民间的“纸马”艺术

正门神早在我国夏、商两代,便有了祭祀门扉的习俗,不过那时候先民祭祀的门神不是钟馗,也不是神荼、郁垒,而是"狗"。在畜牧时代,人类崇拜狗很现实,因为狗最忠于主人,白天随主人去放牧,夜里忠实守卫门户,确保主家的安全,是人类最可信赖的朋友。安阳殷墟早期出土的甲骨文中,狗字的象形是"卷着尾巴守门"的姿态,即所谓的护门"犬神"。还有器具的"器"字,便是中间一只犬看守四只陶罐。现在,云、贵、陕等地的少数民族地区     

猫狗论

在农村有一句俗话:忠心保家的狗,见异思迁的猫.在人们眼里,不论主人如何对待狗,也不论主人是善是恶,是好是坏,狗总是忠心不二,矢志不渝,因而狗的名声很好.而猫却差远了,猫很在乎主人对自己的好坏,如果主人对猫采取暴行或虐待,猫就不再留恋主人,而选择"负气出走",到其它地方寻找栖身之处.猫的这种反叛造成猫的名声不佳,从而形成扬狗抑猫的思维定势.我觉得,对于狗和猫的本性应该有一个客观公正的分析才是.     

我家的第四口--虎头

虎头是一只黄白花小狗,去年4月,在它两个月大时,我们把它当作疗救儿子孤独病的一味药,花四十元钱从洱海公园旁边的周末狗市买回家,原打算暑假我们回北京时再把它送还给狗市的原主人,但经过几个月的相处,我们一家人把它当作了第四个家庭成员,三口之家变成了四口之家.     

我是一条狗

我是一条狗,一条毛色纯黑的农村土狗.此时,正参加一场叫做"流浪狗选贤大会"的活动. 1 自第一任主人离世后,我走过很多地方——严格讲是到处流浪.一路上,我啃过同类吃剩的骨头,抢过路边家猫的饭食,甚至捕过一只老鼠生吞,也被好心人喂过残羹剩饭,有一回还是狗粮.狗粮,的确是我大半狗生中第一次吃到,味道并不咋地.我忘了是什么牌子,那之后也就再没吃过了.     

捉鹦鹉

星期天,我和哥哥去乡下奶奶家玩.奶奶养了一只鹦鹉,这只鹦鹉会讲好多话,奶奶把它当宝贝.它有一个坏毛病,就是爱骂人,一见到小娃娃就骂"王八蛋",这是弟弟教它的.     

一条长了势利眼的狗

前年夏天的一个周末，我到大港去看望我的学生郑子建君。子建君，是我年轻时在静海当老师时的一个学生，聪明、能干，又为人忠实、仗义，所以一直没断了联系。他到大港后，做保险工作，几次来电话约我去玩，我想也好，顺便看看大港什么样，就去了。     

一只特立独行的猴子

有两位前辈分别写过<一只特立独行的猪>和<一只特立独行的狗>,这回轮到我写"猴子"了.但是无论是特立独行的"猪"、"狗",还是"猴子",都是切实存在于社会生活中的,只是请不要拘泥于我们所描绘的形式.     

人狗之间

我对狗的仇恨,大约是幼小时候便已形成了.幼时常与父亲去有狗的人家,要么做工,要么去借粮食……遇到的狗往往是龇牙咧嘴,疯咬狂叫,吓得不知哭过多少回,不知不觉竟落下了惧狗的毛病. 十岁时我在小学读书,放学天天都从一棵桃树下走过,那桃子又大又红,看着就有些眼馋.有一天便早早准备了石头,预备打下一两个,好容易鼓起勇气甩出石头,就听见后面有狗的低嚎,转回头便看见一团黄绒绒的东西扑过来,吓得我拔腿就跑,偏偏却被自己扔出的石头落下来砸在头上顿时血流满面,桃子是吃到了(狗的主人送来了满满一箩),但却因受伤被剃了光头、缠了纱布,着实被同学们取笑了几天,待纱布取下后,那伤处便再也没有长出头发来.     

每天32公里的思念

正佩罗站在一望无际的农场上,打量着周围陌生的一切,突然感到恐惧和不安,同时心底涌上了一股深深的思念。佩罗想家,想亲人,想威尔士乡下的一切。佩罗不知道这里是坎布里亚都的科克茅斯,也不知道这里和威尔士有380公里的距离。此时,佩罗心里只有一个念头,那就是回家。佩罗是一只4岁大的边境牧羊犬,一直和主人詹姆斯生活在威尔士的乡下。可是,在3月初,詹姆斯突然决定要把佩罗送走,因为远在科克茅斯的朋友需要一只狗来帮忙牧羊。就这样,佩罗被带到了科克茅斯,被迫开始新的生活。     

家居记事（组诗）

家里的狗丢了 我很难过 丢了的狗 本来 只是一只拣来的流浪狗 可流浪 并不是它的本性     

Only the Last Page Left Behind

It is a small town I like most. I went there with my college mates in the 1980s and was quite impressed. The small town extended along the river. From a distant view, overlapping houses and charming roof slopes could be glimpsed through misty morning rays and black tiles and white walls looked plain but elegant. There was a riverside square in the town and a stone bridge in a distance. Adults sat at the bridge, chatting and enjoying the cool while kids chasing and playing on the square. On t…     

Becoming Canadian: Immigrant narratives of professional attainment

We investigate how economic immigrants in Canada negotiate their identity in the process of “becoming Canadian” through an analysis of public texts. Drawing on the master narrative framework, we examine the interplay between individual and societal narratives as immigrants grapple with the tension between notions of “desirable” immigrants as those that are well integrated professionally and the reality of facing career related barriers. Among those whose success stories align with the master narrative of professional attainment there was little questioning of this expectation, thereby allowing it to remain invisible. Among those who had not (yet) achieved work related success in the receiving country, they tended to engage alternative narratives elaborating on the antecedents, outcomes, and barriers to labor market participation. Despite the countering nature of these alternative narratives, they strengthen the societal expectation of professional success as a key pathway to inclusion, thereby reinforcing the rigidity of this narrative. We contribute to literature on the social construction of national identity by examining the process of becoming national and the role of labor market participation in immigrants’ perceptions of inclusion in their new society. Our study highlights the importance of including immigrants’ voices in the construction of a more inclusive society, which may aid in breaking down exclusionary narratives of national identity.     

‘Bloodhounds as Detectives’

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nineteenth-century origins of the sniffer dog in one of the most notorious homicide investigations in British history, focusing on Scotland Yard's attempts to use the reputed olfactory powers of pure-bred English bloodhounds in the hunt for London's East End serial murderer Jack the Ripper in 1888. This episode has been historiographically overlooked in part because the dogs were never actually deployed. However, the failure to unleash dogs on the Ripper's trail turns out to be critically significant, opening up a space through which the historical contingencies and social meanings of dog-breeding and training practices can be explored and scrutinized. As a crime-solving tool, utilized for the purpose of investigating metropolitan crime, canine detection posed distinct problems. Proponents of bloodhound detection had to contend with various cultural, material and practical challenges, in order to guarantee the canines as reliable hunters in an environment that was contaminated by slum odour.     

Son of Famous Father Finds Artistic Freedom

Artist and photographer Li Xiaoke grew up looking to his father as a role model. But ,growing up in the shadow of the great modem master of traditional Chinese landscape ink and water painting, brought its own particular burden. Now in his sixties, the son has established his own place in the Chinese world of fine arts and photography, and created his own artistic vision.[第一段]     

Authors' Biographies

ABSTRACT

This article critically engages with a contemporary play, Aur Kitne Tukde, staged in the Hindi language in various cities and towns in India and Pakistan, about gendered violence during Partition. It unsettles the master narrative of ‘honour’, ‘martyrdom’, ‘choice’ and women's ‘agency’ on Partition. The article also highlights the significance of the play in breaking the silences around Partition in the theatre, which, as compared with other cultural and literary mediums, reaches out to a larger section of people in unique ways. It underlines how the whole production of the play was a process of traversing and sharing the journey and trauma of Partition not only for the actors but also for the audiences. The article also tries to problematize the whole question of violence and its representation.     

Mystery and Miracle： National Treasures Unearthed from Sanxingdui

Bronze Standing Figure The bronze standing gure, 2.62 meters high with a 0.8-meter foundation, is the largest bronze masterpiece of ancient China ever discovered. The bronze gure wears a lotus-shaped crown carved with cloud and thunder patterns. It has a skinny face, two big eyes, a high nose bridge and a wide mouth. A small hole is pierced on each of its ears for hanging ear rings. The gure wears a serious but peaceful expression, its eyes shining with profound wisdom and its thin mouth lip…     

Knots in the Fourth Dimension

ABSTRACT

The article analyses a debate that preoccupied the Russian press in the winter of 1878/9. Writers, journalists and scientists discussed whether mathematics could explain spiritualist séance phenomena. At its core, this was an assessment of social change and a debate about the ambiguity of modern life. While spiritualists hoped to bridge the divide between science and religion, subjectivity and objectivity, their opponents feared that séance phenomena and modern mathematics undermined a rationalist world-view that was endowed with reliability and universal truth. That no agreement could be reached indicates that the post-reform public sphere had become truly pluralist and modern.     

Hou Hsiao‐Hsien’s two dreams of light and shadows

Abstract

In traditional Chinese culture, dreams are often more than a narrative ploy or an extension of the authors’ imagination, but instruments for musings on life. This essay is an attempt to study Hou Hsiao‐Hsien’s aesthetics in The Puppetmaster and Flowers of Shanghai from the perspective of dreams. The former is like a lucid dream where the ageing puppet master is the person in the dream, while Hou the filmmaker is the passer‐by who saunters into the dream and puts it down on record. The latter, on the other hand, is an inebriated dream where the plan‐sequences are weaved together by black‐ins and black‐outs as in a dream from which no one wants to wake.     

Free Trade and Print Culture: Political Communication in Early Nineteenth-Century England

This article highlights the potency of traditional popular print culture as a form of political communication for one of the pioneering campaigns of the nineteenth century: the free trade agitation of the 1840s. Contributing to recent debates about Victorian political communication, it challenges the view that the spread of literacy and print replaced a more traditional, inclusive, hybrid style of communication. The use and adaptation of broadside culture that blurred literacy, orality and visuality proved to be a more effective means of communicating free trade to popular audiences than ‘modern’ methods of political communication such as official newspapers or mass propaganda. Joseph Livesey, the most successful free trade populariser, was able to bridge the gap between free trade and Chartism, by drawing on elements of radical print culture, while seeking to shift them onto a more respectable trajectory. Livesey and cheap free trade print culture anticipated the shift from popular radicalism to popular liberalism in political culture and popular politics that occurred after 1850.     

Scenes from Timika,West Papua

Abstract

Hou Hsiao‐Hsien has been one of the central members of Taiwan New Cinema (TNC) since the early 1980s and subsequently took on the rising trajectory of becoming an internationally famous film master. In contrast, during the same period, the Taiwan film industry diminished dramatically and nearly collapsed. Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural production and the thesis of political economy of communication, this article regards Hou as a social agent and accordingly analyzes the dynamic interactions between him and the structural factors related to the broader transformations of Taiwan film industry. Hou seemed to choose his filming and production mode subjectively from the beginning, but actually the possibilities he got at the time were limited by the social structures. In addition, his rising trajectory also has been embedded in the dynamic processes of global cultural economy. Paradoxically, by the same local and global processes, Taiwan film industry has been seriously declining.