The research examines the episode A Climate of Death from the British crime drama series Midsomer Murders (aired in December 2023), exploring how contemporary detective narratives integrate transcultural influences and ecological concerns. The study investigates the interplay of cultural diversity, environmental themes, and crime storytelling, using textual analysis as the primary method. Drawing on Wolfgang Welsch’s concept of transculturality alongside ecocritical and postmodern perspectives, the paper delves into the narrative strategies employed in this episode. By contrasting these elements with the more traditional frameworks of the Sherlock Holmes saga, the research highlights a shift in detective fiction – from reflecting Victorian-era cultural binaries to engaging with modern global anxieties. The study demonstrates that Midsomer Murders retains the genre’s foundational conventions while addressing contemporary societal challenges, creating a narrative space where local and global concerns converge.
Artykuł przybliża nieznaną do tej pory w literaturze przedmiotu jezuicką tragedię Genezjusz, zapisaną w rękopiśmiennym kodeksie z kolegium w Samborze. Jest to opowieść o mimie rzymskim, który podczas odgrywania przed Dioklecjanem parodii chrztu świętego dostąpił łaski nawrócenia i z błazna wykpiwającego religię chrześcijańską zmienił się w jej gorliwego wyznawcę. W artykule rozważania o Samborskim przedstawieniu omówione zostały na szerszym tle historyczno-literackim, w tym wcześniejszych realizacji motywu Genezjusza, zwłaszcza na gruncie polskiego teatru jezuickiego. Artykuł pokazuje stosunek osiemnastowiecznej tragedii do średniowiecznej podstawy źródłowej oraz wcześniejszych realizacji teatralnych. W toku analizy uwidoczniono celowe przekształcenia tematu, których w historii o Genezjuszu dokonał anonimowy jezuita – rozbudowanie historii o wątki rodzinne, usunięcie postaci Dioklecjana, pogłębienie negatywnego wizerunku tytułowej postaci, nadanie jej cech tyrana i prześladowcy. Wprowadzone do tragedii zmiany wiązały się również z dydaktyczno-utylitarną funkcją dramatu, który krytykował nieposłuszeństwo synowskie i niewłaściwe wykorzystywanie kreacyjnej funkcji sztuki oraz unaoczniał siłę chrztu świętego.
Dramatic representation. The theater, The performing arts. Show business
BackgroundMusician’s dystonia is a task-specific movement disorder that deteriorates fine motor control of skilled movements in musical performance. Although this disorder threatens professional careers, its diagnosis is challenging for clinicians who have no specialized knowledge of musical performance.ObjectivesTo support diagnostic evaluation, the present study proposes a novel approach using a machine learning-based algorithm to identify the symptomatic movements of Musician’s dystonia.MethodsWe propose an algorithm that identifies the dystonic movements using the anomaly detection method with an autoencoder trained with the hand kinematics of healthy pianists. A unique feature of the algorithm is that it requires only the video image of the hand, which can be derived by a commercially available camera. We also measured the hand biomechanical functions to assess the contribution of peripheral factors and improve the identification of dystonic symptoms.ResultsThe proposed algorithm successfully identified Musician’s dystonia with an accuracy and specificity of 90% based only on video footages of the hands. In addition, we identified the degradation of biomechanical functions involved in controlling multiple fingers, which is not specific to musical performance. By contrast, there were no dystonia-specific malfunctions of hand biomechanics, including the strength and agility of individual digits.ConclusionThese findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the present technique in aiding in the accurate diagnosis of Musician’s dystonia.
Experienciar um ritual pertencente a outra cultura proporciona pensarmos questões relacionadas à nossa própria cultura, a partir de uma espécie de ‘distanciamento’, pois ao ‘olhar’ o outro percebemos aspectos de nós mesmos. Para uma performer, vivenciar um ritual de iniciação feminina, no caso aqui, do povo indígena Tikuna: Worecü, é refletir sobre o quanto o contexto em que vivemos influência nosso fazer artístico, já que vida e arte estão entrelaçadas, pensando a partir do conceito de artivismo.
Instead of a typical review of a research monograph, this article proposes deliberations on selected motifs from Wojciech Dudzik’s book Maska w kulturze współczesnej Europy: Teorie i praktyka [The Mask in Contemporary European Culture: Theories and Practice] (Warsaw, 2020). Although this subjective choice of themes only partially reflects the variety of problems discussed by Dudzik, thise article situates a number of issues in broader contexts: (1) Recent research has shown a surprising ambivalence towards the pandemic face mask as a protection against infection. (2) Present-day devil masks seem to continue the ancient tradition of the mask as a fear-inducing object. (3) European performative practices ignore the insides of masks, unlike in the East, where they are important to actors, stimulating spiritual contact with previous wearers. (4) Sight bimodality is crucial for performing in a mask. (5) In the digital world, the biometric mask takes power over the individual’s bodily identity.
Dramatic representation. The theater, The performing arts. Show business
The topic of people thrown to the sidelines of life is considered in a double frame—in the context of the way the urban space is arranged and in the context of modern visual culture (feature films, video and photo blogs, videos on popular YouTube channels). The most hyped-up type of marginal landscape in modern media is slums. The otherness of such spaces has always been a subject of interest and curiosity, for “gazing”—interpretation, perception and entertainment. In modern mass culture, the “location” of the global south slums is especially trendy. In such exterior, hyper-popular feature films such as Slumdog Millionaire have been shot, causing a new cultural phenomenon—mass slum tourism. This phenomenon seems to be ambiguous from an ethical point of view; but from the point of view of visual culture, it is voyeurism brought to the level of an art and everyday life practice. The second type of marginal urban landscapes is local “invasion” into the decent and institutionalized city space. This art form serves as a “location” for a psychological drama of superfluous people. Features of national identity are most clearly manifested on its seamy side rather than anywhere else. Japanese townships of the homeless, incorporated into central and well-to-do areas, are no strangers to order and aesthetics; while Russian realities—chaos, departure from norms and underground—are completely opposite. Classic films devoted to this issue—Dodes’ka-den by Akira Kurasawa, Promised Heaven by Eldar Ryazanov, The Lady in the Van by Nicholas Hytner—model these seamy spaces and their peculiarities inherent in national culture. Very popular now are YouTube channels about the life of homeless people, which show real characters in their real habitats, introducing marginal spaces into the rank of a hot-topic visual culture. This type of visualization provokes another cultural phenomenon— the perception of marginal loci and their inhabitants as an interactive performance. Interactivity can vary from attacking to fraternization, from preaching to charity. Odd as it may seem, hyper-visualization and aestheticization of social ulcers contributes to their social invisibility. It is a problem, which no one is going to solve anymore; it has become a part of modern culture with its own philosophical and aesthetic arguments—and in a certain sense they act as its justification.
Тема людей, выброшенных на обочину жизни, рассматривается в двойном фрейме — в контексте организации пространства города и в контексте современной визуальной культуры (художественных фильмах, видео- и фото- блогах, в роликах популярных YouTube-каналов). Наиболее раскрученный в современных медиа тип маргинального ландшафта — трущобы. Инаковость этих пространств всегда была поводом для интереса и любопытства, «глазения» — интерпретации, восприятия и использования их как зрелища.
В современной масскультуре особенно популярна «натура» трущоб глобального Юга. Про них сняты гиперпопулярные игровые фильмы, такие как «Миллионер из трущоб», и это вызвало новое культурное явление — массовый трущобный туризм, который представляется неоднозначным явлением с этической точки зрения, но с точки зрения визуальной культуры — это возведение вуайеризма в ранг искусства и повседневной практики. Второй тип городских маргинальных ландшафтов — локальные «инвазии» в благопристойное и инстуциализированное пространство города. Этот тип в искусстве является «натурой» для психологической драмы на тему лишних людей. Особенности национального самосознания наиболее ярко проявляются именно с изнаночной его стороны. Японские городки бездомных, не чуждые порядку и эстетике, встроенные в центральные и вполне благополучные районы, совершенно противоположны российским реалиям — хаосу, уходу от норм и в подполье. Классические фильмы, посвященные этой проблематике — «Додэскаден» А. Курасавы, «Небеса обетованные» Э. Рязанова, «Леди в фургоне» Н. Хайтнера моделируют эти изнаночные пространства и их особенности, свойственные национальной культуре. Большой популярностью сейчас пользуются YouTube-каналы о жизни бомжей, которые снимают реальных персонажей на реальных местах их обитания, вводя маргинальные пространства в ранг востребованной визуальной культуры. Такой тип визуализации провоцирует иное культурное явление — восприятие маргинальных локусов и их обитателей как интерактивного перформанса. Тип интерактивности может быть разным — от нападений до братаний, от моральных нотаций до благотворительности. Гипервизуализация и эстетизация социальных язв, как ни странно, способствует их социальной невидимости. Эту проблему уже никто не собирается решать, она стала частью современной культуры, имеющей свое философское и эстетическое обоснование, — и это своего рода ее оправдание.
Recensione di Poeti latini del Cinquecento di Giovanni Parenti, a cura di Massimo Danzi
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Review of Poeti latini del Cinquecento di Giovanni Parenti, a cura di Massimo Danzi
Laís Jacques Marques, Bruna Luana Capelin Kunzler, Marcia Berselli
Esta cartilha pretende apresentar possíveis intervenções para desestabilizar sistemas que levam ao assujeitamento corporal pessoas consideradas marginalizadas pela estrutura dominante. Observaremos como práticas artísticas (ou práticas criativo-pedagógicas) podem contrapor as opressões cotidianas instauradas em regimes socioeducativos. Como suporte de reflexão, oficinas teatrais e artísticas realizadas em centros de internação, além de autoras e autores com as(os) quais dialogamos em busca de premissas para a ação.
Palavras-chave
Juventude em Cárcere. Regime Socioeducativo. Oficinas Artísticas. Pedagogia do Teatro.
The original review essay “Non-Still Life: a Mosaic Portrait of Dimitris Papaioannou” offers a panoramic view of the work of the greek painter and choreographer Dimitris Papaoannou, from his artistic initiation to the international tour of Still Life, and it was written based on the analysis of materios form the press recording made available by the artist and texts developed by the author herself. The preceding presentation, “The Mosaic-Dimitris by Aikaterini Delikonstantinidou” giver support to the translation by pointing out relevant aspects of its process and organization in six items. In the “Preliminary Notes”, the figures of speech presented in the title are developed, which reiterate the author's objectives. The "Introduction" draw connections between art and life that will be further explored by the following item, “The Body at the Center of the Narrative". In “Large-scale work at sports events”, the artist's expectations and contradictions are discussed. In “Choreographies of Existence”, highlights the conceptual choreographic synthesis that develops from how the artist deals with the reception of his pieces, and finally the author reaffirms in the “Concluding Notes” the multiplicity and breadth of the choreographer's production, associating them to philosophical questions related to the the piece named in the title.
Keywords
Dimitris Papaioannou. Contemporary Greek Theater. Contemporary Theater Direction. Choreography. Physical Theater.
Balladyna by Juliusz Słowacki is a text which causes controversy as its interpretation cannot be unequivocal – it results from the plot based on the rule of parallelism and parody as well as its structure and its frame that is an evident sign of irony. The history of critical reception of Balladyna demonstrates how difficult it is simply to read this drama. It can be regarded as a quintessence of Romantic playing with conventions, but it contains many elements of preRomantic tradition and it also opens the aesthetic and worldview perspectives for modern and postmodern literature. Such multidimensional drama is included in a core curriculum at lower secondary school. It is a source of difficulties for teachers and students and it is often read in too simplified manner during the lessons. The aim of the article is to present a suggestion of such attitude towards the drama that can help to discover the play of ambiguous perspectives that is inscribed in it.
Scenic practices have a profound power to transform individuals, communities and the world through the affections, images and ideas they evoke. However, as Fiona Bannon (2018) notes in her book on dance, collaboration and ethics: 'the way in which we achieve our transformative goals is as important as the resulting work that we can finally present' (BANNON, 2018, p. 129 ). In exercising these potentials, spectators and performers need to address the political-ethical issues that arise as an inherent part of creative processes and aesthetic experiences.
Harold Pinter was one of the most important dramatists in the modern and the
contemporary age. Pinter presented his own dramatic realm in which he turns the theatre into
a moral institution. He employed the elements of several schools of drama and manipulated
them in order to deliver his ethical messages emphasizing the necessity to regain and renew
the world's morality in order to face the political and social injustices committed against
humanity. His writings developed over more than fifty years in style, techniques and his
interests. However, his main concern was his social and political satire.
What, at first glance, could be less close, less akin than drama and reflection? Drama demands a stage, actors, a heightened atmosphere, spectators, the smell of the crowd, the roar of the greasepaint. Reflection is at least one of the things one does with one's solitude. But to counter this opposition an anthropologist tends to think in terms not of solitary but of plural reflection, or, much better, plural reflexivity, the ways in which a group or community seeks to portray, understand, and then act on itself. Essentially, public reflexivity takes the form of a performance. The languages through which a group communicates itself to itself are not, of course, confined to talking codes: they include gestures, music, dancing, graphic representation, painting, sculpture, and the fashioning of symbolic objects. They aredramatic, that is literally "doing" codes. Public reflexivity is also concerned with what I have called "liminality." This term, literally "being-on-a-threshold," means a state or process which is betwixt-and-between the normal, daytoday cultural and social states and processes of getting and spending, preserving law and order, and registering structural status. Since liminal time is not controlled by the clock it is a time of enchantment when anything might, even should, happen. Another way of putting it would be to say that the liminal in socio-cultural process is similar to the subjunctive mood in verbs - just as mundane socioReproduced by permission of the author and of the publisher from Performance in postmodern culture (Madison, Wisconsin: Coda Press, Inc., 1977,. The section heads (except for the last) have been added by the editor.
Our knowledge of mammalian sex determination is based on two main areas of study. First, the characterization of the biological events that determine the sexual development of the individual, including patterns of gene expression, and second, the study of genetic mutations in humans and mice that lead to abnormal sexual phenotypes. In the search for molecular components of this process, the identification of genes in loci involved in human disease has been especially fruitful. Serendipity has also played a hand, where in several cases targeted mutations in mouse genes, being studied for other reasons, have led to unexpected sex reversal phenotypes. The collection of molecular candidates implicated in sex determination is now quite extensive. We are not able to fit all of these into simple pathways, where one gene acts on the next and so on in a linear fashion, as seems possible in the invertebrate model organisms, Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila. In part this is due to gaps in our knowledge, as we are clearly missing several key components, but it is looking increasingly likely that the system is much better described as a network of factors. In fact, the story so far is like some partly recovered script for a play. Thus some gene products are main characters with roles at several different stages, some act as a chorus, in a combinatorial fashion with others, whereas a few play a critical role in one scene and then disappear. The mechanism presumably evolved to be delicately poised to respond to the initial trigger to be male or female and then to amplify this decision while avoiding development of intersex phenotypes. It is therefore likely to be a system full of back-ups and functional redundancy. The complexity may also follow from the relatively late embryonic stage at which the decision is reached. This means that events occurring in one cell lineage have to be coordinated with others in the context of a developing organ and eventually the whole organism. We review here the story that is beginning to emerge, focusing mostly on the set of transcription factors that appear to play important leading and supporting roles. In mammals, the genetic sex of the embryo is established at fertilization with the inheritance of an X or Y chromosome from the father. However, the sex-determining process is set in motion only during the period of organogenesis when the gonads develop. The Y chromosome, through the testis-determining gene Sry, acts dominantly to trigger differentiation of testes from the indifferent gonads (or genital ridges) that would otherwise develop as ovaries (Gubbay et al. 1990; Sinclair et al. 1990). Sry is the only gene needed from the Y chromosome to establish male development, as shown by transgenic experiments where XX mice carrying the Sry gene develop as males (Koopman et al. 1991). Conversely, mutations in Sry can lead to relatively normal female development of XY mice and humans (Gubbay et al. 1992; Hawkins et al. 1992). Once the gonads begin to differentiate as testes or ovaries, they secrete factors, notably anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH, otherwise known as Mullerian-inhibiting substance, or MIS) and testosterone from the testes, which determine the sexual development of the rest of the embryo. There are many steps in this process that, when affected, will give rise to different degrees of sex reversal. The challenge has been to correlate the phenotype of affected individuals with the appropriate step and translate this into a molecular mechanism.