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Instagram’s shift towards live

Reflections on the dynamic relations between truth and fiction as imageneries

In: Frank Gadinger, Martina Kopf, Ayşem Mert, and Christopher Smith (eds.). Political Storytelling: From Fact to Fiction (Global Dialogues 12) This essay presents a summary of important perspectives concerning the distinction between what counts as truth or fiction. As a source of inspiration, it starts with two examples found in literature – the first a classical Spanish novel and the second a collection of stories written by the leader of a social movement in Mexico. These two examples of the conflictive relations between truth and fiction, authenticity and imagination serve as a source of inspiration for the rest of this article, which shows that this issue has been a subject of intense debate in philosophy and in the philosophy of science and still presents a challenge in the 21st century. The essay states that absolute, objective truth is a myth. It describes that what counts as ‘truth’ in a particular era, is, among other things, the result of power relations. It suggests productive ways to deal with this problem in modern society, through deliberative, emancipatory processes of reflexivity (Weick 1999), participatory research and dialogue, facilitating innovation and generation of new solutions.

Trust in play

Selectivity of memories of WWII in portugal: the role of leisure, education, the arts and the media

Even though more than seventy-five years have passed since the end of WWII, its prominence in entertainment media productions along with the global emergence of memorial markers have contributed to its omnipresence in people’s minds. Nevertheless, the perception of this historical event is still far from reaching consensus as nations tend to interpret and remember episodes in accordance with their perspective, thus adding up to the complexity of WWII and of Holocaust memories. With this in mind, this article describes the idiosyncrasies of Portugal’s recent tribute and remembrance strategies for the victims of WWII. The country’s neutral status, along with a set of cultural and historical specifics, has led to the dissemination of tropes leading to the idea of Portugal as an inherently tolerant and mild-mannered nation. A perception that is often fostered by resorting to monuments, museums, tourism and leisure activities. Despite evidence provided, mostly, by recent academic studies and documentary films, these tropes continue to fuel Portuguese popular imagination and are still prevalent in some recently established WWII memory places.

Bewuste taalvaardigheid bewerkstelligen met behulp van de klassieke retorica

According to a recent manifesto titled Manifest Nederlands op School, the secondary school subject Dutch Language and Literature is incoherent, unchallenging and unscientific. In order to solve this problem, the school subject should strive to reach levels of conscious language proficiency (‘bewuste taalvaardigheid’), for example by drawing on insights from the related academic discipline. By doing so, the school subject and the discipline of Dutch Language and Literature (‘neerlandistiek’) could engage in a perspective of cooperation. There have been several proposals for ways of achieving both a more conscious level of language proficiency as well as the subsequent state of cooperation. One such proposal argues that scientific insights fostered from classical rhetoric could well be used to achieve conscious writing proficiency (Jansen 2016). However, empirical evidence to support this claim is lacking. Therefore, in this exploratory study, we investigated Jansen’s assertion by looking at the effect lessons based on classical rhetoric have on secondary school pupil’s use of tropes, such as irony or antithesis. We judged the quality of their tropes and additionally, we looked at whether or not pupils could use them consciously. Results support Jansen’s claim and reveal that classical rhetoric can indeed be used to achieve greater conscious proficiency in writing.

Failurists – When Things go Awry

Failure is a popular topic of research. It has long been a source of study in fields such as sociology and anthropology, science and technology studies, privacy and surveillance, cultural, feminist and media studies, art, theatre, film, and political science. When things go awry, breakdown, or rupture they lead to valuable insights into the mundane mechanisms of social worlds. Yet, while failure is a familiar topic of research, failure in and as a tactic of research is far less visible, valued, and explored.In this book the authors reflect upon the role of creative interventions as a critical mode for methods, research techniques, fieldwork, and knowledge transmission or impact. Here, failure is considered a productive part of engaging with and in the field. It is about acknowledging the ‘mess’ of the social and how we need methods, modes of attunement, and knowledge translation that address this complexity in nuanced ways. In this collection, interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners share their practices, insights, and challenges around rethinking failure beyond normalized tropes. What does failure mean? What does it do? What does putting failure under the microscope do to our assumptions around ontology and epistemologies? How can it be deployed to challenge norms in a time of great uncertainty, crisis, and anxiety? And what are some of the ways resilience and failure are interrelated?