Preface: Power, Control and Domination: Reflections on the Constraining Power of Socio-cultural and Institutional Discourses

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The university occupies a unique position in contemporary society. It is designed to inspire and instruct students in a safe space away from the pressures of society and in an environment in which freedom prevails. When universities turn a “blind eye” to sexual harassment and abuse, they become a breeding ground for sadistic behaviors across the continuum of the university setting, ultimately setting the stage for future deviant behavior in society. This article examines these failures through the lens of heterotopias inspired by Marquis de Sade. Poetry is used to introduce the poetical layered account methodology, culminating in opening the “black box” of the university heterotopia and exploring the negative impacts of Sadistic behavior that may occur when an institution is shielded from society. The use of poetry in an empirical setting vulgates that universities can be spaces where prospective and retrospective sensemaking collapse, awakening the inner evil described by de Sade in his isolated institutions. This article is germane to scholars in education, Sadism, sensemaking, and heterotopias.
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Failures in Sensemaking: An Exploration of Sadean Heterotopias

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The modern world and its fast-changing educational sector, influenced by constant technological advances, as well as the reforms and requirements of the educational authorities, have brought an enormous impact on how languages are taught nowadays. This puts enormous pressure on teachers to design curricula that meet these new institutional expectations. In this sense, the world of education is no different from power relations existing in other institutions, with specific emphasis on the issues around the means of acquisition and production of knowledge. This study analyses the influence of students’ involvement in social networking on their potential to learn. The specific focus is placed on how Facebook or Twitter has successfully redefined students’ priorities through modifying their systems of values and stressing the importance of collecting “likes” and gaining virtual popularity. This research provides a profile of contemporary youth on the basis of questionnaires and interviews with numerous primary and secondary school teachers, as well as by using media sources — which are mainly responsible for shaping public image and opinion — from three quality Polish news magazines: <italic>Newsweek</italic>, <italic>Wprost</italic>, and <italic>Polityka</italic>. The author adopted the qualitative approach to the presented study and conducted a long-term analysis of the changing image of Polish learners, in order to comprehend the roots of the phenomenon presented and the various metaphorical names attached to them. Therefore, is the <italic>zombie generation</italic> the outcome of our own actions? Based on the study findings, specific pedagogic advice if offered. Specifically, when working with contemporary students, educators need to develop a completely new awareness in order to “update” their knowledge and pedagogical skills.
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Have Contemporary Students Lost Their Identity? The Impact of New Technologies on Today’s Education

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The overriding goal of this article is to provide a theoretical overview of the ways political power can be situated within the framework of a myth. It is commonly averred that myth operates in the human mind, however the underlying premise is that myth is structurally hardwired and functionally driven linguistic practice that underlies the construction of political power. This article also touches upon the nature of political power as presidential representation in terms of myth as well as mythically-driven social practice.
It seems natural at this point to raise the question of how power gets mythologised in society. It will be argued that mythologisation of power expresses the process of getting to terms with the world in a schematic and structural way; i.e., by cataloguing it and organising world knowledge that is accessible to man.
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Toward the Mythologisation of Political Power

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The article deals with the role of contextual inspiration and motive in persuasive creativity based on the theory and practice of performative art improvisation (Kaiser, 2018; Nisula, &amp; Kianto, 2018). This framing and the theory of the aesthetic situation (Gołaszewska, 1984) enable us to arrive at the conclusion that being a persuasive creator requires having a solid and conscious motive and proper trigger in the form of inspiration driven by the environmental context. Furthermore, as the improvisation process does not entail the possibility of its correction or repetition, performative art improvisation offers meaningful insights into understanding persuasive creativity. Therefore, the creator can manage the process of persuasive artistic creativity to achieve goals by understanding the creative process and its phases, realising different motives and appropriate igniting inspirations towards specific audiences, and developing his/her identity as a conscious creator.
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Contextual Inspiration and Motive in Persuasive Creativity: Lessons from Artistic Improvisation

Book Review of <italic>Scholarly Publication Trajectories of Early-career Scholars: Insider Perspectives,</italic> edited by Pejman Habibie and Sally Burgess. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021

Kaleidoscope and Harmonica The Warsaw Uprising through the Eyes of a Five-year-old

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Volume 21 (2024): Issue 1 (June 2024)

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Volume 17 (2022): Issue 1 (June 2022)

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Discourses on Culture

Discourses on Culture is a semi-annual scholarly journal. The journal explores and develops the ideas of ‘interculturality’ and ‘interdisciplinarity’ insofar as these constructs are relevant to scholarship. Content published in the journal crosses disciplinary boundaries and often represents the collaborative efforts of authors from disparate backgrounds in Humanities and Social Sciences. The journal’s editors welcome academic discussions which bridge boundaries traditionally separating scholars from the disciplines of applied linguistics, literature and organisation and management studies. Diverse approaches to addressing theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues facilitate plurality in intellectual exchange.  Highlights   Intercultural and multi-disciplinary research approach which crosses subject-specific boundaries.  Innovative tools and methods for exploring aspects of human communication.  New theoretical insights that particularily advance our understanding of applied linguistics, second language learning and teaching, translation studies, literature, cultural studies and organisation and management studies.  Scholarly-based forum for researchers representing different fields of Humanities and Social Sciences. To enrich possibilities for cross-disciplinary synergy, we publish thematic issues which offer scholars, students and trainers the possibility to broaden their conceptual and practical approaches to a wide variety of topics and establish an inclusive  and participatory  academic environment.  To access the open calls for submissions click the tab below. Calls for SubmissionsThe latest version of the index of journals published by the Polish Ministry of Higher Education attributes 100 points to publications in the journal. Open Access Statement  The journal is an Open Access journal that allows a free unlimited access to all its contents without any restrictions upon publication to all users.  Open Access License This journal provides immediate open access to its content under the Creative Commons BY NC ND 4.0 license. Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY NC ND 4.0 license.   Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 