Beyond the Language of Covid-19: Transformation of Social Discourse and Reproduction of Cultural Capital

The research draws on the concept of ‘cultural capital’ as well as assumptions of critical discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics to argue that the Covid-19 pandemic may be viewed as a global turning point. The article explores the context and the means that have facilitated the transformation of cultural capital during the coronavirus outbreak. The dramatic changes to culture have been successfully pushed through due to the public’s incessant exposure to institutionalized, governmental and mass media discourses, which have been urging people to adopt new communicative and cultural practices with a varying degree of argumentation and imposition. The changes entail reviewing social structure, spatial and relational stereotypes and standards, which in the long run transforms cultural capital. The global scope of the pandemic and the relatively identical regulations imposed by governments on their citizens generate a tentative tendency to cultural convergence: individuals are made to abandon their culture specific practices and values and adopt those that ensure physical survival. Received: 8 September 2021 / Accepted: 16 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Impact of COVID-19 Vaccines on Tourism Demand and Culture

The low supply of vaccines for COVID-19 has disrupted tourism development in Asia. The question is if the vaccine may change cultural divergence into cultural convergence at the tourist destination. The purpose of this study is to examine the culture and price elasticity of hotel demand to find the cultural convergence. The study has conducted autoregressive distributed lag model to test whether the vaccine would change the price and income elasticities of hotel demand to find the cultural transformation from divergence to convergence through tourism. Findings indicate that the impact of the vaccine on transferring culture from divergence to convergence was confirmed. Tourists from the divergent cultures specified by less levels of Hofstede's cultural dimensions will visit the country destination with high levels of Hofstede's cultural dimensions after COVID vaccination. Japan and the US that possess divergent levels of power will visit Vietnam for power convergence. China, Korea, and Russia that possess divergent levels of indulgence will visit Vietnam for indulgence convergence.

So Close, So Far. The Cultural Distance of Foreigners in Italy

The presence of foreigners in a host country is a contentious issue: opponents claim, among other things, that the cultural distance between them and natives is too large to permit integration. However, it is impossible to ascertain whether this is true in the absence of a clear, standardised system for measuring cultural distance (whether it be by nationality, length of stay, educational level, etc.). In this paper, we argue that a recently proposed method, called DBS or Distance Between Strata, fits this scope. We present the methodology under a new light, investigate several of its properties, and apply it to two Italian surveys of 2011–13. Results indicate, first, that no group is homogeneous: Italians, for instance, display a clear North to South gradient. Second, foreigners are not all equally culturally distant from Italian natives: the ranking of their cultural distances largely conforms to expectation. Finally, Italians with a foreign origin are, as expected, close to Italians tout court, which suggests that cultural convergence is taking place.

The Marsi

Up until now Marsian cultural identity has been approached from an old-fashioned theoretical angle of autoromanizazzione ("self-Romanization" or "emulation"). This perspective was one response to the unsatisfactory explanation of the previous paradigm ("Romanization") to assess the incorporation faced by pre-Roman people. Nonetheless, current scholars have found the "self-Romanization" approach untenable. This view changes the scope of the agency from Roman to Native in the assimilation process of the Italians in the Roman culture, turning the whole influence into the Native elites, but all of it has an irremediable ending of exactly the same cultural convergence. Besides, the concept is still a top-bottom approach and the knowledge of the final outcome of the process obscures our judgment, taking for granted cultural behaviors as Roman when those are not necessarily Romans or vice versa. This work aims to criticize the modern approach of the 1970s epistemology reassessing the Marsian identity in a new light reconsidering the degree of the Roman agency, as it was more than it was previously thought. Nonetheless, the high degree of the Native agency in the structuration of the Marsian ethnicity cannot be neglected, because Marsian identity was a malleable ethnic concept to channel collective supralocal efforts by indigenous elites. The work offers a new way of understanding the Marsian culture refracted through the imperialistic lens of Roman authors.

Introduction: Cultural Convergence at Dublin’s Gate Theatre

The pioneering efforts of the Dublin Gate Theatre (est. 1928) stimulated the influx of experimental plays from the European Continent and North America to Ireland and inspired Irish theatre-makers to revolutionize their dramaturgy. This book examines the Gate’s poetics over the first three decades of its existence, discussing some of its remarkable productions in the comparative contexts of avant-garde theatre and of Hollywood cinema and popular culture. It also investigates cultural exchanges pertaining to the development of Irish-language theatre and the politics of the Gate. The introduction summarizes existing research about the Gate, outlines the book’s concept of cultural convergence and its overall approach – which is intent on the exploration of wider global contexts of the work of the Gate – and outlines the argument of the authors in the subsequent chapters.