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Radu Jude’s movie didn’t just arouse debate, it also did good box office.
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Die Philosophie der Technik, die den Ursprung, das Wesen und das historische Geschick der Technik als der Schaffenskunst im Allgemeinen sowie im Verhaltnis zur Natur und zur Welt betrachtet (tehne, technica), verbindet der bekannte französische Denker Mikel Dufrenne mit seiner Philosophie des Menschen (Pour l'homme), d.h. mit der philosophischen Anthropologie, sodass er sich dabei die Fragen nach dem Sinn, nach den Aussichten sowie nach der Zukunft der Menschenwelt, insbesondere der technisierten Gesellschaft stellt. lm Gegensatz zu den suspekten und pessimistischen Auffassungen von Technik, die meinen, dass die Technik geistige Dürftigkeit bringe, den Menschen unterdriicke und ihn von der Naturumgebung entfremde, betont Dufrenne ihre schöpferische und humane Möglichkeit, die in der ursprünglichen Bedeutung von tehne und poiesis gegenwii.rtig ist. In dieser urspriinglichen Bedeutung von tehne und poiesis wird der Mensch als Subjekt und Autor der Technik beachtet. Die Technik erfordet nicht unbedingt, laut Dufrenne, die Technokratie, sondern sie kann als Ausdruck der schopferischen Menschennatur, nach dem Vorbild der Kunst und der Philosophie, dem Menschen in seinem Gang zur Selbstverwirklichung behilflich sein, d.h., sie kann und soll keineswegs einen Selbstzweck darstellen, der den Menschen gefangen nimmt und in dessen Dienste der Mensch steht, sondern vielmehr eine Möglichkeit und Befreiungsart des Menschen sowie eine Humanisierungsweise seiner Welt.
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The article treats the particular interweaving of continuity and discontinuity in tradition as a major paradox in Balkan cultures throughout centuries. Thus a paradigm in the cultural system is revealed as manifested in binary oppositions such as openness versus closeness, the East versus the West, the native as opposed to the foreign and the regional to the European, respectively. Certain clarification upon the age of Modernity and Europium of Balkan art creativity will be beneficial for the outlining of the unique essence of the cultural setting and the experience of Balkan men as a realization in a global world. As a key to the understanding of art and literature Europium is relevant to the disclosure of an aesthetic, spiritual and intellectual wealth and to the particular identity of the peoples on the peninsula. The article treats the particular interweaving of continuity and discontinuity in tradition as a major paradox in Balkan cultures throughout centuries. Thus a paradigm in the cultural system is revealed as manifested in binary oppositions such as openness versus closeness, the East versus the West, the native as opposed to the foreign and the regional to the European, respectively. Certain clarification upon the age of Modernity and Europium of Balkan art creativity will be beneficial for the outlining of the unique essence of the cultural setting and the experience of Balkan men as a realization in a global world. As a key to the understanding of art and literature, Europium is relevant to the disclosure of an aesthetic, spiritual and intellectual wealth and to the particular identity of the peoples on the peninsula.
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The article compares the relations between Bulgarian and Western scholars in the late 19th and early 20th century and one hundred years later. The author‘s opinion is that the change in the research paradigm requiring the anthropologist to collect his/her own field materials makes Western scholars to deny the existence or to question the authenticity of their local colleagues regardless of the latter‘s will to change. The author thinks that for more than a century local ethnology underwent evolution which made it useful for the present Bulgarian society in a way still inaccessible for anthropology.
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The article is focused on one type of the protest activity in Russia, the two rounds of the car-rallies “White Ring“ in Moscow, on 29th of January and 19th of February 2012, which are studied in the frame of the Russian oppositional movement “White ribbon“. Initiated in December 2011, after the parliamentary elections, the “White Ribbon“ movement has gone through an impressive rise, but has not resulted in any positive political and civic transformations. It brought in, though, many new sym-bols, means and forms of protesting, among them the car-rallies, remembered by the participants as the “most optimistic and creative acts“ (Boris Nemtsov).The big amount of visual and verbal data on the Moscow car-rallies, collected by the author, enables the ethnological, visual anthropological and linguistic analysis of general political appeals and special features of the “White Ribbon“ movement (fair elections, change of the political elite, symbolism of the white color and mov¬ing, the rally as a festival, etc.), as reflected in the “White Ring“. These rallies are also investigated with regard to urban and technological ethnology, since they cor¬relate with the Moscow city plan and the central circle high-way in Moscow (The Garden Ring) and thus highlight the unifying and protecting symbolism of the cir¬cle. The automobile theme (idiomatic phrases, slang, the cars’ decorations, posters and cartoons) transforms the general political pleas, makes them more artistic, vivid and clear. The author comes to the conclusion that the quickly and easily forgotten forms and models of the local and national protest rallies have first to be thoroughly recorded in order to provide a precise basis for further comparative analysis of the universal protest language.
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This chapter explores issues of inspiration and motivation on how a poem (in turn becoming a song) was created in connection with a specific situation of injustice, namely the Police Raid on the ‘Occupy’ protest in the Buffer Zone in Nicosia, Cyprus, on the 7th of April 2012. Taking into account a number of ethical considerations that embrace the role of art and free speech, expression and social critique (Islam, 2015), a set of ideas and discourses will be explored through an autoethnographic journey – from context to inspiration/motivation/creation and sharing as a form of alternative media via online social media platforms (Facebook and Soundcloud). Contextualization will also be discussed through the sub-genre of dub poetry as a practice of cultural resistance against oppression (Linton Kwesi Johnson) and a much wider set of debates on the presence/absence of songs with political content. Additionally, the chapter will focus on a detailed contextualization of ‘Occupy’ in Cyprus as a non-hierarchical grass roots protest moment and the manner in which this was destroyed by state police intervention. This will consider the specificity of ‘Occupy’ in Cyprus in the Buffer Zone as expression against militarism and occupation, as well as the more generic aspect of ‘Occupy’ worldwide as a counterhegemonic form of political activism.
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The text is based on an anthropological research of the protest movements in Bulgaria in the period 2009-2013 and suggests an analysis of in-depth interviews with activists and participants in these movements. The data is interpreted in the light of the anthro¬pology of democracy which studies the understandings of democracy of the ordinary people and the various forms of participation in the democratic process, as well as the possibilities of expanding the democracy from below. By using the three notions in the title the respondents describe their discontent and draw the contour of the desired change. The analysis shows that even when they talk about the same thing (e.g. de¬mocracy), the protestants do not agree with each other. The many-voiced expression of discontent supports the hypothesis that the protest movements form heterogeneous multitudes but fail to settle their differences and to work out a common vision about “democratism“.
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This paper studies the patterns of communication among the ethnic groups living in the Transylvanian rural district of Caţa, aiming at identifying the people’s willingness to communicate and the non-conflictual nature of the dialogue in this rural area. The framework employed in the analysis is Dell Hymes’s (1974) interactional S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G schema. The study is based on data collected by the first author during two periods (August – September, 2012 and January, 2013), using two instruments: the direct, participant observation and the interview. The participants are representatives of four ethnic groups, namely Romanians, Hungarians, Germans and Roma people. The findings of the analysis show that the inter-ethnic communication in Caţa is non-conflictual and non-exclusive due to the people’s openness to adapt to the others and that the limitations of the intercultural dialogue are rather suggested by the administrative authorities and the national ethnic organizations.
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In July 1844, on route to the Catskill Mountains in New York, Henry David Thoreau climbed Saddleback Mt. (now Greylock), the highest natural point in Massachusetts. Situated in the northwestern part of the state, the mountain is traversed by a network of hiking trails, including the tail end of the Appalachian Trail. Thoreau later described this experience in his first published book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, whose manuscript he wrote during his stay at Walden Pond between 1845 and 1847. In my paper, I analyze Thoreau’s description of the climb and cast the ascent as a meditation in the Romantic tradition of the quest for the sacred and for the sublime.
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Transylvania was for centuries a cultured, influential and prosperous region. Today, after decades of poverty and depressed rural economy, it is best known for its rich heritage of traditional rural life and biodiversity. Conservationists, by protecting the natural environment and assisting the economic development of farming communities, are working to protect and enhance the natural wealth of plants and animals. This richness was the basis for much of the region’s former prosperity, particularly in the Saxon Villages area of southeast Transylvania. Most Saxons have now left, but their agricultural heritage can be a sound basis for future economic growth. For both people and nature, this should combine the best of traditional farming practices and innovative technology to achieve an enhanced rural economy that can provide a good livelihood again for farming families.
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Historical factual and literary documents testify not only about described phenomena and current period, but also about ideological structure of society and its individual relations. Andrej Deško and Bohuš Nosák-Nezabudov described cultural, linguistic, confessional and political structure of society of Eastern Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia taking into account the religious, social, economic and political stereotypes that formed not only simple population, but also representatives of national-revival life in the 40s of the 19th century. Although only A. Deško was indigenous who knew conditions in Subcarpathian Ruthenia by his own autopsy, Bohuš Nosák-Nezabudov had also knowledge acquired before and during the travels in Eastern Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia. Even his descriptions brought a wide range of information that can be appreciated in the systematic Slavistic researches of the Carpathian region and other researches focused on linguistic, ethnic and confessional stereotypes as well as linguistic and cultural diversity of its population.
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The present paper challenges the dominance of the digital natives’ agenda and turns its attention to the social context in which Internet usage among adolescents occurs. Findings indicate that even when young people are using the Internet with the same frequency, i.e. every day, the differences among them remain significant. Therefore, it can be argued that considering an entire cohort to be similar in terms of Internet use only due its age is a misconception. The way children make use of the Internet and the gratifications they gain after using it depend, as van Dijk (2005) showed, on the quality of access, on the level of skills, and on the personal (e.g. Experience, self-efficacy, confidence) and positional resources (e.g. Age, gender, socio-economic status). Questioning the main determinants that lead to the most advanced way to make use of the Internet, the logistic analysis shows that, in order for a Romanian adolescent to turn into an experienced user once he or she embedded the Internet in his or her everyday life, is a matter of skills, experience, and time online, and is less a matter of socioeconomic background. However, we have to keep in mind the previous path analysis’ findings, which emphasize that online experience, time spent online, self-efficacy, and digital skills are all determined, through direct or indirect effects, by demographic variables (i.e. age, gender and socio-economic status), even when age is held constant (Fizesan [Balea], 2012).
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