Synergy

3

Authors: Mihaela ARSENE

“Why Nations Fail. The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty” by Acemoglu and Robinson was published in 2012 and took the world by storm as the two U.S. professors launched a new theory on the origin of economic disparities, past and present. The 500 page volume builds on 15 years of comprehensive research that explores the rise and fall of states and empires, from the Neolithic Revolution to the current developments in China, with due attention to all the outburst of economic and institutional creativity, be it manifested in the Maya civilization or the Industrial Revolution.

7

Authors: Mihaela ARSENE

The article revisits, refines, expands, and updates some of the issues first explored in Synergy volume 6, number 1 of 2010 and further on in volume 7, number 1 of 2011. The core issue is teacher training and development: does this occur through imitation of the teaching patterns one has been exposed to throughout the schooling process or can self awareness, by integrating reflection and introspection, liberate teachers and turn the blueprint of the past teaching practices into just one of the many teaching options they can choose from?

10

Authors: Lora CONSTANTINESCU

Beyond the theoretical framework within which the topical issues of environmentalism and sustainability have developed (as ethical values of the society as well as of the company corporate culture), the question remains: what do ecology and sustainable behaviour look like in everyday life? In the present paper the focus lies on developing and raising the ecological awareness: starting with a brief look at the complex economy-ecology in the modern business world and then discussing some (teaching book-based and project-oriented) FLT-approaches, the paper points out at ways and means to make the topic a rewarding issue when teaching LSP/ German to advanced and L2-learners.

13

Authors: Adrian SOLOMON

Post-tourism has undergone a few mutations in recent decades. The ironically-disposed post-tourist has come to accept and eventually seek destinations where space and time, and sometimes people themselves, have been commodified for touristic purposes. Various degrees of authenticity of a few popular tourist destinations are analyzed in the light of Baudrillard’s theory of simulation and simulacra. The conclusion briefly lays out the modern tourists’ dual attitude towards commodification and (in)authenticity.

34

Authors: Sridhar RAJESWARAN

India is an ancient land, a land that has been home to many. It is steeped in myth and has no “trace” of “attestable history” before the 13th century. It is also a many times colonized land that has experienced/suffered hegemonising social intrusions due to expropriations of the land and territory of its indigenous peoples. It is a country that has had its map drawn many times over with the imperial British Modern European Coloniser finally partitioning it. This land is known for its diversity. Its peoples speak many languages, practice different cultures, cultures that are exuded due to inhabiting differential terrains that makes it also a traveller’s paradise. A reading of the history of this ancient land in the times we indwelled- in and are indwelling-in reads no different from the lines that begin Dickens’s opus, “A Tale of Two Cities”, containing within it India’s success story as well as India’s strife, voices that sang and continue to sing in euphoria as well as voices screaming silent shrieks of disgruntled masses of a time past, a time present, discordant. The questions that need to be answered are as to “how may one privilege the future when the past is unavailable, erased, or available only as nostalgia, myth, and mere memory? When the present impinges on the past in particular ideological ways? When destinies are tied irresistibly to a colonial centre, Europe in general and Britain in particular? The paper will be an exploration of some of these questions.