A cry and an outcry: Oplakvane (complaining) as a term for communication practice

This study examined the term oplakvane in Bulgarian discourse. It refers to a communication practice – similar to complaining – and a range of associated cultural meanings for ways to construct a socio-economic and political reality. Data for this study included naturally occurring talk recorded during social events, interview responses from 50 participants, and a range of media postings from newspapers and online sources. These were examined through the lens of ethnography of communication and studies of terms for talk. By examining the term's context, potency, use, messages, meanings, and enactments, a larger cultural landscape is made available, illustrating how oplakvane not only describes negative talk, but references a communication ritual that serves to: (1) release the frustrations of everyday life, (2) celebrate and reinforce feelings of fate and despair, and (3) identify and locate a national Bulgarian character.     

On (not) assembling a market for sustainable energy: heat network infrastructure and British cities

Energy policies increasingly rely on market instruments to meet societal objectives for climate change mitigation. We explore the application of such instruments in low carbon heat markets. Using a conceptual framework derived from actor network theory and economic sociology, we examine the role of technical-economic models as market devices in two heat network proposals in British cities. Government intermediaries relied on the models to enact the mutual financial and carbon benefits of an area-wide heat market, and to enrol multiple public sector organisations in innovation. In practice, the models produced the opposite response: parties synthesised the modelled cost–benefit calculations into the existing public services market agencement and translated the model numbers ino opportunities to secure competitive advantage for their own organisation. These activities undermined the projected cost and carbon saving logic of the collective actor solution. The findings demonstrate the potent economic agency of market-emulating public finance and competitive procurement instruments in governing such organisational decisions, and indicate the limited traction of a low carbon calculus, which lacked significant political or senior management sponsorship. Questions are posed about the formatting of economic agency suited to securing the common goods of a sustainable society.     

Virtual reconstruction of paintings as a tool for research and learning

This paper presents the work related to the 3D reconstruction of the scene depicted in the famous Piero della Francesca's fresco “The Resurrection”. The work has presented many challenges due to the fact that deliberate alterations to a mathematically correct perspective were introduced by the artist in order to visibly underline the contrast between the divine plane (Christ resurrected) and the human plane (a group of soldiers witnessing the scene). The reconstructed 3D model has been used in an interactive application enabling the virtual visit of the scene as seen from relevant viewpoints corresponding to the different perspectives and to details of the depicted figures. The application also allows to change in real-time the lighting conditions of the scene in order to compare the virtual illumination with the one present in the fresco so as to illustrate possible alternatives about the debated original collocation of the artwork.     

Performing arts as a club good: Evidence from a nonprofit organization

This paper combines perspectives on nonprofit organizations, clubs and club goods, demand for performing arts, and demand for charitable contributions to consider relationships between nonprofit organizations in the performing arts and their patrons. A broad view is taken of factors influencing demand for club goods, charitable donations, and for the live performing arts. These are integrated in a model of demand for the outputs and services of nonprofits in the performing arts. Data from a single institution is used to test hypotheses. Conclusions are drawn for organizational policy and economic theory.     

Thawing the North: Mostly Martha as a German-Italian Eatopia

Abstract

The establishment of the European Union, reunification of Germany, and Germany's extension of dual citizenship to immigrant minorities provided challenges to the country's understanding of itself as a nation. In negotiating these changes, debates on citizenship frequently centered on definitions of German culture. Using the concept of Leitkultur (guiding culture), conservatives argued that Germany should reject multiculturalism and stem immigration. This essay analyzes discourses on cultural policy in Germany through a contextual and textual analysis of the film Mostly Martha. In its alignment with aesthetic conventions of the art house food film, Mostly Martha participates in the debate on cultural citizenship and embodies changes in the German film industry that have moved German cinema toward increased commercialism. The film's main character, Martha, is transformed through an intercultural relationship and a trip to Italy. We argue that the film's citation of this well-known tradition of traveling south to redeem oneself and its treatment of ethnic “Otherness” engages in the Leitkultur debate and participates in the transition from national German to transnational cinema. Through the utopian treatment of Italian food, the film fetishizes cultural difference and reaffirms fixed constructs of nation and gender, thereby avoiding an explicitly politicized engagement with intercultural citizenship and identity.     

Rap as a Social and Political Revealer: Diam's and Changes in French Value Systems

Abstract

In 2006, a young female rapper named Diam's released an album that became the best‐selling CD in France: her CD and its reception is treated as a social phenomenon and examined against the backdrop of political arguments which developed in France in 2006–2007. Musical analysis shows that the sonic backgrounds of Diam's rap illustrated the importance of combinations and hard work in the symbolical production of a new order. Her texts manifested new combinations of social values which brought into the public debate changes in value systems that were just becoming developed enough to be taken up by political organisations and leaders. This is why the main themes in Diam's CD converged with topics engaged by the two main candidates in the French 2007 presidential election. This paper, combining the resources of musicology, literary analysis and political sociology analyses how Diam's put in aesthetic and emotional forms combinations of values that had been brewing underground for the past 30 years. It invites a reconsideration of the interpretation of rap as an expression of rebellion, or even as an element of counter‐culture, and apprehends it as a ‘social revealer’ that brings new values and representations into public debate and stimulates discussion around them. Diam's album was an ‘unidentified political object’ that shed original light on the way politics and politician are perceived by ordinary citizens, or specific groups among them, such as the youth.     

An assemblage of framings and tamings: multi-sited analysis of infrastructures as a methodology

ABSTRACT

The social life of methods – the idea that research methods are an important topic of inquiry in and of themselves – has been receiving increasing interest in scholarship on the organisation of the economy and social life, including Science and Technology Studies (STS). In STS, especially ethnographic methods have been important for decades. This article develops an ethnographic methodology for the study of a very new case that challenges the assumptions underpinning many STS ethnographies. This case is the networked energy infrastructure, and we specifically focus on its risk management and markets. Drawing upon recent STS interest in multi-sited ethnography, the article’s research design is termed the multi-sited analysis of infrastructures (MSAI), and it develops the concepts of framing and taming to focus on meaning formation as mundane sense-making and as technicalised reasoning on different sites. We demonstrate these concepts in a multi-sited ethnography of energy infrastructure and its risk management and market activities in public regulation, special control rooms (including energy trading), and households. The article rounds up by explaining how the application of our methodology contributes to the advancement of interests in multi-sited ethnography, relating our research to the previous work in the fields of STS, infrastructure studies, and their methods.     

超越与回归——从《桃花源记》、《游仙窟》到《仙游记》

陶渊明《桃花源记》在中国古代文化史上占有重要的地位。唐代张《游仙窟》、顾况《仙游记》、《莽墟赋》也是类似作品 ,但在作品中表现出来的思想内涵和关怀视野是不同的。顾况《仙游记》、《莽墟赋》在某种意义上说是陶渊明《桃花源记》中理想社会期望的历史回归 ,表现了作者社会关怀的广阔性 ;而张的《游仙窟》则纯粹是文士对诗酒风流的追慕和向往 ,其关注点在个体生活。顾况是对张的超越和向陶渊明的回归。     

New cellulosic titanium dioxide nanocomposite as a protective coating for preserving paper-art-works

We investigate the TiO₂ role in the inherent protection of paper works of art to protect them against damaging effect of ultraviolet radiation, pollutant gasses, mold and bacteria. In this study a cellulosic nanocomposite of TiO₂ were used as protective coating on the surface of paper fibers. This layered nanocomposite can act as a consolidate materials too. Furthermore, to determine how well paper works screen objects from the damaging effects, two accelerated aging mechanisms due to light and heat are discussed. Results show good stability of papers with nanocomposite coating. Also, a good light stability was shown in the colored paper that treated with this nanocomposite. Furthermore, to demonstrate the degree of antifungal properties of coated papers, papers were treated with two common molds and the good preventive effect of coated paper against molds is described.