Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied: Magical Historicism in Contemporary Russian Fiction

Slavic Review ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Etkind
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
Work Of Mourning ◽  
Contemporary Russian Fiction ◽  
Postcolonial Literatures

Combining ideas from cultural studies, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism, this essay proposes an interdisciplinary approach to the emerging field of post-Soviet memory studies. Sociological polls demonstrate that approximately one-fourth of Russians remember that their relatives were victims of terror, yet the existing monuments, museums, and rituals are inadequate to commemorate these losses. In this economy of memory, ghosts and monsters become a prominent subject of post-Soviet culture. The incomplete work of mourning turns the unburied dead into the undead. Analyzing Russian novels and films of the last decade, Alexander Etkind emphasizes the radical distortions of history, semihuman creatures, fantastic cults, manipulations of the body, and circular time that occur in these fictional works. To account for these phenomena, Etkind coins the concept “magical historicism” and discusses its relation to the magical realism of postcolonial literatures. The memorial culture of magical historicism is not so much postmodern as it is, precisely, post-Soviet.

scholarly journals CULTURE-BASED STUDIES’ TOPOGRAPHY IN THE MODERN FRENCH SOCIAL SCIENCE

2019 ◽  
pp. 14-17
Author(s):  
B. E. Nosenok
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
Critical Turn ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
First Time

Cultural studies as a humanities researcher takes the place of an expert. The relevance of this topic is due to the lack of development of the issues of “culture-based studies” in Ukrainian culturology. There is a lack of translated into French or Ukrainian languages of French sources published since 1975. French culturological science, which developed after 1975, is almost not represented in Ukrainian culturology. The present stage of the development of French historiography, which lies at the heart of cultural history, and cultural studies, is associated with increased attention to social knowledge. This stage is characterized by the deployment of a “critical turn”, which proceeds from the following principles: the interdisciplinary approach, the significance of cultural expertise, the severity of publications and the multiplicity of their forms, multidisciplinarity. The “critical turn” affects the following spheres of knowledge: la Culturologie, les Études culturelles, les Sciences de la Culture. The article substantiates the relevance of the use of the concept of “culture-based studies” to the definition of processes that are unfolding within the framework of French humanities and are associated exclusively with the theoretical formations in the context of the social sciences. The purpose of the article is to outline a map of culture-based studies in the field of French humanitaristics. The methodology of the article is based on the application of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to research in the field of culturology. Also, methodological developments in the field of “critical turn” and the achievements of the sociological circle and the interdisciplinary discussion club “Eranos” were applied. The scientific novelty of the article is to substantiate the appropriateness of the use of the concept of “culture-based studies” on the definition of processes that are unfolding within the framework of French humanitaristics and relate exclusively to theoretical formations in the context of social sciences. This concept to the field of Ukrainian culturology is introduced for the first time. Also, for the first time, the place and forms of culturology in French humanities were clarified. Conclusions. Working with a source base and methodology is one of the points that are compulsory on the way to the solution of the tasks, the main of which is the formation of the body of fundamental works for French history (including the history of culture) and historiography of the period since 1975 year to the present day. On the basis of this building, there is the prospect of building an alternative national cultural history project addressed to the vector of the French historiographical, historical-anthropological and cultural-related issues in the field of social knowledge. The article presents the arguments why it is appropriate to use the concept of “culture-based studies” in the context of conducting research in relation to French humanitaristics, in particular, the modern period of its development.

Derrida on Pornography: Putting (It) Up for Sale

Derrida Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morris
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
French Original ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Critical Discourses ◽  
Academic Debate

Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’.

scholarly journals Long Hours, Uneasy Feelings: Parliamentary Work in Denmark, Finland and Sweden

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Mannevuo ◽  
Jenni M Rinne ◽  
Isak Vento
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Work Culture ◽  
Vicious Cycle ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Psychological Strain ◽  
Work Pressure ◽  
The World

AbstractPoliticians’ work pressure is gaining more attention in parliamentary studies. To participate in the discussion about governing under pressure, this article offers an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how representatives navigate within a flexible, limitless work culture. This article presents a new inquiry to re-examine contemporary political agency by combining cultural studies theories with empirical insights in Nordic countries. By analysing 52 semi-structured interviews with MPs in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the study finds that politics attracts people who want to change the world, but these attributes may initiate a vicious cycle, taking the form of psychological strain.

Les manifestes et les programmes littéraires en Afrique francophone subsaharienne : à propos de ‘l’invisibilité’ du corpus dans la critique littéraire

Literator ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laude Ngadi M
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
The West ◽  
Francophone Africa ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Geographical Space

Manifestos and literary programs in French-Speaking sub-Saharian of Africa: About ‘invisibility’ of the corpus in literary criticism. Despite an abundant production, the corpus of literary manifestos and programmes from sub-Saharan Francophone Africa is relatively invisible in literary criticism. With the exception of a few studies, critical works devoted to the programmatic works of writers are rare. This article proposes some hypotheses that can explain why the body of literature of authors’ ideas in this space is generally ‘invisible’. The approach of the literary field, applied to the sociology of scientific production, makes it possible to highlight three main causes for this invisibility: the importance of identity and cultural discourse, which makes it impossible to delimit the geographical space of writers from sub-Saharan Francophone Africa, whose production and reception are dominated by that of their colleagues from the West Indies and the Caribbean; the omnipresence of political and social discourse which takes precedence over poetic reflection; the metalanguage of the manifesto due to the fact that writers are also generally literary critics.

scholarly journals URBAN STUDIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THEORIES OF VISUAL PRACTICES

2017 ◽  
pp. 93-97
Author(s):  
A. M. Tormakhova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
The City

One of the leading trends in contemporary cultural studies is the appealto the field of visual. Thepurpose of the article is to investigate the range of problems associated withthe existence, functioning of various visual practices in the urban space and the disclosure of the specifics of communication carried out through their intermediation. In urban space, there are many forms, such as monumental architecture, urban sculpture, outdoor illumination, landscape art, street art, graffiti and others. These artifacts are the subject of cultural research within different disciplines - aesthetics, cultural studies, design, and art. It may be noted that in recentdecades, significant development gets such a direction as Urban Studies, in which the focus of research serves the city. The methodology of the study includes an appeal to an interdisciplinary approach that relies on the achievements of practical cultural studies, Urban studies,and aesthetics theory by Ukrainian and Western authors. Scientific novelty consists in analyzing the connection ofactual visual practices presented in the urban space and forming of Internet activity, which facilitates the mutual influence of these spheres one on another. The author noted that urban space is gradually becoming not only interactive, but also fully assuming the characteristics of WEB 2.0, which means active rethinking and transforming the environment, urban residents involvement in decision-making that becomes a norm of everyday life. City is a kind of text that reflects changing tastes, politicaland economic factors in visualform. Town and city public spaces play an important role in shaping the interaction within society. One of the pressing problems of practical cultural studies in general and urban areas in particular, should be integrated into organization of the urban environment and design the image of the city. The practical significance lies in the fact that the results of the research can beused in developing the urban sphere in particular and in actualizing the issue of organizing the urban environment and constructing the image of the city.

scholarly journals “Okay ladies, now let’s get in formation!”: Music Videos and the Construction of Cultural Memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura M. F. Bertens
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Music Videos ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Limited Length ◽  
Diverse Audience

Abstract This paper explores strategies for constructing and perpetuating cultural memory through music videos, using Beyonce’s Formation (2016) and Janelle Monae’s Many Moons (2008) and Q.U.E.E.N. (2013) as case studies. The medium’s idiosyncrasies create unique ways of communicating and remembering, explored here within a framework of Cultural Studies and Memory Studies. Easy dissemination and the limited length of most videos ensure a large, diverse audience. The relative freedom from narrative constraints enables the director to create original imagery, and most importantly, the medium allows an intricate blending of performance and performativity; while the videos evidently are performances, they are strongly performative as well, not only with respect to gender and ethnicity but in significant ways also cultural memory. A close reading of Beyonce’s video Formation shows how she explicitly does the cultural memory of the New Orleans flooding. The videos by Monae are shown to produce counter-memories, relying heavily on the strategy of Afrofuturism. As such, these densely woven networks of visual symbols become palimpsests of black lived experience and cultural memory, passed on to millions of viewers.

Interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of rare visual illusions in a veteran

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. e238362
Author(s):  
Michelle Zeller ◽  
Wilhelmina Stamps
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Plane ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Interdisciplinary Team ◽  
Visual Illusions ◽  
The Body ◽  
Hip Surgery ◽  
Coronal Plane ◽  
Team Approach ◽  
Physical Medicine ◽  
Rare Form

Upside-down reversal of vision (UDRV) is a rare form of metamorphopsia, or visual illusions that can distort the size, shape or inclination of objects. This phenomenon is paroxysmal and transient in nature, with patients reporting a sudden inversion of vision in the coronal plane, which typically remains for seconds or minutes, though occasionally persists for hours or days, before returning to normal. Distorted egocentric orientation (ie, the patient perceives the body to be tilted away from the vertical plane) is even more rare as a co-occurring phenomenon. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of a veteran who presented with UDRV and distorted egocentric orientation during hospitalisation on an inpatient physical medicine and rehabilitation setting following an elective hip surgery. This case serves not only to document the presence of rare visual illusions, but also illustrates the importance and value of an interdisciplinary team approach.

Aesthetic values as an object of research: from an Aesthetic to Cultural studies’ generalization

2021 ◽  
pp. 36-41
Author(s):  
Lydia Lyashenko
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
The One ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The purpose of the article is to prove the expediency and scientific, methodological, conceptual, and categorical potential of Cultural studies as a science that may offer an updated perspective for the study of the problem of aesthetic values. Methodology. Methods of scientific analysis, comparison, and generalization during the elaboration of the source base and the method of systematization are used to determine the traditional and innovative directions of research of the problem of aesthetic values. Scientific novelty. The article considers the interdisciplinary and generalizing potential of Cultural studies on the example of the problem of study aesthetic values. The existing tendency to move the analysis of problems of humanities from separate sciences to the plane of interdisciplinary is emphasized. It was accented on the novelty and relevance of such interdisciplinary research within Cultural studies. Conclusions. The approach of Cultural studies offers an increase in the scale of generalization from aesthetic to actually global, which combines the experience of studying scientific problems in the traditional and extended areas. Given the fact that on the one hand, all material and spiritual values which surround man were born from culture, because culture is the cumulative result of productive human activity, and, on the other hand, culture absorbs them, being phenomenon generalized, interdisciplinary approach of Cultural studies is able to suggest an updated perspective on this problem on the border of traditional and non-traditional sciences and through the improvement of its conceptual and categorical apparatus to offer new ways to study.

Erotismo y homofobia en "El Apando" (1969) de José Revueltas

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Manzo-Robledo
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Sexual Desire ◽  
The Body ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Drug Consumption ◽  
Jose Revueltas ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
The Erotic

In José Revueltas' novel El apando (1969), the possibility for transgression is greatly diminished by the system. In such circumstances, the only possibility of transgression by means of the body is through drug consumption and erotic acts. This article examines the lack of literary criticism regarding the erotic, the homoerotic and the expression of sexual desire, other than in the sense of the society's values. The notion of act-space, together with concepts from cultural and queer theory serve as a critical instrument for this analysis. This essay evaluates critically the narrative discourse, clearly tinted with homophobia and a patriarchal patronage incapable of dealing with the most intimate aspects of self-expression. Under the patriarchy, that self-expression is occluded and controlled by the same ideologies, which again, are signs of homophobia. / En la novela El apando (1969) de José Revueltas, la posibilidad de transgredir se reduce a base los parámetros impuestos por el sistema. Ante tal situación, la única posibilidad de transgredir corporalmente que permanece se presenta a través del consumo de droga y la expresión erótica. El presente ensayo examina por qué existe una carencia de crítica en relación al erotismo, al homoerotismo y a la expresión del deseo sexual si no se estudian estos tres puntos de interés exclusivamente a base de los valores sociales que imperan. Una lectura que va contracorriente, en combinación con la noción de acto-espacio, se integra a conceptos culturales y de teoría queer para forjar un instrumento de investigación. Este análisis evalúa críticamente el discurso narrativo que está teñido por sentimientos de homofobia que sustancian a un patriarcado incapaz de aceptar los aspectos más íntimos de la auto-expresión. Esta auto-expresión bajo el patriarcado se ve controlada y obstruida por las mismas ideologías que ejemplifican, una vez más, la homofobia dentro de dicho sistema.

scholarly journals Ceramics (As Containers)

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Knappett ◽  
Lambros Malafouris ◽  
Peter Tomkins
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
The Body ◽  
Plastic Medium ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Human Material

This article focuses on the importance of ceramics in material cultural studies. It proceeds to say that ceramics are considered a key feature of human material culture because of what they are taken to represent in economic, technological, and evolutionary terms. The innovation of taking the plastic medium of clay and marrying it with pyrotechnology to create irreversibly a resilient object — usually in the form of a container, has frequently been assumed to mark a revolutionary stage in the development of modern human thought and practice, forming with agriculture and sedentism a trinity of epoch-changing innovations. This article talks about the idea of the body as being used as a container. It says that ‘Containment’ may well be the ‘function’ offering archaeology one of the most important sources of archaeological data and windows into society, and culture; but very little is known about the cognitive, experiential, and evolutionary grounding of the concepts embodied in each and every container.

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