Article
Reading as a value among young russian intellectuals
Research on the reading habits of the more intellectually inclined young people of Russia shows that their allegiance is to the more serious classics of literature rather than to contemporary popular fiction. Thus, the literary tastes of the older generation of Russian intellectuals are being preserved by the younger generation.
In this paper we describe the design and development of a multi-touch surface and software that challenges current approaches to the production and consumption of comics. Authorship of the comics involves drawing the ‘top level’ of the story directly onto paper and projecting lower-level narrative elements, such as objects, characters, dialogue, descriptions and/or events onto the paper via a multi-touch interface. In terms of the impact this has upon the experience of reading and writing, the implementation of paper is intended to facilitate the creation of high-level overviews of stories, while the touch surface allows users to generate branches through the addition of artifacts in accordance with certain theories about interactive narratives. This provides the opportunity to participate in the reading and authoring of both traditional, paper-based texts and interactive, digital scenarios. Prototype comics are used to demonstrate this approach to reading and writing top-level and low-level narratives.
Meaningful life is emotionally marked off. That’s the general point that Johansen (IPBS: Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science 44, 2010) makes which is of great importance. Fictional abstractions use to make the point even more salient. As an example I’ve examined Borges’ famous fiction story. Along with the examples of Johansen it provides an informative case of exploring symbolic mechanisms which bind meaning with emotions. This particular mode of analysis draws forth poetry and literature in general to be treated as a “meaningful life laboratory”. Ways of explanation of emotional effect the art exercises on people, which had been disclosed within this laboratory, however, constitute a significant distinction in terms that I have designated as “referential” and “substantive”. The former appeals to something that has already been charged with emotional power, whereas the latter comes to effect by means of special symbolic mechanisms creating the emotional experience within the situation. Johansen, who tends to explain emotions exerted by the art without leaving the semiotic perspective, is drawn towards the “referential” type of explanation. Based upon discussions in theory of metaphor and Robert Witkin’s sociological theory of arts it is demonstrated an insufficient of “referential” explanation. To overcome a monopoly of “referential” explanation of emotional engagement, in particular, in literature, means to break away from the way of reasoning, stating endless references to “something else”, presupposing the existence of something already significant and therefore sharing its effects.
The articles cover issues of reading, reading competency, library development, as well as the prevention of abnormal development of the young reader.
Article is dedicated to the problem of defining classical legacy in modern sociology. The nature and constitution of this process is analyzed as everyday framing practice. Some effects arising from classicalization procedures described by cases of embarrassing classicality - interpretations and reinterpretations of Erving Goffmans theoretical works. For this purpose Goffmans frame analysis is applied to itself; theory of framing helps to understand framing of the theory.
The paper is focused on the study of reaction of italian literature critics on the publication of the Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Jivago". The analysys of the book ""Doctor Jivago", Pasternak, 1958, Italy" (published in Russian language in "Reka vremen", 2012, in Moscow) is given. The papers of italian writers, critics and historians of literature, who reacted immediately upon the publication of the novel (A. Moravia, I. Calvino, F.Fortini, C. Cassola, C. Salinari ecc.) are studied and analised.
In the article the patterns of the realization of emotional utterances in dialogic and monologic speech are described. The author pays special attention to the characteristic features of the speech of a speaker feeling psychic tension and to the compositional-pragmatic peculiarities of dialogic and monologic text.