Out of the (B)earth canal: the mythic journey in Murakami Haruki

Abstract

From the start of his writing career Murakami Haruki has sent his hero on underground quests. While all, or nearly all, of his heroes accomplish their most immediate missions in the Underworld, however, few return to the everyday world truly fulfilled. This essay explores the Murakami quest in terms of myth and sacred ritual, paying special attention to ritual initiation as a form of symbolic death and rebirth. It focuses chiefly on the 2017 novel Kishidanchō-Goroshi (translated 2018 as Killing Commendatore), but also explores other Murakami fiction written since the year 2000 such as Umibe no Kafuka (2002; Kafka On the Shore) and 1Q84 (2009–10; 1Q84), in which the author began to experiment with heroes who possess sacred qualities, yet need to awaken to and accept these qualities, as well as the responsibilities that accompany them. Such heroes, I argue, possess the potential to be successfully initiated into the mysteries of the Underworld, and thus not only to succeed in their missions underground, but to achieve the rebirth and reconstitution offered the triumphant mythic hero. As a wider theme, the essay argues that, in this modern age of rationalism, fiction centered on the theme of the mythic hero is one of the venues in which the sacred and the mythical remain a living reality, offering readers an opportunity to connect with the mythic roots of their archaic past.     

Perpetuating the Military Myth – Why the Psychology of the 2014 Australian Defence Pay Deal Is Irrelevant

There is a widespread belief that members of the armed forces have a unique psychological relationship with their institution and their nation, and that it is this relationship that leads to loyalty and self‐sacrifice. Yet this ‘military myth’ does not hold. Many soldiers serve for ‘occupational’ rather than ‘institutional’ reasons, and as the experience of private military contractors demonstrates, this need not reduce operational effectiveness. In this article, we argue that the concern expressed in the recent commentary in this journal by Williamson et. al. (2015) that the dispute over the 2014 Australian Defence Pay Deal may damage the ‘psychological contract’, turn it from ‘relational’ to ‘transactional’, and undermine operational effectiveness is unfounded and seems to buy into this military myth.     

西南少数民族人祖神话透析

灾后遗留人种繁衍人类的神话,世界范围内均有发现,而尤以中国西南地区最为集中。学者们研究此类神话时使用了洪水神话、人类起源神话、兄妹婚神话、人祖神话、创世神话等众多不同的概念。对比来看,人祖神话在概括此类神话的主题,以及统领神话对应的信仰方面,更为妥当。需要指出的是,学界使用人祖神话进行研究成果不多,且较少对这一概念进行严格的内涵限定,导致其与"人类起源神话"这一涵盖更广的概念等同使用。事实上,人祖神话是人类起源神话的一种独特类型,是讲述大灾难后遗留的人种重新繁衍人类并被奉为人祖的神话。以人为祖这一突出特征使人祖神话区别于其它类型的人类起源神话。     

Official Language Policies in Multilingual Societies: Evidence from the United States,South Africa,and Canada

This paper explores the resonance between Coetzee’s first novel Dusklands and McCarthy’s fifth novel Blood Meridian through a discussion of how scenes of violence are represented and rationalised in these two texts. Where Coetzee is impatient of realism and preoccupied with history as a discourse, McCarthy’s narrative seems photorealistic in its evocation of the real, but this effect is destabilised by stylised formal features and the trickster figure of Judge Holden. It is shown that in Coetzee’s egocentric protagonists the desire for detached power over others is expressed in the fantasy of an unchallenged gaze that conveys a broader anxiety about authorship and the writing of history, while in McCarthy’s text the narrator’s contextualisation of the characters’ violence against a harsh and indifferent desert environment limits psychological insight and underscores the impernanence of any historical record. Holden and Jacobus Coetzee, finally, are shown to be akin in enabling the metafictional reflections of these two novels.     

“African Know Thyself”: Epistemic Injustice and the Quest for Liberative Knowledge

This article is framed against the historic myth of emptiness and its consequences on Africa, and takes a closer look at the project of modernity and the question of epistemic injustice in Africa. It deploys the phrase “African know thyself” to capture the need for Africans to grasp the distinctive particularity of their history as a people of equal ontological standing with the rest of humanity. This injunction affords special significance to history and its role in shaping the philosophical agenda in Africa by reminding us that philosophic discourse originates from, and is linked to the concrete conditions of existence, out of which it is formulated. To address the problem of epistemic injustice, Africans need to become more critically conscious of themselves and their situation in ways that inform their intellectual practice. This author submits that philosophy in Africa should assist in both “re-writing and re-righting” Africa’s position in the global knowledge landscape.     

The reduction of male abusiveness as a result of treatment: Reality or myth?

A 6-month outpatient treatment program for male abusers emphasized honesty, shame reduction, and group support for change. Ratings on the Abusive Behavior Inventory (ABI) obtained before and immediately after treatment demonstrated a significant decrease in physical and psychological abuse as rated by both the abusers and their female partners. This decrease in male abusiveness was maintained 6 months and two years after completion of treatment for those couples who cooperated in followup. No decrease in male abusiveness was observed during treatment, however, for those couples who did not cooperate in the followup. The authors suggest that the noncooperative female partners may have been afraid to rate their partners because of continued abuse. Therefore, the selective attrition of subjects who did not improve is a major problem in evaluating the apparent long-term success of treatment.     

伏羲女娲与日本神话——以巡绕合婚为中心

通过考察中国古典文献中＂天道左旋,地道右周＂、＂雄左行,雌右行＂等左右思维方式,并结合人类学田野调查采集的资料,以及借助敦煌写本的研究成果,对中日巡绕合婚类神话进行比较研究可以得出：日本伊耶那岐、伊耶那美二神巡绕合婚神话深受我国伏羲女娲巡绕合婚的兄妹婚神话影响。     

Pandora's Box: Reflections on a Myth

Abstract

The article seeks to consider the relationship between hope and utopianism by looking at the ancient Greek myth of Pandora's Box, with its enigmatic figure of hope. It begins by considering Hesiod's influential formulation of the myth, before examining a range of modern interpretations in which diverse conceptions of hope are to be found. Using the work of Spinoza, Hume and Day an alternative conception of hope is proposed that conjoins hope with fear. This is followed by an exploration of the utopian, using this time another figure associated with the myth, Prometheus. An attempt is then made to differentiate the frequently conflated concepts of hope and the utopian. Finally, in the spirit of recent post-secularism, the two concepts are brought to bear on the nature of religion.     

The creation of money by the State Bank of the USSR ∗

This paper justifies the current revival of interest in the Collège by examining the relevance of its ‘sacred sociology’ to post-war anti-utilitarianism. The link between the two periods and set of issues is provided by the review M.A.U.S.S., inspired by Marcel Mauss’s seminal essay on the gift. Mauss was the direct and indirect ethnographic mentor for the Collège’s main figures – Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris. How they effected the ethnographic detour to devise their respective assessments of the place of ‘myth, power and the sacred’ in modern society is the central focus of this presentation.     

Deconstructing myth: low-carbon sustainability

Informed by a semiotics that directs attention to the context of the message, this paper contributes to work on the meanings of terms such as “low-carbon”, “green”, and “sustainability”. Interview-based evidence and printed material are used to assess the interest of hundreds of financial institutions in data on carbon emissions levels and environmental projects. The collection of such data is where for most interviewees its usefulness stopped. Such is typical of myth. By collecting carbon data, financial institutions can connote they are doing something about addressing the risks posed by global warming, without actually describing what it is they are doing.