درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Trends that have emerged in the epistemological field (of divine and non-divine origin) have commonalities due to the focus on the spiritual dimension of human existence, like the eye of the heart in Islamic Sufism that has similarities with the third eye on Yoga. The most important similarities are the effect of Zikr in the opening of the eye of the heart and the third eye, the need to get Zikr from Sheikh/Guru, solitude, the necessity of observing certain conditions before and during Zikr, steps of Zikr, and the manifestation of the unseen after the opening of the eye of the heart and the third eye. However, there are some differences, too. In Yoga, the physical location of the third eye is determined in the body, but in Islamic Sufism, the eye of the heart is a non-physical concept. In Islamic Sufism, the extent of manifestation of truths that one sees with the eye of the heart is fully described and symbolized, but in Yoga, a brief description is given.

The present research aims at investigating the social and local relevance of the process of self-authenticity in Zadie Smith’s NW. The novel imagines a complex network of relationships ranging from individual association with occupation to friendships and families, and to participation in local and public oriented interactions, all bring individuals to experience  multiplicity of identifications with others in yet more complex ways.With regard to density and complexity of overlapping social relations this essay  indicates how self-authenticity is a social process determined by confirmation with and from other’s as well as one’s own experiment as means and results of social interactions while, also, acting as a local process operating in practice and in relation to local relevance.The study interrogates to what extent locality acts as a firm framework of reference in construction and maintenance of self-authenticity and identity formation in the current context of increasing global dynamics. It follows the concept of critical cosmopolitanism that assumes individual’s capacity for self-reflexivity as integral to formation of self-authenticity  and necessitates the emergence of a cosmopolitan consciousness that views self-authenticity as dependent on situationally-relevant conditions of time and place rather than on pre-give social patterns viewed as  absolute entities of specific authority and autonomy.

Over the past few decades, African American feminist writers have tried to highlight black women’s double marginalization in the United States and show how they are subalternized by both racist white society and sexist black community. The African American woman is traditionally confined to the domestic roles of a devoted wife and mother, thus required by the totalitarian patriarchal discourse to sacrifice her subjectivity for her husband and children. In her novel Meridian (1976), Alice Walker analyzes the marginality of women in the black community, noting how even a revolutionary movement like the Black Power embraced misogynist norms and demoted women to the status of the so-called second sex. Despite all obstacles, Walker’s eponymous character, initially battered down by the weight of demeaning stereotypes, finally manages to save her selfhood by transcending the restrictive gender and racial demarcations and fashion a new independent identity. This paper tries to demonstrate how Meridian uses his marginal hybridity as a black woman to form emancipatory ties with other subalternized cultures, most notably that of Native Americans, borrow their discursive practices and ultimately disentangle herself from the fixating shackles of racism and sexism.