A leading cultural theorist and musicologist opens up new
possibilities for understanding mainstream Western art music-the
"classical" music composed between the eighteenth and early
twentieth ...centuries that is, for many, losing both its prestige and
its appeal. When this music is regarded esoterically, removed from
real-world interests, it increasingly sounds more evasive than
transcendent. Now Lawrence Kramer shows how classical music can
take on new meaning and new life when approached from postmodernist
standpoints. Kramer draws out the musical implications of
contemporary efforts to understand reason, language, and
subjectivity in relation to concrete human activities rather than
to universal principles. Extending the rethinking of musical
expression begun in his earlier Music as Cultural
Practice , he regards music not only as an object that invites
aesthetic reception but also as an activity that vitally shapes the
personal, social, and cultural identities of its listeners. In
language accessible to nonspecialists but informative to
specialists, Kramer provides an original account of the
postmodernist ethos, explains its relationship to music, and
explores that relationship in a series of case studies ranging from
Haydn and Mendelssohn to Ives and Ravel.
The phenomenal rise of Shenzhen, a newly emergent city where the number of non-registered residents far exceeds that of registered ones, has been closely associated with a complex and dynamic ...interplay between the process of globalization, which has enabled Shenzhen’s incredible transformation from an impoverished fishing village to a leading global metropolis, and the forces of localization, which have compelled Shenzhen to take its own distinct circumstances into consideration. The miracle of Shenzhen can be construed not only as an iconic embodiment of China’s process of modernization and globalization since reform and opening-up, but also as a local attempt to reconstruct an alternative modernity with Chinese characteristics in the homogenizing context of globalization. To elucidate how Shenzhen has played a leading role both in promoting China’s integration into the global system and in demonstrating the uniqueness of China’s development in the age of globalization, this article makes a careful exploration of Shenzhen’s process of modern centralization and postmodern decentralization over the past several decades. While modernizing and centralizing itself in the global context, Shenzhen also tries to reconstruct an alternative modernity with concrete Chinese practices, which has not only led to the emergence of multiple centers in China but also undermined the singular and fixed meaning of global modernity by deterritorializing its narrow domain and expanding its restricted reference with specific Chinese practices.
The paper starts from the role and meaning of sociological theory in the context of research traditions. It begins with a discussion of the positioning of theory within qualitative research ...approaches in the time context of the late 1980sand early 1990s during the so-called of the “postmodern turn “. Given that the aim of the paper is to consider the genesis of research traditions in sociology with an emphasis on ethnographic research traditions, but it is difficult to start the discussion without grasping the essence of sociological theory. When talking about theory and ethnographic research, there are numerous forms of specific theories that ethnographers have, each of which is applicable to specific topics. The inappropriateness of the theory and the specific research topic results in a misunderstanding in relation to the main research questions. Within the work, the order of knowledge is also problematized, which is associated with ethnography on the one hand and postmodernism on the other, as well as a „reflexive” turn. The postmodern sensibility is especially visible within the reflective moment during the writing process. Postmodern ideas therefore first introduce a new level of criticality within ethnographic research and draw attention to certain topics, processes and phenomena that have not been sufficiently discussed within wider social reflection.
Abstract
Fredric Jameson’s recent book,
Allegory and Ideology
, argues that allegory has become a ‘social symptom’, an attempt during moments of historical crisis to represent reality even as that ...reality, rife with contradictory levels, eludes representation. Mobilising the fourfold medieval system of allegory he first introduced in
The Political Unconscious
, Jameson traces a formal history of attempts to come to terms with the ‘multiplicities’ and incommensurable levels that emerge within modernity and postmodernity. This article identifies the complexities of Jameson’s understanding of allegory and draws on the brief moments when Jameson references the Anthropocene to argue for an allegorical reading of our contemporary environmental crisis that would allow us to see the problem the Anthropocene names as truly contradictory: at one and the same time, the world we inhabit appears to us as a world of our own making and as a world that has become truly alien to us.
Katecheza zawsze odbywa się w konkretnych warunkach i w konkretnych czasach. Nie może być oderwana od rzeczywistości, nie może „rozmijać” się z problemami przeżywanymi przez katechizowanych. W tym ...znaczeniu ponowoczesność i cechujący ją sekularyzm stawiają katechezę w nowych warunkach, w sytuacji, która wymaga rozpoznania, a następnie rozeznania, jak w tej nowej rzeczywistości możliwe jest głoszenie katechezy, jak możliwe jest dotarcie z Ewangelią do współczesnego człowieka. Artykuł podejmuje namysł nad możliwościami dialogu katechetycznego z człowiekiem żyjącym w ponowoczesności, którą charakteryzuje zjawisko sekularyzacji. Refleksja przeprowadzona będzie w dwóch punktach. Najpierw ukazany zostanie kontekst, w którym zarysowuje się współczesny dialog katechetyczny. Następnie wyartykułowane zostaną konkretne zagadnienia, które mogą stanowić swoistą przestrzeń spotkania (konieczną do zaistnienia dialogu) z człowiekiem ponowoczesności. Całość zakończy krytyczne podsumowanie.
Are we losing touch with our humanity? Yes, contends Alan Wolfe in this provocative critique of modern American intellectual life. From ecology, sociobiology, and artificial intelligence to ...post-modernism and the social sciences, Wolfe examines the antihumanism underlying many contemporary academic trends. Animal rights theorists and "ecological extremists" too often downplay human capacities. Computers are smarter than we are and will soon replace us as the laws of evolution continue to unfold. Even the humanities, held in sway by imported theories that are explicitly antihumanistic in intention, have little place for human beings. Against this backdrop, Wolfe calls for a return to a moral and humanistic social science, one in which the qualities that distinguish us as a species are given full play. Tracing the development of modern social theory, Wolfe explores the human-centered critical thinking of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars, now eclipsed by post-modern and scientistic theorizing. In the work of Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Mead, human beings are placed on the center stage, shaping and interpreting the world around them. Sociology in particular emerged as a distinct science because the species it presumed to understand was distinct as well. Recent intellectual trends, in contrast, allow little room for the human difference. Sociobiology underlines the importance of genetics and mathematically governed evolutionary rules while downplaying the unique cognitive abilities of humans. Artificial intelligence heralds the potential superiority of computers to the human mind. Post-modern theorizing focuses on the interpretation of texts in self-referential modes, rejecting humanism in any form. And mainstream social science, using positivist paradigms of human behavior based on the natural sciences, develops narrow and arid models of social life. Wolfe eloquently makes a case for a new commitment to humanistic social science based on a realistic and creative engagement with modern society. A reconstituted social science, acknowledging our ability to interpret the world, will thrive on a recognition of human difference. Nurturing a precious humanism, social science can celebrate and further refine our unique capacity to create morality and meaning for ourselves.
The myth of progress Castelli, Alberto
Culture & psychology,
12/2023, Letnik:
29, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This manuscript stages the West and China as civilizations rooted in contrasting myths. The Western leading paradigm is the Faustian Man whose ambition created modernity and the tragedy of progress. ...It is a tragedy already condemned by history but, being Faust’s construction site unfinished, it is a tragedy that everyone seems keen to re-enact. On the other hand, China conceived the concept of stability, rather than competition, the key for a durable success. Behind Zheng He’s voyages and the Ming Dynasty’s choice to go westbound, rather than eastbound, lies an anti-Faustian attitude, the essence of Chinese philosophy, to be read not as anti-modernity but the attempt to shape an alternative modernity.
The article shows that Habermas’s modernism and Lyotard’s postmodernism are not as antithetical as they are often taken to be. First, we argue that Habermas is not a strong foundationalist concerned ...with identifying universal rules for language, as postmodern critiques have often interpreted him. Instead, he develops a social pragmatics in which the communicative use of language is the fundamental presupposition of any meaningful interaction. Second, we argue that Lyotard is not a relativist who denies any universal linguistic structure. Instead, he claims that language involves a universal element of dissensus that cannot be subordinated to consensus. Third, we show that neither does Habermas defend a new version of the kind of philosophy of history characteristic of the Enlightenment, nor is Lyotard a historical relativist, but instead they both seek alternatives to these positions. The conclusion calls for more nuance in the interpretation of both perspectives.
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