Topic
The Imaginary
About: The Imaginary is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4807 publications have been published within this topic receiving 87663 citations.
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01 Mar 2006
TL;DR: Yurchak as discussed by the authors argues that the processes of everyday life that reproduced the Soviet system and those that resulted in its continuous internal displacement were mutually constitutive, and argues that this wide array of ironic, unconventional lifestyles was enabled by an entrenched paradox: when authoritative discourse became hypernormalized, its performative dimension grew in importance and its constative dimension became unanchored from concrete core meanings and increasingly open to new interpretations.
Abstract: Alexei Yurchak. Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. In-formation Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. x, 331 pp. Halftones. Illustrations. Tables. $59.50, cloth. $24.95, paper.Reacting against the system/anti-system binarism that characterizes so many analyses of the late Soviet period, Alexei Yurchak casts the last Soviet generation in quite a different light. He confronts a paradox-that although young people were caught off-guard by the collapse of the USSR, as soon as it occurred realized that they had been prepared for that unexpected change-by arguing that the processes of everyday life that reproduced the Soviet system and those that resulted in its continuous internal displacement were mutually constitutive. No mask/reality; public/private; falsehood/truth dichotomy here. Instead, each of the book's chapters explores different, seemingly contradictory or nonconformist lifestyles and shows that these were enabled by the very laws and structures that they seemed to defy, but did not. Komsomol organizers performed their jobs wholeheartedly while distinguishing between tasks that were "pure formality" and "work with meaning." At the same time they blended love of Western heavy metal with their deep belief" in socialist values and often organized amateur rock bands to play at Komsomol events (Chapters 3 and 6). Based on letters, diaries, documents and retrospective interviews, Yurchak makes a convincing case that those involved in the youth wing of the Communist Party developed future-oriented notions of a good, interesting and "normal" life that included cacophonous electric music, jeans, and other products of the real or imaginary West (Chapter 5), along with socialist state welfare practices and a broader Marxist-Leninist vision.At the same time, other less conforming or less ambitious young people simply found the Komsomol and politics in general "uninteresting." Yurchak devotes Chapter 4 to how they formed deterritorialized communities and lived vnye-simultaneously inside and outside of the system-holding down jobs or pursuing studies that gave them both a wage, or stipend, and an opportunity to follow their decidedly apolitical interests. Living vny,; the amateur rock scene, those boiler-room attendants, guards and doormen who abjured careerism to focus almost exclusively on obshchenie (an intense form of socializing), and various kinds of pranksters, were, as Chapters 4, 6 and 7 show, agentive and creative choices but not resistance against the Communist Party or the state. In fact, Yurchak argues that this wide array of ironic, unconventional lifestyles was enabled by an entrenched paradox: "In the late Soviet context, when authoritative discourse became hypernormalized, its performative dimension grew in importance and its constative dimension became unanchored from concrete core meanings and increasingly open to new interpretations" (p. …
498 citations
Book•
01 Nov 2001
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the commercialization of masculinities from the 'new man' to 'new lad' 'Millennium masculinity' and the notion of crisis.
Abstract: Series editor's foreword Introduction and acknowledgements What is masculinity? Masculinities and the Imperial imaginary Understanding masculinities Masculinities and the notion of 'crisis' The commercialization of masculinities From the 'new man' to the 'new lad' 'Millennium masculinity' Researching masculinities today Glossary References Index.
454 citations
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a revised edition of the Revised Edition of the book "Why Does a Letter Always Arrive at Its Destination?" with the following questions: 1.1 Why is Suicide the Only Successful Act? 2.2 The "Night of the World" 3.2 Identity and Authority 4.1 Grimaces of the Real 4.2 Phallaphany of the Anal Father 5.2 Die Versagung 6.
Abstract: Introduction to the Revised Edition Introduction 1. Why Does a Letter Always Arrive at Its Destination? 1.1 Death and Sublimation: The Final Scene of City Lights 1.2 Imaginary, Symbolic, Real 2. Why Is Woman a Symptom of Man? 2.1 Why is Suicide the Only Successful Act? 2.2 The "Night of the World" 3. Why is Every Act a Repetition 3.1 Beyond "Distributive Justice" 3.2 Identity and Authority 4. Why Does the Phallus Appear? 4.1 Grimaces of the Real 4.2 Phallaphany of the Anal Father 5. Why Are There Always Two Fathers 5.1 At The Origins of Noir: The Humiliated Father 5.2 Die Versagung 6. Why is Reality Always Multiple? 6.1 Is There a Proper Way to Remake a Hitchcock Film? 6.2 The Matrix, Or, the Two Sides of Perversion Index
443 citations
Book•
01 Apr 1970
TL;DR: Burke as discussed by the authors argued that the logologer can be further studied not directly as knowledge, but as anecdotes that help reveal for us the quandaries of human governance, and he proposed that we begin our study of human motives with complex theories of transcendence, rather than with terminologies developed in the use of simplified laboratory equipment.
Abstract: "But the point of Burke's work, and the significance of his achievement, is not that he points out that religion and language affect each other, for this has been said before, but that he proceeds to demonstrate how this is so by reference to a specific symbolic context. After a discussion 'On Words and The Word,' he analysess verbal action in St. Augustine's Confessions. He then discusses the first three chapters of Genesis, and ends with a brilliant and profound 'Prologue in Heaven,' an imaginary dialogue between the Lord and Satan in which he proposes that we begin our study of human motives with complex theories of transcendence,' rather than with terminologies developed in the use of simplified laboratory equipment...Burke now feels, after some forty years of search, that he has created a model of the symbolic act which breaks through the rigidities of the 'sacred-secular' dichotomy, and at the same time shows us how we get from secular and sacred realms of action over the bridge of language...Religious systems are systems of action based on communication in society. They are great social dramas which are played out on earth before an ultimate audience, God. But where theology confronts the developed cosmological drama in the 'grand style,' that is, as a fully developed cosmological drama for its religious content, the 'logologer' can be further studied not directly as knowledge but as anecdotes that help reveal for us the quandaries of human governance." (Hugh Dalziel Duncan from Critical Responses to Kenneth Burke, 1924 - 1966, edited by William H. Rueckert (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969)).
419 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1961
TL;DR: Rousseau's education project consists in respecting the natural evolution of the person, her physical, intellectual and moral developments to make of her a natural person able to live in society as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Through an imaginary character, Emile, Rousseau explains his theories on education. His educational project consists in respecting the natural evolution of the person, her physical, intellectual and moral developments to make of her a natural person able to live in society. More than a treatise on education, it is a treatise about human kind.
404 citations