Cultural Ontology Research Articles

Of Birds and Men in Rural Norway: Self, Place and Landscape in Vesaas and Lirhus

Abstract Agnar Lirhus’s Nå hogger de (2020) and Tarjei Vesaas’s Fuglane (1957) both feature a main character whose self-narrative is formed through interaction with nonhuman animals and grounded in attachment to place. These characters break with the dominant cultural ontology by attributing agency and intrinsic value to beings who are otherwise ignored or pursued for utilitarian purposes. I consider the ethical implications of their encounters with nonhumans, exploring whether these can be considered social interactions or are better understood as occurring on a spiritual plane. Finally, I show that the choice of outsiders as main characters can function as a literary strategy for questioning the dominant cultural ontology.

Should the Humanities Be Slow?

In this paper I present an understanding of the humanities from the perspective of cultural ontology. In the introduction, I specify the perspective from which I am conducting my reflections, synthetically characterise how cognition is understood on its grounds, and introduce a characterisation of the humanities as relating to meaning. In what follows, I show why, from the point of view of cultural ontology, the humanities are practical. In dialogue with other concepts, I introduce the notions of ontological imagination, mindfulness, phronesis, parrhesia, (etho)ecology. With a view to the relationship between the humanities and practical rationality, I try to show why it should be a slow science

Душа русско-славянской культуры в системе картин мира О. Шпенглера

The article examines the images of large cultures on the basis of O. Spengler’s physiognomic morphology. The meaning of the category «the soul of culture» as a worldview growing from the ancestral symbol is clarified. The essence of the German philosopher’s naturalistic approach to the ontology of culture is revealed. O. Spengler’s idea of Russian-Slavic culture and its ancestral phenomenon in the system of the worldviews is crit-ically comprehended, including the comparison of Spenglerianism with the domestic philosophical tradition. The soul of Russian-Slavic culture is defined as Karamazov’s, i.e. prone to extremes and antinomianism. A complex of oppositions characteristic of Russian consciousness is highlighted. The potential for the realization of the spiritual possibilities of Russian culture is seen in the ideals of the conciliar society and St. John’s man. Their achievement is associated with overcoming the historical «pendulum migration» and the transition to cultural paramorphosis between the two Russias.

Feminism in contemporary art – prejudice and discrimination

This article updates the problem of cultural studies as a specific field of humanitarian knowledge. It has been stated that, with a certain similarity in the understanding of the ontology of culture (and in relation to the general boundaries of the problem field of humanitarian knowledge), the knowledge about various aspects of the cultural life of man and society is separated by the existing boundaries of the scientific competence of various social and human sciences, which contradicts the process of understanding the integrity of the cultural phenomenon itself. Cultural studies, learning culture as a whole, already by virtue of this circumstance cannot be a humanitarian science „among others”. This circumstance complicates the process of self-determination of cultural studies as an independent science (including the reflection of its method). Despite the fact that the emphasis on cultural studies as a specific area of theoretical knowledge is recognized by the Humanities, however, the problem of identifying the scientific method, which is associated with the final legitimization of this field of knowledge of culture, has not been sufficiently convincing yet. It is concluded that the Humanities are in dire need of rigor and improvement of their scientific status. With the exception of the descriptive part in these sciences, everything else remains the opinion of individual authors.

The methodology of cultural studies: nomadology and the non-linear being of man

This article updates the problem of cultural studies as a specific field of humanitarian knowledge. It has been stated that, with a certain similarity in the understanding of the ontology of culture (and in relation to the general boundaries of the problem field of humanitarian knowledge), the knowledge about various aspects of the cultural life of man and society is separated by the existing boundaries of the scientific competence of various social and human sciences, which contradicts the process of understanding the integrity of the cultural phenomenon itself. Cultural studies, learning culture as a whole, already by virtue of this circumstance cannot be a humanitarian science „among others”. This circumstance complicates the process of self-determination of cultural studies as an independent science (including the reflection of its method). Despite the fact that the emphasis on cultural studies as a specific area of theoretical knowledge is recognized by the Humanities, however, the problem of identifying the scientific method, which is associated with the final legitimization of this field of knowledge of culture, has not been sufficiently convincing yet. It is concluded that the Humanities are in dire need of rigor and improvement of their scientific status. With the exception of the descriptive part in these sciences, everything else remains the opinion of individual authors.

Cultural distortion risks at heritage sites: Scale development and validation

Cultural risk measurement is an urgent theoretical and practical issue related to cultural sustainability of heritage sites. This research conducted rigorous scale development of cultural distortion risk at heritage sites (CDRHS) with four stages. The results further emphasize the risk prediction direction of cultural crisis. Validated with three dimensions and 12 items, the CDRHS scale has high-level and convergent, construct, and discriminant validity. The scale is confirmed with three constructs: cultural ontology distortion risks, cultural representation distortion risks, and cultural constructive distortion risks. Moreover, the ‘risk-trust-intention’ negative influence framework indicates that CDRHS has a significant negative effect on tourists' behavioral intention. This research highlights the structural dimension of the CDRHS scale, presenting a new measurement tool and methodological contribution to cultural sustainability of heritage sites. It provides indicators and diagnostic tools for timely prediction and supervision of cultural crises.

The hegemony of values: Revisiting Stanisław Pietraszko’s concept of culture with Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony

In my reinterpretation of Stanisław Pietraszko’s writings, I seek to identify their elements that exhibit some affinity with the concept of cultural hegemony, which germinated from entirely different ideological soil and has been developed under different historical circumstances. The idea of hegemony is usually traced back to Antonio Gramsci’s texts, though also to the work of other scholars inspired by Karl Marx’s thought, including the British philosophers who founded cultural studies. I argue that in distancing himself from all Marxism-underpinned theories, therein those that evolved toward semiology, Pietraszko was prompted not only by his philosophical views on the ontology of culture and possibilities of studying it but also by the social and political conjuncture in which hedeveloped his conception of culture (specifically, the socialist or communist regimes in Eastern Europe). I ponder how the two divergent models of understanding culture (i.e. culture defined in terms of ways of life and the idea of cultural hegemony) can be brought together. In my argument, I consider various media and communication forms in public space, such as murals, graffiti, posters, billboards, monuments and the like. It is in them that I see manifestations of values.

Introduction

AbstractThis introduction to the special issue “Multispecies Justice” traces various histories and genealogies of multispecies justice, illuminating the critical contributions of Indigenous philosophies and lifeways and more recent justice movements and intellectual developments in the West. It emphasizes how these intellectual traditions are rooted in social and political movements spurred by the relentless violence against the more-than-human and the inadequacy of existing conceptualizations or institutions of justice. The introduction explains the issue's engagement with the relationship between epistemological cultures and cultural ontologies on the one hand, and political institutions on the other, with a particular focus on different “species” of beings (human, nonhuman animal, plant, and so on). It also sets out the methodological and representational challenges involved in conceptualizing and achieving multispecies justice. The introduction introduces the articles to follow by thematizing them around four key topics: the relationship between agency and representation; situated knowledges and knowledge production; colonialism and capitalism; and the law and institutions understood as formal rule-systems and informal rules and norms. By engaging these themes, the special issue seeks to imagine how political institutions might be formed and transformed in ways that are responsive to cultural ontologies that disrupt existing grids of meaning and distributions of value.

Local cultural distortion risk at tourist destinations: connotation deconstruction and theoretical construction

ABSTRACT The current accelerating process of cultural and tourism integration has posed severe challenges to local cultural sustainability. However, there is an obvious research gap in tourism culture from the risk perspective. This conceptual study introduced the theory of the production of space and utilized the inductive method to distinguish the connotation of related concepts. Furthermore, this paper developed a concept of local cultural distortion risk at tourist destinations (LCDRTD) and deconstructed its connotation. Moreover, a three-dimensional structure of LCDRTD was highlighted that combines the cultural ontology distortion risk, cultural representation distortion risk, and cultural constructive distortion risk. This concept is more applicable to tourism types that are closely related to local traditional history and culture, such as heritage tourism and cultural tourism, etc. This attempt expands the cultural sustainability research framework and perspective and consolidates the tourism theoretical basis.

«Речевая реальность»: особенности онтологии

The article is devoted to such a topic of cultural ontology as the specificity of «speech reality». The author sees the main contradiction of speech reality in its belonging to symbolic forms of culture while simultaneously gravitating to be a double and a representative of the empirical, everyday world. Speaking (live speech) is connected with the work of imagination, communication, selectivity of means of description, dynamics of discrete and continuous forms, etc., therefore, it is always probabilistic and, as it were, hangs between thought and practical objective reality, but claims to merge with it. From the author's point of view, such cultural mechanisms as acceptance, recognition and support (V.B.Melas) can give the speech the fullness of «genuine reality», and not empty chatter, they give the said ontological fullness, thanks to which the narrated is considered not as «one conversation», but as significant.

Sobornost as a Form of Ontology of Culture in the Works of V. Solovyov, P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, N. Berdyaev through the Prism of Hegel’s Dialectic

The article examines the development of approaches to the category of sobornost (spiritual community of people), stated in the works of V. Solovyov, in the works of P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, N. Berdyaev. This essay traces the evolvement of sobornost from abstraction to definition by means of Hegel’s dialectic. The process of dialectic development is projected onto modern life through philosophic polylogue that includes symbolic interpretation of the language of Russian religious philosophy of the 19th–20th centuries. Sobornost is interpreted as a specific ontology of culture enfolding itself in religious, secular, and religious-secular communality. Thus, with Hegel’s triads in mind we can build on the unity and self-identity of sobornost at the level of religious communality. For secular communality with its duality, sobornost is mediated and reversed. Though duality of sobornost is not substantial and it unites general and particular into religious-secular communality as the most concrete form of its actualization. Each communality type means a specific form of presentation of sobornost in language and shows itself in the texts through religious philosophemes (symbols). For example, wandering (S. N. Bulgakov) and self-sacrifice (P. Florensky, N. A. Berdyaev) indicate religious communality. They are characterized by religious hyper-asceticism, mono-ideism, atemporality, martyrdom, and chosenness. Whereas heroism (S. N. Bulgakov, P. Florensky) implies maximalism of causes and means, individualism, chosenness, collectivity, political mono-ideism, martyrdom and points to secular communality. All three symbols of religious and secular communalities have common features: atemporality, eschatologism, the idea of chosenness, mono-ideism, martyrdom and Messianism with different actualization in each of the communalities. The third type of communality combining both religious and secular demonstrates all three symbols of sobornost. Herein these symbols are associated with humility, personal maximalism of actions, religious conscience, historicity, and freedom. In this way an individual is always placed in the dimension of sobornost and cannot be regarded out of it. The establishment of sobornost leads to spiritual totality of the divine-humanity.

Socio-Cultural Traits and Gender Elements: An Analysis through Indian Diaspora in Germany

What makes a culture and what are the cultural traits identified by people are important questions to be developed more within diaspora studies. This article proposes a critical inquiry into the ways of defining socio-cultural traits through the discussions with Indian diaspora living in the context of Western culture. It suggests hypothesis that there is a possibility of hybrid cultures between the Eastern and Western. The ontological status of being ‘Indian’ would be different while living in India and abroad, and the cultural ontology in those subject positions would also vary to produce hybrid cultures. Theories of migration, culture and gender constitute a background and framework in this study. Reflections on cultural identity and cultural traits are obtained in this study through direct interviews with diaspora Indians living in Germany. In this process of analyses, the methodology of gender is adopted along with other methods of qualitative research to see how the socio-cultural perspectives change after migration to Western cultures, and how those are different among men and women. The preliminary argument derived in this article is that cultural traits can be traced in aspects of people’s daily life, but not only through dominant art forms, literature or historical monuments. It is done with a critical perspective on the existing dominant methods of defining culture. This study has a critic on existing methodologies that are Eurocentric, male-centric and neglecting the individual and mundane experiences of people who live in varied cultural contexts with complex cultural identities.

COVID-19’S INFLUENCE ON AFRICA’S UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE DOMAIN: DEBRIEFING SOUTH AFRICA–NIGERIA SETTINGS

Studies acknowledge that COVID-19 is a game-changer resulting in an operational “new normal” across organizational endeavours including university governance. One effect of COVID-19 on social change organizations like universities in Africa is that it intensified operational disruptions. The study utilizes narrative analysis to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on university governance using South Africa-Nigeria settings as a template to generalize for Africa. Its data stems from a methodological qualitative orientation, implying that the narrations derive from unstructured interviews with key players within the university system. It is anchored on a conceptual framework founded on the ontology of African administrative and organizational culture that dialectically prompts epistemological analysis. The ontology facet deals with the status quo of university governance before COVID-19, denoting universities as mini societies reflecting the continent’s general operational culture. The epistemology aspect dealt with knowledge generation, indicating innovation African universities need to adopt to operate effectually during and aftermath of COVID-19. It finds that e-university governance application in Nigeria is underdeveloped compared to South Africa’s model which is basic. However, it concludes that improved investment in digitalizing operations of universities is imperative for their successful governance in a postCOVID-19 pandemic epoch in Africa.

Screen culture ontology: towards the problem statement

We regard the screen phenomenon as a formative principle of modern culture. We have modeled the cultural concepts sequence representing the evolution of screen ontology: water – mirror – surface – shield – glass – portal – implant. The article covers (1) the issues of developing an integrated methodological approach to the interpretation of the formative, transmitting, and sense-making roles of the screen in modern culture; (2) systematic conceptual prognostications of screen transformational influence on cognition, corporeality, the aesthetic worldview of a modern man; (3) establishment of the “screen culture man” anthropological project formation in the contemporary world. A screen as a cultural phenomenon evolves and acquires expanded functions, revealing its own modes, the list of which is open-ended. Despite the fact that the formation of a screen phenomenon has not been completed, it is already obvious today that it is moving in the direction of a series of transformations of a screen-means into a screen-substance, a screen-object into a screen-subject, which inevitably levels out the value of a person looking at this screen, whose transformation occurs in the opposite direction to the screen.

Ocean Weaves: Reconfigurations of Climate Justice in Oceania

This article engages weaving as a model of feminist decolonial climate justice methodology in Oceania. In particular, it looks to three weaver-activists who use their practices to reclaim the matrixial power of the ocean (as maternal womb and network of relation) in the face of ongoing US occupation in the Pacific: Marshallese poet and climate activist Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner; Hawai‘i-based settler-ally weaver and installation artist Mary Babcock; and Kānaka Maoli sculptor Kaili Chun, also based in Hawai‘i. Each artist begins from a particular positionality in the ongoing open weave of the ocean and uses specific cultural ontologies of weaving and netting to address knots and gaps in climate change imaginaries. These weavers help to articulate important nuances in recent calls for working in solidarity networks at the cultural interface of climate justice activism. Their processes directly address the need for greater emotional and relational capacity across cultural and national divides, across Indigenous and non-Indigenous feminist critiques of colonial-capitalist systems and through inter-connected waters.

The Social Measuring of the Crystallization of Cultural Ontology in the Apostolic Discussion about the Fate of the Church and Its Significance

The Social Measuring of the Crystallization of Cultural Ontology in the Apostolic Discussion about the Fate of the Church and Its Significance

Art History as a Thick Discipline

The text is an attempt to look at art history from the perspective of cultural ontology. Science in general and art history in particular are seen as a kind of practice whose specificity gives identity to particular groups of sciences and disciplines. The practice of the humanities, including art history, is specifically related to signification and is carried out from within axio­logical situations. A reference to meanings (senses and values), constitutive for the humanities, is made, among other things, through the use of thick concepts, i.e. concepts that are both value expressing and descriptive. As I see it, art history uses specific thick concepts which make it possible to distinguish it from other humanistic disciplines. Seeing the integrating factor in the practice of art history makes it possible, at the same time, to preserve its theoretical openness which corresponds to the openness of human praxis, including artistic praxis.

Образование как событие: со-бытийная природа университетской корпоративности

In the article the conceptual issues of the educational philosophy are presented. The aim of the research is to explore the specific character of contemporary education ontology in the whole and the particularities of the university education as a part of it. In addition authors make an attempt to consider the education being as its betweenness in the world, to identify its historical and philosophical transformations closely connected with traditionally obtained corporative university form. Originally, the university was founded as a corporation, but state-of-the-art conditions of its functioning forced the development of its cultural model and structure. Authors stand on the position that the classical ontological university particularities - the wholeness of a being and the absoluteness of criteria - at the moment are displaced by the ontological eventness. Event ontology supposed to obtain ordinary disunification, plurality and conditions singularity. The university educational ontology transformation leads to the corporate culture ontology changing processes. A contemporary university corporate culture has event nature and it is supposed to illuminate itself in the postclassical cultural university identity. The main methods of the investigation are the philosophical and cultural critics (critical analysis) and the comparative research of the classical university education (presented in the unity of its being) and its current condition status represented by the event existence. The novelty of the authors' position is in argumentation of ontological term “event” applied to the contemporary university and relative to it, also event ontology based, corporativity. Eventness of the current cultural processes, including educational ones, is an element, deconstructing being in its entity and wholeness. Being in existent modernity obtains the features of eclecticism, fragmentarity, as a consequence, the key characteristics development of the social institutes is required. The classical university in its students' and professors' unity of scientific investigations has to expand its functions in accordance with the educational market demand. Essentially, a university transforms into a business corporation with the high standard of culture. The authors' position is based on the deconstructive processes within the present day philosophical thinking, distinguishing the classical scope clarity. The position mentioned above give a possibility to consider the modification of ontology of being in entity of its particularities, the education being and the university being alongside its corporate culture. The position explored can be identified as event ontology and it is the result of liquid modernity requirements challenging a contemporary university. The classical university model and the unipolar culture are displaced by the multiple identity and the complementarity of corporate and academic cultures as a vital condition of the university existence.

Design jako próba przywrócenia kanonu? Pojęcia, metody i dyskursy a niemieckie i śląskie wzornictwo pierwszej połowy XX wieku

In the article, the concept of canon is related to the process that has been defined as the transition from applied art to design. The thesis is then put forward that this processcan be seen as the canonisation of products intended for mass production. The above statement suggests that a (qualitative?) change has taken place between designing and producing artistic and also utilitarian objects and the phenomenon called design. However, an answer to this problem first requires a clarification of terms. If we understand design and production historically in the context of the transition from handicraft to machine production, i.e. within the narrative socio-economic history, and if we place design in the ontology of visual culture, its pictorial representations and materiality, we will see a shift of focus to aesthetic values, related to form and materiality, and thus canonisation – the establishment of icons (of design). The canon will in this sense be a defence against aesthetic relativism. Escaping into the canon is art history’s way of dealing with the social, economic and knowledge and technology arts was included in the research on searching for connections with Bauhaus as an exemplification of the canon. Design as historically understood industrial design and design as a creative activity, as the energy needed to produce a canonical utilitarian object, i.e. one whose aesthetic or artistic value will go far beyond utilitarian, form the framework in the text for methodological discussion, reflections on defining concepts and critical analysis of scientific discourses and their possible junctures. transfer issues that are indispensable in the study of crafts, arts and craft and design. The history of art (but also popular culture!) has canonised many works and phenomena. One example is the Bauhaus, widely seen as the canon of 20th-century design, although Gropius himself defined its purpose in the words: “das ziel des bauhauses ist eben kein ‘stil’, kein system, dogma oder kanon [...]”. Similar phenomena took place concerning the design of the first half of the 20th century from the Lower Silesia area: the slogan “Breslauer Moderne” referred, in part, to the Werkbund exhibition in 1929 (WuWA), and the activity of the Wrocław Academy in the field of applied arts was included in the research on searching for connections with Bauhaus as an exemplification of the canon. Design as historically understood industrial design and design as a creative activity, as the energy needed to produce a canonical utilitarian object, i.e. one whose aesthetic or artistic value will go far beyond utilitarian, form the framework in the text for methodological discussion, reflections on defining concepts and critical analysis of scientific discourses and their possible junctures.

Ontology of the Digital Culture: World Trends and Chinese Advanced Experience

The concept of digital culture defines a set of values, practices, and expectations regarding the format of human interaction in today’s online society. Predictions of digital culture describe the specifics of the online environment and the general context of social life. The range of interpretations of digital culture varies between two poles: from the recognition of digital technologies as a way of presenting libraries, museums, historical monuments, etc., to the concepts of digital culture as a new socio-anthropological reality, the content of which is not limited to ICT. Culture as a phenomenon means the semantic unity of human activity, the desire to format social life following ideas and values, the movement from existing to obligatory, from actual to potential, and digital culture is an adequate response to the demands and challenges. People worldwide change their placement of everyday activity, and we could admit such huge transformation in the Chinese People’s Republic exactly obvious.