scholarly journals Retro quality and historical consciousness in contemporary European television

Author(s):  
Louis Bayman

This article investigates the trend represented by the recent TV series This Is England 86 (2010), Deutschland 83 (2015) and 1992 (2015). It analyses retro in the series as enabling an exhilarating experience of the music, fashions and lifestyles of the past while claiming to offer a serious social history. The article thus takes issue with theories of retro that view it as ahistorical (for example Guffey), to demonstrate how retro in these series enables a particular dramatic conception of the dynamics of national history, whether in post-imperial decline (This Is England), a westalgie for the grip of geopolitical conflict (Deutschland 83) or the cyclical progression of trasformismo (1992). The article discusses the series’ common visions of the past as characterised by a pleasing youthful naivety, opposed to an implied present of cynical superior knowledge. I argue that these series embody retro’s distinct ability to combine irony and fetishism in its recreation of the past, as befits an age in which historical consciousness is increasingly referred to the intimate sphere of the individual self and its uncertain relation to posterity.

2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-580
Author(s):  
Samira Aghacy

This study focuses on the nature of the Lebanese encounter with modernity in Lebanese fiction over the past forty years or so, a time of great ideological, political, and cultural upheavals. The first part traces the effect of modernity on works by Lebanese writers since the 1950s, a period of “revolutionary political and social change,” and of learning and cultural and social ferment. The second part of the study focuses on Rashid al-Daif's novel עAzizi al-Sayyed Kawabata. My choice of this particular novel is related to the fact that it is a representative work that underlines the impact of modernity on Lebanese individuals and society during and in the wake of the civil war. The novel raises questions about rationality, ideology, the individual self, and the relevance of these Western constructs to the local situation in Lebanon. The structure of the novel itself and the use of the epistolary and autobiographical modes of writing underscore the novel's obsession with modernity. Within this context, one could say that al-Daif's novel can be viewed as a complex work of fiction that encompasses different forms of modernity, the tensions between these modernities, and between modernity and authenticity.


Author(s):  
Eugene Fontinell

This chapter considers the suggestive irony of living in an age characterized by both an obsessive concern for the ego or individual self and a denial that there is any such reality. The first characteristic is manifest in the charges that contemporary experience is best described as narcissistic, or that the present generation is the “me” generation, or that the past is a hedonistic culture in which self-satisfaction is the dominant if not exclusive value. The chapter shows that the denials of the ego or the individual self come from the more intellectually sophisticated segments of the community, taking such various forms as Buddhist “no-self‘ doctrines and structuralist and deconstructionist movements.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-355
Author(s):  
Marouf Cabi

This article examines in a Kurdish-Iranian context the origins of Iranian and Kurdish national narratives that go back to the process of the transformation of historical consciousness in the nineteenth century. At the same time, it aims at making central to Iranian history a perception of Kurdish-Iranian history, which has largely remained both a marginalized and an understudied subject. In contrast to these national narratives’ construction of the past and their definitions of people, “Kurdish-Iranian” refers to an approach that simultaneously attempts to demarginalize Kurdish (social) history and highlight the impact of almost a century of socioeconomic transformation of Iran on the Kurdish society. An analysis of these narratives’ origins is required to understand the way they interpret history and define concepts. This approach and the absence of such an analysis in both Kurdish and Iranian studies provide for the originality of this article and, inspired by what I hold to be the ascendancy of national narratives due to recent regional and political developments, its immediacy. Methodologically, it is based on theories of nation and nationalism, in general, and the accompanying literature on the formation of modern Iranian national identity, in particular.


An in-depth and wide-ranging academic investigation of the reception of the Tudor period in the modern world, this book includes studies by many of the leading scholars in their fields, and considers the modern appropriation of the Tudors in art, music, architecture, design, religion, public history, social history, film and television, and internet networking sites. A noteworthy scholarly trend in recent decades has been a growing interest in the ways in which societies utilise the past as a cultural resource, as a repertoire of quotable designs and styles, as a vantage point from which to frame political and social critiques, as a source of identities, and as a refuge from present-day anxieties. There has been a great deal of academic interest, for example, in the reception of the ancient world in modern Western culture. Likewise, a growing body of scholarship is devoted to the study of medievalism, the images, and ideas that attach to the Middle Ages in the post-medieval imaginary. It is striking that, in stark contrast, very little attention has been paid to the cultural appropriation of the Tudor age, despite the pronounced and enduring popularity of the Tudors within the popular historical consciousness, not only in Britain but also in many other countries. Indeed, the Tudors supply many of the signature icons of Britishness and the British monarchy around the world.


2019 ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
Molly Cobb

This chapter explores the individual microhistory by looking at works by Alfred Bester which consider the subjective nature of time and the privatisation of temporal experience. Bester’s works often demonstrate the lack of a universal continuum and the isolated nature of an individual’s timeline, which can be seen as a representation of the individual’s (in)ability to exhibit agency over their social environment. This chapter proposes that Bester is utilising an otherwise standard SF trope to invite his readers to re-examine the way in which individuals are made to conform to a society which is given priority over the individual self. This chapter delineates the relationship between the self’s subjective experience of the world, in terms of psychology and personal identity, and the objective assumptions of that world in regards to the individual, thus demonstrating the self’s seemingly unalterable place in social history.


Author(s):  
Mikhail Konstantinov

The aim of the article is to concretize the concept of political ideology in the aspect of its matrix structure and in the context of the cognitive-evolutionary approach. Based on Michael Frieden's morphological approach to the analysis of ideological consciousness, the concept of cognitive-ideological matrices is introduced, which allows us to describe the process of transition from proto-ideological to ideological concepts proper, especially at the level of individual consciousness. The identification of the ideological concept as the main “gene” of conceptual variability and inheritance made it possible to describe the main parameters of the evolution of political ideologies and associate it with changes taking place at the individual consciousness level. The described concept was tested in a series of sociological studies of youth consciousness conducted in 2015-2016 and 2018-2020. As a result of the study, it was possible to first identify the “zero level” of ideology, at which the minds of young respondents are potentially open to the influence of diverse and often mutually exclusive ideological orientations, and second, to pinpoint the changes that have occurred in the cognitive ideological matrices of Rostov-on-Don students over the past five years. This study was conducted by scientists from the southern Federal University.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (24) ◽  
pp. 4506-4536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris E. Allijn ◽  
René P. Brinkhuis ◽  
Gert Storm ◽  
Raymond M. Schiffelers

Traditionally, natural medicines have been administered as plant extracts, which are composed of a mixture of molecules. The individual molecular species in this mixture may or may not contribute to the overall medicinal effects and some may even oppose the beneficial activity of others. To better control therapeutic effects, studies that characterized specific molecules and describe their individual activity that have been performed over the past decades. These studies appear to underline that natural products are particularly effective as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. In this systematic review we aimed to identify potent anti-inflammatory natural products and relate their efficacy to their chemical structure and physicochemical properties. To identify these compounds, we performed a comprehensive literature search to find those studies, in which a dose-response description and a positive control reference compound was used to benchmark the observed activity. Of the analyzed papers, 7% of initially selected studies met these requirements and were subjected to further analysis. This analysis revealed that most selected natural products indeed appeared to possess anti-inflammatory activities, in particular anti-oxidative properties. In addition, 14% of the natural products outperformed the remaining natural products in all tested assays and are attractive candidates as new anti-inflammatory agents.


Author(s):  
Abbie J. Shipp

Temporal focus is the individual tendency to characteristically think more or less about the past, present, and future. Although originally rooted in early work from psychology, research on temporal focus has been steadily growing in a number of research areas, particularly since Zimbardo and Boyd’s (1999) influential article on the topic. This chapter will review temporal focus research from the past to the present, including how temporal focus has been conceptualized and measured, and which correlates and outcomes have been tested in terms of well-being and behavior. Based on this review, an agenda for research is created to direct temporal focus research in the future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Johan Klopper ◽  
Oladele Vincent Adeniyi ◽  
Kate Stephenson

Abstract Background The larynx has multiple composite functions which include phonation, airway protection, and sensory control of respiration. Stenosis of the larynx and trachea were first recorded by O’Dwyer in 1885 and by Colles in 1886, respectively. Initially, the aetiology of laryngotracheal stenosis was predominantly infective. Currently, the leading cause is iatrogenic injury to the laryngotracheal complex secondary to prolonged ventilation in an intensive care unit. Main body Laryngotracheal stenosis is a complex and diverse disease. It poses a major challenge to the surgeon and can present as an airway emergency. Management typically demands the combined involvement of various disciplines including otorhinolaryngology, cardiothoracic surgery, anaesthesiology, interventional pulmonology, and radiology. Both the disease and its management can impact upon respiration, voice, and swallowing. The incidence of iatrogenic laryngotracheal stenosis has reflected the evolution of airway and intensive care whilst airway surgery has advanced concurrently over the past century. Correction of laryngotracheal stenosis requires expansion of the airway lumen; this is achieved by either endoscopic or open surgery. We review the relevant basic science, aetiopathogenesis, diagnosis, management, and treatment outcomes of LTS. Conclusion The choice of surgical procedure in the management of laryngotracheal stenosis is often dictated by the individual anatomy and function of the larynx and trachea, together with patient factors and available facilities. Regardless of how the surgeon chooses to approach these lesions, prevention of iatrogenic laryngotracheal damage remains of primary importance.


Author(s):  
Kwo-Tsao Chiang ◽  
Min-Yu Tu ◽  
Chao-Chien Cheng ◽  
Hsin-Hui Chen ◽  
Wun-Wei Huang ◽  
...  

Hypoxia remains a flight-safety issue in terms of aviation medicine. Hypoxia-awareness training has been used to help aircrew members recognize personal hypoxia symptoms. There is still no study, as yet, to establish the association of within-subject data between inflight hypoxia events and the altitude chamber. The main purpose of our study was to use paired subjects’ data on inflight hypoxia symptoms compared with those experienced during training. A questionnaire was developed to obtain information on military aircrew members in 2018. Among 341 subjects, 46 (13.49%) suffered from inflight hypoxia. The majority of the subjects detected ongoing inflight hypoxia on the basis of their previous experience with personal hypoxia symptoms or sensations in previous chamber flights. Of the top five hypoxia symptoms, the data revealed that hot flashes, poor concentration, and impaired cognitive function appeared both during the inflight events and during the hypoxia-awareness training. The occurrence rate of hypoxia symptoms was found to not be significantly different between the in-flight events and the past chamber flights through an analysis of within-subject data. Because the individual memory had faded away over time, fresher hypoxia awareness training is still mandatory and valuable to recall personal hypoxia experience for military aircrew members.


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