Platform (novel)
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Platform (novel)
''Platform'' (french: Plateforme) is a 2001 novel by French writer Michel Houellebecq (translated into English by Frank Wynne). It has received both great praise and great criticism, most notably for the novel's apparent condoning of sex tourism and Islamophobia. After describing Islam as "the most stupid religion" in a published interview about the book, Houellebecq was charged for inciting racial and religious hatred but the charges were ultimately dismissed, as it has been ruled that the right to free speech encompasses the right to criticize religions. The novel and its author have been deemed "prophetic" or "prescient", as the last part depicts an Islamic terrorist attack which bears strong similarities with the bombings in Bali in October 2002, about a year later (and the novel was published on 27 August 2001, a few days before the 11 September 2001 attacks). A similar coincidence, involving Houellebecq, Islam and terrorism, would occur 13 years later, when his novel ''Subm ...
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Novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ...
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Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bordered to the north by Myanmar and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the extremity of Myanmar. Thailand also shares maritime borders with Vietnam to the southeast, and Indonesia and India to the southwest. Bangkok is the nation's capital and largest city. Tai peoples migrated from southwestern China to mainland Southeast Asia from the 11th century. Indianised kingdoms such as the Mon, Khmer Empire and Malay states ruled the region, competing with Thai states such as the Kingdoms of Ngoenyang, Sukhothai, Lan Na and Ayutthaya, which also rivalled each other. European contact began in 1511 with a Portuguese diplomatic mission to Ayutthaya, w ...
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Female Sex Tourism
Female sex tourism is sex tourism by women who travel intending to engage in sexual activities with one or more locals, usually male sex workers. Female sex tourists may seek aspects of the sexual relationship not typically shared by male sex tourists, such as perceived romance and intimacy. Women who fit this profile – especially wealthy, single, older white women – plan their holidays to have romance and sex with a companion who knows how to make them feel special and give them attention. The incidence of female sex tourism is reportedly lower than male sex tourism. Female sex tourism occurs in diverse regions of the world. Africa, the Caribbean, and southern Europe appear to be preferred destinations for female sex tourists, but some other regions with many unemployed or underemployed males are also becoming popular. The demographics of female sex tourism vary by destination, but in general female sex tourists are usually classified as women from a developed country, who ...
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Criticism Of Islam
Criticism of Islam is broadly defined as criticism of the Islamic religion in its beliefs, principles, and/or any other ideas attributed to Islam. Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early written disapprovals came from Christians and Jews as well as from some former Muslims such as Ibn al-Rawandi.De Haeresibus by John of Damascus. See Migne. ''Patrologia Graeca'', vol. 94, 1864, cols 763–73. An English translation by the Reverend John W Voorhis appeared in ''The Moslem World'' for October 1954, pp. 392–98. Later the Muslim world itself received criticism.Ibn Kammuna, ''Examination of the Three Faiths'', trans. Moshe Perlmann (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971), pp. 148–49 Western criticism of Islam grew after the September 11 attacks and other terrorist incidents, in regard to its scriptures and teachings, which were claimed to be a significant source of terrorism and terrorist ideology. Objects of criticism include the morality of the life ...
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Suicide Note
A suicide note or death note is a message left behind by a person who dies or intends to die by suicide. A study examining Japanese suicide notes estimated that 25–30% of suicides are accompanied by a note. However, incidence rates may depend on ethnicity and cultural differences, and may reach rates as high as 50% in certain demographics. A suicide message can be in any form or medium, but the most common methods are by a written note, an audio message, or a video. Reasons Some fields of study, such as sociology, psychiatry and graphology, have investigated the reasons why people who complete or attempt suicide leave a note. The most common reasons that people contemplating suicide choose to write a suicide note include one or more of the following: *To ease the pain of those known to the victim by attempting to dissipate guilt. *To increase the pain of survivors by attempting to create guilt. *To set out the reason(s) for suicide. *To send a message to the world. *To exp ...
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Terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants (mostly civilians and neutral country, neutral military personnel). The terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century but became widely used internationally and gained worldwide attention in the 1970s during The Troubles, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Basque conflict, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The increased use of suicide attacks from the 1980s onwards was typified by the 2001 September 11 attacks in the United States. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Terrorism is a Loaded language, charged term. It is often used with the connotation of some ...
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Muslim Extremists
Islamic extremism, Islamist extremism, or radical Islam, is used in reference to extremist beliefs and behaviors which are associated with the Islamic religion. These are controversial terms with varying definitions, ranging from academic understandings to the idea that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior to Islam. These terms can also be used in reference to other sects of Islam that do not share such beliefs. Political definitions of Islamic extremism include the one which is used by the government of the United Kingdom, which understands Islamic extremism as any form of Islam that opposes "democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs". In 2019, the U.S. Institute for Peace released an important report on extremism in fragile states that developed recommendations focused on adopting a shared understanding, operationalize a prevention framework, and rallying the international community ...
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Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south; it covers an area of , with a population of almost 84 million within its 16 constituent states. Germany borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The nation's capital and most populous city is Berlin and its financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. In 962, the Kingdom of Germany formed the bulk of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th ce ...
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Moral Outrage
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness". Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics, which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology, and normative ethics, which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an u ...
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Germans
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Ada Or Ardor
''Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle'' is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1969. ''Ada'' began to materialize in 1959, when Nabokov was flirting with two projects, "The Texture of Time" and "Letters from Terra." In 1965, he began to see a link between the two ideas, finally composing a unified novel from February 1966 to October 1968. The published cumulation would become his longest work. ''Ada'' was initially given a mixed reception. However, writing in ''The New York Times Book Review'', noted scholar Alfred Appel called it "a great work of art, a necessary book, radiant and rapturous," and said that it "provides further evidence that he is a peer of Kafka, Proust and Joyce." Title According to David Eagleman, Nabokov named the title character in part after his favorite butterfly. An avid (and professional) collector of butterflies, Nabokov especially liked a particular species with yellow wings and a black body. As a synesthete, he associated colors with each lette ...
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Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland. From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University. Nabokov's 1955 novel '' Lolita'' ranked fourth on Modern Library's list of the 100 best 20th-century novels in 2007 and is considered one of the greatest 20th-century works of literature. Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'', published in 1962, was ranked ...
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