Why Women Don’t Win Literary Awards: The Saltire Society Literary Awards and Implicit Stereotyping

The purpose of this analysis is to consider the Saltire Society’s Book of the Year and First Book of the Year Awards in relation to wider issues pertaining to media representations of Scottish literary and publishing culture. Through a statistical analysis of the Society’s Book of the Year and First Book of the Year shortlists and winners between 1988 and 2014, this examination shows the extent to which the Society’s Literary Awards reflect, as opposed to subvert, historic and existing gender imbalances in Scottish literary and publishing culture. Indeed, despite critics arguing that there was a change in tide in the late 1980s and early 1990s regarding the balance in gender representation in Scottish literature, this analysis suggests that Scotland’s book award culture, and in turn, literary culture more widely, remains dominated by men. Perceptions of the apparent ‘balancing’ of the gender disparity in Scottish writing do not align with the statistics discussed here, a fact further evidence by misconceptions held by members of the Society’s own Literary Awards judging panels. Accordingly, this article contends that such inconsistencies lend credence to the argument that the Society’s judges have participated in implicit stereotyping based upon culturally pervasive stereotypes’ that Scottish women writers play a ‘minor’ role in Scottish literary and publishing culture.     

俄远东地区2001年工业运行浅析

工业是俄罗斯远东地区的主导经济部门。2001年远东工业仍未走出低谷,但有的工业部门生产已出现恢复性增长。按部门概述远东工业生产运行状况,指出存在的问题及成因,以探讨解决问题的途径。     

无处不在的身影——东正教介入俄罗斯社会政治生活试析

东正教在俄国远不只是一种宗教,而是俄罗斯文化传承的重要载体,在后苏联成为俄联邦重构的重要社会资源、政治力量和精神动力,被视为是标示俄罗斯民族精神的最重要标志。在后苏联到来过程和重建过程中,东正教扮演了极其重要的角色,而且这种角色源于俄国的历史进程。其实,无论是就基督教神学理论还是就俄国史而言,缺少了对东正教因素的考虑,就无法描述俄国社会进程。近20年来,俄国社会进程和东正教紧密相关,因此,当代俄国人能基于东正教信仰,去批判性地面对后苏联社会变革所带来的各种重大问题。除此之外,东正教还积极介入俄罗斯的对外事务,成为影响俄对外关系的一个不可忽视的重要因素。     

俄罗斯开发远东地区自然资源的动因

当前,俄罗斯正处在一个复杂的国际政治、经济环境中,大力开发远东地区的自然资源对于其经济振兴和国家安全来说既是必由之路,又是明智之举。     

俄罗斯联邦宪法司法制度的历史发展

在俄罗斯联邦的宪法司法制度中,拥有违宪审查权的机关是宪法法院.这一审查制度的确立与发展到目前为止经历了三个阶段,一是有呼声无制度阶段,主要是戈尔巴乔夫改革时期;二是宪法司法制度初步确立阶段,从苏联解体到1991年第一部俄罗斯联邦宪法法院法生效;三是宪法司法制度的完善阶段,从第一部宪法法院法到1994年第二部俄罗斯联邦宪法法院法的实践运行.这三个阶段在立法与实践两个层面反映了俄罗斯联邦宪法司法制度的不断发展与完善(现代化发展进程).     

中国和平发展的俄罗斯视角

当前,中俄两国关系存在新的情况,面临新的问题,特别是作为中国的战略协作伙伴,俄罗斯如何看待中国的和平发展应该引起我们的高度关注。1989年5月,邓小平同志在会见来访的苏联领导人戈尔巴乔夫时表示,中苏两国应该“结束过去,开辟未来”。重温小平同志当年的讲话,正确认识和解决今天中俄两国关系中存在的问题,对于发展中俄战略合作,促进两国关系的发展,具有很强的现实意义。本文旨在介绍分析中俄关系发展的现存问题,并对进一步发展中俄战略伙伴关系提出一些建议。     

Intergovernmental Agreements in Contemporary Russia

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the evolution and current forms of agreements between federal, regional and municipal governments, as well as between the constituent units of the Russian Federation and municipalities. It analyses the problems and prospects of using these regulatory instruments. The purposes of this paper are to examine the current context of making intergovernmental agreements in Russia, to provide a comprehensive vision of contemporary state of this instrument of shaping intergovernmental relations, and to assess the prospects for their further practical use in the Russian Federation.     

Preventing Corruption Risk in Legislation: Evidence from Russia,Moldova, and Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

Corruption risk assessment of draft laws and other normative acts is a relatively new instrument in the anti-corruption strategies implemented by developed nations, countries in transition, and the developing world. In connection with this, any practical experience accumulated in this area presents obvious interest. The analysis of such experience may allow to identify what works and what does not work in introducing the practices of anti-corruption screening of draft laws and other normative acts in various environments and settings, as well as contribute to dissemination of best practices in the countries of the region and elsewhere.

This article seeks to analyze and demonstrate the extent of practical implementation of corruption risk assessment of draft and enacted legislation in three post-communist countries, the problems encountered and solutions identified. Proceeding from this analysis, certain recommendations for practitioners in this field are formulated.     

Augusta Webster’s Mother and Daughter and the only child debate

The enduring debate about family size has roots in Victorian England, most notably in literary works addressing the issue of balancing motherhood and a writing career. One Victorian writer and activist, Augusta Webster (1837–1894), directly addressed the issue of family size in her uncompleted sonnet sequence Mother and Daughter (1895), which she began when her only child was a newborn. In this posthumous series of 14-line poems, Webster defends her decision to have one child and, in doing so, challenges popular assumptions that only women with multiple children could be considered ‘complete’, socially-acceptable mothers. Despite her efforts, however, and despite the rising popularity of one-child families, the results of numerous scientific studies and the lingering critiques of mommy blogs make it clear that challenges to mothers of ‘onlies’ remain.     

Making post-Soviet counterpublics: the aesthetics of Limonka and the National-Bolshevik Party

This article focuses on the shaping of the aesthetics and ideology of Eduard Limonov’s National-Bolshevik Party (NBP) through the pages of the radical newspaper Limonka. In order to study the making of the NBP as a political and intellectual community, the piece discusses Limonka’s editorial line, its graphic style, and the alternative cultural canon that this radical publication promoted, as well as several interviews with National-Bolshevik activists involved in this process. During its first years of existence, Limonka proposed a selection of controversial artistic, literary, and political role models, and the creation of an alternative fashion and lifestyle. The article argues that by provocatively combining totalitarian symbols, the aesthetics and posture of the historical avant-gardes, and Western counterculture, Limonka produced a collective narrative that contributed to the shaping of a new language of political protest in post-Soviet Russia. This resulted in a complex combination of stiob, a form of parody that involves an over-identification with its own object, and a neo-romantic impulse. This new discursive mode, which the article defines as “post-Soviet militant stiob,” should be seen as part of a series of tactics of radical resistance to what the National-Bolsheviks saw as the dominant neoliberal discourse of the mid-1990s.