Culture, Law and War: On the Feasibility of the Project of «Eternal Peace», or on Some Methodological Issues of the Philosophy of Law

The aim of the article is to continue the study of law as a cultural phenomenon, in this case as an introduction to the problems of the XXVIII World Congress on the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy “Peace Based on Human Rights”. It is offered as an opportunity for additional substantiation of the idea of eternal peace (I. Kant) from the position of a culturological approach as one of the methodological tools of the philosophy of law. The concept developed by the author makes it possible to appeal to the ideal structures of consciousness not only in a purely epistemological aspect and phenomenological context, but also based on the ontological foundations of moral and legal culture. Thus, it becomes obvious and necessary to distinguish between anthropological and culturological approaches to substantiate the removal of the very concept of war beyond the boundaries of culture into the sphere of the unacceptable, what qualifies as a crime. Such a process of human development as a cultural development is natural in the sense of acquiring proper human qualities – it is overcoming the animal component of man (Aristotle and others). The philosophical and ideological foundations of this direction of development are the concepts that have received legal formalization primarily in the concept of human rights. The cultural form of overcoming the animal (in the cultural sense – criminal) principle in a person is play, which has found embodiment in various forms of agonal interaction, primarily in sports, as well as in art. Law as a formulation of the rules of cultural interaction becomes a necessary condition for survival, and the extension of this (culturological) principle to humanity (as a common destiny) makes the anthropological approach, in the form in which it is interpreted in modern (domestic) jurisprudence, limited and partial not only in a logical, but also in a humanitarian sense. The necessity of understanding the logical correlation of the concepts of “privilege” and “social parasitism” with the concept of “war” is shown. The transfer of “war” (regardless of interpretations and definitions) beyond the boundaries of culture (or truly human relationships) becomes necessary, as well as understanding the role of law in ensuring such a state of humanity.

Monitoring the Green Vegetation Period of Two Narcissus Taxa by Non-Destructive Analysis of Selected Physiological and Morphological Properties

In a pot experiment, an early-flowering Narcissus pseudonarcissus cv. ‘Dutch Master’ (DM) and late-flowering N. poeticus cultural form (PO) were examined. The photosynthetic rate (A), transpiration rate (E), stomatal conductance (gs), photosynthetic water use efficiency (WUE), relative chlorophyll content (CCI) and chlorophyll fluorescence (F) were measured regularly. Leaf length, scape length and weight of the plant organs were also measured. The DM cultivar had higher gs and lower E values than the PO on most measuring dates (season average: gs: DM: 165.34, PO: 123.63; E: DM: 1.39, PO: 1.78 mmol H2O m−2s−1). The A curve was similar for the two taxa, except for the first measuring dates. The basic F values (F0, Fm, Fv) for DM were lower and CCI values were higher than for PO (season average of CCI: DM: 94.82, PO: 60.34). The Fm/F0, Fv/F0 and CCI curves were well described by a second order equation. The seasonal change of F and CCI values was the greatest for both taxa near the leaf tip. Bulb growth occurred in the two taxa in approximately the same calendar period, regardless of flowering time. A significant part of the leaf growth in DM occurred after flowering, while the leaves of PO reached their mature size by flowering.

Serpent Handling: Toward a Cognitive Account – Honoring the Scholarship of Ralph W. Hood Jr.

The ritual handling of serpents remains an unnoticed cultural form for the explanatory aims and theoretical insights desired by cognitive scientists of religion. In the current article, we introduce the Hood and Williams archives at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga that contains data culled from Hood’s 40-plus year career of studying serpent handlers. The archives contain hundreds of hours of interviews and recordings of speaking in tongues, handling fire, drinking poison, and taking up serpents by different congregants and congregations. The archive remains a rich but untapped source of data for building, testing, and refining cognitive theories of ritual in general, and serpent handling in specific. We connect Hood’s work to current cognitive theories and engage critically with research on the social functions of ritual. Finally, we discuss several further reasons to pay more attention to SHS communities and practices in cognitive theories of ritual.

VIRTUAL MUSEUM AS THE NEWEST MECHANISM FOR PRESERVING HISTORICAL MEMORY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

The development of information technology has entailed an active rethinking of the concept of cultural memory, the transposition of the actual formats, methods of interpretation and presentation to the audience, in particular through online technologies and museum activities. Museums, which are formed exclusively on the basis of online technology, become a qualitatively new cultural form of activity, which terms and conceptual nomenclature were built spontaneously, empirically in the process of practical activity. The purpose of this research is to analyze the concept and peculiar features of an online (virtual) museum as a multidimensional phenomenon of an interdisciplinary nature, and to propose their classification based on best practices of Ukrainian and international museums.

Situating the videogame maker’s agency through craft

It is now widely accepted that videogames are a cultural form, and that they generate cultural meaning through the possibilities and constraints through which they shape players’ experiences and choices. However, the cultural processes through which videogames are themselves produced remain understudied and too-straightforwardly imagined. The videogame maker does not simply conceive of a videogame idea and then execute it. Instead, the videogame is produced through processes of negotiation and iteration between videogame maker, software and hardware environments and the broader expectations of the field. In this sense, videogame production can be fruitfully understood through the lens of craft. I argue that in order to politicise agency in digital play, as is this special issue’s goal, videogame research must also consider the agency of the videogame maker, and the iterative, embodied, and social processes through which videogames are produced. This article draws from interviews with videogame makers and existing research on craft production to provide a preliminary consideration of how the agency of the videogame maker as a cultural producer can be accounted for.

The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

<p>Alfred Hill’s songs based on collected Māori musical materials and narrative themes are artefacts of cultural colonisation that represent individual identities and imagined communities. They are tangible evidence of the site of identity formation known as Maoriland within which Pākehā construct imaginings of ‘Māoriness’ to create their own sense of indigeneity and nationhood. Although early twentieth-century Maoriland has been discussed widely in the arts and literature, scholars have not addressed the music of Maoriland, perhaps because it is heard today as the cultural form that most clearly expresses racialised sentimentality and colonial hegemony. However, Maoriland music can tell us much about New Zealand society if it is recognised as inhabiting an ‘in-between’ place where Pākehā fascination for the racial other was often inseparable from an admiration for Māori promoted by a knowledgeable group of Māori and Pākehā cultural go-betweens. This thesis presents a critical cultural analysis of the ethnic, racial, gendered, and national identities represented in Hill’s ‘Māori’ songs, viewed through the lens of his use of these in his score for Rudall Hayward’s film Rewi’s Last Stand (1940). This analysis shows that these popular songs contributed, and continue to contribute, to the nexus of Māori, war, and music in Pākehā narrations of the nation. By applying a bicultural approach to the study of Hill’s Maoriland songs, this research also shows these ‘in-between’ songs represent individual, tribal, and national Māori identities too. While this work adds music to the discourse of Maoriland, and Maoriland to the discourse of New Zealand music and national identity, Hill’s ‘Māori’ music, early twentieth-century New Zealand music, and New Zealand film music all remain severely under-researched areas of New Zealand music studies.</p>

The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

<p>Alfred Hill’s songs based on collected Māori musical materials and narrative themes are artefacts of cultural colonisation that represent individual identities and imagined communities. They are tangible evidence of the site of identity formation known as Maoriland within which Pākehā construct imaginings of ‘Māoriness’ to create their own sense of indigeneity and nationhood. Although early twentieth-century Maoriland has been discussed widely in the arts and literature, scholars have not addressed the music of Maoriland, perhaps because it is heard today as the cultural form that most clearly expresses racialised sentimentality and colonial hegemony. However, Maoriland music can tell us much about New Zealand society if it is recognised as inhabiting an ‘in-between’ place where Pākehā fascination for the racial other was often inseparable from an admiration for Māori promoted by a knowledgeable group of Māori and Pākehā cultural go-betweens. This thesis presents a critical cultural analysis of the ethnic, racial, gendered, and national identities represented in Hill’s ‘Māori’ songs, viewed through the lens of his use of these in his score for Rudall Hayward’s film Rewi’s Last Stand (1940). This analysis shows that these popular songs contributed, and continue to contribute, to the nexus of Māori, war, and music in Pākehā narrations of the nation. By applying a bicultural approach to the study of Hill’s Maoriland songs, this research also shows these ‘in-between’ songs represent individual, tribal, and national Māori identities too. While this work adds music to the discourse of Maoriland, and Maoriland to the discourse of New Zealand music and national identity, Hill’s ‘Māori’ music, early twentieth-century New Zealand music, and New Zealand film music all remain severely under-researched areas of New Zealand music studies.</p>