Sexing the Archive

Despite being a widely consumed genre of visual culture, pornography remains a touchy subject in contemporary queer historiography. Queer archives overflow with it, but queer histories don’t. Historically associated with low culture and distrusted by value systems that have tended to privilege the “high” faculties of reason to the detriment of the “base” materiality of the body, its affects and appetites, porn is too rarely approached as a legitimate source with which to think cultural, affective, intellectual, and sexual histories. This article draws from porn studies and queer historiographies to draw some methodological considerations about the value, benefits, and challenges posed by porn archives to the writing of queer subcultural histories. Rather than trying to solve porn’s double ontological status as both documentary and fantasy, the authors locate in that defining feature of the genre porn’s value as a historical source. Simultaneously a document of sex cultures and of the edges of morality, and a historically and culturally situated speculation on what bodies and sex may become, porn offers both cultural critics and historians a rich archive for deepening their knowledge of the intersections of culture, morality, pleasure, community, embodiment, and the politics of belonging.

Understanding Dalit Literature: A Critical Perspective Towards Dalit Aesthetics

Indian literature has always been governed by classical norms. Literature has been divided into ‘high culture’ and ‘low culture’. The non-Dalit writing revolves around ‘rasa’ and the motive is ‘art for art’s sake’. Dalit aestheticism is ‘art for life’s sake’. When certain forms and styles are applied imitating Sanskrit poetics, Shakespearean language or Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’, literature is considered to be following beauty parameters that are considered to be necessary for artistic pleasure. This kind of claim of holding traditional Indian aesthetics as a law book for all kinds of literature cannot be validated. The assertion of mainstream aesthetics as aesthetics for pan India is bound to exclude the truth of disregarded subjects. There is a need for Dalit literature to follow alternative aesthetics as the writings are the real story of pain and survival. How can pain be read for the purpose of pleasure? In the case of Dalit literature, the artistic yardsticks are not destroyed rather they are rejected. The traditional aesthetics will not be able to do justice with Dalit literature. Sharankumar Limbale writes “To assert that someone’s writing will be called literature only when ‘our’ literary standards can be imposed on is a sign of cultural dictatorship” (Limbale, 2004, p. 107). This paper will be an attempt to discuss the need for alternative aesthetics to understand Dalit literature.

Encyclopaedic Fiction, Cultural Value, and the Discourse of the Great Divide

<p>Recent postmodern work on cultural evaluation, such as Barbara Smith's Contingencies of Value (1989), argues that cultural value cannot be treated as an inherent or objective quality of cultural products. Instead, cultural value must be understood as "value for": relative, that is, to the identities and interests of particular cultural consumers and producers. Theorists (for instance, John Frow in his 1995 study Cultural Studies and Cultural Value) have employed similar relativist logic in their analyses of the putative "structures" or institutions that supposedly give shape to Western culture-as-a-whole: "high" culture, "popular" culture, "mass" culture and so on. This "postaxiological" strain of cultural theory undermines the real-world integrity of those categories by suggesting that they (the categories) are merely contingent effects of critical / evaluative discourse. Other archetypically "postmodern" arguments in literary and cultural studies have focused on charting or advocating both the demise of the modernist "great divide" between "high" and "low" culture, and its replacement, in cultural production and criticism, with more permissive and socially egalitarian modes of interplay between "high" and "low" culture. Some critics and critically aware cultural producers have treated these two projects as though they are complementary facets of a general "postmodern" turn. Yet contesting or reversing obsolete hierarchies of cultural value does not necessarily lead critics to contemplate the status of "high"/"low" categories themselves. A meaningful refusal of the logic of the modernist "great divide" would obligate critics and producers to reflect on the contingency of those categories and their own interests with respect to those categories. Juxtaposing an "encyclopaedic" modernist text renowned for its interspersion of "high" and "low" cultural elements (James Joyce's Ulysses) with a postmodern text that seems knowingly to do the same (David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest), two case studies illustrate the inseparability of readings or narratives that are couched in "high"/"low" terms from the particular interests of cultural producers and consumers.</p>

Encyclopaedic Fiction, Cultural Value, and the Discourse of the Great Divide

<p>Recent postmodern work on cultural evaluation, such as Barbara Smith's Contingencies of Value (1989), argues that cultural value cannot be treated as an inherent or objective quality of cultural products. Instead, cultural value must be understood as "value for": relative, that is, to the identities and interests of particular cultural consumers and producers. Theorists (for instance, John Frow in his 1995 study Cultural Studies and Cultural Value) have employed similar relativist logic in their analyses of the putative "structures" or institutions that supposedly give shape to Western culture-as-a-whole: "high" culture, "popular" culture, "mass" culture and so on. This "postaxiological" strain of cultural theory undermines the real-world integrity of those categories by suggesting that they (the categories) are merely contingent effects of critical / evaluative discourse. Other archetypically "postmodern" arguments in literary and cultural studies have focused on charting or advocating both the demise of the modernist "great divide" between "high" and "low" culture, and its replacement, in cultural production and criticism, with more permissive and socially egalitarian modes of interplay between "high" and "low" culture. Some critics and critically aware cultural producers have treated these two projects as though they are complementary facets of a general "postmodern" turn. Yet contesting or reversing obsolete hierarchies of cultural value does not necessarily lead critics to contemplate the status of "high"/"low" categories themselves. A meaningful refusal of the logic of the modernist "great divide" would obligate critics and producers to reflect on the contingency of those categories and their own interests with respect to those categories. Juxtaposing an "encyclopaedic" modernist text renowned for its interspersion of "high" and "low" cultural elements (James Joyce's Ulysses) with a postmodern text that seems knowingly to do the same (David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest), two case studies illustrate the inseparability of readings or narratives that are couched in "high"/"low" terms from the particular interests of cultural producers and consumers.</p>

Low yield but high levels of multidrug resistance in urinary tract infections in a tertiary hospital, Nepal

SETTING: There are concerns about the occurrence of multidrug resistance (MDR) in patients with urine tract infections (UTI) in Nepal.OBJECTIVE: To determine culture positivity, trends in MDR among Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae infections and seasonal changes in culture-positive UTI specimens isolated from 2014 to 2018 at the B P Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Eastern Nepal.DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional study using secondary laboratory data.RESULTS: Among 116,417 urine samples tested, 19,671 (16.9%) were culture-positive, with an increasing trend in the number of samples tested and culture positivity. E. coli was the most common bacteria (54.3%), followed by K. pneumoniae (8.8%). Among E. coli and K. pneumoniae isolates, MDR was found in respectively 42.5% and 36.0%. MDR was higher in males and people aged >55 years, but showed a decreasing trend over the years. The numbers of isolates increased over the years, with a peak always observed from July to August.CONCLUSION: Low culture positivity is worrying and requires further work into improving diagnostic protocols. Decreasing trends in MDR are a welcome sign. Information on seasonal changes that peak in July–August can help laboratories better prepare for this time with adequate buffer stocks to ensure culture and antibiotic susceptibility testing.

Barriers of Intercultural Communication in the Sunni-Shi'a Conflict in Madura

Until now, the Sunni-Shia conflict in Sampang, Madura has not been fully resolved. Therefore, with a communication science approach, this study will analyze the problems and barriers to intercultural communication that occurs between Sunni and Shia groups, causing eternal conflict. This research was conducted in two places, namely in Karanggayam Village, Omben District, Blu'uran Village, Karang Penang District, Madura, and in Rusunawa Puspa Agro, Sidoarjo. The research method used is the phenomenology of Edmun Husserl. The selection of the phenomenological method was based on the need for research data, namely exploring the experience of intercultural communication of each informant involved in the conflict. The results of the study stated that the barriers to intercultural communication that occur are due to the struggle for social status between Sunni and Shia religious leaders, the low culture of the Madurese community in communicating in the form of firmness in communication, the view of the life of the surrounding community based on syncretism, differences in standards of good or bad values ​​between groups, and perceptions negative relations between groups in the form of prejudice, stereotypes, and ethnocentrism that lead to insincerity in communication. Barriers to Intercultural Communication in the Sunni-Shia conflict in Madura.

‘The sacred gang’. The discourse of the ‘metaphysical macho guy culture (patsanstvo)’ in Russian song lyrics

The article considers one of the methods of identity creation in a song used by lyricists in the early 21st c.: it involves a combination of profane language typical of an urban outcast (patsan, gopnik) and metaphysical, i. e. sacred, themes. Enjoying numerous representations in contemporary Russian visual arts, the discourse of the ‘metaphysical macho guy culture (patsanstvo)’ is also inseparable from the country’s literary tradition, which, however, is trying to marginalise it yet again and confine it to a song format. Analysing the poetic output of several Russian-speaking musicians (E. Limonov, P. Korolenko, Branimir, M. Elizarov, etc.), the author identifies the key features of the discourse: its faux-playfulness, emblematic quality, and adherence to low culture. The article also proposes a genre typology of the discourse in question, noting its critical, humoristic and paradoxographical varieties. In the end, the author discovers that the image of a macho guy / urban outcast (patsan) confronted with a supernatural experience is heavily influenced by the sacral archetype, which absorbs the most extreme — the lowest and the loftiest — aspects of human experience.

Trust: interdiscursive analysis of the phenomenon

This article provides a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of trust from the perspective of basic humanities: sociology, economics, law, etc. The subject of this research is the basic components of trust in the context of vast field of knowledge in social sciences and humanities. Research methodology employs multi-paradigm approach towards analyzing modern transformations of trust from preindustrial to postindustrial society. The author applies cross-disciplinary and comprehensive analysis of various forms and types of trust existing in modern world. The article considers the theoretical approaches towards studying trust that are characteristic to the foreign sociological thought, from the theory of social action and the social system to social and human capital. The novelty lies in determination of the common and specific within the basic divisions of knowledge in the context of the analysis of trust as the framework phenomenon of efficient functioning of modern society through the prism of contemporary domestic and foreign authors. Description is give to indicative components of trust; a;; levels of its efficient functioning are summarized. The author reveals the major barriers that cause crisis and a low culture of trust in the modern post-Soviet space. The conclusion is made that at the macro-level, trust encourages an individual to productive social integration and effective activity for the good of society. The macro-level of functionality of trust substantiated the effectiveness of political and social institutions, which serves as the criterion for the level of the development of democracy and civil society. The persistence of trust is determined by the historical dynamics of social development, as well as depends on its cultural and national components.

INNOVATIVE CULTURE OF ONCOLOGY SERVICE

The policy of the state, based on innovation and investment, stated in the policy documents of the President and the Government of Russia, should be reflected in the policy of specific organizations. It is necessary to evaluate the innovative culture of the organization before choosing innovative changes. No studies have been conducted on the comprehensive assessment of the state of the innovative culture of medical organizations of the oncology profile. The innovative culture of a medical organization is the level of implementation of the most advanced technological and structural solutions. In the innovative culture of the medical organization, three main components can be identified: personnel, logistical, technological. The aim of the study is to study the state of the innovative culture of the oncology service. The research base is the Ivanov Regional Oncology Dispensary of the Ivanov Region Health Department. The study programme involved the use of sociological, expert, mathematical, statistical and analytical methods. Surveillance units: medical worker (doctor, average medical worker) and logistical resources. The study was conducted in 2020. There has been a decrease in the innovative culture of the medical organization of oncology profile on all its components, including: personnel, logistics, technological. The decline in the innovative culture of medical professionals is due to a low culture of self-development, not the ability to adapt to change. The innovative culture of medical equipment is associated with a decrease in the accumulation rate of fixed assets, as well as its not full use for high-tech assistance. Technological culture has been reduced by disrupting the culture of communication in the process of assistance, ensuring uniqueness and convenience in its provision. Improving the organization's logistics base, as well as increasing the innovative commitment of medical personnel, especially mid-sized health workers, should be a priority in planning activities to enhance the innovative culture of the oncology organization.

Unrevolutionary Mexico

Unrevolutionary Mexico addresses how the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) turned into a capitalist dictatorship of exceptional resilience. While soldiers seized power across the rest of Latin America, in modern Mexico the civilians of a single party moved punctiliously in and out of office for seventy-one years. The book uses the histories of the states of Guerrero and Veracruz as entry points to explore the origins and consolidation of this unique authoritarian state on both provincial and national levels. An empirically rich reconstruction of over sixty years of modernization and revolution (1880-1945) revises prevailing ideas of a pacified Mexico and establishes the 1940s as a decade of faltering governments and enduring violence. The book then assesses the pivotal changes of the mid-twentieth century, when a new generation of lawyers, bureaucrats and businessmen joined with surviving revolutionaries to form the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which held uninterrupted power until 2000. Thematic chapters analyse elections, development, corruption and high and low culture in the period. The central role of military and private violence is explored in two further chapters that measure the weight of hidden coercion in keeping the party in power. In conclusion, the combination of provincial and national histories reveals Mexico as a place where soldiers prevented coups, a single party lost its own rigged elections, corruption fostered legitimacy, violence was concealed but decisive, and ambitious cultural control co-existed with a critical press and a disbelieving public. In conclusion, the book demonstrates how this strange dictatorship thrived not despite but because of its contradictions.