From Souk to Cyber Souk

2018 ◽  
pp. 143-166
Author(s):  
Norhayati Zakaria

Cultural values provide a way of understanding consumers’ acceptance or rejection of the way business is conducted, given their culturally-attuned preferences, choices and tastes. Culture has also been shown to affect almost all aspects of business, including transactions between seller and buyer, from how the seller attracts the customer’s attention to the way they negotiate a deal to the moment the transaction is completed. The notion that globalization results in a “universal taste” is no longer an effective promotional element for enticing international customers. Instead, marketers need to customize their products, services and systems to suit the customer’s specific needs. This chapter is to explore two questions: In what ways does culture impact e-commerce and what are the culturally-rooted challenges of conducting e-commerce in the MENA region? The chapter concludes with a set of propositions based on the argument that culture does influence the adoption of e-commerce for MENA consumers.

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-258

The essay investigates the phenomenon of laziness by first analyzing the opposition between laziness and the good. Both utility and the good make reference to labor. This opposition between labor and laziness is pivotal in Oblomov, Ivan Goncharov’s famous novel written in 1859. It marks a radical transition from a feudal paradigm to a capitalistic one. The two main characters in the novel are Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a Russian, and Andrey Ivanovich Stolz, a German, who together seem to personify the contradiction between laziness and labor. But the purpose of the essay is to deconstruct that opposition. In this connection, one can cite Kazimir Malevich, who maintained that laziness is the Mother of Perfection and is always unconsciously inherent in the conscious intent to work. Analysis of the Latin concepts of otium and negotium indicates that the laziness/labor opposition may be deconstructed as a dialectic between labor and its opposite. In other words, laziness does not stand in contradiction to labor but is instead its inseparable dialectical other. In the last part of the essay, the article considers the thinking of Anatoly Peregud, a poet who spent almost all his life in a psychiatric hospital. According to Peregud, Lenin derived his pseudonym from the Russian linguistic root “len” (laziness) in order to make laziness central to communism. For his part, Lenin saw Oblomov as an emblem of the main obstacle standing in the way of communism.


Author(s):  
Nicholas Wolterstorff

Often there are, among those who participate in some liturgical enactment by saying the prescribed words and performing the prescribed bodily actions, some who are lacking in faith: they do not have faith that the doctrines presupposed by the prescribed acts of worship are true. Why do they nonetheless participate in the way described? And what are they doing when they participate? Are they just going through the motions? Is that possible? Or are they, for example, thanking God even though they lack faith that God exists and is worthy of being thanked? Is that possible? These are the main questions addressed in this chapter. The chapter closes with a discussion and appraisal of the sincerity movement in eighteenth-century England, whose members insisted that worshippers should only say what they feel at the moment; to act otherwise would be insincere. And insincerity is a vice.


1880 ◽  
Vol 26 (113) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
B. F. C. Costelloe

The first number for the year is not remarkable for any paper of striking value. Readers of the Journal will be chiefly attracted by the long and clearly written resumé of Dr. Hughlings Jackson's recent studies “On Affections of Speech from Disease of the Brain,” which is contributed by Mr. James Sully. He remarks on the great value of Dr. Jackson's attempts to classify the different forms of aphasia under the three main heads or stages of—(1) Defect of Speech, in which the patient has a full vocabulary, but confuses words; (2) Loss of Speech, in which the patient is practically speechless, and his pantomimic power is impaired as well; and (3) Loss of Language, in which, besides being speechless, he has altogether lost the power of pantomime, and even his faculty of emotional language is deeply involved in the wreck. All these states or stages again are, properly speaking, to be distinguished altogether from affections of speech in the way of loss of articulation (owing to paralysis of the tongue, &c.), or loss of vocalisation (owing to disease of the larynx); whereas the three degrees or stages of aphasia proper are due to a deep-seated and severe disorganisation of the brain. The main interest of the theory lies in the ingenious and carefully-argued analysis of the symptoms, by which Dr. Jackson arrives at the theory that as the process of destruction goes on, the superior “layers” or strata of speech fail first—those namely which involve the ordinary power of adapting sounds to the circumstances of the moment as they arise; after them fail the “more highly organized utterances” those, namely, which have in any way become automatic, such as “come on,” “wo! wo!” and even “yes” and “no,” which stand on the border-line between emotional and intellectual language; next fails the power of adapting other than vocal signs to convey an intended meaning, which is called, rather clumsily, “pantomimic propositionising;” and last of all dies out the power of uttering sounds or making signs expressive merely of emotion—a power which, of course, is not true speech at all.


Slavic Review ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 640-650
Author(s):  
Richard Mowbray Haywood
Keyword(s):  
The Many ◽  

Perhaps the most famous anecdote of the many connected with the reign of Tsar Nicholas I concerns the way in which he supposedly determined the route of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway. When asked by his officials the route along which it should be built, the tsar, on the spur of the moment, it is claimed, took a ruler, laid it on a map, and arbitrarily and hastily drew an absolutely straight line between the two capitals. The all-powerful despot had spoken, and his decision was carried out by his servile courtiers, regardless of consequences.


PMLA ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-282
Author(s):  
David H. Stewart

One of the most impressive features of Anna Karenina is the way in which Tolstoy draws the reader's imagination beyond the literal level of the narrative into generalizations that seem mythical in a manner difficult to articulate. With Dostoevsky or Melville, one sees immediately a propensity for exploiting the symbolic value of things. With Tolstoy, things try, as it were, to resist conversion: they strive to maintain their “thingness” as empirical entities. A character in Dostoevsky is usually only half man; the other half is Christ or Satan. Moby Dick is obviously only half whale; the other half is Evil or some principle of Nature. But Anna Karenina is emphatically Anna Karenina. Like almost all of Tolstoy's characters, she has a proficiency in the husbandry of identity; she jealously hoards her own unique reality, so that it becomes difficult to say of her that she is a “type” of nineteenth-century Russian lady or a “symbol” of modern woman or an “archetypical” Eve or Lilith.


Author(s):  
Taras Bocharov ◽  
Petr Kozorezenko

The article examines the origin and development of Russian graphic landscape art, performed in the technique of engraving on linoleum. It covers the period from the early 20th century, the moment the first masters of this direction of graphic art appeared in Russia, until the late 1960s when linocut, the landscape, in particular, reached its prime and acquired its completely individual, unlike any other graphic technique, characteristic. The authors analyze the linocut landscapes of notable artists of the period described starting with the founder, N.Sheverdyaev, and the leading propagandist of linocut in Russia, I.Pavlov. The article describes the distinctive features of engraving and making prints by famous artists of the 20th century, graphic artists, and not only. This is M.Dobuzhinsky, B.Kustodiev, V.Falileev, K.Kostenko, N.Piskarev, later I.Sokolov, P.Staronosov, and many other not so famous artists. The Soviet period is represented by A.Kravchenko, M.Matorin, I.Sokolov, S.Yudovin, and, of course, A.Zyryanov, one of the well-known printers of the 1960s. The linocut technique is well established in almost all types of landscape. These were industrial, agitational works, glorifying the work of Soviet people, colorful sheets, and lyrical, delicate, and poetic works. The architectural and rural landscape occupied an important place in the work of the letterpress masters: in the urban landscape, of course, the images of the two capitals prevailed, which is not surprising since most of the artists studied and worked in Moscow and Leningrad. The authors of the article drew attention to the creative work of N.Lapshin, F.Smirnov, N.Novoselskaya, A.Smirnov, and others. In the article, the authors try to show how versatile and complex the linocut technique, especially colored, is. The authors want to show that the art of engraving on linoleum helped to view the landscape genre in graphics differently and, possibly, influenced the development of the landscape in other types of prints and painting. The authors are trying to prove that linoleum engraving rightfully takes an equal position with woodcut and etching. The works of masters working in this technique are exhibited in all museums in the country.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Acushla Deanne O'Carroll

<p>Haka and hula performances tell stories that represent histories, traditions, protocols and customs of the Maori and Hawai'ian people and give insight into their lives and the way that they see the world. The way that haka and hula performances are represented is being tested, as the dynamics of the tourism industry impact upon and influence the art forms. If allowed, these impacts and influences can affect the performances and thus manipulate or change the way that haka and hula are represented. Through an understanding of the impacts and influences of tourism on haka and hula performances, as well as an exploration of the cultures' values, cultural representations effective existence within the tourism industry can be investigated. This thesis will incorporate the perspectives of haka and hula practitioners and discuss the impacts and influences on haka and hula performances in tourism. The research will also explore and discuss the ways in which cultural values and representations can effectively co-exist within tourism.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janusz Maszewski

During long-term axenic culture of Chara continuous illumination (L=24) increases mitotic activity of almost all types of cells. In such conditions only initiation of oogonia is inhibited, leading into a strong predomination of male generative organs. Prolonged darkness (L:D=1:23) exerts a mitodepressing effect. Oogonia and antheridia are especially susceptible to the reduction of the light period. Modifications of the elongating growth in various photoperiods are different in the polyploid regions of the vegetative thallus and in haploid cells of the antheridial filaments. Segments of both axial internodes and lateral pleuridia increase their dimensions at L:D=1:23, whereas at L=24 their growth is significantly inhibited. Different reaction is noted in the cells of antheridial filaments: at L=24 they are about 10% longer than in the control (L:D=14:10). The duration of the antheridium aevelopment, from the stage of unicellular filaments to the moment of antheridium opening, is 1.5 days shorter at L=24 as compared with the control. This shortening includes proportionally both the period of divisions within antheridial filaments and the period of spermatozoid differentiation.


Author(s):  
Massimiliano Aragona

AbstractThe way somatization is expressed—including the actual somatoform symptoms experienced—varies in different persons and in different cultures. Traumatic experiences are intertwined with cultural and social values in shaping the resulting psychopathological phenomena, including bodily experiences. Four ideal-typical cases are presented to show the different levels involved. The effects of trauma, culture and values may be pathofacilitating (creating a social context which is necessary for the experience to take place), pathogenetic (taking a causal role in the onset of the psychopathological reaction), pathoplastic (shaping the form such a psychopathological reaction takes) or pathointerpretive (different interpretation of the same symptoms depending on the patient’s beliefs). While the roles of trauma and culture were already well recognized in previous accounts, this chapter adds an exploration of the importance of values, including cultural values, in the aetiology, presentation and management of somatization disorders. As a consequence, the therapeutic approach has to be adjusted depending on the way these factors intervene in the patient’s construction of mental distress.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-53
Author(s):  
Mark Honegger

This article will advocate for the use of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) Theory to research cultural values in Education. It will demonstrate how NSM research can be conducted as it provides explications for the word education. NSM is a research agenda that has identified 65 semantic primes, words that are found in every language of the world and which cannot be defined in terms of any simpler words. If you try to break down a semantic prime like good, you might describe it in terms of words like “positive, pleasing, valued,” all of which turn out to be more complex than good itself. Because primes cannot be decomposed and are universal to every language and every culture, they provide a basis for carrying out cross-linguistic comparisons of meaning and for identifying the cultural perspectives that inform our language and its thought structures. More complicated words, the bulk of any language, are social constructs that are culturally laden, providing deep insights into the way a society thinks.


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