scholarly journals Caring about the Past, Present, and Future in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Guerrilla Games’ Horizon: Zero Dawn

Arts ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine Tobeck ◽  
Donald Jellerson
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Pattern Recognition ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Present Subject

This essay argues that William Gibson’s 2003 novel, Pattern Recognition, rejects the stylistic and formal trappings of cyberpunk that he himself helped create in the 1980s in order to reformulate the movement’s aesthetics of participation for the 21st Century. This participatory aesthetic is structured by a set of temporal concerns: A past made ever more available through information technology and yet ever more materially irrecoverable, a present subject to increasingly rapid change and therefore briefer and more difficult to interpret, and a bleak future of inevitable capitalist commodification. Within this temporal vortex, Gibson’s protagonist finds compensatory solace in her ability to see patterns and thus develop strategies by which to value objects and people in new ways. She learns how to care, and what to care for. From this analysis of Pattern Recognition, the essay tracks this aesthetic into Guerrilla Games’ 2017 Horizon: Zero Dawn—a popular entry in a medium that promises participatory involvement on a new scale.

Teaching Chinese in the Global Context: Challenges and Strategies

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Aimin
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Crucial Point ◽  
Global Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chinese Language Teaching ◽  
Teaching Chinese ◽  
Challenges And Strategies

In the past 30 years, teaching Chinese as a foreign/second language (TCSL/TCFL) has made great achievements in Mainland China. However, TCSL/TCFL is at a crucial point at present, and its global development in the 21st century presents us with new questions and challenges. There are many issues involved as TCSL/TCFL adapts to this rapid change from a largely domestic context to a global one. This article attempts to address such issues as the significance, challenges and strategies of TCSL/TCFL in mainland China by outlining its brief history and development since the 1950s, and calls for the establishment of an international ‘framework of reference’ for Chinese language teaching.

scholarly journals Information Technology and Control in the DPRK

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Duffley
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
Information Risk ◽  
Current Regime ◽  
The Past ◽  
Communications Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
And Control

In the Hermit Kingdom, information is a crucial resource. Its possession represents access to resource and weapons development techniques, but more importantly, information is what separates North Korean society from the rest of the world. Since the state’s inception, meager rations of information combined with hearty doses of propaganda have kept the populace starved with respect to knowledge of the rest of the world’s progress, which has quickly surpassed their own in the past two decades. Why, then, has the current regime dared implement 21st century communications systems such as internet technology if such a move would increase the possibility of an information risk?

Remembering the Past in Nineteenth-Century Scotland

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Prevailing View ◽  
The Way

At a time when the Union between Scotland and England is once again under the spotlight, Remembering the Past in Nineteenth-Century Scotland examines the way in which Scotland’s national heroes were once remembered as champions of both Scottish and British patriotism. Whereas 19th-century Scotland is popularly depicted as a mire of sentimental Jacobitism and kow-towing unionism, this book shows how Scotland’s national heroes were once the embodiment of a consistent, expressive and robust view of Scottish nationality. Whether celebrating the legacy of William Wallace and Robert Bruce, the reformer John Knox, the Covenanters, 19th-century Scots rooted their national heroes in a Presbyterian and unionist view of Scotland’s past. Examined through the prism of commemoration, this book uncovers collective memories of Scotland’s past entirely opposed to 21st-century assumptions of medieval proto-nationalism and Calvinist misery. Detailed studies of 19th-century commemoration of Scotland’s national heroes Uncovers an all but forgotten interpretation of these ‘great Scots’ Shines a new light on the mindset of nineteenth-century Scottish national identity as being comfortably Scottish and British Overturns the prevailing view of Victorian Scottishness as parochial, sentimental tartanry

Collective Memory: Between Values and Historical Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-142
Author(s):  
VICTOR BURLACHUK
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Main Element ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

At the end of the twentieth century, questions of a secondary nature suddenly became topical: what do we remember and who owns the memory? Memory as one of the mental characteristics of an individual’s activity is complemented by the concept of collective memory, which requires a different method of analysis than the activity of a separate individual. In the 1970s, a situation arose that gave rise to the so-called "historical politics" or "memory politics." If philosophical studies of memory problems of the 30’s and 40’s of the twentieth century were focused mainly on the peculiarities of perception of the past in the individual and collective consciousness and did not go beyond scientific discussions, then half a century later the situation has changed dramatically. The problem of memory has found its political sound: historians and sociologists, politicians and representatives of the media have entered the discourse on memory. Modern society, including all social, ethnic and family groups, has undergone a profound change in the traditional attitude towards the past, which has been associated with changes in the structure of government. In connection with the discrediting of the Soviet Union, the rapid decline of the Communist Party and its ideology, there was a collapse of Marxism, which provided for a certain model of time and history. The end of the revolutionary idea, a powerful vector that indicated the direction of historical time into the future, inevitably led to a rapid change in perception of the past. Three models of the future, which, according to Pierre Nora, defined the face of the past (the future as a restoration of the past, the future as progress and the future as a revolution) that existed until recently, have now lost their relevance. Today, absolute uncertainty hangs over the future. The inability to predict the future poses certain challenges to the present. The end of any teleology of history imposes on the present a debt of memory. Features of the life of memory, the specifics of its state and functioning directly affect the state of identity, both personal and collective. Distortion of memory, its incorrect work, and its ideological manipulation can give rise to an identity crisis. The memorial phenomenon is a certain political resource in a situation of severe socio-political breaks and changes. In the conditions of the economic crisis and in the absence of a real and clear program for future development, the state often seeks to turn memory into the main element of national consolidation.

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 Criminology: Some lines of flight

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Julie Berg ◽  
Clifford Shearing
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Smart Phones ◽  
40Th Anniversary ◽  
The Past ◽  
Domain Of Existence ◽  
James Lovelock ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Space Of Flows

The 40th Anniversary Edition of Taylor, Walton and Young’s New Criminology, published in 2013, opened with these words: ‘The New Criminology was written at a particular time and place, it was a product of 1968 and its aftermath; a world turned upside down’. We are at a similar moment today. Several developments have been, and are turning, our 21st century world upside down. Among the most profound has been the emergence of a new earth, that the ‘Anthropocene’ references, and ‘cyberspace’, a term first used in the 1960s, which James Lovelock has recently termed a ‘Novacene’, a world that includes both human and artificial intelligences. We live today on an earth that is proving to be very different to the Holocene earth, our home for the past 12,000 years. To appreciate the Novacene one need only think of our ‘smart’ phones. This world constitutes a novel domain of existence that Castells has conceived of as a terrain of ‘material arrangements that allow for simultaneity of social practices without territorial contiguity’ – a world of sprawling material infrastructures, that has enabled a ‘space of flows’, through which massive amounts of information travel. Like the Anthropocene, the Novacene has brought with it novel ‘harmscapes’, for example, attacks on energy systems. In this paper, we consider how criminology has responded to these harmscapes brought on by these new worlds. We identify ‘lines of flight’ that are emerging, as these challenges are being met by criminological thinkers who are developing the conceptual trajectories that are shaping 21st century criminologies.

If things go South: The renewed policy of sport mega events allocation and its implications for future research

2021 ◽  
pp. 101269022098134
Author(s):  
Billy Graeff ◽  
Jorge Knijnik
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Global South ◽  
International Olympic Committee ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Construction Costs ◽  
Mega Events ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global North ◽  
Analytical Tools

The past few decades have seen an increase of sport mega events (SMEs) held outside the Global North. This tendency has been accompanied by a growing public expenditure in these events. This paper employs selected Global South SMEs to discuss this trend. By critically analysing public documents, biddings and reports, the study traces comparisons between 21st-century Global South and Global North SMEs expenditures, in the revenue of franchise owners (FIFA and the International Olympic Committee), in construction costs within the budgets and in the costs related to security. This comprehensive and intertwined investigation shows the need for new analytical tools – such as the Renewed Policy of Sport Mega Events Allocation, a concept developed here - to better capture the central questions posed by the challenges of ‘SMEs going South’.

The Problem of Energy

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Urry
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Control ◽  
Global Growth

Energy forms and their extensive scale are remarkably significant for the ways that societies are organized. This article shows the importance of how societies are ‘energized’ and especially the global growth of ‘fossil fuel societies’. Much social thought remains oblivious to the energy revolution realized over the past two to three centuries which set the ‘West’ onto a distinct trajectory. Energy is troubling for social thought because different energy systems with their ‘lock-ins’ are not subject to simple human intervention and control. Analyses are provided here of different fossil fuel societies, of coal and oil, with the latter enabling the liquid, mobilized 20th century. Consideration is paid to the possibilities of reducing fossil fuel dependence but it is shown how unlikely such a ‘powering down’ will be. The author demonstrates how energy is a massive problem for social theory and for 21st-century societies. Developing post-carbon theory and especially practice is far away but is especially urgent.

Law Librarianship and Legal Information Provision in the 21st Century

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-10 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Information Provision ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Legal Information ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn this analysis of the future of our profession, Barbara Tearle starts by looking at the past to see how much the world of legal information has evolved and changed. She considers the nature of the profession today and then identifies key factors which she believes will be of importance in the future, including the impact of globalisation; the potential changes to the legal profession; technology; developments in legal education; increasing commercialisation and changes to the law itself.

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