Suffering

Abstract: Patients and their families are often concerned to find a material cause for suffering rather than to accept the mystery of its ontological necessity. In modern healthcare settings, in which medicine is rightly based upon the reductionist empirical scientific method, ...

This chapter explores three anthropological dimensions of the denial of crimes committed during the François Duvalier regime in Haiti (1957 and 1971): the manner in which social obligations created by kinship and social bonds induce conformism, self-censorship, and eventually denial; the disassociation from the victim's suffering, a social phenomenon I call pathophobia; and the animistic dimension of denial, which considers that the victim is wrong in their very essence and thus deserving of their fate.

This article looks at the question of sin and disease in bioethics with a spiritual-theological analysis from the book of Job. The biblical figure Job is an innocent and just man who suffered horrendously. His dialogues with others—his wife, his friends, and God—can give many valuable insights for patients who suffer and for those who interact with them. Family, friends, physicians, nurses, chaplains, and pastoral workers can learn from Job how to communicate properly with sufferers. The main question for Job was how to maintain the tension between God’s justice and God’s mercy and not yield to the temptation of cursing God but to speak well of Him in moments of difficulties.

Resumo:
O artigo examina o assim chamado "problema do sentido do sofrimento", formulado no FP 1888, 14 [89] e que trata do antagonismo entre o "sentido cristão" e o "sentido trágico". A caracterização do problema será feita mediante a explicitação de três aspectos formais que atuam na constituição geral de suas teses: o contexto temático religioso, a linguagem da fisiologia e o uso de uma noção agonística de antagonismo. Para cada um será destinada uma seção que visará mostrar sua função na estratégia argumentativa nietzschiana. Num quarto momento, a convergência dos três elementos mostrará que a linguagem da fisiologia fornece a Nietzsche não somente um léxico, mas um procedimento investigativo heurístico, o qual, aplicado às valorações religiosas da existência, revela sua gênese em justificações antagônicas do sofrimento. Identificando o tema da justificação como o cerne que propriamente caracteriza o problema do sentido do sofrimento, a sua análise distinguirá dois significados pelos quais se pode justificar o sofrimento: um significado ideal de justificação, ligado a um tipo de sofredor, cuja debilidade fisiológica necessita da ficção de um além-mundo para fins de consolo e narcotização; e um significado trágico, reservado para os tipos de superabundância de forças, cuja afirmação jubilosa da existência justifica o sofrimento no próprio curso do vir-a-ser, na criação e renovação contínuas da vida. Concluir-se-á com considerações acerca da possibilidade de trabalhar o problema do sentido do sofrimento como hipótese interpretativa para uma crítica da modernidade.


Abstract:
The article examines the so-called "problem of the meaning of suffering", formulated in PF 1888, 14 [89] and that deals with the antagonism between the "christian meaning" and the "tragic meaning". The characterization of the problem will be made through the explanation of three formal aspects that act in the general constitution of its theses: the thematic religious context, the language of physiology and the use of an agonistic notion of antagonism. For each one will be destined a section that will aim to show its function in Nietzsche's argumentative strategy. In a fourth moment, the convergence of the three elements will show that the language of physiology gives Nietzsche not only a lexicon, but a heuristic investigative procedure, which, applied to the religious valuations of existence, reveals its genesis in antagonistic justifications of suffering. By identifying the theme of justification as the core that properly characterizes the problem of the meaning of suffering, his analysis will distinguish two meanings by which suffering can be justified: an ideal meaning of justification, linked to a type of sufferer, whose physiological weakness requires the fiction of an afterworld for consolation and narcotization purposes; and a tragic meaning reserved for the kinds of superabundance of forces whose joyful affirmation of existence justifies suffering

Previous scholarly studies have discussed the use of Zen Buddhism
within the person-centred approach of Carl Rogers, demonstrating the feasible influence of Buddhism over Rogers’s theories. The present research delves into the convergence and divergence of person-centred therapy and the Mahāyāna (one of the current mainstreams of Buddhism) philosophy explicated within the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra (a significant Mahāyāna canon); in particular, the bodhisattva spirit and four immeasurables, including loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Findings indicate that Carl Rogers’s counselling principles and practices comply with the Buddhist teachings of phenomenal vision, actualising tendency, and innate eagerness to alleviate suffering. This discussion also analyses ideas that have
seldom been examined in person-centred principles, such as bodhisattva
altruism, mind purity in nature and impurity caused by bewilderment,
compassion fatigue, causes of suffering, and counselling techniques.
Mahāyāna wisdom potentially offers references to the Rogerian family of
theories, which also sheds light on the use of Buddhist-influenced non-medical interventions.

Recent discussion of the role of memory in perception has tended to focus on sensory memory and working memory. I present a summary of the psychological evidence for a further form of memory termed Conceptual Short-Term Memory, arguing it cannot be easily understood in terms of more familiar mechanisms. I suggest that Conceptual Short-Term Memory may shed new light in several philosophical debates, focusing on Ned Block's overflow argument and the relationship between consciousness and reportability. I conclude with some reflections on the relevance of Conceptual Short-Term Memory for questions about the boundary between perception and cognition.

One of the best known and most widely accepted premises regarding the experience of pain and suffering is its singular, private nature. Pain’s violence isolates us from everything else, embedding us completely within our own suffering so that there is nothing else but pain: no world or objects, no relationship with other people, no past or anticipation of the future. An utter withdrawal. But pain’s isolating force is dual: it affects not only those who suffer, but also those who are not in pain. Thus, it is precisely in pain – the exemplary state in which we need others with us to offer their help and sympathy – that we find ourselves in solitude; and it is precisely in the state of pain that we leave others to suffer alone. 

This is a paper our research group published together with the Collège des Médecins du Québec (the provincial regulator). We are trying to understand what psychological suffering is exactly and how physicians can access it when they are asked to assess patients requesting medical aid in dying in Québec.

This study sought to identify and analyse the relationships between burnout syndrome, occupational stress and pleasure and suffering at work from young Brazilian workers’ perspective. The research was conducted with a probabilistic sample of younger employees living in São Paulo, Brazil, who returned 493 valid questionnaires. The data were submitted to exploratory factor analysis, followed by structural equation modelling. The results highlight stress symptoms’ influence on defensive strategies, which in turn directly enhance pleasure and reduce suffering at work. Pleasure and suffering are both positively and negatively related to burnout dimensions.

This paper recapitulates two influential JRAI articles to discuss comparison in anthropology. Charles Lindholm's 1995 article criticized the then new, now well-established, trend in Middle East ethnography for its radical emphasis on particularism and lack of theorization, driven by fears of de-humanizing subjects. In turn, Joel Robbins's 2013 article proposed an "anthropology of the good" as a substitute to the particularism of the anthropology of the "suffering subject". This would reinstate the notion of cultural diversity and its comparative vocation as touchstones of contemporary anthropology. Connecting these articles is a discussion of Middle East and Palestine ethnography's major shift in the 1970's to an anthropology of suffering reflected in anthropology at large. The conclusion is that suffering, just as comparison, must be qualified. Thus, qualified comparison must be the foundation to anthropological critiques of Western reason as much as it is to classical cultural critique.

Suffering is not something merely to be coped with; it holds important transformative power. Yet, it is important that suffering is not idealized or viewed as something that is, in itself, good. While suffering is not something to be sought, through embracing the sufferings that cannot be avoided the suffering often can be transformed. Meaning is one of the most important constructs in working with suffering from an existential perspective. As Viktor Frankl (1959/1984) stated, “suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning” (p. 117). Meaning does not necessarily take the suffering away, but it changes the way that individuals experience suffering. Not all forms of suffering are the same, nor are all forms of meaning the same. From a clinical perspective, the therapist works with client to help them to explore the various realms and aspects of their suffering. However, without a good therapeutic relationship and a competent guide, the journey into suffering can cause harm instead of healing. Not all forms of meaning are able to help a client sustain through and transform the experience of suffering. Superficial or imposed meaning by well-intentioned others often are not sustaining meanings. Therapists working with the client’s suffering need to be able to recognize the varieties of types of suffering as well as the varieties of types of meanings in order to help clients transform their experience of suffering.

Il vertiginoso progresso della scienza e della tecnica sembra rendere l'umanità impreparata ad affrontare i complicati risvolti di questo progresso, che toccano gli aspetti della vita sociale, educativa, affettiva, emotiva, spirituale, rendendo l'uomo sempre più inquieto ed infelice, incapace di vivere la sofferenza e di custodire la speranza. Occorre riuscire a contrapporre un percorso educativo che sia orientato ad una maggiore capacità dialogica dell'essere umano con se stesso e con il mondo, in modo che possa superare e trascendere la logica dell'isolamento narcisistico e dell'indifferenza. L'articolo traccia un percorso possibile di crescita in tale direzione, riflettendo su quali siano le condizioni perché la persona possa guardare oltre la propria sofferenza e le proprie paure ed aprirsi ad una relazionalità positiva. Inoltre, propone un modo di conservare, in tutte le circostanze della vita, quella forza che aiuta a superare le ineludibili difficoltà dell'esistere e di muoversi in un'ottica di speranza, recuperando il desiderio, la fiducia ed il perdono, che aiutano a custodire la pace profonda del cuore.

The rapid progress of science and technology seems to make mankind unprepared to deal with the complicated aspects of this progress, which affect aspects of social, educational, emotional, spiritual life, making the man more and more restless and unhappy, unable to experience the suffering and guard/keep the hope. It is essential to oppose an educational route oriented towards a greater dialogical capacity of the human being with himself and the world, so that he may overcome and transcend the logic of narcissistic isolation and indifference. The article outlines a possible growth path in this direction, reflecting on the conditions for which the person can see beyond his pains and his fears and open up to a positive relationality. Also, the article proposes a way to preserve, in all circumstances of life, the strenght that helps to overcome the inevitable difficulties of existence and to move in a perspective of hope, recovering desire, trust and forgiveness, which helps to keep the deep peace of the heart.

With four waves of women's liberation movements in the twentieth century, the relationship between mothers and daughters has come under increasing, frequent, intense, and passionate examination. Scholars East and West have examined this bond, giving it a universal appeal. Among the voices that have come to create speech and meaning to this relationship are. Fouad (1964), the Egyptian writer, in her book Ila Ibnaty (To My Daughter) and Rich's 1976 classic feminist work, Of Women Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Concerning their definitions, this paper discusses the oppositional forms of the mother-daughter relationship in Amy Tan's Two Kinds and Lydia Davis' The Mother. In both short stories, Tan, with her Chinese traditions and American education, and Davis, whose background includes no ethnic derivations, explore the breakdown in communication in this problematic bond, aiming at reconstructing this richly influential relationship.

There is an opinion as to if Buddha has been said, that life is inevitable suffering for sure. It contradicts the Buddha's teachings in general, which purpose and goal are to get over suffering, to be free of suffering. Birth, aging, sickness, and death must not be suffering, that is the core and the real issue of Buddha's teachings.

This paper argues for three claims:
In the foregoing sketch of my proposal I have made three main claims:
i. That to make sense of the puzzles surrounding suffering we should adopt a disruption model on which suffering is constituted by the unpleasant impact of a suffered state on our wider mental lives.
ii. That to make sense of the disruption constitutive of suffering we should acknowledge that suffering is, to some extent, under our agential control.
iii. That to make sense of the agential status of suffering we should recognise the presence of disruptive mental urges triggered by suffered mental states.

he study offers an example of the iconization of suffering towards the analysis of the Cult of the "abandoned souls" practiced in the so-called Fontanelle cemetery in Naples. The particularity of the Fontanelle cemetery is the fact that after the political unification of Italy, it becomes a place of a special cult of the skulls of the dead. The skulls were "adopted" by the Neapolitan population and kept in particular care. The Neapolitan cult of the skulls of the dead, called Culto delle anime pezzentelle, lasted the town until 1969. In that year the cult was abruptly interrupted by civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Relicts of the cult are still present among some of the city's elders. The symbolism of the cult was later picked up by renowned artists, such as Rebecca Horn, who was the author, of many installations in Naples and other towns referring to the skulls of the Fontanelle cemetery. Although it is a general opinion that the cult represents an iconization of suffering, very little has been done to understand the deep historical and cultural reasons for this suffering.

In this article I want to spend time with suffering - how we experience it, the critical role it plays and how we can come to terms with the elements of suffering that we cannot eliminate and still lead fruitful, dignified lives.  I have limited myself to the particular issue of trying to understand the psychological capacities and competences (wisdom) that will reduce unnecessary suffering and which are essential conditions for democratic forms of living ranging from deliberative processes in formal, democratic institutional settings to intimate relationships. Suffering is a primary problem for democratic ways of working because the suffering that everyone experiences acts as a direct limitation on our capacity to function to the level required in democratic interaction. Thus alleviating suffering and finding the psychological capacity to tolerate it are important means of enhancing the quality of democracy.

As a result of European externalization of the politics of migration, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries like Morocco are increasingly co-opted to deter asylum-seekers and other migrants. These latter, criminalized and labelled as ‘illegal’, are prevented from reaching a Europe whose economy nevertheless partially relies on the precarious and low-cost labour of sans-papiers. As Morocco shifts from a country of mainly emigration to also a country of ‘transit’ and immigration, thousands of Sub-Saharan migrants find themselves ‘stranded’, unable to go further, return or gain a meaningful legal status in Morocco. The research focuses on the two poor and densely populated neighbourhoods of Douar Hajja and Maadid, often called after the larger, adjacent neighbourhood Taqaddoum (‘progress’ in Arabic). Reputed to be violent and dangerous, they host a visible, (im)mobile population of irregular, sub-Saharan migrants struggling to cope with everyday life and (re)considering their uncertain migratory journeys.
This research engages with recent critical debates in anthropology over ‘mobility’ and ‘illegalization’ to examine how ‘irregular’ sub-Saharan migrants cope with violent abuses and attempt to exert control over their lives in a Moroccan marginal neighbourhood. Exploring migrants’ imagination and hope, it focuses particularly on migrants’ circumscribed agency as well as emerging social relationships and political participation. Rather than adding to the profuse production of migration studies concepts, the thesis contends that migrants’ own articulations of notions such as ‘adventure’ and ‘objective’ offer an analytical tool to overcome some of the pitfalls of other concepts (e.g. transit, imagined community) which do not completely succeed in accounting for migrants’ experiences; their own ambiguities and limits are useful in uncovering some of the dilemmas faced by migrants in Morocco.

研究目的：本研究主要在探討人類共通之受苦經驗，從疾病的科學化與醫療化的發展，以存在哲學與現象學對受苦經驗的本體性探問與對於臨床現場認識論的衝突形成反思性思辨的論述。此外，從Levinas與余德慧的本體論點及本土心理學的研究尋找受苦經驗的臨床方法論述。研究方法：以Levinas所開展的現象學基礎取逕，從人文臨床療癒與本土心理學的現有論述中形成因應遭逢受苦經驗的方法論，以形成對應於現有醫療模式的理解、探問與因應方向。研究結果：本研究認為，受苦經驗所開啟的並非對於疾病的認識，而是對於受苦之人經驗之理解與承接。從臨床現場疾病與受苦的認識歧異以及耙梳本土心理學研究與人文哲學的對話，本研究形成異於傳統的醫療處預形式，形成受苦狀態中，他者所召喚的原初倫理示現途徑。研究結論：本研究形成三階段式的返身論述，將受苦經驗與疾病經驗形成人我倫理的本體論點，而論述方法論在於將受苦現場的存在經驗回歸到人我關係的倫理本質，並從疾病的視角中返身至人我遭逢。

Purpose: We investigated the experience of suffering as a medical concept by redefining the term and reviewing current academic approaches to disease and suffering. Methods: We applied a phenomenological discovery approach to address a methodological concern different from the current medical model of clinical intervention. From literature review and personal reflections, we theorized enquiry into the lived experiences of suffering. Results: We argue that the lived experience of suffering uncovers not only an epistemological understanding of one’s disease, but the entry point of ‘Non-self’, in which ‘Self’ is the destination for manifesting one's ontological self-other ethics. Treatment and clinical intervention needs to address the core ontological concern of the lived experience of suffering in order to transition from a medical perspective of knowledge about one's disease to a humane position acknowledging suffering. We conclude by presenting a phenomenological model of ethical connection. Conclusion: We conclude with 3 stages of reflexive concern in which the lived experiences of suffering open a route for a clinical practitioner de-constructing ‘Self’ and re-constructing the ontological ethics with ‘Other’. We suggest that a clinical practitioners encompass not only an understanding of the experience of a disease, but also acknowledgement of suffering, by his/her every face-to-face encounter with patients or clients.

J. R. R. Tolkien, as somebody who experienced a difficult early life as an orphan and then as a World War I soldier, endured enough trauma and suffering in his life for it to become a significant element in almost all of his fictional works. This paper explores Tolkien’s understanding of the effects of suffering in human life, which was shaped by his religious belief. He presents pain as an inevitable and essential part of the nature of the Fallen World; yet while it may seem at first as a form of punishment, if treated appropriately, it turns into a powerful means of achieving personal or societal salvation.

This study, an extended earlier version of a chapter later published in Apostasy in the New Testament Communities (Vol. 3), engages apostasy and restoration in the Epistle of James and engages the book of Job in relation to the themes of suffering, wisdom, and poverty

his article situates Auden’s poem Musée des Beaux Arts in the process of his conversion to Christianity. The author argues for the layered intertextuality of the poem, in which allusions to Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, The Census at Jerusalem, and The Massacre of the Innocents can be recognised. Moreover, Philippe de Champaigne’s Presentation in the Temple and Peter Paul Rubens’s The Martyrdom of St Livinus (in the same museum in Brussels) seem also
to have influenced the poem. Finally, there is reason to suppose that John Singer Sargent’s Crashed Aeroplane influenced Auden. In an analysis of the structure of the poem, the author argues that there is a clear structure hidden under the surface of day-to-day language. He connects this hidden structure with Auden’s poem The Hidden Law, and suggests that Auden wished to claim that even though we cannot understand suffering, it has a hidden meaning known only to
God. This hidden meaning connects our suffering with the self-emptying of Christ, a connection which the author demonstrates is in fact also made in Musée des Beaux Arts.

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本論文旨於研究《加拉太書》中與基督同死同活實際的經歷是指向什麼，以及其對倫理生活的影響。啟發點是到底加拉太教會如何理解保羅要他們順著聖靈而行的倫理命令。顯然的，保羅與他們有共同的信仰經歷，以致他們在沒有得到任何解釋之下仍可以明白保羅的命令。
        社會科學的研究證實了啟示型經歷與信仰委身中之結果的重要性，也區分了真理認知與經歷認知的不同，而凸顯出後者的重要性，鑑定了本論文研究經歷和倫理的基礎。同時也指出本研究的倫理探討是在於倫理動力。本論文採用現象學來探討經歷，強調回到該事物本身，從各個角度分析探討；同時以敘事法歸納出《加拉太書》中四個層面的經歷：歸信、受苦、聖靈和自由；然後透過修正Barclay的返照閱讀法，從修辭問句同樣歸納出以上四方面的經歷，證實保羅論述中不單訴諸於真理，更是訴諸於經歷。
        為了更了解保羅的倫理命令，本論文重新探討加拉太教會的問題，指出一般從直述—命令框架的探討之不足，而證實他們的問題乃是情慾上的行為問題，使得攪擾者趁虛而入，把律法引進來。所以保羅才訴諸於真理與經歷，證實他們是屬於聖靈的，足以勝過情慾。
        在以上這些基礎之下，重新探討《加拉太書》所謂直述部分，證實保羅與基督同死同活的經歷是關鍵。這經歷則從以上敘事法和修辭問句分析所歸納出的結論（歸信、受苦、聖靈和自由）具體呈現出來。為了方便討論，本論文分成兩部分進行詳細分析，一是同死（歸信和受苦），一是同活（聖靈和自由）。保羅在這四個層面訴諸於真理與經歷論述，證實了保羅與他們在這四個層面實際的共同經歷，讓他們可以明白什麼是活在聖靈權勢之下（解決了他們想要回到律法的問題），因而也不難理解保羅要他們順著聖靈而行的命令（解決了他們的情慾問題）。


This dissertation seeks to study the implications of the actual experiences of dying and living with Christ as recorded in the book of Galatians, as well as how it affects ethical living. The study is inspired by how the Galatians understood Paul’s ethical command to live by the Spirit. Evidently, Paul and the Galatians shared the same faith experiences such that they could understand Paul’s command without any further explanation.
        Social Scientific research confirms the importance of revelational experience and of religious consequences in religious commitment. It also differentiates between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance and emphasizes the latter’s significance. These constitute the basis of the dissertation’s focus on experience and ethics, with the emphasis on the dynamic aspect of ethics. A phenomenological approach, which emphasizes “back to the thing itself”, is used to illuminate experience and examine all possible perspectives of the phenomena. The narrative approach is also used to induce four aspects of experience in the book of Galatians; namely conversion, suffering, the Holy Spirit and freedom. Using an amended version of Barclay’s mirror-reading technique to analyze Paul’s use of rhetorical questions, the abovementioned four aspects of experience are similarly induced to confirm that Paul appeals to both theology and experience in his discourse.
        In order to understand Paul’s ethical command, this dissertation re-examines the problems faced by the churches of Galatia and highlights inadequacies of the Indicative-Imperative framework. It further demonstrates that their desire-related problematic behaviors provided an opportunity for agitators to cunningly introduce the Law into their midst. Therefore Paul appeals to both theology and experience to validate their relationship to the Holy Spirit and prove how that truth is sufficient for them to be victorious in their problems with desire.
        Building upon the abovementioned foundations to re-examine the alleged Indicative portion of the book of Galatians, this dissertation seeks to establish that Paul’s experience of dying and living with Christ is key. The four aspects of experience are also comprehensively induced from the study of dying and living with Christ. For ease of discussion and detailed analysis, the study of dying and living with Christ broadly comprises two parts: 1) dying with Christ (conversion and suffering), and 2) living with Christ (the Holy Spirit and freedom). Paul appeals to theology and experience in his discourse regarding these four aspects; this confirms that the Galatians’ experiences were no different from his, thus facilitating the Galatians’ understanding of what it means to live within the sphere of the Holy Spirit (thereby resolving the problem of their returning to the Law). Hence it is not difficult to understand Paul’s command to live by the Holy Spirit (resolving their issue of desire-related problematic behaviors).

By utilizing real-world “Failed to Death” (FTD) examples of egregious human cruelty against children, the thesis of this chapter is that misotheists (those who scorn god for moral reasons) are justified in their refusal to worship any deity who exhibits a “depraved indifference” by refusing to intervene on behalf of victimized kids. Misotheists assert that if a god exists, then humanity is morally obligated to scorn that deity as demonstrated in three deductive quasi-syllogisms:

A
1. All agents possessing the sufficient conditions for intervention are morally obligated to intervene (to stop a child from being tortured to death).
2. God is an agent possessing the sufficient conditions for intervention.
3. Therefore, god is morally obligated to intervene.

B
1. All morally-obligated agents who willfully refuse to intervene (to stop a child from being tortured to death) are moral monsters.
2. God is a morally-obligated agent who willfully refused to intervene.
3. Therefore, god is a moral monster.

C
1. All moral monsters are deserving of humanity’s scorn, not praise and worship.
2. God is a moral monster (per B above).
3. Therefore, god is deserving of humanity's scorn, not praise and worship.

Misotheism’s ethical stance is primarily prescriptive (as opposed to descriptive or analytic) in arguing for how persons of good conscience ought to behave in certain circumstances. Unlike other works that deal with the problem of evil and suffering, this chapter’s argument does not rely on counterfactuals or philosophical conjectures about the nature and prevalence of human suffering. Instead, it derives its argument from real-life examples of god refusing to intervene as innocent children are brutally tortured to death. The significance is in addressing the ethics of nonintervention rather than just focusing solely on the immorality of aberrant behavior.

Philosophical interest in vulnerability focusses mainly on normative questions concerning its relevance for moral, political and legal theory. However, beneath these questions there lies another one which is epistemological: How do we gain clear knowledge about another person’s pain and suffering? How do we recognize a wounded life? Drawing primarily on the account of Elaine Scarry (1984), the article aims at showing that the difficulties to apprehend and recognize a life as injured are not only grounded in political and cultural frames, as Judith Butler contends, but also in the phenomenological and epistemic features of pain itself. Pain is epistemically fragile. Whereas it is almost impossible to ignore one’s own pain, it is very easy to overlook the pain of others. This epistemic slope has concrete effects on the social and political life. Regarding vulnerability, the normative question of recognition and the epistemic question of recognizability, thus, are closely intertwined.

In this medical anthropology paper, I offer to the discussion a counter-intuitive hypothesis: “medicalization is a clinical judgment inherited by the functionalist sociology of deviance. In that respect, society is an organism that can be afflicted with pathologies. Does this organicist metaphor affect the sociological concept of medicalization and model its subject matter? To make this clear, I will start from (i.) my fieldwork on French psychoanalysis and its discontents which led me to formulate a paradox: psychiatrists are politically resisting the medicalization of psychiatry. Indeed, (ii.) this instance does not fall within the concept of medicalization studies despite recent attempts to save it from major objections. Since, (iii.) the concept’s filiation shows that it retains the negative values of its origin in the German Kulturkritik. This has the methodological consequence (iv) of prompting me to design genealogical analysis on ethnographic materials and study the entire spectrum of values in the judgment formation, their possible transformation from the micro-clinical to the macro-critical scale and  vice versa.

My paper examines the symbolic overload of Antigone figurations in Hegel, Lacan, and Butler to study her strange reincarnations in postcolonial fiction, such as Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. In exegetical literature, Antigone stands interchangeably as the ethical subject, the force of resistance to the inderdictions of state power, the claims of kinship (in tragic opposition to Creon’s claim of universality), messianic violence, anti-authoritarianism and feminism. Shamsie’s evocation of Antigone goes against the grain of Hegel’s reading of her as hypostatised law and Lacan’s deciphering in her actions the vicissitudes of Eros. Nor is the figure easily reducible to the claims of the non-normative family alone, as Butler famously argues. Like other works of postcolonial fiction before her, Shamsie foregrounds the raced body at the intersection of love and politics, society, faith and family: Antigone, here, is both timeless myth and a contingent redrawing of polity in the twenty-first century for the socially marginalised who seek cultural intelligibility.

The Early Christian narratives often demonstrate the struggle of human beings because of their unique faith. The New Testament writings provide ample evidences concerning the afflictions of Early Christianity in the Jewish and pagan environment. The current paper attempts to delineate the following aspects in detail: the etymology of ‘persecution’ in the NT narratives; persecution of the church in the early Christian context; the Jewish and Roman persecutions against the church; the implications of the study in the contemporary Indian context; followed by concluding statements. The following questions are important in the process of addressing the topic: How the NT and extra-Biblical documents help us in understanding the Early Christian situation? How the Jewish and Roman persecutions against the Christians shaped the community as co-sufferers with God/Christ? How the biblical axioms are paradigmatic in the contemporary Indian context? The aim of the paper is threefold: to foreground the NT and extra-Biblical records of persecution; to detail the concept of ‘suffering for Christ’ in perspective and in rhetorical terms; and to see the implications of the biblical understanding of persecution in the contemporary Indian context.

We are all opposed—at least ostensibly—to mindless animal cruelty. Almost no one defended Michael Vick and his cohorts when they tortured and killed dogs for their dog fighting ring. Imagine Michael Vick had been selling a product—say dog-skin handbags from the “losing” dogs—that financially supported and enabled the continued torture of more dogs. We would not only not buy these dog-skin handbags, we would boycott the handbags and urge others not to buy them as well. This essay argues that we are a lot more like Michael Vick than we care to imagine. No, we’re not highly paid football players and we won’t go to jail or go bankrupt for our participation in animal cruelty. But like Michael Vick, we participate in animal cruelty, and we are similarly raised in a way that we do not see its wrongfulness. How do we participate in animal cruelty? By spending billions of dollars each year financially supporting an incredibly common and pervasive form of animal cruelty: factory farming, which involves raising pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, and other animals in deplorable conditions. And, like Michael Vick, we financially support it in part because we have an addiction. More specifically, we are addicted to the taste of low-cost industrial meat. As a result, we refuse to see our financial support of large scale cruelty to animals.

Η σύνδεση μιας εκκλησιαστικής ευχής που ανήκει στη μακραίωνη λειτουργική παράδοση της Ορθόδοξης Εκκλησίας  με το σύγχρονο και επίκαιρο ζήτημα της ευθανασίας φαίνεται ίσως αδόκιμη, καθώς κατά το χρόνο συγγραφής της ήταν ασφαλώς άγνωστος ο προβληματισμός που τίθεται στην εποχή μας. Ωστόσο η διαχρονικότητα της ασθένειας, του πόνου και του θανάτου, καθώς και το αδιάλειπτο ενδιαφέρον της Εκκλησίας για τον πάσχοντα και θνήσκοντα άνθρωπο επιτρέπουν, κατά την προσωπική μας άποψη, την αξιοποίηση της ευχής εις ψυχορραγούντα στη θεολογική προσέγγιση του καλού θανάτου και κατ’ επέκταση στον ηθικό προβληματισμό για την ευθανασία. Με την προοπτική αυτή παρουσιάζεται αρχικά το περιεχόμενο της ευχής, το οποίο φαίνεται να συνηγορεί υπέρ της ανώδυνης έλευσης του θανάτου. Ακολούθως επισημαίνονται τα στοιχεία που αναδεικνύουν τη χριστιανική νοηματοδότηση του πόνου και του θανάτου, ενώ η πραγμάτευση του θέματος ολοκληρώνεται με την επισήμανση των ομοιοτήτων και των διαφορών ανάμεσα στη φιλοσοφική υποστήριξη της ευθανασίας και τη θεολογική θεώρηση του καλού θανάτου.

Barth responds to the modern lack of language for talking of evil by developing the concept of das Nichtige (CD III/3, §50). 'Das Nichtige'for which 'nothingness' is an insufficient translation-encompasses not only sin, but also the demonic dimension of evil, as well as physical suffering and death, without reducing it to a harmartiocentric perspective. Compared with traditional concepts, this leads to an almost unbearable incrimination on the idea of God. But it is only in this incrimination that the importance Barth places on the self-justification of God in Jesus Christ is made visible. Barth's Christological 'theodicy' provokes critical questions: for instance, whether his view that, ultimately, God alone can judge which suffering in our life is truly evil really takes our experiences seriously. But his 'theodicy' is, in any case, a valid alternative to the free will defense. Barth's concept of das Nichtige is still well worth considering, especially in times of pandemics and natural disasters.

This studio/seminar is an arts and art history collaboration, combining theory and praxis by integrating creative work with art theory, criticism and history. Representation of pain and human suffering has always been a vibrant subject of debate in the history of art from the Pergamene sculpture of dying Gauls and snake bitten Laocoön to Edward Munch's Der Schrei der Natur or Otto Dix's War graphics. In the new world order of late capitalism, we are constantly bombarded with visceral images of human suffering: the image of the Syrian refugee boy Alan Kurdi washed ashore on the Turkish coast, ISIS beheadings, scenes of torture in Abu Ghraib prison, the repeated image of the starving African child. The pornographic intensity and numbing effect of violent and painful imagery in the digital age raises serious questions about the ethics and politics of representation: how does one deal with the pain of others and the questions raised by its visualization? How can we understand the permanent depicting of individual hardship and suffering in times of invisible threats to mankind? What does it mean to be alive in the Anthropocene and what can we expect in the future? This seminar will seek creative, collaborative responses and critical debate on the relationship between visuality and pain, suffering, and violence.

Both classical and contemporary Jewish texts, surveyed here, articulate a religious opposition to hunting for sport. This essay interprets compassion-based rab-binic opposition to hunting as reflecting a pragmatic concern with cultivating a regard and even a reverence for the capacities of empathy and sympathy. In particular, this " redescription " will analyze the rabbinic opposition to hunting in terms of more basic " building blocks " of religion, specifically empathy and sympathy as defined by the life sciences. I conclude that the most complete way to understand compassion-based rabbinic opposition to hunting is as, simultaneously, a society-forming performance, a symbolic statement about human attitudes towards life, and—the focus of the present essay—a vehicle for responding to the " building block " capacities for empathy and sympathy. A concluding section considers the implications of this case study for religious studies, arguing for the value of considering animals as participants in religious ritual.

How should we view the relationship between language and Buddhist enlightenment? Must language be transcended? Is enlightenment experience necessarily ineffable? The purpose of this paper is to argue that language and enlightenment are intimately entwined. To show this we will look at potential problems with a number of dualisms seemingly at the heart of (Mahāyāna) Buddhism. These problems become apparent when applying Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Hilary Putnam’s views on the nature of, and the relationship between, mind, language and reality. A central problem concerns what seems to be the received Buddhist view of the relationship between language and enlightenment, language and silence. I will argue that the dualism of language and silence collapses under Wittgensteinian and Putnamian considerations. Further, we will sketch a picture of Eihei Dōgen’s Zen in which his understanding of the ineffable and language is one that does not engender the dualism of language and silence; moreover, within Dōgen’s philosophy, we witness the collapse of several other dualisms.