This paper was part of the special feature panel of the Provocation as Art conference (Cluj 28-29 May2015), dedicated to the philosophy and aesthetics of Lars von Trier’s cinema, with a special interest in the so called Depression Trilogy (Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac). The initial purpose of this paper was to discuss theirreverent nature the Dutch director’s cinema and the consequences of censorship on cinematic contents. Yet the mainargument shifts, when it becomes obvious that the various obstructions imposed on the creative spirit of movie directorshave created a type of moviemaking which can be described as a “pure cinema”. This kind of cinema is the main objectof criticism practiced by filmmakers who challenged the limits of the “morally acceptable”, such as Lars von Trier. Their reactions to the “pure cinematic” generated a movement this author identifies as “impure cinema”. The final contention of the paper is that, in the contexts of a highly censored environments, where politically correct contexts are hypocritically imposed and a consumer society is developed, where audiences are passive, the only possible path free thinking and artistic creativity can follow is the path of impurity.
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Lars von Trier’s exploration of pornography as a cinematic language Nymph()maniac (2013, 2014) culminates his long-term fascination with the Marquis de Sade. This paper argues that, as in Sade, the film’s real provocation lies not in eroticism but in its discourse of excess, its desire or compulsion “to say everything.” A Gargantuan hybrid, a cross between cinema, novel, encyclopedia, and treatise, the film resembles anatomy, a genre favored by Sade’s greatest (and lengthiest) hits, as the heroine’s narrative/libidinal drive is matched by the abstruse digressions of her interlocutor. In Volume I, the body is dissected and reduced to its anatomical and functional materiality; Volume II, however, shifts to overt sadomasochism staged as melodrama whose affect is as typical of von Trier as it is different from Sade, bewildering, disturbing, and/or enraging even the most favorably disposed audiences.
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Rather than shocking images in the forest, this paper attempts to analyse the shocking images of the forest in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009) and the role of space in creating an affection-image. In this film, von Trier seems to have reached a culmination of his aesthetics of sensation in the way Gilles Deleuze understands it. In contact with the spectator, as Deleuze suggests, the art should function as a force, intensity, as a sensation, that way addresing the nervous system rather than the brain. The French philosopher compared film image to canvas paintings that can communicate directly the vibration and resonance created by the movement. In Antichrist, von Trier painted the sensation of the forest on his film canvas, making it a legitimite character of the film. Instead of being just a backdrop, von Trier’s forest steps forward, occupying most of the screen space, but also overruning the two main characters of the film. Foreground and background therefore blend together, causing the shocking actions of the characters to be precieved mainly as an integral part of the overall horrific atmosphere, not carrying the value of shock on their own
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The aesthetics and poetics of Lars von Trier constantly provoke the audience. His movies are shifting the limits in visual arts and very often communicate with the audience through the effects of shock, whether targeted to aesthetic or moral values.In Dogville, Lars von Trier synthesizes formal elements of the movie and Brecht’s theory of the epic theatre. Destroying the existing aesthetic and visual canons, von Trier enables the spectator to experience new level of content reception.Through the experience of Grace, the main character, von Trier is pointing to the experience of man in today’s society. Grace points out the imperfections of the society, and therefore puts herself in the position of the victim of the subjective and objective violence (symbolical and systemic). Žižek says that opposing to all forms of violence – from physical (mass murder, terror) to ideological violence (racism, purring the violence, sexual discrimination) – is the main preoccupation of the dominant “tolerant liberal world view”. Focusing on the obvious violence you miss to notice objective violence, the one which is part of the society. Grace was an object of both subjective and objective violence without opposing, desiring to fit into the society which, paradoxically, had no grace for her.Von Trier provokes Dogville inhabitants through the character of good, hardworking and obedient Grace, and he destroys the ideal picture they had of themselves. Grace becomes their mirror of reality. In the character of Grace, this closed society gets the role of the Other (Lacan) and uses it as a mirror, to see itself.Using the relation between power and violence, von Trier points out to the imperfections and shallowness of the society which is relating to what we today call political correctness. The movie itself is von Trier’s provocation of the society and a call for rewieving the limits of the social and political correctness.
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The interaction between humor and gender provides a wide variety of possible directions of research.In the context of antihermeneutics psychoanalisis, materiality and meaning in Foucault terms are becoming porous and plastic realities. Sexuality as an “enigmatic signifier” (Jean Laplanche) renders playful, romantic, or dirty, scatological traits to comedy. From the discursive sexuality (Foucault) to the sexuality and the lack of sense (Lacan), different codes of erotism and comic effects are juxtapossed to different comedy subgenres. The standard “boy meets girl narrative” (Mc Donald, 2007) invites the public into a love triangle that involves the lovers and the public itself as a participant to the sensuality and comedy all together. The viewer could experience the humor of the unconscious materialized in jokes (Freud) as well as the visual sensual experience of sex scenes and their emergence in the plot.The objective of the paper is to observe what are the effects of this hetero-temporality for the assignments and explorations in/ of contemporary comedy.This paper will analyze different codes of erotism and comic effects designated as clichés or as controversial aspects, analyzing two American comedies Friends with Benefits (2011) and Don Jon (2013) (and their consequential developments in the movie genre). Another objective of the analysis is to analyze and depict male and female character’s constructions and behavior.
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In this paper, the attention was paid to the disturbing images representing aggressive and violent behavior in the movies awarded with the European Film Award. Among the winners of the EFA awards (1988-2014) is a greater number of representations of violent behavior and death, in various forms. Whether it is about the murder, self-punishment or legitimately imposed penalty, the representation of violence as an act of punishment, lethal, is in the focus of many European filmmakers – from Kieslowski, Amelio, fon Trier, Polanski, Haneke to Pawlikovski and others. The causes should be sought in turbulent times and events that have marked Europe in recent decades. Using the examples of European award-winning films, the paper deals with the phenomenon of violence and is representation on cinema, as an individual act but also as an act in which the State punishes the perpetrators, imposing the maximum sentence. Special emphasis was given to the two films that deal with violent deaths and result with death sentences handed down by the law as formal way of violent act: A short film about Killing by K. Kieslowski (1988) and Open Doors by G.Amelio (1991). It points also to the ethical-philosophical question of prescribing the death sentence. The violence is in function of deterrent and represents a method of social impact, as anticipatory but also as a corrective factor.
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Keywords: Bulgarian Turks; Vienna; Bulgaria;
The paper outlines the dimensions of the Bulgarian migration in Vienna, Austria after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the legal situation for the migrants in Austria. It focuses on the problem of undocumented migration and explores one specific group: the group of the undocumented Bulgarian Turks working and living in Vienna.The aim of the paper is to emphasize the outcome and consequences for the individual migrant living on the “undocumented” side of society and their strategies for survival living in perpetual risk of being caught by the police and forced to leave the host country. Based on a number of interviews with a young Bulgarian of Turkish origin, employed by two Austrians of Turkish origin, on data gathered during my work as a legal counselor at the Viennese Fund of Integration and on some fieldwork on three Viennese markets, the following aspects of migration are subject of discussion: transfer of working and behaviour models from the home country to the host country; perception of the own status as an undocumented migrant and motivation for staying in Austria; support networks; family and emotional connections to Bulgaria; basic rights and their enforcement in the home and host country; expectations and future perspectives in Austria and possibilities for acquiring the “documented” status and being granted work and stay permit. The paper argues that the specific group of the undocumented Bulgarian Turks in Vienna develop certain strategies that do not differ drastically from other comparative groups (e.g. the group of undocumented Bulgarians in Vienna), but they preserve certain models of behaviour and tend to live more isolated among themselves. Although they realize that their chances for legal integration in Austria are minimal, they still dream of life in the host country.
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Keywords: Socialist period;travel writing; Western European states;USA;Japan;
The paper attempts to grasp the multifaceted image of the West emerging from the travel writing of Bulgarians who went abroad during the socialist period. The analysed travelogues were officially published and followed from visits to Western European states, as well as the USA and Japan. They show that the vision of the West has not been a coherent and static construct throughout the socialist regime, with a significant transformation becoming palpable in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The censoring, self-censoring and stringent control of travelogues made them serve as manuals disciplining vision, as “safe texts” containing a “correct”, socialist-friendly version of a Western society that could freely be offered to socialist readers. Through travelogues, a very strong attempt - and an efficient one - was made to channel visitors’ impressions of the developed West and to guide, direct and focus their perceptions. In this specific context, Bulgarian travelers moved to the West yet had to remain unaffected by capitalist ideas. Certain segments of Western culture were useful and desirable, while others needed to be isolated and their transmission to the socialist homeland blocked and stopped altogether. The mobility of bodies and the stability of ideas contributed to a particular way of seeing and describing the West that helps reconsider notions such as social privilege, power, compliance and resistance in a socialist regime.
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Keywords: citizenship;Turkey; EU;
The problems faced in Turkey related with citizenship have deep roots in the early Republican period. During this period of nation building, citizenship and national identity were inseparable. Thus, the understanding of citizenship the Kemalist regime aspired for and constructed was republican emphasizing the state and the citizen’s duties towards the state. This understanding was well established and almost unquestioned by the state. However, as Turkey faced problems related with identity claims and attempted to join the EU new problems emerged. Today Turkey is trying to meet the requirements of EU stated in the Copenhagen Criteria. This paper aims to analyze this process, investigating the transformation in citizenship understanding, if any. In doing so, the process of legal amendments and changes, the preparations for, their enactment and reflections in the society will be analyzed. The underlying question is whether there is a shift towards a more liberal understanding while liberalizing the laws related with citizenship. The paper will especially focus on the Justice and Development Party government and their views. The argument is that even though the legal procedures seem to be liberalized, the process of change in Turkey is far from exercising a liberal understanding of citizenship that values citizens as individuals and safeguards their rights against the state.
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Keywords: Transylvania; culture;identity;
From the perspective of cultural studies, Transylvania as a region, appears in different narratives as a constellation of symbolic geography and collective identities where culture and history shape each other and the representatives of different ethnic groups bound by their “imagined communities” and “invented traditions” are also rooted - at a deeper level in more “primordial” patterns of identities, myths beliefs, cultural fantasies.One of the key questions that the current paper raises is that to what extend can artists and different works of art belonging to the Hungarian literature or fine arts in Transylvania successfully meet all those challenges that faces them while in one hand they are expected to assume the role of being the key promoters of nation building and at the same time to correspond to those expectations of complex systems of values which are universally valid irrespective of geographical location or national belonging.
More...Keywords: Mental illness; stigma; marginalization; citizen; family; resilience
This paper is based on the observation that some certainties in care and rehabilitation of mentally ill people have not been and are not yet sufficiently guaranteed; furthermore discrimination and inequalities are generated by a certain kind of science and politics. So we conducted a study at a Diagnosis and Care Psychiatric Service (DCPS) located in the South of Italy. We have observed and stated that some inequalities in care are redressed when dramatic situations must be coped with, so that the more the situation is dramatic, the more inequalities will be prevented. At the same time we have observed that in relation to some phenomena and etiologies, unlike others, inequalities in treatment do persist. Therefore we have worked out and developed a possible model to redress the imbalance, by drastically redesigning the agreements among public, private, para-private and social private services by means of innovative systems targeted to users and their families, rather than to facilities.
More...Keywords: Food and Agriculture; fiscal policy; Multisectoral extended model; SAM
The Al-Ghab region in Syria is considered the typical resource rich poor area in a developing country. The possibility of activating economic growth goes through diversification in output, in order to stimulate the value added generation, and reduction of social and economic disparities between female and male labour employment. In this way also the problem of food insecurity is effectively addressed given its strong connection with the poverty level of households. The most suitable tool of analysis for addressing this complex target is provided by an extended multi-sector model developed on the basis of the SAM for the area of interest. In this paper, we develop a SAM for the Al-Ghab region and quantify the effects of selected policy scenarios in terms of economic diversification, female labour efficiency and food nutrition security for the Al-Ghab region. This is done in order to identify the pillars of economic growth of the area.
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Keywords: linguistic sign;Saussure;Derrida;anthropology;social sciences;
The paper presents some of the consequences of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign - first presented almost a century ago by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). The distinctions that he made are compared to the ones by another very influential figure of the past century, French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). It is argued that this notion of the arbitrariness has significant consequences for anthropology and the social and human sciences in general, as it forms a firm foundation for questioning of the dominant narratives. It is also argued that the scholars from the “developing countries” can successfully employ this strategy in getting their voices and their opinions present in the international scholarship.
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Keywords: Bulgaria; cities; towns; postsocialist transition;local development;
The article presents some of the concluding observations of an investigation conducted in several Bulgarian cities and towns and exploring the effects of postsocialist transition on urban development. More particularly, this presentation focuses at the relationship between culture and the projects for local development. It argues about the necessity that local authorities regard culture as resource and undertake concrete measures to apply this idea into practice.
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Keywords: Greek police;social life;political life;citizen;
The article discusses the development of the educational strategy in Athens during the 5-4th century B.C. in the changing social, political and cultural life in the ancient Greek police. The central function of political organisation in the police culture has considerably changed its significance during the period of interest and this has led to re-definition of the social responsibility of the citizens. An illustration of this shifts gives Isocrates conception of the role and meaning of civic education, which basic components are outlined in the article.
More...Keywords: health status of a population; life expectancy; healthy life expectancy
The aim of this paper is to discuss the definition and the measurement of the population health concept, as well as the extent to which this measurement follows the rules of scientific measurement. This paper, based on scientific literature, constitutes an attempt to establish an operational definition for this concept. It will also offer a brief description of the most common measures of this concept, in order to gain a proper understanding of what these actually measure.
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Keywords: history of folklore studies;Bulgaria;
The article is dedicated to probably the most influential edition in the history of folklore studies in Bulgaria, the “Collection of Folk Lore” (SbNU), published since 1889 up to the present time. The author discusses the emergence of this collection in the context of intense formation of the Bulgarian national idea in the second half of the 19lh century. The changing editorial conception of the Collection within the interwar period is discussed in the context of the shifting public ideas of the Bulgarian nationhood.
More...Keywords: television; newspapers; media constructs; fan communities; business; celebrity magazine industry
The article investigates consumerism and manufactured needs. Since the advent of digital technology, fans have had the opportunity to connect and communicate more easily.Media effects on the society and on individuals are mostly negative resulting in depreciation of headwork, stereotypes prevalence and vulgarism. The celebrities creation process and the subsequent exploitation of (the supposed) stars’ attitudes, behaviours and popularity with the public are keyfactors for the rise of a mass entertainment industry. Even if the Romanian society is dealing with serious social and, above all, political issues, it continues to be dominated by the power of media and the influence of artificially made models on the masses is huge. As a matter of fact, it is no wonder that celebrities such as Mihaela Rădulescu, Andreea Marin Bănică, Andreea Esca and other members of the Romanian showbiz have got much attention from the tabloids.The article offers a critical review of Stardom, with particular regard to the dominant frame of the supposed celebrities.
More...Keywords: dynamic capabilities; B2B organisations; brand equity; performance; industial markets
Nowadays, change is an inevitable factor in the development of any organization. The dynamic business environment has brought new challenges for organisations, industries and countries. Success in such times demands new perspectives on competitiveness and performance. In the context of business performance, the focus should be on the dynamic capabilities and on brand strategies that contribute to the development of the organisations. In this paper we analyze the industrial B2B branding as a posible source of obtaining competitive advantage and business performance.
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