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In Search of Ourselves. On Miklós Gulyás’s Photographs

In Search of Ourselves. On Miklós Gulyás’s Photographs

Author(s): Virág Böröczfy / Language(s): English / Issue: 201/2011

The title of Miklós Gulyás’s 2007 album is Hon, Magyarország keresése, or Home: In Search of Hungary. The subtitle is telling and gives an apt summary of what is characteristic of Gulyás’s entire career as a photographer. All of his portfolios have been produced in Hungary,1 and the captions of most of the photos show simply the place and the year in which they were taken. Yet I would venture to say that he could have taken them anywhere and the results would have been essentially the same, for the visible world is merely one of their components, ultimately of far less importance than the personal world of the photographer. The photographs show real scenes in real, everyday settings, they are “maps” of reality. Almost nothing is manipulated. Gulyás did not arrange the persons included, nor did he remove or add objects. He photographed everything as it was. Still, it is the magic of photography that the elements of the visible world, liberated from their original spatial and temporal interdependencies, can be made to serve an entirely new message. This only functions, however, if the photographer is deliberate and systematic in his work and able to decide in a split second what to include, what angle to employ and how to assemble the individual images to form a series. Gulyás’s pictures are superb examples of this magical process. They are authentic, objective snapshots in the traditional sense of the term, moments captured in their immediacy, with elements that seem incidental, yet are part of a carefully considered creative concept.

New Old Times in the Balkans: The Search for a Cultural Identity

New Old Times in the Balkans: The Search for a Cultural Identity

Author(s): Naum Panovski / Language(s): English / Issue: 53/2007

Keywords: Balkans; Culture; Identity; Yugoslavia; Slavic

System innovations for Modern Russia. The Search, the Problem, the Solutions

System innovations for Modern Russia. The Search, the Problem, the Solutions

Author(s): Michael Anokhin,Oleg Grishin / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2013

Keywords: innovations; system innovations; postindustrial civilization; innovative type of development; innowacje; innowacje systemowe; cywilizacja postindustrialna; innowacyjny model rozwoju

For Russia to exist effectively a strategy of innovative changes is needed. Innovative development takes two forms: technological and social. The current political system needs to be transformed in order to implement innovations. Currently, radical appeals and calls for modernisation do not receive mass support and are rejected by society.

Around the Bloc: Latvia in Search of New Government

Around the Bloc: Latvia in Search of New Government

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 12/15/2015

Keywords: Latvia; Vejonis; Straujuma; government; politics

Outgoing premier says opponents mounted an organized campaign against her.

Russia’s Elusive Search for Soft Power

Russia’s Elusive Search for Soft Power

Author(s): James Sherr / Language(s): English / Issue: 02 (11)/2014

Keywords: Russia;soft power;Vladimir Putin

Throughout recent history, Russia’s leaders have invested in the country’s image as much as its power. Under the watch of Vladimir Putin, “soft power” not only entered the lexicon, but attracted political and financial resources. Yet, Russia’s understanding of softpower is markedly different from western thinking and practice.

In Search of Hedges and Safe Havens in Global Financial Markets

In Search of Hedges and Safe Havens in Global Financial Markets

Author(s): Sławomir Wanat,Sławomir Śmiech,Monika Papież / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2016

Keywords: market regimes;clustering methods;copula;DCC-GARCH

The aim of the paper is to search for hedges and safe havens within three instrument classes: assets (represented by the S&P500 index), gold and oil prices, and dollar exchange rates. Weekly series of returns of all the instruments from the period January 1995 – June 2015 are analysed. The study is based on conditional correlations between the instruments in different market regimes obtained with the use of copula-DCC GARCH models. It is assumed that different market regimes will be identified by statistical clustering techniques; however, only conditional variances (without conditional covariances) will be taken into account. The reason for this assumption is connected with the fact that variances can be understood as market risk, and, as such, are a good indicator of market conditions. A considerable advantage of such an approach is the lack of need to determine the number of market regimes, as it is established by clustering quality measures. What is more, the methodology used in the paper makes it possible to treat the relations between instruments symmetrically. The results obtained in the study reveal that only dollar exchange rates can be treated as a (strong) hedge and a (strong) safe haven for other instruments, while gold and oil are a hedge for assets.

From Mesocosmos To Cosmos: Man In Search Of His Oikos

From Mesocosmos To Cosmos: Man In Search Of His Oikos

Author(s): Zbigniew Łepko / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2016

Keywords: Man; mesocosmos; cosmos; oikos; Jakob von Uexküll;

This study draws on the cybernetic concept of living beings’ presence in the natural environment formulated by Jakob von Uexküll, which points to the cognitive basis for the presence of a living being in its surroundings. In this perspective, living beings are perceived as subjects, since they transform their surroundings into an environment which is optimal for their survival in the world of average measurements, called mesocosmos. Thus understood, mesocosmos is synonymous with both the ecological and cognitive niche of a living being. Consequently, we can say that living beings, in the course of their characteristic pursuit of a better world, find only such a world that matches their cognitive and behavioral abilities. This, in turn, means that the basic level of knowledge about the reality achieved by living beings expresses the utilitarian nature of that knowledge; in this respect, it is genetically determined and is, therefore, a function of a species’ aspiration to survive in the mesocosmic environment. In this context, the uniqueness of man, who due to his remarkable cognitive abilities is able to transcend the mesocosmos, becomes clearly evident. This transcendence is achieved, in particular, through scientific knowledge which is, in a sense, unlimited and points to the fact that human environment comprises (can comprise), in fact, the whole universe

In Search of Ecological Norms in Brand Personality Diagnostics

In Search of Ecological Norms in Brand Personality Diagnostics

Author(s): Oleg Gorbaniuk,Michał Wilczewski / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Keywords: brand personality; symbolic benefts; ecological level; normalization; quantitative research; goods and services

Purpose: The aim of this study is to determine a structure of brand personality at an ecological level and to develop norms for positioning a particular brand in relation to other brands by means of brand personality scales. Methodology: We present the results of a study in which 1,642 participants aged 15 to 82 (mean 35.3; 51.9% females) were involved. Each respondent marked three to four brands from different categories of goods and services on a 20-item adjectival list for measuring brand personality. As a result, 6,548 descriptions of 224 brands from 46 categories were collected. Findings: Our analyses show that the structure of the differences among brand personalities on the Polish market can be described in terms of four dimensions: competence, spontaneity, subtlety, and egoism. The established dimensions explain 85% of the variance. A distribution of the results within the scales applied served as a basis for establishing specifc norms for each of the four scales. Limitations: The norms established have a country-level character and are inclusively adequate and reliable for companies that purchase products and services on the Polish market. Originality: Our study presents a new, ecological approach to thinking about brands. Namely, it enables a more precise determination of the position of a certain brand in relation to many other competing brands and allows for a more effcient use of the potential for constructing brand personality.

In search for customer loyalty model of tourist services

In search for customer loyalty model of tourist services

Author(s): Izabela Michalska-Dudek / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2015

Keywords: customer behavior; customer loyalty of tourist services; customer loyalty model of tourist enterprises

The purpose of the hereby study is to discuss models presented in the subject literature and reflecting thecustomer loyalty development process, identifying the explanatory variables applied in these models, as well asspecifying the ones which can be subject to verification in research covering customer loyalty on tourist market.The author attempts to implement the selected model constructions in the area of tourist economy, whereasthe analysis and critical approach to the available literature facilitates the development of a theoretical modelproposal covering customer loyalty of tourist enterprises.

Crisis, Neoliberalization and the Search for New Historic Bloc

Crisis, Neoliberalization and the Search for New Historic Bloc

Author(s): Bozhin Traykov / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Keywords: crisis of neoliberalism; Giovanni Arrighi;Neil Brenner; Jamie Peck; Nik Theodore;populism;neoliberal austerity policies;authoritarian populism

In order to get a better understanding of the crisis of neoliberalism post-2007/2008, I use the theoretical work of Giovanni Arrighi, as well as Neil Brenner, Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore’s concept of neoliberalization. While acknowledging the different contexts and time periods in which they have developed and the development of current European populism at an earlier stage in comparison to the one in North America, I argue that the rise of populism both in the USA and in the EU should be analyzed in the context of the unsuccessful attempts to manage the crisis of global capitalism, characterized by continuation of neoliberal austerity policies. The current resistance to neoliberalism comes not only from the left, but also from the right, where the voices of what Stuart Hall defines as authoritarian populism become stronger.

Pedagogy of Peace and Philosophy of War: the Search for Truth

Pedagogy of Peace and Philosophy of War: the Search for Truth

Author(s): Serhiy Klepko / Language(s): English / Issue: 7/2017

Keywords: Peace pedagogy; Peace education; the truth; being; geophilosophy;

Peace pedagogy (German: Friedenspedagogik) and the Peace education are identified as relevant educational paradigm and set of educational projects aimed at solving problems of teaching non-violence and the capacity for peace in the context of the democratic movement for peace. There is a set of reasons to state that the education system of the world depends not only on technological trends and mastering the sum of strategies of war and peace but; first of all; on what extends the whole education is true for its subjects and able to provide research on the ultimate question of social and personal life; including eternal mankind’s dream for peace. This paper describes methodological role for pedagogy of peace of geophilosophy as a concept to solve socio-economic conflicts in the dimensions of truth and earthly life in which modern geo-philosophical research carried out to find a man’s place in the world and territory for him.

The Relevance of Critical Thinking for the Online Search in Educational Contexts

The Relevance of Critical Thinking for the Online Search in Educational Contexts

Author(s): Alexandru MUNTEANU-LUCINESCU-CASELLA / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/2018

Keywords: critical thinking; online search; education; information literacy; pathologies of information;

Originally a philosophical preoccupation intensively practiced since classical antiquity, critical thinking is now a fundamental aim of formal education and the exploration of its connections with information literacy represents today a well established topic of research in educational sciences. This paper briefly contrasts the philosophical with the educational understanding of critical thinking, provides an overview of the social context which gave prominence to critical thinking in the sphere of education and describes the competencies associated with information literacy. The main features of the concept of critical thinking are established by conducting a comparative analysis of various definitions for critical thinking elaborated by renowned authors, including John Dewey’s account of reflective thinking and Benjamin S. Bloom’s description of analysis, synthesis and evaluation as educational goals, as well as of opinions on critical thinking held by academics belonging to different fields of study. Also, the online search in an educational environment is discussed from the perspective of the so called “pathologies of information”, whose most severe forms are depicted, and a set of criteria for conducting high quality online search for educational purposes is presented. The interplay between the resulting definition of critical thinking and excellence in online search as an educational instrument is explored and suggestions for using critical thinking in this area are advanced. The paper concludes that critical thinking significantly contributes to conducting high quality online search in educational contexts and also that, at a more general level, proficiency in critical thinking is indispensable for acquiring the competences pertaining to information literacy.

Peace Education as Arts Education: In Search of New Strategies

Peace Education as Arts Education: In Search of New Strategies

Author(s): Antonina Lendiel-Siarkevych,Olga Khyzhna / Language(s): English / Issue: 21/2018

Keywords: peace education; peacebuilding; arts education; music; temporality; duration; harmony;

The problem of peace education is in the sharp demand in the modern world. The art in general, and music in particular, have significant impact on a person and the content of his usual activities. Music, as a logical and expressive construction and a psychological phenomenon, contains possibilities for harmonization of personal, social and planetary life. Temporality of music, its actualization of the present, orientation to the eternal meanings and values, archetypeness and plasticity of the content and the ways of its perception, form the basis for understanding music as a universal communication mediator and an important factor in stabilization of contradictions and conflicts. The study demonstrates the potential of arts education to act as one of the instruments of peacebuilding at the present stage of human development.

Budget deficit and growth: in search of ceiling for Bangladesh

Budget deficit and growth: in search of ceiling for Bangladesh

Author(s): S.M Abdullah,Abul Kalam Azad,Salina Siddiqua / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2018

Keywords: Economic growth; budget deficit; threshold; cointegration; stationarity; VECM

The impact of fiscal deficit measured by deficit in national budget on the growth of respective economy has been a widely researched area with plenty of debatable results. Shedding light in search of the optimum level of budget deficit, the current paper tried to contribute to the field of literature on this issue which is perhaps inadequate as far as Bangladesh economy is concerned. A total of 40 years of time series data spanning form 1975 – 76 to 2014 – 15 has been employed. Identification of integration order of the variables was examined performing Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF), Phillips – Perron (PP) and Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS) tests. Establishing the existence of cointegration among variables following the Johansen’s procedure, long run cointegrating vector has been estimated depending on VECM. The threshold has been identified solving the estimated long run cointegrating relationship for a local maximum. Findings can be summarized by saying that the long run impact of budget deficit on growth would remain positive; nevertheless, there would be no short run adjustment. Depending on the model definition and the particular exogenous variable(s), the threshold budget deficit has been measured to range between 4.55 to 5.0 percent of GDP.

In Search of Myself - Autobiography, Imposture, and Survival in Wartime Croatia

In Search of Myself - Autobiography, Imposture, and Survival in Wartime Croatia

Author(s): Rory Yeomans / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

Keywords: Second World War; Croatia; autobiography; Ustaša regime; survival; collaboration; Christa Wolf: The Quest; resistance;

This article looks at the production of autobiography and imposture as survival techniques during the Second World War in Croatia. Focusing on the petitions of Jewish and Serb citizens wrote to the Jewish Section of the Ustaša Police Directorate and the State Directorate for Reconstruction the article considers the various ways in which Serb and Jewish letter writers who had been placed outside the law in wartime Croatia by the Ustaša regime used a variety of discourse and linguistic markers as well as the generation of idealised biographies in which they identified themselves as Croats in an attempt to escape deportation, ghettoization or stigmatisation and to write themselves into state ideology by asserting their difference from other members of their persecuted community. The article also explores the various ways in which victims who had survived by making compromises with the Ustaša regime sought to rewrite their biographies in the post-war period to identify themselves with the new socialist orthodoxies in the face of the threat of nation-wide campaigns of unmasking and ideological purification. Using for Christa T. as a frame, it asks how much the historian can ever really know about the biographies of individuals, especially those who have felt the need to reconstruct their lives after traumatic events. At the same time it argues that in addition to the important insight these kinds of microanalysis can provide on everyday life and survival in wartime Europe during the Holocaust, they also bring ambiguity to seemingly distinct historiographical categories such as resistance and collaboration and force us, the readers, to confront our own subjectivity through reading their autobiographical petitions.

In Search of Empirical Evidence for a Growth Path to Critical Reflection

In Search of Empirical Evidence for a Growth Path to Critical Reflection

Author(s): Jean Claude Callens / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2014

Keywords: critical reflection; growth path; Learning effectiveness, improvement of learning experience; Non-formal and informal learning; Work-based learning

During their studies, pre-service teachers are continually asked to reflect. Hereby is mainly expected that they reach a level of critical reflection. Critical reflection is often described as a growth path in different phases, with critical reflection as endpoint. It is unclear whether empirical research confirms this growth path. To check whether a growth path with critical reflection as endpoint can be empirical confirmed, 596 reflections from four different empirical studies with pre-service teachers were taken in a secondary analysis. The results from this secondary analysis reveal that 1) participants score very low on critical reflection and 2) the idea of a growth path with critical reflection as endpoint cannot be confirmed. Focus shift is possibly a description that is closer to the empirical findings. Based on the results of this study, possible implications for the supervision of students are described.

Transhumanist’s search for immortality vs. Christianity

Transhumanist’s search for immortality vs. Christianity

Author(s): Tone Svetelj / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

Keywords: transhumanism; transformation; salvation; Christianity; creativity;

Transhumanism, with its wish to transform the essence of human being, challenges anew the perennial discussion regarding the essence of human beings. If this transformation touches only the biological level of human existence, can we still talk about transformation? The idea of bringing humans to a higher level is also well-known in Christianity, not in terms of transformation, but in terms of salvation, which extends beyond the boundaries of biological existence. A Christian transformation does not approach human sin, pain, suffering, and death as external enemies, but as something that makes part of human existence without having the final word.

Axiological Foundations of Social Pedagogy: Search Areas

Axiological Foundations of Social Pedagogy: Search Areas

Author(s): Mariusz Cichosz / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2021

Keywords: education; environment; values; common good; personalism

The issue of values is of key importance in social sciences and thus in pedagogy. The process of education is strongly embedded and makes references to such aspects as models, templates and standards. In turn, they are interpreted axiologically and always receive the axiological interpretation. Every pedagogical sub-discipline tackles this issue in a specific and aspect-related mode. For social pedagogy, apart from the traditional cognitive and interpretative areas, such as the adopted concepts of man and social life, the area and the subject matter of principles on the basis of which the social world should be/ could be transformed is also of great importance. One of such principles is the principle of the common good. One may ask: to which traditions does social pedagogy refer in this respect, how does it interpret this principle and what are the present-day challenges related to it?

The 21st-century Museum - in Search of a Space for the Integration of Image and Word

The 21st-century Museum - in Search of a Space for the Integration of Image and Word

Author(s): Paulina Długosz / Language(s): English / Issue: 24/2022

Keywords: museum; exhibition; text; viewer; aesthetic experience

Contemporary museums are institutions in which the word "integration" is embodied in a multitude of ways, and this concept is realised through various exhibitions and educational initiatives. The multitude of tools, solutions and curatorial concepts related to the presentation of both ancient and contemporary art can thus lead to the question: Is today's museum a space which allows the viewer to have comprehensive, independent and unconstrained contact with a work of art, or rather a place which distracts and disintegrates the viewer's experience and aesthetic experience? This multiple-aspect problem has been discussed mainly within the context of linguistic messages accompanying objects and exhibitions on display in a museum. By analysing the results of a survey conducted among visitors to the Museum of the City of Łódź, various strategies of constructing texts on display at the museum's exhibitions were described in detail, along with an assessment of their suitability with regard to the preferences and needs of contemporary recipients.

Search for Transcendent in Science Fiction and Apocalyptic Films

Search for Transcendent in Science Fiction and Apocalyptic Films

Author(s): Osman Sahin / Language(s): English / Issue: 15/2023

Keywords: Postmodern; Transcendent; Sacred; Science Fiction; Apocalyptic Movies;

Humanity gradually shifted away from religion and the sacred in the modern age, but in the postmodern age, people have discovered that science and reason alone cannot satisfy them. As a result, people returned in various ways to mythology, religion, and the mystical. Cinema, one of the most popular arts of the visual age, could not possibly ignore this move. Religious themes and elements are prevalent in films. Humanity has lost confidence in metanarratives thanks to postmodernism, and is shown to be on a different quest for meaning, particularly in science fiction and apocalyptic/postapocalyptic films. In many films, this quest evolves into a quest for the transcendent. People contemplate the beginning and the end; they speculate about their origins and their future directions. Postmodern viewers are drawn to the holy, mystical, mythological, and transcendental quests offered in movie theaters. As a result, the film business, which is capitalist in nature, uses this tactic to produce stories that are transcendental, sacred, mythological, mystical, magical, supernatural, and, generally speaking, religious. This essay explores the attempt of postmodern man to use cinema to re-enchant the demystified universe. The postmodern man is tired of extreme rationalism and is on a philosophical quest. The study analyzes five science fiction movies, which are also referred to as apocalyptic movies. These are Avatar (2009), Interstellar (2014), Prometheus (2012), War of the Worlds (2005), and I Am Legend (2007). The article argues that in these movies, post-modern man’s quest for meaning is addressed with some sort of transcendence, his modern identity is developed into a postmodern one, or a postmodern identity is brought forth, and his worries about the end are mostly appeased with a postmodern uncertainty