“Don’t Frack with Our Karoo”: Water,Landscape, and Congregational Song in Kroonvale,South Africa

There is a new environmental threat to the South African Karoo region in the form of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) for natural gas reserves buried deep underground. In this article, I use the issue of fracking in the Karoo to investigate the power of this landscape over its people and focus particularly on the question of how the cultural traditions of the Karoo would be affected. In contrast, W.J.T. Mitchell argues that landscape exerts a relatively weak power over its residents. My work serves as a critique of theories that see landscape as exerting only marginal influence over people. I argue that not only does landscape exert a palpable power over its inhabitants, but also that landscape affects the musical traditions of these residents and, ultimately, the configuration of the Karoo soundscape. To investigate this, I draw on my research of music in three churches with coloured people’s membership in the town of Graaff-Reinet and examine this tradition in the context of its surrounding landscape.     

Cao Yu’s Peking Man and Literary Evocations of the Family in Republican China

Abstract

Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was home to communities and musicians from all parts of the world. Among the over 20,000 Russians living there, a significant population of musicians contributed to the musical life of the city, particularly the Conservatory of Music founded in November 1927. This article reveals an overlooked phase of musical exchange between China and the West by 1) tracing the context and early development of the Conservatory; 2) identifying and discussing the activities of the Russian pedagogues (including Boris Zakharov, Vladimir Shushlin, and Sergei Aksakov amongst others) and their more notable Chinese students’ (including Li Delun, Ding Shande, Wu Leyi, and Yi Kaiji amongst others) reaction to them; 3) assessing the role that Russians played in the affairs of the Conservatory; and 4) demonstrating how Russian pedagogues influenced the development of Western classical music in China through their students’ notable achievements.     

民间法司法适用的作用与价值

民间法是在一定区域内,由习惯风俗长久演变而来的逐步制度化的规则,具有地域性、非正式性和内生权威性等特点。虽然民间法与正式的国家法有所不同,但它在维护乡土社会的稳定和解决婚姻家庭矛盾方面具有重要的意义。因此,国家应当重视并有效地利用在社会中起实际调整作用的民间法。在我国社会转型时期,分析民间法与国家法的关系,解决民间法与国家法的冲突,探索民间法司法适用的合理性,对我国法律继承和法律的完善起着重要的作用。     

民俗习惯的司法功能

站在司法中心主义的立场认识民俗习惯的法源地位,民俗习惯是作为法官法源存在,但是,如何判断民俗习惯的法律属性存在着理论困惑。对此,我们应该对民俗习惯的司法功能在法律和事实两个层面上进行分别分析,在法律层面上,民俗习惯作为“法官法”存在,需要法官从司法判决中对民俗习惯进行法律发现;在事实层面上,民俗习惯作为经验法则或者事实证据存在,法官可以将其作为经验法则进行认定,在民俗习惯合理性存有争议时,可以通过当事人的举证责任分配予以解决。可见,民俗习惯司法适用的问题是一个诉讼法或者证据法的问题,而不是一个法律方法论的问题。     

Modern poetry,popular song and their dangerous liaisons

Abstract

In this article, Tsuboi Hideto examines the mutually entwined pursuits of modern poetry and music in interwar Japan, focusing especially on the work of Nakahara Chūya, Kitahara Hakushū, and the People's Poetry group. Cutting across their respective distinctions within the poetry establishment, Tsuboi draws attention to these figures’ shared investment in symphonic, folk and popular music. In so doing, he identifies among them a prevailing concern for curating a poetic voice that might harmonize the conflictual registers of individual and collective expression and thereby attune the work of the poet to that of the ‘people’ more broadly. Meanwhile, the essay traces the currents of modernist and avant-garde thought in Japan and Europe that framed these poets’ engagements with music and sound. Tsuboi then illustrates the varying degrees to which these voices, forged within the cosmopolitan milieu of the Taisho period, bent toward the nationalizing project and later gave way to the chorus of wartime fascism and imperial expansion.     

论民间法研究的犬儒主义色彩

改革开放之后,政治权力尽管对学术的控制全面放松了,但其仍然时刻保持着侵入学术的可能。法学学术面对这种政治情势形成了一种既试图回避政治禁忌又试图迎合学术体制的犬儒主义生存策略,而民间法研究正好满足了这样一种生存策略,民间法研究者无疑对当下中国的政治现实有着一种清醒的意识,但其仍然回避了关键的政治性法律实践问题,而在比较安全的去政治化的法律实践领域大力挖掘学术资源。民间法研究者还在既中立客观而又具有现实意义的绝佳外表下不恰当地将这种片面化的学术研究放大到法治建设的全局性地位,为其进行精致的正当化辩护。民间法研究者最终通过各种似是而非的理论策略能够达到一种犬儒主义效果:对学术无能的不自知、对逃避政治现实的自我说服、对学术繁荣的自我陶醉。     

民间法与裁判规范

裁判规范是法官在司法中援引或运用一定规则以直接适用于个案的规范。裁判规范分为两种：一种是法官援引一定规范所直接形成的裁判规范;另一种是法官运用一定规范而构造的裁判规范。民间法作为法律渊源,既可以被法官直接援引作为裁判规范,也可以被法官作为构造裁判规范的“原材料”加以运用。民间法作为法律渊源有一些制约性条件,需要法官识别民间法,也给法官增加了论证义务,以便使民间法作为裁判规范或者以民间法为据构造裁判规范时,获得当事人及其他社会主体的接受。