scholarly journals WESTWORLD: FROM EVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION OF THE WESTERN

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-85
Author(s):  
ARTEM N. ZORIN ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
World Order ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Important Link ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Content

Westworld television series was created in the second half of the 2010s by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan. It has become an important link in the chain of actualizing the western as a genre in its variations against the background of the current social and cultural content. Initially a remake of the 1973 film of the same name directed by Michael Crichton, the series soon evolved: its second season has become a form of comprehension for both the basis of the western poetics in its relation to science fiction and the burning issues of the 21st century. “The rise of the machines” is interpreted here as a revolt against God, as overcoming the total scenarios of normative poetics and also as a visualization of Donna Haraway’s cyberfeminism ideas. The meta-western part of the Westworld plot unfolds from the 1970s and 1980s to the “revolutionary” aesthetics of the 60s and reveals its ambition to play around with the revisionist scripts of the spaghetti western, especially its most radical part — the zapata western. Trying on their revolutionary logic, the characters and creators of the series try to find their way out of the maze of unsolvable questions about the oncoming future and formulate new ethical dominants for a contemporary viewer. Such a logic supposes existence not in the world of a classical western — with the final triumph of justice, but in the world of a total revisionism of the late 1960s western. It is manifested in the integral poetics of the second season. Androids are creatures with a new worldview and perception of a different world order. They travel through different areas and levels of the historical park, collect key moments of history and stylistic features of a western as the central epic genre of cinema aesthetics. The first two seasons of the Westworld are as much an anthem to the cinema, the main art of the 20th century, as Quentin Tarantino’s westerns created at the same time. They demonstrate that in the world of contemporary values the cinema epic is the starting point of history, the beginning and the source of a person’s epic worldview. As a result, the western appears in the series as a key epic form underlying the mythological mind of a contemporary viewer. The meta-western nature also reflects the direction towards the total westernization of cinema aesthetics and, at the same time, an attempt to understand the reasons which led this approach to the crisis, projected onto the social contradictions of our time. The ironic laws of the spaghetti western, using the elements of Christianization and surrealism in the interpretation of the genre’s canonical schemes, make it possible to expand the range of the tasks set by the authors far beyond the borders of one-nation specifics.

A Compact Embodiment of Pluralities and Denial of Origins: Atwood’s The Year of The Flood

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Near Future

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.

scholarly journals A Transformation of the Approach to Evaluating a Region’s Investment Attractiveness as a Consequence of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Economies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Dmitriy G. Rodionov ◽  
Evgenii A. Konnikov ◽  
Magomedgusen N. Nasrutdinov
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
World Order ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Innovative Development ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Regional Environment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status

The global COVID-19 pandemic has caused a transformation of virtually all aspects of the world order today. Due to the introduction of the world quarantine, a considerable share of professional communications has been transformed into a format of distance interaction. As a result, the specific weight of traditional components of the investment attractiveness of a region is steadily going down, because modern business can be built without the need for territorial unity. It should be stated that now the criteria according to which investors decide if they are ready to invest in a region are dynamically transforming. The significance of the following characteristics is increasingly growing: the sustainable development of a region, qualities of the social environment, and consistency of the social infrastructure. Thus, the approaches to evaluating the region’s investment attractiveness must be transformed. Moreover, the investment process at the federal level involves the determination of target areas of regional development. Despite the universal significance of innovative development, the region can develop much more dynamically when a complex external environment is formed that complements its development model. Interregional interaction, as well as an integrated approach to innovative development, taking into account not only the momentary effect, but also the qualitative long-term transformation of the region, will significantly increase the return on investment. At the same time, the currently existing methods for assessing the investment attractiveness of the region are usually heuristic in nature and are not universal. The heuristic nature of the existing methods does not allow to completely abstract from the subjectivity of the researcher. Moreover, the existing methods do not take into account the cyclical properties of the innovative development of the region, which lead to the formation of a long-term effect from the transformation of the regional environment. This study is aimed at forming a comprehensive methodology that can be used to evaluate the investment attractiveness of a certain region and conclude about the lines of business that should be developed in it as well as to find ways to increase the region’s investment attractiveness. According to the results of the study, a comprehensive methodology was formed to evaluate the region’s investment attractiveness. It consists of three key indicators, namely, the level of the region’s investment attractiveness, the projected level of the region’s investment attractiveness, and the development vector of the region’s investment attractiveness. This methodology is based on a set of indicators that consider the status of the economic and social environment of the region, as well as the status of the innovative and ecological environment. The methodology can be used to make multi-dimensional conclusions both about the growth areas responsible for increasing the region’s innovative attractiveness and the lines of business that should be developed in the region.

The World of Uncertainty: Is America Losing Its Leverage Towards a Looming New China–Russia Alliance?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 92-106
Author(s):  
Vitaly KOZYREV
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
21St Century ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Window Of Opportunity ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Alliance Building

The recent deterioration of US–China and US–Russia relations has stumbled the formation of a better world order in the 21st century. Washington’s concerns of the “great power realignment”, as well as its Manichean battle against China’s and Russia’s “illiberal regimes” have resulted in the activated alliance-building efforts between Beijing and Moscow, prompting the Biden administration to consider some wedging strategies. Despite their coordinated preparation to deter the US power, the Chinese and Russian leaderships seek to avert a conflict with Washington by diplomatic means, and the characteristic of their partnership is still leaving a “window of opportunity” for the United States to lever against the establishment of a formal Sino–Russian alliance.

scholarly journals Messianism and UFO Sightings as Counterfactual Strategies of Enchantment of the World

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Piotr Urbanowicz
Keyword(s):  
Technological Progress ◽  
New World ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
World Order ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
New World Order ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common

Summary In this text, I argue that there are numerous affinities between 19th century messianism and testimonies of UFO sightings, both of which I regarded as forms of secular millennialism. The common denominator for the comparison was Max Weber’s concept of “disenchantment of the world” in the wake of the Industrial Revolution which initiated the era of the dominance of rational thinking and technological progress. However, the period’s counterfactual narratives of enchantment did not repudiate technology as the source of all social and political evil—on the contrary, they variously redefined its function, imagining a possibility of a new world order. In this context, I analysed the social projects put forward by Polish Romantics in the first half of the 19th century, with emphasis on the role of technology as an agent of social change. Similarly, the imaginary technology described by UFO contactees often has a redemptive function and is supposed to bring solution to humanity’s most dangerous problems.

scholarly journals GERAKAN ANTI GLOBALISASI

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
pp. 18-34
Author(s):  
Sonny Sudiar ◽  
Aisyah Aisyah ◽  
Muhammad Nizar Hidayat
Keyword(s):  
Economic Integration ◽  
21St Century ◽  
World Order ◽  
Interesting Topic ◽  
The World

Globalization as a phenomenon that has been closely associated with 21st century is an interesting topic of discussion among academics and practitioners alike. The term is closely related with neo-liberalism paradigm in which it refers to an economic integration governed by the priciples of liberalization and openness. Even so, globalization did not occurr without resistance. Inequality resulted from the process of globalization has made some people struggle to resist it especially in the terms of economy. This article aimed to describe how globalization reshapes the world order and how it resulted to the anti-globalization movement that struggle to resist the inequality from the process of globalization.

scholarly journals The colonial matrix of power: Image ontology and the question of blackness

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Itumeleng D. Mothoagae
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Black People ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global South ◽  
Black Theology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

The question of blackness has always featured the intersectionality of race, gender, sexuality and class. Blackness as an ontological speciality has been engaged from both the social and epistemic locations of the damnés (in Fanonian terms). It has thus sought to respond to the performance of power within the world order that is structured within the colonial matrix of power, which has ontologically, epistemologically, spatially and existentially rendered blackness accessible to whiteness, while whiteness remains inaccessible to blackness. The article locates the question of blackness from the perspective of the Global South in the context of South Africa. Though there are elements of progress in terms of the conditions of certain Black people, it would be short-sighted to argue that such conditions in themselves indicate that the struggles of blackness are over. The essay seeks to address a critique by Anderson (1995) against Black theology in the context of the United States of America (US). The argument is that the question of blackness cannot and should not be provincialised. To understand how the colonial matrix of power is performed, it should start with the local and be linked with the global to engage critically the colonial matrix of power that is performed within a system of coloniality. Decoloniality is employed in this article as an analytical tool.Contribution: The article contributes to the discourse on blackness within Black theology scholarship. It aims to contribute to the continual debates on the excavating and levelling of the epistemological voices that have been suppressed through colonial epistemological universalisation of knowledge from the perspective of the damnés.

Orientalism Revisited

2021 ◽  
pp. 214-230
Author(s):  
Elvan Ozkavruk Adanir ◽  
Berna Ileri
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Positive Contribution ◽  
The West ◽  
Eastern Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of

Orientalism is a Western and Western-centric broad field of research that studies the social structures, cultures, languages, histories, religions, and geographies of countries to the east of Europe. The term took on a secondary, detrimental association in the 20th century which looks down on the East. However, this chapter will not dwell on the definition of Orientalism that is debated the most; instead, it will discuss the positive contribution of Orientalism to Western culture. Even though the West otherizes the East in daily life, when it comes to desire, vanity, luxury, and flamboyance without hesitating a moment it adopts these very elements from the Eastern culture. It could be said that this adaptation brings these societies closer in one way or another. The highly admired fashion of Orientalism in the West starting from the 17th century until the 21st century will be the focus of this study.

UPA (United Productions of America)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Leskosky
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Production System ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Television Commercials ◽  
Modern Design ◽  
Art Programs ◽  
Arabian Nights ◽  
Walt Disney ◽  
The World ◽  
United Productions Of America

Hollywood cartoon studio UPA (United Productions of America) was founded in 1943 by former Disney animators Steven Bosustow, Zachary Schwartz, and David Hilberman. It profoundly influenced animation art and practice around the world with its modern design and adult themes. UPA created highly praised theatrical cartoon shorts, distributed by Columbia Pictures, from 1948 until 1959. During this time it also produced television commercials, the ground-breaking animated television series The Boing-Boing Show (1956–1957), and the feature-length cartoon, 1001 Arabian Nights (1959). Although UPA continued as a business entity into the 21st century, its aesthetic significance and influence effectively ended with its theatrical shorts. UPA animators, most of them graduates of college art programs, had become frustrated with the stratified studio production system pioneered by Walt Disney and with Disney’s relatively realistic character animation, both of which had been widely imitated. Language of Vision (1944) by Gyorgy Kepes, head of the Light and Color curriculum at Chicago’s New Bauhaus, significantly influenced UPA animators with its notions of the educational function of visual art and its analysis of design components.

Technology and Disabilities in the Century Ahead

2011 ◽  
pp. 2077-2081
Author(s):  
Ray Kurzweil
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Current Level ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Technology Trends ◽  
Over Time

I have been involved in inventing since I was five, and I quickly realized that for an invention to succeed, you have to target the world of the future. But what would the future be like? To find out, I became a student of technology trends and began to develop mathematical models of different technologies: computation, miniaturization, evolution over time. I have been doing that for 25 years, and it has been remarkable to me how powerful and predictive these models are. Now, before I show you some of these models and then try to build with you some of the scenarios for the future—and, in particular, focus on how these will benefit technology for the disabled—I would like to share one trend that I think is particularly profound and that many people fail to take into consideration. It is this: the rate of progress—what I call the “paradigmshift rate”—is itself accelerating. We are doubling this paradigm-shift rate every decade. The whole 20th century was not 100 years of progress as we know it today, because it has taken us a while to speed up to the current level of progress. The 20t h century represented about 20 years of progress in terms of today’s rate. And at today’s rate of change, we will achieve an amount of progress equivalent to that of the whole 20th century in 14 years, then as the acceleration continues, in 7 years. The progress in the 21st century will be about 1,000 times greater than that in the 20th century, which was no slouch in terms of change.

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