This study examines how South Africans construct and negotiate racial identities in written commentaries via a forum of the Mail@Guardian website Thought Leader in response to a blog by Ndumiso Ngcobo entitled “I’m a coconut and I am proud of it – say it with me.” Ngcobo’s ironic opinion piece, written in 2008, which plays with the label “coconut” (frequently employed in South Africa among “black” people in reference to another “black” person who seemingly behaves “white”), triggered 163 responses from individual readers. An essential point made by Ngcobo is that perceptions and attitudes around “whiteness” and “blackness,” or what can be considered “white” or “black” in racial terms, vary greatly, depending on circumstances and perspective. However, the author’s irreverent and ironic style is misunderstood and misinterpreted by many of the comment writers. Relying partially on the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, I analyze the commentary texts and interpret the categories people use in their discursive constructions of race and identity by examining their stylistic choices and content markers and focusing on sociolinguistic and cultural issues. It is argued that the analyzed comments are representative not only of the pervasiveness of “rigid” race thinking but also of how intra-racial boundaries are constructed in the post-apartheid state.
The author of this article reacts to a discussion study by Radim Šíp “How to Revive ‘Frozen’ Evolutionary Ontology” (Filosofický časopis, 62, 2014, No. 3). He argues that Šíp’s critique is unacceptable, as is his proposal for a radical reform of the doctrine of Josef Šmajs. He draws attention to Šíp’s misinterpretation of the evolutionary-ontological theory of information and to the consequences of this misinterpretation for the other arguments in Šíp’s text. Šmajs‘ diagnosis of the problematic relation of culture and nature consists in a cleavage between natural information (structural and semantic) and socio-cultural information (semantic and structural). Šíp, however, mistakenly supposes that in evolutionary ontology there is an opposition between semantic, experiential information (natural and cultural) on the one hand and structural, genetic information (natural) on the other. It is only because of this misinterpretation that Šíp can treat the conflict between culture and nature as a conflict between man and nature, subject and object. Only thus can he treat evolutionary ontology as early-modern metaphysics and call for the recognition of a greater continuity between nature and culture – for the “appreciation” of allegedly unappreciated socio-cultural information.
The article presents an overview of the research problems that frame the conceptual context of the project “Transition form imitations to innovations as social and cultural process”. The title of the project indicates a main perspective of the analysis. The current rise of knowledge society is a complex process in which so far unconnected elements are being connected. Culture, innovation, and knowledge and their interactions are identified as the key agents of the followed process. The role of culture in knowledge and innovation has been so far underestimated, although intuitively it has always been perceived as crucial. In this respect, the issue of transfer - let it be technological, institutional, or cultural transfer - deserves a foremost research attention. The same applies to the spatial dimension of culture - innovation - knowledge interactions, as these gain a new relevance and meaning in the context of globalization and regionalization. and Jiří Loudín.
Autorka v této své první monografii zkoumá společné rysy a proměny různých druhů veřejných festivit, jako jsou přehlídky, pochody, manifestace, oslavy nebo sportovní podniky, v meziválečném Německu. Propojuje přitom ve svém pohledu tyto veřejné kulturní prezentace s tehdejší politikou a ideologií. Podle recenzenta přináší její práce k dosavadnímu neobyčejně rozsáhlému výzkumu nové poznatky a metodologické podněty, zvláště pokud se týká určitých prvků kontinuity výmarské republiky a nacistického režimu. and [autor recenze] Doubravka Olšáková.
During an experiment to transmit Tetracapsula bryosalmonae Canning, Curry, Feist, Longshaw et Okamura, 1999 to a laboratory-cultured bryozoan, Plumatella repens L. a previously undescribed malacosporean species was noted. This parasite produced sacs of spores in the host that reached 1.2 mm in length. The spores released from the sacs appeared similar in size to the two species of Tetracapsula previously described although slight differences in form were noted. Release of spores from the bryozoans was observed associated with the lophophore of the host. The use of experimental bryozoan cultures for the examination of malacosporeans is described and discussed.
This study discusses the limits of Marx’s reinterpretation of Hegel’s conception of dialectics as a self-mediation of the fundamental by way of historical reality: we will show Marx’s disessentialisation of the (already quite monistic) Hegelian absolute spirit, and the consequences of Marx’s conception of consciousness as of a conscious being for the concept of culture, reduced that is to interest-conditioned, “ideological” praxis and its self-reflection. The study thus subjects to criticism the reduction of objectivi¬ty to totality in György Lukács, the founder of modern western Marxism; it points to the residuum (in no way objectively unlicensed) of self-positing subjecti¬vism in his “class-consciousness”; and it compares this immanentist conception with, on the one hand, the utopian conception of Ernst Bloch, foreshadowing Derrida’s stress on the auto criti¬cism of Marxism as a philosophy of the historicity of categories (as Lukács himself theo¬retically understood it!), and, on the other hand, with the dialectical non identity of the possible of Theodor W. Adorno. By reflecting on Marx’s concept of (historical) consciousness (of conscious Being) through critical insight into its most (in our view) signi¬ficant interpretations of the 20th century, the study attempts to capture the limi¬ts of the monistically-conceived dialectic for democratic social pra¬xis, preserving the “principle of hope” in the openness of the unsubsumable individual.
Feichtingerova kniha náleží do oblasti kulturně-politických dějin vědy a sleduje v časovém rozmezí téměř celého století jistou linii, jež tvoří jeden z podstatných rysů „rakouského“ (v teritoriálním významu habsburské monarchie) myšlení a kultury. Touto linií - a také přístupem, s nímž se autor názorově ztotožňuje - je antiesencialismus ve smyslu skepse vůči myšlenkovým konstruktům vydávaným za uchopení podstaty určitých jevů. Klíčovou tezí, kterou se pak autor snaží prokázat, je afinita mezi tímto filozoficko-vědeckým postojem a demokratickým smýšlením i praxí. Toto sepětí dokládá u význačných osobností, jako je právní historik a teroretik Hans Kelsen, zakladatel psychoanalýzy Sigmund Freud, filozofové Ludwig Wittgenstein a Ernst Mach nebo historik umění Alois Riegl. Recenzent formuluje námitky vůči příliš jednoznačné interpretaci této teze (autor například ignoruje Tomáše Garrigua Masaryka, který do jeho schématu nezapadá), monografii však hodnotí jako obdivuhodný pokus tematizovat a interpretačně zvládnout obrovské množství různorodého materiálu, který může být inspirativní i tím, jak integruje české myšlení do širšího transnacionálního kontextu., The book under review, a cultural-political history of science and scholarship, covers almost a century of a line that constitutes one of the fundamental features of ‘Austrian’ ideas and culture (meaning those originating in the territory of the Habsburg Monarchy). This line - and also the approach that the author himself identifies with - is anti-essentialism in the sense of scepticism towards mental constructs that are presented as having captured the essence of certain phenomena. A key argument that the author then seeks to demonstrate is the affinity between this philosophical-scientific attitude and democratic thought and practice. He demonstrates this affinity in important figures, such as the jurist, legal philosopher, and political philosopher Hans Kelsen, the neurologist and father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, the philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ernst Mach, and the art historian Alois Riegl. The reviewer objects to what he sees as an overly clear-cut interpretation of this idea (the author fails to mention, for example, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, for he does not fit into this scheme), but he praises the book as an admirable attempt to thematize and interpret a vast amount of diverse material, and it may therefore be an inspiration for the way it integrates Czech ideas into the broader transnational context., [autor recenze] Vlastimil Hála., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The discussion study takes as its starting point the thinking, which Professor Šmajs and others presented in Filosofický časopis 6, 2013 on evolutionary ontology. The author shows an enduring aspect of evolutionary ontology: ontology as the product of human culture attains to knowledge that has the seeming character of objective truth - it thus expresses the true nature of the ontic order of nature. This is not, however, the usual nonsense of inconsistent philosophy. The author of the text identifies as lying behind the step Kantian and Hegelian strategies which make possible this shift from the order of culture to the order of nature. These strategies are (i) a sign of the grounding of Professor Šmajs´ ideas in early-modern thinking; and (ii) they are the cause of a strongly anthropocentric attitude, which unwittingly influences the system of evolutionary ontology. At the end of the study, the author points to the fact that it would be more appropriate for evolutionary ontology if its proponents were able to give up their early-modern argumentative approach, and thus rid themselves of their strong anthropocentrism. In this way they would be able to avoid the conceptual conflict which makes evolutionary ontology "frozen" from within., Radim Šíp., and Obsahuje poznámky a bibliografii
Recenzent srovnává dvě téměř současně vydané encyklopedické publikace klíčových pojmů, jež se vztahují k dějinám každodennosti českých zemí v éře lidové demokracie, respektive socialismu. Průšova Abeceda má populární ráz, sleduje především osvětový účel a chce své čtenáře pobavit, čemuž odpovídá nesystematický výběr a uspořádání hesel (včetně slangových a argotových výrazů), jejich stručné komentáře bez uvedení informačních zdrojů a zařazení četných dobových vtipů. Naproti tomu Francův a Knapíkův Průvodce je reprezentativním slovníkem k dějinám české každodennosti mezi únorem 1948 a pražským jarem 1968, který vychází ze solidního metodologického základu a na němž kromě obou editorů a zároveň hlavních autorů spolupracovaly čtyři desítky dalších odborníků. V sedmi tematických okruzích obsahuje téměř dva a půl tisíce hesel, opatřených důkladným seznamem pramenů a literatury, jejichž zpracování většinou vyžadovalo primární výzkum. Dvoudílný slovník je uveden obsáhlou studií a recenzent jej hodnotí jako jednu z nejdůležitějších historických publikací k českým poválečným dějinám., The reviewer compares two encyclopaedias, published almost simultaneously, of key terms in the history of everyday life in the Bohemian Lands (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia) in the period of the ‘people’s democracy’ or Socialism. Průša’s one-volume encyclopaedia, taking a popular approach, aims mainly to educate the reader, while being amusing, which is reflected in the unsystematic selection and arrangement of the entries (including the use of slang), brief commentary without citing sources, and the inclusion of numerous jokes from the period. By contrast, Franc and Knapík’s ‘guide’ is a proper encyclopaedia on the history of everyday Czech life in the period from the Communist take-over of 1948 to the Prague Spring of 1968. Based on solid methodology, it contains contributions from the editors (who are also the main authors) and about forty other experts. It contains almost 2,500 entries, arranged in seven thematic sections, based mostly on primary-source research, with a comprehensive list of primary and secondary sources. The two-volume encyclopaedia is introduced by a long article. The reviewer considers this publication to be one of the most important books on post-war Czech history., and [autor recenze] Jakub Rákosník.