The interruption of Japan's foreign relations, which has lasted since the beginning of the 7th century, was interrupted by the signing of the treaty of Kanagawa and the seizure of power by the ...emperor Mutsuhito, who called his reign the Meiji period, or „Enlightened rule.” It was during this period that the foundations for modernization of today's sophisticated Japan were laid. Japan begins to open up to the world, but it retains its independence, combining tradition and modernism in all segments. The journey and the exchange of ideas that have inspired many literary works, not only by the French writer Pierre Loti, on whose work this paper is partially based, then artistic ideas and artefacts, aim to explore the author of this paper, which focuses on the presentation of elements of Japanese art and culture at the Exibition Universelle in Paris, 1867. The analytical-comparative method used in this paper shows the remarkable place of Japan in the cross-section that transported silk from the Mediterranean to East Asia, which has become a symbol of the connection between East and West and metaphors for various myths and legends from previous periods, and today the link between western and eastern cultural development models, whose proximity and distance are constantly changing, leaving a strong mark on all societies.
In the early 21st century, TV series audiences in Croatia started fragmenting, and Turkish telenovelas began dominating terrestrial television. The research aimed to compare viewers and non-viewers ...of Turkish telenovelas in terms of value-based cultural proximity to Turkey, their cultural capital characteristics related to cultural engagement and foreign language knowledge, and their television taste. At the same time, for the first time on a Croatian adult sample, the research classified television fiction and entertainment genres into three genre styles (lowbrow, middlebrow, and highbrow genres) and established connections between the viewers' cultural capital and preferences for these styles. The research was conducted using the snowball method via Facebook. There were 1185 participants divided into two groups: viewers (316) and non-viewers of Turkish telenovelas (869). The results indicate that viewers of Turkish telenovelas express a pronounced cultural proximity to Turkey and a weaker cultural engagement and knowledge of foreign languages than non-viewers. Their spectrum of genre preferences is narrow, mostly gravitating towards lowbrow genres, especially domestic telenovelas. Non-viewers of Turkish telenovelas do not express a pronounced cultural proximity to Turkey. They are more culturally engaged and know foreign languages better than viewers of Turkish telenovelas. They accept middlebrow and highbrow genres while ignoring lowbrow ones. Regarding the cultural stratification related to television tastes, the largest, statistically significant positive correlations were found between cultural engagement, knowledge of foreign languages and education on the one hand and highbrow genres and then middlebrow genres on the other. The correlations were negative for lowbrow genres.
Apart from originating contemporary norms and cultures among its viewers, Nigerian television series portray new and emerging constructions and practices that the populace is able to identify with. ...Recently, one television series that has become popular in Nigeria is Jenifa’s Diary. Its popularity stems from its incorporation of the Nigerian English, the British English and the indigenous Yoruba language, as well as the antics and codification(s) of the eponymous character, Jennifer. Her utility of a distinctive English language which deviates from the Nigerian Pidgin and the British English, has made this series popular among viewers. This has created a new linguistic culture and also appropriated what I term the Jenifanlingua franca. It is not a rarity to see children, teenagers and adults communicate in the same manner as Jennifer. Against this backdrop, this paper examines Funke Akindele-Bello’s television series Jenifa’s Diary as Nigerian social reality and a medium for cultural propagation. This study examines socio-cultural nuances in Jenifas Diary. The research is qualitative as it utilises the literary and content analysis methods. The study reveals that Jenifa’s Diary captures the plight of the African been to in the Western world and that the television serial is rich with its incorporation of the Nigerian Pidgin English, the British English and some indigenous Nigerian languages such as the Yoruba language, as well as the antics and codification(s) of the eponymous character, Jennifer. While Jenifa’s Diary and other Nigerian television series are products of social realities, they also create spaces for new socio-cultural landscapes. The study has been able to explain the imperative of television series on the Nigerian socio-cultural space. Cineastes should produce television serials that will educate and stimulate the populace towards becoming better people in the society.
This article revisits the notion of ‘postfeminism’ 10 years after its formulation in critical terms as a sensibility characterizing cultural life. The article has two broad aims: first to reflect ...upon postfeminism as a critical term – as part of the lexicon of feminist scholarship – and second to discuss the current features of postfeminism as a sensibility. The first part of the article discusses the extraordinary uptake of the term and considers its continuing relevance in a changed context marked by deeply contradictory trends, including the resurgence of interest in feminism, alongside the spectacular visibility of misogyny, racism, homophobia and nationalism. I document a growing attention to the specificities of postfeminism, including attempts to map its temporal phases, its relevance to place, and intersectional developments of the term. The second part of the article examines the contours of the contemporary postfeminist sensibility. I argue that postfeminism has tightened its hold upon contemporary life and become hegemonic. Compared with a decade ago, it is much more difficult to recognize as a novel and distinctive sensibility, as it instantiates a common sense that operates as a kind of gendered neoliberalism. It has both spread out and intensified across contemporary culture and is becoming increasingly dependent upon a psychological register built around cultivating the ‘right’ kinds of dispositions for surviving in neoliberal society: confidence, resilience and positive mental attitude. Together these affective, cultural and psychic features of postfeminism exert a powerful regulatory force. This article forms part of ‘On the Move’, a special issue marking the twentieth anniversary of the journal. It also heads up a special online dossier on ‘Postfeminism in the European Journal of Cultural Studies’.
Traditional African pastoral tribes face the challenge of new phenomena of social character. In this article, the authors discuss the case of Umoja – the ‘only women’s village’ in Samburu County ...(Kenya) and the life situation of its residents (women, children). Informal interviews and in situ observations conducted in October 2021 as well as the relevant publications, were the main sources of information on the functioning of this women-only settlement. The socio-cultural phenomenon of Umoja combines two dilemmas: the first concerns the life of Umoja residents, the need to provide them with living conditions and personal development (education, health), and the second reveals the participation of the village’s activities in the idea of women’s emancipation and empowerment through the development of contacts of Umoja women with the ‘outside world’. Although transformation of Umoja daily life into a tourist product (commodification) provides its residents with the means of income, the Umoja women’s resistance act to the status of women in the Samburu community aims at a change in values in this traditional tribal culture.
The Imagination of Sociology of Culture TSUJI, Izumi; TANIMOTO, Naho; KUDO, Yasunori
Japanese Sociological Review,
2023, 2023-00-00, Volume:
73, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Open access
This article aims to reveal characteristics and major currents of sociology of culture in Japan. In recent years, sociology of culture has received a great deal of scholarly attention, reaching out ...to growing numbers of students and researchers. With the backdrop of this burgeoning field, it is no exaggeration to say that we are now entering an “age of sociology of culture.” One prominent characteristic of sociology of culture lies in the breadth of its research subjects and perspectives. In comparison to other fields of sociologies, sociology of culture does not merely focus on a specific area in society, but rather, it attempts to delve into society as a whole through culture.The term “culture” can be understood in a narrow and broad sense. The former sees culture observed in everyday life, such as popular culture and mass culture, while the latter embraces a broader perspective on society, ranging from lifestyle in general to social structures, to such civilizations as the Japanese or Western culture. In this sense, sociology of culture is an approach that serves to understand thedynamism articulated between cultures in both senses.From this perspective, sociology of culture in Japan has undergone four major stages of change. The first stage was the period of emergence in the prewar era. It was followed by the period of development until the period of rapid economic growth in postwar Japan. It was a time when several sociologists, conducted important research on mass culture while refining their own theoretical perspectives, which remains influential today. The third stage was the stabilized period wherein sociology of culture became more prevalent. Now, sociology of culture is in its fourth stage.
Historical and literary analysis of the Egyptian modernization project and the conflict it caused in the area of Middle Eastern culture where Egypt plays a leading role. The article questions ...selected claims from the field of postcolonial studies and discusses how the colonial powers used “modernist” and “anti-modernist strategies” in the Arab region for their own benefit. It argues that the same conflict is being rec-reated today through identity discourses and so called “cancel culture”.
Every phenomenon has a field of existence, and due to its nature, no cultural phenomenon could be completely comprehended outside this field of existence. Therefore, in order to be able to make sense ...of a cultural phenomenon, as in other contextualities, its field of existence as the context where it is produced, executed/presented and consumed is an important dynamic that needs to be considered. There are multiple words corresponding to field of existence such as location, space, place and area. However, in this article, the word space has been preferred over others as it qualifies the relationality within itself, the atmosphere of it formed by abstract and tangible elements and the affectivity and integrity created by this atmosphere. Space as a field of existence, forms as a result of its bilateral relationship with the person. Therefore, in this article, the person cannot be deemed absolutely passive or absolutely active. In connection to this, this article did not prefer one-dimensional and strict approaches such as environmental determinism where the physical and cultural environment controls and shapes human production or possibilism which is an active human approach that uses a preference among alternate opportunities of the conditions in the environment; instead, “probabilism”, which focuses on bilateral relationality, was adopted as the main approach of the article. There is a close and indispensable relationship between music pieces and spaces. In this article, the quality of this relationship is defined with the concept of “symbiotic”, which means “vital connection between two elements for mutual existence”. Therefore, the hypothesis of this article is that there is a symbiotic relationship between music and space. While the article draws a general framework in the relationship between music and space, it rather turns towards its effect and diversity in the Turkish music culture, and it is aimed to reveal how the concept of genre which qualifies this diversity becomes noticeable on the basis of space in the light of the written and verbal literature.
The article analyzes the background of the modern secular movement in Egypt and the causes of its failure. The Author compares the circumstances of the emergence of secular ideas in the Middle East ...and in Europe and argues that in order for a secular modernization project to be effective, it should be a bottom-up process, based on the cultural specificity of a given country, not imposed by hegemons. He also investigates the mistakes made by elites in the Middle East, who did not develop the cognitive framework necessary to model their own concept of a secular state.
PDF
