Late Modernity Research Articles

No Such Thing as Free Speech? Performativity, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in the UK

AbstractThe relationship between academic freedom and freedom of speech features prominently in public and political discussions concerning the role of universities in Western liberal democracies. Recently, these debates have attracted increased attention, owing in part to media framing of a ‘free speech crisis’, especially in UK and US universities. One type of response is to regulate academic expression through legislation, such as the UK’s 2023 Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. This article offers a critical analysis of the assumptions concerning the performativity of speech in this kind of legal intervention. It extends Judith Butler’s discussion of the concept of ‘harmful speech’ as reported by Butler (Excitable speech: a politics of the performative, Routledge Classics, London, 1997) to conceptualize speech-acts as performative not only when it comes to populations, but also when it comes to institutions. Reconceptualizing universities as producing as well as being constituted by speech-acts, the article argues that the effects of free speech legislation need to be considered in the context of the transformation of universities and other political actors (including governments and student unions) in the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. It argues that legal enforcement of free speech at universities further obscures the distinction between negative and positive liberties identified by Isaiah Berlin (Two Concepts of Liberty, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1958), and considers this shift as part of the reconfiguration of political ontology in late modernity.

Insufficient Cold Resistance as a Possible Reason for the Absence of Darkling Beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) in Pleistocene Sediments of Siberia.

The level of diversity and abundance of darkling beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) is the main difference between the late Pleistocene and modern insect faunas of arid regions. In the Pleistocene assemblages they are extremely rare, whereas in the modern ones they predominate. It is assumed that the reason for their rarity in fossil entomological complexes is their lack of cold resistance. The supercooling points (SCP) and low lethal temperatures (LLT) of adults from five species of Altai darkling beetles that overwinter in the soil and larvae from one such species were measured in the laboratory. All beetles supercooled at negative temperatures but could not survive freezing, with the average SCP of the most cold-resistant species between -25.7 and -21.7 °C (Bioramix picipes, Anatolica dashidorzsi, and Penthicus altaicus). However, 50% of the individuals from different species in the experiment died after exposure during two days at temperatures ranging from -22 to -20 °C. The focal species are distributed in parts of Central Asia with an extreme continental climate, and the temperatures measured in the soil of these natural areas turned out to be lower than or close to the limit of cold resistance of the beetles. Overwintering of darkling beetles is therefore only possible in areas with deep snow: in hollows, under bushes, and under large cereals. Darkling beetles with poor cold resistance could not have existed in the colder climate of the late Pleistocene, which explains their absence from fossil fauna.

Возвращение в Уэльс: поэзия Линетт Робертс 1940-х годов

The paper examines the poetry of Lynette Roberts (1909-1995), one of the most significant but little-studied authors of the late modernism era. A native of Argentina and Welsh by birth, in the 1940s, Roberts carried out a creative experiment, trying to reconstruct the Welsh heritage in her lyrical poetry based not only on traditional myth, but also on direct personal experience. This project resulted in the 1944 collection “Poems” analyzed in the paper. The aim of the research is to determine the specifics of Roberts’s 1940s poetry in the context of the poet’s search for her national identity. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the research is the first Russian work to provide a brief overview of the poet’s biography and writings. It is the first time that the key features of Roberts’s poetics have been identified by analysing the most significant texts from her 1944 collection “Poems”. The research findings showed that there is an unusual synthesis of the modernist and the traditional folk perception of reality in Roberts’s poems. The dual nature of the persona’s view is also explained by her contradictory position: she is inside the Welsh tradition as its heir, but at the same time, she observes it from the outside as a person belonging to a different culture.

The Liturgical Movement in Context of Secularization: Late Modern Developments

The article highlights secular influences in contemporary understandings of liturgical participation by exploring the relationship between visions of the early modern liturgical movement and contemporary ways of understanding participation in the Church of Sweden. The constructs opine, understand, and do are used in the comparison as are the concepts participatio plena, participatio conscia, and participatio actuosa in Sacrosanctum Concilium. An overall reflection based on the analysis is that secular ideologies and trends not only influence liturgical form but tend to erode theological language itself. Religious individualism, combined with “internal ecclesial secularization,” tends to imbue the very understanding of church and of liturgy. A new phase in the liturgical movement called the “late modern liturgical movement” is discussed. The church appears here as the “church of the individual” and the liturgy in the sense of ordo is seen as an “open” order and framework, rather than as juxtaposition and sacramental event.

Alternations (at) that time: NP versus PP time adjuncts in the history of English.

The present paper investigates variation between nominal and prepositional adjuncts of time as in, for example, [on] that day, they left. The main goals are (i)to assess potential changes in the distribution of these variants in the history of English, specifically from Middle English to Late Modern English (1150-1914), and (ii) to test which factors most strongly impact the choice between the two variants, with a focus on the impact of different complexity measures. To address these questions, the paper makes use of data from the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpora of Historical English (PPCME2; PPCEME; PPCMBE), explored by means of logistic regression modelling. The results suggest that there is no dramatic, sweeping change in this abstract alternation over time, but that this variation may mainly plays out on lower, noun-specific levels.

Modernism living on: periodisation and polarisation

ABSTRACT This article is concerned with the legacy of modernism in twenty-first century literature. It asks: do contemporary experimental literatures signal a new literary epoch distinct from iterations of modernism, late modernism and postmodernism which preceded them? Or can these categories overlap in the twenty-first century novel? Tackling these questions, this article probes the critical underpinnings that structure the perceived or ignored operation of modernism in contemporary literary practice. In doing so, it subjects to scrutiny the literary critical practices of periodisation which have determined the description of twenty-first century fictional innovation as a new era of literary production (metamodernism, remodernism, post-postmodernism, postfiction). In turn, it indicates a frame of continuity and divergence that caters for the relations between the forms of modernism that have appeared over the last century, as well as the forms of modernism that will inevitably follow our current new modernisms.

РАЗВИТИЕ УРАЛЬСКОГО ОПТИКО-МЕХАНИЧЕСКОГО ЗАВОДА ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ 1940-х — СЕРЕДИНЕ 1960-х гг.

The article is devoted to the development of the Ural Optical-Mechanical Plant (UOMZ) in the conditions of transition to late industrial modernization. The relevance of the problem under consideration is due to the presence of some analogies between the patterns of the period of transition to late industrial modernization in the USSR and the current trends of the formation of a post-industrial society. The characteristic features of the socio-economic development in the period under study were the science intensity of production, the creation of new materials, military-technical progress, and the development of the space industry. The authors proceeded from the principles of modernization theory. Research methods of high priority were historical-comparative, narrative, causal, problem-chronological. After the war, Plant No. 217 (since 1964 — Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant) produced optical devices for the military-industrial complex, the space industry, aviation, and construction. Some of the enterprise’s products were exported. The plant reached the level of the fourth technological order on the basis of conveyor mechanized and automated production. In the second half of the 1940s — middle 1960s, the plant, as part of the scientific and industrial cluster of the region, mastered new technologies: the manufacture of glassintensive devices and optoelectronic devices of the laser rangefinder family, new methods of glass casting. UOMZ developed cooperation with scientific and educational institutions of the industry, design bureaus, the USSR Academy of Sciences, design and technological institutions.

The "angioletti" of Palermo: the health and development of mummified non-adults in late modern Palermo, Sicily (1787-1880 CE).

The Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, Sicily, have been home to non-adult mummified remains since the seventeenth century CE. Despite the increasing numbers of scientific studies conducted at this site, very little research has focused specifically on the youngest members of late modern (1787-1880 CE) society. This research aims to redress the balance by examining 43 individuals to gain insight into the demographic profile of mummified non-adults, to characterize their health status and possible cause of death, and to better understand the funerary treatment offered to the youngest members of society. A portable X-ray unit was used to capture anteroposterior and lateral images of each mummy; this facilitated age estimation, the identification of pathological and/traumatic lesions, and evidence of conservation and the mummification process more generally. This study revealed that regardless of age and health status at the time of death, the mortuary rite performed was primarily influenced by the wealth and social standing of the deceased's kin. No demographic trends were observed in the data and the lack of evidence of metabolic, neoplastic, and traumatic bone lesions suggest these non-adults died from short-term, acute illnesses. Even when individuals did display evidence of chronic health conditions that would have impacted their day-to-day lives (e.g., B035), they were not excluded from this mortuary tradition on the basis of their long-term health and care requirements in life. Artifacts were found with all individuals examined and were associated with the mummification process, conservation of mummies, and/or their display. This research has ultimately demonstrated that non-invasive imaging can be used to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the lives and deaths of non-adults inhabiting late modern Palermo.

ENTRETENIMENTO E AUDIÊNCIA: A INFORMAÇÃO COMO MERCADORIA PARA OS INFLUENCIADORES NO BRASIL

It is intended to observe the growth of influencers in Brazil, and the use of information, not as a form of clarification, but as a commodity. Information is often used by influencers as a form of entertainment to increase audience and generate profit. Therefore, based on the criticisms of the Frankfurt School, as well as the analysis of the transformation of the subject into media and merchandise, we seek to understand this phenomenon, as well as to criticize this process of transforming information into a product, considering consideration media mediation and social transformations in Late Modernity.

Camino de Santiago in Late Modernity: Fostering Self-Actualization Through Pilgrimage

While late-modern society promotes individual self-actualization, its moral dimension often falters in a calculating environment. Pilgrimages offer a potential solution. Through peak experiences and self-transcendence, pilgrims reconnect with their inner moral compass, fostering morally valid self-actualization. Amid late modernity, reflective individuals emerge, navigating moral choices within societal norms while pursuing self-actualization.This study affirms the Camino de Santiago's role in promoting self-actualization, as conceptualized in humanistic psychology. A survey of 500 participants, employing Kaufman's (2018) Characteristics of Self-Actualization Scale (CSAS), validates the pilgrimage's impact. Pilgrims reported heightened levels of appreciation, equanimity, self-acceptance, reality perception, authenticity, and a fortified moral compass. The pilgrimage nurtures the recognition of life missions, instills a sense of responsibility, and cultivates a desire to contribute to humanity's well-being while facilitating experiences of self-transcendence. Our research suggests that the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage can benefit organizations by fostering an authentic and self-actualized workforce comprising leaders and followers.

Controle racial militarizado: desvelando as dinâmicas subculturais de significado que facilitam a atuação policial propensa à violação de direitos humanos

Abstract This article discusses militarized racial control, focusing on the subcultural dynamics of meaning that facilitate police action prone to human rights violations. The text uses bibliographical research and employs the triadic methodology of Cultural Criminology and the critical literature of contemporary black intelligentsia to face racist military police action at three levels of analysis: micro, meso, and macro, contemplating the existential and phenomenological foreground of crime, the subcultural dynamics of status negotiation and structures of greater scope, such as the permanence of colonial power aimed at racial domination and control, ontological insecurity in late modernity and the Brazilian racist reality. At the end of the analysis, it was possible to conclude that, through performances staged for themselves and for third parties, military police officers engaged in racist practices of violation of human rights rebuild their image in terms of self-esteem and belonging to the group, so that a process of formation and identification, which in itself violates human rights, contributes decisively to members of the militarized police subculture becoming prone to staging racist practices that violate human rights, through which they acquire a series of subjective rewards that give purpose and meaning to their lives.

Challenging Women's Agency and Activism in Early Modernity. Merry Wiesner-Hanks. Gendering the Late Medieval and Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. 312 pp. €108.99.

Challenging Women's Agency and Activism in Early Modernity. Merry Wiesner-Hanks. Gendering the Late Medieval and Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. 312 pp. €108.99.

После неолиберализма и его провала: ноономика как возможность

The 2008 global financial crash and its ongoing spiraling consequences mark the failure of neoliberalism as a strategy of exit from the crisis following the collapse of the post-World War II international Bretton Woods Keynesian framework. Technological progress per se cannot solve the strategic impasse as the problems in productivity growth demonstrate. Modernization itself has to overcome the obstacles posed by a fundamental crisis of late modernity in the epoch of advanced capitalist decline noonomy provides an open field of research of the relations between scientific-technological progress and political economy in the 21st century. It focus on the progress of integration of science into a cognition based social production without exploitation. A comparative study with the ‘General Intellect” concept advanced by Karl Marx in Grundrisse and the related debates on this topic during the last decades could be fruitful. In this context, noonomy provides new insights and possibilities for a re-elaboration of a socialist strategy of exit from the global crisis.

Teleontology: the metaphysical expression of late modernity

Resumo: Esta é uma primeira tentativa do autor de propor um modelo metafísico de interpretação da modernidade tardia (que emerge na metade do século XVIII e vai até o fim da II Guerra), por meio do conceito de teleontologia. Assim, a teleontologia é o procedimento do espírito desse tempo de deslocar a ontologia (investigação sobre o ser enquanto ser, à qual a existência é um atributo) para uma teleologia, na qual a essência deve ser conquistada e revelada ao final de um processo progressivo. Em vez do Ser, o homem se tornou o grande objeto dessa investigação, e a pergunta sobre o ser enquanto ser deu lugar ao conceito iluminista de ser-homem (nunca realizado) e à finalidade de alcançá-lo, para satisfazer o que a razão projetou à espécie humana. No entanto, à medida que o projeto de atingir o nível do ser-homem avançava, clareava a sua verdadeira natureza, a saber, a expansão capitalista/colonial como força unilateral e arbitrária, a qual forçou todos a seguir paradigmas teleontológicos. A teleontologia demonstra que a metafísica (greco-cristã) é um elemento particular (e nunca universal) submetido a uma cultura e expressando, no caso aqui em questão, a estrutura de pensamento eurocentrado que se mundializou, através da expansão do capital/colonização. Neste escrito, propõe-se pensar sobre 1 - o que é a teleontologia, 2 - quais são os seus objetos, 3 - e qual é a sua origem.

Creating a Corpus of Late Modern English Pauper Letters: Uncertainties, Challenges, and Solutions

Creating a Corpus of Late Modern English Pauper Letters: Uncertainties, Challenges, and Solutions

《三水小牍》的空间叙事研究

This paper starts from the perspective of ‘space’ and studies the spatial narrative of San Shui Xiao Du by Huang Fu mei in late Tang Dynasty form modern narratology. Space, as one of the most important elements of the novel, its spatial structure presented in the novel is the result of the author's intention. These spaces existing in the work not only construct the framework of the novel, but also place the central idea of the literary work. Therefore, exploring the narrative function of space in the text is conducive to better understanding the meaning of each place in the novel. This paper mainly takes the artistic space in the work as the research object, which refers to the four real spaces of Ancestral Temples, Family Mansion, Temples Taoist, and Military war. By intensive reading and comparative analysis of the text, it reveals the narrative function of the four real space in the novel from three aspects：promoting the development of the storyline, shaping the characters’ images and satirizing the social situation. It can be seen that the space in literary works not only be regarded as the background of the story, but also play an irreplaceable role in the narrative of novels.

Constructing Identities and Negotiating Relationships in Late Eighteenth-century England

During the eighteenth century, language became an increasingly valuable commodity for the construction of identities and the negotiation of relationships with others. Additionally, letter writing had emerged as a crucial means of maintaining relationships and forging deeper intimacy between individuals, and correspondence thus constitutes a rich resource for the study of language variation and change in relation to (social) identity, with forms of address as a key strategy in this respect. The current paper examines expressions of direct address and self-reference in Late Modern English ego-documents, more specifically two sets of letters involving Mary Hamilton (1756–1816), sub-governess at Court and a member of the Bluestocking circle. For each set, we discuss intra-speaker variation in the context of both the individual participants involved and the structure of the letters. The findings reveal different strategies through which Hamilton and her correspondents construct their identities and negotiate their relationships with each other, for example by using nicknames and terms of endearment, omitting signatures, or through changes in lexical choices over time.

Dialect in the Making

Within the framework of third-wave sociolinguistic research, Asif Agha’s (2003) theory of enregisterment has proved a successful approach to explore the mechanisms that lead to the indexical connection between language and identity. Beal (2009, 2020), Cooper (2013, 2020), and Ruano-García (2012, 2020, 2021), among others, have investigated this phenomenon from a diachronic perspective. They have highlighted the value of dialect writing as a window into the main features associated with particular dialects, as it draws upon authenticating practices such as the use of dialect respellings, which not only signal salient phonological features, but also link them to wider schemes of sociocultural values and identities. This paper seeks to add to this field of research by looking at literary representations of Derbyshire speech (1850–1900) through the lens of enregisterment. My aims are twofold: I attempt to (1) shed light on the main phonological features of the Derbyshire dialect, while (2) determining how this variety was enregistered in the Late Modern English period, and whether meaningful text type-dependent indexical shifts might have affected the way in which this dialect was understood and thus represented by native and non-native speakers.

Linguistic Perceptions of Irish English in Nineteenth-century Emigrant Letters

In this paper we look at the real voices of Irish English speakers in the nineteenth century. By turning to the Corpus of Irish English Correspondence (McCafferty & Amador-Moreno, 2012), we analyse the perceptions that letter writers had of their own language use. We apply a micro-perspective analysis to the language of John Kerr, an Irish emigrant to America, in his letters to his uncle James Graham of Newpark (Co. Antrim, N. Ireland). We examine Kerr’s incisive comment on language use alongside metacommentary found in different Late Modern works, including dictionaries, essays on Irish English, as well as contemporary fictional representations of the variety of English spoken in Ireland during this period. Through this small batch of letters, we explore how the real voices of Irish English speakers echoed an enregistered Irish repertoire that may have raised awareness shaping their perceptions of their own dialect.

Копейный бой в военном искусстве калмыков и джунгар XVII – начала XIX вв.

Introduction. The article examines the features of the formation and evolution of the Oirat light cavalry armed with spears of the Late Middle Ages and early Modern times. The purpose of the study is to identify the role of spear fighting in the military practice of the Dzungars and Kalmyks of the XVII – early XIX centuries on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of written, pictorial and material sources. Results. It has been established that in the Central Asian region for centuries shock spears and pikes remained mainly the weapons of armored cavalry, while light nomads without armor used them only sporadically. During the military transformations carried out by the Oirat and Mongol military leaders of the second half of the XVI–XVII centuries, mounted archers were equipped with shock spears and pikes, which led to the emergence of a new type of cavalry composed of lightly armed spearmen capable of conducting both remote and close combat. During the military campaigns of the Oirats, which covered most of steppe Eurasia, the idea of mass light cavalry with spears was adopted by many peoples of the Great Steppe, including Russian Cossacks and Turks of Eastern Europe (Nogais, Crimean and Polish-Lithuanian Tatars). In turn, the battle on the spears of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars (Lipkov) formed the basis of the military practice of the Polish lancers, which became a model of such cavalry for the countries of Central and Western Europe of the XVIII – early XIX centuries. Based on the analysis of Mongolian, Oirat, Ottoman, European and Qing written sources, the original name of the Oirat long–barrel weapon of the XVII–XVIII centuries was revealed, which sounded like “jida” (“dzida”). The design features of the Oirat spears were established, the spear fighting technique and tactics of mounted Kalmyk and Dzungarian warriors armed with spears were reconstructed. Conclusions. The collected materials indicate that spears and pikes were the main type of melee weapons of the Oirat warriors of the XVII – early XIX centuries. Spear fighting was one of the key elements of the military art of the Dzungars and Kalmyks of this period. The Oirats had a significant impact on the development of the practice of equestrian spear fighting among the peoples of Eurasia of the XVII–XVIII centuries.