Multiple Frames
Remarks on the Framing of Borders and Migration
What do we address with the terms frame and framing? What are we talking about? When I get stuck and lost, I turn to Grimm’s German dictionary…
All _Essays
From Imagined Communities to Cultures of Collectivization
Collective Concepts between Praxeology and Theories on Schemata and Frames
The term ‘collectivization cultures’ obviously links collectivity and culture, prompting two simplified theses regarding this connection: the first is that culture is produced in or by collectivities. Thus, research from the fields of symbolic interactionism or cultural studies shows that cultures emerge in small groups or youth scenes. I do not deny the importance of this thesis. However, it tends to neglect the notion that collectivities are not simply there and produce culture, but are themselves cultural products. This is the second thesis: collectivities are something cultural, products…
Geopolitical Frames, Bold Lines
Online Global Solidarity and Mapping Russia’s War against Ukraine
In social media, transnational historiography, and the history of modern maps, frames are ever present and always relevant. Talking of modern Ukrainian geography and cartography, we might, as academics, relentlessly critique arbitrarily constructed lines. However, to say that all borders are artificial tools of propaganda or fictional inventions will not take us far. Ukrainians require bold lines and respect for sovereignty, and their overlaid thematic maps serve many purposes. Regarding the political geographies of boundaries protected by international law, independent Ukrainians must guard against geopolitical interference, often by relying on respect for fixed lines and frames. This is necessary both for practical NATO defense and alignment with European norms, as well as within higher education settings, where comparative, borderlands, and transnational studies foster debate on colonial, postcolonial,…
Designing Disappearance
On the Cultural and Affective Histories of Waste
“The gesture of throwing away is the first and indispensable condition of being,” notes Italo Calvino in his essay on the Paris garbage bin, written during his stay in the city from 1970 to 1974. Beginning with reflections on his relationship to garbage, Calvino delves into various aspects of his existence, presenting the ritual of taking out his trash not as a mundane task but…
On Reading Reading
Fundamental Problems of “Méta-lecture”
It is hard to say anything about the process of reading, Barthes argues, because he considers the text, and especially the literary text to be an object with infinite layers and possibilities. What can be observed is nothing but a burst of ideas, of fears, of desires, of delights, of oppressions. Barthes reflections on “Méta-lecture” point to the more general problems of reading reading. Regardless of where or in which context a text about reading is written, it faces the same fundamental problem regarding its subject even if the texts do not evoke this as a problem: reading is hard to observe […]
