In the 1940s, Iran experienced dramatic changes in urban form, as worldwide modernization movements were embodied in new ‘modern’ neighborhood units in Tehran. Proposals for these neighborhoods, like those in other countries, not only included new housing typologies, but also aimed to alter existing social structures and facilitate nation building. Discussions and proposals regarding new neighborhoods centered on creating healthy, suitable, low-cost housing for new government employees – a group emblematic of Iran's newly established, modern middle class. However, the traditional lifestyle was an undeniable fact of society. Facing the modern socio-urban policies and socially traditional way of living led to both cultural change and landscape transformation. This paper discusses: how do regional architectural traditions transform the global modernity? How are Western conventions of how to be modern transformed by regional tradition and a different lifestyle? How does the institutionalization of modern neighborhoods, based on the lifestyles of its people, create an indigenous modernity? This paper illustrates how urban and social reformation practices towards modernization in the early twentieth century were embodied by Tehran's first modern neighborhood, Chaharsad Dastgah, as well as how domestic Iranian lifestyles influenced this neighborhood and distinguished it from its contemporaries.
LINK
At the end of the 1940s and the early 1950s, the question whether or not to rearm West Germany was a fiercely and hotly debated topic in Europe. The Americans suggested doing this by integrating the Federal Republic in NATO. However, many Europeans feared the resurgence of German militarism. Nowhere was this more true than in France. Therefore, the French Foreign Minister René Pleven launched the so-called Pleven Plan, designed to allow West German units to be established, but only in small units. That way, Europe could profit from West Germany’s manpower, without the country becoming a military threat. Discussions on the European Defence Community were tough, but in the end was signed by the six Founding Fathers. The Dutch did so reluctantly, especially because the Americans were left out, favouring security arrangements in NATO and rearming and incorporating West Germany in the Western alliance. To the Netherlands, it was essential to incorporate the British and especially the Americans in the Western defense; the Dutch always favoured an Atlantic alliance, opposing too much supranationality in the European integration project. The Federal Republic of Germany on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity to regain sovereignty. In the end, the French National Assembly did not ratify the EDC-Treaty, opening the way to rearming West Germany and making it a full member of NATO. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=735130 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martijn-lak-71793013/
MULTIFILE
In this review article, Isaac and Platenkamp argue that during the 1930s and 1940s of the previous century, concepts like "critical" and "essence" were still defined and understood in the tradition of what increasing numbers of academics called "Critical Theory." However, they suggest that since then the situation has significantly changed. In their view, while Critical Theory critically approaches the ideologies of the modern Western world, it has actually (itself) became a victim of this overwhelming critique of ideologies. To Isaac and Platenkamp, the main conceptualizations in and for Critical Theory have been weakened by a content inflation in the new historical phase of postmodernism. Thus, for instance, as a concept "criticism" had been revitalized to (down to?) a relativist position. In this review article, Isaac and Platenkamp suggest that academics in Tourism Studies now inherently claim to be "critical" by just appropriating the mere qualification critical, ipso facto. In this light, the old vital value of "Essence" thereby has become a superficial concept of old primitive ideologies, today, and it seems to have no meaningful function anymore in Tourism Studies. This review article thus aims to reintroduce the field of Tourism Studies to Marcuse's original concept of Essence and discuss it vis-à-vis its interpretational confrontation with the said postmodernist position and thereby to the very revitalization of the qualification "critical." Hence, Isaac and Platenkamp seek to save this qualification from the postmodernist attacks on the universality of the Critical Theoretical position by drawing particular attention to Arendt's concept of the agora, viz. as that kind of public space (comparable to the forum Romanum), in which people significantly present themselves as individuals with independent opinions. In this regard, Isaac and Platekamp are particularly disturbed by the recent flowering of the so called "Critical Turn" group (or network) within Tourism Studies since it appears to progress without a thorough understanding of Critical Theory, per se. They argue that classical thinkers of Critical Theory need to be addressed and understood if the Critical Turn group of scholars in Tourism Studies may decently/faithfully/meaningfully be deemed to be critical. In order to make their case, Isaac and Platenkamp highlight the case of Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem. They position the Tomb as a very important biblical tourism site (and agora) by and through which the revitalization of the "critical" may be incorruptibly recognized.
MULTIFILE
