Free World Research Articles

A displaced person’s settling of accounts: the grotesque image of the post-war order in the poetry of Tadeusz Borowski

The main thesis in the introductory part of the article argues that Tadeusz Borowski’s poems, written from the perspective of a DP camp inmate, involve the claim and show the image of reality after World War II in a grotesque way. The analysis of the selected poems of the post-war order grotesque covers three central issues: the personal feelings of a displaced person whose right to freedom has been taken away in a supposedly free world, the national concerns of Poles and the political situation after 1945. Borowski is shown as the creator of modern poetry, dominated by the grotesque, and he needs it in order to get to the hidden or concealed truth. The grotesque effect is achieved by using heterogeneity of the style, mixing a journalistic style and colloquial and vulgar expressions with highly sophisticated metaphors, mundane matters combined with national symbols and myths, and biologism opposing ideology. Moreover, the effect usually occurs in combination with the poetics of surprise and antinomy, supplemented with sarcasm and parody or absurdity. The grotesque serves as a supplement to realism and documentarism.

Perspectives of Future Russo-Georgian War: Real Possibility or Speculation

Perspectives of Future Russo-Georgian War: Real Possibility or Speculation

20세기 인구학에 비친 아시아-태평양에서의 냉전과 생명 정치

The primary goal of this paper is to examine the biopolitics of Asia-Pacific as a geographical area after the Second World War. The term Asia-Pacific is defined as the so-called free world, a cluster of non-communist states in the region. Turbulent political and economic years in Asia-Pacific drove America to take a deep interest in the region. America has increased its political and economic assistance in the region since 1945. This expansionist strategy resulted in the preponderance of American power in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and India. Thousands of American military forces, diplomats, missionaries, technical workers, businesspeople, and even travelers have visited Asia-Pacific over the years. I focus on a series of writings on demographic studies to investigate biopolitical ideas regarding the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, James A. Michener was a proponent of building Americans’ awareness of Asia. He explored many countries, met diverse people, and shared his experiences in his publications. He supported the goals of American foreign policy in the Cold War era, claimed that the importance of the Asia-Pacific region should not be underestimated, and reflected the demographic idea.

Cultural diplomacy, artistic network, and the politics of decolonization between Taiwan and the Philippines in the Cold War era

ABSTRACT During the Cold War, cultural engagements frequently occurred between Taiwan and the Philippines due to their military and geopolitical alliance in East Asia. This essay explores this cultural linkage at both the diplomatic and individual levels by examining the politics and aesthetics of the art exhibitions both countries participated in as well as the intellectual encounters among individual artists. The First Southeast Asia Art Conference and Competition, a postwar art event held in the Philippines, demonstrated Taiwan’s cultural diplomacy in the Free World; it also highlighted the different figurations of colonial modernities and the emerging national identities developed in East and Southeast Asia in the postcolonial era. While the cultural linkage between Taiwan and the Philippines was a product of the geo-military strategy in the Cold War era, the translocal friendships and the artistic networks were actively maintained by the individual artists in the late Cold War years, after the Taiwan–Philippines diplomatic relation ended. This intra-regional network created an alternative trajectory of knowledge circulation that allowed Philippine leftist nationalist writings to be published in Taiwan in the latter’s martial law era. Furthermore, it provides a comparative perspective on the political discourses and artistic practices of decolonial initiatives in Taiwan and the Philippines.

Georgian sources in the context of European postmornist literature according to Givi margvelashvili’s “Mutsali”

Postmodernism created the need for another, free world, reality, where there are no artificial barriers, borders, stereotypes, closed spaces (texts), authoroties, main characters and main roles, where everything is ruled by the human mind, herart and free will. The postmodernist narrative does not recognize any limitations, and this freedom gives it a great opportunity to show and express what it has to say  openly, undisguised. The world is understood as a text, an endless game of signs, which determines the relationship between the author, the readwer and the character. When reading a text, it is considered a normal event for reader to introduce a hero from a completely different work and continue/expand his line with a new interpretation. We are dealing with such a case in the novel of German-speaking Georgian writer and philisipher, Givi Margvelashvili – “Mutsali”, which can be considered  a classic example of European postmodernism. “Mutsali” is a part of European literature from beginning to end. As noted in the criticism, it is characterized by all the main and essential signs of a postmodernist novel, such as: citation, deconstructuveness, intertextality, double coding, interculturality, gragmantation, framing principle, irony, pastiche and others. “Mutsali” is an “expended and modernized version” of Georgian classical texts, namely Vazha-Pshavela’s a”aloda Ketelauri” and Nikoloz Baratashvili’s “meran”, a kind of postmodernist “contituation/play”, which is most evident in its content and ideology. In the novel, interlingual passages, Georgian semantic units, Georgian traditions, Georgian literary material are originically adpted and combines with the Western discourtse, which once again demonstrares, along  with many other literary tasks and creative value, the merit and contribution Of Givi Margvelashvili in popularizing the Georgian theme, and georgian sources.  In the case os a successful attempt to unify in a common European context.&nbsp

Critical Materials - Global Outlook and Canadian Perspective

Ongoing geopolitical tensions and armed conflicts are causing most governing bodies in the free world to become concerned with the availability of materials essential for the national security and economic well-being of populations within their jurisdictions. Overlapping with these concerns are commitments to combat climate change. Consequently, current critical material lists for these jurisdictions highlight materials that are at risk of supply disruption (or future shortage) and are essential for one or more of the following domains: national defense, economic health, and the fight against climate change. Battery, Magnet, and Photovoltaic (BM&P) materials are essential for all three of these domains. Therefore, projects involving these materials benefit from unprecedented interest from mineral producing and manufacturing industries, investors, the public, and governments. Technically and economically sound BM&P projects represent exceptional development opportunities.

Research on Fairy Character in Chinese Classic Novel in Vietnam Ancient Time

This paper aims to present Research On Fairy character in Chinese Classic Novel in Vietnam Ancient time. The study shows: firstly, the authors of legendary novels always emphasize the indelible difference between the two worlds: the fairy world and the earthly world. Second, it is inevitable that fairies leave family ties in the mortal world. Authors often describe that necessity with a conception of a pre-determined period of time. When the due date comes, the fairy will move from the earthly world to the world that belongs to the fairy. Third, in that difference, the choice to leave the earthly world and go to the fairy world shows that fairies tend to leave the tightest ties in the world, which are the ties of power and family, to become to the free world. It can be concluded that the ideal of escapism of fairies in Vietnamese legends is a form of expression of the Taoist ideal of life.

Through the Eyes of a Strategist and a Diplomat: Polish-American Relations post-1918

Through the Eyes of a Strategist and a Diplomat: Polish-American Relations post-1918

Louis Menand. The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War.

Louis Menand’s The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War arrives with all the signifiers of a landmark. The product of nearly two decades of work by a prominent New Yorker critic and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, its dust jacket includes promises from assembled luminaries that it will be “dazzling,” “astonishing,” “coolly independent,” a “colossal achievement of imagination.” Encompassing 727 pages of text, not inclusive of notes, its chapters wind with smooth confidence across varied terrain: from literary studies (Trilling; Ransom; Derrida; de Man), to popular (the Beatles) and avant-garde (John Cage) music, to social and political theory (Sartre; Riesman; Arendt; Lévi-Strauss; Berlin; Fanon), to cultural criticism (Orwell; Baldwin; Sontag; Baraka; Kael), to the visual arts (Abstract Expressionism; commercial design; Pop Art; Godard). Readers will find a wealth of illuminating narrative details, braided together in an extraordinarily ambitious and finely wrought synthesis of the intellectual life of the age. The book has already achieved a broad audience and will be an essential office companion for lecturers on American cultural and intellectual history for decades to come.

Eisenhower & Cambodia: Diplomacy, Covert Action and the Origins of the Second Indochina War by William J. Rust

<i>Eisenhower &amp; Cambodia: Diplomacy, Covert Action and the Origins of the Second Indochina War</i> by William J. Rust

Gendering migration in a patriarchal society: assisted female migration from Greece during the early post-war period

ABSTRACT In 1954 the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) launched a program for the recruitment of domestic workers from Greece for Canada, Australia and New Zealand. ICEM gave single women of rural background and with scarce resources the opportunity to migrate and later sponsor the migration of their relatives. Furthermore, ICEM assisted them with orientation and language courses, training programs and loans, and oversaw their transportation and recruitment, as well as of their adjustment to work and life in economically and “culturally” developed countries. In doing so, the Committee tried to imbue women from the periphery of the “Free World” with “superior” western technical skills, cultural values and modern behavioral patterns that reproduced the dominant gender, ethnic, race and class prejudices of the destination countries. The article highlights the way receiving states expanded their capacity to control their borders and select the “qualities” of their foreign female workforce, by standardizing their skills, behaviors and rights. By comparing the implementation of the scheme in three British Commonwealth countries, it problematizes the role of the international organizations in the construction of labor patterns and the dissemination of hegemonic Western gendered economic, social and cultural scripts in a peripheral European country. It also explores the changes brought about by the ICEM in domestic work and women’s response to intergovernmental migration planning.

Cold War Cosmopolitanism: Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema

Cold War Cosmopolitanism: Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema

Dr. Jekyll ile Bay Hyde Eserinin Türkçe Çevirisinin Karnavalesk Bir İncelemesi

Mikhail Bakhtin, a prominent Russian philosopher of the 20th century, contributed to the field of philology and literary studies by propounding conceptions in several domains one of which is the foremost term ‘carnivalesque’. As it is a locution related to the ‘carnival’, it is of utmost significance to define this term. The ‘carnival’, deriving from the Lantern period at the time of the Romans, is a phenomenon in which all the rules in our daily lives, restrictions, regulations, and hierarchical forms are put aside; everyone is free and there are no restrictions in this sphere. The aim of this study is to read and analyse the Turkish translation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – with its full name –in the light of Bakhtin’s carnivalesque approach, and the Turkish translation of the work is evaluated particularly by taking Bakhtin’s main categories of the term ‘carnivalesque’, which are free and familiar interaction between people, eccentric behaviour by which the human nature in the work is revealed, and carnivalistic misalliances, all of which are considered to be abstract notions of freedom and equality. While taking the carnivalesque way of thinking into consideration, specifically the diverse characteristics of the protagonist in the novel are brought forth such as being respectable and well-liked but also hideous and depraved in conformity with the free and unrestricted world of the carnival.

Vaccination and surveillance: Two basic tools for a final poliomyelitis eradication

Over the past 3 decades, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has strived to achieve a poliomyelitis (polio)-free world. Wild poliovirus (WPV) types 2 and 3 were eradicated in 2015 and 2019, respectively. The World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region was declared free of poliovirus in 2014, and the WHO African Region was certified

Notes on Cold War Historiography

In this essay, Menand raises historiographical questions about the Cold War, arising mainly from his experience of authoring The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).

Gregory A. Daddis. Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines.

Rarely do military historians venture into studies of gender and its cultural representation. In his fine new book, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines, Gregory A. Daddis takes the leap, bringing his expertise in US military history to bear on the study of male adventure magazines in the 1950s and 1960s. The result is a terrifically illuminating exploration of how an ideal of martial manhood was hyped in what Daddis calls “macho pulps,” and consequently, “how masculinity was broadcast during the Cold War era” (2). With titles such as Man’s Conquest, Man’s World, Valor, For Men Only, Stag, Battle Cry, Man’s Epic, True Action, Battlefield, All Man, action magazines offered readers opportunities to imagine bravely vanquishing foreign foes and exerting power over those vanquished and those saved. Stories of daring wartime battles, intrigues and special operations, luridly colorful illustrations, advice on maintaining male health, vigor and potency, exposés of urban and suburban vice and wild sexual excess filled the pages of macho pulps. In combat tales, power and military might was sexually and racially supercharged. As gutsy, virile American warriors fought their enemies and rescued native peoples from tyranny in the name of the free world, they enjoyed the pleasures of exotic local women whom they take as their just reward. Macho pulps offered up nothing less than toxic hypermasculinity. This is Mickey Spillane, juiced up on the battlefield.

Renewing Nagasaki’s Citizen Diplomacy

ABSTRACT For three quarters of a century, the hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki) have stood firm in their quest to save humanity from nuclear annihilation. Through their voice and action, the people of Nagasaki City have demonstrated the strength of citizen diplomacy. The voice of Nagasaki can be heard everywhere – strong in its call that Nagasaki must remain the last place to suffer an atomic bombing. Most significantly, the hibakusha’s compelling testimonies brought the world the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in 2017. Despite this prohibition, the goal of a nuclear free world seems more elusive than ever, and the nuclear sceptre looms large. Today, the world faces a heightened risk of nuclear weapons use amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What should we do in this time of danger and opportunity? In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of its founding, the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University and the Nagasaki Council for Nuclear Weapons Abolition organised a special public lecture on 29th October 2022, to examine current challenges in the path toward a nuclear weapons-free world and to re-evaluate the roles that the A-Bombed city should play in advancing this goal. This article, adapted from the public lecture, reaffirms the vital role that Nagasaki must continue to play through a renewal of its citizen diplomacy. It highlights lessons from the TPNW negotiations and the opportunities that its adoption has created for Nagasaki to strengthen and expand its citizen diplomacy.

Russia’s domestic and international politics. No explanation without the cognitive-developmental approach

Russia’s war on Ukraine is not a failure by accident but reflects the mentality and stance of the Kremlin and greater parts of the Russian people. Russia’s international politics pursue imperial dreams, conducted by the most brutal methods. Obviously, the political consciousness of Russians has not progressed to the rates and standards that shape the minds and behavior of politicians and the electorate in the most advanced nations of our time. It is argued that political science must consider research conducted by the cognitive-developmental approach. Contemporary nations operate on differently developed stages of mind and cognition with far-reaching effects on moral reasoning, social understanding, and humanitarian standards. There is evidence that a weaker development of the fourth stage of human cognition, the stage of formal operations, accounts for backwardness concerning the process of civilization. This seems to be the main cause of the chasm between the “Russian World” and the “Free World”.

REFLECTIONS OF INCARCERATED YOUNG ADULTS IN A ROMANIAN DETENTION CENTER

Objective. Young people deprived of their freedom in the custody of education centres or detention centres are aged between 18 and 21, according to the criminal law. The aim of the study is to examine, through structured interviews with young people in a detention centre, how they experience incarceration. Method. The data collection is based on face-to-face structured interviewing. The study includes a group of 22 young people, all males aged 18-22 years, from a detention centre in Romania. They answered about their perception of the activities/programmes they are involved in, their relationship with colleagues and staff and what they would like to improve in the youth detention system. Results. Young people experience the period of incarceration as a challenge they have to face because of the daily routine. Phone communication with loved ones and work and sports activities are what most ease their longing for home and family. They feel betrayed by their friends in the free world and no longer want to be part of the entourage that causes them problems. They long for freedom and family and would like to have the possibility to work, and, and benefit of outings in the community. Conclusions. Intervention programmes for young offenders should focus on promoting healthy lifestyles, positive behavioural change and education programmes aimed at explaining prison policies and practices regarding young offenders' rights and teaching them how to follow up on abuse allegations. Keywords: youth, incarceration, detention centre, experience of freedom deprivation, resources, resilience.

EFL classroom, petri dish, panopticon, and free world: How do they merge through action research?

EFL classroom, petri dish, panopticon, and free world: How do they merge through action research?