The information society and digital transformation of a state: development and interpretations in the futurological thought

The theories of the information society and the idea of the modern digital state need an interdisciplinary approach. Practical realization of the concept of the digital state issues a challenge to public administration. It might be observed that public entities, while they work on electronic solutions, do not focus adequate attention on their cooperation. In Poland, the scope of digitalization and electronic services provided by public administration has extended. The digital transformation of public institutions is of high importance in the context the human rights. Cybersecurity and some contemporary threats related to the public sphere (cybercrime, cyberterrorism, cyberwar, fake news) trigger the changes in legal systems and public institutions. They also affect people, their cognitive abilities and identity. It is significant that the predictions concerning the information society and the digital state in the context of social changes have been present in the futurological thought. They include the thoughts of Alvin Toffler, Samuel P. Huntington, and Francis Fukuyama. The authors deal with the civilization changes, transformation related to dissemination of modern ICT technology, clash of cultures and their influence on societies and states.

Clash of cultures in short stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The object of this article is the English-language multicultural prose of the late XX – early XXI centuries. The subject is the clash of cultures. The research material is based on individual short stories by the contemporary US-Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie published in the book “The Thing Around Your Neck” (2009). The goal of this article lies in determination and analysis of the peculiarities of artistic expression and functionality of the situation of clash of cultures in the writer’s short stories. The relevance is substantiated by the following factors: 1) clash of cultures is typical for the relationships in modern multipolar world during the globalization era, this it is relevant in literary works of the XX–XXI centuries;  2) literary studies currently indicate heightened interest in covering various aspects of fictional multicultural prose; 3) Adichie is a remarkable figure in modern literary process. The short stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are unique in their reference to signal trends in the development of the English-language literature, and thus are a relevant in the context of studying the designated topic. Unlike the works of multicultural writers of the second half of the XX century, which have repeatedly been the object of scientific research, the multicultural prose of the late XX – early XXI centuries is poorly studied. The scientific novelty is defined by the fact that the analysis of short stories from the collection “The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which is not translated into the Russian language, is carried out for the first time within the Russian literally studies. The conclusion is made that the situation of clash of cultures in Adichie’s stories becomes the factor that induces mental crisis in the minds of the characters. There is no constructive dialogue of cultures, and their clash leads the characters to either the loss or substitution of identity.

Short Selling – On Ethics, Politics, and Culture

Lawyers and economists do not always speak the same language. Where economists present crisp and clear numbers, lawyers get lost in lengthy discussions about fairness and justice. Or so it seems. Arguably, the regulation of short selling illustrates a worrying clash of cultures. Economists understand short selling as a value-free market mechanism while (not only) lawyers suspect a profit, unfairly gained at the expense of others: “Short sellers not only profit from the misery of others, they also cause it”. In what follows, we address implications of this culture clash in the realm of ethics and politics. We conclude with a hypothesis, submitting that there might be traces of another clash to be observed when comparing regulatory cultures across countries. A preliminary look at data seems to suggest that short sale bans are less common in countries with a strong capital-market tradition and more common for countries which are newer to this game. If this holds true, important lessons are to be learned for the European Commission’s plan to set up a capital market union.

FEATURES OF COMMUNICATION IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION

In this study, the authors raise the question that tourism, the tourism industry constructs a special space created by hotels, transport infrastructure, a special form of organization of tourist facilities, and so on. The beginning of the XXI century is characterized by the dominance of globalization trends in the development of international relations. The world market of goods and services is becoming a single global economic space in which the development of a particular segment is a natural consequence of the effectiveness of internationalization, transnationalization and international communication. The purpose of the article is to find out the communication features in the field of tourism in the context of globalization of modern society. The task of the research is to determine the ways for the tourist to overcome the inconveniences when getting acquainted with the foreign culture of other countries; to investigate the optimal model of interaction between national and international parameters of service culture in the field of hospitality. In terms of cross-cultural communications, characteristic of tourism as one of the dominant factors in the globalization of modern society and the front of the clash of cultures, it is necessary to take into account national characteristics, manifested in latent form in relation to the world and values, behaviour, communication methods, inclinations and passions, in a way of life, in traditions and habits. A safe form of immersion in a foreign environment is a culture of service, and European standards act as a mediating space between tourists and foreign culture. The standardized culture of service and the accepted business etiquette are capable to compensate a culture shock, for this purpose in the country professional culture of the employee of sphere of hospitality has to develop.

Countering Post-9/11 Stereotypes: Arab American Playwrights Make Their Voices Heard

Before 9/11Arab-American drama was sporadic and inconsistent in the sense that there was a relative absence of Arab-American theater or playwrights who made their voices heard across the USA. However, after 9/11 the American theater scene witnessed a surge of Arab-American drama and theater that aimed at addressing the American audience in order to voice the concerns, fears and anxieties of Arab Americans. They wanted to dispel much of the stereotype attributes which have been wrongly associated with them because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This study intends to examine the dramatic endeavors of Arab-American playwrights to make their voices heard through drama, performance and theater in light of transnationalism and diaspora theory. The study argues that Arab-American dramatists and theater groups write back to the hegemonic polemics against Arabs and Muslims, which has madly become characteristic of contemporary American literature and media following 9/11. Viewed in light of the anti-Arab American literary discourse, Arab-American playwrights and performers have taken giant steps towards changing the stereotypes of Arabs, and countering the loud voices of those who try to add fuel to the blazing flames of Islamophobia. To assess the contribution of Arab-American dramatists and performers to make their voices heard loud and clear in countering the stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, Yussef El Guindi (1960-) is going to be discussed in this paper because he has been fighting the stereotypes of Arab Americans and Islamophobia in his drama and theater. El Guindi has devoted most of his plays to fight the stereotypes that are persistently attributed to Arabs and Muslims, and his drama presents issues relating to identity formation and what it means to be Arab American. A scrutiny of his plays shows that El Guindi has dealt with an assortment of topics and issues all relating to the stereotypes of Arab Americans and the Middle East. These issues include racial profiling and surveillance; stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the cinema and theater; and acculturation and clash of cultures. Keywords: Arab American, Identity, Theater, Stereotypes, Diaspora, Acculturation

The Clash of Cultures of Radical Enlightenment and Humanism Open to Transcendence. The Perspective of Pope Benedict XVI

The article analyzes the content of the Pope’s speeches discussing, reconstructing and interpreting the concept of two dominant western cultures and their mutual relationships to the perspective of Pope Benedict XVI, who calls them the culture of radical enlightenment and the culture of humanism that is open to transcendence. The article identifies fundamental contentious issues including: anthropological issues, human dignity, political anthropology, freedom, reason, its rationality, and the role of religion in the public sphere. Thus, the article provides a positive answer to the question of whether the perspective of the clash of cultures outlined by Samuel Huntington can be cognitively used in interpreting the contrast of cultures presented from the perspective of Pope Benedict XVI. However, contrary to Huntington, who describes the clash of western cultures with other, non-western cultures, Pope Benedict XVI claims that there is a clash between two dominant western cultures.