Journals an der JLU Gießen (Justus-Liebig Universität)
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Of Glass Fishes and Crystal Chandeliers: The (Important) Role of Material Culture Within Changing Times
No full textIn Domesticity on Display: Romanian Middle-class Material Culture from Late Socialism to Today analysiert Maria Cristache die Produktion von dekorativen Objekten sowie deren häuslichen Verwendung in der Zeit zwischen Sozialismus und Postsozialismus in Rumänien. Mit ihrer Analyse der Rolle von materieller Kultur in einer solchen ereignisreichen Zeit macht sie deutlich, wie wichtig Objekte in sozialen Beziehungen sind und dass Geschenke bedeutsame Mittel der Identifikation sowohl für die Schenkenden als auch für die Beschenkten darstellen.In Domesticity on Display: Romanian Middle-Class Material Culture from Late Socialism to Today, Maria Christache analyzes the production of decorative objects as well as their use in the domestic sphere in the time period between socialism and postsocialism in Romenia. Her analysis of the role of material culture within such an eventful historical period acknowledges the centrality of objects in social relations and the potential of gifts to provide their givers and receivers with means of identification.
 
Lombard Independent-Mindedness in the Face of Uncertainty: Coping with the Unpredictable Present Future in Lombard Southern Italian Narratives (9th–10th Centuries)
Full text linkNinth- and tenth-century Southern Italy was a crossroads where the Franks, the Byzantines, the Roman Popes, and the emirs of Sicily sought to increase their influence. The rivaling Lombard princes in Benevento, Capua, and Salerno had to cope with each other and these external pressures. That combination created unease and tension for the immediate future of the present of the ninth-century Lombard monk Erchempert and the chronicle of Salerno’s anonymous tenth-century author. Although a century apart, they lived through a very uncertain present. Islamic raiders destroyed Erchempert’s abbey of Montecassino in 883, and the Salernitan text abruptly ended amidst a revolt against the reigning prince Gisulf I in the 970s. The chaotic nature of their present influenced both authors’ attempts to instruct future readers through a narrative focusing on the exemplary military conduct of specific Lombard princes. This contribution will consist of close readings of such martial scenes featuring exemplary Lombard princes from both texts. It will be argued that the Lombard lords in these scenes served as idealized examples evoking a strong sense of Lombard independent-mindedness in the face of an unpredictable present. While their strong sense of independence has been noted in previous scholarship, comparing its manifestation in the two narrative texts has yet to receive a dedicated study. The article will reveal and compare how these texts, in an uncertain present, clung to an exemplary past, attempting to steer their unpredictable present’s future
Contemporary Modes of Remembering the Holocaust — How and Why?
No full textTrauma and Memory: The Holocaust in Contemporary Culture, herausgegeben von Christine Berberich, behandelt die verschiedenen Arten der Darstellung und des Erinnerns an den Holocaust in zeitgenössischer Kultur, darunter Literatur, Filme, Museen und soziale Medien. Der Sammelband bringt uns dazu, über Formen und Beweggründe des Gedenkens and den Holocaust zu reflektieren. Die Beiträge problematisieren neuere Arten des Erinnerns und überlegen zudem, ob und wie Ideen bezüglich ‚richtiger‘ und ‚falscher‘ Formen des Erinnerns und Darstellens sich gegenwärtig langsam wandeln.Trauma and Memory: The Holocaust in Contemporary Culture edited by Christine Berberich explores the different ways in which the Holocaust is represented and commemorated in contemporary cultures, including fiction, films, museums and social media. The edited volume compels us to reflect on how the Holocaust can be remembered without forgetting why we need to do so. Contributions problematize newer ways of remembering and discuss if and how ideas regarding ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ forms of commemoration and representation are gradually changing in the present
Misunderstanding Familiar Objects in an Imagined Future: A Critical Method for Discovery
Full text linkThe location and presentation of an object establish layered narratives about the object, which habit and familiarity protect. This shield obscures an object’s effects on people and places that originate in that object’s materials and manufacturing. Recontextualizing objects and investigating their physical forms within novel frameworks can counteract these narratives.
This project replaces an object’s expected context with an imagined future full of confusion and curiosity. Through a photo essay and a fictitious research journal, it describes a likely environmental scenario in 2200 and imagines a researcher discovering a bag of objects in the wilderness. The bag includes an artificial plant, a toilet brush, a bottle opener, a clothespin, a clothes hanger, and a stuffed animal. But the researcher is only familiar with two of these objects, and so tries to deduce the function of the remaining objects via their materials and by consulting oral histories from their era of origin. Through naïve misunderstanding, the researcher reveals often overlooked cultural norms and histories of extraction, manufacturing, and use.
The whimsy of this method is intentional; the researcher offers readers the shared experiences of feeling overwhelmed and making mistakes while creating an approachable entrance to thinking more critically about the world humans are currently building
Thomas the Baboon and Utopia: Constructing a Realistic Future
Full text linkThis article reissues a call for the recuperation of a particular, non-substantive, approach to the category of Utopia in the current cultural debates about the future. I examine the usefulness of Utopia as a future-making category via a discussion of how Utopian desire manifests itself in the narrative structure of the literary text and what kind of formal and political consequences this manifestation implies. My case study, a prominent example of Ukrainian post-2014 fiction, Ivan Semesiuk’s satire Farshrutka (2016) presents a critical-satirical Utopian reaction to the realities and futural repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war, formalized in a literary form
Between Satire and Politics: Tracing British Perception of China in Punch’s Cartoons
No full textCartooning China: Punch, Power & Politics in the Victorian Era von Amy Matthewson bietet verschiedene Einblicke in die Beziehung zwischen der berühmten britischen Zeitschrift Punch und der chinesisch-britischen Politik im Viktorianischen Zeitalter. Amy Matthewson kontextualisiert die Cartoons und Textsatiren über China und die Chinesen von Punch mit der spezifischen Geschichte der britisch-chinesischen Politik. Matthewson argumentiert, dass Punch eine wichtige Rolle bei der Konstruktion einer festen Vorstellung über China und die Chinesen in der britischen populären Imagination spielte, welche die britische Selbstwahrnehmung und ihre Rolle in der Welt offenbart.Cartooning China: Punch, Power & Politics in the Victorian Era by Amy Matthewson provides various insights into the relationship between the famous British magazine Punch and Sino-British politics in the Victorian era. By contextualizing Punch’s cartoons and textual satires of China and the Chinese with the specific history of Sino-British politics, Matthewson argues that Punch played an important role in constructing a fixed idea of China and the Chinese in the British popular imagination, which reveals British self-perception and its role in the world
Morality as a Symbol of Its Time: Historical and Contemporary Attitudes Towards Design and Ethics in Christian Bauer’s Ethik für Designer
No full textDie Publikation Ethik für Designer thematisiert ethische Grundfragen sowie historische Moralvorstellungen und notwendige zeitgenössischen Transformationsprozessen aus gestalterischer Perspektive. Ethische Standards spiegeln sich in zeitlichen und kulturellen Zusammenhängen, auf welche Design reagiert bzw. richtungsweisend agieren sollte. Mithilfe verschiedener philosophischer Theorien zu Ethik, Tugend und Moral bietet der Autor Lösungsvorschläge an und überträgt diese auf das gestalterische Handeln.The publication Ethik für Designer is structured into three main chapters, which focus on the basics of ethics principles, historical ideas of morality and necessary contemporary transformation processes regarding design perspectives. Ethical standards are reflected in temporal and cultural contexts to which design should respond or provide direction. Drawing on different philosophical theories on ethics, virtues and morality the author provides solutions and transfers them to design action
What Does the 250th Anniversary of the Independence Mean to a \u27Browner\u27 America?
Full text linkFrederick Douglass’ 1852 address “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” poignantly called attention to the Black people who were still unfree slaves when the Republic joyfully celebrated freedom and independence on its 76th anniversary. Echoing Douglass, this paper searches for the meaning of the 250th anniversary in a deeply fractured and divided America by focusing on the historical and current ‘color scheme.’ An in-depth examination of America’s history and cultural history, represented by the paradigms White, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Browner opens space for analysis and arguments on the formation of national character, the cultivation of cultural identity, and the definition of Americanism. This essay tackles the core of Whiteness in relation to Blackness (African Americans), Brownness (Native Americans), and Yellowness (Chinese/Asian Americans) to unpack a heated and culturally charged topic of race relations and capture the significance of the ‘Browner’ in ‘Browner America’ in anticipation of the 250th anniversary
Virtual Immortality — Paradise from the Machine
No full textOliver Krüger verhandelt in seinem Buch technische Fantasien zur Überwindung des Todes mit Fokus auf die Dynamiken zwischen Religion, Science-Fiction und Digitalisierung. Dabei thematisiert er die Strömungen des Post- und Transhumanismus und argumentiert, dass Virtualität zum fantastischen Möglichkeitsraum wird, in welchem der Geist als eine elektrische Entität (Avatar) beständig existieren könnte.In his book, Oliver Krüger engages with technical fantasies about overcoming death. More precisely, he observes the dynamics between religion, science fiction, and digitalization. He focuses on the currents of posthumanism and transhumanism and argues that virtuality becomes a fantastic space of possibility in which the spirit could exist permanently as an electrical entity (avatar)