A discourse apart: The body of Christ and the practice of cultural subversion

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" A discourse apart: The body of Christ and the practice of cultural subversion "
Olga Viktorovna Solovieva C. S. Powell, Haun

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	54847
Doc. No	:	TL24801
Call number	:	‭3243703‬
Main Entry	:	Olga Viktorovna Solovieva
Title & Author	:	A discourse apart: The body of Christ and the practice of cultural subversion\ Olga Viktorovna Solovieva
College	:	Yale University
Date	:	2006
Degree	:	Ph.D.
student score	:	2006
Page No	:	284
Abstract	:	This dissertation is a study of the Western secular appropriation of the basic structure of Pauline discourse for the purpose of cultural subversion. It is comprised of five prominent instances of this appropriation - the early Christian iconoclasm of the Church Father Epiphanius of Salamis; the sacramental alchemy of the late medieval Book of the Holy Trinity; Lavater's discourse on afterlife and practice of physiognomy; Dostoevsky's reshaping of the novel; and the public self-fashioning and cinematic practice of Pier Paolo Pasolini. All these instances of discursive practice stand out and apart in the cultural history for their conscious reliance on the logic of corporeal construction as the body of Christ taken as a prototypical model of communication. They construct their message as a medium to be conveyed in a quasi-ritual fashion in historical circumstances when the possibilities of conventional communication are either politically thwarted or culturally inflated and discredited. All instances of this discourse engage the law of the embodied subjectivity upon which is hinged Paul's model of collectivity in order to postulate an alternative system of power based on the body of Christ. As a structure of meaning and meaningful collectivity, the body of Christ resists here the phenomenon of 'bare life' shown by Agamben to be the ultimate basis of the 'sovereign power.' The body of Christ allows for the recuperation of 'bare life' within the structure of resurrection, which underlies a subversive anti-model of the ethical state, the kingdom of God. This anti-model is however no utopia, since the discourse apart practices it in the realm of real social institutions in its own discursive performance of 'reform.' In all cases discussed here, the subversion of absolute power is launched by the intellectual practitioners whose performative counter-model of an ethically differentiated state is always a discursive model of the bad conscience that accompanies the determinist assertions of power in which they alternatively participate.
Subject	:	Communication and the arts; Social sciences; Language, literature and linguistics; Body of Christ; Cultural practice; Discourse; Dostoyevsky, Fyodor; Epiphanius, Saint, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus; Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Italy; Johann Casper Lavater; Lavater, Johann Casper; Pasolini, Pier Paolo; Pier Paolo Pasolini; Russia; Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus; Subversion; Comparative literature; Literature; Middle Ages; Cultural anthropology; Communication; 0326:Cultural anthropology; 0297:Literature; 0298:Literature; 0295:Comparative literature; 0459:Communication; 0297:Middle Ages
Added Entry	:	C. S. Powell, Haun
Added Entry	:	Yale University