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Purpose of the study: The purpose of the article is to introduce the concept of patriotism into scientific circulation as a cultural universal as an alternative to the predominant politicization of this concept. The interpretation of this topic in various socio-political contexts presents a lot of discrepancies and contradictory characteristics associated with the ideological and political preferences of researchers. Methodology: The research methodology is based on a situational and interactive approach to the study of socio-cultural processes and phenomena that are present in the study of social systems, as well as in cross-cultural studies and research of intercultural communication. Main Findings: The main results of the study are the identification of the possibilities of an interactive and situational approach in the study of patriotism, the development of a common strategy for the formation of patriotism as a sequence of stages of socialization of an individual, and identification of the decisive influence of spiritual culture on the real social experience of a patriotic orientation. Applications of this study: The results of the study open up prospects for further study of patriotism as a cultural universal, regardless of a particular political regime or national and cultural characteristics of certain countries and peoples. This can significantly expand the concept of patriotism, without linking the latter only to the specifics of its interpretation in a particular society, ethnic group or community, maintaining the necessary balance between communication and interaction in the formation of patriotism. Novelty/Originality of this study: The novelty of the research consists in the use of an interactive and situational approach to the study and formation of patriotism, based on deep socio-anthropological patterns of formation and development of social groups and communities, as well as in the identified stages (situations and levels) of the formation of patriotism in real society, which can be quite stable and productive.

The eminent Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu confronts the paradox that while Western cultures recoil from claims of universality, previously colonized peoples, seeking to redefine their identities, insist on cultural particularities. Wiredu's exposition of the principles of African traditional philosophy is not purely theoretical; he shows how certain aspects of African political thought may be applied to the practical resolution of some of Africa's most pressing problems

Anthropologies and Uncertain Futures explore the same subject – the experience of cancer in a specific cultural context – yet, they are based on different approaches to cancer. First, Mathews and her colleagues explore cancer in adults, and Clemente focuses on childhood cancer. Second, Mathews and her colleagues conducted ethnographic studies within the field of medical and health anthropology; Clemente, as a linguistic anthropologist, observed children with cancer, their parents, and medical staff, as agents of communication and social interaction, using participant observation, interviews and conversation analysis. Finally, most of the twelve chapters of Anthropologies are focused on cancer-affected subjects (both patients and caregivers) in developing countries or immigrants living in developed countries. Field work was conducted in different locations and communities, including China, France, Brazil, India, Kenya and Puerto Rico, France, Scotland and Argentina, and the USA (Mexican and Filipino immigrants). Clemente's monographic study deals with the micro-context of a paediatric cancer unit in Catalonia, Spain. The above differences make these two volumes complementary, providing a broad perspective on the anthropology of cancer.

This study describes how a primary school teacher and her students explored multiple means of communication through the use of a project on storytelling and drumming to personalize and translate cultural differences into universal human experiences they could understand. It documents how the teacher and two researchers collaborated with planning and implementing the drumming project so that it integrated social studies with multiple modes of literacy. It discusses how the teacher and researchers examined cultural universals within this project to provide students with a frame of reference to engage in an authentic understanding of diverse cultures within their classrooms. Finally, the study examined the students' work within the actual drumming project.

This action research project traces how a teacher used images of cultural universals as part of a kindergarten social studies curriculum to help her students develop temporal distinctions between past and present. Students were introduced to the general idea of what cultural universals were, and then they studied two different periods of history using cultural universals. After clearing up some initial misconceptions, the majority of the students were able to make at least a dichotomous distinction between past and present, and many students were able to make additional temporal distinctions among periods of the past.

The author of the article considers the actual problem of the methodological foundations of the interdisciplinary approach in modern humanities through the prism of comparing two different concepts of the phenomenon of culture. One of them is presented in the works of Yu.M. Lotman, whose research meth­ods can be described as structural-semiotic. The second concept grows out of the works of V.S. Stepin, who mostly used scientific and philosophical methodology in his study of culture. Carrying out a comparative analysis of both approaches and the corresponding theoretical constructions, the author of the article notes that the content of the main concepts of the two concepts – cultural universals, sociocode, semiosphere, cultural text – demonstrates the presence of common tendencies of Lotman and Stepin in their attempt present the cultural continuum as something integral, systemic. At the same time, it becomes obvious that, in developing their concepts, both Stepin and Lotman assigned an important role to the mechanisms of collective memory. Thus, their works become consonant with modern European studies of this issue, and also continue the Russian philo­sophical tradition. The conclusions presented in the article are of methodological significance for philosophers and humanities scholars (philologists, culturolo­gists, psychologists, political scientists) in the course of interdisciplinary re­search work of which the problems of collective memory are becoming increas­ingly relevant today.

Recent work in liberal political theory has rejected cosmopolitanism to incorporate the empirical agenda of nationalism & multiculturalism. Here, three issues facing cultural national liberalism are first extracted from J. Rawls's Political Liberalism (1993): the range of reasonable cultural identities under liberalism; the substantive ethical bases of the state; & the possibility of principles of cultural self-respect. Three works that address these problems are then examined: (1) Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (1995), David Miller's On Nationality (1995), & Charles Taylor's "The Politics of Recognition" (1994 edition). Kymlicka provides principles of cultural self-respect but is caught between conceptualizing culture in universalist & particularist terms. Miller's liberal national state rests on shared meanings, but this serves to complicate the introduction of universal moral ideas. Taylor presents authenticity as an alternative self-understanding to liberal autonomy, but the notion of cultural authenticity is argued against. Adapted from the source document.