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Introduction: Difficulty, Ethical Teaching, and Yearning for Transformation in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Modernist Literature

Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé

in A Different Order of Difficulty: Literature after Wittgenstein

The introduction explores the relationship between Wittgenstein and modernist literature by focusing attentively on a set of intersecting and mutually illuminating formal, linguistic, ethical, and ... More

The introduction explores the relationship between Wittgenstein and modernist literature by focusing attentively on a set of intersecting and mutually illuminating formal, linguistic, ethical, and spiritual or existential concerns that Wittgenstein’s philosophy shares with the modernist monuments of his literary contemporaries and the works of their late-century neomodernist heirs. These concerns coalesce around three salient modes of engagement—difficulty, ethical teaching, and transformative yearning. Attending closely to these three core commitments affords us new ways of understanding the reciprocal relevance of Wittgenstein’s early philosophy and modernist literature. The introduction adumbrates the main concerns of the so-called “resolute reading,” and situates Wittgenstein within the contested category of modernism by offering a survey of modernist experiments with existential questions and different orders of difficulty in relation to Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and pedagogical aims. Taking as a point of departure a line from Ulysses (which inspires the book’s title) about problems of different orders of difficulty, it sets up a taxonomy of the different kinds of intellectual, cognitive, tactical, ontological, and existential difficulty that the book’s constellation of authors grapple with in their respective works.Less

Yearning: Traces of the Divine Erotic Existence in the Cosmos

Elaine Padilla

in Divine Enjoyment: A Theology of Passion and Exuberance

This chapter offers a re-appropriation for Christianity of the concept of God’s erotic yearning prevalent in early theological works by interweaving in an unconventional manner a dialog held ... More

This chapter offers a re-appropriation for Christianity of the concept of God’s erotic yearning prevalent in early theological works by interweaving in an unconventional manner a dialog held primarily between Denys the Areopagite on the God who desires and St. Thomas Aquinas on the God who enjoys creation. The figure of an ecstatic lover who seeks enjoyment with creation in amorous ways serves as an initial sketch of the Beloved Lover whose enjoyment stems from stirring all things toward greater forms of enjoyment. Challenging the classical model of divine happiness which contentment is solely of Godself, this chapter’s notion of divine yearning begins to break free from the self-encircling motions of absolute per se subsistence by offering the start of the possibility of a God-cosmos relationship that is intimately and mutually enjoyable.Less

Narrating Palestine, Transmitting Its Loss

Anaheed Al-Hardan

in Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities

This chapter explores the roles as well as the ways in which the generation of Palestine narrate and transmit memories in the family home.

The Possibility of Long-Term Romantic Love

Aaron Ben-Ze'ev

in The Arc of Love: How Our Romantic Lives Change over Time

The romantic road sets high hurdles in our path, but the journey is an intriguing, meaningful, and often pleasurable one. The challenge of our society is not that of finding love, as love is always ... More

The romantic road sets high hurdles in our path, but the journey is an intriguing, meaningful, and often pleasurable one. The challenge of our society is not that of finding love, as love is always in the air. Unfortunately, the air is too often polluted for meeting our major goal, which is enabling the development of enduring profound love. A better global romantic environment requires combining flexibility and diversity while taking into account long-term values. While change tends to generate intense, short-term emotion, familiarity tends to produce a more moderate attitude, which can endure. Sometimes love and life clash and we have to make compromises, such as living with the one you are not (yet) in love or leaving the one you love. Setting one’s mind at rest yet maintaining a certain degree of striving is often a good romantic compromise, one that has the potential to enhance both life and love. We are condemned to yearn for a constant star while knowing that the heart needs steering. The book indicates that balance holds the key. It is naïve to believe that love will always win. However, it is usually helpful to maintain the positive illusion that it will.Less

I Dream of Her and Avalon: 1930s Sweet Jazz, Race, and Nostalgia at the Casino Ballroom

in Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and ’40s

This chapter introduces white bandleader Jan Garber, and also investigates several versions of “Avalon.” The story of Santa Catalina's Casino Ballroom offered novel perspectives on how popular music ... More

This chapter introduces white bandleader Jan Garber, and also investigates several versions of “Avalon.” The story of Santa Catalina's Casino Ballroom offered novel perspectives on how popular music presented American experiences of place. The sweet “Avalon” of Jan Garber's band illustrated musical relationships and values that were well mixed to the ideology of island's promoters. The Santa Catalina Island Company adopted it as an unofficial anthem for the island. Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra, the Casa Loma Orchestra, and Jan Garber and His Orchestra produced the three commercially recorded versions of “Avalon.” Garber's “Avalon” was an excellent match to the ideology of the real Avalon. Considered together, the Lunceford and Casa Loma bands developed a musical “Avalon” that is far more open to other voices. Throughout the 1930s and '40s, “Avalon” was an easily accessible and widely understood sign for a complex of nostalgic emotions: yearning, loss, and memory.Less

Disappointment, or, Thoreau in Love

Peter Coviello

in Tomorrow's Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America

This chapter talks about Henry David Thoreau's anecdote in the “Ponds” chapter of his work Walden (1854), a passage that condenses many of the principal elements of Thoreau's style, humor, and his ... More

This chapter talks about Henry David Thoreau's anecdote in the “Ponds” chapter of his work Walden (1854), a passage that condenses many of the principal elements of Thoreau's style, humor, and his genuine idiosyncrasy as both writer and thinker. It introduces and analyzes this other Thoreau, which shuttles in the work between anger and wistfulness, pained confusion and, at telling moments, a dreamy imaginative extravagance. Thoreau was not just a man disappointed in others; he possessed a kind of genius for disappointment. His hallmark disappointment can be viewed less as the sign of resignation, or apathy, than as a particular kind of yearning. It is this yearning, tuned to the note of expectancy, that makes Thoreau so engaging and suggestive a figure in the American history of sexuality. Thoreau's is a voice that speaks from before the apotheosis of those now commonsensical renderings of sexuality.Less

Denise Riley:: Corporeal and Desiring Spaces

David Kennedy and Christine Kennedy

in Women's Experimental Poetry in Britain 1970-2010: Body, Time and Locale

This chapter examines the experimental poetry of Denise Riley, with emphasis on how the self is to be worded and where those words come from, and what happens when the self words itself as lyric. It ... More

This chapter examines the experimental poetry of Denise Riley, with emphasis on how the self is to be worded and where those words come from, and what happens when the self words itself as lyric. It also asks whether the feminine-as-expression itself is an abrasive zone between instinctive accommodation to, and resistance of, expectant contexts. It considers expectant contexts that seem designed to invite or provoke failure in Riley’s poems, as well as her engagement with lyric. It discusses two bodies of theory that shed light on the relation between the expectant context, ostensible content and seeping affect of language: the work of Christopher Bollas on hysteria and the work of Julia Kristeva. It also offers readings of two of Riley’s poems: ‘The Castalian Spring’ and ‘Laibach Lyrik: Slovenia 1991’. Finally, the chapter analyses two distinct ways in which Riley’s poetry dramatises the confluence of yearning and rupture: imagery of bodily harm and the use of colour.Less

Introduction

Stuart A. Wright and James T. Richardson

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This book explores the issues arising from the paramilitary-style raid launched by Texas state police and the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) on April 3, 2008, against the ... More

This book explores the issues arising from the paramilitary-style raid launched by Texas state police and the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) on April 3, 2008, against the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado. The Yearning for Zion Ranch is a community of 800 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a Mormon sect known for its practice of polygamy. State officials claimed that the raid was conducted in response to allegations of a “widespread pattern and practice” of child sexual abuse and underage marriage within the FLDS. The book analyzes the Texas raid in a broader sociological context by comparing it with other government raids on new or minority religions both historically and across cultures. It argues that the Texas raid was only one example of social intolerance and state repression of unpopular minority faiths in general, and the FLDS in particular.Less

The Past as Prologue: A Comparison of the Short Creek and Eldorado Polygamy Raids

Martha Bradley Evans

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter compares the patterns and dynamics of the 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch and the 1953 raid on Short Creek in Arizona. It first examines how members of the Fundamentalist Church ... More

This chapter compares the patterns and dynamics of the 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch and the 1953 raid on Short Creek in Arizona. It first examines how members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) sought to interpret the meaning of the government raids through their religious beliefs and experiences. It then considers the FLDS's most recent endeavors to build a sacred landscape in Texas and assesses the influence of its prophet, Warren Jeffs. Both the Short Creek and Eldorado raids were driven in large part by allegations of child abuse, but this chapter argues that the principal motive for both raids had more to do with attacking plural marriage and discrediting the groups on a larger public stage. The chapter concludes by discussing lessons that have been learned from the Short Creek and Eldorado raids.Less

The Struggle for Legitimacy: Tensions between the LDS and FLDS

Ryan T. Cragun, Michael Nielsen, and Heather Clingenpeel

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter explores the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints's (LDS) struggle for legitimacy with the dissident Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and with ... More

This chapter explores the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints's (LDS) struggle for legitimacy with the dissident Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and with polygamists more generally. It begins by focusing on the modernization of the LDS and the group's use of the courts, government, laws, and the media as part of a campaign to distance itself from fundamentalist Mormon sects. It then explains why the LDS cannot return to polygamy as a practice and goes on to consider the LDS's efforts to distinguish itself from the FLDS and other polygamists before and after the Texas state raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch. It also examines the effects of the raid on the FLDS and the LDS, with particular emphasis on the latter's efforts to adapt and conform to broader social norms.Less

Reader Responses to the Yearning for Zion Ranch Raid and Its Aftermath on the Websites of the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News

Michael William Hamilton

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter examines reader responses to regional news coverage of the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch by ... More

This chapter examines reader responses to regional news coverage of the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch by focusing on two Utah newspapers, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News. It begins by providing a historical background on the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News before outlining the reasons why both newspapers are highly sensitive to polygamy issues arising from the historical doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and its founder, Joseph Smith. It then explores how the LDS and the people of Utah interpret and frame polygamy in light of their own history, sacred experience, and collective identity. It suggests that plural marriage or celestial marriage, or simply “the Principle,” developed in defiance of mainstream American social and religious mores, and that its complex history—and the continuing imprint of polygamy on Utah—is part of a backstory of the newspaper readers' reaction to the Yearning for Zion Ranch raid.Less

Deconstructing Official Rationales for the Texas State Raid on the FLDS

Stuart A. Wright

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter examines the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch, with particular emphasis on the social construction of ... More

This chapter examines the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch, with particular emphasis on the social construction of an alleged threat (in this case, “cult”) and the nature of the oppositional network that fueled the formulation of—and rationale behind—the raid. The raid on the FLDS near Eldorado was launched in response to hoax phone calls from an alleged sixteen-year-old girl inside the FLDS community who said she was raped and beaten by her polygamous husband. This chapter argues that child welfare officials, police, and other moral gatekeepers were predisposed to believe sensational tropes or narratives about the FLDS and had adopted an anticult movement framing of the problem. The chapter considers a recurrent pattern of state raids on minority religions and suggests that an oppositional coalition to new religious movements was firmly rooted in the cultural belief that abuse is pervasive in “cults.”Less

Texas Redux: A Comparative Analysis of the FLDS and Branch Davidian Raids

Stuart A. Wright and Jennifer Lara Fagen

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter compares the 2008 Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch with the federal raid on the Branch Davidians ... More

This chapter compares the 2008 Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch with the federal raid on the Branch Davidians outside Waco in 1993 in terms of process and structure. It first provides a background on the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives's raid on the Branch Davidians, a move prompted by an investigation of firearms violations against the sect and its leader, David Koresh. It then considers the role played by anticult movement activists in the two government raids as well as the involvement of apostates, media, and state agents. It also examines claims of child abuse, brainwashing of members, and preparations for mass suicide and collective violence in both cases. It argues that the similarities of the two raids reveal disturbing patterns of state and countermovement actions against minority religions.Less

Large-Scale FLDS Raids: The Dangers and Appeal of Crime Control Theater

Camille B. Lalasz and Carlene A. Gonzalez

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter examines the 2008 Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch and the 1953 raid on Short Creek in Arizona in ... More

This chapter examines the 2008 Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch and the 1953 raid on Short Creek in Arizona in terms of “crime control theater” (CCT), along with the dangers of relying on such CCT actions. It first provides a background on the large-scale raids on the two FLDS communities before discussing four criteria for a legal response to be characterized as CCT: reactionary social response to moral panic; unquestioned acceptance and promotion of the response; acceptance of the response based on appeals to mythic narratives; and empirical failure of the response. It then considers several problems associated with CCT, including false claims of success, unintended deleterious effects, and stunted public discourse. It argues that the ineffectiveness of the raids, combined with the detrimental effects that they caused, highlight the need to develop more effective policies for discovering, investigating, and prosecuting polygamy and other illegal behaviors that take place within small religious communities such as the FLDS.Less

Strategic Dissolution and the Politics of Opposition: Parallels in the State Raids on the Twelve Tribes and the FLDS

Jean Swantko Wiseman

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter examines similarities in the state raids on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado in 2008 and the Twelve Tribes ... More

This chapter examines similarities in the state raids on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado in 2008 and the Twelve Tribes Community in Island Pond, Vermont in 1984. It first provides an overview of the strategic plan, hatched by Galen Kelly, then a deprogrammer for Citizens' Freedom Foundation, designed to disrupt and dissolve the Twelve Tribes Community at Island Pond. It then considers two significant trends that emerged following the Island Pond raid: the beginning of an apparent surge of coordinated state raids on new or nontraditional religions, and the beginning of a surge of strategic assaults that target primarily child abuse allegations made by anticult movement affiliated organizations and actors. It also looks at the search warrants issued for both the Eldorado and Island Pond raids and suggests that both incidents reflect religious intolerance on the part of government.Less

Political and Legislative Context of the FLDS Raid in Texas

James T. Richardson and Tamatha L. Schreinert

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter examines the political and legislative efforts leading up to the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch. It ... More

This chapter examines the political and legislative efforts leading up to the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch. It begins by discussing some important developments by Texas politicians as well as issues concerning the FLDS before analyzing the actions taken both before and after the raid within a broader context of efforts to deal with concerns about children within communal religious groups. In particular, it looks at two major provisions amended into the omnibus bill for Texas's Child Protective Services (CPS) agency. It then uses a sociology of law approach to explain how the concern over child welfare has been used as justification for social control efforts exerted by the state against communal religious groups. It argues that the Texas raid must be viewed within the context of considerable concern about new religious movements or “cults” in American society and elsewhere.Less

Pyrrhic Victory?: An Analysis of the Appeal Court Opinions Concerning the FLDS Children

Tamatha L. Schreinert and James T. Richardson

in Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

This chapter examines the opinions of the Texas Appellate Courts concerning the children taken into custody by state authorities after the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day ... More

This chapter examines the opinions of the Texas Appellate Courts concerning the children taken into custody by state authorities after the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion Ranch. It first considers contemporary concerns about children in new religious movements (NRMs) and other minority religions that often find themselves subject to efforts of social control by authorities of the dominant society. It then discusses two problems that are associated with accusations about child abuse in NRMs and other minority religions in America: the very definition of child abuse and the issue of “collective child abuse.” It also looks at a number of cases that highlight the difficulties dealing with allegations of child abuse in communal religious groups. It also presents a time line and brief description of the unfolding events regarding the FLDS raid and court actions taken in Texas. It suggests that the FLDS secured an apparent victory based on the Appellate Court ruling in Texas but at the expense of basic civil liberties.Less

Union in the Canticle and Flame

Sam Hole

in John of the Cross: Desire, Transformation, and Selfhood

Chapter 5 examines the highest stages of the spiritual ascent, depicted in the Spiritual Canticle and Living Flame of Love. Only at the culmination of the ascent does the desire that has propelled ... More

Chapter 5 examines the highest stages of the spiritual ascent, depicted in the Spiritual Canticle and Living Flame of Love. Only at the culmination of the ascent does the desire that has propelled the soul through the contradictions and apparent meaninglessness of the dark night fully materialize in the soul. Chapter 5 examines how John uses sensory metaphors of beauty, touch, and taste, as well as a series of deeply erotic images of yearning and consummation, to depict the re-engagement of the soul with the created order, its desires now appropriately reoriented towards God. In the state of union, the soul’s desire for God is revealed to be not only a yearning on the part of the soul itself, but more truly a reflection of the loving desire that unites the persons of the Trinity. John’s anthropology terminology concomitantly shifts towards the use of terms such as the ‘substance of the soul’, as a means of depicting the intense and cohesive desire of the entire soul for God. John’s striking reworking of the highly traditional theological concept of desire therefore plays a crucial role throughout his theology, mediating and uniting what would otherwise appear a disjunctive passage for the soul from an originary state of deep sin, through the noetic, sensual, and spiritual darkness of the dark night, to the state of union with God.Less