The Wryneck

This book details the natural history and cultural symbolism of a most unusual woodpecker – a species that neither excavates nest holes in trees, nor bores into wood to find insect prey. The elusive Wryneck is best renowned for performing a twisting, writhing head and neck display when threatened, but this ground-breaking study reveals many more secrets of its behaviour and evolution. Detailed information is presented on the species' origins, taxonomy, anatomy, appearance, moult, calls, distribution, conservation status, habitats, movements, breeding, diet and relationships, along with a chapter on its closest relative, the Red-throated Wryneck. The text is richly illustrated throughout with high quality photographs as well as sound spectrograms. This all-encompassing and engaging account has been written for a wide audience, whether professional ornithologist, citizen scientist, amateur birder, woodpecker aficionado and simply someone who wishes to learn more about this curious and remarkable bird.

Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele in contemporary Russian Poetry

Leading Austrian artists of the first quarter of the 20th century, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, did not attract the Russian writers attention until the 1990s, when the development of Russian postmodern literature was conductive to the attention to their experiments, polystylistics, cultural symbolism and aestheticism. It is stressed that although the heritage of these artists was adapted to the aesthetic project of Russian postmodernism, poetic statements about them revealed aspects of art that are not obvious to the common viewer. First of all, in the Russian poetry of the 1990s and the early 2000s (Alexander Ulanov, Alexander Skidan, Irina Mashinsky, Polina Barskova, Elena Fanailova) it was convincingly shown that Schiele’s expressionism directly takes it start from the symbolism of Klimt, and Klimt’s aesthetics already contains Schiele’s one, but Schiele’s manner retains the achievements of Klimt. Further, the author shows a connection between these artists and the achievements of physics along with the cultural and political atmosphere of the time. Finally, it was reported that the achievements of these artists opposed Nazism because Klimt and Schiele demonstrated the inadmissibility of any form of oppression. Regardless of the private thoughts or the works of Klimt and Schiele, these ideas are conveyed by the very form of their works and the approach to style: the semanticization of the material and the ability to give life to the depicted characters. Particular techniques and devices of expressiveness of both artists were interpreted as auxiliary to their humanistic ideas, and it should be recognized as the contribution of poetry to art history.

Site, programme, and tectonic expression: Hua Li’s Xinzhai Coffee House

In contemporary Chinese architectural culture, Hua Li’s work stands out as a phenomenon. His architecture demonstrates little in the way of formalistic eccentricities, cultural symbolism, or indeed the ‘Chineseness’ that some others seek to pursue. Instead, what interests the architect is, most of all, the quality of material, construction, space, and place. As indicated by Hua’s recent lectures, his concept of place remains connected to the larger site of a building project, its topography, climate, local materials, and craftsmanship. As such it is similar to, though also different from, the concept of place proposed by Christian Norberg-Schulz – the Norwegian architectural historian and theorist known for his theory of place influenced by philosopher Martin Heidegger, which was developed through various texts including: Intentions in Architecture (1963); Existence, Space and Architecture (1971); and Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (1979). The similarities consist in Hua Li and Norberg-Schulz’s imagination of place as meaningful and transcending merely the physical aspects of a site. Place, here, is a local condition, an atmosphere or a ‘spirit’ that is to be gathered, revealed, and visualised by the work of architecture. Hua also differs from Norberg-Schulz, in the sense that, unlike the use (or misuse) of Heidegger’s philosophy evident in Norberg-Schulz’s theoretical articulation of architectural phenomenology – concerning qualities of meaning, atmosphere, poetry, and the senses – his concept of place is fraught with fascination at the potential of a place. Instead of the ‘existential meaning’ of architecture, Hua’s interest in place calls for new possibilities of intervening and reconstruction through architectural operations.

The impact of service category and brand positioning on consumer animosity in the service sector – a social identity signaling perspective

Purpose The present research responds to researchers’ calls for more research of consumer animosity on potential boundary conditions (e.g. product categories) and marketing strategies that may mitigate such negative impacts on marketers’ product and/or brand performance, with a special focus on the soft service sector. This paper aims to address the unique characteristics of service internationalization, i.e. cultural embeddedness, hybridized country origins and high consumption visibility, by proposing a social identity signaling model to explain consumer animosity effects in the soft service sector. Design/methodology/approach Two surveys (Pretest with 240 participants and Study 1 with 351 participants) and one experiment (Study 2 with 731 participants) were conducted to empirically test our hypotheses in the Japanese-Chinese relationship context. Findings The stronger the national/cultural symbolism and social expressiveness, the stronger the consumer avoidance for the service category. Then the consumer culture positioning strategy that can mitigate an offending country’s cultural symbolism can reduce consumer avoidance. Originality/value This research introduces two factors that could affect the negative social identity signaling capacity of service categories in the animosity context: the national/cultural symbolism reflecting an offending country and the social expressiveness communicating social identity. In line with the social identity signaling perspective, the present research specifically uses consumer avoidance as the dependent variable to capture the notion that consumers avoid consuming services because they wish to avoid being associated with an offending country that may threaten their in-group social identities.

RUMAH TRADISIONAL JAWA DALAM TINJAUAN KOSMOLOGI, ESTETIKA, DAN SIMBOLISME BUDAYA [THE JAVANESE TRADITIONAL HOUSE IN REVIEW OF COSMOLOGY, AESTHETIC, AND CULTURAL SYMBOLISM]

Rumah adalah kebutuhan primer dalam kehidupan manusia. Dalam perkembangannya, rumah tidak hanya menjadi tempat tinggal untuk berlindung dari segala bentuk ancaman, namun juga memiliki makna-makna filosofis. Makna filosofis yang terkandung dalam rumah tradisional Jawa yang didasarkan pada kemampuan manusia dalam mempelajari lingkungan tempat tinggalnya. Untuk menemukan makna filosofis tersebut kita harus melihat bentuk, ukuran, dan hal lain yang mendasari rumah tersebut dibangun. Makna filosofis tersebut dapat di­lihat pada kehidupan sehari-hari masyarakat Jawa, terutama dalam pembuatan arsitektur rumah. Permasalahan yang diangkat adalah bagaimana hubungan antara kosmologi, estetika, dan simbol dalam bentuk arsitektural rumah tradisional Jawa. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah mengetahui hubungan antara kosmologi, estetika, dan simbol dalam bentuk arsitektural rumah tradisional Jawa. Metode yang digunakan adalah metode deskriptif analitis. Hasil penelitian ini memberikan gambaran umum beserta penjelasan mengenai bentuk arsitektur dari rumah tradisional Jawa. Simpulan yang didapatkan yaitu rumah tradisional Jawa sebagai bentuk arsitektural, simbolisme budaya, dan estetika masyarakat, serta kesakralan dan profanitas dalam setiap elemen rumah tradisional Jawa. House is a primary need in human life. A house is not only a place to shelter from threats, but also has philosophical meanings based on the human ability studying their live environment. We should see the shape, size, and other things that underlie the building houses to find the philosophical meaning. It can be seen in the daily life of Javanese people, especially in the making of home architecture. The problem is how the relationship between cosmology, aesthetic, and symbols materialized in the architectural form of traditional Javanese houses. The purpose of this study was to determine those relationship. The method is descriptive analysis, and discussion provides a general description along with an explanation of the architectural forms of traditional Javanese houses. The result shows the traditional Javanese house has a role not only as an architectural form, cultural symbolism and aesthetics of the community, but also as the sacred and profanity in its every element.

Archetypes: The Contribution of Individual Psychology to Cross-cultural Symbolism

When a patient reports a dream or undirected fantasy in psychotherapy, classical Jungian technique includes, among other things, comparing this material to that of cross-cultural symbolism (CCS). The validity of this aspect of the method hinges on what we think the origin of CCS is. If we believe that the lion’s share of such content comes from specific universal tendencies of the individual psyche, then it is reasonable to look to CCS as a source of clinical interpretive information. If not, however, the method loses credibility. An examination of this comparison reveals that some discussions about archetypes have been plagued by a false dichotomy of biology vs. emergence. Addressing this problem helps to organize various theories about archetypes that compare CCS into a more productive dialogue.

Cultural equity: knowledge and outcomes aspects

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose cultural equity as a construct to better understand the characteristics that define a culturally symbolic brand and the downstream consequences for consumer behavior and nation branding in the era of globalization.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is an empirical investigation of the knowledge and outcome aspects of cultural equity with a total of 1,771 consumers located in three different countries/continents, 77 different brands as stimuli, and using a variety of measures, surveys, lab experiments, procedures and consumer contexts.FindingsCultural equity is the facet of brand equity attributed to the brand's cultural symbolism or the favorable responses by consumers to the cultural symbolism of a brand. A brand has cultural equity if it has a distinctive cultural symbolism in consumers' minds (brand knowledge aspect of cultural equity: association with the central concept that defines the culture, embodiment of culturally relevant values and embeddedness in a cultural knowledge network), and such symbolism elicits a favorable consumer response to the marketing of the brand (outcome aspect of cultural equity: favorable evaluations and strong self-brand connections).Practical implicationsThis paper offers a framework that allows marketers to develop cultural positioning strategies in hyper-competitive and globalized markets and identify ways for building and protecting their brands' cultural equity.Originality/valueThis paper advances our understanding of brands as cultural symbols by introducing cultural equity and integrates prior research on brand equity, cross-cultural differences in consumer behavior, country-of-origin effects and nation branding.