CONTEXT/КОНТЕКСТ is an international scholarly journal for comparative literature and interdisciplinary cultural studies. It publishes peer-reviewed scholarly articles in English and Macedonian with a comparative, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary focus. Its theoretical and methodological framework is built on the principles of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies. It promotes creative and critical reflections on literature, art, and culture. It is published in printed form and electronically twice a year.
Institute of Macedonian Literature Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje
SISTERHOOD, SPIRITUALITY, AND THE CULTURAL IDENTITY OF FEMALE CHARACTERS IN ALICE WALKER’S THE COLOR OF PURPLE
Alice Walker (1944) is a prominent African-American writer, who received the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1983 for her novel The Color Purple. The novel portrays the life of African-American women, addressing sexism, racism, and poverty, which make life a struggle, but it also depicts aspects of life in which family, sisterhood, and women’s spirituality play a key role in this struggle. Sisterhood in this novel appears as spiritual and maternal support, or assistance among women. It is a strong bond in which women find support for all their hardships and burdens. It is an alliance of women in which, through mutual help, they become aware of their values and gain the strength and means to resist male dominance. The theme of sisterhood in the novel is also important, which results in the 107 awakening of the self of the protagonist. It is observed that the characters in the novel develop the theme of sister­hood, which is more important and powerful compared to the bond that the female characters develop with the male characters in the novel. Sisterhood is observed in the association between Celie and Nettie, Celie and Sofia, and Celie and Shug. Through the association with Shug, fundamental changes take place in the self of the protagonist that results in the awakening of the self of the protagonist. Through the association with Shug, the protagonist comes out of the domination of the patriarchal society and develops the need to love and be loved. Shug also helps her find her own sexuality and learn anew the true meaning of love, which she thought she had lost with her sister Nettie. Celie’s self-discovery is a result of the support, motivation, and love she received from Shug, Sofia, and Nettie. Shug teaches her about the pantheistic, transcendentalist view of God. Once she understands that God is in her, she is able to overcome her fears and guilt to become a woman who is not afraid to live life.
THE PROJECT TRAUMA IN LITERATURE IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY INTERDISCIPLINARY TRAUMA STUDIES
This text explains and presents to the broader academic audience the scientific project of the Institute of Macedonian Literature in Skopje, entitled Trauma in Literature, which takes place during 2025 and 2026. This text provides an overview of the elaborate created by the project’s principal researcher Ana Martinoska, in which she defines the main directions and phases through which the project will proceed, as well as the goals and expected results. The text also contextualizes the project in relation to current trends in the field of Trauma Studies.
Virtual museums are an increasingly prevalent tool within the digital humanities. They represent cultural spaces that are interactive, multimodal, and nonlinear in their structure, thus opening up new possibilities for research, interpretation, or production of humanistic knowledge. The project “Virtual Museum Koneski” has a multifaceted goal that is mainly educational and cultural. Its main task is the digital preservation, presentation and promotion of the life and work of Blaze Koneski (1921-1993) through modern virtual tools, accessible to the wider public. More specifically, the project strives to preserve cultural heritage, through the digitization and systematization of archival materials (manuscripts, photographs, documents, works) from the legacy of Blaze Koneski. It has educational value, by creating a resource that can be used in teaching, research and self-education.
EPISTEMOLOGY OF FEMINIST DECOLONIALISM AND AESTHETICS OF BORDERLANDS
The essay explores feminist decoloniality as a method and praxis for embodying sensory cognitive experience and the politics of borderlands. Within this context, it elaborates on how feminist epistemology opens new dimensions in the framework of specific conflicts and crimes against humanity (wars, displacements, seeking asylum). The act of displacing decolonial bodies into a new interspace and in-betweenness, coupled with the necropolitical violence of capitalism, prompts a critical interrogation of the onto-epistemological and political implications of the borderlands of displacement and "being-in-the-desire-for-survival"—conceived as the only possible radical feminist act of thinking and acting. This epistemological-political direction of redefining the episteme of border spaces, necrosis, and politics constitutes the second part of the essay's elaboration. The aim is to argue that feminist decoloniality is rooted in economic injustice, as well as in historical and racial materialism. This approach traces the capitalist redefinitions of transformative justice and feminist injustice, which still represent an open process of non-linear epistemology and a thought process filled with discontinuities, amplitudes, and struggles for survival. These concepts are investigated through the prism of current mass processes of migration, wars, colonial ambitions, racial capitalism, forced migrations, systems of violence, and invisible violence. They are treated as new paradigms for rethinking the epistemology of feminist social decoloniality today, in the post-COVID era, and between the worlds of a dystopian present marked by wars and military necrophilia. The hope of feminist epistemology against colonialism is rooted in a new reading of the feminist challenge against war and in opening up space for the most resilient forms of marginalization within epistemic discipline and intersectionality.
REALITY AND TRAUMA IN DOCUMENTARY FILM (SILENCE OF REASON BY KUMJANA NOVAKOVA AND IRON CASTLE BY MITKO PANOV)
The study investigates the complexity of the relationship between reality and trauma in contemporary documenta­ry film. Through the analysis of Silence of Reason and Iron Castle, it demonstrates that trauma cannot be directly articulated, but becomes visible through media strategies such as silence, extended shots, spatial exploration, and author–subject interaction. Both films confirm that the documentary is not merely a mirror of reality, but a critical and ethical mediator that actualizes and reconstructs traumatic memory, whether on individual or collective level.
KARATE-DO AND ZEN: THE PATH OF VOID WITHIN CONTEMPORARY ART AND CULTURE
This paper analyzes the relationship between Karate-do and Zen as a body–spirit practice and a cultural phenomenon in the contemporary world. Although Karate-do is often perceived as a martial art or a sports discipline, its roots are deeply connected to the spiritual and philosophical traditions of the East, especially Zen Buddhism, the ethical code of Bushido, and Budo as a path of self-cultivation. The research examines the historical development of Karate-do, its spiritual and ethical dimension, as well as its connection with Zen philosophy and the concept of emptiness (mu or ku). Special attention is given to the aesthetic and spiritual principles of Zen arts – such as shodo (calligraphy), haiku poetry, ikebana, sado (the tea ceremony), and karesansui (Zen gardening) – which express the same philosophy of simplicity, awareness, and harmony with nature. The paper also analyzes the contemporary cultural reception of these ideas through film, literature, and the global popularity of martial arts. In this context, Karate-do is considered as a cultural medium through which Eastern spiritual and aesthetic concepts are transmitted into the Western cultural space. The aim of the research is to demonstrate that Karate-do represents more than a fighting technique: it is a path of spiritual development, discipline, and self-knowledge, which in the contemporary world can be understood as a comprehensive way of life based on the principles of Zen, Bushido, and Budo.
This paper analyzes the role of the body and touch in contemporary technologically mediated culture, focusing on their significance in the process of creating a visual work of art. Drawing on contemporary theories of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and virtual reality, the body is considered as an object of reduction and technical interpretation, with its materiality and tactility marginalized in favor of visual and digital forms of communication. The paper draws on the concepts of philosophy and haptics, to reaffirm the role of the body as a bearer of cognition, creativity, and cultural meaning. It is particularly emphasized that artistic creation, despite the dominance of the visual, is an essentially tactile process, in which touch functions as a mediator between thought, body, and matter. In this sense, the historical and contemporary relationship between the visual and tactile dimensions of art is analyzed, from traditional media to digital practices. Special attention is paid to the transformation of the artist in a digital context, where the idea is separated from the material realization, which leads to the loss of bodily participation and the reduction of the tactile component of the creative process. This phenomenon is considered in the broader context of the technocratic and transhumanist paradigm, which tends to overcome the biological body. The conclusion indicates that, despite technological innovations, touch and corporeality remain fundamental to artistic creation and human experience. Their suppression represents not only an aesthetic, but also an anthropological reduction, which calls into question the very nature of creativity and humanity.
POST-BODILY INTIMACY IN CONTEMPORARY MEDIA CULTURE
This paper explores the transformation of intimacy in contemporary media culture, starting from the thesis that the gradual replacement of haptic mutual presence with technologically mediated forms creates a specific relational formation or post-corporeal intimacy. Through a qualitative interdisciplinary analysis of five films: Her (Jonze, 2013), Black Mirror: Be Right Back (Harris, 2013), Black Mirror: Striking Vipers (Slade, 2019), Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve, 2017) and Ex Machina (Garland, 2014)), this paper can distinguish four key findings: the voice as a substitute for bodily presence, algorithmic empathy as affective realism, eroticism that is maintained through anticipation and projection rather than through touch, and last (fourth) but most significant finding is the intensification of desire, rather than its disappearance in the absence of the body. Drawing on Michael Epstein’s philosophy of haptics and eros, N. Catherine Hales’ concept of the posthuman body, Donna Haraway’s cyborg politics, Rosie Braidotti’s affirmative posthumanism, and Sarah Ahmed and Lauren Berlant’s affect theory, as well as Sherry Turkle’s empirical research on online intimacy, the paper argues that post-corporeal intimacy represents a truly new affective structure. This new intimacy neither directly extends physical love nor impoverishes it, but rather represents a reorganization of desire itself.
AMIDST THE MASQUERADE OF MIRRORS: THE CARNIVALESQUE PHANTASMAGORIZATION OF LIFE IN PRINCESS BRAMBILLA BY E. T. A. HOFFMANN
E. T. A. Hoffmann is incontestably one of the most remarkable writers in the history of fantastic literature and an indispensable figure who marked German and European Romanticism, bringing to light the formula of the fantastic short story. Hence, this study explores the phenomenon of the classical fantastic in Hoffmann’s novella or capriccio- fairytale Princess Brambilla, focusing on the manner in which the demarcations and contrasts, but also the harmonization of the phenomenon of the fantastic and the characteristics of the artistic and mythical tale, are epitomized on diverse and complex narratological levels. Referring to the theoretical premises of the fantastic theory, the philosophical phenomenon of the grotesque and carnivalization, the paper elucidate the fantastic archetype of the double and the phenomenological and metaphysical dualism of reality as a distinctive topos in the philosophy and aesthetics of Romanticism. That being the case, these premises affirm the idea about the puzzling way in which the phenomenon of carnivalization and the fantastic irrationalization of empirical reality share similar aesthetic strategies of diegetic manifestations in the narrative imagination of Hoffmann.
METAPHOR AS A SEMIOTIC KEY IN VISUAL POETICS
By analyzing the contexts of metaphor's application in the fine and visual arts, this paper explores its essential properties through the applicability of linguistic and art theories. Drawing upon some of the most significant hypotheses addressing this concept, the study advances the hypothesis that metaphor serves as a semiotic key to constructing meaning within the visual arts. Methodologically, the paper analyzes the aspects of the framing and poetic function of metaphor, alongside procedures such as appropriation, intertext, recontextualization, and intermedia. The analyses are conducted transdisciplinarily, at the intersection of philosophical, linguistic, and art theories. The research focuses on the hermeneutic approach to metaphor as a trope of similarity and a trope of deviation (Ricoeur; Henle), as a foreign body, and as an analogy (Aristotle; Ricoeur). Viewed through these insights and within the context of movement and transposition with generic potential (Lawlor; Ricoeur), the process of metaphorization is identified across a multitude of examples from fine art: Matsys, Rembrandt, Dürer, Bruegel, Caravaggio, Goya, Homer, Duchamp, Picabia, Höch, Hausmann, and others.
АRTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONTEMPORARY PERFORMING ARTS: NEW PERSPECTIVES OF PERFORMATIVITY
This paper explores the relationship between artificial intelligence and contemporary performing arts through an analysis of how the concept of performativity is transformed under digital and algorithmic technologies. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of performance studies, postdramatic theatre, and new media, the text examines the ways in which artificial intelligence challenges traditional dichotomies between the live and the mediatized, the human and the technological, the author and the performer. Special attention is given to AI’s role as a co-performer, to the problem of authorship and distributed creative agency, and to the transformation of the body and presence in hybrid stage practices. The paper also analyzes the shifting position of the audience, which in AI-based performances in creakingly functions as an active participant in the performative event. Finally, through a discussion of ethical and philosophical implications, the paper argues that artificial intelligence is not a replacement for human performance but a transformative factor that opens new perspectives for understanding performativity as a relational, processual, and hybrid phenomenon in contemporary art.
THE REPRESENTATION OF ANIMALS IN POPULAR MEDIA: A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
Animal narratives occupy a prominent position within contemporary media landscapes, permeating popular forms of entertainment, news, and advertising. These representations have crystallized into recognizable and widely consumed genres, indicative of a sustained cultural fascination with animals. At first glance, the proliferation of viral animal videos, pet programs, wildlife documentaries, and nature-focused media channels, as well as box office trends, reflects the widespread public appetite for particular types of animal imagery. From a critical sociocultural standpoint, however, these media discourses do more than merely entertain – they function as mechanisms through which dominant constructs of animals are produced, circulated, and normalized. These sociocultural constructs are often entangled with broader systems of commodification and serve to reinforce normative frameworks of human-animal relations. This paper examines abovementioned issues, analyzing the complex intersections of industrial, social, and ethical dimensions that underpin the media’s role in shaping contemporary representations of animals.
THE MALE AND THE FEMALE IN THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE: CRITICAL VIEW ON FEMINISM AND MASCULINISM
This study explores feminist and masculinist theoretical approaches in the process of constructing masculinity and femininity, with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of gender identities and their social function. The study primarily analyzes the relationship between men and women through the historical and social context, emphasizing the ways in which gender roles are formed, maintained, and transformed under the influence of cultural and institutional factors. Furthermore, the focus is placed on the concept of masculinity, identifying several types of masculinities that arise as a result of various social, economic, and cultural circumstances. A specific section of the paper is dedicated to a critical analysis of feminism—on the one hand, as a movement and theory that questions patriarchal structures and advocates for gender equality—and masculinism, on the other hand, as a response to social changes and the challenges faced by men in the contemporary world. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the paper aims to contribute to the broader academic debate on the construction of gender and its impact on the individual and society as a whole.
DIFFERENTIATIONS BETWEEN SOME SHORT (APPELLATIVE) FOLK GENRES
Traditional oral folk genres, such as blessings, curses, toasts, as well as the liminal forms between them, such as false curses or false/ironic blessings, convey the magical function of language. Distinguishing and defining these genres can sometimes be particularly challenging because all of them are appellative genres closely related both in meaning and function. These genres have been integral parts of broader ritualistic and performative practices, which explains why we still encounter remnants of the belief in the so-called “verbal magic” in them, that is, the expectation or hope that by uttering specific formulae, one can bring about a change in reality. This is why these genres differ from ordinary, everyday speech and are usually used in special occasions of the life cycle of an individual or group of people.
LITERARY ARCHETYPES OF THE NEW COGNITIVE REVOLUTION – FROM ANCIENT MYTH TO DIGITAL UTOPIA
Geoffrey Hinton, the current winner of the Nobel Prize for discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks, admitted in his lecture to Oxford students last year that artificial intelligence has surpassed its initial trajectory and has moved in a direction that poses great challenges. We are facing a new, radical evolutionary leap that is completely redefining the realms of human existence. The world is faced with a great algorithmic puzzle that opens many unknown questions. It is because of these characteristics that artificial intelligence grows into a new myth, with a concept and characteristics that have completely defined the myth throughout history. At the same time, it opens vast horizons for the research of contemporary social, cultural and philosophical issues that create the modern man’s attitude towards life and largely determine his place in it. Artificial intelligence, through its digital codes and sequences, reflects the entire human capital, diligently stored over thousands of years of existence. It grows into the most authentic metaphor of the myths that perpetuated man’s eternal search for the truth of his existence and of the collective anti-drama. New technological trends are a metaphor for the Promethean fire stolen from the gods, in which man is both god and Prometheus at the same time.
SEMIOTICS OF EMPTY SPACES: DIALECTICAL RUPTURE, INTERVAL, PAUSE
This paper aims to explore the semiotics of empty spaces, the function of the interval and the pause as forms of dialectical interruption, and a conceptual framework grounded in resistance to linear, mimetic, and illusionistic modes of representation. The specificity of interruption as an active site of agency defines emptiness as plenitude, constructs meaning in and through the pause, reveals dynamism within the void, conceives silence as a structural element of sound, and locates movement within stillness. Emerging as a response to experiences of alienation and to the social conditions of particular historical moments, these artistic methods and practices are founded upon an anti-materialist approach that seeks to create spaces for active perception rather than passive contemplation. Grounded in the logic of shock and semantic encoding, the selected artistic examples conceptualize empty spaces as sites of meaning production. The analysis encompasses works from a range of creative disciplines, including painting, sculpture, music, film, artists' objects, graphic art, and object photography. Their dialectical structure is based on the use of abstraction as a vehicle of profound conceptual significance, converging through practices of non-objective art, the act of tearing, décollage, the gesture of erasure, emptiness within the void, silence, dematerialization, discrepant montage, the reduction of the sign, and the concept of whiteness.
Surrealism, as one of the most famous intellectual movements in history, is considered the most comprehensive aesthetic revolution of the 20th century, on the one hand, but on the other, it is also a sexist movement, since there is not a single woman in the group around André Breton. In the context of the avant-garde, surrealism is probably the only movement in the post-romantic era that glorifies the feminine principle, but only as an instigator of “male” creativity. On the other hand, there is no other movement with so many active women artists (in painting), which is not the case with the literary context, where their absence is noticeable. The question of surrealism and women, however controversial, is very important; it is one of the key questions that, even after a hundred years, surrealism is still relevant, stimulating, provocative...
MISOGYNY AND SEXISM IN BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’SOLD MISTRESSES’ APOLOGUE AND DONALD TRUMP’SPUBLIC STATEMENTS: STATESMEN USING HUMOUR ASA COVER-UP
Although humor is often regarded as a benign and unifying force, it can also function as a vehicle for expressing deeply entrenched social prejudice and sexism. This paper examines the ways in which misogyny may be concealed through the use of humor, both in historical contexts and in contemporary discourse, focusing on two American statesmen: Benjamin Franklin and his satirical essay-letter Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress (1745), and U.S. President Donald Trump, through a selection of his public speeches and statements. Both figures employ humor to reinforce gender stereotypes in ways that reflect the social and cultural norms of their respective historical periods. Franklin's letter, presented as a witty piece of advice urging a young man to choose older women as his mistresses, initially appears to advocate for older women as preferable sexual partners. Upon closer examination, however, the underlying assumptions and arguments reduce women to their sexual utility, thereby revealing a misogynistic perspective disguised through satire. A similar rhetorical strategy can be observed in a number of Trump's public remarks, which, often couched in humor and sarcasm, portray women in roles that diminish their competence, worth, or intelligence while using wit as a means of minimizing potential criticism or objection. Through an analysis of these examples, this paper demonstrates how humor, in certain contexts, functions as a powerful rhetorical device for expressing sexist attitudes while simultaneously enabling those responsible for offensive remarks to evade criticism and accountability by dismissing them as "just jokes." The study further explores the psychological and cultural mechanisms that sustain this dynamic, illustrating how both Franklin and Trump employ humor to disguise and normalize misogyny, thereby highlighting the broader implications of such rhetorical strategies. At the same time, this analysis underscores the need for more critical engagement with the role of humor in perpetuating harmful social attitudes and encourages reflection on whether—and how—contemporary discourse may consciously or unconsciously reproduce historical prejudices.
The study of the border as a concept and phenomenon in the contemporary context unfolds through a multidisci plinary approach that transcends its traditional geographical dimension, expanding into cultural, social, and psycho logical realms. This paper focuses on the analysis of border culture as a result of complex processes of influence, hybridization, and transformation occurring within border communities. The research highlights the significance of visual culture and art as powerful mediums through which borders are articulated, perceived, and challenged—not merely as lines of separation, but as dynamic spaces of cultural production and identity mobility. The paper distin guishes between visual art and visual culture, analysing their differing approaches to global communication, col lective imagination, and individual creativity. Simultaneously, it explores the concept of the “invisibility” of border populations and the role of the image as a potential tool for entering the public sphere. Through a critical reflection on transitional societies, globalization flows, and cultural appropriations, this study proposes an interdisciplinary model for understanding border cultures as spaces of negotiation, resistance, and adaptation. In doing so, the border emerges not only as a mechanism of exclusion, but also as a site for new forms of cultural expression and the re imagining of identity in an era of digital connectivity and global ideological transformations.
“A BINARIAN’S NIGHTMARE”: THE POETICS OF THE INCLUDED MIDDLE IN MINA LOY’S SONGS TO JOANNES
In this paper, I examine some of the ways in which Mina Loy employs textual formatting and semantic play to forge a fluid relationship between the lyrical self and her lover, thereby subverting culturally significant dichotomies – such as sacred/profane, masculine/feminine, human/God, etc. – in Songs to Joannes. These effects constitute her poetics of the included middle (as opposed to the excluded middle – the blank space separating two dichotomous, binary terms) and demonstrate Loy’s capacity to subvert both literary and social conventions.
MANUFACTURED NEUMATIAN RECORDS OF KOZMA PRECHISTANSKI FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY: CULTURAL-HISTORICAL, ARCHEOGRAPHIC AND MUSICOLOGICAL FOLLOW-UPS
Macedonian paleomusicologists – Byzantologists have repeatedlyemphasized that the process of discovering handwritten musical records, collections and old printed books on the territory of Macedonia is still not over. Confirmation of this conclusion about the sustainability of the concern to uncover the Macedonian church music heritage, is the scientific publication of the previously unknown Neumatian manuscript from the beginning of the 20th century by the Debar Exarchate Metropolitan Kozma Prechistanski, which was preserved in the family archive of the Bigorsk abbot – Archimandrite Partenija. The manuscript was handed over by the Gavrilovski family in Kichevo to Prof. Ilija Velev, who together with the Macedonian paleomusicologist Prof. Jane Kodzhabashija carried out cultural- historical, archeographic and musicological research. Their joint research contribution is a contribution to this scientific work. It should be noted that the cultural-historical and archeographic research is a contribution of Prof. Ilija Velev, and the expert musicological analysis followed by comparative observations is the work of Prof. Jane Kodzhabashija. Of course, in both research aspects there was an exchange of expert experiences between the two authors.