Digital archives in the cloud: Collective memory,institutional histories and the politics of information

The archive is a cultural institution that creates a framework for the social and collective memory and as such is one of the collection of knowledge institutions that not only preserves and classifies “texts” but uses them to re-create collective memory and sometimes to invent cultural histories. Like all knowledge institutions, the archive is also a construction deeply implicated in knowledge politics or what Foucault calls power/knowledge. In the past the archive has functioned as a central metaphor for the construction of human knowledge in all it is different institutional forms and like the encyclopedia and the camera, the archive produces highly coded representations that make implicit validity claims to the truth and justice of the past. Politically speaking, those who control the archive control the past. In the digital world, the archive is used to describe a machine-readable location as a store for “data” and “information.” Digital technologies radically alter our existing institutions, making access to their embedded knowledge widely available and enable learning and research anytime, anywhere. Data analytics algorithmically can manipulate electorates and entire democracies in new ways, while destabilising the free press. This article asks what digitizing an archive means for collective memory, for the history of institutions and for politics in the Cloud.     

文本的深度耕犁——对笛卡尔“我思,故我在”的多元解读

笛卡尔的＂我思故我在＂这一哲学命题是整个西方哲学史上的历史性的转折,他使＂我＂即自我意识登上了至上的巅峰,引发了众多的争议和探讨。文章正是基于对这一问题的思考,试图提出对其横向式的解读以及以后来哲学观点新的语境对其进行新的解读。     

火焰、灰烬与精神——德里达笔下的海德格尔与纳粹主义

纳粹问题,是海德格尔的研究者和承继者无法绕过的问题。具有独特眼光的解构大师德里达从精神入手,沿着海德格尔与西方传统精神之间的断裂和欲说还休的牵连,深入海氏思想深处找到火焰和灰烬的纳粹隐喻,用海氏的哲学文本反抗纳粹主义。德里达发现海德格尔的经过沉默和引号净化后的精神是熊熊燃烧的火焰,火既包含了善的因素又包含了恶的因素,火焰燃烧过后带来灰烬,一如纳粹引燃的战火和集中营里的大屠杀。然而,德里达对海氏与纳粹的关系采取的这种既谴责又宽容的态度,在引起我们深思的同时应该引起我们更多的警惕。     

释德里达的“原文字”概念

在《论文字学》一书中,德里达提出了一个很重要的概念：原文字。原文字是踪迹的运动,差异的运动,是延异,它是生发万事万物的本原。针对这一踪迹运动作简单明了的解说,进而指出德里达提出这一概念的目的。德里达运用这一概念解构了西方语言学的语音中心主义和西方形而上学的传统。     

解构主义对翻译理论的影响

解构主义学说是一个值得我们重视的翻译理论。本文阐述了解构主义理论对翻译理论及其实践活动的影响,指出了该理论的局限性,并提出解构之后重建新的翻译标准的必要性。它所阐释的观点和方法给我们许多新的启示,这对于重新构建中国翻译理论有着重要的参考价值和借鉴意义。     

浅论德里达文学批评思想——以德里达《论文字学》一书为例

德里达“文字学”批评思想，构成了德里达文学批评思想的理论基础。他用“解构”作为批评的策略，去分析各种文学经典文本。在“延异”、“踪迹”和“补充”维度上，德里达构建了他的“解构主义”。     

“作者的死亡”：一个值得认真思考和探究的论题

20世纪文评理论总的倾向是不把写作主体“作者”作为关注的重点，或是把作者排斥于文评之外。布朗肖、巴尔特、福柯、德里达等文评家和哲学家宣告“作者死亡”的观点趋于一致，但说法及内涵不尽相同，容易引起误解。本文试图对以上四大论家的观点略作评介，指出“作者死亡”观既是反文学传统又是富有开创精神的先锋观点，值得我们认真思考和探究。     

From performativity to Aporia: taking ‘tremendous responsibility’ towards feminism and the university

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to contribute to the thinking on feminism’s past and present entanglement with the university and strives to imagine its future. Through a close reading of the opening passage of Derrida’s essay ‘Mochlos, or The Conflict of the Faculties’, I trace ‘a university responsibility’ which does not lead to a subject conceived as self-identical. Drawing on the works of Hemmings, Scott and Wiegman, I argue that we must assume responsibility which will make us, feminism and the university tremble. This paper argues that envisioning feminist responsibilities as tremendous will allow us to conceive feminism as non-identical to itself and beyond the prerequisite of the sovereign (feminist) subject. Taking tremendous responsibilities will, as Hemmings proposes, help us create feminist narratives which will be potentially more politically transformative.     

Teaching with ignorance: Questions of social justice,empathy, and responsible community

This paper explores the limitations of empathy for the formation of community, particularly within social justice education. I begin with a discussion of the major tension within the idea of community — that it is founded at once on commonality and difference. Building in particular upon the work of Emmanuel Levinas, the paper articulates an understanding of community as a signifying encounter with difference that is not founded upon knowledge about the other, but upon a being-for and feeling-for the other. Focusing upon the explicitly educational commitment to working out forms of relationality conducive to establishing community and social justice across social differences, I ask how might teaching with ignorance, as opposed to teaching for empathy, bring us closer to the being-for others that marks our ethical engagement with other people and engenders our responsibility to the collective?