Alternative World Research Articles

Духовность в цифровую эпоху: дискуссии ученых и теологов

In modern digital civilization, not only the meaning of the concept of “spirituality” is being transformed, but also the creation of a new substance for it – digital. Representatives of the scientific world and religion are discuss-ing the pros and cons of possible “movements? of the human soul and its qualities. The problem is becoming not local, but global in nature, since many types of spiritual activities acquire a remote digital format. The main questions that scientists pose to science and religion are questions about the possibility of preserving in man his original state, prescribed by nature and God; will society be able to resist the temptations of technological progress, etc. In this study, scientific methods such as analysis, comparison and generalization were used. The subject of the research is to study the discussions of scientists and theologians about the possible creation by man of a substance other than consciousness, which allows him to create an alternative world to his own spirit-uality and the possible consequences of such a process for all mankind.

Ethical Challenges with Personalized Avatars in Higher Education of the Metaverse Era

One of the first revolutions of Web 3.0 technology has been the metaverse, which is an alternative world formation where people can experience three-dimensional virtual realities through their avatars. The only way for higher education to survive in the metaverse era is to do an in-depth examination of the current situation and create strategies, regulations, and policies for all segments of this novice field considering also the ethical challenges it will bring to humanity. In a metaverse environment, there will be personalized avatars that represent real people, and in a university setting with virtual classes held in the metaverse, many ethical dilemmas and moral concerns can develop due to the utilization of avatars. The study narrowed its attention to examining these ethical issues raised by avatar customization and potential solutions to design a healthy metaverse in higher education. The study conducted an in-depth exploration with fourteen higher education lecturers, who are also key people specialized in the metaverse and web 3.0 technologies. The data obtained from the interviews were clustered under seven thematic nodes including anonymous identities; socially equal & diverse avatars; avatar policy; honesty & transparency; non-resemblance with the physical realities; avatar clothes codes; and avatars’ intellectual property. Key Words: Avatar, Ethics, Metaverse, Higher Education, Metaverse Universities

Where are services regarding sexual minorities and psychological therapies post-COVID in 2024? A mixed-method systematised review

PurposeSince COVID-19, many services have burgeoned within the UK, but what about sexual minorities? Since the last review, there are appropriate therapies, but there is often inadequate research. The purpose of this mixed-method review synthesis looking into the efficacy of psychological therapies for sexual minorities. Seven studies were found in total.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method review synthesis, three studies looking into the efficacy of psychological therapies for sexual minorities and four studies addressing the experiences of sexual minorities partaking in psychological therapies were identified.FindingsThese included three quantitative and four qualitative studies. The minority stress hypothesis is used to formulate problems, but challenges remain to confidentiality and privacy in this context. Therapists still operate within the heteronormative framework, discounting intersectionality in therapy conversations.Research limitations/implicationsMost studies have had low retention rates since 2021. It shows that minority stress needs to be accounted for at the ethics committee and research delivery levels.Practical implicationsApplying a heteronormative framework to sexual minorities is not working. An alternative progress world view is needed.Social implicationsHealth-care clinicians strive for equitable care. Unfortunately, using an equitable health service scale adapted from Levesque et al. (2013), the rating is 3 out of 6. More work is needed to improve services.Originality/valueSome services are reporting much improvement post-pandemic. Sadly, this is not the case for sexual minorities. Individual and systemic barriers remain.

Drew a map on your bedroom ceiling: fandoms, nostalgic girlhood and digital bedroom cultures in the Swiftie-sphere

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of escapism in Taylor Swift’s music and her fandom, referred to as ‘Swiftie’ culture or ‘Swifties’. Swift has always been known for her personal lyrics set to catchy melodies, and in recent years, she has leaned further into leaving ‘Easter eggs’ for her fans to piece together through her lyrics, music videos and social media presence. Drawing upon Jenkins’ (2006) work on ‘prosuming’ and McRobbie and Garber’s (1975) ‘bedroom cultures’, I explore the storytelling in Swift’s craft, and argue that online engagement with her work enables a productive fandom built upon nostalgic escapism. This paper interrogates the role of the Swiftie fandom in cultivating digital bedroom cultures; utilising a feminist discourse analysis of Swiftie Reddit and YouTube, I suggest that Swift’s evolving view of girlhood, as well as her use of metaphor and colour, has built an alternative world of nostalgia that predominantly exists online. As such, fans are offered a community to escape into the mythology of Swift in a way that speaks to and celebrates ‘girlish’ emotions, cultivating digital spaces that emulate the ‘real life’ bedroom.

Toward a Science-Fictional Interpretational Method: Reading Three Borges Stories

ABSTRACT: This article reconsiders Samuel R. Delany's theory of science fiction as a form of language in order to develop the notion that science fiction is a method of making meaning and reading texts. Three stories by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, "The Aleph," "The Library of Babel," and "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," are read as science fiction to demonstrate how the method functions. Borges's ambiguous relationship with science fiction during his lifetime is well-documented, but no previous study of Borges as a science-fiction writer exists in English. The notion of science fiction as a way of reading enables a reading that treats the elements of textual playfulness that make Borges's texts so beloved throughout literary studies as science fictional, because they encourage the reader to reconstruct an alternate world around the text and create a comprehensive theory of how that world works.

Рецепция художественного мира и биографического мифа И. С. Тургенева в романе В. В. Набокова "Подлинная жизнь Себастьяна Найта"

The research aim is to determine forms of the reception of Ivan Turgenev’s oeuvre in Vladimir Nabokov’s first novel in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Until now, Turgenev’s supertext in the novel has not been the object of a separate study, although researchers note the world-forming function of allusions to Russian and European classics. The study emphasizes the fact that the reception of Turgenev’s work is present on the levels of plot and imagery: (1) Turgenev’s plot about the character being obsessed with a femme fatale; (2) the mystical images of Turgenev and the principles of constructing an otherworldly space; (3) the biographical myth about Turgenev, represented in the works of writers contemporary with Nabokov. In the first stage of the analysis, we focus on a comparison of Nina Lecerf with Turgenev’s femme fatales. Nabokov implements the features of the portrait of Turgenev’s heroines – Maria Polozova, Clara Militch, Irina Ratmirova, Ellis, but in each case the similarity is incomplete. Unlike Turgenev’s femme fatales, who subjugate the will of characters with their supernatural beauty and power, Nina Lecerf charms the characters with physical attractiveness that is difficult to put into words by V. and Sebastian. The article proves that being in love with Nina Lecerf is a challenge to the characters imagination and literary gift. In the second part, we identify the features of Turgenev’s biographical myth in the novel: Nabokov focuses on the historical-literary works of B. Zaytsev, A. Remizov, Yu. Aikhenvald, etc. The unclear aspects of Sebastian’s and Turgenev’s biographies are similar (hypochondria; attachment to a woman, interpreted as the cause of death); however, if in B. Zaytsevs fictionalized biography they are given a mystical-religious or psychological explanation, then in Nabokov’s novel the “mysteries” of Sebastian’s biography are not revealed, but activate the narrators imagination and inspire the creation of his own fictional world. Nabokov uses the myth of Turgenev the dreamer, formed in A. Remizovs works. Unlike Turgenev’s works, in Nabokov’s novel, the dream images cannot be directly deciphered: they form a monogram connecting fantasy, the narrator’s direct impressions, and memories. We conclude that the author’s affinity to Turgenev’s works and to the traditions of their interpretation is a poetological issue at the beginning of Nabokov’s American career. Nabokov highly assesses the “night theme” as a bright example of Turgenev’s style. Landscape images of “Bezhin Lea” are used by the narrator to create and describe fictional worlds. In The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, allusions to Turgenev’s works introduce the theme of otherworldliness as an alternative artistic world with which the characters feel their genetic connection.

Exploring alternative discourses about datafication in a speculative youth participatory action research curriculum

PurposeThis paper aims to address the limitations in designing educational approaches that apply critical approaches to data literacy, given the obscure nature of digital platforms, which leave youth unable to develop discourses that challenge dominant narratives about the role of data in their lives. The purpose of this study is to propose and evaluate a critical data literacy approach that empowers youth to engage with data from a sociocultural perspective using a speculative participatory research approach that affords opportunities to develop alternative discourses.Design/methodology/approachThis is a multiple-case study that involves five alternative schools in Uruguay which implemented the Nayah-Irú curriculum over ten weeks leading to the development of six distinct research projects about the materialization of data in youth lives. The curriculum incorporates an alternate reality game (ARG) to engage youth in critical data literacy, based on the principles of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) epistemology and Speculative Civic Literacies.FindingsThe findings of this study highlight the integration of speculative storytelling and real-life experiences in developing alternative discourses about datafication. The analysis revealed instances of discursive closure among the youth, but through the curriculum's speculative fiction elements, such as the narrative of Nayah-Irú, emotional connections were formed, leading to increased engagement, critical inquiry, and problem framing.Research limitations/implicationsThe study conducted on the Nayah-Irú curriculum shows its effectiveness in engaging youth and educators in critical data literacy by affording opportunities for youth to engage in the analysis of their personal data literacies in an alternative world. Bringing speculative approaches to data literacy can open new avenues for exploring data literacy with youth in ways that center their voices and help them overcome different forms of discursive closure.Originality/valueThis study offers new insights into critical data literacy education blending youth participatory action research epistemologies with a speculative literacies framework to support youth in developing alternative discourses regarding the role of data in their lives.

What sociologists learn from music: identity, music-making, and the sociological imagination

ABSTRACT Sociologists very often have extra-curricular lives as musicians. This article explores the relationship between musical life and sociological identities. Through a range of examples from Howard Becker’s grounding in field research as a pianist in the Chicago jazz clubs and his theories of deviance, to the connection between Emma Jackson’s life as a bass player in Brit pop band Kenickie and her feminist punk sociology, an argument is developed about the things sociologists learn from music. Based on 28 life history interviews with contemporary sociologists this paper shows how sociologists learn – both directly and tacitly – to understand society through their engagement with music. Music offers them an interpretive device to read cultural history, a training in the unspoken and yet structured aspects of culture, and an attentiveness to improvised and interactive aspects of social interaction. For sociologists, involvement in music making is also an incitement to get off campus and encounter an alternative world of value and values. Music enables sociologists to sustain their research imaginations and inspires them to make sociology differently. However, the article concludes that in the contemporary neoliberal university it is harder for sociologists to sustain a creative hinterland in music. The tacit knowledges that often nourish sociological identities may run the risk of being depleted as a result.

Planetary Health: Capitalism, Ecology and Eco-Socialism

ABSTRACT Adopting a critical anthropology of health perspective, informed by political ecology, we examine planetary health in the era of late capitalism or neoliberalism. The shift to a planetary health thinking was driven by the growing awareness that not only are all human communities now multiply linked together by flows of commodities, ideas, people, and health-related influences from vectors to medicines, but that the health of human communities is multiply linked to the environment including other species within us (e.g. gut flora) and around us. Within the planetary health framework, we focus specifically on both emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic, and the growing impact of anthropogenic climate change on health. While poorer regions of the world need economic development, that is, access to basic resources and health care, much of the developed world and parts of the developing world are, in a sense, overdeveloped. Perhaps more than any other issue, the ecological crisis, which includes catastrophic climate change allows critical scholars to contemplate the contradictions of the capitalist world system, including its implications for health, and to ponder the creation of an alternative world system, namely eco-socialism.

Implementing CARE Principles to Link Noongar Language and Knowledge to Western Science through the Atlas of Living Australia

Implementing CARE Principles to Link Noongar Language and Knowledge to Western Science through the Atlas of Living Australia

Return to normality? Commentary on Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the 2020 US presidential election in China Daily

This paper examines the critical commentary on Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the 2020 United States presidential election in China’s English-language newspaper China Daily. A thematic analysis was conducted of all the relevant opinion and editorial pieces (op-eds) published in China Daily two months before and after the release of the US presidential election results. Thematic analysis showed that China Daily was highly critical of Trump, especially for politicizing the COVID-19 pandemic and exercising restrictions on China. China Daily’s attitudes towards Biden were more varied, with appraisal of Biden’s cabinet selections and suggestions for the Biden administration’s priorities. The newspaper constructed a Biden/Trump dichotomy that ultimately serves to strengthen the narrative of China as a reliable country in contrast with the hypocritical United States. China Daily situated the commentary on the 2020 US election into the discussion of political stability, the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate change crisis, and frequently used strategies of othering the US and victimizing China to present China as a responsible alternative world power pursuing global cooperation and harmony.

Alternative World Orders? Russia’s Ukraine War and the Domestic Politics of the BRICS

ABSTRACT Russia’s war in Ukraine has sharpened the contours of alternative world orders. These diverging orders emerged in recent decades through the creation of distinct institutions and policy positions by the ‘Political South’. While the ‘Political West’ emphasises democracy, market economy and universal human rights as guiding principles for international order, the Political South prioritises national autonomy, non-intervention in internal affairs and state-permeated economies. The Political South rejects military aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, cultivates a good relationship with Moscow and criticises Western conceptions of world order as paternalistic. Core actors of the ‘Southern World Order’ (SWO) are the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and South Africa), which created international institutions as alternatives to the Liberal International Order (LIO). These countries, however, did not leave the LIO and continue to have close economic relations with the West. This double-track strategy arguably correlates with the plurality of domestic societal forces, which includes ideational and material ties with the West.

Multi-factor Analysis of Option Pricing (BSM) and Prediction of Pricing Direction Under the Convergence of Phenomenal Worlds

In the development involving options pricing, models with data-based predictions of future volatility at their core have dominated, with their inclusion of elements such as implied volatility and the implication of Brownian motion, normal distributions under a variety of programmatic analyses acting to generate range values, structuring models that are evidence of the gradual formation of pricing concepts as trading researchers uncover predictions of asset values, and surfacing impediments to moving their pricing ranges to specificity. The development of the BSM is widely regulated by the mutual proximity between the acceptance of the model concept by traders in this period and the degree of sophistication in dealing with limited rationality. Facilitating efficient control of options markets and outlining later pricing directions. The initial understanding of the various interpretations of finite and infinite rationality of information, influenced by the complexity of specific value manipulation. The extension of uncertainty in its role generates the form of the scientific matrix of opposing terms - related phenomenal world concepts, regulated by the role of complex financial markets (the scientific matrix brought by the economists at the beginning of the market development contains its pricing model development), embodied by the transfer of the phenomenal world. The alternative phenomenal world model formed by the extension will be justified by considering the integration of feedback with external financial markets.

ДВОСТРУКА ФИКЦИОНАЛНОСТ МОГУЋИХ СВЕТОВА У ПРИПОВЕЦИ СВИРАЧ ИЗ ЗЛАТНИХ ВРЕМЕНА

In this paper we tried to illustrate some of the basic postulates of the theory of possible worlds by Lubomir Doležel on the example of Borislav Pekić’s story The Fiddler from the Golden Time. We tried to show how storytelling strategies contribute to the constitution of a complex fictional world. We examined the basic methods of creating a possible world and situated that methods within the framework of Doležel’s theoretical explication. In the constellation of characters in this story, the hero who belongs to the alternative world is in a position of power. Double fictionality operates on the plane of the fictional world constituted by storytelling and the unrealized possibilities of the past. Autobiographical elements are transformed into facts of the fictional world, and by influencing the alternative into the fictionally existing, the author seeks to interpret the conformist position in a restrictive ideological matrix in a critical way. The demystification of ideology in the narrative about the poet and his counterpart moves to a metaphysical plane identified with the domain of the story.

The stakes of abyssal geography. Response to commentaries on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

The stakes of abyssal geography. Response to commentaries on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

The metaverse in medicine.

The metaverse is an alternative digital world, accessed by means of dedicated audiovisual devices. In this parallel world, various forms of artificial intelligence meet, including individuals in the form of digital copies of real people (avatars), able to interact socially. Metaverse in medicine may be used in many different ways. The possibility to perform surgery at a distance of thousands of miles separating the patient from the surgeon, who could have also the possibility to visualize in real-time patient's clinical data, including diagnostic images, obviously is very appealing. It would be also possible to perform medical treatments and to adopt pharmacological protocols on human avatars clinically similar to the patients, thus observing treatment effects in advance and significantly reducing the clinical trials duration. Metaverse may reveal an exceptional educational tool, offering the possibility of interactive digital lessons, allowing to dissect and to study an anatomical apparatus in detail, to navigate within it, not only to study, but also to see the evolution of the pathological process, and to simulate in advance surgical or medical procedures on virtual patients. However, while artificial intelligence is now an established reality in the clinical practice, the metaverse is still in its initial stages, and to figure out its potential usefulness and reliability, further developments are expected.

“Hope and grief woven together”: Consolation in a queer reading of Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

This article considers the role of consolation in a biopolitical and queer reading of Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017). As a critique of contemporary Indian politics, Hindu nationalism, casteism, and economic neoliberalism, the novel promises to bring hope to those marginalized and dehumanized in “New India” — the “Unconsoled”. It is argued that Ministry’s liberatory potential is best realized when approached from a combined perspective of biopolitical liminality, that of Agambenian homo sacer and Butlerian precarity, as well as the reformative and reparative practices of queer theory. When viewed through queer readings of failure and non-imperative happiness, the alternative world of Jannat Guest House becomes a queer counterpublic, whereas its inhabitants become agents of subversion, whose mere existence defies the imperative of religious, caste, cisheteronormative and capitalist hegemonies endorsed by the state. The article positively assesses the novel’s ability to bring consolation. However, it indicates that there are also limitations to that and offers suggestions as to how to reaffirm the reformatory potential of the novel.

Mark Philp. Radical Conduct: Politics, Sociability and Equality in London, 1789–1815.

The political worlds of eighteenth-century Britain were associational and sociable. They were based around who knew whom, in what social circles, and how those groups interacted and debated ideas. In the later eighteenth century, as revolutions swept the empire and Europe, a radical sociability was fostered in London, bringing together thinkers and writers on alternative modes of government and society. Mark Philp’s new book, Radical Conduct: Politics, Sociability and Equality in London, 1789–1815, raises some vital questions about the role of sociability in the politics of this period. It is grounded, as much of Philp’s previous work is, in the most influential family in the alternative political world in London, that of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and their associates, including Mary Hays, Thomas Holcroft, Elizabeth Inchbald, and Amelia Alderson. But moving on from his prior focus on Godwin’s political thought, Philp examines the bounds of the social “circle” itself. How many people was it possible to know well in an expanding metropolis? What was the role of trust and betrayal? To what extent was it possible for radical groups, particularly bourgeois and privileged ones, to interact on equal terms and “spread” ideas?

Dialectics of Pleasure in Thomas More’s Utopia

ABSTRACT Thomas More’s Utopia represents not a pleasurable alternative world, but rather a debate on how to make life more pleasurable in the actual world. It involves a tussling with questions of truth in an age in which unifying transcendental answers were giving way to more instrumental solutions as demanded by the growth of mercantile city-states. This article traces the function of pleasure in Utopia as a dialectically mediating agent on the recognition that pleasure is available only in compromised form. For More, solutions must be sought through the mind’s capacity to form agreeable relations out of contradictions. It implies assembling meaning from the perspectives Utopia provides, and a constant balancing and rebalancing process in search of an overall point of view that may give pleasure.

Clio in the Operating Theatre: Historical Research, Emotional Health, and Surgical Training in Contemporary Britain.

Drawing on my experience working as a postdoctoral research and engagement fellow on the Wellcome Trust-funded project, Surgery & Emotion, this article reflects on this innovative model of historical research and professional engagement, explores the challenges posed by crossing disciplinary boundaries, and interrogates the practical and theoretical utility of bringing historical research into the operating theatre. How do surgeons specifically engage with the history of their profession? What can the history of emotions offer to the training of medical students and surgeons? What obstacles interfere in this type of cross-disciplinary engagement? What peculiar opportunities and challenges do the United Kingdom higher education system and National Health Service pose to the teaching of medical history in clinical settings? Bringing Clio into the operating theatre provides surgeons with an alternative narrative to that which they have come to expect about the emotions they ought to feel and express in their work. It allows them to explore the high feelings of their professional lives at a remove and offers an array of possible solutions to the current emotional health crisis in British medicine. History allows surgeons to imagine an alternative world: one where the pervasive and persistent models of emotional detachment - damaging to both patient experience and professional wellbeing - dissolve.