GLOBALIZATION AT THE BEGINNING OF 21ST CENTURY

Paper is based on the understanding of globalization as a complex phenomenon and focuses on detecting of cultural contours of globalization process. Globalization is studied today in many contexts: global civilization and its risks in current stage of historical development, pitfalls of multiculturalism, cultural plurality and cultural difference both as set of values, nature of the differences among cultures, their influence on international relations and on addressing of global problems, global cultural gap, cultural unification and mass culture, global identity. Frequent topic of discourse of cultural studies is globalization of culture concieved as occidentalization and americanization which threaten cultural diversity through cultural assimilation by commodities or gender aspects of globalization. The present text deals with just these topics in a brief outline.