scholarly journals Mundus Vult Decipi RuPaul’s Drag Race as Part of the Culture Industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Eelke André Verhagen

In this article I examine the ways in which the competitive reality television franchiseRuPaul’s Drag Race(RPDR), immensely popular withWestern LGBTQ+-communities, can be considered a product of what Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer identified as the Culture Industry (CI). On the one hand,this allows for a concrete application of the CI-thesis and the exploration of possible lines of critique concerning RPDR and its effects on its viewership, while,on the other hand,it is an opportunity to evaluate the aptitude of the CI-thesis for critical analysis in the 21st century. While the concepts related to the CI-thesis turn out to be remarkably productive, its latent totalitarian and pessimistic framework tends to skew any analysis. This may warrant supplementing its coarse-grained perspective with a more fine-grained empirical investigation

Author(s):  
Giovanni Bertão ◽  
Paulo Licio de Geus

Malware overview reports are valuable information to understand threats behavior and develop proper countermeasures. Currently, most of these studies are focused on either fine-grained, individual sample analysis or coarse-grained landscapes. On the one hand, only the first allows professionals to handle specific security breaches. On the other hand, only the second allows understanding threat scenario as a whole. We claim that a complete security treatment is only possible when combining both approaches. Therefore, this work presents an analysis of a large malware dataset, showing the distinctions between coarse-grained and fine-grained analysis results. It presents both a general threat scenario based on coarse-grained results as well as it details fine-grained results to identify particular malicious constructions to anticipate incident response of future threats.


2002 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 215-232
Author(s):  
Scott Sturgeon

Consider the frameS believes that—.Fill it with a conditional, sayIf you eat an Apple, you'll drink a Coke.what makes the result true? More generally, what facts are marked by instances ofS believes (A→C)?In a sense the answer is obious: beliefs are so marked. Yet that bromide leads directly to competing schools of thought. And the reason is simple.Common-sense thinks of belief two ways. Sometimes it sees it as a three-part affair. When so viewed either you believe, disbelieve, or suspend judgment. This take on belief is coarse-grained. It says belief has three flavours: acceptance, rejection, neither. But it's not the only way common-sense thinks of belief. Sometimes it's more subtle: ‘How strong is your faith?’ can be apposite between believers. That signals an important fact. Ordinary practice also treats belief as a fine-grained affair. It speaks of levels of confidence. It admits degrees of belief. It contains a fine-grained take as well. There are two ways belief is seen in everyday life. One is coarse-grained. The other is fine-grained.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (114) ◽  
pp. 143-158
Author(s):  
Tarja-Lisa Hypén

THE BRAND OF THE CELEBRITY AUTHOR IN FINLAND | In the 21st century, the celebrity author has begun to interest researchers not only as a marketing phenomenon, but also as the literary institution’s own phenomenon. In my article, I explore the relationship of the celebrity author to the so-called acclaimed authors of modern times. In Anglo-American research, the celebrity author and the bestselling author are distinguished as separate author types, but in the case of Finnish Jari Tervo, these types combine. For almost 20 years, Jari Tervo has been amongboth the most sold and the most visible celebrity authors in his home country. I examine how the publicity and brand of the Finnish celebrity author are formed. I consider how the brand affects the author’s works on the one hand, and the reception of the works on the other. I point out the limiting effects of the brand, but I also examine how, in combining the high and the low, it affords mobility in the literary fields while it also offers an opportunity to influence society.


Babel ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Calzada Perez

Since ancient times the suasive value of rhetorical figures has been vastly studied. In fact, Aristotle himself argued that the aim of rhetoric was not just to persuade but to find the best methods of persuasion (Aristotle, Retorica, ed. 1990). These methods have been frequently used in advertising, where they are employed to capture the consumer’s attention and, consequently, to sell the advertised product. However (despite the frequent appearance of rhetorical figures in advertising), there is a scarcity of studies on the role of these persuasive mechanisms in the translation of publicity. Bearing upon the “new rhetoric”, the present paper has a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it aims to import a clear taxonomy of rhetorical figures from advertising into translation studies and subsequently to illustrate the transfer of these figures. On the other hand, it analyses the behaviour of rhetorical figures in the translation process by means of an empirical investigation whose goal it is to further categorise them in a systematic and rational way. Drawing upon the seminal work of McQuarrie and his collaborators, the paper performs a quantitative analysis of a corpus of 120 matching pairs consisting of English advertisements and their existing Spanish counterparts. Results evidence that a great majority of rhetorical figures are “translated”, thus confirming the globalising tendencies of advertising.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Freytag

This work undertakes a systematic reconstruction of the debates that took place over the course of several decades up to the beginning of the 21st century between Derrida on the one hand and Searle and Habermas on the other. It shows that the linguistic theories and the theories of communicative understanding developed by Searle and Habermas are based on inferences from the contingent individual case to the general. Searle draws ontological, Habermas anthropo-political conclusions, both with essentially naturalistic signatures. Derrida, on the other hand, raises epistemological objections and consequently develops a metaphysics of free subjects for whom conversation cannot necessarlily be presumed. The explicit dedication to ethics in Derrida's late work is due to his insight that the possibility of language and understanding is due to silence. Derrida's lasting merit lies in enriching the philosophy of language with a secretology. This study has been awarded the Kant Prize of the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Bonn and the "Prix de la République Française", awarded by the French Embassy and the University of Bonn.


Author(s):  
Justin E. H. Smith

This chapter undertakes an extensive treatment of the place of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the history of the concept of race. In particular, the chapter draws out the significant points of difference between Leibniz's view, on the one hand, and Bernier's biogeographical view, on the other. It shows, in fact, that Leibniz remains thoroughly committed to a conception of race that is rooted in earlier ideas about the temporal succession of members of a family or lineage. Moreover, the chapter reveals in what way his analysis of race may be seen as a concrete application of his very deepest philosophical commitment, according to which the order of the world amounts to a multiplicity that is underlain by unity.


Author(s):  
James Costa Wilson

This chapter proposes a critical analysis of the types of discourse articulated by children involved in language revitalization programmes in two Western European contexts: Provence (south-eastern France) and southern Scotland. It focuses on how the minority language (Occitan and Scots) is described and what this means for how children categorize the language and speech communities within which they are being socialized. Of all the social actors involved in language revitalization programmes, and despite the central part they play, children are the only ones whose opinion on participation is never required. Children occupy a very ambiguous place in language revitalization movements. On the one hand, they are perceived as the embodiment of the future of the language, while, on the other hand, they are often accused of not speaking the language properly or of mixing minority and dominant languages. This seems to be a fairly widespread pattern in Europe, where ‘neo-speakers’ are generally viewed with mistrust.


Author(s):  
André Lemos ◽  
Francisco Paulo Jamil Almeida Marques

This chapter examines the limitations and the socio-political effects of the Brazilian National Broadband Plan (PNBL: is its Portuguese acronym). The discussion considers the main transformations witnessed in the telecommunications landscape in Brazil during the second half of the twentieth century. On the one hand, the end of state monopoly of telecommunications services and the provision of such services by the private sector called for greater investments in infrastructure. On the other hand, the Brazilian regulatory agencies have failed to lower prices, promote competition, and spread broadband access to remote and underserved areas. The PNBL was launched in order to deal with these difficulties. The plan, however, has at least three important problems: (1) the low-speed connection offered to users, (2) the unattractive prices, and (3) the lack of reflection on issues such as net neutrality. The text argues that only by taking such issues into consideration will the plan ensure innovation, economic growth, diversity, and freedom of access to information.


Author(s):  
Ted Nannicelli

This chapter summarizes the book’s central claims and looks at paths for future work on the applied ethics of artistic creation and ethical criticism. It suggests the need for two parallel strands of inquiry: On the one hand, as the term “applied ethics” suggests, there is a need for a finer-grained understanding of both the artistic and ethical contexts of artistic creation—an understanding that will need to be informed by research across a number of fields, including anthropology, art history, and moral psychology. On the other hand, whatever details of that context are revealed by this fine-grained analysis, there will be a more abstract conceptual challenge about how to reconcile the norms of that art-historical and ethical context with those in currency in the art-historical and ethical context from which one is judging the work. So, the parallel path of inquiry is in metaethics.


2021 ◽  
pp. 24-35
Author(s):  
Kate E. Evans ◽  
Dorothy L. Schmalz

Abstract Men's leisure has long been considered a 'male preserve' in which male purview is the norm, and women are relegated to subordinate roles. Current research and events indicate that masculinity continues to dominate leisure settings and impinges on women's leisure via factors ranging from social gender norms to overt acts of violence. Drawing on current research, cultural trends, and feminist theory and philosophy, this chapter examines the juxtapositions in culture and rhetoric that on the one hand promote female empowerment, and on the other provide footing for a contrary argument that men and masculinity are under threat. Related research also provides insight into a possible path forward including men's engagement in leisure violence prevention and implications for women's leisure and the leisure field.


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