Narrative and Identity

This paper critically reviews the current status of the concept of distance in human geography in order to argue that recent experimentally-driven work in construal-level theory offers ample opportunities for recasting distance as a key geographical trope. After analysing the four entangled dimensions of distance revealed by construal-level theory (spatial distance; temporal distance; social distance; and hypothetical distance), the paper articulates this research program from experimental psychology with geographical work on non-representational theory, geographical imaginations/imaginative geographies, learning as a geographical process, TimeSpace theorizing, and ontogenetic understandings of space. It is argued that the subjective understanding of distance afforded by construal-level theory can rescue distance from its entrenched association with positivistic geography and spatial analysis. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.07.018

The task of studying the impact of social class on physical and mental health involves, among other things, the use of a conceptual toolbox that defines what social class is, establishes how to measure it, and sets criteria that help distinguish it from closely related concepts. One field that has recently witnessed a wealth of theoretical and conceptual research on social class is psychology, but geographers' and sociologists' attitude of diffidence toward this " positivistic " discipline has prevented them from taking advantage of this body of scholarship. This paper aims to highlight some of the most important developments in the psychological study of social class and social mobility that speak to the long-standing concerns of health geographers and sociologists with how social position, perceptions, social comparisons, and class-based identities impact health and well-being.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.037

RESUMEN:
En el presente texto se revisan las principales intervenciones basadas en el paradigma narrativo en el contexto del modelo sistémico. En primer lugar recapitulamos de forma somera, aún a riesgo de resultar excesivamente simplistas, la evolución del modelo sistémico para describir la manera en que este proceso acompaña el desarrollo de la óptica narrativa. En segundo lugar, nos centramos en la descripción del modelo de terapia narrativa de Michael White y el procedimiento de externalización, deteniéndonos en los principales pasos del proceso terapéutico e ilustrando cada fase con ejemplos clínicos con el objeto de dar al lector una visión detallada de las intervenciones narrativas al uso. Un último apartado está dedicado a reseñar la afinidad entre la teoría de constructos personales y las intervenciones narrativas destacando su relevancia para el futuro desarrollo del modelo sistémico.

Palabras clave: terapia familiar, terapia narrativa, externalización, constructos personales, integración en psicoterapia

ABSTRACT
In this article we review the main interventions based on the narrative paradigm in the context of the systemic model. Firstly, we briefly recapitulate, at the risk of being overly simplistic, the evolution of family therapy describing how this process accompanies the development of narrative practice. Second, we focus on the description of Michael White’s narrative therapy and his externalization procedure detailing every stage of the therapeutic process with clinical examples in order to give the reader a detailed view of common narrative interventions. A final section is allocated to describe the affinity between personal construct theory and narrative therapy highlighting its fruitfulness for the evolution of the systemic model.

Keywords: family therapy, narrative therapy, externalization, personal constructs, integration in psychotherapy"

This special issue addresses the possible connections and mutual benefits of examining together two analytic concepts – memory and periphery. These concepts receive much attention in various scholarly discussions, yet they have done so rather independently from each other. The potential applications and utilities of combining memory and periphery and the epistemic insights they provide for various disciplins are presented in the different contributions to this issue.

Identity issues have become increasingly controversial in the modern world, yet research on identity is fractured into several disciplinary approaches. “Signs of identity” synthesizes insights from sociology, anthropology, social and political psychology, semiotics and humanities into an original theory of collective identity. By addressing the current issues of authenticity and the self, multiculturalism, intersectionality and social justice, the book helps to stimulate discussion of the contested topics of identity in contemporary society.

Collective identity in the so-called Byzantine Empire is a much-debated issue that has drawn a lot of attention over the years. The current paper attempts a critical assessment of the hitherto main lines of thinking about Byzantine identity, focussing on the period between the seventh and the thirteenth centuries. By proposing an alternative view on source material based on a comprehensive theoretical framework, I argue that a conceptualization of the collective identity of this medieval imperial social order with its constantly fluctuating geopolitical and cultural boundaries needs to be disconnected from essentialist and reifying views on perennial ethnicity as well as from the modern phenomenon of the nation-state.

In this (2003) paper I seek to challenge the dominant modes of conceiving the relationship between memory and national identity, and in so doing offer analysts of nationalism an improved understanding of the dynamics of national identity formation. The concept of collective memory is invoked regularly in attempts to explain the pervasiveness and power of nationalism. I argue that the concept is misused routinely in this context, and instead I employ a ‘social agency’ approach to theorizing, whereby memory is conceived in a more limited and cogent manner. I argue that it is important to distinguish clearly between memory and mythology, both of which are essential to understanding national identity, for not only are the two concepts distinct, they can also act in opposition to each other. Following from this I introduce the notion of a ‘mythscape’, the temporally and spatially extended discursive realm in which the myths of the nation are forged, transmitted, negotiated, and reconstructed constantly. Through employing the idea of a mythscape we can relate memory and mythology to each other in a theoretically profitable way.

The paper discusses Derrida's concept of hospitality which perfectly describes the experience of loosing the sense of feeling at home and reveals the disintegrating entrance of the Otherness into a coherent home space. Jacques Derrida's theory makes it possible to deconstruct the familiar home space, which, however, does not constitute in any case its destruction. Revealing a complex and ambiguous nature of the challenge of hospitality, he perceives the sense of feeling at home as one of the necessary conditions of a stable subject. This is the subject that most fears the Otherness which could disrupt, unsettle their permanent structure and a sense of certainty. Therefore, the Author follows closely the fear of strangeness and the nostalgic longing for the sense of feeling at home as depicted by David Lynch and Michael Haneke in their films. Then he passes on to the field of contemporary art which not only reveals the fact that something has happened to the house we have known so far, but it also allows for creative deconstruction of the feeling at home. The artistic works selected by the Author break the binary oppositions: one’s own/someone else’s, familiar/strange (Jessica Sue Layton), close/distant (Shizuka Yokomizo) and finally the most important one: interior/exterior (Marja Pirilä, Eve Dent).

My doctoral dissertation examines the experiences of the Italian volunteers in the Waffen-SS troops using in-depth interviews with former volunteers as the main primary source. This phenomenon, even if significant in size (depending on the source, some 15 000-20 000 Italian men volunteered in the Waffen-SS), has been hitherto largely unknown to historical research. The available literature on the Italian volunteers, mainly written by military history enthusiast journalists and methodologically weak, concentrates mainly on the combat operations and military organization, and offers a rather stereotypical profile of the volunteers.

My dissertation does not aim to reconstruct the military history of the different divisions of the Waffen-SS in which Italian volunteers operated but instead to examine the subjective, private and intimate experience of the volunteers in order to understand the motivations, attitudes, beliefs and cultural and family background, as well as their political ideas. The main objective of my doctoral dissertation is to discover the ideological precepts of the volunteers’ political credo. As the last phase of fascism and its ideology, often defined as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascism, is still the object of wide academic debate, a better understanding of the volunteers’ ideology also contributes to deepening overall knowledge of the nature of this last phase.

The theoretical frame of my dissertation lies in oral history, in particular in the postmodernist approach to oral history, through which I reconstruct the volunteers’ ideology. In-depth interviews with former volunteers are the main primary source, but multiple data collection methods have been adopted. Phone interviews and correspondence with the volunteers have also been considered as primary sources. In addition to interviews and correspondence, family archives consisting of diaries, correspondence with the volunteers’ relatives and photographic material have also been collected and examined. An ethnographic observation of the volunteers’ domestic spaces has been conducted during the in-depth interviews, and photo self-elicitation techniques have been used in cases where the volunteers were willing to share their photographs.

An exhaustive portrait of the ideological structure of the volunteers has been obtained, as well as of the cultural and social origins of the values that contributed to the rise and adoption of this ideology. Further, the volunteers’ motivations to enlist have been clearly reconstructed, together with their cultural, political, social and military backgrounds. The results of the research are particularly relevant both for comprehension of the Italian phenomenon of volunteering in the Waffen-SS and for the reconstruction of the ideological dynamics of the last phase of fascism. The volunteers’ political and ideological system, which can be defined as the Italian SS-fascist ideology, disagrees strongly with the vaguely described ideological profile offered by previous studies that describe volunteers as generically “super-fascist”. The research also offers the opportunity for a deeper understanding of the final fascist ideological trajectory, currently defined, not without a certain level of approximation, as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascist ideology.

Wisdom is at once one of the most elusive and most valued kinds of knowledge. Empirical research shows that, indeed, across cultures, people hope that life experience will eventually make them wiser. The problem is that, to date, the academic study of wisdom and of the processes by which it can be learned has been dominated by psychologists. The first part of the article reviews the state-of-the-art psychological scholarship on wisdom to show how that conceptualization lacks geographical sensitivity and therefore misses some of the crucial geographical mechanisms by which people become wiser. The second part of the article singles out and focuses on one such mechanism, namely, the learning of wisdom through geographical dislocations. By drawing on insights from the study of international migration, exile, and transculturation in postcolonial contexts, the final part of the article suggests specific learning processes that might strengthen the hypothesis that geographical dislocations and the attendant cross-cultural experiences they generate are often conducive to wisdom. La sabiduría es a la vez uno de los tipos de conocimiento más esquivos y más valorados. La investigací on empírica en verdad muestra que en todas las culturas la gente espera que la experiencia de la vida eventualmente los haga más sabios. El problema es que hasta ahora el estudio académico sobre la sabiduría y sobre los procesos por medio de los cualesésta puede alcanzarse ha estado dominado por los psicólogos. La primera parte del artículo revisa el estado del arte de la erudicí on psicoí ogica sobre este particular, para mostrar c ´ omo esa conceptualizací on carece de sensibilidad geográfica y en consecuencia deja de considerar algunos de los mecanismos geográficos cruciales mediante los cuales la gente se hace más sabia. La segunda parte del artículo escoge y se concentra en uno de tales mecanismos, o sea, el aprendizaje de la sabiduría por medio de las dislocaciones geográficas. A partir de la perspicacia del estudio de la migrací on internacional, el exilio y la transculturací on en contextos poscoloniales, la parte final del artículo sugiere procesos de aprendizaje específicos, que podrían fortalecer la hipótesis de que las dislocaciones geográficas y las experiencias culturales de vasto espectro generadas por aquellas a menudo llevan a la sabiduría. Palabras clave: distancia, dislocaciones geográficas, migrací on internacional, aprendizaje visceral, sabiduría.

The first part of the paper develops the argument that geographers should learn to decompose human memory into its constituent parts because then and then alone will we become attuned to the full range of ways in which we incorporate places into our beings. The second part of the paper articulates Stephen Hill's comments on episodic memory with my recent work on wisdom.

This paper focuses on the current survival of a form of historical memory in Spain which dates back to the nineteenth century. The prevailing form of Spanish national identity at that time was completely dependent on Catholicism. The notion of Reconquista consolidated across the 19th century in terms of a national liberation struggle against invading Muslims. This highly biased approach peaked throughout Franco's dictatorship, the heyday of National Catholicism and, while it holds true it declined upon the 1978 arrival of democracy, the Reconquista paradigm nevertheless remains currently a key concept in the most conservative Spanish academic outlets.

"I argue against two popular claims. The first is a descriptive, empirical thesis about the nature of ordinary human experience which I call the psychological Narrativity thesis: 'each of us constructs and lives a “narrative” … this narrative is us, our identities' (Oliver Sacks). The second is a normative, ethical claim which I call the ethical Narrativity thesis: we ought to live our lives narratively, or as a story; a 'basic condition of making sense of ourselves is that we grasp our lives in a narrative' and have an understanding of our lives 'as an unfolding story' (Charles Taylor); a person 'creates his identity (only) by forming an autobiographical narrative—a story of his life', and must be in possession of a full and 'explicit narrative (of his life) to develop fully as a person' (Marya Schechtman).

keywords: narrative, Narrativity, Diachronic personality, Episodic personality, non-narrative, anti-narrative, person, memory, story-telling, I*
"

As was the case with many newly independent African nations, Somalia was beset by a language problem whose complexity had begun well before independence and the unification of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland in 1960. With three languages (English, Arabic, and Italian) used as media of communication in government offices and in schools, various Somali administrations struggled to contain the impasse but found no tangible solution. Barely three years after Mohamed Siad Barre seized power in October 1969, he had his military regime introduce the Somali orthography in the Latin alphabet. Based on this milestone, Siad Barre's military rule is highly commended for taking a remarkable step forward in what came to be known as the Somalization project. However, officials of the government and Somali scholarship failed to

Somalia is generally thought of as a homogenous society, with a common Arabic ancestry, a shared culture of nomadism and one Somali mother tongue. This study challenges this myth. Using the Jareer/Bantu as a case study, the book shows how the Negroid physical features of this ethnic group has become the basis for ethnic marginalization, stigma, social exclusion and apartheid in Somalia. The book is another contribution to the recent deconstruction of the perceived Somali homogeneity and self-same assertions. It argues that the Somalis, just like most societies, employ multiple levels of social and ethnic distinctions, one of which is the Jareer versus Jileec divide. Dr. Eno successfully portrays another Somalia, in which a mythical homogeneity masks the oppression and social exclusion suffered by some ethnic groups in the country

Literatura y globalización: la narrativa hispanoamericana en el siglo XXI (espacio, tiempo, géneros) repasa algunas de las cuestiones que han estado y están en el punto de mira del latinoamericanismo y que presentan alguna novedad o
diferencia en la forma de percibir y analizar los textos literarios de la región con respecto a un pasado, el del siglo XX, todavía reciente. Partiendo de aspectos vinculados al espacio y al tiempo, el ensayo aborda, en un primer momento, la
configuración de nuevas cartografías, la condición posnacional y transterritorial de algunas obras recientes, así como la creación desde el ámbito hispanoamericano de toda una serie de imaginarios y representaciones de la globalización. Y termina
analizando los cambios acontecidos en el campo literario del mundo hispánico en las últimas décadas, en particular en lo que se refiere a los géneros literarios.

In this paper, I present an informational approach to the nature of personal identity. In ‘‘Plato and the problem of the chariot’’, I use Plato’s famous metaphor of the chariot to introduce a specific problem regarding the nature of the self as an informational multiagent system: what keeps the self together as a whole and coherent unity? In ‘‘Egology and its two branches’’ and ‘‘Egology as synchronic individualisation’’, I outline two branches of the theory of the self: one concerning the individualisation of the self as an entity, the other concerning the identification of such entity. I argue that both presuppose an informational approach, defend the view that the individualisation of the self is logically prior to its identification, and suggest that such individualisation can be provided in informational terms. Hence, in ‘‘A reconciling hypothesis: the three membranes model’’, I offer an informational individualisation of the self, based on a tripartite model, which can help to solve the problem of the chariot. Once this model of the self is outlined, in ‘‘ICTs as technologies of the self’’ I use it to show how ICTs may be interpreted as technologies of the self. In ‘‘The logic of realisation’’, I introduce the concept of ‘‘realization’’ (Aristotle’s anagnorisis) and support the rather Spinozian view according to which, from the perspective of informational structural realism, selves are the final stage in the development of informational structures. The final ‘‘Conclusion: from the egology to the ecology of the self’’ briefly concludes the article with a reference to the purposeful shaping of the self, in a shift from egology to ecology.

Godfrey Reggio’s non-verbal film Koyaanisqatsi is a pioneer both of the emergent environmental film genre, and of certain tropes of visual narrative that have come to dominate popular culture. This essay argues that the film articulates a critique of the inability of “anti-natural man” to distinguish between the “natural” and the “artificial.” My close reading of the film has four broad claims or theses: 1) In contrast to descriptions of Koyaanisqatsi as a “non-narrative film,” I argue that it has a non-logocentric narrative structure, which is laid out through an analysis of patterns of repetition of visual tropes; 2) Koyaanisqatsi revisions the human-nature relationship; its critique of modernity-as-machine makes gestures towards, or prefigures, ecocriticism; 3) The film has a quasi-religious discourse meant to unveil the “narrative potential” of nature, and the human-nature relationship (hence Reggio’s claims about a “better narrative” which “can go directly into…the soul of the viewer”); 4) The avant-garde techniques pioneered by Koyaanisqatsi are a cornerstone of environmental film, and an important moment in the “visual turn,” which challenges traditional notions of reading and literacy.

The myth or tale of the theft of the thunder-instrument from the thunder-god by his adversary (ATU 1148b) is encountered almost exclusively in the Circum-Baltic.  It is found in Germanic, Sámic, Finnic and Baltic cultures.  It is otherwise only encountered in one early Greek source of questionable cultural provenance.  This paper reviews the evidence of the tradition in different cultures, with a critical reassessment of the Germanic traditions, which have often been given priority.  ATU 1148b will be addressed as a Circum-Baltic phenomenon.  The paper approaches the distinct forms of ATU 1148b in each culture’s traditions in relation as reflecting socio-historical processes.  Emphasis is given to patterns of social use and how these are conditioned by relationships to other traditions and conceptions in each cultural milieu.  The evolution of the tradition into its various forms is considered the result of a long and dynamic process of interaction between cultures.  This development makes it unreasonable to attribute the Circum-Baltic traditions and forms exclusively to either Finno-Ugric or Indo-European traditions.  It is proposed that ATU 1148b is best approached as a Circum-Baltic phenomenon and representative of a Circum-Baltic mythology which is dependent on historical processes of linguistic-cultural interaction and exchange.  It is proposed that the concentration of ATU 1148b across diverse cultures in the Circum-Baltic is at least partially attributable to the maintenance of corresponding mythic narratives in adjacent cultures.  This explanation would find parallels in the persistence and form of genres (e.g. oral epic in Northern Europe) and stylistic priorities (e.g. alliteration in Northern Europe), which also appear to exhibit isoglosses related to cultural contact.

Al-Andalus, an Arab and Islamic country in Iberia between 711 and 1492, has been highly controversial in modern Spain. Over the 19th century, Spanish nationalist historical writing developed a two-pronged approach to the Iberian medieval process. According to the Reconquista paradigm, the Christians conquest of Islamic territories represented a national liberation struggle while al-Andalus was merely considered the anti-Spain. At the same time, al-Andalus was also interpreted as the 'Islamic Spain', part of the eternal Spanish nation. While the concept of 'Islamic Spain'  came under heavy criticism since the 1970s and became nearly totally disregarded, the traditional idea of Reconquista has been preserved and remains considered as a suitable reading of medieval Iberia among relevant scholarly and non-academic outlets.

The goal of this study is to investigate how medieval and Renaissance
Ragusans spoke about themselves as a community, developing a set of recognizable
ways of characterizing their city-state. In other words, it seeks to reconstruct
different discourses of collective identity, i.e., different strategies of collective
self-representation, which emerged in the culture of the Ragusan Republic. In
doing so it draws on a broad array of sources, from historiography, literature,
diplomatic correspondence all the way to civic ritual and visual monuments.
The utterances regarding collective identity found in these sources are analyzed
within a contextualizing framework which addresses their authors, the specific
circumstances of their creation, and the purposes they served..

The chapter discusses the process of industrialization, development, and modernization in the margins of Europe, by comparing practices of governmentality and the nation-building projects of Romania and Norway. The theoretical framework draws on Freudian psychoanalysis, feminist psychoanalysis, Michel Foucault, Benedict Anderson, Actor-Network Theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory.

Although scholars of Somali Studies have engaged themselves in examining the Somali society from several perspectives, colonial and early Somali writers mainly observed the Somali people as homogenous, egalitarian and nomadic pastoral. Themes on multi-ethnicity, multiculturalism, and linguistic diversity were ignored as topics that sully the myth of the selfsame ideology colorfully embroidered in the official historiography. The notion also deluded pioneering Somali scholars from critically studying their people and analyzing colonial writing; at least not beyond the western scholars' knowledge boundary. Accordingly, the Horn of Africa was exemplified as a unique African nation where citizens enjoy equality and share an all-in-one identity: culturally, ethnically, historically, and linguistically. Contrary to that notion, though, the everyday social situation makes the primordial ideology of selfsameness unsustainable. To establish the evidence, this essay discusses about how the Bantu Jareer agrarian community, a section among the different groups of subalterns in the country, views its environment and social space within the boundary of deeply offensive segregation by an extremely suppressive Somali society.

Many aspects of Charlemagne’s empire still raise central questions. Did it delineate the entire Carolingian domain or only a smaller part of it? Was the denomination and concept of a Romanum imperium adopted from antique tradition, the Byzantine Empire or was the notion behind it a completely new invention? This paper approaches these questions by focussing on the meaning of the term Romanus at the time of Charlemagne’s imperial coronation. To this aim, it establishes what messages the term Romanus conveyed by looking at contemporary concepts of “Roman” identity and Romanness as they emerge from the written sources. It then discusses whether the Carolingian notion of Romanness might help provide a better appreciation of how the meaning of the term Romanum imperium might have been understood from a contemporary perspective. The study exposes a significant semantic shift in the term Romanus from the late seventh century, from a mainly ethnic characterization towards a two-level notion which referred simultaneously to the (restricted) territory of the city of Rome and to the (supra-regional) Catholic Church and community. It argues that this altered understanding of Romanness corresponds with what we know about the Carolingian concept of Romanum imperium, meaning that although the term itself had been borrowed from older tradition, the concept it conveyed was genuinely contemporary.

Suspendus aux lèvres d’un conteur, incapables d’interrompre la lecture d’un roman, captivés par un film haletant, nous faisons tous l’expérience quotidienne de ce plaisir apparemment paradoxal que nous tirons de notre insatisfaction provisoire face à un récit inachevé. Bien qu’une mode esthétique et théorique ait tenté de nous convaincre que ce plaisir était honteux, on peut néanmoins avoir l’intuition que le cœur vivant de la narrativité réside précisément dans ce nœud coulant, toujours plus serré à mesure que nous progressons dans l’histoire, qui nous attache à l’intrigue et creuse la temporalité par l’attente impatiente d’un dénouement. Si le récit a quelque chose à voir avec la manière dont nous éprouvons le temps, cette expérience n’apparaît jamais avec autant d’éclat que dans le suspense, la curiosité ou la surprise qui font la force des intrigues fictionnelles. La compréhension des fonctions narratives engage donc non seulement l’analyse littéraire, linguistique et sémiotique, mais aussi l’analyse cognitive et la psychologie des émotions.

I esteem this essay to be one of the most significant essays I have ever written; it performs with John 6 something similar to what J. Louis Martyn achieved with John 9. Note, however, that four or five crises, or dialogical engagements, within the Johannine situation are herein involved, not just a Johannine-Jewish dialogue. Also, rather than being "off limits" for Johannine Gospel studies, the Epistles and other writings are here drawn into the contextual situation, evincing a variety of issues, not simply one. It was first published in Critical Readings of John 6 (ed. by Alan Culpepper for the Biblical Interpretation Supplemental Series #22;  Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997; reprinted in 2006, Atlanta: SBL), 1-59. This is a slightly revised version.

Symbols are important cultural expressions that may be circulated through both time and space as groups appropriate, modify, and ascribe new meanings to them within a larger context of cultural appropriation and invented tradition. I explore this process by looking at the construction of religious folk histories and how they related to the use of symbols by different groups of Celtic Neo-Pagan or " Ethnopagan " traditions in the United States and Britain. Data from print and electronic sources are analyzed to determine how these Ethnopagans appropriate, reinterpret, inflate, and conflate ancient Celtic and other European symbols, as well as recently invented symbols, into their ethnoreligious folk histories and repertoires. This process, including the appropriation of Celtic identity, is discussed in terms of its potential role in the construction, marking, legitimization, and validation of these ethnoreligious traditions and identities.

This article focuses on the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987). It is my goal to demonstrate how Freyre applied Nietzschean ideas to his interpretation of Brazilian society in an attempt to concretize the prophecy of the “new man” in the shape of the multiracial “mestiço.” By Nietzschean ideas I mean ideas indebted to Nietzsche directly or indirectly and reflected in the rhetorical, stylistic and argumentative strategies used by Freyre. It is not my intention to discuss whether Freyre interpreted Nietzsche’s ideas correctly; rather, I wish to highlight parallels to Nietzschean concepts and to indicate how the eclectic, even opportunistic, use of Nietzsche’s work allowed Freyre to move the discussion on Brazilian identity in a new direction.

Casa-grande & Senzala (1933), a obra secular de Gilberto Freyre, foi traditionalmente interpretado de um ponto de vista sociólogo e histórico. Esta interpretação deixou duas questões essenciais em aberto: 1) Como se pode explicar que Freyre interpretou a noção de miscegenação de uma forma (muito) mais positiva do que sociólogos anteriores e 2) Como se pode explicar as tendências elitistas e aristocráticas na sua obra? Este artigo explore estas duas perguntas analisando a influência em Freyre da filosofia de Friedrich Nietzsche através da interpretação de Henry L. Mencken. Argumenta que a influência de Mencken foi maior do que tradicionalmente tem sido admitido e que na obra de Mencken sobre Nietzsche se pode encontrar a mesma interpretação de miscigenação que Freyre mais tarde explorou em Casa-grande & Senzala. Argumenta também que Mencken profundamente influenciou Freyre com as suas ideias aristocráticas e elitistas."

Revealing the abiding influence of ingrained ideological prejudices, Spanish scholarship routinely called into question the sense of attachment of the people of Al-Andalus with their territory. In this article, I try to challenge this long-standing and commonly-held stereotype with a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, regardless of the gradual Christian takeover of the Iberian Islamic territory, al-Andalus remained the Arabic name for the whole Peninsula across the Medieval period. On the other hand, the literary evidence lays bare that the notion of al-Andalus does not lack a certain political dimension in connection with the concept of legitimate sovereignty. Finally, I present some Arabic literary texts in which different Andalusi authors show feelings of attachment and affection towards their territory.

This paper aims to (re)ignite debate about the role of narrative in the medical humanities. It begins with a critical review of the ways in which narrative has been mobilised by humanities and social science scholars to understand the experience of health and illness. I highlight seven dangers or blind spots in the dominant medical humanities approach to narrative, including the frequently unexamined assumption that all human beings are ‘naturally narrative’. I then explore this assumption further through an analysis of philosopher Galen Strawson's influential article ‘Against Narrativity’. Strawson rejects the descriptive claim that “human beings typically see or live or experience their lives as a narrative” and the normative claim that “a richly Narrative outlook is essential to a well-lived life, to true or full personhood”. His work has been taken up across a range of disciplines, but its implications in the context of health and illness have not yet been sufficiently discussed. This article argues that ‘Against Narrativity’ can and should stimulate robust debate within the medical humanities regarding the limits of narrative, and concludes by discussing a range of possibilities for venturing ‘beyond narrative’.

""High-modernity and practical-hermeneutic approaches to identity focus on how people craft their identities through interaction, how ‘narratives of self’ are created in concert with others and out of the diverse contextual resources within reach. This is true both off-, and online, however in the increasingly connected world, a growing amount of these discourses are digital. People spend more and more of their time online (according to comScore Canadian average was 45.3 hours; USA 38.6, UK 35.4 in Q4. 2011) and communicating in SNSs ruled people’s online time (23% in the USA), taking more than twice as much as the #2 activity (online games) in Q3 2011 according to The Nielsen Company.
This chapter focuses on the way bloggers with ‘not suitable for work’ (NSFW) blogs on the micro- blogging site tumblr. reflect on their experience. More precisely, on how their blogging, online interactions, and their sense of belonging to a community inform the different narratives of self. Pleasure helps group norms and values get integrated into one’s sense of self, hence a sexuality-related, playful online community can have a significant impact.
Based on in-depth interviews with NSFW bloggers, I will illustrate participants’ identity narratives in terms of their diachronic identity formation through time and space and their synchronic sense of self as it emerges in comparison to other people and in how agency is used when constructing the narrative. The different ‘We’s’ one sees oneself as a part of, as well as the juxtaposition of social and internal/psychological agency is explored. This chapter will contribute to understanding internet as a space for identity work and construction of social reality.
keywords: identity; social networking sites; blogs; online communities; narratives.""