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Motivation: Local government can develop democracy and community participation if institutions support it. But when a military regime takes over following a coup d'état, it may use familiar methods of patronage, corruption, and exploitation of kinship ties to render decentralization a spectacle—that is, done for show, but without substantial change. Local elites may then capture local administration and extract public resources. Purpose: Does decentralization as spectacle bring positive change — when the military hold power and the state is laden with corruption, patronage, and kinship ties? Methods and approaches: We analyse how respondents experienced two periods of local government, including post‐election public interactions between representatives and their constituents. Data comes from responses to qualitative interviews with 70 key informants from the Qambar Shahdadkot and Larkana districts of Sindh, Pakistan. We analysed the themes generated by responses to questions. Findings: Some 40% of respondents reported those who came into local government power aimed first and foremost to promote the interests of their own class. Some 29% of respondents reported local government made empty promises to provide services with public participation. Pakistan's decentralization has been a spectacle, to serve powerful elites. Local government has been captured by local elites. Policy implications: Decentralization, muzzled by the military, is mere spectacle, and predatory to boot. Donor agencies should explore possibilities for change at the local level; for example, where local networks and informal governmentality can build up trust amongst hyper‐local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of all the images generated by the French Revolution it is the guillotine that is the most notorious. From the beginning the apparatus constituted an elaborate visual spectacle, one that not only efficiently dispensed justice but also offered up a form of popular entertainment and ritualised collective vengeance. The paper seeks to shed fresh light on one of the most perplexing mysteries of the revolutionary era. How did enlightened individuals who had helped create the most democratic and egalitarian society yet seen in the world, descend into a totalitarian regime in which many thousands were arrested, tried without appeal and executed? Why did revolutionaries begin to kill one another, and how did the guillotine come to represent an ideal of Revolution? To answer these questions, the paper begins by looking more closely at the relationships between popular violence and state violence in the Revolution, before describing the invention of the guillotine and how audiences had to adjust to a new kind of spectacle, where terror emerges as a principle of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gregory J. Markopoulos's short silent film Flowers of Asphalt is a surrealistic study of a young man's journey through a revelatory daytime dreamscape, a 'coming out', set inside the home, on the streets and at the amusement park. Flowers of Asphalt explores the disengaged realism of a waking dreamer – featuring medium and close-up shots, static images, shot-reverse shots and location footage – as the dreamer awakens into a surreal-inflected fantasy. Markopoulos's experimental narrative presents a release from proscriptive post-war images of domesticity and normative forms of heterosexual behaviour, emancipating the imagination from clinical impositions of space and time, where sexual 'others' may roam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The intent of this article is to analyse the interconnectedness between urban transformation and eco-heritage value over time in Tianjin from a river-city perspective. The focus is on the Hai River’s (海河) contribution to the mechanisms of space and power in imperial, hyper-colonial, and globalising Tianjin. After an analytical excursus of the Haihe’s historical-political-economic roles, attention is given to the Haihe as the fulcrum of Tianjin's creation as a spectacle city in present times. The objectives are to elucidate the Tianjin Municipal Government-led urban ‘beautification’ strategy and analyse the aims and objectives of the 2002 ‘Comprehensive Reconstruction and Redevelopment Plan of the Haihe’s Riversides’ while also considering the actual experience of this transformation. The premise of this article is that the Haihe River has helped determine Tianjin’s politics of design via heritagisation: the historical processes through which cultural heritage is adapted to strategically promote favourable imagery of the river-city for political management purposes.

It is impossible not to be affected at some level when watching, even just the highlights, the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The endorphin-pumping procession enrolled multiple music cultures, spectacular and theatrical light shows, and played to Paris's sardonic historical relations and geographical strengths while generating a 'spectacle' that would be hard to match or forget (even if we wanted to). This truly was a city that gave itself up and delivered a spicy 'full-court press' for the Olympic imagination. However, closer to home, in the wake of the emerging controversies with the development cycle for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics and the cancellation of the 2026 Summer Commonwealth Games by the Victorian government due to projected cost overruns, we feel that more conversation should be occurring around what the Olympic model should be into the future. We offer four propositions or thinking points that are not necessarily new, but collectively suggest, a re-visioning in light of the realities of the poly crisis that looms. The propositions circle around a shift towards a fixed site for the Games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I study Guy Debord's critical discourse, particularly his landmark essay The Society of the Spectacle. He underlines here the symbolic desert produced by modern societies. I stress the uniqueness of his perspective, to the extent that such desert stems from a situation of overabundance and excess, and not from a specific void or absence. This desert constitutes a space saturated with images and signs: it asserts the rule of the superfluous and the inconsequential. Moreover, this discourse was rooted in the Glorious Thirties, which were characterized by a strong economic growth. It must therefore be placed within a historical and social context that is quite different from twenty first Century French society. Contemporary France is marred by contrast by unemployment and precariousness as well as by huge socio-economic inequalities. The endless production of media images contradicts therefore the deep shortcomings of social reality. Finally, the concept of the Spectacle, for Debord, did not include yet the overwhelming power of new technologies. These technologies have greatly expanded the influence of images within the social and cultural sphere by making them instantaneous and readily available. The same process has also increased significantly the potential alienation and isolation of man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The intent of this article is to analyse the interconnectedness between urban transformation and eco-heritage value over time in Tianjin from a river-city perspective. The focus is on the Hai River's (海河) contribution to the mechanisms of space and power in imperial, hyper-colonial, and globalising Tianjin. After an analytical excursus of the Haihe's historical-political-economic roles, attention is given to the Haihe as the fulcrum of Tianjin's creation as a spectacle city in present times. The objectives are to elucidate the Tianjin Municipal Government-led urban 'beautification' strategy and analyse the aims and objectives of the 2002 'Comprehensive Reconstruction and Redevelopment Plan of the Haihe's Riversides' while also considering the actual experience of this transformation. The premise of this article is that the Haihe River has helped determine Tianjin's politics of design via heritagisation: the historical processes through which cultural heritage is adapted to strategically promote favourable imagery of the river-city for political management purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Latvian Song and Dance Celebration's 150th Anniversary (2023) offers a unique case study of community performance's capacity to express solidarity on a spectacular scale. This article argues that the choral concerts may be viewed as applied theatre given their historical and continuing expressions of political resistance, cultural resilience and community renewal. In 2023, the UNESCO listed Celebration incorporated 40,560 performers, around 500,000 in-person spectators and the world's largest choir of 16,500 singers. The mega-event invokes solidarity and spectacle's nested paradoxes amidst historic and continuing socio-political tensions and the Russo-Ukraine War (2014-) while simultaneously highlighting their powerfully affective impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The representation of reality seems to have gained precedence over reality. In the society of the spectacle, entertainment has become the experience. Accordingly, sport organizations must increasingly provide added value to their fans' brand experience. Nowadays, entertainment and sport have merged to give birth to 'sportainment'. Through a polar type of case study, this paper examines how the strategic marketing of, and through, sport can adapt to this reality by proposing a strategic sportainment mix. This study demonstrates that the strategic sportainment mix can provide valuable insights about the theoretical fit between strategic marketing efforts by, or through, sport, on the one hand. This is in addition, on the other, to a stakeholder segmentation that categorizes fans according to their connection with sport in a society of the spectacle. The proposed sportainment mix could boost the fan lifetime value, together with both the customer and financial-based brand equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to analyse the visual component in the musical genre (songs) and musical-theatrical genre (ballet), which is an element for the formation of spectacle. The work methodology includes analytical, structural-functional, generalising scientific methods; techniques of comparative analysis to reveal the specifics of modern artistic practices in revealing the specifics of the visual as a component of spectacle. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the analysis of the song ―Smerekova Khata‖, the musical and stage performance of the ―Gerdan‖ theatre, the ballet ―Signs‖ with the determination of the visualisation of the images laid down by the authors to form the spectacle. Conclusions. Based on the analysis of M. Bakay and P. Dvorskyi's song ―Smerekova Khata‖, the dependence of visualisation in musical-poetic composition and music, metaphoricity in musical-poetic images in various performing interpretations with a certain amount of spectacularity according to the definition of ―spectacularity‖ in the dictionary of Efron and Brockhaus is determined as a concert, performance. The analysis of the concert performance of the Chernivtsi City Folklore Theatre-Studio ―Gherdan‖ based on the musical and textual material, stage design and costumes of the performers made it possible to reveal the degree of visualisation of musical and stage images that contribute to spectacle in art according to K. Stanislavska's concept as a spectacle with an artistic structure, which is a system of means of expression with external manifestations. The French-American dancer-choreographer Carolyn Carlson's ballet ―Signes‖ (1997, Paris Opera) with scenery by the French artist Olivier Debre and electronic music by the French composer René Aubry fully meets all the parameters of spectacle: a) unusual events that appeal to history with famous heroes Leonardo da Vinci and Gioconda with her outstanding smile; b) entertainment in the presentation of material with the use of three-dimensional pictures that are constantly moving; c) seven different locations; d) lack of verbal text (words), which are compensated by electronic music and choreographic movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps the surveillance imaginary of a unique public awareness initiative by the New Mexico Civil Liberties Union and Godfrey Reggio's Institute for Regional Education in 1974 that consisted of two parts: a situationist-inspired campaign using and surrealistically subverting popular media to raise awareness of surveillance, paired with a newspaper supplement documenting detailed intrusions on the privacy and liberty of citizens on a number of fronts, representing an encroaching society of social control. Taken as a whole, the surveillance imaginary of the campaign combined images of eyes, computers, and rats in mazes with detailed discussions of databases, militarized policing, and direct behavioral control justified by stories of rising violence in society to critique both state surveillance and the growing corporatization of the public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers the spectacle of slavery that is death, and death only which continually persists as slavery-to-segregation-to-neosegregation or otherwise understood as a system of white-over-black. By observing the motionless movement of death perfecting itself (neither as life nor as historical time, progress, the human, or development), I argue that law makes death sovereign. The essay pursues this line of inquiry by considering a. capitalism as a system of spectacular relationships, a system of legal relationships, that places death atop everything and as a faith expressed in the gospel of legal method and its false promise of perpetual progress. And b. law as a structure analogous to the unconscious since it exists outside of time. In placing these two concerns together, it considers a sort of magical thinking of law—a make-believe realm in which rules appear to somehow govern themselves and an 'us' that seemingly masks over and absolves the system of white-over-black. Such banishment, whereby the system of white-over-black banished from the realm of the spectacle, is by that act repatriated to and given sovereignty over the world of the real, the world of historical time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese cities are making a name for themselves through what Guthman calls an 'accumulation by spectacle'. Studies elucidate the fast change of the urban fabric and the interconnection of commercial profits with pro-state propaganda during mega-events. The spectacle appears as a once-in-lifetime chance for a city, orchestrated during a specific time and in purpose-built venues. This article, however, argues that efforts of spectacularisation expand to everyday life. I take the marginalisation of the urban poor in Guangzhou, that is, street vendors and beggars, as a starting point to understand governmental ideals, strategies and patterns of controlling public space. The data is based on fieldwork, government documents, yearbooks and newspapers. Engaging in the discussion on what Debord termed the 'society of the spectacle', I explain how urban management concentrates on areas serving (1) tourism and commerce, (2) memorial politics, (3) government relations and (4) transport and traffic; and follows the pulse of (1) annual events and seasonal holidays, (2) recurring political dates, (3) exceptional mega-events and (4) regular urban development campaigns. These zones and periods of increased control intertwine and culminate in an 'ideal' public space excluding poverty and other elements contesting the city's success images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing popularity of fusing adventure, humanitarianism, and travel has received attention from scholars within the fields of leisure and tourism studies, particularly regarding widespread activities such as volunteer tourism. Fewer have examined the phenomenon that we refer to as endurance philanthropy, in which participants journey long distances under challenging conditions to increase awareness and raise funds for specific causes. As more and more people become attuned to the idea, it is essential to interrogate the power dynamics and development discourses that frame such campaigns. To begin this necessary conversation, this paper investigates one subset of the endurance philanthropy movement: participants who have journeyed from North America to Central America to raise money and awareness for causes situated within the destination region. Using the lenses of spectacle and critical development, we analyze online media produced both by and about these journeyers. Our findings highlight key themes that weave across and through these events: actions not words, expedition completed, grit and determination, and donor commitment. We argue that these events – while emphasizing solidarity and advocating for social change – ultimately undermine the potential for such transformation due to the spectacular, individualizing, and apolitical characteristics of the campaigns. This results in the reproduction of neoliberal self-help models of progress, which reinforce the status quo and downplay larger structural issues that keep poverty and inequality in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the current significance of philological studies and attempts to develop a concept of literary studies that accounts for the visual and material forms of the observed and analyzed objects more comprehensively. To illustrate the potential that lies ahead for philology, the author draws on art history and its engagement with the socalled pictorial turn. The author argues that philology would benefit greatly if it became iconophilia as well, meaning if it could recognize the intrinsic entanglements of language/ textuality and visuality that arise from technological and social transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the work is to investigate the development of mass entertainment culture in the paradigm of its visualization and the spread of screen forms. The methodological basis of the research was made up of the following methods: systemic, cultural, semantic, analytical, which fully allowed to consider the defined perspective of the research issues and obtain substantiated results and conclusions. The scientific novelty of the research is revealed in the consideration of spectacular culture as a subsystem of mass culture, which is formed by its semantics and the identification of trends in its visualization in further development, in particular, screen forms mediated by digital information technologies. Conclusions. Mass spectacles in the paradigm of visualization and screen forms are an integral part of modern culture. They not only reflect technological progress, but also influence the way we perceive and interact with the world. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, it became obvious that audiovisual communication had significantly supplanted other types, and screen forms of creativity gradually changed traditional arts and began to serve as new means of their distribution. In the conditions of the information society, mass culture becomes a priority form of living cultural phenomena. Spectacle culture in the conditions of visualization and digital technologies is a powerful force that shapes our ideas about the world, influences social processes and determines new directions for the development of the entertainment industry, it constantly evolves, responding to technological innovations and changes in society. Spectacularity is one of the important constituent technologies of creating a modern cultural product, one of the properties of expressiveness, which is achieved through the synthesis of various artistic means. It should also be noted that modern challenges related to ethics, privacy and ecology require us to take a deliberate approach to the consumption and creation of content that becomes part of the entertainment culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper analyses the establishment and evolution of a public oversight body (POB) – the Egyptian Audit Oversight Unit (AOU) – and its implications for local auditing firms and practices. Design/methodology/approach: Primary data were gathered from 34 semi-structured interviews (including follow-up ones) between 2014 and 2020. Secondary data was obtained through publicly available documents and internal memos. Drawing on Debord's (1967) Society of the Spectacle, the insights focus on the POB's conception, materialisation and evolution in a context characterised by weak regulatory structures. Findings: Through a series of acts, the findings reveal how the AOU first accepted the image of "international best practice" oversight (the "metaphorical"), followed by the construction of the local structure and décor replicating a United States (US) style POB archetype (the "transformational") by primarily relying on visible processes/procedures. Yet, these mechanisms emphasised the spectacular nature of oversight, with little improvement for practice and limiting itself to "cracking down" on smaller local firms. A final stage (the "performative") reveals how the AOU seeks to expand its activities beyond its original mandate without challenging the image-driven nature of its oversight. Originality/value: The paper offers two key contributions. First, it reveals how actors, through a combination of symbolic and tangible measures, create a new performative reality of public oversight. Second, it advocates Debord's "spectacle" to complement other theoretical lenses, with a view to illuminating the materialisation stages that bridge the gap between proclaimed oversight policies and actual practices (including conscious and unconscious omissions) within a given political economy context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we would like to share a discussion about the processes of inventory and analysis currently underway on the archives of the performing arts at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. This work, initiated by the authors of the present article, is being carried out under the auspices of the Laboratoire d’histoire permanente (LHP), a laboratory for permanent history at the Pompidou centre, run by Antoine de Baecque from 2022 to 2024. It concentrates on the centre’s first ten years from 1977 to 1987. The ambition of the Pompidou Centre at the time of its creation in 1977 was, in the words of its first president Robert Bordaz “to unite realities that historical evolution, over time, has separated by diversification and specialisation.” By means of ‘polyvalence’ and ‘interdisciplinarity’, the brand-new museum and cultural institution was expected to reassociate ‘theatrical research’ with music, poetry, architecture, sculpture and painting, in the hope of “reinserting art and culture into the tissues of life.” And indeed, the Centre’s early years offer a varied programme of the performing arts, underlining the place’s experimental vocation and its ambition to make creative work resonate with the innovative architecture of the building. Next to those of choreographers and performance artists works were presented by playwrights and theatrical creators such as Lucien Attoun’s Théâtre Ouvert or Antoine Vitez, or the pluri-disciplinary spectacle entitled ‘The ephemeral is eternal’, by Claude Confortès and Elsa Wolliaston, based on a text by Michel Seuphor with sets inspired by Piet Mondrian. The spectacles were all exploratory ventures, leaving archival traces or ‘signs of loss’ (Georges Banu). The analysis of this intense activity in the field of the performing arts reveals ‘hegemonic structures’ (Anne Bénichou) which are an invitation to question the place of the performing arts within the new museum and cultural institution and the possible ways of preserving a heritage of these performing arts.

Abstract: During a week in September of 2016, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) held its tenth guerrilla conference, the Décima, in the plains of Yarí in southern Colombia. The guerrilla group blew the event open to the media, orchestrating a festival cum eco-conflict-tourism extravaganza to mark its transition to legal politics. This photo/ethnographic analysis of the Décima illuminates the FARC's symbolic and discursive formation at a pivotal transitional moment and how the group imagined its political possibilities at the cusp of its demobilisation. By engaging with Guy Debord's concept of ‘integrated spectacle’, I argue that the FARC's vanguardist structure led it to brand itself as the leader of a broad political mobilisation, even as it struggled to retain the allegiance of its former combatants. The article considers the ongoing relevance of the integrated spectacle for scholars and activists and opens a path for further research into politics of spectacle in Latin America.

Background and Study: Spectacle plays a key role in sports wrestling in attracting viewers' attention, creating emotional involvement, and making the sport an integral part of culture. Aim: To identify the most significant indicators of wrestlers' competitive activity based on the analysis of the 2021 Olympic Games, which influence the spectacle in sports wrestling. Material and Methods: The study involved 289 wrestlers. An analysis of protocols and video recordings of 340 matches at the 2021 Olympic Games in three types of sports wrestling was conducted: in women's wrestling – 113 matches (n=96 female wrestlers), in Greco-Roman wrestling – 113 matches (n=97 wrestlers), and in freestyle wrestling – 114 matches (n=96 wrestlers). Expert assessment method was used to evaluate the indicators of competitive activity. Statistical analysis of the data was conducted using licensed Excel spreadsheet packages. Results: For Greco-Roman wrestling and women's wrestling, the ratio of actions performed in par terre and standing is about 70 to 30. Whereas, for freestyle wrestlers, almost 80% of actions are performed in standing. The efficiency coefficient of wrestling in standing for Greco-Roman style wrestlers averaged 1.43 points per action; for freestyle wrestlers, it was 1.78 points per action, and for female wrestlers – 2.01 points per action. The highest number of one-point actions was performed in Greco-Roman wrestling, which significantly and statistically significantly (p0.05): 4.23 actions for Greco-Roman wrestling; 4.47 actions for freestyle wrestling, and 4.08 actions for women's wrestling. However, when considering the average number of points scored per match, statistically significant differences were found. Thus, Greco-Roman style wrestlers score an average of 6.95 points, this indicator is statistically significantly lower (p

Background Spectacles are one of the corrective measures for different errors of refraction. A great proportion of people worldwide are blind due to having a high-refractive error while they neglect using the appropriate corrective measures. The aim is to study the prevalence of noncompliance to spectacle wear and its predisposing factors among adults with refractive errors in Menoufia and Gharbeya Governorates. Patients and methods A cross-sectional study performed in Menoufia and Gharbeya Governorates included 290 adults recruited from government and private ophthalmological centers. Data were collected through a predesigned questionnaire asking about personal data, ophthalmological data, measures of compliance, and predisposing factors to noncompliance. Results About 38% of the participants were noncompliant to eyeglasses wearing. Among noncompliant, personal causes represented 63.1%, followed by spectacle-related causes (22.5%) and financial causes (14.4%). Rural residence and illiteracy were significantly higher among noncompliant participants. Multivariate analysis revealed that secondary and higher education were independent protective factors against noncompliance. Conclusion Noncompliance to spectacle wear was high and was significantly related to rural residence and higher levels of education.

Drawing on Debord's the society of the spectacle and Evans and Giroux's notion of the spectacle of violence, this paper argues that a discourse on war, organised violence, and global politics has been disseminated through a military-entertainment complex that has commodified militarism into a practice of consumption. Drawing on first-person shooter (FPS) video games as a context, the paper considers the market for these games, the conditions of their creation, and the way they are marketed. The paper discusses three ways in which FPS games function as part of a contemporary spectacle of violence: through their intertextual connections to other forms of military entertainment; through the immersive experience they offer; and through the geopolitical position they establish. The paper concludes by establishing FPS games as complex, sophisticated cultural artefacts that both draw on and shape wider discourses on war and the military, in the age of the spectacle of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical scholarly attention to vertical urbanism has expanded greatly in recent years but has seldom engaged with the variety of high-rise urban forms developed in mainland Chinese cities following the demise of socialist urban political economy. This paper introduces the case study of Chongqing as a critical example of the cultural significance of vertical urbanism in the post-socialist Chinese city, examining how supposedly 'weird' spaces of vertical density are materially and discursively constructed. Chongqing has undergone rapid urban expansion since the 1990s within a narrow and mountainous terrain, resulting in a number of extraordinary instances of extreme vertical density in the city. These sites have subsequently become 'spectacles' in themselves, widely photographed and discussed on social media. This paper surveys online discourse and imaging of these sites to categorise them as examples of connection, compression and luxification. Verticality is used to construct imaginaries of urban futures, and designations of 'weird' verticality differ between outsiders and locals. Such imaginaries may also obscure the history of urban restructuring which gave rise to these spaces in the first instance, and the conflicts between public and private space which emerge from this restructuring. The example of Chongqing provides an important demonstration of verticality as an everyday, historically grounded and contested environment within the city, rather than a recent imposition on a residual horizontal way of life. This paper concludes with a call for greater ethnographic attention to the weird qualities of such vertical spaces in the production of new urban theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of New Architecture is the property of New Architecture Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores themes of precarity, community, and treatment in the novel Homebound (2021) by Puja Changoiwala. The text foregrounds the experiences of migrant workers in India during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 as they walked home during a nationwide lockdown. The paper locates itself within discourses on health, differential treatment, and intersectional vulnerabilities which are compounded by factors including gender and poverty. It particularly highlights the concepts of precariousness and precarity as opening up multiple avenues for exploration of the migrants' experience within the neoliberal political economy. The paper argues that it is the pre-existing precarities that are systemic, epistemic, and gendered, which aggravate the vulnerability of communities in a medical crisis. Furthermore, it looks at how social and medical treatment of the workers facilitates violence at the hands of those who perceive them as the ill-other – the police forces, the public, the healthcare workers, and the media. It also questions the logic that underlines spaces such as pandemic camps, which become sites of control more than care, and where medical treatment is inhered in socio-political biases and constructs. The paper argues that apprehending these experiences of socioeconomic and gendered precarities through literature can aid in developing a complex and sustained engagement with unequal socio-political systems that perpetuate violence and vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Çankaya University Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences is the property of Cankaya University Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background Spectacles are one of the corrective measures for different errors of refraction. A great proportion of people worldwide are blind due to having a high-refractive error while they neglect using the appropriate corrective measures. The aim is to study the prevalence of noncompliance to spectacle wear and its predisposing factors among adults with refractive errors in Menoufia and Gharbeya Governorates. Patients and methods A cross-sectional study performed in Menoufia and Gharbeya Governorates included 290 adults recruited from government and private ophthalmological centers. Data were collected through a predesigned questionnaire asking about personal data, ophthalmological data, measures of compliance, and predisposing factors to noncompliance. Results About 38% of the participants were noncompliant to eyeglasses wearing. Among noncompliant, personal causes represented 63.1%, followed by spectacle-related causes (22.5%) and financial causes (14.4%). Rural residence and illiteracy were significantly higher among noncompliant participants. Multivariate analysis revealed that secondary and higher education were independent protective factors against noncompliance. Conclusion Noncompliance to spectacle wear was high and was significantly related to rural residence and higher levels of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes Instagram in the context of metamodern cultural logic, focusing on the study of 1) the structural and (non-)class characteristics of the Instagram community using the theory of capital by Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Putnam, and Michael Woolcock as well as the concepts of master and small narratives; 2) the Spectacle versus Authenticity practices of Instagrammers using the performance concepts by Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, and Erving Goffman; 3) heterochronicity as a new temporality on Instagram in the metamodern condition. I examine the oscillation between the modern features of Instagram, orienting Instagrammers towards the creation of a like-minded community with hierarchical divisions into status groups, and its postmodern features as a fragmented field where actors play their performances that can be perceived ironically. It is emphasized that on Instagram “small narratives” are not imposed from the outside but are involuntarily created by Instagrammers themselves through sharing, liking, and commenting practices. The content of the social (bonding, bridging, and linking), cultural (objectified, incorporated, and certified), symbolic, and economic capital of Instagrammers has been revealed. The paper concludes that Instagram visual practices in metamodern condition oscillate between performances played out by celebrities and authentic self-presentations in which Instagrammers reveal their sincere selves. It demonstrates that Instagram’s heterochronicity is manifested in the simultaneous co-presence of different modes of time in Instagram narratives and the simultaneous appearance of visual posts over different years, which allows to trace the visual self-narration of an Instagram user over time. The heterochronicity of Instagram is its metamodern feature that makes different temporal moments to co-present each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Study: Spectacle plays a key role in sports wrestling in attracting viewers' attention, creating emotional involvement, and making the sport an integral part of culture. Aim: To identify the most significant indicators of wrestlers' competitive activity based on the analysis of the 2021 Olympic Games, which influence the spectacle in sports wrestling. Material and Methods: The study involved 289 wrestlers. An analysis of protocols and video recordings of 340 matches at the 2021 Olympic Games in three types of sports wrestling was conducted: in women's wrestling - 113 matches (n=96 female wrestlers), in Greco-Roman wrestling - 113 matches (n=97 wrestlers), and in freestyle wrestling - 114 matches (n=96 wrestlers). Expert assessment method was used to evaluate the indicators of competitive activity. Statistical analysis of the data was conducted using licensed Excel spreadsheet packages. Results: For Greco-Roman wrestling and women's wrestling, the ratio of actions performed in par terre and standing is about 70 to 30. Whereas, for freestyle wrestlers, almost 80% of actions are performed in standing. The efficiency coefficient of wrestling in standing for Greco-Roman style wrestlers averaged 1.43 points per action; for freestyle wrestlers, it was 1.78 points per action, and for female wrestlers - 2.01 points per action. The highest number of one-point actions was performed in Greco-Roman wrestling, which significantly and statistically significantly (p<0.05) exceeds the indicators in freestyle and women's wrestling. Meanwhile, female wrestlers and freestyle wrestlers statistically significantly (p<0.05) executed more two-point actions. The average number of actions per match does not significantly differ (p>0.05): 4.23 actions for Greco-Roman wrestling; 4.47 actions for freestyle wrestling, and 4.08 actions for women's wrestling. However, when considering the average number of points scored per match, statistically significant differences were found. Thus, Greco-Roman style wrestlers score an average of 6.95 points, this indicator is statistically significantly lower (p<0.05) than in freestyle (8.12 points) and in women's wrestling (8.07 points). Conclusions: The analysis of matches at the 2021 Olympic Games made it possible to identify competitive activity indicators that influence the spectacle in sports wrestling. Positive indicators include: a large number of technical-tactical actions performed in standing; execution of throws in par terre by Greco-Roman style wrestlers; a high percentage of early victories in matches. Negative indicators: execution of simple one-point and two-point technical-tactical actions; in Greco-Roman wrestling, a large number of matches that ended with a score of 1:1; interruptions in matches (Challenge, Negative Wrestling, Caution), lack of dynamism in the match, and the inability to score too many points. The obtained results will help provide recommendations for changing competition rules and enhancing the spectacle of sports wrestling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consideration of the European musical tradition, its evolution, which took place over a long time, is an extremely interesting material for the researcher. Musical culture is considered in this article in its classical antique version as a unity of singing, dance and music, once enclosed in the Greek triune chorea. The starting point, the beginning of the study, was chosen the phenomenon of ancient “grassroots” culture — Сomos, a festive song in honor of Dionysus, which plays an extremely important role, since antique comedy grows out of the traditions of Attic ritual fun. The musical triad of Сomos takes on different guises: rituals, spectacles, entertainment, being embodied in specific phenomena belonging to a particular time, a particular country. The musical triad took a special path in Russia. It took only two centuries for Peter’s noisy Bacchanalian festival to develop into high art. This article is devoted to these metamorphoses.

This article analyzes how Romanian television channels, by mediatizing significant jihadist terrorist attacks that took place in the European Union between 2015 and 2016, have broadcasted audio-visual discursive units in the form of ”short films” that reconstruct the tension and emotion generated by these attacks. Through these short films, television channels create an additional spectacle focusing on human suffering, which adds to the regular spectacle staged during each news broadcast.

Mikael Girum Gebresellassie, Helen Sisay, Kindea Desta Department of Optometry, College of Medicine and Health Science, Hawassa University, Hawassa, EthiopiaCorrespondence: Mikael Girum Gebresellassie, Department of optometry, College of medicine and health science, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia, Tel +251943503633, Email girummikael@gmail.comBackground: The commonest and cheapest treatment modality for correcting refractive error is spectacles or eyeglasses. In Ethiopia, the rate of spectacles under utilization and its impact on visual impairment was not known.Objective: To assess spectacles under utilization and associated factors among adults in Hawassa, Ethiopia, 2022.Methods and Materials: Community-based cross-sectional study design was conducted from Jan 2021 to May 2022 with a final sample size of 664. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used during the sampling process. Using an interviewer-based questionnaire, the selected individuals were asked about demographic characteristics, spectacles use, and satisfaction with spectacles, knowledge, and attitude about spectacles. An odds ratio with a 95% CI was used to display the results. A P-value less than 0.05 in multivariate logistic regressions is used to show statistical significance.Results: The prevalence of spectacles under utilization was 307 (48.7%). The spectacles under utilization was more prevalent in individuals with unaided visual acuity of 6/6 − 6/12 (46.1%), no eye checkup (38.4%), no surgery on the eye (46.6%), willingness to accept spectacles (35.9%), good knowledge about spectacles (32.6%) and poor attitude about spectacles (35%). The most common reasons for not utilizing spectacles were believed not necessary (14.9%), expensive cost (13.1%), and discomfort (11.4%). Among the spectacles users (33.64%) who wore spectacles for 2 years, 31.17% procured the spectacles without physician orders and 46.6% purchased the spectacles in the optical workshop. The most common purpose to use spectacles was for protection (41.4%).Conclusion and Recommendation: The spectacles under utilization in Hawassa town was high. Rural residency, occupation, eye check, eye surgery, no willingness to wear spectacles, and attitude towards spectacles were significantly associated with spectacles under utilization. It is necessary to provide health education to improve the poor attitude regarding spectacles and eye checks.Keywords: spectacle, Hawassa, refractive error

Spectacle and Time in Contemporary Philosophy Through historical and phenomenological analyses, the present paper attempts to centralize the research of the phenomenon of spectacle as a viable subject of contemporary philosophy. We study the notion of the spectacle upon the basis of the historical development of the modern comprehension of time not only as one of the central issues of contemporary philosophy, but also as a central concept for the understanding of contemporary science, culture, and society as a whole. Within contemporary continental philosophical tradition, the concept of time is closely connected with the notions of presence, perception, and mediation. The philosophical debate between Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein brought the ideas of spectacle and time into immediate connection as a part of the new conceptual framework of contemporary philosophy. It demonstrated, for the first time, that science holds an essential value for the construction of modern life. We follow further developments by outlining the philosophical and cybernetic framework for the establishment of a philosophical attitude towards spectacle as one of the fundamental phenomena of contemporaneity. The elaboration of the theme seeks to respect methodological determinations demonstrated in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The groundbreaking critique of cybernetics in Gilbert Simondon allows us, finally, to draft a specific prefiguration of a certain theory of spectacle.

Tortures and executions have been publicly displayed to deter crime, but their staging has also been characterized as spectacle. Public spectacle, and associated technologies, were foundational to the aggregated graphic depiction of Damiens the Regicide sentenced to death by torture. Pain was not considered as the sole purpose, but rather to inflict trauma and cause shame. We see that the sovereign holds power over the body, often considered a vessel to be regulated and managed. In this article, the author explores the events surrounding the walk of atonement conducted by Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. This article analyzes how power structures use brutality to cause trauma. The queen is confined to a prison cell where she is psychologically and spiritually tortured by religious fanatics using technologies of private disciplinary power. She is then forced to walk naked through the streets of King's Landing. As she progresses, her body is pelted with fruit, manure, and bodily fluids, and she endures jeers and curses from the public. A septa (nun) follows her, repeating the word shame eighty-eight times. Her body becomes degraded and objectified. The author's argument is grounded in a unique reading of disciplinary power, which he has conceptualized as traumapower, defined as the use of public (spectacle) and private (confinement) disciplinary power to inflict physical, psychological, and spiritual harm. In Cersei's confinement and walk, we see the manifestation of traumapower. This article explores how external power structures are operationalized to assert body control through trauma, thus rendering it docile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human societies are going through a historical process whereby the politics and economy of the diverse local territories are being increasingly integrated into the global system through transnational media and information technologies. Based on either sheer opportunism or compulsion, the global and local cultural systems have long been going through a process of co-modification and co-adaptation called "glocalization." Focused on the period 1990-2023, this study aims to divulge the multiple facets of glocalization as a market-led cultural phenomenon in India and the key questions and dialogues related to them. A review of literature on media, consumerism, Indian culture, and business adaptations in India is undertaken in seven segments. Considering glocalization as a dynamic cultural-economic force, this paper offers a critical understanding of the television, marketing, and advertising practices in post-global India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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On their surface, medicalised reality television series about food addiction and fatness seem to reinforce the same discourses of neoliberalism that have come to define our understanding of contemporary reality TV. However, this article considers how one of these shows, My 600 Pound Life (2012), negotiates and de-centres discourses of neoliberalism through medicalisation and spectacle. The bodies and behaviours on medicalised reality TV programmes can be engendering of sympathy as much or more than of discipline and shame, which reflects expanding and shifting narratives of the 'obesity epidemic'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New and exciting scholarship continues to enrich our understanding of gender and identity politics imbricated in the history of witchcraft in France. Demonologies have provided ample evidence for scholars to develop sound arguments about the relationship between witch-hunts and deep-rooted misogyny. In addition to demonologies as frequently cited sources of anti-woman sentiment, poetry penned by intellectuals offer fertile ground for a reconsideration of the (female) witch as a multivalent figure constantly confined by the male gaze whose passivity runs contrary to the aggression she embodies in demonologies. This article considers the passivity, abjection, and brutalization of female witches in three poems by Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585), Agrippa d'Aubigné (1552–1630), and Mathurin Régnier (1573–1613). In comparison to demonologies that portrayed witches as destructive forces capable of enacting maleficia, I focus on the witch as a passive creature confined by the male gaze of the speaker-poet. The depiction of the witch as a disparaged and dehumanized social Other whose body is poked, prodded, and mutilated at the hands of a male aggressor challenges the stereotype of aggression promulgated by sixteenth century French demonologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isfahan's selection as the capital of Persia's Safavid Empire (1501-1736) at the turn of the seventeenth century set off multiple phases of growth in the city. This included the development of Shah Abbas II's (r. 1642-66) palatial complex of Sa'ādat-ābād, which encouraged Isfahan's engagement with the nearby river Zāyandehrud. This article expands the discourse examining the river beyond the domain of nature by exploring the Zāyandehrud as a designed environment and a site of architectural imagination and action. As shown in this study, the river and the complex interconnections between natural and cultural systems played a central role in shaping the scheme of this royal complex. While a lack of visual and archaeological evidence has kept rivers and lakes on the sidelines in most studies of premodern Islamic water architecture, this article provides a new perspective on the roles of such bodies of water through a close reading of Safavid poetry, contemporary prose, spatial analysis, and architectural reconstructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the connections between real estate speculation and authoritarian populism in El Salvador. Focusing on president Nayib Bukele's term as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán (2012–2015), I examine the role speculative urbanism played in the crafting of his profile as a promising politician in the early years of his career. I trace how Bukele instrumentalized the ecosystem of Nuevo Cuscatlán's coffee forest as a means to fund a personalistic populist strategy whose main project called for the construction of a "New City." This project involved the lifting of barriers to real estate investment to raise funds for social programs and municipal infrastructure. Its flipside was an aggressive process of deforestation and displacement of rural populations. Drawing on urban political ecology and critical agrarian studies, I argue that Bukele's New City project constituted a type of urban spectacle. This urban spectacle was rooted in two socio‐ecological dynamics: (1) The use of land as a revenue‐raising token of exchange; and (2) The fetishization of urban water infrastructure in the context of water scarcity. The paper concludes with various considerations about the destructive force of the link between authoritarian populism and urban extractivism in rural environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to a theoretical formulation of techno-nationalism as the cultural logic of infrastructural capitalism by revisiting Debord and Situationist International's discussion of Spectacle and digital struggles. We deconstruct the concept of techno-nationalism into three interlocking but contradictory media events: techno-nationalism as the "integrated Spectacle," signifying the power of the state and capital; the disintegrative forces of media spectacles that highlight the ruptures and contradictions of global infrastructural capitalism; and digital resistance through the creation of "cyber-situations." The case of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou exemplifies how techno-nationalism emerges as an integrated ideological Spectacle with the help of media spectacles and yet undergoes a disintegration process due to inescapable contradictions and labor conflicts. This research not only analyses China as a case to understand the tactical deployment of the cultural logic of techno-nationalism with a focus on both domestic and international dimensions as political economic and social forces but also on the inherent contradictions and digital struggles in global infrastructural capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though written in 1957, Roland Barthes’ ‘The World of Wrestling’ from Mythologies resonates with sports even today. As a choreographed fight between a pre-assigned hero and villain, wrestling plays out the archetypal moral narrative using the bodies of the participants. With exaggerated gestures and expressions, these bodies send clear messages to the surrounding audience, who aggressively cheer them on even as they know the fabricated nature of the entire event. This paper seeks to identify the semiotic structures underlying these performances using Barthes’ views on signification, denotation/connotation and ‘myth’. This framework is juxtaposed with contemporary cricket to illustrate how cricket adapts similar semiotic structures into its spatiotemporal setup, players, body politics, media representation, appearance, choreography and spectatorship. It also examines the moral ideologies governing cricket, especially notions of heroism, justice and the spectacle that can be traced back to ancient theatre. It ends with an understanding of how Barthesian wrestling can be used to analyse other contemporary sports too, suggesting directions for further research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the reasons behind the dominance of governance in contemporary societies. The techniques of government cannot be understood apart from a critical genealogy of governmentality. This article references Michel Foucault's analysis of governmentality to analyze the role of governance in arts and cultural management. It argues that, following the governmental state described by Foucault, the contemporary governance state is defined by a new spectacle governmentality. The globalized context of this governmentality produces a simulacrum of governance that tends to substitute for actual outcomes. The South Korean case is used to illustrate this new form of ubiquitous cultural governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction to this issue provides an overview of the New York Hippodrome's construction, the historical references and symbolic resonances of its exterior and interior theatrical space, and the human and animal performers who contributed to its overall importance in the opening season and beyond. First, we discuss how Thompson and Dundy drew on the vibrant transatlantic theatrical networks of the era to conceptualise the New York Hippodrome as a theatrical space, while at the same time highlighting the uniquely American quality of their venture. This played out in periodical coverage of the venue's construction, where the celebrations of oversized scale and backstage technological innovation took on a nationalistic tone. The boosterism had local resonance as well, since New York City was undergoing a building boom at that time, staking its claim as a world-class city representative of the whole nation. The venue's architecture, interior design, and onstage performances work together in ways that recent scholarship has identified as racialising: we suggest that this overall racialised aesthetic creates a transportive experience where audience members feel part of an exoticised space. We conclude by considering how performing animals develop all these overarching concerns, calling upon local, national, and international resonances in popular performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concluding American Civil War spectacle-drama, announced and widely publicised as Andersonville, The Story of Wilson's Raiders (1905), was abruptly retitled The Raiders as the New York Hippodrome's management removed the scene depicting the Confederate prison on the pretext of avoiding partisan sensibilities linked to the war, but more likely to shorten the evening's programme by a half-hour. This essay describes the drama as it was written and rehearsed beginning with a West Point graduation and commissioning ceremony as the announcement of war divides the graduates and separates couples whose romance has spanned northern and southern states. The five-scene drama concludes with a fierce cavalry battle utilising the 'Thompson and Dundy plunging horses' in the Hippodrome's flooded arenas. The drama enacts the graduation and commissioning of a young Union officer, his enforced separation from his Southern sweetheart, his capture by Confederate forces, and imprisonment in the notorious and filthy Andersonville prison. We witness his ingenious escape, his reunion with his sweetheart, and his return to battle leading a cavalry detachment. This essay documents the effects created in each scene of the entertainment, which concludes with an imagined re-enactment of a conflict fought by mounted Union and Confederate cavalrymen in the Hippodrome's two arenas, now a vast tank, flooded before the audience's eyes as a part of the overall spectacle. The essay also notes the frequent unsubstantiated claims of historical authenticity made by Fred Thompson and Elmer 'Skip' Dundy and, where necessary, corrects them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arthur Voegtlin (1858–1948) designed and oversaw the construction and painting of all the major sets for the New York Hippodrome's first season, from an archway formed by two rearing dragons in the courtyard of a Martian king to the grounds of a military academy at the start of the American Civil War. In this essay, I consider the ways that Voegtlin's sets navigated the distance between fantasy and verisimilitude, bringing together his experience painting sets for immersive, spectacular works with his training as a scene painter for the realistic interiors of the legitimate theatre's comedies and dramas. Voegtlin drew on those techniques to establish the mise en scène of realistic spectacle for which the New York Hippodrome became known. Voegtlin's appeals to photographic accuracy, acute awareness about how he needed to account for the size and scale of the space for which he was designing, and sense of the audience member's embodiment (particularly in relation to that of an amusement park spectator and a viewer of modern paintings) all demonstrate how Voegtlin saw his set designs at the Hippodrome as an extension of the dramatic principles he embraced throughout this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay engages the dismissal of presentism and identity politics by the former president of the American Historical Association. In doing so, the essay argues that his essay shares a rhetorical style with other intellectuals and politicians that can aptly be called the spectacle of transgression. The essay argues that this spectacle works to obscure the material conditions of higher education in general and of history in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing how British women and men in nineteenth and twentieth-century colonial South Asia made 'theatre' or 'spectacles' of everyday life in personal correspondence, this article examines the foundations of a particular kind of imagery of empire which often survived beyond decolonisation. It examines constructions of the quotidian in different arenas of the colonial experience – the ship, the environment and climate, and the household – to consider the textual, epistolary and discursive tools that writers used to feed seemingly innocuous details about daily life into the broader coercive work of the British Empire. The British in India reconfigured the everyday into a 'spectacle', framing experiences as imperial burden and sacrifice. The article uses a selection of personal, unpublished letters written by British women and men in India, to show how they rendered themselves as spectacles, staging everyday life as a theatre in which to construct identity and convey racial and cultural difference, and from which to be 'seen' educating and 'civilising' and struggling against domestic servants. In particular, this article uses the revealing, and hitherto unexamined, correspondence of missionary wife Agnes May Johnston between 1915 and 1926 from Calcutta, written to her family in Wolverhampton, England. The upkeep of regular communications about the discomfort and dangers of travel, the oppressive climate, and the maintenance of order within the household, allowed correspondents to fashion themselves as 'out of place' and incongruous with the colonial environment, thereby affirming their Britishness and stabilising imperial identity. The article conceptualises everyday life as an imperial construction in these terms, and foregrounds 'the familiar' in historical, literary and postcolonial analytical frameworks. In doing so it demonstrates how imperial conceptions of power operated through the language, gestures, and behaviours that texture day-to-day experiences, and which shape, in the process, a specific imperial gaze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]