3,122 research outputs found
Dr. Aleksandra Sznajder Lee – Faculty Author Interview
No full textDr. Aleksandra Sznajder Lee, Associate Professor of Political Science, discusses her new book, Transnational Capitalism in East Central Europe’s Heavy Industry, published recently by the University of Michigan Press. Focusing on the steel industry during the post-communist transition from 1989 through 2009, Dr. Sznajder Lee traces the transformation of flagship state enterprises in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia into the subsidiaries of large, international corporations
Revisiting the importance of employee retention and principles of good work in addressing the current skills and labour shortages in Scotland
No full textWorkforce shortages are commonly problematised as either a lack of specific skills, for example, those associated with new tasks or changing occupational profiles, or more generally, as shortages of labour due to demographic changes and replacement demands. These aspects are relevant to Scotland, but they play out in the reality marked by other contextual factors such as post-Brexit, post-pandemic, and the current cost-of-living crisis. This reality is proving to be difficult for many working people, but also for the Scottish employers, who report recruitment problems with filling many vacancies and who experience both labour and skills shortages as they struggle to find available, skilled, and willing workforce. Particularly significant and challenging shortages have been noted for a while in contexts with high employee turnover and seasonal work (such as care and health, retail, agriculture, hospitality, and other service sectors). Many jobs in these sectors are associated with low-status, low-pay, and little flexibility. Not surprisingly, they contribute to a dangerous phenomenon of increasing in-work poverty, which suggests that many jobs in Scotland do not pay people enough to earn a decent living. Importantly, in the post-Brexit Scotland the most hard-to-fill vacancies tend to be in these low-paid sectors. At the same time, the financial pressures of increasing costs of living and inflation,seem to further exacerbate economic inactivity or underemployment for many groups of workers, such as those with health concerns and care responsibilities. These contextual factors intensified the recruitment difficulties and invite to look at skills and labour shortages from a more holistic perspective. The chapter proposes to consider the employers’ role and responsibilities in minimising the impact of the recruitment gap and unfulfilled labour demand. This is to be achieved by paying attention to elements employers can influence, as opposed to the changeable and largely uncertain cycles of labour supply in general. Particularly in a thigh labour market, employers should prioritise preventative measures to retain the hard-to-replace workforce and develop programmes to sufficiently re-train and upskill the existing workforce in line with business demands. Drawing on data from Scotland, this chapter will, firstly, describe and contextualise the labour and skills shortages, with an emphasis on recruitment challenges currently experienced by Scottish employers. Secondly, in the context of current labour scarcity, it will invite a focus on employee retention as organisational practice to make work attractive, fair, satisfying, and rewarding. The chapter will finish by listing non-questionable principles in job improvement and workforce development areas that employers must provide to retain their current workforce and attract new, including capable workers not currently in employment
Revisiting the importance of employee retention and principles of good work in addressing the current skills and labour shortages in Scotland
No full textWorkforce shortages are commonly problematised as either a lack of specific skills, for example, those associated with new tasks or changing occupational profiles, or more generally, as shortages of labour due to demographic changes and replacement demands. These aspects are relevant to Scotland, but they play out in the reality marked by other contextual factors such as post-Brexit, post-pandemic, and the current cost-of-living crisis. This reality is proving to be difficult for many working people, but also for the Scottish employers, who report recruitment problems with filling many vacancies and who experience both labour and skills shortages as they struggle to find available, skilled, and willing workforce. Particularly significant and challenging shortages have been noted for a while in contexts with high employee turnover and seasonal work (such as care and health, retail, agriculture, hospitality, and other service sectors). Many jobs in these sectors are associated with low-status, low-pay, and little flexibility. Not surprisingly, they contribute to a dangerous phenomenon of increasing in-work poverty, which suggests that many jobs in Scotland do not pay people enough to earn a decent living. Importantly, in the post-Brexit Scotland the most hard-to-fill vacancies tend to be in these low-paid sectors. At the same time, the financial pressures of increasing costs of living and inflation,seem to further exacerbate economic inactivity or underemployment for many groups of workers, such as those with health concerns and care responsibilities. These contextual factors intensified the recruitment difficulties and invite to look at skills and labour shortages from a more holistic perspective. The chapter proposes to consider the employers’ role and responsibilities in minimising the impact of the recruitment gap and unfulfilled labour demand. This is to be achieved by paying attention to elements employers can influence, as opposed to the changeable and largely uncertain cycles of labour supply in general. Particularly in a thigh labour market, employers should prioritise preventative measures to retain the hard-to-replace workforce and develop programmes to sufficiently re-train and upskill the existing workforce in line with business demands. Drawing on data from Scotland, this chapter will, firstly, describe and contextualise the labour and skills shortages, with an emphasis on recruitment challenges currently experienced by Scottish employers. Secondly, in the context of current labour scarcity, it will invite a focus on employee retention as organisational practice to make work attractive, fair, satisfying, and rewarding. The chapter will finish by listing non-questionable principles in job improvement and workforce development areas that employers must provide to retain their current workforce and attract new, including capable workers not currently in employment
Aleksandra Dirvianskaitė - piano Player, educator, composer
No full textReikšminiai žodžiai: Pianistai; Kompozitoriai; Biografijos; Aleksandra Dirvianskaitė“While writing a boom Lithuanian Music in Siberia I titled a chapter about those who managed to survive “Next to Exile” and now I strongly believe that all of us who survived the ra of dependence were next to exile, writes the author discussing the life and works of Lithuanian musician (page 70)
Women’s crisis narratives : the mourning experience in Aleksandra Zielińska’s "Sorge"
No full textThis article concerns Aleksandra Zielińska’s novel Sorge. The author focused on relationships beetwen women - mothers, daughters and sisters in perspective of women’s mourning and also uses cathegory of trauma, abnormal grief and unresolved grief. The author analyses Sorge as (post)pandemic reinterpretation of legend of Pied Piper of Hamelin and examines contemporary forms of mourning in perspective of social quarantines
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Aleksandra Khokhlova
No full textToday Aleksandra Khokhlova is remembered as the star actress in films directed by Lev Kuleshov in the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, at the peak of her career she was at the epicenter of the Soviet avant-garde, an icon of the experimental acting that matched the style of revolutionary montage cinema. Looking back at his life, Kuleshov wrote: “Nearly all that I have done in film directing, in teaching, and in life is connected to her [Khokhlova] in terms of ideas and art practice” (1946, 162). Yet, Khokhlova was much more than Kuleshov’s wife and muse as in her own right she was a talented author, actress, and film director, an artist in formation long before she met Kuleshov
Epizod bragmański Historii o żywocie i znamienitych sprawach Aleksandra Wielkiego jako zderzenie dwóch światopoglądów
No full textThe Bragman Episode in the History of the Life and Eminent Affairs of Alexander the Great (Historia o żywocie i znamienitych sprawach Aleksandra Wielkiego) as a Clash of Different World ViewsThe article presents an interpretation of a literary vision of utopia. It is focused on the cultural aspect Bragmanes utopia created using artistic means – representations, values and beliefs specific for the author of the text as well as his cultural milieu. The deliberations featured in the article are based on the analysis of the “Bragman episode,” a fragment of an Old-Polish translation of Historia o żywocie i znamienitych sprawach Aleksandra Wielkiego dating back to 1550. The story of Alexander’s encounter with Bragmanes determines the beginnings of the utopian tendency in Polish literature. The episode mentioned was described by Julian Krzyżanowski in his monograph Romans polski wieku XVI in 1934 and extensively analysed by Anna Krzewińska in her treatise Początki utopii w literaturze staropolskiej. One of the interpretative proposals presented in this article is an assumption that the Bragman utopia is unreal and poses as a curiosity. Moreover, the exoticism and isolation of Bragmanes’ land indicates connections between its description and the myth of the Golden Age or paradise lost. The key role of nature, which is identified with the primeval and – at the same time – the best state of human existence, is also emphasized. One of the means of depicting nature appears to be worth considering especially: the description of nature referring to the concept of locus amoenus, also proper for the descriptions of an earthly paradise, indicates an archetypical character of this kind of representations. The next part of the article is devoted to an analysis of the axiological level of the Bragman utopia. Implying that strict ethical principles based on a strong distinction between right and wrong result from perceiving man as a spiritual creature, the author aims to discuss the spirituality of the Indian nation with reference to Christian religion and beliefs, and ways of representation characteristic for the religious mentality of the Middle Ages. The conducted analysis of paraphrases from the Holy Bible found in the letters of the leader of the Bragman community indicates that their philosophy and religion are deeply ingrained in the culture of Logos. As a result, it is logos, not nature (physis) or law (nomos), that can be considered the basis of the Bragman order. Furthermore, Bragmanes’ retreat from the sphere of culture as well as European civilisation and their conscious choice of living close to nature do not prove their barbarity. Instead, they question the validity of the opposition between culture and nature (however the distinction between nature and civilisation is sustained). The reading of the Bragman episode proposed in the article, oriented towards the disclosure of a vision of the world depicted in the romance, shows that the Christian significance and parenetic character of the Bragman utopia (clear for the medieval reader) could not influence the protagonist. In the author’s opinion, they determine a significant stage of Alexander’s pilgrimage around the world, the moment of confronting and rejecting a strange world-view.
Trzy wizje Ukrainy w twórczości Aleksandra Karola Grozy
No full textIn the article selected works of Aleksander Groza, a representative of “the Ukrainian school” of Polish romanticism, have been thoroughly investigated. The author used interpretive methods of postcolonialism, comparative studies and intertextuality, and sometimes also from the field of ethnography and ethnology. The article is an introduction to the monograph that the author is currently working on. As a result of the analysis of the works, it was possible to distinguish three main images of the Ukraine, which are stereotypical for the Polish literature in genere: Arcadian Ukraine, Cossack Ukraine and frenetic Ukraine. By using the fragments of Groza’s texts, as well as intertextual references, the author characterized each of these images. After outlining the poet’s profile through a simple biography, which will be developed in the future, the author of the article conducted an analysis and interpretation of the following works by Groza: the volume Poezje, Ukrainian elegies: Soroka and Pierwsza pokuta Żeleźniaka, poem Mogiły, dramas Śmieciński and Hryć. Such a versatile choice of texts allowed to draw some interesting conclusions concerning Aleksander Groza’z profile
Syn Aleksandra jako projekt człowieka idealnego. Humanitas w Quidamie Norwida
No full textArtykuł ukazał się w serii serii „Humanizm. Idee, nurty i paradygmaty humanistyczne w kulturze polskiej”Artykuł Rolfa Fiegutha stanowi analizę norwidowskiej postaci Syna Aleksandra. Autor dostrzega w nim „człowieka idealnego, skazanego na doczesną porażkę” (s. 188) oraz „wyidealizowaną wersję siebie” (s. 191). Syn Aleksandra, zdaniem badacza, jest zapowiedzią ideału chrześcijanina w czasach, gdy kultura rzymska chyli się ku upadkowi.
Badacz zauważa, że Norwid dokonuje opisu rzeczywistości rzymskiej w analogii do czasów mu współczesnych, włączając w to kontekst kryzysu wartości. Syn Aleksandra nazywa swój rodzinny Epir „pustką dziadów” (s. 192). Jednocześnie bohater nie czuje silnej przynależności społecznej, co autor uznaje częsty element charakterystyki człowieka idealnego. Również z Rzymie Epirczyk nie zżywa się z żadnym ze stanów.
Obok Syna Aleksandra badacz wymienia inne symboliczne postaci: Hadriana, jako fałszywego dobrego władcę, poetessę Zofię, jako fałszywy ideał kobiety oraz świeckiej mądrości oraz nauczycieli omawianego bohatera.
Według Fiegutha ważną cechą Syna Aleksandra jest jego miłość. Jest to miłość nieegoistyczna, która stanowi nowożytny ideał miłości. Zostaje ona przeciwstawiona brutalnej erotyce antycznej.
Autor analizuje również scenę śmierci Epirczyka. Mimo braku patetycznej atmosfery, stanowi ona ważny element w charakterystyce tej postaci.
Na pogrzebie Epirczyka zjawiają się rożne postaci, symbolizujące odmienne światopoglądy. Zdaniem Fiegutha jest to ukazanie, że ideał, który reprezentował Syn Aleksandra, jest dostępny dla wszystkich oraz stanowi jedynie kwestię dobrej woli.Rolf Fieguth, The Alexander’s Son as a Project of Ideal Man. Humanitas in Quidam by Norwid
Rolf Fieguth’s article is an analysis of the figure of Alexander’s Son from Cyprian Kamil Norwid’s poem Quidem. The author sees in it “an ideal man, condemned to a temporal failure” (p. 188), and an “idealised version of himself” (p. 191). The son of Alexander, according to the researcher, is a forecasted version of the ideal of a Christian at the time when the Roman culture was declining.
The researcher notes that Norwid describes the Roman reality in analogy to his contemporary times, including the context of the crisis of values. The protagonist does not feel strong social bonds, which the author recognises as a common element of the characteristics of an ideal man.
In addition to Alexander’s son, the researcher mentions other symbolic characters: Hadrian, as a false good ruler, poetess Sophie as a false ideal of the woman and secular wisdom, and teachers of the protagonist.
According to Fieguth, a primary feature of Alexander’s Son is his love. It is a non-selfish love that is an early-modern ideal of love. It is contrasted with brutal ancient erotica.
The author also analyses the scene of Epirczyk’s (Man from Epirus) death. Despite the lack of pathetic atmosphere, it is an essential element in the characterisation of this protagonist. At the funeral of Epirczyk various characters appear, symbolising different worldviews. According to Fieguth, this is a demonstration that the ideal represented by Alexander’s Son is available to everyone and is only a matter of goodwill.Ewa Kuczyńsk
Aleksandra Galkina, A-Ja
No full text"This book was made in a form of ABC with works created by the author during last 20 years. Works accompanied by her commentaries with two critical works by Liudmila Brekhdina and Alexandra Novozhionova which are there to help understand and 'guess' the author's creative and personal interests".-Bookvica catalo
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