Postmodern Theology as a Methodological Resource of Understanding Modern Religiosity: Conceptual, Worldview and Important Social Dimensions

The article comprehends the potential of the current achievements of the new Christian theologians in interpreting of the phenomenon of religiosity, its life and value-conceptual core and contexts of functioning, taking into account the modification of the historical conditions of the existence of culture, society, spirituality. The author ponders the conceptual content of the ideas of J. Milbank, J.-L. Marion and J. Caputo. The ideas of these authors are highlighted in their methodological uniqueness and at the same time the general paradigmatic context of their focus for comprehending the postmodern anthropological situation and the effectiveness of Christian spirituality in the conditions of post-secularism is taken into account. The research is interdisciplinary, combining the history of theological thought with the possibilities of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of religion.

Humanities Studies and Jesuit Principles of Education

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:The objective of the study is to identify key features of the concept of analysing humanitarianism and, eventually, humanity as an important sociogenic factor and its meaning for contemporary education. RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: This work focuses on recognizing the conceptual core in the humanist tradition through the analysis of the ancient and Renaissance idea of the study of humanitarianism that dominated in the educational paradigm in the period of the Renaissance humanism and in the development of Jesuit education. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The study indicates interpretative inconsistency in the concept of modern humanism. Trying to explain what is unclear in the humanistic discourse, the author will, first of all, focus on the origin of the Renaissance humanism with its outdated concept of the study of humanitarianism, and then he will present the analysis of the concept of the original, ancient understanding of the study of humanitarianism in the inspiring text of the Renaissance humanistic movement Pro Archia Poeta Oration by Cicero. Finally, the author presents the connection between the analysis of humanitarianism and the Renaissance educational system of Societas Jesu, as well as the perspectives of this tradition and its influence on the present time. RESEARCH RESULTS: In the research, the author identified the ancient and Renaissance concept of studying humanitatis as a key sociogenic factor necessary for the morphogenesis of cultural identity. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS: Humanistic studies, as a lifelong process of cultivating cura personalis according to Jesuit principles, are an important condition for upgrading humanity which is characterized by the fulfillment of the moral dimension of an individual integrated with social and cultural processes of the society. The study indicates the meaning of the epideictic approach to analysing humanitarianism in its function of articulating the cultural identity of the polis.

Psychologically relevant content of the basic value in the ordinary consciousness of Russians

Предметом исследования являются выявляемые в ходе лингвистического анализа признаки базовой ценности «свобода» в русской лингвокультуре, а также содержательная динамика базовой ценности. Цель исследования состоит в установлении психологически актуального содержания данной базовой ценности. В качестве основного метода исследования выбран свободный ассоциативный эксперимент, проведенный среди носителей русской лингвокультуры в 2019 г. Научная значимость работы заключается в возможности экспериментального установления содержания базовых ценностей. Полученные результаты показали, реакции, отражающие значимость традиционных компонентов этого понятия, совпадают в лексикографических источниках и по данным свободного ассоциативного эксперимента, что обосновывает устойчивость базовой ценности при всех возможных изменениях ее периферических компонентов. Однако, необходимо зафиксировать начало структурно-содержательных изменений: понятийное ядро ценности «свобода» остается практически неизменным, однако эмоционально-оценочные ассоциаты показывают значительные изменения, что указывает на изменение отношения респондентов к свободе как к ценности. Практическая ценность исследования заключается в возможности применения разработанной методики в практике применения его результатов в вузовском преподавании переводоведения, межкультурной коммуникации, лингвокультурологии и др. The subject of the research is the features of the basic value свобода ”freedom” in the Russian linguoculture which are revealed in the course of linguistic analysis, as well as the content dynamics of the basic value. The purpose of the study is to establish the psychologically relevant content of the basic value”freedom”. The main research method is a free associative experiment conducted among representatives of the Russian linguoculture in 2019. The scientific significance of the work lies in the experimental proof of the change in the rate of the basic values’ dynamics. The results have shown that the reactions reflecting the significance of the traditional components of the concept свобода ”freedom” coincide in the lexicographic sources and according to the data of a free associative experiment. This fact justifies the stability of the basic value with all possible changes in its peripheral components. However, it is necessary to note the beginning of the structurally substantial restructuring, which is expressed in a growing number of negative connotations. Despite the fact that the conceptual core of the value свобода ”freedom” remains practically unchanged, emotionally evaluative associates show a serious change in the connotations of the word. Thus, the attitude of representatives of the Russian linguoculture to freedom as a basic value has changed. The practical value of the study lies in the following: it is possible to apply the developed methodology in translation studies, intercultural communication, cultural linguistics and other linguistic disciplines taught at the universities.

On the formulation of the subject matter of social phenomenology

The article is devoted to the formation of the problem field of social phenomenology. The author analyzed the works of the phenomenological and socio-constructivist directions of research and identified a common conceptual core. The authors (T. Luckman, M. Merleau-Ponty, M. Eldred) distinguish a previously undifferentiated communicative horizon in the field of interaction. The communicative horizon belongs to the primordial sphere of the subject and is the result of the demarcation of the homogeneous world according to the criterion of ability to communicate. The line of demarcation is determined by the behavior of beings and does not necessarily cover only the zone of human embodiment. It was established that the communicative aspect and the aspect of asking about oneself as a human being are closely related. The mobility of the boundaries of the meanings of the world objects, the subjectivity of judgment, the possibility of correlating with the help of socio-historical reality comprise the aggregate subject matter of social phenomenology. The author concludes that due to the lack of unambiguous criteria for establishing the framework of the social world, one should resort to the description of the phenomenal plan of sociality, which can help to qualitatively distinguish the levels of social reality in the long term.

A Monte Carlo study on burnup treatment in sodium-cooled reactor with Th fuel

Sodium Cooled Reactors is one of the Generation-IV plants selected to manage the long-lived minor actinides and to transmute the long-life radioactive elements. This study presents the comparison between two-designed SFR cores with 600 and 800 MWth total heating power. We have analyzed a conceptual core design and nuclear characteristic of SFR. Monte Carlo depletion calculations have been performed to investigate essential characteristics of the SFR core. The core calculations were performed by using the Serpent Monte Carlo code for determining the burnup behavior of the SFR, the power distribution and the effective multiplication factor. The neutronic and burn-up calculations were done by means of Serpent-2 Code with the ENDF-7 cross-sections library. Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor core was taken as the reference core for Th-232 burnup calculations. The results showed that SFR is an important option to deplete the minor actinides as well as for transmutation from Th-232 to U-233.

Strategy and Semiosis: Insights from Operation Fortitude

The European summer of 1944 saw what is arguably the greatest deception wrought through deliberate miscommunication. Operation Fortitude focussed on convincing the Nazis that the invasion of Europe would come not at Normandy but further north at the Pas-de-Calais. Seeing the enemy almost completely wrong-footed, Fortitude remains the most devastating deception in the history of warfare. It is also a campaign that teaches us a great deal about the internal dynamics and semiotics of strategy more generally. Accordingly, I propose that Operation Fortitude speaks profoundly to the principle of polysemy and to the related idea that, in competitive fields, strategic design may see to it that we are deceived into misreading tactics in relation to their informing concepts. Directly related to the above, the paper proposes that, since it is always founded upon a more or less difficult-to-fathom conceptual core, all strategy inevitably deceives—and that the question of deception is merely a matter of degree. Further to the above, I also argue that Operation Fortitude teaches us that, at its heart, good strategy seldom depends upon a singular concept but upon several cooperating abstractions. The paper’s final substantive point is that Operation Fortitude reminds us that in order to think productively about strategy, it pays to bear in mind the following military principle: at its most effective, strategy is a unique and exquisitely synergistic coupling of objectives, concepts, and (dehabitualised) tactics.

Irritation Design: Updating Steering Theory in the Age of Governance

Is steering still a viable concept? The article answers this question with a conditional yes. On the one hand, its conceptual core remains intact. Getting others—who are considered to be idiosyncratic—to solve rather than pose societal problems is no less relevant for recent governance analyses. On the other, steering as a concept needs some updates in terms of subjects, objects, and ways of steering. Beyond merely extending the list of possible subjects and objects of steering, the concept of irritation design is proposed. It stresses that making communication hard to ignore can be a matter of design. Modern society seems to be crowded with steering entities, many of which displaying smart irritation designs. This leads to complex constellations. Yet it remains valuable to analyze strategies of influence because despite all dynamics and happenstance, different chances of impact correlate with different irritation design. Still, we have to account for two aspects: 1) Capacities (beyond money or power) needed for designing irritations are unequally distributed; 2) material effects and empirical boundaries have their share in a decreased ignorability.

Scythian Burials: The Problem of Localization of the Royal Mounds

The localization of the Scythian Gerros is still completely uncertain. The problems associated with it cover a wide range of currently unresolved topical issues due to both the state of preservation of rich burials and the lack of clear criteria for their definition, in particular, social ranking, i. e. issues related to the identification, number and location of the royal mounds. The study is based on the logic of the general scientific inductive and deductive method as the conceptual core of obtaining the initial and inferred knowledge about the object of our research – the localization of the mounds of the Scythian kings, the subject of which is the general cultural and archaeological signs of the Scythian kings’ mounds. We have come to the conclusion that the use of craniological studies of anthropological material from burial monuments located within the Scythian “square” of Herodotus, for their proximity to the Tuvan Okunevians will firstly allow us to identify and select the royal Scythians from the entire massif of Scythian material, then subsequent mapping of the data will make it possible to determine the area of their settlement. Secondly, with the help of craniological analysis, it will be possible to determine the burials of the Scythian kings, which should contain homogeneous anthropological material within the same burial room. Thirdly, in the process of searching for Scythian burials outside the steppe, we will also be helped by craniological studies of material that was not initially classified as “Scythian” due to the lack of clear criteria for its selection. Fourthly, the mapping of the burials of the royal Scythians and the systematization of all the signs of groups located in the same vector of their closest ties will bring us closer to solving an even more extensive problem – the definition of the concepts of “Scythian”, “Scythian culture” and “Scythian archaeological culture”. Keywords: Gerros, mound, localization, Scythian kings’ mounds, royal Scythians

BRECHT’S THEATER: GENRE DIVERSITY AND BASIC CONCEPTS

The article is devoted to the drama of Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), the peculiarities of its genre palette and analysis of the main factors of the playwright's artistic method. To achieve this goal, the following research methods were used: descriptive; matching method; literary analysis and synthesis. The Brecht Theater is represented by genre varieties of theatrical forms: expressionist drama, musical, opera, operetta, Lehrstück, epic and dialectic theater. The article proves that dialectics is the ideological soil and the conceptual core of the Brecht Theater. The dialectic poetics of a playwright should be understood as the method of analysis and argumentation presented by the Hegelian triad: thesis – antithesis – synthesis. In accordance with the dialectical concept, the Brecht theater puts in the center primarily the principle of contradiction, aimed at a multifaceted understanding of phenomena, overcoming a frozen, ossified way of thinking. The study defines the key concepts and principles of creating the drama of Bertolt Brecht, namely the «alienation effect» (Verfremdungseffekt) and assemblage (composition). The principle of the «alienation effect» is that a familiar phenomenon appears in the theater from an unexpected perspective, and therefore requires awareness of the viewer’s novelty. The means of this is the constant violation of theatrical illusion, the reality of what is happening on stage. The assemblage stipulates that the theatrical action is not a homogeneous system, but is a «made», «constructed» plane of various heterogeneous «materials»: dialogical discourse is interrupted by lyro-epic components (songs); in the musical plan, which is designed in the same style, jazz elements are suddenly «mounted», actors exchange roles during the performance, elements of the cinema «penetrate» the event plane, the causal course of the events depicted is interrupted by the demonstration of banners or posters with provocative appeals. The prospects for further research are the literary analysis of post-Brecht theater, that is, drama, which appeared as an imitation or negation of the dramatic principles of Brecht's theater.