scholarly journals Postmodernism in Belgrade architecture: Between cultural modernity and societal modernization

Spatium ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 23-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ljiljana Blagojevic
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Architectural Discourse ◽  
Cultural Logic ◽  
Methodological Question ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Practice ◽  
Late Socialism ◽  
Point Of Departure

The paper explores the introduction and articulation of ideas and aesthetic practice of postmodernism in architecture of late socialism in Yugoslavia, with the focus on Belgrade architecture scene. Theoretical and methodological point of departure of this analysis is J?rgen Habermas's thesis of modernity as an incomplete, i.e., unfinished project, from his influential essay ?Die Moderne: Ein unvollendetes Projekt? (1980). The thematic framework of the paper is shifted towards issues raised by Habermas which concern relations of cultural modernity and societal modernization, or rather towards consideration of architectural postmodernity in relation to the split between culture and society. The paper investigates architectural discourse which was profiled in Belgrade in 1980s, in a historical context of cultural modernity simultaneous with Habermas's text, but in different conditions of societal modernization of Yugoslav late socialism. In that, the principle methodological question concerns the interpretation of postmodern architecture as part of the new cultural production within the social restructuration of late and/or end of socialism as a system, that being analogous to Fredric Jameson's thesis of ?Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism? (1984).

Conclusions

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-168
Author(s):  
Alexey Golubev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Society ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Cultural Logic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Late Socialism ◽  
Historical Agency

This chapter summarizes the observations pointed out in the book about the materiality of Soviet objects such as stairwells, weightlifting equipment, and television sets. It concludes that these were created by hybrid social creatures whose practices were influenced not only by ideology and language but also by things around them, and as a result, Soviet artifacts have their politics. The chapter describes elemental materialism as a part of the cultural logic of late socialism. It supplied officials and intellectuals with persistent and routinely reproduced metaphors that assessed people through their mastery of professional equipment, consumption practices, and hobbies. It also influenced the social topography of late socialism. The chapter talks about soviet objects and spaces, and how they interfered in the processes of subjectivation by suggesting forms of selfhood that fell out of the civilizing frameworks of the Soviet enlightenment project. It discusses soviet materiality and how it acquired its historical agency through the bodies of people who were fascinated with various material objects of late socialism and for whom these objects were instrumental in suggesting and objectifying their individual and collective selves. Material objects of late socialism encapsulated different and often conflicting visions of the past, present, and future, structured the social landscape, and suggested various forms of navigating through it. Examining the ways they did so makes it possible to better understand Soviet society as a complex historical phenomenon.

Race and the Epigenetics of Memory

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Soto Laveaga
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Dna Analysis ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Neural Function ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Race Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
Lasting Change

In my brief response to Terence Keel’s essay “Race on Both Sides of the Razor,” I focus on something as pertinent as alleles and social construction: how we write history and how we memorialize the past. Current DNA analysis promises to remap our past and interrogate certainties that we have taken for granted. For the purposes of this commentary I call this displacing of known histories the epigenetics of memory. Just as environmental stimuli rouse epigenetic mechanisms to produce lasting change in behavior and neural function, the unearthing of forgotten bodies, forgotten lives, has a measurable effect on how we act and think and what we believe. The act of writing history, memorializing the lives of others, is a stimulus that reshapes who and what we are. We cannot disentangle the discussion about the social construction of race and biological determinism from the ways in which we have written—and must write going forward—about race. To the debate about social construction and biological variation we must add the heft of historical context, which allows us to place these two ideas in dialogue with each other. Consequently, before addressing the themes in Keel’s provocative opening essay and John Hartigan’s response, I speak about dead bodies—specifically, cemeteries for Black bodies. Three examples—one each from Atlanta, Georgia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Mexico—illustrate how dead bodies must enter our current debates about race, science, and social constructions. 

Class, Control, and Classical Music

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Bull
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Music Ensembles ◽  
The Aesthetic

Through an ethnographic study of young people playing and singing in classical music ensembles in the south of England, this book analyses why classical music in England is predominantly practiced by white middle-class people. It describes four ‘articulations’ or associations between the middle classes and classical music. Firstly, its repertoire requires formal modes of social organization that can be contrasted with the anti-pretentious, informal, dialogic modes of participation found in many forms of working-class culture. Secondly, its modes of embodiment reproduce classed values such as female respectability. Thirdly, an imaginative dimension of bourgeois selfhood can be read from classical music’s practices. Finally, its aesthetic of detail, precision, and ‘getting it right’ requires a long-term investment that is more possible, and makes more sense, for middle- and upper-class families. Through these arguments, the book reframes existing debates on gender and classical music participation in light of the classed gender identities that the study revealed. Overall, the book suggests that inequalities in cultural production can be understood through examining the practices that are used to create a particular aesthetic. It argues that the ideology of the ‘autonomy’ of classical music from social concerns needs to be examined in historical context as part of the classed legacy of classical music’s past. It describes how the aesthetic of classical music is a mechanism through which the middle classes carry out boundary-drawing around their protected spaces, and within these spaces, young people’s participation in classical music education cultivates a socially valued form of self-hood.

Cultural interface

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kahn ◽  
Mark Lipovetsky ◽  
Irina Reyfman ◽  
Stephanie Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Court Culture ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Civic Spaces ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Interface ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The Church

The chapter contextualizes the literary developments of the second half of the seventeenth century, including the changes in education and print culture. A new vision of court culture, expanding administration, and ecclesiastical reforms provided new contexts for writing, as well as innovations in the theater and in poetry. The spaces represented in Russian literature were, as previously, the monastery and the church. The court moved into the limelight as a center of cultural production. The social reality of the period did not entirely foster the creation of civic spaces or an autonomous literary field, and writing had to adapt to the control of the authorities. Opportunities for the ritual performance of the liturgy and at court expanded considerably during the last decades of the seventeenth under the aegis of Tsar Aleksei. Orthodox proponents of neo-humanist culture who worked in Moscow succeeded in transforming the uses of rhetoric during ceremonial occasions.

scholarly journals The Social Construction of Internet Addiction in China: Youth between Reality and Temporal Autonomy in the Documentary Web Junkie

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-105
Author(s):  
Annika Pissin
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Internet Addiction ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
The Core ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The Social ◽  
China Today ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article addresses issues surrounding the social construction of internet addiction, focusing on conceptualisations of reality, escape, hope, and time. Drawing on a critical realist account of semiosis, the framing of internet addiction in China is analysed using the documentary film Web Junkie as an empirical pivot and point of departure. A contextual overview of relations, interests, and tensions surrounding youth and the internet in China is provided, and the film Web Junkie is briefly presented. The main body of the article consists of a critical analysis of conceptualisations of “reality” and “escape.” The core tension focused on in the analysis is the struggle over time, necessitating engagement with critical thought on hope and utopia. The analysis concludes that struggles over temporal autonomy underlie conflicting claims about “reality” and “escape” that are central to “internet addiction” and its treatment in China today.

scholarly journals Is and Ought? How the (Social) Ontological Circumscribes the Normative

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-525
Author(s):  
Dorothea Gädeke
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Normative Values ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
Individual Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
Argument Proceeds ◽  
Ontological Position ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Normative Content

Abstract Is normative theory grounded in ontology and if so, how? Taking a debate between Kwame Gyekye and Thaddeus Metz as my point of departure, my aim in this article is to show that something normative does indeed follow from ontological views: The social ontological, I maintain, circumscribes the normative without, however, fully determining its content. My argument proceeds in two steps: First, I argue that our social ontological position constrains what kind of normative theory we may plausibly defend. A relational ontology as defended by Gyekye entails a relational normative theory, whereas an atomist ontology calls for an individualist normative approach and a collectivist ontology for a strong communitarian one. Second, this link between the ontological and the normative has substantive implications for how to interpret the normative content of a theory; it entails interpreting normative values in light of the appropriate kind of normative thought. I illustrate the importance of this implication by showing that it suggests a decidedly relational reading of the core value of well-being in Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism, that resolves the alleged tension between communal and individual values in his account.

Transforming Labour: From the Workers’ State to the Post-Socialist Re-Organization of Industry and Workplace Communities

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-438
Author(s):  
Eszter Bartha
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Abstract The article seeks to place the workers’ road from socialism to capitalism in East Germany and Hungary in a historical context. It offers an overview of the most important elements of the party’s policy towards labour in the two countries under the Honecker and the Kádár regime respectively. It examines the highly paternalistic role of the factory as a life-long employer and provider of workers’ needs for the large industrial working class which the regime considered to be its main social basis. Given that the thesis of the working class as the ruling class was central to the legitimating ideology of the state socialist regimes, dissident intellectuals challenging this thesis were effectively marginalized or forced into exile. After the change of regimes, the “working class” again became an ideological term associated with the discredited and fallen regime. The article analyses the changes within the life-world of East German and Hungarian workers in the light of life-history interviews. It argues that in Hungary, the social and material decline of the workers – alongside the loss of the symbolic capital of the working class – reinforced ethno-centric, nationalistic narratives, which juxtaposed “globalization” and “national capitalism”, the latter supposedly protecting citizens from the exploitation by global capital. In the light of the sad reports of falling standards of living and impoverishment, the Kádár regime received an ambiguous, often nostalgic evaluation. While the East Germans were also critical of the new, capitalist society (unemployment, intensified competition for jobs, the disintegration of the old, work-based communities), they gave more credit to the post-socialist democratic institutions. They were more willing to reconcile the old socialist values which they had appreciated in the GDR with a modern left-wing critique than their Hungarian counterparts, for whom nationalism seemed to offer the only means to express social criticism.

Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

1993 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 459
Author(s):  
Ralph Flores ◽  
Fredric Jameson
Keyword(s):  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Cultural Logic

Producing space, the confrontation between abstract space and everyday life: ‘I wunder if heaven got a ghetto”

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tonia Carless
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
Abstract Space ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Urban Restructuring ◽  
The Social ◽  
Macro Scale ◽  
Local Space ◽  
Cardiff Bay

This paper is intended as a contribution to current debates about the changing conditions of urban space and uneven development. It will analyse the functions of the architectural professions in this process and how their productions prefigure the social and economic arrangement of space. It will examine these notions through analysis of Cardiff Bay and will analyse the changes occurring under late capitalism in the shift to Post-Fordist modes of accumulation. While the paper will examine the local space of Cardiff Bay, the analytical ground will be extended to the ongoing restructuring of space under the new global economies at a macro scale.Urban restructuring is most evident in the decentred metropolis of the post-modern city, the new cities for consumption. The growth or collapse of multinational capital needs to be seen as framing the occupation of space, its investment and disinvestment, and as an ongoing process, part of a systematic reprogramming of space that can and should be examined at every stage of its operations.Relocating the economic, political and social into considerations of space means that the paper will also incorporate historical analysis of modes of production and social formations. To consider space as ideological means that transfigured space must also be considered. The paper will therefore raise ideas that are directed towards the transformation of social and political space, and will examine that which identifies Lefebvre's distinction between appropriated and dominated space.

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