Kultura
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The Kultura Journal is an international scientific journal for the theory and sociology of culture and cultural policy, which follows culture in the widest sense of the word where science, education and all human activities are taken as its integral part.
It was started in 1968 courtesy to the efforts of Stevan Majstorović, founder of the Centre for Studies in Cultural Development, with the objective to encourage integrative, analytical and critical interpretations of the modern cultural phenomena.
At the time of its establishment, the Kultura Journal was unique in the domain of intellectual thought both in terms of its concept and its design. Since the first issue, i.e. over the fifty years of its existence, Kultura has been and has remained open to creative ideas from the country and the world, as seen from the texts of important foreign authors and contributions from professionals coming from the cultural centres of former Yugoslavia, as well as domestic authors who offered new ideas and approaches to culture. The recognizable design solution of the logo of the journal and its cover page were created by the artist and calligraphist Božidar Bole Miloradović, for the very first number.
As of 1971, the issues were edited thematically, which has been dominant practice to this date, with the aim of enriching certain thematic fields in our cultural and scientific community.
The first Editorial Board of the Kultura Journal consisted of eleven members, led by the Editor-in Chief Stevan Majstorović and Trivo Inđić, as conceptual instigators of the journal which heralded a new orientation in the intellectual field. Members of the Editorial Board were: Slobodan Canić, Dragutin Gostuški, Vujadin Jokić, Danica Mojsin, Mirjana Nikolić, Nebojša Popov, Bogdan Tirnanić, Milan Vojnović and Tihomir Vučković. Over the five decades of the Kultura Journal, editorial boards changed several times.
Kultura is issued every three months (four times a year) and its printing has been financed by the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia since 2001. With support of the competent ministry, all numbers of this journal, from the first to the last issue, were digitalized in 2009. As a result, a DVD containing digital form of the journal, was available with the issue No. 129, titled "Electronic libraries". A few years later, in 2013, Kultura switched to the Cyrillic script, with an important note that it still published in Latin script those authors from the region who originally use Latin script(Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia). With the issue No. 140, on the occasion of marking the 45th anniversary of the Kultura Journal, a special USB was made available, with all the texts from the numbers 1-137. The web page of the Centre for Studies in Cultural Development contains all the texts ever published in any issue of the Kultura Journal over half a century of its existence.
The Department for Registration of Journals of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, the Kultura Journal was registered in 2005 (when categorisation of scientific journals started) marked as category P53. In 2010,it was registered as category M52 in the group of journals for history, art,history, ethnology and archaeology. At the beginning of July 2012, the journal advanced to the category of national interest, by Decision of the Ministry of education, science and technological development of the Republic of Serbia (M51).
Kultura is regularly deposited with the Repository of the National Library of Serbia, and since 2010, it has been included in the Serbian Quotation Index, where the texts published in Kultura can be found in full digital form. As of 2011, the texts i.e. scientific articles, apart from the regular UDK (universal decimal classification) also carry specific DOI (Digital Object Identifier) codes, that allow for their greater visibility and international indexing under international standards. In the meantime,electronic version of the journal was started i.e. the first steps were made towards electronic edition by CEON (Service for monitoring, measuring and valorisation of scientific journals) through Aseestant electronic editing programme. This has contributed to the quality of published articles, as the editorial board now have at their disposal adequate programmes for text checking in terms of correct citation sand listings of references as well as prevention of plagiarism.
Kultura is regularly delivered to the National Library of Serbia in Belgrade, Belgrade City Library,University Library "Svetozar Marković" in Belgrade, Library of Matica Srpska in Novi Sad, Library of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade, Library of the Rectorate of the University of Arts in Belgrade, University Library in Niš and University Library in Kragujevac. The Kultura Journalis regularly received by numerous interested institutions of culture (libraries, theatres, museums, culture centres) as well as individuals. The Journal nurtures professional exchanges with many similar institutions and magazines in the country, region and in Europe (Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia,Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland and other countries).
In addition to respecting scientific rules and standards for publishing scientific papers, Kultura has not lost the curiosity or the freshness of an avant-garde magazine dealing with both eternal and very actual topics.
Pages
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- To be or not to be
- The paper analyses video games in the context of new media and considers their artistic potential from the perspective of Game Studies. Using to Be or Not to Be, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet as an example, the paper presents a theoretical examination of the game's structural, textual and narrative features and ludic elements, so as to elucidate the principles of adaptation and transformation of a literary text into a new digital form, as well as the advantages and the disadvantages of such processes. Trust in the narrative, along with adequate game mechanics and the player's perception have proven to be crucial for accomplishing intention of the game. At the same time, the analysis serves as a basis for interpretive framework that would lead to affirming the aesthetic potential of video games and thus give rise to uncovering the artistic potential of other algorithmic structures.
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- To the reading of dreams in the works of Stevan Pešić
- The paper points out some forms of poetic transposition of the experience, logic and the language of dreams in Pešić's travelogues, poetry, stories, poetic prose, dramatic plays and texts for puppet theatre. Choosing the works in which dreams appears in different ways and in different functions (as a personal experience; literary motif; text in the text; part of the other textual structure or complete work; potential way to create the author's thinking about literature; literary technique that is raised irrationally, fantastically and surreally to the position of dominant creative process), the Oneiric principle is actualized as one of the most important factors of Pešić's poetics. The basic intention of this paper is to confirm the assumption that the researchers of the Oneiric in the Serbian literature have many reasons to keep looking at his literary opus.
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- Towards a biography of Agent Smith
- The article analyzes transformations of the character of Agent Smith in The Matrix trilogy against the background of Hegel's ideas in his The Philosophy of History. The chain of events in the trilogy is understood as a progress of the consciousness of freedom and mutual recognition of humans and artificial intelligence. Agent Smith is a key figure in that process because thanks to him a) Neo becomes the One, b) humans realize that the right to live and to freedom do not imply destruction of the Matrix and the machines and c) artificial intelligence realizes that in order to achieve the balance of Matrix they have to recognize to humans the right of awakening from the Matrix into existence. Besides that, the article analyzes the role of the plexus Architect-Oracle as a creator of the plan that Neo and Smith carry out, bringing the virtual world into balance; also, a basis is shown for possible theodicy of the actions of that plexus.
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- Towards new forms of collectivity
- In the context of 'great divides' in which the Belgrade cultural scene reproduces the existing social relations, what is evident is the vast fragmentation and focus on different, more or less, convincing attempts of individual entities to sustain themselves and consolidate regardless, and perhaps even precisely because, of the weakening of the others. Such induced relations resulted in a high degree of disunity; the situation has been radicalised and at this point even maintains the system from which it sprung. In perseverance of many independent organisations we have come to negate the self-organisation in its very domain. Thus, the question of what a self-organized cultural scene is, gets consequently replaced by its conditional form: What could it be? Why should it exist? What would it aim for? On which principles should it function? Can we even begin to imagine it? What would it look like if we tried? Many artists and cultural workers have answered these questions aiming at articulating a new construct. Their answers, along with the analysis of overlapping and differences, were used as a starting point for the analysis in which the focus is on the questioning of the needs of involved participants, as well possible models for self-organized cultural scene in Belgrade.
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- Towards the internet democracy
- This work tries to examine the principles and participants of new media activism in all its forms. In accordance with its scope, the questions that this work will try to answer are: whether the individuals in the new media perform their media activism in a professional and organized way and who are the new media activists, how to explain their number and motives. After distinction of all the most important strategies of the new media activism, some of the psychosocial interpretations of the strength and commitment of their participants are given (theory of Pro AMS revolution, Surovicky's 'the wisdom of the crowd').
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- Towards the management of participatory journalism
- In hyper-complex societies in which we live today, a growing question is whether the mass-media concept of the 20th century is still applicable to the contemporary moment. The media manipulation, spinning and commercialization distance media production from its audiences. At the same time, the flood of free web-based content creates new distribution channels and markets. This new economic and social context challenges media organizations to reconfigure their social role and (re)create relationships with their audiences. However, opening the gates for the transition of the people formerly known as the audience to the production side of the media sphere, can easily create a total confusion and chaos. The solution partly lies in the management of media participation. The aim of this research is to map and analyze various models of participatory journalism used by Serbian online media. In the qualitative research process, editors of four leading online media organizations shared their practices, experiences, struggles and opinions on the topic. Four models of management of participatory practice were mapped and analysed in detail. The most commonly used model is the commentary-based one, while the classical citizen journalism model still plays an important role. The research shows that more complex models - like the integration with social media and opening specialized media spaces for audiences - offer more freedom of expression to the audiences and create new audiences (and markets) for the media. However, these models are more demanding towards the audience as well, asking for more responsibility, skills and courage to communicate delicate matters. Finally, it is important to notice that every media is trying to find its own mix of practices and procedures, which will enable them to operate in a highly difficult economic and political situation for the media in Serbia of today.
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- Towards understanding of national belonging, Serbian philosophers and Serbian philosophy
- This discussion involves different aspects of multidimensional phenomenon of national belonging and additionally relates to the definitions of 'Serbian philosophers' and 'Serbian philosophy'. A thesis is defended that, in order to understand and determine national cobelonging it is most appropriate to locate it in the cross section of basic ethnic identity of the genus on the one side and further constitutive cultural/historical identity on the other side, further to be explained through their fusion. Nation co-belonging actually has three dimensions: genetic/generic, personal/decisionistic and cultural/historical. In this regard, Serbian philosophy is then defined in its basic sense as primarily those concepts created and defended by authors - personal holders of Serbian national identity.
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- Tracing a survey
- After clarification of some basic notions, the text moves towards analysis of the results of one of the very few empirical studies dedicated to explicit attitudes of Serbian citizens about cultural policy. This is a survey conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the University of Niš in the period from 2002-2005, by collecting empirical material in five districts of southeastern Serbia (Nišavski, Toplički, Pirotski, Jablanički and Pčinjski). The results are indicative for the period after the democratic changes in Serbia, and allow a comparison with other findings and future research. After the implosion of socialism and dramatic events at the end of the last century in former Yugoslavia, which were primarily caused by the fear of destruction of national culture and national identity, it appears that the cultural policy largely depends on the overall social processes, economic power of society, position of citizens in the political system, historical heritage and prevalent cultural values. New developments have drawn attention to some important cultural questions, like how to profile the cultural policy of Serbia, what it should be oriented at, what is the stand of the national culture (of Serbs) in comparison to cosmopolitanism, whether citizens are scared of European or American values (and to what extent), whether the answers to the such questions make Serbia specific in the Balkans, and to what extent is Serbia internally divided on these issues - given the standard socio-demographic characteristics of its population? The text is looking for the answers to these and other dilemmas in the responses of Serbian citizens in the aforementioned survey.
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- Tradition and transition/cultural controversy case study
- What underlies the controversy of the cultural identity of Serbia which has been in transition for over two centuries? I have looked for answers in the unstable, hybrid and dynamic concept of the Balkan identity. The Balkans, as a specific ethnic and culturological mix, as a place where noble barbarogeniuses meet with barbarianism, the European Orient, the melting pot of traditions and global trends, is a specific platform from which we have observed construction of presentation and mixing of our attitude to the national identity with the attitude to the culture in general. Analogy between the 19th century process of modernization and Serbia today is obvious, both in the steps for building cultural and national identity and in the latest consequences of the poor social transformations. The transition from a traditional to a modern society, modeled after West European paragons, has always neglected at least one of the key integrating factors. Hence the uncoordinated social and cultural policies and poorly directed social emancipation in general have led to ignorance of or misinterpretation of own culture, tradition and models, causing long term incompetence for preservation of cultural (as well as political) independence in these regions. This text poses some questions related to the deficit of modernity and the cultural imperialism that has remained in the Balkans as a consequence of colonial dominance. The marriage of the politics and the esthetics is analyzed on the example of visual representation of national identity, through portraits of the ruler - Knez Miloš Obrenović - a clear indication of the attempt at developing a cultural strategy and defining a unique national cultural model. Equating the notion of national identity with political mentality has shown that passive traditional mentality (static and non-communicative) is an obstacle to forming a modern cultural identity which is innovative and capable of forming its own perception of politics. The political transformation of the system, which legged behind overall social transformation, has brought about an unsustainable cultural policy (which should be a foundation for the modernization of state) as well as maintenance of the status quo attitude to the dominant centre. This is why mere erasure of the colonist identity models and acceptance of new models were not sufficient to establish own national and cultural identity. The never-ending process of modernization has caused permanent indefiniteness of the modern cultural policy, since in the unstable period of transition we still choose between traditionalism and global culture, all the while additionally emphasizing the differences and controversies without creating a field of free cultural fluctuation. Returning to the Balkans as a cultural paradigm of Serbia, the cultural policy of today should communicate with the visible wealth of diversity without contradicting either tradition or transition, in order to avoid the inferiority in recognition of or indifference for production, presentation and preservation of its own cultural riches.
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- Traditional religious culture, popular and official orthodoxy
- Revitalisation of official orthodoxy is a process running in parallel with the revitalisation of popular orthodoxy and popular religiousness, where the supremacy of one over the other depends on a number of factors, social and political circumstances and cultural preferences. Reception and interpretation of the Orthodox church massages reflect in the approximation of the committed church-going believers to the ecclesial orthodoxy, while most declarative believers adopt, understand and interpret the orthodox learning, church rules, rituals, ethic norms and the importance of religion in everyday life in their own individual ways.
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- Transformation of orality and literacy in information culture
- The main problem in the proposed work is determined by the detection of major changes in the relationship between orality and literacy in the modern information society and the enormous influence of the transformation these changes brought about in the globalizing social movements. Relation orality/ literacy is treated as a current and lively question of today's world, modern science and modern thought. By orality and literacy in a broader sense we understand such complex phenomena literary and linguistic, and cultural, especially in modern times when language, communication and information obtained decisive importance in social dynamics. It is important not to establish a sharp boundary between oral and written texts, for they differ only in their degree of oral / literariness aspects. Approach to this issue is in the interdisciplinary emphasis. In fact, this topic once a subject of study primarily of literature, linguistics and folklore is becoming now a major area of interest of anthropology, culturology, philosophy, sociology, media theory, psychology, economics and political science. The opposition of oral and written interferes with a number of other conceptual oppositions: anonymous/ collective - individual, traditional - modern, rural - urban, mass - elite, popular/ folk - scholarly, popular - artistic/ artificial; sound - visually. The topic you are considering, or the relation of orality and literacy as part of a problem is the relationship of unfixed and fixed forms of human creative activity. Of course, orality is not only related to the unfixed and fixed forms of literacy. It is the very relationship of language change. For example, in electronic communication intertext works are a new form of orality. The boundaries between orality and literacy are increasingly deleted. New computer literacy re-introduced a richer, nonlinear forms of communication. Computer novel allows the reader to participate in its formation (in which consciousness is perceived oral). Literature has also returned to the ancient storytelling and oral tradition. The oral literature is by some of its features a hypertext.
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- Transition
- Kultura