scholarly journals Play! A Special Issue

Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072110136
Author(s):  
Caroline Bem ◽  
Susanna Paasonen

Sexuality, as it relates to video games in particular, has received increasing attention over the past decade in studies of games and play, even as the notion of play remains relatively underexplored within sexuality studies. This special issue asks what shift is effected when sexual representation, networked forms of connecting and relating, and the experimentation with sexual likes are approached through the notion of play. Bringing together the notions of sex and play, it both foregrounds the role of experimentation and improvisation in sexual pleasure practices and inquires after the rules and norms that these are embedded in. Contributors to this special issue combine the study of sexuality with diverse theoretical conceptions of play in order to explore the entanglements of affect, cognition, and the somatic in sexual lives, broadening current understandings of how these are lived through repetitive routines and improvisational sprees alike. In so doing, they focus on the specific sites and scenes where sexual play unfolds (from constantly morphing online pornographic archives to on- and offline party spaces, dungeons, and saunas), while also attending to the props and objects of play (from sex toys and orgasmic vocalizations to sensation-enhancing chemicals and pornographic imageries), as well as the social and technological settings where these activities occur. This introduction offers a brief overview of the rationale of thinking sex in and as play, before presenting the articles that make up this special issue.

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Divjak ◽  
Natalia Levshina ◽  
Jane Klavan

AbstractSince its conception, Cognitive Linguistics as a theory of language has been enjoying ever increasing success worldwide. With quantitative growth has come qualitative diversification, and within a now heterogeneous field, different – and at times opposing – views on theoretical and methodological matters have emerged. The historical “prototype” of Cognitive Linguistics may be described as predominantly of mentalist persuasion, based on introspection, specialized in analysing language from a synchronic point of view, focused on West-European data (English in particular), and showing limited interest in the social and multimodal aspects of communication. Over the past years, many promising extensions from this prototype have emerged. The contributions selected for the Special Issue take stock of these extensions along the cognitive, social and methodological axes that expand the cognitive linguistic object of inquiry across time, space and modality.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Safy Mahmoud ◽  
Hoda Mitkees

Malaysia has adopted several developmental plans since 1969 starting with the New Economic Policy (NEP), passing by the National Development Plan (NDP) and ending with the Vision 2020 adopted in 1991 under the rule of Mahathir Mohammed (1981-2003), whereby Malaysia has aimed to become a developed country by 2020. Looking for the future, Malaysia 2020 should build upon the older developmental plans; however there are some new elements that need to be considered if Malaysia is to continue on its successful developmental path. This paper aims at focusing on the issues that still need to be considered in Vision 2020 from an outsider point of view. This paper addresses the questions of what Malaysia’s economic plans adopted in the past which were able to achieve high economic growth rates while preserving at the same time the social aspects. And the paper focuses on trade policy in Malaysia under Mahathir rule, identifying how was it shaped and how likely it will continue in 2020. The paper identifies the challenges likely to be faced by Malaysia in the coming period and how such issues should be tackled in Vision 2020.


Politeja ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2(65)) ◽  
pp. 189-204
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Marcol

The Role of Language in Releasing from Inherited Traumas. Negotiations of the Social Position of the Silesian Minority in Serbian Banat The aim of the paper is to show the dependence between language, collective memory (also post-memory) and sense of identity. This issue is analysed using the example of an ethnic minority living in the village of Ostojićevo (Banat, Serbia) called ‘Toutowie.’ Their ancestors came in the 19th century from Wisła (Silesian Cieszyn, Poland); they left their homes because of great hunger and were looking for jobs in Banat. Narratives about the past contain traumatic experiences of the past generations transmitted in the Silesian dialect and constituting communicative memory. At the same time, a new Polish national identity is being constructed, supported by institutions and authorities; it carries a new image of the world and creates a new cultural memory. This new identity – shaped on the basis of national categories – leads to changes of its self-identification and gives the opportunity to raise its social position in the multi-ethnic Banat community.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0142064X2110647
Author(s):  
Katja Kujanpää

When Paul and the author of 1 Clement write letters to Corinth to address crises of leadership, both discuss Moses’ παρρησία (frankness and openness), yet they evaluate it rather differently. In this article, I view both authors as entrepreneurs of identity and explore the ways in which they try to shape their audience’s social identity and influence their behaviour in the crisis by selectively retelling scriptural narratives related to Moses. The article shows that social psychological theories under the umbrella term of the social identity approach help to illuminate the active role of leaders in identity construction as well as the processes of retelling the past in order to mobilize one’s audience.


Author(s):  
Michael P. Roller

The conclusion revisits the three major inquiries addressed in the text, drawing together the evidence and contexts provided in the previous seven chapters. The first investigates the role of objective settings, such as the systemic and symbolic violence of landscapes and semiotic systems of racialization in justifying or triggering moments of explicit subjective violence such as the Lattimer Massacre. The second inquiry, traces the trajectory of immigrant groups into contemporary patriotic neoliberal subjects. In other terms, it asks how an oppressed group can become complicit with oppression later in history. The third inquiry traces the development of soft forms of social control and coercion across the longue durée of the twentieth century. Specifically, it asks how vertically integrated economic and governmental structures such as neoliberalism and governmentality which serve to stabilize the social antagonisms of the past are enunciated in everyday life.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Хосе Колома ◽  
Hose Koloma ◽  
Дебора Гарсия ◽  
Debora Garsiya

The article of American colleagues reveals the role of modern means of communication in the process of training and education of children of primary school and adolescence. Primary attention is paid to video games, the characteristics of their different types, including educational orientation. With concrete examples, the possible positive effect of the use of video games by teachers for the intellectual development of students, as well as the risks of uncontrolled use by children, are considered. Recommendations are given to teachers and parents to control the play activities of younger schoolchildren and adolescents in order to prevent the negative impact of video games on the health and mental state of a child.


ICL Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shams Al Din Al Hajjaji

AbstractThe social contract in Egypt has changed dramatically five times in the past decade. Mubarak made substantial amendments in 2005 and 2007, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) ratified the 2011 Constitutional Declaration, the Muslim Brotherhood adopted the 2012 Constitution and, finally, Al-Sisi/Mansur proclaimed the 2014 Constitution. Currently, Egypt faces social, economic, political and legal problems. The Egyptian judiciary plays a vital role in the inability to respond to these problems. This research argues that the call for judicial reform should be revived to face contemporary challenges. These challenges are the result of the absence of serious judicial reform in the past four decades. The 1973 Judicial Authority Law was a result of the social contract presented in the 1971 Constitution. The research lists the reasons for adopting a new judicial authority law. In the first section, the social aspect is embodied in the protection of freedoms, judicial transparency and judicial legitimacy. The second section dealing with economic reasons for reform is divided into two parts. The first deals with Independent Bodies and Regulatory Agencies. The second issue reveals the role of the judiciary in the successive failures of the IBRA. The third section deals with the role of the judiciary in political life. The fourth section presents the legal reasons for judicial reform.


1981 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Sharpe

One of the most striking features of recent writing on early modern social history has been the emergence of the family as a subject of central concern. As befits an historical area being subjected to new scrutiny, much of this concern has expressed itself in the form of specialized, and often narrowly-focused articles or essays.1 To these have been added a number of more general works intended to examine the broader developments in and implications of family life in the past.2 Several themes within family history have already received considerable attention: the structure of the family, for example, a topic already rendered familiar by earlier work on historical demography; the concomitant topic of sexual practices and attitudes; and the economic role of the family, especially in its capacity as a unit of production. These are, of course, important matters, and the research carried out on them has revealed much of interest and consequence to the social historian; this should not, however, obscure the existence of a number of other significant dimensions of family life in the past which await thorough investigation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Kontowski ◽  
Madelaine Leitsberger

European universities responded in different ways to the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015. Some subscribed to the agenda of higher education (HE) as a universal human right, while others stressed different long-term benefits of offering access to it. Yet, the unprecedented sense of moral urgency that guided immediate declarations of support and subsequent actions has largely remained unaddressed. With the crisis becoming a new reality for many countries, HE has a role to play in the social inclusion of refugees, even in countries that were not attractive destinations for refugees in the past. In this article, we provide an overview of the reasons why HE institutions supported refugees, and present the results of an empirical study of Poland and Austria during the 2015–2016 academic year. We then evaluate those first responses utilizing parts of Ager and Strang’s framework of integration, and discuss issues of institutional readiness, capabilities and the public role of HE stemming from this comparison. Our findings suggest that reasons such as acknowledgement of basic rights, or utilizing social capital are insufficient to explain and understand strong integrative support measures. We propose that refugee support by HE institutions is both better understood and promoted through the language of hospitality.


1992 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.P. Singh

Migration in India has received increased scholarly attention in the past forty years, assisted by additional categories of data collected through the National Census. Considering the volume of both internal and international migration, the Indian population is relatively immobile. Most movements occur locally; 60 percent of internal migration is rural-rural on an intra-district level, consisting primarily of women moving with their husbands after marriage. Next in importance is the rural-urban migration of males seeking economic gain. The few studies done on migrants' characteristics show migration to be highly selective of age, sex, marital status, education, occupation and caste. The specific role of poverty in causing migration is still under debate. Key areas for further research include a greater focus on immobility; the social and demographic consequences of migration on sending and receiving communities; and the social, economic and demographic behavior of the migrants.


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