Cultural Studies - Page 5

Cosplay Phenomenon: Archaic Forms and Updated Meanings

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Tatiana V. Pushkareva1 & Darya V. Agaltsova2

1Candidate of Philosophy, Associate Professor of the Department of Design and Architecture Synergy University, Moscow, Russia. ORCID: 0000-0002-9139-6121. E-mail: ap-bib@yandex.ru

2Candidate of Pedagogy, Associate Professor of English Language Training and Professional Communication Department, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia. ORCID: 0000-0001-8892-2437. E-mail: darya_agaltsova@mail.ru

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.26

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Abstract

Cosplay is considered as a modern mass practice of copying and public demonstration of the costume, image and behavior of famous heroes in the mass culture: heroes of movies, cartoons, comics, video games within the framework of festivals, processions, activities of clubs of the corresponding subject. The empirical material for the study was observations, publications in specialized mass media, recordings of Russian and foreign electronic broadcasts of cosplay events, interviews with Russian cosplayers. The article provides a cultural and historical analysis of cosplay, on the basis of which it is concluded that the archaic cultural forms of totemic primitive holidays, medieval carnival, and the first forms of theater are reproduced in cosplay. Traditional cultural forms in cosplay are endowed with new cultural meanings, among which are the game principal development in culture, the implementation of special mechanisms of young people socialization through individual and collective forms of identification and imitation of famous characters, creative development of screen culture characters. In cosplay, there is a partial revitalization of archaic cultural forms, such as zoo-mystery, carnival, the first forms of theater. The conclusion is made about the role of cosplay in the development of the visual language of modernity, «de-virtualization» of the mass culture images and the development of the «instinct of theatricality» in a modern person. Cosplay in Russia demonstrates a wider thematic repertoire than cosplay in the USA and Japan: it includes not only images of American films, video games, comics, Japanese manga and anime, but also images of Soviet animation, which paradoxically are capable of direct competition with modern products of mass culture and art.

 Keywords: archaic, cultural forms, cultural meanings, theater, youth, game industry, subculture, mass culture, cosplay, middle culture.

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Inscribing the Migratory History of Tea Plantation Labours of Assam: A Journey from Ignorance to Experience

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Pradip Barman

PhD, Deptt. of History, Rangapara College, Rangapara, Sonitpur, Assam. ORCID Id: 0000-0002-5125-918. Email: adipta2013@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.23

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Abstract

The tea garden labours of Assam have an absorbing history of their own. They were imported to Assam from various parts of Bengal, United Province, Central Province, Madras, etc. At the time when they were facing economic hardships in their day-to-day life, the agents of the tea planters of Assam visited those areas and tempted them with plenty of facilities and economic incentives. Believing the false promises of these dishonest agents, these innocent people decided to follow them to get relief from economic deprivation and reached Assam. Thus, the process of importation of labour into Assam started and gradually their number was increasing year by year. But as soon as they left their native place, they met with adversity and it was increasing day by day. On their way to Assam also, many of them died of various diseases and eventually when they arrived in Assam, they were subjected to inhumane conditions. No one was known to them and unhealthy food and unhygienic habitation added further misery. On many occasions, they were even physically assaulted which increased their mental instability. Despite this, they gradually adopted themselves in Assam and started to treat Assam as their land. Now, the tea garden labour community of Assam is a part and parcel of Assamese society and in politics also they have been performing a major role.

 Keywords: Migration, Labour, Tea, Importation, Misery

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State Authority and Lynching in Latin America

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Giovanni B. Corvino
University of Turin. ORCID: 0000-0002-8191-3500. Email: giovanni.corvino@edu.unito.it

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.14

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Abstract

Social scientists observed a significant increase in the number of lynchings in contemporary Latin America. The reasons for the rise are wide-ranging and conflicting. However, there are commonalities with the well-known cases of the United States of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in which state legitimacy was the subject of intense debate. Therefore, this essay aims at observing why state intervention was deemed illegitimate in resolving local disputes that led to the vigilantes’ use of this form of extra-legal violence.

Keywords: lynching, summary justice, governance, vigilantes, extra-legal violence

Globalisation, the Forgotten Phase: Some Personal Reflections

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Thakur S Powdyel

Former Minister of Education, Royal Government of Bhutan, Thimphu. Email: powdyel@gmail.com)

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.02

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Preamble

This paper is built on the premise that there have been at least two waves of globalisation – sublime globalisation of the earliest times that was truly an expression of global minds, and the modern material globalisation that represents a largely reductive, economic obsession that characterises today’s brand of globalisation. The paper begins by looking at the advent of globalisation in a little Bhutanese village, discusses globalisation as it is understood today and makes an attempt to distinguish the two waves of globalisation with the help of some examples. The paper concludes with a vision of a time when the world attains a sense of true globalisation.

Music as a Universal Bond and Bridge Between the Physical and the Divine: Transcultural and Medieval Perspectives

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Albrecht Classen

University Distinguished Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dept. of German Studies, University of Arizona. Email: aclassen@arizona.edu

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.01

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 Abstract

This article accepts the challenge to reflect on the cultural history of music as a transcultural and universally human phenomenon, particularly in the medieval context. To what extent has music played the same or at least similar function in endless cultural contexts all over the world from the past to the present? We know for sure that music has always been present at all age groups, in all ethnic groups, among all genders, and throughout time. There have always been local, ethnic types of music (folklore), and universally accepted manifestations of music (esp. classical music). The emphasis here rests, after an extensive study of music in global cultural-historical terms, on comments about music in medieval philosophy, mysticism, and literature because here we discover fundamental notions about music being the medium to connect the individual with the cosmic harmony, hence with the divine. In literary texts, above all, music was identified as the critical expression of identity, love, and religion.

Keywords: Transcultural music; classic music; music in cultural-historical terms; The Beatles; Martianus Capella; Boethius; Gottfried von Strassburg; Jörg Wickram; Hermann Hesse

The Resonance of Music Across Cultures

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Rolf J. Goebel, Ph.D.

Distinguished Prof. of German, Emeritus, University of Alabama in Huntsville. Email: Goebelr@uah.edu

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.00

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Abstract

What predestines music to be able to transgress geo-cultural boundaries? I argue that music’s sensuous, bodily-affective immediacy requires a mode of cross-cultural translation via what I call auditory resonance—the spontaneous attunement of listeners with the sonic presence of music through media-technological transmission despite vestiges of cultural colonialism and other sociopolitical barriers. I trace such resonance effects from German Romanticism through our global present, focusing especially on the conversations between two Japanese cultural figures, the conductor Seiji Ozawa and the novelist Haruki Murakami. These texts show that the category of auditory resonance is more suitable for addressing European music’s global significance than its traditional claims to transcultural universality.

Keywords: Music, resonance, immediacy, presence, media technologies, cultural translation, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Walter Benjamin, Seiji Ozawa, Haruki Murakami

Spatializing the Musicking Of an Expressive Urban Imagination: A Trans-Cultural Evaluation of the Early-Modern Rock Music of Bengal

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Shankhadeep Chattopadhyay

Research Scholar, Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India, shankhamanu@gmail.com, ORCID id – 000-0003-4678-3031.

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.51

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Abstract

The technological reproduction of the imaginary has always reflected a polarization in urban consciousness, considering the city as the urban ‘body’—which retains a space for contemporary imaginations. Rock music of the American 60s radiates exactly such urban consciousness by constantly experimenting with lyrics, sounds, images and celebrations, which continually harmonize with the changing industrial and technocratic city structures. This paper explores a progressive cultural synthesis between the American and the early-modern rock music of Bengal. The city of Kolkata in West Bengal has always been repleted with a vibrant ‘representational space’ with a high rate of western-music consumption since the late 1970s, thus reflecting western urban ethos into the Indian urban imagination through modern Bengali rock music. Lefebvre (1974) suggests that the potential for genuine social change is possible only through the city as practised rather than the city as planned; on this note, this paper analyzes how the Indian urban imagination negotiated with the everyday urban experience of distant musical and cultural behaviours through ‘musicking’ by producing a musically reflective space where thought, feelings and different moods are crafted and performed. Further, how, in the age of technical reproduction, rock music produces a ‘counter-space’ by projecting urban ethos, which acts as an exegetic tool for the symptomatic reading of any expressive culture, and makes the city claim its spatial identity.

Keywords: representational space, counterculture, rock music, urban ethos, musicking.

The Processes of Dehumanization in the Encounter with the Other: An Exploratory Study During the Lynching of African Americans in the United States, 1882 – 1968

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Giovanni B. Corvino

University of Turin. Email: giovanni.corvino@edu.unito.it

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.39

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Abstract:

The dehumanization processes represent a failure in the attribution of thinking skills to other human beings. Based on ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, and nationality, social prejudices are reinforced in basic neurocognitive structures. Still, their manifestation is conveyed by personal goals and normative beliefs, which develop in an environment of a dyadic relationship or intergroup contexts. Therefore, this paper aims to peruse the perspectives for a theory of dehumanization, supporting them with neuroscientific research on the neural basis, and exploring the forms of dehumanization that African Americans suffered when they were victims of lynching in the United States.

Keywords: dehumanization, lynching, cognitive bias

Chachnama Discourse: The Dichotomy of Islamic Origins in South Asia

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Priyanka Chaudhary1, Sara Rathore2

1Professor and Head, Department of Languages, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Email: priyanka.chaudhary@jaipur.manipal.edu

2Department of Languages, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Email: sara.181102019@muj.manipal.edu

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.36A

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Abstract

The common narrative of the arrival of Islam in South Asia is shaping contemporary discourse on religious nationalism in the subcontinent. However, this common narrative tends to marginalise the origins of Shias in the region. The study employs the critical theory of New Historicism to trace the historiography of the text in context to the schism among Muslims and discusses the ways in which it participates with only the Sunni origins in the region which are in stark contrast to the Shia origins. Therefore, the paper introspects upon whether Chachnama exclusively a Sunni perspective of the conquest. The findings indicate the marginalisation of Shias in the collective narrative of Muslim origins in South Asia.

Keywords- Sindh, Alids, Chachnama, Indo-Persian Relation, discourse, Umayyad Caliphate

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The Bidayuh People of Sarawak Borneo: Ritual and Ceremonies

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Awang Azman Awang Pawi1 & Chali Ungang2

1Associate Professor of Academy of Malay Studies, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email Id: awangazman@um.edu.my, awangazman@gmail.com. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4939-2706

2 Research Scholar of Academy of Malay Studies, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email Id: charlieungang@yahoo.com

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.26

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 Abstract

This study aims to analyse the role of rituals and ceremonies of the Bidayuh tribes in Sarawak Borneo as a way of life of the Bidayuh people. Therefore, the cultural history of the Bidayuh people as well as the function and influence to the entire community which becomes the pride and identity is analysed. The data were taken from the Bajo asal (traditional songs), girite Bidayuh damba (stories and legendary), and the exploration and preview of the authenticity of the role in the manifestation of the Bidayuh culture and tradition in the numerous villagers through dynamic modernization.  The content analysis was used to identify the rituals and ceremonies of the ethnic group. With this regard, emic perspective approach was applied to the study of the description of Bidayuh ritual, focussing on the internal elements and their functions in the Bidayuh society area in Bau, Padawan, and Serian division of Sarawak. Among the findings of this community is how important it is to preserve their beliefs to make sure the management of paddy fields are always cared for and preserve abundant harvests, apart from the ‘guardians’ to safe keep the peace of the village. The function and preservation through the ritual and ceremonies as their weltanschauung, influences the peasant society in that area. The study is highlighted to ensure people that the existence of the ritual and ceremonies is still implemented in the modern era as a part of the ancient heritage in Borneo Island- Sarawak.

.Keywords: ritual and ceremonial process, customs and traditions, Bidayuh culture, Sarawak Borneo

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