Cigarette Butts and the Building of Socialism in East Germany

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-344
Author(s):  
Young-sun Hong
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
The West ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
New Man ◽  
Positive Identity ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
Healthy Body ◽  
The Ideal

Since the nineteenth century, cleanliness and hygiene have played an integral role in the construction of bourgeois subjectivity and notions of self-governance in Europe. Drawing on this reservoir of potential signification, the spread of a mass consumer society in the twentieth century has capitalized on commodified images of health, hygiene, and cleanliness, while the maintenance and representation of clean bodies for modern men and women became virtually inseparable from consumption. The Nazis both accelerated and gave a racial spin to the idea of a clean, healthy body as the symbol of racially superior, socially productive, and sexually virile Aryans. Whether commodified and sexualized under consumerism or channeled into a murderous project under the Nazis, hygienic and healthy bodies became the object of pleasure and a signifier of superior social and racial identity. When these considerations are taken into account, it is important to inquire into the problems faced by the founding fathers of the GDR with regard to questions of health and consumption. The vision of the socialist “New Man” and the ideal of pure and healthy living that were so frequently invoked in the early years of the GDR must be seen as attempts to forge a positive identity for the new socialist state while avoiding the twin ideological dangers posed by the memory of Nazi racial policies and the implicit connections made between health, consumption, and freedom in the pluralistic consumer society to the west.

scholarly journals Nishida Kitaro’s Views on Japanese Culture

2018 ◽  
pp. 46-66
Author(s):  
E. L. Skvortsova
Keyword(s):  
National Culture ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Spiritual Tradition ◽  
Dynamic Dimension ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Nishida Kitaro ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Historical World

Nishida Kitaro (1870–1945) is a well-known Japanese philosopher whose work is marked by attempts to combine the world outlooks of the national spiritual tradition with elements of European philosophical thought. The article analyzes Nishida’s views on culture that are an independent part of his original philosophical theory. Religion, art, morality, science are the ideal forms of being in the historical world. The work of a scientist or artist is a manifestation of the formative activity of a person. The historical world as the “sphere of absolute nothingness” is the final point of the introspection of “nothingness,” where reality comprehends the identity of its opposites through human activity. Nothingness, or “Emptiness,” in the East Asian tradition has another, dynamic, dimension – these are the relations between people and the relations between man and the cosmos, or Nature, which are not perceived by rough human feelings and not comprehended by equally rough mind. Nishida stressed that for Japan the issue of the authenticity of the national foundations of culture, separated from Chinese and Indian influences, has a clearly positive answer in the aesthetic sphere: in the field of traditional poetics. The traditional aesthetics of Japan reflects the archetypal structure of the national culture. All world cultures have a common prototype, but each of them is a deviation, one-sidedness of this prototype. In the West, a culture of the form triumphed, beginning with Plato and Aristotle. In Japan, on the contrary, the culture was characterized by fluidity, processability, formlessness. In fact, Nishida is one of founding fathers of modern Japanese cultural studies.

scholarly journals ‘One Feels so Much in These Times!’ Emotional Education and the Construction of New Subjectivities: Sex Education Films in Early 1960s GDR

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Laukötter
Keyword(s):  
Sex Education ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Socialist Society ◽  
New Man ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Pedagogical Function ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Emotional Education

Shown in different formats—from cinema to television—in a variety of settings, this chapter outlines the role these films played in discourses on sex education in the GDR in the 1960s, which for their part were highly influenced by psychology and pedagogy. The article will argue that these films not only served the pedagogical function of teaching viewers about sexuality, but also aimed to (re-)produce the ideal of the ‘new man’ for a newly emerging socialist society that was to be founded on a new way of educating emotions. Since the education of youth was regarded a key issue for the construction of new selves, the medium of film with its special attractiveness for the young generation can be viewed as an instrument for forming new subjectivities.

scholarly journals NO VERTIGINOSO PICADEIRO SOVIÉTICO [Marcos Francisco Nery Ferreira]

REPERTÓRIO ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Teatro & Dança Repertório
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Socialist Revolution ◽  
New Man ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Symbiotic Relation ◽  
The Ideal

<div>O desejo por uma arte nova e engajada na Revolução Socialista conduz a importantes reformas artísticas na Rússia no início do século XX. As idéias revolucionárias estimularam as transformações do espetáculo e das práticas artísticas não somente através de sua politização, como também pela busca de uma poética inovadora em conformidade com as aspirações da época. Desta maneira, as atividades circenses e teatrais participavam ativamente desta busca desenfreada, porém numa relação de confl uência e hibridismo. O almejar de uma teatralização do teatro e o ideal de “homem novo” difundido pela vanguarda estão em consonância com as mudanças relativas ao picadeiro. É neste contexto que diversos artistas vão se apropriar das atividades do circo, numa relação de simbiose entre o palco e a pista. A este respeito, Vladimir Maiakóvski e Vsévolod Meyerhold são fi guras significativas.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>The desire for a new art engaged to The Socialist Revolution leads to important artistic reforms in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The revolutionary ideas had stimulated transformation in spectacles and artistic practices not only through politicization, but also through the pursuit of innovative poetics, in compliance with the aspirations of the time period. As a result, circus and theatrical activities had actively taken part in this unstoppable pursuit, on a hybrid and confluent relation. The seeking fortheatricalizing theater itself and the ideal "new man", spread by Russian Avantgarde, are balanced with ring related changes. Nevertheless, performers approach circus activities, in a symbiotic relation among stage and arena. Referring to this, Vladimir Maiakóvski and Vsévolod Meyerhold are significant characters.</div></div>

scholarly journals Rehabilitation of Utopia as a Symptom of the Crisis of the Russian and Western Civilizations

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Rimma I. Sokolova
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
The West ◽  
System A ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Reduction Of Uncertainty ◽  
The Ideal

The article discusses such a new phenomenon of modernity as the rehabilitation of utopia, which has not yet become widespread, but it is a serious symptom of the crisis of civilization in Russia and in the West. It is shown that attempts to rehabilitate utopia are associated with the situation of crisis, uncertainty, unpredictability caused by the ongoing transformations of the modern epoch. Under these conditions, the utopia is not only a reflection of the existing situation but also an opportunity for the formation of new ideas and the reduction of uncertainty. Many astute researchers in both the West and Russia demonstrate a positive attitude towards utopia, as they see the opportunities offered by utopia, especially in times of crisis. It is noted that in Russia there is a gradual overcoming of the negative attitude to utopia, which was associated with the collapsed socialist system. A summary history of utopia shows that utopia is a significant factor in history that accompanies the development of mankind throughout history. Despite this, in the earlier decades of the 20th century and the beginning of 21st century the “death of utopia” was declared, it was driven by ideological and political reasons and by globalization in general. Meanwhile, at present its importance is again actualized in relation to the complex international situation. Therefore, both in the West and in Russia there is a growing demand for the ideal concepts of the future of human existence in the form of utopia.

The Rudolf Slánský Affair: New Evidence

Slavic Review ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Lukes
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Socialist Economy ◽  
International Capital ◽  
The West ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Party Members ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
General Secretary

Rudolf Slánský's arrest in November 1951 by Statni bezpecnost (StB), the Czechoslovak secret police, his Kafkaesque trial a year later, and his execution caused a sensation during the early years of the Cold War. For a full week, the trial could be followed live on the radio in Prague. The transcript of the proceedings was published and widely distributed. Yet the affair remained a mystery. Slánský, until recently the general secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC), and thirteen of his colleagues, all of them lifelong party members, confessed to crimes of high treason against the Prague government, espionage on behalf of the west, and sabotage of the socialist economy. In tired, monotonous voices, they described their lives as being motivated by their hatred of the CPC and loyalty to such sponsors as the Gestapo, Zionism, western intelligence services, and international capital. In their final speeches, all the defendants demanded that the court impose upon them the death penalty. The judge disappointed only three—they received life sentences. Slánský and ten others were executed in December 1952.

Brief analysis of educational policy of the People’s Republic of China

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 68-74
Author(s):  
T. Sharenkova ◽  
◽  
K. Tarabarko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Consumer Society ◽  
The West ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Systemic Crisis ◽  
General Dynamics

The study is devoted to the problems of education, since education is a strategic area, as it forms public consciousness and a system of values. According to the authors, the importance of education and the importance of its reform should not be underestimated, since the goals, content of education and the degree of its impact on all respondents of the educational process determine the present and future of society. The reform process in this area currently covers all countries and states without exception. Education reflects the general dynamics of integrating intellectual property into market relations and becomes an integral part of the “consumer society”. The subject of this research is the educational policy of the Chinese leadership. If earlier the countries of the East paid attention and borrowed a lot from the West - the market economy, political systems, as well as the education system, now, in the 21st century, on the contrary, the countries of the West are studying the East. According to the authors, despite the variety of works devoted to the problems of education considered in the article, the experience of China currently requires a deeper study and rethinking. The Chinese government prioritizes education, closely linking the economic success of society with education reforms. In this regard, the topic of this article seems to be very relevant. The research methodology is based on a combination of descriptive and structural analysis. This article examines the micro and macro trends in the development of education in China in the near future, which is the practical significance of the study. The authors conclude that the measures taken by the leadership of the PRC in the field of education are very successful and can be useful for overcoming the systemic crisis in education in Russia. Today, in the opinion of many scientists, in the context of globalization, the convergence of the eastern and western education systems will contribute to a paradigm shift: the technocratic vector of education will be replaced by an anthropological one, and the main resource of the educational process will be the eastern philosophy and the educational system of Asian countries, in particular China. The analytical base of the study includes legislative and regulatory acts, materials from periodicals, a review of scientific articles by experts in the field of education

scholarly journals A Tornado Hitting the Homeland: Disturbing American Foundational Myths in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Henriette-Juliane Seeliger
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Bharati Mukherjee ◽  
The West ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
American Midwest ◽  
Virgin Land ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Female Immigrant ◽  
American National Identity ◽  
The Ideal

Historically, the United States has always been a country of immigration. Yet, in light of recent political events, a form of nativism and sedentarism is re-emerging that seeks to preserve what is generally perceived as essentially American: an ethnically white and male identity that has its origins in the foundational myths of the pastoral, the frontier, and the West. The American Midwest is where the allegedly “real” America lies: it is what Anthony D. Smith has termed an 2ethnoscape”: a landscape imbued with historical and cultural meaning that has come to represent true “Americanness”. In her 1989 novel Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee uses the figure of Jasmine, an undocumented female immigrant from India, to disrupt this traditional trope of “the West” as the perceived location of American cultural identity. She liberates the land from its national, historical, and ethnic inscriptions by subverting the very foundational myths of the pastoral, the frontier, manifest destiny, virgin land, and the melting-pot, that are so crucial to the justification of this exclusive as well as exclusionary identity… This article analyzes the processes and mechanisms through which Mukherjee liberates the landscape: Firstly, she satirizes the ideal of the American pastoral and exposes the assumption of a stable, uniquely American landscape as purely imaginative. She then subverts the notion of the global city as the ideal location of immigrants, where “the other” can be safely contained outside the homeland and instead makes the Midwest ethnoscape the space where her protagonist uproots American national identity. Through her presence in the American heartland, Jasmine disturbs and challenges naturalized notions of America and constructs a new homeland that is open for all immigrants following her. Mukherjee thus shifts the perspective away from seeing the American homeland as a pre-existing place in need of defense, and proposes a fluid understanding of home that has acquired new relevance in light of recent political events.

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