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This book offers a new mythic perspective on the secret of the allure and survival of a current-archaic institution—the Western theatre—in an era of diverse technological media. Central to the theory is the spectaculum—a stage “world” that mirrors a monotheistic cosmic order. Tova Gamliel here not only alerts the reader to the possibility of the spectaculum’s existence, but also illuminates its various structural dimensions: the cosmological, ritual, and sociological. Its cosmo-logical meaning is a Judeo-Christian monotheistic consciousness of non-randomness, an exemplary order of the world that the senses perceive. The ritual meaning denotes the centrality of the spectaculum, as the theatre repeatedly reenacts the mythical and paradigmatic event of Biblical revelation. Its social meaning concerns any charismatic social theory that is anchored in the epitomic structure of social sovereignty—stage and audience—that the Western theatre advances in an era characterized by hypermedia.
Is there anyone who does not imagine the moment of their death? Who is unaware of their steady march to the endline? By suppressing and denying death, Westerners overlook the positive side of death anxiety. This ethnography fills this lacuna by describing a colorful and rich “death culture” among survivors of Holocaust and war who endure their last palpitations of life in a Tel Aviv old-age home. Unable to suppress the consciousness of end-of-life, the protagonists climb a “staircase to heaven” among different fields of existence. Resourcefully they transform their anxiety and suffering into paths of choice—comforting each other, filling their days with acts of respect and unity, and replacing all-consuming individualism with social existentialism and Judeo-Christian religious ideas. This book holds us up to an existential mirror that bridges old and young, a geriatric institution and a concentration camp, and natural death and tragic death induced by terrorism.
Her interdisciplinary perspective and her focus on a uniquely female immigrant cultural practice will make this study fascinating reading for scholars of anthropology, gender, folklore, psychology, performance, philosophy, and sociology.
The groundbreaking contribution made by this unique book draws on the experiences recorded by five people who are facing death – Jenny Diski, Philip Gould, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Mayne and Cory Taylor. Analysing the key themes that emerge from a psychodynamic perspective, the book describes how the memoirists respond to the first shock of receiving a terminal diagnosis, how they meet the challenge of continuing an active life when the illusion of an open-ended future has gone, and finally, how they struggle with accepting death as it overtakes them. The author argues that the ability to accept personal death is the key to resolving the paradox of our need to survive at all costs, wh...
This edited collection brings together leading scholars in their field to discuss the Yemenite Children Affair including the health crisis, the public demand for an investigation, and the public discourse surrounding it. The Yemenite Children Affair was a tragic health crisis in which about 1,000 babies and toddlers died between 1949 and 1954. In most cases, the parents did not witness the death of their children and did not attend their funerals. Over the years, rumors spread that the babies had not died but were kidnapped by the Israeli authorities and sold to childless Ashkenazi or Holocaust survivors in Israel and the United States. These rumors eventually created a public demand for an investigation. The contributors to this book analyze the policy and health challenges surrounding immigration to Israel in the 1950s, Operation Magic Carpet, the archives on the Yemenite Children Affair and public discourse surrounding it, testimonies at commissions, among other topics. Scholars of Jewish studies, Israel studies, Middle Eastern studies, public health, and political science will find this book of particular interest.
This book is a result of the growing public and academic interest in the variety of childhoods that take place side by side in the multicultural state of Israel, despite its tiny geographical dimensions. In a collection of groundbreaking articles, the book describes various features of Israeli childhoods – in the present and recent past – in both Arab and Jewish societies. The first section of the book - 'Childhood and Environment in Israel' - addresses the various spaces in which childhood practices occurred and still occur in Israel – the intimate home environment, the educational environment, playgrounds, and many others. The second section – 'Childhoods and Power Structures in Is...
Juliana Claassens explores alternative Old Testament metaphors that portray God as mourner, mother, and midwife--images that resist the violence and bloodshed associated with the dominant warrior imagery
?It is Denise Ackermann?s work towards the humanity of all which prompted this particular collection of essays in her honour. The idea of honouring Denise with a Festschrift for her 70th birthday was first discussed in 2005 among members of the Cape Town Chapter of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians who met at Denise?s home at the time.? ? Editors
Fear of death is nearly as inevitable as death itself, so we have used modern medicine and the funeral industry to create an ever-increasing distance between us and our mortality. But these interventions have stripped death of its mystery and mysticism. Taking readers on a journey through history, guided by the mystics, Awakened by Death shows us how our psychological and spiritual relationship to death has changed over time, and helps us to reclaim a healthy engagement with our own mortality. Ultimately, readers will gain a deeper understanding of how facing the fear of death, and embracing rather than eschewing its mysteries, can help us live richer, fuller lives.
Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth and documents how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights. As this book shows, Israeli universities serve as pillars of Israel's system of oppression against Palestinians. Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent. Towers of Ivory and Steel is a powerful expose of Israeli academia's ongoing and active complicity in Israel's settler-colonial project.