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The study of American nationalism is a tricky adventure, first because of its deep-seated inconsistency as a self-reliant ideology, and second, because of dispersed and random absorptions of its designations by various and often competing factions and policies. In the first case, it has been said that nationalism could stand as a clarifying description of other self-contained ideologies (e.g., national liberalism); on the other hand, due to its pervasively undetermined ideological contours, any investigation of nationalism results in irresolute paradoxes and baffling contradictions. Still, despite such hindrance, the ideological framing of nationalism might be achieved considering certain valuable traits which hint at its commonsensical profile. In keeping with historical, political and cultural development of nationalism in the United States, one could grasp its certain specific marks as an ideology in the concepts of identity and character, American Creed, Manifest Destiny, assimilationism, American System, messianism. The present study modestly attempts to cope with all the aforementioned traits of American nationalism in order to configure its plausible ideography. Keywords: American nationalism, exceptionalism, expansionism, American Creed, Manifest Destiny, American System, assimilationism, messianism., Intro: the tricky avatars of an ideology More than most modern ideologies, nationalism requires attitudes of commitment and engagement consistent with attachment to fatherland, mother-country and/or land of the ancestors, [...]

Ever since its "birth certificate" on February 25, 1545, Commedia dell'arte's substantial resources of itineracy, improvisation, subversion, extraterritoriality, extemporaneity, laughter, and joy have unceasingly unveiled their essential mutability and ambiguity, prompting UNESCO's depiction of commedia as an "invisible and intangible cultural asset". The present study attempts to disclose the diasporic transgressions of Commedia dell'arte by considering four basic dimensions: the formal, the tropological, the topological, and the temporal, respectively. This approach further examines how and to what extent the diasporic transgressions of Commedia dell'arte can be elucidated by considering the afore-mentioned categories of explanation. Ultimately, the itinerant and improvisational character of Commedia dell'arte is explanatory for the mutations and developments within the four dimensions themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 150 years, American art and art criticism have undergone important cultural and ideological transformations that are explanatory both of their historical evolution and of the possibility of being divided into several stages. In my interpretation, art criticism cuts across the historical evolution of art in the United States, according to the following cultural and ideological paradigms: two predominant cultural ideologies of art between 1865-1900 and 1960-1980, respectively; two other aesthetic and formalist ideological shifts in the periods between 1900- 1940 and 1940-1960, respectively, and one last pluralist approach to the arts after 1980. Even if this conceptualisation of art criticism in America might seem risky and oversimplifying, there are conspicuous and undeniable arguments supporting it. In a previous study published by American, British and Canadian Studies, I provided conceptual justifications both for the criteria dividing the cultural and the ideological within the overall assessment of American art by art critics and for the analysis and interpretation of the first two important temporal periods in the field of art criticism, 1865-1900 and 1908-1940. The present study continues by analyzing the cultural and ideological stances of American art criticism after 1940 and argues for certain paradigmatic shifts from one period to another.

Starting from the presupposition that art and art criticism in the United States of America are closely linked and that the very meanings and receptions of art works have been reflected by various writings in the field of art criticism, this first part of a comprehensive study on the topic attempts, on the one hand, to divide the historical evolution of American fine arts and art criticism into several distinct periods, and on the other, to evaluate the major directions of art criticism by considering its historical periods as being markedly ideological or cultural, as the case may be. Thus, considering the approximately 150 years of historical accomplishments of art criticism in the United States, I will argue that the starting point of American art criticism is visibly cultural, while the next two periods are characterised by ideological art criticism, noting that the ideological orientation differs in the two time frames. The fourth moment in the evolution of art criticism marks the revival of the cultural, so that, within the fifth, the postmodern art criticism could no longer grasp a clear distinction between the cultural and the ideological. The present article will focus on the first two important orientations in art criticism in the United States, 1865-1900 and 1908-1940, respectively; a future study will consider the remaining three periods, following this historicist approach of art criticism in the United States.

The Romanian attitudes and perceptions towards the role(s) that the United States of America have been playing in contemporary politics and history in their relationship with the Romanian state and nation could be roughly characterized as ambiguous and diffuse; accordingly, no well-founded cognitive approaches are possible in terms of rigorously descriptive and explanatory accounts. At best, the overall Romanian (mis)representations about the United States could be depicted as ambivalent, context-dependant and essentially emotional. The present working hypothesis on the facets of Romanian anti-Americanism aims at unveiling and analyzing the most plausible forms of its manifestations based on either positive and favorable Romanian responses to the American presence and commitment, or negative, critical and repulsive Romanian attitudes towards the United States regarding certain indicative analytical elements. It goes without saying that such an approach using other illustrative ingredients is also possible in the argumentative case of Romanian Americanism; as far as the scope of the present study is concerned, I will attempt to distinguish between four distinctive forms of Romanian anti-Americanism: cultural and ideological, economic, psychological and, finally, religious. Keywords: Romanian anti-Americanism, cultural anti-Americanism, economic anti-Americanism, psychological anti-Americanism, religious anti-Americanism, Preliminary considerations In the aftermath of the 9/11 events and the subsequent American response which generated the so-called 'Iraqi narrative', the topic of anti-Americanism has considerably expanded and disseminated into [...]

The study of The Cantos, one of the most complex and difficult works belonging to literary modernism makes possible, precisely due to this observation, the exploration of a series of characteristics and dimensions of Pound’s work that have either remained in a programmatic stage or should be revisited more closely in order for their meanings to be discerned. ‘Analyticity’ and ‘scientism’ can be considered relevant characteristics of Pound’s work, with both aesthetic and methodologic meanings. The present study aims at investigating these two dimensions of Pound’s poetry as they appear in the second and the fourth decades of the 20th century. In conclusion the question is whether Pound’s analyticity and scientism could still be considered valuable from an aesthetic or methodologic point of view.

Sergiu Gherghina, Sergiu Miscoiu (eds.), Democratizare si consolidare democratica in Europa Centrala si de Est (Democratization and Democratic Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe), Iasi: Institutul European, 2014, 335 p. [...]

The domestic and international public opinion has often drawn attention to the fact the Romanian realities in the aftermath of December 1989 did not undergo the expected radical transformation. The new political structures, both at the top level and at the local administration level, were made up of members who had belonged to the former communist political structures. In response, a part of the Romanian society showed the need for a civic organization model which would represent a genuine opposition to post-communist regime led by Ion Iliescu and his collaborators. Such a civic organization brought together a group of intellectuals around an ambitious project aimed at radically transforming civil society and public opinion. But one of the unsolved dilemmas in post-communist Romania refers to the general assessment of the public intellectuals' participation and activity in the process of democratic transition. The present study aims at highlighting the role that the intellectual members of the Civic Alliance played in Romania's public life after December 1989, by attempting to point out their involvement in forming civil society and informing public opinion. One probably expects for such a reality to be painted in absolute terms instead of being grayish; moreover, the public commitment of the Civic Alliance intellectuals to public issues is a matter of deciding on the limits of their actions and on the barriers between accomplishments and failures. That is, I think, a decision to be made at the level of a public debate. Keywords: intellectuals, post-communism, civil society, public opinion, Civic Alliance., Introduction In post-communist Romania, the hope of the emerging civil society was associated more often than not with the role that the prominent intellectuals of the time conceived to play [...]

Every so often indistinctly designated as both ceremonial and etiquette, diplomatic protocol has come to encapsulate all the formal ingredients bearing on practices of diplomacy and which are not their substantive or factual constituents. Albeit rather decorative, pretentious and ostentatious, protocol in diplomacy has had the commanding role of facilitating diplomatic encounters, communications and negotiations. However, beyond its undeniable merit as the very environment of common sense pertaining to good manners, appropriate behavior and deferent courtesy, diplomatic protocol could be analytically comprehended distinguishing between the variety of nuances and connotations so frequently amalgamated within the conventional nomen of ʹprotocolʹ. The present study attempts at clarifying and discerning the plethora of its significances and appropriations. Accordingly, a cautious understanding of protocol references should carefully delineate between protocol and etiquette, protocol and ceremonial, and protocol as precedence, in addition to looking for the proper functions and applications of diplomatic protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Originating in the theoretical and aesthetical controversies whipped up by the overall iconoclastic rejections of traditional aesthetic canons in avant-garde art, the very question concerning the refinement of cognitive adventures and the plural meanings of aesthetic experiences has continuously fuelled the American ruminations on visual arts. Due to the impactful role of technology in the artistic realm and the outburst and dissemination of visual arts around the midcentury (e.g., the overarching impact of Hollywood industry and the boldness of abstract expressionism), American professionalized aesthetics has started to mirror the more and more complex artistic occurrences and their plethora of meanings. Broadly inspired by an opuscule of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the first conceptual investigations of the arts in the United States have been incited by the interrogation of the cognitive status of aesthetics (i.e., the autonomy of artistic idioms and/or the essentialism/ anti-essentialism debate regarding the languages of the arts). By and large, the role of cognition about the visual arts has gradually expanded to include the critique of art philosophies and traditional aesthetics, the questioning of aesthetic categories and predicates, the rejection of formalism and essentialist definitions, the reexamination of intentionality and perception, the subject -- object dichotomy, etc. Moreover, cognitivism about the arts has fundamentally reconsidered its very instruments: description, interpretation, meaning and representation. The present paper attempts to unveil the most recent dimensions of cognitivism about the visual arts, especially focusing on its instantiations in contemporary American aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The global political realities in the aftermath of the Cold War era have shifted slowly, but firmly, from a widespread optimism regarding the future of world politics and the role of global political institutions to recent apprehensions concerning the present state of affairs in the field of international politics. On the one hand, most political actors in the western world (including here both the European Union and the United States) are still defending the global geopolitical model they previously endorsed after 1989, while, on the other hand, there is a significant and ever growing number of critics (including, especially, scholars and even citizens) doubting and questioning the geopolitical design and achievements of the recent past. As the present paper focuses mainly on the issue of euroscepticism, one of its most comprehensive, peculiar and expressive forms can be found in the works of the well-known political scientist Robert Kagan. Therefore, I will examine the issue of Kagan's euroscepticism from a threefold perspective: i) the return of the pre-global ideology of realpolitik and the demise of the postmodern concept of international politics; ii) the failure of the EU's project to expand its own geopolitical options and spread its post-ideological values and iii) the reassuring ideology of American exceptionalism and its lucid approach on geopolitical realities. Kagan's views on all of these topics are - as far as the present paper is concerned - conducive to and explanatory of what I would term 'geopolitical euroscepticism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of World War II, the informal association of intellectuals known as Gruppe 47 found itself in a troublesome position in its attempt to rebuild a new political culture in postwar Germany. My analytical approach to the ideological controversies, paradoxes and inconsistencies of the group's orientation will provide some relevant tools for explanation and put forward confrontational dilemmas for assessing the overall activities of Gruppe 47 members. This type of approach is risky and difficult for two main reasons: i) first, because the membership of the Group was non-permanent and circumstantial and ii) second, because the overall activity of the Group seemed to move indecisively between two main coordinates (i.e., an aesthetic and literary programme on the one hand, and a politics of culture / literature, on the other). Intuitively, I think that the study of literary culture in post-war Germany could function as a strong indicator of the status and transformations of political culture in this country and may be more successful than conventional historiography, political science or institutional theories in explaining what really happened in Germany in the period in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the shortcomings of Hungarian environmental policies, the enlightening influence of Thomas Paine's ideas on the thinking of one of the most progressive figures in 19th century India, and the future impact of nanotechnology inventions and legislation on human rights.

Since the death of Friedrich Nietzsche, important philosophical movements and isolated intellectuals have been striving to understand, analyze, interpret, clarify, and sometimes to ideologize his controversial, perplexing and esoteric philosophy. The case of what I would call 'transatlantic Nietzsche' is but one of the multi-faceted readings of the German philosopher's works, standing for the ways in which Nietzsche was 'transported' across the Atlantic. The aim of the present paper is rather modest in surveying the complicated 'intellectual routes' linking the European Nietzsche and the American cultural and intellectual traditions, nor it explains why Nietzsche was so popular in the United States; instead, by commenting upon one of the most accurate and unbiased views on his philosophy, this study aims at explaining what themes were pervasively seductive for American philosophers and cultural critics, contributing in this way to a superior understanding of the relevant connections between Nietzsche and his American followers, be they sympathizers or detractors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new political order in America at the end of the 184 century was designed and projected as republican in both form and content. But the American republican partisans defined, interpreted and shaped republicanism intricately in the course of American politics and history; accordingly, I will deduce and explain the following six occurrences of the American republican tradition, as follows: 1) Federalist Republicanism, 1789-1829; 2) Nationalist Republicanism, 1833-1860; 3) Abolitionist Republicanism, 1861-1877; 4) Corporate Republicanism, 1880-1920; 5) Conservative Republicanism, 1921-1933, 1981-1989; 6) Militarist Republicanism, 1952-1977, 2000-2008. In addition to these labels and oversimplifications, I will argue that republican ideologg during certain phases of complex evolution, has been marked by some notable shifts and transformations which could be rendered by specific dominant views, sharply dependent on political contexts and historical challenges. My point is that all these dominant republican views can contribute both to the comprehensive understanding of ideological republicanism and to the republican agenda-setting in American politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developed in the comprehensive form of a theory of rationality, Stephen Toulmin's work brings forth a series of elements situated at the intersection of the history and theory of science with the history of ideas. Understood in this way, Toulmin's books display a marked critical spirit, a capacity for synthesis and narrative passion. His endeavour as such is both risky and bold at the same time: risky, because such a historicist approach is more often than not subject to a certain type of perspectivism that allows the narrative discourse to develop according to specific intellectual stakes; bold, as his work opens up the possibility for the re-evaluations and reconsiderations that are peculiar to this type of approach which has had a long history in the academia. The present article unpacks cosmopolitan theory starting from the critique that Toulmin directs at modernity, foregrounding the fact that a cosmopolitan theory is primarily developed as a solution that is more effective than idealistic when it comes to overcoming a specific crisis of modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of the present paper is that of putting forward an interpretation of the presence of the rhetoric component and of highlighting the theoretical values on politics that Barack Obama's political activity, as well as his speeches and autobiographic work, reveal. The subjacent implication of this approach is that there is an indissoluble unity among these three elements with a public character and that, at the same time, they project a unitary vision on politics. The paper is not an analysis either of the political activity or the speeches that Obama has made, but it seeks to highlight the overtones that are characteristic to his particular rhetoric and to single out some explicit axiological presuppositions of his political vision. Our assumption is that, once this vision on politics has been clarified, one can then distinguish the explicit motivations of his past, current and future political activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author views on the idealism in the American Politics. The author states the two species of discursive idealism including substantive idealism and rhetorical idealism. The author further discusses corrections in the American Democracy which includes source of democratic corruption.