Suicide is one of the greatest concerns in psychiatric practice, with considerable efforts devoted to prevention. The psychiatric view of suicide tends to equate it with depression or other forms of mental illness. Ho...Suicide is one of the greatest concerns in psychiatric practice, with considerable efforts devoted to prevention. The psychiatric view of suicide tends to equate it with depression or other forms of mental illness. However, some forms of suicide occur independently of mental illness and within a framework of cultural sanctioning such that they aren't regarded as suicide at all. Despitepersistent taboos against suicide, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the context of terminal illness is increasingly accepted as a way to preserve autonomy and dignity in the West. Seppuku, the ancient samurai ritual of suicide by self-stabbing, was long considered an honorable act of self-resolve such that despite the removal of cultural sanctioning, the rate of suicide in Japan remains high with suicide masquerading as seppuku still carried out both there and abroad. Suicide as an act of murder and terrorism is a practice currently popular with Islamic militants who regard it as martyrdom in the context of war. The absence of mental illness and the presence of cultural sanctioning do not mean that suicide should not be prevented. Culturally sanctioned suicide must be understood in terms of the specific motivations that underlie the choice of death over life. Efforts to prevent culturally sanctioned suicide must focus on alternatives to achieve similar ends and must ultimately be implemented within cultures to remove the sanctioning of self-destructive acts.展开更多
Su Manshu＇s 苏曼殊（1884-1918） The Lone Swan （Duanhong lingyanji 断鸿零雁记, 1911, 1912） is best known for a sustained use of subjective voice and a thematic emphasis on tragic love. Critics have often credited th...Su Manshu＇s 苏曼殊（1884-1918） The Lone Swan （Duanhong lingyanji 断鸿零雁记, 1911, 1912） is best known for a sustained use of subjective voice and a thematic emphasis on tragic love. Critics have often credited the novella＇s intensely tragic narrative for spearheading a new kind of literary subjectivity that became a cornerstone of modern Chinese literature as heralded by the May Fourth critics in the late 1910s and the 1920s. However, very few have examined this new subjectivity as an effect of Su＇s critical engagement with a late Qing nationalist narrative. Su＇s novella was an appropriation of the anti-Manchu revolutionary narrative of a nation, which hinged on a paradoxical mode of envisaging a new China through a temporal return to the past and by means of a tragic sacrifice of the individual. Following a brief analysis of Su＇s early piece published in The People＇s Journal （Minbao 民报）, this article demonstrates how The Lone Swan elaborated on an excess of individual sacrifice, while developing the new, mourning subjectivity as a witness to the unfinished revolutionary enterprise of forging a powerful nation. Su＇s narrative of cultural devastation resonates with Lu Xun＇s （1881-1936） late Qing work, but, in the May Fourth period that immediately followed, this sense of despair would become an unequivocal obiect for overcoming.展开更多
Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638)skillfully created small devotional altarpieces depicting holy saints with their respective attributes of martyrdom,seen in Saint Agnes of Rome(c.291-304)with an ewe,Saint Cecilia(c...Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638)skillfully created small devotional altarpieces depicting holy saints with their respective attributes of martyrdom,seen in Saint Agnes of Rome(c.291-304)with an ewe,Saint Cecilia(c.200-235)with a portable organ,Saint Catherine of Alexandria(c.287-304)with a broken spiked wheel,and Saint Justina of Padua(c.3rd century)with a small sword in her chest.For their physical sacrifice,Heaven rewarded them with a palm frond as an honorific spiritual gift.Barbara included some of these saints in her paintings on the theme of holy conversation(sacra conversazione;a religious gathering with the Madonna and Child)and depicted the female saints as a single panel-solo image-for private devotion or supplicatory assistance.Most of the biographies and historicity about the lives of these saints are recounted by Jacobus de Voragine(1222-1298),Archbishop of Genoa,in his Golden Legend(Legenda Aurea,1275).This essay only comments on the iconography of one of Barbara’s female saints,Saint Justina of Padua.展开更多
Poetry remains a medium with which writers critically capture happenings around them.Most African poets have churned out many works in this respect with greater impact on their environment,shedding light on the afterm...Poetry remains a medium with which writers critically capture happenings around them.Most African poets have churned out many works in this respect with greater impact on their environment,shedding light on the aftermath of independence and the discordant tunes of building nations across the continent.It must be pointed out that while there are more of male poets,only a few females have contributed to the growing poetic works in terms of written poetry in foreign languages such as English or French.One of these females is Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo as the study focuses on her Heart Songs.A pertinent question to be asked is how valuable Heart Songs is.Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Heart Songs is imbued with an avalanche of issues centering on social doldrums and martyrdom that define our identity and existence as a people and the world at large.In x-raying her work,postcolonial theory has been adopted as a guiding tool of interpretation and content analysis of the selected poems.The finding of the paper is that Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s poetry captures so much within a little space,and it is no less functional as a genre in the restoration of hope for the target people.The paper recommends that the vision inherent in the collection be given an in-depth reading for a wider application to understanding the evasive and challenging good governance in Africa as a continent.展开更多
文摘Suicide is one of the greatest concerns in psychiatric practice, with considerable efforts devoted to prevention. The psychiatric view of suicide tends to equate it with depression or other forms of mental illness. However, some forms of suicide occur independently of mental illness and within a framework of cultural sanctioning such that they aren't regarded as suicide at all. Despitepersistent taboos against suicide, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the context of terminal illness is increasingly accepted as a way to preserve autonomy and dignity in the West. Seppuku, the ancient samurai ritual of suicide by self-stabbing, was long considered an honorable act of self-resolve such that despite the removal of cultural sanctioning, the rate of suicide in Japan remains high with suicide masquerading as seppuku still carried out both there and abroad. Suicide as an act of murder and terrorism is a practice currently popular with Islamic militants who regard it as martyrdom in the context of war. The absence of mental illness and the presence of cultural sanctioning do not mean that suicide should not be prevented. Culturally sanctioned suicide must be understood in terms of the specific motivations that underlie the choice of death over life. Efforts to prevent culturally sanctioned suicide must focus on alternatives to achieve similar ends and must ultimately be implemented within cultures to remove the sanctioning of self-destructive acts.
文摘Su Manshu＇s 苏曼殊（1884-1918） The Lone Swan （Duanhong lingyanji 断鸿零雁记, 1911, 1912） is best known for a sustained use of subjective voice and a thematic emphasis on tragic love. Critics have often credited the novella＇s intensely tragic narrative for spearheading a new kind of literary subjectivity that became a cornerstone of modern Chinese literature as heralded by the May Fourth critics in the late 1910s and the 1920s. However, very few have examined this new subjectivity as an effect of Su＇s critical engagement with a late Qing nationalist narrative. Su＇s novella was an appropriation of the anti-Manchu revolutionary narrative of a nation, which hinged on a paradoxical mode of envisaging a new China through a temporal return to the past and by means of a tragic sacrifice of the individual. Following a brief analysis of Su＇s early piece published in The People＇s Journal （Minbao 民报）, this article demonstrates how The Lone Swan elaborated on an excess of individual sacrifice, while developing the new, mourning subjectivity as a witness to the unfinished revolutionary enterprise of forging a powerful nation. Su＇s narrative of cultural devastation resonates with Lu Xun＇s （1881-1936） late Qing work, but, in the May Fourth period that immediately followed, this sense of despair would become an unequivocal obiect for overcoming.
文摘Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638)skillfully created small devotional altarpieces depicting holy saints with their respective attributes of martyrdom,seen in Saint Agnes of Rome(c.291-304)with an ewe,Saint Cecilia(c.200-235)with a portable organ,Saint Catherine of Alexandria(c.287-304)with a broken spiked wheel,and Saint Justina of Padua(c.3rd century)with a small sword in her chest.For their physical sacrifice,Heaven rewarded them with a palm frond as an honorific spiritual gift.Barbara included some of these saints in her paintings on the theme of holy conversation(sacra conversazione;a religious gathering with the Madonna and Child)and depicted the female saints as a single panel-solo image-for private devotion or supplicatory assistance.Most of the biographies and historicity about the lives of these saints are recounted by Jacobus de Voragine(1222-1298),Archbishop of Genoa,in his Golden Legend(Legenda Aurea,1275).This essay only comments on the iconography of one of Barbara’s female saints,Saint Justina of Padua.
文摘Poetry remains a medium with which writers critically capture happenings around them.Most African poets have churned out many works in this respect with greater impact on their environment,shedding light on the aftermath of independence and the discordant tunes of building nations across the continent.It must be pointed out that while there are more of male poets,only a few females have contributed to the growing poetic works in terms of written poetry in foreign languages such as English or French.One of these females is Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo as the study focuses on her Heart Songs.A pertinent question to be asked is how valuable Heart Songs is.Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Heart Songs is imbued with an avalanche of issues centering on social doldrums and martyrdom that define our identity and existence as a people and the world at large.In x-raying her work,postcolonial theory has been adopted as a guiding tool of interpretation and content analysis of the selected poems.The finding of the paper is that Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s poetry captures so much within a little space,and it is no less functional as a genre in the restoration of hope for the target people.The paper recommends that the vision inherent in the collection be given an in-depth reading for a wider application to understanding the evasive and challenging good governance in Africa as a continent.
