Memories in the Labyrinth

Since when has the word ‘border’ started to occupy my mind? That's I can't tell. But, once in a while, the forgotten memories are suddenly brought back to life in the vaguest fashion, and often out of the context. They come out of nowhere. Out of a labyrinth of time, it seems. I was born and grew up on a small island, some 400 kilometers east of the Okinawa Island. It was an island of immigrants who had sought a job at the sugar factory owned by a wealthy family from Japan. It was also an island of diasporas. Many islanders had some experience of crossing ‘borders’ for all sorts of reasons.     

Disrupting Colonial Narratives in the Curriculum

Within the field of critical education studies, scholars argue that social studies curriculum should address colonialism. This article presents a single case study of an eighth grade social studies teacher, and how vestiges of colonialism were evident in his classroom. While class lessons and discussions offered opportunities to engage and challenge colonialism, the teacher opted to either normalize colonialism or erase its influence. Treating colonialism as normal or non-existent in the curriculum does not acknowledge how endemic colonialism is within society, and perpetuates an ideology that continues to marginalize the colonized and their contributions to society.     

Locating Transgender Within the Language of Queer in Teacher Education

Queer is difficult to pin down conceptually; it is willfully disruptive, intentionally destabilizing everything from identity to knowledge to politics to power. The intent of this article is to illuminate some of the ways teacher educators are conceptually connecting queer to transgender identities and experiences in their classroom curriculum and pedagogical strategies. The data discussed in this article refers to three courses designed for pre-service teachers and include transgender content. A syllabus analysis and interviews illuminated the various ways queer is being conceptualized in different ways by each teacher educator. Trans identities and experiences were affirmed to various degrees through the participants’ conceptualizations of queer as an identity, queer as an embodiment/expression, queer as an analytical approach, and queer as a political project. Fundamental to the instructors’ understanding of queer was an intentional subversiveness, an affinity for non-conformity and disruption, and a commitment to anti-assimilationist practices. Furthermore, the participants saw trans and queer connecting through a common gender socialization experience and social positioning outside gender norms, and through a mutual vulnerability to heteronormativity as a system of oppression—particularly those who are both trans and queer.     

Echoes of the Bandung movement in the Caribbean and China's presence in the region today

The ideas of Bandung had echoes in the anti-colonial and decolonization movement in the Anglophone Caribbean from the 1950s to the 1970s. These echoes were signals of international solidarity that emerged among the political leadership and radicalized publics in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. That sense of solidarity has been replaced by pragmatic business relations in the era of global neo-liberalism and the growing role of China and other ex-colonies as economic powers. There is an urgent need for renewal of mutually beneficial political association among ex-colonial countries. The spectres of racism and racial stereotypes need to be confronted in the building of stronger economic relations. These racial stereotypes arise from the growth of anti-black racism over the past 500 years. Similarly, racial stereotypes of Chinese and other peoples of Asia are rooted in colonial histories. New political relations cannot be based exclusively on trade and economic relations but on an explicit elaboration of ideas that can encourage discussion, debate and the development of institutions. These new political ideas can build on shared principles in an anti-racist direction, which helps to restore human dignity to international relations.     

Chekhov,Tolstoy and the Illustrated Press in the 1890S

ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates how Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy addressed an expanded reading public with new interests in the 1890s. It focuses on Chekhov's serialized book-length study The Island of Sakhalin (1893–4) and Tolstoy's last big novel, Resurrection (1899), which was also serialized. To reach an expanding diverse audience Tolstoy simplified his vocabulary, used a mono-dimensional plot and avoided subplots, foreign words and subtle shifts that could deflect the reader's attention. Chekhov also adapted his literary practice, adopting a unique documentary style, putting himself in the text. Each author engaged in a conversation about nationality, ethnicity and empire, issues of fundamental import to their readers and their society more broadly. Speaking about life and death, sin and redemption, good and evil, and about the common humanity of the most downtrodden of Russian citizens, men and women, Chekhov and Tolstoy addressed their contemporaries with fresh and timely words about pressing issues.     

Social support for hispanics in the military

With a growing number of Hispanics entering the job market in the private, public, and military sectors, social support processes for Hispanics are becoming increasingly important. Sources of social support include the family, friends, co-workers, supervisors, mentors, and formal organizational programs. Areas of the military work context requiring social support are recruiting, training, and career development. The effectiveness of social support may be moderating by such variables as degree of acculturation, educational level, and organizational culture. The present article includes a review of the civilian and military literature on social support for Hispanics and an interview of Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) Hispanic staff. Several recommendations are presented: actively cultivating Hispanic community networks for recruiting, considering rewards for bilingualism, increasing English proficiency training, making Hispanic mentors available, treating Hispanics as individuals in job assignments, recognizing the Hispanic family as an important consideration in military personnel actions, and creating a Department of Defense Hispanic data base.     

Diaspora as mind: making sense of the experiences of the Japanese in postwar Taiwan

This paper began as an inquiry into the plight of ethnic Japanese in postwar Taiwan. As a group, they have been an object of benign neglect. Despite the advent of “multiculturalism” (duoyuan wenhua zhuyi) in Taiwan, was marked by an “alien” (mainlander Chinese) KMT regime and led to the eventual liberation of opposition parties and indigenous ethnic groups, few have found it relevant to celebrate the cause of oppressed Japanese. The postwar ban on Taiwanese and Japanese culture was part of the same imperative of mono-cultural nationalism that endeavored to erase 50 years of Japanese colonialism in order to restore the legacy of Chinese civilization. At the same time, there is little recognition in the literature of any Japanese “diaspora” in Taiwan. It pales in comparison with the many Japanese orphans abandoned in Manchuria after the Second World War. The birth of a generation of children from mixed marriages making claims to Japanese “identity” has added other significant dimensions to the concept of diaspora and its definition as a social group or discursive construction.     

Knots in the Fourth Dimension

ABSTRACT

The article analyses a debate that preoccupied the Russian press in the winter of 1878/9. Writers, journalists and scientists discussed whether mathematics could explain spiritualist séance phenomena. At its core, this was an assessment of social change and a debate about the ambiguity of modern life. While spiritualists hoped to bridge the divide between science and religion, subjectivity and objectivity, their opponents feared that séance phenomena and modern mathematics undermined a rationalist world-view that was endowed with reliability and universal truth. That no agreement could be reached indicates that the post-reform public sphere had become truly pluralist and modern.     

Fear and Rumour in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s

ABSTRACT

The article explores the nature of popular fears during the early years of the People's Republic of China by examining two types of rumour: those of a ‘secular’ type that told of China's defeat in the Korean War, a third world war or an imminent nuclear attack; and those of a ‘supernatural’ type that told of demons out to snatch vital organs or the end of the world. These rumours testified both to the resilience of ancient cosmological beliefs and values and to their capacity to fuse with elements of ‘modern’ politics. The article asks what they tell us about the relationship of the party-state to the populace.     

Cross-national encounters: Turkish students in the United States

This research studied the effects of sojourn experience on the attitudes of young Turkish students spending a year in the U.S. The study, using a pretest-posttest control group design, was repeated for two years and was completed by a follow-up. Certain attitude changes were obtained which were attributed to the favorable nature of sojourn experience. These changes were mainly decreases in authoritarianism and religiosity and increases in world-mindedness and to a lesser degree in belief in internal control and perceived family control. Most of these changes were found to be of duration longer than one year. Patriotism and achievement values decreased independently of sojourn experience, indicating an age trend. After returning home subjects were found to undergo a readjustment process arriving at an optimum level in about a year.     

After the Fall: Awakening from the Dream in The Rider and Red Sparrow

Two recent movies, The Rider and Red Sparrow, are in contrast to a large number of movies celebrating the triumph of afflicted persons over obstacles that seem insurmountable. Through commitment, hard work, and determination, these characters are able to do the impossible. However, these two movies instead focus on the dire consequences of an inability to overcome obstacles. This change may reflect an increasing pessimism about current challenges and individuals’ ability to meet them.     

Play in the house of order: The Necessary Stage's BrainStorm

Abstract

This article opens up the question of modernity in relation to Yan’an woodcuts by recounting the Matisse debate among artists in Yan’an circa 1942, during the War of Resistance against Japanese occupation. Yan’an woodcuts did not move in a direction akin to the stylistic reform engaged by Western modernism; instead they pushed modern Chinese woodcuts to develop according to the requirements of ‘national form.’ Yan’an woodcut artists’ exploration of ‘national form’ involved a synthesis of folk aesthetics and woodcut techniques with the creation of modern‐style woodcuts, and a synthesis of revolutionary content with the artistic expression of national form. In this way a new kind of artistic ideal was realized. Compared with contemporary artistic questions in the West, the formal questions of Chinese revolutionary art surpassed the artistic as such to support rich social content and revolutionary discourse. The establishment of national language in art accords with the desire and imagination to construct of a new kind of modern nation‐state.     

The Uses and Gratifications of Language in Social Media among the Indian Subcontinental Diaspora in the U.S.

This study examines the uses and gratifications of language in social media among the Indian subcontinental diaspora in the United States, based on data collected from an online survey of 535 adult immigrants following a snowballing technique. Results showed the use of native language is related to the use of home country media, while the use of English language is related to emotional adjustment. This study contributes to the literature on social media, community, and language preference by opening avenues for conducting further research on the usage of language in social media among the Indian subcontinental diaspora in the United States. The findings of this study contribute to an understanding of the influence of social media on language preference.     

Turning a home into the common: the micro-politics of subjectivations in a cohousing community in Seoul

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the micro-politics of a cohousing community called Bin-Zib (Empty/Guests’ House) in Seoul, South Korea. In a society where home ownership has become a financial asset, the residents of Bin-Zib have attempted to turn the home into the common. This paper focuses on how paradoxical principles of the community create Bin-Zib as an argumentative space, where disputes constantly arise. The paper then shows how the practice of communing in Bin-Zib is essentially related to the everyday politics of subjectivation. Finally, the meaning of Bin-Zib in the inter-Asian context will be discussed.     

The work of the audience: visual matrix methodology in museums

ABSTRACT

Visual matrix methodology has been designed for researching cultural imaginaries. It is an image-led, group-based method that creates a “third space” research setting to observe audience groups re-enacting lived experience of an event or process that takes place in the third space of a cultural setting. In this article, the method is described through its use in relation to an art-science exhibition, Human+ Future of the species, where three audience groups with investments in technology worked with exhibition material to achieve a complex ambivalent state of mind regarding technological futures. The visual matrix has been designed to capture the affective and aesthetic quality of audience engagement in third space by showing what audiences do with what is presented to them. We argue that such methodologies are useful for museums as they grapple with their role as sites where citizens not only engage in dialogue with one another but actively re-work their imaginaries of the future.     

Traversing the Local and Universal in the Catholic Renewal

ABSTRACT

Increasing numbers of educated Catholic travellers visited holy sites in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Though we are beginning to uncover more about these holy sites in the context of ‘local’ religion, we know very little about how educated travellers encountered them. These sacred places were also places of mobility and exchange. This article explores the responses of an educated traveller from Bohemia on a pilgrimage to Loreto and his encounters with holy sites and religious materials along the way and what this reveals about Catholicism in between the local and universal.     

Public participation in the arts in the United States: Summary of the national endowment for the arts 1997 survey

The 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts examines the extent to which adult Americans throughout the US participate in the arts ‐ by attending live events and exhibitions, listening to and watching broadcast or recorded arts programmes, as well as personally performing or creating art themselves.

Respondents indicate that 35 per cent of American adults visited an art museum or gallery at least once in 1997. Other popular activities included attending ‘musical plays’ (25 per cent), non‐musical plays and classical music (both 16 per cent). Twelve per cent of the populated went to performances of jazz and dance other than ballet. Reading literature and visiting a historic park or an arts/crafts fair also had high participation rates ‐ the former, 63 per cent, and the latter two, about 47 per cent.

The chapter is divided into eight sections. The first three sections describe total participation, rates of participation, and participation by demographic group for each arts activity by types of participation: attendance at live events, participation through media, and active participation. The fourth section is devoted to socialisation, the amount of education and exposure to the arts. The fifth compares participation rates for the arts and other leisure activities. The sixth section focuses on music preferences, and the seventh on the geographical distribution of participation in the arts. The final section presents a summary and conclusions. Appendices to the report provide background and history of the survey, details of its methodology and analysis, and the questions asked in the survey.     

The Island Frontier: Socotra,Sri Lanka and the Shape of Commerce in the Late Antique Western Indian Ocean

ABSTRACT

The islands of Sri Lanka and Socotra c. 200–700 provide a useful comparison, both with each other and with islands in the Late Antique and medieval Mediterranean. Using the analytical framework of frontiers as a comparative tool, this study proposes using the parameters of scale and proximity in order to evaluate where the frontier(s) of an island lay (along the shoreline or within an island space, sometimes both) and the difficulty or ease of controlling them from inside or outside the island. In its results, this analysis allows for change over time, but also establishes the diachronic effect of physical parameters. It offers a new way through the insular dichotomy of isolation versus connectivity and indicates a particularity of Mediterranean islands. This exploratory approach also sheds new light on an embargo established in ancient Socotra, suggesting it to have been a much shorter-lived phenomenon than previously speculated.     

What the Butler Saw: Lee Daniels's Studies in Biography and History

The movie Lee Daniels’ The Butler is an example of a work that is meant not only to entertain but to convey an important attitude and offer important viewpoints. The movie deals with a deep issue in the history of movies and the history of the country: racial inequality. Three issues are discussed in this article: (a) African Americans in movies, (b) the contradictions of the servant role, and (c) the generational conflict between fathers and sons.