Managing The Polarities of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework for Positive Social Change

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and the objective is to successfully manage the polarities so as to maximize the positive aspects and minimize the negative aspects.

Radical Politics and Experimental Film in Franco’s Spain: Los encuentros de Pamplona, 1972

The Encuentros de Pamplona of 1972 was the most important exhibit of avant-garde and experimental art that had ever taken place during Franco’s dictatorship. Some of the world’s most prominent artists, including John Cage, went to Spain to participate in this event. This article offers a reflection on the use of avant-garde and experimental art from the 1950s to the early 1970s in Spain. In the beginning, abstract art was accepted by Franco’s regime as a way of exporting a "liberal" and "modern" image of the dictatorship in art exhibitions. Yet the ambivalent nature of abstract experimental art made it possible to take these works as a silent protest against the regime. However, in the early 70s, a younger generation would shift their approach to experimental art forms, yet not reject them altogether: distanced by an attitude of cynicism toward the ability of film to bring about political change, they would appropriate and extend the avant-garde through parody and pastiche, thus marking the "fin de fiesta" of experimental art in Spain

Melodrama e imaginación romántica: en torno a la adaptación de Entre naranjos en Hollywood

El presente artículo se centra en las razones estilísticas, temáticas y del contexto industrial que permiten entender el considerable éxito que tuvo la obra de Blasco Ibáñez en Hollywood durante los años veinte y hasta la llegada del cine sonoro. Una vez consolidad la hegemonía del cine norteamericano en el mercado internacional, el eclecticismo estilístico de Blasco, plasmado en la mixtura de naturalismo y romanticismo así como el erotismo decadentista de algunas de sus situaciones dramáticas, se imbricó perfectamente en las convenciones que había explorado el cine de Hollywood en los años precedentes. La obra de Blasco encajó perfectamente en un momento de transformación del modelo melodramático que definía el cine norteamericano desde los años diez, dándole un nuevo impulso

El cine negro español durante el franquismo: estilo y función política

¿Existió un cine negro español que imitara los rasgos estilísticos, temáticos y narrativos del realizado en Hollywood durante los años 40 y principios de los 50? A simple vista, la dictadura franquista no parecía el marco más apropiado para su desarrollo. El cine negro ofrecía, al fin y al cabo, una visión decididamente pesimista de la sociedad que pretendía describir.Was there a Spanish film noir that mirrored the stylistic, thematic and narrative traits of Hollywood during the 1940s and early 1950s? On the surface, Franco’s dictatorship did not seem to be the most appropriate context for it to flourish. Film noir, after all, offered a distinctly pessimistic view of the society it aimed to portray