Science Fiction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerry Canavan
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Popular Narrative ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Marvel Cinematic Universe ◽  
Political Economic

Science fiction (SF) emerges as a distinct literary and cultural genre out of a familiar set of world-famous texts ranging from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (1966–) to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2008–) that have, in aggregate, generated a colossal, communal archive of alternate worlds and possible future histories. SF’s dialectical interplay between utopian optimism and apocalyptic pessimism can be felt across the genre’s now centuries-long history, only intensifying in the 20th century as the clash between humankind’s growing technological capabilities and its ability to use those powers safely or wisely has reached existential-threat propositions, not simply for human beings but for all life on the planet. In the early 21st century, as in earlier cultural moments, the writers and critics of SF use the genre’s articulation of different societies and different possible futures as the occasion to reflect on our own present, in ways that range from full-throated defense of the status quo to the ruthless denunciation of all institutions that currently exist in the name of some other, better world. SF’s global popularity has grown to the point where it now looms quite large over cultural production generally, becoming arguably the most popular narrative genre in existence, particularly in the sorts of SF action spectacles that have dominated the global box office of the first two decades of the 21st century. It has also become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the things we used to think of as SF and the advanced communication, transportation, and entertainment technologies that have become so ubiquitous and familiar that we now take them for granted, as well as the growing prevalence of political, economic, and ecological crises now erupting out of the pages of our science fictions, like our very worst dreams come to life.

scholarly journals Reorientasi Gerakan Feminisme Islam; Sebuah Upaya Membangun Kesetaraan Perempuan

FIKROTUNA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
ABD WARITS
Keyword(s):  
Skin Color ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right ◽  
Arbitrary Action

In the history of women's life, the woman has never cracked from the wild cry of helplessness. Woman always become victim of men’s egoism, marginalized, hurt, unfettered, fooled and never appreciated the presence and role. This situation troubles many intellectual Muslims who have perspective that Islam teaches equality, equality for all human beings in the world. The difference in skin color, race, tribe and nation, as well as gender does not cause them to get the status of the different rights and obligations. The potential and the right to life of every human being and the obligation to serve the Lord Almighty is the same. Indeed, all human beings, as caliph in the world, have the same obligation, namely to prosperity of life in the world. No one is allowed to act arbitrarily, destroying, or hurt among others. They are required to live side by side, united, and harmonious, help each other and respect each other. However, that "demand" never becomes a reality. The differences among human identities become a barrier and the cause of divisions. For them, those who are outside environment, different identities are "others" who rightly do not need them "know". The difference of identity has become a reason to allow "hurt" each other. Several intellectual Muslims who recognize the wrong (discrimination against women), and then they attempt to formulate a movement for women's liberation. All the efforts have been done on the basis of awareness that arbitrary action by any person can never be justified. They also realize, that the backwardness of women are "stumbling block" that will lead to the resignation of a civilization. However, this struggle found a lot of challenges; including the consideration of "insubordination" to conquer the power of men, despite it had done by using many strategies. Starting from the writing of scientific book and countless fiction themed women has been published in order to give awareness of equality between men and women. This paper seeks to reexamine the process of the empowerment struggle to give a brand new concept, so that the struggle of women empowerment is not as insubordination and curiosity process in an attempt to conquer the male. Through approach of literature review and observations on the relationship between men and women, the writer finally concluded that the movement of Islamic feminism is not a movement to seize the power of men, but an attempt to liberate women from oppression so that they get the rights of their social role, giving freedom for women to pursue a career as wide as possible like a man, without forgetting a main duty as a mother: to conceive, give birth and breastfeed their children.

Racialized Sexuality: From Colonial Product to Creative Practice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jillian Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Ethical Violations ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Racialized Sexuality ◽  
Law And Science

Racialized sexuality is a term that describes the linking of racial attributes to sexual comportment. Racialized sexualities have been produced through colonial conquest in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. European discourses framed colonized subjects as racial and thus sexual others—as different kinds of human beings with deviant erotic practices. The colonial and racist underpinnings of religion, law, and science have produced pervasive tropes of, for example, the sexual excess of Native and African peoples and the sexual submissiveness of Asian peoples. These stereotypes have had an enduring impact on the representations of racialized people’s sexual subjectivities in art and media, in addition to academic knowledge production. Representations of the insatiable lust and spitfire of Black and Latina women, the sexual submissiveness of Asian women, the lack of Asian men and the predatory sexualities of Black men, stem from centuries of discursive circulation in fields ranging from biology to anthropology, which in turned shaped how such tropes have been taken up and reproduced in cultural production. With the understanding that racialized sexuality is a colonial product, scholars invested in anti-racism and queer politics have problematized the scientific racisms that have upheld dominant discourses of racialized sexualities by exposing their deficient methodologies, ethical violations, and often eugenicist agendas. Racialized sexualities have been lived by colonized subjects through a wide range of violences via chattel slavery, and in the early 21st century, through eroticized violence such as that inflicted on the Arab detainees of Abu Gharib prison by the United States military following 9/11. While acknowledging how racialized sexuality is intimately wedded to experiences of violation and injury, contemporary artists and scholars of sexuality have also worked to show how the very tropes that dehumanize people of color are also marked by ambivalence. These representations often present the possibilities of both pleasure and pain for racialized subjects and thus are in turns claimed, disavowed, and altered through art and scholarship in order to highlight the complexities of how racialized sexualities are experienced. Queer and trans artists of color are at the forefront of demonstrating the potential of transforming racialized sexualities from a colonial product to a creative practice.

US–Mexico Borderlands and Religion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne M. Martínez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Political Cultures ◽  
Political Economic

The border between the United States and Mexico has artificially divided languages, cultures, landscapes, and religions for more than a century and a half. This region is the crossroads not only of Anglo-America and Latin America, but also of multiple empires; the Aztec, Spanish, and US empires each staked a claim on this region, leaving political, economic, cultural, and religious markers on the landscape and its peoples. These imperial bodies brought their preferred religious practices and religiously inspired social, economic, and political cultures, which reshaped populations and landscapes from the 15th century to the present. Religion has been a significant dimension of this region from prior to the arrival of the Spanish through the early 21st century.

Heritage and the Use of the Past in East Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Giblin
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Heritage Management ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Heritage Studies ◽  
Critical Heritage

This article outlines historical and ongoing uses of the past and academic heritage research into those activities within eastern Africa. The use of the past will be discussed as a deep historical practice in the area that is the EAC in the 21st century, demonstrating how political elites have constructed versions of the past to suit contemporary and future aims for hundreds of years. Then there is an outline of the colonial introduction of formalized Western heritage institutions and legislation in the early 20th century, the subsequent nationalization of these in the mid-20th century, and the late-20th- and early-21st-century internationalization of heritage. These overviews are followed by a discussion of different approaches to heritage research including early studies of museums, traditions, heritage management, archaeological introspections, and more recent “critical heritage studies,” which interrogate the use of the past as a form of cultural production.

scholarly journals Жабракi ў пахавальных i памiнальных абрадах беларусаў Падзвiння (па матэрыялах ХIХ – пачатку ХХI стагоддзя)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 261-279
Author(s):  
Уладзiмiр Аўсейчык ◽  
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Funeral Rites ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Secret Knowledge

On the basis of folklore and ethnographic material of the 19th – early 21st century the symbolic status and ritual functions of beggars in funeral and memorial rites of Belarusian Dvina region are discussed. The beggars represent a peculiar social group, the specificity of which is most expressively manifested in the ritual forms of behavior, including the funeral and memorial rites of the dead. The reasons of their inclusion into the ritual sphere (through the analysis of such characteristics as poverty, physical deviations, blindness, special appearance, possession of secret knowledge, the nature of their “activity”, isolated lifestyle) are presented. The article deals with the status and ritual functions of beggars in the funeral rites and rites of the memorial cycle (within a year from the date of death and calendar holidays). New field material is involved in the study, part of which is fixed by the author. The results of the research will be useful in the study of worldviews and beliefs.

Earthquakes in Colonial Peru

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Mansilla
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Colonial Peru ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Post Disaster

Natural events have afflicted human societies periodically. They become disasters when their effects drastically alter and disrupt people’s quotidian patterns of life and political-economic organization. The chaos and distress natural disasters produce require people to react immediately, taking essential measures to cope with post-disaster conditions. While in the early 21st century, technological and scientific tools permit human communities to prepare for certain forecastable natural events, or to expedite responses to sudden and unforeseen disasters, such resources were lacking in early modern times. The viceroyalty of Peru was one of the most valuable colonial territories of the Spanish monarchy. Located over a telluric region, most of this colonial area was prone to earthquakes. However, colonial society’s understanding of earthquakes, and other natural events, influenced its reactions and how authorities responded to disaster. Learning about earthquakes in colonial Peru unveils early modern strategies of crisis management, which included both material and spiritual assistance. Furthermore, it reminds us of human communities’ vulnerability, which may increase when faced with monumental challenges during post-disaster periods.

Weaving Algebraic Patterns

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subrata Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
History Of Computing ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Principles Of Design ◽  
Mathematical Machine

The Analytical Engine has a startling place in the history of computing. To the best of our knowledge, no machine had ever before been conceived along its lines. More remarkably, some of its key principles of design would actually be reinvented a century later by people who were, apparently, ignorant of it. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then so is re invention or re discovery, at least when born from ignorance. It tells us much about how ahead of one’s time the original creator was. This reinvention of Babbage’s idea was particularly poignant because it would become the fount of fruitful and rich phylogenetic pathways in the later evolution of the digital computer and the emergence of computer science. Dissatisfaction is a prime generator of the creative urge, dissatisfaction with the status quo and the desire to change it to something better. Charles Babbage was unhappy with the waste of human mental labor in computing mathematical tables, which led to his desire to free human beings from this tedium—hence, the Difference Engine. However, the Difference Engine produced its own discontent. As Luigi Frederico Menabrea (1809–1896), an Italian military mathematician (and, later, prime minister of Italy) would explain apropos the Difference Engine, its use was limited to one particular kind of computation. It could not be applied to the solution of “an infinity of other questions” of interest to mathematicians. It was this limitation and the attendant discontent that led Babbage to conceive the machine he called the Analytical Engine, the operation of which he believed would encompass the full range of algebraic problems. The Difference Engine was not general enough. Babbage desired a computing engine that could range over the whole of “mathematical analysis.” As he explained in a letter to the Earl of Rosse, then president of the Royal Society, his Analytical Engine would have the power to perform the “most analytical complicated operations.” Here, then, is Babbage’s promise: a mathematical machine with “nearly unlimited” powers. Babbage’s name for his new machine is significant.

Women and Political Power in Brazil

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro A. G. Dos Santos ◽  
Debora Thomé
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Abortion Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Gender Quota

Women have been historically excluded from positions of power in Brazil. Since the dawn of republicanism in the late 19th century, the political system has been dominated by men, and two long periods of authoritarianism stunted both the development of a strong women’s movement and the entrance of women into formal politics. Nevertheless, women have always been involved in the political process, and women’s groups have fought for women’s rights since the dawn of the republic. Successful examples include the suffrage movement, women’s movements that helped the return to democracy in the 1980s, and small victories such as domestic violence laws and maintenance of the status quo in the abortion law and reproductive rights. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century marked the slow increased presence of women in elected positions. The implementation of a gender quota law in 1996 and continued pressure by women politicians, those in the state apparatus, and women’s movements brought the issue of women’s representation to the forefront of debates about democratic development in Brazil. Although women still face strong barriers to enter the electoral arena, developments in the early 21st century such as the strengthening of the quota law show that the political space is slowly opening its doors to women.

scholarly journals Broadcasting Children’s Music

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bignell
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Children's Music ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Traditional Songs

Broadcasting children’s music on television and radio is motivated by, and aims to serve, adults’ perceptions of children’s wants and needs. Children’s music in general is shaped by the understanding of what ‘childhood’ means and, in turn, supports adults’ assumptions about childhood. This article develops these ideas in an analysis of examples from the history of British radio and television, beginning in the 1920s and continuing until the growing penetration of online interactive media challenged the status of broadcasting in the early 21st century. The article discusses examples of different kinds of children’s music in a broadcast context, including the broadcast of commercial recordings of music for children, such as versions of traditional songs and nursery rhymes as well as pop music aimed at children. It also considers the significance of signature tunes and repeated musical sequences from long-lived and well-loved children’s programmes, because they play key roles in differentiating children’s programmes from each other and distinguishing children’s music from music aimed at adults. Broadcast programmes frequently include music that does not play a central role, when it is used as an accompaniment to drama, entertainment performance or animation. But such music contributes to programmes’ tone and shapes their mode of address to an imagined child audience. Entertainment shows or magazine programmes include music performances alongside non-musical sequences and can use music to, for example, mark an occasion for sing-along activities or accompany games. The social function of broadcasting for children watching or listening at home or at school, usually with an adult or other children, is constituted in part by these varied forms of children’s music. These forms of music shape conceptions of childhood through particular kinds of listening practices and ways of belonging to an audience.

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