WORKSHOP ON CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS AND BODY SYMBOLISM
9-11 MAY 2019 – PROGRAMME & ABSTRACTS Workshop organizers:
Jan A. Kozák [email protected] (+420 603 871 870)
Jens Eike Schnall [email protected] (+47 41 59 91 61)
The Workshop is a part of the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie Project SYMBODIN
The Workshop is grateful for the support of:
The Research Group for Medieval Philology (UiB)
Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (UiB)
The Medieval Cluster (UiB)
The Research Group Images of Knowledge (UiB)
The Research Group Literature and Religion (UiB)
Conceptual Metaphors & Body Symbolism
International Workshop
Bergen 9 ‐ 11 May 2019
Contents
Workshop Programme ...... 5
Locations and Maps ...... 7
The Workshop Theme and Questions ...... 9
The Approach and Attitude ...... 9 The Focus ...... 10 The Shared Questions ...... 10 The Abstracts ...... 12
Jan Kozák: Conceptual Metaphor, Analogic Thinking and Body Symbolism ...... 13 Jens Eike Schnall: The Body Politic and Conceptual Metaphor: Learned Body Imagery in the Medieval North ...... 15 Barbora Sojková: Talking Heads ...... 17 Marie Novotná: Was Berskerk a Bear? ...... 19 Eldar Heide: Sexual Metaphors Conveying the Essence of Old Norse Mythology? ...... 21 Jiří Dynda: Body and Corporeality in the Slavic Narratives about the Creation of Man ...... 23 Jørgen Bakke: Imaging Bodies in Ancient Greek Culture ...... 25 Evelyne Koubková: Resounding Bodies ...... 27 Martin Pehal: The Wor(l)d is an Image: Bodily Metaphors and Graphic Puns in Ancient Egypt ...... 29 Rasmus T. Slaattelid: Metaphors of the Labyrinth in Philosophy ...... 31 Helga Mannsåker: The Role of Metaphor and Metonymy in Psychiatric Nomenclature and Discourse ...... 33 Helen Leslie: The Eyes of Justice: Morality and Body Metaphors in English Legal Texts ...... 35
WORKSHOP ON CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS AND BODY SYMBOLISM
WORKSHOP PROGRAMME
Wednesday, 8 May ca 7 pm Dinner for the speakers at Eike’s place (KRINGSJÅVEIEN 81, see map)
Thursday, 9 May 8:15 – Meeting up and Registration (PARKVEIEN 9, see map) 8:30 8:30 – Jens Eike Schnall: Welcoming Address 9:00 Jan Kozák: Overview of the Programme Session I: Introductory and Comparative 9:00 – Jan Kozák (Bergen) 9:45 Conceptual Metaphor, Analogic Thinking and Body Symbolism 10:00 – Jens Eike Schnall (Bergen) 10:45 The Body Politic and Conceptual Metaphor 11:00 – Barbora Sojková (Oxford) 11:45 Talking Heads Lunch at Café Christie Session II: Medieval Myth and Religion 13:00 – Marie Novotná (Prague) 13:45 Was Berserk a Bear? 14:00 – Eldar Heide (Bergen) 14:45 Sexual Metaphors Conveying the Essence of Old Norse Mythology? 15:00 – Jiří Dynda (Prague) 15:45 Body and Corporeality in the Slavic Anthropogonic Narratives 16:00 – Presentation of the research groups in Bergen, MSCA and other 16:30 networking possibilities. ca. 19 – Evening meeting for a beer at Det Akademiske Kvarter (OLAV KYRRES GATE 49, see map on page 5)
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Friday, 10 May Session III: The Cultures of Antiquity 9:00 – Jørgen Bakke (Bergen) 9:45 Imaging Bodies in Ancient Greek Culture 10:00 – Evelyne Koubková (Yale) 10:45 Resounding Bodies 11:00 – Martin Pehal (Prague) 11:45 The Wor(l)d is an Image: Bodily Metaphors and Graphic Puns in Ancient Egypt Lunch break Session IV: Beyond Religion – Philosophy, Psychiatry, Law 13:00 – Rasmus T. Slaattelid (Bergen) 13:45 Metaphors of the Labyrinth in Philosophy 14:00 – Helga Mannsåker (Bergen) 14:45 The Role of Metaphor in Psychiatric Nomenclature and Discourse 15:00 – Helen Leslie (Bergen) 15:45 The Eyes of Justice: Morality and Body Metaphors in English Legal Texts 16:00 – Concluding Discussion and Reflection: 16:45 Similarities and Diversities 19:00 – Banquet/Reception (place t.b.a.)
Saturday, 11 May
10:00 Guided tour ‐ Historisk Museum (HAAKON SHETELIGS PLASS 10)
ca 11 City walk ‐ Bryggen, Håkonshallen
Lunch
ca 14 Trip up the Fløyen
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LOCATIONS AND MAPS
Dinner for the speakers at Eike’s place, Wednesday evening – KRINGSJÅVEIEN 81 (bus 16, 17 from the city centre, bus stop “Laksevåg Senter”, or 25 mins walk from the university)
The Workshop Seminar Room (Thursday and Friday) – Senter for vitenskapsteori – PARKVEIEN 9
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Meeting up on Thursday evening – Det Akademiske Kvarter – OLAV KYRRES GATE 49
Historisk Museum (Saturday morning) – HAAKON SHETELIGS PLASS 10
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THE WORKSHOP THEME AND QUESTIONS
The Approach and Attitude Since the “rhetoric turn” in the second part of the 20th century it has been illustrated again and again that metaphorization is one of the core features (if not the base) of our cognitive apparatus. Metaphor, analogy and related mental operations are “the fuel and fire of thinking” (HOFSTADTER & SANDER 2013).
The central proposition of this contemporary trend is that, far from being merely the dress of thought, rhetorical forms are deeply and unavoidably involved in the shaping of realities. (CHANDLER 2017: 149)
Many studies have been done since the eighties within the field of linguistics, semiotics, philosophy and cognitive science (e.g. LAKOFF & JOHNSON 1980, RICŒUR 2003 and others), yet the use and application of this new research to mythology, ritual, religion and related areas of human culture has been rather scarce and unsystematic, even though there used to be a strong tradition of similar kind of thinking among the classics of anthropology in the sixties (Claude Levi‐Strauss, Mary Douglas).
One of the principal difficulties of this kind of research in the 21st century is that it is inherently interdisciplinary. Scholars must venture outside their safe zone within the classics, medieval studies or other specialist (era or area) disciplines and absorb new concepts, methods and data from disciplines like linguistics, semiotics, cognitive anthropology or psychology. The aim of the present workshop is to collectively explore the possible methods and topics related to metaphoric thinking and help each other by providing feedback, offering ideas or possible connections to the presented topics.
It is recommended for the speakers to tear away the polished surface of the presentation and let the others see how their thinking about the topic really works, don’t hide its gaps, jumps and irrational intuitions. Show your colleagues your academic ‘laboratory’ with your specific know‐how and efficient tools, but also with your specific challenges and unsolved riddles. Don’t be afraid to address the blind spots and inconsistencies of the scholarship and of your own work.
It is especially recommended to think in questions and to prepare as many questions as possible. Pose them to yourself, to the audience at the end of your talk, and to the other presenters in the discussion segment.
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The Focus The focus is twofold:
1) PRIMARY FOCUS, “THE PRINCIPLE”: metaphor, metaphoric projection, use of analogy or concrete imagery which encodes something abstract or inexpressible otherwise, or which selects and condenses meanings in a specific way; there is no limit for the use of the metaphor – it can be poetic, everyday language, religious, politic, epistemological etc., recommended area is “mythical thinking”, but “myth” here can be taken in its broadest sense and presenters can surely choose topics outside of that;
2) SECONDARY FOCUS, “THE MOTIF”: ideally, the topic of conceptual metaphor should also be somehow connected to the image of the body (talking heads, blinded seers, symbolic eyes, figurative hearts, necks, blood, milk, semen, wombs, faces, embryos, skulls & bones, breath, tongues, teeth, brains, veins, cells, skins, orifices and even voices and souls), this topic is chosen because it is one of the richest sources of metaphors and metaphoric thinking in human culture, so it gives us an opportunity to compare how differently various cultures, ages, genres and cultural domains work with the basic substrate of physical bodily experience.
However, the primary point of the workshop is to discuss how (conceptual) metaphors work, so in case you have a methodologically or theoretically interesting example of metaphor that doesn’t include body explicitly, it can still yield useful discussion with implications for the body symbolism.
The Shared Questions While we will connect our discussions via the primary topic of metaphors, analogies, symbolism, cognitive mapping and in most cases also through the topic of the body, there will be a broad diversity of cultural areas, thematic foci, theoretical backgrounds and academic disciplines among the presenters. To prevent divergence and disconnection between participants and to facilitate the discussions, it is advised that we include addressing some of these questions in our talks:
1. Could you describe how specifically does the process of metaphoric or symbolic transference work in your particular case? 2. What happens in the process? Has anything been filtered out? Was anything condensed, foregrounded? Transformed? How is the meaning produced, coded? 3. What has been gained by the use of metaphor or symbolic expression in the case of your topic? What purpose does it seem to fulfil? 4. Do you register any interesting specificity or unique principle with regard to the inner workings and construction of the metaphors/symbols in your material?
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5. Do you think there might be something (partially) analogous or comparable in our contemporary culture? The point of the questions is simply to meet each other in the moment of reflection on how the metaphor‐related phenomena work and try to express it in some sort of conceptual language that can be discussed by the others. Of course, in the case of some of the presentations a number of these questions might be not applicable. Just remember to include a certain step back in your presentation where you reflect on the issue from a more general, systematic or theoretical perspective, so that it can become more useful and relevant to the other participants who come from different disciplines or study a different culture.
CHANDLER, Daniel: Semiotics: The Basics, Routledge 2017
HOFSTADTER, Douglas & Emmanuel Sander: Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, Basic Books 2013
JOHNSON, Mark: The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, University of Chicago Press, 1987
LAKOFF, George & Mark Johnson: Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press 1980
RICŒUR, Paul: The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language, Routledge 2015
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THE ABSTRACTS
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Conceptual Metaphor, Analogic Thinking and Body Symbolism Jan A. Kozák
Marie Skłodowska‐Curie Fellow in Old Norse Philology, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway
Abstract
In this introductory talk the topic of the workshop itself and its ramifications will be overviewed and the research questions presented. It will be divided into two parts: the first part devoted to metaphor in general and the second to body symbolism.
In the first part following questions will be discussed: What is metaphor and how does it work? What are the current theories of metaphor? What other phenomena are related to metaphor? How does metaphor work in everyday language and thought? How does metaphor work in non‐ standard language: myth, poetry, secret languages, schizophrenia, early stages of language acquisition etc.? Tentative answers to these questions will be accompanied by a number of examples from various fields (anthropology, psychology, linguistics, literature, science) that will illustrate the usefulness of approaching the diverse phenomena through the prism of the common principle of metaphor.
The advantages and limits of the metaphor principle and metaphor theory will then be discussed with the audience ‐ Where do the contemporary cognitive theories of metaphor fall short? Are cultural differences downplayed and what problems does it engender? Are there any autochthonous theories of metaphor in cultures you study which contrast with the contemporary theory?
In the second part of the talk we will focus on a specific type of metaphoric expression: body symbolism. Different types of body symbolism will be illustrated by concrete examples from various cultures with the emphasis on myth or ritual. The prominence of body symbolism will be then explained with the help of the cognitive linguistic hypothesis about the pre‐conceptual experiential core of cognition and this hypothesis will then be put to discussion with the audience.
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About the researcher
Jan studied Latin and Religious Studies in Prague and even if he eventually focused on the Old Norse mythology and religion, he always remained a “generalist” trying to discern the common patterns in myths and rituals beyond the issues restricted to just one cultural area. His philological training in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Old Norse is mirrored in his interest in the corresponding religious cultures, their similarities and differences. With regard to method and theory Jan is eclectic, combining (post)structuralism with phenomenology, psychology, semiotics and cognitive linguistics (which is more or less the combination of approaches relevant for the study of metaphor). One of the core questions of his research is the issue of analogizing between linguistics and religion: what principles can and cannot be transferred between the two domains. With regard to pedagogy, Jan focuses on the use of visual arts, performance and experiment in his teaching practice.
Research interests conceptual metaphor; analogy and similarity (in thought and perception); riddles (folklore); New Comparative Mythology; Monomyth/Hero’s myth; structure of initiation and sacrifice; Cosmic Tree; labyrinth (mythology); constitutive exception; self‐reference; semiotic square; quaternity; trifunctional hypothesis; folk etymology; semantic etymology; postmodern secular mythology and ritual.
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The Body Politic and Conceptual Metaphor: Learned Body Imagery in the Medieval North Jens Eike Schnall
Assoc. Prof. in Old Norse Studies, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway
Abstract
The paper deals with conceptual metaphors within learned traditions of body imagery and focuses especially on two source texts in Old Norse, the Speech against the bishops and the Elucidarius. These are discussed in the light of Latin sources, e.g. Biblical Honorius’ Elucidarium and John of Salisbury’s Policraticus.
With Lakoff & Johnson as the point of departure, the main theoretical interest lies in specific uses of images and metaphors in the Middle Ages and Early Modern time, more precisely, images and related metaphors that serve as a means to structure complex matter and abstract ideas and permit a discourse about them. The human body and its senses play an important role as a conceptual model both in Latin and vernacular literature. This becomes especially evident in form of the body politic and other imaginations of social orders in the form of the human body. The body is a highly complex system, body parts are attributed specific functions and symbolic values. The great metaphoric potential lies in the multifaceted interplay of the whole and its parts, inside and outside, activity vs. passivity, the visible vs. the invisible, the natural vs. the unnatural, the hierarchical vs. the non‐hierarchical and so on.
The paper asks which of the potential uses of the model are actualized in the different texts; how the model facilitates the transition from analytic to moral uses; how metaphors are constructed; how rather original actualizations contrast with a rather stable symbolism of the body – a very fundamental collective symbol which remains powerful also in contemporary cultures.
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About the researcher
Jens Eike Schnall has studied Scandinavian and German Studies and Philosophy in Göttingen, Copenhagen and Vienna and obtained a PhD from the University of Göttingen in 1997. After that, he has been employed and/or conducted research at the universities of Bonn, Reykjavík, Copenhagen and Freiburg, until he took up a position as associate professor of Old Norse Studies at the University of Bergen in 2013.
Apart from the classical genres of Old Norse Literature, his research interests include medieval encyclopedic literature and orders of knowledge with a special focus on images of knowledge and conceptual metaphor.
Research interests medieval encyclopedic literature and orders of knowledge; literature, science & technology; images of knowledge; conceptual metaphor; mapping and cartography; courtly literature; learned networks and media; medieval and early modern food cultures; transformations of the heroic; medievalism
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Talking Heads Barbora Sojková
DPhil candidate in Oriental Studies (Sanskrit), Balliol College, University of Oxford Leverhulme Doctoral Student, Doctoral School “Publication Beyond Print”
Abstract
In this presentation, I am going to revisit my BA thesis “Talking Heads: Comparative and Structural Analysis of the Myth of Vital Severed Heads”. The talk will be divided in two parts. In the first section, I will introduce the kernel of my BA thesis, namely the three myths about severed heads which are endowed with some sort of a special power which allows them to speak, to deliver an important knowledge. These are the myths about Bran, whom we know from the Welsh Mabinogion, Orpheus, the legendary ancient Greek musician, and Mímir, the “pet‐head” of Old Norse god Óðinn. Although the myths are from all over the Indo‐European provenance, they share an exciting amount of motifs and are, so to speak, a good introduction into the Indo‐European usage of the metaphor of the head.
In the second part, I am going to introduce a new talking head which I did not know at the times when I was writing my BA thesis. This is Dadhyañc Atharvan whom we know from the Vedic literature from the earliest times – he is present already in the Ṛgvedasaṃhitā. Dadhyañc is a mythological priest who possesses a knowledge about ritual and he, as might be expected, also happens to be a talking head, although only for a short period of time. The fragments of the myths, which we find in the Vedic corpus, seem to complement the myths about Bran, Mímir, and Orpheus; yet, nobody has noticed this connection so far.
Apart from enjoying myself on the playground of comparative Indo‐European mythology, the main goal of my presentation is to understand the usage of the metaphor of the head throughout different Indo‐European traditions, with a special emphasis on Vedic India which is the area of my expertise.
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About the Researcher
Although I have graduated BA and MA in Religious Studies (Charles University, Prague), the daily bread of my current research in Oxford, where I am currently pursuing my DPhil, is Sanskrit. Nowadays, the most of my research is philological, my interest, however, still lies in something that could be rendered as a history of ideas or religious studies.
The bulk of my undergraduate and graduate education was formed by a general study of history and anthropology of religions: I have worked on traditions reaching from Judaism to Old Norse mythology, from Wales to India. These days, I am predominantly interested in ancient India, from its Vedic “prehistory” until, roughly, the age of the epics. My dissertation is looking at the notion of “animal” and “human” in ancient Indian sources, namely the Brāhmaṇas, the exegeses of Vedic ritual (ca. 700‐450 BCE).
Times and again, I am fascinated by a wide range of topics: I teach history and philosophy of yoga, I am interested in researching things from non‐human perspective, in humanities research as an embodied practice, in comparative Indo‐European linguistics, digital humanities, objects, Marxist anthropology, or memory. My own academic practice is hugely informed by the way I move in the world: when I do not read obscure Indian texts, I practice yoga, climb mountains, run long distances, and sleep outdoors.
Research Interests
Vedas, ancient India, realia, ritual studies, animal studies, Chris Marker, W.G. Sebald, perspectivism, anthropocene, yoga, brahmanism, Indo‐European linguistics, history of Indology and reception of India, movement, mountains, post‐colonialism
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Was Berserk a Bear? Marie Novotná
Department of Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University.
Abstract
This paper attempts to show changes in perception of body in the extant Old Norse sources by using theory of conceptual metaphor. Examples will be taken from episodes describing shape‐ shifting and physical effects of emotions. Old Norse literary corpus includes works where an archaic concept of body‐soul complex can be traced, as well as those where the Christian dichotomisation is already clear. As the dating of individual works is due to oral and aural phasis as well as due to the manuscript transmission process almost impossible, this axis cannot be identified with a time axis, but has to be understood as monism‐dualism axis. It has been shown in the Old English literature, that the hydraulic model and cardiocentrism survived long time after the arrival of Augustinian ideology and the same can be probably seen in the Old Norse sources.
In terms of cognitive linguistics, this process of distinguishing between the inanimate body and immaterial soul can be described as transfer from the conceptual metaphors to the literary ones, as so called metaphorization. Thus, in some texts, where the physical and mental level was still connected, respective metaphors were understood as conceptual: BODILY TEMPERATURE IS EMOTION, MIND (EMOTION, KNOWLEGDE) IS FLUID, EYE PAIN IS QUILT or BERSERK IS BEAR.
In texts on the other end of our axis, those metaphors are just a literary ornament. Somatic change is then understood as a result or a symbol of an emotion and changing of shape (hamr) becomes a comparison. Thus paleness is not the same as fear, but its consequence, love warms up only symbolically and berserk is strong as a bear.
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About the researcher
Marie has studied at the Charles University biology (MA in zoology) because of fascination of how something new can come into being, both in course of ontogenesis and in evolution.
At the same time, she studied Norwegian philology and literature in Prague and Icelandic language on Iceland, being interested in the Middle Ages. She connected those independent interests in her dissertation about the concept of the body in the Old Norse literature, written at the Department of Philosophy and History of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. She teaches Old Norse literature, language as well as translation theory and praxis.
Research interests history of ideas or concepts, now mainly soul‐body connection: shapeshifting and psychosomatic phenomena in the Old Norse literature, genre question, Jómsvíkingasaga, translatology.
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Sexual Metaphors Conveying the Essence of Old Norse Mythology? Eldar Heide
Associate professor of Norwegian, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.
Abstract
During the latest decades, several leading experts of Old Norse mythology have pointed out how the gods pay a very high price for the creation of their cosmos. Meulengracht Sørensen (1977) and Steinsland (1991 [1989]) point out that new, powerful breeds, like ancestral kings, are created by the sexual amalgamation of gods and giants and therefore contain tremendous tensions that often lead to a tragic fate. Mundal (2001) emphasized that the gods give away invaluable objects or properties to the giants in order to build their society:
• Heimdallr pawns his hearing • Óðinn trades his eye for knowledge • Týr sacrifices his right hand to have the monster wolf Fenrir bound. • Freyr sacrifices his sword to get the giantess Gerðr
These losses give short‐term gains but weaken the gods and lead to their eventual downfall. For example, because Freyr lost his sword, he has to fight his opponent with an antler in the Ragnarǫk battle against the giants, in which the gods are defeated, and the world ends. Based on this research, on may argue (probably without much opposition today) that ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch’ is the essential idea in Old Norse mythology.
The founding and development of the gods’ society requires the exploitation of the giants and other beings, and therefore a reconciliation of the fundamental opposites – although this eventually leads to disaster. At the same time, the mythology fundamentally understands the gods as male and the giants as female, and the interaction between these groups is often understood in a sexual way (perhaps clearest pointed out by Clunies Ross 1994). Examples of this are the myths mentioned by Mundal.
Blinding is in Old Norse ideology understood as symbolic castration, so when Óðinn trades his eye, he symbolically castrates himself to get the knowledge that he wants from the giants. When Týr sacrifices his right hand, he cannot use his sword, Old Norse sverð, which also means ‘penis’. So, he, too, symbolically castrates himself in his interaction with the powers of chaos. The same applies to Freyr.
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In this paper, I will elaborate on these ideas by discussing the prose text Vǫlsa þáttr and the Eddic poem Fjǫlsvinnsmál. I will argue that these texts to a large degree overlap in structure and content, and that the latter presents the fate of the world tree, which is the centre of the mythology, in the sexual metaphors outlined above.
About the researcher
I have a PhD in Old Norse studies from the University of Bergen. Topics on which I have published research include Eddic poetry, Old Scandinavian religion, sagas of Icelanders, visionary literature, Scandinavian dialects, language history, loanwords, contact linguistics past and present, etymology, terminology, the maritime aspects of the Old Norse texts, onomastics, and Norwegian as a second language.
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Body and Corporeality in the Slavic Narratives about the Creation of Man Jiří Dynda
Researcher at the Department of Palaeoslavistic and Byzantine Studies of the Institute of Slavonic Studies of Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague (Slovanský ústav AV ČR, v. v. i.).; a PhD student of the History of Religions at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague.
Abstract
The paper analyses four narratives attested in chronicles, religious treatises and folk legends that it considers to be possible remnants of Slavic anthropogony myth that has partially survived after the Christianization of Slavs. These fragments of myths about the origins of humanity, the creation of man or the origin of his soul are built on the pervasive principle of synecdoche and metonymy. A man is created by means of a merging of Earth or dirt either with a particle of God (synecdoche principle), or with some object that has been in contact with God (metonymy principle). Earth thus works as a symbolic mediator between body material coming from God and between the human body coming from the Earth itself.
In the talk I would like to re‐evaluate the meaning of these semiotic principles with a special focus laid on the role of human body and corporeality and its connection to the material of Earth and the body of deities. Also, the semantic background of archaic Slavic culture, of the Biblical apocrypha horizon and of medieval Orthodox popular culture will be considered, as well as many common traits with the other Indo‐European anthropogony traditions that can be positively identified in the myth fragments analysed.
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About the researcher
Jiří Dynda is a historian of religions and a slavist. He specializes in archaic Slavic religion and that is why he tried to learn Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Church Slavonic and Old Norse, even though with mixed result in some of these.
General interest in archaic cultures and mythologies brought him to study the religious studies, but also to dabble in comparative linguistics, philology, archaeology, ethnography and folkloristics. He tries to anchor his works theoretically and methodologically mostly in line with some recent trends he deems inspirational, be it in religious studies (comparative mythology, symmetrical approach...), or in social anthropology (structural, linguistic and symbolic anthropology...).
Among his publications the most noteworthy are the two recent monographs: a structural and comparative analysis of Russian epic folklore Svjatogor: Smrt a iniciace staroruského bohatýra (Svyatogor: Death and Initiation of the Russian Epic Hero) from 2016, and a bilingual edition of primary sources for Slavic religion with his own translations and commentary Slovanské pohanství ve středověkých latinských pramenech (Slavic Paganism in Medieval latin Sources) from 2017. In late 2019 his third monograph on Medieval Russian homiletics will be published (Slovanské pohanství a středověká ruská kázání).
Keywords/interests the Christianization of the Slavic people, problem of Pagan‐Christian syncretism in the medieval popular culture, Slavic languages and lexicography, Old Church Slavonic literature, Slavic folklore tradition, comparative religion, methodology of structural analysis of narrative.
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Imaging Bodies in Ancient Greek Culture Jørgen Bakke
Art History Section, Dept. of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen Norway and The Norwegian Institute at Athens.
Abstract
The first part of the talk will focus on the ancient Greek historical epistemology of metaphor and myth and the second on the production of images of the body in ancient Greece. On the ancient Greek cultural horizon the metaphor is one of the most basic tools of human language and culture. In Aristotle defines the metaphor as of combinations of similar features in words, meanings, and images. The poet, according to Aristotle, is someone who is particularly clever in making (poieîn) such combinations. For Aristotle, and indeed for most pre‐Socratics, and many post‐Socratic thinkers as well, myth (mûthos) is closely connected with metaphorical combinatorics, because the material for the most sophisticated cultural metaporics, tragedy, are stories (mûthoi).
Already 18th and 19th century thinkers such as Winckelmann and Hegel pointed out that images of the body, especially sculptures, and especially of the athletic, young male body, was the ultimate expression of ancient Greek culture. In the talk I will address examples of images of the body in ancient Greece as material metaphors of culture. Contrary to the art historical tradition that since Winckelmann has regarded the visual portrait of the athletic, young male body in ancient Greece as an expression of the free spirit of Athenian democracy, I aim to demonstrate how these images can be viewed in the context of the Aristotelian poetics of the metaphor. Classical Greek sculptures can thus be regarded as heuristic combinations of narrative elements (muthoi) from regional visual traditions that go all the way back to the late Neolithic.
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About the researcher
Jørgen studied Art History, Ancient Greek Philology, and Comparative Religion at The University of Bergen, Medieval Studies at The Norwegian Institute in Rome, and Classical Archaeology at The Norwegian Institute at Athens.
He has also taken introductory courses in Ancient Hebrew, and Japanese at The University of Bergen, and basic Economic subjects (Mathematics, Statistics, and Business Administration) at The Norwegian School of Economics.
Jørgen has mainly worked with Greek cultural history and landscape history from the Bronze Age to the early modern period, and his approach has always been multi‐disciplinary. He has worked with ancient and medieval Greek literature as well as visual and material culture. Since the mid‐1990’s he has been involved with archaeological field projects in Greece. His theoretical approach has always been much inspired by the French tradition in the history of knowledge (G. Bachelard, M. Foucault, and M. Serres) and rhetorical theory. More recently he has also worked with agency theory. Jørgen has also worked with the historiography of art history, early modern history painting, and contemporary Norwegian landscape painting.
Research interests
Greek cultural history and archaeology, ancient Greek oral culture, rhetorical theory and practice, cultural optics, Greek science, cultural memory, history of sexuality, landscape archaeology, garden history, landscape painting, and history painting.
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Resounding Bodies Evelyne Koubková
PhD student in Assyriology, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University
Abstract
Musical instruments are often conceptualized as bodies in many cultures including the modern Western one, but the nature and specificity of the metaphoric body varies from a generic one to a more concrete human or animal body. This can be expressed by verbal reference to the instrument´s body parts as well as visually, by adding bodily features such as hands and faces and changing the instrument´s shape.
Ancient Mesopotamia offers evidence for associating instruments with bovines (bulls and cows). This can be connected to their sacred nature as these instruments were used in rituals to sing prayers to deities and were occasionally deified themselves. Animal imagery related to bovines was closely associated with Mesopotamian deities who were depicted with bovine horns and often described as bulls and cows in a variety of contexts, thus emphasizing their might, vigour, beauty and other qualities. Indeed, the use of the ubiquitous bovine metaphor for deities seems to be very versatile and persistent throughout the three millenia of Mesopotamian culture.
This firm association has had a puzzling consequence on the imagery of bovine body being associated with such diverse musical instruments as lyres and drums. Whereas the idea of bovine body producing sacred sound remains, its realization completely changes. Mesopotamian lyres are best known from the Royal tombs of Ur from the 3rd millenium BCE. They have a bull´s head attached as a decorative element to their resounding body which is conceived as the body of a reclining bull. If our reconstruction of the long history of Mesopotamian cult is correct, the genre of prayers originally sung with the accompaniment of a lyre was later performed with a different instrument, a kettledrum. Whereas the sound of a lyre was likened to the bellowing bull, the kettledrum acquired the same bovine association by different means: by being covered with a bull´s hide and by burning the bull´s heart with aromatics in front of the new instrument, thus creating a powerful material as well as metaphysical connection. As a comparandum, a third example of a sacred musical instrument associated with a cow is drawn from ancient Egypt: sistrum, a rattle used in the cult of the bovine deity Hathor, is supposed to emit sound resembling a cow´s movement through the high grass of the delta. Thus we can explore three cases of metaphorical transfer between bulls, deities and musical instruments which proceed along completely different lines.
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About the researcher
Evelyne Koubková is a PhD student in Assyriology at the Yale University, focusing on ancient Mesopotamia, especially its religion and rituals. Before specializing in this ancient Near Eastern culture, I enjoyed exploring a range of religions and cultures in the program of Religious studies at the Charles University in Prague. I hope not to ever abandon this broad comparative and methodologically reflective basis of my thinking.
I am interested in ways we can speak about rituals we will never experience and in the methodological conundrum between text and performance and/or experience. Lately, one of the promising avenues for me has been the focus on sensory experience. Working in museum collections contributed also to my interest in materiality; materiality of divine representations such as cult statues as well as materiality of texts seen as material objects. The ways in which a variety of sensory experience is engaged to mediate divine presence and to communicate with the divine is currently at the centre of my attention, enriching my previous focus on ritual structure and syntax. A variety of my more specific research interests include the notion of cultic purity, non‐anthropomorphic divine representations, use of musical instruments in rituals, and ritual space.
Keywords (interests)
Ancient Mesopotamia, Ritual theory, Ritual syntax, Religion in the Ancient world, Sensory experience, Ritual space, Performance studies, Materiality, Museum studies
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The Wor(l)d is an Image: Bodily Metaphors and Graphic Puns in Ancient Egypt Martin Pehal
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague.
Abstract
In my presentation I will proceed in two steps. Following Orly Goldwasser and others, I will first argue that—given the pictorial character of ancient Egyptian script—metaphor in its multifaceted form is the basic principle of the ancient Egyptian symbolical system with far‐ reaching ontological ramifications. I will try to shed light on the conceptual aspect of ancient Egyptian metaphor by describing the intricate system of the so‐called “classifiers” – “mute” icons (because not pronounced) which provide us with crucial information about the ancient Egyptian categorization system.
In the second part, I will illustrate the metaphorical aspect of ancient Egyptian thinking/writing by way of a case study on the usage of bodily fluids (semen, menstrual blood, breast milk, and the so‐called redju fluids of Osiris/the deceased) in religious texts as metaphorical means of expressing the process of dying and rebirth. Bodily fluids are ideal because they are ambivalent: they may be simultaneously thought of as polluting and beneficial, which makes them a unique tool in our attempt to understand the ancient Egyptian classification system. By analysing the transgressive moments from the textual sources available to us, we may map the web of symbolical associations, create a “semiotic map” related to a segment of the symbolical system. And because systems tend to replicate their structures and project them to include the whole of creation (“the sky is the limit”), understanding the web of symbolical associations on one microcosmic level has the potential to provide understanding of other, often larger semiotic clusters as well.
I will then contextualize the findings arrived at in relation to the ancient Egyptian bodily fluids semiotic complex within the framework of higher‐order anthropological theories structuring the death‐rebirth experience cross‐culturally.
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About the researcher
Martin Pehal combines research on ancient mythological texts and ritual performance with studies of contemporary rituals and ritually borderline phenomena (such as public festivities). Insights provided by the study of the ancient Egyptian symbolical system enable Martin to recognize underlying patterns of symbolical behaviour in aspects of contemporary culture which might not be deemed religious but which, in many aspects, share similar dynamics.
Martin’s latest teaching activities therefore focus on transcultural comparative analyses of basic transition rituals (funerals, weddings) and their transformation under the changing socio‐ cultural circumstances of modern society.
Research Interests
Ancient Egyptian mythology, narratives, rituals; anthropology of religion; semiotics; symbolical systems; structuralism; pensée sauvage in ancient and modern societies; public festivities.
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Metaphors of the Labyrinth in Philosophy Rasmus T. Slaattelid
Professor in Philosophy of science. Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen.
Abstract
Labyrinthic structures and representations of them are known to have existed for at least 4500 years. The first mention of a labyrinth in written sources was found in linear B on a small Mycenaean clay tablet and is dated to ca. 1400 BCE. The earliest known example of a petroglyph or graffiti of a labyrinth, has been found in the main room of an underground chamber tomb in Sardinia, dated to 2000‐2500 BCE. (Kern, 2000) Whereas ancient graphic displays of labyrinths as well as descriptions of dance patterns are variations of the so‐called Cretan unidirectional labyrinth, most literary descriptions of labyrinths seem to refer to pluridirectional mazes.
The difference is interesting from a philosophical point of view, since a Cretan type labyrinth consists of a long and winding path that leads the subject from the entrance through to the center of the structure, and then winds all the way back to the exit/entrance, while the maze has no obvious path and confronts the subject with multiple forks at junctures which can lead to dead ends, further into the labyrinth, or to the exit. When philosophers speak about labyrinths, in most cases they seem to refer to mazes and not to Cretan labyrinths, although there are exceptions.
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About the researcher
Started out as a musician, transposed into languages and literature, then to philosophy, and got stuck.
Research interests
Modeling and visualization of scientific and other knowledge. Science policy, philosophy of the humanities.
Reading
"[…] the illiterate bulk of mankind that walk the high‐road of plain, common sense, and are governed by the dictates of Nature, [are] for the most part easy and undisturbed. […] But no sooner do we depart from sense and instinct to follow the light of a superior principle, to reason, meditate, and reflect on the nature of things, but a thousand scruples spring up in our minds, […]. Prejudices and errors of sense do from all parts discover themselves to our view; and endeavouring to correct these by reason we are insensibly drawn into uncouth paradoxes, difficulties, and inconsistences, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in speculation; till at length, having wander'd through many intricate mazes, we find ourselves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a forlorn skepticism."
George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (1685–1753) Principles of Human Knowledge (1734)
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The Role of Metaphor and Metonymy in Psychiatric Nomenclature and Discourse Helga Mannsåker
Associate Professor in Nordic languages, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway
Abstract
The topic of the talk is the ubiquity of metaphor and metonymy in psychiatric nomenclature and discourse. Psychiatry is a research field where the research “objects” (i.e. mental disorders) are not directly observable or objectively measureable, the classification of the disorders are constantly debated and changed, and the etiology (cause) and pathogenesis (manner of development) of most mental disorders are still more or less unknown. According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory abstract and subjective phenomena are typical target domains which are understood with the help of more concrete and well‐known source domains, and research has shown that patients and lay people as well as psychiatrists use a variety of metaphors when discussing mental disorders.
In the talk central source domains for mental states and psychiatric disorders will be presented, such as the human body, objects, location, motion and forces. The role of metonymy in medical nomenclature and discourse will also be discussed. Several of the metaphors used in psychiatric discourse seem to have metonymic bases, or, to put it in another way: the metaphors appear to be motivated by correlations in experience rather than perceived structural similarity between the source and target domain. The names of disorders are themselves often metonymic (as well as metaphoric), as they are motivated by a directly observable feature of the disorder rather than the disorder itself.
Possible question for the discussion:
In what ways is deviant behaviour interpreted and described in different cultures?
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About the researcher
Helga studied Nordic languages at the University of Bergen. She is also a registered nurse. Based on theories from cognitive linguistics, pragmatics and critical discourse analysis she has examined discourse regarding psychiatric disorders and the origins and uses of psychiatric expert terms. Some of the core questions of her research are metaphoric vitality (i.e. When does a metaphor cease to be a metaphor?), lay people’s use of psychiatric expert terms, discourse regarding sensitive topics and the role of language in stigmatization.
Research interests conceptual metaphor; conceptual metonymy; blending theory; etymology; expert language; psychiatry; determinologization of psychiatric terms; critical metaphor analysis; critical metonymy analysis; relevance theory; word formation.
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The Eyes of Justice: Morality and Body Metaphors in English Legal Texts Helen Leslie
Researcher in Medieval Philology/BFS Starting Grant Holder
Abstract
In iconography, Justice is often represented as female and blind. Metaphor is used extensively in legal discourse and impacts the ways in which legal texts are understood and decoded, if we accept that language determines how we see reality. This paper will concentrate on personifying metaphors containing parts of the body, although personifying legal metaphors may also contain reference to bodily functions (e.g. the law suffering an amendment), moral values (e.g. the law punishes a violation), or human actions (e.g. a provision conferring power). In English legal discourse, the law and and various legal entities are portrayed as being or as possessing body parts similar to those of the human body.
It is often suggested that metaphor reflects and affects our thought processes concerning the subject we are describing. Personifying metaphors containing body parts rein in the abstractness of the concept of law as a whole. Law becomes a figure in its own right, represented for example by Lady Justice (or Iustitia in Ancient Roman art), an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Personifying legal metaphors centre the human body as the moral force (or as holding the key to morality) in society and in legal discourse.
The first part of the paper builds a corpus of personifying body metaphors in English legal discourse, and traces their provenance, use and application where possible. In the second part of the paper, the pervasiveness and centrality of personifying body metaphors to constructions and expressions of morality in legal discourse will be analyzed.
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About the researcher
Helen F. Leslie‐Jacobsen works as an Old Norse Philologist at LLE at the University of Bergen, leading the project “Transformations of Medieval Law: Innovation and Application in Early Modern Norwegian Law Books” (2018‐2022), funded by Bergen Research Foundation and the University of Bergen.
Between 2003 and 2013, Helen studied English Literature at the University of Durham, Medieval Icelandic Studies at the University of Iceland, and completed a PhD at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen. In addition, she has taken courses in many facets of medieval studies and in various languages (both dead and alive).
The study of narrative has always been a red thread running through her work. She has has worked on a wide range of medieval literature in Old English, Middle English and Old Norse, medieval reference texts, translation and modern legal discourse. This interest has most often been pursued in combination with manuscript studies and book history.
Research interests
Research areas include Old Norse mythology (with a special interest in sacred groves), Old Norse poetry (with a special interest in prosimetric texts), manuscripts (with a special interest in compilation, registers and layout), and her current focus, medieval law (with special interests in translation and Old Norwegian/Icelandic/Faroese law).
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Place for your notes and doodles
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