bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
"Sex and the City", Then and Now: The Reception of a TV Series of Extended Duration by a Generation of Extended Youth
Authors: Radović Srđan
Published: April 2023

One of the most popular TV series of the 21st century, Sex and the City, continues to have a significant media and cultural impact to this day, as shown by the production of two films which are thematically a continuation of the series, and a 2021 sequel series (And Just Like That…). In terms of genre, this series could be defined as hybrid (postmodern); its postmodern characteristics are also apparent in its considerable intertextuality and spilling over into other segments of culture, while its recycling and new iterations have given it a new lease on life, so that Sex and the City could be termed a series of extended duration. This paper discusses the two decades long public life of this media text, as well as the reception of the original series and its sequel in the local Serbian context. Particular focus is placed on the reception of the Sex and the City phenomenon by members of the media generation X in Serbia, on how much of an imprint the series has made, and what meanings and values are associated with it. The study was conducted with three focus groups, and the respondents can be characterized as members of a generation of extended youth, who originally watched the series in their late media formative period. Based on discussions with respondents, the reception of the recent sequel of this series (And Just Like That…) is also analyzed in order to shed light on the question of the possible creation and content of generational semantics relating to this element of TV culture. Twenty years after it first aired in Serbia, Sex and the City continues to be a highly recognizable product of television culture, and among local members of generation X there are numerous cultural references to the series, regardless of whether the viewers are fans or critics of the series. Among respondents there is a divergence in the perception both of the original series and of its sequel (most frequently related to the respondent’s sex), with almost universal agreement regarding the open and humorous character of the original media text, which, however, has not been recognized in the current sequel. It can be said that the original series continues to represent a significant segment of this media generation’s pop culture experience, while its latest iteration appears not to have added new elements to this experience among respondents.
Corona in the Schoolyard: Children's Game Corona as a Form of Folklore Communication
Authors: Trubarac Matić Đorđina , Krel Aleksandar
Published: April 2023

The children's game Corona appeared spontaneously at the beginning of 2020 within a small folklore community of lower grade pupils at the “St. Sava” Elementary School in the Belgrade’s municipality of Vračar. Sudden changes in the daily routines of the community members created a need for controlled articulation of accumulated tension generated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a sociocultural construct the chasing game of Corona underwent various modifications during the two academic years covered by our research (2020 and 2021), due to the changes that took place in the micro and macro sociocultural environment. Generally, the chasing games are common to children and they have an important developmental function, since they encourage the improvement of adaptive abilities and the agility in successful locomotor responses to stimuli from the external environment. Although the semiotic code of this type of games is based on the hunter ‒ prey relation, the game Corona belongs to a specific subtype of chasing games that is related to the idea of progressive spread of infectious disease, just as the traditional game of šugice/šuge (Serbian for Tag; literally, ’scabies’). The examples of this type of games have been observed in various parts of the world, where they refer to various infectious diseases: the plague, Spanish fever, leprosy, polio. All these games have their roots in the traumatic collective experiences of dealing with epidemics. The basic semiotic code (hunter‒prey relation) has undergone a secondary semiotization in this type of games, shifting to the binary opposition sick: healthy. However, they both stem from the same binary oppositions such as life: death; human : demonic; we: others. As the children's game Corona entails communication based on a set of symbolic actions, it operates as a "capacitor" of cultural and semiotic memory. It brings contents from deeper diachronic layers, actualizing cultural experience accumulated in the recent and distant past.
“My Home’s a Prison”: The Impact of the Covid-19 Lockdown on the Dwelling Experience in Northwest Italy
Authors: Fontefrancesco Michele Filippo
Published: April 2023

Since early 2020, the anthropological community has investigated the cultural and social impact of the pandemic and the exceptional countermeasures of the Italian government. This paper contributes to the debate by exploring how the lockdown experience is linked to the sense of dwelling and the changed sense of place in one's residence and home. In particular, the processes of signification of urban and rural space and the relationship between these and the perception of one's home are explored.
From Ethnic Determinism to Epistemic Optimism: A Critical History of the Recent Past of Serbian Archaeology
Authors: Milosavljević Monika
Published: April 2023

Although the history of Serbian archaeology has recently been a vivid field of study from various standpoints, the focus of this research has mainly been upon the early phases of the discipline, while the last thirty years have rarely been discussed. Additionally, the more extreme abuses of archaeological practice for political purposes, although minority positions, but still evident in the recent past, are mainly avoided. Therefore, this paper presents a critical discursive analysis of the recent history of Serbian archaeology in the context of the wars and crises of the 1990s and the post-conflict circumstances. The issue is raised of the transition achieved by Serbian archaeology from the dominance of ethnic determinism, apparent in the majority of archaeological interpretations, to the state of epistemic optimism, as a possible characterisation of the current state. 

            The idea of “the Serbian gromile”, penned by Đorđe Janković, is taken as the case study, focusing on the explanatory mechanisms supporting it. The emergence of this idea is contextualized in the situation of social crisis, war, and trauma, and interpreted on the other hand as a continuation of the tradition of the Slavic archaeology, adhering in Yugoslavia to the culture-historical approach. The interpretation of “the Serbian gromile” offered here is thus specific in arguing that it is not an exception, but the tip of an iceberg – a part of the general tendency of Serbian archaeology in the traditional key.

            The analysis has revealed that the explanatory mechanism, serving as a scaffold to the interpretation offered by Janković in his search for the early Medieval “Serbian gromile”, was in fact the abuse of interdisciplinarity. Namely, the relationships with ethnology and physical anthropology were problematic in Serbian archaeology under the culture-historical framework, since they were not theoretically explicated and therefore prone to political appropriation. The dark shadow of interdisciplinary unity can only be avoided through the explication of approaches of individual fields of research and their integration, from the research design to the final interpretation. In its new iteration, incorporating social anthropology and bioarchaeology, interdisciplinarity in Serbian archaeology fostered new perspectives in the spirit of epistemic optimism.
Strategies and Techniques of Desktop Documentary as Creative Pedagogical Tools in the Era of COVID-19 Global Pandemic
Authors: Bešlagić Luka
Published: April 2023

Desktop documentary is a contemporary film and media practice that self-reflexively explores technological limitations of the computer interface and its potentialities in order to create unconventional audio-visual works with elements of documentary and experimental cinema. This paper envisages the possibility of using desktop documentary methods and techniques within the context of current online education – the globally dominant model of knowledge transfer and exchange during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the focus of this article, in comparison to previous theoretical studies of desktop documentaries, which primarily investigated cinematic, artistic and media features of this form, is transferred from aesthetic and poetic to pedagogical, methodological and epistemological issues. Although several scholar papers have already discussed the possibility to employ desktop documentaries within the space of classrooms, their understanding of this practice was different from its contemporary mode theoretically acknowledged and creatively practiced by Kevin B. Lee, inaugurated with his paradigmatic film Transformers: The Premake. Lee’s vision, namely, presupposes a more transgressive approach towards desktop filmmaking, which entails various avant-garde and experimental cinematic and media techniques. Having as its starting point such bold methods, this article considers, analyzes and critically evaluates desktop documentary strategies and techniques relevant for online teaching: self-reflexive thought about technological limits and potentialities of online platforms; exploration of new digital aesthetics which oppose predefined digital forms; speculative discourse based on critical thought; online mode of lecture performance, etc. This paper thus opens the possibility to transpose and integrate the concepts and techniques of desktop documentary, primarily marked by avant-garde and experimental traits, into the creative methods of conducting the online teaching process – and eventually, after the termination of the pandemic, to preserve and expand them within the physical spaces of schools, colleges and universities.
Culture in Literature and Literature in Culture in the Germanistic Training in Literature – Analysis of a Case from Teaching Practice
Authors: Petrović Jilih Marina M.
Published: April 2023

Building upon the current culturological and literary didactic discourse, this paper analyses the cultural knowledge implicated in the chosen literary texts and explicitly located in students’ essays. Since the culturological research treats individuals acting as subjects, and therefore responsible for interpreting and creating their actions, the qualitative methodology is applied and the scientific design of document analysis. The sample consists of the final year students (2020/2021) academic year of the Department of German Studies of the Faculty of Philology and Arts of the University of Kragujevac. It is postulated that the students do not possess adequate cultural and culturological knowledge of the divided Germany, that their critical and self-critical social consciousness is not fully developed, and that this will impede the understanding of the literary texts. Starting from the research questions: what is the extent of the students’ command of the cultural interpretive patterns from the period of the German Democratic Republic and immediately after the German unification, and do they perform the literary, culturological, and cultural competences needed for the understanding of novels and their independent interpretation, the following aims were established: enabling the students to identify cultural knowledge in literary texts; enabling the students for independent, grounded, critical, and self-critical reading and interpretation of the texts and cultural patterns therein, as well as the development of awareness of social-political engagement and the need for social-political critique of their own and the target culture society. On the base of categorisation and sub-categorisation of cultural patterns, as well as the reflections on literary texts derived from the analysis of students’ essays, the conclusion has been reached that the suggested didactic model corresponds to the established aims, and that, since it is derived directly from the teaching practice, it can be considered as a modest contribution to its advancement.
Late Neolithic Figurines as an Expression of Social Inequality
Authors: Vuković Jasna
Published: April 2023

Building upon the idea of Douglass Bailey (1994) that prehistoric figurines represent actual individuals, it is suggested here that their makers represented people in the manner they perceived them, following the role models familiar from their own society. This further implies that, on the grounds of certain indicators, it may be possible to identify social differences depending on the age, sex/gender, and possibly other modes of inequality. An attempt is made here to define the criteria identifying the markers – indicators of inequality, such as: representations of hair style and jewellery, size of figurines, as well as the correlation between these indicators and the details on the figurines’ bodies pointing to their sex/gender or age. In the assemblage from the site Pavlovac-Čukar, the correlation has been established between the representations ascribed as male and massive bangle bracelets and belts, indicating that adult male individuals of higher status were marked out by the number of bangles and the way of wearing the belt. A similar suggestion is proposed concerning the large-size figurines, marked with incisions perhaps representing tattoo marks, with looser breasts, indicating the possibility that older women obtained higher social status than the young ones. It is worth noting that in the case of the Vinča figurines little attention is paid to the representation of hair style, although it has been established that in the preindustrial societies, hair is an important indicator of social status, even more than jewellery. Hair length, specific hair styles, as well as various ornaments placed here, indicate sex/gender and social differences, various group and individual identities, as well as aesthetic ideas. Two heads from Čukar, as well as the one from Predionica, perform specific hair styles – hair shorter, reaching just below ears, and the crown is shaven. Bearing in mind that these figurines may show portrait characteristics, it may be suggested that these individuals may have achieved higher social status.
Archaeology as Knowledge of Alternative Solutions: Athenian Democracy and its Neighbours
Authors: Babić Staša
Published: April 2023

From the early modern age, democracy has been regarded as one of the key social values, (meant to) secure equal representation of all the members of a community in political decision-making. The roots of this mode of social organization are explicitly linked to the ancient role-model, embodied in the Athenian constitution of the 5th century. The initial knowledge upon which the modern notions of ancient democracy are founded is derived almost exclusively from the preserved written sources. On the other hand, the considerations of the wider context in which the Athenian democracy emerged have often neglected the insights into the social ordering of the communities who simultaneously inhabited the European hinterland, encompassed by the term Iron Age. Archaeological knowledge of these communities, generated over the last couple of decades, indicates a variety of situations transcending the traditional interpretation based upon the concept of chiefdom. Situating the Athenian democracy in the context of various other social solutions, simultaneously realized in its hinterland, may elucidate the ways of its functioning, as well as the whole range of possible alternatives. Finally, such comparative approach may lead to a more detailed understanding of similarities and differences between the ancient model of democracy and the modern modes of organization denoted by the same term.
Ancient Slavery in the Central Balkans: Some Starting Points on pre-Roman Period
Authors: Mihajlović Vladimir
Published: April 2023

The paper considers the issues related to slavery in the Central Balkans in the proto-historic i.e. Late Iron Age period. It is conceived as a first step towards more profound future study, and deals with the history of research and theoretical-methodological approaches to the problem of slavery among the Late Iron Age communities. The text revisits earlier interpretations of slavery derived from ancient written accounts and archaeological evidence, and then offers insights that rely on recent research of slavery in general, and in prehistoric period in particular. Finally, it is argued that it is necessary to consider the possibility of ‘societies with slaves’ when researching the Central Balkan Iron Age communities, even though they are often regarded as ‘small-scale societies’ that profoundly differed from the Mediterranean ‘slave societies’.
Gender, Diseases, and Sexuality in the Writings of Soranus, Aetius of Amida and Paul of Aegina: Contributions to the Anthropology of Disease in Byzantium
Authors: Orlov Vilimonović Larisa
Published: April 2023

By focusing on the anthropology of disease, the paper suggests some new research avenues within the field of gender in Byzantium. Gynaecological manuals from the second to seventh centuries A.D. serve as the basis for research in which the author attempts to comprehend how philosophy and social mores affected the interpretation of the gendered body – both male and female. In addition, the cultural foundations of certain diseases and the social implications of what was defined as pathology and what as health are emphasized. Medicine was the only scientific discipline in antiquity and the Byzantine period that welcomed women, and as such, it offers a vast array of potential research avenues pertaining to the lived experiences, health, and sexuality of women.
Return of Labour Migrants to Serbia: Realistic Expectations or Wishful Thinking?
Authors: Antonijević Dragana , Rašić Miloš
Published: April 2023

Serbia has traditionally been a country with a high emigration rate. Numerous administrative obstacles and slow economic reforms have discouraged migrants from returning and making business investments. Over the last few years there has been a noticeable effort to provide concrete assistance, introduce benefits and reliefs and stimulate return migrations, particularly of entrepreneurs and highly educated persons, by means of different strategies, legal acts, and the establishment of government agencies and non-governmental organizations.

Our decade-long research on migrations has primarily focused on the so-called Gastarbeiter, as well as their descendants. We have conducted research on migrants from North-eastern Serbia, which is one of the biggest emigration zones in the country, and field research was also conducted in Vienna, the city with the most numerous Serbian diaspora in Europe, a specific population which, due to the geographic proximity between Serbia and Austria, often engages in cross-border movement and is transnationally active. As regards the studied population, return migrations to Serbia and economic investment in the country’s development are unlikely and certainly insufficient. In this paper, we will look at the classification of returnees as at their motives for a possible return, but also at the numerous reasons for staying in the host country.
Misanthropic Aspects of Science Fiction: The Examples of Battlestar Galactica and Borislav Pekić’s Atlantis
Authors: Žikić Bojan
Published: April 2023

Anthropological interest in science fiction derives from the fact that works of science fiction, while depicting imaginary worlds, actually speak about existing human communities. This paper looks at how misanthropy is communicated in science fiction works, specifically, in Borislav Pekić’s novel Atlantis (Atlantida), first published in 1988, and the TV series Battlestar Galactica, which originally aired between 2003 and 2009. The theme of both works is essentially the same: the end of human history in its present form and the attempt to create a better civilization, all of this resulting from a long-standing conflict between humans and their biggest historical mistake – robots. The subject matter of the two works is also the same: having reached a high level of technological and spiritual development, humans design robots to replace them first in the most difficult jobs, and then in everyday tasks; the robots develop self-awareness and rise against their makers, and then come to believe that they should replace people and rectify all the errors and shortcomings they have identified in them as beings and also in their social development and organization, and eventually achieve deification by surpassing their makers and initiating their own independent and – compared to humans – more just history. The novel and the series have in common, not only with each other but also with many other science fiction works, a pessimistic view of human existence: a proneness to corruptibility in terms of morals and actions as a human characteristic, and its embedding and presence in the modes of human cultural thought and social organization and actions, represent a distinct, misanthropic thematic dimension in science fiction. This is particularly apparent when the acts of othering and institutional inflicting of evil on Others are considered. This is contrary to the humanistic ideal of humanity as an essential, ennobling quality of human beings. Science fiction works that problematize misanthropy as a sociocultural category suggest that human society reflects human nature: human communities are a product of human mental and material organization, and thus the lack of agreement between proclaimed social and cultural values and corresponding behavior represents a product of human thought and actions. What follows from this in Battlestar Galactica and Atlantis is that robots are like people: they know of no values other than human ones, hence their society is similar to human societies. They strive to evolve and thus distance themselves from their makers, yet it turns out that their patterns of behaviour towards Others and their tendency to other those among them who do not think like them or refuse to behave like them, are identical to those of humans.
Shame in the Clash of Two “Normals”: The Case of Covid-19 in Tasmania
Authors: Ilić Vladimira
Published: April 2023

This paper deals with the general question of what a segment of sociocultural reality in the capital of Tasmania looked like over the time span from the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in China up to Australia's lockdown in mid-March 2020, or more specifically, what took place in direct, daily contacts between people, in the meeting or clash of coexisting incongruous behavioral norms – the “old” (habitual up until then) and the “new” (modified due to the crisis) patterns of interpersonal behavior. In this period of health and social crises, which is here termed liminal, shame was generated. It arose as an emotional reaction to the discrepancy between the thinking, feeling and behavior of interviewees and the thinking, feeling and behavior of members of their social environment, a discrepancy that became apparent in the course of their mutual interactions and whose object was a different emotion – fear. The fieldwork was conducted in mid-2020 in Hobart, in the form of semi-structured interviews with several immigrants from the states of the former Yugoslavia. As it was aimed at studying their fear, and only in second place their feeling of shame, in this paper I have limited myself to a narrative interpretation of the origins and object of shame, with the intention of, on the one hand, highlighting the principal factors in the construction of shame and, on the other, examining what it was in connection with fear that aroused shame in the given context. It was noted that, among other things, shame was culturally generated in the given interactions which occurred within secondary relationships and specific environmental contexts and, still more broadly, as part of the crisis caused by the general spread of the virus, and that, as the object of shame, fear emerged as an inappropriate emotion, initially in the sense of the disproportion between the intensity of fear and its object (i.e. the threat posed by the virus).
Why Social Justice is the Most Effective Means of Disaster Impact Mitigation: Lessons from the Pandemic
Authors: Reuter Thomas
Published: April 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the impact of a systemic crisis depends very much on the prevailing level of inequality in the society concerned. This paper shows how the affordability of food was reduced dramatically for millions of people due to income loss in the wake of the pandemic, and the consequences this had. An analysis of the political economy of crisis then illustrates how economic inequality acts as a massive amplifier of disaster impacts on disadvantaged individuals and populations. Environmental degradation, across a broad spectrum from climate change to biodiversity loss, acts similarly as an impact amplifier in this and most other crises. Economically disadvantaged people are more immediately exposed to the impact of ecological degradation or may be forced to disregard the need for nature protection, which means the two factors are also mutually reinforcing. Inequality literally kills people, the more so in this century of worsening multidimensional crises. The paper argues that inequality on this scale is not just immoral but undermines human security, even for relatively privileged population groups, as well as threatening the stability of international relations. Addressing inequality, and especially inequitable policies in the food producing rural sector which acted as a major safety net for the poor during lockdowns, is thus the best pathway to mitigate future crises and their impact on food security.
Otto Hefler’s Theory of Germanic Warrior Männerbünde in the Third Reich
Authors: Jeremić Molnar Dragana , Molnar Aleksandar
Published: April 2023

In the article, the authors deal with the works which were published by the Austrian Germanist Otto Höfler in the Third Reich and which were more or less dedicated to the Germanic warrior Männerbünde. The focus of their analysis is the book The Secret Cult Associations of the Germans (1934), derived from Höfler's habilitation thesis. In their opinion, Höfler expressed his fundamental scientific and ideological views in the second volume of this book, which he most likely wrote in 1934 and which he never published because it was most closely associated with the SA, while it was headed by Ernst Röhm. Therefore, the authors reject both the position that Höfler’s scientific work was in the service of the SS and the opposite position that he remained immune to the ideology of National Socialism. Since it is certain that Höfler was a member of the SA until 1928 and that it is quite possible that he remained connected with the Vienna Gau even after he moved to Uppsala, where he wrote The Secret Cult Associations of the Germans, the “sociological” part of the second volume of this book was, as far as our knowledge of it extends today, anchored in that part of the ideological spectrum of National Socialism. Based on Hefler’s announcements in the first volume of this book, it can be concluded that at that time, for him, the only real “historical continuity” between the old and the modern Germans lay in the warrior Männerbünde, whose violence resembled natural disasters, who brutally dealt with (“distributed justice on”) anyone who happened to be in their way and who had a special cult of the dead.
The Serbian and Yugoslav Reception of Werner Sombart (1895-2022)
Authors: Antolović Mihael T. , Ćurčić Petar S.
Published: April 2023

Following the publication of voluminous works such as Socialism and the Social Movement, German Economic Life in the 19th Century and Modern Capitalism, Werner Sombart (1863-1941) became one of the most prominent, most widely read and most translated European intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century. Sombart became very popular not only in Germany but also in other countries in Europe and beyond (particularly in Italy and Japan). As Reiner Grundmann and Nico Stehr have observed, the period after Sombart’s death in 1941 was marked by great changes in European and global sociological and economic thought. Consequently, Sombart was gradually marginalized and removed from the ranks of mainstream authors. Although he was held in high regard by, among others, Fernand Braudel and Joseph Schumpeter, Sombart’s work was neglected due to the paradigm changes in economics and sociology, with priority given to authors who based their research on traditions opposed to German historicism and Marxism.

The history of this author’s reception among the Serbian and Yugoslav public is characterized by disontinuity and, compared to Max Weber and Karl Marx, insufficient comprehensiveness in its approach. It can be argued that the Serbian academic community has followed the trends in European scholarship from the late 19th century to the present day. In all analyses to date, Werner Sombart’s extensive oeuvre has been reduced to certain aspects (capitalism, social pluralism, a critique of his conceptions).

Werner Sombart had a significant presence up until 1941. Even in these circumstances Serbian scholars, unlike Croatian ones, devoted more attention to ideas about the twilight and crisis of capitalism, the relationship between the state and the economy, the role of luxury and spending by the rich in the genesis of modern economic life. During communism Sombart’s work was completely marginalized due to ideological factors, a change of paradigm and a negative perception of his role in Germany’s political life. Also, Serbian sociology and social sciences more generally followed the trend of according great recognition to Max Weber, which, until the collapse of communism, had been limited, but following the breakup of Yugoslavia and the beginning of transition, increasingly overt and widespread, replacing the absolute dominance of the Marxist paradigm.

And while Sombart has been completely neglected by the Croatian public, in Serbia there has been a revival of interest thanks to the recent translations of the study Luxury and Capitalism (2011) and the wartime pamphlet Traders and Heroes (2018). New research has drawn attention not only to the geopolitical aspects of Sombart’s thought, but also to his wartime engagement and the genesis of his ideas, which can be situated within the traditions of reactionary modernism.
The World Upside Down: The Pandemic Redefines Globalization
Authors: El Guindi Fadwa
Published: April 2023

This article describes the natural phenomenon of the virus labelled COVID-19 and how its spread shook up the social, cultural and business world of humans. In my analysis, I first describe the devastating effect of the sudden onslaught on human lives and the global market, after it became classified by the WHO-UN as a pandemic, and conclude with identifying some patterns commonly overlooked in existing discussions but which embody some lessons learned. Far from a romanticized view of nature, this global crisis shows how nature can become ugly and even win in a battle with humans, yet simultaneously shows how the cognitive capacity unique to humans can counter the innate transmissibility of nature by an innate flexibility of culture. An unintended consequence of the pandemic is an increased attention to science.  This article attempts to shed light on what science is and is not, particularly as relevant to the pandemic. In lieu of vague, abstract notions such as human security, global governance, multilateralism and so on, this analysis approaches the pandemic as a concrete phenomenon penetrating human lives which has led to a re-aligning of parameters in a way that redefines globalization.
Functions of (Illegal) Nightlife for Youth during the Pandemic: Between Neoliberalism and Neotribalism
Authors: Janičić Sonja , Nikitović Tijana
Published: April 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great effect on young people, with their social lives being particularly impacted by the restrictions on social gatherings. Some of them, nevertheless, did not adhere to restrictions, and participated in illegal parties. In this study, we explored the functions of (illegal) nightlife for youth, as well as their motives for noncompliance with restrictions on social gatherings. We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with thirteen young people (seven male, aged 18-29) and the data was analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Restrictions on public gatherings revealed the multiple functions parties had for youth as a unique multimodal experience that can’t be easily substituted. Parties were described as unique experiences in particular because they facilitated the loss of individuality and coalescence with the collective. Some participants tried to make up for the loss of this resource by simulating parties in their own home, which proved to be unsatisfactory. Most participants refrained from going out, reporting a loss of a valuable resource for connecting with others and managing stress. In refraining from partying, some participants felt as though they lost a part of themselves. This highlighted the importance of the clubbing culture for defining one’s identity. Participants that continued to attend parties used them as a resource for managing stress related to the pandemic. Participants who attended illegal parties employed various strategies in order to relativize the seriousness of the pandemic. Nevertheless, most of them experienced a tension between their fear of the coronavirus and the need to feel carefree. Illegal partygoers also emphasized a greater sense of connectedness with other attendees than at pre-pandemic parties. Findings related to the social functions of parties for young people are interpreted from the perspective of theories of neoliberalism and neotribalism. We conclude that parties have primarily individualistic functions for young people, with distinct ‘patches’ of collectivism.
Pictures and Words 2 – An Italian Caricature at the End of the Great Vienna War (1683–1699) as “Icono-Text”
Authors: Mrgić Jelena
Published: April 2023

This paper is a branch of my previous research, dealing with allegorical and persuasive cartography, as an exercise in more recent theoretical interpretations of marginalized historical sources – caricatures. The introduction gives the readers an overview of the modern methodology and secondary literature. Furthermore, Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (1634–1718) is unknown to our audience. Therefore, this paper cannot deal with his immenseoeuvre, but only one example of his mastery, the caricature “An International Array of Doctors Counselling the Sultan”. This engraving is dated approximately to 1696, or slightly later, to the last phase of the War of the Holy League (1683–1699). The staging and the characters, as presented in the analysis, show beyond doubt a strong influence from commedia dell’arte in costumes and apparel, recognizing the oldest stock images of Dottore Gracian, originating in Mitelli’s Bologna, and Pantalone, who is precisely attributed to the “medico Venetiano”. This “icono-text” merges visual arts and comedy theatre with text, criticizing the Christian “nations” for their lack of unity in opposing the common foe and nemesis – the Ottoman sultan. The satire is more pronounced in the para-text, adequately written for each one of the actors, including those without the lyrics – headfirst fleeing grand vizier Kara Mustapha, and wool spinning Protestant Prince Imre Thököly, doing the woman’s and not the warrior’s task. Including the sultan, historians have plenty of material for an imagology analysis from the point of view of a witty Bolognese, well-educated and informed, placed in a hub of the baroque network of Europe, bursting with “furor geographicus” and the sound of the printing machines, street vendors, artisans, and carnivals. As any intellectual work, Mitelli’s art piece is placed within its historical-geographical, cultural and socio-political context.
How Many Doctors Do We Need in the Public Sector?: A Guide to Human Resource Planning and Specialist Training
Authors:   Medical Development Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia, Ismail Hirman
Published: April 2023

Estimating number of doctors including medical specialists needed in the public sector is fundamental to guide human resource planning and implementation of specialist training in Malaysia. Crude population-based and individual basic specialities population-based ratios were used to estimate number of doctors including specialists needed in the public sector by 2025 and 2030. These estimates were then compared with existing number of specialists, current production rates and other parameters to determine level of deficit of the various medical specialities in the future. Medical specialist production versus deficit index was introduced as a tool to present the expected outcome of the existing specialist training. The index can be used as a guide to strategise policies and implementation plans related to training and human resource.
Exploring Labiodental Consonant Pronunciation Challenges Faced by Sundanese EFL Learners: Effective Strategies for Improvement
Authors: Fadhly Fahrus Zaman , Yuniarti Yuniarti , Apriyani Fina
Published: April 2023

This study aims to explore the challenges faced by Sundanese EFL learners in pronouncing labiodental consonant sounds, specifically /f/ and /v/, and to propose effective strategies for improvement. The study focuses on collecting data from Sundanese EFL learners at various levels of proficiency using interviews and pronunciation tests. The results indicate that learners face various challenges in pronouncing labiodental consonants, such as substituting similar sounds from their native language and struggling with unfamiliar sound combinations. The study proposes several strategies to overcome these challenges, including drilling exercises, practicing with audio recordings, and promoting learner autonomy.
Modern view on the etiology and immunological aspects of pneumonia
Authors: Minakov A. A. , Vakhlevskii V. V. , Voloshin N. I. , Kharitonov M. A. , Salukhov V. V. , Tyrenko V. V. , Rudakov Yu. V. , Vakhlevskaya E. N. , Alekhina E. V.
Published: April 2023

Pneumonia is the most common and deadly nosology among all respiratory diseases associated with microorganisms. Despite advances in antibacterial and antiviral therapy, mortality due to pneumonia is not decreasing. It should be noted that the problem of infectious pathology has always been discussed only in narrow circles of specialists, which led to its underestimation, including during the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection. At present, scientific possibilities have not reached their perfection in the etiological diagnosis of pneumonia. Of no small concern is the lack of sections on immunology in the training program for general practitioners and pulmonologists and, as a result, the lack of knowledge by most medical specialists of the basics of the immune response in various infectious diseases, in particular, the differences in the immune response of a macroorganism in viral and bacterial infections, the stages of the immune response, differences between innate and adaptive immune responses, possibilities of immunocorrective therapy. Being followers  of the scientific school of pulmonology of academician N.S. Molchanov,  in this review, we evaluated the features of etiological factors and immune characteristics of the body on the course and out-comes of pneumonia, taking into account modern scientific knowledge. The current definition of pneumonia is formulated, the issues of the etiology of pneumonia from the perspective of the lung microbiome, the features of the immune response of the macroorganism in viral and bacterial pneumonia, the inconsistency of immune protection and the impact of comorbidity on this are covered in detail. Understanding the processes that lead to the disruption of the respiratory microbiome, the multiplication of pathobionts, the attachment of multiresistant microorganisms and the reactivity of the macroorganism will contribute to the development of new therapeutic approaches in the treatment of pneumonia.
Clinical aspects of the use of erdosteine in respiratory diseases
Authors: Karnaushkina M. A.
Published: April 2023

Erdosteine is a drug based on thiol and used at the beginning only as a mucolytic. The main indication for it is the treatment of acute and chronic lung diseases, accompanied by difficult sputum discharge. The therapeutic effect of erdosteine is due to the action of thiol metabolites, which, in addition to mucoactive, have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activities. Experimental studies have shown that this drug reduces the degree of damage to lung tissue caused by oxidative stress, primarily by reducing the production of reactive oxygen species. It increases the concentration of IgA in the respiratory mucosa, thereby reducing the damaging effect of tobacco smoke on endothelial and macrophage cells. In the RESTORE clinical study, which studied the effect of erdosteine on the frequency of exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, it was demonstrated that it significantly reduces the risk, frequency and severity of COPD exacerbations, regardless of patients taking inhaled corticosteroids and eosinophil levels. Recent experimental studies have shown that erdosteine also has the ability to slow the progression rate of fibrosis in pulmonary tissue. It has been shown to inhibit the development of bleomycin-induced fibrosis. The authors of the study suggested that this effect may be related to the suppression of neutrophil migration metabolite erastheine, the inhibition of lipid peroxidation and, in general, the regulation of antioxidant protection mechanisms Data obtained in recent studies also open up new possibilities for the use of erdosteine in patients with bronchial asthma and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, significantly expanding the indications for its use.
Medical scientific conferences and social networks
Authors: Alfimov A. Е. , Trofimova A. A. , Matvienko A. A. , Kodalaeva M. V.
Published: April 2023

Introduction. Medical conferences are a key source of new and relevant knowledge for practicing physicians. Physicians use social media to share this knowledge with their colleagues. As a result, there is a lot of discussion on social media about the topics covered in the scientific presentations. This initiative has some educational value, which is being actively explored. The discussions around such posts make ideas, insights, opinions and experiences of peer-colleagues easily available. They also immediately raise awareness of new clinical research and scientific data.

Objective. We studied how often Russian physicians use available social networks (vrachirf.ru, doktornarabote.ru. vk.com) to share information from scientific conferences with their colleagues.

Materials and мethods. We searched for posts using keywords related to medical conferences and selected among the search results the entries whose authors, as physicians, disclosed selected elements of the content of scientific presentations.

Results. We identified 65 entries over the past 4–12 months where physicians shared facts and ideas presented at scientific conferences. Entries posted on professional physicians’ social networks with access restricted to lay public generated vigorous meaningful discussions, unlike posts on the mainstream social network vk.com.

Conclusions. Doctors very rarely share on social media the facts and ideas presented at Russian scientific medical conferences. Physicians demonstrate significant interest in these posts and actively discuss them. Further study should reveal the educational potential of the described phenomenon and suggest the pathways to its effective utilization.
The use of inhaled tauractant therapy in the subacute period of COVID-19
Authors: Voronkova O. O. , Starzhevskaia A. A. , Skachek V. G. , Rogova E. F. , Abdullaeva G. B. , Buyanova O. E. , Kozhevnikova M. V. , Belenkov Yu. N.
Published: April 2023

The subacute period of coronavirus infection is a 4- to-12-week period after acute illness associated with the SARS-CoV-2 infection. A range of bronchopulmonary symptoms in the subacute period of COVID-19 includes cough, shortness of breath, reduced exercise tolerance, which, in turn, worsens the patient’s quality of life. Despite all the achievements of modern medicine, there is still no exact understanding of the mechanisms of this condition. There are also limitations of current patients’ treatments. The successful use of exogenous surfactant in the acute period of SARS-CoV-2 infection has become the starting point in the search for new therapeutic tools for this category of patients. The paper describes a clinical observation with the use of inhaled therapy with surfactant 150 mg/day for 7 days in a patient who underwent COVID-associated pneumonia with persistent ventilation disorders, decreased exercise tolerance, and characteristic changes identified due to the multispiral computed tomography examination. The treatment included the use of the Russian-manufactured surfactant (tauractant), a lyophilisate for suspension for endotracheal, endobronchial and inhalation administration, 75 mg vials. The drug is sourced from bovine lungs, refers to ATC R07AA30 (therapeutic combinations comprising pulmonary surfactants); pharmacotherapeutic group: surfactant. The studied treatment demonstrated the efficacy and safety of administration in this category of patients, and also ensured the disease control and improved quality of life.