A. Debeljak: “In praise of hybridity: Globalization and the modern western paradigm”

An interesting article by Ales Debeljak.

"The division of the world into “the West and the rest” is a misrepresentation, writes Ales Debeljak. Cultural globalization is not the transplantation of western ideas and technologies across the planet, but the adaptation of these according to local requirements. Hybridity, the product of a longe durée, is at the heart of the contemporary western paradigm."

Click here for the entire piece from “Eurozine”.

The End of History and The Last Man (1992)

This year 2009 recurred the tenth anniversay of the fall of the berlin Wall, 1989 - 2009. We will use this as a 'hook' to talk about 'The End of History and The Last Man' a book by Francis Fukuyama (published in 1992).

The main concept of the American philosopher, recalling Hegel, is the claim that, with the Berlin Wall's fall, we have the definitive affirmation of the liberal ideology as the only possible kind of state policy for the human species. The liberal state is, according to Fukuyama, the final aim reached by humanity, after defeating the totalitarian regimes, last step in the scale of democracy.

Fukuyama's theses will be reviewed in the following years by the same author, in the essay 'The Great Disruption' (1999) since the growing importance of the spreading of the IT language in the society of communication. The 'ideal' liberal democracy' theorized by Fukuyama has to take these problematiques into account, given the speed and the depth of this cultural development, included the possible degenerations. Fukuyama, in a more or less aware way, seems then to be contradictory and problematizes his 'end of history'. This problematization will become more coherent in the work 'Our Posthuman Future' (1992), written exactly ten years after the first one we have aalready talked about.

And it seems that this last book is indeed the most relevant contribution by Fukuyama to epistemology. The thinker reviews his discussion in relation to biogenetics in the post-ideological context he depicted, and appears to be 'scared' of this 'eugenetic' possibility, which he claims, can undermine the liberal state just born especially on the side of ethics. The possibility for the man to intervene on himself physiologically implies changes at the social, demographic, moral and cultural level.

The discussion on Fukuyama's theses is widespread and hard, also because the same writer appears to be sometimes contradictory. His position on the posthuman sensibility is definitely skeptic. Nevertheless, the interesting side of this issue id Fukuyama's attention to the theme of ethics, whose importance in teh context of the discussions on the posthuman are often underestimated.

Alessandro Gandini

Derrick De Kerckhove

Today we cast an eye on a truly interesting figure in the field of Cultural Studies, especially as concerns the discussion on mass media and interactive media. This is Derrick De Kerchkove, Marshall McLuhan's assistant for more than ten years and now famous sociologist.

Italy, once in a while, embraced such a relevant thinker: De Kerckhove is in fact Professor at the University Federico II, Naples. His main theoretical contribution is the theory of the connective intelligence, an original approach towards the impact the Internet and the World Wide Web have had at a social and global level.

This is an extract from an interview by Benedetto Vecchi for the Italian newspaper 'Manifesto', 30 July 2002 (translation A.G.):

"The connnective intelligence is a term which I use to identify the nowadays' impact the Internet has had on the human thought. At the same time, this is a concept with ancient roots, pre-verbal, even applicable to the animal kingdom but still not recognizable as such. This, to say that the new technologies, all the new technologies give us simply the instruments to analyze this condition of the human being. We are used to conceive that the human thought pertains to a private dimension, and this is the fruit of that specific kind of communication that is reading. Nevertheless, the human thought is considered the result of something 'inner', whereas the spoken word is something individual. But also the dialogue pertains to thought. Therefore, I consider thought as a 'silent language', and the spoken word as 'connective'. The connective intelligence finds its natural habit in the Web, in shich the individual has the double possibility of belonging to a group without losing his / her identity, as well as having an identity without losing the sense of group.

However, I would like to specify that the connective intelligence is different from the collective intelligence of which we talk about when we come to electronic communication. In this case, the collective intelligence is bound to 'one way universes' in which the individual is getting lost: the television speech, the radio speech, exactly like he used to get lost in the oral communitarian tradition. The connective intelligence pertains conversely the possibility of sharing thought, intention and projects espressed by others."

Alessandro Gandini

Freddie Mercury

A few days ago, it occured the anniversary for the death of one of the most famous pop icons of the last century. It was in fact 18 years ago, that Freddie Mercury passed away, on the 24th November, 1991.

Freddie Mercury was an unlucky protagonist across one of the most controversial themes and debates pertaining the end of the last century, and the Cultural Studies in particular: the gender studies. He lived his homosexuality in full, sometimes hidden, sometimes completely free to be shown, as those years' chronicles tell. We might argue that Freddie Mercury embodied the spirit of those times as concerns homosexuality as a taboo in the public opinion, especially for the fact that he never showed it off, keeping it as a private fact and not a fashion.

Nevertheless, Freddie Mercury's heritage stands firmly still in people's memories, as a 'pop star' who burnt word by word his farewell message through songs such as These Are The Days Of Our Lives, Too Much Love Will Kill You, and especially The Show Must Go On, where in a few words his soul is depicted as 'painted like the wings of butterflies' trying to fly, which indeed is completely aware of the incoming end, knowing that the world he is living in, so frantic and fast, won't have the time to stop. In other words, that 'the show must go on'.

And here we are, the show went on but Freddie, as others, has never really gone. The phenomena of idolatry regarding him, as I talked about in my writings as concerns for instance John Lennon, or Elvis Presley: several examples of practices and acts with profound roots at a social, communicative and psychological level. Or, more 'poetic', the tangibile sign theat his message of universal art and love has not gone unheard.

Alessandro Gandini

Tristes Tropiques: in memory of Claude Lévi-Strauss

The whole world of culture celebrates the figure of Claude Lévi-Strauss, anthropologist and philosopher who died on the last 30th October at the age of 100.
Father of anthropology and of structuralism, his contribution to the development of the human thought is immesurable.

Otto Hofmann - Bauhaus @ Genova (Italy)

It is now on at the wonderful scenario of Palazzo Ducale, Genova (Italy) an interesting exhibition on Bauhaus and the figure of Otto Hofmann, whose contribution to art and design stands as a key innovative one in the art of the XX Century.

For any information click here (Italian language only) or, as usual, write us an email at the address culturalstudiesitalia@gmail.com

Alessandro Gandini

Pop Life @ Tate Modern

The Tate Modern, London, one of the most important modern art galleries in the world, presents 'Pop Life', an exhibition which configures as a journey through the 80s and the 90s across the themes of mass media and celebrities. The scenario of the so-called 'Material World' is described taking as categories the postmodern 'signposts' of Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons up to Damien Hirst, something that forces us to discuss once again on 'art' and its relationship with the market, with advertising and what we can name 'celebrity-obsession', the new divinities of the mass-mediatic circus.

In a nutshell, we are confronted with the XX Century individual and his perception of reality, on a line which connects art, advertising, pornography, materiality and - why not - psychology of and for the masses, a 'material world' whose apex has been the 80s - and it's not by any chance that Madonna is quoted. Music, in fact, together with television, can be considered the epistemological pivot of the period. An exhibition which, we might argue for the very first time in such a coherent contextualization, casts an eye on an age supposedly finished - and this seems to be finally true - whose heritage, indeed, is the present post-materialist scenario, son of the modern / postmodern dicotomy which characterized the last century. To the extent that, those who despise the present day of the human condition, socially speaking, should instead look at the past here presented to understand how, culturally, we have now become what we are. (Pop Life @ Tate Modern: ends January 17, 2010).

Alessandro Gandini