KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY AND THE CONDITION OF THE EXILE AS REIFIED AND HYBRID SUBJECT
My research places three contemporary novelists, Salman Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee and V. S. Naipaul within the framework of post-colonial literary theory. By comparing the works of these authors to some of the most important theorists of the post-colonial situation, my paper stakes out an important place for the value of literary interventions in the political arena. Rather than
use what these authors say as a starting point—as many studies have before—I chart in my work the symbolic and discursive trajectory that concepts of the postcolonial take throughout their works. The three writers, even more than recent theorists, capture the uncertain dialectic that works between a person’s identity and the discourse and ideology that made him or her, between
who someone is, and where that person came from. My paper traces the movement of this dialectic between people and places and draws from that movement conclusions about the political and ethical stance of the novels’ authors. It explores important theoretical and practical implications of exile across national, generic, and ethnic boundaries. Bharati Mukherjee, V. S. Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie contribute to a notion of the colonial subject as the site for the exploration of difference and alterity; the exile opens up the notion of a reified subject and a reified culture. The condition of exile as reified and hybrid subject opens up closely held notions of never exhausted continuity of play. Together, these novels provide both a view of the post-colonial world and a politics by which individuals can live within it while, at the same time, being able to perform some sort of act of resistance. Such an act would be characterized by both
playing out the roles of colonial discourse and subverting them—by creating distance between the role-players and the roles they take on. It would contain an attempt to make sense of their own subjectivity through the landscapes they come into contact with (their past, the country of exile, their new “home,” the history of their people, and their own his-story) and a realization that, though the subjectivity lies between all these poles, no combination of them will fully complete a singular and stable self. It would, in a simultaneous move, consist of the alteration of the landscape by the subject in a dialogue of diverted presence, a contretemps, in which neither
subject nor landscape could achieve resolution but would always be open to the changing motion of play. Most of all, it would contain the denial of any role, land, discourse, or ideology that would seek to limit free play, that would demand that the exile say, “This (definitively) is who I am, this (definitively) is where I come from, this (definitively) is where I am going.” Within the colonial context, play is both a force for the confrontation with power and that which will assure that identity can never be found. These novels have a double purpose: to document the impossibility of completeness, the inevitability that the exile must continue his or her wandering, and to make explicit the opportunity that this provides. These novels document both the pain of loss, and loss’s place in the struggle for liberation.
LAWS OF COMMUNICATION: CONSENSUS AND RATIONALITY
We start from a well known thesis in communication theory, as it is put forth by Donald Cushman and Gordon Whiting (1972, 217-238): the rules of communication are set up by social consensus. Communication means information transfer. But any information transfer is guided by certain rules. Therefore, any act of communication gains semantic and pragmatic significance through its rules. These rules are not genetically given, or by a “formal body”. They represent
socially shared patterns of behavior. We consider that the notion of “consensus” used by these authors is too strong. If all rules are set up by consensus, how do we get the consensus itself? Any consensus is information transfer, and, as such, it presupposes rules. Consequently, the
communication theory based on consensus is fallacious, because of it implies regressus ad infinitum. We argue that there are rules at work which do not arise from consensus. In communication they are the basic, the hard rules of rationality.
ROMANIAN POST-TOTALITARIAN ICONOGAPHY AND POLITICS: THE TELEVISION CASE
I say nothing new asserting that there is an inextricable relationship between the overall of political images parading for several years now the TV screens in Romania – i.e. the political
iconography as it is reflected by this essential segment of the press – and the overall of opinions, judgments and prepossessions pertaining to the Romanian social groups and structures, which is our cotemporary mentality.
What may be new is the proposal for reading in the development of certain broadcasted images ensembles, very quickly replaced with others, quite seldom coexisting with one another, part of the imaginary of our transition, extending from totalitarianism to political pluralism, in parallel with the transition from media monopoly to media pluralism.
CINDERELLA WITHOUT THE ASHES
The modern success in advertising and in narrative structure of fairytales starts from the way the mythical universe is being organized regarding the tests that the characters have to pass and by which their humble initial condition changes into a marvelous final condition with the help of love, fate and hard-working and their poor clothes become gorgeous.
LANGUAGES LEARNING THROUGH SONGS, KARAOKE AND INTERNET
The starting point for the didactic and methodological idea is the use of songs and the Internet in order to increase multilingualism both in schools and in lifelong learning courses and to promote the integration of immigrants.
In order to encourage innovation in education and to facilitate integration with a view to enhancing and improving communication and intercultural interaction and understanding, the Federazione Nazionale Insegnanti Centro di iniziativa per l’Europa, a non-profit professional association, in cooperation with institutions from several European countries, produced, tested,
optimised and evaluated teaching materials for IT/RO/RU/FR/ES as foreign languages linking the use of songs (particularly useful to building up communicative skills in a foreign language and intercultural learning) to the use of karaoke and audio visual materials put in the web. This approach helps overcome the problems caused by age and differences among learners.
The material, addressed to teachers of IT/RO/RU/FR/ES as a second language and their students – regardless their age - and to people from various agegroups wishing to learn one of the languages for work, tourism or immigration, is accessible through the web portal www.languagesbysongs.eu.
The learning materials, at CEFR A2 and B1 levels, require learners to have A1 linguistic competence and are based on the guidelines which explain the methodological criteria, the introduction to the method and give suggestions both on how to introduce the music approach
when teaching a language and on how to write suitable exercises.
The materials were put in the website after being experimented to ensure suitability, relevance and effectiveness. They can be used everywhere, also in autonomous learning and the project can be considered a model to apply to other languages as well.
THE CRISIS OF THE PROFANE AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SACRED IN ROMANIAN INTERWAR LITERATURE
The fascination of the sacred is a feeling generated in the interwar Romanian literature, a picture of the world transfigured ground war after an Eden peace nostalgic era. A historical context perplexing for the human being has caused a return to the sacred, seeking balance and harmony, the metaphor, as a reflection of artistic cognition and that instead of reconfiguring the ruined
world.
Poetry wars build a literary space and limit the no limited converge at the point where the tragic sense of human existence in the sacred refuge. End facets biblical symbols, oscillating between the sacred and the poetic canon and build a coveted mundane world, modeled on the original. Thus, people are nostalgic return to origins, to the archetypal culture, redefining their existence by reference to the divine pattern, the same type exercises integrated into European culture.
THE PROCESS OF INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE FIRM - A MULTICRITERIA DECISIONAL APPROACH
Internationalization is a strategy of those companies which identify business opportunities in the international market to enable them to obtain competitive advantages over competitors and decide to extend their activities abroad. Firm internationalization can be achieved in different ways, from the simplest and least risky operations to the those leading to a total commitment of
the company on foreign markets. The choice between forms of internationalization appears to be a complex decision that depends on the resources of the company, the goals and benefits achieved through this approach.
BENEFITS AND COSTS OF GLOBALIZATION
Global problems of humanity tend to become a priority on the agenda of world leaders. In the absence of an immediate and efficient action , there is a risk of jeopardizing the future for all. Therefore ,the discussion on the impact of globalization is of an utmost importance two main trends coming on the foreground.. On the one hand, there are the realists, who argue that, although all industries and sectors of public life are affected, the real competition among states is not affected. The idealists are of a different opinion as they believe that globalization is the final phase of development of an international system. This is why the state ceases to be the main actor of the system, the fore-state actors become the focus of attention.
MISUNDERSTANDING GLOBALIZATION
In the following text I should examine the most common attitudes towards globalization, in order to depict some of their presuppositions and common places. I will follow Bernhard Waldenfels conception, whose central idea is that there is no possibility for generalized order. Consequently, any project with such an aim, or any attitude based on this idea, must be seen as problem rising. Who thinks that everything around him/her can be ordered by means of one set of rules, the only that is right, will have an aggressive behavior and a superficial understanding. Working with these ideas, I will examine some of the contemporary attitudes towards globalization.
ECONOMIC INSTABILITY – A CONCEPTUAL APPROACH
Questions of the type: “ How can one describe the behaviour of an economic system?, “How can one define economic equilibrium?” or “ Is the normal condition of an economy a balanced or an unbalanced one?” have always dominated economic thinking along its whole history.
In the opinion of the author, the normal condition of an economy, if considering at least its duration and main tendencies, as well as – why not? - the advantages it acquires along its evolution, is that if disequilibrium, viewed as a positive instability which forces the development of the system. Disequilibrium and economic instability are considered equal, as both notions define the conflictual condition among the unequal forces manifested in economics.
VALUE CRISIS AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE MORAL CRISIS AND TODAY’S MISSION OF THE ROMANIAN PRESS
Social settlements in various human societies and communities have always been based on the
pillars of their own values. These values create a balance or even a winged development and
existence for these constructs whose limits, dimensions and essence are perceived by thought and mind. It goes without saying that the strength of the social edifice depends on the strength of such pillars. Searching for and identifying values is not just something related to intuition or inspiration and much less to coincidence.
JANA PÁLENIKOVÁ, INTERWAR ROMANIAN LITERATURE, THEORIES AND PRACTICE, COMENSKY UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING HOUSE IN 2011
I reckon it an honor to have taught for five years Romanian language at Comenius University in Bratislava, Department of Romance. Faculty of Philosophy.
MEDIA COMMUNICATION IN THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has divided the world into
groups of people who believe and who do not believe in
the existence of the SARS-COV.2 virus, who accept and
who are against vaccination. The SARS-COV.2 virus
appears in the socio-human environment. It is a living,
microbiological organism reproduced by the human body
and propagated in the social environment. The COVID-19
pandemic led to extreme situations for the state’s
institutions and for the social ones, developed their activity
capacities during crisis, presenting the weaknesses of the
connections of the management at different levels and of
the horizontal connections on the horizontal between the
citizens and the social groups. SARS-CoV.2 also entered
the media communication, where it shed light on the way
in which the media exerts its information, sensibilisation,
culturalization and formation functions of the socio-human
values.
Keywords: pandemic, factors, politics, cultural, social,
religion, medicine, social institutions, virus, social cohesion, flu.
