Transforming the social order: The role of the university in social change

1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doris Wilkinson
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
Mercè Oliva

In this interview, Theo van Leeuwen reflects on the role of social semiotics and iconography as research methods for identifying the ideology conveyed by multimodal texts and signifying practices. Van Leeuwen defends the relevance of analyzing and understanding what seems trivial and apolitical, such as images, toys, PowerPoint presentations and spaces, all of which shape our worldview and establish the possibilities and limits of social practices and relationships, as well as their role in legitimating (or challenging) the social order. The last section of the interview is devoted to an analysis of overtly political images: van Leeuwen talks about how politicians present themselves to the media in the current era of politainment; reflects on how social movements use the visual to stir up debate and challenge dominant discourses and, finally, he discusses memes as examples of popular humor and participatory culture and their potential and limitations in terms of challenging and fostering social change.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-418
Author(s):  
Canan Coşkan ◽  
Yasemin Gülsüm Acar ◽  
Aydın Bayad

Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberalism in ACA as captured with prominent social/political psychological concepts of collective action. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 dismissed academics to understand the social and political psychological processes in academic collectives. The narrations of ACA were accompanied by manifestations of neoliberalism as experienced by dismissed academics. We found that, as follows from the existing conceptual tools of collective action, neoliberalism serves as an embedded contextual factor in the process of ACA. This becomes mostly visible for grievances but also for collective identifications, politicization, motivations, finding/allocating resources and sustaining academic collectives. We provide a preliminary basis to understand the role of neoliberalism in organization, mobilization and empowerment dynamics of collective action.


Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 551-552
Author(s):  
Thomas Willard

Shakespeare is well known to have set two of his plays in and around Venice: The Merchant of Venice (1596) and The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (1603). The first is often remembered for its famous speech about “the quality of mercy,” delivered by the female lead Portia in the disguise of a legal scholar from the university town of Padua. The speech helps to spare the life of her new husband’s friend and financial backer against the claims of the Jewish moneylender Shylock. The play has raised questions for Shakespearean scholars about the choice of Venice as an open city where merchants of all nations and faiths would meet on the Rialto while the city’s Senate, composed of leading merchants, worked hard to keep it open to all and especially profitable for its merchants. Those who would like to learn more about the city’s development as a center of trade can learn much from Richard Mackenney’s new book.


1991 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lakshmi Subramanian

The Banias of eighteenth-century Surat, whom Michelguglielmo Torri earlier treated with indifference if not innocence, have invited his wrath since they were brought into focus by the publication of my essay on the Banias and the Surat riot of 1795. In his ‘rejoinder’ to my article, he seeks to wish away their existence altogether (to him there was no specific Bania community, the term merely signifying traders of all communities engaged in the profession of brokerage), and seeks to provide what he regards as an ‘alternative’ explanation of the Muslim–Bania riot of 1795. the Muslim-Bania riot of 1795. It shall be my purpose in this reply to show that his alternative explanation is neither an alternative nor even an explanation, and is based on a basic confusion in his mind about the Banias as well as the principal sources of tension in the social structure of Surat. I shall treat two main subjects in this reply to his misdirected criticisms. First, I shall present some original indigenous material as well as European documentation to further clarify the identity, position and role of the Banias, whom Irfan Habib in a recent article has identified as the most important trading group in the trading world of seventeenth and eighteenth-century India. It is also my purpose to show how the social order of Surat operated under stress by presenting some archival material, the existence of which Torri seems to be completely unaware of, on the Parsi-Muslim riot of 1788.


2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 29-35
Author(s):  
Theodor Strohm

Abstract This article shows clearly the experiences of the author concerning the social restart of Germany after 1945. The ZEE was and is a place for reflection and reorientation. Personal encounters with personalities of the »first hour« constitute the opening. This is followed by five central situations which were witnessed and devised by the author. They had a direct effect on the ZEE. 1. The participation in the senior staff of Willy Brandt had an effect on the contemplation of an »ethos of inner reforms«. 2. The reform process in South Africa with its »peaceful revolution« brought the author there, having intense working relations to the leaders of the »black majority«. These experiences found their way into the ZEE. 3. As chairman of the chamber for social order of the EKD (Evangelical Church in Germany) the author worked nearly 20 years intensively on memoranda concerning the reorientation of the welfare state in many dimensions. The ZEE was a central place of scientific debate. 4. and 5. As head of the Diakoniewissenschaftliches Institut (I. for Christian social work) of the University of Heidelberg basic questions of deaconry theologically and at the same time world wide aspects were at the centre of interest also at the ZEE


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-253
Author(s):  
C. D. MAY

This monograph is one of a series resulting from studies by the Committee on Medicine and the Changing Order of the New York Academy of Medicine. The objective in this report was to trace the historical development of medical research and to define and describe the role of medical research in the social order particularly as regards support for research from government agencies. The comprehensive grasp of the complexities of medical research which Dr. Shryock reveals commands genuine admiration and respect from anyone engaged in such research. Indeed, few engaged in various aspects of medical research could claim anything like his familiarity with the broad outlines of this field.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 482-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabina Mihelj ◽  
James Stanyer

Debates about the role of media and communication in social change are central to our discipline, yet advances in this field are hampered by disciplinary fragmentation, a lack of shared conceptual language and limited understanding of long-term shifts in the field. To address this, we first develop a typology that distinguishes between approaches that foreground the role of media and communication as an agent of change, and approaches that treat media and communication as an environment for change. We then use this typology to identify key trends in the field since 1951, including the sharp downturn in work focusing on economic aspects of change after 1985, the decline of grand narratives of social change since 2000 and the parallel return to media effects. We conclude by outlining the key traits of a processual approach to social change, which has the capacity to offer the basis for shared language in the field. This language can enable us to think of media, communication and social change across its varied temporal and social planes, and link together the processes involved in the reproduction of status quo with fundamental changes to social order.


Author(s):  
Beverley Haddad

The field of theology and development is a relatively new sub-discipline within theological studies in Africa. The first formal post-graduate programme was introduced at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa during the mid-1990s. In the early years it was known as the Leadership and Development programme and since 2000, as the Theology and Development programme. Over the past twenty years, this programme has graduated over 160 BTh Honours, 100 MTh, and 15 PhD students. This article outlines the history of the programme, addresses its ideological orientation, its pedagogical commitments and preferences in curriculum design. It further argues that theological reflection on “development” must seek to understand the prophetic role of the church in responding to the complexities of the social issues facing the African continent.  Key to this discussion is the contested nature of “development” and the need for theological perspectives to engage this contestation through a social analysis of the global structures of injustice. This requires an engagement with the social sciences. It is this engagement of the social sciences with theological reflection, the essay argues, that has enabled the students who have graduated from the Theology and Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assist the church and faith-based organisations to become effective agents of social transformation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-79
Author(s):  
Fabiola De Sampaio Rodrigues Grazinoli Garrido ◽  
Rodrigo Grazinoli Garrido

Trabalhos desenvolvidos em equipes multidisciplinares devem ser rotina para os futuros egressos do curso de direito. O objetivo desse artigo é discutir algumas estratégias e planos de trabalho utilizados no Programa de Educação Tutorial Conexões de Saberes que envolve estudantes do curso de direito da Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro no campus de Três Rios, interior do Rio de Janeiro. Nessa perspectiva, o engajamento dos estudantes em projetos do tem contribuído como um campo experimental para o desenvolvimento das habilidades necessárias aos bacharéis em direito, bem como para a percepção do papel social do futuro profissional. Desde 2014, a equipe desenvolve projetos que discutem a função da universidade junto à comunidade, abordando sobretudo questões relacionadas a grupos vulneráveis e a aspectos agroambientais.Palavras-chave: aprendizagem significativa; formação integradora; projetos na graduação. Abstract Work performed in multidisciplinary teams should be routine for future graduates of the law courses. The aim of this paper is to discuss some strategies and work plans used in the Connections of Knowledge Tutorial Program that involves law students of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro on the campus of Três Rios, in the interior of Rio de Janeiro. In this perspective, students' engagement in projects has contributed as an experimental field for the development of the skills required by law graduates, as well as for the perception of the social role of the professional future. Since 2014, the team has developed projects that discuss the role of the university in the community, addressing issues related to vulnerable groups and agro-environmental aspects.


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