The Potential of Friendship: A Case for Social Resilience and New Care Optics

In this article, we call for greater recognition of friendship as a basic social relation that should play a pivotal role in re-imagining social resilience if it is to be future-proof in the face of social upheaval, such as the current pandemic. Drawing on existing research and early scoping of emergent information about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we suggest that friendship is an important component of heterogenic social realities. The specific focus of our discussion is twofold. Firstly, attention is paid to the narrow lens of social policy that privileges particular familial set-ups and living arrangements, and in doing so marginalises groups which are already disenfranchised; secondly, we consider the dangers of nationalism and Eurocentrism as they relate to these issues. We suggest that thinking in terms of friendship can open up new avenues of academic and political imagination, offering strategies with greater potential for building socially resilient communities.

Performance, Politics, and Historiography in and out of Time: American Responses to the Paris Commune

American echoes of the Paris Commune have been muffled by the nation’s obsession with freedom at the expense of solidarity, but performative responses to social upheaval, including drama, parades, and protests, have tested the boundaries of public space and multiple temporalities from 1871 to 2021. This article notes traces of the Commune in the writings and performances of nineteenth century American anarchists but analyzes this legacy primarily in the 2012 performance of Brecht’s The Days of the Commune (1949) at New York sites claimed by the Occupy Movement in 2011. It also uses the argument of Brecht’s contemporary Ernst Bloch for cultural action grounded in an understanding of historical disappointment to anticipates setbacks while maintaining hope for future revolution. The paper delineates five theses on the politics of time: 1) the dramatic appeal of the clean break hides the tension between gradual evolution and a sudden event that ruptures the long span of history (Badiou); 2) historiography, the narrative that turns data into evidence, challenges the illusion of objectivity and thus a simple split between timely intervention and untimely interference with the established order (Nietzsche); 3) ana-chronology, the logic of untimeliness reads contemporaneity as companionship between events and agents across different times and places (Barthes); 4) recollecting history requires acts of forgetting, which shatter the constraints of the past to meet demands of the present (Renan, Nietzsche); 5) the politics of time entails the politics of place and thus requires the analysis of multiple temporalitieslayered on one site as well as political acts and performance in distinct places.

British Literature in Transition, 1900–1920: A New Age?

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Britain's imperial power and influence was at its height. These were years of daring, when adventurers sounded the mysteries of the deep sea and the distant poles, aviators sped through the skies, and new media technologies transformed communication. They were years of social upheaval, during which long-suppressed voices – particularly those of women, of the labouring classes, and of colonial subjects – grew louder and demanded to be heard. They were years of violence, of insurrection and political agitation, and of imperial conflicts that would encompass continents. By subjecting specific developments in literature and related culture to a fine-grained and historically-informed analysis, British Literature in Transition, 1900–1920: A New Age? explores the writing of this extraordinary period in all its complexity and vibrancy.

Kindsein – Erinnern – Erzählen

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] »Erinnerungen aus der Kindheit kann man doch nur haben, wenn man selbst kein Kind ist« (de Velasco 2013, S. 10) – so kommentiert die 13-jährige homodiegetische Erzählerin Nini im Roman Tigermilch das Auftauchen einer ersten bewussten »richtige[n] Kindheitserinnerung« (ebd.). Angesprochen ist damit der zunächst paradox anmutende Zusammenhang von Kindsein und Erinnern. Sich selbst im umfassenderen Sinn daran zu erinnern, wie es ist, ein Kind zu sein, gehört zu den Fähigkeiten, die Kindern nicht zugesprochen werden. Die Kindheit gilt als das Lebensalter, in dem man ganz bei sich ist, in dem alles gegenwärtig und vieles möglich ist. Pläne und Perspektiven richten sich in die offene Zukunft, im Rückblick über Erinnerungen zu verfügen und sie als Teil der eigenen Biografie zu begreifen, wird selbst zum Zeichen der Differenz: ein Indiz dafür, dass die Kindheit bereits an ihr Ende gekommen ist. Recalling and Retelling ChildhoodThe (Self)Depiction of Childhood during German Reunification from Memory Culture and Generational Viewpoints Ever since the Peaceful Revolution paved the way for the reunification of Germany in 1990, texts and media for children and young adults have depicted these historical events from a range of narrative and generational viewpoints. This article addresses forms of childhood remembrance of this era of radical political and social upheaval in East Germany, focussing on autobiographical texts and media (essays and comics) as well as novels and stories. These are discussed through the lens of memory studies with respect to individual and collective identity and memory construction, and as functions of intra- and intergenerational communication. Using selected examples and with reference to the categories of the novel of remembrance and the novel of memory, the article identifies narrative strategies and image–text relationships employed to recall the events preceding and following German reunification. It shows how texts filter, interpret and condense individual memories, and link these to generational memory, and how they may ultimately be seen as contributions to communicative memory.

The main directions of development of sports management and marketing in the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous economic losses and social upheaval around the world. However, despite the huge financial and human losses, it is physical culture and sports that can help mankind in many ways to combat the epidemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly had an impact on professional and mass sports. The economic slowdown in the sports industry has affected the profit margins of the global sports advertising market. In the current situation, it is necessary to search new directions for sports management and marketing policy to overcome the crisis. Of particular interest is the direction of online commerce and online advertising in the sports industry. Those sports brands that are able to adapt to the new reality and reconfigure their business will remain on the market and continue to make a profit, in some cases even multiply it. Those companies that fail to cope with the transformation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may become uncompetitive and lose their consumers. The advantages of online commerce and marketing tools are that they are not likely to lose their relevance and effectiveness even after the pandemic is over, when all areas of human life will return to their usual course. One way or another, it is advisable for companies involved in the sports industry to implement and develop modern areas of management and marketing development.

Ragged Fortunes and Swashbuckling Thrillers; Or, Recreating the Victorian in Young Adult Fiction 1985-2011

<p>The Victorian era has become a fashionable setting for contemporary young adult fiction. Studies of the contemporary pseudo-Victorian novel have focussed almost entirely upon fiction for adults. Scarcely any attention has been paid to their young adult equivalents — the subject of this thesis. Despite being marketed as “historical” fiction, these works do not adopt actual Victorian history as its basis but are influenced by the literature of the time instead. The chief inspirations are authors such as Dickens and Conan Doyle rather than Victorian children’s classics. After demonstrating the appropriation of Victorian literature in the young adult novels of Pullman, Bajoria, Updale, and Lee, I discuss the function of this Victorian dimension. The nineteenth-century “essential” categories under study here — London, prostitutes, opium dens, orphans, detectives — once embodied Victorian anxieties regarding class, social upheaval, gender politics, colonial guilt, and nationalism. But when contemporary writers evoke Victorian ghosts, they are putting forth their own world view. Consequently, these texts are doubly haunted. Heavy with Victorian ideologies, they simultaneously propagate new fears (for instance, terrorism) and appeal to contemporary sensitivities (particularly feminism). Where Victorian values do not align with the authors’ own, they are challenged and “updated”. Whenever they are made to agree, the reader is confronted with assumptions and prejudices that echo disturbingly through the centuries.</p>

Ragged Fortunes and Swashbuckling Thrillers; Or, Recreating the Victorian in Young Adult Fiction 1985-2011

<p>The Victorian era has become a fashionable setting for contemporary young adult fiction. Studies of the contemporary pseudo-Victorian novel have focussed almost entirely upon fiction for adults. Scarcely any attention has been paid to their young adult equivalents — the subject of this thesis. Despite being marketed as “historical” fiction, these works do not adopt actual Victorian history as its basis but are influenced by the literature of the time instead. The chief inspirations are authors such as Dickens and Conan Doyle rather than Victorian children’s classics. After demonstrating the appropriation of Victorian literature in the young adult novels of Pullman, Bajoria, Updale, and Lee, I discuss the function of this Victorian dimension. The nineteenth-century “essential” categories under study here — London, prostitutes, opium dens, orphans, detectives — once embodied Victorian anxieties regarding class, social upheaval, gender politics, colonial guilt, and nationalism. But when contemporary writers evoke Victorian ghosts, they are putting forth their own world view. Consequently, these texts are doubly haunted. Heavy with Victorian ideologies, they simultaneously propagate new fears (for instance, terrorism) and appeal to contemporary sensitivities (particularly feminism). Where Victorian values do not align with the authors’ own, they are challenged and “updated”. Whenever they are made to agree, the reader is confronted with assumptions and prejudices that echo disturbingly through the centuries.</p>

Contingent Effect of Board Gender Diversity on Performance in Emerging Markets: Evidence from the Egyptian Revolution

The 2011 Egyptian revolution was associated with significant political and social upheaval, followed by societal changes and attempts by policymakers to reduce the marginalisation of women and promote their inclusion in the economy. Drawing on this background, the authors compare the effect of board gender diversity before and after the revolution. Results indicate that gender diversity in corporate boards is coupled with improvements in firm performance in the immediate post revolution phase. This evidence provides insights into the contextual factors related to diversity and performance relationship and supporting arguments for regulatory changes to further encourage women’s representation on boards.

Opportunity, Threat, and Dependency in the Social Infosphere

The technological revolution outlined in the previous chapter has unleashed a social upheaval. If a suite of machines came to be so central in global and national social order, as well as in our personal lives, how does that affect our security? Bearing in mind that we are only at the dawn of the cyber age, what will the future hold? This chapter gives an overview of the profound impact of the information revolution on human welfare for better and for worse, from the individual and community levels to the national and international levels. The chapter begins with some insight into how philosophers have viewed these questions. It then looks at how leading actors have responded to the opportunities and threats. The chapter’s most important single theme is the issue of dependency, arguably the most ignored security aspect of the information age.