Suchergebnisse

Defence date: 11 September 2015 ; Examining Board : Professor Philipp Ther (University of Vienna/EUI) – Supervisor; Professor Maria Todorova (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) – Co- Supervisor; Professor Pavel Kolár (EUI); Professor Bogdan Murgescu (University of Bucharest). ; The thesis examines the structure and functions of political festivals in socialist Romania, between 1948 and 1989, focusing especially on their roles in mirroring the official communist ideology and its shifts between the Marxist-Leninist doctrine and nationalism, as well as in shaping a new type of culture for members of the working-class and peasantry. This analysis illustrates political festivals as instruments of institutional and mass control, and as means of self-representation for the communist regime, with the purpose of providing political legitimization. The research has focused on a comparative perspective, developed at two levels: a chronological one – between youth and workers festivals in Romania, during the 1950s and 1960s, and the so-called National Festival of Socialist Education "Song of Romania", during the 1970s and 1980s – and a structural comparison – between the official image of festivals in propaganda, at a general level, and that of festivals as perceived by ordinary people, at a case-study level. Political festivals constituted an important means of institutional and mass control, as well as of creating a new type of culture, in socialist Romania. Youth and workers festivals characterized the official cultural atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s. Later on, in the aftermath of Nicolae Ceausescu's policy of integrating nationalism in the Marxist-Leninist ideology, in order to legitimize his personality cult, political festivals became the main instrument of forging the new man of the communist regime. Benefiting from a wide and diverse array of primary sources and material, the thesis addressed the following questions, among others: What was the development and evolution of political festivals in socialist Romania? What material and discursive contexts determined the selection or replacement of political symbols in the framework of political festivals? What were the effects of political festivals on everyday life for ordinary people? How did political festivals deal with the issue of leisure, free time and continuous education?

Among the popular music festivals operating in Poland in the last forty years, two of them played a special role, especially for their young recipients of amplified music. The first of them was the Rock Festival in Jarocin (it had different names) functioning in the years 1980–1994, so still in the period of communist authorities. Reactivated in 2005, it recently operates under the name Jarocin Festival and uses the legend of the event from the 1980s. In the new socio-political conditions, the second important event, the Pol'and'Rock Festival (called Woodstock Station in 1995–2017), began to function in 1995, which in the late 1990s exceeded 100,000 participants and became the largest popular music event in Poland. The aim of the study is to characterise the impact of these two important popular music festivals in Poland at the turn of the second and third decade of the 21st century in the spatial and socio-cultural dimensions on the community of its participants. Referring to the traditional chorological paradigm of human geography, an analysis of the differentiation of the territorial impact of festivals was made, and using patterns immersed in social geography-oriented music research, factors motivating to participate in festivals were determined.

Most indigenous festival performances in Africa have not remained the same since their contact with foreign cultures and with foreign systems of government. Most often, the ruling class has exerted a towering influence on these festivals towards incorporating the people's performances to suit the demands and aspirations of the government. This paper appraises the societal influence on Ogani festival performance in Igalaland of Kogi State of Nigeria and ascertains the inevitability of this incursion and the challenges thereof. African festival performances undergo several levels of changes because of the dynamic nature of the society in which the festivals are performed and, of course, the changing status of the performers. Apart from the avowed influence of Christianity and Islam on these festival performances, various govenwients at all levels have also continuously exerted influence and control over festival performances to their own advantage. Festivals that are typically sacred and ritual based, lose their original spiritual and scared essence and become mere entertainment tools the moment governments get involved. This is solely because they are aborted from their natural settings, obliterated from the normal due process in stages of performance and even sometimes denied of their original performers. Ogani festival is performed in Igalaland to celebrate the military might of the Igala kingdom in their successful war of liberation from the socio-political dominance and control of the Jukuns (in present day Taraba State) sometime in the early fifteenth century. The Igala people before the said war of independence were a vassal state to the Jukuns.

This article is a cross-generational exchange of ideas and experiences that explores the intersections of film curating and activism. Its authors set forth accounts of their own experiences as scholars who have worked as film festival curators "on the side" from the 1990s to the present within the context of the new yet rapidly growing field of film festival studies, which provides a useful set of perspectives and methods for understanding how film festivals function and what significance and impact they can have on the multiple stakeholders involved, including but not limited to the filmmakers, festival organizers and staff, and audiences. Their experiences shed light on the ways that identity-based film festivals have evolved through engagement with economic and political forces of globalization and neoliberalism even as they function as important, fluid sites of community building where identities are negotiated, contested, and articulated.

This essay examines the changes which have taken place in the Israeli political culture as reflected in its Independence Day celebrations. The nature and significance of these celebrations in the early years of the state are compared to the holiday patterns current today. (DÜI-Hns)

Over the last two decades, cultural festivals have been established and consolidated in cities across Morocco. Their proliferation has coincided with the reign of Mohammed VI, well known as an enthusiastic and extremely wealthy patron of the arts, and the concomitant state-controlled democratization of Moroccan politics and society. Drawing on two examples—the Marrakech International Film Festival and the Mawazine music festival in Rabat—this article interrogates the ways in which festivals and the urban scale combine to function as vehicles for cultural diplomacy. Contra the common tendency in recent policy debates that perceive the city (with or without its administration) as an active agent in translocal cultural relations, I argue for a more nuanced perspective that understands the urban festival as a diplomatic platform through which the cultural politics of the state are rescaled and where a range of actors contest ideas about the local, national and global trajectories of society and cultural life.

"Political aspects" that enhance, but also undermine, the positive transformational power of public innovation policies are examined. As such, this paper follows Michał Kalecki in his 1943 paper that identifies the "political aspects" which enhance and undermine the positive transformational power of Keynesian full employment policies. Similarly, this paper provides a policy framework that identifies what government and business support as innovation policies. The role of innovation stems from Schumpeter's long-run perspective, but incorporates the more dynamic cyclical short-term and trend perspectives of Kalecki. This paper critiques the strategy of public innovation policy in general and derives policy implications. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper aims to identify within capitalism the "political aspects" that enhance, but also can undermine, the positive transformational power of innovation policies. As such, this paper follows the approach of Micha