Culture Cult Research Articles

UKRAINIAN STUDIES ACTUALITIES OF THE MODERN TEACHER’S PEDAGOGICAL CULTURE

The article substantiates, defines, and discloses the current Ukrainian studies of the teacher’s pedagogical culture in the context of modern political, social, and cultural issues of national education system formation in Ukraine. Attention is focused on the fact that the current mission of the New Ukrainian School education is to strengthen and develop the national idea, which is the lifeblood of state growth and the way to victory. Thus, it is necessary to form a pedagogical culture based on Ukrainian studies, which should be everywhere in educational, cultural, artistic, scientific, and information environments. It has been proven that the cult of culture, primarily national, must be perceived as a methodology of modern education. It should serve not only historical truth, intellectualization, and humanization of the personality but also be a safeguard, caution, and protection against expansion in the future, strengthening the Spirit of the People, which is our indomitable strength. It has been found that, when forming the personality of a teacher, lecturer, and their pedagogical culture, it is necessary to pay attention to two key aspects – professional and cultural, because the institution of higher education should provide not only “knowledge” competencies, but also create a cultural teacher. Pedagogical culture is formed two-dimensionally – concordantly and logically, sensually and rationally, humanely and realistically, with heart and mind. It is a kind of synthesis of soul and reason (intellect). It has been established that Ukrainian studies should be considered an essential component in the education content, which makes it sound, intellectual, humane, and national, strengthening the social processes of state-nation creation. Since educational Ukrainian-centrism will make it impossible for the rudiments of “cultural and educational imperialism” of Moscovites to manifest, which has always tried to destroy the national-historical life of Ukrainians, planting the ideology of little russia and statelessness. They can realize the highest civic task of education, which is to cultivate respect for one’s own “I,” one’s Kindred, People, Ukraine, to serve as a spiritual, socio-political factor of consolidation and development of the Nation.

Materialism and Finitude: Terry Eagleton's Marxism


 
 
 This essay focuses on the change of emphasis–already announced in The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1997) and evident in Sweet Violence (2003)–that took place in Eagleton’s writing at the turn of the century: from showing a historicist scepticism about universals to advocating acknowledgment of human creatureliness (frailty, suffering, death) without which any political project would fail. This change coincided with an approach to a Thomist version of the Christian religion that reflected the influence on Eagleton of his friend the Dominican Herbert McCabe and with a profound interest in Jacques Lacan. The article argues that this change did not affect Eagleton’s Marxist faith or imply shunning political action. Rather, the turn concerned the materialist basis of Eagleton’s proposal of a just life. The appeal to existential forces entailed, on the one hand, a critique of left historicism and of the postmodern cult of culture and relativism and, on the other, an attempt to reinforce a Marxist critique of capitalism and the resistance against fundamentalism, Nihilism, and consumerism. To propose his idea of the just life Eagleton appropriates both the notion of Christian charity–the idea of self-realization through love and solidarity–together with the Thomist conception of morality rooted in the body, and Lacan’s imperative “do not give up on desire”.
 
 

The Emergence of the Global South Novel: Red Sorghum, Présence Africaine, and the Third Novelists' International

Abstract This article focuses on an overlooked connection between the “cultural fever” in China in the 1980s and a comparable cultural fever that emerged in Africa and the Caribbean in the mid-1950s through the writing of Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Jacques Stéphen Alexis, and others. It argues that, in the mid-1950s, these writers politicized their discourse on culture partly under the influence of Mao's “Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art.” In particular, they translated the tension between the state and the local, which is intrinsic to Mao's “Talks,” into the dialectical opposition between nationalism and pan-Africanism. In post-Mao China, Chinese writers released the local from the grip of the state and aligned localism with a nascent cosmopolitanism, which inclined them to identify with Third World cosmopolitan writers. In the process of translating post-Mao Chinese literature into the mechanism of the world literary system, writers and translators transformed localism into an assimilable cult of culture. By looking at the shift of value in Chinese literature in the 1980s in relation to a change of consciousness in Euro-American literary culture in the same period, this article further argues that the context of Third Worldism is largely eliminated in the reception of global South literature in the world literary setting. It contends that recognizing the formation of Third World cosmopolitan novelists in the milieu of an international socialist literary culture oriented to the Third World necessitates the construction of a global history of the novel that will redress the myopia in novel studies, postcolonialism, and contemporary theories of world literature.

From Basic Instincts to Art Performance

Both science and the arts have largely disregarded cookery in their quests for the sublime and the beautiful; this article seeks to explicate why cookery has been excluded as a subject of analytical and aesthetic interest. By reexamining the particular sacredness attached to culture over time, this article outlines how processes of mastering spirit and knowledge go beyond physiology and physical senses (i.e., taste and smell). Fundamental causes for the decline of an established value order, which also gradually shifted the status of cookery, are identified. The development of food-related art and wisdom is considered in the context of the end of the cult of culture in its commonsense usage. This essay approaches food and the art of its preparation as an epistemological, aesthetic question, as well as an example for illustrating the decomposition of one value system and the foundation of another; it also details the new opportunities this transformation creates.

Food – The Story of Our Life: A Contribution to the Studies of Food and the Anthropology of Taste

By approaching the phenomenon of food (consumption) as an identity issue of the first order, as man’s alimentary, only true biography, and an authentic expression of self and experience, but also as a key phenomenon in the development of man and mankind, the author points toward the anthropologically relevant aspects of research pertaining to food (the mythological, cultural and historical, economic, aesthetic, linguistic, political). The development of the art and philosophy of food (consumption) is considered in the context of history of the ideas of Epicureanism, empiricism and lametrism, as well as in the context of the end of the cult of culture” in its traditional meaning. Moving between issues of art theory and epistemology, the author pays special attention to the causes of the theoretical neglect of the senses of taste and smell, historical reasons of the second-rate position of gastronomy among the other sciences and arts, as well as changes taking place at the end of the “short 20th century” which enabled a revolution in aesthetics and social values – the expansion of food studies and the art of cookery. Thus the aim of the paper is twofold: on the one hand it is an attempt to shed some light on the history of this revolution in the context of the theoretical and aesthetic relationship toward food and the art of its preparation, and on the other, it should be an argument incentive to have the basic issue of food (consumption) find its way onto our own academic menu.

The Culture Cult Revisited

What is the gravest threat to “open” democratic societies today? In Karl Popper’s view it was tribalism. By contrasting closed autarkic Sparta and free-trading Athens, and looking at the social systems of Fascism and Communism (on the one hand) and Western democracy (on the other), he argued that the “enemies” of the open society were forms of belief and social organization humanity had yet to transcend. These were embodied in solidaristic ideals hostile to rationality, individualism, and pluralism. The Culture Cult (Westview 2001) argued that in the last 50 years this tendency has expressed itself in a widespread romantic enthusiasm for the primitive (defined as “romantic primitivism”) and an admiration for ethnic culture at the expense of civilized values. The older sense of “culture” as understood by Matthew Arnold was exclusive, prescriptive, and hierarchical. The anthropological sense of the word used today is inclusive, descriptive, and horizontal. The article looks at the role of Herder and Isaiah Berlin in providing a rationale for this state of affairs.

Pluralism and Multiculturalism

I agree with Roger Sandall’s opposition to the ‘culture cult’ in broad outline, but wish to register three reservations. First, he is too sweeping in apparently attacking the whole of ‘multiculturalism’, and unfair in condemning claims on the basis of the motives allegedly behind them. Second, his relativist interpretation of Berlin and Herder needs qualification, since their work also contains the idea of value pluralism, which should be distinguished from relativism. Third, the political implications of pluralism support a commitment to liberal universalism and liberal multiculturalism, which may not be far removed from Sandall’s own position.

On The Construction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Experience in ‘Critical’ Outdoor Education

Abstract Experience is at the historical heart of outdoor education, caring for the environment/nature is a new moral imperative for 'critical' outdoor education, yet the activity basis of the outdoor/nature experience/imperative and the discourse(s) in which they function are rarely examined. To rectify this oversight, different constructions of critical outdoor education are contrasted to highlight the potency of the ecopolitic and (socio-)environmental ethic embodied in each construction. The essay concludes reconstructively with an elaboration of some critical dimensions of outdoor education. The paper invites 'reflective' and 'critical' outdoor/experiential educators to scrutinize the meanings they give to 'experience', how they construct it pedagogically in and through selected activities in certain environments and how, in turn, there are individual, social and ecological consequences for the 'experiencer', (outdoor) education's role in constituting such subjectivities and, subsequently, how 'inner', 'social' and 'outer' natures are constructed, often in contradiction. Introduction The 'postmodern' discourse of 'critical' outdoor education in Australia has recently been broadened by a number of essays that, in different ways, examine or challenge the field's educational assumptions and aspirations. Care for the environment, for example, is a focus. The term 'culture' is also prominent in this critical discourse that seems to have distanced itself from the 'social' equity and justice concerns of 'modern' critical theory (Martin, 1999, p. 464). This critical discourse also appears to have non-problematically imported from other cultures the 'deep' imperative for living in harmony with the environment while rehearsing various deconstructions of a range of cultural myths associated educationally with the socalled 'ecological crisis' (Bowers, 1987, 1993). Criticisms, presumably of Australian culture and its historical development and educational institutions are, in general, directed at the dominance of western, anthropocentric, positivist, patriarchal, industrial, progressive and dualistic thinking. Culture, it seems, in both Australia and the Pacific North-West of the USA, from where Bowers is writing, is at odds with nature and its care. The trend to 'cultural criticism' in outdoor education in Australia mirrors broader academic developments in the Humanities and - Social Sciences, including educational theory. Yet, despite the many vantage points available for examining the formative development of critical outdoor education, the infamous exchanges between Bowers (1991a, b, c) and the critical theorist of education Peter McLaren (1991) and feminist theorist of education Maxine Greene are not acknowledged. Nor are the various critiques of 'deep ecology' in environmental philosophy, social and feminist theory that have come from various parts of the (western) world, at least (Beck, 1995; Biehl & Staudenmaier, 1995; Ferry, 1995; Heller, 1999; Salleh, 1993; van Wyck, 1997). These 'lacks' point to a number of conceptual problems with practical consequences in the emerging culturally critical discourse of outdoor education in Australia. As might be expected, the study of culture is a dynamic, as has recently been demonstrated in Roger Sandall's (2001) pro-(western)-civilization critique of the relativism of what he calls 'the culture cult'. Writing in Australia, about Australia and New Zealand, Sandall, a culturally conservative anthropologist, argues amongst a litany of complaints that the 'romantic primitivism' associated with the culture cult has ushered in the phenomenon of 'designer tribalism' to the 'new age' practices and discourses of some disaffected segments of contemporary postmodern society. These include radical, mystical and spiritual elements of the environmental movement, of which critical outdoor education may be a candidate for membership. From the 'other' side of politics, the 'leftist' German critical theorist Jurgen Habermas (1989) differentiates between 'old', 'new' and 'young' conservativism in cultural criticism. …

The culture cult: designer tribalism and other essays

The culture cult: designer tribalism and other essays

The Lure of Beauty

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EnnroRs: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRoviNCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: Sheed and Ward, Inc., New York City VoL. VIII APRIL, 1945 THE LURE OF BEAUTY ROM THE fifteenth century to the present day the western world has been drifting with more or less gay abandon from the solid moorings of truth and goodness. This vagrancy has been marked by two trends: an abandonment of scientific philosophy and theology in favor of the elevating experiences of esthetics, and a departure from classic Christianity under the guise of pursuing culture. The moderns give full expression to this now ancient vagabondage as they chant of the dawn of a new era of culture and revel in rhapsodies on art and beauty. Now, the allurements of beauty are very old. But they become extravagant when man despises true wisdom and departs from moral goodness. The temptations of esthetics are many. The mind of man has a desire to penetrate the material world about him. In a limited way the esthetic experience satisfies this desire, but at the same time it feeds the false hope that man can exceed his intellectual perfection, which here below consists in universal truths, and rival the divine and angelic in149 150 JOHN FEARON tellects in their total exploitation of the concrete individual. In the face of a reluctance on the part of the material world to expose its inner self to the human mind man artfully contrives to give matter an intelligibility not its own in an attempt to elucidate the beauty of his world. Loving the child of his own mind fosters in man the temptation to rest in his image and exult in his own self-expression. In a way this flatters the same presumption that toppled Adam-that man can be the principle of his own perfection. And just as there is a possibility of confusing the merits of esthetic and philosophic knowledge, there is the possibility of confusing the beautiful and the good. Succumbing to this temptation leads to the modem cult of culture. Disregard for truth and goodness makes the modern an easy target for the wily one who capitalizes on any and all temptations . But sound doctrine can reduce the potentiality of these temptations and rob beauty of its deceptive lure. The fundamental ideas of St. Thomas on beauty are the surest road to a realization of the distinctions and limitations which belong to esthetics. St. Thomas lived in a beautiful age, sometimes called the greatest of centuries. True, his observations on the beautiful are scattered through his works in terse phrases pregnant with meaning. He merely pauses to give a definition, to indicate beauty's relationship to the good or to assign its place in the Trinity. But this process is natural to the rapid pace at which a theological synthesis must travel. Furthermore, it is well to bear in mind that Divine Providence had definite designs upon the genius of the friar from Rocca Sicca. In doctrinal matters St. Thomas had one intent and purpose: to establish theology as a strict science, the most perfect of sciences. IDtimately this involved the production of a " summa " of Sacred Doctrine for beginners. The magnificence of this work has been recognized through the centuries, sometimes even with the silent encomium of resting on the shelves reserved for research and reference. Eric Gill once said " look after goodness and truth, and beauty will take care of herself.'' 1 The Angelic Doctor took care of truth. 1 Eric Gill, Beauty Looks After Herself, Sheed & Ward, N. Y. 1933, p. !M5. THE LURE OF BEAUTY 151 Pope John XXII gave Thomas Aquinas the title of Saint. Pope Pius XI gave St. Thomas Aquinas the title of Universal Doctor. This paper is not undertaken in the pontifical spirit which would add the tile of Esthete to those of Saint and Doctor. But perhaps it may help to lead the moderns back to truth and goodness. Then" beauty will take care of herself." I In attempting to piece together the scattered fragments of St. Thomas' esthetics into an integrated whole, harmonious with the rest of his synthesis, the usual...