Framing Death. La morte in diretta, tra cinema e media digitali

Come dimostrano i sempre più numerosi casi di cronaca riportati dai notiziari, la preoccupazione per la gestione delle immagini di morte si configura come un nodo centrale che coinvolge spettatori, produttori di contenuti e broadcaster, dato che la sua emersione nel panorama mediale in cui siamo immersi è sempre più evidente. Se la letteratura socio-antropologica è generalmente concorde nel ritenere che, rispetto al passato, oggi la morte si manifesti con meno evidenza nella vita comune delle persone, che tendono a rimuovere i segni della contiguità vivendo il lutto in forma privata, essa è però percepita in modo pervasivo perché disseminata nei (e dai) media. L'elaborato, concentrandosi in maniera specifica sulle produzioni audiovisive, e quindi sulla possibilità intrinseca al cinema – e alle sue forme derivate – di registrare un evento in diretta, tenta di mappare alcune dinamiche di produzione e fruizione considerando una particolare manifestazione della morte: quella che viene comunemente indicata come “morte in diretta”. Dopo una prima ricognizione dedicata alla tensione continua tra la spinta a considerare la morte come l'ultimo tabù e le manifestazioni che essa assume all'interno della “necrocultura”, appare chiaro che il paradigma pornografico risulta ormai inefficace a delineare compiutamente le emersioni della morte nei media, soggetta a opacità e interdizioni variabili, e necessita dunque di prospettive analitiche più articolate. Il fulcro dell'analisi è dunque la produzione e il consumo di precisi filoni quali snuff, cannibal e mondo movie e quelle declinazioni del gore che hanno ibridato reale e fittizio: il tentativo è tracciare un percorso che, a partire dal cinema muto, giunga al panorama contemporaneo e alle pratiche di remix rese possibili dai media digitali, toccando episodi controversi come i Video Nasties, le dinamiche di moral panic scatenate dagli snuff film e quelle di contagio derivanti dalla manipolazione e diffusione delle immagini di morte.

Le politiquement correct en France : analyse du phénomène et des procédés linguistiques

Lo scopo di questa tesi è quello di presentare un fenomeno sociolinguistico che sta coinvolgendo sempre di più le generazioni d’oggi: il “politically correct”. A partire dalle sue origine americane, il “politically correct” viene qui analizzato in un contesto specifico: quello della Francia degli ultimi anni. Si è cercato di adottare un metodo più pragmatico possibile per accompagnare alla sua definizione e alla sua evoluzione esempi pratici e concreti, a partire dalle somiglianze riscontrate con la “langue de bois”, il linguaggio per eccellenza dei politici, così come viene definito in Francia, il concetto di taboo e i modi in cui si forma questo linguaggio attraverso figure retoriche e sigle. Ci si è concentrati quindi sull’affermazione del “politically correct” nei media, mostrando degli esempi presi da quotidiani francesi circa un fatto che ha sconvolto la Francia e il mondo intero: Charlie Hebdo e gli attacchi terroristici. In questo modo si è potuto affrontare la tematica del razzismo, il tema scelto per analizzare da un punto di vista specifico questo fenomeno sociolinguistico. Si è cercato di mostrare quindi il legame fra questa tematica e il “politically corrrect” analizzando dapprima la crescente paura nei confronti di tutta la comunità musulmana, attraverso l’analisi di parole ed espressioni “politically correct” presenti ormai negli articoli dei giornali francesi, per poi concludere con un’analisi di due libri “Parlez-vous le politiquement correct” di Georges Lebouc e “Mots et culture dans tous les sens. Initiation à la lexiculture pour italophones” e delle espressioni proposte sulla tematica del razzismo e della xenofobia, mostrando attraverso una tabella il cambiamento che hanno subito queste parole rispetto alla lingua originaria.

Interview and translation strategies: coping with multilingual settings and data

Central Eastern Europe, the research area this paper is concerned with, is a region characterized by a high diversity of languages and cultures. It is, at the same time, an area where political, cultural and social conflicts have emerged over time, nowadays especially in border zones, where people of different ethnic, cultural or linguistic background live. In this context, it is important for us researchers to get balanced interview data, and consequently we very often have to conduct interviews in several different languages and within changing cultural contexts. In order to avoid "communication problems" or even conflictual (interview) situations, which might damage the outcome of the research, we are thus challenged to find appropriate communication strategies for any of these situations. This is especially difficult when we are confronted with language or culture-specific terminology or taboo expressions that carry political meaning(s). Once the interview data is collected and it comes to translating and analysing it, we face further challenges and new questions arise. First of all, we have to decide what a good translation strategy would be. Many words and phrases that exist in one language do not have an exact equivalent in another. Therefore we have to find a solution for translating these expressions and concepts in a way that their meanings do not get "lost by translation". In this paper I discuss and provide insights to these challenges by presenting and discussing numerous examples from the region in question. Specifically, I focus on the deconstruction of the meaning of geographical names and politically loaded expressions in order to show the sensitivities of language, the difficulties of research in multilingual settings and with multilingual data as well as the strategies or "ways out" of certain dilemmas.

Iowa State Daily (February 20, 2012)

ContentsSizing upCoffee energizes students year-round'Protect Your Balls' tournament combats cancerTattoo taboo: Workplaces relax old rulesMen's, women's hoops teams sweep SoonersBirth control deal delivers women health care rights

Architektura a ideologie. Výchovné instituce Adolfa Hitlera v protektorátu Čechy a Morava a v Říšské župě Sudety

This article examines the architecture of the Nazi regime in two occupied cities of Czechoslovakia, Praha/Prag and Jihlava/Iglau (the latter being one of the traditionally German-speaking island in the bohemia country), and focuses specifically on the process by which Hitler youth organisations (Hitlerjugend) in case of ‘education’ and indoctrination of youth were or were not successfully established in these cities. As comparison, he takes the political-administrative centres of the Sudeten Reichsgau, Ústí/Aussig, Opava/Troppau, Karlovy Vary/Karlsbad and Liberec/Reichenberg. Drawing on Czech and German archive materials, the extensive body of modern analytical literature, and propagandist literature from the period studied, the author examines the extent to which architecture served as a projection screen for Fascist propaganda in the Occupied Eastern territories. He describes the role played by the Reichsstelle für Raumordnung and shows how the Reich’s propagandist objectives came to be reflected in a high specific typology and stylistic lexicon/configuration for the architecture of Hitler youth hostels and homes He examines the process by which these organisations were powerful implanted into the space of occupied Czechoslovakia (and Sudeten) too, a topic that has not yet been addressed in (art) history too. The building projects developed for the Protectorate (published here for the first time) and managed by the Reich’s Hitler Youth Leadership in Berlin (Kulturamt, Reichsjugendführung, RJF, Abteilung HJ) reveal the ties that existed between the construction authorities in the Reich and the Protectorate, including the Planning Committee for the City of Prague. The author asks how many German and Czech architects participated for their own profit in the Nazi system, and for future research raises the hitherto taboo question of guilt and collaboration with the Nazis and the perception of this phenomenon in art history, i.e. the measure of active cooperation of not just German but also Czech architects who contributed to the planning and implementation of projects and thereby unequivocally had a hand in consolidating the totalitarian regime and de facto in the forced „Germanification” of their own people under occupation.

Beyond belief : Strategic taboos and organizational identity in strategic agenda setting

A comprehensive strategic agenda matters for fundamental strategic change. Our study seeks to explore and theorize how organizational identity beliefs influence the judgment of strategic actors when setting an organization's strategic agenda. We offer the notion of "strategic taboo" as those strategic options initially disqualified and deemed inconsistent with the organizational identity beliefs of strategic actors. Our study is concerned with how strategic actors confront strategic taboos in the process of setting an organization's strategic agenda. Based on a revelatory inductive case study, we find that strategic actors engage in assessing the concordance of the strategic taboos with organizational identity beliefs and, more specifically, that they focus on key identity elements (philosophy; priorities; practices) when doing so. We develop a typology of three reinterpretation practices that are each concerned with a key identity element. While contextualizing assesses the potential concordance of a strategic taboo with an organization's overall philosophy and purpose, instrumentalizing assesses such concordance with respect to what actors deem an organization's priorities to be. Finally, normalizing explores concordance with respect to compatibility and fit with the organization's practices. We suggest that assessing concordance of a strategic taboo with identity elements consists in reinterpreting collective identity beliefs in ways that make them consistent with what organizational actors deem the right course of action. This article discusses the implications for theory and research on strategic agenda setting, strategic change, a practice-based perspective on strategy, and on organizational identity.

La odisea de un concepto nómada : el desarrollo sustentable en la órbita de la Geografía

Nuevo paradigma para algunos, o simple eslogan político-mediático para otros, el concepto de desarrollo sustentable levanta reacciones contradictorias en el mundo científico. Existen notables diferencias en el acercamiento al desarrollo sustentable entre los representantes de las ciencias naturales y los de las ciencias humanas. El carácter nómada del concepto (Stengers, 1987) de desarrollo sustentable es percibido por ciertos investigadores en geografía como una verdadera tara genética, cuando otros piensan por el contrario que puede servir de palanca para renovar el acercamiento geográfico a los grandes problemas contemporáneos. ¿Para la investigación en geografía, qué postura es conveniente adoptar? ¿El desarrollo sustentable, como concepto nómada, puede convertirse en una herramienta eficaz e innovadora? ¿O bien su incertidumbre semántica nos conduce de manera inexorable hacia un vagabundeo de las ideas? El objetivo central de esta reflexión es intentar situar el concepto de desarrollo sustentable en la órbita del pensamiento geográfico, en una óptica comparativa con disciplinas vecinas y cuestionando a su vez su interés para la investigación en nuestro campo disciplinario. Para ello, es necesario en primer lugar acercarse sin tabúes a los problemas planteados por este concepto: ¿Debe considerarse el nomadismo conceptual del desarrollo sustentable como una especie de pecado original que lo convertiría en un instrumento inoperante para la geografía? En segundo lugar, desmitificando la novedad aparente del concepto, conviene analizar cuáles son sus filiaciones con la geografía y otras disciplinas. Y finalmente, plantear casos concretos de utilización del concepto en la investigación geográfica (ciudad sustentable; bosques sustentables), subrayando sus aportes, pero también poniendo a la luz sus límites.

Eros y cultura

Es un lugar común la casi inexistente contribución de España a Ia literatura de corte erótico. Esta cuestión se relaciona, al mismo tiempo, con Ia consideración acerca de qué se considera "pornográfico". Aquí es necesario tener en cuenta, empero, en qué medida lo pornográfico implica la mirada del sujeto que lo percibe como tal. La arqueología, por su parte, ha venido dando pruebas de los cambios en la recepción de Ia iconografía antigua; y de este modo ha venido a echar cierta luz sobre la consideración de lo erótico en la misma España, donde la tabuización de Ia sexualidad por el poder eclesiástico ha acorralado lo erótico a un consumo masivo y trivial.

Eros y cultura

Es un lugar común la casi inexistente contribución de España a Ia literatura de corte erótico. Esta cuestión se relaciona, al mismo tiempo, con Ia consideración acerca de qué se considera "pornográfico". Aquí es necesario tener en cuenta, empero, en qué medida lo pornográfico implica la mirada del sujeto que lo percibe como tal. La arqueología, por su parte, ha venido dando pruebas de los cambios en la recepción de Ia iconografía antigua; y de este modo ha venido a echar cierta luz sobre la consideración de lo erótico en la misma España, donde la tabuización de Ia sexualidad por el poder eclesiástico ha acorralado lo erótico a un consumo masivo y trivial.

Relaciones monstruosas : El problema del incesto [Buenos Aires, 1850-1890]

En el presente trabajo pretendo por un lado discutir brevemente las consideraciones en torno al problema del incesto como tabú, pecado y delito para luego analizar, en forma más exhaustiva, las formas específicas en que la justicia argentina del siglo XIX problematiza las denuncias donde se acusa a padres varones de cometer un delito sexual sobre sus hijas mujeres. Pretendo mostrar los conflictos que se reflejan hacia dentro de la justicia a la hora de enfrentarse con este delito, particularmente por cuanto desafía las ideas establecidas sobre los roles familiares haciendo obligatoria discutir la propia existencia del mismo que se basa en la idea del consentimiento de ambas partes, estableciendo un límite que lo separa del "estupro" o la "violación"

Relaciones monstruosas : El problema del incesto [Buenos Aires, 1850-1890]

En el presente trabajo pretendo por un lado discutir brevemente las consideraciones en torno al problema del incesto como tabú, pecado y delito para luego analizar, en forma más exhaustiva, las formas específicas en que la justicia argentina del siglo XIX problematiza las denuncias donde se acusa a padres varones de cometer un delito sexual sobre sus hijas mujeres. Pretendo mostrar los conflictos que se reflejan hacia dentro de la justicia a la hora de enfrentarse con este delito, particularmente por cuanto desafía las ideas establecidas sobre los roles familiares haciendo obligatoria discutir la propia existencia del mismo que se basa en la idea del consentimiento de ambas partes, estableciendo un límite que lo separa del "estupro" o la "violación"

Eros y cultura

Es un lugar común la casi inexistente contribución de España a Ia literatura de corte erótico. Esta cuestión se relaciona, al mismo tiempo, con Ia consideración acerca de qué se considera "pornográfico". Aquí es necesario tener en cuenta, empero, en qué medida lo pornográfico implica la mirada del sujeto que lo percibe como tal. La arqueología, por su parte, ha venido dando pruebas de los cambios en la recepción de Ia iconografía antigua; y de este modo ha venido a echar cierta luz sobre la consideración de lo erótico en la misma España, donde la tabuización de Ia sexualidad por el poder eclesiástico ha acorralado lo erótico a un consumo masivo y trivial.

Designing a Genuine EMU: Which "Unions" for EU and Eurozone? Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 34/2014

The initial ‘framing’ (in the summer of 2012) of the ‘genuine EMU’ for the wider public suggested to design an entire series of ‘unions’. So many ‘unions’ are neither necessary nor desirable – only some are and their design matters. The paper critically discusses first the negative fall-out of the crisis for EMU, and subsequently assesses the fiscal and the banking unions as accomplished so far, without going into highly specific technical details. The assessment is moderately positive, although there is ample scope for further improvement and a risk for short-term turbulence once the ECB has finished its tests and reviews. What about the parade of other ’unions’ such as economic union, social union and political union? The macro-economic imbalances procedure (MIP) and possibly the ESRB have overcome the pre-crisis disregard of macro competitiveness. The three components of ‘economic union’ (single market, economic policy coordination and budgetary disciplines) have all been strengthened. The last two ‘unions’, on the other hand, would imply a fundamental change in the conferral of powers to the EU/ Eurozone, with drastic and possibly very serious long-run implications, including a break-up of the Union, if such proposals would be pushed through. The cure is worse than the disease. Whereas social union is perhaps easier to dismiss as a ‘misfit’ in the EU, the recent popularity of suggesting a ‘political union’ is seen as worrisome. Probably, nobody knows what a ‘political union’ is, or, at best, it is a highly elastic notion: it might be thought necessary for reasons of domestic economic reforms in EU countries, for a larger common budget, for some EU tax power, for (greater) risk pooling, for ‘symmetric’ macro-economic adjustment and for some ultimate control of the ECB in times of crisis. Taking each one of these arguments separately, a range of more typical EU solutions might be found without suggesting a ‘political union’. Just as ‘fiscal capacity’ was long an all-or-nothing taboo for shifting bank resolution to the EU level, now solved with a modest common Fund and carefully confined but centralised powers, the author suggests that other carefully targeted responses can be designed for the various aspects where seen as indispensable, including the political say of a lender-of-last-resort function of the ECB. Hence, neither a social nor a political union worthy of the name ought to be pursued. Yet, political legitimacy matters, both with national parliaments and the grassroots. National parliaments will have to play a larger role.

Is Withdrawal from the European Union a Manageable Option? A Review of Economic and Legal Complexities. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 28/2013

Withdrawal from the EU is no more a taboo subject. However, the process by which it can happen is unclear and potentially complex. The purpose of this paper is to show that a withdrawing Member State will not only rid itself from the constraints and obligations of EU rules, but it will also have to re-invent many policies and institutions to fill the gap left by the non-application of EU rules. The paper examines closely the case of the UK and Scotland and concludes that outright exit is not the best option for a withdrawing Member State. The best, but possibly the least feasible, option is an intermediate arrangement falling between full membership and complete separation from the EU. The exact position between the two extremes can only be determined by the exit negotiations and will be influenced by the political climate that will prevail at that time. While the final destination of an acceding country is well known [full adoption of the obligations of EU membership], the exiting country will be embarking on a trip with unknown destination and full of surprises.

Religious pamphlets

A collection of miscellaneous pamphlets on religion.