Author: Andrada Fâtu-Tutoveanu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
This volume examines the issue of identity within the context of the first decade of the Romanian Communist regime, using a series of concepts and theories belonging to the disciplines of Western cultural, media and gender studies, as well as those relating to colonialism and imperialism. Of particular interest is the use of the press as an essential instrument for Romanian propaganda in terms of spreading, as well as controlling, the new set of politically-established identity patterns.
Building Socialism, Constructing People
Author: Andrada Fatu-Tutoveanu
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443871389
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
This volume focuses on the issue of identity within the context of the radical shift that took place in Romania during the late 1940s and early 1950s, as a result of the process of Sovietisation, or “cultural colonisation” (a concept analysed in particular detail in this book). It adopts a novel approach to this theme, by studying the issue of identity within the context of the first decade of the Romanian communist regime, with the help of a series of concepts and theories belonging to the disciplines of Western cultural, media and gender studies, as well as those relating to colonialism and imperialism. Of particular interest to this volume is the use of the press as an essential instrument for Romanian propaganda in terms of spreading, as well as controlling, the new set of politically-established identity patterns. As such, the press provides one of the most relevant environments for the analysis of the major cultural, social and political identity shifts that took place in Romania during the late 1940s and the 1950s. The book follows the evolution, deconstruction and reconstruction of identity at both the micro- and macro- levels, focusing on some of the most significant identity pattern constructs in terms of reconfiguring cultural identities. The volume consists of a series of theoretical, as well as cultural, press analyses and case studies, based on a set of influential concepts and theories referring to identity, media discourse, and propaganda, in association with newly-introduced concepts such as “cultural colonialism” and cultural “canon” negotiation, amongst others.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443871389
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
This volume focuses on the issue of identity within the context of the radical shift that took place in Romania during the late 1940s and early 1950s, as a result of the process of Sovietisation, or “cultural colonisation” (a concept analysed in particular detail in this book). It adopts a novel approach to this theme, by studying the issue of identity within the context of the first decade of the Romanian communist regime, with the help of a series of concepts and theories belonging to the disciplines of Western cultural, media and gender studies, as well as those relating to colonialism and imperialism. Of particular interest to this volume is the use of the press as an essential instrument for Romanian propaganda in terms of spreading, as well as controlling, the new set of politically-established identity patterns. As such, the press provides one of the most relevant environments for the analysis of the major cultural, social and political identity shifts that took place in Romania during the late 1940s and the 1950s. The book follows the evolution, deconstruction and reconstruction of identity at both the micro- and macro- levels, focusing on some of the most significant identity pattern constructs in terms of reconfiguring cultural identities. The volume consists of a series of theoretical, as well as cultural, press analyses and case studies, based on a set of influential concepts and theories referring to identity, media discourse, and propaganda, in association with newly-introduced concepts such as “cultural colonialism” and cultural “canon” negotiation, amongst others.
Building Socialism, Constructing People
Author: Andrada Fâtu-Tutoveanu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
This volume examines the issue of identity within the context of the first decade of the Romanian Communist regime, using a series of concepts and theories belonging to the disciplines of Western cultural, media and gender studies, as well as those relating to colonialism and imperialism. Of particular interest is the use of the press as an essential instrument for Romanian propaganda in terms of spreading, as well as controlling, the new set of politically-established identity patterns.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
This volume examines the issue of identity within the context of the first decade of the Romanian Communist regime, using a series of concepts and theories belonging to the disciplines of Western cultural, media and gender studies, as well as those relating to colonialism and imperialism. Of particular interest is the use of the press as an essential instrument for Romanian propaganda in terms of spreading, as well as controlling, the new set of politically-established identity patterns.
A World to Build
Author: Marta Harnecker
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583674683
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Harnecker offers a useful overview of the changing political map in Latin America, examining the trajectories of several progressive Latin American governments as they work to develop alternative models to capitalism.--Provided by publisher.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583674683
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Harnecker offers a useful overview of the changing political map in Latin America, examining the trajectories of several progressive Latin American governments as they work to develop alternative models to capitalism.--Provided by publisher.
Building Socialism
Author: Christina Schwenkel
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478012609
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Following a decade of U.S. bombing campaigns that obliterated northern Vietnam, East Germany helped Vietnam rebuild in an act of socialist solidarity. In Building Socialism Christina Schwenkel examines the utopian visions of an expert group of Vietnamese and East German urban planners who sought to transform the devastated industrial town of Vinh into a model socialist city. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research in Vietnam and Germany with architects, engineers, construction workers, and tenants in Vinh’s mass housing complex, Schwenkel explores the material and affective dimensions of urban possibility and the quick fall of Vinh’s new built environment into unplanned obsolescence. She analyzes the tensions between aspirational infrastructure and postwar uncertainty to show how design models and practices that circulated between the socialist North and the decolonizing South underwent significant modification to accommodate alternative cultural logics and ideas about urban futurity. By documenting the building of Vietnam’s first planned city and its aftermath of decay and repurposing, Schwenkel argues that underlying the ambivalent and often unpredictable responses to modernist architectural forms were anxieties about modernity and the future of socialism itself.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478012609
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Following a decade of U.S. bombing campaigns that obliterated northern Vietnam, East Germany helped Vietnam rebuild in an act of socialist solidarity. In Building Socialism Christina Schwenkel examines the utopian visions of an expert group of Vietnamese and East German urban planners who sought to transform the devastated industrial town of Vinh into a model socialist city. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research in Vietnam and Germany with architects, engineers, construction workers, and tenants in Vinh’s mass housing complex, Schwenkel explores the material and affective dimensions of urban possibility and the quick fall of Vinh’s new built environment into unplanned obsolescence. She analyzes the tensions between aspirational infrastructure and postwar uncertainty to show how design models and practices that circulated between the socialist North and the decolonizing South underwent significant modification to accommodate alternative cultural logics and ideas about urban futurity. By documenting the building of Vietnam’s first planned city and its aftermath of decay and repurposing, Schwenkel argues that underlying the ambivalent and often unpredictable responses to modernist architectural forms were anxieties about modernity and the future of socialism itself.
The Stalinist Era
Author: David L. Hoffmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107007089
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107007089
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.
Spatial Revolution
Author: Christina E. Crawford
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501759213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
Spatial Revolution is the first comparative parallel study of Soviet architecture and planning to create a narrative arc across a vast geography. The narrative binds together three critical industrial-residential projects in Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv, built during the first fifteen years of the Soviet project and followed attentively worldwide after the collapse of capitalist markets in 1929. Among the revelations provided by Christina E. Crawford is the degree to which outside experts participated in the construction of the Soviet industrial complex, while facing difficult topographies, near-impossible deadlines, and inchoate theories of socialist space-making. Crawford describes how early Soviet architecture and planning activities were kinetic and negotiated and how questions about the proper distribution of people and industry under socialism were posed and refined through the construction of brick and mortar, steel and concrete projects, living laboratories that tested alternative spatial models. As a result, Spatial Revolution answers important questions of how the first Soviet industrialization drive was a catalyst for construction of thousands of new enterprises on remote sites across the Eurasian continent, an effort that spread to far-flung sites in other socialist states—and capitalist welfare states—for decades to follow. Thanks to generous funding from Emory University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501759213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
Spatial Revolution is the first comparative parallel study of Soviet architecture and planning to create a narrative arc across a vast geography. The narrative binds together three critical industrial-residential projects in Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv, built during the first fifteen years of the Soviet project and followed attentively worldwide after the collapse of capitalist markets in 1929. Among the revelations provided by Christina E. Crawford is the degree to which outside experts participated in the construction of the Soviet industrial complex, while facing difficult topographies, near-impossible deadlines, and inchoate theories of socialist space-making. Crawford describes how early Soviet architecture and planning activities were kinetic and negotiated and how questions about the proper distribution of people and industry under socialism were posed and refined through the construction of brick and mortar, steel and concrete projects, living laboratories that tested alternative spatial models. As a result, Spatial Revolution answers important questions of how the first Soviet industrialization drive was a catalyst for construction of thousands of new enterprises on remote sites across the Eurasian continent, an effort that spread to far-flung sites in other socialist states—and capitalist welfare states—for decades to follow. Thanks to generous funding from Emory University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Creating Market Socialism
Author: Carolyn L. Hsu
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822390426
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
In the midst of China’s post-Mao market reforms, the old status hierarchy is collapsing. Who will determine what will take its place? In Creating Market Socialism, the sociologist Carolyn L. Hsu demonstrates the central role of ordinary people—rather than state or market elites—in creating new institutions for determining status in China. Hsu explores the emerging hierarchy, which is based on the concept of suzhi, or quality. In suzhi ideology, human capital and educational credentials are the most important measures of status and class position. Hsu reveals how, through their words and actions, ordinary citizens decide what jobs or roles within society mark individuals with suzhi, designating them “quality people.” Hsu’s ethnographic research, conducted in the city of Harbin in northwestern China, included participant observation at twenty workplaces and interviews with working adults from a range of professions. By analyzing the shared stories about status and class, jobs and careers, and aspirations and hopes that circulate among Harbiners from all walks of life, Hsu reveals the logic underlying the emerging stratification system. In the post-socialist era, Harbiners must confront a fast-changing and bewildering institutional landscape. Their collective narratives serve to create meaning and order in the midst of this confusion. Harbiners collectively agree that “intellectuals” (scientists, educators, and professionals) are the most respected within the new social order, because they contribute the most to Chinese society, whether that contribution is understood in terms of traditional morality, socialist service, or technological and economic progress. Harbiners understand human capital as an accurate measure of a person’s status. Their collective narratives about suzhi shape their career choices, judgments, and child-rearing practices, and therefore the new practices and institutions developing in post-socialist China.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822390426
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
In the midst of China’s post-Mao market reforms, the old status hierarchy is collapsing. Who will determine what will take its place? In Creating Market Socialism, the sociologist Carolyn L. Hsu demonstrates the central role of ordinary people—rather than state or market elites—in creating new institutions for determining status in China. Hsu explores the emerging hierarchy, which is based on the concept of suzhi, or quality. In suzhi ideology, human capital and educational credentials are the most important measures of status and class position. Hsu reveals how, through their words and actions, ordinary citizens decide what jobs or roles within society mark individuals with suzhi, designating them “quality people.” Hsu’s ethnographic research, conducted in the city of Harbin in northwestern China, included participant observation at twenty workplaces and interviews with working adults from a range of professions. By analyzing the shared stories about status and class, jobs and careers, and aspirations and hopes that circulate among Harbiners from all walks of life, Hsu reveals the logic underlying the emerging stratification system. In the post-socialist era, Harbiners must confront a fast-changing and bewildering institutional landscape. Their collective narratives serve to create meaning and order in the midst of this confusion. Harbiners collectively agree that “intellectuals” (scientists, educators, and professionals) are the most respected within the new social order, because they contribute the most to Chinese society, whether that contribution is understood in terms of traditional morality, socialist service, or technological and economic progress. Harbiners understand human capital as an accurate measure of a person’s status. Their collective narratives about suzhi shape their career choices, judgments, and child-rearing practices, and therefore the new practices and institutions developing in post-socialist China.
Information Technology and Socialist Construction
Author: Daniel E. Saros
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317803191
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
The failure of command central planning in the twentieth century has led to a general disillusionment within the socialist movement worldwide. Some alternatives to capitalism have been proposed since the end of the Cold War, but none has offered an alternative form of economic calculation. This book explains how modern information technology may be used to implement a new method of economic calculation that could bring an end to capitalism and make socialism possible. In this book, the author critically examines a number of socialist proposals that have been put forward since the end of the Cold War. It is shown that although these proposals have many merits, their inability effectively to incorporate the benefits of information technology into their models has limited their ability to solve the problem of socialist construction. The final section of the book proposes an entirely new model of socialist development, based on a "needs profile" that makes it possible to convert the needs of large numbers of people into data that can be used as a guide for resource allocation. This analysis makes it possible to rethink and carefully specify the conditions necessary for the abolition of capital and consequently the requirements for socialist revolution and, ultimately, communist society. Information Technology and Socialist Construction will be of interest to students and scholars of political economy, the history of economic thought, labour economics and industrial economics.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317803191
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
The failure of command central planning in the twentieth century has led to a general disillusionment within the socialist movement worldwide. Some alternatives to capitalism have been proposed since the end of the Cold War, but none has offered an alternative form of economic calculation. This book explains how modern information technology may be used to implement a new method of economic calculation that could bring an end to capitalism and make socialism possible. In this book, the author critically examines a number of socialist proposals that have been put forward since the end of the Cold War. It is shown that although these proposals have many merits, their inability effectively to incorporate the benefits of information technology into their models has limited their ability to solve the problem of socialist construction. The final section of the book proposes an entirely new model of socialist development, based on a "needs profile" that makes it possible to convert the needs of large numbers of people into data that can be used as a guide for resource allocation. This analysis makes it possible to rethink and carefully specify the conditions necessary for the abolition of capital and consequently the requirements for socialist revolution and, ultimately, communist society. Information Technology and Socialist Construction will be of interest to students and scholars of political economy, the history of economic thought, labour economics and industrial economics.
The Contradictions of "Real Socialism"
Author: Michael A. Lebowitz
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583672567
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
What was “real socialism”—the term which originated in twentieth-century socialist societies for the purpose of distinguishing them from abstract, theoretical socialism? In this volume, Michael A. Lebowitz considers the nature, tendencies, and contradictions of those societies. Beginning with the constant presence of shortages within “real socialism,” Lebowitz searches for the inner relations which generate these patterns. He finds these, in particular, in what he calls “vanguard relations of production,” a relation which takes the apparent form of a social contract where workers obtain benefits not available to their counterparts in capitalism but lack the power to decide within the workplace and society. While these societies were able to claim major achievements in areas from health care to education to popular culture, the separation of thinking and doing prevented workers from developing their capacities as fully developed human beings. The relationship within “real socialism” between the vanguard as conductor and a conducted working class, however, did not only lead to the deformation of workers and those elements necessary for the building of socialism; it also created the conditions in which enterprise managers emerged as an incipient capitalist class, which was an immediate source of the crises of “real socialism.” As he argued in The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development, Lebowitz stresses the necessity to go beyond the hierarchy inherent in the relation of conductor and conducted (and beyond the “vanguard Marxism” which supports this) to create the conditions in which people can transform themselves through their conscious cooperation and practice—i.e., a society of free and associated producers.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583672567
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
What was “real socialism”—the term which originated in twentieth-century socialist societies for the purpose of distinguishing them from abstract, theoretical socialism? In this volume, Michael A. Lebowitz considers the nature, tendencies, and contradictions of those societies. Beginning with the constant presence of shortages within “real socialism,” Lebowitz searches for the inner relations which generate these patterns. He finds these, in particular, in what he calls “vanguard relations of production,” a relation which takes the apparent form of a social contract where workers obtain benefits not available to their counterparts in capitalism but lack the power to decide within the workplace and society. While these societies were able to claim major achievements in areas from health care to education to popular culture, the separation of thinking and doing prevented workers from developing their capacities as fully developed human beings. The relationship within “real socialism” between the vanguard as conductor and a conducted working class, however, did not only lead to the deformation of workers and those elements necessary for the building of socialism; it also created the conditions in which enterprise managers emerged as an incipient capitalist class, which was an immediate source of the crises of “real socialism.” As he argued in The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development, Lebowitz stresses the necessity to go beyond the hierarchy inherent in the relation of conductor and conducted (and beyond the “vanguard Marxism” which supports this) to create the conditions in which people can transform themselves through their conscious cooperation and practice—i.e., a society of free and associated producers.
Socialism for a Sceptical Age
Author: Ralph Miliband
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789606950
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This outstanding and original volume offers a critical examination of a number of developments which in recent years have undermined the idea of socialism and eroded its electoral appeal. Among these developments are the collapse of Communist regimes, the fragmentation of the constituencies upon which earlier socialist advances had depended, changes in the organization and the dynamics of capitalism and a dearth of agencies committed to the socialist project. The book also takes up and seeks to rebut older objections to socialism, such as the notion that it is inevitably totalitarian, that it is based on too optimistic a view of human nature and that it fails to take account of the tendency of power to accumulate in the hands of minorities. The book argues that a social order dominated by the logic of capital and competition cannot, despite all the positive claims made on its behalf, produce the conditions which make true citizenship and community possible. By contrast, socialism offers an attractive and feasible programme for the realization of those ideals. Miliband argues that socialism cannot be seen as an answer to all the ills which have plagued humankind. Socialism, in his view, has to be understood as part of an age-old struggle for a more just society, and he believes that, seen in this light, socialism remains not only desirable but also perfectly possible. Moreover, he believes, socialism will, in time, come to command a majority support which its advancement requires. Socialism has to be seen as a permanent striving for the achievement of democracy, egalitarianism and the creation of an economy under democratic control.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789606950
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This outstanding and original volume offers a critical examination of a number of developments which in recent years have undermined the idea of socialism and eroded its electoral appeal. Among these developments are the collapse of Communist regimes, the fragmentation of the constituencies upon which earlier socialist advances had depended, changes in the organization and the dynamics of capitalism and a dearth of agencies committed to the socialist project. The book also takes up and seeks to rebut older objections to socialism, such as the notion that it is inevitably totalitarian, that it is based on too optimistic a view of human nature and that it fails to take account of the tendency of power to accumulate in the hands of minorities. The book argues that a social order dominated by the logic of capital and competition cannot, despite all the positive claims made on its behalf, produce the conditions which make true citizenship and community possible. By contrast, socialism offers an attractive and feasible programme for the realization of those ideals. Miliband argues that socialism cannot be seen as an answer to all the ills which have plagued humankind. Socialism, in his view, has to be understood as part of an age-old struggle for a more just society, and he believes that, seen in this light, socialism remains not only desirable but also perfectly possible. Moreover, he believes, socialism will, in time, come to command a majority support which its advancement requires. Socialism has to be seen as a permanent striving for the achievement of democracy, egalitarianism and the creation of an economy under democratic control.