The Flower Lake in the End of the Sky

Every adventurer may have a wish to travel to the end of the sky. In their minds, the end of the sky not only means a long journey and being away from urban hurly-burly, but also symbolizes the most beautiful place. The Flower Lake is such a place in the end of the sky.     

Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century. The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660–1800

ABSTRACT

This article concerns the protest of an Aboriginal Australian man, Anthony Martin Fernando, who during an international gathering of Rome Catholics in the Jubilee year of 1925 handed out flyers outside St Peter's Cathedral in Rome. By protesting against conditions for Aboriginal people in Australia, Fernando brought the question of settler colonialism in Australia directly and in person to the Roman Catholic community arriving from around the world. Where the Vatican's ethnographic exhibition of that year rehearsed the more usual representation of injustices towards Australia's indigenous people as integral to an unruly nineteenth-century colonial frontier, Fernando aimed to link Australian settler colonialism with the British world in the present – a world he characterized as yet to be brought to account for its actions towards colonized peoples, particularly the Aborigines of Australia. The audacity of that protest, as well as the literal presence of an Aboriginal man living by himself on the streets of interwar Europe, forces us to reconsider Aboriginal Australian activism in the twentieth century. It requires firstly a more genuinely transnational account of the history of indigenous politics in Australia, and secondly a more dynamic account of the diversity of often-ephemeral forms of black political activism carried out within and beyond colonial settings in the modern era.     

The Castle and Lordship of Ḥārim and the Frankish-Muslim Frontier of Northern Syria in the Twelfth Century

The castle of ?ārim in Northern Syria was a site of intense military and political scrutiny during the twelfth century. Whether under the control of the Frankish principality of Antioch or of Muslim-held Aleppo, it acted as the battleground for control of the frontier between these two powers. This article therefore seeks to examine how both sides adapted to the demands of this frontier. First, it will show how central this castle was to the balance of power in the region, a reality historians have so far often overlooked; second, it will demonstrate, through an examination of ?ārim's Frankish lordship, particularly the inheritance rights of its Latin lords, that diverse customs and relationships of power emerged to meet the challenges of defending and governing the frontier.     

Frequency and attendance at popular music concerts in the USA: Does facility age matter?

Popular music is a valuable community amenity in the USA. State and local governments often encourage concert development by subsidizing construction and operation of concert venues. The facilities most likely to receive public support also host professional sports franchises. Public policy arguments supporting subsidization often maintain that concert frequency declines as facilities age, thus necessitating their replacement. Anecdotal evidence is inconsistent on the matter. Using a two-year pooled cross-section of 1234 concerts in 80 professional sports facilities from July 2012 to June 2014, the present study tests if facility age predicts changes in concert frequency and attendance. The results lend support to subsidy proponents' arguments, but the magnitude of the age effects is unlikely to warrant significant subsidy levels.     

Do the languages migrants use in private and emotional domains define their cultural belonging more than the passport they have?

This study focuses on migrants’ sense of belonging to the heritage and the host culture and adopts an innovative approach to the topic by placing biographical and linguistic factors side by side. Statistical results from 468 migrants, supported by 5 follow-up interviews, revealed that the age of migration, the length of stay and the status in the host country were unrelated to participants’ heritage and host culture acculturation levels. Conversely, migrants’ heritage language (L1) and host language (LX) frequency of use, especially for expressing emotions, as well as their L1/LX reported dominance and emotionality, were linked to their attachment to the heritage and host culture. In other words, the cognitive and emotional embracement of the language contributed to enforcing participants’ sense of belonging to the relevant culture, explaining a variance of 12.2% and 13.5% respectively in their heritage and host acculturation levels. The findings thus highlighted the crucial role of languages in shaping individuals’ cultural identity.     

Museums for the many? Rhetorical optimism and the failure of sustained political will at three London government-funded museums – then and now

ABSTRACT

This article contends that there are considerable similarities between nineteenth- and twenty-first-century aspirations for museums – not least, in respect to promises of “museums for the many”. Despite contemporary policy makers of different political allegiances embracing similar rhetorics, in general they appear to have had little interest in reflecting on previous realities. This article focuses on attendances at three national museums, in particular the British Museum, the National Gallery and, the Victoria & Albert Museum (formerly, the South Kensington Museum) over two periods: from the early 1850s to the late 1880s, and from the late 1970s to the present. It interrogates those and other institutions’ visit data for evidence of whether they did, indeed, deliver to “the many”. It questions the commitment of state-supported museums to those target audiences, both then and now.     

Feeling at home in the “Chocolate City”: an exploration of place-making practices and structures of belonging amongst Africans in Guangzhou

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the shifts brought about by the emergence of Asia as a key player in global capitalism have led to countless Africans opting for Asian destinations as part of their trade and migration strategies. The implications of the constant ebb and flow of African entrepreneurs in Southern China and the transnational trajectories, connections, and practices they enable have been relatively understudied. This article focuses on place-making practices and structures of belonging surrounding those Africans living in (and circulating through) Guangzhou. Drawing on my fieldwork, I locate possibilities for place-making and belonging within transnational multiethnic microcommunities and highlight practices that have emerged from the assembling of transnational and translocal flows in residential clusters, community organisations, and religious congregations. I contend that the presence and intermingling of diverse transient subjects (both African and Chinese) nurtures “alternative imaginations” of self, place, home, and belonging that alter extant notions of national and cultural identity, ethnicity, and race in twenty-first century Asia.     

Constructing a Visual Rhetoric: Images of Craftsmen and Builders in the Umayyad Palace at Qusayr ‘Amra

This article treats a group of wall paintings depicting craftsmen and builders on the east vault of the large basilical hall in the Umayyad palace at Qusayr ‘Amra near Amman, Jordan.* *A series of craftsmen holding various tools of their trade – one with a frame saw, another with a chisel, a third with masonry hammer etc. – are depicted on a mosaic floor recently uncovered by Dr Uzi Leibner from the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in a Roman-era synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam, in the Lower Galilee. The workers appear next to a very large building, which they seem to be constructing. More details are found on the Institute website: http://archaeology.huji.ac.il/depart/classical/uzil/Kh_Hamam.pdf View all notes The figures appear within 32 linked framed squares covering the whole ceiling. The significance of the paintings, their iconographical sources, style and the question of patronage are examined. Depictions of workers are a unique phenomenon in early Islamic art. However, they form part of the complex of themes present in Qusayr ‘Amra (as well as in other Umayyad palaces) under the heading of the “princely cycle”. I argue that the images of the builders, the act of building and the location of the paintings on the ceiling are all expressions of royal visual rhetoric which presents the Caliph as a great and glorious builder thus forging a self-glorifying image of the Umayyad dynasty in the eyes of their Muslim and Christian subjects alike. This visual rhetoric was adopted by the Umayyad patrons from the art traditions of Late Antiquity which offer both models for presenting rulers as builders as well as images of buildings and the act of building.     

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Continuity and Change of the Lex Rhodia's Jettison Principles in Roman and Medieval Mediterranean Rulings

Jettison is the practice of throwing goods overboard in order to lighten and consequently save a vessel, as well as the lives of those on board. This phenomenon has long been part of seafaring, with the dangers of navigation not having changed since ancient times. Accordingly, various bodies of maritime law emerged in the medieval era to handle the consequences of such events. This article will discuss how the principles of jettison and general average introduced by the Lex Rhodia and maintained in Roman law were understood in some medieval regulations. Although most legal texts indicate a common understanding of the principles of general average, opinions vary widely on details of procedure and events covered by the rulings. This analysis will show how the rules of jettison and general average are treated in different contexts and by the diverse societies administering them.     

Friend or Foe? Perceptions of Qatar in the Israeli Online General and Sports Press

The current paper is looking into the way in which Qatar’s investment in sport, both directly and indirectly, is being perceived by the Israeli press. In order to accomplish the task set above, a content analysis of Qatar’s media coverage in the Israeli online press was conducted. Our analysis includes 1199 articles appearing in the mainstream online Israeli press and the findings point out to an interesting trend; there are significant differences between sport related stories, which present a political context and those who do not deal with politics which are significantly more supportive of Qatar.     

Ragged Houses and Candlelight. The Romance of the Jewish Past and Memory Work in the Last Decade of the Communist Rule in Kraków,Poland

It has often been proposed that the Jewish past of Poland had been largely forgotten and that first popular commemorations of the destroyed minority took place after the fall of Communism in 1989. Challenging this chronology the present article examines the commemorations in Kraków, the cultural capital of Poland, in the 1980s. It analyses the work of local Jewish museum and preservation projects developed during the decade and establishes that the Jewish past had been remembered in the city since at least 1980. It demonstrates that local, mid-ranking officials, a group situated mid-way in the polar opposites of the government and the society, were responsible for this rediscovery of the Jewish past. In particular, this article points towards the heritage preservationists and comments on their importance for urban memory work.     

How ‘should’ the majority group acculturate? Acculturation expectations and their correlates among minority- and majority-group members

Do minority-group members welcome or reject that majority-group members adopt other cultures? Acculturation is commonly defined as a process of mutual accommodation. Yet, the acculturation of majority-group members has only recently received research attention. To date, we do not know the extent to which minority-group members expect majority-group members to adopt the culture of minority groups and/or to maintain their mainstream culture. Knowledge is also lacking about how these expectations relate to minority-group members’ own acculturation orientations and symbolic and realistic threat perceptions. We further do not know whether such associations are similar among minority- and majority-group members. To address these gaps, we surveyed 246 Muslim minority-group members and 247 White Christian majority-group members in the United Kingdom. Muslim minority-group members’ acculturation expectations towards majority-group members were normally distributed around the midpoint of the scale, suggesting that they did not reject majority-group acculturation on average. Acculturation expectations were correlated with symbolic and realistic threat perceptions among majority-group members but not among minority-group members. Cluster analyses showed that integrated Muslim minority-group members found it relatively important for majority-group members to adopt minority-group culture and to maintain their own culture. In sum, the results support the idea that minority-group members, at least in some contexts and settings, view acculturation as a mutual cultural change rather than as cultural appropriation.     

Made in China: the cultural logic of OEMs and the manufacture of low‐cost technology

Abstract

This paper investigates the conditions of the manufacture of low‐cost technology in China with the examples of ‘pirated’ VCD players, ‘no‐name’ DVD players, and Shenzhen’s development as a techno‐urban city. It emphasizes the significance of the cultural logic of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and argues that the various transformations and deflections that are derived from ubiquitous OEM experiences have gone beyond the original model of an authorized OEM, experiences that are to some extent embodied in the transgression of brand name and patent hegemonies, which are mainly controlled by high technology companies. OEMs have been associated with China’s current imperative and uninhibited development of low‐cost technology capitalism. ‘Made in China’ signifies the production of any product, legal or illegal, for transnational high technology giants or domestic technology manufacturers. Learning to ‘become an OEM’ in China has partly resulted in excessive technological mimesis that may be part of an unauthorized, underground economy that is based on low‐cost technology. Based on the Shenzhen experience, part of this study will show industrial production‐oriented OEM cultures in which illegal operations and counterfeit trade are incorporated, even in city projects that are shared by municipal governments and Chinese technological companies, and undergo spatial restructuring in the development of the economy, consumerism, and urbanism.     

Kinship,Camaraderie and Contestation: Fāṭimid Relations with the Ashrāf in the Fourth/Tenth Century.

The founding of the Fā?imid caliphate across the southern Mediterranean, and then in Egypt, Syria and the ?ijāz at the turn of the fourth/tenth century, necessitated its negotiation with the ashrāf, those who claimed lineal descent from the Prophet Mu?ammad, and who by this time had gained significant influence as a social class based on their charismatic descent. While other dynastic powers fostered relationships with various members of the ashrāf, the Fā?imid–ashrāf dynamics were distinctive in that the Fā?imids legitimised their rule as Ismā?īlī Shī?ī imām-caliphs, based on their claim of descent from the Prophet Mu?ammad, and as the sole successors to his authority and leadership over the Islamic world. Consequently, Fā?imid–ashrāf relations were permeated by fraternal camaraderie as well as by competing contestations based on their shared claim to Prophetic lineage.     

Is Transracial the Same as Transgender? The Utility and Limitations of Identity Analogies in Multicultural Education

In June 2015, Melissa Harris-Perry infamously analogized the possibility of trans-Black identity to the reality of transgender identity. Such analogies happen often and are used mostly for the benefit of learning about a less familiar form of identity. Building from a recent article by Suthakaranm, Filsinger, and White (2013 Suthakaran, V., Filsinger, K., &; White, B. (2013). Using analogies as an experiential learning technique in multicultural education. Multicultural Perspectives, 15(2), 92–97.[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) that presented a compelling argument for the use of analogies as an experiential learning tool in multicultural education, we advance the conversation by distinguishing a particular form of analogies: identity analogies. We explore the benefits and challenges of utilizing identity analogies as a tool for multicultural educators within U.S. higher education.