Smithing Queer Empiricism: Engaging Ethnomethodology for a Queer Social Science

Is queer social science possible? Early queer theorists disparaged empiricism as a normalizing, modernist discourse. Nonetheless, LGBTQI+ social scientists have applied queer concepts in empirical projects. Rather than seek a queer method, we ask, Is there an empirical perspective that (ontologically) envisions social relations more queerly—attending to discursive and materialist productions of reality? Dorothy Smith’s work foregrounds people’s activities of engaging texts and satisfies Black queer studies’ and new materialisms’ critiques of early queer theory. Underutilized and often misread, especially its ethnomethodological sensibilities and its vision of actors as relational, practical actors, her work shows how my race is not mine, it is ours; your sexual orientation is not yours, it is ours; their gender is not theirs, it is ours. Smith offers an ontology without essence, grand theory, or normativity, facilitating a range of queer, interpretive projects—from the intersectional to the transnational to the embodied.

The Phenomenal Side of the Operatic Performance: Implications of Promotion Strategies on Cinematic Representations of the Twenty-First Century

During the last decades, scholars have paid increasing attention to how cinema deals with traditional aesthetic values in its representation of opera. This research shows that contemporary cinema both manifests and challenges conceptions of opera anchored in romantic-modernist ideals. Recent film, however, also reveals an intriguing complexity surrounding conceptions of opera through the way in which it reflects promotion strategies of the classical music industry. This article draws attention to promotions of singers and opera music found in recent cinema that contribute to juxtapositions of different conceptions of opera. By letting operatic performances have a particular impact on fictional listeners and their ensuing actions, films associate opera with ideals belonging to a romantic-modernist discourse. However, they let this impact emanate from a way of performing opera that stands in contradiction to these same ideals. Discussing some central scenes from three recent films, I argue that the films’ displays of singers and opera music in this way remodels romantic-modernist discourses.

Abortion Laws in Muslim Countries: Modern Reconfiguration of Pre-modern Logic

In most countries where Islam is acknowledged as a, or the, source of legislation, abortion is permitted under certain conditions and at certain stages of pregnancy. This article examines some of these laws and argue that they represent a continuation of the logic that governed the views of pre-modern Muslim jurists on abortion, that is, harm aversion. However, these laws also add a ‘modernist’ twist to that logic – rather than repealing that logic altogether, modernist views on ‘rights’ and the advancement of medical knowledge and technology have influenced the priorities of Muslim jurists and lawmakers as far as abortion and the issues associated with it are concerned. This influence has furthermore been possible by a conscious selection and blending of pre-modern views to serve modern concerns. In all this, however, harm aversion remains the centrifugal principle, even when the abortion discourse in Muslim countries appears couched in the modernist discourse of rights.

The Influence of Modernist Discourse on Lower Class Women between the West and The East: A Comparative Study

This study is intended to show how the impact of discourse of modernism has made remarkable changes in women’s status in patriarchal societies in the first decades if the twentieth century. Comparatively reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and Naguib Mahfouz’s Zuqāq al-Midaq (1947) [Midaq Alley (1966)], this paper endeavours to contrast and compare women’s status both in the western and eastern societies after the two world wars; as women’s struggle against patriarchy and its oppressive practices imposed on women was one of the most critical concerns of the time. The American school of comparative literature, particularly the theories put forward by Rene Wellek and Abda Abood, along with Western and Eastern feminist theories of Simone De Beauvoir’s, Christine Delphy, Nawal El Saadawi and Qasim Amin are employed as the theoretical framework of this paper. The observation to emerge from this paper is that women’s social and economic status has been vital to their perpetual oppression.

THE ISSUE OF CONTEMPORANEITY AS CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL TOTALITY IN THE WORKS OF BORIS GROYS

The authors refer the issue of definition of contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality basing on the research results of a well-known theorist Boris Groys. Analyzing the progress of his ideas, the authors conclude, that the philosopher’s considerable contribution to the science is composed of the next phase of the development of the thesis about the art language as the base of contemporaneity construction and of the “natural selection” of contemporary art structures. The latter is not simply reduced to the postmodern “polylogue” variant, but implies a kind of contemporaneity patterns niche and “stabilization”. The patterns naturally tend to become complementary due to simple juxtaposition/ overlay in general time context. According to the authors, this circumstance does not prevent them from being turned by different political forces into locally dominating contemporaneity patterns (as in the case of Gesamkunstwerk Stalin). Contemporary art provides simple experience, that helps to retain the illusion of single and seemingly total contemporaneity. B. Groys leads us to the thought that art provides conditions for generating a significant reflective distance in relation to different social and historical situations. The distance gives an artist the opportunity to consider the reality comprehensively, given the autonomy, through the art language. However, we believe, that the most important philosopher’s achievement is not only drawing parallels between cultural and social and historical processes, based on the concept of art strategies influencing the social dynamics. He also managed to approach one of the most significant issues in culture theory and history – the opportunity to define contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality. According to his modernity theory, the origin of contemporaneity is hidden in the avant-garde art manifestation. He interprets the utopic by its nature modernist discourse, applied in art practice, through Nietzscheian will to power as redefining the new age philosophy. This article aims to analyze the progress of the issue of contemporaneity in the works of B. Groys and to explicate the complexity of considering contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality. The authors believe that the thorough study of the phenomenon of total artwork (Gesamtkunstwerk) as a soviet Stalin project and critics’ opinion analysis helps to create arguments limiting the opportunity of considering contemporaneity as totality.

DISCOURSE OF MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM IN THE THEORIES OF J. HABERMAS

The purpose of this article is to study how the famous German philosopher Jurgen Habermas builds his neo-modernist discourse in close relation to the key concepts of postmodernism: the subject and its social role, a postmodern view of history. Habermas in his works describes the acute discussions that exist in modern philosophy and political science about whether today's society continues to belong to the Modern era, and how close to reality are the considerations that it is already living in post-modernity – postmodernism due to fundamental transformations.

Science Education in Post-Truth Age: Metaphysical Reflections from Bruno Latour’s Science Studies

The term post truth was chosen as the word of the year by the Oxford dictionary in 2016. Today we see the proliferation of the term fake news as well as the dissemination of alternative views to science, such as “flat Earth”, integrative therapies, and anthropogenic global warming denial. Usually, postmodernism is blamed for subsidizing such movements theoretically. In the present article, we defend the thesis that both, the official discourse of science (modernist discourse) and its main criticisms (including postmodernism) seem to be propositions that sustain the contemporary scenarios of production and proliferation of post-truths. From Bruno Latour’s Science Studies, we reflect on the metaphysical basis of such perspectives and present an explanation to the formation of the “post-truth” through two different mechanisms, i.e, the presentation of a reduced vision of nature of science and the erasure of the network that sustains scientific propositions. We also defend that Science Education can adopt an alternative metaphysical basis, developed by Latour and collaborators in dialogue with different philosophical and sociological currents, contributing to the formation of citizens able to have a critical position in the contemporary socioscientific scenario.

On Historicity of the Najran Deputation: Analyzing Legends on Its Composition

The article continues the analysis of the dominant doctrine in the traditional political and legal theology concerning jizya as a tribute from Non- Muslims, established by the Prophet Muhammad. The factual basis of this doctrine was discussed in relation to three paradigmatic precedents, which are usually referred to in support of it: the treatise of the Prophet with the Christians of the city of Najran; with the Jews and Christians during the Tabuk campaign; with the Majus- Zoroastrians of Bahrain. Having discussed in the previous essay the question of the authenticity of Islamic narrative on Najran deputation, from the formal hadithological point of view (i. e., in the aspect of isnad), the author proceeds here to consider these traditions in a substantial way. The study is conducted in line with the Reformist Modernist discourse.

Jizya as a Post-Prophetic Institution: Hadithological Analysis of the Traditions of the Contract with the Christians of Najran

The article is the first part of a study of the factual validity of the doctrine of jizya, which is dominant in traditional political theology, as a tribute from Non-Muslims, established by the Prophet Muhammad. Challenging the authenticity of the traditions underlying this teaching, the author begins by discussing the main paradigmatic precedent — the agreement of the Prophet with the Christians of the city of Najran. This part is devoted to the analysis of relevant traditions in the light of the classical formal hadithological methodology, which focuses on the degree of reliability of isnad (chain of transmitters); the content of these traditions will be the subject of the next part. The study is conducted in line with the Reformist Modernist discourse, focusing on the disclosure of the truly humanistic spirit of prophetic Islam and the pacifist-pluralistic attitude of the Qur’anic message.