‘Hope is a mistake,if you can’t fix what’s broken you go insane’: a reading of gender, (s)heroism and redemption in Mad Max: Fury Road

After a hiatus of 30 years since the first three films, the fourth Mad Max film was released in 2015, called Fury Road. It features the familiar eponymous character of Max, but this time alongside a female character, Imperator Furiosa. The gender dynamics of the fourth film are vastly different from those of the first three films and elicited much praise as well as criticism. It provides a new perspective through which to view the early films and the dystopian post-apocalyptic future world presented in the films. Fury Road introduces a corrective to the earlier films in terms of their reductive depictions of the relations between men and women, while avoiding an equally reductive representation of gendered shame and blame. The message is clearly about collaboration and cooperation as essential for the redemption of a world in which gendered inequities and abuses of power remain deeply disconcerting obstacles. This article considers some of the most salient aspects related to the depiction of women in Fury Road and of the relationship between the two main characters, Max and Furiosa.     

体视学技术在医学影像学中的应用及其法医学价值

基于Cavalieri原理的体视学技术经常运用在组织学和病理学的研究中,但是现在,这种技术已经被运用于医学影像学(如CT、MRI、ECT、超声等)的测量。体视学的方法提供了一个非侵入性的、精确的、无偏的、简单的和快速的测量方法。所以该方法在医学影像学的形态计量学的测量中有临床使用价值。而影像资料的定量测量结果则有助于法医学实践。     

The role of memes in the construction of Facebook personae

Abstract

This research is based on the assumption that social media sites – such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – have changed the way in which memes (culturally transmitted ideas) are transmitted or spread. It is argued that social media have provided the most fertile environment for the replication of memes to date. The social networking site Facebook is the main social media example used throughout the research. The way in which Facebook is represented in film, as well as the ways in which the offline lives of the characters are affected by their social media profiles, specifically as depicted in the film Catfish (Joost and Schulman 2010) are analysed. Lastly, it is argued that one can construct an entirely new persona, or merely experiment with different aspects of who you are, on social media sites. This online persona can be influenced by the memes one chooses to spread online. Naturally, all memes carry connotations, values and judgements. These memes collate with one's profile and, thus, the connotations attached to the memes one shares are then associated with one's online persona/profile. It is found that although a social networking user tries to portray him/herself in an idealised manner, these memetic connotations give a true impression of his/her offline persona. As a result, there is not much difference between the user's online and offline personae.     

The European Union, Burma/Myanmar and ASEAN: A challenge to European norms and values or a new opportunity?

The recent events in Burma/Myanmar, beginning with the November 2010 elections and the subsequent series of reforms, have taken Europe by surprise. For the last 20?years, the European Union (EU) has been one of the most vocal critics of the junta regime, thus jeopardising its constructive relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its members. In a new context of transition, the EU has to show that it can quickly adjust to an unanticipated scenario if it does not want its credibility to remain deeply undermined in a regional space that is undergoing structural transformations. Europe and ASEAN should together find a way to consolidate both the socio-political transitions in Southeast Asia and the validity of European values.