女书文化的探索和破解

女书又称“女字”，是流传在中国湖南省江永县及其毗邻一带妇女中间的一种独特的文字符号体系。用这种文字符号书写的作品也俗称“女书”。这类作品一般书写在扇面、手帕、布帛、纸张上，有些还绘织在丝锦和花带上。     

女书作品的诗学价值

现传的用女书写作的学性作品有600多篇。其中“唱本”和“贺三朝书”等民间礼仪性本用诗体形式，直接在人与人之间用以交际的书信等也都是诗体，女书作品为什么基本上都是诗体形式?女书作品诗体形式在内容上和形式上有什么特点?女书作品有没有所谓的诗学价值?这一系列的问题都需要深入探讨。     

汉字结构中的上古史信息

从猿到人 人类是从古猿人进化过来的。这一认识最早出现于西方。但在古老的中国汉字结构中,早巳透露出了这一信息。商代甲骨卜辞里有“高祖夔”,他是商民族最早的祖先。夔的写法：     

论女书构成与古越稻作文化

古越人(本指古献中提到的越人及其先民)是一个分布在今浙江、江苏、上海、福建、江西、广东、广西、海南岛、台湾，以及安徽、湖北、湖南、四川、云贵高原的部分地区的庞大族群。他们是稻作农业、纺绩丝织业、木构建筑业、造船航海业，以及玉器雕刻、漆器艺术、釉陶与原始瓷器等等的发明和创造。     

日本人与"和制"汉字新词在晚清中国的传播

在日本近代汉字新词传入中国的过程中，除了中国驻日外交官、考察者和游历人员自身之外，日本人有没有直接参与这一面向华人的传播过程呢？如果有，这一过程开始于何时？他们都做过什么，对于他们的传播业绩、意义又该如何估计？这是我近年来一直在思考的一个问题。最近，又读到一些相关的资料，故在此特以札记的形式将该问题明确提出，并略作分析，以供同道学者进一步研究时参考。     

Great Expectations? Childhood,Family, and Middle-Class Social Mobility in Nineteenth-Century England

ABSTRACT

Existing histories of social mobility have focused on adults and on measuring the achievement of individual upward mobility. However, children and families were central to mobility strategies. Using the papers of the Heywoods of Bolton, this article examines how the families of the industrial middle class endowed their offspring with the goods and character needed to secure their social standing, highlighting the emotional intricacy of these processes. It demonstrates that such families conceived of social mobility as a familial project and that rather than pursuing upward mobility, their chief objective was to guard against social decline.     

民间婚嫁习俗中的辟邪现象分析

俗话说：“男大当婚，女大当嫁”，说明婚姻对于成年男女来说具有必然性和不可抗拒性。对于中国人来说，婚姻是一辈子最重要的事，是家庭和子嗣合法存在的基础，而且婚姻的缔结也直接影响到一个宗族系统的发达与否。所以婚姻虽然是好事，但在其缔结过程中又会受到各种有形无形的社会力量甚或某种神秘的、不可抗拒的自然力量的干扰。     

A multidimensional examination of the “Stereotype” concept: A developmental approach

The present studies tested the hypothesis that the stereotypical representation of a target group is composed of several components. It was further hypothesized that some of the dimensions are more closely associated with the perceiver's group than are others. Finally, it was hypothesized that the structure and the foundation of the stereotype is related to the age of the perceiver. In two studies, Israeli children, ranging in age from 4 to 17 years, assigned stereotyped traits to target groups (Israeli, Arabs, Americans, Germans). The respondents were then given the opportunity to rate the traits on several dimensions including group evaluation, salience, homogeneity, uniqueness, and ingroup consensus. Respondents of all ages could use the multiple components to describe their stereotype. The results indicate that the specific target group affected the structure of the stereotype. The stereotype of older children was more likely to represent a prototype of the target group and be based on personal experience than was the stereotype of younger children. The implications of the results for understanding the formation and fluctuation of stereotypes are discussed.     

Rethinking participation in the Aarhus as European Capital of Culture 2017 project

This paper examines the relationship between cultural participation and regional development with reference to the European Capital of Culture in 2017. From the bidding stage, Aarhus 2017 claimed it put “participation” at the heart of its strategic plans, through consultation at roadshows and exhibitions. In addition, it aspired to use culture as a catalyst for development not only in the city of Aarhus but across the region of Central Denmark. This paper, therefore, examines how participation is defined and implemented to address regional development in the Aarhus 2017 process through textual analysis of documentation from Aarhus 2017 and delivery partners as well as over 20 interviews with managers and participants involved in a range of 2017 projects. The paper argues against the common prioritisation of urban and professional cultural institutions and makes the case for decentralised cultural provision that supports both amateurs and professionals through a regional networked structure.     

A state of constant prodding: live music,precarity and regulation

Live music makes a vital contribution to the cultural and creative identities of cities. In turn, the spaces in which such activity takes place contribute strongly the functioning of local music and arts scenes. However, particularly in large Australian cities, there is a tension between economic development, fuelled by an extended property bubble, and the viability of small-to-medium live music venues. This tension is compounded by community attitudes toward arts and culture as well as a range of regulatory measures which govern the spaces in which this activity takes place. This paper examines the challenges inherent with developing and sustaining of live music venues in relation to the regulatory barriers associated with doing so. This paper draws on data from two qualitative examining producer accounts of live music operation in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and Sydney, the capital of New South Wales. Both studies focused on the regulatory frameworks, and barriers associated with being able to support local, original contemporary music activity and were prompted following the closure of several highly supportive, high profile live music venues in each location. This research came in the wake of the so-called ‘lock out laws’, in the entertainment district of Kings Cross and surrounding suburbs, resulting in significant local and national debate around the impact and effectiveness of such laws. This paper is contextualised within debates relating to the importance of supportive live music venues, the challenges associated with developing, supporting and maintaining such spaces in light of gentrification and urban renewal strategies. As argued, these strategies, which work to enhance the vibrancy of cities – and often position arts and culture activity as being a vital component - often displace and/ or cause tensions for the spaces in which cultural and creative activity takes place during and after such regeneration.     

Parenting and social identity contributors to character development in Muslim American adolescents

Using a strength-based approach, the present study examined the mediating role of Muslim American adolescents’ (N = 212; 13- to 18-year-olds; 59% females) multiple-group social identities (i.e., religious Muslim and national American) in the associations between their perceived maternal religious socialization and positive character development. We also explored whether maternal warmth moderated the association between religious socialization practices and identity. Adolescents’ American identity did not mediate the relations between maternal religious socialization and character regardless of adolescents’ perceptions of maternal warmth. However, maternal religious socialization was associated with greater character through adolescents’ stronger Muslim identity, only at moderate and high levels of maternal warmth. Implications of our findings for promoting Muslim-American youth’s positive adjustment are discussed.     

Wrestling amid perplexity,committing amid unease: a critical introduction of Intellectual Inquiry

Abstract

While the concept of the ‘tourist gaze’ has been influential in tourism research, the ‘counter‐gaze’ of the host communities and their imagination of the tourists’ places of origin have not been adequately addressed. Based on fieldwork conducted in the Langtang National Park of Nepal, and drawing on Simmel’s theory of sociation, this paper attempts a simultaneous analysis of the shifting images the visitors and hosts have of each other and how these images shape their experiences of tourism, and argues that a constant shifting of subjectivity between ‘reverie’ and ‘emplacement’ characterises the structure of tourism encounters.     

Bade logon ki tarah: pregnant and poor in the city

Abstract

This paper shores up the overdetermined web of fear-desire-helplessness-aspiration that impinges on the birthing experiences of women at the economic periphery of urbanity, i.e. the urban poor, positioned at the borders of the urban and its outside, affluence and its lack. The urban poor (pregnant) woman, by dint of being physically located in the city remains unable to be part of the state healthcare network in rural areas; at the same time she is marked by an inability to purchase healthcare from high-end urban private providers. Consequently, she is positioned in an in-between space of access and care, aspirations and resistance, occasionally getting (even physically) trapped in a limbo between the hospital/institution and its outside. For this woman, the materiality of the hospital symbolises development-modernity; in accessing the hospital, the urban poor woman accesses an ontology that is “like the well-off people,” the “legitimate” claimants of the city. Between her dreams of approximating the space of urbanity and development, and an experience of being pushed back to the city's periphery—locationally and metaphorically, the urban poor woman gets inscribed by conflicting and counterpoised experiences of birthing, which is what this paper maps.     

A Regional Analysis of Assertiveness

Co-cultural differences in assertiveness within the United States have not been explored, despite noted regional differences in communication patterns (Andersen, Lustig, & Andersen, 1987). This study examines assertiveness behaviors, focusing on university students from the Upper Midwest (n = 148) and the New York Metropolitan region (n = 159) who completed the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (Rathus, 1973 Rathus, SA. 1973. A 30-item schedule for assessing assertive behavior. Behavior Therapy, 4: 398–406. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). New York Metropolitan respondents reported significantly higher levels of assertive communication than did respondents from the Upper Midwest. Males in the Upper Midwest region reported significantly higher levels of assertive communication than did females in the same region. Implications for regional differences in assertiveness are discussed.     

Development of an intergroup anxiety toward Muslims scale

Understanding intergroup relations and the anxiety that can result has become increasingly relevant to interactions between Muslim and non-Muslim individuals due to current tensions between Islamic extremist groups and many Western nations. The anticipated increase in migration from countries with large Islamic populations to Western countries will undoubtedly lead to increased contact between these groups. Currently, there are no measures of intergroup anxiety elicited when interacting specifically with Muslims. Thus, the goal of the current studies was to fill this gap by developing a measure of intergroup anxiety toward Muslims. Across 3 studies, the reliability and validity of a new measure of intergroup anxiety toward Muslims was assessed. An exploratory factor analysis (Study 1) identified 11 reliable items that were supported by confirmatory factor analysis (Study 2). Across all 3 studies, the scale demonstrated good convergent validity, such that participants who reported higher levels of intergroup anxiety toward Muslims also reported more negative attitudes toward Muslims and greater general intergroup anxiety than individuals with lower intergroup anxiety toward Muslims. Assessment of discriminant validity showed that the scale differentiated between attitudes toward Muslims and other out-groups, as well as general anxiety and depression. The Intergroup Anxiety toward Muslims Scale was also reliable across different samples (i.e., college students and community members) and methods of data collection (i.e., online and in person).     

Use of evaluative devices by youth for sense-making of culturally diverse interpersonal interactions

Building upon recent research that defines psychological development as a continuous process of sense-making situated within a cultural and historical context, this paper explores how culturally diverse youth growing up in New York City use evaluative language to enact relational complexity as they make sense of technologically mediated interpersonal interactions with their peers. Forty-four individuals (ages 15–20) participated in a quasi-experimental research workshop that engaged them in the process of sense-making by asking them to write projective narratives toward a vignette depicting text-massage mediated interpersonal interaction embedded among monocultural and bicultural group of peers. Data analyses focus on evaluative devices used by youth and manifest the relational flexibility of sense-making by immigrant youth and their U.S. born peers across diverse relational dimensions. Results suggest that immigrant youth are able to coordinate diverse ways of interpreting interpersonal interactions across relational dimensions, manifest by varied use of logical/hypothetical, causal and affective evaluative devices. In contrast U.S. born youth largely use same frequency of evaluative devices across two relational dimensions. Statistical analysis highlights the use of affect in projective narratives by exploring a discursive learning hypothesis: that higher use of emotions in the process of sense-making by U.S. born youth gradually scaffolds the use of emotions in narrative by immigrant youth.     

First contact: Initial responses to cultural disequilibrium in a short term teaching exchange program

This paper examines early aspects of intercultural learning among pre-service teachers from Japan and the United States during a short-term international exchange program. Using insights from Taylor's (1994) theory of intercultural development, the research uses qualitative methodology to describe experiences of cultural disequilibrium and various responses to disequilibrium by participants in the exchange. Findings suggest a range of related sources of cultural disequilibrium across culture groups. Eight strategic responses to disequilibrium are identified, and implications for early engagements with cultural difference for beginning teachers are discussed. The research seeks to clarify the role that short term immersion experiences can play in the understanding and development of early intercultural competence and to identify connections between such experiences and teacher education.