scholarly journals Serious Fun

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Driscoll ◽  
Claire Squires

The book festival provides an intriguing instance of the overlapping cultural, social and economic dimensions of contemporary literary culture. This article proposes the application of a new conceptual framework, that of game-inspired thinking, to the study of book festivals. Game-inspired thinking uses games as metaphors that concentrate and exaggerate aspects of cultural phenomena in order to produce new knowledge about their operations. It is also an arts-informed methodology that offers a mid-level perspective between empirical case studies and abstract models. As a method, our Bookfestivalopoly and other games focus attention on the material, social and ideological dimensions of book festivals. In particular, they confirm the presence of neoliberal pressures and neocolonial inequalities in the “world republic of letters.” Our research thus makes a contribution to knowledge about the role of festivals within contemporary literary culture, and provides a model for researchers of cultural phenomena who may want to adopt game-inspired, arts-informed thinking as an alternative to traditional disciplinary methods.

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-252
Author(s):  
Tiphaine Samoyault

Abstract The hierarchical system described by Pascale Casanova in The World Republic of Letters and La Langue mondiale is confirmed by the global phenomenon of relay translations, which attests that international exchanges are rarely bilateral. The study of relay or indirect translations completes what she says about the crucial role of mediators in the mechanisms of literary circulation. Yet the concrete processes of the intervention of the third party are only occasionally studied (in case studies) and are rarely synthesized. They bring into play mere configurations of the international in a non-systemic, but historical and not always deterministic way. This article attempts to theorize a practice that modifies the frames of thought of translation itself.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Gisa Jähnichen

The Sri Lankan Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue, and Official Languages published the work “People of Sri Lanka” in 2017. In this comprehensive publication, 21 invited Sri Lankan scholars introduced 19 different people’s groups to public readers in English, mainly targeted at a growing number of foreign visitors in need of understanding the cultural diversity Sri Lanka has to offer. This paper will observe the presentation of these different groups of people, the role music and allied arts play in this context. Considering the non-scholarly design of the publication, a discussion of the role of music and allied arts has to be supplemented through additional analyses based on sources mentioned by the 21 participating scholars and their fragmented application of available knowledge. In result, this paper might help improve the way facts about groups of people, the way of grouping people, and the way of presenting these groupings are displayed to the world beyond South Asia. This fieldwork and literature guided investigation should also lead to suggestions for ethical principles in teaching and presenting of culturally different music practices within Sri Lanka, thus adding an example for other case studies.


Author(s):  
Luzian Messmer ◽  
Braida Thom ◽  
Pius Kruetli ◽  
Evans Dawoe ◽  
Kebebew Assefa ◽  
...  

AbstractMany regions around the world are experiencing an increase in climate-related shocks, such as drought. This poses serious threats to farming activities and has major implications for sustaining rural livelihoods and food security. Farmers’ ability to respond to and withstand the increasing incidence of drought events needs to be strengthened and their resilience enhanced. Implementation of measures to enhance resilience is determined by decisions of farmers and it is important to understand the reasons behind their behavior. We assessed the viability of measures to enhance resilience of farmers to drought, by developing a general framework that covers economic-technical and psychological-cognitive aspects, here summarized under the terms (1) motivation and (2) feasibility. The conceptual framework was applied to cocoa farmers in Ghana and tef farmers in Ethiopia by using questionnaire-based surveys. A portfolio of five specific measures to build resilience (i.e., irrigation, shade trees, fire belts, bookkeeping, mulching, early mature varieties, weather forecast, reduced tillage, improved harvesting) in each country was evaluated with a closed-ended questionnaire that covered the various aspects of motivation and feasibility whereby farmers were asked to (dis)agree on a 5-point Likert scale. The results show that if the motivation mean score is increased by 0.1 units, the probability of implementation increases by 16.9% in Ghana and by 7.7% in Ethiopia. If the feasibility mean score is increased by 0.1 units, the probability of implementation increases by 24.9% in Ghana and by 11.9% in Ethiopia. We can conclude that motivation and feasibility matter, and we improve our understanding of measure implementation if we include both feasibility and motivation into viability assessments.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Kambali

The economic crisis that convolved the world economy a few years ago is the result of a series of government policies in the economic field. Starting from the Subprime Mortgage in America, the crisis eventually spreads across all sectors of the economy. As analysts say that the explosion of the current economic crisis is caused by the trend of low interest rates that are applied by the Fed. The trend of low interest rates will give rise to expectation of market to future economic situation. It is characterized by the overflow of capital expansion in all sectors, especially in property sector. Today, along with the growing mobility of capital from one country to another as part of unavoidable economic liberalization, mobility of capital, on the one hand, has spawned some of the imbalances in the life of a State. The powerlessness can not be separated from economic ideology and system on state role in the economy. Capitalism with its laissez faire brings the concept of state minimal role in the economy. In the empirical facts, it is broken by the crisis situation in 1930 and today's financial crisis. Socialism tends to carry the central role of the State in the economy through the centralistic planning system. The fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s brought the world to a choice whether reconstructing capitalism or socialism as Fukuyama and Gidden said. On the other hand, as the new system, the economic system of Islam brings the concept of the role of the State in the economy on the basis of universal values of Islam, such as justice in the economy which is reflected in the mechanism of the prohibition of riba (usury), just income distribution and redistribution of income through zakat and social security. This article is an exposure of the State's role in the economy which is studied through the perspective of today’s economic system. The systems are capitalism, socialism, and Islam. The article not only explores conceptual framework, but also also contains an empirical framework mapping and how the conceptual framework is operated. At the end, from the two mapping (conceptual and empirical), author draws a reflection of how the State should play a role in the economic field. Keywords: Capitalism, Socialism, Islam, Economic Role of State


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Atkinson ◽  
Firdoze Bulbulia

As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns across the world, digital access has become paramount, as most aspects of education have moved online. Drawing together five case studies located in South Africa, Argentina, the Netherlands, India and Ethiopia, this article assesses the role of film education during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a specific focus on the impacts of digital access. We examine multimodal forms of film education, and how these were used to inform, entertain and educate children during the crisis by the varying work undertaken by the organizations. Applying theories of intersectionality, we address the need for context-specific approaches to film education, focusing upon the impact that the societal and individual contexts had on the dissemination of film education in each country.


Author(s):  
Tat’yana V. Bychkova ◽  

The paper considers the role of the language personality in speech activity in neologizations of abbreviated SMS messages in the English discourse. Within the framework of the communicative-discursive direction in Russian linguistics, a paradigmatic approach to the study of the role of the language personality in the creation of new knowledge has been established. The language personality is able to participate in the process of nominating objects and actions of the world picture. Intralinguistic and extralinguistic factors influence language changes. Intralinguistic factors provide potential for language renewal, including its neologization, in accordance with the laws of dialectical development. Extra- linguistic factors are represented by numerous social and socio-political phe- nomena from the surrounding world. The high popularity of SMS messages is explained not only by the action of the law of saving speech efforts in the language, but also by the ability of language personality to express emotions in the language, thanks to the opportunities for innovations and improvisations inherent in it. The paper considers the language functions and stylistic features of abbreviated SNS messages in English discourse.


Author(s):  
David MacDougall

Research in the sciences, including the social sciences, is usually supposed to be conducted in a systematic way, working from research questions to the gathering of empirical data, to conclusions. But in an analogy drawn from the art of fencing, the author argues for an alternative approach in visual anthropology. Films look at the world differently from the ways we conventionally see, and these differences have optical, social, and structural origins. To overcome these differences, filmmakers may have to voluntarily ‘dislocate’ themselves in order to put themselves in a position to view their subject from a different perspective, and so uncover new knowledge. The argument is supported by a discussion of the realities of ethnographic fieldwork, the processes of filmmaking, and the role of play and improvisation in the arts and other human endeavours.


Author(s):  
Robert B. Lloyd ◽  
Melissa Haussman ◽  
Patrick James

It is estimated that populations in Africa are afflicted with 24% of the global load of disease with only 13% of the population. This chapter provides theoretical suggestions for studying why this is so. Among these theories are area studies, Africa studies and the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health Framework, which relates social inequality to the study of political and health-providing institutions. The chapter lays out the book’s three case studies and our look at the role of national and international health and secular ngo’s in helping to remedy gendered health inequalities. It lays out the MDG framework of 2000, to be discussed in succeeding chapters.


2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 239-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Grimaldi ◽  
Alessandro Grandi

This paper examines the role of university business incubators (UBIs) in supporting the creation of new knowledge-based ventures. UBIs are described as effective mechanisms for overcoming weaknesses of the more traditional public incubating institutions. They offer firms a range of university-related benefits, such as access to laboratories and equipment, to scientific and technological knowledge and to networks of key contacts, and the reputation that accrues from affiliation with a university. The empirical analysis is based on the Turin Polytechnic Incubator (TPI) and on case studies of six academic spin-offs hosted at TPI. While TPI does not effectively resolve such problems as inadequate access to funding capital and the lack of management and financial skills in its tenant companies, the networking capacity of incubating programmes is seen as a key characteristic that may help new knowledge-based ventures to overcome such difficulties.


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Hughes

AbstractThis article provides a theoretical discussion of the genre of commentary writing. Rather than examining the role of commentary in a specific religion, it attempts to articulate a set of useful questions to begin the process of rethinking what this genre is and, in the process, help create a theoretical vocabulary and conceptual framework for an analysis of commentary from the history of religions. The article is divided into three parts. The first broadens the traditional concept of a "canon", ostensibly the raw data upon which the commentary imposes a taxonomy. The second argues that the human condition, what Heidegger calls the way in which we are thrown into the world, demands that we interpret it. Finally, it is suggested that commentary is fundamentally about location or space, thereby providing the classificatory schema that is necessary for contextualizing both past and present. The main goal of this article is to problematize the current discussion of commentary in a theoretical way.


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