Ideological Transformation Research Articles

PAGANISM, TRADITIONALISM, NATIONALISM. NARRATIVES OF RUSSIAN RODNOVERIE

Introduction : Contemporary Slavic paganism is not the object under consideration in this article. The dissertation research of K. Aytomurtoh, which appeared in 2011 in Helsinki, is one of the most important foreign publications tackling the problem of modern Russian Rodnoverie. The paper highlights the issues of the genesis of the phenomenon of modern paganism; multiple narratives of Rodnoverie have been collected and analyzed. Materials and methods: Rodnoverie is considered by the author in the context of post-modern religiosity, as one of the variations of the NSD. The author tries to highlight the specific features of the Russian version of the movement, drawing an analogy with the West - European equivalents. Particular attention should be paid to the extensive field material of the author, collected in the process of direct interaction with the adepts of the movement. Results: in the last chapter the author presents the evolution of the study of the pagan movement which for a quarter of a century of its existence has undergone both ideological and institutional transformation. K. Aitamurto also suggests possible prospects of Rodnoverie in Russia. Special attention is drawn to interaction between Rodnoverie and the Russian Orthodox Church, which, in the opinion of the author, is a leader in the Russian religious structure. Discussion and Conclusions: despite rather uneasy historical conditions for the emergence of modern paganism and the leading positions of confessional churches in modern Russia the prospects of the national movement are estimated by the Finnish researcher optimistically. K. Aimomorto speaks about the possibility of further institutional and philosophical development of the new pagan religion in Russia.

Storing up Citizens: The Myth of Soviet Motherhood and Childhood in A. P. Platonov’s Dramas of the 1920s–1930s

This article considers the formation of a new Soviet mythology of maternity and infancy in the post-revolutionary literary and artistic discourse and its deconstruction in the dramas of A. P. Platonov in the 1920s and 1930s. The changes of the family and marriage topoi and the dynamic patterns of gender relations in Soviet Russia were a result of a radical transformation of ideology and the structure of society. The author discusses the criticism of this part of the Soviet project that originated inside the system and was expressed by a writer associated with socialist construction. The methodology is based on historico-literary, historical, cultural, comparative, typological, and mythopoetic analysis. This analysis is conducted with reference to works of literature that provide an image of post-revolutionary families and models of mother (parents) – children relationships. The basic thesis of the analysis is that the concept of “emancipation of women” and the upbringing of a “new man” had a powerful life-constructing, constitutive, and utopian meaning. This gave rise to a new mythology of motherhood and infancy, where both parts correlate with and are supported, among other things, by high mass art. The author reveals criticism of the Soviet policy of motherhood and children in Platonov’s plays. The way in which myth is deconstructed in the comedy Fools on the Periphery is revealed through the collapse of an attempt by commune members to raise a child. Platonov shows the fetishization of a baby as a showpiece, and its death as a result of a utopian educational experiment. Promiscuity and juridical mess add to the world’s lack of foundation and total alienation. There is an apparent discrepancy with the 1930s myth about a happy mother-toiler in the play Fourteen Little Red Huts: mass starvation and children’s deaths leave their ever-caring mother, head of a collective farm, devastated. The semantics of a child victim and an inhabitant of a proletarian paradise are profaned: the abstract mankind of the future becomes an object of irony. Platonov uses parody, hyperbole, travesty, symbols, and plots based on casus in order to recodify the new mythology and establish new authentic humanistic and aesthetic values.

An Arab-Islamic Awakening or a Setback to the Community?

An Arab-Islamic Awakening or a Setback to the Community? Dr. Labeeb Ahmed Bsoul Abstract Throughout history, Muslim think redeveloped a method that, in many respects, influenced thinkers of the Arab renaissance for decades, not to mention their contribution to the production and accumulation of knowledge. Through this, intellectuals sought to keep up with the overall political, social, economic, and ideological transformation defined by society, since the knowledge of the form of statehood in particular, and the subsequent attempts to modernise the various structure and institutions, in an attempt to catch up with the modern dominant culture. This paradigm has motivated scholars in the Islamic studies field to examine this attribute, scrutinise its validity and accountability, and its positive and negative impact on Muslims. This, study attempts to clarify the various position ns held certain scholars Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jsspi.v5n1a2

The Small Three-Dimensional Framework of Universities' Transformation Space under the "New Normal"

The transformation of universities has become a strong trend of the times, which flushes to us in the area of the higher education, and under the background of the "new normal" economy, the transformation of universities has become a kind of new normal of reform of the higher education. In terms of micro, if a university needs a real substantial transformation, its space of development and transformation should be formed with three principal axes: ideological transformation, institutional transformation and school-running mode transformation. Among them, ideological transformation is the premise, institutional transformation is the guarantee, and the school-running mode transformation is the core.

Critical Literacy in an EFL Classroom in Vietnam : Agentive Empowerment, Ideological and Language Transformations

The study, conducted in a mountainous province in Vietnam, explored how teaching methods of critical literacy (CL) were effective with high school students and their perceptions about these approaches. The study employed engaged ethnography (e.g., Phyak & Bui, 2014; Davis & Phyak, 2015) in which the researcher worked collectively with 27 students in understanding current pedagogical issues and applying CL in a real classroom. In particular, students were provided an opportunity to learn English through CL which was embedded in two vignettes on listening and project-based learning. The findings indicated CL pedagogies significantly improved students’ English language competency and multiple skills such as leadership, presentation, and collaboration. Moreover, the students’ responses strongly indicated CL is a meaningful, applicable, and critical approach for their English language improvement, socio-cultural awareness, and agentive development. The study offered some recommendations for applying CL pedagogies in language teaching, paying special attention to students’ agencies while providing them with ample CL methods, and opportunities to enrich their academic English competency for effective language learning and ideological and academic transformations.

East Asian Unconscious of Translation and World Literature

World literature is a historical concept that can only be established and practiced through translation into the native language. Translations in East Asia are accompanied with intentional misreading or unintentional misunderstandings. World literature as imagined in Korea, China, and Japan is neither singular nor politically equal. Problematizing the spirit of the age and imagination of translations in East Asia in the first half of the 20 th century provides new perspectives that the methodologies of comparative literature or translation studies cannot capture. Translations of A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and “The Last Lesson” by Alphonse Daudet are a great example for demonstrating how contemporary European literature is incorrectly interpreted and reproduced in East Asia’s historical context. On the other hand, the difference of viewpoints between The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and Moment in Peking by Yutang Lin is produced through translations by the ideological transformation of China as the other and East Asian self-representation. Translation is a cultural praxis and effect that actualizes “East Asian World Literature” and brings it to historical movements.

Turkish transformation and the Soviet Union: navigating through the Soviet historiography on Kemalism

ABSTRACTBeing founded in the wake of the First World War, both Turkey and the Soviet Union followed revolutionary modernizing pathways. At the outset, one could trace many similar patterns in their radical modernization paradigms; however, their development models as well as political and social orders were radically distinct, which became more obvious with the passage of time. The paper discusses the external interpretations of Kemalism by observing the Soviet perspectives on the inception and evolution of Kemalism. Paying more attention to diplomatic, geopolitical and economic complexities of the Turkish-Soviet relations, scholars have rarely problematized the Soviet Union perceptions of Turkish ideological transformations. In reality, since the early 1920s, different state institutions, intellectual schools of thought and research in the Soviet Union closely observed the domestic transformations in Turkey by providing valuable insights on the perspective and the implications of the Kemalist transformation. The article also looks at the question of how the incorporation of Soviet perspectives can enrich the historiography and our understanding of Kemalism.

Rethinking Russian pan-Slavism in the Ottoman Balkans: N.P. Ignatiev and the Slavic Benevolent Committee (1856–77)

ABSTRACTIn the mid-nineteenth century pan-Slavic ideology was evident at two levels: at the personal level in N.P. Ignatiev's diplomacy, and at the institutional level in the Slavic Benevolent Committee's activities. Both served to spread Russian influence among the Slavic Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Sultan. The Russian Archives contain a wealth of material related to the Slavic Benevolent Committee and Ambassador N.P. Ignatiev's activities concerning Russia's Balkan policy. The memoirs of the Russian and Ottoman bureaucratic elites also offer great detail on the subject. Relying upon these archival sources and memoirs, this article aims to discuss the transformation of pan-Slavic ideology from a cultural organization into a Russian political asset, with special attention to N.P. Ignatiev and the Slavic Benevolent Committee.

Broader, vaguer, weaker: The evolving ideology of the Caucasus Emirate leadership

ABSTRACTIn October 2007, veteran Chechen field commander Dokka Umarov proclaimed the formation of the Caucasus Emirate (IK), formalising the victory of the North Caucasus insurgency’s Islamist wing over its nationalist-separatists. During Umarov’s time as leader, the North Caucasus experienced sustained violence and the IK claimed responsibility for multiple terrorist attacks in and beyond the region. However, despite the importance of ideology in understanding insurgent behaviour, the IK’s ideology and Umarov’s role in shaping it remain understudied. Using Social Movement Theory’s concept of framing to analyse Umarov’s communiqués throughout his lengthy tenure (June 2006–September 2013), this article identifies three distinct phases in Umarov’s ideological positioning of the insurgency: nationalist-jihadist (June 2006–October 2007); Khattabist (October 2007–late 2010); and partially hybridised (late 2010–September 2013). The article contributes to debates over typologies of jihadist actors by highlighting the difficulties in applying them to the North Caucasus and provides a clearer understanding of the IK’s ideological transformation and the limits to its engagement with external actors. The article also illustrates that weakness was a key factor in explaining that transformation and identifies several avenues for research that could further enhance our understanding of the IK’s ideology and the role it plays.

Phenomenon of Trust in Educational Policy

Trust is the essence of all social relations in our lives. It unites our societies, joins or destroys governments, businesses and other social structures. Trust is the necessary element for people to rely on the structures implementing changes. In post-communist societies the level of trust is lower than in Western democracies. It is determined not only by diminished sources of trust during the totalitarian regimes but by rapid societal changes and the lack of new stable fundaments for trust. Distrust is not the opposite of trust but rather a rational state of mind in certain contexts and situations. Disbalance between trust and distrust in education is represented by inadequate mechanisms of inspection or control and the lack of trust in professionals. After the II World War the Western countries tried different ways to reform education called by A. Hargreaves and D. Shirley (2012) First, Second and Third way. This typology shows how political ideologies influence the development of public education. As for the trust, neoliberal approach in education created an extremely distrustful environment for educational professionals.
 Neoliberal reforms replaced liberal or social democratic approaches which are characterized by much bigger trust in professionals, as well as less tiresome mechanisms of accountability. In comparison to Western democracies, Lithuanian society and public education experienced an especially rapid and contradictory ideological, social and political transformation related to the creation of an independent state, the rapid overhaul of the national political structure along with global influence. Speaking of the three different ways of reform, it appears that Lithuanian education reform is meandering down all the different ways at once but is most likely stuck between the First – Innovations and Inconsistency – and the Second – Standardization and Markets – Ways. It is reflected by wandering between the sociodemocratic principles of education for all” and neoliberal approaches packed into the rhetoric’s of New Public Management. Due to the contradictive trajectories of educational change, practitioners are becoming “objects” of political requirements losing their authentic professional life. The quality of education in every country depends on the amount of professional capital: professionals, who implement their moral purpose in trusting environment and strengthening the social capital of the country. The further development of education in Lithuania should address the enrichment of professional capital.

Democracy and the Origins of the American Regulatory State

The political scientist Samuel DeCanio's book combines fine-grained historical analysis with theory drawn from political science. DeCanio's historical project is to understand the establishment of the American regulatory state. Rejecting arguments that populist demands in the late nineteenth century led directly to the creation of bureaucratic regulatory authority in the Treasury Department and the Interstate Commerce Commission (icc), DeCanio offers a much more contingent story of institutional development. He carefully takes readers through the political twists and turns of debates over monetary policy and railroad regulation that resulted in the placement of such decision making in bureaucratic agencies. Following the Civil War, the economic dislocations of industrialization led populists to call for government action, but few were clamoring for bureaucratic solutions. However, the Democratic party, undergoing an ideological transformation, was increasingly willing to push for strong laws. Republicans, in turn, fearing Democrats' new willingness to support the public's “irrational policy demands[,]” moved to contain this new authority in institutions free from popular control (p. 241). Without political checks, these agencies faced no penalty for imposing Republicans' unpopular policies (in particular, the Treasury's use of the gold standard and the icc's grant of exemptions from price discrimination rules). Thus, DeCanio argues, regulation through bureaucracy was created to fend off the kind of reform that the public actually wanted. (And as an unintended consequence, the Treasury Department and the icc, created to solve immediate political problems, would serve as models for future governance.)

Guiding the change in transforming townscapes of Bhutan

Bhutan stands at the threshold of a crucial change as its rich traditional towns gradually undergo physical and ideological transformations. The paper closely looks into the existing traditional town structure of Bhutanese towns and evaluates the factors leading to this change. Initially, addressing issues at the town level, the paper pins down vital changes at the building level which remain crucial to the transforming townscapes.

REFLECTING OF VALUE POLICY OF INTERETHNIC RELATIONS IN THE US MEDIA

The article deals with the specifics of the US value policy in the sphere of interethnic and interracial relations. On the bases of the analysis of publications in the US media authors identify key trends and ideological constructs in building and settlement of interethnic relations. It is noted that the emerging trend is the promotion of the idea of erasing the boundaries between ethnic identities. The authors show that American society is in the process of value and ideological social and cultural transformation associated with the interaction of many cultures, increasing number of interracial marriages, of multiracial and multiethnic individuals, leading to further confusion and blurring of ethnic identities. The general trend in the USA value policy is the erosion of ethnic, racial identity, the quest for greater integration of cultures. Rights and freedoms of the individual are of absolute value. At the same time the existing social problems associated with the conflict interethnic and interracial relations, as well as the actual socio-economic inequality are recognized. An analysis of the US experience in this field is useful for finding effective mechanisms for settlement and harmonization of interethnic relations in Russia.

From Folkhem to lifestyle housing in Sweden: segregation and urban form, 1930s–2010s

This article analyses the political and ideological transformations underlying the gradual privatisation and deregulation of the mid-twentieth-century Keynesian model of housing provision in Sweden. We identify a series of three political and ideological shifts in housing policy and urban form since the 1930s: regulating Folkhem housing, deregulating Folkhem housing, and back to business in housing. We argue that even though the Folkhem parole of ‘housing for all’ differs extensively from the current situation where the market is ‘housing the privileged’, segregation trends have, from the Folkhem to the post-welfare period, been shaped by both state interventions and market forces. Second, we argue that there is a continuing trend through which newly constructed housing has metamorphosed from a basic human right for the working class into an expression of individual distinction and ‘style’ for the upper middle and middle classes. While privileged classes, more than ever before in modern Swedish housing history, have the possibility to choose new forms of housing, the most impoverished groups live in residual and often stigmatised peripheral housing areas. One main conclusion is that recent forms of housing for privileged groups signal a cultural and ideological shift towards new, more elitist conceptions of housing and privilege.

Study on the Third Industrial Revolution and Paradigm Transformation of China’s Manufacturing Industry—Based on Theoretical Analysis of Scale Economy and Scope Economy

After the US subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, European and American developed countries have deepened “the third industrial revolution” characterized by intelligence, digitization and individualization in the global market, so as to promote their industry. This brand-new industrial revolution tide will deeply change the paradigm of traditional manufacturing industry. Through the extensive application of advanced manufacturing technology like 3D print technology, flexible production technology and reconfigurable production system, the importance of large-scale standardized production under the guidance of scale economy in modern market declines gradually, and more and more attention is paid to the scope economy idea that can adapt to the market rapidly and satisfy consumers’ individualized needs. By analyzing the trend and essence of the third industrial revolution, this paper expounds the impacts that might be caused to Chinese traditional manufacturing industry, such as the reduction of labor cost advantage, localization and decentralization of production mode, gradual deepening of service degree in manufacturing industry, and suppression on the traditional industry upgrading path and industrialization process. Meanwhile, based on the analysis of scale economy and scope economy, the ideological transformation from scale economy to scope economy is further proposed; theoretical analysis is made for the applicability of these two under the environment of the third industrial revolution, and the theoretical basis and development direction for paradigm transformation of Chinese manufacturing industry in the future are pointed out.

War and Religion; or, How the First World War Changed Hasidism

What were the effects of the Great War on religious life of East European Jews, as exemplified by its most visible, Hasidic section? What was unique in Hasidic experience of the Great War? This essay discusses the human and material losses suffered by the Hasidic movement, changes in the movement’s geography, ideological and political transformations surrounding and within Hasidism, and—most importantly—the specific changes in Hasidism caused by these transformations. It agues that Hasidism after 1918 found itself in a radically new situation, and despite the fact that many of its institutions were, on the face of it, working more or less as they had done before the war, the movement experienced a profound transformation of its geography, social roles, institutional bonds, and, often, identification with Hasidism. In this regard, the First World War was a key accelerator of the processes which transformed the Hasidic movement during the interwar period, and eventually to a significant extend shaped its resurrection and renaissance after the Holocaust.

Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China by Kirk A. Denton

Reviewed by: Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China by Kirk A. Denton Hsiao-pei Yen (bio) Kirk A. Denton. Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014. viii, 350 pp. Hardcover $59.00, isbn 978-0-8248-3687-0. How is the past remembered when its ideological framework is at odds with values that are embraced in the present? This is the conundrum China is facing today. While insisting on “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” China’s contemporary prosperity and economic growth come primarily from participating in the global capitalist economy. A new national identity and continuity with the past and a desired future needs to be forged. In Exhibiting the Past, Kirk Denton takes us to Chinese museums and memorial sites to show how the past is being constructed [End Page 30] in these cultural spaces, which themselves have emerged in China since the 1980s as signs of a rapid growing market for cultural consumption. With the development of “new museology,” a term coined in the 1980s, contemporary scholars often connect the ways in which modern museums, as public and educational institutions, construct knowledge and historical memories of specific political contexts, such as imperialism, colonialism, or nationalism. In recent years, scholars have paid attention to China’s newly developed exhibitionary culture and its social, political, and economic implications. Exhibiting the Past is among three such monographs published in 2014 (the other two are Tracey L-D Lu, Museums in China: Power, Politics, and Identities [Routledge], and Marzia Varutti, Museums in China: The Politics of Representation after Mao [Boydell & Brewer]). By critically evaluating museum exhibitions through their visual, textual, and architectural representations, the new scholarship helps us decipher the new national identity in formation in postsocialist China today. The eleven chapters of Exhibiting the Past discuss a variety of museums and commemorations. At slight odds with the book’s title, some of these sites (ethnic theme parks or urban planning exhibition halls) are not easily categorized as historical. Yet, they all contribute in one way or another to understanding China’s new nationalism. While focusing on the most recent exhibits, Denton also traces the history of individual museums or sites to show the continuities and transformations of exhibitionary culture and how they reflect a changing national identity. Denton finds a stark contrast between Chinese museum representations of Chinese history today and those that existed in the Mao era. “Revolution” has legitimized the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and therefore cannot be easily erased from the national narrative no matter how much that revolutionary heritage questions neoliberal economic practices and authoritarian political control. Revolution has to stay alive but in much tamed forms. Red tourism (hongse lüyou), initiated in 2004, is the most extreme state effort of depoliticizing revolution. Denton takes us to different red tourist sites that are officially dedicated to the revival of a patriotic education of revolutionary history. The “Disneyfication” of these original revolutionary bases strips away any radical and subversive aspects of revolution and only leaves a superficial replica of a revolutionary “atmosphere.” For example, people can “re-live” the experience of revolutionaries in Yan’an by dressing in Red Army uniforms and taking pictures in front of the assembly hall where communist heroes once gathered. Red tourism also promotes the consumption of revolution by selling Maoist memorabilia. Denton argues that what goes hand in hand with the depoliticization of revolution is the downplaying of class struggle, the promotion of a work ethic, and a reevaluation of the late Qing and Republican commercial activities. For example, Denton notices that the modern history exhibit at the Modern Chinese History Site Museum (or the Nanjing Presidential Palace) replaces the term “class” (jieji) [End Page 31] with shehui jieceng (p. 86). Unfortunately, he provides the Chinese term shehui jieceng without its English translation, “social stratification.” This represents a shift in interpretation from Marxism to Weber, a remarkable ideological transformation in how Chinese understand their society and social problems. The emphasis on the late Qing and the Republican period as the foundation for contemporary capitalist development is reflected in the...

The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity: Transforming Public Space by Gregor Kalas

Reviewed by: The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity: Transforming Public Space by Gregor Kalas Margaret M. Andrews The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity: Transforming Public Space. Gregor Kalas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. xviii + 228. ISBN 978–0-292–76078–3 Presses are encouraged to submit books dealing with Late Antiquity for consideration for review to any of JLA’s three Book Review Editors: Michael Kulikowski (mek31@psu.edu); Hagith Sivan (helenasivan@yahoo.com); and Dennis Trout (troutd@missouri.edu). Gregor Kalas’ monograph on the physical and ideological transformations of the Forum Romanum in Rome during Late Antiquity (focusing on the late third through mid-fifth centuries ce) is a welcome addition to a growing bibliography on aspects of Rome during this critical period of transition. While the city’s physical transformation has very much been a part of this recent scholarship, most publications on the topic are limited in length and/or theme, or they often constitute only part—usually the final one—of a longer diachronic overview of a site or area. Kalas’ extended focus on one space during Late Antiquity per se is therefore distinct at the moment, but hopefully the start of a trend. Kalas’s central argument is that imperial and senatorial acts of building construction and preservation, as well as the addition and manipulation of statuary, within the Forum during this time evoked and revived the city’s past to convey power and stability during the late antique present, a time that was recognized already in antiquity as one of dramatic change. The first two chapters focus largely on architectural changes during the Tetrarchy and the Constantinian period. In Chapter 1, Kalas argues that through his reconfiguration of the Forum and its rostrae, Diocletian attempted to convey a permanence of imperial rule. New imperial optics signalled a shift away from the cult of imperial personality towards a more abstract concept of joint rule and a regular and stable calendar of imperial succession mediated and sanctioned by the gods, thus bypassing the Senate. Chapter 2 focuses on Maxentius’ continuation, as Kalas sees it, of the Tetrachy’s attitudes towards the Senate and Constantine’s subsequent “liberation” of the city from them and return to a pre-Tetrarchic past. As is well-known, Constantine focused on altering (“editing,” according to Kalas) Maxentius’ building projects along the upper Via Sacra in order to establish a contrast between himself and his rival and to convey his role as a restorer of proper political, religious, and judicial order. While Kalas’s assessment of Constantine’s building and renovation program is hardly novel, it is probably more certain and one-sided than either the archaeological or textual evidence permits. His portrayal of Constantine in such sharp contrast to Maxentius, particularly with respect to Christianity, could be more nuanced, as it closely follows the polemics of Constantine’s apologists. In Chapters 3 and 4, the focus largely shifts from architectural and archaeological evidence to art historical evidence to examine how senators negotiated increasingly restricted outlets of euergetism in [End Page 285] their efforts to gain political and social prestige. Kalas’s approach remains nonetheless spatial, as both chapters draw on a long-standing project that Kalas has directed to document and reconstruct the position, appearance, and history of the statuary—much of it imperial portraiture—and extant inscribed statue bases in the Late Antique forum (Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Forum of Rome, http://inscriptions.etc.ucla.edu). In Chapter 3, Kalas demonstrates that the most visible and important areas of the Forum were restricted to statuary depicting imperial subjects. Since, however, these were almost all senatorial dedications, they reflect a mutually beneficial relationship between senators and the emperor. The accrual of these images conveyed not only the emperors’ constant connection to and improvement on the city’s past, but also the active role that senators (still) had in curating it. More interesting is the argument of Chapter 4, where Kalas shows that senators created spaces of leisure within the porticos of the Basilicas Julia and Aemilia by transferring famous artwork there from other parts of the city on their...

Turkish Experience with Totalitarianism and Fascism: Tracing the Intellectual Origins

Many facets of ideological transformation in Turkey between the 1910s and 1930s have been extensively discussed but many more still remain to be studied and contextualised. One of these aspects concerns the existing disagreement in the scholarship over Turkey’s experience with another manifestation of totalitarianism, and particularly with fascism. The present paper explores this generally overlooked dimension and argues that even the limited research on fascism in Turkey has been mainly done from comparative perspectives. This dominant methodological approach has long prevailed the field and diverted scholarly attention from the essence of the problem. Therefore, the author aims to explore the problem by not identifying similarities and differences of the Unionism of the Young Turks era and Kemalism with their contemporary totalitarian currents; instead, the analysis will be mainly limited to the Turkish context and practices in order to trace the local manifestations of “global fascism”. He also argues that there is a compelling continuity of totalitarian ideological and political practices between the Young Turks and the Kemalists.

American Art Criticism between the Cultural and the Ideological (II)

Abstract For the past 150 years, American art and art criticism have undergone important cultural and ideological transformations that are explanatory both of their historical evolution and of the possibility of being divided into several stages. In my interpretation, art criticism cuts across the historical evolution of art in the United States, according to the following cultural and ideological paradigms: two predominant cultural ideologies of art between 1865-1900 and 1960-1980, respectively; two other aesthetic and formalist ideological shifts in the periods between 1900- 1940 and 1940-1960, respectively, and one last pluralist approach to the arts after 1980. Even if this conceptualisation of art criticism in America might seem risky and oversimplifying, there are conspicuous and undeniable arguments supporting it. In a previous study published by American, British and Canadian Studies, I provided conceptual justifications both for the criteria dividing the cultural and the ideological within the overall assessment of American art by art critics and for the analysis and interpretation of the first two important temporal periods in the field of art criticism, 1865-1900 and 1908-1940. The present study continues by analyzing the cultural and ideological stances of American art criticism after 1940 and argues for certain paradigmatic shifts from one period to another.