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The Imaginary

About: The Imaginary is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4807 publications have been published within this topic receiving 87663 citations.


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Book
01 Jan 1992

229 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: Smith's Desinng the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation as mentioned in this paper is the first volume in the Cultural Liturgies series, which focuses on what Christians do, articulating the shape of a Christian'social imaginary' as it is embedded in the practices of Christian worship.
Abstract: Desinng the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. By James K. A. Smith. Cultural Liturgies series, vol. 1. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009. 238 pp. $21.99 (paper). It may be an understatement to say that Anglicans do not look first to the Reformed tradition for insight and edification in regard to liturgical theology and proposals for liturgical renewal. In fact this book - exceptional in every sense of the word - was not even slated for review in this journal until, in the midst of an engaged reading, I successfully appealed to the editor for a hearing. The author is a Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Congregational and Ministry Studies of Calvin College, an increasingly significant center in the aforementioned tradition for liturgical studies and renewal of worship. Smith projects three volumes in this Cultural Liturgies series. Of this first he says, "The genesis of the project was a desire to communicate to students (and faculty) a vision of what authentic, integral Christian learning looks like, emphasizing how learning is connected to worship and how, together, these constitute practices of formation and discipleship. Instead of focusing on what Christians think, distilling Christian faith into an intellectual summary formula ( a 'worldview'), this book focuses on what Christians do, articulating the shape of a Christian 'social imaginary' as it is embedded in the practices of Christian worship" (p. 11). This work is seen, then, as laying the foundation for a second piece centered on philosophical anthropology and a third volume addressing current debates in political theology. At least three things stand out in regard to this first volume: a newold reconstruction of anthropology, the eschatological focus at the center of Smith's argument, and his creative juxtaposition of the classic elements of Christian worship to the subtle and not so subtle liturgies of mall (the consumer culture), nation (the sports / military culture), and university (a culture producing self-consistent worldviews that are nonetheless disparate). All these compete for our ultimate allegiances in one way or another - sometimes congruent, sometimes not. Smith brings a wide range of scholarship and insight to bear in trenchant analyses of these other liturgical constructions that promise salvation in one way or another. In regard to anthropology, the thesis is advanced that human beings are not primarily thinking or believing beings, but only secondarily so. What is first is desire. With humans as first and foremost desiring creatures, the questions surrounding the ordering of our precognitive and prereflective loves are paramount. In other words, he investigates those seminal practices that willy nilly form us into some vision of human flourishing (the kingdom). It is the dimensions of such kingdoms ("social imaginaries" rather than "worldviews") that give both metaphorical and literal direction to our choices in life. In some ways this is, for Christians at least, as old as Augustine, as lasting as Dante's effoliation of it, and as recent as Alexander Schmemann's For the Life of the World, but it is given fresh and significant exegesis and application by Smith. The argument of the volume is set forth in two parts of three chapters each, following an extensive introduction that is focused on (1) the phenomenology of cultural liturgies; (2) a restatement of the necessary but often unperceived relationship between education and worship; and (3) a consideration of the elements for a theology of culture (with a focus on pedagogy, liturgy, and ecclesia). …

222 citations

Book
01 Oct 1985
TL;DR: Ragland-Sullivan as mentioned in this paper provides the first clear and comprehensive critical analysis of Jacques Lacan's thought for the English-speaking world, using empirical data as well as Lacan texts, demonstrating how Lacan teachings constitute a new epistemology that goes far beyond conventional thinking in psychoanalysis, psychology, philosophy and linguistics.
Abstract: This volume is the first clear and comprehensive critical analysis of Jacques Lacan's thought for the English-speaking world. With Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Psychoanalysis Ellie Ragland-Sullivan not only fills that gap but also provides the foundation upon which all future studies of Lacan must build. Working principally from the legendary but seldom-analyzed Seminars, Ragland-Sullivan clarifies and synthesizes Lacan's major concepts. Using empirical data as well as Lacan's texts, she demonstrates how Lacan's teachings constitute a new epistemology that goes far beyond conventional thinking in psychoanalysis, psychology, philosophy, and linguistics.

219 citations

MonographDOI
12 Sep 2007
TL;DR: In this article, Mishra argues that a full understanding of the Indian diaspora can only be achieved if attention is paid to the particular locations of both the 'old' and the 'new' in nation states, using a theoretical framework based on trauma, mourning/impossible mourning, spectres, identity, travel, translation, and recognition.
Abstract: The Literature of the Indian Diaspora constitutes a major study of the literature and other cultural texts of the Indian diaspora. It is also an important contribution to diaspora theory in general. Examining both the 'old' Indian diaspora of early capitalism, following the abolition of slavery, and the 'new' diaspora linked to movements of late capital, Mishra argues that a full understanding of the Indian diaspora can only be achieved if attention is paid to the particular locations of both the 'old' and the 'new' in nation states. Applying a theoretical framework based on trauma, mourning/impossible mourning, spectres, identity, travel, translation, and recognition, Mishra uses the term 'imaginary' to refer to any ethnic enclave in a nation-state that defines itself, consciously or unconsciously, as a group in displacement. He examines the works of key writers, many now based across the globe in Canada, Australia, America and the UK, – V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, M.G. Vassanji, Shani Mootoo, Bharati Mukherjee, David Dabydeen, Rohinton Mistry and Hanif Kureishi, among them – to show how they exemplify both the diasporic imaginary and the respective traumas of the 'old' and 'new' Indian diasporas.

219 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: Godelier's Enigma of the Gift as mentioned in this paper is an attempt to "complete Mauss' anthropological analysis" (p. 104), with some effective swipes at LeviStrauss, Lacan and others along the way, most particularly at their assertions that the imaginary has primacy over the symbolic.
Abstract: The Enigma of the Gift. MAURICE GODELIER. Translated by Nora Scott. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press and Polity Press in Association with Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 1999; 256 pp. It is difficult to stifle a yawn in picking up yet another book about gift giving, not least another book about Melanesian exchange. So it is refreshing that Godelier's first words are: "Why this book? Why yet another analysis of gift exchange . . . ?" (p. 1). His answer is a spirited and eloquent assertion of the relevance of understanding gift giving in the modern world. We live in a time when market economies exclude massive numbers of people. In the wealthiest of nations, let alone the poorest, thousands have taken to begging in the streets, many of them homeless. Yet, even as conservatism shifts it ever further away from economic intervention, the state remains charged with reintegrating the dispossessed into society. And so, the call to charity is increasingly heard: to give, to share. Even in the secularized West, the gift is back. If the socially excluded provide the moral incentive for this book, Godelier's dissatisfaction with aspects of Mauss' Essai sur le Don provides its intellectual stimulus: The Enigma of the Gift is an attempt to "complete Mauss' anthropological analysis" (p. 104). To this end, the first half of the book reworks Mauss, with some effective swipes at LeviStrauss, Lacan, and others along the way, most particularly at their assertions that the imaginary has primacy over the symbolic. The remainder of the book recapitulates much of Godelier's previous publications on exchange and social reproduction but ventures also onto new ground in grappling with unresolved problems in that earlier work. Drawing from Annette Weiner's Inalienable Possessions, Godelier argues that to understand the production and reproduction of society, we must focus not only on gifts and exchange as Mauss and others have argued, but also on what is not given, those things (sacred objects and persons, heirlooms, secret myths, names) that are distinguished by the fact that they must not be given. Using his Baruya data to illuminating effect, he argues that these are the anchors or "realities" from which the imaginary realm constructs and develops individual and collective identities. This is not the easiest of books to read and would not be suitable for any but the most advanced student audience. Though far from the worst offender among those who resist concessions to the reader, Godelier propagates his fair share of enormously long, baroquely constructed sentences. Some border on the unprocessable and, along with occasional, prolonged flights of rhetorical questioning, leave the reader with the uneasy feeling that smoke and mirrors are being deployed to hasten the analysis past dangerous ground. Still, there is much to recommend in this thought-provoking book. Godelier's insistence, with Wiener, that we pay more heed to what cannot be given is well taken, especially for the case of Melanesian societies, where at the core of clans and even "tribes" are often found the most valuable of heirlooms. Among the Yangoru Boiken with whom I am acquainted, these are the largest and "blackest" of the shell rings, the suwanga, personified as the clan's wala spirit. Though otherwise indistinguishable from other shell rings, all of which feature prominently in exchange, these should never be given away or, if they are, they must be retrieved at the earliest opportunity on pain of catastrophe. Suwanga, it is said, are the "bone" of the clan, the anchor of its identity, precisely as Godelier claims. Also intriguing is Godelier's connection of such anchors to his particular notion of the sacred. Along with other sacra, these are concretizations of a certain type of (false) relationship that humans entertain with the origin of things. The sacred is a realm that humans have populated with imaginary duplicates of themselves. …

215 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023563
20221,296
2021145
2020180
2019178
2018199