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This paper takes as its point of departure two much discussed fifth-century artifacts, an uninscribed and undated consular diptych in Halberstadt (Fig. 9), and the inscribed and (on the face of it) exactly dated consular missorium of Ardabur Aspar in Florence (Fig. 15), both hitherto presumed issued by western consuls and manufactured in western workshops. After calling into question the established criteria for distinguishing western from eastern diptychs, I propose a new set of criteria and a new date and interpretation of both objects, mainly in the light of a more comprehensive examination of the iconography of city personifications, in literature as well as art. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional manner of pottery-making persists, with pottery production connected to a series of other daily activities. The Wallagga region of the southwestern Ethiopian highlands, in particular, sees traditional pottery widely practiced and exclusively in the domain of women. In this society, pottery-making and the use of pottery vessels are informed and constrained by deeply-rooted metaphoric meanings connected to the technological practices. Pots are metaphorically associated with persons and the stages they pass through: youth, adulthood, old age, and death. More specifically, a wet pot metaphorically represents a baby, pots in use are associated with adults and damaged pots are linked to a deceased person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes sociological insights into the sperm banking industry, derived from a qualitative study of extended sperm donor profiles in six large American sperm banks. We content analyzed the extended profiles and baby photos of 120 randomly selected donors who appear in the catalogues. Inspired by Baudrillard's and Illouz's writings on the postmodern era, we show how sperm banks de-commodify sperm, personify donations, facilitate the romanticization of the donor–recipient bond, and add an emotional context to the economic transaction. The donors’ extended profiles constitute asimulacrumof a living male partner and fulfill recipients’ fantasies. This creates a powerful reenchantment mechanism counterbalancing the anonymity and disenchantment characterizing donor insemination technology in particular and the postmodern spirit in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a literary criticism of the book "Salvage the Bones" by Jesmyn Ward. Topics discussed include how embodiment figures in the book, and how both human and non-human bodies manifest regional stories by playing an important role alongside Southern States' particular racialized histories.

The paper traces out the place of Èshù – the Yoruba god associated with confusion, the trickster and the messenger of the gods – in the classic sources on Yoruba religion, in a postcolonial play which comments on current politics, in the formulations of Christianity and Islam, and from fieldwork on present ideas and practices of the people of two towns in Western Nigeria. It works particularly closely on the place of Èshù in the causation, diagnosis and treatment of the condition known as dàrú, disturbance or confusion, which can apply to many levels of being from the mind to the body to relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impossible fictions are not just the creations of puzzle-seeking philosophers or artists experimenting with the limits of fiction. Impossibilities can be found in relatively mundane fiction as well. This article argues that the device of personification, especially of abstract entities such as death or duty, yields impossible fictions, arguing against a number of strategies that might be tried to show that these cases of personification do not yield impossibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present research was to determine how humans represent the bodies and limbs of nonhuman mammals based on anatomical and functional properties. To this end, participants completed a series of body-part compatibility tasks in which they responded with a thumb or foot response to the color of a stimulus (red or blue, respectively) presented on different limbs of several animals. Across the studies, this compatibility task was conducted with images of human and nonhuman animals (bears, cows, and monkeys) in bipedal or quadrupedal postures. The results revealed that the coding of the limbs of nonhuman animals is strongly influenced by the posture of the body, but not the functional capacity of the limb. Specifically, body-part compatibility effects were present for both human and nonhuman animals when the figures were in a bipedal posture, but were not present when the animals were in a quadrupedal stance (Experiments 1a-c). Experiments 2a and 2b revealed that the posture-based body-part compatibility effects were not simply a vertical spatial compatibility effect or due to a mismatch between the posture of the body in the image and the participant. These data indicate that nonhuman animals in a bipedal posture are coded with respect to the "human" body representation, whereas nonhuman animals in a quadrupedal posture are not mapped to the human body representation. Overall, these studies provide new insight into the processes through which humans understand, mimic, and learn from the actions of nonhuman animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the mechanism of mass culture and the aspect of the personification in the subjectivity within the artistic culture considering the rules of identification and individuation. Topics include the mass culture and the idea of a large group of people comprises of cultural community, the identification of mass culture through expanding on consumption, and the role of the consumer society in dividing between commodity and image wherein the image appears as the commodity.

This paper presents some new observations concerning the construction of the Sutton Hoo helmet, as a point of entry to a wider discussion of pre-Christian religious and ideological links across Scandinavia. It will be argued that in certain circumstances and locations, such as the firelit interior of the hall, the wearer of the helmet was seen as both war leader and war god, a literal personification of Odin. This interpretation is supported and extended with a variety of Scandinavian finds from the sixth to tenth centuries, and arguably represents an unusually physical manifestation of the ritual border-crossing between human and divine elites. In the socio-political context of early medieval kingdoms, the dramatic imagery of the helmets and related military equipment had a critical role to play in the communication of power, the origin of military prowess, and the religious allegiance of a warlord. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's parasocial relationships have been understudied, even though recent research suggests that children learn better from socially meaningful than from socially irrelevant media characters. This study articulates a model of parasocial relationship development among children and, in the process, establishes new measures of children's parasocial interactions and parasocial relationships. Parents of children ( ≤  8 years old) completed an online questionnaire about their child's favorite media character. The measure of parental perceptions of children's parasocial relationships was composed of three dimensions: character personification, social realism, and attachment. The measure was then utilized as the endogenous variable in a model predicting parental perceptions of children's parasocial relationships. The model revealed that engagement with toy replicas of media characters, repeated media exposure, parent encouragement, and parasocial interactions were significantly related to parental perceptions of young children's parasocial relationships. The possible influence of parasocial relationships on children's potential to learn from media characters is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the description of National Studies as a form of scholarship and as a branch of learning. Topics include the concept of Confucianism as a national religion, the views on sage as personification of rationalism, and the position of yin and yang, which can be used in studying the Chinese history.

The article presents an overview of historical and philosophical developments of corporate personhood throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, connecting them to the practices of biography. Topics addressed include the jurisdictional origins of corporate personhood established throughout U.S. law, trends in corporate personification for marketing or advocacy purposes, and the extension of personhood to alternative areas such as fetal personhood, animal well being and environmental protection.

ABSTRACT Are consumers more likely to trust a product when it is branded with a human name rather than a nonhuman name? While the extant literature on brand personification reveals a positivity bias for personified products, other research suggests that many contemporary consumers harbor underlying feelings of mistrust toward companies more generally. The present research was the first empirical research to date to investigate the moderating role of consumers' beliefs toward company values on brand trust judgments for human-named and nonhuman-named products. The results showed that although consumers significantly trusted nonhuman-named products over human- named products (Studies 1a and 1b), this pattern only occurred for those who generally mistrusted companies (Study 2). These novel findings significantly shed light on the dynamics of brand personification by emphasizing the crucial role of individual differences in consumer judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personification, according to MacKay, is the prototypical metaphor we live by. It is also inescapably gendered. This paper examines the gendering of one of the biggest brands on earth: the Titanic. In the century since the steamship's sinking, 'she' has been enshrined in many female stereotypes from virtuous virgin to malevolent man-eater. Although many might regard these representations as regressive and reprehensible, it is arguable that Titanic's polysemous pulchritude is what makes 'her' an outstanding brand. For the inhabitants of the icon's 'birthplace' at least. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media coverage of CEOs has significantly increased in recent decades, and many CEOs have come to accept that interacting with a dispersed audience via the media has become a leadership activity. However, the discourse about leadership communication is almost exclusively linked to growth. Very little is known about the presentation of CEOs in the media when their corporations are shrinking in value, or when the economy is in a downturn. News factor theory would suggest what the average consumer of business news already suspects: during an economic downturn, more CEOs become harbingers of negative corporate news and the personification of corporations in the media by the CEO is likely to be high. However, the information subsidy approach would suggest that the ability of a CEO to influence the scope of topics remains high because of an economic downturn. We categorised all articles pertaining to the CEOs of the 100 largest Western corporations between 2007 and 2010, and next content-analysed 1,362 articles pertaining to CEOs whose media presentation had high personification and/or broad scope. Personification in the business news seems to be inescapable for CEOs during a downturn, but only if their corporations are faring worse than the general economy. Meanwhile, the scope of topics included in business news about CEOs varies broadly and does not appear to be linked to value contraction of corporations. From the composition of the media coverage categorised here, corporate leaders can glean which topics serve to either broaden or specify their presentation in the business news media during economic downturn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between play and interpretative verbalization in child analysis. Through examination of a clinical case, the paper distinguishes between two different modes of interpretative interventions in play. It is the contention of the paper that the analyst's capacity to tolerate tension and respond to the roles the child assigns him widens the area of play, facilitating a space for thinking through. Interpretation is formulated in two distinct ways: (a) interpreting from the context of the roles the analyst assumes within play, respecting the games and facilitating the patient's understanding; (b) interpreting at a distance from play, on the one hand distinguishing the area of play, and on the other hand analyzing that which occurs verbally and non-verbally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the influence of heroic action, transatlantic colonisation, and personification of the U.S. and other countries on various monuments in Great Britain. It talks about the Temple of British Worthies designed by William Kent, the Rockingham Monument, and the Brizlee Tower in Northumberland. The Dorset Pantheon, Boston Castle, and Greystoke as representations of dissent and discontent are also examined.

The word 'Paphos' emerged as early as the 7th century BC and was subsequently written in varying manners, firstly on inscriptions and later in literary texts. Yet it is only from about the second half of the 4th century BC that it appears inscribed on coins, solely in Greek alphabetic characters. The word is abbreviated to one, two or four letters, which sometimes form a monogram. On the extremely rare silver coins of the last king of Paphos, Nikokles, Paphos is written in a related form, ΠAΦIΟΝ and the exact meaning of this word will be considered in this paper. A further legend, ΠΒA, written behind the neck of a crowned female head on these late coins and the identification of the head itself have prompted several differing interpretations. The exceptional crown of this figure, the legend and the depiction as a whole will be studied within the political, historical and religious context of Paphos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hannah Arendt's project of analyzing the political in the era of the end of the politi-cal is discussed on two levels: first, as Arendt's understanding the political "from the hermeneutical point of view", i.e. as related to human "being-in-the world" (Human Condition)-, second, as her understanding it "from the performative point of view", i.e. as a public personification, a masquerade (On Revolution). The question of how the political, which determines "human concerns", or "human condition" renders the same human life in its private sphere as non-political and anti-political, is then dis-cussed on that basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the history, significance, and meaning of visual symbols. According to the author, cultural sociology has neglected this topic. The article focuses on the symbolic content of national flags, national heroes, and national anthems. Historical figures like the Germanic rebel against Rome, Arminius, Spanish hero Rodrigo Diaz, and Swiss rebel Wilhelm Tell became symbol figures of national pride that transcended their historical context. National flags developed from merchant flags. The article discusses the Swiss cross, the British Union Jack, and the French Tricolore, and lists the symbolic content of other national flags. National allegoric animals like the British lion, the Gallic rooster, and the Russian bear are analyzed as well.

Copyright of Stratum Plus Journal is the property of P.P. Stratum plus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the cultural location of the dubbed voice in Spain. Dubbed films presently account for 80% of all films viewed in Spain, yet despite their overwhelming presence in Spanish everyday life, its dubbing actors have received very little scholarly attention to date. If, according to Mladen Dolar, the human voice is “the intimate kernel of subjectivity”, how might a viewer begin to identify with a star persona that is clearly incomplete? How can we begin to understand the ways in which audiences might absorb themselves within the emotional world of a Hollywood star who speaks with the voice of a Spanish actor? In analysing the styles and sound design of Spanish dubbing performances, this article explores the elusive spatiality of the dubbed voice in film. As I show, the sonic texture of vocal performance in dubbed films is a crucial, and most often overlooked, component of film form. In particular, the article focuses on Constantino Romero, one of Spain's most famous dubbing actors, who has regularly provided the Spanish voice of Clint Eastwood, among other Hollywood stars. As this article shows, Romero's performance is a powerful site of the imagination, identification and pleasure for Spanish audiences. Far from merely providing an invisible conduit between audience and Hollywood star, Romero can be considered a cultural phenomenon in his own right, a “vocal persona” whose voice circulates far beyond the confines of the films for which he performs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines composer Frédéric Chopin's use of unexpected nuances in the waltz, nocturne, and mazurka musical genres. The author argues that a four bar phrase in Chopin's " Waltz in A flat, op. 42" in which no waltz bass or waltz rhythm is employed allows the listener to question the waltz's genre and discusses an unexpected disruption of melody and use of pedaling in Chopin's "Nocturne in B major, op. 32, no. 1." Chopin's use of personification in his "Mazurka in C minor, op. 56, no. 3" is highlighted.

In 42 BC, Caesar was deified by decision of the Senate, thereby becoming the first Roman to be posthumously worshipped as a god. Reverence for the cult of the Divine Julius (Divus Iulius) also incorporated the Dea Roma, the personification of the Roman Republic. Octavian saw the value of Caesar's deification as a validation of this own strength, while the appearance of a comet (sidus Iulium) during Caesar's funeral games was interpreted as the spirit of the Divine Caesar. Despite the decree issued by Augustus to include Roma in the cult, ancient writers left this goddess out of their works, probably deeming her role secondary, ascribing the entire matter to reverence for the emperor. In the Roman Empire's western provinces there had been no earlier tradition of worship for the goddess Roma as in the Greek lands, and the goddess appeared generally as a symbol of the entire Roman Empire. Reverence for the cult of the goddess Roma was organized as part of the imperial cult, and the earliest temple in Croatia's territory was constructed in the colony of Pola. Archaeological remains from Oneum, Aequum, the municipium of Bistuensium, and Doclea testify to organized reverence for her cult in the territory of the Roman province of Dalmatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "believability" is often used to describe expectations concerning virtual agents. In this paper, we analyze which factors influence the believability of the agent acting as the software assistant. We consider several factors such as embodiment, communicative behavior, and emotional capabilities. We conduct a perceptive study where we analyze the role of plausible and/or appropriate emotional displays in relation to believability. We also investigate how people judge the believability of the agent, and whether it provokes social reactions of humans toward it. Finally, we evaluate the respective impact of embodiment and emotion over believability judgments. The results of our study show that (a) appropriate emotions lead to higher perceived believability, (b) the notion of believability is closely correlated with the two major socio-cognitive variables, namely competence and warmth, and (c) considering an agent as believable can be different from having a human-like attitude toward it. Finally, a primacy of emotion behavior over embodiment while judging believability is also hypothesized from free responses given by the participants of this experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monotheistic religions see God as the author of human faith. Faith comes 'from above' and as such is unnatural or supernatural. The faith of pagans, by contrast, is regarded as superstition and hence natural (Rm 1). One can make a case for the 'natural' universal incidence of both religion and superstition and their fulfilment of similar needs. In addition both are characterised by the pattern-finding operation of the human brain. The (causal) connections we make and the patterns we impose on reality have always helped people to comprehend and manipulate the world. Historical circumstances led to the development of 'official' religions as institutions wielding political power, whereas superstition has remained a para-religious phenomenon to this day. But how should religion and superstition be viewed in a postmetaphysical, technoscientific environment? How can the supernatural aspects of religion and superstition be accommodated in such an environment? The role of affect and belief (placebo effect) in religion and superstition is also scrutinised. Viewed differently, both religion and superstition are considered natural and are proposed as a form of immanent transcendence, in which the 'supernatural' is not posited as a metaphysical model but is worked out 'from below' in terms of the human constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mana (01049313) is the property of Contra Capa Livraria and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article offers the author's insights regarding list poetry and storytelling. Topics discussed include explanation by professional storyteller Matthew James Friday regarding why there is a difference in storytelling in every classroom, several poetic tools used by poets and writers, which include alliteration, personification, and metaphor, and writing shared list poems.

This paper analyses the process of exclusion of Saddam Hussein, in a Spanish newspaper, El País, in the period just before the Gulf War. This exclusion procedure is articulated on two axes: division and rejection (Foucault, 1964). `Division' means establishing an inclusive us and an exclusive them, in this case, him. This move therefore entails a personification of the conflict, which produces immediate feelings of identification or rejection, and simplifies how the war is understood. Both effects are reinforced by the second move of the exclusion procedure: `rejection'. Once the two camps are established an imaginary dimension, related to the ideology of consensus and ethnic prejudices, is evoked in order to create an image of Saddam Hussein in which he plays the stranger, the irrational being, the madman, the beast and, ultimately, the personification of evil. These are the villain's attributes in the fairy tale of the just war (Lakoff, 1992), which is the script of the event activated by the newspaper for the conceptualization of the conflict and its protagonists. On the other hand, a positive image is created for a unique and ideological us, in which, as readers, we are included and absorbed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the scandals associated with the death of French novelist Léon Bloy. Various topics discussed include his works as a theologian and journalist, his thoughts for being a saint, his works for Christians' personification in 19th century and his book "La sangre de Cristo crucificado y de la eucaristía es sangre judía."