Entre tigres orientales, centauros mediterráneos y diosas nórdicas: del pastiche mitológico a la parodia posmoderna en Drako de Gades

RESUMEN: Este ensayo explora cómo en el cómic episdódico Drako de Gades (Antonio Hernández Palacios, 1984-1991) se nos presenta un mundo extraído de los libros de caballería medievales con origen en la tradición artúrica de los caballeros andantes, al que se añade las fuentes mitológicas de las sagas nórdicas y otros seres típicos de las culturas mediterráneas y orientales para recrear numerosas bestias y algunos personajes fantásticos. Se pretende mostrar cómo Drako de Gades aspira a ser un cómic de fantasía caballeresca medieval, por la manera en que reúne, acumula y superpone toda una serie de personajes asociados al género, a modo de pastiche o remezcla. Un pastiche que, mediante el uso del humor, convierte alguno de los episodios en parodia posmoderna, con una intención lúdica de recrear el universo literario de la caballería medieval. ABSTRACT: This essay explores how in the comic series Drako de Gades (by Antonio Hernández Palacios, 1984-1991) the reader enjoys a world extracted from medieval chivalric books originated in the Arthurian tradition, to which mythological sources related to the Nordic sagas and other typical beings of the Mediterranean and Eastern cultures are added to recreate numerous beasts and some fantastic characters. This paper shows how Drako de Gades aspires to be a medieval chivalric fantasy comic, and is able to do it because it gathers, accumulates and superimposes a whole series of characters associated with the genre, as a pastiche or remix. A pastiche that, through the use of humor, turns some of the episodes into a postmodern parody with a playful intention of recreating the literary universe of medieval chivalry.

Not All Migrant Men Embrace Toxic Masculinity, Do They?

Gender identities and roles have changed over time and have reached their present meanings. In addition, the expectations and acceptance of different cultures have caused these roles to show various developments. Finally, the increase in immigration to Europe has forced these young people who grew up in other cultures and their families to learn to live in a new culture and mandatory adaptation of two cultures. The biggest problem with mixing in a new culture was that the male trait, defined as toxic masculinity and taught as a power in eastern cultures, was not accepted in this new culture. Toxic masculinity is a man proving his existence to his gender, other genders, and entire social environment through anger, destructiveness, and pressure. “CommUnity” Project aims to bring together the young people of these different cultures with art-based design thinking activities. Those will help them get to know, understand, and adapt to each other in a peaceful environment where they can discuss the problem solutions openly and do art activities together.The main expectation is that the young people who have changed with these works will influence their environment and lead to a shared society that does not experience unnecessary violence and radicalism and lives in harmony.

West Meets East in a New Two-Polarities Model of Personality: Combining Self-Relatedness Structure With Independent-Interdependent Functions

Self and relatedness are the two most essential dimensions of personality, as indicated in many personality theories, and have been supported by numerous empirical studies conducted in the western (individualistic) and eastern (collectivist) contexts. However, because of a confusion or failure to distinguish the structure and function of personality, popular theories (e.g., the Big Five model) do not make logic distinctions between these two basic personality dimensions. In terms of the cultural-relevant feature, both self and relatedness and their specific aspects may be variously highlighted in different cultural settings. On the basis of a re-examination of several crucial two-dimension (namely, self and relatedness) personality theories derived from the east and west, we reconstruct a new two polarities personality model to include not only self and relatedness but also the independent and interdependent functions in terms of some popular personality theories from western and eastern cultures. Theoretically and empirically, self and relatedness should be the basic structures of personality, whereas independence and interdependence should be the basic functions of personality. Self and relatedness have independent and interdependent functions; however, due to the cultural relevance of personality, the functions should be variously emphasized in different contexts. Several possible future research directions are discussed.

Are We There Yet?

<p>This research will address American gender theorist Butler's assertion of third wave feminism and gender ethics and advocate that despite education and modernization, a duplicity still exists in the way gender has been depicted in western culture as well as in indigenous culture. This investigation seeks to acknowledge this duplicity by performing a comparative study of the western superhero Wonder Woman and the indigenous Indian Goddess Durga. Ultimately, this study challenges the contemporary terminologies and the interpretations concerning gender roles within the society to show the duplicity inherent in these contrasting renditions. Through a theoretical and practical framework and with the help of academic works and social media, the study conveys more visually empathetic ways to define the feminine gender as being powerful and multifaceted. These investigations will include traditional and contemporary examples of visual illustrations that contain their own social and cultural narratives and offer visual evidence of the perceptions and preconceptions that Butler refers to in her ‘Undoing Gender’ as “social and sexual constraints” (Butler, 2004, p. 10-15). The findings include visual responses that explore the personal counter-reaction towards duplicity that I argue is rife within social constructions of the feminine gender in both the Western and Eastern cultures. The illustration techniques in this research will provide more in-depth representations of the multifarious feminine characteristics. The study concludes that the sense of gender inequality still exists in contemporary society and only acceptance of this fact can resolve the issue.</p>

Are We There Yet?

<p>This research will address American gender theorist Butler's assertion of third wave feminism and gender ethics and advocate that despite education and modernization, a duplicity still exists in the way gender has been depicted in western culture as well as in indigenous culture. This investigation seeks to acknowledge this duplicity by performing a comparative study of the western superhero Wonder Woman and the indigenous Indian Goddess Durga. Ultimately, this study challenges the contemporary terminologies and the interpretations concerning gender roles within the society to show the duplicity inherent in these contrasting renditions. Through a theoretical and practical framework and with the help of academic works and social media, the study conveys more visually empathetic ways to define the feminine gender as being powerful and multifaceted. These investigations will include traditional and contemporary examples of visual illustrations that contain their own social and cultural narratives and offer visual evidence of the perceptions and preconceptions that Butler refers to in her ‘Undoing Gender’ as “social and sexual constraints” (Butler, 2004, p. 10-15). The findings include visual responses that explore the personal counter-reaction towards duplicity that I argue is rife within social constructions of the feminine gender in both the Western and Eastern cultures. The illustration techniques in this research will provide more in-depth representations of the multifarious feminine characteristics. The study concludes that the sense of gender inequality still exists in contemporary society and only acceptance of this fact can resolve the issue.</p>

Short story poetics and theoretical and methodological bases of research into Kipling’s short story cycle

According to the recent hypothesis, Kipling’s short stories are considered to be the products of the transformation of journalistic discourse into a literary one. Kipling’s short stories deal with the topic of “clashes” of Western and Eastern cultures. Linking these two cultural phenomena is an essential factor in his biography as well as poetics of his short stories and their internal connection needs to be considered in the analysis of the stories. This analysis should not only identify the traces of a report as a journalistic genre (even if at the level of subtext), but also confirm that Kipling’s work as a reporter implies his role as a representative of the Western culture. The given topic can be perceived as a problem due to the paradigmatic factor represented by its multidimensional nature i.e. the fact that it belongs to three dimensions of reality – linguistic, fictional and cultural.

Magical Iconography. How Can an Image Protect and Heal?

One of the features of the attitude of ancient societies towards the threats of everyday life was a close relationship between spiritual/magical and religious beliefs and the real actions aimed at overcoming dangers. This relationship is visible in the magical iconography of Ancient Egypt and other Ancient Near Eastern cultures – in the form of demons, minor deities, and other benevolent supernatural beings that can protect people. Images of theses deities are sometimes accompanied by archaeological traces (holes for water, traces of rubbing, touching), indicating that images were also subjects of action. The question is how the magical and religious iconography meets the non-supernatural actions and how this custom could emerge in other parts of the Ancient world and in post-ancient times.

Cultural values, but not nationality, predict social inclusion of robots

Research highlighted that Western and Eastern cultures differ in socio-cognitive mechanisms, such as social inclusion. Interestingly, social inclusion is a phe-nomenon that might transfer from human-human to human-robot relationships. Although the literature has shown that individual attitudes towards robots are shaped by cultural background, little research has investigated the role of cul-tural differences in the social inclusion of robots. In the present experiment, we investigated how cultural differences, in terms of nationality and individual cul-tural stance, influence social inclusion of the humanoid robot iCub, in a modi-fied version of the Cyberball game, a classical experimental paradigm measur-ing social ostracism and exclusion mechanisms. Moreover, we investigated whether the individual tendency to attribute intentionality towards robots mod-ulates the degree of inclusion of the iCub robot during the Cyberball game. Re-sults suggested that the individuals’ stance towards collectivism and tendency to attribute a mind to robots both predicted the level of social inclusion of the iCub robot in our version of the Cyberball game.