"Et occidetur virtute Domini Antichristus a Mikaele arcangelo". Paisaje y escatología en Sant Miquel de Llíria (s. XIV d. C.)

El presente articulo intenta determinar las razones por las que el santuario de Sant Miquel de Llíria, uno de los más importantes de la actual provincia de Valencia, se consagró al arcàngel guerrero. Se estudia para ello la historia de su culto en Occidente, haciendo hincapié en aspectos como su relación con los lugares elevados y la frecuente proximidad de sus santuarios con aquellos dedicados a la Virgen. Atenderemos también a aspectos fundamentales del contexto histórico, como los movimientos de renovación espiritual medievales, la influencia del médico y teólogo Arnau de Vilanova en la Valencia de principios del siglo XIV y las profecías escatológicas vinculadas a la llegada del Anticristo.

"Per aurem intrat Christus in Mariam". Aproximación iconográfica a la "conceptio per aurem" en la pintura italiana del Trecento desde fuentes patrísticas y teológicas

La tesis mariológica de la conceptio per aurem, según la cual la Virgen María habría concebido a Jesucristo por el oído en el momento de escuchar del ángel el mensaje celestial anunciándole que, sin perder su virginidad, sería madre del Hijo de Dios encarnado, ha merecido hasta ahora muy pocos estudios académicos rigurosamente fundados en fuentes primarias. De hecho, en la literatura especializada son muy escasas las referencias a tal teoría y, cuando algún estudioso la evoca, casi siempre se contenta con aludir a ella, sin aportar pruebas documentales. Sin embargo, tal como lo revelan las nueve pinturas italianas aquí analizadas, esa teoría fue ilustrada mediante sutiles metáforas visuales en muchas obras pictóricas medievales, las cuales se inspiraron en una sólida tradición literaria. Además una pléyade de Padres de la Iglesia y teólogos medievales testimonia, mediante afirmaciones explícitas, que semejante teoría gozó de notable aceptación entre los maestros del pensamiento cristiano. Basándose en numerosos textos patrísticos y teológicos, este artículo intenta dos objetivos esenciales: exponer, ante todo, las distintas formulaciones teóricas propuestas por esos pensadores; y además, tratar de poner en luz los significados dogmáticos que subyacen bajo esa sorprendente tesis.

Sentimental Identity, History and Politics in Daniel Cortezón’s "A vila sulagada"

The novels of Daniel Cortezón, which have not attracted as much critical attention as his theatrical productions, are of contemporary interest as they develop his ideas on identity, history and politics. The purpose of this article is to show, through an analysis of the complex arrangement of the above three concepts, how A vila Sulagada is a metaphor for the historical failure of Galicia.

Hegel’s Non-Metaphysical Idea of Freedom

the article explores the putatively non-metaphysical – non-voluntarist, and even non-causal – concept of freedom outlined in Hegel’s work and discusses its influential interpretation by robert Pippin as an ‘essentially practical’ concept. I argue that Hegel’s affirmation of freedom must be distinguished from that of Kant and Fichte, since it does not rely on a prior understanding of self-consciousness as an originally teleological relation and it has not the nature of a claim ‘from a practical point of view’.

Digitizing dissent: cyborg politics and fluid networks in contemporary Cuban activism

Communication technologies shape how political activist networks are produced and maintain themselves. In Cuba, despite ideologically and physically oppressive practices by the state, a severe lack of Internet access, and extensive government surveillance, a small network of bloggers and cyberactivists has achieved international visibility and recognition for its critiques of the Cuban government. This qualitative study examines the blogger collective known as Voces Cubanas in Havana, Cuba in 2012, advancing a new approach to the study of transnational activism and the role of technology in the construction of political narrative. Voces Cubanas is analyzed as a network of connections between human and non-human actors that produces and sustains powerful political alliances. Voces Cubanas and its allies work collectively to co-produce contentious political discourses, confronting the dominant ideologies and knowledges produced by the Cuban state. Transnational alliances, the act of translation, and a host of unexpected and improvised technologies play central roles in the production of these narratives, indicating new breed of cyborg sociopolitical action reliant upon fluid and flexible networks and the act of writing. 

Resistance is futile: the borg, the hive, and corporate hegemony

The Borg, a collective of humanoid cyborgs linked together in a hive-mind and modeled on the earthly superorganisms of ant colonies and beehives, has been the most feared alien race in the Star Trek universe. The formidable success of the Borg in assimilating their foes corresponds to the astounding success of superorganisms in our own biosphere. Yet the Borg also serves as a metaphor for another collective of biological entities known as the corporation. In the Anthropocene epoch, corporations have become the most powerful force on the planet; their influence on the social world and the environment exceeds any government and may determine the continued sustainability of human life. Corporations have been described as people and as machines, but neither metaphor accurately describes their essence or contributes to an understanding that might resist their power. This paper reframes our understanding of the corporation by examining the metaphors that are used to describe it, and by suggesting an entirely new metaphor viewing the Borg and the corporation through the lens of sociobiology. I will argue that the corporation is a new form of superorganism that has become the dominant species on the planet and that the immense, intractable power of a globalized, corporate hive-mind has become the principal obstacle to addressing the planetary emergency of climate change. Reframing our metaphoric understanding of corporations as biological entities in the planetary biosphere may enable us to imagine ways to resist their increasing dominance and create a sustainable future.