In 2014, Richard Powers published Orfeo. Literally, a road novel, Orfeo tells the story of retired, avant-garde composer Peter Els as he flees Homeland Security for bioterrorism. However, Els’s intentions in biohacking Serratia marcescens are merely artistic, and concerned only with encoding his last musical composition in the DNA of this bacterium. Troubled as he is with the purpose and reach of art, Els does not anticipate the consequences of his artistic experimentation until Homeland Security is after him. In Orfeo, the power of music to move human and natural elements and the illicit disruption of the divine order-of-being represented in the Orphic katabasis find their parallel within the historical context of post-9/11 America, the environmental concerns regarding scientific experimentation at the turn of the century and the transhumanist branch of posthumanist discourse respectively, but also as they relate to each other. Orpheus’ katabasis is also reflected in the textual construction of the novel as a road novel, an epic journey the original purpose of which stands behind an ultimate gain of self-discovery that in the novel, engages the main character as much as the narrative itself. Finally, the thematic and formal aspects of the novel organize around a Neo-Baroque aesthetics that insists on the arrangement of apparently disconnected historical, musical and literary phenomena, as it widens into the transhistorical dimension of Orphic myths and religious practices.1
The implementation of new degrees in the Spanish university system as a result of the process of adaptation to the European Space of Higher Education (ESHE) will bring significant changes in the learning of foreign languages at this level. Different methodological approaches such as foreign linguistic immersion in the content classroom or Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) might be used as a compensatory curricular strategy for the learning of foreign languages in the implementation of the new university degrees. The present article reports on research conducted at the School of Psychology of the University of Granada (Spain) where these two methodological approaches were contrasted for an assessment of their efficiency with regards to the specific learning purposes indicated above. The results obtained show the academic convenience of the implementation of CLIL methodology as a compensation strategy for the loss of courses on English for Specific Purposes at the tertiary level.
Now that the European Space for Higher Education has granted full presence to social work in Spanish Universities, it becomes necessary to develop a series of strategies that allow its consolidation and equivalence with other Social Sciences. Although scientific publications count among the most adequate ways to achieve this purpose, there is no Spanish journal of social work in the main international databases. This article analyses the Spanish journals of social work published in Spain. It examines their characteristics, their place in the global system of knowledge and offers strategies for their improvement.
This article reflects part of the results obtained from a wider research project aimed at the elaboration of a "Map of Good Intercultural Practices" in several areas of Social Intervention in Andalusia (Spain) and reports the results obtained from the analysis portion related to the participating projects within the Social Services.Intercultural assessment was conducted at the level of institutional intervention through a 32-item questionnaire that was sent to 139 intercultural project-leading institutions, but also considered the intercultural sensitivity factor of the individuals answering the questionnaire. A definition of the fundamental concepts of "Interculturality" and "Good Practice" is given to support the foundations of "Good Intercultural Practice" (GIP).Such definitions help in the design and validation of a GIP Scale that was used in the analysis of 60 Social Services Projects with an intercultural component. The results obtained underline the relevance of aspects such as intercultural empathy and show significant differences between the Social Services and other intervention sectors. The relevance of this study relies on the future posibility to find an explanation to such differencesand to study GIPs in other intervention sectors. With respect to this, the private sector offers a completely blank area of research both in itself and in comparson with the results obtained from the public one. Also, the transferability of the instruments and methodology used makes it possible that the research presented in the present article is conducted in other geographical area.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.