Muslim Rulers Visiting the Imperial City: Building Alliances and Personal Networks between Constantinople and the Eastern Borderlands (Fourth/Tenth–Fifth/Eleventh Century)

This essay explores one of the main tools of Byzantine diplomatic techniques: inviting foreign rulers to Constantinople and establishing bonds of alliance through the bestowal of titles and stipends, with respect to the empire's Muslim neighbours in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries. In particular, it will be explained how and under what circumstances the traditional lines of communication between Constantinople and the caliphal court of Baghdad were gradually transformed into a multilayered network of personal contacts between the emperor and a number of Muslim frontier lords, who partly took on the role of representatives and dignitaries of the Byzantine Empire. Furthermore, I will try to examine the development of these newly established networks with respect to the emirates of Aleppo and Edessa, the Jarrā?id clan in Syria and the Marwānid dynasty in the Upper Euphrates and Lake Van region.     

Museum: the New Classroom简

＂Every time we come here, we learn lots of things beyond textbooks.＂ On December 20, 2013, sixth-graders from Beijing Shijia Primary School once again went to the National Museum of China to learn outside the school. With tours and lessons, the activity included ＂Explaining and Analyzing Characters＂, ＂Food and Utensils＂, ＂Dressing Manners＂ and ＂Painting, Calligraphy and Operas＂, sections that were particularly intriguing to the students.     

Safeguard the Purity of the Olympic Spirit

As the Olympic mascots ＂Five Friendlies＂ were released, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is approaching us. The anti-doping of the 2008 Olympics shall be undertaken by China Doping Test Center, whose performance at the 1990 Asia Games has been generally recognized and praised. However, the much larger scale of the Olympics will prove that the anti-doping task in 2008 will be much more difficult and complicated. Recently, the staff journalist interviewed fellow researcher Du Lijun from the sports medicine institute of the State Administration of Sports and his colleague Prof. Wu Moutian who just came back from the Durino Winter Olympics.     

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.     

Caliphal Imperialism and Ḥijāzī elites in the second/eighth Century

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the debate over the effectiveness with which late Umayyad and early ?Abbāsid caliphs negotiated their respective rights and duties with provincial elites during the second/eighth century. The focus is on the relationships that evolved between the caliphs and those elite families residing in the ?ijāz whose ancestors had helped to establish the Muslim community and the early caliphal empire in the mid-first/seventh century. The article's analysis centres on a series of four revolts in the ?ijāz over the second/eighth century and examines developments in the enthusiasm with which local elites either supported or opposed those revolts. This discussion demonstrates that, aside from a brief period during the first decades of ?Abbāsid rule, Umayyad and ?Abbāsid caliphs during the second/eighth century were actually quite successful at inspiring loyalty among the local elites of the ?ijāz.     

Chinese Tea Spreads Fragrance around the Globe简

As the representative inheritor of scented tea-making skills, which was named as national intangible cultural heritage, Ms. Sun Danwei said, ＂The song Jasmine Blossoms is the song of the world, and now we will bring the jasmine tea to the rest of the world and make Wuyutai an international brand.＂     

Paint on the Great Wall, Embrace the Olympics

Early in August, on Badaling Pass of the Great Wall in the northern suburb of Beijing, 500 children from Hong Kong and 200 children from Beijing participated in the opening ceremony of “Paint on the Great Wall, Embrace the Olympics”, a large-scale cultural exchange event jointly sponsored by Chinese Cultural Ministry, Beijing Municipality and Hong Kong Civil Service Bureau.     

Artist He Gong Spans the East and the West

He Gong,a Chinese artist residing in the United Stares,is now teaching at Sichuan University. He studied oil painting and arl education at Southwest China Normal University in 1978 and received his master‘s degree in 1985,     

Of Fighters and Frames: Femen’s Corporeality Between the Old,the New,the Yellow and the Blue

In this essay, we examine corporeality, its discursive framings and the salience of cultural contexts in the interpretation of embodied protest rhetoric on an example of originally Ukrainian and by now international feminist group Femen. We analyse the embodied rhetoric of Femen’s activism from various angles, with a special focus on the pivotal role of cultural locations in the interpretation of Femen’s embodied activism, in particular, and corporeal resistance, in general. With our findings, we hope to extend the existent knowledge on corporeal framing and politicalization of the body as a culture-specific site of resistance and social change.     

The 2008 Olympics： the Games for the People

The modern Olympic movement,through sports competition,brings together nations with different cultures and people of different color.As a cultural event,the Olympics have had profound impact on human society and civilizations.As a sports event,it is the ultimate test of athletes‘     

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.     

Beauty of the Common People Comments on the film Toqether

Liu Cheng, a cook from a small town, takes his son Xiao Chun to Beijing to participate in a violin contest. The boy takes the fifth prize. Liu Cheng persuades teacher Jiang of the Children's Palace to teach his son, and he himself gets a job in Beijing to pay for the tuition. Xiao Chun and his teacher gradually get to like each other. Meanwhile, Xiao's skill is improving. Xiao starts up a friendship     

Scholastic Treatments of Maintaining One's Fama (Reputation/Good Name) and the Correction of Private ‘Passions’ for the Public Good and Public Legitimacy

This article deals with the relationship between an individual's passions and his public reputation or fama, as these were evaluated in specific public fora from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. In examining attitudes to heresy, heterodoxy and orthodoxy, the role of authoritative reason in the disciplining of unruly or harmful passions and an unchecked will provides some insight into contemporary attitudes to obedience, social conformity and the common good. The article attempts to highlight pre-modern attitudes to the community and its perspective on acceptable character formation and its legitimate, public display, without which the community was thought to be threatened if not destroyed.     

Beauty of the Common People Comments on the film Together

Liu Cheng, a cook from a small town, takes his son Xiao Chun to Beijing to participate in a violin contest. The boy takes the fifth prize. Liu Cheng persuades teacher Jiang of the Children‘s Palace to teach his son, and he himself gets a job in Beijing to pay for the tuition. Xiao Chun and his teacher gradually get to like each other.     

Beauty of the Common people comments on the film together

Liu Cheng, a cook from a smallBeijing to participate in a violin contest.the boy takes the fifth prize. liu ChengChilden‘s Palace to teach his son,     

Wartime Holidays and the ‘Myth of the Blitz’

Published histories of the British home front during the Second World War, both academic and popular, say little or nothing about civilian holidays; the implication is that for most people they did not exist. This article disputes that reading. Complementing earlier work on officially sponsored ‘Holidays at Home’, the article first looks briefly at 1930s holiday expectations, then summarizes government measures to restrain ‘unnecessary’ wartime travel. Using rail-travel statistics, memoirs and diaries, contemporary novels, local press reports, Mass-Observation and other surveys it shows that throughout the war large numbers of people took holidays much as they had in peacetime. This apparent contradiction is then discussed in relation to, for instance, ideas of ‘normality’ and ‘wartime’, the survival of class in Britain, the wartime economy and the debate on the ‘myth of the blitz’ view of civilian behaviour.     

English-Spanish Cognates and the Pura Belpré Children's Award Books: Reading the Word and the World

English-Spanish cognates are an important subset of words in both the English and Spanish languages. Cognates are words that possess identical or nearly identical spellings and meanings in both languages as a result of being derived from Latin and Greek. Of major importance is the fact that many of the more than 20,000 cognates in English are academic vocabulary words, terms essential for comprehending school texts.

?The Pura Belpré Children's Book Award has been given since 1996 to outstanding children's and young adult literature that represents, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience. The books are judged for their literary and artistic quality.

?There are many English-Spanish cognates in each of the Pura Belpré picture books. The purpose of this article is to introduce the Pura Belpré Cognate Database, which lists all of the English-Spanish cognates for each of the children's picture books that have won the award or have been designated as honor books. Ideas for vocabulary, spelling, and morphology lessons or mini-lessons are also presented.