scholarly journals Methodological issues and prospects of semiotics of humour

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 137-151
Author(s):  
Dmitrij Gluscevskij
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Unique Object ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Epistemological Views

This article aims at proposing a way to identify humour by means of Greimassian semiotics and to single humour out as a unique object of semiotic analysis. Firstly, the article discusses the fundamental epistemological premises of semiotic text analysis through the analysis of texts by Greimas which were meant to further and legitimize his project of semiotics. Also, the already existing attempts at providing a semiotic definition of humour are critically evaluated while relating their problematic aspects with the implicitly defined field of semiotic interest. Finally, it is demonstrated that a productive semiotic description of a comic text is possible when the status quo epistemological views are revised and the traditional field of semiotic analyses is expanded accordingly.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Statements in the U. S. Creative Sector: Progress, or More Bullshit?

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
Antonio C. Cuyler
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Arts Organizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Organizations ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

This article represents a snapshot and analysis of U. S. service arts organizations’ DEI statements and activities in 2018. At that time, many primarily White-serving U. S. cultural organizations responded defensively to accusations of elitism and a harmful rigged funding system that maintained the status quo by awarding most cultural funding to these organizations while undermining the health and vitality of cultural organizations by and for historically oppressed communities (Sidford, 2011). Furthermore, Helicon Collaborative (2017) found that even with a host of cultural equity, “diversity” projects (Tseng 2016), and public-facing DEI statements, little had changed within six years. Therefore, this study uses directed and summative content analysis to investigate the research question “what do cultural equity and diversity statements communicate about cultural organizations’ positions on DEI?” This study also uses Frankfurt’s (2005) essay On Bullshit and Laing’s (2016) two-prong definition of accountability as a theoretical framework to examine if and how cultural organizations hold themselves accountable for achieving DEI in the creative sector. Lastly, readers should keep in mind that the public murder of Geor-ge Floyd in 2020 has hastened all of the service arts organizations’ access, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) work examined in this study.

Mindset and Social Entrepreneurship: Japanese Self-initiated Expatriate Entrepreneurs in Cambodia

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuko Yokoyama ◽  
Sarah Louisa Birchley
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Entrepreneurs ◽  
Extended Study ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Context Characteristics ◽  
Initial Research

This research is based on an extended study of Japanese self-initiated expatriate entrepreneurs (SIEEs) in Asia. Since 2015 the authors have explored various factors that influence SIEEs when setting up enterprises overseas, including the ability to take initiative; support and encouragement from family, a well-defined career anchor and exposure to overseas in the exploration stage of one’s career. An emerging trend is the desire to engage in social development activities, which has seen increasing numbers of Japanese leave well-paid companies at home to work in NGOs in developing countries. An extension of this can be seen in Japanese who choose to become self-initiated expatriate social entrepreneurs. This article focuses specifically on cases collected in Cambodia and attempts to explain how and why Japanese decide to become self-initiated expatriate social entrepreneurs in Cambodia using the concept of mindsets; entrepreneurial, social, sustainable and global. Initial research shows that some of these individuals exemplify the definition of sustainable entrepreneurship as they are creative and question the status quo in order to seek new opportunities for societal improvement ( Bornstein, 2007 ) and have multiple mindsets behind their actions. This research paper shares the context, characteristics, and outcomes of Japanese self-initiated expatriate social entrepreneurs in Cambodia and concludes by suggesting how knowledge of these SIEEs can be used in higher education contexts in Japan to improve entrepreneurship education.

scholarly journals A posthumanist pedagogy using digital text analysis to enhance critical thinking in higher education

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-880
Author(s):  
Kieran O'Halloran
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Analysis Software ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Digital Text ◽  
The Status ◽  
Project Assignment ◽  
Independent Thinking

Abstract I model a critical posthumanist pedagogy that uses text analysis software and is aimed at higher education students. A key purpose of the pedagogy is to help students enhance empathetic, critical and independent thinking. For their project assignment, the student chooses an unfamiliar campaign seeking to eliminate suffering and extend rights. They gather all texts from the campaign website into a corpus, which thus represents the campaign writ large. Then they use appropriate software to ascertain, efficiently and rigorously, common campaign concerns across this corpus. This puts students in a position to discern any significant concerns in the campaign corpus that are not addressed in text(s) supporting the status quo which the campaign opposes. Should significant omissions be found, students critically evaluate the status quo text(s) from the campaign’s perspective. Since this perspective derives from the student identifying (at least temporarily) with software generated data, it is a posthuman subjectivity. Engaging digitally and empathetically with a campaign’s data at scale for creation of a posthuman subjectivity can broaden awareness of disadvantage, discrimination, and suffering as well as expand horizons. Moreover, at the end of the assignment, the student is expected to formulate their own position vis-à-vis the previously unfamiliar campaign. Conditions have been created then for the student to enhance independent thinking too.

scholarly journals International Slavic Studies: Concepts, History and Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenfei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The West ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Formal Establishment ◽  
Slavic Studies

Abstract This paper departs from the definition of Slavistics and reviews the history of international Slavic studies, from its prehistory to its formal establishment as an independent discipline in the mid-18th century, and from the Pan-Slavic movement in the mid-19th century to the confrontation of Slavistics between the East and the West in the mid-20th century during the Cold War. The paper highlights the status quo of international Slavic studies and envisions the future development of Slavic studies in China.

The Description of Formative Judaism: The Social Perspective of the Mishnah's System of Civil Law and Government

AJS Review ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Jacob Neusner
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Temple

Mishnah's division of Damages presents a complete and systematic account of a theory of Israelite civil law and government. While drawing on diverse materials of earlier ages, beginning, of course, with the diverse Mosaic codes themselves, Mishnah's system came to closure after the Bar Kokhba War. Like its account of the Temple and its cult, Mishnah here speaks of nonexistent institutions and prohibited activities. There being no Israelite government, Mishnah's legislation for a high priest and Temple, a king and an army, speaks of a world which may have been in times past (this is dubious) but did not exist at the time of the Mishnaic discourse on the subject. The division of damages is composed of two subsystems which fit together logically, one on the conduct of civil society—commerce, trade, real estate, the other on the institutions of civil society—courts, administration. The main point of the former subsystem is that the task of society is to maintain perfect stasis, to preserve the status quo, and to secure the stability of all transactions. In the interchange of buying and selling, giving and taking, torts and damages, there must be an essential equality of exchange. No one should come out with more than he had at the outset. There should be no sizable shift in fortune or circumstance. The stable and unchanging economy of society must be preserved. The aim of the law is to restore the antecedent status of a person who has been injured. When we ask whose perspective is represented in a system of such a character and such emphases, we turn to examine the recurrent subject-matter of the division's cases. The subject of all predicates, in fact, is the householder, the small landholder. The definition of the problems for Mishnah's attention accords with the matters of concrete concern to the proprietary class: responsible, undercapitalized, overextended, committed to a barter economy (in a world of specie and currency), above all, aching for a stable and reliable world in which to do its work.

The Political Economy of Localism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Ali
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Alternatives ◽  
Critical Regionalism ◽  
Local Media ◽  
The Status ◽  
Policy Windows ◽  
Definition Of

In Chapter 6, the case studies are analyzed through the frameworks of critical regionalism and critical political economy. The first section describes how a political economy of localism has come to exist within media policy discourse. This system favors the status quo over alternatives, tethers local media exclusively to specific places, and impedes our ability to think through ways to bridge the spatial and social divides of localism. The second section reintroduces critical regionalism as an approach that tempers this political economy. The chapter argues that while the political economy of localism works to stifle policy alternatives, there are policy windows – “moments of critical regionalism” – that require our attention. The chapter offers a definition of media localism based on critical regionalism and the case studies.

scholarly journals Requirements for the Terminology Definition in the Arabic Lexicons of Critique and Eloquence

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Qutaiba Habashneh ◽  
Abbas Abbas ◽  
Ibrahim Rababah
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
The Status ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Structure Of Knowledge ◽  
General Conditions

Knowing the status of defining expressions requires the knowledge of the conditions that must occur in this definition to have a full meaning, leading to its original purpose, which also leads to a general agreement about this definition among specialists.  The status quo of expressions in dictionaries requires recognition of a set of conditions that govern the definition of an expression in a dictionary a govern the expression itself (connoted and denoted). This study has established some basic conditions. For example, the definition should connote the essence of the item, its gender, division and be equal to the thing it defines. The search for conditions of definition is indeed a search to achieve three purposes: giving the expression its position in the structure of knowledge, agreeing on the specific meaning of the expression, and enabling non-specialists to somehow understand the expression. The research concludes that the general conditions that characterize the definition of expression are clarity, accuracy, and completion.

scholarly journals Climate crisis adaptation - strategies towards resilience - from differet perspectives and in comparable conditions as starting points for Urban and Architectural interventions in Milan and Vienna

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silja Tillner ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Additional Weight ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
The Status ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
Climate Crisis

Most large cities worldwide have recently experienced the dramatic effects of the climate crisis. The focus of this paper lies on illustrating different scenarios for cities on a 1.5-degree pathway, which means a 50-55% net emissions reduction by 2030 versus 2010 levels. The two selected cities, Milan and Vienna, are comparable in size and social set-up. The commonalities form the base for a comparison and for the definition of the next steps. Current strategies, urban and architectural interventions, future initiatives in both cities will be compared with more innovative ones that go beyond the status quo in which economic and private interests outweigh public ones. The COVID-19 outbreak and the severe lockdown in Vienna and Milan have acted as game-changers. Closed streets and reduced driving lanes to facilitate pedestrian and cycle movement became possible. The question is how many of these interventions remain or if business as usual returns. Although the negative health consequences of constant exposure to air pollution, especially for the lungs, were known before, addressing them has now gained additional weight. Governments are well-advised to use the strategies they developed for fighting COVID-19 also for making serious efforts in fighting climate change.

scholarly journals Political Masculinities, Crisis Tendencies, and Social Transition: Toward an Understanding of Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Starck ◽  
Russell Luyt
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Social Transition ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Social Transitions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Status ◽  
Rapid Industrialization ◽  
Definition Of

This introduction to the special issue on “Political Masculinities and Social Transition” rethinks the notion of “crisis in masculinity” and points to its weaknesses, such as cyclical patterns and chronicity. Rather than viewing key moments in history as points of rupture, we understand social change as encompassing ongoing transitions marked by a “fluid nature” (Montecinos 2017, 2). In line with this, the contributions examine how political masculinities are implicated within a wide range of social transitions, such as nation building after war, the founding of a new political party in response to an economic crisis, an “authoritarian relapse” in a democracy, attempts at changing society through terrorism, rapid industrialization as well as peace building in conflict areas. Building on Starck and Sauer’s definition of “political masculinities” we suggest applying the concept to instances in which power is explicitly either being (re)produced or challenged. We distinguish between political masculinities that are more readily identified as such (e.g., professional politicians) and less readily identified political masculinities (e.g., citizens), emphasizing how these interact with each other. We ask whether there is a discernible trajectory in the characteristics of political masculinities brought about by social transition that can be confirmed across cultures. The contributors’ findings indicate that these political masculinities can contribute to different kinds of change that either maintain the status quo, are progressive, retrogressive, or a mixture of these. Revolutionary transitions, it seems, often promote the adherence to traditional forms of political masculinity, whereas more reformatory transition leaves discursive spaces for argument.

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