A Fascinating Journey to the Old Town of Yuzhou

Yuxian County, called Yuzhou in ancient times, enjoys unique terrains and old traditions. As it borders with the northern province of Shanxi, it shares many cultural and business similarities with Pingyao, an old town of Shanxi inscribed in the World Heritage List. Since it is not far from Beijing, Yuxian has become a frequent destination for travelers from Beijing. The Extraordinary Art of Paper Cut In a paper cut workshop of Yuxian County, I was fortunate to see the whole production …     

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…     

Surveying the Aspect of the Medieval West Anatolian Town

The aim of this short article is modest: it means to fill a lacuna in scholarly output by offering a concise and accessible survey of the physical structure of the typical west Anatolian town in the High Middle Ages. Attempts to locate such a study meet with disappointment. If one wishes to look through the eyes of medieval travellers in Anatolia, whether they be merchants, pilgrims or soldiers, and discover what type of construction they witnessed when approaching and entering a typical town, one is compelled to trawl through a great number of specialist articles and monographs dealing with specific archaeological sites or particular narrow periods of history. This laborious exercise will be made somewhat redundant by a brief synthesis of the appropriate evidence which historians and archaeologists have addressed and compiled since the late 1950s when attempting to reconstruct the development of the Byzantine city. The article traces the slow development of the typical Anatolian urban form and aspect from the late fourth century, through the mid-seventh to mid-eighth centuries, and then through to a period of urban recovery until the latter part of the twelfth century. The choice of periods separated by some 800 years is not arbitrary: the physical character (and function) of the typical town began to change in the late fourth century, and the form it obtained during the seventh and eighth centuries continued to be the one retained (with inconsequential variations to the general pattern) during the intermediate periods of Byzantine recovery     

Attitudes toward an enemy and personality in a war environment

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of war environment on political attitudes toward an enemy and on personality development. High school students from an Israeli town on the border of “Fatahland” and a town in central Israel were asked to fill out: A questionnaire on their political views toward the Israel-Arab conflict and the Repression-Sensitization (R-S) scale (Byrne et al., 1963). Results showed three factors in the students' political views: (a) Return of the Controversial Territories (Samaria, Judea, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai); (bj Credibility of the Arabs in negotiation; (c) The policy of the previous government in its return of certain territories in Sinai.It was found that the students in the border town were less opposed to return the Controversial Territories than the students in the non-border town. Repressers in both towns gave more credibility to the Arabs in negotiation than did sensitizers. Girls agreed more with the policy of the previous government in its return of the territories in Sinai than boys. Results also showed that the students in the border area as well as boys in both towns were more repressive in their personality type than the students in the more peaceful area and girls of both towns respectively.     

Historic Town of Xuanhua

Driving northwestward from Beijing and after crossing over the Great Wall at Badaling Pass, you will soon arrive at Xuanhua, a historic town nestling in a valley in the eastern part of Yinshan Mountain Range in the northeast of Hebei Province.[第一段]     

The art of the good life: culture and sustainable prosperity

ABSTRACT

The creative economy has seen cultural policy swallowed up by a narrow vision of economic growth, its impacts on the urban fabric captured by property developers, and its promises of meaningful activity challenged by the exploitation and inequities of cultural labour markets. So it needs to be abandoned and re-thought, but on what basis? This paper analyses the potential for cultural work to encourage alternative visions of the “good life”, in particular, how it might encourage a kind of “sustainable prosperity” wherein human flourishing is not linked to high levels of material consumption but rather the capabilities to engage with cultural and creative practices and communities. We critically explore these ideas in three locations: a London borough, a deindustrialised city in England’s midlands and a rural town on the Welsh/English border. Across these diverse landscapes and socio-economic contexts, we look at different versions of the good life and at the possibilities and constraints of cultural activity as a way of achieving kinds of sustainable prosperity.     

FOLK PAPER-CUT ART OF RUICHANG

Folk paper-cut works pasted in village houses of rustic simplicity fascinate tourists at their first glance of Ruichang, a historic town in the southern province of Jiangxi. Those villagers-made creations with authentic, vigorous and plain appeal outshine even masterpieces by many artists with academic training. Exaggerated and transmogrified designs betray innocent, unadorned and romantic pursuits of local artisans.     

DULE TEMPLE

Dule Temple is located inside the west gate of the town of Jixian, Tianjin City. It was first built in the Tang Dynasty but the Front Gate and Mother Buddha Tower were rebuilt under the guidance of Han Kuangsi in 984 AD during the Song Dynasty. Dule Temple is known as one of the oldest extant wooden-structure buildings in China. According to Luo Zhewen, a renowned expert on ancient architecture, Dule Temple is a national treasure with unparalleled historical, artistic and scientific values.     

ZEYA TRADITIONAL PAPERMAKING

As we all know, China is world renowned for its developed papermaking technology through a 2000-year long history. The modern industry of papermaking is highly automated and a variety of paper products is manufactured. Paper made by hands are seldom seen anywhere. But in Zeya town, Ohai District of Wenzhou city, Zhejiang province, paper used to offer sacrifice to Deity is still kept as preserved traditional industry. In the long immigration history, Nanping people moved to Zeya when Nanping was well known as one of the papermaking hometowns; the name is then kept unchanging when people went to Zeya for surviving the turmoil days.[第一段]     

Cultural mapping and sustainable communities: planning for the arts revisited

The field of arts and cultural planning and the aspirations of cultural practitioners, arts development officers and town planners has had a long, if frustrated, history in the United Kingdom. The relationship between the land-use development system and arts and cultural policy has lacked specific provision guidance or standards. This is in contrast to other areas of leisure and recreation, such as parks and open spaces, sports facilities and libraries. In large part this is due to the discretionary nature of much arts provision and also the fact that there is no single type of provider. Arts facilities and activity are delivered directly and indirectly by local and county councils, community and independent not-for-profit arts organizations – large and small – and private enterprises in the commercial entertainment and cultural industries. The absence of planning guidance and comparable data to assess the need for, and location of, a range of cultural amenities has also hampered an equitable, distributory planning approach. However, renewed interest in amenity planning and the role of cultural activity and opportunity in “place making” is evident internationally, and in the UK in particular, as new housing growth areas, demographic change and population increases require the planning of social as well as physical infrastructure on a scale not experienced since the last major new town developments. This article reviews the evolution of arts and cultural planning in the UK, including an assessment of recent concepts, guidance and resources in the UK and elsewhere. Cultural mapping and planning approaches are then demonstrated in housing growth areas, followed by a proposed methodology and framework for populating the cultural map. Finally, conclusions are made on the state of data and policy integration in what continues to be a fragmented cultural system.     

The ‘Leeds Lake District’: Water Supply,Rural Environment,and the Cultural Landscape in Victorian and Edwardian Britain

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the benefits of cultural readings of the environment by showing how the reservoirs of the Washburn Valley, built by the Leeds Corporation between 1869 and 1879 and vital sources of potable water for the urban population, altered the area’s cultural landscape. An examination of Leeds-based newspapers and locally published guidebooks will show how the reservoirs positively affected Romantic depictions of the area, whilst the use of the phrase ‘the Leeds Lake District’ fabricated a sense of civic pride between the town and its hinterland, an area positively affected by the implementation of urban engineering.     

Discourses of Contraction in the Spatialization of Whiteness

Agricultural communities increasingly have become sites of struggle over identity, belonging and citizenship. While historically the relationship between race and space has been one of segregation and displacement, investigations of these sites of (im)migration reveal new discursive relationships and particular manifestations of whiteness. Adopting a spatial framework, this ethnographic study seeks to de-essentialize whiteneness through an exploration of discourses of contraction articulated by members of a farm community. Contraction refers to white residents’ representation of “Hispanicness” as spreading throughout (and threatening) “their” town, specifically commercial and educational spaces. The implications of contraction include the re-consolidation of white privilege as the “minority” group within a context of spatial integration.     

“One Hour He Is a Christian and the Next He Is a Muslim!” A Family Dispute from the Cairo Geniza

This study publishes a newly identified letter to Moses Maimonides reconstructed from three Geniza fragments. The letter describes an inheritance dispute over real estate in the Egyptian delta town of al-Ma?alla. Having a letter written by a litigant provides information on what took place outside of court, information that is often missing from legal records. This allows us to explore the dynamics of a dispute in which one side makes a legal move, and the other counters with a move outside of court, and vice versa. These manoeuvrings included action in Jewish and Muslim courts, appeal to a jurisconsult, social pressure and performative disregard to the boundaries of the religious communities. As a result, we can conceive of the legal arena not only as encompassing different legal institutions but also as a social space constituted by the ways litigants experienced and interacted with legal institutions.     

Applying the PEN-3 Cultural Model to Address HIV/AIDS Prevention in Rural Guatemala

Guatemala has an accelerating HIV rate, where prevalence is three times higher among indigenous than nonindigenous, comprising 21% of all cases. Vulnerability is exacerbated by high poverty, low literacy, and poor access to testing and treatment options. This study develops a community-engaged HIV prevention campaign plan for the Mayan town of Santiago Atitlán. The PEN-3 model of cultural sensitivity frames this formative research project. Assessment domains of the PEN-3 model (Cultural empowerment and Relationships & expectations) identify culturally relevant factors affecting HIV prevention behaviours. The Cultural identity domain is utilized to identify entry points enhancing cultural acceptance and efficacy.     

Civilized Attire: Refashioning Tastes and Social Status in the Gabon Estuary,c. 1870–1914

Dress in Libreville, the capital of the French African colony of Gabon, reveals the complexities of cross-cultural interaction and cultural influences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Mpongwe coastal ethnic community in the town, long linked to Atlantic commerce, adapted elements of European dress as part of a lifestyle of assimilation to French culture. Free people with access to missionary education and economic employment with Europeans adapted foreign dress. This cultural hybridity provoked dismay from some European and American observers who presented Mpongwe interest in western clothes as signs of their degeneration. Some Mpongwe rejected these criticisms by upholding assimilation as proof of their equality with Europeans. Mpongwe people also combined older fashion trends and ways of displaying foreign objects in ways that show the survival of older forms of status and wealth.     

SROI in the art gallery; valuing social impact

ABSTRACT

This article considers a project that used the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology to describe and measure the social impact of Turner Contemporary art gallery in Margate, a coastal town in the South East of England. The article details the reasons why the methodology was chosen by the gallery, setting this in the context of the wider debate around evaluation and social impact reporting. A section of the research and analysis, which was carried out by COaST, a consultancy and research centre based within Canterbury Christ Church University, is described in detail, allowing the reader to understand the processes involved in this type of project and the kinds of outcomes that can be delivered using this method. Finally, an account is given of the impact the work had on the management of the gallery, and the ways in which the final report was used.     

How do these Foreigners Blend in? Migration and Integration in Late Eighteenth-Century Antwerp (1715-92)

Whereas early modern migration history has been traditionally based on citizenship rolls, marriage registers, censuses and myriad other sources, this research explores the value of eyewitness reports before the Antwerp criminal court in the eighteenth century. On the face of things, these proceedings of the hoogere Vierschaer corroborate earlier findings. Due to the economic slump, Antwerp merely drew an endless stream of humble, unskilled labourers from its rural fringe; immigrants who were often relegated to the most menial, dirty and low-paid jobs. Acts of xenophobic violence against these new arrivals, who spoke a (slightly) different language or had different habits, were no exception. Most migrants seemed to have left town after they had saved a penny. Yet, the files of the Vierschaer also shed light on some slow-burn processes of integration, which have been less thoroughly scrutinized in the past. Some migrants blended smoothly into their new environment, by finding a permanent job (mostly as publican, peddler, or unskilled labourer); by mastering new skills (literacy and language); by seizing opportunities for (modest) social rise; or by establishing strong bonds with their new neighbours, friends, colleagues or parishioners. Findings also suggest that this integration process eventually stroke home.     

“ʿAlā fūr Tuṭīla”: Jews and Muslims in the Administrative Culture of Post-Conquest Tudela,c.1118–1220

The early history of the Jewish and Muslim communities living under Christian rule in the Ebro Valleys tends to be overlooked in favour of the source-rich thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However, the nature and organisation of these groups should not be taken as a constant, as they underwent a significant transformation over the course of the twelfth century. Through the case study of Tudela, this article proposes to re-examine the dynamics of administration and judicial practice that developed in the immediate aftermath of the Navarro-Aragonese conquest. This town has a rich corpus of charters that allows us to contrast the administrative layout enshrined in the franchise charters known as fueros with the legal practice reflected in some particular bilingual interlineated purchase-sale contracts. A comparison of both sets of documents emphasises the use of the fuero in inter-communal negotiation, both in framing encounters and in guaranteeing each group's autonomy, during a key period in the gestation of Jewish and Muslim administrative and judicial practices under Christian rule.

Abbreviations: DAr = Mercedes García-Arenal, “Documentos árabes de Tudela Y Tarazona”, Al-Qan?ara: Revista de Estudios Árabes 3 (1982): 27–72; FdN = Luis Javier Fortún Pérez de Ciriza, “Colección de ‘fueros menores’ de Navarra y otros privilegios locales (I)”, Príncipe de Viana 165 (1982): 273–348     

Acculturation preferences and perceived (dis)loyalty of Muslims in the U.K.: Two vignette-based experimental studies

Muslims in the U.K. who maintain their religious culture are often viewed as a suspect community. This pre-registered experimental research examined the mediating role of perceived (dis)loyalty as underlying process and the moderating role of acculturation expectations. A total of 334 non-Muslim White British participants in Study 1 and 810 in Study 2 were asked to indicate their acculturation expectations towards Muslims. They were then randomly assigned to read a text that described Muslims in a fictional town as either (a) maintaining their religious culture or (b) adopting the mainstream British culture, or they read (c) a neutral control text. As expected, in Study 1, when Muslims were presented as maintaining their religious culture, trust decreased compared to the control group. Conversely, when described as adopting the mainstream culture, trust increased while support for surveillance of Muslims decreased. Both effects were mediated by the perception of Muslims being disloyal or loyal to the U.K in both studies, respectively. Perceived loyalty to their religious group did not significantly mediate any effect. We replicated these findings in Study 2. Moreover, we showed that describing Muslims as maintaining their religious culture decreased trust and increased support for surveillance especially among participants who expected Muslims to give up their religious culture. Moderated mediation analysis showed that these effects were partly mediated by perceived loyalty to the U.K. We discuss the societal implications of the findings for policymakers and Muslim leaders along with recommendations for future research.     

Participation and provision in arts & culture – bridging the divide

ABSTRACT

Successive policies and efforts to increase participation in a range of arts and cultural activities have tended to focus on the profile and attitude of individuals and target groups in order justify public – and therefore achieve more equitable – funding. Rationales for such intervention generally reflect the policy and political regime operating in different eras, but widening participation, increasing access and making the subsidised arts more inclusive have been perennial concerns. On the other hand, culture has also been the subject of a supply-led approach to facility provision, whether local amenity-based (“Every Town Should Have One” – Lane, 1979. Arts centres – every town should have one. London: Paul Elek), civic centre or flagship, and this has also mirrored periodic growth in investment through various capital for the arts, municipal expansion, urban regeneration, European regional development and lottery programmes. Research into participation has consequently taken a macro, sociological, “class distinction” approach, including longitudinal national surveys such as Taking Part, Target Group Index, Active People and Time Use Surveys, whilst actual provision is dealt with at the micro, amenity level in terms of its impact and catchment. This article therefore considers how this situation has evolved and the implications for cultural policy, planning and research by critiquing successive surveys of arts attendance and participation and associated arts policy initiatives, including the importance of local facilities such as arts centres, cinemas and libraries. A focus on cultural mapping approaches to accessible cultural amenities reveals important evidence for bridging the divide between cultural participation and provision.