'Asia', Hansonism and the discourse of white decline

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the historical processes of Malaya-Indonesia literary links and networks in 1950–1965. The focus is on how Malay writers, most of whom were political activists and journalists as well, sought inspiration from Indonesia in their creative processes as a part of the struggle for the Malayan independence. As a preliminary study, this paper is limited to showing the links the Malay writers built with their Indonesian counterparts, and how these links affected and were affected by the political relations between the two countries, especially during the “Confrontation” era in 1963–1965.     

Labour relations in Korea between crisis management and living solidarity

Abstract

This paper examines the ambiguous nature of Murakami's criticism toward the postwar Japanese condition – as the artist most effectively captured in his phrase ‘A Little Boy,’ which was also the title of his curated exhibition at the Japan Society of New York in 2005 Murakami, Takashi. 2005. “‘Earth in my window’”. In Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, Edited by: Murakami, Takashi. 98–149. New York and New Haven: The Japan Society and Yale University Press. Linda Hoaglund (trans.) [Google Scholar]. As Murakami wrote in his introduction to the catalogue, demilitarized Japan after the Second World War underwent a collective sense of helplessness, and the metaphor of a little boy is intended to describe Japan's supposedly unavoidable reliance on its big brother, America. The name ‘Little Boy,’ in fact, originates from the code name used by the American military for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The proliferation of ‘cuteness’ in Japanese contemporary art, which draws upon youth culture, especially otaku culture, evinces a common urge among the postwar generation in Japan to escape from their horrible memories and sense of powerlessness. Murakami's rhetorical analysis of Japan's self‐image seems, however, contradictory, given his extremely aggressive business tactics, which can find no counterpart in the Western art world – not even in the efforts of Murakami's predecessor, Andy Warhol. Like My Lonesome Cowboy (1998), whose hyper sexuality defies its pubescent and immature appearance, his art, theory, and art marketing indicate the paradoxical nature of his theory of impotence. By focusing on his manifesto and writings published on the occasion of his 2005 Murakami, Takashi. 2005. “‘Earth in my window’”. In Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, Edited by: Murakami, Takashi. 98–149. New York and New Haven: The Japan Society and Yale University Press. Linda Hoaglund (trans.) [Google Scholar] exhibition and his style of managing Kaikai Kiki Ltd., this paper delves into the dual nature of Murakami's interpretation of postwar Japanese art and culture, particularly in relation to those of America.     

Discourse of cultural identity in Indonesia during the 1997-1998 monetary crisis

Abstract

‘Asian Pop’ cultural products, which include a wide range of media artifacts such as film, music, television drama, comic books, magazines, websites and fashion, have emerged as a popular choice for youth in Asia in recent times. These cultural artifacts feature prominently in the lives of urban youth in major metropolitan centers throughout Asia. This paper examines how Thai youths have become consumers of Korean pop (K‐pop), following the trend of neighboring countries. The popularization of Japanese pop (J‐pop), Taiwanese‐pop and more recently, K‐pop, is welcomed by the Cultural Industry as a sign of expanding borders and as a major step towards expanding its Asian market. On the one hand, growing consumption and mainstreaming of Asian pop might become problematic due to the notion of cultural ‘McDonaldization’/standardization, in the future. On the other hand, perhaps nationalism and national ties will manage to overrule this projected standardization. This paper explores the Thai youth’s consumption of K‐pop in the process of cultural appropriation vis‐à‐vis their ‘national’ cultural formation in changing socio‐cultural contexts.     

Hollywood,Americanism and the imperial screen: geopolitics of image and discourse after the end of the Cold War1

Abstract

What should, could, and does the thesis advisor do? Four years of teaching, researching, and supervising in a graduate program at a university in Taipei led me to search within – not beyond – the ‘holy trinity of academic work’ (i.e. teaching, research, and service) for a different interpretation on the laboring of university teachers. The neoliberal logic embodied in the numbers game, quantitative criteria of judgment, and inter‐regional competition has formed specific conditions of laboring for university professors in East Asia. In this article, I advocate a ‘learning to labor’ perspective to situate teachers in the institutional, social, and global relations of laboring. I draw particular attention to affective labor – a quintessential form of labor in the global condition – and suggest its potential to formulate subjectivity in the current geopolitics of knowledge production. In this article, the productive power of affective labor is represented in three experimental texts: two short stories and a play. Created to document, grasp and learn from my interactions with my graduate advisees, this article hopes to sound out multiple voices and inflect laboring with consoling imagination.     

The national crisis and de/reconstructing nationalism in South Korea during the IMF intervention

Abstract

This paper explores the process by which Korean nationalism was challenged and transformed through utilizing sports celebrities as iconic figures during the International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervention in South Korea. The influences of the IMF intervention were not limited to economic and political fields; rather, Korean nationalism had undergone substantial changes through the national crisis. At that time, two Korean athletes who were hugely successful in the US became national celebrities, or even national heroes in South Korea, a baseball player, Chan‐ho Park and a goler Se‐ri Pak. The media representation of these two Korean athletes is useful for the understanding of altered nationalism during the IMF intervention. The analysis of media coverage of these two athletes can be summarized in three ways: first, the coverage is focused on a self‐governing individual; second, that individual is invested with the image of economic success in global competition; and third, that individual is invested with the image of responsibility for both family and nation‐state. Conclusively, the two celebrities were presented as models for a new kind of citizenship, i.e. a national individual. Finally, this paper suggests that Korean nationalism has been altered through the IMF intervention, but remains a hegemonic ideology albeit combined with neoliberalism.     

Gamers versus zombies? Visual mediation of the citizen/non-citizen encounter in Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’

ABSTRACT

This article identifies the visual representation of Europe’s “refugee crisis” in the media as a key dimension of the communicative architecture of the crisis and its aftermath. Effectively, it argues, the powerful, even iconic, imagery that the media produced and shared during the 2015 “crisis” affirmed ideological frames of incompatible difference, perpetually dividing European citizens and refugees. The article focuses on some of the fundamental elements of the 2015 crisis’s visual grammar to demonstrate how they have (re-)produced popular fears of strangeness and the need for containment and control of foreign bodies. This visual grammar, we argue, imitated and procreated recognizable representations of popular culture to exaggerate newcomers’ strangeness and incompatible difference from the national subject. On the one hand, many news media simulated zombies’ threatening strangeness in images of refugee massification; on the other, many news media images reaffirmed the decisive power of the national subject over refugees’ fate, not unlike the video game player who unilaterally controls a game and takes action when confronted by zombies. This grammar, we argue, symbolically predetermines encounters between citizens and refugees, by emphasizing their incompatible difference and newcomers’ strangeness.     

Are we facing a “causality crisis” in acculturation research? The need for a methodological (r)evolution

Acculturation is an inherently causal phenomenon that deals with changes and processes initiated by intercultural contact. However, although more than 13,000 scientific articles to date have been published on a topic related to acculturation, only a small fraction uses data that allow for causal inferences. As a result, our field can be seen as facing a “crisis of causality,” where central theories and models that assume causality between constructs still lack robust empirical support. To address this gap, I provide recommendations for the next generation of acculturation research, emphasizing primarily the need for experimental and longitudinal studies.     

五粮液中庸文化的坚守与发展

五粮液文化是五粮液发展过程中产生的思想观念、制度规范、建筑雕塑、产品广告等的综合体。其核心是中国儒家的中庸文化,但也恰当地吸收了道家、墨家、法家等文化中的先进成分,它是五粮液不断走向成功的反映。中庸文化应当与时俱进,在全球化时代进行现代转型,使文化成为五粮液强大的软实力。     

《看了明朝就明白》序

2004年,我在京中一次文友的聚會上,與武漢作家、以出版長篇歷史小說《張居正》享譽文壇、近日更榮獲茅盾長篇小說獎榜首的熊召政先生聊明史。甚投機,便脫口而出:“我要寫一部明朝的書,書名就叫《看了明朝就明白》。”素以捷才见稱的熊先生立即說:“好啊!我也要寫一部書,書名叫《看了明朝不明白》。”我倆不禁哈哈大笑。     

An intercultural test of the generality of interpretations of nonverbal cues

This study examines Mehrabian's claim concerning the cross-cultural generality of implicit metaphors that underlie a set of coding rules for the interpretation of nonverbal behaviors. Responses of Japanese and American school teachers were used to discover whether observers from two different cultures interpret nonverbal behaviors during interpersonal communication according to the three-dimensional metaphorical scheme proposed by Mehrabian and to assess the degree of intercultural consensus about dimensions and interpretations. Factor analysis, factor structure comparisons, and multiple discriminant analysis yielded evidence of significant differences between groups both in the dimensions used and in the interpretations of nonverbal cues along those dimensions.     

孔子义利观新解

谈孔子的义利观,得先说说孔子的行学。行学,是规范人们行为的学说。荀子说:“行也者,行礼之谓也。”行学,就是礼仪学。先说什么是礼。千百年来,人们对礼的认识,只是很浅层次的。因而,中国虽号称礼仪之邦,道德水准却不敢使人恭维。很大原因是人们对礼认识有误。礼的出现和发展,不是一蹴而就的,是在漫长的社会发展中逐渐规范形成的。礼不是能随意制定出的,而是在世世代代传下来的文明的传统里面。不管是朝代的更替,还是社会政治制度的根本转变,都不可能异想天开地另创一套礼。奴隶制向封建制转换时如此,封建制向社会主义或资本主义体制转换时…     

Son of Science,Heart of Love and Beauty of Art

Renowned American geneticist and physician Walter Sutton compares truth [science], kindness [religion] and , beauty [art] to the three sides of a pyramid, He notes that when a person stands on the bottom of different sides of a pyramid, he will find the distance between either sides is quite long, Many people have made lifelong pursuit but they have only ended up learning about a Small part of Sclence.     

人力车发明史

人力车在许多西方人的眼里，和斗笠、舢板、梯田等一样属于东方的特有物品，但事实上早在17、18世纪，巴黎街头就出现过一种被称为“vinaigrette”——“香料盒”的人拉的二轮“马车”。法国画家兼雕刻家Claude Gillot(1673年-1722年)的画里，曾经描绘过两辆“香料盒”的相遇：在他的画中，一辆“香料盒”在街道的拐角，遇上迎面而来的另一辆，两个车夫面对面，拉着豪华车的做着手势，让另一辆车让路。     

襄王云雨辨

自从宋玉《高唐赋》面世后，“巫山神女”、“云雨”、“阳台”等词，常见于古诗词曲，小说中更多。例如李白《清平调三章》之二：“云雨巫山枉断肠”、李商隐《无题》：“神女生涯元是梦”等。但关于这场男女欢会的男主角，有人却说是楚襄王，如李白《襄阳歌》：“襄王云雨今安在？”还有多人，暂不举。     

繁荣地方史学论纲

发展和繁荣地方史学研究 ,不仅是社会发展与进步对中国历史学提出的要求 ,而且也是中国历史学自身发展的需要。发展与繁荣地方史学研究 ,应当注意八个方面的问题 :锐意创新 ;紧贴现实 ;突出特色 ;百花齐放 ;放眼世界 ;联合攻关 ;造就名家 ;走向网络     

天道之兩維早期儒家《詩》學與《易》學的變奏

無論我們對於子貢"夫子之文章,可得而聞也;夫子之言性與天道,不可得而聞也"的說法做出如何的詮釋,<論語>所見孔子思想中天道角色的模糊確實是顯而易見的.①除了子貢這裹的說法之外,我們看不到另外孔子和門弟子們討論或者提到天道的例子.如果考慮到子產"天道遠,人道邇,非所及也"②之說所顯示出來的春秋後期政治和文化精英對於天道的疏遠,那麼孔子的這種模糊或許可以被理解成是很自覺的選擇.     

Exchange of Culture, Exchange of Hearts

<正>Cultural exchange brings people of different nations closer. Cultural exchange and cooperation constitutes an indispensable part of country-to-country relati...     

郑国东迁之都与郑氏祖茔

周宣王二十二年（前806年），宣王封异母弟友于郑，为三等诸侯国，都于镐京附近的械林（今陕西华县北），是为郑桓公。公元前781年，宣王去世，太子继位，史称周幽王。幽王沉溺酒色，宠信奸臣，把国家推向了危亡边缘。