Between Commemoration and Living Memory: Symbolic Acts of the Teutonic Knights in Light of Cultural Theory

The present article investigates the function of ritual acts as a form of communication vis-à-vis cultural meaning in the life of the Teutonic Knights. As a condensed form of communal expression, rituals exhibit an acute potential to render present collective identity and shape the lives of the communities that practice them. Such potential is manifest in the institutional arrangement of the Teutonic Order in various forms with particular reference to their dual standing in society, insofar as they drew upon the societal models of the oratores and the bellatores. Particularly relevant to the current study, considerations of cultural historian and social analyst Jan Assmann regarding symbolic acts and collective living memory assist in creating the theoretical framework for the study’s deliberations. With Assmann’s insights in mind, ritual is understood as a communicative vector of cultural meaning – so to speak – of living memory. The analysis then turns to an examination of select representative examples from diverse scenarios in the existence of the Teutonic Knights, thereby taking into account internal, public, and participatory contexts of symbolic moments. The study thus explores how, while rituals can commemorate memorialised events from the past, they are also able to enact the living memory of a collective entity, ultimately claiming that the examined symbolic acts exhibited both communicative and transformative potential.

Lamentacja dla przyrody – (bez)nadzieja „Ziemskiego lamentu”?

A Lamentation for Nature – the (Dis)consolation of “Ziemski Lament”?Founded in 2019, the “Ziemski Lament” [Earthly Lament] initiative revitalizes and recontextualizes the folk rite of singing lamentations and dirges which come from traditional rural culture. The group, which I describe using the category of communitas, performs songs taken from Śpiewnik Pelpliński, an extensive 19-century collection of religious songs. This type of communal expression is used to work through negative emotions caused by the consequences of the climate disaster and of exploitation of non-human nature. It is also an instrument of criticism of the strategies responsible for these phenomena. This article takes the study of the lamentation’s essential features and ways of circulation as the point of departure for a reflection on the functionality of this form of ecological protest. Lamentacja dla przyrody – (bez)nadzieja „Ziemskiego lamentu”?Powstała w 2019 roku inicjatywa „Ziemski lament” rewitalizuje i rekontekstualizuje obrzęd śpiewu pieśni lamentacyjnych oraz żałobnych pochodzący z wiejskiej kultury tradycyjnej. Grupa, którą opisuję w kategoriach communitas, wykonuje utwory zaczerpnięte ze Śpiewnika Pelplińskiego. Ten rodzaj wspólnotowej ekspresji służy do przepracowywania negatywnych emocji wywołanych konsekwencjami katastrofy klimatycznej i eksploatacji pozaludzkiej przyrody. Jest także narzędziem krytyki odpowiedzialnych za te zjawiska strategii. Zawarte w artykule badanie cech gatunkowych oraz własności obiegu lamentacji stanowi punkt wyjścia do rozważań o funkcjonalności tej formy protestu ekologicznego.

Iraqi Refugees in the United States

There are numerous and trenchant accounts of the tragic and disastrous Iraq War (2003–2011), which focus on its financial, human, and political cost to the US. Less has been written about the human cost to the Iraqi people in the largest displacement in the Middle East since 1948. Few Americans are cognizant that over three million Iraqis, many facing violence due to their cooperation with the US invasion and occupation, fled Iraq and that 124,159 were resettled in the US from 2008 to 2015 after an intense lobbying effort by former aid personnel and veterans. This ethnographic study explores the cartography of belonging for Iraqi refugees within a specific cultural geography—California’s Latinx-majority communities of southeastern California (known as the Inland Empire). The fieldwork in the IE spans a particular geopolitical era of resettlement mobilization, the Great Recession, and the December 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino. The attack was immediately followed by candidate Donald Trump’s naming of Arab and Muslim refugees (including Iraqis) as threats to national security. With the mainstreaming of Islamophobia during the presidential election, the United States ceased to be a free space of religious and communal expression. Drawing on seven years of fieldwork with fifty Iraqi refugees, this book is a witness to how the felt sense of belonging—cultural citizenship—is negotiated within the social spaces of work, family, faith community.

Queer Pop–Ups: A Cultural Innovation in Urban Life

Research on sexuality and space emphasizes geographic and institutional forms that are stable, established, and fixed. By narrowing their analytic gaze on such places, which include gayborhoods and bars, scholars use observations about changing public opinions, residential integration, and the closure of nighttime venues to conclude that queer urban and institutional life is in decline. We use queer pop–up events to challenge these dominant arguments about urban sexualities and to advocate instead a “temporary turn” that analyzes the relationship between ephemerality and placemaking. Drawing on interviews with party promoters and participants in Vancouver, our findings show that ephemeral events can have enduring effects. Pop–ups refresh ideas about communal expression, belonging, safety, and the ownership of space among queer–identified people who feel excluded from the gayborhood and its bars. As a case, pop–ups compel scholars to broaden their focus from a preoccupation with permanent places to those which are fleeting, transient, short–lived, and experienced for a moment. Only when we see the city as a collection of temporary spaces can we appreciate how queer people convert creative cultural visions into spatial practices that enable them to express an oppositional ethos and to congregate with, and celebrate, their imagined communities.

When high and pop culture (re)mix: An inquiry into the memetic transformations of artwork

This article explores the complex meanings embodied in memes featuring artwork as a juxtaposition between fine arts and participatory culture. A qualitative textual analysis of 119 meme instances identified three dimensions of artwork that can be echoed in digital memes: the content, the form, and the artist. Consistent with the metaphor of communication as transmission, the mimesis of content uses artwork as a device for political expression. The mimesis of form and of the artist, on the other hand, provoke a response that emphasizes the aesthetics over the narrative, albeit for contrasting goals: while the former conveys a communal partaking of iconic gestures, which highlights what Carey depicted as the ritual view of communication, the latter distinguishes the imitators as individuals, thus comparing them to the original creator. This article demonstrates the memetic manipulation of fine art as a dual agent of individual and communal expression.

Rabab Pasisia sebagai Pertunjukan Seni Tutur di Kabupaten Pesisir Selatan

Penelitian ini sampai pada kesimpulan bahwa keberlangsungan dan perubahan pada pertunjukan Rabab Pesisir Selatan, terutama sekali di wilayah Lengayang telah meluas menjadi suatu bentuk seni multifungsi. Nyanyian Sikambang merupakan ungkapan bermakna komunal bagi masyarakat Pesisir Selatan, yang memiliki makna filosofi kehidupan dan pengertian lokal tertentu. Beberapa gaya seni populer ditemukan pula sebagai bagian yang terintegrasi dalam pertunjukan musik tradisi ini. Tujuannya adalah untuk tetap memiliki daya tarik di tengah masyarakat Sumatera Barat dan merupakan pula satu bentuk cara bertahan hidup bagi para seniman dan masyarakat pendukung kesenian Pesisir Selatan. Rabab Pasisia as a Tutur Art Show in The Pesisir Selatan District. The research has come-up with the conclusion that cotinuity and change in Pesisir Selatan rabab performance, particularly in sub-district of Lengayang has been expanded to a multifunctional arts. Sikambang song has become a means of communal expression in Pesisir Selatan, with its certain local meanings and philosophy of life. Some genre of popular-art has been found-out as integrated in the musical style, in order to maintain attractiveness amongst the West Sumatera community and survival for its musicians and its Pesisir Selatan supporting society.Keywords: rabab; pasisia; sikambang; tutur