Nationalism as a Subculture?
It sounds blasphemous to describe as a subculture the most precarious civic engagement of the Modern Times, going to extremes, such as the ethics of self-sacrifice – neither of the knight, nor of the warrior, but of the common citizen – nationalism. I am taking the liberty of putting such a hypothesis to the test here, in view of the tendency, observed in the Bulgarian youth in particular, to shift from the rationally political to the media-based emotional register. We understand less and less what they want to happen in the state; whereas they inculcate on us who they hate and love in ever more figurative ways. Needless to say that the most serious mobilizations around this symbolical obscurity, extending all the way from the extreme-right racism to the left protectionism of the labor market, are taking place on the net today.1
Subcultures as Virtual Communities
What happens to subcultural formations when they enter the cyberspace? And how does online communication alter connections and identification with the group? Are there new forms of community in the digital phase of youth cultures, and can they be related to the theoretical insights about postmodern fluid identities and ephemeral belongings? This text continues the reflections about the new forms of post-subcultural communities, bringing together some theoretical insights about virtual identity, existing studies of virtual communities, and the results of a research on the internet forums of subcultural groups in Bulgaria.
Subculture and Ethnicity
The Life Story of an Actor from Razgrad
Local subcultures: the Razgrad Theater’s Youth Company
So, our nights will wear away like this past us? Obliterated under the feet of eternity… The generations will leave us behind, recalling just a name, which will be written down in water, not in ink. So, this is life? It’s just a past that’s washed away, all traces vanished; a present chasing after the past; a future that may only pass, and thus become a present or a past?
Resistance as a Luxury
Subcultures, identity, and practices of the self
This article seeks to prove that describing contemporary subcultures as forms of identity, or of resistance, as researchers have been inclined to do in the last couple of decades, is somewhat problematical. I will try to show that subcultures can be thought of as specific forms of care of the self instead. With this aim in mind, I will analyze the practices pertaining to the vandalizing of a drinking fountain in the village of Tranak, as represented in a couple of video clips.
