Deconstructing religious identity, difference, and belonging : implications for anti-racist pedagogy

Increasing numbers of Australians identify with a multiplicity of religion groups or have no religious affiliation. Despite this, the representation of religious groups other than Christian—and the implications of this for anti-racist pedagogy in Australian schools—is seldom explored. This article interrogates the ways in which the most prominent of these minority religious groups (Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish) were spoken about in two Melbourne newspapers and considers the implications of this interrogation for multicultural pedagogy in globally integrated local school contexts, such as those in Australia. Methodologies of social cultural theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA) are used to investigate newspaper discussions from the different viewpoints of their experiential, systemic, and normative focus. I find that notions of religious identity described in the media are stylized in form and an almost-silent normative self-identity is defined against clichéd typologies made within a crucible of race, identity, and belonging.

Disenchantments of secularism: the West and India

This Chapter is an exercise in comparative secularism. In this chapter I will be concerned basically with a critique of Western conceptions of secularism, beginning with Hegel’s invention of a particular reading of secularism that, through imperialist literature, gave a preeminent direction to the ideology of the less-religiously orientated Indian nationalists during their drawn-out independence struggle. My main concern will be to contrast the Western debates on ‘the secular’, particularly in its recent permutations or attempted revisions as a response to the crisis of modernity, with the current Indian debates—where ‘ the secular; has all but been hijacked by the Hindu Right—and to show—reversing Hegel’s trajectory—what impact the latter could have on the former. There is some evidence of this already occurring, particularly in Charles Taylor’s work and travels wherein he does make some gestures towards looking at non-Western experiences of secularism (which is taken more or less to be synonymous with secularization). There are severe limitations to this overture however, and the chapter hopes to sound a word of caution on the kind of excitement over which Taylor seems to have become something of a celebrity in the academe. Even more disappointingly, one does not find a similar emphatic approach or opening to non-Western experiences and rethinking of the secular in the works of other modernists; and I point to Habermas and Žižek as my examples, who I touch on, albeit very briefly. This lack or lacuna makes both the discourse of modernity and the supplementary critique of secularism much the poorer for it.

Exploring the myths of morphine in cancer: views of the general practice population

Abstract
Background: Morphine is widely used in cancer care, and understanding the concerns and perceptions of patients, family and friends is vital to managing pain and distress effectively. The ‘myths of morphine’ have frequently been discussed in medical literature, yet the extent to which such views are held is not clear. This qualitative project explores the perceptions and attitudes of the wider community towards morphine use in cancer care, to understand this ‘mythology’ according to those who in the future may themselves require its use.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were held with patients presenting to a metropolitan general practice clinic in Melbourne, Australia. A grounded theory framework underpinned the data collection and thematic analysis undertaken.
Results: Interviewees (15) were aged 24 – 81, with a variety of experiences with cancer care and previous morphine use. Interviewees were highly supportive of morphine use in cancer care, with this attitude founded on the perceived severity of cancer pain and the powerful nature of morphine. They described a number of reasons morphine may be used in cancer care: to treat pain, to enable peace and also as a treatment for cancer.
Conclusion: The public view of morphine to emerge from this study is markedly different from that discussed in the myths of morphine. It is viewed as a medication that has the ability to provide peace and control both pain and the course of cancer. The participants in this study described a wish for greater involvement in pain control decisions, perceiving morphine as a facilitator rather than a barrier to good cancer care.

Religion, heritage and the sustainable city : Hinduism and urbanisation in Jaipur

The speed and scale of urbanisation in India is unprecedented almost anywhere in the world and has tremendous global implications. The religious influence on the urban experience has resonances for all aspects of urban sustainability in India and yet it remains a blind spot while articulating sustainable urban policy.This book explores the historical and on-going influence of religion on urban planning, design, space utilisation, urban identities and communities. It argues that the conceptual and empirical approaches to planning sustainable cities in India need to be developed out of analytical concepts that define local sense of place and identity. Examining how Hindu religious heritage, beliefs and religiously influenced planning practices have impacted on sustainable urbanisation development in Jaipur and Indian cities in general, the book identifies the challenges and opportunities that ritualistic and belief resources pose for sustainability. It focuses on three key aspects: spatial segregation and ghettoisation; gender-inclusive urban development; and the nexus between religion, nature and urban development. This cutting-edge book is one of the first case studies linking Hindu religion, heritage, urban development, women and the environment in a way that responds to the realities of Indian cities. It opens up discussion on the nexus of religion and development, drawing out insightful policy implications for the sustainable urban planning of many cities in India and elsewhere in South Asia and the developing world.

Towards a theory of landscape iconoclasm

The destruction of Indigenous rock art sites in the Pilbara district in Western Australia has become a natural sight within the mining landscape of the area. Whilst much of the destruction is explained as acts of vandalism and as a result of the industrial activities that are propelling the Australian economy, I claim that a new theory of iconoclasm is needed to explain fully this disastrous example of heritage conservation. Henceforth, in order to explain the destruction of the Murujuga/Burrup Peninsula petroglyphs, the largest archaeological site in the world, this paper develops the theory of landscape iconoclasm. This theory states that the destruction of Indigenous landscapes can be compared to the destruction of religious images, by analysing the inherent symbolic functions of iconoclasm, together with those of heritage, the better to elucidate the state of affairs in the Murujuga/Burrup Peninsula. Furthermore, by drawing from Aboriginal mythology and art-historical and anthropological theories, the theory of landscape iconoclasm is able to explain the destruction of archaeological sites within a framework that falls outside prevalent discourses of heritage.

Um estudo sobre o mito cosmogônico: um paralelo com a criação da consciência e um enfoque de psicologia analítica

Este estudo pretende fazer um demonstrativo de cinco mitos cosmogônicos, escolhidos inicialmente a partir de três critérios: pertencerem a civilizações, em certa medida, com características diversas; por serem civilizações histórica e culturalmente importantes; e por fim, por interesse de proximidade cultural, utilizou-se um mito cosmogônico brasileiro. O objetivo deste trabalho é mostrar que nesses mitos vamos encontrar mitemas que são estruturas básicas que desvelam questões importantes do acontecer psíquico. Resgatando a mitologia para uma situação de atualização, percebe-se que os dramas humanos do cotidiano são abordados nos mitos estudados. A mitologia, simbolicamente, tirada das mesmas questões, do homem de todas as culturas. Utilizando uma abordagem junguiana, podemos compreender que essa repetição dos mitemas, acontece, pois pertencem ao estrato do inconsciente coletivo. A compreensão do que foi visto, permite uma ampliação da possibilidade de trabalhar com psicologia clínica, permitindo que as pessoas tomem consciência da construção mitica de suas vidas, pois é justamente a inconsciência de vivê-la, que no mais das vezes, atrela o ser humano a esses determinismos impedindo-o de criar qualquer coisa em sua vida. Entende-se como saúde a possibilidade de livre-arbitrio. Sendo que para isso é importante o conhecimento dessas questões básicas comuns a humanidade. O conhecimento dessas estruturas e a possibilidade de libertação.

Dançando às avessas: relatos de um processo de criação

The term body without organs is present in a poem by the french writer, actor and director Antonin Artaud, written in 1947 and titled: To Have Done with the Judgement of God. I aim, in this work, from what we call investigative scenic writing, to problematize this term and its possible relations with the theater and also with some aspects of the Hindu myths. I unite the idea of the body without organs with the body in trance present in the stories of an Indian master named Caitanya Mahaprabhu. These ideas, along with the development of practices that come from some principles of Theatre Anthropology, are incentives for a creation process that highlights the work of preparation and creation of corporeal work of the actor. The relationship between the concepts and the practice raise discussions about where I stand as an actor-researcher in process

Lévi-Strauss Mitológicas: Mito e música entre o largo e o prestíssimo

This study was elaborated based on our research of the work Mithologiques by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), which affirms that languages, indigenous myths and music are related. He proposes that the understanding of myths occurs in a similar manner as with an orchestral score. In the course of his tetralogy we investigated the musical terms used in the analysis and in the division of the chapters, especially in the first volume of his work. Several compositional procedures and forms are named. Composers in pairs are categorized: Sebastian Bach for the code, Ludwig van Beethoven for the message, and Richard Wagner for the myths. In this deduction, we structured in parts: theme and variations, sonata and fugue with the aforementioned composers. Within the greatness of anthropological study, from among over 800 myths, we selected the first five of the indigenous tribe Bororo to discuss within the Theme and Variation segment. In the Sonata part there are two myths with the same theme: The wife of the jaguar which relates to the compositional structure, and four myths about The origin of women. Finally, in the segment related to the Fugue, we collected four myths that address The shortness of life. Honoring the many terms expressed in opposition, contrast, or symmetry under consideration in Levi-Strauss work, we entitled this thesis emphasizing the migration between the tempos Largo and Prestíssimo as these are oppositional presentations in music. Fifteen musical myths accompany the work supported by selected narratives. In light of this we questioned, we questioned: how are incest, murder and other events part of a society that elevates nature as an extension of life itself? And how did Lévi-Strauss think that anthropology harmonized with music? In the preparation of this study, philosophers like Peter Sloterdijk discuss the circular territory of Mythology

O projeto politico pedagógico de enfermagem e o sistema único de saúde: a visão de discentes

This research aims to analyze, in the view of students, the pedagogic project of undergraduate nursing course, of UFRN, and its articulation with the SUS, in an attempt to understand the issues that permeate the teaching and learning of nursing. This is a qualitative study that used the focus group technique as a tool to collect empirical data. There were three meetings, where we had the collaboration of 23 graduating students from the eighth period of the semester 2009.1. For the analysis of information, we use a theoretical framework based on curriculum guidelines and basic principles of the SUS, making the analogy of the results with the metaphor of Greek mythology, Ariadne's thread, in dialogue with authors who discuss education as a transformative practice. Thus, the texture of the yarn was built of five thematic fields: joint the pedagogic project with the SUS; the teaching/service and theory/practice relation; interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity; didactic/methodological and relational approaches; and co-participation of students in the pedagogic project. According to the discussions, we find many difficulties in the teaching and learning process of undergraduate nursing in UFRN to strengthen the SUS, including: dislocation of educational institutions with services, professionals, managers and community; dichotomy between theory and practice; reality of services as a learning field and working process in health; posture adopted by professionals, teachers and other subjects included in the process of health education; decontextualization and fragmentation of teaching with the practice in health and nursing; excessive use of very illustrative methodologies, but little problem-solving; difficult and precarious situation in the relations between teachers and between teachers/students, regarding the acceptance of differences; absence of participation of students in the evaluation process and conduct of the educational project in progress. In this sense, we understand the need an auto-reflexive act of teaching and conducting collective pedagogical course with a view to achieving the SUS. Thus, it is necessary to support practices motivated by the polyphonic dialogue and the exercise of symbiosis and autopoiesis of subjects/actors jointly responsible for the ongoing process of learning for life.

Trocando Olhares: o desejo, o amor, a angústia e a dor na poesia de Florbela Espanca

In this work, Florbela Espanca poetry is analyzed. The objective is to prove that the loving thematic in her poetry tissues a connection among wish, love and sorrow. The psychoanalitic boarding is the basis to elucidate this connection,which begans with the sight, since mythology, passing by the portuguese literature begining periods and repeating itself in Florbela contemporanian poets. If Florbela poetry corroborates the portuguese literature tradiction, otherwise, it exposes the subject human being face, being a wishful creature

Platão e o pensamento grego

O Pensamento de Platão tem o encanto das estátuas de Dédalo: esvai-se pelos meandros do discurso, tão logo se pretenda travar com ele uma relação de domínio. A sua correta interpretação exige que se assuma a Polis como o lugar natural no qual emerge, como a limitação que ele se propõe superar remontando à Fysis e ao Ser. Fazê-lo importa em captar o movimento que lhe é próprio, partindo da questão sobre o ente e visualizando a resposta como o enunciado de sua essência, isto é, do eidos, e de seu fundamento, isto é, do Bem como nome próprio do Ser. Determinando o ente em sua essência, o eidos é a medida de toda a adequação, da episteme à Polis.

Do mito original ao mito ideológico: alguns percursos

Este artigo é parte de uma Dissertação de Mestrado - Mito e Paródia: sua estrutura e função no texto literário - defendida em novembro de 1983 no Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem/Unicamp. A passagem aqui reproduzida pertence ao capítulo que trata da conceituação do mito. Ela procura apreender alguns de seus aspectos básicos dinamicamente, na transição de sua forma original, tal como ocorre nas sociedades primitivas e arcaicas, para seu sucedâneo ideológico, no contexto das sociedades históricas.

A filosofia da história no Doutor Fausto

Há uma filosofia da história implícita na obra de Thomas Mann. Este artigo pretende fornecer elementos para compreender esta filosofia que tem raízes em Schopenhauer e Nietzsche, mas que também deve muito às descobertas da psicanálise e ao aprofundado conhecimento de mitologia do escritor alemão.