Pandemic Automobility. Patterns of Crisis and Opportunity in the American Motor Culture

This article traces the recursive character of automobility from a perspective of cultural crises and traumas that accompany motor culture development in the USA. The American automobility system has been caught in the treadmill of ideological criticism that defined the current role of motor vehicles in forms of political activism and cultural criticism. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is different as it seems to bring restoration to the original character of motor culture with its defining features of individualism, freedom, and opportunity achieved through mobility.

Ideology in the Era of “Cynical Reason” (Interpretation of Ideology in Slavoj Žižek’s Works)

The article is devoted to the critical analysis of the concept of ideology developed by Slavoj Žižek, the modern Slovenian philosopher. The author reveals the possibilities and limitations of Žižek’s approach to understanding the phenomenon of ideology and considers the initial presumptions and methodological assumptions that this approach is based upon. The article shows that despite the indisputable originality, Žižek’s theory is not devoid of contradictions, and the interpretation of ideology as an illusion and mystification, which is justified within the framework of Marxist political philosophy, loses its foundations in the context of the post-structuralist methodology. According to I.Demin’s conclusion, Žižek’s philosophical and political thinking falls prey to the scheme that Peter Sloterdijk defined as “mutual tracking of ideologies”. Criticism of ideology here implies criticism of one ideo logy from the standpoint of another, or criticism of “bad” ideology from the standpoint of “good” ideology. The “criticizing” ideology is not clearly articulated, but implicitly assumed. The fact that the “critic” of ideology prefers not to reveal his own bias constitutes an integral part of the strategy of ideological criticism, as opposed to scientific criticism. Ideology as the principle that structures social reality obtains an allencompassing character in Žižek’s interpretation, since it underlies all human actions and human thinking. However, if there is no way to separate ideology from scientific knowledge, to distinguish between ideology, philosophy and religion, it turns out that ideology is everything and nothing at the same time. With this interpretation, “ideology” becomes an unoperationalizable concept for Social and Political Sciences, and therefore useless. At the same time, a number of the provisions formulated by Žižek (on ideological “fastening”, on the role of the enemy figure in the ideological discourse, etc.) may be in high demand in the course of developing an adequate methodological strate gy for studying the phenomenon of ideology, which distances itself from both “naïve” objectivist doctrines and the extremes of the political anti-essentialism and anti-universalism.

Kritik terhadap Metode Tafsir Hermeneutik Pembebasan terhadap Peristiwa Keluaran Sebagai Suatu Bentuk Pembebasan

Hermeneutics is the exegetical method used by theologians to interpret the Bible according to its views and purposes. This research is a qualitative descriptive study to study the hermeneutic interpretation method of the Output event as a form of change. The Exodus events are important in the Bible, especially the Old Testament because God freed His people from the exploitation and oppression of the Egyptians. Theologians use the Israelite exodus from Egypt as the main hermeneutic or interpretive reference for the purpose of claiming and claiming that the exodus event is the basis for contemporary freedom from slavery, oppression or poverty. Through the spirit of exodus events and events, theologians develop hermeneutic methods to interpret output events according to their views and goals. Hermeneutic interpretation method uses an approach; postmodern, reader-centered method, text-centered method, ideological criticism approach, and critical criticism. Abstrak: Hermeneutika pembebasan adalah metode penafsiran yang digunakan oleh para teolog pembebasan untuk menafsirkan Alkitab menurut pandangan dan tujuan pembebasan. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian deskriptif kualitatif untuk melakukan kajian metode tafsir hermeneutik pembebasan terhadap peristiwa Keluaran sebagai suatu bentuk pembebasan. Peristiwa Exodus adalah peristiwa penting dalam Alkitab, terutama Perjanjian Lama karena Tuhan membebaskan umat-Nya dari eksploitasi dan penindasan orang Mesir. Para teolog pembebasan menggunakan eksodus bangsa Israel dari Mesir sebagai rujukan utama penafsiran atau hermeneutik untuk tujuan semangat pembebasan dan mengklaim bahwa peristiwa eksodus adalah dasar untuk kebebasan dari perbudakan, penindasan atau kemiskinan di masa kini. Melalui semangat pembebasan dan peristiwa eksodus, para teolog pembebasan mengembangkan metode hermeneutik untuk menafsirkan peristiwa keluaran sesuai dengan pandangan dan tujuan pembebasan. Metode tafsir hermeneutik pembebasan menggunakan pendekatan; postmodern, metode berpusat pada pembaca, metode berpusat pada teks, pendekatan kritik ideologis, dan pendekatan kritik pembebasan.

Editorial

transcript: An e-Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies is a bi-annual research journal started in 2021. The pandemic era that we have entered into in the second decade of the twenty-first century is marked by several changes in our social behavior and also the way we perceive this world. With restriction on human movement during the pandemic turn, there is a spurt in virtual human activities. Webinars and e-Journals have become safe and convenient modes of disseminating knowledge and information and the new normal. Adapting to the current trends and necessity, the Department of English, Bodoland University has proposed to launch this e-Journal. The Journal will aspire to reach out to scholars across the globe and provide a platform for the dissemination of cutting-edge research findings related to literatures in English and cultural studies. The reason for creating such an interdisciplinary and wider canvas is to facilitate an understanding of the cultures and literatures of the world and their inter-relationship. In the recent past, literatures of only a few nations dominated the world scenario thereby auguring the ideological moorings of those nations on the cultural and literary front; however, in the past few decades, the literatures of the post-colonial nations have made its presence felt all over the world. These literatures in English and literatures in English translation give us an alternative perspective of literary and cultural events of what the academic world calls the “global south.” The first issue of transcript published in June 2021 brings together a collection of five research articles and a book review on diverse topics of contemporary relevance. The contributors range from senior faculty members to promising young researchers who have expertise in their respective areas of research. This inaugural issue presents essays dealing with the latest research advances in the field of Environmental Humanities, political and ideological criticism throu

Continuidades e Descontinuidades nos Governos Temer e Bolsonaro na Política Externa Brasileira (2016-2020) | Continuities and Discontinuities in the Governments Temer and Bolsonaro in Brazilian Foreign Policy (2016-2020)

O presente artigo visa analisar as continuidades e as descontinuidades da Política Externa Brasileira dos governos Temer e Bolsonaro (2016-2020). A metodologia utiliza a discussão de literatura especializada e a análise de conteúdo dos formuladores de Política Externa Brasileira. O artigo argumenta que, nos temas da agenda internacional sobre comércio e Venezuela, os governos mantiveram elementos semelhantes como a prioridade na assinatura de acordos comerciais e o distanciamento progressivo com o venezuelanos. Em assuntos internacionais acerca da China e do conflito árabe-israelense, as administrações mantiveram elementos dessemelhantes como a crítica político-ideológica da parceria com o país asiático e o reposicionamento prioritário a Israel na questão entre israelenses e palestinos por Bolsonaro. Finalmente, defende-se que as tomadas de posição no comércio, na Venezuela, na China e no conflito árabe-israelense não trouxeram benefícios econômico-políticos ao Brasil no último quadriênio. Palavras-chave: Política Externa Brasileira; Temer; Bolsonaro.ABSTRACTThis article aims to analyze the continuities and discontinuities of the Brazilian Foreign Policy of the Temer and Bolsonaro governments (2016-2020). The methodology uses the discussion of specialized literature and a content analysis of the formulators of Brazilian Foreign Policy. The article argues that, on the themes of the international trade and Venezuela agenda, governments maintained similar elements such as the priority in signing trade agreements and the progressive distance with Venezuelans. In international affairs about China and the Arab-Israeli conflict, the administrations maintained elements such as the political-ideological criticism of the partnership with the Asian country and the priority repositioning of Israel on the issue between Israelis and Palestinians by Bolsonaro. Finally, it is argued that the entry of positions in trade, in Venezuela, in China and in the Arab-Israeli conflict did not bring economic-political benefits to Brazil in the last quadrennium.Keywords: Brazilian Foreign Policy; Temer; Bolsonaro. Recebido em: 06 jun. 2020 | Aceito em: 22 nov. 2020.

Gender Mainstreaming in Arabic Literature

Arabic literature is a means of gender mainstreaming which is very rich in gender issues. This is based on the social fact that Arab society in its historical footsteps has a stereotype as a community that is very thick with its patriarchal culture. Consequently, the social condition which is less responsive to gender influences the birth of Arabic literary works in various types in which gender issues such as marginalization of women, subordination of women to men, violence, negative stereotypes, and others. This article is qualitative research by using feminist Arabic literary criticism as a perspective, gender mainstreaming in Arabic literature is carried out by tracing the gender issues that exist in Arabic literature in its various forms. Through feminist Arabic literary criticism, various theories of feminist literary criticism consisting of ideological criticism, gynocritical criticism, socialist criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, ethnic criticism, and lesbian criticism, are applied in transforming and reconstructing gender-responsive relations between men and women.

Media Research in Socialist Slovenia/Yugoslavia: Some Afterthoughts

This afterword to “A Marxist Approach to Communication Freedom” reveals some features of the development of communication theories and empirical research in socialist Slovenia and Yugoslavia. The field started to develop in 1960s in the framework of other academic disciplines, mainly political sciences and partly sociology, but soon became the target of ideological criticism for “the lack of Marxist foundations” in the social sciences in general, and journalism education and communication research in particular, which was part of a more general conflict between party-state bureaucracy and “liberal intellectuals.” By the 1980s, communication and journalism education and research programmes became a regular component of universities in all the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The development of the new discipline was largely marked by “productive inclusivism” or eclecticism, a kind of “cohabitation” of different communication schools and theoretical paradigms that contributed to its definition, development and institutionalisation at universities.

Zeit der Bilder und Bilder der Zeit – Fichtes Religionskritik in ideologiekritischer Perspektive

In the framework of his religion and social criticism, Fichte expounds noteworthy approaches to ideological criticism. When it apparently comes to the belief in the autonomous content of consciousness, he calls into question the truth of it (revelation, miracle), he deciphers the social practices which are connected with it in their function as the rules in terms of social caste. Thereby, based on a subject producing law and order, he works against any duality of a divine and an earthly world. For him there exists only the earthly world in which man has to prove himself. The different forms of consciousness connected with it are understood as moments of reason which come into themselves, as “material for the imagining of one’s life of convenience”. They are manifested in a process of awareness of the imagination which constructs the world. However, they are not unfamiliar, passive reflections streaming into the subject, but are formed through an effect resulting from inseparable interweaving of these actions in malleable images. While Fichte tries to give reasons for social-emancipatorial hopes in faith or knowledge of transcendental reason, they become evidence of a dimension looking beyond the religious form; in the process of forming an image, the subjectivity passes beyond it’s inward nature, bringing knowledge and life into communion.Fichte entfaltet im Rahmen seiner Religions- und Sozialkritik bemerkenswerte ideologiekritische Ansätze. Wo es um scheinbar autonome Bewusstseinsinhalte im Glauben geht, stellt er deren Wahrheit in Frage (Offenbarung, Wunder), dechiffriert er die sich damit verbindenden sozialen Praktiken in ihrer Funktion im ständischen Herrschaftsgefüge. Dabei setzt er auf ein Gesetz und Ordnung hervorbringendes Subjekt, damit jeglicher Verdoppelung in eine himmlische und eine irdische Welt entgegen arbeitend. Für ihn gibt es einzig die irdische Welt, in der sich der Mensch bewähren muss. Die sich damit verbindenden unterschiedlichen Bewusstseinsformen werden als Momente einer zu sich kommenden Vernunft, als »Materialien zum Bilde des Einen Vernunftlebens« gefasst. Es manifestiert sich damit ein Bewusstwerden der die Welt konstituierenden Bilder. Diese sind jedoch keine dem Subjekt fremde, passiv auf ihn einströmende Ab-Bilder, sondern als in dessen Wirken formierte, folglich in dessen Tun untrennbar verwobene, bildbare Bilder. Indem Fichte im Religiösen sozial-emanzipatorische Hoffnungen rational zu begründen sucht, tritt im Glauben an bzw. Wissen um die transzendentale Vernunft eine Dimension hervor, die uber die Religionsform hinaus weist: Im Vorgang des Bildens überschreitet die Subjektivität ihre Innerlichkeit, bringt sie Wissen und Leben zur Einheit.

KRITIK IDEOLOGIS PEMIKIRAN SUNNAH MUHAMMAD SYAHRUR

Muh}ammad Syah}ru>r holds that everything that has been done by the Prophet in the 7th century in the Arabian peninsula is just the first—law—form to run—Shari'a—Islam, which is based to a particular historical setting. And this is not the legal form of a sole-law must be obeyed, and also not final. This view indicates that the sunnah that has been run by the Prophet only be ijtiha>diy. Therefore, the decision of the Prophet only be "temporary". The results of this study is the first, the nature of the sunnah according to Syah}ru>r: a) All the words and deeds of the Prophet is not a revelation. b) In the collection and codifying the hadith (sunnah), there is a chaos factor. c) the sunnah of the Prophet is the method of ijtihad in Arab societies in 7th century that bound by time and space. d) Muslims are only obliged to obey the sunnah risa>lah is the obedience connected. While sunnah risa>lah is the obedience disconnected and sunnah nubuwwah shall not be obeyed. e) The Prophet is not the ma's}u>m in all cases. Ma's}u>m prophets only consists of two things; 1) The Prophet awake from a mistake in conveying al-Z|ikr al-H}aki>m as revealed to him in the wording and meaning all at once, just as he received it from God in the form of words and speech. And the Prophet was maintained in its task of conveying risa>lah to humans. Second, the Prophet awake into illicit acts and do not exceed the limits of Allah. Second, thinking sunnah Syah}ru>r in the frame of ideological criticism is: a) The concept of thinking sunnah Syah}ru>r many uses scientific historical method (al-manhaj al-ta>ri>kh al-'ilmiy). b) All the words and deeds of the Prophet was a revelation. From this reason, the Prophet is the ma's}u>m. And because the Prophet is the ma's}u>m, then Muslims must comply sunnah in all kinds of all time. c) does not prohibit the companions of the Prophet to write his words (hadith).

Ideologi Argumen-Argumen Keagamaan Tradisi Lingkaran Hidup dalam Kitab Kuning

This article will show that the implementation of the Javanese Islamic tradition in the form of the ritual of the life cycle (life circle) is the implementation of the ideology of Sh?fi‘? developed by his followers (as}h{?b). The ideology was then known as the ideology of as}h}?b al-sh?fi‘?yah. The ritual of the life in the form of a birth ritual (metu), marriage (manten) and death (mati) has been mentioned in the classic Islamic book (kitab kuning). Allegations that Javanese Islam as syncretic Islam and the adoption of Hindu and Buddhist traditions are wrong. The ritual of the life circle as shown in this article is emerging from within Islam itself as an embodiment of the interpretation of Islamic doctrine. The reseacher gets this conclusion after doing a research of various classic Islamic books that explain the ritual of the life circle. To find out the conclusion, the reseacher used the ideological criticism of Pierre F. Bourdieu. This article, therefore, rejects the views of outsiders such as Geertz, Beatty and Mulder, who explain that the ritual of Javanese Muslim is impure doctrine of Islam.