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The aim of this article is to scrutinise the problem of alienation and dislocation in the context of homeliness and norm in the United States after World War II in Patricia Highsmith’s (1921-1955) Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley. The author examines normality and oddity with respect to the main characters’ home environment and their relations with other protagonists. The emphasis is placed on the analysis of Charles Anthony Bruno from Strangers on a Train (1950) and Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), psychopaths and killers, depicted as unfulfilled artists, marginalized by their community, mostly due to their homosexual inclinations and extravagant behaviour. The author of the article is going to show how Highsmith’s protagonists, being homosexuals and strangers, are exposed to the suspicious examination of an orthodox society that hounds them. As a lesbian, the writer was imbued with a feeling of social non-conformity and her status as an American living in Europe also marginalized her, making her as much of an outsider in her chosen home as she had been in her country of birth (Fort Worth, Texas). The author of this article is going to prove how Patricia Highsmith’s living in deeply conservative American society affected her depiction of fictional homes and the creation of the characters who operate outside the norm and live on the fringe of society.
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La complexité en mosaïque se définit par l’application de deux grands principes: juxtaposition d’éléments semblables, puis intégration de ces éléments dans un ensemble plus vaste dont ils constituent alors des parties. Comme dans une mosaïque au sens artistique du terme, les parties intégrées conservent alors une autonomie par rapport à l’ensemble. Cette conception, directement inspirée de l’anatomie des êtres vivants, peut aussi s’appliquer à divers traits culturels. Ainsi on peut montrer que sont des structures en mosaïques: le langage humain, la fabrication d’artefacts comme les objets techniques, la construction des villes, divers aspect du comportement animal etles bases de la morale. La dialectique philosophique elle-même est construite selon un schéma en mosaïque de juxtaposition, puis intégration. L’ensemble des exemples donnés dans cet article montre qu’au-delà de son adéquation à l’anatomie des êtres vivants, le modèle de la complexité en mosaïque peut aussi s’appliquer aux phénomènes d’ordre culturel.
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The article looks into the festivals for “heavy” music in Bulgaria. The primary hypothesis, proven by the study, is that such events assist in the development of the settlements in which they are hosted, and benefit their residents in many fields,in particular tourism and local economy. The article focuses on the main “actors“ –the fans and the local community, based on a particular case. The festival “Kavarna rock“ is chosen as an example of a most successful event of this genre in our country, with 11 years of history. The study of the opinions of the fans and the residents, the organization and the evolution of the festival over the years of its life time, the issues that have had to be resolved, add up to a comprehensive picture of such events in our country. Even though the event is no longer being organized, the results achieved are an example of development of an alternative form of tourism in our country, which is still underdeveloped.
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The study presents the interactions between the amateur art atelier SedyankaTA and the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum. Thereby, I propose a possible perspective onto the topic of exhibiting in the Ethnographic museum nowadays. Atelier SedyankaTA is an informal group who aim to preserve and pass on to younger generations the traditional techniques of bobbin lace tatting, kene needle lace, frivolite and embroidery. Such informal groups are important for the sustainability of the museum’s space as a place for communication together with its role as a public institution. The dialogue with museums’ publics changes in the function of the Ethnographic museum as a contemporary center for research and education.
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This article positions my experiences as a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor relative to other TBI survivors and in context of persons with disabilities (PWDs) living in the United States and the world. This autoethnographical account (by autoethnography I understand a method or form of social research that serves the purpose of exploring personal experiences of the researcher) examines the life of a neurodivergent individual whose brain functions in ways that deviate significantly from social norms. I explore profound changes to my identity and the resultant social disconnection I encounter since acquiring a severe TBI more than a decade ago. The profound alterations to my identity affect my ability to process, and then adjust, to the demands of my surroundings. As I decode, decipher and process the world, at times my brain damage triggers and/or produces episodes of temporal dissonance. As these shifts in timing occur, they have tremendous impact on my emotional stability. Despite these outward difficulties, I celebrate my altered awareness of time and new identity as a disabled person. Connecting relevant critical trauma studies scholarship to the themes addressed here, the article examines how moving through trauma, coma and amnesia to a new life with cognitive, emotional, psychological, and physical impairments importantly enriches expression of my humanity. I will demonstrate the salient aspects of my new life – emotional sensitivity and volatility – may on the surface seem detrimental and undesirable; however, these qualities greatly enhance my identification with and empathy for others, which in turn drive my artistic, social, cultural and political expression, along with my quest for community.
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This essay narrates my experiences as a congenital amputee and survivor of traumatic brain injury (TBI) through analysis of artwork. With art history and art therapy, I have cathartically mediated conscious and corporeal loss. I will analyse key visual examples to illustrate my disability, trauma and mind/body transformations. The article maintains that trauma is not an isolated event, but a conscious, collective and dynamic phenomenon.
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This article explores Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as an epistemic standpoint defiant of dominant Western knowledge frameworks, which are (supposedly) rational, objective and linear. I engage with feminist, critical psychiatry and Mad critiques of BPD as a medicalization of trauma and ameliorate these critiques by engaging BPD as both a psychiatric diagnosis and as a (non-pathological) response to traumatic experiences. I conceptualize the ‘borderline standpoint’ as a subversive epistemology and examine the capacity of queer-crip temporalities to meaningfully engage with the borderline standpoint, arguing that a framework of queer time is useful insofar as trauma (and borderline knowing) are necessarily nonlinear. Ultimately, I employ concepts of queer-crip time, including the works of Alison Kafer and Elizabeth Freeman, to open new avenues of engagement with the ‘ugly’ affect of borderline and to embark on a maddening epistemological project.
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While scholars have mined Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to understand the form and development of the novel as a literary genre, a central narrative element that has garnered significant scholarly attention is Tristram’s troubled Uncle Toby ‒ a veteran of the Nine Years War who bears a mysterious wound in the groin and who is obsessed with understanding war through the construction and use of miniature battle re-enactments. By recognizing Uncle Toby as a central character of Tristram Shandy and by contextualizing the novel as war literature, this essay demonstrates that Uncle Toby’s struggles to express his ambiguous trauma suffered as a soldier become a critical commentary on the social structures and circumstances that lead to the experiences of wounded veterans. Situating Tristram Shandy in the context of war literature, this article reveals how Toby’s character plays on Enlightenment conceptions of honour and valour as motivators for soldiers. Furthermore, the article argues that applying the theory of Moral Injury (long present but largely unnamed in war literature), rather than the tempting diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), allows for a more holistic understanding of Toby’s critical commentary.
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When the global sporting icon, Paralympian and Olympian Oscar Pistorius was accused of killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp on the morning of Valentine’s Day in 2013, one of his many defences was, simply put, that his disability made him do it. An expert witness for the defence made the connection between disability and violence that suggested that disabled people are particularly prone to ‘over-react’ as it were because they feel especially vulnerable. This defence provides the link between the two extremes claimed by Pistorius’s public persona, that of invincibility and vulnerability – extreme physical ability epitomized by sterling sporting prowess and fear of victimisation because of his physical limitation. The formula proposed by this defence is that extreme vulnerability results in extreme aggression. Here I want to analyse what this claim suggests about prevailing social attitudes toward disability and disabled people, particularly in post-apartheid South Africa – or more accurately in post-TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) South Africa. In this article I propose that the corrosive legacy of TRC created rich ground for white victimization and popularised the medical model of trauma.
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The first part of the article presents the theoretical and methodological basis of the study of interconnections and interactions between the social and plant world in gardens, with an emphasis on the concept of biocultural diversity. Experience from collaborative field studies of ethnologists and botanists has been shared. The second part presents observations and reflections on the garden as a multilayered topos: an economic but also an aestheticized place; a place of conservation of genetic resources and knowledge, but also of experiments and innovation; a place where the diversity and composition reflects social relations, hierarchies and conflicts, social mobility and migration, memory of important events and loved ones, cultural orientations and values. The analysis shows that the garden is characterized by constant doing and incompleteness, that it is a place where people bring together different spaces and times and that each garden has its own biography that reflects the life trajectories of its owners.
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The article considers urban gardens as a typical urban farming practice, with a high potential for organizing social energy and the emergence of intensive and sustainable social relationships in time. There are four models for urban gardens, which were created on different occasions but successfully implemented by non-governmental organizations on the territory of a metropolitan municipality. The article reveals the specificities of the functions that urban gardens perform and proves that the non-governmental sector has a huge role to play in promoting urban farming practices and unleashing the potential of urban gardens. Through in-depth interviews, the enthusiasm and the high social commitment of people who have implemented urban gardening initiatives are demonstrated. The models presented could be implemented as examples of the deployment of urban agriculture in the capital.
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Even though it is difficult to imagine a phenomenon more closely intertwined with the processes of colonization and decolonization than secularism, there are scant references to it in the postcolonial writing and accompanying critical theory. The critics’ reticence seems hardly justifiable considering the fact that secularization processes have been in the centre of the hottest political and ideological debate for more than a decade now, while their critical examination and evaluation appears inevitable due to the ongoing process of undermining the historical view of the religious vs secular divide by alternative ways of ordering the public space in non-Western societies, especially as the latter have also become, on the immigrants’ arrival and vocal presence, a powerful factor in the political game played out within Western countries. As the violent course of events after 9/11 has prompted most of the postcolonial critics to perceive Western democracy and secularism in the black-and-white mode by inscribing it in the Eurocentric and colonial framework, the secular-religious opposition has become one of the postcolonial studies’ fundamental dichotomies that it seeks to transgress and overcome, even though the attempt may well be in vain. Consequently, the term “postsecular,” despite all the subtlety with which it was introduced into the fields of philosophy, theology, sociology and literature, has come to indicate a posture of critical aversion to the secularist order as quintessential for the Western modernity and Enlightenment project and opting for the radical division between the public reason and the need for faith. The aim of the article is thus to examine the meanings ascribed to the terms such as “postsecularism” and “postsecular spirituality” in postcolonial theory, as well as to evaluate the attempts at their application to the field of literary studies.
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This article describes the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia for achieving regional hegemony in the Middle East. Both states have an ambition to be the leader of the Islamic world and there is a constant struggle between them to dominate Middle East and spread their influence in neighboring countries. Both countries fund militant Islamic movements abroad and are engaged in fierce battle for regional dominance. After the establishment of theocratic regime in Iran, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia vehemently opposed Teheran’s ambitions to export revolutions and increase its influence in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is determined to counter the Iranian revolutionary threat and constantly opposes Teheran’s ambitions to dominate the Arab World. Saudi Arabia and Iran often accuse each other of fueling sectarian violence by backing Shia and Sunni militias in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Both countries try to avoid direct confrontation with each other. Instead of direct conflict, both sides fight each other indirectly and provide varying degrees of support to different camps in nearby conflicts.
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Memetics is one of contemporary, posthumanist theories of culture. It postulates that the fundamental mechanism of replicating non-genetic information is imitation (Dawkins) and thus social life and culture exist as a result of our minds’ susceptibility to the units of imitation, known as memes. This article presents a critical synthesis of the stance memeticians take on human mimetism, and through exploration of other concepts (philosophical, sociological, anthropological, psychological and neurobiological) reinforces memetics’ basic premise that human beings are mimetic animals.
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