The International Law of Culture : Prospects and Challenges

This is a conference review of an event on the international law of culture, which took place in late May 2012 at the University of Göttingen, Germany. The review provides context to it considering the complex landscape of international initiatives of hard and soft law nature, which address culture and their impact on the environment, where cultural rights are to be exercised.

Enquiry into the Notion of Cultural Protectionism in the Media and its Dimensions in Cyberspace

Cultural protectionism has been an element of national and foreign policies, as an extension of state sovereignty expressed both in a defensive and offensive manner. While the generic protectionist formula in the sense of restraining trade between states through measures such as import tariffs or quotas and through privileging domestic production has somewhat disintegrated over time under the rationale for free trade and the strong practical evidence of its benefits, the particular case of cultural protectionism has persevered. As we reveal in this paper, however, it has been modified, or at least its rhetoric has changed. The enquiry into the notion of cultural protectionism or cultural diversity, as the current political jargon would have it, is but one of the paper’s objectives. Its second and certainly more ambitious goal is the search for the normative dimensions of cultural diversity policies in the global digital space, asking what adjustments are needed and how feasible the entire project of diversity regulation in this environment may be. Taking into account the specificities of cyberspace and in a forward-looking manner, we propose some adjustments to current media policy practices that could better serve the goal of a sustainably diverse cultural environment.

The Social Imaginary of Culture/Civilization in the Arabic Literary Tradition

Charles Taylor’s contribution to social imaginaries offers an interpretive framework for better understanding modernity as secularity. One of its main aspects is conceiving of human society in linear, homogenous time (secular time). Looking into the Arabic intellectual tradition, I will argue in my paper that Taylor’s framework can help us understand major social and intellectual transformations. The Ottoman and Arabic modernization process during the 19th century has often been understood by focusing on certain core concepts. One of these is tamaddun, usually translated as “civilization.” I will be mostly talking about the works of two “pioneers” of Arab modernity (which is traditionally referred to as an-nahḍa, the so-called Arab Renaissance): the Syrian Fransīs Marrāsh and the Egyptian Rifāʿa aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī. First I will focus on Marrāsh’s didactic novel “The Forest of Truth” (1865), as it offers a complex view of tamaddun, which has sometimes been construed as merely a social and political reform program. The category of "social imaginary,” however, is useful in grasping the wider semantic scope of this concept, which is reading it as a signifier for human history conceived of in secular time, as Taylor defines it. This conceptualization of human history functioning within the immanent frame can also be observed in the introduction to “The Extraction of Pure Gold in the Description of Paris” (1834), a systematic account of a travel experience in France that was written by the other “pioneer,” aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī. Finally, in translating tamaddun as “the modern social imaginary of civilization/culture,” the talk aims to consider this imaginary as a major factor in the emergence of the “secular age.” Furthermore, it suggests the importance of studying (quasi-) literary texts, such as historiographical, geographical, and self-narratives in the Arabic literary tradition, in order to further elaborate continuities and ruptures in social imaginaries.

Indicating Commitment: The Notion of dépense in the Study of Ritual and Religion

By analysing two cases from the recent history of Vaishnavism (a temple festival in Vrindavan; the development of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON), this paper shows that the notion of dépenseas developed by Marcel Mauss, Robert Hertz and Georges Bataille can be applied as an analytical tool in the study of rituals and religion as an indicator of religious commitment. At the same time it is possible to show that, by constructing a kind of macro-economic theory that includes religious behaviour, recent theories of religious economics are part of, and reproduce, a modern discourse of rationality that rules out, rather than understands, forms of irrationality such as unproductive expenditure (dépense).

The notion of the Cambrian pananimalia genome.

The toil by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria and blue-green algae of nearly three billion years appeared to have finally resulted in the sufficient accumulation of molecular oxygen. So, the stage was set for the emergence, at the ocean bottom, of diverse animals that were consumers of molecular oxygen. It now appears that this Cambrian explosion, during which nearly all the extant animal phyla have emerged, was of an astonishingly short duration, lasting only 6-10 million years. Inasmuch as only a 1% DNA base sequence change is expected in 10 million years under the standard spontaneous mutation rate, I propose that all those diverse animals of the early Cambrian period, some 550 million years ago, were endowed with nearly identical genomes, with differential usage of the same set of genes accounting for the extreme diversities of body forms. Some of the more pertinent genes that are thought to be included in the Cambrian pananimalia genome are as follows. (i) A gene for lysyloxidase that, in the presence of molecular oxygen, crosslinked collagen triple helices to produce ligaments and tendons, thus contributing to the stout bodies of the Cambrian animals. (ii) Genes for hemoglobin; these internal transporters of molecular oxygen are today seen sporadically in members of diverse animal phyla. (iii) The Pax-6 gene for eye formation; the eyes of a ribbon worm to a human are organized by this gene. In animals without eyes, the same gene organizes other sensory systems and organs. (iv) A series of Hox genes for the anterior-posterior (cranio-caudal) body plans: these genes are also present in all phyla of the kingdom Animalia.

How Competition Over Limited Natural Resources Impacts the Formation of Culture

This project analyzes the closely linked connection between the competition over limited resources and the formation of culture as it pertains to art and literature. The project is broken into three main topics: the influence of limited resources on competition, the role that competition and other factors have on the formation of culture, and finally how art and literature are reflective of resources, the competition for those resources, and other historical influences. This paper concludes that while there are many factors in the creation of cultures, competition over limited natural resources plays the most integral role in the formation of culture.

An analysis of culture change in the Ackmen-Lowry area / John B. Rinaldo, Assistant, Archaeology.

v.36:no.5(1950)

The Social Impact of Migration and the Notion of Citizenship for the EU. Ensuing challenges and opportunities for the Union. CEPS Commentaries, 13 March 2014

Documenting the unwelcoming treatment extended by government officials to the poorest EU citizens from other member states, including denying them their EU rights, Elspeth Guild censures these officials for shattering the principle of equality of citizens and of disaggregating Europe into nationals of the member states who can be treated differently simply on the basis of their origins.