Boundary Work

The first chapter lays a foundation for the book by defining boundary discourse in crossdisciplinary and cross-sector work. It begins by distinguishing spatial and organic metaphors of boundaries, with initial emphasis on disciplines. It then combines the two metaphors in a composite concept of an ecology of spatializing practices, illustrated by the evolving nature of disciplines as well as trading zones and communities of practice. The chapter then describes structures for interdisciplinary work, followed by the concept of heterarchy, changing character of higher education, platforms for communication and collaboration, and role of the built environment. It turns next to boundary objects, illustrated by construction of a natural history museum, an academic reform initiative, a project on waste management, and the relationship of objects and their description in climate modeling, regulatory discourse, genetic toxicology, and human ecology. The chapter ends by examining boundary organizations and agents in two cross-sector case studies.

Allusion and Metaphor

This chapter demonstrates that Woolf’s allusive practice involved transforming and interrogating texts rather than invoking the authority of earlier texts or their scholarly interpretations. It shows how Woolf’s allusions are often supported by metaphors that draw attention to the longevity of past literature that is essential to the act of allusion. These include organic metaphors such as the growth of seeds, plants, and flowers; familial metaphors of conception, birth, and reproduction; and the ethereal metaphor of haunting. The chapter examines how Woolf uses allusion and metaphor to articulate relationships with the literary past in A Room of One’s Own and in her representation of characters who are female writers in Night and Day, Orlando, and Between the Acts.

ESCHATOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF RUSSIAN SPIRITUALISTS OF THE LATE 19TH – EARLY 20TH CENTURY

The article analyzes the correlation between eschatological and anthropological perspectives of Russian spiritualists on the example of their views on corporeity. According to spiritualists, the core eschatological event should come with the transfiguration of the human nature that was supposed to manifest itself through a complete replacement of ‘material’ body by the ‘subtle’ one. They regarded such development as an element of teleological evolutionary process that was attributed an eschatological significance. Spiritualists had dual attitude towards the body: on the one hand, the category of the ‘material’ had explicitly negative connotations in the spiritualistic discourse, but, on the other hand, ‘subtle’ bodies were not absolutely immaterial. The human body served as a scheme by which the cosmos was modelled, and this made itself evident in the use of organic metaphors by spiritualists. The outcome of the eschatological process was seen in the reunification of a cosmic organism. The human was pictured as able to transform itself by its own effort and thus to predetermine the outcome of the eschatological process, which was understood as an anthropocosmic process.

From the Archives of the Transition: The Collages of Josip Vaništa 1990–2000

Following the analysis of the 20th century, carried out by Alain Badiou in his book The Century, the text begins with the quotation of Osip Mandelstam's poem The Age, in which the new century is seen in organic metaphors such as the “beast”, whose “spine” has already “broken” while emerging, thus foreboding that already in 1923, when the poem was written, the century of hope, the Soviet Century in its very nature, carried the seed of its own destruction. Consequently, the breakdown of this “century” in the field of so-called transitional social processes in all post-Communist societies is seen as a tragic, cruel privatization, a wild initial accumulation/pillage of capital in a new historical context, with new protagonists, and a new soulless morality.For the most part, this text deals with analysis of the collages of Croatian neo-avantgarde artist Josip Vaništa, created during the period of transition and war in Croatia and the former Yugoslavia from 1990 to 2000. With minimal artist intervention, by simple collage and cutting of titles, short texts and photographs from the quondam press, Vaništa draws attention to the tragedy and absurdity of transitional social space. Article received: March 31, 2018; Article accepted: April 10, 2018; Published online: September 15, 2018; Original scholarly paperHow to cite this article: Ćuković, Petar. "From the Archives of the Transition: The Collages of Josip Vaništa 1990–2000." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 16 (2018): 29−41. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i16.252

How do data come to matter? Living and becoming with personal data

Humans have become increasingly datafied with the use of digital technologies that generate information with and about their bodies and everyday lives. The onto-epistemological dimensions of human–data assemblages and their relationship to bodies and selves have yet to be thoroughly theorised. In this essay, I draw on key perspectives espoused in feminist materialism, vital materialism and the anthropology of material culture to examine the ways in which these assemblages operate as part of knowing, perceiving and sensing human bodies. I draw particularly on scholarship that employs organic metaphors and concepts of vitality, growth, making, articulation, composition and decomposition. I show how these metaphors and concepts relate to and build on each other, and how they can be applied to think through humans’ encounters with their digital data. I argue that these theoretical perspectives work to highlight the material and embodied dimensions of human–data assemblages as they grow and are enacted, articulated and incorporated into everyday lives.

Metaphorical Recurrence and Language Symbolism in Arabic Metalanguage Discourse

This article, written by Chaoqun Lian, begins by pointing out that in Arabic metalanguage discourse one often encounters metaphors associating the form and situation of Arabic to non-linguistic entities and activities. Many of these metaphors, according to Lian, belong to ‘organic metaphors’, as they depict Arabic and its varieties as living organisms. In his article, Lian investigates the recurrence of ‘organic metaphors’ in language policy discussions within the Arabic language academies in Damascus and Cairo. By carefully analysing selected cases of metaphor-making, Lian unearths the normally covert link between language perception and socio-political circumstances in the Arabic-speaking world. According to Lian, when these socio-political circumstances are taken into consideration, academic research will be able to produce a more nuanced, dialectic understanding of the ‘organic’ perception of languages.

Imperial Ruins and Resurgence

Detroit became a symbol of the economic freefall, and its ruins, deserted factories, abandoned houses, were a harbinger of the end of capitalism and a sign of “urban death.” Organic metaphors inform and drive the story of capitalism as the natural order of things, subject to the forces of entropy but always renewable. Even without infusions of capital, Detroit’s recovery was afoot, not in actual terms, but in the phantom speculations of storyville. The city became an emblem of death and rebirth in capitalism. Stories of recurrence and return are part of the mythos of capitalism. The boom and bust cycles of capitalism are merely moments in an ongoing and endless cycle of ruin and resurgence and of death and rebirth.