The Zhejiang Connection

Iwasn't sure what to expect. A sightsee-ing tour? A diplomatic mission? I had no idea. All I had been told about my trip to Zhejiang Province was that I would be traveling in a group, seeing various things and meeting some important people. A little vague, but apparently that was all I needed to know.     

BEYOND THE WILLOW PALISADE: MANCHURIA AND THE HISTORY OF CHINA'S INNER ASIAN FRONTIER

Dr David Sneath is the Director of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at Cambridge University and a lecturer in Social Anthropology. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College where he is Deputy Tutor for Advanced Students and Director of Studies in Archaeology and Anthropology. He is the Co-editor of the journal Inner Asia and his most recent book Changing Inner Mongolia: Pastoral Mongolian Society and the Chinese State was published in 2000 by Oxford University Press (reviewed in Asian Affairs, June 2002). The following article is based on a lecture which he gave to the Society on 17 July, 2002.     

Religion and the Media in a Battle for Ideological Hegemony: the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and TV Globo in Brazil

Abstract – Starting out from a celebrated 1995 controversy which arose from a late-night incident on Brazilian TV, the relationships between neo-Pentecostalism and established culture are explored. Taking into account traditions of legal rhetoric and of political adherence, the paper shows that what appears at one level as a religious conflict is at another level a conflict over political power, over the rhetoric and imagery of power, and for control of the popular imaginary.