Political Soviet posters and modern multimodal texts: cognitive experience in the process of perception and categorization of reality

In the work, the attempt to identify the features of the interaction of signs of different semiotic systems in the context of multimodal texts, which are considered as a special information construct and are perceived through the visual communication channel, which combines verbal, graphic, iconic, color codes. The aim of the work was an attempt to make a comprehensive analysis of multimodal political texts, an important element of which is the image of the historical personality of Stalin. This analysis allows us to trace the transformation of the perception and assessment of the life activity of an ambiguous politician in the minds of Soviet and Russian people and, as a consequence, the linguistic society as a whole. The material for the study was Soviet political posters of the mid-20th century and modern multimodal texts, the total number of which was 53 and 67 examples, respectively. The set of methods systematization and generalization, continuous sampling, contextual, intertextual and comparative analysis, is due to the expediency, logic and historical retrospective of the study. This made it possible to reconstruct the cognitive past recorded in the historical consciousness of the people: the article reveals the image of Stalin, in Soviet posters and in modern political multimodal texts, the specificity of perception, categorization and attitude of Soviet / Russian society to its past and present is revealed. For example, the image of Stalin on the posters of the 1930-1953s is as idealized and metaphorical as possible, which is due to the manipulative function – the need to promote the cult of the personality: the themes of patriotism, duty and beneficence become the leading ones and are called upon to form in the mass consciousness a stable, deliberately positive idea of the bright communist future the whole country and its every single Soviet citizen. In modern multimodal texts, it can be noted that they reflect two diametrically opposed views on the personality and life of Stalin: on the one hand, a positive, idealized image of a politician, a nostalgic perception; on the other hand, there is a negative (ironic) view of the “situation of the past,” which is due to the historical context, the cult of the individual and his debunking of this cult after the death of the leader. The specificity of these types of texts is largely due to the author’s linguistic pragmatic attitude and extralinguistic factors.

A Durkheimian Analysis of Racialised Crime and Punishment Police Practices and the Demand for Change

The analysis of racialised police attitudes has been frequently addressed in academic articles, but the application of a Neo-Durkheimian approach has been largely overlooked. This article will apply Durkheimian theory to illuminate the need for a shift in crime and punishment policy and practices to avoid the present societal moral stagnation. In order to do so it will address both, the recent Black Lives Matter protests in America and the 2011 Riots in London. The use of the two case studies signifies the continuity of problematic police behaviour and political address. It is evident that such an article is embedded in an extremely sensitive topic, therefore it does not presume to provide a solution to the overwhelming circumstances. Rather, in illuminating the relevance of Durkheimian theory it signifies that current global circumstances demand a moral shift in societal understandings of solidarity and “the cult of the individual”, providing pivotal foundations for police practices. However, this requires participation of criminologists alongside practitioners and activists.

Mesopotamian Religion

This chapter presents the background situation that gave rise to Mesopotamian religious concepts, as well as the forms of the gods and their service in the classical theology of Mesopotamia. The chapter examines both the temple cult, that is, the public dimension of the religion, and the cult of the individual. It studies several supernatural beings, some active in the state pantheon, others in the sphere of family life, and discusses several literary works of religious significance. The chapter concludes its reflections on Mesopotamian religion with a short piece about the Epic of Gilgamesh, a profound Mesopotamian reflection on the meaning of life and death.

The individual’s invention: for a study of cultural sociology of self

This paper aims to frame a few ideas and concerns about the way western societies in general during modernity times, have been handled through multicultural theories and public policies, the issue of cultural diversity, and especially those ones dealing with the interaction among different cultural groups. We assume that the different forms in which public policies are back up in a theoretical level, by then built and applied to different cultural communities (materialistic level) represent and reflect an ontological conception of culture (symbolic level) based in the belief of the existence of an autonomous, conscientious and rational individual moral subject. We argue that today, these policies are the last political crystallization of this “cult of the individual” that has been shaping over the last two centuries a system of beliefs about the human social being and group relations. This is a soteriological logic of the projection whose origins are of dramatic character (morality of good or bad). This has to do with what here is called the sociology of Self, which means analyse the implications of a system of beliefs based on the cult of the individual on scientific reasoning and forms of political organization of society, and how the interaction structures result as the meaning of action and experience for people and human group: in other words, it is about the production of social meaning. I used the metaphor of Tribal awareness as the main notion of this approach. It is a vitalism of tragic existential origin, which is the nodal point of philosophy in Nietzsche. From a cultural sociological approach of imaginary this would mean investigating the collective effects of a system of beliefs that sacralised the human being as individualistic entity, and considering the effects of collective meanings when the individual becomes a cultural icon with a historical global scope.Palavras-chave: Consciência tribal. Culto do indivíduo. Individualismo icônico. Intersubjetividade. Políticas culturaisLink: https://revistas.ufg.br/ci/article/view/54622/26532