History Research

Special Issue

Between totalitarianism and chaos: The problem of control in the history of civilization and art

  • Submission Deadline: Feb. 01, 2022
  • Status: Submission Closed
  • Lead Guest Editor: Francisca Foortai
About This Special Issue
Control is one of the fundamental phenomena of the world civilizational process. The semantics of this term, which goes back to the Romance language roots (controlle) means a list or scroll with written items. It follows from this that control as a means of managing society, in any of its forms (from Egyptian temple farms to modern subcultures) appears with the emergence of writing.
It is noteworthy that dreams of a perfect structure of society in antiquity or the Middle Ages were associated with a large degree of control on the verge of a totalitarian society – for example, in Plato's dialogue «On the state» or in Thomas More's book on the best state on the island of Utopia (1516). Consequently, in the history of civilizations, the limit of control by its excess in society has defined – this is the phenomenon of totalitarianism, when almost all manifestations of human existence are controlled.
On the other side, it is impossible not to see that the entire human history is a series of different wars – from tribal to World wars. War in the civilizational aspect is the apotheosis of chaos, the archaization of society as an integral organism. And this is another border of control, where its presence is minimal, and where control appears as a benefit and a condition of security.
In different historical epochs, control could take various forms, especially interesting are the methods of control in the epochs before the invention of the printing press.
Art has always reflected on the development of control in society. Especially interesting are the images of control in modern cinema, including TV series and music videos, whose audience currently significantly exceeds the number of viewers of the «big cinema». Control on the cinema screen and in the film industry can take different forms: as external – censorship, translation of values that are not peculiar to any culture, or mind control ... Internal forms of control in cinema are expressed, first of all, in an artistic image, transmitted through ideas that are reflected in the script of a film, clip or TV series.
The purpose of the special issue of the journal is to analyze one of the main features of modern civilization, which affects both the security problem of modern society and the threat of total suppression of freedom.
The significance of such an issue of the journal will be to determine the degree of development and a broader understanding of the processes that are taking place in society in the twenty-first century. This issue will allow you to see how really the key issues of the development of modern civilization are in the field of view of intellectuals.
Topics for special issue:
Control in antiquity and the Middle Ages;
The specifics of control in the information civilization;
Artistic images of control in the visual arts.

Keywords:

  1. control
  2. control in antiquity and the Middle Ages
  3. control in information civilization
  4. images of control
  5. control in TV series and music videos
  6. totalitarianism and chaos – borders of control
Lead Guest Editor
  • Francisca Foortai

    Faculty of Philosophy, Culturology and Art, Leningrad state University, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation