Social Criticism Research Articles

Representation of Violence Against Female Characters in Indonesian Horror Novels

This study explores the representation of violence against female characters in Indonesian horror novels, examining how these portrayals reflect societal views on gender and power. By analyzing three popular novels, the research focuses on types of violence—physical, psychological, and symbolic—that female characters experience, aiming to uncover how these depictions critique patriarchal norms. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach, the study uses textual analysis alongside a feminist narrative framework to interpret recurring themes and patterns within these narratives. Findings reveal that, while female characters are often portrayed as victims, they also demonstrate moments of resistance and agency, challenging traditional roles and societal expectations. This ambivalent portrayal highlights both the vulnerability and resilience of women, offering insights into the complex dynamics of gender in Indonesian culture. The study concludes that Indonesian horror novels serve as a powerful medium for social critique, using horror to comment on issues of gender-based violence and the potential for women to disrupt oppressive structures. This research emphasizes the role of literature in reflecting and challenging societal norms, particularly regarding the representation of women.

The Role of Art in Addressing Health Inequities

This paper examines the intersection of art and public health, focusing on the role of art in addressing health inequities driven by social determinants of health. Health disparities—disproportionate health outcomes influenced by socioeconomic, racial, geographic, and other systemic factors—are pervasive in many communities. Art, as both a therapeutic tool and a platform for social critique, holds unique potential to bridge these gaps. Through case studies of art initiatives, this paper investigates how collaborative art projects can foster community engagement, raise awareness, and influence policy changes to promote health equity. The paper also examines the challenges faced by art-health initiatives, offering practical strategies to overcome them. Ultimately, the integration of art into health interventions can foster emotional connections and inspire collective action toward more equitable health outcomes. Keywords: Health inequities, social determinants of health, art as social critique, public health, community.

POLITICAL CONFLICT IN LAUT BERCERITA BY LEILA S. CHUDORI: INSIGHTS FROM NEW HISTORICISM

This research investigates the political conflict depicted in Leila S. Chudori's novel Laut Bercerita, focusing on the portrayal of the student’s movement and authoritarian regime dominated by military force in Indonesia during the New Order era. Drawing on the theories of Sociology of Literature and New Historicism, the study aims to analyze the socio-political dynamics embedded within the narrative. The qualitative descriptive method is employed to examine the text in-depth, considering its historical significance and literary merits. Through close textual analysis, the research reveals the intricate interplay between fiction and reality, shedding light on the experiences of activists and the repressive tactics of the regime. The novel vividly captures the determination, struggles, and sacrifices of student activists as they challenge authoritarian rule, providing valuable insights into Indonesia's socio-political landscape. Additionally, the study explores the ways in which literature serves as a vehicle for social critique and historical remembrance, emphasizing the enduring relevance of Chudori's work in contemporary discourse. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of Indonesian history and literature, underscoring the importance of literature as a tool for socio-political commentary and cultural preservation.

Fikret Kızılok’s Songs as an Object of Memory and Protest in Türkiye

ABSTRACT This article discusses Turkish multi-instrumentalist and singer Fikret Kızılok’s protest songs in relation to the socio-political context of Türkiye from the 1960s to the 1990s. Kızılok’s music serves here as a crucial historical testimony, reflecting the evolving political landscape and cultural trends during a period marked by coups and social unrest. Despite the significance of his work, there is a notable lack of comprehensive academic research on Kızılok’s contributions. This study analyzes his albums, interviews, and discussions in various media, positioning his songs as vital objects of memory and protest. By examining Kızılok’s discography, the article emphasizes the intersections of music, society, and politics, arguing that understanding his music can enrich our comprehension of the broader dynamics at play in Turkish cultural production, social critique, and the commodification of music. The findings prompt further exploration of Kızılok’s impact on protest music.

Going Native/Viral in Russian Popular Music: Aesthetic Populism, Patriotic Anti-racism, and the Quest for Hip-Hop Authenticity in Timati’s Teymuraz Music Video Trilogy

This paper critically analyzes the 2010s’ viral music video trilogy featuring Teymuraz, a stage and video persona of the Russian/Tatar/Jewish hip-hop artist Timati. Using hyperbolized stereotypes of a racialized taxi driver from the Caucasus/Central Asia, the hybrid aesthetics of Teymuraz fuses the elements of New East style, post-Soviet cultural recycling, social critique, and appropriates the voices of the subaltern. Contextualizing Teymuraz as a strategy of racial translation of US hip-hop and as a part of the Russian cultural trend of aesthetic populism, I analyze the work of racial signification in the trilogy that relies on multimodal racial metonymy. I read the trilogy as a peculiar Russian patriotic anti-racist project with contradictory implications. Having been haunted by the accusations of ‘copying’ US rappers throughout his career, Timati negotiates the stigma of imitation, transgressing it in Teymuraz, exploiting his own ethnoracial ambiguity, chronic hip-hop inauthenticity, and the aesthetic populism trend.

Self-transformative life and social critique

Self-transformative life and social critique

Emancipation and liberation as normative horizons in critical theory

Although they are often used as synonyms, emancipation and liberation constitute two distinct normative horizons in critical theory of society. In this article, I offer an analysis of these two concepts, including their historical and epistemological characteristics, pointing out similarities, differences and the possibilities for their combined use as basis of models of normative social criticism. I argue that the critical horizon of human emancipation emerges in post-Kantian European thought, while the horizon of liberation was developed in Latin American decolonial thinking in the second half of the 20th century. The horizon of emancipation arises with the critique of the primacy of systemic domination, while liberation emerges in the resistance to the primacy of the experience of oppression. The analytical distinction between these two normative horizons can be helpful to better understand both the foundations of epistemic decolonization and the potential for dialogue between the critical perspectives of center and periphery.

Calculative Practices Shaping the Global Accountability Forum for Climate Agenda

ABSTRACTCalculative practices are everywhere, including the enactment and diffusion of sustainable development goals, such as quantifying and monetizing carbon markets, criteria for allocating donations for sustainability programs, and performance measurement of compromises and goals. We critically explore the performativity and counter‐performativity from the calculative practices orbiting and shaping the annual debate on climate governance and how they are related to the vulnerability of populations. Our qualitative analysis comprised a comprehensive set of documents produced by enrolled participants of meetings and workshops between two annual Conferences of the Parties of the United Nations. We identified and exemplified three calculative practices, and despite their intended performativity, some counter‐effects, like social exclusion and criticism by stakeholders, arise.

Justicia constitucional y polarización política en EspañaConstitutional justice and political polarization in Spain

Abstract Established in 1980, the Spanish Constitutional Court displayed a pacifying function and remained in a discreet position, relatively immune to external polarization, during its first years of existence. Already in the first decade, certain signs of polarization began to appear. However, the last fifteen years have witnessed an increasing polarization around the Court. This is mainly due to exogenous causes, which have produced a change in the very self-understanding of the Court. The article begins with some conceptual clarifications, in order to highlight the inherent balance of Constitutional Justice. The author then devotes an epigraph to examine the practices that have contributed to polarization from the outside (distribution of appointments by quotas, transfer of social polarization, excessive recusals, political criticism and direct legislative disturbance of its peaceful functioning). Thirdly, he refers to the judicial practices that, as a consequence of the external intervention, seem to have fed back the polarization (leaks, delays, public exposure of the judges and overreaching of jurisdiction). The author concludes with some more general reflections on the relationship between the external and internal causes of polarization around the Court.

Tönnies on the tension between community and society during the First World War

Ferdinand Tönnies’ main legacy in social theory, the community-society dichotomy developed in his work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Community and Society, GuG) of 1887, showed its potential for grasping but also for creating social reality during the First World War (WWI), a conflagration welcomed by some of the most prominent intellectuals throughout Europe. One the most important terms for mobilising support for the war effort in Germany was Gemeinschaft (community), which Tönnies had opposed to (capitalist, modern, western) Gesellschaft (society). Many German intellectuals came to defend the now notorious “ideas of 1914”, inter alia Volksgemeinschaft (folk community), the toxic potential of which was most clearly revealed later under National Socialism. This served to relativise the ideas of 1789 – liberty, equality, and fraternity. The folk community was evoked together with a national truce between the social classes over the distribution of material and symbolic capital, known as the Burgfrieden, literally, the peace of the citadel, mirroring the Union Sacrée (Sacred Union) called forth by President Raymond Poincaré in France in 1914. Volksgemeinschaft figured in much of the polemics of Germany’s intellectual class throughout the war. Tönnies’ dichotomy and his variations on the theme formed one of the most significant conceptual inventions to be mobilised in wartime public opinion, for instance when Thomas Mann asserted a fundamental difference between western European Zivilisation and German Kultur – a dichotomy already found in Tönnies’ work of 1887 – in Mann’s Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man), written between 1915 and 1918. While Tönnies did not claim Germany had a monopoly over culture, he had suggested in 1887 that the United States lacked national character, ushering in the notion that the degree of community depended on nationhood. Defining features of community – the sense of common appurtenance or the devotion of the individual to the Whole – characterised early German as opposed to Durkheimian social theory, which was more concerned with the division of functions and exchanges, as can be seen in the work of leading members of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (German Sociological Association, DGS). While Tönnies’ GuG offered incisive concepts for social critique, his positions on WWI, like those of other early 20th century social theorists, raise the question of how such a perspicacious intelligentsia could have been won over by causes now viewed as calamitous, at a time when Europe’s belligerent nations’ intellectual elite were accusing one another of myopia and intellectual dishonesty.

Prioritization of Evaluation Items for Industrial Accident Prevention Factors Using the Fuzzy TOPSIS Technique

With the rapid progress of industrialization, serious accidents have frequently occurred at industrial sites. Despite the existence of several laws and regulations for preventing industrial accidents, including the Occupational Safety and Health Act, social criticism has been raised regarding their inefficiency. To address this issue, the Serious Accident Punishment Act was implemented. The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Safety and Health Agency have prepared and implemented various industrial accident prevention measures and programs; however, the number of industrial accidents has not decreased. Therefore, new evaluation criteria must be introduced when establishing policies or systems to prevent industrial accidents. This study introduces evaluation items used in Europe and the United States as industrial accident prevention items for assessing industrial accident prevention projects and proposes a plan to select priorities for these items by applying the fuzzy TOPSIS technique. Prioritization was determined by calculating four evaluation criteria and ten industrial accident prevention items using a 7-point linguistic scale. Our results allow for the simultaneous consideration of several industrial accident prevention items. Thus, various aspects of industrial accident prevention activities can be comprehensively evaluated, enhancing the effectiveness and execution of safety and health management, thereby helping to reduce industrial accidents.

Social Critique and Cancel Culture: Analyzing Online Comments on Gisella Anastasia's Video with Foucault's Approach

This research analyzes the phenomena of social criticism and cancel culture in the context of the Gisella Anastasia sex scandal, focusing on analyzing netizen comments on YouTube news channels. Foucault's discourse analysis is used to explore how comments reflect power dynamics on social media. These comments fall into four categories: social media shaming, slut-shaming, redemption support, and superficial praise.The research findings show mixed reactions from netizens about the Gisella Anastasia scandal, with social media backlash and slut shaming highlighting strong criticism of her behavior.On the other hand, redemption support illustrates support and forgiveness towards the celebrity's efforts to amend their actions following clarification or apologies. Shallow praise focuses on compliments that are not related to the main issue.The research reveals that social media shaming and slut shaming are the primary comment categories. Using a Foucauldian approach, it examines how these comments reflect systems of discipline and punishment, highlighting the complexities of cancel culture and its impact on interpretation and judgment in the social media age.. The analysis of netizen comments provides insights into how power and social control are manifested in online interactions and their implications on the reputation and public perception of celebrities.

Evolving Woman in Film

Throughout the time, the film industry has always mirrored the troubling issues in the society. Especially on the evolving societal norms and the uprising feminist movements. This paper examines the change in female portrayal and social critique on both Swept Away (1975) and Promising Young Woman (2021). Both films closely examine the patriarchal constraints in an contrasting directions, creating a trend from submissible to resistance. Lina Wertmüller’s Swept Away (1975) resides in the conservative 1970s, which criticizes how the social constraints enforce the submissiveness of woman. On the other hand, Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman (2021) is more current and empower woman in their ability to reject patriarchal pressure in their own advocation for justice. Through the comparative analysis, the paper highlights the transition from passive to active portrayals of woman in film and examines the evolving societal conflicts that shape and hinger woman empowerment at different times.

Quem enfia as carapuças?

The satirical periodical O Piolho Viajante (‘The Travelling Louse’) was published in 72 booklets collected in four volumes from 1802 to 1804. It had a remarkable reception, with successive editions and re-impressions into the second half of the nineteenth century. Social criticism was a decisive contribution to public opinion and it was a distinctive feature of the humor of O Piolho Viajante, edited by António Manuel Policarpo da Silva, a Lisbon bookseller and publisher. Throughout its travels, the ‘Louse’ provides a satire of early-nineteenth-century Portugal by means of the carapuças (‘hoods’) shoved into the heads of its targets, social stereotypes representing the social reality of the time.

Experience of Reforms to the State Social Insurance in the Republic of Latvia after Restoring the Independence of the State de facto

The article is dedicated to an overview of the reforms to the state social insurance law and criticism of some aspects in the reforms carried out in the Republic of Latvia after the restoration of independence de facto in 1990–1991, analysing the rights and obligations of the State, the employer and the employee in the area of social insurance. On the basis of research outcomes, the author concludes that the Soviet understanding of the social insurance law was soon dispensed with. However, it is debatable whether the reforms of social insurance have been successful enough. Although the social insurance contributions are paid in the amount of at least “the minimum amount of the object of mandatory contributions”, it is not clear whether, if an insured case sets in, the disbursed benefit ensures a life that is worthy of human dignity because the subsistence minimum has not been calculated in Latvia. Moreover, not all socially insured persons have all forms of social insurance. Hence, reforms in the area of social insurance cannot be regarded as being completed.

Book Review: The Critical Humanism of the Frankfurt School as Social Critique by Critical Humanism and Critical Theory: A Review of Oliver Kozlarek

Book Review: <i>The Critical Humanism of the Frankfurt School as Social Critique</i> by Critical Humanism and Critical Theory: A Review of Oliver Kozlarek

Forms of the Mother Right: Marxism's Matriarchal Origins from Friedrich Engels to Lu Märten

AbstractThe nineteenth‐century discovery of the matrilineal origins of society shattered assumptions about the necessity of the bourgeois family. For Marxists, ethnographic studies of the mother right provided an aesthetic form to reevaluate the “woman question” from a scientific perspective. Although Marx and Engels had long rejected the idea of the family in favor of “family forms,” Engels's adaptation of Morgan's Ancient Society (1877) in Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats (1884) was canonized as the authoritative Marxist text on the subject. While the ethnographic form enabled the denaturalization of the family, its racialized and gendered temporality undercut socialist critiques of social forms. This article introduces Lu Märten's queer utopian response to the mother right, Geschichte der Frau vom Mutterrecht bis zur Gegenwart (1947), which dispenses with the evolutionary structure of the ethnographic study to offer a vision of polyamorous and androgynous forms in a classless society.

Social Criticism and the American Dream: An Analysis of James Truslow Adams' The Epic of America (1931)

The current paper delves into the social criticism embedded in James Truslow Adams' The Epic of America (1931), especially concentrating on his coinage of the "American Dream" and its connection during the Great Depression. Adams critiques the increasing disparity between socio-economic classes and the materialism that predicted America’s founding ideals. By tracing the historical origins of the American Dream, Adams pinpoints its early transformation from a common vision of opportunity and egalitarianism to one increasingly maneuvering into wealth accumulation. Through historical manifestation, Adams exposes how the advent of industrialization and capitalism had compromised the nation's democratic values, resulting in social and economic injustice. This research paper draws on historical and literary origins to scrutinize how The Epic of America acts as both a critique of the early 20th century's social conditions and a hopeful call for returning to the principles of equality and opportunity. By reassessing the American Dream, this work remains a relevant lens through which to grasp the significance of societal aspirations and disenchantment in American history.

Dystopian Visions and the Making of Privacy Law

This article explores the role of references to dystopian literature in the context of developing privacy laws. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of a large corpus of legislative and judicial texts from Germany and the United Kingdom, I demonstrate that references to popular dystopian works of fiction like Orwell’s 1984 have animated and shaped the legal recognition of privacy. Specifically, dystopian visions are evoked as reasons that warrant the legal protection of privacy rights. I explore lawmakers’ vision of a technologically empowered totalitarian state and discuss how these connect to historical, contemporary, and hypothetical examples of unjust regimes. I argue that literary imaginations of dystopia are often themselves built on historical experience, suggesting that the aptness for social critique is, as literary critics suggest, built into dystopia as a genre. I furthermore explore how the theme of democracy is employed as a counterpoint to fears of dystopian totalitarianism. Portraying privacy invasions as harmful to democratic ideals discursively amplifies their dangerousness—and thereby works to justify regulatory intervention. My research findings prompt us to view legal norms as a cultural artifact that reflect cultural imagination and literary narratives.

Perspectives for a human-centric industry: understanding the social critique of the utopian proposal

AbstractThis article assesses the exploration of the utopian paradigm within the context of technological advancement and its implications for human labor. It engages in this reflection, beginning with John Danaher’s reading of utopian perspectives related to the evolution of the labor domain, and then focusing on the significance of the social element and its dynamics in redefining labor and productive structures. It focuses on utopia as a regulatory ideal, valuing the conjectural contributions from theories throughout the history of utopian thought. The analysis aims to understand how utopian theories arise in contexts of social dissatisfaction, prompting internal reflection on the structure. The article is organized into three sections: the first introduces the concept of utopia, tracing its historical and philosophical roots, with a focus on influential figures such as Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier. Through the study of nineteenth-century social theories, the article explores their radical proposals for societal restructuring in response to the socio-economic upheavals of their time. The second section examines utopia as a form of social critique, emphasizing its critical function in assessing and guiding societal development, by engaging with Norbert Elias’s definitions of utopia. The third section evaluates the relevance of utopia in contemporary discourse on social change, emphasizing the critical examination of utopian visions in relation to the concept of the end of work and aiming to articulate clear parameters defining a utopian model as a social regulatory ideal.