scholarly journals The revenge of the words: On language’s historical and autonomous being and its effects on ‘secularisation’

Author(s):  
Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte

What if language was an autonomous historical being? What if language’s use was not solely dependent on the intentions of the one who speaks? In this text I will test these provocative statements. Specifically, I will investigate whether language’s proclaimed historical independence can be traced in the usage of the concept of ‘secularisation’, and I will try to unveil the consequences of this operation.Contribution: Has Christianity abandoned the public stage in the ‘secularised’ and industrialised world? In this article I intend to demonstrate that this is not the case. The continuous operative presence of Christianity in our socio-political language is used as the model to prove this argument.

2019 ◽  
Vol 25242644 ◽  
pp. 63-68
Author(s):  
Alina Lisnevska

The myth-making processes in the communicative space are the «cornerstone» of ideology at all times of mankind’s existence. One of the tools of the effective impact of propaganda is trust in information. Today this come round due to the dissemination of information on personalized video content in social networks, including through converged media. New myths and social settings are creating, fate of the countries is being solved, public opinion is being formed. It became possible to create artificially a model of social installation using the myths (the smallest indivisible element of the myth) based on real facts, but with the addition of «necessary» information. In the 20–30 years of the XX century cinematograph became the most powerful screen media. The article deals with the main ideological messages of the Ukrainian Soviet film «Koliivshchyna» (1933). In the period of mass cinematography spread in the Soviet Ukraine, the tape was aimed at a grand mission – creation of a new mythology through the interpretation of the true events and a con on the public, propaganda of the Soviet ideology. This happened in the tragic period of Ukrainian history (1933, the Holodomor) through the extrapolation of historical truth and its embodiment in the most formative form at that time – the form of the screen performance. The Soviet authorities used the powerful influence of the screen image to propagate dreams, illusions, images, stereotypes that had lost any reference to reality. I. Kavaleridze’s film «Koliivshchyna» demonstrates the interpretation of historical events and national ideas, the interpretation of a relatively remote past through the ideology of the «Soviet-era». The movie is created as a part of the political conjuncture of the early 1930s: the struggle against Ukrainian «bourgeois nationalism» and against the «Union of Liberation Ukraine», the repressive policies against the peasants, the close-out of the «back to the roots» policy. The movie, on the one hand, definitely addresses to the Ukrainian ideas, on the other hand it was made at the period of the repressions against the Ukrainian peasantry. In the movie «Koliivshchyna», despite the censorship, I. Kavaleridze manages to create a national inclusive narrative that depicts Ukrainian space as multi-ethnic and diverse, but at the same time nationally colorful.


APRIA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
José Teunissen

In the last few years, it has often been said that the current fashion system is outdated, still operating by a twentieth-century model that celebrates the individualism of the 'star designer'. In I- D, Sarah Mower recently stated that for the last twenty years, fashion has been at a cocktail party and has completely lost any connection with the public and daily life. On the one hand, designers and big brands experience the enormous pressure to produce new collections at an ever higher pace, leaving less room for reflection, contemplation, and innovation. On the other hand, there is the continuous race to produce at even lower costs and implement more rapid life cycles, resulting in disastrous consequences for society and the environment.


Author(s):  
Dirk Voorhoof

The normative perspective of this chapter is how to guarantee respect for the fundamental values of freedom of expression and journalistic reporting on matters of public interest in cases where a (public) person claims protection of his or her right to reputation. First it explains why there is an increasing number and expanding potential of conflicts between the right to freedom of expression and media freedom (Article 10 ECHR), on the one hand, and the right of privacy and the right to protection of reputation (Article 8 ECHR), on the other. In addressing and analysing the European Court’s balancing approach in this domain, the characteristics and the impact of the seminal 2012 Grand Chamber judgment in Axel Springer AG v. Germany (no. 1) are identified and explained. On the basis of the analysis of the Court’s subsequent jurisprudence in defamation cases it evaluates whether this case law preserves the public watchdog-function of media, investigative journalism and NGOs reporting on matters of public interest, but tarnishing the reputation of public figures.


Author(s):  
Michael P. Lynch

This chapter argues that academic freedom is justified because it is an inherently epistemic practice that serves the ideals of democracy. With Dewey, it is argued that “The one thing that is inherent and essential [to the idea of a university] is the ideal of truth.” But far from being apolitical, the value of pursuing truth and knowledge—the value that justifies academic freedom, both within and without the public mind—is a fundamental democratic value, and for three reasons: the practices of academic inquiry exemplify rational inquiry of the kind needed for democratic deliberation; those practices serve to train students to pursue that kind of inquiry; and those practices are important engines of democratic dissent.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Al-Bsheish ◽  
Mu’taman Jarrar ◽  
Amanda Scarbrough

The outbreak of COVID-19 has placed a heavy burden on society, threatening the future of the entire world as the pandemic has hit health systems and economic sectors hard. Where time moves fast, continuing curfews and lockdown is impossible. This paper assembles three main safety behaviors, social distancing, wearing a facemask, and hygiene in one model (PSC Triangle) to be practiced by the public. Integrating public safety compliance with these behaviors is the main recommendation to slow the spread of COVID-19. Although some concerns and challenges face these practices, the shifting of public behaviors to be more safety-centered is appropriate and available as an urgent desire exists to return to normal life on the one hand and the medical effort to find effective cure or vaccine that has not yet succeeded on the other hand. Recommendations to enhance public safety compliance are provided.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Jaruwan Viroj ◽  
Julien Claude ◽  
Claire Lajaunie ◽  
Julien Cappelle ◽  
Anamika Kritiyakan ◽  
...  

Leptospirosis has been recognized as a major public health concern in Thailand following dramatic outbreaks. We analyzed human leptospirosis incidence between 2004 and 2014 in Mahasarakham province, Northeastern Thailand, in order to identify the agronomical and environmental factors likely to explain incidence at the level of 133 sub-districts and 1,982 villages of the province. We performed general additive modeling (GAM) in order to take the spatial-temporal epidemiological dynamics into account. The results of GAM analyses showed that the average slope, population size, pig density, cow density and flood cover were significantly associated with leptospirosis occurrence in a district. Our results stress the importance of livestock favoring leptospirosis transmission to humans and suggest that prevention and control of leptospirosis need strong intersectoral collaboration between the public health, the livestock department and local communities. More specifically, such collaboration should integrate leptospirosis surveillance in both public and animal health for a better control of diseases in livestock while promoting public health prevention as encouraged by the One Health approach.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 519-539
Author(s):  
Thiago Minete Cardozo ◽  
Costas Papadopoulos

Abstract Museums have been increasingly investing in their digital presence. This became more pressing during the COVID-19 pandemic since heritage institutions had, on the one hand, to temporarily close their doors to visitors while, on the other, find ways to communicate their collections to the public. Virtual tours, revamped websites, and 3D models of cultural artefacts were only a few of the means that museums devised to create alternative ways of digital engagement and counteract the physical and social distancing measures. Although 3D models and collections provide novel ways to interact, visualise, and comprehend the materiality and sensoriality of physical objects, their mediation in digital forms misses essential elements that contribute to (virtual) visitor/user experience. This article explores three-dimensional digitisations of museum artefacts, particularly problematising their aura and authenticity in comparison to their physical counterparts. Building on several studies that have problematised these two concepts, this article establishes an exploratory framework aimed at evaluating the experience of aura and authenticity in 3D digitisations. This exploration allowed us to conclude that even though some aspects of aura and authenticity are intrinsically related to the physicality and materiality of the original, 3D models can still manifest aura and authenticity, as long as a series of parameters, including multimodal contextualisation, interactivity, and affective experiences are facilitated.


Author(s):  
Frederico Finan ◽  
Maurizio Mazzocco

Abstract Politicians allocate public resources in ways that maximize political gains, and potentially at the cost of lower welfare. In this paper, we quantify these welfare costs in the context of Brazil’s federal legislature, which grants its members a budget to fund public projects within their states. Using data from the state of Roraima, we estimate a model of politicians’ allocation decisions and find that 26.8% of the public funds allocated by legislators are distorted relative to a social planner’s allocation. We then use the model to simulate three potential policy reforms to the electoral system: the adoption of approval voting, imposing a one-term limit, and redistricting. We find that a one-term limit and redistricting are both effective at reducing distortions. The one-term limit policy, however, increases corruption, which makes it a welfare-reducing policy.


2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
Alan Dashwood

IN its Keck judgment—famous or notorious according to taste—the Court of Justice drew a distinction, for the purposes of the application of the prohibition in Article 28 EC against measures having equivalent effect to quantitative restrictions (“MEEQRs”), between two categories of national measures. On the one hand were “product requirements”: measures specifying requirements to be met, in order to obtain access to the market of a Member State, by products coming from other Member States where they are lawfully manufactured and marketed, like the minimum alcohol requirement for fruit liqueurs in Cassis de Dijon (Case 120/78 [1997] E.C.R. 649). Such product requirements are liable to constitute MEEQRs, and therefore require specific justification, in order to escape prohibition, on one of the public interest grounds recognised by Community law. On the other hand was the category of measures described in the judgment as “provisions restricting or prohibiting certain selling arrangements”. An example was the legislation at issue in the main proceedings in Keck, which prohibited the resale of products below their purchase price, thereby depriving retailers of a form of sales promotion. Other examples, attested by the case law post-Keck, are measures regulating advertising methods, the kind of shop in which goods of a certain description can be sold, shops’ opening hours and Sunday trading. National provisions in this latter category are not normally such as to hinder trade between Member States under the test formulated by the Court in Dassonville (Case 8/74 [1974] E.C.R. 837, at para. 5), and so do not call for justification; not, that is, “so long as those provisions apply to all relevant traders operating within the national territory and so long as they affect in the same manner, in law and in fact, the marketing of domestic products and those from other Member States”: see Joined Cases C-267 and 268/9 [1993] E.C.R. I-6097, at paras. 15–17.


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