Attention has been given to cross-cultural differences in adolescent growth, but far less is known about developmental variability during juvenility (ages 3–10). Previous research among the Pumé, a group of South American foragers, found that girls achieve a greater proportion of their adult stature during juvenility compared with normative growth expectations. To explain rapid juvenile growth, in this paper we consider girls’ activity levels and energy expended in subsistence effort. Results show that Pumé girls spend far less time in subsistence (...) tasks in proportion to their body size compared with adults, and they have lower physical activity levels compared with many juveniles cross-culturally. Low activity levels help to explain where the extra energy comes from to support rapid growth in a challenging environment. We suggest that activity levels are important to account for the variation of resource and labor transfers in mediating energy availability. (shrink)

El presente artículo presenta una discusión acerca del carácter contracultural de algunos estilos o culturas juveniles, con las implicaciones políticas que ello conlleva. Para cumplir este objetivo los autores desarrollan un marco de referencia conceptual que sitúa los términos de la discusión, comparando elementos básicos de las culturas “jipis” de principios de los setenta, con las culturas “techno” de los noventa. Uno de los elementos centrales a nivel comparativo, será el consumo de ciertas drogas y sus significados en cada contexto (...) de estilo juvenil. A modo de conclusión, los autores plantean algunas proposiciones acerca del papel de las culturas juveniles, y más en concreto, de sus posibles significados políticos en nuestras sociedades contemporáneas. (shrink)

The Anxiety-Buffering Properties of Cultural and Subcultural Worldviews: Terror Management Processes among Juvenile Delinquents Terror management research indicates that people reminded of mortality strongly affirm values and standards consistent with their cultural worldview and distance themselves from values and standards inconsistent with it. However, limited research has addressed how individuals holding beliefs inconsistent with the dominant worldview cope with death-related anxiety. The present article aims to determine which worldview subcultural groups rely on when reminded of mortality: mainstream or subcultural? Juvenile (...) delinquents living in residential reformatories in Poland were invited to participate in a terror management study examining the anxiety-buffering strategies of individuals belonging to a group largely outside mainstream culture. Following reminders of mortality, juvenile delinquents increased support for values consistent with the mainstream cultural worldview and decreased support for values consistent with the subcultural worldview, as compared to control conditions. The present results suggest that when faced with existential threat, the subcultural worldview does not provide an adequate anxiety buffer, leading members of this subcultural group to display increased identification with mainstream cultural values. Additionally, participants' state anxiety following death reminders was mediated by mainstream cultural worldview defense. (shrink)

Notable in cross-cultural comparisons is the variable span of time between when children become economically self-sufficient and when they initiate their own reproductive careers. That variation is of interest because it shapes the age range of children reliant on others for support and the age range of children available to help out, which in turn affects the competing demands on parents to support multiple dependents of different ages. The age at positive net production is used as a proxy to estimate (...) the close of juvenile economic dependence among a group of Maya subsistence agriculturalists. Maya children produce more than they consume by their early to mid teens but remain in their natal households for a number of years before leaving home and beginning families of their own. The Maya results contrast markedly with those from several groups of hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists for whom we have similar data. Even in the Maya case, where children are self-sufficient at a relatively young age, parents are unable to support their children without help from others. The production surplus of older children appears to help underwrite the cost of large Maya families and subsidize their parents’ continued reproduction. (shrink)

Notable in cross-cultural comparisons is the variable span of time between when children become economically self-sufficient and when they initiate their own reproductive careers. That variation is of interest because it shapes the age range of children reliant on others for support and the age range of children available to help out, which in turn affects the competing demands on parents to support multiple dependents of different ages. The age at positive net production is used as a proxy to estimate (...) the close of juvenile economic dependence among a group of Maya subsistence agriculturalists. Maya children produce more than they consume by their early to mid teens but remain in their natal households for a number of years before leaving home and beginning families of their own. The Maya results contrast markedly with those from several groups of hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists for whom we have similar data. Even in the Maya case, where children are self-sufficient at a relatively young age, parents are unable to support their children without help from others. The production surplus of older children appears to help underwrite the cost of large Maya families and subsidize their parents’ continued reproduction. (shrink)

Résumé. : L’article s’interroge sur la manière dont l’institution scolaire est aujourd’hui mise en question dans son projet de formation par les activités juvéniles, dans une sphère extrascolaire où ils jouissent d’une grande autonomie. Ces activités électives (numériques, musicales, sportives…) réalisent une éducation informelle où les adolescents forgent leur caractère, alors même que l’école n’a plus de modèle lisible de projet éducatif. À partir d’une enquête qualitative réalisée auprès d’une centaine d’adolescents français, on dégagera différentes épreuves qui forment les (...) adolescents dans cette sphère, avant de montrer comment elles mettent en question les finalités, mais aussi les modalités de fonctionnement de l’école. Abstract: This article examines how school is questioned today by youth culture and its activities, especially outside school where teenagers are notably autonomous. These chosen activities (digital music, sports, dance, musical activities ...) could be described as an informal education which tends to build the identity and the self of the youth. From a qualitative survey conducted among a hundred French teenagers, we will first identify different trials teenagers face in this specific sphere, before showing how they are questioning the goals, but also the operating procedures of school. (shrink)

La actual discusión sobre las infracciones juveniles de ley en un marco neoliberal, limita su causa a las decisiones individuales y da preeminencia a la política penal para enfrentarla. Tal perspectiva desvincula en general los delitos de su contexto y específicamente de las consecuencias del sistema socioeconómico neoliberal en la sociedad. Es decir, para el caso de esa mayoría de la población abandonada por el Estado Subsidiario, se ignoran las dinámicas culturales de formación de identidad o de lazos de pertenencia, (...) y la marginación estructural que implica un acceso decreciente a los recursos y oportunidades socioeconómicas. Tal escenario de precariedad general y constante se transforma en una influencia o incentivo material y cultural para acceder por medio del delito a esos recursos y oportunidades. Así, pretender resolver problemas socioeconómicos preferentemente por medios penales es una mirada incompleta, ineficaz e ideologizada. (shrink)

Historical outlines of fin-de-siècle European criminology have typically focused on the debate between supporters of Lombrosian anatomical determinism on the one hand, and the more environmentalist (i.e. French) explanations of crime on the other. What has gone largely unnoticed, however, is how the basic tenets of the 'French school' were shaped by an implicit moral concern with mass consumption and indi vidualism, particularly in regard to juvenile crime. This paper examines the psychosocial conception of the juvenile criminal - within the (...) par ticular context of fin-de-siècle culture, social theory and political ideol ogy - to delineate how French criminologists encountered economic modernity and reconceptualized their understanding of the relationship between the child, the family and the state. (shrink)

O trabalho investiga a revista O Clarim, produzida pelos alunos de uma escola, em Porto Alegre/RS, entre os anos de 1945 e 1965. A história de O Clarim constitui-se em uma rica documentação de história da educação, pois revela um pouco das representações da cultura juvenil daquele tempo. Aqui interessam os significados da difusão dos discursos difundidos pelo periódico, nos processos de subjetivação provocados pelos textos e suas possíveis influências na construção das identidades daqueles jovens. A pesquisa identifica-se com os (...) pressupostos teóricos da História Cultural e se inscreve no campo das práticas de leitura e escrita e de memórias juvenis, tendo como referenciais as concepções de cultura escrita como uma produção discursiva de um determinado tempo e lugar. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo se propõe discutir a constituição de comunidades de leitores, a partir de concepções advindas do Círculo de Bakhtin sobre linguagem, forças centrífugas e centrípetas; de Canclini sobre cultura/coleção; de reflexões de autores contemporâneos sobre juventudes e cultura juvenil e de Chartier sobre leitura. Interessa-nos problematizar como se constituem essas comunidades e como se dão as práticas leitoras em torno de obras que se colocam fora do cânone e da “boa leitura”. Investigamos, em uma pesquisamaior, como esses jovens (...) se organizam em comunidades de leitores para a produção e para o compartilhamento de saberes e de experiências. ABSTRACT This article aims to discuss the constitution of communities of readers based on the Bakhtin Circle’s conceptions of language, centrifugal and centripetal forces; Canclini’s understanding of culture/collection; contemporary authors’s reflections on youths and youth culture, and Chartier’s reflection on reading. It interests us to problematize how these communities are constituted and how the reading practices occur as they are related to works that are placed outside the canon and are not considered “good reading”. As part of a broader research study, we investigated how these youths are organized in communities of readers for the production and sharing of knowledge and experience. (shrink)

La experiencia de la sexualidad en los espacios de diversión propios de la cultura juvenil es un fenómeno que ha sido muy pocas veces considerado a la hora de construir políticas preventivas dirigidas a este sector en Chile. Es en los escenarios propios de las culturas juveniles, asociados a sus espacios de ocio, particularmente los vinculados al “carrete”, donde los y las jóvenes urbanos/as ensayan y ponen en escena diferentes experiencias de acercamiento a la sexualidad. Por otro lado, es en (...) el carrete y su vínculo con la sexualidad ocasional donde en el mundo juvenil emerge la problemática del cuerpo que se resiste a ser regulado desde una normatividad preventiva que no considera sus propias temporalidades y códigos. El presente artículo muestra los resultados de una investigación etnográfica sobre sexualidad juvenil en cuatro regiones de Chileque, aproximándose a un escenario cultural juvenil asociado a la sexualidad como es el ‘‘carrete’’, intenta aportar a la generación de nuevas aproximaciones preventivas que permitan obtener un mejor conocimiento y comprensión de los contextos y situaciones en que los y las jóvenes ejercitan y desarrollan su sexualidad. (shrink)

This article aims at proposing the construct of living and working together in organizations as an interpretation and tool proposed in a Juvenile Criminal Mediation Service, in order to highlight how important it was as a turning point in activating the working group's reflexive function as far as their sense of belonging, otherness, culture of diversity, and work subject matter are concerned and start an important transformation process in the very service delivery. Our proposal finds its roots in a follow-up (...) experience regarding the aforementioned service, which has been taking place for almost three years. It was structured in three different phases: a research phase evaluating process and results of the activity that was carried out; a phase of monitoring the mediation practice; a research-action phase in a clinical perspective on the working group's operating mode. The leverage of living and working together in organizations is specifically proposed as far as this last working phase is concerned, las... (shrink)

Restorative practices is providing Thailand with a culturally relevant and highly effective means of dealing with criminal offenders, especially juveniles. Spearheaded by Wanchai Roujanavong, director general of the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection of Thailand’s Ministry of Justice, the Thais have developed a restorative conferencing model. Called family and communitygroup conferencing, the approach is based on the International Institute for Restorative Practices restorative conferencing model, combined with elements of the New Zealand family group conferencing model. The resultant approach suits (...) Thailand’s traditional community-inclusive culture. Since 2003, Thailand’s 52 juvenile protection centers have conducted more than 19,000 conferences, usually in place of court prosecution. Recidivism rates among offenders participating in these conferences are markedly lower than those of juvenile offenders prosecuted in court. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el sentido producido por agentes estatales sobre la categoría socio-jurídica de responsabilidad penal juvenil, tanto como las acciones institucionales pertinentes que desarrollan en el contexto de ejecución de medidas alternativas a la privación de libertad. Ese análisis tiene lugar mediante un estudio de caso radicado en un dispositivo de control social-penal de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, entre 2014 y 2016. Dispositivo en el cual se elaboran estrategias de intervención orientadas a la reflexividad (...) y la educación moral hacia jóvenes de 16 y 17 años comprometidos judicialmente en delitos.En tal sentido, indagamos: ¿qué entienden por responsabilidad penal juvenil los agentes estatales? ¿Cómo diseñan y efectúan las estrategias de intervención dirigidas a los jóvenes?, ¿Sobre la base de qué lógicas operan?, ¿Cómo configuran su identidad? Y, por último, ¿cuál es la especificidad de las medidas alternativas a la privación de libertad?, ¿contribuyen a evitar el envío de jóvenes a instituciones de encierro?Para responder estos interrogantes empleamos una perspectiva cultural de la cuestión criminal y recurrimos a técnicas de observación no participante y de entrevista semi-estructurada en profundidad a los agentes del Centro de Referencia. Algunos resultados del estudio nos permiten afirmar que, en el marco de la intervención alternativa a la privación de libertad, la categoría socio-jurídica de responsabilidad penal juvenil se construye en forma reintegrativa y en forma estigmatizante, intermitentemente, a partir de discursos de diferentes niveles de moralidad que operan sobre la base de estrategias de “responsabilidad subjetiva”. (shrink)

Se somete a discusión la utilidad heurística de incorporar la perspectiva de política de las culturas juveniles para analizar los vínculos entre juventud, política y cultura en la contemporaneidad. Si los enfoques tradicionales enfatizaron en el carácter cultural de la política, y enfatizaron en los..

En este artículo el autor desarrolla una mirada de generación y de género al consumo cultural de los jóvenes de sectores medios en Chile, a través de un enfoque no convencional de la diversión nocturna en el contexto postdictadura. El texto profundiza en las formas en que la sociedad se relaciona con los jóvenes y en los nuevos modelos de identidad, haciendo un contrapunto con la socialización que se generaba en el anterior modelo cultural respecto de este grupo etáreo. Se (...) focaliza para su exposición en dos espacios de entretención característicos de la juventud y en los códigos de esta generación. Como una de las conclusiones, destaca un tránsito desde los grupos de referencia a los grupos de consumidores. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Popular Culture in the Houses of Poe and CortázarDaniel Bautista (bio)"[…]at the age of nine I read Edgar Allan Poe for the first time. That book I stole to read because my mother didn't want me to read it, she thought I was too young and she was right. The book scared me and I was ill for three months, because I believed in it."…—Julio Cortázar1In interviews and essays, (...) Julio Cortázar, the famous Argentine author, often expressed a lifelong fascination with Edgar Allan Poe (Berg 227–32). Moreover, as a young man Cortázar spent two years translating the American author's prose into Spanish, making irresistible the search for traces of Poe in his own work. His description of Poe as a youthful and guilty pleasure reflects a common reaction to the American author that has led some critics to rue Poe's influence. Jonathan Elmer points out that "Poe's connection with juvenile tastes, and hence with a time when reading and acquiring 'culture' were actually enjoyable […] has been insistently and disapprovingly stressed by the Anglo-American literary-historical tradition" (3). Although Poe himself often liked to "advertise [his work] as ethereal and otherworldly, or avowedly timeless," critics who found elements of the vulgarly popular in his writing regarded the author as a true "stumbling block" in the American literary landscape (Rosenheim and Rachman xii; Eliot 205). In a similar vein, Elmer observes,It has puzzled many critics, sometimes to the point of vituperation, that Poe stands simultaneously as the germinal figure of a central modernist trajectory (leading via Baudelaire to French Symbolism and thence to the high modernism of Eliot and others) and as the much-acknowledged pioneer of several durable mass-cultural genres: detective fiction and science fiction, as well as certain modes of sensational or gothic horror, which are today, to use one of Poe's coinages, "omniprevalent."(2)In the past, such critics tended to dismiss Poe to the fringes of the American canon for what they saw as his highbrow pretensions and lowbrow taste. More recently, critics like Elmer and others have argued that Poe's ability to straddle the high/low cultural divide is precisely what makes him such a perennially fascinating writer and one of the most revealing about American culture in general.Considering Poe's high standing in Latin America, one might assume that the question of his low or popular status was not as much of a stumbling block there.2 Cortázar himself blamed American discomfort with Poe on his use of "baroque" language, an issue that Cortázar's own background as a native Spanish speaker allowed him to ignore: [End Page 1] "since I'm neither English nor American, I see it with another perspective. I know there are aspects which have aged a lot, that are exaggerated, but that hasn't the slightest importance next to his genius" (Weiss 73). The idea that an author's "genius" could rise above the demands of his countrymen was important to Cortázar. Questions about his own cultural status also significantly affected the reception of Cortázar's work, though in many ways he suffered from just the opposite charges made against Poe. The style and themes of his work, and the political context in Argentina during the early part of his career (characterized most conspicuously by the rise of Perónism), led some in the literary establishment of his own country to accuse Cortázar of being too European or elitist.3 Looking at Poe and Cortázar together, this essay compares how both authors negotiated such cultural issues in their writing and the way that Cortázar reworks some of Poe's particular strategies in a modern Argentine setting. Focusing on two of these authors' most well-known stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher" (published in 1839) and "Casa tomada" ("House Taken Over") (published in 1946), I argue that they both reflect some of the ways that Poe and Cortázar grappled with the rise and attraction of a popular culture that threatened to reconfigure their particular literary landscapes.In Keywords, Raymond Williams traces the... (shrink)

How old are you? The more thought you bring to bear on the question, the harder it is to answer. For we age simultaneously in different ways: biologically, psychologically, socially. And we age within the larger framework of a culture, in the midst of a history that predates us and will outlast us. Looked at through that lens, many aspects of late modernity would suggest that we are older than ever, but Robert Pogue Harrison argues that we are also getting (...) startlingly younger—in looks, mentality, and behavior. We live, he says, in an age of juvenescence. Like all of Robert Pogue Harrison's books, _Juvenescence_ ranges brilliantly across cultures and history, tracing the ways that the spirits of youth and age have inflected each other from antiquity to the present. Drawing on the scientific concept of neotony, or the retention of juvenile characteristics through adulthood, and extending it into the cultural realm, Harrison argues that youth is essential for culture’s innovative drive and flashes of genius. At the same time, however, youth—which Harrison sees as more protracted than ever—is a luxury that requires the stability and wisdom of our elders and the institutions. “While genius liberates the novelties of the future,” Harrison writes, “wisdom inherits the legacies of the past, renewing them in the process of handing them down.” A heady, deeply learned excursion, rich with ideas and insights, _Juvenescence_ could only have been written by Robert Pogue Harrison. No reader who has wondered at our culture's obsession with youth should miss it. (shrink)

Este texto, bem como as pesquisas que realizamos, tem como meta dar visibilidade às leituras literárias destinadas ao público infantil e juvenil, que enfatizem o tema étnico-racial, ou ainda, títulos que incluam a real participação de personagens negras, costumes afro-brasileiros e informações culturais produtoras de identificação entre o leitor e a narrativa, contribuindo, assim, com as mudanças atuais na história da educação brasileira. Neste texto, apresentamos seis títulos da Editora SM, que, em seu catálogo editorial para 2008/2009, dos 173 títulos (...) publicados, 20 títulos trazem a presença da cultura africana e afro-brasileira. Dos 20, optou-se pela análise de cinco títulos. Da análise desses títulos, constatou-se, acima de tudo, que um dos caminhos para o entendimento e a consciência acerca da pluralidade cultural está também na apropriação da leitura literária produtora de identidade e inclusão social. (shrink)

Resumo : Este texto, bem como as pesquisas que realizamos, tem como meta dar visibilidade às leituras literárias destinadas ao público infantil e juvenil, que enfatizem o tema étnico-racial, ou ainda, títulos que incluam a real participação de personagens negras, costumes afro-brasileiros e informações culturais produtoras de identificação entre o leitor e a narrativa, contribuindo, assim, com as mudanças atuais na história da educação brasileira. Neste texto, apresentamos seis títulos da Editora SM, que, em seu catálogo editorial para 2008/2009, dos (...) 173 títulos publicados, 20 títulos trazem a presença da cultura africana e afro-brasileira. Dos 20, optou-se pela análise de cinco títulos. Da análise desses títulos, constatou-se, acima de tudo, que um dos caminhos para o entendimento e a consciência acerca da pluralidade cultural está também na apropriação da leitura literária produtora de identidade e inclusão social. Palavras-chave : Literatura infantil. Cultura africana. Cultura afro-brasileira. Étnicoracial.: This text, as well as research we have conducted, aims to promote literary readings meant for children and youngsters which focus on racial and ethnic issues, or titles which effectively include black characters, Afro-Brazilian customs and cultural information leading the reader to identify with the narrative and, consequently, helping promote changes in the current Brazilian education history. To pursue these goals, we present six titles published by Editora SM , whose 2008/ 2009 catalog contains 20 titles (out of 173) incorporating elements of the African and Afro-Brazilian culture. From the 20 titles, we selected five to be analyzed. The main finding is that one way of gaining understanding and awareness of cultural plurality is also by incorporating literary readings which promote identity and social inclusion. Keywords : Children’s literature. African culture. Culture afro-brazilian. Racial and ethnic issues. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Weight of Rhetoric: Studies in Cultural DeliriumThomas B. FarrellThere is something of this anachronistic doggedness in all importance, and to use it as a criterion of thought is to impose on thought a spellbound fixity, and a loss of self-reflection. The great themes are nothing other than primeval rumblings which cause the animal to pause and try to bring them forth once again. This does not mean that (...) the hierarchy of importance should be ignored. Just as its narrow- mindedness reflects that of the system, so it is saturated with all the latter’s force and stringency. Thought ought not, however, to repeat this hierarchy, but by completing, end it. The division of the world into important and unimportant matters, which has always served to neutralize the key phenomena of social injustice as mere exceptions, should be followed up to the point where it is convicted of its own untruth. The division which makes everything objects must itself become an object of thought, instead of guiding it. The large themes will then make their appearance, though hardly in the traditional “thematic” sense, but refractedly and eccentrically.—Theodor Adorno, Minima MoraliaBoy, you’re going to carry that weight, carry that weight a long time.—The Beatles [End Page 467]Preface: on Attachments—Flowers and the InfinitesimalThe number of adjustments it takes to make a square into a circle, the number of times any real number may be subdivided before reaching zero, the grainy inflections differentiating snowflakes, the differences among petals in a tulip—these are the sort of qualitative distinctions some of us might call minute and other cynical souls might consider trivial. But if the attachment of real human interest to objects of longing is any measure of worth, then they are far from insignificant.Imagine the following sequence of events. A young kid, fourteen or so, is out with some friends one summer evening and decides—on a whimsical adolescent impulse—to pick some tulips from a neighbor’s garden to leave at a girlfriend’s front porch. What follows?The neighbors, one of whom turns out to be a self-professed horticulturist and gardening aficionado, call the police and file a criminal complaint. The girlfriend’s parents give the alleged offender’s name to the same authorities. When the kid comes to the door of the neighbors to apologize, he is verbally threatened. When he writes a letter of contrition and remorse to the neighbors, they turn the letter over to the police as evidence. One day later, the neighbors angrily phone local school officials to complain of his behavior. Two days later, when two of the kid’s accomplices are summarily removed from eighth grade, taken to the police station, fingerprinted, and booked (without being informed of their rights), the parents reluctantly secure the services of an attorney (two attorneys, actually). When an outof- court settlement is finally agreed to, it is discovered that the city police have already passed the case on to the State’s Attorney’s Office. A criminal hearing will now need to be held in juvenile court. When the hearing is held, the charges are summarily dismissed. The cost? Several hundred dollars a tulip (with side effects including migraines, despondency, two trips to the emergency room, not to mention rather hefty attorneys’ fees).As the reader has probably surmised by now, this thinly disguised episode did not occur to Gregor Samsa but to someone near and dear to your author. It did not occur in Singapore but in Evanston, Illinois. All of us can probably recall occasions when things seemed to careen wildly out of control and apparently minor matters took on disproportionately inflated significance. We struggle to “make sense” of these episodes, for ourselves and others. In the above example, two allegories about magnitude surfaced. One, relayed to me by our grizzled Chicago attorney, addressed the question [End Page 468] of how to explain these events to our son. “Tell him,” he said, “that there are a lot of jerks in the world” (except he didn’t use the word “jerks”). A second allegory emerged rather belatedly. There was more than one nonrational attachment in... (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone ofrecer al lector una visión panorámica de las principales adquisiciones críticas relativas a la formación juvenil de Dante Alighieri. A lo largo de siete siglos de estudios, las fuentes de las que bebió el futuro autor de la Comedia siguen siendo en buena medida conjeturales, lo cual no quita que los análisis de archivo más recientes y algunos proyectos de investigación en continuo desarrollo han permitido ampliar al respecto nuestros horizontes de conocimientos.

We would like to open some questions here about the institutional and cultural conditions of anything that might be called cultural studies or multiculturalism. By introducing cultural studies and multiculturalism many intellectuals aim at a more democratic culture. We share this aim. In this essay, however, we would like to argue that the projects of cultural studies and multiculturalism require: a more international model of cultural studies than the dominant Anglo-American versions; renewed attention to the institutional environments of cultural studies; (...) and a questioning of the relations between multiculturalism and identity politics. We seek less to “fix” these problems than to provide a critical analysis of the languages, the methods of criticism, and the assumptions about identity, culture, and politics that present the problems to us. Because the thickets entangling what our group calls cultural studies are so deeply rooted in Western academia, which to a large degree constitutes our own group, the counterexample of cultural criticism in other contexts can be more than usually instructive. We begin by considering the position of cultural studies in China, since our group includes a number of Chinese intellectuals, on whose experience the following section is largely based. The Chicago Cultural Studies Group began meeting in June 1990. It includes Lauren Berlant, David Bunn, Vinay Dharwadker, Norma Field, Dilip Gaonkar, Marilyn Ivy, Benjamin Lee, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Xinmin Liu, Mathew Roberts, Sharon Stephens, Katie Trumpener, Greg Urban, Michael Warner, Jianyang Zha, and Jueliang Zhou. (shrink)

El presente texto busca reflexionar en torno al mundo de las prácticas del cuerpo y su vínculo con cierto tipo de culturas juveniles que poseen como forma de vida la alteración corporal, y donde en la actualidad se puede observar –en nuestro país– una explosión de la experimentación con el tatuaje y con el piercing, y de manera más incipiente –pero también significativa– con los implantes, las escarificaciones, los branding, las expansiones y la variante de las suspensiones humanas; práctica sobre (...) la cual el artículo profundiza intentando dar cuenta del contexto social y cultural donde surge la suspensión humana; los procesos de apropiación que experimenta esta práctica a partir de la irrupción de culturas juveniles en las sociedades contemporáneas; los significados y procedimientos asociados a este ritual; y los nexos entre política, estética y modificación corporal. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce donc que la musique des aliens ou pour les aliens? Des cinq notes de la mélodie de Rencontres du troisième type aux explorations sonores de Sun Ra ou des intelligents dansants de l’électro, elle n’est peut-être que l’expression la plus accomplie d’une tendance très humaine à projeter sur l’extraterrestre certains reflets plus ou moins déformés de soi, surjouant quelque insaisissable mystère, révélation ou écart incompressible venu de l’ailleurs pour retrouver finalement, tout là-bas, une bribe d’ici.