‘Killing Ourselves is Not Subversive’: Riot Grrrl from Zine to Screen and the Commodification of Female Transgression

This article draws on material from the Riot Grrrl Collection at New York University's Fayles Library to examine the culture of ‘zine’ production in riot grrrl communities in the United States during the 1990s. After investigating the relationship between the political issues and aesthetic strategies explored by riot grrrl literary producers, the author analyses the points of tension arising within the movement, which become illuminated by zines’ revelatory confessional modes, or what Mimi Thi Nguyen has called riot grrrl's ‘aesthetics of access’. The author subsequently enquires after the implications for riot grrrl politics of understanding experiences of oppression and transgressive behaviour as cultural commodities. Finally, the author goes on to trace the commodification of the transgressive feminist gesture in mainstream popular culture and contemporary online feminist activism in the United States.     

The rise and fall and rise of populism in Venezuela

The article seeks to outline the main elements through which a populist political order was built in Venezuela. It will be done, first by looking at the golden years a of Venezuelan populism (1945–1948). It will be argued that the constitution of populist politics meant: an appeal to the people, the articulation of new social relations and constitution of new political identities. Then it will turn to the latter Pérez and Caldera showing the basic schemes of their governments. They sought to reconstitute politics and reshape political identities in a new populist way. The arrival of Chávez at power and the first months of his government are also analysed.     

National protest agenda and the dimensionality of party politics: Evidence from four East-Central European democracies

Contemporary democracies show considerable differences in the issue composition of their protest politics, which tends to remain relatively stable over time. In countries like Germany or the Czech Republic, the vast majority of protests have been mobilised around sociocultural issues, such as human rights, peace, nuclear power or the environment, and only a tiny portion of protest has focused on economic issues. At the opposite extreme, protest in France or Poland usually has a strongly economic character and voices demands relating to material redistribution and social policy. What lies behind the cross-country differences in national protest agendas? In this article, the national protest agenda depends on what issues mainstream political parties are contesting: the content and strength of the master-issue dimension. In reference to the literature on the multidimensional political space and niche political parties, one should expect that there is a substitutive effect; where the stronger a specific master-issue dimension is in party politics, the less salient that issue dimension is in protest politics. This substitutive effect results from the tendency of electoral politics to reduce political conflict to a single-dimension equilibrium, which decreases the importance of other issues and relegates the contest over secondary, niche issues to the realm of policy-seeking strategies, with protest being a common type of this political strategy. In party systems where single-dimension equilibrium does not exist and the master-issue dimension is weaker, the same dynamics result in a more convergent relationship between party and protest politics and a greater similarity between the protest- and party-system agendas. To investigate this theory, the national protest agendas in four countries are examined. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia show four combinations of two crucial factors that are not available in the old Western democracies: the content and the strength of the master-issue dimension. The study draws on an original dataset of protest events organised in the four countries between 1993 and 2010, and on qualitative and quantitative data on issue dimensions of party politics obtained from studies on party politics and expert surveys. The results show that in the Czech Republic, where the master-issue dimension has remained strongly economic, protest has been predominantly sociocultural. In Poland between 1993 and 2001 and Hungary between 1993 and 2006, the master-issue dimensions are strongly sociocultural, while protest is predominantly economic. There is no single-dimension equilibrium in party politics in Slovakia or in post-2001 Poland and mainstream parties compete on both economic and sociocultural issues. Consequently, the substitutive dynamics between party and protest politics is weaker and the issue agendas in party and protest arenas are here more alike.     

从“快乐女声”看商业文化对青少年流行文化的影响

＂快乐女声＂是继＂超级女声＂之后在国内再次掀起了一场大型电视平民选秀节目活动。＂快女＂的受众对象主要是青少年群体,青少年在这一节目活动中除了获得名利双收外,更多的是受制于商家和媒体的操纵与诱导,进而成了给媒体带来高的收视率和给商家带来滚滚商机的＂牺牲品＂。＂快女＂火爆的原因,除了青少年自身因素外,其背后的商业力量也是其产生的重要原因。成人社会应该更加重视青年文化,尤其要正确引导青年流行文化向主流文化方向发展。     

内地民事抗诉制度与香港司法制度的区际冲突

香港回归前后,内地民事抗诉制度开始进入香港司法界的视野。由于香港普通法强调判决的终局性,民事抗诉制度(以及整个审判监督制度)曾经影响到内地民事判决在香港的承认与执行。然而,随着内地与香港在司法制度上的交流与互动,香港司法界时民事抗诉制度的认识开始产生新的思维。2006年7月,内地与香港签署了相关文件,表明到目前为止,抗诉制度并没有成为两地相互认可和执行民事判决的障碍。但将来的发展,还有待于进一步现察。     

当代中国大众文化问题的思考

由于思想解放运动的开展 ,海外大众文化的传入 ,市场取向的经济体制改革等原因 ,当代中国产生了大众文化。这种新型文化的迅猛发展 ,舒缓了大众的身心压力 ,提高了生活质量 ,开辟了新的教育渠道 ,促进了市场经济的发展 ,但同时也导致了新的文化失衡和人文精神的失落。因此 ,要通过明确大众文化的价值体系 ,坚持综合创新的原则 ,进一步规范文化市场等措施 ,引导和促进大众文化的进一步健康发展     

重新认识中国传统“小说”概念的演变

中国古代小说研究虽已取得大量成果,但一直存在着一个概念混淆的问题,即把古代指称一些自由写作文体的"小说"与后来称呼通俗叙事的"小说"混为一谈.然而在古代的文学观念中,这两种文体具有不同的艺术和文化特征.因此这种混同造成了对中国文学发展历史和文体特征认识的模糊.     

刑事抗诉制度的立法完善

多年的刑事抗诉司法实践以无可争辩的事实,证明了其在保障司法公正等方面具有不可替代的作用,但是现有刑事抗诉制度也存在提起条件不明确、履行抗诉的程序不完善以及对被害人权益保护功能发挥不足等一系列问题。这些问题的存在已经严重制约了刑事抗诉职权的履行;因此,必须进一步细化刑事抗诉提起的标准,分别按照二审程序抗诉和审判监督程序抗诉的不同特点完善刑事抗诉程序,切实保障刑事被害人的抗诉请求权,增强抗诉请求对检察机关的制约效力,以充分保障其合法权益。     

当代大众日常趣味的文化解读

大众日常趣味在大众文化背景下总体表现为重感觉轻理性的审美趣味。它一方面制约着大众文化的风格和内容,另一方面被大众文化所塑造,削弱了人的理性思维能力,使趣味流于形式,排斥内容。通过审视和解读这一现象,更加突显了倡导人文理性的必要性。     

Pedagogy from and for Social Movements: A Conversation Between Theory and Practice

Much radical writing on academia is grounded in a mystified view of knowledge in which an ecosocialist pedagogy would be “theory from above.” This article argues for a different understanding of knowledge as materially situated in social and ecological relationships; oriented towards practice; developmental and contested from below, demystifying third-level education from the perspective of movement-generated knowledge. Concretely, this means starting from participants’ existing praxis and “learning from each other’s struggles”—using “frozen” movement theory and activist experience—to move towards a wider, more radical understanding. In Ireland such pedagogy is rooted in working-class community self-organising, rural environmental justice alliances, women’s and GLTBQ activism, and the anti-capitalist “movement of movements,” encapsulating Audre Lorde’s dictum, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” The article focusses in particular on a “Masters for activists.” The course supports movement participants to deepen and develop their activist practice but also to situate it within these wider and more radical understandings and emancipatory alliances. Taking movement praxis—rather than “contemplative” knowledge—as a starting point raises very different questions about theory and practice, forms and distribution of knowledge and the purpose and shape of learning.