Search

While arguing a strong defense of the humanities, this paper highlights its spirit and makes clear some misunderstandings and errors regarding the humanities. Nonetheless, a history of the humanities is left aside, here. Quite ion the contrary, this paper claims that capitalism is the main detractor and enemy of the humanities; not the contradictors and opponents of the free market system. A number of arguments and justifications are provided. The humanities basically consist in reaching a voice of its own. Several arguments make clear what this consists of. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we aim to explore the interconnection between Children's Literature and contemporary technologies, though not from the perspective of technology as a didactic tool or as a media to produce or reproduce literary texts. Instead, we examine how technology is present in books for children and picture books. This approach is based on the concepts of children's literature, and childhood and technologies. We also present an initial corpus of stories and picture books either about technology or in which technology structures the book or the narrative. Our conclusion is that in some texts the encounter of both worlds produces significant literary experiences. However, there is a literary core that cannot be integrated with technology. This tension is also part of the cultural representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation is centered on two objectives: one is to determine whether in Tomelloso, which from 1950 onwards was characterised as being a city linked to literature, this activity is still relevant in the distribution of its spare time. The second objective is to verify whether this city is still a place from which new writers regularly emerge. In addition, this paper aims to provide a sociological explanation of this social phenomenon. Methodological triangulation was used, with qualitative exploratory interviews, surveys, and the management of the bibliography and documentary archives. It is confirmed that there is still a major link to literature in Tomelloso and that writers are still continuously emerging. The phenomenon is explained by relating it to the theories of symbolic interactionism and Robert K. Merton's concept of self-fulfilling prophecies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and explains the transformations in Biblical interpretation since the mid-20th century by means of the Habermasian category of the Post-secular. After proposing a possible definition of post-secular readings as distinct from both the religious and the secular ones, the article substantiates the claim that a Postsecular hermeneutics avant la lettre preceded not only Habermas's elaboration of that concept but also the reawakening of religious phenomena in current multicultural societies in a global context. In order to spell out these early instances of a Postsecular spirit, the Biblical studies by three relevant contemporary authors have been selected: scholar Luis Alonso Schökel; literary critic and theorist Harold Bloom, and philosopher Paul Ricoeur. The results of my analysis hint to the conclusion that some practitioners of this Post-secular hermeneutics were aware of being at the start of something new. In Paul Ricoeur's case, this leads to the development of a new concept, post-criticism, synonymous and forerunner to the current Habermasian concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent attention to character formation as the key to moral education has also regarded personal and fictional role models as appropriate means to this end. Moreover, while one may have grave reservations about the influence of personal role-models (perhaps upon the young by those they happen to admire), serious fiction has often been considered an inspirational source of moral example. Still, while this paper ultimately mounts a defence of the moral educational potential of literature, it is also concerned to press two significant reservations about any and all attention to fictional character as a means to such education. First, since the ultimate meaning of any fictional character and conduct is largely, if not exclusively, confined to their narrative contexts, we should not suppose them to have any direct role-modelling application to the affairs of human life beyond such contexts. Second, and more significantly, since morality is also ultimately more than and/or not entirely reducible to the contingencies of human character, attention to either fictional or real-life character must anyway fall somewhat short of full moral education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an argument about the reasons for the exclusion of Spanish women and their literary production in relation with the rest of the Group of '27 literary canon. In order to evidence the marginalization of these authors and demonstrate their absence in the cultural Spanish landscape, the article begins with an explanation of the historical and sociopolitical context of Spain during the early decades of the 20th century. Afterward, this paper presents a conceptualization of literary canon as a starting point to approach the polemic associated with the --commonly referred to as-- Generation of '27 as well as the configuration of poetry as a characteristic genre in comparison to the other literary work, and the role that critics and history played in the conformation of the canon of the '27 movement. Finally, it is concluded that women were not part of the modernization attempts in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century for different reasons: relegation of them to the domestic sphere, the high representation of men in the Group of '27, the significant role of anthologies and magazines in shaping the canon, and the repression caused by the dictatorship of the Franco regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]