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Responding to Challenges of Today’s World
This volume examines in an innovative and applied perspective the interdependence between the role of international organizations, the existence of global public goods and the need of sustainable development. Moreover, it is set within the context of current challenges in today’s world of dramatic transition and clearly responds to the need for filling the existing research gap in this area. It also demonstrates excellent knowledge of primary resources and a very good mastery of the various concepts and policy issues. Moreover, it offers an important added value to the theory, research and recent publications of the concerned broad study field.
Contributors are: Aleksandra Borowicz, Leiza Brumat, Diego Caballero Vélez, Giuseppe T. Cirella, Rasa Daugėlienė, Agnieszka Domańska, Małgorzata Dziembała, Lenka Fojtíková, Katja Zajc Kejžar, Agnieszka Kłos, Ewa Kosycarz, Anatoliy Kruglashov, Andrzej Latoszek, Ewa Latoszek, Mirella Mărcuț, Willem Molle, Ewa Osuch-Rak, Marta Pachocka, Nina Ponikvar, Magdalena Proczek, Angela Maria Romito, Aleksandra Szczerba, and Anna Wójtowicz
Contributors are: Aleksandra Borowicz, Leiza Brumat, Diego Caballero Vélez, Giuseppe T. Cirella, Rasa Daugėlienė, Agnieszka Domańska, Małgorzata Dziembała, Lenka Fojtíková, Katja Zajc Kejžar, Agnieszka Kłos, Ewa Kosycarz, Anatoliy Kruglashov, Andrzej Latoszek, Ewa Latoszek, Mirella Mărcuț, Willem Molle, Ewa Osuch-Rak, Marta Pachocka, Nina Ponikvar, Magdalena Proczek, Angela Maria Romito, Aleksandra Szczerba, and Anna Wójtowicz
Responding to Challenges of Today’s World
This volume examines in an innovative and applied perspective the interdependence between the role of international organizations, the existence of global public goods and the need of sustainable development. Moreover, it is set within the context of current challenges in today’s world of dramatic transition and clearly responds to the need for filling the existing research gap in this area. It also demonstrates excellent knowledge of primary resources and a very good mastery of the various concepts and policy issues. Moreover, it offers an important added value to the theory, research and recent publications of the concerned broad study field.
Contributors are: Aleksandra Borowicz, Leiza Brumat, Diego Caballero Vélez, Giuseppe T. Cirella, Rasa Daugėlienė, Agnieszka Domańska, Małgorzata Dziembała, Lenka Fojtíková, Katja Zajc Kejžar, Agnieszka Kłos, Ewa Kosycarz, Anatoliy Kruglashov, Andrzej Latoszek, Ewa Latoszek, Mirella Mărcuț, Willem Molle, Ewa Osuch-Rak, Marta Pachocka, Nina Ponikvar, Magdalena Proczek, Angela Maria Romito, Aleksandra Szczerba, and Anna Wójtowicz
Contributors are: Aleksandra Borowicz, Leiza Brumat, Diego Caballero Vélez, Giuseppe T. Cirella, Rasa Daugėlienė, Agnieszka Domańska, Małgorzata Dziembała, Lenka Fojtíková, Katja Zajc Kejžar, Agnieszka Kłos, Ewa Kosycarz, Anatoliy Kruglashov, Andrzej Latoszek, Ewa Latoszek, Mirella Mărcuț, Willem Molle, Ewa Osuch-Rak, Marta Pachocka, Nina Ponikvar, Magdalena Proczek, Angela Maria Romito, Aleksandra Szczerba, and Anna Wójtowicz
An Alternative Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, and the Transition Towards It
Author:
What would an alternative to contemporary capitalism look like? In this book, Geert Reuten sets out a detailed design of a democratic society organised in worker cooperatives, followed by an equally detailed democratic transition to it, thereby making a convincing case. In Reuten’s design, Workers constitute the single economic class. However, unlike in capitalism, there is no class that owns the means of production. The legal structure of worker cooperatives is such that workers have full rights to the fruits of the cooperative without owning it, and yet the state does not own the cooperatives either. Interestingly, worker councils in the economic and state domains vote on all economically relevant matters. In Reuten’s work, the free choice of occupation and of specific consumer goods is even larger than in capitalism.
An Alternative Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, and the Transition Towards It
Author:
What would an alternative to contemporary capitalism look like? In this book, Geert Reuten sets out a detailed design of a democratic society organised in worker cooperatives, followed by an equally detailed democratic transition to it, thereby making a convincing case. In Reuten’s design, Workers constitute the single economic class. However, unlike in capitalism, there is no class that owns the means of production. The legal structure of worker cooperatives is such that workers have full rights to the fruits of the cooperative without owning it, and yet the state does not own the cooperatives either. Interestingly, worker councils in the economic and state domains vote on all economically relevant matters. In Reuten’s work, the free choice of occupation and of specific consumer goods is even larger than in capitalism.
Translation, Interpreting and Contrastive Analysis
This volume provides a timely reflection of this growing interdisciplinary field of translation, interpreting and political discourse. It includes very recent work carried out by researchers from a range of countries. The chapters illustrate new trends and perspectives in the interdisciplinary research field, and extends previous research. The volume covers both translation and interpreting modes in monolingual, bilingual and multilingual contexts. It features the convergences and synergies between the two modes, and thus provides new insights on these different modes of language communication. Furthermore, instead of situating translation in politics or politics in translation, the volume treats political discourse and translation/interpreting at equal levels, thus allowing more room for the discussion of the interdisciplinary nature of the field.
Translation, Interpreting and Contrastive Analysis
This volume provides a timely reflection of this growing interdisciplinary field of translation, interpreting and political discourse. It includes very recent work carried out by researchers from a range of countries. The chapters illustrate new trends and perspectives in the interdisciplinary research field, and extends previous research. The volume covers both translation and interpreting modes in monolingual, bilingual and multilingual contexts. It features the convergences and synergies between the two modes, and thus provides new insights on these different modes of language communication. Furthermore, instead of situating translation in politics or politics in translation, the volume treats political discourse and translation/interpreting at equal levels, thus allowing more room for the discussion of the interdisciplinary nature of the field.
Author:
From the French origin of Coca-Cola to McDonald’s sponsorship of the 2015 Milan Expo, the book presents the first comparative history of these multinational corporations in two Western European countries, addressing some compelling questions: to what extent our increasingly globalized world is persistently shaped by forms of American hegemony, and what are some of the forces that have been most effective at challenging the relationship between Americanization and globalization? Through the local history of global companies, the book tells a new story about not only the influence of American businesses in Europe but also the influence of European governments and societies on those American businesses and their adaptability.
Author:
From the French origin of Coca-Cola to McDonald’s sponsorship of the 2015 Milan Expo, the book presents the first comparative history of these multinational corporations in two Western European countries, addressing some compelling questions: to what extent our increasingly globalized world is persistently shaped by forms of American hegemony, and what are some of the forces that have been most effective at challenging the relationship between Americanization and globalization? Through the local history of global companies, the book tells a new story about not only the influence of American businesses in Europe but also the influence of European governments and societies on those American businesses and their adaptability.
Beyond the Biopolitics of the New Normal
The cultural change denominated as “the new normal” goes far beyond the adaptation to habits like physical distancing, limited person-to-person contact, teleworking, and self-isolation established with the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of significant transformations in human behavior spreads today in societies all around the world: physical intimacy decreases while virtual reality expands and alterity declines while artificial intelligence emerges, leading to structural reconfigurations of sex, relationships, gender awareness, and subjectivity. Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World explores this new cultural atmosphere through twelve interdisciplinary essays questioning global governmentality and challenging the biopolitics of the new normal—the administration of self-control societies so politically correct that repressed desire for otherness only finds a simulation of its satisfaction with the forced abnormality, outrageousness, and violence of mainstream porn—, going from ars erotica to alternative pornography, from online dating to gender fluidity, from LGBTQI+ artivism to sex life cultivation, and more.
Beyond the Biopolitics of the New Normal
The cultural change denominated as “the new normal” goes far beyond the adaptation to habits like physical distancing, limited person-to-person contact, teleworking, and self-isolation established with the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of significant transformations in human behavior spreads today in societies all around the world: physical intimacy decreases while virtual reality expands and alterity declines while artificial intelligence emerges, leading to structural reconfigurations of sex, relationships, gender awareness, and subjectivity. Sexuality and Eroticism in a Post-pandemic World explores this new cultural atmosphere through twelve interdisciplinary essays questioning global governmentality and challenging the biopolitics of the new normal—the administration of self-control societies so politically correct that repressed desire for otherness only finds a simulation of its satisfaction with the forced abnormality, outrageousness, and violence of mainstream porn—, going from ars erotica to alternative pornography, from online dating to gender fluidity, from LGBTQI+ artivism to sex life cultivation, and more.
Abstract
At least since the 1990s, there has been a notable rise in pro-sex movements, and theorists, alike. They advocate strongly for personal sovereignty, focussing more deliberately on the pleasure, transgression and experimentation aspects of sex. Pornography, or mediated sex, can be seen as yet another site to reproduce society’s obsession with all things sexual and falsely present its passive audience with singular narratives that influence the formation of sexual subjects. In this paper, we argue that alternative pornography may offer a respite from this sort of critique. Whereas mainstream pornography proliferates and predominates in the adult entertainment market, it can be unimaginative, repetitive, and artificial, as opposed to a more creative, radical, and authentic alternative pornography. Technological expansions, online accessibility and participatory global cultures have not only provided individuals a way in which to bypass the mainstream, but also, to gain relatively easy admittance to a previously obscure form of erotic life. While normalized mainstream pornography offers us a narrow sexual script that objectifies its performers and straightjackets its audience, alternative pornography acts as a form of resistance to mainstream and societal limitations, hence offering sexual subjects and objects an opportunity for greater freedom and agency.
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Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic is only one of the many pandemics that have led to a profound change. This chapter surveys not only the problems that arise in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, such as confinement, lockdown, isolation, fear, boredom, or income-loss, but also the issues of which the pandemic is the symptom: environmental degradation, population growth and the place of human sexuality. To help respond to these matters, this chapter first reviews the shifting attitudes towards eros and then draws on two contrasting religious traditions: the Tantra of Kashmir Shaivism and Christianity. Tantra proposes the paradoxical interplay of pleasure and asceticism, horror and eroticism, an interplay which leads to the highest form of consciousness and bliss. This chapter also draws on elements within Christianity that are traditional but have not been highlighted. It is explained how inner strengths can lead to unimaginably intense pleasures, and how the interplay of life and death is in fact highly erotic. Finally, seven present-day issues and their possible solutions are examined. In this manner, these two traditions, as expounded in this chapter, show the way forward to an epochal change and enable the forms required for this process to take place successfully.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has furthered the experience and awareness of cinematic sensations as the restrictions redefine our relation to eros. Selecting Fatih Akin’s 2004 film titled Gegen die Wand (Head-On), this chapter explores the use of the sensory, the affect, and the erotic in the film’s cinematography and how it is relevant to our time. Akin encourages embodied affective responses in the viewer, bypassing the potential socio-political fallout as he presents a love story between unlikely lovers. The selected scenes examine Akin’s filmmaking techniques, which give the viewer an experience of sensation beyond what is seen, placing Head-On in the cinema of sensation. The social and cultural repression, and the emotional responses raised in the film are not only still present and amplified, but are now coupled with the pressures of the pandemic. Thinking along the new normal, the analysis suggests that the pandemic, having suppressed intimacy, has increased the hunger for touch, the longing for interpersonal and intimate touch, making us aware of the absence of eros. The cinema of sensation is rekindled in the time of COVID-19, leaving its mark on the ongoing future of cinema.
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Abstract
This chapter examines the attacks on sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic by mainstream right-wing populist Greek media, and theorizes on the social experience of “mis-sublimation.” These attacks constitute a vilification of the sexuality of young people and women—stripping both of them of sexuality as an emancipatory force—while their “hypersexuality” and their supposed lack of respect for social norms is ferociously criticized. First, the chapter presents the events taking place in Greece. Secondly, it examines the patriarchal sexualization of male politicians. Thirdly, it traces the experience of “desublimation” and “mis-sublimation” in today’s Greek society. While Sigmund Freud’s and Herbert Marcuse’s concepts of “sublimation” and “desublimation” remain highly relevant, the most recent cultural and political transformations demand new conceptual frameworks. As the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions are extended through uncertainty and political manipulation, I suggest that another type of transformation of sexual energy takes place: this is what I call “mis-sublimation,” the consequence of women’s and young people’s new efforts to become socially acceptable, when society is still withholding approval. This results not in aggression, but in new forms of political apathy and, moreover, in depression.