Profane

For thousands of years, men have struggled to establish their supremacy. At first, they used spirits to secure for themselves a function in a natural world that seemed to have taken sides with the feminine. Eventually, they created an all-mighty divinity, and established their status as second to none other than that highest of all authority.

Sailing through history, we show that the way procreation was perceived has determined how men and women positioned themselves in the universe. It has wielded consequences that have deeply affected our evolution, from the primal vision of an all-encompassing natural world in which Mother Nature represented the source of all life, to the subjection of nature and woman, with God the Father sitting at the summit of the creation.

This emphasis on gender and nature brings into perspective the current social and economic resurgence of women and the new attitude towards environment that needs to be protected from our own deeds. These intricate leitmotifs make us witness a turning point in our history.

The author presents a general review of the cycles of mural paintings at Castel Roncolo, just north of Bolzano. Bearing in mind new biographical studies on the Vintler family (to whom the commission of these paintings is usually attributed, around 1400) and the recent rediscovery of some late mediaeval secular paintings in Northern Italy, Switzerland and Austria, it is now possible to suggest a new chronology for the extensive figurative programme at Castel Roncolo. The dates proposed here prompt a reconsideration of the exclusive role played by the Vintlers as patrons of this decorative cycle, and pose new questions regarding the reception and spread of the technique of terra verde painting in the Tyrol.

For a long time, little attention has been paid to the project of Politics, on which
Benjamin worked in the early Twenties. In addition to the unfinished and fragmentary state in which the latter has reached us today, this trend would have been
aggravated by the spread of an obsolete reading that identifies the project as a youth
work steeped in anarchism and spiritualism, negligible after all,compared to the
production following the Marxist and Leninist «turning point» of ‘24 and the consequent abjuration of the anarchist and idealist orientation. Against the paradigm
of «rupture», it emerges a certain coherence of Benjamin’s reflection on True Politician, whose distinctive traits are an undeniable anarchist matrix, a peculiar messianic
nihilism and an increasingly marked materialist approach: a thought, whose origin
coincides precisely with Politik, a point of convergence of his philosophical, political,
theological and aesthetic interests.

W laicyzującej się Europie coraz więcej kościołów traci swój sakralny charakter. Adaptowane są do celów świeckich, wzbudzając często swoim nowym przeznaczeniem oburzenie społeczne a nawet protesty i manifestacje. Przekazywanie świątyń na cele świeckie pozostaje niezrozumiałe szczególnie dla ludzi starszych, którzy zazwyczaj nie zdają sobie sprawy, że procedura ta jest bardzo stara i praktykowana była przez Kościół przez wieki przede wszystkim w odniesieniu do budowli, które uległy ruinie, zostały zalane przez powódź, spalone lub po prostu opuszczone przez wiernych.
Artykuł niniejszy wskazując na konkretne przykłady świątyń przekazanych na różnego rodzaju cele świeckie próbuje odnaleźć najwłaściwsze laickie przeznaczenie dla budynków sakralnych, które nie naruszałoby porządku sfery sacrum, pozwalając jednocześnie dawnym kościołom na funkcjonowanie nie wywołujące emocjonalnych reakcji sprzeciwu wśród wiernych. Według autorki kluczową kwestią powodującą w takiej sytuacji u wielu osób poczucie swoistej profanacji, a co za tym idzie sprzeciwu, jest często brak zrozumienia rytuału dekonsekracji oraz brak informacji, co do rzeczywistej przyczyny przekazania danej świątyni na cele świeckie.
Granicę pomiędzy dwoma strefami – sacrum i profanum – wytycza cienka linia, która niekiedy się rozmywa. Dopóki jednak osoby odpowiedzialne za desakralizację kościołów będą dbały o dopełnianie odpowiednich rytuałów, dopóty nie jest groźna utrata wartości i godności oraz pomieszanie pojęć prowadzące do destrukcji relacji społecznych.
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The deconsecration of churches: a sacred or profane ritual?
More and more church buildings are losing their sacred character in the secular-minded Europe of today. They are adapted for secular purposes and often their new fate provokes social indignation or even protests and manifestations. It is usually older people who find it hard to understand the surrender of church buildings for secular purposes. Quite often, they are unaware of the fact that this procedure is very old and was practiced by the Church through the ages, especially in respect of buildings, which fell into ruin, were submerged by flooding, burnt down or simply abandoned by the faithful.
By indicating certain definite instances of church buildings handed over for secular use, this paper attempts to find a secular use of sacred buildings, which would be most proper for them: one which would not infringe on the order of the sacred sphere and which would permit the former churches to function without arousing emotional reactions of opposition on the part of the faithful.
In the author’s opinion, the key-issue responsible for the awakening in many people of a feeling of profanation (as well as of their opposition), is a lack of understanding of the ritual of deconsecration and a lack of information regarding the actual reason for the decision of surrendering a particular church building for secular purposes.
The dividing line between the sacred and the profane is not all that distinct and quite often ceases to be visible. However, as long as those responsible for the deconsecration of churches show care and act responsibly when carrying out the appropriate rites, the loss of values and dignity will not be at stake and misunderstandings regarding concepts will not jeopardize social relations.

O presente artigo analisa o mito de Narciso sob a perspectiva do deslocamento espacial das personagens e de como este pode ser visto como um ritual iniciático.
The current article analyses Narcissus’s myth from the perspective of the characters space displacement and the way it can be seen as an initial ritual

Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for,and found, evidence of technological products being portrayed as sacred,as pure and elevated above mundane human concerns. This tradition of cultural analysis of technology has followed Durkheim’s lead (Durkheim,Emile 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Free Press,New York) in emphasizing the sacred while eliding its opposite,the profane. In this paper I contend that symbols of the profane continue to be powerful cultural elements that animate and order modern discourses and moral worlds,and that scholarly understanding of the culture of high technology can be enriched through analysis of profane symbols. I demonstrate this through metaphoric content analysis of the jargon of American high technology industry from the 1960s through the late 1990s,and show that (1) profane metaphors are widespread in high technology jargon as compared to the jargons of other occupations; (2) profane metaphors in high tech jargon have increased over the last three decades with the growth of high tech industry; and (3) these profane metaphors are thematically ordered,such that they tend to signify threats to technological progress,while technology itself is signified through morally benign metaphors. I argue that these metaphors have proliferated in high technology industry,and much less so in other occupations,because they buttress a moral worldview that makes technological innovations meaningful to their creators. For cultural analysis,these findings point to the value of examining metaphors sociologically, and of examining the social use of profane symbols in modern discourses in which the experience of the sacred is ambiguous or individualized.

The study focuses on sheet music and music inventory of the Nitra Diocesan Archive at the turn of the 18th and 19th century. The fieldwork research has shown that the music stock in this institution located at the Nitra's Castle is in such a condition which enables the reconstruction of music repertoire of the given period. The study deals with the description, analysis and the importance of the inventory list of sheet music Inventarium Musicalium Chori Cathedralis Ecclesiae Nitriensis secundum numerum Tomum conscriptum Anno 1814 which is one of the largest catalogues of compositions from classicism, comparing it with the preserved profane music material as well as opening the possibilities for further exploration. The preserved sheet music and inventory at this institution have been processed and catalogued.

Özlem DERİN  ÖZ Georges Bataille'ın kullandığı genel ekonomi kavramının ele alınacağı metin kutsal ve profan alanları ayıran ekonomi bağlarını incelemektedir. Kısıtlı ekonomi karşısında genel ekonomiyi savunun Bataille aşırılıklara yönelmekte ve bu ihlal durumunu doğurmaktadır. İhlal ile yasa ilişkisi incelenirken, Derridacı yapıbozumla karşılaştırmalı bir okuma yapılacaktır. Bu noktada yapıbozum ve différance kavramlarının, genel ekonomi, egemenlik ve kurban ile olan ilişkisi üzerinde durulacaktır.

ABSTRACT The text, in which Georges Bataille's general economy concept will be analyzed; shows economic ties that divide profane and sacred. Bataille takes the general economy in front of the limited one, tends to excess and this rises the transgression. Transgression depends on the daily processes excess and, it becomes the excess of the law for Bataille. In the text, when the relations are going to be analyzed between transgression and law, the reference point will be Derridan deconstruction. At this point, the matter will be the relation of the deconstruction and différance concepts with sovereignty and sacrifice.

he problem of the study of “sacral” and “profane” in the discourse of the philosophy of culture has repeatedly
been raised in numerous works of foreign and domestic authors. The fundamental development of the concepts of
“sacral” and “profane” opens up grand-scale opportunities for the study of various forms of culture through the prism of
the theory of “sacral”. The oldest collective form of culture that is extant to this day is the festivity, at the base of which
there are “sacral” / “sacred” values and the truths of a particular society, no matter what type and era it belongs to.
Modern socio-philosophical and cultural problems that arose at the beginning of the 20th century led to the emergence of
value disorientation of several generations of people, which, in turn, has been leading modern society to even larger
problems in all areas and directions of modern civilization. The major purpose of the study is to analyze and determine
the interest and relevance to the study of the holiday as a mirror of the era, reflecting the images of the sacral and the
profane in the culture of the people, their real aspirations, ideals, values and their consequences.