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.     

临清贡砖

北京故宫是明清两代封建帝王的皇宫,也是世界上最大的宫殿建筑群。1987年12月,联合国科教文组织将北京故宫列入世界文化遗产名录。多少年来,紫禁城一直是皇帝的象征、奢华的象征,她的雄伟、神秘,不知倾倒、     

The Emigrants: Straight Outta Compton,Dope, and Emerging from the Ghetto

Many recent movies about African American life have focused on people leaving the ghetto. Earlier movies about groups living in ghettoes have portrayed the ghetto as a permanent reality. Moviemakers explored ghetto life as an interesting subject and a source of cultural innovation. Life was hard, but social and cultural ways to cope with difficulty helped. Now, the ghetto is presented as a dangerous and depressing place. The only effective way to cope with it is to leave and find more nurturing environments. A few talented individuals and hard workers can succeed that way. They are seen as heroic because they refuse to accept defeat or failure. Few ghetto residents can take this route out of the ghetto, and the many who cannot are ignored or blamed. The audience can applaud the few successes and find a happy outcome to ghetto movies.     

Gender,affect, and landscape: wartime films from Northern and Southern Vietnam

Abstract

Examining two Vietnamese films, one made in the North in 1959, and another produced in the South during the American War in 1971, this article contends that Vietnam's landscape serves as an affective site for a gendered construction of nationalism within key moments in Vietnamese history. In analyzing the attachments that the Vietnamese and Vietnamese diaspora feel towards their country, I explore a topic rarely discussed in US film scholarship and historicize these filmmaking efforts to demarcate a different way of viewing Vietnam in film. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding how gender and affect are projected onto landscapes in a national cinema like Vietnam's. More exactingly, it emphasizes that affects underlying Vietnamese nationhood and war are undergirded by the political economy of film and filmmaking. My arguments point to the modes of production and circulation of film, which shape the making of affect in Vietnam War discourse. My analyses are framed by the questions: how is affect inscribed in Vietnamese film, and what are its effects on notions of belonging and nationhood? In what ways has affect traveled about Vietnam in the past and present moment? Who is able to access such representations, and why does this matter?     

National pride,social trust,and cultural nativism: Findings from East and Southeast Asia

Using the latest (fourth) wave of Asian Barometer Survey (2014–2016), this study examines how national pride and two types of trust (general and particular) are related to nativist preference (cultural nativism), independent of anti-immigration attitudes, among citizens in East and Southeast Asian countries. Findings from multilevel models show that, at the individual level, national pride and particular trust are positively related to cultural nativism, while general trust is negatively related. At the subnational-regional level, we also find significant contextual effects. Living in geographic areas with greater national pride is positively associated with nativist preference, as is residency in places with higher levels of particular trust. In contrast, residency in subnational contexts with higher levels of general trust is negatively associated. Finally, the association between national pride and cultural nativism is stronger in regions with greater contextual national pride.     

Communities,Cultures and Conflict in Southern Italy,from the Byzantines to the Angevins*

When the Normans conquered southern Italy and Sicily during the eleventh century, a significant part of the population were Greek-rite Christians (mainly in southern Apulia, Calabria and north-east Sicily) or, on the island of Sicily, Muslims. To begin with, at least, it was very much in the interests of the new rulers to tolerate these groups, and hence the reputation of the Norman kingdom of Sicily for its diversity and multi-culturalism. But over the next two centuries this consensus slowly dissolved, the position of the Greek and Muslim communities weakened, and ultimately both disappeared. However, while with the Greeks much of the pressure for acculturation and Latinisation was unconscious and unintended, and the decline of the Greek rite and contraction of the Graecophone areas were very slow, the Muslims of Sicily were provoked into revolt at the end of the twelfth century, and had been almost entirely eliminated from the island by 1250. It has usually been assumed that most of the Muslims of Sicily were deported to Frederick II’s military colony at Lucera in the Capitanata. Yet when examined closely, this thesis seems improbable, and what happened to the Sicilian Muslims remains an enigma.     

Come Into My Parlor: Rendition,Ugly Betty,and Rude Awakening from the American Dream

Although the national ideology emphasizes that the American Dream is available to immigrants, recent events have made public opinion hostile to two groups, Mexicans and Arabs. Popular culture has played a historic role in presenting sympathetic portrayals of immigrants and their assimilation to American culture. Current depictions of Mexican immigrants continue this tradition, as shown by the television show, Ugly Betty. Arabs and Muslims, in contrast, have had a largely negative presentation in popular culture. A few recent movies and television shows have been more sympathetic, especially the movie, Rendition.     

Dancing from Past to Present: Nation,Culture, Identities. Edited by Theresa Jill Buckland

ABSTRACT

The rise of smuggling in eastern Ghana is directly related to the establishment of the colonial state. Elderly Ghanaians discuss gin smuggling in the context of a colonial state which tried to curb it, but also emphasize the authority of chiefs and elders who encouraged it. Based on a combination of interviews and archival research, this article first examines the uses of imported gin and suggests why it became one of the most important smuggled goods. There follows an in-depth look at the organization of the smuggling enterprises, and an exploration of how smugglers managed their dealings with the colonial state as well as local society. The complex and changing relations between African smugglers, traditional chiefs, local communities and the colonial state illustrate the irrelevance of the colonial state in the moral picture, and also how the gin smugglers' engagement with the wider world was shaped by an utterly local perspective.     

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Parental and Peer Attachment Styles among Adult Children from the United States,Puerto Rico,and India

Parental and peer attachment is central to perceived and actual communication behavior. This investigation examines perceptions of attachment among people from the United States, Puerto Rico, and India to investigate the variance in parental and peer attachment levels cross-culturally. Puerto Rican participants expressed less overall attachment to their mothers than did Indian and American participants. Indian participants conveyed stronger attachment to their fathers compared to participants from Puerto Rico. US participants showed stronger attachment to their peers than did people from India. This investigation suggests that the tenets of attachment theory are not culturally universal.     

Authoritarianism, perceived threat and exclusionism on the eve of the Disengagement: Evidence from Gaza

Major political events such as terrorist attacks and forced relocation of citizens may have an immediate effect on attitudes towards ethnic minorities associated with these events. The psychological process that leads to political exclusionism of minority groups was examined using a field study among Israeli settlers in Gaza days prior to the Disengagement Plan adopted by the Israeli government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005. Lending credence to integrated threat theory and to theory on authoritarianism, our analyses show that the positive effect of religiosity on political exclusionism results from the two-staged mediation of authoritarianism and perceived threat. We conclude that religiosity fosters authoritarianism, which in turn tends to move people towards exclusionism both directly and through the mediation of perceived threat.