陕北说书

陕北说书,是一种流传在陕北地区的说唱艺术。关于这门说唱艺术的历史,没有人能说清楚。清代的《榆林府志．艺文志》里记载说“康熙九年,文fJ第说传奇,颇靡靡可听”。这大概是目前能找到的唯一一条直接资料,证明陕北说书至少在康熙年间就已经很兴盛了。但在康熙年间兴盛,不能说在康熙年间才出现,按常理推断,至少在这以前就已经历了一个不短的孕育和发展过程了。     

The Passions of the Prince: Moral Philosophy and Staatskirchenrecht in Thomasius's Conception of Sovereignty

This paper argues that in his discussions of the ethics of sovereignty, Christian Thomasius makes use of two very different conceptions of the prince's moral persona. In his natural law works, Thomasius draws on a Christian-Epicurean moral anthropology, in order to model a sage–prince whose capacity to rule is conditioned by his capacity for restraint of the passions. In his works in the area of Staatskirchenrecht or constitutional church law, however, Thomasius adopts a different stance. Here, drawing on Pufendorf's construction of multiple moral personae, Thomasius restricts the ethic of passional restraint to the personae of the ‘man’ and the Christian, drawing the duties of the prince from a quite different source: the goal of preserving social peace through the exercise of a coercive sovereign power. It is argued that these different kinds of political ethic are associated with the different purposes of Thomasius's natural-law and staatskirchenrechtlich writings, the former being dedicated to the moral formation of his law students, the latter to the provision of political advice to the prince.     

Understanding the Power of Words in Multicultural Education

Historically, words are powerful! In many cases, they are used appropriately when we value people and used inappropriately when we hate them. As a result, they have become powerful tools in multicultural education and interactions. In today's changing world with demographic shifts in power and paradigm, the society is bombarded with words that hate and words that love. As it appears, words are used to satisfy jaundiced and myopic views, and they are constructs that frequently lead to labels, stereotypes, and illusory generalizations. While we do not advocate policing or legislating words, we advocate words that can help individuals to maximize their fullest potential in our multicultural society. In this article, we advance this premise and suggest ways to increase multicultural education in schools and communities.     

“To Reach the Lands of Freedom”: Petitions of Polish Displaced Persons to American Poles,Moral Screening and the Role of Diaspora in Refugee Resettlement

ABSTRACT

In 1949, in the wake of the USA’s Displaced Persons Act of 1948, the American Committee for the Resettlement of Polish Displaced Persons received thousands of letters from refugees of peasant and worker background residing in camps in Germany and Austria. These potential immigrants appealed to the Polish diaspora for help with securing assurances of accommodation and work which would enable them to resettle in the USA. This paper investigates the discursive strategies of the authors and the wider meanings of their emigration endeavour. Firstly, it demonstrates that non-elite Displaced Persons (DPs) adopted the language of martyrology, patriotism, anti-Communism and freedom to maximise their chances of emigration. These DPs did not evoke the language of rights as they appealed to the traditional network of support, based on benevolence and familiarity. Secondly, it argues that the American Poles and Polish social elites played a crucial role in resettlement of the DPs, providing an additional layer of screening, here called ‘the moral screening’. It is an example of how ethnic and cultural communities mediated the resettlement procedures supervised by international humanitarian organisations. Using a ‘history from below’ approach, this article argues that during this episode of migration, political and economic ideological underpinnings intertwined.     

The Role of Intercultural Competence and Local Wisdom in Building Intercultural and Inter-religious Tolerance

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of intercultural competence and local wisdom to build tolerance. Recent situation shows that the rights of religious and cultural minorities are on the decline. It focuses on the experience and practice of tolerance in kampong Buneng to prevent ethno-religious conflict. This study employs accommodation theory and qualitative approach to investigate a case study, which describes real phenomena. The findings show that convergence strategy is more dominant than divergence strategy and local wisdom found in Buneng is designed to maintain harmony between village members rather than voicing distinction amongst plural identities occupying the same public sphere.     

Understanding transnational political involvement among Senegalese migrants: The role of acculturation preferences and perceived discrimination

In political debates, migrants’ political involvement in their countries of origin and successful adaptation to receiving countries are often portrayed as incompatible. We address this concern by examining the links between acculturation preferences, perceived discrimination, and migrants’ transnational political involvement in their country of origin. In line with collective action research, a cross-sectional questionnaire study (N = 84) among Senegalese migrants in Paris (France) and Geneva (Switzerland) examined three pathways to transnational political involvement (motivations and actual behaviour). Perceived discrimination, the grievances pathway, was positively related to both transnational motivations (but only when desire to adopt the receiving culture was low) and political behaviour in Senegal. Desire to adopt the culture of the receiving society as an acculturation preference, the embeddedness pathway, was also positively linked to transnational motivations and political behaviour. Finally, desire to maintain the culture of origin as an acculturation preference—the collective identification pathway—was unrelated to transnational political involvement. These findings underscore the compatibility of transnational political involvement in countries of origin and adaptation to receiving societies. We discuss the pivotal role of political psychology in bringing together acculturation psychology and transnationalism studies.     

Ethnic Differences in Public Participation: The Role of Conflict Communication Styles and Sense of Community

Cities around the world are challenged by a growing ethnic diversity and previous studies theorize that two of the factors that contribute to ethnic differences in public participation are conflict communication style and sense of community. This paper addresses these factors as predictors of community meeting attendance by two ethnic minority groups—African Americans and Korean Americans. Survey findings indicate ethnic differences as predictors of intent to attend a community meeting, and implications for facilitation of meeting processes are discussed. Further research is suggested to deepen understanding of how different ethnic groups perceive and respond to conflict in public meetings.     

Bridging Cultures: Understanding the Construction of Relational Identity in Intercultural Friendship

This research aims to uncover the strategies/activities that shape the construction of relational identity through analyzing the turning points occurring during the process of intercultural friendship. Forty-five interviews were conducted with members in 15 intercultural friendship dyads. The results reveal that seven types of activities were identified: (1) positivities/providing assistance; (2) rituals, activities, rules, and roles; (3) self-disclosure; (4) networking; (5) exploring cultures and languages; (6) emphasizing similarities and exploring differences; and (7) conflict/conflict management. The strategies of exploring cultures and languages and of conflict/conflict management were thoroughly discussed to advance our understanding of the development and maintenance in intercultural friendship.