My address is the Soviet Union – or is it? Baltic identity in souvenir production within the Soviet discourse

In the 1960s, tourism in the Soviet Union underwent radical changes. While previously the focus had been on showcasing the rapid modernization of the empire, this new type of tourism focused on introducing foreigners to the regional vernacular culture in the Soviet Union. As the number of tourists increased, the need for wider mass production of souvenirs emerged. This research focuses on the identity of souvenirs produced in Baltic states as a case study for identifying the existence and nature of regionalism within the Soviet system. This study found that within Baltic souvenir production, two separate types of identities manifested. Firstly, the use of national or vernacular symbols was allowed and even promoted throughout the Soviet Union. A famous slogan of the era was ‘Socialist in content, national in form’, which suggested that national form was suitable for conveying socialist ideals. These products were usually made of local materials and employed traditional national ornament. However, this research identified a secondary identity within the souvenirs manufactured in the Baltic countries, which was based on a shared ‘European past’. The symbol often chosen to convey it was the pre-Soviet Old Town, which was in all three states based on Western and Central European architectural traditions. This research suggests that this European identity validated through the use of Old Town as a recurring motif on souvenirs, distinguished Baltic states from the other regions of the Soviet Union. While most souvenirs manufactured in the Soviet Union emphasized the image of locals as the exotic ‘Other’, Baltic souvenirs inspired by Old Town conveyed the idea of familiarity to European tourists.

A Study on Path of Rural Teachers Helping the Inheritance of Vernacular Culture in China

Vernacular culture is the root of Chinese culture, in essence, so the inheritance of vernacular culture is crucial. Rural teachers are the "rural talents" in rural areas and have been playing various roles as cultural inheritors, protectors and leaders. The cultural responsibilities of rural teachers in the new era face many difficulties: the lack of vernacular cultural literacy of rural teachers, the "urban orientation" of rural education, the backward ideology of rural parents, and the lack of funds. Under the call of rural cultural revitalization, rural teachers should re-erect the banner of cultural inheritance and contribute to rural cultural revitalization by focusing on cultivating rural teachers' local cultural literacy, developing school-based cultural curriculum and compiling local teaching materials, collaborating with village schools and making use of the Internet to promote the inheritance and development of vernacular culture.

From Reform to Rights: The American Culture of the Citizen Soldier and the Transformation of the Crusading Metaphor, 1917–1945

The “crusading” imagery attached to American soldiers in the 1917–1945 period performed an important function in assigning meaning to the wars of the United States. This was the result of a complex interplay between “official” and “vernacular” culture. The doughboys of the First World War at times fought a romantic “crusade” to reform the nation, world and themselves from a morally privileged position. In the post-war era, the romantic “crusade” survived but was more in tune with the conservative corporatism of Republican administrations. By the Second World War, gi s had become the agents of a very different “crusade”. Americans now embraced statist common effort in a realist prospective vision for human rights. This fundamental change in the meaning of “crusade” attached to the experiences of American soldiers suggests a protean nature to the metaphor and problematises notions of an ideologically cohesive American “crusade” in the world during the 20th century.

The Vernacular Alternatives Composed during the Age of Revolutions

Irish-language vernacular verse history proved adaptable throughout the eighteenth century to take account both of new reverses, and of opportunities presented by revolutionary developments in North America, in France, and in Ireland. The oral and the written records were interlinked because manuscript copyists aided memory. Themes from the Irish oral tradition also resurfaced in English-language print form or in political speeches by Daniel O’Connell. Similarly in the Protestant experience narratives composed in the seventeenth century by such as Temple entered into Protestant vernacular culture because they were regularly regurgitated in sermons. When Musgrave composed a Protestant narrative of the 1798 rebellion he could therefore allude to Catholic proclivity to rebel knowing that this was a trope in Protestant oral culture. Musgrave could also dovetail the occurrences of 1798 with Temple’s narrative on 1641 and thus make it comprehensible for his audience.

Videomeemit ja vernakulaari auktoriteetti

Videomeemit yhtenä internetmeemien muotona ovat keino osallistua ajankohtaiseen yhteiskunnalliseen ja poliittiseen keskusteluun. Artikkelissani tarkastelen kahden tunnetun videomeemin, Hitler kuulee ja El Risitas, suomenkielisiä toisintoja. Aineistonani on 13 videota, joiden julkaisut ajoittuvat vuosille 2012–2020. Käytän internetmeemin käsitettä Limor Shifmanin määritelmän mukaisesti digitaalisen kulttuurin tarkasteluun sopivana analyyttisenä työkaluna. Monien käyttäjien jakamat ja omaehtoisesti muokkaamat meemit ovat vernakulaaria kulttuuria, ja meemeihin liitetään usein myös spontaanisuus ja reagointi ajankohtaisiin ja arkisiin tilanteisiin. Toisaalta meemien vernakulaarisuus on hybridistä, sillä sen lisäksi, että niiden pohjana käytetään usein tuotetun populaarikulttuurin materiaalia, myös monet viralliset toimijat ovat ottaneet meemit osaksi viestintäänsä. Meemien taitavalla käytöllä on vernakulaaria auktoriteettia, ja niiden vastaanottoon esimerkiksi osana internetissä käytäviä keskusteluja vaikuttaa muun muassa sisältöjen ja käyttökontekstien toimivat valinnat. Meemit mahdollistavat myös julkiseen keskusteluun verrattuna sopimattoman kielenkäytön esimerkiksi seksuaalissävytteisinä tai avoimen rasistisina ja seksistisinä sananvalintoina. Video memes and vernacular authority: Hitler finds out and El Risitas memes as societal commentary Video memes as a type of memes are a way to participate in contemporary societal and political discussion. In this article I study the Finnish versions of two well-known memes, Hitler Finds Out and El Risitas: my material consists of 13 videos that have been published between 2012 and 2020. I refer to the concept of meme as defined by Limor Shifman to be a useful tool to analyze digital culture. Shared by many different users, and freely modified, memes are an example of vernacular culture. Memes are also often associated with being spontaneous and a reaction to current and everyday affairs. The vernacularity of memes is also hybrid: memes often use officially produced material from popular culture as their basis but have also become an addition to official communication by different organizations. Skillful use of memes has vernacular authority, and the way memes are responded to as a part of discussion online relies on e.g. proper use of content and context. Videos also offer a chance to choose words that would be deemed improper in public discussion, including openly racist and sexist ones.

“Ignorance of Your Culture Is Not Considered Cool”: Reconsidering the Avant-Garde Impulse in American Punk

This chapter reconsiders the role of American rock experimentalists such as Captain Beefheart, DEVO, and the Residents in the formation of punk’s musical style. Although these musicians are often referenced in punk histories, their contributions are typically misunderstood because of an anachronistic focus on the British punk scene of 1977 as punk’s starting point. These musicians used avant-garde approaches to American popular music and vernacular culture in order to tackle American music’s unacknowledged and whitewashed history, including such controversial practices as blackface minstrelsy, as well as the problems of white suburbia, the war in Vietnam, the failures of hippie idealism, and a frustration with both mainstream American culture and the counterculture.

Beyond the street: the institutional life of rap

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over the course of one year in London and Bristol to examine the performance of rap in English youth centres. Youth centres play a significant role in supporting and shaping rap culture. However, historically dominant narratives within hip-hop studies and hip-hop culture depict rap as a vernacular cultural form that emerges from ‘the street’, and which derives its authenticity through its relation to ‘the street’. We seek to move beyond such discourses and towards a recognition of the institutional processes, structures and networks that shape and sustain rap culture. Our focus on the institutional life of rap leads to an analysis of the various possibilities, limitations and tensions that arise in the coming together of public funding, and social policy priorities, local organisations and black vernacular culture.

The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 2

Chapter 11, “The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 2: Jiankang as Theater State,” is the second half of the third study of various repertoires of political legitimation. This chapter argues that the Liang and Chen regimes in the sixth century built on the developments of the late fifth century and responded to the crisis of the Sinitic repertoire by making the Buddhist repertoire paramount instead. The chapter assesses the politics of bodhisattva ordination and the increasingly public rituals, such as Boundless Gatherings and relic worship, that turned Buddhist legend and ideology into well-established political performances. Jiankang in the sixth century can be understood as an example of a Buddhist “theater state,” a model scholars have used to understand political regimes in non-Sinitic parts of Southeast Asia. Especially when combined with elements of vernacular culture, the Buddhist repertoire proved a more successful fit for Jiankang’s political culture than the Sinitic repertoire had been.