Critical theory

Read more about the article Lecture: How the Deluge Myth became a Symbol of the Ecological Crisis – A Comparative Cinematic Study
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / Geography / History / Judaism and Kabbalah / Myth / Popular culture and mass media / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: How the Deluge Myth became a Symbol of the Ecological Crisis – A Comparative Cinematic Study

The deluge myth was used by generations of commentators as a tool for social criticism - it provided them with an opportunity to explain what kind of humanity deserved total annihilation. In recent films, connections are made between the current ecological crisis and the deluge... Are we (yes, we!) this generation that deserves to be destroyed, and why? This lecture presents a comparative study of Hollywood films throughout the last century, all of which have allusions to the biblical flood myth. The focus will be on how the flood becomes a symbol of the worsening ecological crisis nowadays.

0 Comments
May 26, 2024
Read more about the article Lecture: Meditation in the Eyes of Medical Research – On the Border between Spiritual and Scientific
Critical theory / Magic and paganism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: Meditation in the Eyes of Medical Research – On the Border between Spiritual and Scientific

Is there a connection between the fact that Mindfulness has become fashionable in the cultural space and the scientific recognition it has received? How did Mindfulness turn from a spiritual practice to a evidence-based scientific practice? In this lecture, we presented the development process of the scientific-medical discourse about Mindfulness, in an unusual context: observing this phenomenon as part of a cultural process. One of the main conclusions was that the intensity of the secularization and the Westernization of the meditation is a predictor of the degree of its acceptance in the Western discourse.

0 Comments
June 27, 2023
Read more about the article Lecture: The Mindfulness Trend Conquers the Scientific-Medical Discourse
Critical theory / Magic and paganism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: The Mindfulness Trend Conquers the Scientific-Medical Discourse

this lecture presented the scientific-medical discourse on mindfulness, in which this meditation became an accepted and desirable trend. In order to illustrate the success of mindfulness - a comparison with the status of Transcendental Meditation in the scientific-medical discourse is also presented.

0 Comments
June 27, 2023
Read more about the article Article: The Doors of Creativity Shall Never be Barred – The Iconization Process of the Piyyut “Im Nin’alu” in Contemporary Pop Music
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Doors of Creativity Shall Never be Barred – The Iconization Process of the Piyyut “Im Nin’alu” in Contemporary Pop Music

Yes, the liturgical poem (piyyut) “Im Nin'alu” signifies orientality. But what is Orientality? Is this traditional, perhaps even religious, Yemenite Judaism? Is this Yemen similar to exotic India? Is this a symbol of the mystical/spiritual "other" (as we already mentioned India...)? And maybe it is a symbol of Kabbalah, another contemporary "Other" that turns out to be similar to all the other "Others", including the "Other East"... In this article we follow the change process of “Im Nin'alu” as a symbol, which symbolizes different things each time. The peyote has - it turns out - gone a long way, erasing traditional Yemenite Judaism into the contemporary universal and spiritual-alternative space.

0 Comments
January 10, 2023
Read more about the article Article: Outdoing Authenticity – Three Postmodern Models of Adapting Folklore Materials in Current Spiritual Music
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Article: Outdoing Authenticity – Three Postmodern Models of Adapting Folklore Materials in Current Spiritual Music

The liturgical poem “Im Nin'alu” got various popular musical adaptations in recent decades. These adaptations raise questions - and provide different answers - regarding authenticity, identity, tradition, and more. Each of them embodies a different way of coping with the postmodern situation. The article presents three different models of relation to traditional materials, which are different ways of dealing with the problems of individuals in relation to these questions.

0 Comments
January 9, 2023
Read more about the article Lecture: The Oriental as a Spiritual Symbol – The Reification of the Liturgical Poem ‘Im Nin’alu in Contemporary Popular Musical Performances
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: The Oriental as a Spiritual Symbol – The Reification of the Liturgical Poem ‘Im Nin’alu in Contemporary Popular Musical Performances

For the west, the oriental is an object to project upon desires and fantasies. This is similar also in the spiritual context: New Age orientalism molds the "orient" (especially India) in its spirit, as an "Other" significant culture. Kabbalah undergoes a similar process, as an "Other" of the west. This lecture presents the meeting between the "Orient" and Kabbalah in a Yemenite (also "oriental") version - through an inquiry of contemporary performances of the liturgical Poem "Im Nin'alu".

0 Comments
January 9, 2023