Miscelánea Comillas. Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales
Miscelánea Comillas es una revista semestral de investigación e información en ciencias sociales: humanidades, psicología, educación, sociología y trabajo social. La revista consta en los siguientes índices y bases de datos nacionales e internacionales: PERIODICAL INDEX ONLINE (ProQuest) Base de datos de citas de artículos que se han publicado en las Artes, Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. ATLA Religión Database. INTERNATIONALE BIBLIOGRAPHIE DER GEISTES IBZ. Base de datos de publicaciones periódicas de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. MLA (Modern Language Association database). InDICEs CSIC, Base de datos bibliográfica de la producción científica publicada en España. DIALNET (Repositorio). LATINDEX, sistema de información para revistas científicas de América Latina, España, el Caribe y Portugal. ULRICH'S (ProQuest). MIAR (Sistema de medición cuantitativa de la visibilidad de las publicaciones periódicas en Ciencias Sociales: índice de difusión ICDS de MISCELÁNEA COMILLAS: 6.5). REDIB, Red Iberoamericana de Innovación y Conocimiento Científico. DOAJ, Directory of Open Access Journals.
Universidad Pontificia Comillas ICAI ICADE
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M. Castro Pereiro (2021). Despertarás mañana
Nurya Martínez-Gayol Fernández (ed.) (2022). Reconciliación transdisciplinar
R. Rodríguez Andrés (2021). La persuasión política
Cultura vocacional. La universidad jesuita como humus para buscar y hallar sentido existencial
We critically present Richard Rorty’s utopia of a society built on the axes of irony, contingency and solidarity, in which language and literature play a fundamental role. It is pointed out how a dialogue with Vattimo leads Rorty to discover that in Christianity charity can replace contingency.
María Zambrano and Humanistic Knowledge that Must Always Accompany Philosophy
One of the fundamental tasks that true philosophy has to face in order to recover its own space among human knowledge is to rescue both reality and human life from the rigid conceptual structures proposed by a certain way of doing philosophy, rationalism/idealism, which always, for that reason, ended up being moral rigidity. This was the task that Ortega y Gasset set himself under the slogan: The theme of our time. And it is the task that, with her new understanding of reason, poetic reason, María Zambrano wants to continue. Because when philosophy does not take charge of human life, human life abandons philosophy and thus loses one of the most fundamental possibilities of giving meaning to its life.
The Poetic Philosophy of Miguel de Unamuno
In spite of his dislike of labels and classifications, Unamuno described his philosophy as poetic. In this article, collecting references not only from Tragic Sense of Life but also from various writings scattered in different volumes of his complete works, we reflect on the most relevant characteristics of his link between philosophy and poetry in substance and form. Likewise, the article analyzes the ethics resulting from Unamuno’s tragic feeling about life.
Reflections on Metaphor from the Aristotelian Point of View
Aristotle in his work makes ample use of metaphors, applied to different fields of knowledge, giving proof of his epistemological capacity of synthesizing the discursive and intuitive dimensions of reason. However, when he deals with metaphor from the point of view of the theory of science, in particular his propaedeutic method, dialectics, he disqualifies it and considers metaphor incapable of providing knowledge, since it depends on whether objects present more abstraction or separation, and therefore demand more precision in definitions and demonstrations.
This article aims to show where the opposition of the Platonic Socrates against sophistry lies and demonstrate in passing how medieval thought endorses the Socratic position, developing thoughts of extraordinary richness around humility, trust, hope and love.
«The Master Taught [with] Literature». The Literary Dimension of Wisdom in Classical Confucian Texts
The present paper argues that the model of wisdom presented in two of the most prominent texts of Classical Confucianism, the Analects and the Mencius, stems from an eminently literary experience. The open and dynamic features of text and work, as opposed to the completeness and artificiality of concept and system, are the necessary rationale underpinning an ethical and aesthetical ideal that, taking individual experience as a basis, triggers a rich and complex process of collective acknowledgement. This is consistent with the inconclusive nature of the philosophical idea of the Way [道, dào].
Stefan Zweig’s short story, The Invisible Collection, presents a novel cultivation of ekphrasis that transcends the traditional division between critical and literary ekphrasis. On the one hand, it will be the emotion derived from the contemplation of beauty that articulates the descriptive process and, on the other, it will be the non-existence of the art object that transcends any distanced or rational perception of the aesthetic experience.
Kafka’s writing: wounded, enigmatic, dreamlike. An ominous, day-today, heartbreaking cultural game. This essay interprets (entering the inexhaustible circle of Kafkaesque readings) the refractory character of Kafka’s work: failure, violence, fragility. Behind his bitter lucidity, his words are prayers for those who, like himself, hope against all hope, moving between the worlds of the anodyne and the uncommon. His works are woven in critical words, for those who find themselves existentially exiled: vanished, guilty, disembodied. As well as for those who seek, despite the dangers involved, to trust (even in the minimum expression of the term): in their transformations, humiliations and depressions.
Bicycled Chivalry: Heroism in «Stranger Things»
The series Stranger Things, by the Duffer brothers (2016-...), does not clearly include the figure of the knight-errant, but the characteristic features of chivalry do appear, as a manifestation of the hero’s journey. In addition, the series also epitomizes elements of the genre such as the fight against terror, the heroic quest and the supernatural lady. The young protagonists become kinds of knights on bicycles, helped by other youngsters and adults. This reception of the hero and the knight in an audiovisual product of popular culture such as Stranger Things shows the continuity of these myths nowadays.
The article aims to offer an approach to the theme of religiosity in Mozart’s music. Through some famous examples, it will try to demonstrate how all Mozart’s works can be considered an expression of a religiosity understood as an attempt to capture and express, consciously or unconsciously, a metaphysical reality.
Carmelite Welfare Work in Times of Pandemics
This article provides a reflexion on the uncertainty and vulnerability of the human condition and how they escalated due to the recent pandemic. It is accompanied by a historical overview of the work and assistance provided by the Carmelites to meet the needs resulting from the ravages of the disease.
The question of content in art is explored with regard to its aesthetic meaning, outlining the idea of artistic creation as a celebration. Applying the approaches of Merleau-Ponty and Valéry, this research concerns the creation of literary fiction and tests a definition of literature as a narrative and verbal celebration of life. The article closes with a reflection on the relationship between the idea of life and art, as well as the differences of this relationship with philosophy itself, in the light of Krause’s aesthetic thought.
The article takes a tour through some of Isabel Romero´s works about heroic tales in literature and cinema, and what they convey in terms of specific values and existential aspects essential for our personal development. And it reflects on how little present this vision of the human condition is in both academic and professional psychology, as well as how, sadly, these stories are increasingly distant from the way of understanding life in our current society.
Publishing Lines in Basque Literature for Children and Young Adults
This article dives into children’s and young adults’ literature written in Basque and, more specifically, the values that these publications transmit nowadays. First, we will establish a coherent framework, where the term «children’s and young adults’ literature» is defined. Then, we will briefly review the history of the genre and we will analyze its market. Later we will define the concept of «value», in order to point out which values are the ones that publishers of children’s and young adults’ literature in Basque emphasize, to finally conclude with the status quo of the genre, its difficulties and future challenges.
Analysis of Support Services for Families with Neurodegenerative Diseases
This article is a result of the Spain-Portugal cross-border project called Neuroqualifam, whose overall objective is to strengthen cooperation between the institutions responsible for research and care for neurodegenerative diseases in Castilla y León and the North and Centre of Portugal, to improve the quality of family life and optimize support and assistance to family caregivers of patients. Specifically, this study aims to provide social work professionals and those responsible for social services with the necessary knowledge for the design of programmes and resources to increase the well-being and quality of family life of people with neurodegenerative diseases. In the different action plans aimed at people with neurodegenerative diseases, the need to increase the quality of life of the relatives of these patients is highlighted. This research analyses whether the set of services and benefits offered in Castilla y León contribute to improving the quality of life of families, taking into account the Family Quality of Life Model. The scale of Badia et al. (2021) allows us to identify whether the benefits and services of the Public Portfolio of Services cover the domains included in the evaluation scale of the Family Quality of Life Model (FQLM). Based on the selection of benefits for people in a situation of dependency, an ad hoc instrument was developed to evaluate the resources offered according to the Family Quality of Life Model. The evaluation was carried out by an academic expert in the model and a social worker, who is also responsible for the management of social services. It is concluded that the benefits and services offered in the portfolio of regional services, such as support for family autonomy, comprehensive family care, prevention and family support, do not cover all the domains included in the FQLM, in particular with regard to family health. In general, the services offered do not cover the necessary domains that make up the Family Quality of Life Model.
The Troubles of the European Colonization of America within the International Relations of Spain
The aim of this article is to examine the treatment of the conquest of America in Spain’s international relations with the countries of this continent, through the analysis of three relevant crises. For the study of these crises, a model of contrasting cases has been considered ideal to elucidate whether Spain’s former domination of the continent is a key factor that continues to paralyse or polarise relations between Latin American countries and Spain today.
Electoral Political Marketing on Twitter
This study provides a communicative analysis of the Twitter social network of two political parties, Vox and Podemos, during the pre-campaign for the elections of the Community of Madrid in 2021. In the research, data is collected regarding their Twitter profiles, the number of followers, the total number of accounts they follow, the number of publications made during the pre-campaign, the frequency, the type of tweets and the categories to which they belong, the political action proposals reflected and the means used, as well as the interaction with users through retweets, and the number of publications marked as favorites. The study yields several trends shared by both parties: they share pre-existing tweets; video or image is used; publications are informative or express protest, no information is provided about future lines of political action, and interaction between users and accounts is low.
A Spatial Analysis of Psychoanalytic Theory
The following pages propose a spatial approach to psychoanalytic theory. In view of the little or non-existent consideration that Freudian contributions have given to the problematization of space, this article claims that one of the most interesting proposals of psychoanalytic theory is, strictly speaking, spatial. At a time when medicine was working on an anatomical and localized space, Freud outlined a mental and rhetorical one, made up of energetic plots and movements. Through an analytical reading of Freudian psychoanalytic work and an interdisciplinary dialogue with critical geography, the aim is to recover the spatial metaphors used to represent the structure and functioning of mental architecture, wielding the topics’ spacialization, the mental instances, the unconscious, the dream scenario, the repressive activity, and others. In short, it provides an approach to the spatial world of psychoanalysis, in order to understand its fundamental contribution to the geographical imagination and the spatial turn.
Digital Challenge and post-COVID Readjustment of European Tourism
The present article offers a heterodox review of Political Economy, Macroeconomics and Business Management, focussing on the readjustment effect in the tourism sector due to the impact of the digital transition and its aggravation resulting from the COVID-19 crisis and the war in Ukraine. A synthesis of this paradigmatic change with the digital economy and its effects on labor and professional relations is provided, leading to a proposal of a transformation of the economic system and the production process. The author focusses on the tourism sector and its paradoxical situation in the European Union: Despite its growing importance, its recognition and transformation is insufficient. This paradox is intensified in the case of Spain, where more European recovery funds are being allocated, while less execution and more vulnerability for the tourist entrepreneurs and SMEs are detected.
This article aims to reflect on the social context that concerns families and the community of the Uribe municipality in relation to the phenomenon of forced disappearance to which they were exposed by the Colombian armed conflict. The analysis focuses on understanding the stories or narratives of five families who are victims of the forced disappearance of a loved one, which allows us to make sense of what victims want to say through words, silence, actions and immobility. Generalizable results will lead to the understanding of common aspects in the victim families in relation to their lived experience in the midst of violence. Initially, the Colombian armed conflict is addressed globally; next, the authors home in on the particularities of the municipality of Meta and the effects that this dispute over territory and power left there, with forced disappearance being the focus of study and common ground among the families. These sequels are interpreted from the point of view of social and historical trauma since they serve to identify personal events that are collectively perceived as traumatic and negative.
Analysis of Culturally Charged Chinese Words and their Translation: Taking the Chinese Poem «Chang Gan Xing» as an Example
Ancient Chinese poems contain many categories of words that imply cultural connotations, and the mistranslation of these can lead to a misunderstanding of the vocabulary or even the whole poem by readers of the target language. Therefore, we will analyse the categorisation, meaning and translation techniques of these words, taking Chang Gan Xing (Ballad of Chang Gan) as an example, in combination with the versions by Anne-Hélène Suárez and Chen Guojian. Only by combining different techniques will readers be able to experience and appreciate the cultural features of the source language and facilitate cross-cultural communication.
Copyright (c) 2023 Miscelánea Comillas. Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales
The Idea of Freedom in Angela Carter’s «The Lady of the House of Love», from a Perspective of Philosophical Materialism
The idea of freedom in Angela Carter's works has had a feminist interpretation mainly. Without denying this fact, this paper aims to show that the short story The Lady of the House of Love can admit another reading and it does so by discussing two references. The first one is the intertextuality with The Bride of Corinth by Goethe and the second one is philosophical materialism. Based on both texts, it will be proved that the idea of freedom has a wider sense.
Fernando Vidal Fernández (2022). Educar con Julio Verne
Copyright (c) 2022 Miscelánea Comillas. Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales
María Luisa Pro Velasco (2021). Introducción a la ética de Robert Spaemann
Philosophical aspects of music in ancient Greece
This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of music in classical Greek philosophy. Music was considered an indispensable instrument for achieving peaceful coexistence in the polis due to its function of regulating the emotions of citizens and generating ethical values. This view emerges from the principles established by Pythagoras in the Music of the Spheres, which establish the harmonious relationship between mathematics and music and exert a profound influence on the thought of Plato and Aristotle regarding the power of music to make the citizen a virtuous being. In conclusion, a parallel is drawn between these conceptions and the latest neuroscientific discoveries about the importance of emotion in ethics.