The cultural paradox of the sub‐imperial intellectual: Trauma, capital, and the reconstruction of authority in Joseph Brodsky's “On the Independence of Ukraine”

The cultural and anthropological concept of Turkic Sufism is rooted in ideals of spiritual perfection, the absolute, and the archetype of the "perfect human". This concept, though widely influential, remains insufficiently explored from sociological perspectives. This article expands on Sufi motives in ancient Turkic nomadic culture by incorporating sociological theories of collective rituals, authority, and cultural capital. Drawing on Émile Durkheim’s notion of collective effervescence, we examine how communal Sufi practices fostered social cohesion and a shared sacred experience among nomadic communities. Using Max Weber’s concept of charismatic authority, we analyze the role of Sufi saints and leaders whose personal spiritual charisma legitimized new religious ideas and guided cultural transformation. Through Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, we explore how Sufi knowledge, rituals, and symbols functioned as valued social assets that facilitated identity formation and integration into the broader Islamic civilization. The study addresses the synthesis of pre-Islamic Tengriism with Sufism in the Great Steppe, illustrating how spiritual practices shaped collective identity and ethical norms. This sociological reframing clarifies the profound influence of Sufism on cultural values, social structures, and identities, offering a more rigorous understanding of its role in the historical evolution of Central Asian cultures.

Marina Carr's Portia Coughlan (1996) is one of the elaborative representations of Irish culture and women within the boundaries of memory and trauma. It not only discusses the subject of Irish female identity but also offers an exploration of cultural memory using ghostly agents obscuring the liminal boundaries between the past and the present, culture and individual. Portia is depicted as a rebellious character who needs becoming independent of cultural restrictions and ghostly memories. In this paper, I aim to analyse the liminal reflections of memory and trauma by focusing on Portia’s struggles for reclaiming her identity within the scope of Jacques Derrida's theory of hauntology and Dominick LaCapra's trauma theory. In the light of these theories, I aim to explore how cultural and individual trauma is represented through spectral characters in Portia Coughlan. Derrida concentrates on the boundary between life and death and positions spectres in this purgatory. For him, haunting is intertwined with time and is a part of memory. LaCapra suggests that traumatic memory creates temporality and eliminates the boundaries between the past and the present. Portia is an in-between character trapped by the purgatory between the past and the present. Her rejecting traditional gender roles, such as her reluctance for domestic and familial issues, talking with her dead twin Gabriel, and her inevitable suicide display how she is traumatically dissociated from her cultural boundaries. Therefore, Portia Coughlan has a significant place within the scope of liminal, memory, and border theories in terms of its employment of Irish gender identity and traumatic memories.

Cultural capital theory vs. cultural policy beliefs: How Pierre Bourdieu could have become a cultural policy advisor and why he did not

Clothing Borders

Considering the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the criticisms levelled against it, and the literary response it has evoked in terms of a struggle over definitions of trauma and recovery can help the debate over the perceived monocultural bias of trauma theory in its ‘classical’, mid-1990s formulation and the fraught relationship between such tendencies and the commitment to social justice on which the field prides itself. Insofar as the TRC mapped Euro-American concepts of trauma and recovery onto an apartheid-colonial situation, it was subject to the same problems and limitations faced by trauma theory—problems and limitations which post-apartheid literature has not been slow to confront. Sindiwe Magona’s truth-and-reconciliation novel Mother to Mother, for example, can be seen to supplement the work of the TRC by critically revisiting its limits, exclusions, and elisions—and thus also to suggest a possible way for ‘traditional’ trauma theory to reinvent and renew itself.

The present chapter is a qualitative study that attempts to problematize and contest the Western Cultural Trauma theory by contextualizing it within Nayomi Munaweera’s novel Island of a Thousand Mirrors (ITM), published in 2012, and Anuk Arudpragasam’s novel A Passage North (2021). One of the crucial concerns of the chapter is to study whether trauma theory can be released from the stranglehold of early trauma theory’s deconstructionist approach to narrative. This chapter also seeks to delve into the larger questions of malaise and melancholia and attempts to inquire critically whether healing and recovery are possible for traumatized subjects. Various theoretical standpoints, like Refugee Trauma Theory by Kunz and Dominick LaCapra’s analysis of ‘acting out’ and ‘working through’, will be pressed into service to offer a critique of the Eurocentric Trauma Theory Model and posit the challenges to be encountered while attempting to construct a decolonized Trauma Studies Theory.

Applying Bourdieu\'s cultural capital theory, this paper examined why youth meandered across career pathways and metamorphosed into area boys. Data were drawn from a three-year unobtrusive observation and an In-depth Interview with 60 area boys purposively selected from 5 Local Governments Areas in Lagos metropolis. Their narratives were analyzed through ZY Index and ethnographic techniques. Their educational attainment was generally low. Two-third did not complete their secondary education and more than half had acquired skills in different informal sector vocations. In the contexts of incomplete education and low motivation for career advancement different themes emerged: family disorganization, distress and depression, drifting away from schools, elongation of deprivation and determination for survival through available opportunities. Youth metamorphosis into area boys was found within structural forces including family disorganization, academic failure and poor career orientation. Unexpectedly, obedience to patron-client agencies and resistance against state policies reflect in their understanding of area boys business. Therefore addressing the menace of area boys should move beyond the manifest actors to a more robust understanding of the seemingly powerful networks sustaining them. Fundamentally, exploring and reversing the career pathways of area boys may improve their socio-economic conditions and redeem the Nigerian image in the global arena. Keywords : Deprivation, Social Mobility, Gangs, Deviance, Lagos African Journal for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Vol. 11 (1&2) 2008: pp. 13-34

Introduction This paper highlights the efforts of cultural intermediaries operating social networks for pets, known as petworking. Petworking aligns with the ever-increasing use of social media platforms where “one in ten pet owners have a social media account especially for their pet” (Schroeder). Petworking represents the increased affect of connectivity between pets and their owners within the broader pet community. Although it is true that “no one knows you are a dog on the Internet” (Steiner), it is fair to say that petworking is not the work of the animals directly, but the cultural intermediaries who construct the environment for pets to interact with others. Boo the Pomeranian is one example of a highly networked, cute and celebrity pet, whose antics are broadcast across a plethora of online networks including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. However, to contradict the rhetoric that cats rule the Internet, it is instead the strategic efforts of cultural intermediaries that take the banal activities of Boo and his “petworked individualism” to his global fan base. The research within this paper, through the lens of animal celebrity, extends recent work undertaken in the celebrity studies field that seeks to understand the connection between celebrities and ‘ordinary folk’, or rather ordinary folk as celebrities. In that regard, the connection between ordinary and celebrity animals is explored through the work of the cultural intermediary who capitalises on the authenticity and cute characteristics of animals. This paper also seeks to understand the role of the petworking cultural intermediary by exploring the cyclic process of disintermediation/remediation/intermediation of Internet communication. Celebrity Studies, Cute Culture and Petworking It is appropriate to first outline the connection of cute with celebrity, and how they relate to petworking. In the first instance, the notion of celebrity is primarily a phenomenon associated with humans. Historically, one of the earliest studies on celebrity focused on the “the person who is known for his well-knownness” (Boorstin 57). Further, celebrity has been noted as a construct by the media industries that has developed “entertainment figures as transmitted via the 20th century mass media” (Feeley 468). Celebrity has a history with the 19th and 20th century literature on the Hollywood star system and its transmission of fame to the mass audiences. As media and cultural studies adopted celebrity as a focus, celebrity studies became fascinated with “how the star image was produced and consumed and how it both shaped and reflected social and cultural identity” (Feeley 470). A more contemporary study into the exploration of celebrity is, as Turner suggests, a demotic turn that sees the media create ‘celebrities’ from ordinary folk. Dyer has argued that one of the core characteristics of celebrity is the ability for one to identify and imitate the star. In each of these examples of celebrity studies, it is assumed that the celebrity is indeed a human being. The humanistic value of celebrity then is problematic when considering how it relates to animals, specifically one’s pet. One way of approaching the study of celebrity and pets is through the lens of animal celebrity. There have been numerous cases of famous animals, with one of the earliest records in Hanno, a famous elephant who was a gift for Pope Leo X on his coronation from King Manuel I of Portugal, 1514. More recent animal celebrity has been demonstrated in cases of Paul the octopus whose celebrity status was reached through his ability to predict the winning teams during the 2010 World Cup, or Dolly the sheep who is infamous as being not only the first cloned sheep but also the first cloned being. Other famous pets are struck by celebrity status for non-favourable acts, for example Tilikum, or Tilly as he is known. TIlly is a bull orca that has been responsible for the deaths of three people during his time in captivity. His story, which also represents his association with celebrity, is documented in the 2013 documentary, Blackfish. Each of these cases of famous animals demonstrates that animal celebrity is not a new issue, but highlights the significance between ‘ordinary’ animals and ‘celebrity’ animals. It could be argued it is the impact of the mass media’s depiction of these animals that defines them as celebrity animals beyond their ordinary counterparts. Yet, in attempting to understand the appeal of animal celebrity, Blewitt notes that pets “wear the badge of authenticity that is held to be so important for credible image-management; there is never any question as to whether or not they are ‘being themselves’” (117). The appeal of animal celebrity for humans is represented through the animal’s authenticity because they are incapable of misrepresenting facts. Often the authentic animal characteristic is combined with ‘cute’ characteristics to increase their appeal, or their relational value with humans, and thereby their popularity. This is certainly the case with giant pandas where they “have the credibility of being an endangered species, look cuddly, have big moony eyes and so have automatic non-human conservation charisma” (Blewitt 326). In this scenario, the giant panda represents the popular qualities of animal cuteness which increases their relational value with humans. McVeigh suggests cute is a symbol of daily aesthetic equaling a “standard attribute” (230) to facilitate high reading of cultural texts and goods. Kinsella argues that cute builds on cutie, which “takes cuteness as its starting point, but on top of the basic ingredient of childlikeness, Cutie style is also chic, eccentric, androgynous and humorous” (Fetishism 229). Cute can shift from pop culture signifiers, to high cultural symbols that represent young, amusing and helpless representations. When cute is in dialogue with celebrity, specifically animal celebrity, it is the cute appeal, or the “silent desperation of the lost puppy dog” (Harris 179) that propels humans to increasingly construct and consume celebrity through animals. Distributing the appeal of cute animal celebrities across digital communication technologies provides the opportunity to explore and understand the petworking phenomenon. The authentic representation of cute animals outlined above has demonstrated the increased relational value of animal celebrity in a non-networked environment. However, when contextualised in a digitally connected environment that engages the affordances of social media platforms, the exploration of petworking can answer some animal celebrity questions raised by Giles. In his taxonomy of animal celebrity, Giles defines four categories that distinguish famous pets: “(a) public figures; (b) the meritocratically famous; (c) show business ‘stars’; and (d) the accidentally famous” (118). He suggests the first two categories are exemplified by the pets of politicians, or the biggest or smallest of a species. However he notes “it is impossible to distinguish between the remaining categories since ‘accidental fame’ presupposes that the other famous animals have engineered their own celebrity to some extent” (ibid.). This is precisely the space that petworking occupies. Pets do not engineer their own celebrity; rather, it is the strategic and coordinated efforts of their owners that create “accidentally famous” animals. The example of petworking demonstrates the role of the intermediary who constructs the identity of the non-ordinary pet with high relational value. A pet with high relational value does not occur serendipitously nor is it the work of a famous animal engineering his or her own celebrity. Rather, it is the work of human intermediaries who strategically utilise authenticity and cute as animal characteristics that increase the animal’s appeal, and thereby its popularity. To successfully engage in petworking, intermediaries use social media platforms to disseminate or broadcast the celebrity animal’s characteristics. The following case study of Boo the Pomeranian demonstrates the connection of celebrity studies with cute culture that is disseminated through social media platforms – a petworking example. The Case of BooThe conceptual framework for this research draws from the media’s coverage of petworking. In that environment, petworking is referenced wherever journalists refer to the practice of “cute” animals engaging in social networking activities. Warr suggests petworking represents “people who want to set up personal social profiles on behalf of their pets”. Ortiz suggests petworking aims to “employ a network marketing strategy for social, political or commercial gain using animals, pets, and goods and services related to animals and pets”. Interestingly, much of the discussion of petworking relates to the act of networking through pets to break the ice with other pet owners to engage in more complex interactions. To move the existing work beyond pets to break the ice, Williams notes that “one in 10 of all UK pets have their own Facebook page, Twitter account or YouTube channel” and “14 per cent of dog owners maintain a Facebook page for their pet, whereas 6 per cent boast Twitter accounts”. Regardless of the motivation of pet owners to engage in petworking, there is an increasing presence of pets in an online environment. Boo the Pomeranian, rose to fame as the world’s cutest dog during 2009. His Facebook page has 10,435,458 likes at the time of writing, making him the most popular dog on Facebook and aligning him with the Public Figure page category, a key celebrity indicator. His tagline reads, “My name is Boo. I am a dog. Life is good.” His connection to popularity came on 26 October 2010, when celebrity blogger Khloé Kardashian wrote “OMG, I just found this dog named Boo on facebook and I am seriously in LOVE […] If you are in facebook, go like this page because it’s beyond cute!” Boo’s p

Based on the Cultural Capital theory proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, this study proposes “digital cultural capital” as the fourth form, and constructs the model of “capital form-technological empowerment-power reproduction” (C-T-P) to explore the path of digital transformation of heritage tourism. The research extends the theory of cultural capital and provides a new path for the transformation of heritage tourism. The study extends the theory of cultural capital theory, provides a framework for interdisciplinary research, and offers a technology-driven operational path for policy and practice. In the future, it is necessary to deepen the research on the empowering effect of technology and the mechanism of globalization and collaboration, so as to realize the sustainable inheritance of cultural heritage.

Based on the research underpinning my book, Holocaust Remembrance Between the National and the Transnational (London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), which explores and analyses the significance of the politics and symbolism of the commemoration of the Holocaust and Nazi-era crimes in the late 1990s and 2000s at the European, international and transnational levels, I will reflect on the influence of contemporary trauma theory on my practice of researching, writing and teaching the histories and memories of the Holocaust. Section one of my article will outline the intellectual horizon with regard to interdisciplinary trauma theory and what I understood as its increasing globalisation and critique by thinkers such as Andreas Huyssen and Stef Craps during my research on the Stockholm International Forum on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (SIF 2000) and the first decade of the Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF, renamed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance or IHRA in December 2012). Sections two and three will offer my response as a cultural historian to this pre-existing use of trauma theory and how it has contributed to my practice of writing, teaching and presenting the histories of the cultural memory of the Holocaust. Critically reflecting on key thinkers such as Dominick LaCapra, Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub and Wulf Kansteiner, sections two and three will address not only the limitations of trauma theory for my research but will also discuss how a revised trauma theory remains important for archival, creative and pedagogical use in studies of the histories and memories of the Holocaust in singular and comparative terms.

On Pierre Bourdieu<i>Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture.</i>Pierre Bourdieu , Jean-Claude Passeron , Richard Nice<i>Outline of a Theory of Practice.</i>Pierre Bourdieu , Richard Nice

This thesis tries to understand the cultural meanings behind the “food-mania”, and the way how taste of food has been constructed. Therefore, the core problematic is how food scenario is represented and discoursed in contemporary Taiwan? By appropriating the French sociologist Bourdieu’s concept “field”, this thesis hence consider food as a cultural field. Furthermore, from a cultural history approach, this thesis tries to elaborate the food scenario in Taiwan since 60’s: from the nostalgic to lifestyle, and from cooking practice to life aesthetics. Finally, through analyzing the interpretations of taste from the cultural intermediaries, we will realize the way of how interpretations of the cultural intermediaries are constructed and whether these interpretations reproduce or strengthen status quo of the taste of food. This thesis argues that it has been through the intertwined and struggled within the different forces for decades, then construct the current situation of food field. From the theoretical point of Bourdieu, agents who have the same social positions in social field will be embedded in the same social conditions and context, in that way then they might have the similar habitus and interests. According to this, the author, by analyzing the food discourse form the chefs, food critics, food writers, and food journalists, argues that these cultural intermediaries produce the symbolic constructs for the popular. However, when cultural intermediaries once won the symbolic power, they also gain the symbolic violence beneath the neutral and objective gesture at the same time, so it is much harder for normal people to critic the discourses of the cultural intermediaries. And that makes people misrecognize the legitimacy and authority as nature, hence that will deeply cover the uneven distribution of material conditions and cultural resources.

This paper examines A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath through the lens of trauma theory, exploring how both novels depict psychological suffering, memory, and the long-term consequences of trauma. Relying on the works of Cathy Caruth, Judith Herman, and Dominick LaCapra, this study analyses the fragmented narratives, dissociative tendencies, and cycles of self-destruction experienced by the protagonists, Jude St. Francis and Esther Greenwood. While A Little Life presents an extended and prolonged portrait of trauma through Jude’s experiences of childhood abuse and self-harm, The Bell Jar captures Esther’s psychological deterioration within the limitations of 1950s societal expectations. Both books show the inevitable nature of past trauma, the shortcomings of outside help systems, and the conflict between resiliency and permanent psychological harm. This study emphasizes the complexity of pain, identity, and survival in modern and mid-twentieth-century literature by using trauma theory, so showing how narrative structures and character development reflect real-world trauma reactions.

Studies in American Fiction251 many other major figures of the period, as well as lesser known artists, convened in her living room for weekly sessions of "contactual inspiration " or informal professional development. McHenry also notes the phenomenal affect that Terry McMillan and the popularity ofOprah Winfrey's Book Club have had on the publishing industry. In many ways, their accomplishments ironically show how a history of black literacy in which the "consumption of literature" as well as "the production of literature" was always visibly present though often ignored by the general public. Though the politics of respectability appears as a theme for most of the literary societies McHenry profiles, her thesis permeates this veneer to reveal the inclusivity of such groups rather than accentuating elitist aspirations. She creates an interesting narrative that judiciously intertwines cultural criticism with historical facts, all while remaining unbiased towards her middle- and upper-class subjects. We see how class-consciousness is overruled by common concerns for the intellectual growth of the entire black community. An added bonus for me (and possibly other regionalists ) is how McHenry at times positions members of early literary societies as dislocated regional subjects; when their northern home was just as hostile as the slave South, they became a race united. Likewise, by the turn of the century, black southern women became icons of the "Woman's Era," spreading literacy throughout the region during the birth of Jim Crow. I highly recommend Elizabeth McHenry's Forgotten Readersbecause it illuminates the innovation it took to "uplift the race" through informal basic literacy instruction. University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignSherita Johnson Ramadanovic, Petar. Forgetting Futures: On Memory, Trauma and Identity. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001. 171 pp. Cloth: $70.00. Vickroy, Laurie. Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. Charlottesville: Univ. ofVirginia Press, 2002. 266 pp. Cloth: $49.50. Paper: $18.50. The early and mid-1990s saw an enormous amount ofscholarly analysis directed towards depictions of trauma in literature. The work of scholars such as Cathy Caruth, Dominick LaCapra, and Shoshana Felman inaugurated a field that was soon dubbed trauma theory. Since that time, trauma theory has evolved from a potentially evanescent academic vogue to a 252Reviews productive and durable interdisciplinary field of inquiry. In the wake of Bosnia, Kosovo, 9/11, and Iraq, trauma theory seems more immediately relevant than ever. Two recent books—Petar Ramadanovic's Forgetting Futures: On Memory, Trauma and Identity and Laurie Vickroy's Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction—each continue the development of this field in the new century by plotting different, but fruitful, courses in investigating the subject of literary trauma. Ramadanovic, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, divides his study into two sections: "Forgetting" and "Futures." The first of these sections lays the theoretical groundwork for the second by discussing Western conceptions of memory as articulated by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Hegel, and Nietszche. Against the Aristotelean notion of memory as a "presentation of the past in the present," Ramadanovic argues that memory "is irreducible to one temporal location . It is of the not yet, not only of the past" (3). The Platonic and Nietzschean conceptions of memory and forgetting particularly interest Ramadanovic, as he employs them to contest what he perceives to be an Aristotelean-derived conception of forgetting as the oppositional act to remembering. For Ramadanovic, forgetting is not simply the mere absence of memory but rather a distinct element of its own, a signifying interstice that marks an event as traumatic precisely because the traumatic event cannot be contained within the linear frameworks ofmemory and history. His readings of these major figures are brief but commendably insightful, and, in a genre that often considers Freud as the first intellectual to ever consider the question, it is highly refreshing to read a deeper archaeology of Western conceptions of memory. However, the study of trauma often sits uncomfortably alongside abstract theorizing, and when Ramadanovic moves from a discussion of Cicero to a review of the Bosnian conflict and the Dayton peace accords in but a few pages, the change in gears is jarringly abrupt. The strongest part ofthe book is Ramadanovic's discussion ofCicero's story of the poet...

Some American science fiction and fantasy (SF&amp;F) female fans participate in Cosplay or costume play, the global practice of dressing in costume and performing fictional characters from popular culture. Cosplay is typically only socially sanctioned at conventions and other fan events, leaving fans searching for new ways to express their fandom in everyday life. Closet cosplay is one solution in which everyday clothing and accessories can be worn to express fandom. The motivations for wearing everyday fan fashion have been only briefly mentioned by other authors or studied within limited social contexts. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to explore SF&amp;F female fans' participation in closet cosplay as it is worn in everyday contexts. An exploratory qualitative study was conducted using a social interactionist perspective, and Sarah Thornton's concept of subcultural capital and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital. Semi-structured, online interviews were conducted with sixteen participants who wore closet cosplay related to SF&amp;F films and/or television series, which included Star Wars, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Disney films, Harry Potter and anime fandoms like Sailor Moon (1995–2000). The interview data were analysed using NVivo qualitative analysis software and the constant comparison method. Two themes emerged from the data: the definition of closet cosplay and motivations for wearing closet cosplay. Through examining these themes, it was evident that female SF&amp;F fans used closet cosplay to express a salient fan identity, which enabled them to simultaneously gain subcultural capital and feminized cultural capital.