"The Second Sex" in 1950s American Popular Journals

The Second Sex has been considered one of the most important studies about the women’s question that preceded the so-called second feminist wave in the USA, and the paper deals with the inquiries about the urge to translate The Second Sex into English and for the American audience. Taking into account translation studies, the article approaches the process of translation as not neutral and as one that has far-reaching consequences for the reception of the translated work. In addition, the paper refers to feminist translation studies and the insight that translation invokes questions of power, exclusion, appropriation, and erasure. The rise of periodical studies, on the other hand, gives the opportunity to analyze digitalized journals from the period after the Second World War, and to question on a deeper level the norms and socially accepted ideals of femininity in plural, which, finally, could contribute to a more complex understanding of the position and role of women in postwar America. Having in mind specific the social, political and cultural context in which the first English translation of The Second Sex was published, the paper analyzes the reception of the book in popular journals during 1953, which was highly critical but simultaneously more positive than in France, despite all the problems with the translation that deform Beauvoir’s thought and its existentialist philosophy that underpins her deconstruction of various myths about women. The paper offers deep analysis of thirteen articles published in six American journals with different editorial policies and intended audiences. The analysis of these first published critiques of the book shows that some topics (the structure of the book, Beauvoir as ‘the French’ author, her alleged misunderstanding of the American context and positive stance towards the USSR, feminism, the ‘unscientific’ analysis that the book provides, existentialism, and Beauvoir's critique of the myth of motherhood), gained much more attention than for example the analysis of the quality of the book's translation, which deeply influences all of the above mentioned topics and problems and, in addition, there is no critical stance towards the role and position of women in the United States after the Second World War in any of the published critiques. The article argues that the reception of The Second Sex which was created in part by these critiques influenced both public opinion and feminists, who would quite soon remobilize the massive feminist movement in the 1960s.

"Heritage-for-Peace and Development": An Opportunity Not to be Missed

The dominant approach of the international community to the subject of our research and teaching is to instrumentalise cultural heritage safeguarding within stabilisation and development programs in post-conflict regions. Since the turn of the Millennium, cultural heritage safeguarding has been among the crucial instruments used by the international community, especially in post-conflict regions, for: reconciliation and peace building; development of a common sense of belonging; promoting mutually respectful dialogue in culturally complex societies. Many international organizations, such as the UN, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, NATO, the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the Council of Europe, and the EU, promote the management of ethno-political conflicts as their priority. Their agendas follow the principles of a) the overall relevance of cultural heritage for society and b) the importance of social networks for peace-building and peacekeeping in post-traumatic contexts. Instead of opposing this peace and development oriented paradigm from either anti-realist or nationalist perspective, we can recognize it, apply it and use it to improve the social status of social sciences and humanities in Serbia. Anthropological and critical heritage studies-based criticism of UNESCO-driven, state-governed ICH safeguarding fails to comprehend that standard academic constructivist analyses of a community’s key symbols of identity are offensive from the native’s point of view. Our typical analyses unwittingly confuse, annoy or even insult a great majority of the wider public who view/perceive collective identity as something given, inherited and real analogously to the objects and processes of the physical world. Consequently, our theoretical work counterindicates both peacekeeping, stability-building efforts by the international community in post-conflict regions and the goals of critical social science (which it nominally represents). Hence, a novel approach is required, one prioritising heritage stakeholder inclusion (and not our theoretical or ethnoreligious commitments). It is precisely the studies of nationalism and its consequences which forbid us to think of heritage as something useful, a counter-intuitive method for achieving fundamental anthropological goals. As communities regularly perceive their identities as objective and real, and see a critical social theory approach to their customs and traditions as confusing, non-academic, illegitimate or even offensive, I here propose a shift from constructionist criticism, standard in anthropology, to realist instrumentalism, typical of ethnology, in order to boost ICH safeguarding potential for achievement of both social and disciplinary-specific goals.

Traditional Sports and Games as an Element of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Traditional sports and games have been recognized in modern times as an important segment of cultural heritage and local identity. They are an expression of creativity in the field of sports and recreation of the inhabitants in the regions where they originated. The role and importance of traditional sports and games have been especially emphasized in the last 30 years through various announcements, declarations, executive plans, and since 2010 they have been inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. They are seen as special performance skills that are preserved, as an example of good practice, a list of knowledge, a list of living guardians of heritage and a list of festivals and customs. Also, they found their place on the national lists of the former republics of SFRY. On the territory of Serbia, traditional sports and games are still not on the national list of intangible cultural heritage, although practice shows that some need to be preserved and revitalized. The paper analyses process of recognizing traditional sports and games in the world and in the former Yugoslavia as an intangible cultural heritage. Also, using survey research, it will be investigated to what extent the awareness and present knowledge on this topic is developed among visitors to various competitions in traditional sports and games in Serbia, and what are the attitudes of respondents regarding their preservation and authenticity.

From the Physical Body to Dynamic Embodiment: Towards an Anthropological Study of Martial Arts Body Movement

This paper seeks a theoretical approach to the body best suited to the anthropological study of body movement in the martial arts. It follows the development of the anthropological attitude to the body from its formative period up until the present day, and this is done from the position of the “embodiment” paradigm as a theoretical orientation which enables a deeper understanding of the connection between specific cultural environments in which martial arts evolve and the meaning of the movements themselves. The introductory section provides a brief summary of “unembodied” theoretical schools of thought, which laid the foundations for the “somatic revolution”. The paper then considers the authors who have made the most significant contribution to the anthropological study of embodiment, and looks at four theoretical perspectives on the body, namely, the physical, socio-cultural, embodied, and dynamic embodiment perspectives. The paper also considers the question of overcoming the ontological body-mind dichotomy, which is the legacy of Cartesian dualism. Particular attention has been given to the embodiment and dynamic embodiment perspectives, and to their potential for application in anthropological studies of martial physical practices, illustrated with concrete examples.

The Phenomenon of University Americanization: A Critical Review by Max Weber

The paper discusses the phenomenon of Americanization of European universities in a historical perspective, referring to the critical comparison of higher education in Germany and the United States, conceived by Max Weber after the experience of his stay at American universities in 1904. In accordance with the subject and goal, the paper is divided into several thematic units that include the historical context of European university development, defining the research question, the historical and theoretical context (his trip to the International Congress of Arts and Sciences in St. Louis and defining two of Weber's key theoretical concepts (rationalization and bureaucratization) which are necessary for understanding his analysis of higher education), consideration of Weber's most important work on this topic (Wissenschaft als Beruf), and presentation of the conclusions of our analysis. The paper provides an overview of Weber's comparison of two university models: (a) the American model, which he sees as market-oriented, democratized and meritocratic, and (b) the German model, which he sees as critical, holistic and humanistic. Despite the prevailing opinion in modern Weberology that Weber was an apologist of the way in which American higher education works, in this paper we try to show that Weber in his deliberations offered a far more balanced view of the situation at universities in the two countries (United States and Germany), and that he managed to show different aspects, i.e. the advantages and disadvantages of these two, in many respects different, models of higher education and academic communities derived from them. Although the paper deals with a part of Max Weber's legacy and in that sense with a discussion that is part of the history of sociological ideas, the basic ideas that Weber argues in it have not lost their relevance in contemporary discussions on higher education reform in Europe.

Metamodernism and Language: Pandemic Era Advertising

In cultural theory, metamodernism becomes a new cultural paradigm of the twenty-first century, epistemologically with (post) modernism, ontologically between (post) modernism, and historically beyond (post) modernism. It appears in the context of political changes following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the environment of digital progress, but also in periods of financial and ecological crises. Rather than simple “zeitgeist”, metamodernism as an arriving cultural paradigm is to be understood more as a “structure of feelings” or sentiment so pervasive that it becomes structural. Metamodernism is symbolically presented by the dual nature of God’s messenger Eros, who operates between the worlds of mortals and immortals. Another metaphor to illustrate metamodernism is a pendulum that constantly fluctuates between opposites such as modern hope and postmodern melancholy, empathy and apathy or enthusiasm and irony. This paper examines Italian advertisements during the largest contemporary health crisis, the SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak. The semiotic textual analysis is performed on the audio-visual commercials of well known companies, such as Vodafone and Barilla. In addition to this, several print advertisements of a local company for funeral services Taffo are considered. Different metamodern characteristics are recognised in all examined texts. In already confirmed pandemic narratives (such as “the celebration of being Italian and patriotic solidarity”, “the juxtapositioning of the “inside” and the “outside”, and the “humanization of technology at the service of human affections and emotions''), now the metamodern characteristics, as a new structure of feeling that brings hope, continuous oscillations between contrasted polls and a certain quirkiness, are being identified. The most relevant morphosyntactic, lexical and semantic traits of the Italian language in pandemic advertising are being compared with the same language tools in postmodern Italian advertising. Finally, different stylistic and pragmatic, rhetorical and semiotic tools are being interpreted and analysed, defining more closely the unique characteristics of “metamodern” pandemic advertising.

The Court and the Monastery Complexes as Centers of Craft Production in Medieval Serbia

Being important economical centers on the territory of medieval Serbia and places that in the division of power into sacral and secular stood out, the court and the monastery were the central places of the manor but also first grade centers i.e. urban settlements within boundaries or fence-encircled areas. This was especially the case with the court of the ruler or the head of the church. Thus, in parallel with the craftsmen who were working for the sovereign, landlord or for the monastery on the territory of the manor – the craftsmanship activity was also taking place within the court or monastery complex - on the territory of physically or imaginarily enclosed economic space - the immediate courtyard. Unlike monasteries whose yard had been encircled and so there is no doubt to whom the workshop actually belonged, in the case of the fortified capital cities, it is difficult to make a distinction between the lord and city workshops. This is especially the case when there are no written sources or systematic archaeological excavations. Based on current knowledge it can be assumed that within the palace complex there were a blacksmith, a goldsmith, a mint, a potter and a tailor, and very likely shoemaker workshops. They were appropriately employing blacksmiths, weavers, gunsmiths, goldsmiths, jewelers, potters, craftsmen who worked on the production and decoration of clothes and shoes, and probably persons practicing the fine crafts, such as engraving. In the case of monasteries, there were blacksmith, goldsmith and potter workshops, and based on the tools it can be assumed that leather production was also present. Workshops with artisans for the production of the essential elements of books, especially within the scriptoriums, should be added to this list as well. Among them, the most skilled ones were certainly the craft masters. The monastery and church circle were common to found in the working role of craftsmen in a secular environment, as well as secular persons working in the monasteries. Apart from the craftsmen who lived continuously in the complexes, there were also those who traveled with their masters, or stayed within the complexes for a prolonged time due to their working obligations. In that case and where the work was related to a large construction project, some of them stayed within the complexes for years.

“I Urge Young People not to Rush to Leave for the Great Europe” : On Entrepreneurship in Organic Production in Serbia from an Anthropological Perspective

Our research is based on the assumption that in the period after 2008, designated as the “mature stage” of the second transition, decision-makers and experts in the phenomenon of organic production discursively shaped a common, though fundamentally ambivalent system of cognitive ideas and notions relating to this issue and its various aspects, which is designated in this paper as the concept of entrepreneurship in organic production in Serbia. For the purposes of our research, this concept is understood as a mythical notion, as it were, in accordance with the definition of the concept of the myth put forward by the French semiotician Roland Barthes, for whom the myth is a form of speech, a certain discursive formation, and everything that is discourse-related can be a myth. Through an analysis of structural and semantic aspects of the concept of entrepreneurship in organic production in Serbia, the paper looks at both the mechanism of articulation of this concept within expert and public discourse and at its implications, the way in which it is linked to the concrete entrepreneurial ventures of two migrants-returnees, whose entrepreneurial stories have a significant explanatory value in terms of the topic of this paper. The paper aims to highlight the contradictions involved in the concept of entrepreneurship in Serbian organic production and draw attention to the possibility of their creative resolution on the plane of individual ways of thinking and acting in this sphere of entrepreneurship, and also to point to the relationship between two categories that from an anthropological point of view are mutually permeable, namely, the categories of “myth” and “reality”.

Thai and Serbian Student L2 Motivational Selves: A Contrastive Study

Applying L2 Motivational Self-System, the aim of this paper is to investigate how Thai and Serbian students construct their L2 motivational self-systems. A total of 543 students from Thailand and Serbia completed an 18-item questionnaire aimed at sampling relevant motivational factors. Although the students from both universities reported medium levels of motivated behaviour and a strong influence of their L2 learning experience, the most influential factors in the construction of self-systems were fundamentally different. While Serbian students construct their motivational self-systems on the basis of their ideal L2 selves, Thai students shape their motivational self-systems on the basis of ought-to L2 self. This difference points to the overall teaching approaches adopted in the investigated settings, where in Serbia learning experience is guided by the communicative approach to language teaching, while the Thai learning experience rests on a teacher-centred approach shaped by the collectivist cultural orientation.