Przemiany emocjonalności w procesie rewolucji konsumpcyjnej

Changes in Emotionality Throughout Consumer Revolution This article discusses changes in emotionality throughout the consumer revolution in urban contexts in Poland. There are two types of emotionality: emotionality imbedded in discourse of progress; and modern hedonism. Drawing upon ethnographic data, emotions towards domesticated technologies were analyzed. Discourse of progress dominates among informants from older historical generations, modern hedonism dominates among the generation of transformation. The changes in emotionality: increase in emotionality, which means more often expression of emotions and larger number and diversity in expressed emotions; expressing the emotion of desire; engaging in practices with the goal of raising emotions through these practices.

Impossible Emotions: The Ethics of Mourning and Melancholia

This paper looks at mourning and melancholia, and their ethical implications through the work of Sigmund Freud and mostly Jacques Derrida. The attempt here is to read through Derrida’s auto thanatological oeuvre through questions of fidelity, interminability, impossibility and ethics. In our perpetual struggle as scholars dealing with questions of meaning, existence, loss, life and death this paper tries to navigate the discursive traditions of looking at mourning and melancholia and what their radical potential is or can be where the mourning; melancholic; haunted; living subjects bear an impossible task unto the dead.

Fear and retrotopia – Critical reflections on the rise of defensive emotions in liquid modernity

This article critically addresses the contemporary study of what is called 'defensive emotions' such as fear and nostalgia among a number of social theorists. While it may be true that the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia (here framed by the phrase of 'retrotopia') may indeed be on the rise in Western liberal democracies, it is also important to be wary of taking the literature on the matter as a sign that fear and nostalgia actually permeate all levels of culture and everyday life. The article starts out with some reflections on the sociology of emotions and shows how the early interest in emotions (theoretical and empirical) among a small group of sociologists is today supplemented with the rise of a critical social theory using collective emotions as a lens for conducting a critical analysis of the times. Then the article in turn deals with the contemporary interest within varuious quarters of the social sciences with describing, analysing and diagnosing the rise of what is here called 'defensive emotions' – emotions that express and symbolize a society under attack and emotions that are mostly interpreted as negative signs of the times. This is followed by some reflections on the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia/retrotopia respectively. The article is concluded with a discussion of how we may understand and assess this relatively new interest in defensive emotions.

Tradycja jako element budowy tożsamości. Przypadek żołnierzy oddziałów Wojsk Specjalnych

Tradition as an Element of Identity Building. The Case of the Special Units Soldiers Modernity have any impact on military identity. It was proved that traditions of historical military formations serve as a factor that facilitates building identity of modern Special Forces soldiers. Referring to historical traditions gives them a sense of “nobility” and strengthen their “military backbone”. Tradition, however, should not be perceived with regard to history only. It’s possible to build identity effectively basing on values such as elitism or a community of extreme experiences. Invented tradition, which precipitates and facilitates building identity of the group, can also play a key role. The Individual In-depth Interview technique was used to examine seven soldiers of different generations. They served in the army during World War II, afterwards (over the communist period) and contemporarily. The last ones are experts with extensive combat and command experience. Concurrently, Polish Special Forces were characterized through the prism of identity building and their history, inherited traditions, origin of the name and symbols were described. Tradycje wojskowych formacji historycznych nadal służą jako czynnik ułatwiający budowanie tożsamości współczesnych żołnierzy. Tradycji nie należy jednak odnosić wyłącznie do historii. Można bez niej skutecznie budować tożsamość, opierając się na wartościach takich, jak elitarność czy wspólnota ekstremalnych przeżyć. Kluczową rolę może odgrywać także tradycja wytworzona, która przyspiesza i ułatwia budowę tożsamości grupy. Metodą indywidualnego wywiadu pogłębionego przebadano siedmiu żołnierzy: z okresu II wojny światowej, PRL-u oraz współczesnych (ekspertów z dużym doświadczeniem bojowym i dowódczym). Jednocześnie, przez pryzmat budowy tożsamości, dokonano charakterystyki polskich oddziałów specjalnych, opisano ich historię, dziedziczone tradycje, przeznaczenie, imię, pochodzenie nazwy, symbolikę.

Emocje w kontekście podróży literackich Andrzeja Stasiuka na Wschód: smutek, strach, nostalgia

Emotions in the Context of Andrzej Stasiuk’s Literary Journeys to the East: Sadness, Fear, Nostalgia The aim of the article is to interpret Andrzej Stasiuk's literary journeys to the East from the perspective of the sociology of emotions. Motives of the journey, the names of feelings that Stasiuk uses in his journey to the East and the emotions he assigns to the Other, as well as the manner of their expression and contextualization were examined. The imagined and experienced East is presented in relation to sadness, fear and nostalgia, which fits in the context of experiencing communism and traveling to peripheral, non-touristic places. The findings motivate treating literature as a culturally significant source of data for exploring feeling rules and emotional regimes expressed by the author and characters. Celem artykułu jest interpretacja literackich podróży na Wschód Andrzeja Stasiuka z perspektywy socjologii emocji. Refleksji poddano motywy podróży, eksplorowano nazwy uczuć, których Stasiuk używa w podróży na Wschód i emocje, które przypisuje Innemu oraz sposób ich wyrażania i kontekstualizacji. Wyobrażony oraz doświadczany Wschód jest przedstawiany w odniesieniu do smutku, strachu i nostalgii, co wpisuje się w kontekst przeżywania komunizmu oraz podróży do miejsc peryferyjnych, nieturystycznych. Wyniki badania motywują do wykorzystania literatury jako kulturowo istotnego źródła danych w odkrywaniu reguł odczuwania oraz reżimów emocjonalnych wyrażanych przez autora oraz bohaterów.

Against “Ideologies”: “Freedom” of Science at Stake in Culture Wars

The subject of this article is the analysis of selected institutional activities, including drafts of legislative initiatives and social actions that took place between 2018 and 2020 at Polish universities (and outside of them). Its goal is to define what can be expressed, who is entitled to speak within the academic realm and what can be said by an academic teacher or scientist during a public debate. These social actions and legislative initiatives are discussed in the broader context of activities of social movements having a clear ideological face (either left- or right-wing), protests against lectures, debates organised at universities that were labelled as “ideological”, as well as projects intended to promote specific visions of academic freedom along with corresponding regulations for universities.

A Scientist does not have to be Human?

We, as humans appropriated science. A scientist is associated only with a human being. It doesn't have to stay that way. Non-protein scientists may appear sooner than expected. We will be challenged soon. A new legal and ethical code will be needed, and above all, a redefinition of the concepts of science and scientist seems to be urgent to formulate. The appearance of superintelligence and machines in science will mean the need to re-evaluate its operation. Let's start noticing the law of artificial intelligence (AI), to build inclusive science with machines.

Demands and Challenges of Internationalization in the Swedish Humanities in the Era of Academic Capitalism

This article analyzes strategies and practices among Swedish Humanities scholars in relation to the demands of “internationalization” and in a framework of academic capitalism. The article is based on 30 qualitative interviews with scholars in philosophy, Romance languages and history. There are signs of cognitive dissonance, with conflicting set of norms. Benefits for the academic CV, along with a discipline’s ideals, traditions and its perceived role in society are the main context in which internationalization is understood, implemented and contested, with individual variations in international practices as e.g. international mobility, networking or publication strategies.

Pedagogical Curricula and Educational Media: The Malignancy of Saffronised Otherisation in India

Saffronisation, a neologism that is derived from the saffron robes worn in particular by holy Hindu men, is used to denote the conflation of linguistic, semiotic and political actions taken by the far-right Hindu nationalist brotherhood in India to mechanically alter Indian history so that it resonates with the rest of the Hindu nationalist propaganda and policymaking. The process of Saffronisation, when coupled with westernised pedagogical curricula, has been inculcated within and beyond the periphery of educational institutions since the early twentieth century. While education in India has remained a concentrated resource in the hands of the communities that constitute the upper castes within the social hierarchy, the exclusivity of available academic resources and intellectual capital in the hands of a selected few has come off as the result of intersectional crises that collectively act as a bridge in connecting class and caste politics. This paper explores the impact of Saffronisation as a socio-political movement on educational institutions, the changes that have been made in textbooks in the recent times and in a holistic sense, attempts to analyse the effects of a neo-Fascist governance on schooling and how it affects students hailing from backgrounds that have been marginalised for generations. It is also an exploration of the role of the saffron propaganda in enabling otherisation of non-Hindu identities in higher education institutions.