scholarly journals Functions of Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-295
Author(s):  
Sikiru Adeyemi Ogundokun
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Creative Art ◽  
Self Discovery ◽  
Political Economic

Literature is an open concept and a creative art which expresses human history, experiences, imagination, observations, predictions and suggestions at a particular time in a given society. Either as fiction or non-fiction, literature can be rendered in both spoken and written words. It is often argued whether literature is for itself or the development of the society that produces it. This study, therefore, interrogates how the selected Francophone African novels, namely Sembène Ousmane’s Les bouts de bois de Dieu, Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre, Ferdinand Oyono’s Le vieux nègre et la médaille, Aminata Sow Fall’s La grève des bàttu, Patrick Ilboudo’s Les vertiges du trône and Fatou Keïta’s Rebelle, depict the function of literature. The novelists are selected because of their inclination towards the social transformation paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to raise people’s awareness and mobilize them towards positive change. Based on close reading, the paper is built around Marxist theory which is interested in the class struggle as demonstrated in a literary text, with a view to deconstructing the existing capitalist tendencies in a given society. The findings reveal that the selected novels are focused on the poor conditions socio-politically, economically, culturally and psychologically that exist both during and after the colonial era. The paper concludes that literature helps readers to cope with the socio-cultural, political, economic, religious and other challenges of their immediate as well as remote environments through the process of self-discovery. As such, positive social change is possible through literature.

Class Struggle and Socialist Construction: The Hungarian Paradox

Slavic Review ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. von Lazar
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political System ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the relationship between the semantics of ideology and political practice under the pressure of socio-economic change in Hungary of the early 1960s, especially 1962-63. The events of 1956 forced the Communist Party elite to recognize the imperative need for internal social change and for control over its dynamics. Manipulation of social forces and ideological currents became a day-to-day concern as soon as it was realized that the political system must rely to an increasing extent upon the introduction of policies which induced support for the system itself—a need undoubtedly arising out of the social transformation that accompanies a developing and modernizing industrial society.

scholarly journals Cultural Spectrum in Arvind Adiga’s Selection Days

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Ankur Yadav
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexual Orientations ◽  
Individual Entity ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Class Construction

Cultural Studies have played a pivotal role in understanding and evaluating the power dynamics of the social, political, economic and ethical world order by empirically engaging and focusing on the present-day culture, tracing its historical roots and explicating its attributes with reference to a particular literary text and its reception in a society. Arvind Adiga, the Man-Booker Prize winning Indo-Australian author, in Selection Day, has adroitly detailed how cricket as an individual entity impacts the cultural phenomena of a society by confronting its inherent myriad issues. The narrative delves deep into the lives of two siblings – Radha and Manju, witnesses the dramatic turnaround of events and tries to capture the themes of unfulfilled desires and preordained destinies. The novel also explores how the sport holds different meanings and significance for different characters, each of whom view the game in the light of their own ideology. The author foresees and sensitizes the theme of homosexuality, which is still a taboo and been unheard of, within the sports fraternity. Adiga’s critique of the parental felony, embodied in Mohan Kumar, and its repercussions is the most compelling theme at the heart of this work of fiction. Selection Day powerfully binds together the societal phenomena of class construction, unquenchable thirst for money, sexual orientations and ideologies with a single thread and studies how culture, in itself, is an ever-evolving phenomenon.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Category of Class: Tempora Multa of the Plural Subject

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 171-192
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Emancipatory Politics ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Key Aspects

This article attempts to rethink the Marxist category of class in response to criticism of the progressivist conception of history. The Marxism of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries has typically run into a problem arising from the fact that accepting the proletariat as the subject of history makes any political action aimed at social transformation superfluous. From a political viewpoint, the concept of the subject of history either implies that the working class will spontaneously carry out its historical task without any intervention, or requires the dictate of the party to act as a revolutionary vanguard for the working class. Many theorists (Walter Benjamin, Louis Althusser, Daniel Bensaïd, Massimiliano Tomba, et al.) have pointed out that emancipatory politics should abandon the idea that history is linear and that it has a particular subject. Does this then mean that the concept of class itself should be discarded? Althusser’s concept of the social whole as a weave of multiple temporalities allows us to take a new look at the problem of class in Marxist theory and political practice by understanding class as neither essence nor structure, but rather as a conflictual social relation and a political concept. Based on the works of Edward Thompson, Ellen Meiksins Wood, Étienne Balibar, Daniel Bensaïd, Cinzia Aruzza, etc., the author demonstrates that the multi-temporal structure of capital means that class contradiction cannot be confined to the matters of production because class struggle unfolds at all levels of surplus value creation — production, exchange, reproduction and circulation of capital taken as a whole. Moreover, other social movements — feminist, anti-racist, migrant, etc. — lead to a redefinition of key aspects of class subjectivity related to the concepts of productive labor and exploitation. With left-wing politics now in crisis, class struggle also entails a struggle for recognition that the problem of class is a political one.

Historical Sociology in Poland: Transformations of the Uses of the Past

2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542110579
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Kolasa-Nowak ◽  
Marta Bucholc
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The Social ◽  
Symbolic Resource ◽  
Sociological Studies

The development of Polish institutional sociology since the 1920s reflects the combined effects of domestic political and cultural factors, along with international interdependencies. Historical sociology shares in the vicissitudes of the whole discipline. Although historical sociology was only weakly institutionalized before 1989, some of the best sociological studies produced in Poland under socialism display the keen use of historical imagination, inspired both by the pre-1939 domestic tradition and by Marxist theory. This article examines the path of historical sociology in Poland after 1989 and the connection between the sociological uses of history and the experience of post-communist transformation. We posit that the social transformation experience and how it was addressed by social science directly translate into the use of history in Polish sociology after 1989. We argue that the role of historical sociology in Poland since the end of the 1990s was a function of the potential of the past as a symbolic resource in the growing interdependence between Poland and Western Europe. However, the post-1989 research agendas of historical sociology were forged according to the mode of responsiveness to political agendas predating 1989. An overview of the development of Polish historical sociology demonstrates that the ahistorical transitological thinking after 1989 has been challenged by critical agendas in historical sociology, but it was, in the first place, a reaction to the increased potential of the past as a symbolic resource in political debates. Thus, the rationale for the passage to the third wave of historical sociology was primarily political.

scholarly journals Hybridization in Mandailing Culture: An Overview of Willem Iskander's Text Si Bulus-Bulus Si Rumbuk-Rumbuk

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Muharrina Harahap ◽  
Faruk Faruk ◽  
Aprinus Salam
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Identity Changes

This study examines identity issues in and among the Mandailing people, adapting Bhabha's argument that there is no stable identity, but that identity changes with every interaction in society. For this examination of identity, Bhabha's concept of hybridity has been adapted to investigate the mixture of identities among the Mandailing people.The hybridization in Mandailing is caused by several factors including: cultural contacts, Islamization, migration, and colonialism. The author uses a postcolonial review to see the process of hybrid formation in Mandailing through literary text written by a Mandailing writer, named Willem Iskander, entitled Si Bulus-Bulus Si Rumbuk-Rumbuk. The text consists of several poems and prose representing the identity of the Mandailing people in the colonial era. In order to realize the postcolonial, the author chooses a critical discourse analysis method for analyzing the data in the text. This critical analysis is able to unravel the colonial discourses that are metaphorically in the text. By combining with the postcolonial theory, especially proposed by Bhabha, this research results a finding, hybridization giving rise to the ambivalence of the Mandailing people. This ambivalence manifests in the social, cultural and political life of the people.

Ethnographic Models

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Harding
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Social Reconstruction ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Economic

Evaluating the contribution that a study of ethnographic models can make to an understanding of the role of hillforts in Iron Age society is as fraught with difficulties as is a critical assessment of documentary sources. Divorced in space and time from the Iron Age in Britain and north-western Europe, there can plainly be no direct cultural association or expectation that the social, political, economic, or belief systems that governed behaviour were necessarily comparable. Nevertheless, the basic requirements of providing food, shelter from the environment, and protection from hostile threat are universal, and communities widely separated in time and space may respond independently to similar situations in ways that may potentially illuminate the archaeological issues under review. As with experimental archaeology, we cannot say as a result of studying ethnographic analogies, that Iron Age communities in Britain built hillforts for such-and-such purposes or in the process believed this or that; only that these possibilities might be examined as potentially satisfying the available evidence. When it comes to social reconstruction, it may be possible to identify broad categories of social structures in which patterns of behaviour are recurrent, and more tentatively the same might be inferred for cognitive systems. The fact that we may never know what Iron Age communities believed is no reason for failing to address the question, which is not the same as simply asserting what they believed without presenting evidence or due qualification. Modern or early modern ethnographic models suffer from the inevitable disadvantage that they derive from contact between the native communities and European colonists. In consequence there is the probability that, as with Roman records of contacts with Gaulish or British Iron Age communities, native behaviour will in some measure have adapted to the alien cultural presence. This would apply even if the nature of contact were peaceable exploration, commercial, or evangelical, since the introduction of new technology and novel goods and practices would inevitably impact on local conventions. In the context of any defensive sites or protected settlements, the introduction of firearms plainly will have transformed any established convention of warfare that pertained in the pre-colonial era. Establishing the native tradition from earlier periods is not an easy or wholly reliable exercise, especially given that practices may have changed significantly if slowly over generations.

Commentary

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-117
Author(s):  
Allen I. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Societal Transformation ◽  
Power Shift ◽  
The Social ◽  
Current Change ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Fundamental Shift

No political, economic, or cultural segment of society has escaped the universal impact of recent cataclysmic change. Physicians were no exception. During the 20th century, all members of society, including physicians, have experienced change of enormous speed and magnitude. Futurist Alvin Toffler noted that global societal transformation has created a “future shock” of personal malaise that poses difficulty for both individual and group adaptation. Toffler further described current change as a fundamental shift and conflict in all aspects of civilization (how we live, work, and relate to each other). Toffler also noted major alterations in the basis for distribution of societal power (who controls what, why, and how). One manifestation of recent change directly affecting all members of society, including physicians, has been the social transformation of medicine that has been a power shift from the individual physicians to control by organizations and management.

scholarly journals KONSEP “BALDATUN THOYIBATUN WA ROBBUN GHOFUR” SEBAGAI TUJUAN AKHIR PROSES TRANFORMASI SOSIAL ISLAM

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 278
Author(s):  
Sabdo Sabdo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
Material Society ◽  
Final Destination ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Economic

A term often heard, read or discourse is "Baldatun Thoyibatun warobbun Ghofur" in Indonesian terms defined as a good country God forgave, or in Javanese philosophy "gemah ripah loh jinawi". The above phrase is the term that has been built by the Qur'an as hudan (guidance) for those who are devoted. The concept of the State above is very often an interesting discourse but in the level of reality has not been able to answer various problems in this country In the process of social transformation, Baldatun Thoyibatun warobbun Ghofur is as the final destination, the birth of a society full of peace, prosperity and justice, a perfect spiritual or material society. Specifically, the process of Islamic social transformation is the existence of a da'wah movement that continues to strive for change, from the darkness of life (al-Dzulumat) to a radiant life (al Nur), from ignorance   to Islam. A question arises whether this desirable country has been seen? and whether the current da'wah has not been able to give birth to it? of the two questions arise several problems; If the country of desire has been born what it looks like? If the da'wah has not been able to realize the country of desires, what is the problem? The above questions should be examined, for "baldatun Thoyibatun warobbun Ghofur is a necessity. The method used in studying this problem is the library study (library research) which prioritizes the review of the sources, then analyzed the texts to produce conclusions. This study can be concluded that the Baldatun thoyibatun warabbun ghofur state is a prosperous country in every field, because it is based on the basis of monotheism. Both the social, cultural, political, economic, educational and human rights fields. In realizing the form of the State requires a stage which should be noticed by the actors of change, as the Prophet (s) made a change. These changes can be made by making internal and external changes.

Social capital drives SME growth: A study of family firms in Poland

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Marjański ◽  
Łukasz Sułkowski ◽  
Justyna Marjańska-Potakowska ◽  
Katarzyna Staniszewska
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Family Firms ◽  
Enterprise Development ◽  
Family Enterprises ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Government ◽  
Polish Economy ◽  
Political Economic

Poland’s successful political, economic, and social transformation since the 1990s has seen the dynamic development of family enterprises. Most of them are in the small- and medium-sized enterprises sector and have become an important part of the Polish economy. What drives these family firms is not necessarily physical or even financial capital, but continuous human or social capital. We analyze how family businesses are based on the interdependence of family ownership and business with the social capital of the family. This article reflects on how the government, in encouraging small- and medium-sized enterprise development in an economy with traditionally low social capital, can benefit from the example of high social capital found in family firms. The article contains the interpretation of the results of research conducted in 2009–2010 and 2014–2016.

Capitalism, Crisis, and Contention: Race, Racism, and Resistance

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-167
Author(s):  
Lauren Langman
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Educational Status ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
The Face ◽  
Free Development ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Industrial Societies ◽  
Combination Of Material

Abstract For Marx, the alienation of wage labor and inherent crisis tendencies of capital would foster collective grievances and support for communist movements promising revolution and the abolition of private property, creating a society wherein “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” But a combination of material factors, the rise of the welfare state, increased wages, and later consumerism as well as ideologies such as religion and/or nationalism, thwarted revolutionary fervor in industrial societies. Nevertheless, Marxist theory provides a number of important insights that help us understand contemporary social mobilizations beginning with noting how historical legacies, materials conditions, class interests, and episodic crises dispose many movements, even those that take place on cultural terrains in public spheres and spaces while political economic/historical factors may not be evident. This can clearly be shown by understanding the nature of racism and the massive protests following the murder of George Floyd. The roots of racism, qua white ‘superiority’ were rooted in the colonial era in which the settlers enslaved Africans and forcibly displaced the native populations for clear economic gains. This was ideologically ‘legitimated’ by the dehumanization of racialized Others, it also provided ‘superior’ status and identity to Christian Caucasians. Moreover, such ideologies were sustained through violence, whether armed plantation owners, slave catchers, militias, and later police. For a variety of reasons, slavery ended but racism endures to this very day. But that said, between the growing economic and educational status of Africans Americans and the more progressive cosmopolitan/inclusive values and practices of the young, racism, for many, has waned. But police violence has not. In the face of growing inequality, the pandemic crisis that led to an economic crisis, especially onerous for the young and peoples of color, the murder of George Floyd, going viral, indicated how a number of the crises of neoliberal transnational capitalism migrated to the culture and led to massive protests and resistance against racism and police brutality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document