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Shahryar Sorooshian, Universiti Malaysia Phanag, Malaysia

Dinara Tolgambayeva, Independent researcher, Kazakhstan

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Abstract

This report focuses on the effects of cultural diversity (CD) on team performance among university students and explores the relationship between team performance and CD. It identifies that there is a strong indirect relationship between these two concepts. Therefore, the nature of this relationship was investigated in details. The report identified that there are positive and negative effects of CD on intermediate outcomes of the team. The analysis has been performed to further develop the understanding of the subject of CD and the effects on team performance. The results of the analysis have been discussed in details with providing the required information in the analysis part..

 Keywords: Cultural diversity (CD), Team performance, International students. Keep Reading

Fatemeh Ahani & Iraj Etessam

Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

  Abstract

Following the publication of Adolf Loos’s famous article “Ornament and Crime” in 1908, arguments against ornaments reached an unprecedented level which led to its elimination from the majority of architectural practices in western countries during the first half of the 20 century. The ornamental approach, despite being severely criticized by postmodernist critics in 1960’s, never completely ceased to exist. In an attempt to discover the reasons behind the long-lasting presence of such a practice, this paper looks into different directions of ornament criticism in modern architectural literature. Modern critics condemned ornamentation by ascribing several defects such as deception, decadence, disutility, wastefulness, recession and lack of spontaneity. As a result of such associations, designers repress in themselves what they consider as defective and internalize anti-ornament beliefs of modernism in a form of self-control. This leads to the marginalization of ornament in architectural discussions and practices even after the demise of the modernist movement in architecture.

 Keywords: Architectural Ornament, Criticism, Repression, Naming, Defect Keep Reading

KBS Krishna

Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Abstract:

Identity becomes a problematic issue, especially in the modern era, where it clashes with individuality. The failure to fit into categories prescribed by societies leads to crisis of identity. This crisis is experienced by people of all classes. The article looks at two Indian novels in English – Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August and Rupa Bajwa’s The Sari Shop, where a civil servant and a shop attendant struggle to discover their identity in a world where divisions are watertight.

 Keywords: Identity, Individuality, Individualism, English August, The Sari Shop Keep Reading

Robert Tindol

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Abstract

One of the noteworthy songs to come out of the Beatles’ celebrated 1968 trip to India was “Dear Prudence”, authored by John Lennon. “Dear Prudence” is unique in its conjoining of Eastern sounds with a childlike Western theme, and as such it is particularly evident of the way in which Lennon in particular understood the possibilities of artistic hybrids involving the East and West. Moreover, the song can be analyzed by employing Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture as well as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia two-volume series. With such an interpretation in mind, the call for Prudence to “come out and play” involves the sharing of attention of newfound interest in the East with a continued grounding in the familiar West. This is a new “plateau” that does no violence to the past nor to any actor in the present, but instead leads to a peaceful new beginning.

Keywords: Beatles, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus Keep Reading

Yemi Atanda

Kwara State University, malete, Nigeria

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Abstract

This study focuses on the revolutionary aesthetics of Olu Obafemi and Ahmed Yerima in The New Dawn and Attahiru respectively. For Olu Obafemi, the aesthetics of his drama relies principally on Marxist ideology, while Ahmed Yerima’s dramaturgy is rooted in Hegelian critical theory.  The reason for the intellectual debate between the ‘idealist’ and the ‘materialist’ signifies the roots that anchor the dramatist oeuvre of the radical/social playwright and the critical/liberal playwright is purely ideological. The idealist situates everything on the praxis of consciousness and that ideas control the world, while the materialist says that man’s existence is on the primacy of matter as reflected in the works of the two playwrights and this ambivalence flourishes in the understanding of nature and life. The link between the  two ideological divides is that social realism and critical realism have their roots in revolutionary aesthetics. This revolutionary aesthetics of both the social realism and critical realism is what I term as dialectics of revolution. The import of these divides in the  body of African literature is that  man is at the epicentre of these debates. African playwrights may have to rely on history, culture, socio-political, and economic situations of their society in their dramaturgies, and some factors such as personal visions, periodic essence, ideology and  socio-economic and political realities may be considered by African critics as they evaluate African play-texts. Dialectics of revolution, therefore, is the dramatic search for a just society, it remains a veritable source of criticism in order to understand the inherent values in any given ideology. This study, therefore, projects that the application of dialectics of revolution developed in the theories of Revalorization for literary criticism will help to advance the course of humanity.

 Keywords: revolutionary aesthetics, realism, revalorization, African, Olu Obafemi, Ahmed Yerima Keep Reading

Artjom A. Fomenkov

Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod

Elizabeth A. Pakhomova

Volga state university of water transport

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Abstract

The article reveals the similarities in development of Soviet art in post-Revolutionary years and in the period of “defrosting” and “stagnation”. It was accepted, that this comparison is appropriate due to presence of similar aspects in the Soviet political system of the abovementioned chronological periods. The author demonstrates a great role of avant-garde art in the cultural life of the country in 1920-1930 and at the turn of 1950-1960. The specific character of Russian avant-garde, as the “Revolutionary” art, was revealed. It substantiated the idea about possible approval of the Soviet leadership in the sphere of “new” art (including rock-music) in the whole world in post-Stalin period due to competitive advantages, as compared to the USA and Great Britain. There were important factors—given the specificity of Soviet cultural policy that prevented the USSR from becoming the global leader in the sphere of new art. The negative aspects of Soviet socialist realism were denoted, even though partially, especially in advancement of the USSR’s positive image in the world. The conclusion is that there needs to be certain amount of freedom under the cultural policy of the state as a required condition for participation in cultural sphere.

 Keywords: art, culture, avant-garde, leadership, rock music, the left, the USSR, “defrosting” Keep Reading

Veronika Olegovna Bogdanova & Sergey Valentinovich Borisov

Chelyabinsk State Pedagogical University, Russia

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Abstract

This article is aimed at studying the succession and interinfluence of constructivist philosophical models in accordance with their historical traditions and the problem of the subject. The authors have defined three constructivist philosophical models: constructivist hylomorphism, constructivist eidetics and constructivist hermeneutics. The basic constructs of constructivist hylomorphism are a priori forms of consciousness which serve as preconditions of subjectivity. The foundation of constructivist eidetics is formed by the phenomena of consciousness which subjectify the world. Constructivist hermeneutics is based upon the means of communication which condition intersubjectivity.

Keywords: philosophy, subject, epistemology, cognition, constructivism, philosophism, typology, hylomorphism, eidetics, hermeneutics. Keep Reading

Ivan V. Kuzin, Alexander A. Drikker & Eugene A. Makovetsky

Saint Petersburg State University, Russia

Volume 8, Number 1, 2016 I Full Text PDF

Abstract

The article discusses rationalistic and existential approaches to the problem of existence. The comparison of Sartre’s pre-reflective cogito and Descartes’ reflective cogito makes it possible to define how Sartre’s thought moves from the thing to consciousness and from consciousness to the thing. At the same time, in Being and Nothingness Sartre does not only define the existence of the thing in its passivity—which in many respects corresponds to Descartes’ philosophy, but also as an open orientation towards consciousness, the latter concept not being fully developed by him. This statement may be regarded as a hidden component of Sartre’s key thesis about the role of the Other in the verification of our existence. The most important factor in understanding this is the concept of the look. Detailed analysis of Sartre’s theses in Being and Nothingness enables us to demonstrate that the concept of the look makes it possible to consider the identity of being-in-itself and being-for-itself (consciousness).

Keywords: Sartre, rationalism, existentialism, thing, being, the look, existence, nothingness, consciousness, the Other Keep Reading