1

Zahra Sadat Ismailinejad , Farideh Pourgiv

The present paper tries to analyze Don DeLillo's White Noise based on Baudrillard's notion of the consumer society. To do this, the researcher recourses to Baudrillard's book The Consumer Society: Its Myth and Structure to discuss the major tenants of today's consumer society. Although consumption is vital for human beings to continue their lives, Baudrillard is concerned about the excessive consumption which is now turning into a disease in the contemporary world. Giant corporations create false needs in the consumers and advertising agencies are in fact the best tools to further promote the sales of consuming objects. This study indicates how Baudrillard's philosophical ideas are manifested literally by Don DeLillo as he depicts an imaginary urban society affected by excessive consumption and advertisement. In this postmodern society, people are haunted by fear of death and decay. So, as a defense mechanism, they resort to consumption as a strategy to cope with their fear of death to give meaning to their daily life. Here, the focus is on exposing certain characteristics of consumer society along with an eye on the role of advertisement to foster irrepressible desire to consume as a means of gaining satisfaction while it only leads to ambivalent feelings in the consumers.

 

Key Words: Don DeLillo; Jean Baudrillard; Advertisement; Consumer Society.

2

Samira Sasani , Elham Haghrezaei

Throughout decades Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Has been considered for its vivid depiction of two modern individuals' game which dissolves not even others but themselves. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Laing, this game can be viewed and analyzed as the two individuals' battle for survival. The existential world depicted by Laing is a lonesome inner world of an individual who's self is divided in the face of a threatening outside world. The torturing anxieties through which he sees and defines the world skin him, bit by bit, with every breath he takes and the opposing forces from within enlarges the vacuum which is his deathbed. These conflicting needs are the driving forces which define George and Martha's relationship. They both are victims of tormenting and existentially threatening situations which have taught them to preserve their true selves within by disarming and attacking the other. That which seems to be yearn for power is essentially their struggle to protect themselves, or in other words, their true selves. Having a precariously differentiated sense of identity, both fear any contact with the real world while being aware of their inevitable need for this realness to survive. In this Article, first the existential theories of R. D. Laing will be thoroughly explained and the second effort will be to shed new light on Albee's two characters, Martha and George, while digging into the deepest recesses of their being; the most invisible depths which fuel all their seemingly perspicuous actions.

 

Keywords: Edward Albee; R. D. Laing; Divided Selves; Anxiety; Existential being.

3

Cosmina Marcela Oltean

Cultural management is the science regarding the organization of cultural activities. For a better understanding, we must first define culture, indicate the object of cultural management, mention its objectives, establish who is the cultural manager and indicate the components of cultural management. According to some anthropologists, culture is a social behaviour, while others consider it a mere abstraction of general behaviour, and others see it as something that only exists in our mind. One of the first definitions of culture is: culture is that whole complex that includes knowledge, faith, art, moral, and other abilities and skills achieved by men as members of society.

4

Zhang Guolong , Su Tangjun

Abstract
Andersen's fairy tales, embraced by Chinese culture, have become a permanent childhood memory of Chinese people in the process of their explanation and acceptance during a hundred years. This article uses The Little Mermaid as an example to study Andersen's fairy tales, his biography, and the history of Chinese acceptance. It provides a historical survey and elaborates on the Chinese explanation, misreading, and misunderstanding of Andersen's fairy tales over a hundred years. Moreover, this article argues that there are three influential elements on the interpretation and acceptance of Andersen's fairy tales in China: the changing understanding of Andersen as an author; the age difference between disparate audiences; and the shifting Chinese social context and cultural needs.

Keywords: Hans Christian Andersen; Andersen's fairy tales; The Little Mermaid; explanation and acceptance in China; Context of Chinese Culture.

5

Sara Setayesh , Alireza Anushiravani

Sarah Kane's drama demonstrates modern fascination with the grotesque. In this study some aspects of the modern grotesque in Kane's drama are discussed using some of Bakhtin's, Kayser's and McElroy's findings to depict how modern grotesque represents the world as monstrous since although some critics have stressed the grotesque's playful side, the moderns invested dread and fear into the concept of the grotesque. So the aim is to localize representative examples of the prime characteristics of the modern grotesque world and characters in Kane's oeuvre. Some of the major issues relating to the modern grotesque discussed in this study are subversion and distortion of size, shape and symmetry, alienation of the familiar world and fusion of the realms and grotesque characters. Throughout Kane's oeuvre the characters are deformed and disproportioned, there is a lack of organization and breaking with tradition, and the image of the familiar world is presented alongside the nightmarish, dark elements that break it apart. Furthermore, the individual is being determined in a world surrounded by dark, ominous forces with no emotions or intimate ties. The grotesque characters are also shown as threatened by mental disorders who occasionally attempt to withdraw into an idyllic or anchoritic existence.

 

Keywords: Sarah Kane; Drama, Modern Grotesque; Grotesque World; Grotesque Character; Kayser, Bakhtin; McElroy.