scholarly journals The Zombie as a Mirror of Modern Mass Culture

Corpus Mundi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-39
Author(s):  
Serguey N. Yakushenkov ◽  
Olesya S. Yakushenkova
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The World ◽  
Plantation Life ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Original Habitat ◽  
Modern Mass

Zombies were and still are one of the most important symbols of modern mass culture. The zombie discourse originated among African slaves brought to the sugar plantations in the Caribbean. In many ways, the narratives of the “living dead” were a reaction to the crisis phenomena of plantation life. This is evidenced by the rich comparative material presented on many peoples of the world. Such notions of invulnerability after formal death proved to be an important tool of resistance to new conditions caused by external threats. Termed “revitalization,” they were an important element of the Millennialist movements. While initially the sorcerers who could bring themselves back to life were central to these beliefs, in the following period the focus shifted to the victims of various manipulations, transformed into soulless beings. Leaving the environment of their original “habitat,” zombies took on a new life, occupying a firm place in modern mass culture. Having become a symbol of ruthless exploitation of man, relegated to the level of a machine appendage, zombies proved to be one of the most “productive” symbols. They reflected the main trends in the development of society and even began to function as instruments of philosophical reflection. All this allows us to consider zombies as an indicator of altered society, producing new “walking dead”. The metaphors associated with zombies allows us to conclude that the comprehension of zombies makes modern man begin to perceive them constructively, creating a new image, demonstrating the movement towards humanization.

THE OCCULTISM IN THE MODERN WORLD: A TRIBUTE TO FASHION OR A HISTORICAL REGULARITY?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-140
Author(s):  
S. V. Storozhuk ◽  
◽  
I. M. Hoian ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Mass Society ◽  
World Crisis ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The One ◽  
Modern Mass ◽  
The Universe

The article shows that the modern mass interest in the occult is conditioned, on the one hand, by the world crisis, the lack of stable and reliable foundations for self-determination and human orientation in the world, and on the other – by the formation of impersonal man and the establishment of mass society. The lack of a stable worldview, universal values, ideals and social standards, and, at the same time, unwillingness to pose and solve complex socio-cultural problems, is the main reason why modern (postmodern) people choose occult ideals and norms that do not require deep reflection, however, they provide them with a sense of belonging to the universe. Most of them are offered by the modern mass culture industry. Although its products are of great concern to traditional Christian values and virtues, we have no reason to give them an unequivocally negative assessment at the moment, at least given that they offer models of The article shows that the modern mass interest in the occult is conditioned, on the one hand, by the world crisis, the lack of stable and reliable foundations for self-determination and human orientation in the world, and on the other – by the formation of impersonal man and the establishment of mass society. The lack of a stable worldview, universal values, ideals and social standards, and, at the same time, unwillingness to pose and solve complex socio-cultural problems, is the main reason why modern (postmodern) people choose occult ideals and norms that do not require deep reflection, however, they provide them with a sense of belonging to the universe. Most of them are offered by the modern mass culture industry. Although its products are of great concern to traditional Christian values and virtues, we have no reason to give them an unequivocally negative assessment at the moment, at least given that they offer models of The article shows that the modern mass interest in the occult is conditioned, on the one hand, by the world crisis, the lack of stable and reliable foundations for self-determination and human orientation in the world, and on the other – by the formation of impersonal man and the establishment of mass society. The lack of a stable worldview, universal values, ideals and social standards, and, at the same time, unwillingness to pose and solve complex socio-cultural problems, is the main reason why modern (postmodern) people choose occult ideals and norms that do not require deep reflection, however, they provide them with a sense of belonging to the universe. Most of them are offered by the modern mass culture industry. Although its products are of great concern to traditional Christian values and virtues, we have no reason to give them an unequivocally negative assessment at the moment, at least given that they offer models of social relations that due to testing by various occult organizations, may receive a public request, or be rejected.

Slave economies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Harrigan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
Human Difference ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Difference

Early modern French commentators saw slavery as a practice that was ubiquitous throughout the world, even threatening in its Islamic forms, and that was intimately associated with captivity. A further strand in creating the condition of the slave was made up of discourses of human difference. The site of the difference was very mobile; while there are hints of early proto-racial thinking at the turn of the eighteenth century, religion was one of various strands through which belonging and difference was conceptualised. Contrary to recent criticism, this chapter shows that representations of African slavery were based on ambiguous legal, commercial and societal foundations. Slavery was also justified by early capitalist rationale testifying to European confidence in production. Amerindian slavery was thought non-commercial and honour-based, and fascinated in depictions of the consumption of human beings. French accounts of the Caribbean slave economy illustrate the key strands of what the proprietorship of African slaves meant. The enslavement of baptised Africans was viewed with some diversity by ecclesiastics, with some questioning the principle of slavery, and some actively condoning it. Baptism was a powerful sacrament which implied levels of temporal belonging, but the coexistence of secular and spiritual planes could be complex or uneasy.

Caribbean Crossing

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Fanning
Keyword(s):  
Black Americans ◽  
Black Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The World ◽  
Trade Potential ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Race Problem

Shortly after winning its independence in 1804, Haiti's leaders realized that if their nation was to survive, it needed to build strong diplomatic bonds with other nations. Haiti's first leaders looked especially hard at the United States, which had a sizeable free black population that included vocal champions of black emigration and colonization. In the 1820s, President Jean-Pierre Boyer helped facilitate a migration of thousands of black Americans to Haiti with promises of ample land, rich commercial prospects, and most importantly, a black state. His ideas struck a chord with both blacks and whites in America. Journalists and black community leaders advertised emigration to Haiti as a way for African Americans to resist discrimination and show the world that the black race could be an equal on the world stage, while antislavery whites sought to support a nation founded by liberated slaves. Black and white businessmen were excited by trade potential, and racist whites viewed Haiti as a way to export the race problem that plagued America. By the end of the decade, black Americans migration to Haiti began to ebb as emigrants realized that the Caribbean republic wasn't the black Eden they'd anticipated. This book documents the rise and fall of the campaign for black emigration to Haiti, drawing on a variety of archival sources to share the rich voices of the emigrants themselves. Using letters, diary accounts, travelers' reports, newspaper articles, and American, British, and French consulate records, this text profiles the emigrants and analyzes the diverse motivations that fueled this unique early moment in both American and Haitian history.

scholarly journals NOT A REVOLUTION, BUT A MOVIE-REVOLT: THE MYSTERY OF TERRIBLE HOLLYWOOD ARTIFACTS IN BATTLES WITH CONSUMER IDEOLOGY

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-261
Author(s):  
S.A. Malenko
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
The World ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
Psychoanalytic Interpretation ◽  
American Horror Film ◽  
Modern Mass ◽  
Typical Consumer

The article considers the problem of psychoanalytic interpretation of the role of ancient artifacts in the construction of a storyline of an American horror film. The author establishes a direct connection between the composition of a film and the transfer processes characteristic of unconscious forms of individual and social life. Artifacts, as a rule, demonstrate their vital nature in the process of communication with the philistine environment. This testifies to the actualization in the space of modern mass culture of the archaic need for personal human participation in the mythical re-creation of the world. Also, vitality is manifested in the destructive opposition of the ancient artifact to the typical consumer manipulations of a man in the street and is aimed at bridging the gap between man and the object environment created by him. The vitality of artifacts is one of the ways of unconscious objectification of intermediate results of the transfer, which is undertaken by the man in order to form his own explanatory model of the world. And the ideology of the American horror film is a postmodern simulacrum of social-revolutionary movements of past eras, the main purpose of which was to change the existing forms of political and socio-cultural communication.

scholarly journals Representations of Cold in the Folklore Picture of World of Yakuts

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-202
Author(s):  
A. A. Kuzmina
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Mass ◽  
First Time ◽  
Negative Connotation

The idea of cold, reflected in the folklore picture of the world of the Yakuts is discussed in the article. The relevance of the work is due to the increased interest in the northern (Arctic) topic, in particular, to the issue of perception of cold by indigenous peoples, which has its own characteristics, ancient and late strata. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time folklore material is more widely covered, a comparison is made with the features of the perception of cold by other peoples; modern transformations are revealed. The author of the article uses texts of different folklore genres as a material for study: epics, legends, mythological stories, folk songs, tales, proverbs and sayings. The semantics of the word tymny (cold), which has figurative meanings with a negative connotation, is described. It was revealed that in the folklore picture of the world of the Yakuts, the cold is represented in the images of Winter and North, the mythological Bull of Winter, the Lower World inhabited by the abaasy monsters, the Aam-Daan cold, astral objects (constellations, planets). It is reported that folklore reflects not only the negative attitude of the Yakuts to cold, but also the ways of their adaptation to harsh climatic conditions. It is established that at present the idea of cold has undergone a transformation, in particular, it has begun to be perceived positively, which is largely due to the influence of modern mass culture, universal literacy, and improvement of living conditions.

scholarly journals Chinese Plantation Workers and Social Conflict in Peru in the late Nineteenth Century

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Gonzales
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
The World ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
Cheap Alternative ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Coffee Estates

As the world capitalist system developed during the nineteenth century non-slave labour became a commodity that circulated around the globe and contributed to capital accumulation in metropolitan centres. The best examples are the emigration of millions of Asian indentured servants and European labourers to areas of European colonisation. Asians replaced emancipated African slaves on plantations in the Caribbean and South America, supplemented a declining slave population in Cuba, built railways in California, worked in mines in South Africa, laboured on sugarcane plantations in Mauritius and Fiji, and served on plantations in southeast Asia. Italian immigrants also replaced African slaves on coffee estates in Brazil, worked with Spaniards in the seasonal wheat harvest in Argentina, and, along with other Europeans, entered the growing labour market in the United States. From the perspective of capital, these workers were a cheap alternative to local wage labour and, as foreigners without the rights of citizens, they could be subjected to harsher methods of social control.1

Threats to the Economic Security of Russia in the Context of Trends in the Development of Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 112-125
Author(s):  
Alexander I. Selivanov ◽  
Vladimir G. Starovoitov ◽  
Dmitriy V. Troshin
Keyword(s):  
National Economy ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Economic Crime ◽  
African Continent ◽  
New Developments ◽  
External Threats ◽  
National Economic ◽  
The World ◽  
National Economic Security

Situation and value of the African continent on the economic and social cardmap of the world dynamically changes and will continue to change throughout all the 21st century with strengthening of the Africa positions in the world. In Russia all the complex of threats and problems which arise owing to political and economic transformation of Africa is not adequately estimated. The scientific literature on economic security issues presents an expanded set of internal and external threats to the national economy that goes beyond the traditional areas of the shadow economy, corruption, economic crime and related segments, including the internal economic stability of the national economy and inter-country competition, the quality of state strategic management, studies of the specifics of ensuring economic security in the conditions of the sixth technological order, intercultural communication and their impact on the economic relations between countries, etc. Incomplete use of such approach to strategy for the countries of Africa creates additional threats and risks for Russia. An analysis of security problems in Africa revealed that studies of economic security in the context of African development trends in Russia are conducted in an unsatisfactory volume, not always taking into account the results of new developments in the field of ensuring economic security. Even the large shifts happening on the African continent, forecasts of this dynamics sometimes are poorly known to experts of a profile of economic security, and many experts of an economic profile including working in the African subject often do not accurately distinguish problems of “economic cooperation” and “the Russian – African relations”, on the one hand, and “economic security of Russia” – with another. In this regard the new scientific problem is proved: need for deeper analysis of trends of economic and social development in Africa as an important component of a system of ensuring national economic security of Russia in the current period and in the future into account the new developments in the sphere of economic security. The main directions of activating scientific research and concentration of practical efforts to increase national economic security, neutralize threats and reduce risk for Russia in the designated context are formulated.

Emigrant Psychoanalysts in the USA and the FBI Archives

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Goggin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Rich ◽  
New Nation

Interest in the fate of the German psychoanalysts who had to flee Hitler's Germany and find refuge in a new nation, such as the United States, has increased. The ‘émigré research’ shows that several themes recur: (1) the theme of ‘loss’ of one's culture, homeland, language, and family; and (2) the ambiva-lent welcome these émigrés received in their new country. We describe the political-social-cultural context that existed in the United States during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Documentary evidence found in the FBI files of three émigré psychoanalysts, Clara Happel, Martin Grotjahn, and Otto Fenichel, are then presented in combination with other source material. This provides a provisional impression of how each of these three individuals experienced their emigration. As such, it gives us elements of a history. The FBI documents suggest that the American atmosphere of political insecurity and fear-based ethnocentric nationalism may have reinforced their old fears of National Socialism, and contributed to their inclination to inhibit or seal off parts of them-selves and their personal histories in order to adapt to their new home and become Americanized. They abandoned the rich social, cultural, political tradition that was part of European psychoanalysis. Finally, we look at these elements of a history in order to ask a larger question about the appropriate balance between a liberal democratic government's right to protect itself from internal and external threats on the one hand, or crossover into the blatant invasion of civil rights and due process on the other.

Sandra Ramos Revisited

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
Silvia Spitta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Graphic Arts ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Political Choices ◽  
The Rich

Sandra Ramos (b. 1969) is one of the few artists to reflect critically on both sides of the Cuban di-lemma, fully embodying the etymological origins of the word in ancient Greek: di-, meaning twice, and lemma, denoting a form of argument involving a choice between equally unfavorable alternatives. Throughout her works she shines a light on the dilemmas faced by Cubans whether in Cuba or the United States, underlining the bad personal and political choices people face in both countries. During the hard 1990s, while still in Havana, the artist focused on the traumatic one-way journey into exile by thousands, as well as the experience of profound abandonment experienced by those who were left behind on the island. Today she lives in Miami and operates a studio there as well as one in Havana. Her initial disorientation in the USA has morphed into an acerbic representation and critique of the current administration and a deep concern with the environmental collapse we face. A buffoonlike Trumpito has joined el Bobo de Abela and Liborio in her gallery of comic characters derived from the rich Cuban graphic arts tradition where she was formed. While Cuba is now represented as a rotten cake with menacing flies hovering over it ready to pounce, a bombastic Trumpito marches across the world stage, trampling everything underfoot, a dollar sign for a face.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FEATURES OF EDUCATION AND TOLERANCE IN STUDENTS

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-119
Author(s):  
VLADIMIR GLEB NAYDONOV
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Rich Diversity ◽  
Interethnic Differences ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
Psychological Features ◽  
Different Levels

The article considers the students’ tolerance as a spectrum of personal manifestations of respect, acceptance and correct understanding of the rich diversity of cultures of the world, values of others’ personality. The purpose of the study is to investgate education and the formation of tolerance among the students. We have compiled a training program to improve the level of tolerance for interethnic differences. Based on the statistical analysis of the data obtained, the most important values that are significant for different levels of tolerance were identified.

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