![The Political Lives of Dead Populists in Post-socialist Slovakia](/api/image/getbookcoverimage?id=document_cover-page-image_424955.jpg)
Keywords: impact analysis;banking sector;Hungary
More...Keywords: matrifocal narratives; matricentric feminism; writing as re-vision
The aim of this article is to analyze complex and often difficult links between feminism and motherhood. The leading theme is feminist writing, seen as a catalyst of a matricentric turn at the beginning of the 21th century culture, as well as a theoretical frame for developing motherhood studies. I am particulary interested in the influence of feminist research (A. Rich, E. Badinter, A. O’Reilly, M. Hirsch, representatives of écriture féminine and the ethics of care) on re-vision of cultural script of motherhood and maternal values represented by current maternal narratives in Poland and in the world. However, the problem of maternal experience representation and symbolic (often real) violence toward mothers still exists, despite many positive changes within maternal discourse (see works by O. Donath, J. Stephens).
More...Keywords: African-American women; Viola Davis; How To Get Away With Murder; black feminism; intersectionality
Drawing from intersectionality theories and black feminist critiques of white, masculinist, and racist discourses still prevailing in American popular culture of the 21st century, this chapter looks critically at contemporary images of African-American women in the selected television series. For at least four decades critics of American popular culture have been pointing to, on the one hand, dominant stereotypes of African-American women (the co-called controlling images, to use the expression coined by Patricia Hill Collins) resulting from slavery, racial segregation, white racism and sexism as well as, on the other hand, to significant marginalization or invisibility of black women in mainstream film and television productions. In this context, this chapter will analyze several contemporary television shows that cast African-American women as leading characters (e.g., Scandal, 2012–date and How To Get Away With Murder, 2014–2018) to see if these narratives are novel in portraying black women’s experiences or, rather, they inscribe themselves in assimilationist and postracial ways of representation.
More...Keywords: communion; forgiveness
Starting from one of Emanuil Gojdu’s affirmation, our paper tries to point out our humanity’s chronic need for communion by avoiding the false intercultural dialogue which is, in fact, a monologue of the one who, temporarily, holds a bit of power in this world which seems to be set on the way to self-destruction. In order to reach this noble goal, we are invoking inspiration, trying to ask – as Parsifal did – the right question, because its necessity and stringency are obvious nowadays. Thus, we are building our foundation on Paul Ricœur’s insights into the Golden Rule, trying to underline the way in which Europe’s actual problems could be mediated and solved through translation. We are also using Mihai Șora’s vision of the communication purpose’s fulfilment through true dialogue, which is communion.
More...Keywords: regional identity; regionalism; recessivity; secondary; parergon;
The paper analyses the issue of regional identity from an interdisciplinary point of view as it exploits concepts of various research fields, among which there are philosophy, culturology, literary criticism, and art history. Thus, conveying a better understanding of the notion of “regional identity” and the phenomenon of regionalism, we shall reinterpret and adapt concepts such as recessivity, secondary, threshold, and parergon. During our analysis, we shall take into account the tight relations which link regional identity to national identity and regionalism to nationalism.
More...Keywords: Serbian municipalities in Kosovo; association of Serb municipalities; Serbs and Kosovars; Prishtina-Belgrade-Dialogue; Brussel-dialogue;
The Agreement on the Association/Community of Serb Majority Municipalities marks the cornerstone of discord of the EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. The General Principles for the establishment of the Association/Community, agreed in August 2015, brought more controversy and caused an unprecedented crisis in Kosovo. Proponents championed it as a tool to integrate northern Kosovo Serbs into Kosovo jurisdiction and advance normalisation of relations between the two states. Yet, the Association has become a complicated matter in practice. Many segments of Kosovo society reject an Association of this kind, the Constitutional Court ruled it to be in violation of the spirit of the Constitution and the government is largely reluctant to implement it until Serbia presents clear plans for withdrawal of the parallel institutions it funds around Kosovo. Kosovo Serbs view an Association from a very practical point of view: a reward instrument for painful integration into Kosovo and a replacement for departing Serbian-funded institutions. Serbs fear the Albanian reactions seen over the last 24 months, feel unwanted in Kosovo and worry that Belgrade will abandon them soon. The Serb community - the party most affected by the dialogue and least included in it - wants the dialogue on normalisation to continue, want the coalition agreement to be adhered to and want a smooth transition from the Serbian to Kosovar system.
More...Keywords: post-communist literature; intersectional feminism; identity crises; national and sexual minorities; multiculturality in Transylvania;
In Alina Nelega’s novel ca şi cum nimic nu s-ar fi întâmplat [as if nothing had happened], the action takes place in the last decade of the communist dictatorship in Romania. It can be read as an intersectional feminist novel since it presents the institutional oppression from the perspective of sexual and national minorities and marginalized communities, offering a voice to silenced stories and processing an era defined by conflicts and historical changes. This paper discusses the crises experienced and witnessed by the characters both on a personal and a collective level. These crises surge in the first place when the main characters, two lesbian women, struggle to affirm their individual identity. They must face a deep internal conflict because of sexism and (internalized) homophobia, seeking different survival strategies. The whole community is defined by a culture of silence and violence, which provokes cracks in the family models and in the smaller communities. The state’s authority forces uniformization in the name of equality, wherefore multiculturality in Transylvania becomes a mere appearance, hiding the crises in the communication between different groups and the lack of knowledge about other cultures. The state itself faces a crisis, culminating in the 1989 revolution mentioned at the end of the novel – leaving the reader with the doubt if this event, seen as a major historical turning point, has really transgressed the crises, or they are still present in our community. Alina Nelega’s novel creates a subversive discourse, rethinking gender roles and family models, and deconstructing various stereotypes that still influence our personal and public communication.
More...Keywords: BiH; public procurement; E-procurement system; analysis;
Development of new technologies and growing access to the Internet created conditions for the transformation of the manner in which public government functions. That resulted in the implementation of electronic government (hereinafter: e-government), which is based on the utilisation of information-communication technologies for better and more efficient provision of public services. Used in a wider sense, the term e-government implies total reorganisation of management in the public sector in order to increase efficiency, transparency and citizens’ participation in decision-making, using the advantages of information-communication technologies. An important segment of development of e-government is the establishment of an electronic public procurement system, which is used as a tool for the improvement of the efficiency of the procurement process for goods, services and works, and for savings in the public sector. Electronic procurement (hereinafter: e-procurement) is the universal name for the application of electronic means of communication in public procurement procedures, as a substitute for procedures that are based on paper documents. More concretely, e-procurement implies the introduction of electronic processes as support for different phases of the procurement process, and they are comprised of following modules: l e-notification, which implies notifications on procurements, l e-tendering, which implies publication and takeover of tender documentation, submission and evaluation of bids and documentation, e-awarding, which incorporates contract awarding or ordering, invoicing and payment. Along with the modules, e-procurement is complemented with different mechanisms and tools. One of them is the e-catalogue, which implies an electronic form of the bid for certain types of procedures. E-auction is a mechanism used for completing the procedure of e-procurement (an open, limited, negotiation procedure with publication of procurement notification and competitive request for bid submission). E-procurement is not just an important segment of e-government reform within the European Union, but its development and level of compliance are also subject to monitoring and evaluation report on the progress of the transition of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) towards membership in the EU. In the BiH Progress Report for 2015, it is emphasised that the information system for e-procurement was put into function in late 2014 but that it is still in the very early stages of development. This early phase implies that conditions for application of e-notification are realised, since notifications on procurement referred to in Article 35 of the Law on Public Procurement are published on a single portal for public procurement (www.ejn.gov.ba/), and also that a basis for development of e-tendering was created in a manner that electronic access to tender documentation is enabled for certain procurements. However, there still remains a lot to be implemented in order for BiH to have a fully functional system of e-procurement. Starting from the above, the main purpose of the paper is to give a systematic analysis of the current level of development of electronic public procurement in BiH. The aim of the study is to provide an answer to the questions, what challenges are there in the development of e-procurement in BiH and what improvement is possible in this field so the system of e-procurement will completely take hold. Finally, the objective of the analysis is to offer a detailed overview of the key aspects of the e-procurement system and thus create a basis for progress monitoring in the sector and define clear guidelines for improving the functionality of the e-procurement system in BiH. In order to provide answers to research questions and make an assessment of the level of development of the e-procurement system in BiH, this report relies on analytical categories and standards for assessment of e-procurement development from the study “e-Procurement, Golden Book of Good Practice”, which, among other things, defines a series of parameters for public procurement system assessment and points out numerous good practices in European Union Member States. In this context, the structure of the paper will consist of an overview of the situation of e-procurement in the European Union, with presentation of legal sources, the current state of development and challenges faced by the European Union in this area. After that, the paper will present a development path for e-procurement and the current legal and institutional framework in BiH. Later on, the study analyzes the degree to which the e-procurement system corresponds to the principles and standards of good practice identified in “e-Procurement: The Golden Book of Good Practice”. After comparison, the study yields conclusions and recommendations for further development of e-procurement in BiH.
More...Keywords: Anna Horáková-Gašparíková; T. G. Masaryk; Czechoslovakia; review;
The aim of the paper is to analyse the reactions as well as responses of that time to the publications of Anna Horáková-Gašparíková. This especially concerns the works which impressed the Czechoslovak scientific community the most, including her rigorous thesis called “Povstanie Rákocziho a Slovania”, a historical monograph titled “Tisícročné Slovensko” and diaries published in book form called “U Masarykovcov. Spomienky osobnej archivárky T. G.Masaryka”. The publication of the long-awaited diary in the 1990s sparked a number of responses and dozens of reviews were published by well-known historians as well as less known authors who felt the need to respond. In the paper, we are more specifically dealing with what the authors criticized Anna Horáková- -Gašparíková for and to what extent there were author’s unintentional mistakes resulting from her position as the archivist of the President of Czechoslovakia as well as her devotion to the idea of Czechoslovakism. Most authors appreciated the historical and social significance of author’s work, despite the shortcomings they reproach her for. The monograph called “Tisícročné Slovensko” received strong criticism and many consider this work to be an unsuccessful attempt to write about our history.
More...Keywords: Fine Arts; the Moravian region of Slovácko; the idea of Slavonic reciprocity; Moravian-Slovak cultural relations;
The Association of Moravian Visual Artists (SVUM) based in Hodonín became one of the most important cultural groupings after the establishment of the independent Czechoslovak state in the first decades of the 20th century. The active association with the idea of Moravianship of the creators emerged from the 1890s around the painter Joža Uprka, who called for the emancipation of Moravian artistic life as an alternative to European modernism. The „Association“ gradually developed into an art institution, using the traditions of Moravian Slovácko and forming an ideological platform of the late Moravian cultural revival.
More...Keywords: Orthodox Church; change; theology; Romanian history; Church history; communism; secularisation;
Pre present context views the Church as a construct of human mind, promoting religiosity and a certain ritual (mostly needed by the people with no reference to a living God) whose main role is to provide social services in a given society, or, in a more plastic exposure, "the club of Christ". And this is in general accurate given that she passed through history making use of the same means and instruments of any human organisation. Her transcendent dimension was entrusted to the mystical minds and liturgists who defined her as a boat of salvation and the foretasting of the Kingdom. Is such an institution subject to change? If yes, what can be changed and when, in what extent and for what length? The study aims at a few attempts to accept change as a form of subsistence. The faithful have their own expectations from the main Church, the experiences of the Romanian Church members abroad bring new challenges facing this conservative institution. One cannot speak of real change, but rather an adaptation to the new context where the mythical approach of religion leaves more room for the rational approach and even to the pluralistic one. This is presented as the normal evolution of the future religion which expects to be more spiritual than institutional, in line with the new discoveries of neuroscience, evolution and hard sciences, towards an integral (even super-integral) approach.
More...Keywords: New Historicism; Hayden White; Stephen Greenblatt; Slovak literature; Ladislav Ballek;
The paper, New Historicism in the Slovak Literary Context, aims to characterize literary movements and map significant personalities and studies that contributed to the new cultural orientation in literary scholarship. In the late 60s and early 70s, Slovak writers used their works to respond to the transformations in the Slovak society and culture. The main goal of this paper is to characterize New Historicism and to provide an interpretation of ‘Cycle of Palánkʼ by Ladislav Ballek that explores human stories at a particular time and place.
More...Keywords: Tesla T58 Transistor Radio Receiver; Pocket radio; music;
Ve svém příspěvku se chci věnovat dvěma hlavním otázkám: 1) čím je tranzistorové rádio z řady Tesla T58 z technického, výtvarného a kulturního hlediska a 2) čím ze svojí povahy mohlo být toto přenosné tranzistorové rádio v době a prostředí svého vzniku, tedy v období od poloviny padesátých do poloviny šedesátých let v socialistickém Československu.
More...Keywords: Disney animations; Fatum; Greek mythology; hope; redemption; Underworld
"Once Upon a Time" (2011–2018), a seven-season-long television series inspired by fairy tales, especially those from the Disney library, includes ten episodes that dig deeper into the past, reaching the world of Greek mythology, also in its Disneyan variety. Heroes and villains armed with hope struggle for a better future against their destiny and longstanding stereotyped image. The motif of fate – less as an implacable and unavoidable Fatum, and more as the uplifting sense of destiny – is accompanied by the concept of hope, essential for maintaining the interest and viewing pleasure of young audiences.
More...Keywords: Kadın; toplumsal cinsiyet; feminist coğrafya; mekân; Women; gender; feminist geography; space
The feminist theory essentially stands against the subordination of women vis-à-vis men, acknowledging that the lives of women and men, be it in the social, economic, political, or cultural sense, are shaped by the roles traditionally attributed to men and women and their distinct placements, positions, pursuits, etc. in society. Against this backdrop, the women’s movement, owing to its historically dynamic developments in scope and content, has urged authors to examine some long-neglected issues from the gender perspective. Among them is geography, which has been a topic of study for feminist theorists, researchers, and writers since the 1970s especially along with the advent of second-wave feminism. Owing to this background, building on the gender perspective to position women as the primary subject in geography has become a current, albeit long-hidden, pursuit in social sciences. In this context, criticisms of the classical restriction of women to certain spaces within the framework of the separation of public and private spaces have added visibility to discussions concerning the genders of geographies or spaces. The dynamic nature of geography in general and of spaces more specifically also points to how space and gender interact, shape, and transform each other. In fact, all interactions that guide women’s daily lives including actions, pursuits of existence, etc., happen within the confines of space and perceptions of such spaces also shape the role of women in society.
More...Keywords: para-text; metaphor; history of the Polish language; history of law; sources for the history of law in Poland
The observation of scientific texts from the nineteenth century, devoted to the history of Poland and the Polish language, presents a tendency to use various manners of rhetorical provenance to create a message with a specific cognitive value, persuasive power and axiological character. Interest in this phenomenon is related to reflection on the scientific language of history and the paradigm of cognitive objectivity as well as the concept of linguistic distance. The use of various figurative transformations: metaphors, metonymies, hyperbolas, comparisons and metaphorical epithets in the works of historians in the 19th century turns out to be particularly puzzling. The publication of “Starodawnych prawa polskiego pomników” (from 1865, 1870) by Antoni Zygmunt Helcel was used as illustrative material. The legal historian expressed the content related to the discipline of knowledge he practiced, the research material as well as the methods and cognitive strategy of the researcher with suggestive, expressive tropes. They are proof of the erudition of the author who knows how to use the rich resource of elocutionary linguistic procedures. They also testify to the manner of expressing content adopted in a particular communicative community. The exploitation of tropes in a 19th-century scientific text does not contradict the postulated logic of inference and research intuition. As a result, an image of the nineteenth-century scientific discourse in the history of law is created in which the author does not avoid expressing his views clearly, unambiguous and expressive criticism, pictorial presentation of concepts and problems, and metaphorical determination of historiosophical foundations and historical ideas. At the same time, he declares and adopts the attitude of impartiality and objectivity.
More...Keywords: theory (of literature); reading; Esslin; Ionesco; discourse (text); threshold;
This research tries to propose a different attempt to approach the writings of and the critique discourse on Eugène Ionesco. The basic guidelines consist of the means of reflecting derived from what could still be named theory of literature. The possibilities of questioning the functioning of literature and of literary criticism are, in principle, rendered visible and intelligible by the domain of theory. It is in this sense that we consider theory as a central threshold before the text, since theory comes before practice or, in other words, theories regulate the reading of a text. The text is preceded by the conventions of reading and by horizons of the reader. But theoretical discourse represents a chance to contribute to their exposure and it helps to question how the text is made (constrained) to signify. After sketching the theoretical sphere, we test certain hypotheses starting from the prefaces and the introduction to the English and French editions of “The Theater of the Absurd”. Moreover, we choose a short text included in “Présent passé, passé present” in order to illustrate a theoretical reading. Thus we bring to light a configuration of theoretical means related to the practices of the critique and literary discourses.
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