Suchergebnisse

In the given article I would like to address few texts of Jacques Derrida, written by him in the 1990s, namely: Back from Moscow, in the USSR (1993), Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International (1994) and Marx & Sons (1999). The close reading of Back from Moscow, in the USSR will allow me to examine the first series of questions, namely: what role had played the genre of «autobiographical-travel-testimony", constituted by the texts of European intellectuals who visited USSR in different periods of its history, in the intellectual biography of Derrida; how the travel diary can turn into a political diagnosis and what do Deconstruction and Perestroika have in common. Two other texts are important for the analysis of more general, yet interrelated questions: how and why the untimely/ contretemps thoughts of Derrida on the fate of Marxism, become relevant dans l'ici-maintenant - here (in Eastern Europe) and now (thirty years after the after the collapse of socialism) and how do the studies of "spectralities" contribute to our understanding of the Postsocialist condition.

In the given article I would like to address few texts of Jacques Derrida, written by him in the 1990s, namely: Back from Moscow, in the USSR (1993), Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International (1994) and Marx & Sons (1999). The close reading of Back from Moscow, in the USSR will allow me to examine the first series of questions, namely: what role had played the genre of «autobiographical-travel-testimony", constituted by the texts of European intellectuals who visited USSR in different periods of its history, in the intellectual biography of Derrida; how the travel diary can turn into a political diagnosis and what do Deconstruction and Perestroika have in common. Two other texts are important for the analysis of more general, yet interrelated questions: how and why the untimely/ contretemps thoughts of Derrida on the fate of Marxism, become relevant dans l'ici-maintenant - here (in Eastern Europe) and now (thirty years after the after the collapse of socialism) and how do the studies of "spectralities" contribute to our understanding of the Postsocialist condition.

The "revolution" has been one of the key words in social and political thinking of the last two centuries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the closure of the era of political utopias (for many, the point of reference would be 1968 in Paris or in Prague), the word seemed to have vanished entirely from the current vocabulary. However, nowadays we are witnessing the return of the idea of Revolution to the political scene, to the media discourse, to social theory and to art. During the last few years, protest movements have became global and turned to be the real "festivals of resistance", and this has been perceived as a symptom of the new "revolutionary situation". The attempts of theoreticians (mostly of the post-Marxist thought) to critically revise the past experience vis-à-vis new political realities seem to be seriously retarded in comparison with the "revolutionary practice". Passing over to the political scenarios for the future development of the situation, I will focus on the convergence of theoretical discourses on revolution, the new forms of political actionism ("Occupy!" movement, flash-mobs, silent protests, etc.) and the contemporary aesthetic praxis. The history of modern art and cinema has provided a rich iconography of the Revolution as an Event (from Delacrois to Eisenstein and further); however, contemporary art (public art first of all), together with political actionism, tends to follow an entirely different strategy which consists in the circumspect resistance to the logic of representation and is based on the concept of revolution as a perpetual nomadic movement, "becoming", and evasion. ; Esame liudininkai to, kaip žodis "revoliucija" iš politinės nebūties sugrįžo į politinį diskursą ir medijas, nors politinių utopijų epocha, atrodytų,seniai pasibaigė. Netikėtą protestuojančių masių pasirodymą politikos avanscenoje, akcijų mastą ir globalų jų pobūdį, taip pat formas, kurias įgauna šios "pasipriešinimo šventės", daugelis suvokia kaip naujos revoliucinės situacijos simptomą. Europos istorijoje būta nemaža momentų, kai menas ir revoliucija susiliedavo į bendrą kūrybinę praktiką (Prancūzijos revoliucija, Paryžiaus komuna, Spalio perversmas (revoliucija). Kažką panašaus regime ir šiandien, tačiau šiuolaikinis meno ir protestų judėjimo suartėjimas vyksta pasitelkus kitokios revoliucijos sampratą – ne socialinio politinio visuomenės pertvarkymo projekto ir bandymo sugriauti Sistemą, o nuolatinio nomadinio pasipriešinimo judėjimo, aprašomo pabėgimo, išvarymo ir tapimo terminais, pagrindu. Šiame straipsnyje aptariama keletas tarpusavyje susijusių klausimų: šiuolaikinės revoliucijos "teorijos" ir jų reiškimasis politiniame akcionizme ir viešajame mene; "reprezentacijos" ir "revoliucijos" santykis; galimybės reprezentuoti revoliuciją ir, galiausiai, būdai, kuriais šiuolaikiniame medijų diskurse reiškiasi "sena meninės reprezentacijos ir politinio veiksmo dichotomija" (Gerald Raunig).

The "revolution" has been one of the key words in social and political thinking of the last two centuries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the closure of the era of political utopias (for many, the point of reference would be 1968 in Paris or in Prague), the word seemed to have vanished entirely from the current vocabulary. However, nowadays we are witnessing the return of the idea of Revolution to the political scene, to the media discourse, to social theory and to art. During the last few years, protest movements have became global and turned to be the real "festivals of resistance", and this has been perceived as a symptom of the new "revolutionary situation". The attempts of theoreticians (mostly of the post-Marxist thought) to critically revise the past experience vis-à-vis new political realities seem to be seriously retarded in comparison with the "revolutionary practice". Passing over to the political scenarios for the future development of the situation, I will focus on the convergence of theoretical discourses on revolution, the new forms of political actionism ("Occupy!" movement, flash-mobs, silent protests, etc.) and the contemporary aesthetic praxis. The history of modern art and cinema has provided a rich iconography of the Revolution as an Event (from Delacrois to Eisenstein and further); however, contemporary art (public art first of all), together with political actionism, tends to follow an entirely different strategy which consists in the circumspect resistance to the logic of representation and is based on the concept of revolution as a perpetual nomadic movement, "becoming", and evasion.

Résumé En s'appuyant sur une approche constructiviste des médias, et revisitant L'histoire de la sexualité de Michel Foucault, Almira Ousmanova analyse l'articulation de la question sexuelle et du discours politique post-soviétique dans les médias biélorusses. Elle montre qu'en assimilant tous ceux qui s'opposent au pouvoir en place à des minorités sexuelles elles-mêmes représentées comme dotées d'une sexualité « méprisable », les médias officiels biélorusses contribuent à un double objectif : discréditer toute différence de genre et de sexualité (et ainsi maintenir un statu quo entre le pouvoir actuel et le système de valeurs traditionnel) et délégitimer toute différence politique : l'image de l'opposition « pédérastique » condition de la « masculinité » du pouvoir en place doit jouer son rôle historique à la veille des élections présidentielles.

Based on a constructivist view of the media, and by revisiting Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, Almira Ousmanova analyzes the articulation of the sexual question and the post-Soviet discourse in the media of Belarus. She demonstrates that by treating all those that oppose the existing power as sexual minorities represented as saddled with a contemptible sexuality, the official medias of Belarus contribute to a double objective. First, it discredits all difference in gender and sexuality, thus maintaining a status quo between the current power and the tradition value system. Second, it served to delegitimize all who express political difference; the image of the opposition as "pederast," and the "masculinity" of those in power plays its historic role on the eve of presidential elections. Adapted from the source document.

The essay provides a critical assessment of the debates concerning the concepts of fake and original (authentic) in the context of semiotics (Ch.S. Peirce, T. de Lauretis, U. Eco, M. Bal), philosophy (N. Goodman, J. Baudrillard, S. Žižek), art theory (W Benjamin, I. Haywood, N. Bryson), history (C. Ginzburg). It is an attempt to represent the problem of reproduction of cultural artefacts as a multifaceted issue which embraces the whole series of related notions (fake, forgery, imitation, reproduction, replication, remake, copy, pastiche, etc.) along with their different meanings and implications for various cultural practices (fine arts, history, architecture, cinema, social and cultural 'apparatuses' of identification). The main aim of the text is to provide an interdisciplinary frame of interpretation of the phenomenon of forgery, to reveal how aesthetic judgments on the originality (and aura) of the work of art are determined by economical and political factors and to show how the 'ideology of original' is related to the power-knowledge system and the issues of political economy in contemporary Western culture. Semiotics (particularly, in U. Eco's version) is chosen here as the most promising and efficient tool for the analysis of this complex phenomenon.

The essay provides a critical assessment of the debates concerning the concepts of fake and original (authentic) in the context of semiotics (Ch.S. Peirce, T. de Lauretis, U. Eco, M. Bal), philosophy (N. Goodman, J. Baudrillard, S. Žižek), art theory (W Benjamin, I. Haywood, N. Bryson), history (C. Ginzburg). It is an attempt to represent the problem of reproduction of cultural artefacts as a multifaceted issue which embraces the whole series of related notions (fake, forgery, imitation, reproduction, replication, remake, copy, pastiche, etc.) along with their different meanings and implications for various cultural practices (fine arts, history, architecture, cinema, social and cultural 'apparatuses' of identification). The main aim of the text is to provide an interdisciplinary frame of interpretation of the phenomenon of forgery, to reveal how aesthetic judgments on the originality (and aura) of the work of art are determined by economical and political factors and to show how the 'ideology of original' is related to the power-knowledge system and the issues of political economy in contemporary Western culture. Semiotics (particularly, in U. Eco's version) is chosen here as the most promising and efficient tool for the analysis of this complex phenomenon.

This article reflects on the difficult relationship between gender studies & so called 'Culturology' in post-Soviet academia. Both approaches deal with culture but the modes of analysis differ significantly. The article argues that Western feminism & gender studies as its academic output challenged the methods & paradigm of cultural analysis in post-Soviet academia, which was & still is implicitly based on Marxist-Leninist premises of social research. The article then goes on to analyze why gender studies as well as feminism are often perceived as 'imported products' for which reason their reception in post-Soviet humanities is rather problematic. Briefly speaking, the intellectual potential & methodological grounds of gender studies remain questionable for scholars in post-Soviet universities. Adapted from the source document.

This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gender and Im/Material Labour, which was organized by the Center for Gender Studies at the the European Humanities University and held in Vilnius on June 15–16, 2023. The con- ference was part of the Women in Tech educational and research project, the project was launched by the EHU Center for Gender Studies and is funded by the European Union. Apart of the articles, submitted by the participants of the given conference, the volume also features the outcomes of the Women in Tech research grant program (held in 2022–2023), that was aimed specifically at the young female scholars, whose research has been focused on various gender-related issues of the IT industry in Belarus and in the region in the period of 2020–2023.

In Europe, love has been given a prominent place in European self-representations from the Enlightenment onwards. The category of love, stemming from private and personal spheres, was given a public function and used to distinguish European civilisation from others. Contributors to this volume trace historical links and analyse specific connections between the two discourses on love and Europe over the course of the twentieth century, exploring the distinctions made between the public and private, the political and personal. In doing so, this volume develops an innovative historiography that includes such resources as autobiographies, love letters, and cinematic representations, and takes issue with the exclusivity of Eurocentrism. Its contributors put forth hypotheses about the historical pre-eminence of emotions and consider this history as a basis for a non-Eurocentric understanding of new possible European identities