Vol 34, No 4 (2024)

Explore the intricate relationship between reality and fiction in a thought-provoking examination of how we perceive and interact with fictional forms. Delve into the fascinating complexities of human experience through cinema, theater, and video games, and witness how they reflect and imitate our own reality. Understand the sociological underpinnings as illustrated by the American sociologist of everyday life Erving Goffman and embodied in the Suspicious Owl animated series. This exploration unravels the layers of perception and interpretation, demonstrating how our engagement with fiction influences our understanding of the real world. Whether you’re a fan of literature, film, or simply intrigued by the mechanics of the human mind, this perspective on the interplay between the real and unreal offers a compelling lens through which to view our daily lives. It’s a journey into the essence of our very being, a reflection of how we see ourselves, and a challenge to our assumptions about what is truly real.

This text is neither about Émile Durkheim nor about the movie. It is a small exercise to demonstrate how a local sociological theory can be applied to analyze a certain work of fiction. To do this, we examine one theoretical tension contained within the French sociologist’s ideas about the nature of human egoism. The reference to the movie Babylon (2022) is therefore no more than illustrative. Nevertheless, it allows us to vividly describe the ideal-typical characteristics of “egoistic” suicide.

The article analyzes the reaction of the bureaucratic structures of the Soviet Union to Vladimir Gubarev’s play Sarcophagus, published shortly after the Chernobyl accident. The author examines how bureaucratic mechanisms interpret works of art as potential threats to the social order. Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social crises, the article explores works of state symbolic violence, its role in shaping the perception of objects of the world by various agents, and the techniques that are used by the state apparatus to tame fantasy and restore the boundaries between different social fields.

In a world where body customization is no longer limited to video games like Cyberpunk 2077, I explore the convergence of flesh and technology. Are we confined by our physical form, or is there room to evolve, to upgrade? This article navigates the intersection of human nature and cybernetics, sparking questions about our technologically mediated existence. Where does the human end, and the machine begin?

Sci-fi anime does not surprise anyone, but political and philosophical one is a completely different matter. Anime that illustrates the key concepts of such classics as Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Friedrich Nietzsche. And after them, that puts up a thought experiment, designed into a work of art, in which a human, as a biological species, completely disappears, partially evolving into another creature. How this can happen, what is accompanied and what it leads to is the plot-forming core in the anime series From the New World (新世界より Shinsekai Yori, 2012–2013) and the subject of this article.

The worlds of civil and criminal are so polarized, they rarely intertwine. One is of order and stability, the other is of sinister chaos. At least at the very first and deceiving sight. In strolls through the neon streets of the 1980’s Japan the truth slowly reveals itself. In the people’s gossip, in the shadows of city alleys - the feared and mysterious yakuza weave themselves into the city’s life. Just like the pollution from the society’s exhaust fumes, they seep into its tiniest crevices and bare it open with their dirty chains. The Yakuza series masterfully show this elusive yet strong bond. And with the sociology of power, we might dig deeper into its value and functions.

In the fantasy world of The Promised Neverland (2019) anime series, people are raised to be eaten by monsters. However, the so-called “human farms” are disguised as orphanages: unsuspecting children spend everyday happily, until they finally get the chance “to turn over a new leaf,” which finally became “shaking like a leaf” before death. When it comes to the structure of the “farms,” they show most of the attributes of total institutions. The author considers the characteristics of the fictional “farms” in The Promised Neverland in accordance with existing sociological theory of total institutions by Erving Goffman, and also highlights features specific to this case.

Sociological texts on zombies are mostly interested in human problems (capitalism, pop culture, etc), not in zombies as such. Zombies as a specific form of (non)life remain a blindspot for sociologists. Scientists of other disciplines, like epidemiology and neurosciences, have already declared their ways for studying zombies. Our task is to outline the concepts and hypotheses that sociology could contribute to this emerging interdisciplinary project. The main focus is on the social organization of zombies in relation to the observed features of their behavior. One of the key questions (without a satisfactory answer) of the future sociology of zombies was formulated by the neuroscientists Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek: why single zombies look dumb and clumsy, while big groups of zombies act like a well-coordinated formidable force? In search of a basis for understanding zombies, the essay turns to the classical ideas of sociology (Georg Simmel, Émile Durkheim, Gabriel Tarde) and to the later anthropological insights of Mary Douglas, Victor Turner and René Girard. A sociological approach to zombies makes it possible to describe them not as a pathology, but as a special way of organizing a collective (non)life that can successfully compete with the human one.