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Jozef Tancer: Rozviazané jazyky – ako sme hovorili v starej Bratislave. Bratislava, Slovart, 2016, 304 p.
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The paper examines how language builds an ethnic and artistic identity before, during and after the concentration camp experience, in the book having an autobiographical content, The Story of a Life by Aharon Appelfeld. His childhood languages-German (native language), Yiddish (his grandparents language), Ukrainian sprinkled with Romanian words (official languages of social environment, especially the city of Czernowits) are the stable roots looking for a new assumed identity in Israel through the Hebrew language learned in a cultural context.
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My article intends to look at two instances of dissolution of identity, an outer-directed one, illustrated by E. A. Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ and an inner-directed one, as embodied by Hermann Melville’s hero in ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’. I hold that, in both cases, what is rejected is functionalist and pragmatic view of identity in favour of an existential, ontological assertion of it.
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Małgorzata Szumowska is without a doubt one of a few Polish directors who has managed to distinguish herself on the European film market. Although, Szumowska is a cosmopolitan (in Ulf Hannerz’s terms), she does not forget about her Polish origins. On the contrary, she emphasizes contemporary Polish identity of her protagonists and Polishness in itself but does it from the external perspective. In her feature films, Małgorzata Szumowska defines Polish identity, according to Antonina Kłoskowska’s theory, as a phenomenon which always exists in a specific social and cultural context. From this perspective, Polishness is constantly negotiated and renegotiated by film protagonists. The author will distinguish three categories through which the director defines Polishness, these are: cultural trauma, national character and modern Catholic religiousness. These categories will be analyzed on the basis of specific examples. An applied methodological approach relies on cultural poetics assumptions, also known as new historicism.
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At the focus of this study stands the Hungarian steampunk subculture. In the preparatory phase, it explores the term of subculture from several aspects, then, while looking at the tendencies of the research of subcultures in Hungary, it determines the positions of its own investigation. The work is divided into three major parts. The first one focuses on and integrates the findings of the book by Jeff VanderMeer and S. J. Chambers entitled The Steampunk Bible, which, especially in its chapter on the steampunk subculture, details on all manifestations of the steampunk phenomenon. The second phase, based on available information from online fora, opens up a horizon on the activities of the Hungarian Steampunk Community, the local projection of the subculture. Finally, there are three short interviews included in the paper, in which we ask the illustrious figures of the community, above all, about what it means for them to be a steampunk. In the individual subsections we will also cover other interesting curiosities, but strictly moving to the end within inter-artistic space, as the steampunks are equally present in fine arts, fashion, music, cinematography, and literary fiction as well.
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As a social phenomenon and an ideology, anti-gypsyism is sustained on essentialized narratives, which reify ethnic borders (between those considered as Roma and non-Roma) and assumes internal homogeneity of all members of the Romani group based on vaguely-defined and generalized notions of “culture” or “ethnicity”. These narratives tend to exclude plural and diverse representation of social realities and intersecting Romani identities, which can challenge the dominant and stigmatizing discourse. In this paper, I analyse how academic discourse contributes to sustaining essentialist representations of Roma and assess how more nuanced, plural, and context-sensitive interpretations of ethnic identity can contribute to challenging anti-gypsyism. By reviewing the scholarship of Brubaker (2002, 2004), Hall (1996) and Vertovec (2007), I discuss the potential of definitions in deconstructing homogenized and essentialized discourses on Roma in knowledge production and beyond. Furthermore, I discuss how the emergence and dynamic development of Romani scholarship has been gradually challenging the legacy of Romani Studies and providing an entry into new avenues of research, conducted primarily from the standpoint of Romani scholars. I argue that their engagement in knowledgeproduction is essential for promoting diversified, balanced and context-sensitive discourses. In this article, rather than prescribing a specific, normative framework for Romani Studies and elaborating a fixed research agenda, I point to possible directions and promising theoretical avenues which may provide a refreshing counter-balance to an otherwise homogenizing scholarship. In doing so, I assess possible implications for adapting diverse notions of ethnicity as a tool for de-essentializing academic discourses on Roma – including advantages and existing risks. Such an approach enables the mapping out of issues and challenges relevant for the process of elaborating a Critical Romani Studies research agenda.
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The paper discusses the virtues and weakness of rational choice modeling of ethnic relations. It is argued that the success of recent economic colonialism of sociology - fairly noticeable in the field of ethnicity - is due to the empirical falsification of functionalist paradigm and unfalsifiability of primordialist logic. A parsimonious rational choice model, based on methodological individualism, deals with rational, maximizing actors whose choices are somewhat constrained by culture, institutions and experience (backward looking actors). Consequently, ethnic dynamic is explained in terms of collective action. A brief discussion of the limitations of such a concept concludes the first part of the paper. The second part is an attempt to enhance the predictive ability of the model. A sociopsychological extension of the model is presented in which out-group discrimination is the consequence of the pre-rational basis (language acquisition and cognitive mapping of ethnonational territory) of ethnic solidarity. Thus, ethnic identity is situational only in terms of its positioning within the complex individual identity. Closer to the central position it comes, more active it tends to be due to the fact that the face value depends on it. Following this logic, there testable hypotheses are offered to explain the negative correlation between the level of modernization and the level of ethnic violence. However, rational choice theory is still far from a clear picture of the necessary conditions for successful ethnic mobilization.
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Social sciences witness a steady interest in cross-cultural studies. Therefore, awareness of limitations and consequences of use of different languages in scientific research is crucial to its implementation. This paper addresses issues discussed above while presenting the study of the banking sector’s enterprise, which was created by the representatives of two countries: France and Poland. The research of the creation and development of this institution used the method of the biographical interview and data analysis. Due to the bilingualism of studied institution, two languages had to be used while collecting and analyzing empirical material. In this paper, the consequences of use of two different languages while conducting the qualitative research as well as impact of biculturalism (with emphasis on its linguistic aspect) on the course of the research will be presented.
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In those societies where a given religion prevails, its integrative function may provide a high level of social cohesion. In this context, religion played a relevant and almost a historical role in the national identity formation. On the other hand, the greater the role of religion in the process of unification of the community is, the greater the intolerance to the groups and individuals from another religion shall be. The paper addresses the role of religion in the national identities formation in the Balkans during the Ottoman Empire’s reign, with particular emphasis to the events and development on the territory of the present Republic of Macedonia.
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Reducing the prejudices among the groups is one of the primary issues that social psychologists have been dealing with for many years. The main purpose of this review article is contribute to the Turkish literature by examining the effectiveness of the recategorization process in improving the negative attitudes towards the outgroups. To this end, the present review article consists of four parts. The first part includes the hypotheses of focusing on personal identities in reducing negative attitudes towards outgroups and the research findings about this approach. In the second part, studies related with the common ingroup identity representation which emphasizes the necessity of transforming the mental representation of the group members from the two groups (us and them) to a group (we) were examined. Next part contains theoretical information and research findings related with dual identity representation, which developed as an alternative to common group identity. In the fourth and the last part, studies related with the relationship between effectiveness of identity representation and group status were presented.
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The paper presents some feminist theories about female identity and gender. On the one hand, there are theories by CH. Witt and M. Mikkola who consider the concept of femininity dependent on the social opinion (a social construct of gender). On the other hand, Christian feminist philosophers emphasize that the biological and psychological qualities of woman are closely associated with her maternity, and they are fundamental to her identity. The goal of the paper is to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of these two diff erent approaches.
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The purpose of this paper on the novel Katzenberge (Cat’s Mountains) by Sabrina Janesch is to locate it in the context of a debate on the German memory culture(s) and its representation in Germanlanguage literary texts. This classification is justified by a specific regional and generational character of the war memories in the novel. Within this short observation, the author of the paper is interested not only in historical, sociological and cultural study questions, which are connected directly to this topic, but primarily and especially, in what way and using what means the pictures of Silesia and of Kresy were created as memorial sites in the novel Katzenberge (Cat’s Mountains), which is based on autobiographical motifs. The research problem, which appears in this study, can be formulated as follows: In the PolishGerman history of forced resettlements from the period of World War II, there are gaps whose existence in a more or less significant way distorts the perception of this issue, both at the level of historical reconstruction, in which certain aspects of common history are omitted, as well as at the level of reflection on them in literary texts. The article proposes a thesis that the novel Katzenberge (Cat’s Mountains) by Sabrina Janesch fills an important gap in German-language literature, which is the history of Polish refugees and people forcibly displaced from the Kresy to Silesia. Thus, the literary topography of this region expands, becoming a place where the fates of Polish Kresowians and German Silesians intersect and overlap, while the region itself assumes the form of a palimpsest. The following research methods were used: narratology and hermeneutics. These research methods allow in-depth analysis of the structure and content of the text, as well as facilitate an attempt to interpret it in the context of the issues under investigation.
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Satya Sai Baba is a global guru from south India whom followers consider to be the avatar or incarnation of the supreme god consciousness of our time. Because of the belief that Satya Sai Baba is god in human form, his followers ascribe a number of specific godlike atributes to him, such as being all-knowing, omnipotent and omnipresent. Satya Sai Baba founded the Satya Sai organization in Putaparti in south India in 1960. The organization later spread and started to grow in Serbia in the late 1980's. Satya Sai Baba's mythologized life had a significant role in the efficient spread of the movement and the creating of the world of Sai devotees. An analysis of the essential elements of the mythical biography will indicate the existence of coinciding elements in the life of Sai Baba and other religious figures. These elements have an essential role in spreading the faith of Sai Baba as an incarnation of god. By applying structural analysis, we will determine the necessity of mythologizing the guru's life in the creation and survival of sai-babism, globally as well as in Serbia. Key events and characteristics of the mythologized life of Satya Sai Baba have been determined based on fieldwork and interviewing Sai followers in Serbia in 2011 and 2012.
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The paper will focus on the ever-changing role which human bodies have played through the history of widespread Internet use. Viewing contemporary human bodies as, in fact, cyborg bodies, I will argue that it was these technobodies that influenced the creation, but were also the direct consequence of a significant shift in the perception of reality experienced by Internet users in general, and users of social networking websites in particular. Furthermore, I will try to demonstrate how the corrosion and questioning of the borders between the real and the virtual, which emerged as a consequence of the mass influx of technology into all levels of society, brought about the creation of hyperreality – a reality which simultaneously incorporates and moves beyond physical as well as virtual reality, and creates new frameworks of existence, presence and sociability.
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In this paper we consider the influence that the entertainment-donor manifestation called World Witches Congress held in Veliko Gradiste in fall 2009, if continued, would have on national identity of Serbia. We look into the relation between World Witches Congress and folklore of eastern Serbia when it comes to witches, regarding a concept where national identity is equal to cultural identity of a country.
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I discuss analytic purpose of the term ambiguity, as used by E. R. Leach, for the issues concerning identification with cultural heroes. Cultural heroes represent cultural cognitive models, which are unquestionable concerning norms and values they stand for in the real life, no matter some contradictions could be noted within them by the external observer. People striving to improve their status – as Leach has put it – by identifying with the figures of cultural heroes do not take into consideration such contradictions, taking the model and its representative, cultural hero, as granted form for the object of their identification. If we study what those people think and how they behave accordingly, and not that what we the anthropologist think they think and do, I argue that the term ambiguity is analytically obsolete.
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