Class Ideology Research Articles

Toward a post‐neoliberal social citizenship?

Toward a post‐neoliberal social citizenship?

The Making ofHomo Socialist: The Discursive Analysis of the Ideological Production of Class in China, 1949–1976

AbstractBased on a critique of the history project titled “Oral History of Peasants’ Ordinary Life in the Revolutionary Era of China,” this article provides an analysis of class ideology production from Land Reform Movement to the Cultural Revolution in China. Thirty years of socialist construction in China was based on the craft of making the Homo Socialist. The focus here is on how personal experiences were transformed into state-endorsed conduct via the discourse of class and class struggle. Over the course of the sociopolitical transformations leading to the Cultural Revolution, “class” changed from a socioeconomic designation to a political behavioral metaphor, and in the end a purely symbolic gesture; personal experiences were transformed from hallmarks of class privilege to virtual identification with imagined class struggle. And the peasants went from being “owners of bitterness” to “debtors of bitterness” on the way to becoming “sinners of the revolution”—who gradually submitted themselves to the regime in the name of revolution, liberation, and redemption. These transformations were realized through discursive practices connecting personally embodied experiences with the abstract Marxist theory of class and class struggle. Examining the shifting nature of class ideology production helps to explain how the Chinese Communist Party understood the effects of its governance and how people found class ideology meaningful to them, even when it reached the point of absurdity.

Шведський «дім для народу»: ідея соціал-демократів та досвід її первинної апробації у 1920-ті – 1930-ті рр.

Метою статті є з’ясування синергічної взаємодії низки історичних (соціально-економічних, суспільно-політичних і загальнокультурних) чинників, що спричинилися на оформленні концепту «дому для народу» і початкових кроках його переростання в програму дій у міжвоєнний час у Швеції. Для цього, по-перше, проаналізовано трансформацію шведської соціал-демократії від типової ідеології робітничого класу до «партії шведів». По-друге, оцінено соціально-економічне становище шведського суспільства у 1920-ті рр., особливо демографічну кризу народонаселення після Першої світової війни. По-третє, звернемо увагу на загальний стан політичної і громадянської культури шведського суспільства. По-четверте, спробуємо осмислити також вплив модерністичних художніх явищ і процесів у культурі Швеції на формування затребуваності реалізації ідеї «держави добробуту». Методологія дослідження ґрунтується на поєднанні загальнонаукових та спеціально-історичних методів з принципами об’єктивності, історизму, системності, науковості та верифікації. Наукова новизна роботи полягає у спробі здійснити комплексну оцінку чинників, що уможливили постання ідеї шведської моделі «держави добробуту» та її початкової реалізації у міжвоєнний час. З’ясовано, що в основі модифікації шведської соціал-демократії у представницьку партію всього суспільства і вироблення нею концепту «народного дому» лежить унікальний історичний розвиток як держави, так і суспільства останніх двох століть. На важкі повоєнні виклики (безробіття, масова еміграція, демографічна криза, житлові проблеми) уряд Пера Альбіна Ганссона запропонував ідею колективної взаємодії суспільства і держави та послідовно заохочував заходи в соціальній сфері. Висновки. У міжвоєнний час у Швеції соціал-демократична партія, здобувши владу, запропонувала прийнятний для суспільства концепт соціальної держави як «дому для народу» і завдяки досягнутому консенсусу різних політичних сил зуміла легітимувати нормативні засади перерозподільної діяльності держави в інтересах громадян на засадах «культури солідарності».

Наративи за труда в миналото

The article traces the different narratives around labour, from the Christian stories about it to its integration into ideologies of nationalism and fascism. It showcases the medieval understanding of work as punishment for a committed sin, the first positive indicators of labour as a means of ethical education during the Reformation, and their development during the Enlightenment. Romanticism opposes those ideas through its glorification of idleness, but in the rise of capitalism labour becomes a pillar of working class ideologies in the 19th and early 20th century.

А. ВАСИЛЬЕВТІҢ «ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЙ ОЧЕРК РУССКОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ В ТУРГАЙСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ» АТТЫ ЕҢБЕГІНІҢ ТАРИХИ ДЕРЕКТІК ЖӘНЕ ТАНЫМДЫҚ МӘН-МАҢЫЗЫ (ОЧЕРКТІҢ І БӨЛІМІ БОЙЫНША)

Alexander Vasilievich Vasiliev (1861–1943) was a missionary, worked in the field of organizing foreign education during the period of the Russian Empire. A Turkologist who speaks the Chuvash, Tatar, Kazakh and Arabic languages. By nationality - Chuvash. A. Vasiliev studied at the Cheboksary Theological School in 1869-1876, then at the Kazan Theological Seminary in 1876-1882, later at the Kazan Theological Academy with a degree in anti-Muslim religion. After graduating from the Kazan Theological Academy in 1886, he taught Greek, missionary subjects, and music at the Orenburg Theological Seminary.After teaching, he works as an official. One of these positions was his work as an inspector of the Turgai region in 1889-1894. In this position, he deeply familiarized himself with the history of the spread of Russian education in the Turgai region. As a result, his historical work “Historical sketch of Russian education in the Turgai region” was published, published in 1896 in Orenburg. Under the influence of the class ideology that prevailed in the Soviet era, this study was “closed” and little known in the scientific community.This research by A. Vasiliev is a valuable historical work based on the works of N. Ilminsky, V. Grigoriev, official letters from the Orenburg administration, government documents, archival materials that were at the forefront of attracting Russian education in the Turgai region. The work contains detailed historical data on the opening of Russian-Kazakh schools in the Turgai region, teachers who worked there, students who received education. The book also contains the first information about the pedagogical activity of the teacher A. Baitursynov.

Possessed by property: Inheritance in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa (1747–1748)

AbstractThe inheritance conflict in Samuel Richardson´s novel Clarissa (1747–1748) has been read as staging the clash between two different class ideologies and as an expression of the dead’s posthumous agency exerted on the living. I argue that the novel’s two wills ultimately serve to make a broader point about inheritance. I contend that Richardson´s complex treatment of the effects of each will on each member of the Harlowe family underscores the problematic nature of inheritance as a gift. I compare the novel’s two wills in light of Marcel Mauss’s work on gift‐exchange to discuss how Richardson engages with inheritance as a gift that confirms or reorganises familial hierarchies and imposes an obligation on the heir. Reading the novel in terms of the way in which inheritance places the heir in the position of caretaker that they cannot be released from until their death, offers a different reading of Clarissa’s reluctance to refer to herself as the possessor of the estate in the novel. My reading of the novel moves beyond the novel’s inheritance dispute to provide insight into the circular and problematic nature of inheritance as gift. While attention has been paid to the power that the testator or donor possesses in bequeathing their inheritance, less attention has been paid to what it means to receive such a gift.

The Culture as System, the System of Culture: Aleksandr Bogdanov on Proletarian Culture and Proletarian Art

Abstract In my paper, I first focus on Aleksandr Bogdanov’s systems theoretical understanding of culture and highlight the tektological foundations of culture. In this part, I analyze his organizational account of culture and interpret his tektological approach as a theory of the social dimensions of culture and the cultural dimensions of society. Second, I discuss the term ‘proletarian culture’, its definition and its role in Bogdanov’s theory of socialism. I argue that Bogdanov’s vision of a future socialist society is connected with establishing a socialist culture. He considers the proletariat a bearer of socialist ideology and deduces its unique political role from its unique position in the system of social knowledge. With his idea of proletarian culture, Bogdanov drafts a programme of proletarian evolution which challenges Lenin’s programme for proletarian revolution. My last step concerns Bogdanov’s account of proletarian art. I argue that, in order to understand Bogdanov’s concept of art properly, we should differentiate between the terms ‘culture’ and ‘art’. The category of culture appears to be a form of organization of a social group, and the category of art is a form of aesthetic self-understanding and self-expression of a social group. My analysis focuses on proletarian art as a form of the self-consciousness (ideology) of the working class.

The Concept of “Prophetic” Socialism by Max Scheler

The article analyzes the conceptual foundations of “prophetic” socialism by Max Scheler (1874–1928). The main principles of a new political and ideological doctrine at that time, designed to become, according to the plan of its creator, an “antidote” to Marxism, are considered. The author analyzes Scheler's argumentation, directed, on the one hand, against socialism in the Marxist interpretation, and on the other, at proving the legitimacy of using the terms “Christian socialism” and “Christian prophetic socialism”. Scheler opposes socialism, first of all, to individualism, which he interprets in social and moral-philosophical senses, and only secondarily to liberalism and capitalism. Socialism and individualism, which now appear as antagonistic tendencies of sociocultural development, are for him two equally necessary and interrelated essential principles of the social being of a person, understood as a spiritual-bodily social being. Individualistic tendencies, according to Scheler, prevailed over socialist tendencies in the West in modern times, therefore socialism in its Marxist interpretation turned out to be so in demand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But the destruction of private property is contrary to Christianity. “Forced communism” does not bring with it heaven on earth, but catastrophe and cultural degradation, he foreshadows. Based on the teachings of the Church Fathers and starting from the Catholic social doctrine, Scheler offers his vision of an ideal society in the form of a “personal community” (Personengemeinschaft), corresponding to the true destiny of a person. In it, the individual and social principles are in harmony and interdependent development. Scheler opposes the “prophetic” method of comprehending socio-historical reality, applied proceeding from the Christian solidarism ideal, to the materialistic understanding of history. He points to three advantages of his methodology: it takes into account human freedom, the uniqueness of a historical event, combines all types and methods of human cognition, without absolutizing the scientific form of knowledge. The author reveals the deep content of Scheler's definition of Marxism as “the protest ideology of oppressed classes”, drawing on the analysis of the “sociological doctrine of idols” of the late Scheler. In it, he reveals the pre-reflexive prerequisites for the formation of class ideologies. The author points to the essential kinship of the class prejudices about which the German philosopher wrote, and the national-mental prejudices of the political elites of the leading Western countries. In conclusion, he raises the question of how relevant the problems raised in Scheler's article are today in the context of modern Russian realities.

Delay time of gases's catalytic heterogeneous ignition on various sizes's catalyst particles

In this work, catalytic ignition delay time of combustible gas's small impurities in air on a spherical metal particle of various diameters is analytically determined by the example of gas-air mixtures's flameless combustion with hydrogen impurities on a platinum particle. It is shown that stable flameless combustion is observed after an induction period for particles of a certain range. It has been established that catalytic ignition time of gases is divided into three stages: 1. inert heating, the duration of which still depends on the combustible gas concentration; 2. the stage of self-acceleration and catalyst temperature rise during the course of the catalytic reaction in the transition region; 3. stage of diffusion inhibition and reaching stable catalytic combustion. The characteristic relaxation time was used in a dimensionless form. To determine the duration of the second stage, a modified Frank-Kamenetsky approach is applied. The duration of diffusion inhibition stage in the dimensionless form is practically independent of catalyst particle's diameter, although the catalytic combustion temperature decreases with an increase in the catalyst diameter. Heat transfer by radiation, the role of which increases with the growth of the catalyst size, is included in the effective heat transfer coefficient, which allows maintaining the classical ideology to solving the problem of the induction period.

Indexicalidad, gentrificación lingüística y desigualdad social en el proceso de estandarización del gallego

Abstract The aim of this paper is to show the relationship between indexicality, standardization policy and socioeconomic inequalities in the Galician linguistic field (as a minor language of Spain). I will examine the discursive role of Galician elites in the building of indexical orders from the Renaissance movement (19th century) onwards, and its links to the current negative representations of rural Galician. Also, I will explore the relationship between anti-rural prejudices, ideologies of class and standard ideologies, showing how common speakers share the stigmatizing indexical values of the elites, and rural speakers consent to the symbolic violence of which they are victims. Finally, I adapt the concept of gentrification from contemporary urbanism to the linguistic field in order to explain the impact of elitist academic lingualizing discourse on traditional speakers of Galician and also on the value of their varieties in the linguistic market. I support my analysis on the metalinguistic discourse of members of the intellectual elites authorized in the Galician linguistic and cultural field from Renaissance to contemporaneity, attitudinal matched-guise research, and ethnographic studies of the second millennium.

“It’s better language”: The social meanings of academic language in an elementary classroom

ABSTRACT Despite an increased interest in academic language in recent years, critical and sociopolitical perspectives in this area of scholarship remain scarce. This paper presents brings such perspectives to the study of academic language by proposing a framework that highlights its situated social meanings through a focus on social identities and language ideologies. An ethnographically informed discourse analysis of a second-grade student’s interactions with peers and adults shows how she used language locally understood as “academic” as a resource for positioning herself as authoritative, intellectually able, and appropriately behaving. Her constructions of these identities tended to reproduce hegemonic ideologies of language, class, race, gender, sexuality, the body, and emotionality, although at times her practices unsettled other dominant discourses, such as adult–child hierarchies. The theoretical and pedagogical implications of these findings and the proposed framework are discussed, with an emphasis on the need for critical language scholars and educators to continue countering oppressive language ideologies by attending to the social meanings of academic language.

Ibsen, Power and the Self: Postsocialist Chinese Experimentations in Stage Performance and Film

Ibsen, Power and the Self: Postsocialist Chinese Experimentations in Stage Performance and Film

Music, men and masculinity on the Grand Tour: British flautists in Italy

Abstract The Grand Tour was the highpoint of the education of the sons of many members of the British upper classes. Despite its contributions to British culture, the Tour came in for contemporary objection and satire. More recently Richard Leppert has used his construct of 18th-century British ideology of gender, class and music to argue that men’s musical activities on the Tour were devalued. This article re-assesses the role of music-making of males on the Grand Tour. It questions the basis of Leppert’s account, and documents an array of paintings depicting Grand Tourists with instruments. The paintings range from highly finished, formal portraits by Pompeo Batoni, to the personal caricatures by Joshua Reynolds, and the informal chalk sketches by Thomas Patch. The article also uses the newly discovered account book of the Hon. Charles Stanhope to show the attention and expenses he devoted to music while on his Grand Tour.

Challenges arising from the special education legacy in Russia and South Africa: a cross-case analysis

ABSTRACT The pursuit of inclusive education in different countries is shaped by the extent and the nature of existing special educational provisions. We focus on two authoritarian regimes in the previous century: Soviet Russia (USSR) with its ideology of class (proletarian humanism and egalitarian universalism) and South Africa with its ideology of race (apartheid and discrimination). We make two assertions on the basis of a cross-case analysis based on a policy historiography. First, state ideology is visible, explicit and prominent in the shaping of special education. Second, the challenges of transitioning to a more inclusive education system are compounded by the ideological legacy of these regimes. Current moves towards inclusive education in both countries must contend with these ideological legacies, and we argue for greater recognition of the role of state ideologies in international and comparative studies of special and inclusive education.

Transnational logic of gratitude: Marriage migrants’ narratives on marital satisfaction in South Korea

Scholarship on marriage migrants has examined the impact of class and gender ideology of receiving countries on their marital satisfaction. However, little is known about the role of transnational background in explaining women’s feelings of gratitude for husbands. Drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews with marriage migrant women residing in the eastern side of Seoul, Korea, this article explores the micro-level cognitive processes in understanding women’s gratitude for their husbands. Categorizing marriage migrants into two groups, ‘gratified’ and ‘ungratified’ wives, the author demonstrates how the gratified wives’ feelings of contentment is mediated by their active comparison of Korean husbands with local men in their homelands, and how these viewpoints conversely affect their aspirations for return. Bringing the sociology of emotion into an explanation of marriage migrants’ marital satisfaction, this study aims to develop a transnational frame of reference as an underlying dynamic for comprehending marriage migrants’ (in)gratitude.

Revolutions in the head: Darwin, Malthus and Robert M. Young.

The late 1960s witnessed a key conjunction between political activism and the history of science. Science, whether seen as a touchstone of rationality or of oppression, was fundamental to all sides in the era of the Vietnam War. This essay examines the historian Robert Maxwell Young's turn to Marxism and radical politics during this period, especially his widely cited account of the 'common context' of nineteenth-century biological and social theorizing, which demonstrated the centrality of Thomas Robert Malthus's writings on population for Charles Darwin's formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection. From Young's perspective, this history was bound up with pressing contemporary issues: ideologies of class and race in neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, the revival of Malthusian population control, and the role of science in military conflict. The aim was to provide a basis for political action - the 'head revolution' that would accompany radical social change. The radical force of Young's argument was blunted in subsequent decades by disciplinary developments within history of science, including the emergence of specialist Darwin studies, a focus on practice and the changing political associations of the history of ideas. Young's engaged standpoint, however, has remained influential even as historians moved from understanding science as ideology to science as work.

Gender Representation of Women in Lezgin Folk Proverbs and Sayings

The article deals with the question of the abstract understanding of the cultural representation of women in Lezgin folklore. Attention is paid to the ideas concerning gender stereotypes that differ in various ethnic cultures, in connection with which the need to consider the sociocultural aspect for the display of the gender factor in Lezgin proverbs and sayings is revealed. The question is raised about the specific features, according to which the image of a woman, presented in Lezgin paremias, mainly represents negatively connotated gender stereotypes. It is noted that the influence of the “other” class ideology is manifested inconsistently and sometimes selectively because in Lezgin folklore, along with proverbs with a negative image of women, directly opposite texts with a positive image coexisted. In the article, special attention is paid to aphorisms in which a negative image of a woman and features of the manifestation of gender stereotypes in Lezgin culture emerge. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that this position has practically not been considered before and has not been studied on the basis of the Lezgin paremias. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the study of folk paremias with the identification features of the female image on specific factual material and the establishment of development paths and the reasons for the existence of this thematic group is currently the subject of increased attention among folklorists, linguists, culturologists, etc. The author dwells on the identification of the socio-cultural aspect of the standard and distinctive indicators of the female image. It is demonstrated that in order to display gender stereotypes, one should take into account the national identity of the people and also determine the place and role of women in the structure of family, family relationships and in society.

Strike a Pose

This article traces methods and conventions of performing women’s mental distress before the camera circa 1900. It features an analysis of gestural performances in French, US, Italian, and British films, with special attention given to two pre-1916 Gaumont films that include mad scenes. The topos of the white madwoman presents a valuable lens through which to investigate intermedial relations across performance forms and visual media as early cinema emerged, and gestures signifying madness have been particularly resilient even as approaches to film acting have evolved. Drawing on scholarship from Giorgio Agamben and Rae Beth Gordon, this article questions how techniques of performing female madness intersected with ideologies of race, class, and nationality.

“Hero” or “Anti-hero”? (The Problem of the Hero in the Works of M. Gorky in the Early 1920s)

The article considers one of the key elements of Gorky’s philosophical-ethical system – the concept of a “hero”, noting a profound difference between, on the one hand, the writer’s treatment of a “Person”, capitalized (Chelovek s bol’shoi bukvy), and meaning a full-fledged, creatively gifted and spiritually rich human being, and on the one hand, a “hero”, who was forced to recourse to violence and even murder under conditions of war and revolution. The article draws on Gorky’s works, all of which appeared in the summer of 1923: the essay “Hero” and two short stories – “The Story of the Hero” and “Caramora”. There, a heroic figure, being afraid of life and of other people, due to his egoism and existential loneliness, turns into an “antihero”, a traitor and a murderer. Our analysis of the poetics of these works makes it possible to align it to the poetics of modernism and the avant-garde. The notorious Gorky humanism, writ large during the revolutionary years and immediately after, brought to life works, where the writer protested against the “heroism” of soldiers and revolutionaries ready to kill their own people like enemies. In the 1930s, supporting the class ideology of Bolshevism, Gorky tried to “streamline” his works and wrote a series of “Stories about Heroes”, in which he celebrated the heroes of the Revolution and of the (Russian) Civil War. However, the stories turned out to be uncompelling and unmemorable; the images of the characters – schematic. Despite all his efforts, Gorky has never managed to create any significant works in which the valiant heroic type would be glorified.

Exposed by the Mask

Semantic segmentation is the process of assigning a label – vehicle, person, sidewalk, pavement etc. -- to every pixel in an image. This artificial intelligence technology was initially created for military application, Gulf War, and it is the core technology behind autonomous driving, medical imaging technologies or satellite image processing, among others. Being from Brazil, the departure point of the project is to explore my own relation to Dakar, Senegal, through the inscriptions of colonialism and post-colonialism in the leisure industry. Before visiting Dakar in the fall of 2019 for an art residency, my relationship with it was basically mediated through a game, called “Paris-Dakar 1990”, for the video-game console Atari. This game was made as a merchandise product from the Paris Dakar race. Through juxtaposition between this ‘AI’ technology and those video game ‘vignettes’ the work is a reflection of how new technologies and engineering projects promise a revolutionary new future while replicating and reinforcing old forms of racialized, gendered and class ideas about the ‘good life’ through middle class ideology.