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Since the beginning of 1991 Bulgaria has been living through a period of transition from centralized totalitarian control to free market economy. Year 1990 can be said to mark the political liberation of the people with the adoption of the new Constitution. The economic liberalization, however, is a reality yet to be brought to life since private ownership is not prevalent in the economy. The prime aim of the transition is to substitute an absurd and inefficient economic system for a new one to rely on the free initiative, private ownership and competition.
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THE DEBATE ON THE PRACTICAL PAST
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The major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the identity of the processes of modernisation, state-building and nation-building in the Balkans in contrast to their treatment in opposition by many historians and political scientists. Two interpretive views of the Balkans have been challenged: the first characterizes patterns of social and political development in terms of an East-West dichotomy; the second maintains a negative perspective on the political modernization of the newly established Balkan stales, the operation of Balkan politics and Balkan nationalism in particular. The author focuses first on the social background and goals of the Balkan political elites, then on the long-term effects of parliamentary institutions in the late-industrializing Balkan societies, and finally on the state-building and nation-building experiences in the Balkans as compared to those in contemporary Western Europe. The arguments pursued on the basis of this analysis concern the “advantages of backwardness" in the political and social realms and the precedence of political over economic modernization in the case of young nation-states.
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The article presents a possible approach to the analysis of the situation of accepting/transmitting inheritance (in the widest sense) among a migrant group – the one of Bulgarian emigrants to Turkey – and an attempt is made to make explicit its practical logic. To trace the actual ‘sociogenesis’ of the process of inheriting, there must be a double process in its conceptualization: 1) on the one hand, conceptualization of ‘the constitutive dispositions of the habitus’ that are able to generate not only correct actions and practices but also disappointments, tensions, conflict and contradictions, psychological traumas and repressed intentions; 2) on the other hand, conceptualization of the way in which the social order becomes imprinted in the bodies as it ‘collects, channels, reinforces or counteracts psychological processes’. Thus the conceptualization of the process in which, through the figure of ‘inheritance’ social positions and biographic trajectories are ‘eternalized’ in practice, comes out linked to the question how the ‘ontological complicity’ between biographical and social illusio happens when it is possible (as in the case of ‘Bulgarian emigrants’) that their formation is the result of different social conditions. Finally, taking advantage of the specific manner of ‘praxeological understanding’ that permits simultaneously to retain the many points of view and layers in what the respondent ‘testifies’, the article proposes a conception of the contradictoriness itself of the studied agents as heirs. For this purpose, the analysis first dwells on the theoretic justification of the diverse modalities of ‘inheriting’ and then on their empirical verification by the study of specific ‘cases’ that are representative of the studied group.
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Philosophy of history and sociology are defined as results of the historical development of the modernity and as specific forms of modernity's selfreflexion."Secularization" is dealt with as a consept belonging both to the philosophy of history and to sociology. The close interrelation between the usages of "secularization" in these two fields is examined. "Secularization" is terminologically and conceptually clarified against the background of the discussion between K.Lowith and H. Blumenberg on the origin of the philosophy of history. Some empirical developments within modern history are described. These processes which resulted in abolishing and restricting the influence of the Church and religion on important areas of public life i. e. in their "secularization") — are viewed as preconitiones for the emergence of the concept of "secularization" itself. The interdependence between the philosophical and sociological usages of "secularization" is ultimately grounded in "historicity" The latter is one of the basic concepts of modern historical consciousness and is also a fundamental principle (ratio essendi) of modern social reality.
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The paper aims at mapping out the place of life stories between the poles of history and memory as defined by M. Halbwachs, J. Le Goff, P. Nora, T. Todorov. Examples are given of the authenticity, subjectivity and commitedness of life stories, which bring them closer to the pole of memory. At the same time, a number of cases of referring to "external authorities", generalization, distancing and relativization of the past point to the rationality of history. The fusion of memory and history in life stories suggests a possible redefinition of the relation between them based on a reappraisal of oral history.
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At the beginning of 20th century the institutional figure of the so called „teacher-physician“ was introduced in the Bulgarian secondary schools. He was commissioned with health-sanitary, medico-pedagogical and administrative tasks. Their institutional hybrid, as well as the activities of the general civil sanitary authorities regarding primary schools, was often labelled as „school hygiene“ in official and specialised texts. The article deals with certain forms of school hygiene, particularly those built upon its sanitary layer and represented through claims of medical knowledge to develop expert power over student’s health and function as a preventive technology of „social hygiene“ with certain biopolitical effects. It studied to what extent, why and how certain cultural images of social and moral (dis)order circulated within the school institutional milieu as medicalised metaphors of bodily and mental, individual and collective (non-)health. It is argued that under the framework of Bulgarian institutionalisation at that time the school doctor’s role mediated between the rhetorical structures of the medical discourse, on the one hand, and their usages on behalf of the state for the construction of a sound „social organism“, on the other. School hygiene itself was inscribed into the project for reconstruction and restoration to health of the collective „people’s organism“ through surveillance and prevention of the „school people“. A conclusion is made that in the period under review some capital of the nation-minded rhetoric was accumulated and legitimated through biomedical norms as well. By reason of certain institutional deficits, however, it reminded to a great extent latent in stead of being articulated in mass practices of „biopower“ (M. Foucault).
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Once translated into images, food acquires a broader meaning. Food is no longer merely something to eat, but to show, share and look at. The increasing amount of images and pictures of dishes on our social networks, associated with hashtags such as #foodporn, expresses this renewed social, communicative and provocative function of food. However, the exhibition of these images is quite ambivalent when it comes to establishing determined patterns of visual and social relationships with and between users. The aim of this article is to analyze and attempt to provide mediation to this ambivalence. The pornographic exposition of food images no longer presupposes a transitive form of consumption by the user, but becomes pure and self-reflexing spectacle. The images are obscene (Baudrillard [1981] 1994) and characterized by an excess of transparency on their object which abolishes any form of seduction (Baudrillard [1979] 1990). Barthes ([1980] 1981) defines this kind of image as unary. Pornographic images are an emblematic example. In terms of their self-evident objectivity, these pictures lack any punctum, any piercing sign of a relationship with or openness to the observer (see Eco 1962; 1979). Nevertheless, behind their apparent transparency, the images are always products of specific perspective cuts, and still able to convey mystery, meaning and involvement. The unary image of food is a further fragment in a series of multiple perspectives on the same object. Such potentiality is actualized in our (social) media culture in which sharing and continuous remediation of images and pictures of food constitute a complex storytelling of the object. This, in turn, fosters further participation by the users. The ambivalence between the indifference of the pornographic image and the involvement in the serialization of the detail is synthetized by the notion of fetishism (Baudrillard [1972] 2019). The social (and) media scenery seems to exemplify and radicalize a sort of commodity fetishism, in which social relationships between users are shaped and mediated by (social) media relationships between images of food.
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Conceptual integration theory and political Internet humour
The aim of the paper is to uncover the extent to which different forms of political Internet humour can criticise current political affairs in a developing democracy such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Specifically, applying a cognitive linguistic theory of meaning construction, namely conceptual integration theory, the paper analyses the construction of meaning of humorous Internet forms, such as memes, demotivational posters, hashtag posts, and memetic photographs, representing innovative ways of providing political commentaries on current political affairs. The meaning of political humour is constructed in conceptual blending as a basic cognitive mechanism. As it is claimed (Coulson & Pascual 2006, Coulson & Oakley 2006, Coulson 2006, Oakley & Coulson 2008) that blending can be used as a rhetorical tool influencing the audience to change the reality and even act upon it, the analysis of the construction of meaning of political humour as products of conceptual integration can reveal hidden ideologies in political discourse.
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The paper seeks to explore recent shifts within the popular culture with regard to oppression involving gender, class, race, and ethnicity that can be traced back to the #MeToo movement which was revived as a social media hashtag in October 2017 and has since spread all over the world. The paper starts with a brief overview of Western popular culture that “has recently been seen as a champion for feminism . . . with many high-profile female musicians and actresses visibly promoting the movement in their work” (Woodacre 2018, 21). Next, the paper discusses the origins of the Me Too Movement and the way it approaches the meaning of gendered oppressions as well as individualized and collective experiences of survivors of sexual abuse. This is later explored in the examination of the impact of the hashtag-led movement on three works of popular culture: Amazon’s TV series Lorena (2019), Nancy Schwartzman’s documentary Roll Red Roll (2019), and We Believe: the Best Men Can Be (2019) advertisement by Gillette. The entire case study is informed primarily by feminist theory understood as inseparable from feminist activism, following bell hooks’ Feminist theory from margin to center (1984).
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The #MeToo movement has had a profound cultural impact on US society, and notably on US party politics. While many studies have addressed the #MeToo-related controversy arising from the Brett Kavanaugh nomination to Supreme Court Justice in 2018, the relationship between #MeToo and US politics before this event has remained understudied. This article, therefore, addresses this gap by looking at the role of politics at the beginning of the #MeToo movement. Focusing on the first six months of online activity on Twitter (October 2017 – April 2018), over 2 million tweets with the #MeToo hashtag are analyzed to identify the main activity patterns across the dataset and to gain insight on user behavior and participation in the conversation. Results point to the weaponization of #MeToo in the political context from its inception. It is suggested that #MeToo reflects the polarized political climate in the US and that it can be conceptualized as part of the wider “culture wars” (Hunter 1991) that characterize the public debate.
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This article discusses the #metoo movement in the Polish theatre. The author, referring to the thesis by Agnès Grossmann, notes that just like in the cinema, in which #metoo was initiated, the theatre reproduces images of women subjected to the male gaze. She then looks at how this problem of representation translates into the working conditions of women in the theatre. The paper presents the current state of research and actions regarding violence (including sexual violence) in theatres around the world. Applying these considerations to Poland, the author writes how this problem resonates with the situation of women in Poland. In the context of the theatre, the location of substantive and practical preparation for #metoo were theatre schools. Surveying events in the two most important and prestigious centres of theatre education, the author first makes a diagnosis of existing problems and then examines the process of combating them through the prism of Sarah Ahmed's concept of “walls” and the affective theory of paranoia and reparation according to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
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Rynek płatnych serwisów VOD w kontekście pandemii wywołanej wirusem SARS-COV-2
The article’s main goal was to show the impact of novel coronavirus pandemic on the video-on-demand market and its social consequences. The author argues that the phenomenon of mass social isolation imposed by governments all across the world can be seen not as an exemption form otherwise steady media market, but rather as an acceleration of changes, which began to form as early as 40 years ago. Among the most prominent developments which happened during those 4 decades on the television market is the rise of VOD platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or even HBO GO, and their gradual dominance over traditional agents such as film studios and TV stations. The #Stayathome movement which is the result of mass social distancing, like no other phenomenon before SARS-CoV-2 pandemic shows that the once mainstream model of media consumption based on the so-called top-down approach is gradually stepping down. In its place a new model is currently forming. One that is based on users’ preferences, recommendations obtained from gathered data and personalisation of media messages. In order to fully understand the true impact of mentioned process and to predict its possible outcomes there is a need to study media market not only from the economic or legal point of view, but also maybe more importantly, from the perspective of modern societies and VOD platforms. The example of changes arising in the light of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, their multiplicity and diversity of fields from the impact on human behavior and everyday practices to government or EU-imposed laws and directives, shows in consequence the complexity of modern media market.
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The monograph (Auto)Reflection of an Early Childhood Education Teacher. A Practical View showcases theoretical, methodological and empirical aspects of early childhood education teacher’s everyday work. The volume concerns a certain reflection and auto-reflection on the part of the teacher, whose duties entail optimal planning and organization, as well as the subsequent realization, control and evaluation not only of their students’ work (in the teaching-learning process), but also their own. Moreover, the volume attempts to approach such reflection and auto-reflection on the part of the teacher in the context of the learning through doing theory proposed by Wojciech Kojs, and to showcase, in the light of this theory, the importance of the research agency of the subject.
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