and intimate relationship alike. Part II of the work then seeks to juxtapose this contemporary tradition over against older, more porous ways of interacting with reality drawn from antique and early Christian philosophical texts. The examination of this older tradition not only enables an understanding of alternative possibilities, but also facilitates a proper assessment of our own habit of loneliness.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226181660
- eISBN:
- 9780226181684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226181684.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter presents “The Lament of My Mother” (1941), a poem written by Yosl Mlotek either before he arrived in Shanghai or shortly after he reached China in the summer or early fall of 1941. The ...
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This chapter presents “The Lament of My Mother” (1941), a poem written by Yosl Mlotek either before he arrived in Shanghai or shortly after he reached China in the summer or early fall of 1941. The loneliness of the young man is palpable in the poem. But it is more than homesickness, longing for family and familiar places, that can be heard in the poem. There is also concern for loved ones with whom all contact was lost by 1941. To be sure, news from Poland trickled through to Shanghai; there was the English-language press and the Russian news service at the Soviet embassy. But this was not personal news. The Polish refugees, when they met one another, must have agonized over the fate of their loved ones.Less
This chapter presents “The Lament of My Mother” (1941), a poem written by Yosl Mlotek either before he arrived in Shanghai or shortly after he reached China in the summer or early fall of 1941. The loneliness of the young man is palpable in the poem. But it is more than homesickness, longing for family and familiar places, that can be heard in the poem. There is also concern for loved ones with whom all contact was lost by 1941. To be sure, news from Poland trickled through to Shanghai; there was the English-language press and the Russian news service at the Soviet embassy. But this was not personal news. The Polish refugees, when they met one another, must have agonized over the fate of their loved ones.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226181660
- eISBN:
- 9780226181684
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226181684.003.0019
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter presents “A Letter...” (1943), a poem written by Yosl Mlotek. Throughout the poem, Mlotek evokes the imagery of distance, of unreachability: writing letters about heaven, stars, ...
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This chapter presents “A Letter...” (1943), a poem written by Yosl Mlotek. Throughout the poem, Mlotek evokes the imagery of distance, of unreachability: writing letters about heaven, stars, sunlessness, clouds, the unreality of dreams—all to express his sense of dissociation and displacement. Whereas dissociation is certainly in part the source of his anguish, it is not the message he wants most to convey. Rather, it is the affirmation in the thrice-repeated promise that he will send word, that he will return. Love, that precious gift, has not abandoned him; it continues to nourish his loneliness. And bearing this gift he will come back. The poet's thoughts were less for himself than for those whom he had left behind and from whom he was indefinitely separated.Less
This chapter presents “A Letter...” (1943), a poem written by Yosl Mlotek. Throughout the poem, Mlotek evokes the imagery of distance, of unreachability: writing letters about heaven, stars, sunlessness, clouds, the unreality of dreams—all to express his sense of dissociation and displacement. Whereas dissociation is certainly in part the source of his anguish, it is not the message he wants most to convey. Rather, it is the affirmation in the thrice-repeated promise that he will send word, that he will return. Love, that precious gift, has not abandoned him; it continues to nourish his loneliness. And bearing this gift he will come back. The poet's thoughts were less for himself than for those whom he had left behind and from whom he was indefinitely separated.
G. Peter Winnington
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310225
- eISBN:
- 9781846314391
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846314391
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
The works of Mervyn Peake have fascinated readers for sixty years. His Gormenghast sequence of novels stands as one of the great imaginative accomplishments of twentieth-century literature. This book ...
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The works of Mervyn Peake have fascinated readers for sixty years. His Gormenghast sequence of novels stands as one of the great imaginative accomplishments of twentieth-century literature. This book sets Peake's fiction in context with the poetry, plays, and book illustrations that are less well known. The author traces recurrent motifs through Peake's works (islands, animals, and loneliness, for example) and explores in detail Peake's long-neglected play, The Wit to Woo.Less
The works of Mervyn Peake have fascinated readers for sixty years. His Gormenghast sequence of novels stands as one of the great imaginative accomplishments of twentieth-century literature. This book sets Peake's fiction in context with the poetry, plays, and book illustrations that are less well known. The author traces recurrent motifs through Peake's works (islands, animals, and loneliness, for example) and explores in detail Peake's long-neglected play, The Wit to Woo.
Helen Manchester and Jenny Barke
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781447348016
- eISBN:
- 9781447348061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447348016.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter tells the story of a research project that aimed to develop more equitable and inclusive ‘regulatory systems’ around the production of knowledge concerning the isolation and loneliness ...
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This chapter tells the story of a research project that aimed to develop more equitable and inclusive ‘regulatory systems’ around the production of knowledge concerning the isolation and loneliness of older people. As such, this is a chapter about regulation in, and of, research programmes that is intended to highlight the way in which ‘top-down’ regulation, embedded in university ethical processes, funder requirements, and forms of accountability around research, create particular relations between universities and publics. This chapter draws attention to alternative regulatory systems for knowledge production emerging from a co-produced research process that draws particularly on feminist concerns centred on an ethic of care. The chapter labels this ‘care-ful’ research. In order to explore these alternative regulatory systems, the chapter examines how we ‘care-fully’ co-produced regulatory structures during research with older people around an increasingly ‘publicly’ discussed issue of the loneliness of older people.Less
This chapter tells the story of a research project that aimed to develop more equitable and inclusive ‘regulatory systems’ around the production of knowledge concerning the isolation and loneliness of older people. As such, this is a chapter about regulation in, and of, research programmes that is intended to highlight the way in which ‘top-down’ regulation, embedded in university ethical processes, funder requirements, and forms of accountability around research, create particular relations between universities and publics. This chapter draws attention to alternative regulatory systems for knowledge production emerging from a co-produced research process that draws particularly on feminist concerns centred on an ethic of care. The chapter labels this ‘care-ful’ research. In order to explore these alternative regulatory systems, the chapter examines how we ‘care-fully’ co-produced regulatory structures during research with older people around an increasingly ‘publicly’ discussed issue of the loneliness of older people.
Roger Berkowitz
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230754
- eISBN:
- 9780823235858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230754.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This introductory chapter begins with a brief review of Hannah Arendt's works, including Men in Dark Times where she responds to what she calls the light of the public that ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a brief review of Hannah Arendt's works, including Men in Dark Times where she responds to what she calls the light of the public that obscures everything; and The Origins of Totalitarianism, where she examines the roots of totalitarianism in rootlessness, loneliness, and thoughtlessness. It argues that for Arendt, what is needed in dark times are people who think and who, in thinking, make for themselves the space to judge. Instead of reason, Arendt teaches the supreme importance of thinking—the habit of erecting obstacles to oversimplifications, compromises, and conventions. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a brief review of Hannah Arendt's works, including Men in Dark Times where she responds to what she calls the light of the public that obscures everything; and The Origins of Totalitarianism, where she examines the roots of totalitarianism in rootlessness, loneliness, and thoughtlessness. It argues that for Arendt, what is needed in dark times are people who think and who, in thinking, make for themselves the space to judge. Instead of reason, Arendt teaches the supreme importance of thinking—the habit of erecting obstacles to oversimplifications, compromises, and conventions. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.
Jeremy Tambling
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098244
- eISBN:
- 9789882207158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098244.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter presents a reading of A Madman's Diary, the first, and one of the most influential of Lu Xun's short stories. It seems that two possible sources for A Madman's Diary were personal: the ...
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This chapter presents a reading of A Madman's Diary, the first, and one of the most influential of Lu Xun's short stories. It seems that two possible sources for A Madman's Diary were personal: the “feverish intensity” of the mental state of the madman “recalls Lu Xun's description of his father on his deathbed,” which Lu Xun wrote about in an essay, “Father's Illness.”. There was another incident, which one of Lu Xun's biographers describes as a real-life paranoia, where everything that happens becomes circumstantial evidence to prove that the person is being persecuted. The diary shows the loneliness involved in madness, in the way the “madman” wanted to write everything down, as if trying to avoid his loneliness that way.Less
This chapter presents a reading of A Madman's Diary, the first, and one of the most influential of Lu Xun's short stories. It seems that two possible sources for A Madman's Diary were personal: the “feverish intensity” of the mental state of the madman “recalls Lu Xun's description of his father on his deathbed,” which Lu Xun wrote about in an essay, “Father's Illness.”. There was another incident, which one of Lu Xun's biographers describes as a real-life paranoia, where everything that happens becomes circumstantial evidence to prove that the person is being persecuted. The diary shows the loneliness involved in madness, in the way the “madman” wanted to write everything down, as if trying to avoid his loneliness that way.
