Americar Dreams (An Introduction)

Even though Baudrillard’s catchy piece of advice as for the most effective method of exploring America’s landscapes (both real and imaginary) comes from his postmodernist travelogue limited to its titular country, it is probably difficult for anyone interested in contemporary car cultures not to extend Baudrillard’s praise of the driving experience and perceive it in cognitive rather than transportation terms, not necessarily bounded by national borders. True, American driving culture and all its related contexts—its remarkable history, its contribution to social mobility, its spectacular cars, its mythologies, the list goes on and on—is not only the oldest one historically, but—given its ties with American life-styles, politics, social stratification and the overall consumerist mindset—also the most extreme one. From Henry Ford’s Model T storming millions of American households at the beginning of the 20th century to Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster shot into space in the second decade of the following one, cars have shaped American horizons, both private and collective, like no other machine. This introductory text presents the concept of the present issue of RIAS as well as the concepts underlying its feature texts.

Thinking music in the web age (2)

The articles collected in the present issue of De Musica derive from contributions to the international conference “Penser la musique à l’ère du web / Thinking Music in the Web Age” and continue the investigation developed in the previous issue on the rapid and profound transformations of the contemporary musical culture in the web age. They deal in particular with the impact of the so-called digital revolution on the production, the distribution and the reception of music.

Performance, Memory, and the Archive: A Conversation with Arsinée Khanjian

The notion of performance holds a profoundly polysemic nuance within the field of the humanities and the arts. For the present issue of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, we challenge the traditional significance of perfoming arts by unveiling how artistic practices disclose important avenues for (re)thinking the question of memory and archive as well as Armenianness, cultural and diasporic identity, the female body, and political engagement. To reflect upon these various issues, we sat down with Arsinée Khanjian and shared our experiences of viewing artistic performances as well as our understanding of the significance of performance for Armenian studies.

Thermographic signs of certain diseases of the respiratory system (acute sinusitis, pneumonia) Thermography Atlas

The present issue focuses on the practice of medical thermal imaging in patients with paranasal sinusitis and pneumonia. The description of thermograms is based on a quantitative analysis of temperature gradients and trends in temperature of different body regions (Projection «head front» for paranasal sinusitis, «breast front» and «back», in a defined layout formed in «cloud» thermograms analysis program "Tvision" of «Dignosis», Russia) with values of thermographic markers that demonstrated their differentiating capabilities when compared with reference methods. Thus, the thermographic conclusion is formed not simply by thermal phenomenon «hot-cold», but on the basis of numerical values of markers, which indicate hypothetical nosological diagnosis and significantly simplifies the algorithm for those physicians who use this method as an additional. The publication is intended for doctors of any speciality who, in their daily clinical practice, treat the patients with suspicions disease of respiratory system

Transition under way

After 7 years of chairing the Editorial Board of International Journal of High Dilution Research as Chief-Editor, I feel the time has come to renew the journal and prepare it to meet new challenges and advance. I learned a great deal and met many researchers in the last years, and I am very grateful to all those who shared in this task with me: readers, authors, reviewers, editors, in one simple word, my friends! Starting 2015, our journal devoted to High Dilutions will have a new Chief-Editor, Dr. Saurav Arora, from India. Along the next months, we will work together in the preparation of the next two issues (48 and 49), implementation of technical changes and revision of documents and guidelines, as well as the Editorial Board. We will provide more information on Dr. Arora and news about the Journal in the next months! The transition is already under way, I hope it will be as smooth as possible, and that it will be fully supported by the entire community involved in High Dilution research. The present issue brings further news, but from Romania, where GIRI recently organized its XXVIII Symposium and elected its new President, Dr. Stephan Baumgartener (Switzerland). Thus, both GIRI and our High Dilution journal are redefining their structure, which certainly will reflect on the entire scientific community devoted to all aspects of High Dilutions. This is not a “Farewell Editorial”, as I hope I will remained connected to the Journal for many years more! My friends, enjoy this issue!

The Place of the Dead in the Mediterranean. A Sicilian Experience

Death during the journey to Europe is both a spectre hanging over border crossers and a concrete reality. It is also a very present issue within the society that finds itself forced to deal with these inert bodies. Drawing on a field study has been conducted since January 2018, we focus here on how the bodies found at sea and taken to the port of Catania (Sicily) are managed, exploring both their itinerary and how a small group of people from the city has become involved in a project to give them a name and a biography.

Undervisning i förskolan:

The paper argues that Swedish preschool teachers tend to be depicted mainly as subjects for policy implementation when it comes to their mission to teach in preschool. Taking the perspective of inside-out-professionalism, the paper aims to make visible how preschool teachers have developed professional knowledge about teaching from within the preschool context. The methodology is based on content analysis of semi-structured interviews with ten experienced preschool teachers. Teaching is defined openly as a conscious arrangement for learning. Dewey’s notions of experience, environment and subject content further informed the interpretation of the results. Two main categories were discerned, both emphasising the experience and active participation of the child: identifying potential subject components in children’s experience, and arranging an environment in which the child becomes a part. Each main category further included two sub-categories. Thus the present issue of implementing teaching in preschool could gain from research on established preschool practice based on inside-out-professionalism and made visible through Dewey’s theorical lens.

Editorial: What is semiotics but a series of modeling

The present issue of Chinese Semiotic Studies is published in memory of Thomas A. Sebeok. Sebeok was not only a master semiotician, but more importantly a grand artist in semiotics. As one of the most important contemporary figures in semiotics, linguistics, ethnology, and cultural studies, Sebeok made profound contributions to the progress of global semiotics through his distinguished theoretical achievements and promotional activities. His works have proven to be so relevant that they continue to exert a determinative influence and provide directions for the development of semiotics and its many subdivisions, especially biosemiotics, beyond the 20th century. Now, 21 years into the present century, during which semiotic studies around the world have made remarkable progress, it is about time to highlight some specific ways in which his contributions will continue to shape and guide semiotic studies, demonstrating the relevance of these contributions to the 21st century challenges. To this end, this special issue presents some up-to-date and informed studies that explore Sebeok’s contributions to semiotics and their vital implications for fundamental problems relevant to humanity as a semiotic animal in the present day and in the rest of this century and beyond.

Art, politics, pedagogy: Juxtaposing, discomfiting, disrupting

In this opening essay we explain the rationale for the Special Issue, the first of two on the theme of ‘politicizing artistic pedagogies’. In doing so, we outline the connections between this collection of articles and those in the next issue of Art & the Public Sphere while also stressing the distinctive, societal scope of the present issue. The article considers some themes of particular relevance for this edited collection. For example, we discuss our understanding of art, politics and pedagogy and draw on Juliet Hooker’s work on juxtaposition to advocate the benefits of discomfiting yet welcome disruptions to our more established ways of thinking and practising. This is often narrated in a biographical style, which enables us to highlight how we, from rather different backgrounds, came to collaborate at various points over the last decade and how this manifested in a noteworthy and instructive teaching experience for Ian when invited to deliver two seminar sessions for Mel’s students. Overall, we promote a pluralistic and inclusive approach to the notion of ‘politicizing artistic pedagogies’ but make sure, in the process, to outline where we depart from more established positions (such as on pedagogy and on art’s function). Finally, we briefly introduce the articles that comprise the Special Issue.

Genre Hybrids – Between Impossibility, Transitionality and a Search for Fullness

The article offers an overview of the content of the present issue of the „Tekstualia” and problematizes the issue of hybridity in literature and other arts by looking at phenomena such as hybridization as a mechanism of constructing new esthetic and ontological models or as a key to understanding heterogenic origins and features of literature and other arts. More specifi c problems under discussion include: experimentation, para-texts, amorphousness in art, genres in-between, intertextuality, interactivity. Hybridity in art raises a range of ontological, epistemological, and axiological questions that pertain to predominant cultural models across time. Hybrids are artistic phenomena that escape classifi cation, and they play an important role in cultural dynamics because they shape new sensitivities, they also play an important part in culture (especially modern and postmodern), because they require their own description and language.