Le Génie du Nord: Sélection and the Advocacy of a Cosmopolitan Northern Culture

The article discusses the francophone review of art and literature Sélection published in Brussels (1920–22) and Antwerp (1923–33), Belgium, by André de Ridder and Paul-Gustave van Hecke. It takes as its point of departure the concept Le Génie du Nord [The Genius of the North], which was the title of a 1925 book published in Antwerp by De Ridder. The book mainly consists of essays previously published in Sélection between 1923 and 1924. De Ridder argues that France should not claim autonomy in the field of cultural production since throughout the centuries Nordic influence played a central role in its evolution. Although the book attracted little attention from the contemporary press, it offers a novel approach to the Nordic idea through the anticipation of a new classical order that distinguished itself from Southern classicism. While German expressionism is equally renounced, the book proposes a synthetic style — similar to the one that marked the gothic period — that also found expression in the art presented in Sélection. This style furnished a visual model for the invention of a new classical order stemming from the successful mingling of French rationalism with Flemish expressionism, a ‘constructive expressionism’ that became the precondition for a universal Nordic culture. The magazine was supportive of those French and Belgian artists who achieved a combination of the two styles — an ‘eclectic dualism’, in the words of Edmond Picard. Taking the origins of Gothicism and the Nordische Gesellschaft as case points of ideological complexity, the Génie du Nord concept forms an alternative discourse which intervenes in an ongoing art-historical and cultural debate that defines the identity of Sélection.

Neoliberal capitalism and misery of small peasantry and agricultural labourers in India

This article argues that, till date, a single paradigm dominates the discourse on agrarian crisis and farmers’ movement against the anti-farmer dictates of the Indian state. There is a pressing need for the organic intellectuals of the masses to build an alternative discourse to examine the agrarian crisis and its roots. To this end, the present article reasons that the neoliberal resolution of the agrarian crisis that the authoritarian-corporate nexus has imposed on the farming community will produce mass dispossession and displacement in India. It exposes the misery of traditional consciousness that rules over the current farmers’ movement in India. The article concludes that the agrarian crisis which is actually a crisis of small farmers and agricultural labourers requires modern consciousness for egalitarian and long-term resolution.

Subversive literary representations of 1821 in the Metapolitefsi (1974–81)

The article examines the afterlife of the Greek War of Independence during the Transition period in Greece (1974–81), focusing on literature. The military dictatorship (1967–74) presented itself as the heir of this national revolution. Representations of the 1821 were popularized and mediatized through film, paintings and the public spectacles organized by the regime, culminating in the 150-year anniversary in 1971. This triggered an alternative use of these representations, by songwriters, playwrights and writers who aimed to subvert them through mimicry. Focusing on three novels by young writers of the period, Yoryis Yatromanolakis’s Leimonario (The Spiritual Meadow) (1974), Nikos Platis’s Gkount mpai mister pap (‘Goodbye Mr. Pap’) (1976) and Takis Theodoropoulos’s Ο vios stin politeia tou Thodori Kotronithodorikolou (‘Life in the times of Thodoris Kotronithodorikolos’) (1977), the article examines how these young writers subverted the representations of heroism constructed by the dictatorship through the use of surrealist and avant-garde techniques. The use of pastiche, the corporeal and the fantastic by Yatromanolakis creates an alternative discourse of heroism. In the case of Platis and Theodoropoulos, surrealist techniques, and images of transgressive sexuality create a grotesque gallery of heroes, by emphasizing the hybridity and performativity of their identities. These writers also experimented with the ways in which history is represented in narrative, through reversal of temporality, the nightmarish, corporeality and the private. The article also examines the texts’ reception, at a time when new grand narratives of national history were being shaped.

"LESSON OF SCIENTIFIC HONESTY": AN ALTERNATIVE DISCOURSE ON THE EPISTOLARY OF UKRAINIAN DISSENTERS OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The article is devoted to understanding the alternative discourse of the second half of the 20thcentury in the context of the epistolary of such Ukrainian dissidents as I. Svitlychnyi, V. Chornovil, V. Stus, Z. Krasivskyi and Ya. Lesiv. The paper determines its peculiar features and specifics in the formation of literary and artistic dissidenceof the members of the Resistance Movement of the 60sin Ukraine,which has arisen due to the efforts of the creative intellectuals that will later be called the men of the sixties.A search for a new literary and artistic form of the dissidents’ epistolary text that is different from socialist realismhas been carried out.The article studies the significance of the epistolary of the men of the sixties for the creation of the alternative discourse, as well as proves the defining ideological dissidents’ principles, in particular the “lesson of scientific honesty” from O. Biletskyi, which has been learned for the rest of his life and disseminated among his like-minded people by I. Svitlychnyi.

When Abangan Embraces Sufism: Religious Phenomenology to Counter Radicalism in Contemporary Java

Abangan is one of the socio-religious groups regarded as a marginal community among the trichotomy of santri and priayi. It has been known that abangan were not religious Muslim, and they are poor farmers as well as workers, backward and less educated people. Meanwhile, santri are more religious and priayi among Javanese society are middle-class people practising syncretic Islam. The thesis on “The Religion of Java,” by Clifford Geertz, was more than a half-century indicated religious and social classification in Javanese society. In the midst of political polarization of Indonesian reformation, transnational Islamic groups began to establish their movement widely. Transnational Islamic groups that promote radicalism and violent extremism clearly avoid local wisdom and mysticism. As a result, abangan has experienced dramatic religious and social change. This study aims to see how to face radicalism after reformation in the social and religious transformation of abangan in Java. Previous studies have shown that the phenomenon of radicalism affects religious intolerance addressed to minority groups like abangan. This research paper aims to examine how abangan reacts to radicalism and engages with Sufism and their devotion to tarekat. Abangan recently appears to convert and join the tarekat movement as an alternative discourse to encounter modernism and religious radicalism.

Ang Kasalimuotan ng Pagiging Fangirl: Ilang Alternatibong Pagtanaw sa Mundo ng Kababaihang Paghanga

Mainstream media has played a vital role in shaping popular consciousness about female fans. Such articulations that emanate from outsiders oftentimes adhere to pathological representation that was revisited and compounded by a recent film that adapted for its title the identity embraced by female fans—being a Fan Girl (Jadaone, 2020). Through the analysis of conflicting views from outside and inside the community that interpret a fangirl’s identity, the paper will highlight the fandom’s efficacy as a site where alternative discourse arise that does not just oppose the hegemonic recognition against fangirls, but also offers an articulation how the community developed its notion of female fan expression. Anchored to the practice of fangirling, the paper will show mechanisms fans undergo to object the existing deep-rooted representation and exhibit the identity of a community that has long been involved in the creation of a more liberating view of gender and sexuality.

Bāb Sakrah al-Maut: Doktrin “Sakratulmaut” dalam Tradisi Islam di Nusantara dan Pengaruh Penghayatan-penghayatan Spiritual Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrá

Bāb Sakrah al-Maut (BSM) is a manuscript which so far has copies in various places, including: Aceh, Jakarta, Cirebon (West Java), and Sragen (Central Java). The manuscript is also written in various languages: Arabic, Javanese-Cirebon, and Malay. A study of this text is important to show that the sakratulmaut discourse which developed in the Islamic tradition on the Archipelago is an alternative discourse to the doctrine of "kalěpasan" which developed in the Śiwa-Buddhist and Islamic Javanese traditions. This study aims to: first, make a comparison to the study of Ahmad Wahyu Sudrajad who called this manuscript as a single manuscript, entitled Sakaratul Maut and written by Sheikh Imam Tabri bin Muhammad Khassan Besari in the middle of the XIX century. Second, making comparisons with the Serat Dewaruci and Fawā'iḥ al-Jamāl wa Fawātiḥ al-Jalāl texts. This was done to examine the characteristics of the sakratulmaut discourse in the BSM text and to test the opinion of Martin van Bruinessen who said that Syarif Hidayatullah had a connection with the Kubrawiah sufi order. Based on the philological and intertextual approaches, this study finds that: first, five BSM manuscripts have been found so far and it is strongly suspected that Syekh Imam Tabri was only a BSM manuscript copyist from existing manuscripts. Second, the comparison between the BSM text, the Serat Dewaruci and Fawā'iḥ al-Jamāl wa Fawātiḥ al-Jalāl text shows that the sakratulmaut discourse in the BSM text is dominated by the similarities with the occult views of Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrá. This led to the assumption that the BSM text was composed by figures in the circles of Syarif Hidayatullah (d. 1568 AD) and Syams al-Dīn al-Sumaṭrā'ī (d. 1630 AD).

Mapping intersections: A dialectical reflection on postcolonial memory in Shyam Benegal’s Trikaal (Past, Present, Future)

The article explores how Shyam Benegal’s 1985 film Trikaal (Past, Present, Future) navigates the social and psychic map of postcolonial Indian memory to reveal a pattern of persistent dualities and unlikely convergences of time, space and subjectivities. Via the domestic cosmos of a fictional Goan family, the film delves into the transitional and largely neglected phase of Goa’s decolonization from the Portuguese Empire. While situating itself in this specific moment, the film also puts forth an alternative discourse of approaching national history and the boundaries of the self. This is achieved by rerouting memory away from the high street of conventional history, utilizing the critical prism of reflective nostalgia and allowing the shadows of marginality to spill over the entirety of the narrative stage. Ultimately, we encounter a dialectical fabric of national identity dominated by unsettling intersections of past and present, home and abroad, memory and amnesia, power and oppression, romance and horror.

Cancer Narratives in Instagram: Self-presentation of Cancer Patients

Introduction. The paper aims to establish whether cancer discourse can alter when being communicated via social networks. We supposed that every platform has intrinsic characteristics which might affect the way certain topics are being delivered. Because there has been much criticism from the cancer community about the media representation, we decided to observe what might be called an alternative discourse of cancer of social networks. Therefore, we chose to review Instagram accounts of two cancer influencers, who aspire to revise existing stereotypes about people with an incurable disease.Methodology and sources. The chosen methodology includes the statistical concordance analysis, Metaphorical Identification Procedure (MIP), structural semantic and syntactic studies of two narratives organized as a minicorpus. The combined approach was employed to reveal lexical markers of both cancer discourse and Instagram narratives in the narratives of two Insta influencers Nicky Newman and Laura Hughes.Results and discussion. The results of the study suggest that Instagram narratives of cancer patients differ from other texts about cancer. Bloggers strive to maintain constant simultaneous communication with a large number of people; therefore, their texts are designed to be entertaining, involving and diverse in subject matter. When narrating about their life with the cancer diagnosis, bloggers broadcast a positive media image of a happygo-lucky person. In the narratives chosen for this study, there is hardly an example of the CANCER-WAR metaphor. The main ways of conceptualizing cancer are the CANCERCONSPIRACY, CANCER-JOURNEY, CANCER-COHABITANT metaphors.Conclusion. Quantitative analysis of the English language corpus aimed at identifying key words and concordances of the lexeme ”cancer”, does not help fully define the cancer discourse. It is necessary to further research into the obtained data. Consequently, it is necessary to take into account the genre of ”cancer” narratives.