Modern Culture Research Articles

Materialidade das novas mídias incorporadas no modernismo literário: Laranja-da-China de Antônio de Alcântara Machado

This article proposes to analyze how the new means of communication and transport at the beginning of the 20th century figure (and shape) the lively and intermedial prose of an important Portuguese-speaking modernist author, Antônio de Alcântara Machado (1901-1935). We are interested in verifying the role of materiality (Süssekind, 1987; Gumbrecht, 1985 and 1997) of these new media as a constitutive element of the articulations of meaning in Machado's prose and above all their effects on the transformation of the mentality, daily life and behavior of the characters of Laranja-da-China (1928), one of his books of short stories that is still not widely explored by critics and which has as its setting the environment of São Paulo in the 1920s, in full and accelerated pace of urban and cultural modernization.

Социально-философский анализ парадокса репрезентации эмоционального робота в литературе и кинематографе

This article is devoted to the socio-philosophical analysis of the mechanical man – machine or robot ‒ in the representations of modern culture, in particular, in literature and cinema. The key characteristic of such a construction is the paradox of representations of the robot's emotionality, which is conceptualized at the level of human emotions in the context of socio-cultural plot and scenario solutions. The authors pay particular attention to the complex problem of generation, representation, and adequacy of emotions demonstrated by a robot in the course of the development of a literary plot or a cinematic scenario. As a result of the research, the authors delineate and examine a range of socio-philosophical analysis concerning the creation of the mechanical image of a human endowed with emotions, which is intricately linked to the psychological nuances of how this image is perceived by readers or viewers. In conclusion, a selective review of cinematic works from both past and present centuries is conducted, analyzing the socio-philosophical issues arising from the introduction of robots within these narratives. The article also evaluates the prospects for further research in this direction, highlighting the ongoing relevance of emotional robots in modern cultural discourse and their implications for understanding human emotionality and identity in an increasingly mechanized world.

Артизация как доминирующая характеристика современной массовой культуры

The manifestation of artization in various spheres of mass culture, including media, art, leisure and everyday realities, gives it the role of one of the leading characteristics of contemporary cultural space. The impact of artization on the production, consumption, and interpretation of cultural forms, as well as the formation of cultural identity, social norms, and moral and ethical values, testifies to the importance of this phenomenon for the further evolution of culture. The authors define artization as a process in which non-art objects, events, and practices are endowed with artistic qualities and aestheticized. Being a key factor of mass culture in the XXI century, artization manifests itself in the forms of the aestheticization of everyday life, the theatricalization of social life, and the blurring of the boundaries between art and life. The study reveals that it has both positive and negative consequences for the development of culture. On the one hand, as a result of artization, access to artistic experience is expanded and creativity is stimulated, while on the other hand, superficiality, trivialization and loss of traditional values of culture and art are observed. The authors conclude that artization is an integral part of modern mass culture, it has a pronounced impact on the evolution of human culture and society.

The Ecological Dimension of Modern European Culture

In the article modern European culture is analysed in an ecological dimension through the model of cultural ecology/ecology of culture. The paradigm of cultural ecology is considered as a way to study the changing relations between culture and the environment in the post-industrial world. The phenomenon of cultural ecology is examined through the prism of genesis in the European and Russian research traditions. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate how modern theoretical concepts of cultural ecology are fulfilled in the EU cultural policy. It is shown that the ecology of culture is the preservation of culture through conservation of nature and overcoming natural disasters. It is demonstrated that trends in the ecologisation of the cultural policy of the EU and the management of European cultural heritage are aimed at joint evolution/coevolution of culture and nature. These trends cancel out their traditional alternative. The need for a unified consideration of environmental and social factors of cultural heritage conservation in the European Union is illustrated by cases of the negative impact of tourism on a number of locations. Modern European culture as a social phenomenon is consistently evolving in the direction of optimising interaction with the nature. The conclusion is drawn that the status of modern European culture in the paradigm of cultural ecology corresponds to modern development of the information society in the version of its Green dimension.

Notes on the Characteristics of a New State of Crisis

The article observes the changes in the notions of crisis and their reflection on the understanding of contemporary art. Modern culture seems to develop in conditions of well-being, which is able to dampen the sense of crisis in the very essence of art, but not to overcome the grounds of crisis experience. Today, various observers position art as post-aesthetic, post-historical, post-autonomous. Does the upheaval in the awareness of this „after“ art play an essential role in its definition? The report addresses and addresses the grounds of this question without providing answers.

The Use of the Detective Genre in 19th-Century English Prose

The detective genre in 19th-century English literature emerged as a response to the social, cultural, and legal transformations of the Victorian era. Rooted in urbanization, the rise of crime, and advancements in legal systems, the genre offered both entertainment and moral reflection for its readers. Key figures such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle played pivotal roles in shaping the genre, introducing enduring archetypes and innovative narrative structures. Detective fiction not only captivated audiences with its intricate plots and logical deductions but also reinforced societal values by exploring themes of justice and morality. This study examines the genre's foundational characteristics, its influence on Victorian readers, and its enduring legacy in modern literature and culture.

Technology, Modernization, and Religion in Developmental Latin America: Towards an Alternative Modernity

AbstractThis article starts with the general question about the role that religion played in Latin American philosophy in understanding technology in light of modernization and accelerated industrialization in the developmental periods of the twentieth century. As a first approach to the subject, the primary reference is José Gaos, one of the most prominent representatives of Mexican philosophy at the time. Gaos’ figure is especially significant for his influence on the configuration of the later Mexican philosophical panorama and his defense of a philosophical reflection in Latin America. Building on Gaos’ insights, this paper aims to demonstrate how religion, far from mere reactionism, emerged in Latin America—starting from the early 1950s—as a critical voice against bourgeois modernity. It also catalyzed the reimagining of an alternative modern culture. Our methodology involves (1) analyzing the historical and social context that Gaos’ work addresses; (2) conducting a conceptual analysis of Gaos’ ideas, with a focus on religion’s role as an explanatory and critical factor; and (3) offering an interpretation of Gaos’ ideas regarding technology and secularization as a situated diagnosis of modernity based on religion.

Phytochemical Analysis of Dried Hevea brasiliensis (Will. Ex Adr. De Juss.) Muell. et Arg Leaves Collected from the Ovitrap with Mosquito Larvae

In the modern culture the paddy fields are converted into rubber plantations and its plays a good breeding source for mosquitoes especially during rainy seasons. Our present investigation is to find out the phytochemical constituents present in Hevea brasiliensis dried leaves collected from the ovitrap as a preliminary study to find out the mosquito repellent activity. The obtained result suggests that the control showed the presence of terpenoid, phenol, alkaloid and tannin. Similarly methanol extract showed the presence of phenol, tannin and steroid; chloroform extract showed the presence of terpenoid, flavonoid, tannin and steroid; acetone extract showed the presence of alkaloid, tannin, steroid and aminoacid and aqueous extract showed the presence of steroid and aminoacid. Moreover, the results suggest that the dried leaf collected from the ovitrap contains various phytoconstituents which can be utilized for industrial use.

Nothing to See in Buenos Aires: Henri Michaux and the 1936 PEN Club Congress

ABSTRACT: The Belgian-French writer Henri Michaux traveled to Buenos Aires in September 1936 to participate in the PEN Club Congress. The event reunited writers from all over the world to dialogue with Latin American authors. Ultimately, it attempted to de-peripheralize Buenos Aires by inviting foreign writers to identify and validate the city's particular cultural modernity. Michaux protested against the highly politicized and spectacularized literary event and criticized the un-picturesque and un-exotic city. After the event, he wrote two texts ("L' hôte d' honneur du Bren Club" and "Un peuple et un homme") that portray the PEN as an attempt to achieve cultural modernity through mimicry. In this article, I take a transnational approach that inscribes Michaux's texts in the signifying network of the PEN in Buenos Aires and reads them face-to-face with Michaux's Latin American interlocutors (Victoria Ocampo, Alfonso Reyes, and Manuel Gálvez). By doing so, I show how the texts mirror local discourses that represented Buenos Aires (a metonymy for the whole country's identity) as an empty city with no cultural or natural particularity to show to its foreign visitors, with "nothing to see" in it.

Generation Z's Insights on Modern Cultural Factors in Chinese Kung Fu Cultural Experience Museums

Generation Z's Insights on Modern Cultural Factors in Chinese Kung Fu Cultural Experience Museums

Трансформация профессиональной этики в цифровой культуре

Digitalization generates cultural, social, economic, axiological and ethical transformations. Due to the transfer of professional activity to the digital space, the field of professional ethics is also undergoing changes, which becomes part of the so-called digital ethics, forming a new digital culture. The article proves that the digitalization of professional ethics creates a situation of uncertainty, forming ethical risks. The purpose of the study is to identify the risks of digitalization of professional ethics in modern digital culture. The article identifies the current content of digital ethics and professional ethics, examines their relationship and the level of mutual influence. The scientific novelty of the research lies in analyzing the transformation of professional ethics in the digital space. Thus, the article concludes that professional ethics during the transition to the digital space becomes a part of digital ethics. This changes the understanding of the value of the good and affects the ideas about the content of professional ethics. As a result, the ethical risks of professional ethics in digital culture are identified, which include the dehumanization of the ethical principles of the profession and the algorithmization of ethical expertise.

National Identity Crisis of Indonesian Education in the Global Era

This study examines the national identity crisis in Indonesian education globally. This type of research is literature with a qualitative approach. Data collection by reconstructing data from books, archives, magazines, documents, journals, documentation, newspapers, etc. Using the philosophical hermeneutic analysis approach of Hans-Georg Gadamer through the stages of interpretation, holistic, and heuristic. This study shows that education is needed to strengthen national identity in the vortex of social change. Globalization is like a "three-edged sword," namely it can weaken or even eliminate a culture (transcendence), can help revive a culture (transference), and can cause a mixture of cultures (transformation) between globalization and local culture. In addition, the factors causing the national identity crisis based on a global perspective from a sociological vision are specific culture (web culture), antisocial nature, and low criticality of adolescents in facing the development of technological culture. From an anthropological perspective, namely the hegemony of global culture by international powers, the weak resilience of society in facing the onslaught of global culture, the noble values ​​of culture are starting to erode and may even disappear at some point, and modern culture is replacing old traditions. This research is limited to a narrow-scope analysis of the national identity crisis, while there is still a need for other essential aspects that need further study. Education should not only examine the intellectual side but there is a need for a balance of science and knowledge so that the output is not only intelligent in intellectual terms but also has value, one of which is national identity and love for one's products and culture.

The modern architecture culture of Harbin based on memes

Cultural memes, which have the same heritability and variability as particulate biological genes, provide culture units that can be shared and transmitted across different periods, allowing cultural computing to be performed in a fine-grained manner. This paper extracts regional architectural cultural memes from the basic information of Harbin city’s modern architectural heritage and constructs an urban historical architectural cultural meme matrix. By using the social network calculation method, we analyse representative architectural memes, such as material memes, structural system memes, and architectural style memes, which represent the evolution of urban architectural culture, construct a network of urban architectural cultural memes, and explore their clustering characteristics and centrality characteristics. The research shows that Harbin’s urban architectural culture in the development and evolution of the process has a holistic cultural characterisation beyond architectural meme monoliths and architectural memeplexes and has formed a highly coupled and complex cultural system. The clustering coefficients of the architectural meme networks in the cultural pattern of urban architecture in different periods are all between 0.575 and 0.676 (more than 0.5), suggesting that the cultural similarities within the clusters of architectural heritages in the city have the characteristics of continuous heredity. The methodology and conclusions of this study can provide a methodological reference for the design of contemporary urban architecture cultural patterns and provide data supporting the development and improvement of urban historic district conservation planning.

Contradictions of a Society in Transition: A Look at Henry Musenge's Novel Changing Shadows

This article seeks to highlight the contradictions that characterise a society in transition in relation to cultural change. It focuses on Henry Musenge’s novel Changing Shadows. The novel depicts a people in a dilemma with regard to the appropriate culture between the traditional ethnic culture and the new modern culture. Some members in this society wish to adhere to tradition and at the same time, attempt to demonise the new emerging culture. On the opposite extreme end, others regard the traditional culture as backward and outdated; one that should be disposed of completely, and eagerly wish to embrace the new modern culture. And still, others wish to embrace both cultures – or the hybrid of both cultures. The contradiction lies in the fact that, on one hand, there is a (national) call to uphold (selected) traditional values and practices as these are said to enforce national identity and national pride and on the other hand, there is a ‘public’ call for change and a call to embrace the new modern culture: Thus, ‘tradition is good’ versus ‘tradition is bad, evil, retrogressive and outdated’. This bi-polar approach to culture happens in one society and consequently degenerates into internal divides in the same society. The challenge is that these two cultures in many respects tend to be mutually exclusive; the practices are conflicting. This calls for the need for society to revisit and be guided properly seeing that the ambivalent/dual-structured cultural disposition creates confusion and contradictions. This article is largely guided by the sociological approach which posits that literature should serve as a mirror of society as well as to provide solutions for society. However, it is also guided by theories surounded cultural studies and multiculturalism.

The Frontier Nature of Nostalgic Memory

The research is devoted to nostalgia, understood as an existential and a form of historical memory. The timeless relevance of the problem, which is becoming particularly acute in the space of modern mass culture, the culture of the globalized world, is highlighted. The problem is expressed by the contradiction between the orientation of modern culture towards the future and nostalgic intentions in various spheres of social life. This problem includes the question of the role of nostalgia in the life of the subject. The purpose of the study is to determine the ontological foundations of the modern “cultural turn” to the past in social psychology, and to identify the levels, features and models of nostalgic experiences. Four levels of nostalgia representation in culture are highlighted: individual, group, national and universal. The most recognizable features of nostalgia as a form of memory are considered, such as the existential grasp of being in a nostalgic experience, the non‑narrative, symbolic, mythological nature of fixed images of the past, striving for metaphysical authenticity, awareness of the impossibility of returning to the object of longing and simultaneous awaiting of the future, as well as transcending the boundaries of individual being. It is concluded that nostalgia can be both a tool for preserving the existing social order – and changing it, manifesting itself in the form of a static or dynamic model of experiencing longing for the past. The article is intended for researchers of the problems of mass culture, historical memory, and identity of a social subject.

The stakes of “Imitation”: debating modern poetics and national identity in late ottoman literature

ABSTRACT In the late nineteenth century, Ottoman culture witnessed a concerted effort to develop a national literature on par with modern European literature and culture. This was also the time when Ottoman intellectuals began to develop a systematic approach to literary analysis. Debates on the imitation, translation, and adaptation of Western forms were central to this period. This article examines the evolution of the concept and practice of imitation as part of these debates. This detailed analysis of the theoretical discourse surrounding the concepts of imitation and authenticity contributes to the broader field of literary theory and comparative literature. By introducing the theoretical rigor inherent in Ottoman-Turkish intellectual practice and highlighting its specific conceptual tradition, the article not only bridges the gap of non-Western critical thought in contemporary literary history, but also offers a fresh perspective on the much-debated East–West paradigms and cross-cultural approaches in literary studies and beyond.

Subjectness of metamodernity: signs of the times (in the wake of a previous discussion)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the manifestation of subjectness of metamodernity. The relevance of the study is due to the need to revise some of the features of metamodernism in connection with the realities of modern culture. Although metamodernism is not a philosophical system, the author substantiates the idea that, oscillating between modernist logocentrism and postmodern nihilism, metamodernism adheres to the principles of Kantian “transcendental idealism” and, striving for transcendence, overcomes immanence. The basis of metamodern aesthetics is also an object-oriented ontology, which, without destroying the hierarchies that will threaten the human place in the world, offers the means with which one can create an updated map of being, taking into account all its complexity and diversity. Going beyond postmodern detachment and alienation, metamodernism appeals to ethics, aesthetics, authenticity, hope, and the awakening of sensuality. Metamodernism is characterized by holism, connectionism and assimilation. These features are shown using examples from the field of fine arts, literature, cinema, as well as modern educational practices.

‘I will not eat with you’: Shylock and the Value of Vegetarianism in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (1598)

ABSTRACT Beyond a mere dietary preference, eating meat and vegetables in Shakespeare’s drama is also indicative of the consumer’s identity, social status and religious beliefs. This article probes the dietary language in early modern culture with a particular focus on Shylock’s seemingly violent flesh-eating rhetoric in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (1598). If eating meat connotes early modern sacrifice rituals and masculinity, then vegetarianism becomes a source of communal virtue, spiritual wealth and the celebration of religio-cultural diversity. Shylock’s vulgar rhetoric, his references to meat-eating (both animal and human), and his preference for a rotten, Christian pound of flesh are all situated within a context of religious conflict. Yet Shakespeare’s depiction of Shylock’s violent, carnivorous language is ultimately in ironic service of the moderate individual who is always willing to set aside self-interest and social biases for the sake of peaceful coexistence.

Biblical apocrypha and the in-betweenness of maskilic translation

ABSTRACT In recent years, the role of translation in the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) has become the focus of increasing scholarly attention. Often, the maskilic engagement with translation is viewed as an unambiguous route to modernity and to modern Jewish literature. But while the maskilim’s utilization of translation as a means for cultural innovation is now almost a truism among literary historians, their hesitations surrounding the importation of foreign works into the Hebrew literary sphere have been largely overlooked. This article discusses the translation of biblical apocrypha in the early Haskalah. It argues that the tangential position of translation in general, and the translation of biblical apocrypha in particular, posited this literary activity as an especially productive platform for unpacking concerns surrounding the means, forms, and languages of interreligious dialogue. For the maskilim, translation was not merely a device for literary and cultural modernization, so much as it was a way of reflecting on the promise and perils of modernity.

Home Services Recommendation System using Machine Learning for Urban Areas

The Kotlin-based on-demand home service system streamlines household tasks by offering services such as repairs, cleaning, gardening, and plumbing. In today's fast-paced world, it provides quick solutions for maintaining a clean and hygienic living environment. The Housekeeper Finder app is a prominent player in this space, utilizing advanced machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized service recommendations based on user preferences. It includes essential services like cooking, laundry, and elder care, along with a robust feedback system to improve service quality. Users can easily book services from anywhere, leveraging GPS technology to connect them with nearby providers. The "Domestic Android Application for Home Services" further enhances accessibility through location-based service requests and mapping capabilities for a seamless user experience across platforms.A s cities transition into Smart Cities, integrated information systems open new avenues for urban service recommendations, fostering liveability and sustainability. Recommendation systems analyse user behaviour to provide tailored suggestions using techniques like collaborative filtering and hybrid methods. In response to the challenges of modern work culture, the e-commerce landscape now offers easy access to essential services via mobile applications, ultimately transforming how households address their needs and promoting safer, cleaner living space.