Search

A symposium on Samantha Frost's Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics offers an opportunity to revisit one of the most original contributions to Hobbes scholarship in the last few decades. The book's originality resides not only in recuperating Hobbes's materialist metaphysics for contemporary ethics and politics, but in making Hobbes's take on matter inform novel conceptual approaches to social and non-social reality, such as new materialism – a philosophical school that conceives matter as vibrant and agentic, rather than inert. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Diversitas Journal is the property of Diversitas Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Fotocinema is the property of Revista Fotocinema and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Foro Revista de Derecho is the property of Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, Sede Ecuador and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Welfare Policies & Social Work Journal / Revista Internacional de Políticas de Bienestar y Trabajo Social is the property of Asociacion Internacional de Ciencias Sociales & Trabajo Social and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Voces y Silencios is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Româna de Dreptul Muncii is the property of Wolters Kluwer Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: Despite the increasing interest in the metaverse—immersive three-dimensional virtual worlds wherein personalized avatars interact with one another—little is known about how users cognitively appraise and emotionally experience it. To fill this gap, the present study explores the emotional, behavioral and social consequences of users' cognitive appraisals, while focusing on social virtual reality (VR) as a representative entry point to the metaverse. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory against the backdrop of a framework for classifying emotions, this study develops and tests a theoretical model to account for users' continuance intention and its consequences in the social VR context based on two-wave panel survey data collected from 216 users of social VR platforms, including AltspaceVR, VRChat, Bigscreen and Rec Room. Findings: The results of the first survey showed that perceived opportunity was more strongly influenced by technological opportunity than social opportunity, whereas perceived threat was more strongly affected by social threat than technological threat. Integrating the data collected from the first survey with those of the second survey, we also found that users' continuance intention positively influenced both their behavioral engagement and social self-efficacy. Originality/value: By adopting a longitudinal approach, this study provides insights that may be valuable to researchers and practitioners who seek to use social VR for business purposes. This study also contributes to the metaverse literature by conceptualizing and operationalizing the opportunity and threat factors of social VR and identifying salient emotions that users experience in this context. Finally, this study has practical implications for addressing the social and technological features that may cause adverse user experiences in social VR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, in terms of a theoretical approach to reality, sociology seems to be lagging behind in disclosing the meanings and dynamics of social issues in connection with individuals' problems (Wright Mills, 1965). Society has changed dramatically, and the classic sociological tools appear wholly inadequate for the new social reality. And we can also thank postmodernist theories for this, since they managed to deconstruct a number of sociological tools without providing satisfactory alternatives. In the case of Vilfredo Pareto, by the beginning of the 19th century he had already realized that economics was not enough to explain social issues but despite this was becoming the dominant discipline used to tackle social demands. The purpose of this article is to examine those aspects of the work of Pareto that are still relevant for thinking about the current social reality and, in particular, about the potential tools that this work can still offer us today, if properly explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Social Work Studies is the property of Helwan University, Faculty of Social Work and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since the founding of the Communist Party of China, literature has often featured themes glorifying industry under the guidance of national policies. However, a group of post-1970s and -80s writers in China express a unique perspective on factory scenes in their works, deviating significantly from mainstream Realism. This article focuses on Lunei’s 路內 “The Following Trilogy” (Young Babylon, On the Trail of Her Travels, and Lost in Daicheng 戴城) to observe how the writer, as a witness at the edge of an era, depicts the aesthetic ambiance shaped by factory narratives, thereby reflecting social reality. Compared to other writers, two features set Lunei’s works apart. First, through the intertextuality of sounds, smells, relics, and factories, a poetic “ruin-spirit” space is constructed. The novels are also characterized by the presence of disabled individuals and societal “cancer cells,” symbolizing the confusion and disillusionment of the turn of the century, which are subtly embedded in the narrative. How does Lunei construct the aesthetics of the ruins in the space of the factory? How does he reflect and inquire into the changes of the times in his decadent writing? How does he combine the conscious personal history with the unconscious writing of the times, so as to show his social concern and shape the generation’s redemption of the past, perception of the present, and warning for the future? These are several questions explored in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normative case studies represent empirically grounded phenomena that raise normative philosophical questions. Growth in the popularity of case‐based inquiry in philosophy reflects a recent trend in the field not to shy away from engaging with empirical realities, but instead to advance philosophical projects that recognize and speak directly to these realities, including social inequities endemic to our societies. Yet, as the use of case studies and other empirically engaged philosophical approaches has grown, concerns have been raised about whether these methods risk reducing philosophy to social science and, in turn, burdening philosophy with the constraints of social science research. Responding to these concerns calls for more attention to the methodological dimensions of case‐based inquiry in philosophy. In this article, Rebecca Taylor offers reflections on two core clarifying questions: (1) What makes normative case studies distinct from other related tools for inquiry — in particular, philosophical thought experiments and qualitative case studies? (2) What quality criteria should guide the development of normative case studies? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical representation of natural science as the experimental testing of causal hypotheses with reductionistic, mechanistic explanations has been rightly rejected as an exclusive approach for psychology. However, this representation of science is simplistic and misleading. Interdisciplinary science studies show how biology, physics, and empirical psychology include reflection, empathy, imagination, qualitative analysis, and the creative use of ordinary language in natural scientific practice. Beyond causal experimentation in research and mechanistic explanation in theory, practices across all sciences include intentionality, meaning, holism, values, teleology, temporality, and agency in phenomena. Psychophysical subject matter requires unique methodological norms that interrelate intentional meanings and their external physical, vital, and social realities. Understanding psychology's complex relation to natural science begs for a closer, more probing, comparative examination of the actual practices of scientists. Only on this basis will methodological norms adequately clarify, justify, and integrate the diverse, pluralistic approach required by psychology's paradoxical identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I have been playing pickup soccer for the last decade with members of my local Midwestern US community. In practical terms, we all behave as if little is more important to us than our ongoing game. We suffer injuries, tolerate rehabilitation, and spend hours and days away from our closest friends and family members in order to play. But we also miss no opportunity to deny the importance of the game. We are quick to admonish one another for taking it too seriously, for not just having fun, for forgetting that it's just a game. If we behave practically as if soccer carries genuine social import, then why won't we admit to this belief when we talk about it? In this essay, I demonstrate that, in fact, the two sides of this seeming paradox are the necessary supports for one another. Although it is counterintuitive, the seriousness of our play depends upon our refusal to acknowledge in language the significant space that soccer occupies in our lives. We are free to invest our game with a surprising degree of profundity so long as we steadily and periodically remind one another that we are not doing so. To support this thesis, I draw on classic commentary on the sociology of play by Johan Huizinga, on Robert Pfaller's concept of interpassivity, and on several ideas from Lacanian psychoanalysis as read by Slavoj Žižek. This triangulation of thinkers allows me to clarify the logic of an everyday experience. It will also help explain the apparent contradiction between how a large group of soccer players experience their excessive attachments to a game and the sport's minor status within our shared social reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing research on and conceptualization of the public presence of religion usually builds on the Habermasian understanding of the public sphere. This has centered the discussion on the public presence of religion around the question of where such a presence is justified. Discourse theories offer an alternative understanding, stating that the public sphere is an area of struggles where diverse discourses compete to establish a definition of social reality as taken for granted and hegemonic. This shift opens the question of how a given definition of social reality becomes taken for granted, pointing to the role of legitimation. Against this background, our article argues that religion's ability to serve as a valuable "resource" for building justifications in discursive struggles for hegemony could serve as indicators of its presence in the public sphere. Along these lines, we analyze religion's legitimizing role in abortion policy-making in Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the concept of meliẓah (eloquent language) and its significance in the development of Hebrew literary thought. The study begins with an analysis of meliẓah in the works of maskilim and scholars of Haskalah such as Euchel, Zederbaum, and Finer, who typically viewed meliẓah as a derivative concept that serves a wider philosophical or historical framework. The main body of the article explores how maskilim used meliẓah and figurative language in ways that question the aesthetic affirmation of philosophical knowledge and challenge established views of historical continuity. Drawing from Erich Auerbach’s elaborate discussion of figurative speech, this study illustrates how Hebrew writers, including Moses Mendelssohn and Abraham Mapu, employed meliẓot not just to embellish already-accepted images of nature or history. In a manner akin to Auerbach’s figura, meliẓah highlights the evasive, transitory, and ideological aspects of literary mediations of history, leading to alternative mediations. The concluding sections focus on Abraham Mapu’s fictional portrayal of meliẓah, arguing it should not be read as an imitation of Alexander Pope’s concept of “wit.” Instead of portraying nature or history in their “methodized” version, I show how Mapu’s fiction deprives historical fiction of its rationalist and idealist aura. Rather than self-justifying images, Mapu’s meliẓot operate as rhetorical structures that summon up conflicted versions of social reality [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practical reason is the use of reason to decide how to act and perform in a social reality. When someone deliberates about what to do, one puts all the reasons for the action, and then all the reasons against the action will determine the outcome of the action. In that situation, we can describe that practical action with reason because we will determine reason with the weight of different reasons not on the weighing reasons. In this paper, we analyze that reasons have weight against the theory that weights of reasons have no role in a theory of reasoning, and defend that reasons have weight with the evidence of practical reasons. The aim of this paper is to argue that weight of reasons has a role in the process of reasoning. In every situation of life, we can use have reason and weight of reason according to the practical situation of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research aims to study, analyse and criticize Weber's methodology of understanding and interpretation, in addition to clarifying how to build an ideal model. The research relied on the analytical-critical approach in studying the research topic. The research concluded that Weber was keen to define the concept of understanding and interpretation as a methodological basis for revealing the meanings of actions and social phenomena in society as a whole. The research also concluded that studying the meanings of social actions requires the presence of a methodological tool that Weber called the ideal model, which is a mental structure that is formed during the emergence or clarity. One or more observable features of social reality that are used to achieve sociological understanding in the study of socio-cultural phenomena. In the end, the research recommended the necessity of conducting more analytical and critical studies and research on Weber’s interpretive methodology to clarify the intellectual circumstances and events of the social context and its interactions that contributed to the maturation and establishment of his methodological approach, in addition to considering it one of the most important methodologies suitable for studying our problems and social phenomena. Because it takes into account the cultural variables specific to each society as a methodological input when conducting sociological research based on ideal models that can be employed to understand and interpret social reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are several proposals regarding the origin of the universe and the inhabited earth, the most prominent being Biblical creationism and naturalistic evolutionism. Biblical creationism proposes that the reality around us was created supernaturally by a personal and transcendent Being, who first shaped an earth that was disordered and then filled it with all kinds of life; At the end of the process, he created the human being to represent him visibly in the government or administration of other things. On the other hand, naturalistic evolutionism proposes that the reality that surrounds us is the product of a process in which, without any type of supernatural intervention, natural laws, acting on matter over time and at random, gave rise in a way gradually to the universe, to the inhabited earth and to organisms. Which of the two fits more with the evidence and the reality that surrounds us? Although it is true that trying to explain the origin of both have limitations, the reality is that Biblical creationism is not only more consistent with the evidence, but also with social reality. Furthermore, it is easier to explain how the creationist model harmonizes with the apparent difficulties or contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literary debates of the first two decades of the German Democratic Republic, the work of Franz Kafka generally served as a foil for how not to write socialist literature. Assessments of Kafka's work and legacy either opposed the modernist Kafka against socialist realist principles or fashioned the Prague author into a perceptive critic of bourgeois, capitalist society who, nevertheless, stopped short of grasping the underlying causes of the circumstances he critiqued and whose insights into the alienation of his times remained irrelevant for the socialist present. This article complicates this early reception of Kafka in the GDR by focusing on contributions of the East German delegation to the 1963 international Kafka conference in Liblice, Czechoslovakia, which invited Marxists from both East and West to discuss Kafka's potential relevance for socialist societies, resulting in an unprecedented political critique of alienation under really existing socialism from many invitees. While the East German delegation largely refrained from such conclusions, critic Ernst Schumacher's speech departs from the consensus of his East German peers: coining the notion of 'double estrangement' (doppelte Verfremdung) to describe the interpretive uncertainty of Kafka's writing as well as its emancipatory, imaginative dimensions, Schumacher eventually extols its utopian potential to allow it to reflect the new social reality of the GDR's future as negotiated by the GDR's community of readers and writers (Literaturgesellschaft). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the life and afterlife of Tunisia's literary avant-garde (al-tali'a al-adabiyya), which thrived between 1968 and 1972. Al-tali'a sought to 'revolutionize' literary language and to root Tunisian literature in the multilingual environment and social reality of the country, at a crucial period of social and political change and against the backdrop of a Leftist turn in local dissident politics. Al-tali'a sought to complete the process of language and literary decolonization in intersection with key global tendencies, including Tiermondisme and decoloniality. The language question was articulated, then as in post-2011 Tunisia, in terms of democracy and justice. While the state promoted fostering Tunisianness as state policy, there were other takes on this concept that were progressive, more deeply decolonial and justice-driven. This paper uncovers the genesis of the movement through the work of Izzeddine al-Madani in drama and Tahar Hammami, among others, in fiction and poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conserving biodiversity in the context of global change is a challenge for the sustainability of life as we know it. Scientific protection work, particularly for flora, often lacks interdisciplinary approaches that consider human dynamics. The main objective is to evaluate the level of commitment of Spanish society toward the conservation of biodiversity in general and vascular flora in particular. As a secondary objective, it aims to contribute to the transfer between management and the general population. Methodologically, the survey has been used to estimate the willingness to protect threatened flora. The surveyed population is structured on the basis of its commitment to biodiversity conservation into: pro-conservation or pro-utilitarian group. The results are conclusive and indicate a high commitment of the Spanish society to conservation in aspects such as fees or legislative limitations on owners. It also reveals a deficiency in the transfer of the efforts made, from management, to society. It can be concluded that the survey, as a tool, allows us to know the starting social reality, detect weaknesses and deficiencies that allow management to be adapted to that reality, replicate work longitudinally to know the evolution of the measures and, indirectly, bring reality closer, of conservation to the people surveyed (science transfer). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Anbar University for Law & Political Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Al-Banjari is the property of Pascasarjana UIN Antasari and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Electronic Turkish Studies is the property of Electronic Turkish Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study of coordinated cross-regional development led by scientific and technological innovation (STI) is vital in promoting high-quality development in China. However, there is limited research on the coordination status, driving mechanism, and key influencing factors of STI in China. This study has proposed the interrelationship between STI, socio-economic, ecological environment, and energy consumption (SEEE) with coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, conducted a spatio-temporal evolution heterogeneity analysis, and identified the key barriers to meet the needs of an increasingly complex and interacting social reality. The results show that: (1) The current CCD of the SEEE system shows a clear stepped state in time sequence with an unbalance development class among cross-regional; (2) The CCD of the SEEE system has a significant spatial positive correlation, which shows a geographical distribution trend of "high in the south and low in the north," "high in the east and low in the west," and " bulging in the middle and low in the ends." The regions with high CCD are clustered in the "coastal and riverine" areas, which can drive the neighboring provinces through spatial association. Central China has great potential to rise fast; (3) STI subsystem is the key obstacle affecting CCD development. Still, the energy consumption subsystem has an insignificant impact, of which the "transaction value in technical markets" indicator is the key obstacle factor. This paper puts forward policy implications based on the study results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho de la Seguridad Social, Laborum is the property of Ediciones Laborum S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper finds its point of departure in Murad Idris's argument about peace being a fundamentally violent ideal marked by an overarching logic of constitutive aggression. It responds to this categorical statement by reconstructing four distinct variants of the peace/violence nexus, each of which involves a different type of violence, performed by a different type of agent, with a different demeanor, at different times and intervals, and in relation to a different conception of peace. There is not one peace/violence nexus but at least four. What is more, a detailed examination of these peace/violence nexuses puts into doubt their fundamental nature, if by fundamental is meant intrinsic and inescapable. It draws attention to the contingency of their becoming a social and political reality, and thereby confirms that the imbrication of peace and violence may at least theoretically—and temporarily—be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Iluminuras is the property of Revista Iluminuras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has been experienced differently by people depending on their socio-cultural contexts. These varied experiences are expressed in various forms of communication, including cartoons. This paper examines the pragmatic resources inherent in COVID-19-related cartoons depicting the impact of the virus on Nigerian society. Forty COVID-19-related cartoons, circulated on social media, were collected on Twitter and WhatsApp platforms between March and April 2020 as data. Multimodality and presupposition served as theoretical framework and descriptive research design was adopted. Findings reveal five socio-contextual domains, religion, health, economy, politics and governance nd family, characterizing the social experiences of Nigerians during the pandemic. Through the evocation of situational reality, pragmatic sarcasm, punning, and orientation to government insensitivity, the cartoonists evoke pragmatic functions of informing and warning about social behaviours in the religion, family and health domains; recreating situational realities on socioeconomic impacts in the domain of economy; and satirizing government policies and mocking politicians' insincerity in the domain of politics and governance on sociopolitical experiences of Nigerians before and during the pandemic. The study concludes cartoons are a strong means of portraying societal realities and people's experiences comically and graphically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the World Church is one of the significant developments in the Church in modern times. It emerges from the dialectical tensions or conflicts between a Church widely perceived as monocultural and a world that has witnessed the ascendance and call for recognition of other cultures. The processes of confrontation and, subsequently, rectification have fructified in the sense that it gave way to various expressions of the Church other than its European form. We can now speak of the Church in Asia, the Church in Africa, the Church in Latin America, and even the Church in the Philippines. In this paper, we refer to the dynamics of critical theory, specifically Axel Honneth's theory of recognition, to explain how historical movements create tensions that have profound and lasting effects on institutions such as the Church. The movements in the Church before and after the Second Vatican Council, which saw the emergence of the World Church, reveal the workings of Honneth's emphasis on anchorage in social realities, emancipation from slavery and social injustice, intersubjectivity, and recognition spheres in the processes that paved the way for a significant evolution of the Church's self-understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I advocate for advancing Critical Discourse Studies of Popular Culture by integrating perspectives from Cultural Studies, particularly their emphasis on examining how popular culture shapes social reality. The proposed research enterprise focuses on the construction of Germanness using two examples from Greek popular culture discourse during the debt crisis: an infotainment website article and a TV sketch comedy. The analysis reveals that the dominant discourses – previously framing news coverage of the Southern European debt crisis – are recycled. However, as these discourses shift from news media to entertainment, they become naturalized and trivialized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the bygone American independent film media landscape, of which Pulp Fiction (1994) was an essential part, and explores how the film has aged in light of the present media environment and the trajectory of Tarantino's career. I compare Pulp Fiction with the Coen brothers' Barton Fink (1991), another American independent film that preceded it by a few years. Then, I illustrate how Pulp Fiction synthesized classical and post-classical filmmaking styles and operated according to a visual minimalism that is one of the film's strengths. The primary outcome of revisiting Pulp Fiction as a product of both its time and its filmmaker's penchant for excavating material from older movies and stories is to conclude that the groundbreaking Pulp Fiction is, in many ways, a transitional work that often reduces its human characters to objects. I argue that later features from the filmmaker are more substantial in their human characters and a concern for social reality and consequences beyond the immediate frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Young Intellectuals / Genç Mütefekkirler Dergisi is the property of Journal of Young Intellectuals and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article argues that the marketing canon, as presently configured, has failed to confer social reality to the acts of its key protagonists – marketers. As an adjunct to both collective and contextually diverse perspectives on marketing, more emphasis on marketer agency is suggested, this in the context of nominally focused anthropological enquiry. It is further argued that the status afforded to consumer behaviour be similarly conferred for marketer behaviour, the latter under-represented within marketing research. Drawing on ontological nominalism, speech act theory and Searle's social constructionism, this article addresses implications for intersubjective meaning within our community and offers provisional thoughts for how this might be structured and improved. It ends with a call to action for both the rehabilitation and expansion of purposeful marketer behaviour study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical logic is based on an underlying view of the world, according to which there are elementary facts and compound facts, which are logical combinations of these elementary facts. Sentences are true if they correspond to, in last instance, the elementary facts in the world. This world view has no place for rules, which exist as individuals in the world, and which create relations between the most elementary facts. As a result, classical logic is not suitable to deal with rules, and is therefore unsuitable to deal with legal reasoning. A logic that is more suitable should take into account that law is a part of social reality, in particular a part that consists of constructivist facts, and that rules play a central role in law. This article gives a superficial description of how social reality exists and of the place of law and legal rules in it. It uses this description to argue that traditional techniques to reason with and about legal rules provide a better logic for law than classical logic. These techniques can be accommodated in a logic that treats rules as logical individuals.

Genduk which was published in mid-2016 is a literary work that presents the life story of the tobacco farming community on the slopes of Mount Sindoro. The presence of tobacco farmers in Genduk implies a reality of social phenomena that occur in society, especially on the slopes of Mount Sindoro, Temanggung, Central Java. For this reason, this study was structured with the aim of analyzing the existence of tobacco farmers in Genduk as a social reality through a sociological review of literature. This study uses a qualitative descriptive research method that focuses on the sociology of literature approach through Wellek and Warren's sociology combined with the concept of social reality. The results of the study show that the tobacco farmers in Genduk are not mere works of fiction, but instead Genduk is the bearer of the "message" conveyed by the author about the life story of tobacco farmers on the slopes of Mount Sindoro. The social reality conveyed by the author is known to refer to objective reality, as a result of the author's thought on the experience he has gone through as a native of Temanggung, Central Java, who also has a life story on the slopes of Mount Sindoro. Therefore it can be concluded that the tobacco farmers in Genduk are a social reality resulting from the thought of reality combined with social phenomena, which refers to the essence of humanity.

The article "The Night Comes Without You" by Julio Prado tells the story of Gonzalo Ríos, a prosecutor in Guatemala who investigates cases of child trafficking for international adoptions. The novel addresses the issue of illegal adoptions and child trafficking in Guatemala, contextualizing it within the country's social and economic reality. Through Ríos' story, the Guatemalan justice system is criticized and the struggle for justice in the face of adversity is highlighted. The work fits into an aesthetic of failure typical of Latin American neo-police novels, where the protagonist persists in his fight for justice despite the difficulties. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the ongoing debates within the Russian Orthodox Church regarding its support for Russia's war against Ukraine. Some members of the Church believe that the Moscow Patriarchate has deviated from the principles of Christianity, while others argue that the invasion was necessary to protect the faith. The author highlights a problem in Russian Orthodox studies, where scholars often privilege certain aspects of the faith as "good" and condemn others as "bad." This approach assumes that scholars can identify and recover the "good" Orthodoxy, but raises questions about their ability to do so objectively. The article suggests that the study of Russian Orthodoxy should focus on the contest between different interpretations of what is "good" and "bad" within the faith. [Extracted from the article]

Press advertisements are a key source for the history of Jewish occultism in Eastern Europe. From the late nineteenth century, modern occult currents engaged many Jews in Eastern Europe, who consulted with mediums, attended occult performances and lectures, and consumed occult literature, whether in Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, or Russian. For these Jews, the hidden realities represented by occultism conveyed practical knowledge, entertainment, assurance, and the possibility of belief in a higher reality. Their occult activities left a paper trail in the form of advertisements placed in Jewish newspapers across Eastern Europe. This article considers occult-related advertisements published in the Jewish press in early-twentieth-century Poland, arguably the centre of Jewish occultism in Eastern Europe. By tracing occult advertisements across four decades of the Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish press in Poland, a picture emerges of the dynamic occult marketplace that reached Jews across Eastern Europe, the economics of this marketplace, and the social changes that spurred its development. Jewish press advertisements thus not only shed light on the physiognomy of Jewish occultism in Poland in the early-twentieth century, but also tell us a great deal about Jewish experiences of modernity in these years as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay probes the understudied relationship between the hypermediated urban environment and the coding of femininity in the late 1960s and 1970s Japan. Through reading Ōshima Nagisa's Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970), this essay explores the unique gender dynamics remapped in the avant‐garde media practice in an era when "urban" and "media" became interconnected and filmic medium was redefined in relation to the vibrant media milieu. This essay is motivated by "the imperishables," a prevalent trope that can be located in a wide array of literary and filmic works in the 1960s and 1970s: the vanishing men and the "plastic" women. Resilient, enduring, prone to violations but always "failing" to disappear from the screen, women's bodies occupy central roles in reorienting the epistemic structures in many prominent radical works that investigate the opaque urban network during Japan's Cold War restructuring. This essay reads cinema as a contentious site where articulations of sociopolitical sentiments and concerns with film's medium specificity find catalytic convergence with the continuous coding of gender. Rather than simply viewing female bodies as representations of social reality or fetishized objects, this article traces how femininity, constructed as both cultural artifact and techno‐aesthetic device, showcases internal dissidence in the leftist urban critique and the emergent somatic politics in the avant‐garde imaginaries of alterity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History is a subject that students often find uninspiring in school education. This paper explores the application of social VR metaverse platforms in combination with interactive, nonlinear web platforms designed for immersive storytelling to support learning about a sensitive historical event, namely the Asia Minor Catastrophe. The goal was to design an alternative method of learning history and investigate if it would engage students and foster their independence. A mixed-methods research design was applied. Thirty-four (n = 34) adult participants engaged in the interactive book and VR space over the course of three weeks. After an online workshop, feedback was collected from participants through a custom questionnaire. The quantitative data from the questionnaire were analyzed statistically utilizing IBM SPSS, while the qualitative responses were coded thematically. This study reveals that these two tools can enhance historical education by increasing student engagement, interaction, and understanding. Participants appreciated the immersive and participatory nature of the material. This study concludes that these technologies have the potential to enhance history education by promoting active participation and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent proposal by Quill Kukla and Mark Lance holds that surface appearances notwithstanding, gender ascriptions are closer to normative performatives than descriptions. As speech acts, they share more in common with pronouncing a marriage than a neutral description of a person, albeit this is not commonly recognized. This paper argues that the proposal faces a consistency problem. In order to affect social reality qua their illocutionary force, gender ascriptions must on average succeed. However, according to the authors most actual second- and third person gender ascriptions in fact violate the success conditions of the speech act type, which include respect for the individual's first-person gender ascriptions. Their main claim thus becomes that gender roles can be instituted as a series of misfires, though it is left open how this is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazilian legal education has faced a multifactorial crisis in recent decades. These crises, rooted in structural problems of society and universities, require a deep analysis of the current educational model. The research objective was to identify the pedagogical-educational structure of the Law courses, based on the national guidelines for the curriculum and pedagogical projects in force. Methodologically, bibliographic, documentary and legislative research procedures were used. Through a historical rescue, the analysis of Resolution No. 5/2018 of the Chamber of Higher Education of the National Council of Education and the proposition of a critical educational model, committed to human rights, the aim is to contribute to overcoming the crisis and building a more effective legal education contextualized with social reality. The first section intends to address the tradition and historical contours of legal education in Brazil, considering relevant legislation, guidelines and political-social developments. The following section develops why a chronic and structural crisis in law education is perceived, in view of its market conception in the dominant economic scenario. Finally, the final chapter is committed to presenting paths for a legal education for human rights, based on paradigmatic and pedagogical resistance changes and overcoming the instituted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beyond the politics exercised in and from institutions, individuals use their power resources to maintain or challenge political structures through micropolitics stimulated by affective technologies, pursuing, in Spinozist terms, that common soul that is reached more through affects than through reason (Lordon, 2018, p. 233). Based on empirical cases taken from the Catalan social reality of recent years, this article will analyse the so-called Catalonia of the Procés, mainly using conceptual tools such as the notion of micropolitics and that of affective technology, which are particularly suitable for exploring the politics of emotions and which even allow to think of a structuralism of passions (Lordon, 2018). In this way, instead of considering the ideas of agency and structure as antinomic, the continuous interplay between these different dimensions of reality is recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to employ NeutroAlgebra theory for identifying the factors with the greatest impact on the deficient state of Ecuador's social rehabilitation system. To achieve this, a survey was conducted with a group of 56 expert officials in the field, hailing from the Babahoyo canton. Neutrosophic logic based on SVNS was applied to implement the DEMATEL method. The utilization of this method helped establish causal relationships among the initial elements, directing interview efforts towards the causal elements of the main issues. Through the application of NeutroAlgebra, it was determined that, while the overall results were favorable, there were unfavorable responses regarding the budget for various activities, the rise in crime in the country, and the absence of a robust prison reform. The attained results fulfilled the objectives and showcased the practical utility of neutrosophic logic in addressing real-life problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Futuribles is the property of Futuribles SARL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Reality has many levels. Here, we deal with the less visible of the ‘outer world’ level of faith. Faith has power. Power and geography are Geopolitics. We deal specifically with some of its components: cultural war, Cancel Culture during communism, and saints of the Prisons. Exploration of this social and more-than-social reality benefits from studies on communism—as the pinnacle of “The System” – which feeds on liberty and the social role of the military saints—The Stratiotes and of the Icon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of virtual reality and 360° videos has been little researched so far, especially in social work studies and teaching. The reasons for this are the low prevalence of VR headsets in social work courses and the fundamental technological deficit in social work, which means the lack of clear causal chains within it. Professionals must adapt their practical knowledge to the individual framework conditions and problem situations depending on the case situation and field of work. In contrast, in simulation-based approaches, as used in the teaching of many rather object-oriented courses of study, fixed sequences of action usually lead to success. At the same time, 360° videos, with suitable didactic framing, can be used to convey case studies in an immersive manner that can then be continued individually, methodically developed and reflected upon. In the" Teilprojekt XR", two approaches to the use of VR headsets were designed, the first enables remote collaboration, the second offers a chance for analysis and reflection using 360° videos. The first approach is Collaborative work using VR headsets, which is intended to be an addition to communication with existing video conferencing systems. It has the potential to counteract the previous challenges associated with zoom technology and create more proximity. The first few evaluation results (n=11) on the methodological implementation of collaborative work with VR headsets suggest that this approach can bring added value to students. However, getting started with VR headsets is challenging for students and only a few have taken up the offer so far. The integration of 360° videos in education has potential for social work, as the high degree of realism and immersion can improve the link between theory and practice. Students can thus obtain realistic insights into practical examples already during their studies and professionally reflect on their own perspective in the situations. The use of 360° videos using VR headsets has been tested and established in teaching in four seminars so far. The students experience the simulated case situations from the subjective perspective of the different protagonists and can thus more easily put themselves in their individual perspective. Didactically, these observations are professionally framed by teaching content taught in advance, group work in small numbers as well as a collaborative analysis and reflection within the seminar group. The results of the evaluation (n=60) of the integration of 360° videos into teaching are promising and show a clear potential for university didactics. A flow experience and an experience of presence were confirmed by the students when working with the 360° videos. Furthermore, the students reported that the methodological extension supported their comprehension of the course materials and validate the usefulness and advantages of using 360° videos during the seminars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]