Germania de Tácito: en los límites del género literario

This article proposes a new generic label for Tacitus’ Germania as “frontier ethnography”. Our reading is supported by Germania’s textual instability, due to its topical originality and compositive innovation. Although these features place Germania in a disruptive positioning face of historiographical tradition of Monography, it is consistent with the particular rhetorical situation of the late first century AD, traversed by the mixture of genres and the inversion of center-periphery relationships, and with the rise of a new dynasty as well. These characteristics are found in the two main text features of Germania. On the one hand, Ethnography, which was traditionally relegated to the excursus, is used here as the text’s main narrative device, whereas historical discourse is relocated to the digression. On the other hand, Barbaric periphery beyond the frontier becomes the central narrative matter of the text. Therefore, these textual features allow us to state that Germania insinuates a discourse move towards the limits of Roman generic and geographical space. Hence, Tacitus’ Germania can be interpreted as a literary exercise representing a new space within its sociopolitical context: the frontier.

The humorous rewriting of Orwell’s '1984'

This commentary piece offers some preliminary thoughts concerning the Greek memes produced since COVID-19 disease arrived at Greece at the end of February 2020, through identifying an analogy between the sociopolitical conditions in Greece-under-lockdown and Orwell’s Oceania in his 1984 novel. It is specifically argued that such texts constitute political humour commenting on the abrupt, yet pervasive changes attested due to state measures against the spread of COVID-19 disease. To this end, memes collected from the social media are discussed and interpreted in comparison with extracts from Orwell’s novel to point to striking similarities between the 1984 sociopolitical context and the Greek one. It is, however, suggested that there is a significant difference between the two contexts: in Orwell’s dystopia, humour seems to have no place at all; on the contrary, humour thrived in Greece-under-lockdown, especially among participants in the social media, in the form of rapidly created and disseminated memes. Memory (a central notion in Orwell’s novel) emerges as a crucial factor for the production of such humour in contemporary Greece and for its absence from Orwell’s Oceania.

Culturally-relevant and responsive pedagogy in computing: A Quick Scoping Review

The underrepresentation of certain groups in computing has led to increasing efforts in the United States (US) to develop computing curricula that is responsive and relevant to a more diverse group of learners. In England, despite a mandatory computing curriculum from age 5, a similar problem is seen in terms of representation in formal Computer Science qualifications as in the US. The current paper used a Quick Scoping Review methodology to identify research that has implemented and evaluated culturally-responsive and relevant K-12 computing curricula, and to understand how they have been designed, the methods used for evaluation, and the factors affecting their success. In total, 12 papers were included in the review and all were from a US setting. Successes included changing learners’ attitudes towards computing and increased learning gains. Key factors in the implementation of the curricula were teacher confidence and understanding of the sociopolitical context of computing, opportunities provided for collaboration and sharing knowledge and opinions, and allowing time for difficult discussions without oversimplifying the issues. The review identifies important lessons to be learned for other countries, including England, aiming to increase the diversity in representation in computing in their schools.

Unapologetic Educational Research: Addressing Anti-Blackness, Racism, and White Supremacy

We explore “ Unapologetic Educational Research: Addressing Anti-Blackness, Racism, and White Supremacy” to engage scholars in thinking about and reflecting on what it means to conduct qualitative research from a standpoint that honors Black lives in the research process while also disrupting racism and white supremacy. First, we unapologetically take up topics including engaging “diversity” in qualitative research, interrogating the etic perspective in the “new” focus on race, using critical perspectives to inform research and practice, examining the racialization of positionality, focusing on Black women educational leaders, and engaging schools and communities. Next, we engage in dialogue with each other to push ourselves—and you/the reader—to think more deeply about the serious and potentially dangerous implications of our research decisions. Given the unprecedented historical present we are all experiencing in our lifetime, we are committed to shifting the landscape of qualitative research as well as using research to shift our sociopolitical context toward racial equity and justice.

Representing Dutch Older Adults During COVID-19: What Can We Learn?

From the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic older adults have been at the heart of public debate. Early articles argued that public representation of older persons displayed a a resurgence of ageist stereotypes and beliefs in (inter)national media (e.g. Ayalon et al. 2020, Fraser et al 2020, Lichtenstein 2020, Sotomayer et al. 2020). Yet studies confirming this are absent up to now. In this paper, we present findings on the representation of Dutch older adults during the first six months of the COVID-19 crisis in The Netherlands. We analysed 1141 articles about older adults of the five largest newspapers using quantitative content analyses and discourse analysis to systematically explore patterns, sentiments and meaning in the articles. We show that the majority of these articles were published in general news and that older adults were rarely (2%) cited in these articles. Most prominent adjectives were vulnerable and weak. Most prominent substantives were attention, long-term care facility and loneliness. The sentiment was largely negative. Additionally, we find three discursive frames predominate: ‘an older people’s disease’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘solidarity’. This evidences that the Dutch reporting on older adults during COVID-19 reproduced a discourse of dependency highlighting and further emphasizing the sociopolitical context before COVID-19 while drawing out earlier ageist tendencies. On the basis of our findings and drawing on advisory experiences, we discuss implications for policy, education and practice and how we can reframe and differently address older adults specifically in terms of language and their more (un)conscious positioning in (public) debate.

Critical Discourse Analysis of Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi’s Speech at UN in 2021: A Sociopolitical Perspective

This paper is based on the Critical Discourse Analysis approach to explore Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s speech at the UN in 2021 in a sociopolitical context. The researchers, by applying Fairclough’s 3D model, investigate Arab Israel community reflection through textual or stylistic strategies in speech and explore the level of Islamic ideology reflected in Shah Mehmood Qureshi speech through linguistic choices. The study further explores the representation of stylistic features in a speech that depicts the political and socio-cultural relationship between Palestine and the Israeli community. Findings of the study suggest that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi used different devices like textual and stylistic to give his ideology more explicatively. The sophisticated manners of ideology are propagated through the speech with all its prerequisites. It was syntactically well organized and produces a thematic message that was based on religious sociocultural and political discrimination and biased as well as inequality in cohesion. The expressive speaker values and relational indications were ordered according to the situation.

Gender, Genre, and the Idea of the Nation

This article examines the construction of and contestation over the idea of the nation through contemporary popular cinema in India. Building on his experience of discussing the Bollywood spy thriller Raazi (2018) in an English class, the author proposes that “reading” the film in terms of gender and genre can not only help students apply modes of textual analysis to narratives in other media but also alert them to the location of such narratives within larger discursive frameworks of defining national identities. Raazi presents a critical and ideological counterpoint to the generic conventions of the spy thriller within the increasingly polarized sociopolitical context of the Indian subcontinent. The film presents an unlikely female protagonist as both the physical agent and the psychological subject of the violence integral to the “action” of an espionage film. It also interrogates the oppositional relation between the patriotic “self” and the foreign “other” that lies at the basis of the militaristic conception of the nation and ultimately reveals the shared human vulnerability of both to the traumatic effects of pursuing the idea(l) of nationalism at the expense of individual moral integrity. Thus a close reading of the film's narrative structure and conventions, as well as a critical engagement with the historical context of its production and reception, can be pedagogically fruitful ways of understanding and critiquing the processes through which a nation is collectively imagined into being.

“Helpless Indian”: The Sacred Cow as the Symbol of Hindu-Muslim Unity in a Late Nineteenth-Century Hindi Novel

In the colonial North India of the late 19th century, the cow emerged as a powerful symbol of imagining the nation. The present paper explores how the image of the sacred cow was reinterpreted in the new sociopolitical context and subsequently employed in the Hindi novel, the development of which coincided with massive campaigns for cow protection. To this end, I study one of the earliest Hindi novels, Nissahāy hindū, written by Rādhākr̥ṣṇadās in 1881 and published in 1890. The novel can be read as a documentary evidence of polemics surrounding the process of identity formation and circumstances attending it, as articulated in the Hindi vernacular during the last decades of the 19th century. The agitation for cow protection is the novel’s leitmotif revolving around the theme of Hindu-Muslim unity, framed in an original and unconventional way. It introduces the bold idea of a Muslim agitating for cow protection and sacrificing himself for the movement. The analysis of the novel, alongside Bhāratendu Hariścandra’s seminal speech of 1884, reveals growing concerns regarding the Hindu-Muslim-British relations at the time of momentous religious, social and economic changes.

Preparedness and Experiences of Novice Teachers in the Sociopolitical Context of Heightened Immigration Enforcement: Evidence From a Survey of California Teachers

For teachers of immigrant-origin students and their peers, emerging research notes the challenge of facilitating a high-quality education for students subject to traumatic events related to harsh immigration enforcement policies. This study examines whether new teachers from seven teacher preparation programs experienced the impacts of immigration enforcement and felt prepared to support students who were impacted. I surveyed new teachers in preservice and after 1 year of teaching ( N = 473) using survey instruments developed by Cohen and colleagues along with additional constructs developed via pilot testing. New teachers reported that immigration enforcement negatively impacted their students and their job satisfaction. Teachers exposed to discussion of immigration policy and teachers who reported engaging with immigrant families in preservice were more likely to view themselves as prepared to support students. I discuss differences for teachers in urban, Title I, and elementary settings.