Era Of Culture Research Articles

Participatory and Transformative Engagement in Libraries and Museums: Exploring and Expanding the Salzburg Curriculum

During a program titled “Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture,” co-sponsored by the Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), one of the discussion groups developed recommendations for skills needed by librarians and museum professionals in today’s connected and participatory world. The group focused on the concepts, knowledge, and processes that both librarians and museum professionals need to understand and know, realizing that participatory culture has ramifications both for traditional functions and emerging skills. The initial framework was an overview. This paper expands on the work started in Salzburg and calls for further discussion. By opening the conversation to the library and museum worlds, it is proposed that the two systems of education and continuing education will experience positive and possibly unexpected synergistic benefits.

Introduction

Introduction

A Study of the Evolution and Contemporary Development of Disclosure Practices of Annual Reports in Sri Lanka

The evolution and contemporary development of usage of annual reports in Sri Lanka acts a critical role in the disclosure practices of the financial performances of the companies in Sri Lanka. From the British era of the Sri Lankan culture, there was a clear evolution of the disclosure practices of Sri Lanka. This refers the evolution of disclosure practices in the annual reports of Sri Lanka by giving a major focus to the intellectual capital (IC) disclosure practices. It means human capital information, customer capital information and social capital information. The period has been divided in to four categories as before 1948, between 1948 to 1977, between 1977 to 2009 and modern period after 2009. Throughout these four eras the disclosure practices have been developing and in modern days and the disclosure practices of Sri Lankan annual reports show the real picture of the companies performances rather than past eras since the fast growing of disclosure practices in last two decades.

Truth Becomes Fiction When Fiction Is True: The Story of the Stone and the Visual Culture of the Manchu Court

Abstract This paper seeks to interpret The Story of the Stone with reference to the visual culture of the Manchu court. It argues that the Yongzheng reign (1723–1735) inaugurated a new era of visual culture when jia (the unreal or fiction) became itself a productive concept and an indispensable visual device in the illusionistic paintings and interior decoration of the Manchu palaces and gardens. In addressing the intricate interplay and intersections of zhen (the real or true) and jia, The Story of the Stone does more than rehash an inherited literary theme or rhetorical device. Drawing heavily on the contemporary paintings and decorative art of the imperial court, it gives both a gripping expression to and a sophisticated spin on the visual penchant and sensibility of the Manchu royal house and aristocracy.

A Study on Color Improvement for Regional Identity - Focusing on Gongju

Background : As a historical and cultural area, the image shows the local historical traditions of the region. Tradition is something that a number of people pursue and accept over many years. Currently there are no special characteristics of artificial environmental colors in the local architectures of Gongju, and in the disorder with the absence of specific colors, no specific image can be portrayed. In other words, the local characteristics and personality are not being reflected. In a cultural era, creating a regions unique chromatic standards is required to preserve its regional identity. Methods : As the research method, we analyzed the status of the residential and commercial buildings’ colors. In overseas cases, the status of the city and colors was derived by analyzing the implications. Using the extraction method, the color guidelines, the unique colors which showed the historical culture, the natural environment, and the regional themes of Gongju were extracted. Next, the main color, sub-color, and the emphasis color were made into a color scheme and with this as the base, the color application range was proposed. Result : The materials for the color guide used were based on the colors attained through the color analysis of the different facets of the intensive Gongju region, historical culture and the natural environment. For the intensive Gongju region, a color scheme to improve the standards criteria such as buildings, public facilities, and outdoor advertising was proposed. To advance and improve the effectiveness of the proposed research, a thorough inspection and management utilizing a checklist after reviewing enacted laws and regulations is required. Conclusion : Thus, the image must be created considering the history of the region, cultural resources, and utilization of colors to create the regional identity of Gongjus standard colors. Since the issue of the identity of a city or a region lies with each municipality-level, the local government and the public perception and awareness must be exalted to achieve the regional identity. In addition, the vision of the region must correspond to the goals of the regional colors, followed by specific strategies to sufficiently promote strategies and practices that enable members to understand and participate.

A Study on the Managerial Efficiency of Cultural Finance in the Era of Culture : with priority given to annual expenditure

A Study on the Managerial Efficiency of Cultural Finance in the Era of Culture : with priority given to annual expenditure

Rethinking the Traditional Paradigm of Communication in the Era of Digital Culture

This article aims to speculate on how the nature of communication is changing with respect to the production, manipulation and distribution of signs on various digital platforms by making a detour to the reviewing of the traditional paradigm of communication on the basis of Jacque Derrida’s critique of Austin’s speech act theory. The Derridian notion of iterability can be a clue to inquire into the contextual limit on the singularity of an event which Austin promulgates as the essence of linguistic performativity. As Derrida argues, communication must be iterable, that is, both repeatable and alterable, since it always tends toward the possibility of moving from one context to another. The interface in digital communication can be understood in terms of the Derridian sense of iterability in communication, in the sense that the interface functions basically as a transmutable platform where a digital sign performs its reciprocal acts of sending and receiving. And the iterable mechanism of digital communication can provide a useful clue to pinpoint the significance of the Digital Humanities in our time, since the most fundamental task of this new hybridized discipline would be how to montage various sets of database for the maximized qualitative use in humanities research and education. Thereby, digital communication tends toward an epistemological mapping by intersecting various layers of virtual time and space.

"({})": Raunch Culture, Third Wave Feminism and The Vagina Monologues

This article considers Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues in the latter part of the 2000s, in respect of tensions between Second and Third Wave feminism in an era of raunch culture, in the contexts of exploratory university teaching and in performance, and against the background of experiences of cultures of feminist activism in Greater Manchester, and the trashier end of feminist literature.

Roomscape: Women Writers in the British Museum from George Eliot to Virginia Woolf by Susan David Bernstein (review)

Reviewed by: Roomscape: Women Writers in the British Museum from George Eliot to Virginia Woolf by Susan David Bernstein Andrea Westcott (bio) Roomscape: Women Writers in the British Museum from George Eliot to Virginia Woolf by Susan David Bernstein; pp. 231. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2013. $120.00. Cloth. Marking the end of a social and cultural era, the closing of the Round Reading Room of the British Museum on 25 October 1997 sparked this study of the room by Susan David Bernstein. By countering Virginia Woolf’s central argument in A Room of One’s Own that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (qtd. in Bernstein 156), Bernstein demonstrates how using this space in particular, and communal space in general, worked to “promote networks of compelling affiliations” (190). She posits that what women required were “public, social spaces where women could meet, conduct research, find mentors, and inspire and learn from one another” (1). This being Bernstein’s definition of exteriority, she argues that in providing both “interiority and exteriority” (one wonders why [End Page 252] the words private and public wouldn’t work just as well) the Reading Room offered women “a particularly generative space for writing” (1). Bernstein follows the careers of Eleanor Marx, Amy Levy, the Black and Rossetti sisters, Mary Robinson, Mathilde Blind, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf, her choices partially dictated by how often they used the Reading Room. Bernstein looks at its original spatial design, analyzes the lists of those who frequented it, and questions the separate-spheres theory by suggesting that public and private boundaries were not as rigid as Victorian lore suggests. Bernstein’s “catalogical” perspective, her “methodology for reading catalogues and indexes” (4), or and what she describes as “viewing external and easily accessible markers” reveals “women’s place in this venue’s history” (27, 29). Bernstein also explores how class structure divided those who elected to use the British Museum (a public library with a diverse democratic readership) and those who preferred the London Library (a private paying library established by Thomas Carlyle). To begin on the left end of the spectrum, Bernstein chooses Eleanor Marx because she exemplifies “the importance of exteriority for women” (35). By this she means, “Marx supplemented her activism for both women’s rights and socialism through lectures, journalism and translations” (35). That Marx championed Henrik Ibsen by learning Norwegian in order to translate his plays captures the range of her interests and priorities, since she was “[r]iveted by the playwright’s attention to women’s social position, sexual desires, and the constraints of bourgeois morality and money” (47). Similarly, Clementina Black, head of the Women’s Trade Union League, did translation work to support her union efforts (52). Black’s congenial relationship with Richard Garnett, the “Keeper of Printer Books at the British Museum from 1875–99” (54), helped the writing careers of both herself and her sister. Bernstein therefore calls the marriage of Constance Black to Garnett’s son Edward “a Reading Room marriage” (59). Furthermore, under the tutelage of another Reading Room regular, Constance learned Russian and “virtually introduced Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov to anglophone readers across the world” (55). Bernstein reiterates her thesis (banging on her drum a bit too often) that Constance’s “translation work is part of a story about exteriority” (55). Amy Levy, also mentored by Garnett, was another avid user of the Reading Room. Bernstein draws on Levy’s essay “Readers at the British Museum” and notes the importance to Levy “of public space and collective organising” (64), which neatly fits Bernstein’s developing argument. In her treatment of women poets’ use of the Reading Room, Bernstein explores the reciprocal relationship between Blind and Garnett, noting its beneficial influence on Blind’s biography of George Eliot (1883). However, in contrast to Marx, Levy and Blind, George Eliot was a much less enthusiastic user of the space. She preferred her own extensive collection, or the London Library, both more conducive to her temperament (115), most likely [End Page 253] because of her non-conjugal living arrangement with George Henry Lewes. Bernstein thinks this “roomscape...

Norweigan

Alf Proysen’s Mrs Pepperpot stories compose a large and manifold material covering a plethora of editions, media, languages, and illustrations. Focusing on how Proysen presented the stories in Norway in an interplay between various media and editions from the midst of the 1950s, this article discusses Proysen’s work in light of Peter Lunenfeld’s notion of “unfinished business”. Originally developed to grapple with computer technology in the era of digital culture, the notion of the “unfinished” also seems as an appropriate perspective on Proysen’s artistic strategy when developing and presenting his Mrs Pepperpot. The article argues that Proysen’s constant reworkings of the stories for new media and editions may have played an important part in developing the Mrs Pepperpot stories as they allowed Proysen to explore and experiment with his little old lady through sound, text, and illustration. Keywords: Alf Proysen; Mrs Pepperpot; children’s literature; Peter Lunenfeld; unfinished Alf Proysen; Mrs Pepperpot; children’s literature; Peter Lunenfeld; unfinished

Introduction: This is Our Music

GERALD EARLY, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1997 and Chair of the Academy’s Council, is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University in St. Louis. His books include A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports (2011), One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture (rev. ed., 2004), and This is Where I Came In: Black America in the 1960s (2003). The twentieth century has many names: the Century of the Child, the American Century, the Century of Genocide, the Age of the Atom, the Era of Mass Culture, the Age of the Welfare State, the Age of Totalitarianism. But the most apt characterization of the last century may be historian Tim Blanning’s “the Age of the Triumph of Music.”1 To be sure, in Western society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, music was an incredible force–from the creation of national anthems to the rise of folk music as an expression of the authentic, from wild adulation for certain composers and performers (Beethoven, Liszt, Rossini, Nellie Melba, Jenny Lind, among many others) to the popularity of a highly racialized American minstrelsy that became the cornerstone of the American musical theater. (The rise of the piano as a major performance vehicle and source for composition and the rise of the parlor piano as a signi1⁄2er of domestic bourgeois taste and manner are themselves extraordinary occurrences of the modern musical sensibility.2) The twentieth century did not invent the popular obsession with music, but it did, in both degree and kind, transform the nature of the obsession. In the twentieth century, thanks to recording technology, music became ubiquitous; audiences could experience it divorced from live performance and, as studio technology improved, divorced from the constraints of live performance.3 (This brings to mind legendary rock and roll producer Phil Spector’s observation about his bombastic teen tunes of the

Processi Dinamici nella Cultura Postmoderna: Interpenetrazione tra Pubblicità e Cultura

Dynamic processes in the culture of Post-Modernism: Interpenetration of advertizing and culture. The work describes dynamic processes taking place in culture of the era of postmodernism which are characterized by a sharp growth of cultural and social diversity, declarations of the plurality principle, fragmentation of the cultural unity, attention to personality and its inner world, self-controlled structures, identity problems, increase in the opportunities for diversity of progress, refusal from some principles of the global social action. Purpose of the research is to establish the causes and mechanisms of the dynamic processes’ influence on the modern society through analyzing the era of postmodern culture. Advertizing, as a "mass culture" element, creates an uncritical, consumer consciousness. Advertizing and culture of the postmodern era are in a close interrelation, and have an effect of interpenetration. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p318

Nigeria’s Core Values and the Use of Social Media to Promote Cultural Values

This article examines how Nigeria’s core values are being redefined in the face of the new media and cultural globalisation era; it identifies Nigeria’s core values to include age, greeting, dressing, among others. The questionnaire was used as an instrument to elicit data from the sampled population (Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State). Findings show that the Internet, especially, is changing Nigeria’s core values. Based on the findings, the paper concludes that Nigerians, especially the youths no longer have regards for their culture; rather, they value foreign culture. Also, the paper concludes that globalisation and global culture is gradually eroding Nigeria’s core values as people no longer have regards for their local culture; rather they value the foreign culture. The paper, among others, recommends that the media in Nigeria should adequately transmit local programmes in order to genuinely reflect indigenous culture. The media no doubt, plays a significant role in projecting and reflecting culture. In doing so, indigenous culture should be adequately reflected through sufficient airing of programmes with local content to prevent dominance of Western values over indigenous values and the local languages be instituted in Nigerian school system and monitored to ensure local dialects are learnt and spoken. In this way, the youths will learn to attach value to their culture right from their formative years.

Southeast Asia in the age of jazz: Locating popular culture in the colonial Philippines and Indonesia

Referencing insights from Cultural Studies and taking a jazz-age perspective, this essay aims to historicise and ‘locate the popular’ in colonial Indonesia and the Philippines. A new cultural era dawned in the 1920s urban hubs of Southeast Asia, associated with the creation of novel forms of vernacular literature, theatre, music and their consumption via the print press, gramophone, radio broadcasting and cinema. By investigating the complex relationship between the elusive phenomena of modernity, cosmopolitanism and nationalism as articulated by two pioneering artists active in commercial music and theatre, the social significance of popular culture is scrutinised.

Auspicious Omens in the Reign of the Last Empress of Nara Japan, 749–770

The pattern of auspicious omens reported to the court and recorded in Shoku Nihongi during the reign of the last Nara empress, Koken/Shotoku Tenno, offers essential insights into the royal political theology of the time. Royal edicts and memorials to the throne discussing portentous animals, cloud formations, and spontaneous inscriptions on unusual surfaces constituted a dialog between court and literati revealing a coherent interpretation of how the cosmos responded to the actions and situation of ruler and subjects. The omens were a component of a developing structure of yin-yang (onmyo) thought, although the evidence of the chronicle is that Onmyodo itself as a formal system had not yet crystallized. Most notable is that the omens were unfailingly good omens, upholding the sovereign in an age beset by succession disputes, conspiracies, and outright rebellion, and provided the occasions for creating auspicious era names.keywords: omens-shozui-weft texts-Onmyodo-nengo-Koken/Shotoku Tenno-edicts-senmyo-Shoku Nihongi(ProQuest: Foreign text omitted.)The calendar of eighth-century Japan is dotted with unusual era names (neng? ...) inspired by turtle omens: Reiki ... (715-717; numinous tortoise); Jinki ... (724-729; divine tortoise); and H?ki ... (770- 781; jeweled tortoise). Even the neng? of the great cultural era Tenpy? ... (729-749; heavenly peace) was occasioned by the apparition of a large white tortoise with seven Chinese characters (...) proclaiming peace in the realm inscribed on its carapace. These neng? are uniquely Japanese and dif- fer from the Chinese-era names of the time. The Japanese-era names all resulted from portentous events in the history of the Nara period, and the periods des- ignated-ranging from a few months to twenty years-form a counterpoint to the longer-range Chinese calendars such as the Dayan ... calendar, adopted gradually during the reign of the last empress.The reign of the last empress, K?ken/Sh?toku Tenn? ... (r. 749-770),1 is unusual in many respects. In her reign the neng? adopted were four character combinations-Tenpy? Sh?h? ..., or Jingo Keiun .... The use of four characters for era names, probably inspired by those during the reign of Wu Zetian ... (690-705; Rothschild 2006, 134) is unique in Japanese history. K?ken/Sh?toku was the last in a series of six female Tenn? over a period of almost two hundred years, the first being Suiko Tenn? ... (r. 592-628). Not until a thousand years later were women again seated on the Chrysanthemum Throne, and then only twice and in extremely differ- ent circumstances. K?ken/Sh?toku, unlike all but one of the previous female Tenn?, had never been married to an emperor or crown prince, and she her- self never married. She was the first woman to be formally designated Crown Prince (K?taishi ...) and the only woman to take Buddhist orders while an empress regnant. In the Shoku Nihongi, over half of the sixty-two Old Japanese senmy? ... are ascribed to her.2Another peculiarity of her reign, pointed out by Murayama Sh?ichi (1981, 52), is that the number of both recorded auspicious omens and catastrophic events such as famines and epidemics peaked during this era. Japanese historians have embarked on increasingly sophisticated textual criticism of Shoku Nihongi, exam- ining the circumstances of its compilation, embedded text types such as jitsuroku ... (veritable records), the influence of features such as the adoption of Chi- nese calendars, astronomical observations, and the wishes of later emperors, particularly Emperor Kanmu ... (Sakamoto 1971; Nakanishi 2000 and 2002; Hosoi 2007). Hosoi in particular has provided a complete index of auspi- cious omens in the Rikkokushi as part of his analysis (see Chart 4 in Hosoi 2007, 83--85).The omen reporting and interpreting techniques found in Shoku Nihongi comprise only one component of a vast, multifaceted complex of ideas trickling into Japan for centuries from the Korean peninsula, China, India, and south- eastern and western Asia for many centuries. …

Function(s) of Religion in the Contemporary World: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

With respect to our psychoanalytic frame of reference allowing us to study the extent of the hypotheses concerning the religious phenomenon as formulated by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, in the context of a cross approach between the accuracy of the concept of conversion and of psychic mechanisms or phenomena at stake within conversions, and based on the testimonials of subjects acknowledging themselves in the experiment of conversion, we try to understand if and how religion is anchored in our cultural era through subversive effects it may have on the subject.

A study on a plasticity analysis for the Gilt-bronze Incense Burner of Baekje -Through a comparative analysis with Chinese Inlaid Gold Boshan Xianglu-

The Baekje Gilt-bronze Incense Burner which was excavated in an ancient temple site in Neungsan-ri, within the City wall of Buyeo-Gun on 23rd December 1993, was a quintessence of the Bakje Arts that people could not have imagined until that time. The Baekje Gilt-bronze Incense Burner transcended 1400 years of time and space. The censer that finally came up to us delivered a kind of a powerful message to us. The power was so strong and mysterious that as if an ancestor who had been sleeping in the grave with a great silent had woken up and become alive to tell us something very precious. Baekje Gilt-bronze Incense Burner, unlike any other existing artifacts, might have a possibility that could provide an insight of the ancients' psych who once lived on our land. This kind of view from several archaeologists, therefore, made our hearts be filled with excitement and flutter. We call 21st century as an era of culture. This era requests that the culture needs to be ethnical but the culture also needs to go beyond that ethnic. In other words, a culture without an ethnic cannot exist, and a culture that puts an ethnic the very first before any other things cannot exist as well. Regaining our identities first and then embracing and harmonizing various cultures can be an wise way overcoming above problem. Hence, through this study, I intend to recognize characteristic of plasticity for Baekje Gilt-bronze Incense Burner, understand the world of Baekje people's spirit and thus provide an opportunity to shed new light on the Baekje Arts. By doing so, I would like to publicize a metal craft of Korea to the world. I also try to seek for an identity of Korea's craft culture which is receding and find a direction for the Korea's craft.

Apoptosis in Living Animals Is Assisted by Scavenger Cells and Thus May Not Mainly Go through the Cytochrome C-Caspase Pathway

Because billions of cells die every day in their bodies, animals have evolutionarily developed apoptosis to preserve the tissue environment from adverse effects of dead cells, a process achieved via phagocytosis of the cell corpses by professional or amateur phagocytes that are collectively referred to as scavengers. Hence, apoptosis is a merger of two procedures separately occurring inside the dying and the scavenger cells, respectively. The task of apoptosis research is to study how these death procedures occur without hurting the host tissues, and recruitment of in vitro system into the study must be justified for this purpose. Cells in culture have no motivation to preserve the environment, and their death does not involve corpse clearance by scavengers. Therefore, programmed cell death in culture should be redefined, for example as stress-induced cell death, to avoid many sources of confusions, since the word “apoptosis” had already been defined, prior to the era of cell culture, as a silent and beneficial cell suicide with corpse clearance as a distinctive hallmark. We should start over again on apoptosis research by determining whether different physiological apoptotic procedures in animals involve the cytochrome c-caspase pathway, since it has been established from cultured cells as a central mechanism of “apoptosis” but whether it overarches any physiological apoptotic procedure in animals is still unclear. Probably, cells in living animals are programmed to use scavengers to assist their apoptosis but cells in culture have no scavengers to help and thus need to go mainly through the cytochrome c-caspase pathway.

(De)Facing the Wall. The Traditions, Transactions and Transgressions of Street Art

Exploring the shifting ground of the relationship between street art and transgression, this article analyses the dislocation of street art from its traditional geographies of deviance and, in the era of advanced commodity culture, investigates the possibilities for understanding this art form as a socially engaged spatial practice. Embedding contemporary street art in the artistic practices of Surrealism and Situationism, the article traces a lineage of graffiti's associations with protest and the street through to its current manifestations within some of the world's most established 'white cube' gallery spaces. In attempting to avoid the inevitable melancholic readings of street art as commodified sign, the paper argues for the importance of considering the locatedness of the work in any evaluation, and thus moves to read street art in correspondence with the urban spaces in which it performs.

Amateur subtitling as immaterial labour in digital media culture

Media sociologists and cultural globalization theorists have tended to overlook the contribution of translators to the circulation of media content in the era of digital culture. After critiquing the reasons for the invisibility of translation in the literature on global cultural transactions, this article moves on to examine the emergence of new amateur subtitling collectivities in today’s informational society, exploring the role that non-professional translators – specifically, networks of activist subtitlers – play within the participatory media industries. Using examples from a case study of Ansarclub, a Spanish group of engaged amateur translators, this article gauges the extent to which their participation, remediation and bricolage practices – the main components of digital culture (Deuze [2006] Participation, remediation, bricolage: considering principal components of a digital culture. The Information Society 22: 63–75) – fit in or divert from the cocreational dynamics underpinning other domains of the media marketplace. It is argued that the interventionist and ‘monitorial’ quality of activist subtitling lies at the heart of an emerging paradigm of civic engagement, with fluid transnational communities of interest acting as the building blocks of participatory translation.