ADOLESCENTS’ INVOLVEMENT IN SOCIAL MEDIA: BEFORE AND DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Social media are an indispensable modern adolescents’ daily ritual. The present study investigates the specifics of social media influence on the adolescents’ psychological wellbeing in everyday life and during Covid-19. The research hypothesis stated that excessive social media use could provide loneliness, depression, and lack of sleep. The investigation is based on data received from interviews, questionnaires, and statistical analysis. A group of 516 psychology and medical students (78.8% females, 21.2% males) aged 15-21 took part in the study via Google Form survey conducted in Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University, Ukraine. The participants’ overall well-being, loneliness, level of stress were assessed in correlation with personality characteristics and tendency to social media disorder. The obtained results showed that the more time adolescents spend on social media, the more real-life relationships decrease due to online isolation in social terms. The predictors of social media disorder are difficulties in relationships with family, time spent on social media and psycho-emotional background. It is determined that the social media use creates the illusion of participation and importance for a large circle of people. The study provides evidence that the unsatisfactory level of modern adolescents’ well-being can be explained by the passive use of social media, which provokes emotional lability, irritability, depression, and sleep deprivation.

HISTORIC COMPONENT OF BYZANTINE HAGIOGRAPHY

The quasi apparent anti-historicity of Byzantine hagiography is manifested as in unconcretizing the described objects and phenomena and in the corresponding uncertainty of dating and attribution of the monuments themselves. At the same time the hagiographic narrative in its sense is aimed to resolve the task of historicization of an action that proves the uncommonness, sanctity, moral and spiritual greatness of the hero. It is characteristic that hagiographers like to stress their own participation in his deeds. The principle of “autopsy”, maintained in hagiography, helps to prove the reality of what is happening, even the most unusual, at first glance, miracles. The attention of the Lives to the events of everyday life, private life, to the individual details of the usual daily ritual, often ignored by chronicles and monumental stories, is characteristic. Beyond the stereotypy of hagiographic images in the Lives, one can often catch portrait characteristics of representatives of completely different social strata, socio-psychological descriptions of such categories as holy fools, beggars, hermits, and other individuals or outsiders. The most peculiar in hagiography seems to be the function of time. Time is neither cyclic, as in histories and biographies of classical antiquity, nor linear as in medieval annals and historiography. The nature of temporal revelation is as iterative (the events of modern history are as if repetition or copy of the Biblical history) so sudden. The hagiographic space is full of features of teratomorphism, whether in the desert, the wilds or in the deserted mountains. Thus, the historical approach to hagiography is expressed indirectly, in accordance with the genre etiquette, the socio-psychological and historical conditions of medieval mentality. The historicity of hagiography seems to be characterized mainly as an “apocalyptical historicity” (from the Greek. “apocalypse” – revelation, discovery).

STUDY OF FACTORS OF TEMPORARY ADAPTABILITY IN PERSONS WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF HEALTH

The article presents the results of a study of factors, features and the level of development of temporary adaptability, as an ability and resource for adaptation, in people with different levels of health. The study was conducted by the method of interviewing in full-time and electronic forms on a sample of people from a conditionally healthy group and having health problems of different nosological groups. In the course of the analysis of the research results, such factors of a person’s temporal adaptability as perception and orientation in time, adaptation to natural temporal changes, adaptation to changes in plans, daily ritual routines and schedules were highlighted. The novelty of the research results is the allocation of temporary adaptability, as a form of adaptability to the physical conditions of the environment, as a separate subject of study and the study of its factors, features and level of development in people with different levels of health. The results can be applied in the development of training courses, including in remote form, for the development of skills of perception and orientation in time, planning and time management. Also, the results of the study are important for the development of methods for determining the level of adaptability of a person to the physical structure of the environment.

A Sacred Landscape of Sumer: Statuettes from Ur Depicting a Goat on a Tree

The statuettes commonly referred to as “Ram Caught in a Thicket” (2500 BC) may well be associated with what is known from later texts (2nd millennium BC) as the (daily) determining-of-the-fates ritual that occurred at sunrise. Symbolic elements (tree, rosette, leaf, possible mountain), and motifs (quadruped facing a tree) occur in other media—glyptic, musical instruments—and their meaning informs the unique combination of elements found in these two statuettes. It is proposed that the statuettes are offering stands. The composition as a whole represents a sacred landscape rather than a charming genre scene. It is likely that the statuettes were associated with the daily ritual of the determining of the fates, which would push the later attestations of that ritual and the cosmological view behind it back to the mid-third millennium BC.

The Doll’s Gift

Brianna Beehler, “The Doll’s Gift: Ventriloquizing Bleak House” (pp. 24–49) This essay offers a new reading of the split narrative in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1852–53). Previous critics of the novel’s split narrative have primarily focused on the unequal knowledge and authority positions of the all-knowing third-person narrator and the unknowing first-person narrator, Esther Summerson. This division, however, does not fully account for the apparent slips and narrative exchanges between the two narrators, in which one narrator takes on the voice or knowledge position of the other. This essay takes up Robert Newsom’s suggestion that the only way to explain these “slips” is to conclude that Esther Summerson writes not only her own narration, but also that of the third-person narrator. However, the essay further argues that Esther uses the third-person narration to ventriloquize the voice of her mother, Lady Dedlock, in an effort to provide herself with the emotional support otherwise denied her. Readers may better understand Esther’s ventriloquism of the third-person narration by tracing how it mirrors her early daily ritual with her doll, in which she assumed both narrative positions at once. Object relations and gift theory further show how this dialogue creates a bond between the two narrations. Thus, characters and family structures that appear in the third-person narration and that may appear distant from Esther are actually her meditations on alternative maternal and familial relationships.

Images of "Soviet" and "Sovietness" in the Cultural Landscape of Vinnytsia Region (Based on Field Ethnographic Materials)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the images of "Soviet" and "Sovietness" in visual objects of the cultural landscape of Vinnitsia region on the basis of field ethnographic materials collected in the process of collective and individual expeditions by students of the Faculty of History, Law and Public Administration and teachers of the Department of History of Ukraine Vinnytsia Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi State Pedagogical University in 2018-19. The methodology of the research is based on the combination of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) methods with the principles of historicism, systematicity, scientificity and verification and is carried out in the interdisciplinary plane - in the context of "cultural landscaping" (in the context of anthropology of space) and memory discourses and methodology of visual anthropology. The scientific novelty of the work is to try to breed the concepts of "Soviet" and "Sovietness". Through the analysis of visual objects of cultural landscape, the author traced the organic combination of objects of material culture (toponymy, symbolism, multifunctional architecture, vehicles, memorial sites, etc.) with varieties of human practices (daily, ritual, symbolic, artistic, etc.) focusing on the connection of visualization with a cognitive form of cognition that emphasizes sociocultural features in the creation and understanding of these visual images. The researcher also touched upon the difficulties of (not)reading the images of "Soviet" and "Sovietness" in the visual space, their (im)perception and (not)rethinking by different generations. Conclusions. The perspective of the outlined topic is important not only in the scientific but also in the public area, reflecting its applied vector. Since the main purpose of the visual in Soviet times was to achieve homogeneity and unification of society in all its spheres, therefore, the key tasks of modern "cultural landscaping" discourse is the transformation of the cultural landscape towards the construction of its "face" with a clear local identity of its inhabitants and express "individualization" space to represent sociocultural heterogeneity. This should become an active mode of formation, first of all, its tourist attraction for "others" and comfort for "self".

Zhuhong’s Communal Rules for the Late Ming Nunnery Filiality and Righteousness Unobstructed

This article presents a single detailed case study of communal life at a small private Buddhist nunnery governed by strict rules and inhabited by religiously active nuns. The first half of this article focuses on why the nunnery was constructed, how it was funded, where it was built, its architectural design, and its residents. The second half examines the daily ritual activities of the nuns, their education, disciplinary procedures, fundraising, and community relations. In bringing to life how the culture of monastic discipline shaped the daily rhythms of these nuns’ lives, this article further sheds light not only on monastic culture in Hangzhou at the end of the Ming, but also demonstrates the contrast between that culture and other Buddhist and contemporary religious competitors in the surrounding religious landscape. In so doing, this article shifts our attention from the study of hagiography to the broader context of female monastic culture exhibited in the genres of communal rules (guiyue) and vinaya texts.

Conservation of Cultural Heritage: Issues along the Thapathali-Teku stretch of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu, Nepal

The Bagmati, an auspicious and sacred river, is adorned with Ghat, Dharmashalas, Pati, Sattals, Temples, Brahmanaal etc. at various stretches within the valley for the facilitations of the devotees from the daily ritual bath to the last right of cremation. The Bagmati has been associated with the peoples of the Kathmandu valley, making it a highly significant cultural space of their devoutness. Authorities fail to recognize the significance of the site in terms of time, lack of proper policies, management plan, resources for safeguarding and conservation; several issues and challenges arise regarding the conservation of the site. Apart from technical issues such as material originality, financial issues, environmental issues, degradation of river water quality, development pressure and encroachment have ruined the site. This paper presents the significance of the 19th century cultural heritage sites along the Bagmati River from Thapathali to Teku Dobhan, which has not been prioritized for safeguarding. This also addresses the restoration, reconstruction, conservation and preparation of the management plan. In order to safeguard the past legacy of this site for the future generations, the holistic approach of conservation has to be opted for.

Daily Ritual, Mission, and the Transformation of the Self: the Case of Tablighi Jamaat

Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) is Islam’s largest movement, with estimates of up to 80 million Muslims taking part in its activities. Having originated on the Indian subcontinent, TJ has expanded to have a strong presence across the globe. Traditionally, TJ is known for bringing lapsed Muslims back to a stricter understanding of Islam and the recommendation that its male (and to an increasing extent also its female) members spend a certain portion of time each year working on the “path of Allah” — that is, on missionary activities. Tablighi leaders are conscious that participation in the movement impacts not only those who are the targets of missionary activity but also those who are doing the missionizing, having a powerful effect upon the formation of selfhoods. TJ also emphasizes the importance of imitating the Prophet Muhammad, and members are encouraged to ritualize every aspect of their life in accordance with the Prophet’s example. The ritualization of everyday practices, a focus on purity and mission, combined with textual (re)interpretation, contribute to individual and collective identity construction among members of TJ. For TJ, the formation of modern Muslim selfhoods is of vital importance, as they believe that an identity centered on an authentic form of Islam can protect Muslims in a fast-changing world.