Politicizing the spirit: ‘American Africanisms’ and African ancestors in the essays of Toni Morrison

This article is a comparative study of American and Soviet programmes of space/cosmos elaboration in terms of ideological and technological competition during the era of the cold war. It is in a sense a rereading of a book written by Nikolai Nosov for Soviet children called Neznaika on the Moon (1965). This book – which was the most popular among Soviet children in the 1960s and 1970s – helps to uncover ideological and technological paradigms of the time when outer space happened to be the scene of the cold war conflict. The subject of space/cosmos has been studied in many contextual respects. However, there are four key notions – such as technology, ideology, time, consciousness – which make it possible to see similarities and differences between American and Soviet scientific approaches to outer space.     

Reading dis/ability: interrogating paradigms in a prism of power

The dichotomisation of literacy instruction into phonics instruction versus a whole language approach fails to realise a fundamental tenet of providing equitable educational opportunities to diverse groups of children. Diversity becomes a problem to solve through ‘inoculation programmes’ or ‘special’ education expertise. Moreover, children’s individual strengths can fail to be realised because they do not fit well with the programme of the day. Instead of being appreciated for the value that they may bring in higher order conceptual and intellectual tasks, these individual strengths may be neglected at great cost to the individual child because they offer cheap reward in the shape of aggregate test scores. This paper is a philosophical piece, which in refusing to prescribe what one should do on Monday morning joins other strident voices in disability studies in education to question what it is that we are doing today. Whilst not scientific, this is important work – it emphasises the a priori importance of philosophical, moral and ethical questions – reminding science that children are dynamic social beings who cannot be manipulated like genes to ‘express’ themselves in ways more conducive to quick and cheap educational programmes.     

Troubling Discourses of Poverty in Early Childhood in the UK

Poverty in early childhood is pervasive, affecting every aspect of children’s lives. Under current government policies child poverty in the UK is predicted to rise to 40 per cent by 2022. Dominant discourses of poverty have historically focussed on an over‐arching discourse of moral responsibility, essentially relating to notions of deserving and underserving poor. This paper examines how government policy continues to significantly impact on young children and families on low incomes in early childhood and how stigmatised discourses about welfare, work are pervasive. It is argued that discourses of redistribution and children’s rights deserve greater recognition if poverty is to be addressed.     

Public Dying: Death in the Media and Jade Goody

Abundant in books, on television, in film, on the internet, and in newspapers and magazines, in the twenty-first century death is hugely accessible. Within recent years, sociologists have responded to this visibility by examining death in the media, including its role and status in popular culture and ‘public mourning’, seen for example following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. This article considers a third strand of death in the media that requires sociological attention: public dying. Drawing on the extensive media coverage of reality TV personality Jade Goody’s dying and subsequent death in early 2009, the article examines the way in which Goody’s dying illustrated how it can be commodified.     

The Human‐Environment Dialog in Award‐winning Children’s Picture Books*

Picture books often play an important role in childhood socialization. Given the seriousness of environmental problems, we ask how natural, modified, and built environments have been portrayed in children’s books. To answer this question, we analyze the 296 books receiving Caldecott awards from 1938 to 2008. Two possibilities are explored with respect to content change. Growing concern about critical environmental problems, such as decline in biodiversity and deforestation, may have led to an increase in illustrations and stories about wild animals and the natural environment. Alternatively, the increasing isolation of people from the natural world may have resulted in a decline in the perceived relevance of these environmental issues and resulted in fewer stories and depictions. Our findings support the isolation hypothesis. There have been significant declines in depictions of natural environments and animals while built environments have become much more common. These findings suggest that today’s generation of children are not being socialized, at least through this source, toward an understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the place of humans within it.     

MEMORY AND ECHO

Much contemporary writing about law treats popular culture as a creature of modern technology and the phenomenon of mass media. This misunderstands both its continuity with traditional forms, and the precise differences that modern technology creates. Popular cultural representations of law and justice appeal to a longstanding tradition evident in familiar archetypes of cowboys and superheroes. Indeed, such a tradition reaches back to much older Christological models of justice and subjectivity, which modernism has deflected but never destroyed. On the other hand, hi-tech media embeds those traditions in technology's language of passivity and its strange but insistent erasure of the past. Under conditions of the contemporary world, popular culture appears not as the memory of past thinking about law, but as an echo. The irony is that while popular culture's presentations of law appeal to a substantive tradition, their formal hyper-modernity not only negates that past but undermines the pluralist and discursive openness which are its well-spring. In a world shorn of faith in the traditional structures sustaining the ‘moral economy’ and a moral legality, the appeal to simply trust in an inarticulable justice opens the prospect not of salvation but of legal tyranny.     

Dovzhenko Studio in the 1960s: Between the Politics of the Auteur and the Politics of Nationality

Abstract

This article examines the aesthetics and politics of filmmaking in Soviet Ukraine in the 1960s as a lens through which to view the mechanisms of defining and representing national difference in Thaw-era Soviet culture. Management at Dovzhenko Studio in Kyiv during this time gave a green light to young filmmakers to explore a modernist and ethnographic poetic by reasoning that such a style was rooted in the traditions of Ukrainian national cinema, the founder of which was the studio’s namesake, Oleksandr Dovzhenko. While always controversial, director-auteurs such as Sergei Paradzhanov, Iurii Illienko, and Leonid Osyka consistently justified their works of “poetic cinema” on the basis of fulfilling the studio’s explicit goal to represent Ukraine through “traditional” means. Kyiv filmmakers, however, found their freedom curtailed not solely by central authorities concerned with ideological problems, but also by a film industry increasingly concerned with its ability to make a profit. Today in Ukraine, the legacy of so-called poetic cinema is fraught with accusations of elitism as the purveyors of cultural memory try to uncover a more popular history of Ukrainian cinema.     

Labour Migration Policy in Russia: Considerations on Governmentality

The authors argue that Russian migration policy reflects the functioning of contemporary Russia's entire bureaucratic machine. The bureaucracy's Soviet‐era governance techniques on the one hand and the material interests of particular pressure groups on the other, shape the manipulation of immigration regulation that has occurred since the early 2000s. Therefore, attempts to liberalize migration regulation, i.e., to simplify the legalization of foreign workers, have always been incoherent, accompanied by reservations and limitations. Additionally, Russian actions are riddled with conflict between ‘geopolitical’ and domestic policy rationales. The authorities’ occasional attempts to use immigration regulation as a foreign policy tool acquire primarily symbolic value in the ‘domestic political market’ rather than serving any instrumental purpose. The effort to enhance Russian influence in the post‐Soviet space through the ‘reintegration project’ (Eurasian Economic Union) collides with the goal of national labour market protection, since integration entails the removal of barriers to labour movement.     

If there had been no synagogue there,they would have had to invent it: the case of the Birobidzhan “religious community of the Judaic creed” on the threshold of perestroika

The Birobidzhan Jewish religious community, officially registered on 15 December 1946, was the only one recognised by the Soviet authorities in the USSR's Far East. During the first years of its activity the community represented a unique case – perhaps the only case in the country – of linkage between a synagogue and the Soviet party and economic establishment on the local level. However, the persecutions of the early 1950s and several anti-religious campaigns later resulted in the Birobidzhan religious community falling into to a very sorry condition. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Regional Executive Committee even decided to cancel the registration of the community and remove it from the books. At the same time, after the 1984 large-scale celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR), the central Soviet authorities found that Birobidzhan “clericals” could serve the purposes of the Soviet agitation and propaganda apparatus, as confirmation of the absence of any oppression of Judaism in the JAR. As a result, the chairman of the Regional Executive Committee of Russian origin was removed from his position and a new chairman of Jewish origin was appointed. Furthermore, for the first time in decades, not counting the construction of the temporary synagogue at the Olympic village in Moscow in 1980, Soviet municipal authorities took an active part in the establishment of a Jewish house of worship.     

Social work students dealing with moral dilemmas in the care for children and young people: an evaluation of moral case deliberation as an educational tool

Social work professionals face moral dilemmas. Evidence-based guidelines only partly help them to deal with these dilemmas. Recently, moral case deliberation (MCD) as a bottom-up aid has been successfully introduced into Dutch health care to help strengthen professional moral competence. This research investigates whether MCD can help future professionals caring for children and young people to deal with their dilemmas. Research questions are: (1) How do students evaluate two series of four MCD sessions related to moral dilemmas in cases they experienced in practice? and (2) Does MCD contribute to students’ ability to justify their decisions? Applying a mixed-method evaluation study, we found that students consider MCD highly important. They feel supported in their ability to justify decisions ethically. Most students value the challenge of thinking critically in MCD. However, some do not appreciate the uncertainties which come with this. One-third of the students prove able to justify their decisions ethically after attending MCD sessions. Robust conclusions about MCD as the cause of these results cannot be drawn on the basis of the study design. Suggestions are made for future research regarding the contribution of MCD to the development of competence in dealing better with moral dilemmas.     

Fedorovism in Early Post-Soviet Russia: The Collapse of the Meta-imperial Project

Nikolai Fedorov, the obscure librarian in late tsarist Russia, had created a grand theory. According to it, the humanities should be united under the aegis of the Tsar to engage in the complete mastery over nature, spreading all over the universe and the resurrection of the dead. This totalitarian and messianic aspect of fedorovism could be well incorporated into totalitarian messianism, the belief in the omnipotence of science and exploration of space – all the key elements of Soviet ideology. Consequently, the regime became ‘Fedorovian’ without cognizing it. While Gorbachev’s reforms made it possible for many Soviet intellectuals to be acquainted with Fedorov, the collapse of the regime and the country had led to profound implications for these Soviet intellectuals’ perception of Fedorov’s teachings and related theories. For some, it led to embracing the peculiar cocktail of mysticism and the occult. For others, the end of the USSR implied that Fedorov’s dream – humanity’s mastery over nature – would never be accomplished. It also implied that humanity is not very different from the other species and would disappear in the future.     

The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic: A Sociological Analysis

A new type of sex crime was discovered in the United States in the 1980s – the sexual abuse of young children in ghastly rituals performed by devil worshippers who happened to be their day care providers. ‘Ritual abuse’, as this new sex crime came to be termed, appeared to be epidemic during that decade; hundreds of day care centers were investigated and scores of providers were arrested and prosecuted. This article asserts that the day care ritual abuse scare was a moral panic, in fact, the ‘purest example’ of a moral panic in that the putative threat to children had to be wholly constructed. Using the key sociological elements set out by Cohen (1972/2002), this article analyzes the day care ritual abuse moral panic and concludes by discussing additional key elements that will facilitate future sociological analyses of moral panics.     

The public private sphere: family narrative and democracy in Argentina and South Africa

This article explores the paradoxical prominence of seemingly private family stories and memories in the democratic public spheres emerging in the wake of the ‘Dirty War’ in Argentina and apartheid in South Africa. In part because the discourse of the family was used in these cases to both uphold and protest dictatorial regimes, individuals who lost family members to state violence became powerful moral agents in the post‐dictatorship and post‐apartheid periods. Narratives told by and about these individuals – ranging from personal testimony given in each country’s truth commission to representations in theatre, fiction and film – have worked to constitute what may be called a ‘public private sphere’. They not only express personal grief, but also (and especially in wider cultural circulation) have been emplotted and mobilised to construct democratic publics. These may or may not correspond to the nationwide publics envisioned in state discourses of reconciliation. Using genealogical fiction surrounding ‘disappeared children’ in Argentina as a lens to analyse South Africa, this article argues that stories of children attempting to piece together their family histories reveal this dynamic as they become sites for convening democratic publics and critiquing transitional politics.     

Assessment of Children in Need in a Post-Soviet Context: Reflections of Child Protective Workers in Estonia

Child protective worker perspectives and principles are known to affect practitioner–-client interaction. However, there is little research on the principles underpinning workers’ assessment activities in transitioning post-Soviet societies where child protection is a relatively new field. This article presents the findings of a small-scale, qualitative study that explored the perspectives and principles that Estonian child protective workers utilize to inform their assessments. The respondents (N = 20) provided examples of real-life cases that reflected their assessment perspectives. The results indicated that too often workers’ assessments demonstrate an over-reliance on an authoritarian, deficit-based approach that does not sufficiently include family or child perspectives. Such an approach may suggest the lingering influence of philosophies that informed family policy during the Soviet occupation. Workers with advanced training in social work and strength-based practices were more likely to focus on family strengths, build collaborative relationships with parents and children, and report successful outcomes in their cases. This study underscores the potential influence of previous Soviet occupation on child welfare practices in Estonia and also the need for further training of the nation’s child protective workers.     

Narrating Childhood in Elena Chizhova’s Vremya zhenshchin

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the representation of the Soviet past through the figure of a child in Elena Chizhova’s novel Vremja ?en??in [Vremya zhenshchin] (2009). The concept of the vulnerable subject is applied to conceptualize the narrative’s ‘access’ to the past. Vremja ?en??in [Vremya zhenshchin] tells the story of a mute girl raised by her mother and three ‘grandmothers’ in 1960s Leningrad. The women decide to keep her muteness as a secret in order to protect her from being sent to a state institution for disabled children, and to raise her at home. The child figure is situated on the verge of two value systems: the collective, secular, and modern value system, represented by the outside world of home; and the private, spiritual, and traditional value system represented by the community of three old women. The position of the vulnerable child figure on the margins of society enables the representation of a ‘lost’ past and its alternative values. The article suggests that the vulnerable child figure can be seen to stand for a feeling of loss and abandonment in more general terms in contemporary Russia, and as representing a search for a lost inheritance.     

Trying to Comfort the Parent: A Qualitative Study of Children Dealing With Parental Depression

In this article, we look at children’s experiences of parentification in families in which one of the parents is hospitalized for depression. Children (7–14 years old) and their parents were invited for a family interview. Using thematic analysis, we constructed a general framework of 14 children’s experiences, guided by the explorative research question: How do children experience parental depression and how do they experience their own caregiving in the family? The thematic analysis revealed eight themes. One of these themes (trying to comfort the parent) was selected for a microanalysis in one family interview. Our study illustrates the process of overt negotiating of caretaking between parent and child with an underlying moral dilemma and related emotions. The dynamic of children hiding their worry can be seen as an answer to the parent’s expressed wish to not burden her children. These dynamics are situated in ongoing debates in family therapy literature, and some suggestions for therapeutic practice are formulated.     

Memory of the Childhood ——The Literary Nature of the Fairy Tale of Andersen in Ye Jun Jian

The Fairy Tale of Andersen is the most popular children’s book in the world.It is a story set,which has many interesting and full of philosophy.It has been translated into many languages and many different versions.But Ye Junjian’s translation is that I think the most literary.His translation not only follows Yan fu’s"faithfulness,expressiveness,elegance"but has his own unique creative.His translation of Andersen’s Fairy Tales is not only easy to understand its language and fluent and elegant,but also has the rich value of literature appreciation.So,my thesis is to study the literary nature of the Fairy Tales of Andersen in Ye Junjian from his translation language.     

The ‘Old New Russian Town’: Modernization and Architectural Preservation in Russia’s Historic North West, 1961–1982

Abstract

The emergence of a Soviet preservationist movement, which gained institutional coherence in the mid-1960s, appears to stand at odds with the ideas of rationalization and standardization that informed the Khrushchev-era urban development programme. Yet, as I argue in this article, these two strands of post-Stalin era Soviet culture were not as antagonistic as they may first appear. In Khrushchev’s Russia, the preservation of architectural heritage was rationalized as a means of strengthening the foundations of Soviet society by rooting it in the national past. Rather than detracting from the goal of building communism, cultural heritage was made an integral part of that process, a focus of national pride and source of social solidarity.