The specific characteristics of the "new Bosnian narrative" as exemplified by Karim Zaimović's short stories book Tajna džema od malina

The article is an attempt to describe the specifics of the „new Bosnian narrative” as exemplified by Karim Zaimovic’s short stories collected in the book Tajna džema od malina. The text synthetically presents the new generation of prose writers clearly referring to the heritage of the so-called „narrative Bosnia” (J. Kršić). The generation of writers contemporary to Zaimovic, which dominated the literary scene in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last decade of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century, was united by a creative motivation generated by common experiences, which was a reaction to the tragedy of the homeland war. The article briefly characterizes the „new narrative Bosnia”, highlighting the great tradition of narrative (pripovijetka) in local literature. Narrative/Short story is considered to be the most important and valued genre, which in its meaning goes far beyond purely literary boundaries – it has played and still plays an important role in the cultural, social, political and ideological context. In the text, it is shown that Zaimović’s stories, compared with (anti)war writing, are distinguished by: the way of constructing scenes that make up the story adapted from comic art, the presence of fantastic elements known from the work of „Borges writers”, as well as a characteristic, humorous style –where the author deals with the absurdity of war by the use of grotesque and satire, and describes the Sarajevo apocalypse using numerous metaphors and allegories. Even though, Zaimović’s texts cannot be treated as a model or the most representative example of “the new Bosnian narrative“, their unconventional way of presentation of the main theme as well as structural and compositional innovation have earned them an iconic status. The circumstances of the stories, and above all the fate of the young writer, made him a tragic symbol of the drama of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Television Series as Critical Theories: From Current Identitarianism to Levinas. American Crime, The Sinner, Sharp Objects, Unorthodox

Critical theory with emancipatory aims today to find a source of regeneration in ordinary cultures, and in particular, in TV series. Certain series can play a role in reinventing critical theories, drawing on the tradition of the Frankfurt School but shifting some of that School’s formulations through contact with current forms of interpretive sociology and pragmatic sociology. This requires a cross-border dialogue between the “language game” of TV series and the “knowledge game” of political theory, to use concepts inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this article, I will focus on four series: seasons 1 of American Crime (2015) and The Sinner (2017); Sharp Objects (2018); and Unorthodox (2020). The resources provided by these cultural works can help us formulate a critical decoding of important aspects of the current ideological context, in particular, the intersecting identitarian and ultra-conservative tendencies we find in France, Europe, the United States, and Brazil. These critical resources bear affinities to a political philosophy of the opening of being inspired by the ethical reflections of Emmanuel Levinas.

Markers of emotionality in Russian news coverage of the 75-th anniversary of WWII Victory

The article explores how emotionality is manifested in the news texts covering politically sensitive topics, using as the case study coverage of the 75th anniversary of WWII Victory in news programmes of the Russian TV Channel One, Russia TV and RT. Proceeding from the key theoretical assumption of medialinguistics defining media texts as an integral unity of verbal and media components, the author singles out and analyzes markers of emotionality at both - language and media levels, paying special attention to lexis and the way it is supplemented by illustrations and video footing. The analysis of the news flow is based on the information model, which allows to structure the process of news formation according to the following stages - selection of events for news coverage, interpretation of facts, shaping images, forming stereotypes and cultural-ideological context. The goal of the study was to identify markers of emotionality and analyze how emotionality affects the interpretation and the perception of facts, paying special attention to realization of the category of broadcasting style defined as the tone of voice, or tonality news media use when addressing their audience. Conceiving emotionality as both explicitly manifested and implicitly present quality, the study singles out its three types as represented in the analyzed media texts - 1) specific pretentious style, used by newsreaders and commentators to stress the dignity and solemnity of the event; 2) deliberate affectation disguised as emotionality on the part of news anchors while presenting topically sensitive news items; 3) emotionality as spontaneous display of sincere emotions observed in interviews, dispatches of correspondents and commentaries of the participants of the events. The results of the study could serve as a basis for further analysis of emotionality markers in different types of media discourse, including news, commentary and debate on politically sensitive issues in traditional media and social networks.

The Function and Context of Speaking in the Oral Tradition of the Kejhung Madura : A Sociopragmatic Study

The purpose of this study is the function of speech acts in the Madurese kejhung oral tradition and the context behind the Madurese kejhung oral tradition, which includes situation, social, culture, and ideology. This study uses a sociopragmatic approach and descriptive method. Researchers as human instruments. This research involves hermeneutic and sociopragmatic analysis methods. Hermeneutics is used to reveal the conditions of the context. This study uses data in the form of kejhung text which contains the function of speech and the context of the Madurese kejhung oral tradition in the form of rhymes. The results of the study indicate that the speech function is dominated by the directive speech function, both the advisory directive function and the inviting or wishing directive function. This shows that the function of Madurese speech is to actualize the attitude of the Madurese. The context of the kejhung madura situation is the wedding ceremony, welcoming guests, cow race, sonok cow, and rokat tase'. The social context behind daily life such as harmony and cooperation, the cultural context is the customs and way of life, while the ideological context behind the Madura kejhung is strong Islamic teaching within the Madurese community.

The Affective Dominant: Affective Crisis and Contemporary Fiction

Contemporary developments in fiction have so far primarily been interpreted as an attempt to move beyond postmodernism toward a renewed sense of realism and communication. This article suggests an alternative conceptualization and puts forward the hypothesis that contemporary fiction marks a shift toward an affective dominant. In Postmodernist Fiction (1987) Brian McHale defines the dominant as a structure that brings order and hierarchy in a diversity of techniques and motifs in a literary text. Whereas in modernism the dominant is epistemological and in postmodernism it is ontological, in contemporary literature we contend this dominant is affective. The prevailing questions are “How can I feel reality (myself, the other, the past, the present, etc.)?”; “How can I feel to belong to reality?”; and “How can I feel reality to be real?” This affective dominant manifests itself in motifs such as desire, attachment, fantasy, and identification. Formal and narrative devices that in modernist or postmodernist fiction contributed to an epistemological or ontological dominant tend to foreground questions of affectivity in contemporary fiction. Through the analysis of novels by Ben Lerner, Alejandro Zambra, and Zadie Smith this article substantiates this hypothesis. This approach allows us to study contemporary fiction both diachronically, in relation to postmodernism, and synchronically, in relation to its social and ideological context.

Legal Mobilization and the Internationalization of Anticorruption Enforcement

This article contributes a critical study of efforts to internationalize the investigation and prosecution of corruption. The efforts to internationalize anticorruption enforcement are visible, for instance, in calls for an International Anticorruption Court (IACC) or an Anticorruption Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (APUNCAC). Inspired by a historical sociological perspective, this article investigates mobilizations around these initiatives, how mobilizers frame their engagement, and the ideological context in which they operate. In particular, the article zooms in on elites and how they push for states to internationalize the investigation and prosecution of corruption. This article situates the efforts of these elites in a larger historical context and compares the push to internationalize anticorruption enforcement to earlier legal mobilizations in the field of international criminal justice focused on atrocity crimes.

ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENTS OF THE PARK ENVIRONMENT AS INDICATORS OF THE SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS’ IMPACT ON AESTHETIC PREFERENCES

The article presents outlines the importance of architectural components of the park environment as indicators of the influence of socio-cultural factors on aesthetic preferences. The study involved 60 people, ranging in age from 22 to 74 years, which were divided into two age groups of 30 people: young people - 22-34 years (mean age 23.9 years); Mature people are 46-74 years old (average age 58.9 years). The study used a free associative experiment in which respondents distributed 45 photos of park landscapes from 18 world parks into three, equal in number, groups according to their own preferences and independently determined the factors that influenced the decision to refer them to the group of attractive, neutral or unattractive landscapes. Positive influence on aesthetic preferences was found on the part of historical buildings and structures on mature respondents, together with its neutral effect on young ones. At the same time, there was a neutral attitude of a group of mature respondents to the monuments of the Soviet era and a negative one on the part of the youth. Similar is the influence of abstract sculptures on the aesthetic perception of both young and mature respondents, which is negative. However, the negative impact of these elements on the aesthetic preferences of mature respondents is more significant. Summarizing the results of studies of aesthetic preferences and factors that influence their formation, it is advisable to note the importance of architectural components, as well as the importance of their ideological context. Along with the similarity of influence on aesthetic preferences of features of park environment, differences related to sociocultural influence on the formation of aesthetic experience were revealed due to the results of the analysis of the perception of architectural components.

Government houses as presentation of power and ideology in the Ottoman State: The case of Safranbolu Government House

Architecture, which is associated with the practice of producing space, has always rendered the powers and ideologies visible. This study investigates the government houses in the 19th century Ottoman State with regard to the notions of power and ideology and focuses on the Government House of Safranbolu. It is known that, in the specified period, government houses were important ideological interventions to urban space. This study aims to address the ideological context of the Safranbolu Government House, which is positioned with the ideal of the state. Based on this, first, the urban history of Safranbolu was examined. The importance of Safranbolu Government House in the history of the city, its relationship with the city, its ideological message to the city-dwellers and its architectural style were analyzed through a method based on archival research. All government houses of the period are the artifacts of urban-spatial structures and their architectural style as well as a shared ideology. Safranbolu Government House, which is one of the structures symbolizing the Ottoman State, was also built with a similar ideological consideration. Thus, the readability of the dominant ideology through the production style of Safranbolu Government House, one of the final period architectural artifacts of the Ottoman State, was verified.