scholarly journals Imaginary novelty and its affirmation in culture

Author(s):  
Nikolay N. Suvorov ◽  

The study of novelty as a cultural phenomenon presupposes the formulation and solution of the problem in the ultimate interpretation, as an unbiased description of its appearance on a defined territory, reducing it to preestablished principles that explain novelty as certainty and stability. This means understanding the phenomenal limit-the novelty goes to infinity and shimmers in the vastness of being, appears to the inquisitive mind in the form of original discoveries and imaginary worlds. Novelty is revealed as the opening potency of being with the possibilities that have appeared – the reversal of events that are its direct implementation. The formulation of the novelty problem immediately confronts the initial contradiction and the difficulty of solving it. Imaginary novelty compensates for the unavailability of a material analog-it fills the voids of being and presence with its creations. Imaginary novelty carries the desired illusions that inspire the enthusiast, but under the cover of dreams, the real novelty of being grows. The paper suggests the related concepts: imaginative, imaginary, quasi-objective for the expansion of the intellectual landscape of the field of culture. In the aspect of novelty, the imaginary appears as an outstripping development of the presence, its separation from being and self-active bifurcation, the desire for a new material embodiment – the production of added being.

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-67
Author(s):  
E.V. Somova ◽  
E.B. Schemeleva

The article focuses on the novel “Pompeii” by Robert Dennis Harris which has been little studied in Russia and presents a new material for further research. The purpose of the research is to identify the originality of spatial images in the novel of the British writer. Basing on the comparative historical and analytical methods, the authors of the article explore the main principles of creating historical narration and the specifics of R.D. Harris’s work with historiographical sources while creating a historical epoch; they identify the features of W. Scott and E.G. Bulver-Lytton. Within the context of the study of the originality of spatial topoi in “Pompeii” the authors use extensively the concept of “topoekphrasis”, introduced by O.A. Kling. It distinguishes the place setting as a protagonist who influences greatly the course of events. While analyzing, the authors make the following conclusions about the national condition of the scene given by using ekphrasis and the correlation of the myth with the actual realities in the modern cultural system which indicate the stereotypical thinking of a person in the postmodern society: the myth of Adam and Eve who found themselves in Paradise, associated in the mind of a European with Capri which represents “unearthly” life; the expansion of the semantic fields after reading the myth of Sodom and Gomorrah which describes the destruction of two biblical cities and is brought closer in the novel to the events associated with the real tragedy in Pompeii, undoubtedly show the similarity of its plot resolution with the modern eschatological myth of the Apocalypse, which tells us about the inevitable death of civilization. The analysis of the mythological paradigm of R.D. Harris’s novel "Pompeii", organized by combination of ekphrasis and topoi, discloses the transformation of the postmodernist writer’s worldview, creating a new metaphysical reality in the historical novel. In addition to the real spatial topoi of the ancient world (forum, aqueduct, temple), the postmodern novel reveals mythological images: a labyrinth associated with the ancient Greek story of Theseus; the underground world of the dead, linked to the myth of Charon. The artistic understanding of the historical process by R.D. Harris allows us to identify the originality of the writer’s historical concept in the context of postmodern literature.


1987 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 823-840
Author(s):  
M S Longair

“This symposium marks the real beginning of observational cosmology”, Allan Sandage, 29 August 1986.It is a pleasure to be invited to attempt to summarise the very intense work of the last 6 days. Virtually all aspects of contemporary observational cosmology have been described and debated and it is my task to try to put this wealth of new material into context. As in all such surveys, allowance must be made for personal bias - like everyone else, I am sure I am giving an unbiased view but you must judge for yourselves!


1916 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 148-154
Author(s):  
Walter Leaf

When discussing in Troy: A Study in Homeric Geography the tribute of two maidens sent annually as temple-slaves to Athena at her temple in Ilion, I was able only to mention the existence of an inscription referring to the subject (pp. 131, 396). The inscription was then unpublished; I had been unable to obtain by correspondence any particulars other than an assurance that it contained no new material of importance.The inscription, discovered so long ago as 1896, and copied by Wilhelm in 1897, has at length appeared in the Jahreshefte des Oest. Arch. Institutes, xiv, dated 1911, but issued only in 1913. I have to thank Dr. Wilhelm for sending me a copy of his very full account and discussion (Die Lokrische Mädcheninschrift, pp. 163–256). I recur to the subject now because it seems to me that, contrary to my information, the inscription does throw a great deal of new light; and because, if I am not mistaken, the real significance of it has been entirely missed both by Dr. Wilhelm and by M. A. Reinach—unhappily lost to science in the battle of the Marne two years ago—who discussed it in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, lxix, 1 (Jan. 1914), pp. 12–54.


Author(s):  
Tara Morrissey

Questions of realness, authenticity, and legitimacy, are deeply invested in a politics of identity that polices the purity of its central categories. The creative potential of performative modes such as rap performance and reality television is thus complicated by expectations of authenticity that are frequently embroiled in broader projects of identity delineation and regulation. This paper considers correlations between hip hop culture’s ethos of realness and authenticity, and the ‘real’ as manifested in the cultural phenomenon of reality television, for the ways in which they are bound by but also strive to reconfigure the limits of realness. With particular attention to the work and self-styling of Australian female rapper Iggy Azalea, I emphasise the tension between performance and authenticity, and point to the ostensibly disparate subcultural forms of hip hop and reality television as distinctly engaged in the renegotiation of this tension. I invoke the critical imperatives of whiteness theory to critique the normative channels of realness that remain at the forefront of hip hop’s self-conceptualisation and general promotion, in particular the role of gender and race in the construction of hip hop authenticity. I then examine reality television and its relationship with shame and intimacy as crucial to understanding its devalued status in studies of television and popular culture more broadly. Ultimately, I propose the explorations of ‘real’ in these works as indicative of a contemporary shift in the evaluation and justification of authenticity that points to a revised appreciation of the power of performativity.


Islamovedenie ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
Vasiltsov Konstantin Sergeevich ◽  

The article deals with some issues related to the conception of space/territory in medieval Islam. At the turn of XX–XXI centuries within the framework of various humanitarian disci-plines has been widely discussed a new understanding of space which came to be realized as a heterogeneous social and cultural phenomenon, reflecting political, legal and social norms spe-cific to a particular culture. At the first centuries of the history of Islam there appeared the idea of two geo-religious regions: Dar al-Islam ("Territory of Islam") and Dar al-Harb (Territory of war) or otherwise Dar al-Kufr ("Territory of unbelief"). On the one hand, these concepts reflect the real boundaries of the Muslim / non-Muslim world and the criteria by which those belonging to it were determined, and at the same time it contains an indication of certain non-spatial cultur-al symbols, categories and values. Special attention here is paid to the history of the origin and evolution of the concepts Dar al-Islam / Dar al-Harb (both in sunni and shi‘ite traditions) repre-sented in the foundational texts of Islam, medieval Arabic dictionaries, travelogues, and essays on Islamic law (fiqh).


Author(s):  
Rosemary Roberts

This book brings together research on China’s “red classics” across the entire Maoist period through to their re-emergence in the reform era. It critically investigates the changing nature and significance of China’s “red classics” at each point of their (re/)emergence in three key areas: their socio-political and ideological import, their aesthetic significance and their function as a mass cultural phenomenon. The book is organised in two parts in chronological order covering the Maoist period and post-Cultural Revolution respectively, and includes a representative range of genres including novels, short stories, films, TV series, picture books (lianhuanhua), animation and traditional style paintings (guohua). The book illuminates important questions such as: What determined what could and could not become a “red classic”? How was the real revolutionary experience of authors shaped by the regime to create “red classic” works? How were traditional forms incorporated or transformed? How did authors and artist negotiate the treacherous waters of changing political demands? And how did the “red classics adapt to a new political environment and a new readership in new millennium China? While most of the chapters focus primarily on one of the two periods under consideration many also follow the fate of their subject through both periods, creating overall a highly coherent overview of the changing phenomenon of the “red classics” over the seventy-five years since the Yan’an Forum and in the process simultaneously tracing the changing dynamic between the CCP and these classic narratives of the communist revolution.


Author(s):  
Toshihiko Takita ◽  
Tomonori Naguro ◽  
Toshio Kameie ◽  
Akihiro Iino ◽  
Kichizo Yamamoto

Recently with the increase in advanced age population, the osteoporosis becomes the object of public attention in the field of orthopedics. The surface topography of the bone by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is one of the most useful means to study the bone metabolism, that is considered to make clear the mechanism of the osteoporosis. Until today many specimen preparation methods for SEM have been reported. They are roughly classified into two; the anorganic preparation and the simple preparation. The former is suitable for observing mineralization, but has the demerit that the real surface of the bone can not be observed and, moreover, the samples prepared by this method are extremely fragile especially in the case of osteoporosis. On the other hand, the latter has the merit that the real information of the bone surface can be obtained, though it is difficult to recognize the functional situation of the bone.


Author(s):  
X. Lin ◽  
X. K. Wang ◽  
V. P. Dravid ◽  
J. B. Ketterson ◽  
R. P. H. Chang

For small curvatures of a graphitic sheet, carbon atoms can maintain their preferred sp2 bonding while allowing the sheet to have various three-dimensional geometries, which may have exotic structural and electronic properties. In addition the fivefold rings will lead to a positive Gaussian curvature in the hexagonal network, and the sevenfold rings cause a negative one. By combining these sevenfold and fivefold rings with sixfold rings, it is possible to construct complicated carbon sp2 networks. Because it is much easier to introduce pentagons and heptagons into the single-layer hexagonal network than into the multilayer network, the complicated morphologies would be more common in the single-layer graphite structures. In this contribution, we report the observation and characterization of a new material of monolayer graphitic structure by electron diffraction, HREM, EELS.The synthesis process used in this study is reported early. We utilized a composite anode of graphite and copper for arc evaporation in helium.


Author(s):  
F. Shaapur ◽  
M.J. Kim ◽  
Seh Kwang Lee ◽  
Soon Gwang Kim

TEM characterization and microanalysis of the recording media is crucial and complementary to new material system development as well as quality control applications. Due to the type of material generally used for supporting the medium, i.e., a polymer, conventional macro- and microthinning procedures for thin foil preparation are not applicable. Ultramicrotorny (UM) is a viable option and has been employed in previous similar studies. In this work UM has been used for preparation of XTEM samples from a magneto-optical (MO) recording medium in its original production format.The as-received material system consisted of a 4-layer, 2100 Å thick medium including a 300 Å TbFeCo layer enveloped by silicon nitride protective layers supported on a 1.2 mm thick × 135 mm (5.25 in.) diameter polycarbonate disk. Recording tracks had an approximate pitch of 1.6 μm separated by 800 Å deep peripheral grooves. Using a Buehler Isomet low-speed diamond saw, 1 mm wide and 20 mm long strips were cut out of the disk along the recording tracks.


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