THEIR STORY – FROM CREATIVE WRITING OF FEMALE PRISONERS TO RESTORATIVE THEATRE PERFORMANCE

/in /by

Traditional reaction to crime is inefficient and experts are searching for innovative methods of social
rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders. Restorative justice – an approach that respects interests of all the subjects affected by criminal offence, including victims, offenders and community
– is becoming increasingly widespread as an addition to classical, formal judicial processes and
punishments. Restorative process is efficient due to its powerful transformative mechanisms based
upon dialogue, mediation, negotiation, reconciliation, forgiveness, symbolic rituals, reintegrative
shaming, community support and control. Restorative elements emerge in various forms, including
innovative programmes of work with prisoners, focused on social rehabilitation and reintegration,
in order to prevent re-offending. Some of them implement therapeutic effects of art, as a means to
help prisoners to: overcome deprivations, express emotions, heal past trauma, (re)establish healthy
relationships, enhance empathy, strengthen self-confidence, rebuild positive identity and reintegrate
in the community. On the grounds of Boal’s “theatre of the oppressed”, various forms of socially engaged theatrical genres evolved, including applied theatre, surpassing the borders of classical theatre
and getting closer to performance. Theatre within the prison walls being one of them, we took the
example of the theatre performance “Her Story”, written and performed by prisoners from Correctional Institution for Women in Požarevac, Serbia. Completed through creative writing workshops
and played in this penal institution, it is an example of applied theatre based upon art therapy with
strong restorative effects. The points of intersection between restorative process and this theatre
performance, make it stand out among other forms of applied theatre, providing it with particularly
strong transformative effects. Following the case study of “Her Story”, the authors of this paper have
suggested further application of similar programmes and their promotion within the community, as
an effective method of crime suppression through healing powers of art in synergy with restorative
elements.

SYMBOLISM OF THE HEART

/in /by

From the earliest times, the heart has been one of the most studied organs. We can find records
about this organ dating from the very beginning of written history, and we understand that different
beliefs have been associated with it before. Very early on, people have noticed that the heart occupies
a central place in the body, that the cessation of its work means death in both humans and animals,
and that excitement changes the rhythm and the manner of its functioning. However, in addition to
the physiological function of this organ, throughout history, the heart has been given various magical and religious meanings. In today’s world, the heart has overcome the notion of a sign and has
become a symbol of love, connection between people and affection. In this paper, different meanings
of this symbol throughout history to the present day are presented, with the aim of understanding
it in a cultural context.

DOES CULTURAL PARTICIPATION MAKE US HAPPIER?

/in /by

Research on the contribution of leisure activities in general and specifically cultural participation to personal wellbeing represents a relatively new and promising line of research. Results, however, are mixed – partly due to various definitions and measures of key variables, as well as their complexity and many confounding variables. This research was conducted on a sample representative for the general population of Serbia (N=1521). As potential predictors of wellbeing, we investigated a number of socio-demographic variables (gender, age, education level, employment status, financial status), subjective health status, and a list of leisure activities selected based on past research from leisure and cultural participation paradigms. A principal component analysis revealed six latent dimensions of leisure activities that were labeled as:1) cultural participation (in a strict sense), 2) movies & entertainment,3) folk & family, 4) outdoor activities, 5) sport, 6) e-books & e-news. A stepwise linear regression showed that subjective happiness was best predicted by a higher subjective health status, higher financial status, and higher education level, while from the domain of leisure activities, significant positive predictors were ‘folk & family’, ‘outdoor activities’, and ‘cultural participation’ components. Results are discussed in light of the complexity of examined phenomena, as well as practical implications for policy decision making.

TALKABLE THINGS

/in /by

One of today’s most influential definitions of the concept of the work of art comes from the American philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto. Danto says, in order to be a work of art, an artefact must (1) be about something and (2) embody its meaning. Many authors have criticized this definition, one of those being Noël Carroll, who gives examples of objects that are not works of art but meet the requirements of Danto’s definition. One possible answer to this criticism is offered in this essay. It offers an understanding of the objects from Carroll’s examples (and similar objects) as aesthetized, i.e. specifically shaped to partially cause an aesthetic reaction. Taking this into account, the entire area of human productivity is shown as a continuum within which some objects carry “more” or “less” aesthetic quality

ANCESTRESSES AND FEMALE LEGACY IN MARIJANA ČANAK’S FOREMOTHERS

/in /by

Using the term “gynocriticism”, coined by Elaine Showalter fifty years ago, and other critical practices which explore the creativity of women, the paper sets out to explore continuity of women’s narratives about experience, change, happiness and misfortune represented in the second book of stories by Marijana Čanak. Her collection of stories, titled Pramatere easily translated as “Foremothers”, delves deep into the lives of several generations of women who fight against the shortcomings of their respective lives, and struggle to keep the legacy of their grandmothers and mothers alive. Marijana Čanak focuses on the aims gynocriticism has defined as the most important, such as the objective to change the male-oriented literary heritage and to focus on the lives of women who have been silenced, marginalized and neglected.

SONDERKOMMANDO PHOTOGRAPHS AS A DISOBEDIENT ACT OF SEEING

/in /by

In his book Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz, Didi-Huberman indicates that the four photographs in question were taken as a counterweight or in spite of something. They show the activities of the Sonderkommando, whose task was to escort other Jews into gas chambers, as well as to dispose and burn the corpses that were left behind. In the dual role of the victim and the perpetrator, members of this unit, in spite of the ban and the danger they were in, had created four photographs showing their own activities inside the camp. Throughout the work, different modes of being in spite of characteristic of the aforementioned photographs are separated and explained with regard to whether they relate to the need for, production or reception of photographs. They were created in spite of, but also based on, the inconceivability of the situation they portray (photographs as evidence), in spite of the prohibition of photographs (obstacle in production) and in spite of the representational framework or representability of humans obstacle in reception. Inconceivability brings us to the notions of evidence, truth, but also power, representability, prohibition and rules. Based on the representability of the photographs and the notion of cultural memory, we considered the possibilities of the photographs representing Judith Butler’s disobedient act of seeing. It will be shown that an emergence in spite of as Didi-Huberman would say, or a disobedient act of seeing in Judith Butler’s words, is readable more through the way the images are made, than through what they depict. Unlike the usual “allowed” war photographs, they are specific proofs of the prohibition against which they are made.

SOCIAL HISTORY OF SPORTS DEVELOPMENT

/in /by

Nowadays, sports and sports competitions are indisputably superior forms of popular entertainment and also sort of activities that are a part of everyday life for almost all of us, whether we are observers or direct participants in some of them. For the same reason, they are also some of the most profitable industries that bring huge profits and popularity to many of its actors. For all those reasons, the social context of the present role of the sport is certainly an important topic for analysis, as well as the history of changes that have resulted in the position and influence that sports hold in the modern society, and vice versa. Therefore, this text has an ambition to highlight the broader horizon of events that have led to a place that sports occupy today. On the other hand, it also sheds some light on the complicity and interactivity that existed from the beginning, along the line, between sport and the society, a culmination of which is visible in current spectacular outlines of sporting events. In this way, it points to one of the primary aspects of all sports events, but also to those secondary visible elements that today are often in the primary focus of all participants, due to the money and the attention that are following sports and sport athletes.

DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES AND ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

/in , /by

The main goal of this paper is to point out that the dimensions of national cultures have a huge impact on different aspects of organisational behaviour. The main support in the work is Hofstede’s five-dimensional cultural model. The authors pay special attention to the dimensions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance. When both of indexes are high at the level of national culture, organizational climate will have some special features such as high hierarchical pyramids, centralised decision making, and autocratic behaviour of managers, negative attitudes towards work, stress and lack of entrepreneurial behaviour. Also, special interest in this topic results from the fact that both of these dimensions in Serbia are very high. 

NIKODIM TISMANSKI IN PRINCE LAZAR’S MISSION IN CONSTANTINOPLE

/in /by

In the year when eight centuries of the independence of the Serbian Orthodox Church is being celebrated, the issue of the concept of autocephaly in the liturgical-canonical context is actualized, through consideration of numerous events and processes from turbulent history. One of the most important processes was the activity of Prince Lazar, with the assistance of the Mount Athos monks, aimed at reconciliation of the Serbian and the Constantinople Patriarchates. The key for the success of Prince Lazar’s Constantinople mission was his spiritual closeness to the Mount Athos monks, Sinaits and Hesychasts, which in his time occupied some of the key positions in the Constantinople and Bulgarian churches and held important chairs in Orthodox institutions in the Balkans. Although an old man Isaija Serski-Hilandarac is mentioned as the main spiritus movens of this mission of great importance, the presence of Nikodim Tismanski, a “words interpreter”, was also significant. His role in the Orthodox church of the second half of the 14th century was researched not only based on the mentioned activities for the overcome of the schism, but in the foundation of numerous monasteries either in the feudal states of Prince Lazar (Vratna, Manastirica) or in the Romanian lands (Vodica, Tisman). Thus, the solution of this canonical problem has provided a framework for research of church life in the second half of the 14th century.

THE HUMANISTIC ASPECTS OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE TREATISES OF FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO MARTINI

/in /by

The treatises on architecture by Francesco di Giorgio Martini occupy an important place in the Renaissance thought and they place him deservingly among the most important artists, architects and theorists of his time. They reflected the need to render both humanism and the ways of its realization as accurately measured processes, while architecture itself was interpreted from functional, social and artistic points of view.The important questions of humanism in architecture, the relations between the anatomy of a city, its structures and the man were the focal points of Martini’s architectural theory. They were deeply woven into the physiognomy of the Renaissance humanism and into architecture as an autonomous creative discipline. Thus, the thoughts about the nature of Man and about the role of architecture in the world of Renaissance,were actualized in his treatises: the world that was to be measured according to Man. It launched the humanistic revitalization of spiritimminent to Man, who in his very spirituality found a way to elevate the corporeal to the godly, and to express it in art and architecture.Martini’s architectural principles understood the humanist ideal of the beauty of Man, which introduced his corporeality into the structural and functional aspects of architecture, in proportionality of design,as well as in the wider idea of humanization of architecture, which formulated humanism after the image of a dignified man. Conscious of social circumstances, in his architectural thought he set the path for the development of urban landscape. With humanization of social space, he has laid the basic principles of the socially sensible urbanistic and architectural practices. These ideas demonstrated a tendency to widen the field of implications and meanings. Thus, it may rightly be concluded that Martini’s treatises on architecture have deepened the Renaissance architectural thought, whose universality and specificity were confirmed by the relationship between creativity and the character of the humanistic tradition.