Machine Dreams of the Tech Barons

The topic of this article is the literary discourse of Young Estonia; its relations with other important Estonian literary discourses from the beginning of the 20th century, and its relations with colonial cultural discourse. First, I give an overview of the basic positions of the Young Estonians’ literary discourse, the main shapers of which were Friedebert Tuglas, Gustav Suits, later on Johannes Semper as well. Next, I present the basic principles of three Estonian literary discourses from the beginning of the 20th century, which were also important to the Young Estonians: nationalist-naturalistic (close-to-life); socialist/ class-based, and 20th century modernist. The Young Estonians began as nationalists and/or socialists. During the formation of Young Estonia’s discourse at the end of the first and beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, 20th century modernism began, which the Young Estonians regarded first and foremost with irony. The Young Estonians’ literary discourse is a mixture of aestheticism, decadence, symbolism, romanticism, and classicism. The point of departure for the Young Estonian approach to literature was eurocentrism. They took a superior and negative view of existing Estonian literature, which they regarded as having fallen drastically behind Europe. Since it was unable to build on its own foundation, it had to borrow from Europe. The discourse’s understandings of cultural values – theory, reading, knowledge, ready-made culture, derive from the centrality of the dynamic of borrowing. New culture could be created freely, without the support of previous local tradition; it was to be an elite culture, while the writer remained an individualist. Literature was to follow the principle of art for art’s sake; aesthetics and the form of the work of art were basic criteria. The formal ideals of the work of art were classicist: unity, integrity (wholeness), harmony, order, logic, etc. Thirdly, I outline the basic positions of colonial thinking about culture, and compare the Young Estonian approaches to literature with colonial thought. The foundation of colonialism is eurocentrism: if Europe is the core; everything else belongs to the periphery, and regarded from the outset as of lesser inherent worth: colonialism is characterized by a superior and negative attitude toward local culture. The colonizing culture interprets its own values and experiences as universals; these are congruent with the outlines of what is deemed to be ”European” culture. The mission of colonialism is to bring the periphery into the sphere of influence of the enlightened core. Though colonial thinking does not commit itself to any specific artistic movement or style, its most important tenet with regard to evaluating art is classicist, emphasizing enduring values and good ”handiwork”. The bases for the creation of colonial culture are ready-made models and categories, and the outcome of colonization is culture constructed according to a model. The outcome of the analysis is that the Young Estonian way of thinking is in close consonance with the colonial way of thinking. Those attitudes that Young Estonians did not adopt, or those they relinquished and discarded, are in opposition to it. My own basic claim is that the Young Estonians unconsciously carried a colonial way of thinking, and that they might be considered to be self-colonizers.

I chose rabbits as an art icon because there is a cultural universality to them throughout the world. Standing rabbits not only appear in petroglyphs in the Americas, (these are from the Peterborough Site in Toronto, Canada), but in petrogylphs around the world as well. Japanese wood block prints, children's books (including those about Peter Rabbit), literature (for example, Richard Adam's novel, Watership Down, New York: Avon, 1972), the Easter Bunny, movies, pop culture images, and contemporary art such as Jeff Koons's stainless steel balloon rabbit and Barry Flannagan's bronze standing rabbits all give significance to my choice of art iconography. In educational institutions in this country, reference is often made to the age of America as being two hundred years or five hundred years, but because we still live under the aegis of colonial thinking, its never taken into consideration that some of the world's greatest cultures and cities were here in the Americas for thousands of years—and are still here. This etching is my succinct comment on colonial thinking. [End Page 154]

Grounded theory (GT) is a popular research methodology that has been used in various fields and disciplines. Its researchers face the paradox of their method being grounded in both data and theory, potentially resulting in researcher ambivalence towards existing knowledge and constructing “thin” or “descriptive” theory as a result. In this reflective paper, the researcher uses a case example of theorising the category “improvisation,” to explore the deliberate decolonial use of literature in GT. They share detailed examples of inductive coding, analytic memoing and abduction of the category. They describe a paradigm‐changing moment of realisation when they discovered their own colonial thinking towards this category and the subsequent perspective change that occurred when they attempted to “de‐link” from their colonial thinking and apply a decolonialised lens to their category. The work of Black and Indigenous authors enabled the researcher to theorise “improvisation” as a valid, transdisciplinary practice that lies at the heart of both therapy and art making. The researcher concludes that researchers intending to decolonialise their knowledge production should take a critical‐reflexive stance towards existing theory, deliberately seeking out alternate, decolonial ways of knowing, in order to construct more vital, convivial and emancipatory theories. They also offer a decolonial reimagining of therapy as a grounded, responsive, intentional and social improvisational practice, which is co‐created between client and therapist.

In this paper we bring to light and the impacts of colonial thinking as contained in The British Library manuscripts Add. 25,323 and 25,324. The manuscripts deal with Jebero, an indigenous language of North-Peru, as it was spoken in 18th century. (The language, also known as Shiwilu, is still spoken by some elderly people in district of Jeberos, but Pilar Valenzuela, Chapman University, California, USA, is supporting a project of revitalisation of language.) The author of manuscripts is presumably Samuel Fritz, a Jesuit missionary. The transcultural processes, noticeable in codices mentioned above, include transmission of cultural background of author in domain of religion and education, as well as transmission of culture of Jebero people. In instances demonstrating transcultural processes and colonial thinking, we also pay some attention to Samuel Fritz’ description of Jebero, since little is known of this language.

Should University Dance Majors only Focus on Western Dance? When you grow up seeing fabulous dance all over the world, you start to wonder… by Daniela Sider Growing up, I had the world at my fingertips – and I didn’t even know it. I thought the fact that I had lived on three continents before the age of six was cool, but pretty normal; six-year-old me thought most people lived like that. Soon enough, I started to realize that wasn’t quite the case. I began to notice how unique people thought it was that I had lived in Argentina, Morocco, and Spain in the course just over of half a decade. I also began to realize how many cultural colors my own parents represented (and still do), as Americans who left their hearts in Argentina when they moved to Spain, and do NGO work in North Africa and the Middle East. This cultural fusion of a childhood is what shaped my way of thinking and motivated me to connect with the world cross-culturally. It’s from this perspective of cultural diversity that I view and attempt to embody dance. I started dancing when I was thirteen, considered a late start, but I had done rhythmic gymnastics, which has a lot of similarities. And I had always been surrounded by dance in all the places where I lived. Tango was born on the streets of Buenos Aires; in Morocco, dancing is synonymous with celebration, and Southern Spain is the motherland of Danza Espanola (which includes Flamenco). These diverse dance forms I grew up around inspired me to pursue dance professionally and interpret movement as a means of cultural expression. Coming to University of California, Irvine turned out to be another cultural experience for me. When first I arrived in America, “fresh off the boat,” as they say, I knew hardly anything about modern or jazz. Thankfully, ballet was familiar, but modern and jazz? I had to Youtube “jazz dance” before the placement audition, because I did not know how I was supposed to improvise within the jazz genre – whatever that was. In my training in southern Spain, anything that was not ballet, was just “not ballet.” If it was named modern or jazz, I had no clue what the difference was between the two. So UCI taught me these American, cultural movement expressions – and it has been a ride! However, after having been here for a few years, I can’t help but notice the Western- centrism of the UCI Dance Department and eventually, I wanted more. At first, the “monoculturalism” of this place did not bother me because everything was completely new to me, and I felt culturally immersed in a foreign land. But after my second year, I had overcome the biggest obstacles of cultural adaptation and found myself wanting so much more than just Western dances. To be clear, I am so grateful to have grown as much as I have in my Western techniques here at UCI, for this has been the core of my training. Nevertheless, I can’t ignore the disappointment I feel at the lack of global dance perspective here, especially considering how increasingly globalized our world is. I think dance should be spearheading globalization and bringing people of diverse cultural backgrounds together through dance, not creating a dichotomized rivalry between Eastern and Western dance forms. Unfortunately, however, the latter is more often the case. As Nyama McCarthy-Brown discusses in “Decolonizing Dance Curriculum in Higher Education: One Credit at a Time,” limiting and defining dance as a purely Western tradition is a form of imperialism. This is something most American dance programs actually do, which causes the dance community as a whole to perpetuate a Western-dominant dance view. To be more specific, if Western dance forms are treated as intricate, complicated and beautiful, so should non-Western dance forms (McCarthy-Brown, 126). If there is not equality between the two at the university level, then higher education is promoting colonial thinking – in the dance community and consequentially beyond, which is ironic, since the art of dance should and has the power to promote non-violent

This paper analyzes the socio-cultural discourse on the Kingly Way 王道 in Manchukuo 滿洲國during the Datong 大同period (1932-1934), and attempts to flesh out the related context and specific structures of cultural control. Though the label ”dark dictatorship” often applied to describe the Japanese military invasion and colonial rule is a reflection of its characteristics and historical impact, it is undeniable that, as non-Western colonizers, Japan's reflections on its role as ruler resulted in differences in the development of its colonial thinking and discourse from that of the Western colonial powers. However, to state as disregarding logic or to examine in an irrational way Japanese thinking regarding its imperialist policies all too easily becomes a one-dimensional critique.Consequently, in the light of new materials, there is indeed a need to recommence research that examines the circumstances of change and renewal in the discourse among Manchukuo and Japan's intellectuals in the subjective context of traditional Eastern thought. Due to the social and political chaos that followed these events and the shortcomings of local archival systems and institutions, there is a relative paucity of material and research relating to the period immediately following Manchukuo's foundation. However, it was during this period that changes in Japan's colonial thinking occurred and were implemented in key policies, a period which also saw the initial stages of direct military and cultural confrontation between China and Japan in mainland Asia The pros and cons of Japan's colonial policies had a huge impact on Manchukuo's subsequent policy development, and therefore the importance of this question cannot be understated.

This research aims to identify the influence of two paradigms, namely colonial thinking and postcolonial thinking, on the valuation of native fruits, The sample was composed of six groups of farmers from the agroecology center Luta Camponesa Nucleus, which is linked to the agroecology network Rede Ecovida de Agroecologia, and the methodological procedures were based on the principles of action research. It concludes that the colonial thinking contributes to the elimination of native fruits, as a result of epistemicide, the advancement of the green revolution, and the food empires. On the other hand, the postcolonial thinking valorizes native fruits, especially through the ecology of knowledges, agroecology, and short circuits.

Respite. Quiet. A House of Dreams.

The Great Awakening and the American Revolution: Colonial Thought in the 18th Century.

“Icelandic Putridity”: Colonial Thought and Icelandic Architectural Heritage

Higher music (Educ)ACTION in Southeastern Brazil: Curriculum as a Practice and Possibilities for Action in (De)colonial Thought

Palestine Between German Memory Politics and (De-)Colonial Thought

Colonial Thought

“Icelandic Putridity”: Colonial Thought and Icelandic Architectural Heritage

The Great Awakening and the American Revolution: Colonial Thought in the 18th Century. By Cedric B. Cowing. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1971. vii + 260 pp.