Carnal teachings: raunch aesthetics as queer feminist pedagogies in Yo! Majesty's hip hop practice

This essay puts forward a notion of “raunch aesthetics,” theorizing raunch as an aesthetic, performative, and vernacular practice: an explicit mode of sexual expression that transgresses norms of privacy and respectability. Raunch aesthetics describe creative practices that often blend humor and sexual explicitness to launch cultural critiques, generate pleasure for minority audiences, and affirm queer lives. The author activates her formulation of raunch in analyzing Yo! Majesty, a hip hop group comprised of black female emcees who openly describe their sexual desire for women, and explores how the queer youth of color she works with have responded to their music. Working beyond the unexamined moralisms that give critiques of raunch culture their legitimacy, the author argues that Yo! Majesty's raunch aesthetics transmit queer and feminist teachings. While celebrating carnal pleasures, these artists critique heterosexism, subvert narratives about the incompatibility of belief in Christ and queer sexualities, and trouble notions concerning the emancipation of coming out of the closet and declaring a stable homosexual identity. In demonstrating how raunch aesthetics generate consciousness raising, the author discusses how her youth participants critically read and consume hip hop while negotiating unwieldy meanings of sexuality and gender presentation.     

Old (Molotov) cocktails in new bottles? “Price-tag” and settler violence in Israel and the West Bank

In the early morning of July 31, 2015, masked attackers threw firebombs into two Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Duma, south of Nablus, killing three Palestinian civilians. Contrary to claims by Israeli and Palestinian politicians, this attack was neither an isolated anomaly nor just another incident of settler violence. Instead, it was the latest attack in an important but largely unknown phenomenon called “price-tag,” in which a loosely connected group of young Israelis called “hilltop youth” burn Palestinian mosques and destroy property in hundreds of attacks accompanied by threatening graffiti that references Israeli settlers, outposts, and anti-Arab slogans. Using an original dataset of price-tag incidents and interviews with key actors, we demonstrate that the perpetrators, targets, and strategies of price-tag are different than previous patterns of settler violence. Whereas previous settlers saw the Israeli state as legitimate and largely decided to cooperate with it, the hilltop youth have decided to confront it by using price-tag attacks to deter settlement withdrawals and chain-gang the state into a conflict with the Palestinians. This analysis of the strategic logic of price-tag reveals its potential to shift the political landscape within and between Israelis and Palestinians.     

Fundamentalism's encounters with citizenship: the Haredim in Israel

This paper centers on the challenge that fundamentalist groups – such as the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community (the Haredim) – pose for citizenship. It focuses on two issues: challenges centering on contribution to and sacrifice for the Israeli nation-state; and alternatives that fundamentalism poses to definitions of citizenship. Empirically, it is based on research in three arenas: service in the Israeli military; a voluntary organization aiding state agencies after terror attacks (ZAKA), and a charitable association offering help in health and social welfare (Yad Sarah). Two trends – challenges to concepts of security and the state, and the weakening of the state in the economic sphere and social services – have opened up spaces for fundamentalist groups to operate in civil society and complement the state. The Haredi community has gradually developed a new concept of inclusion that both fits the state-centred view of citizenship and their own fundamentalist perspective.     

现代宗教热的社会根源探析

现代宗教热导源于现代工业文明所引发的精神危机 ,有着深刻的社会根源 :生态危机、核威胁、城市恐怖综合症、社会分离、变式文化、物质刺激、信息化、快节奏、社会竞争以及工业文明向后进地区的推进造成了普遍的焦虑与恐惧感、孤独与寂寞感、失落感、依赖与疏外感、疲惫与紧张感及适应能力缺乏感。这些精神问题的存在一方面刺激了人们的宗教需求 ,另一方面也促使人们重新审视“和谐”对人生命的本质性意义     

社会责任国际标准对我国政治安全的影响及对策——以与我国宗教信仰政策的冲突为视角

社会责任国际标准（ISO26000）,在赋予公民接受和从事宗教自由和保持信仰自由的同时,笼统的无区别和限制,这与我国宗教信仰政策存在冲突。它的出台,势必会给国际反华势力对我国进行各种渗透活动尤其是政治渗透提供可乘之机。他们通过宣扬西方的价值观念,开展＂人权外交＂,煽动宗教狂热,制造民族隔阂,培植地下势力,对我国的政治安全造成潜在的影响。对此,我们一定要有清醒的认识,积极采取有效措施,通过加紧构建中国特色社会主义核心价值观,全面贯彻党的宗教政策,在立法上明确我国公民宗教信仰自由的法律限制,完善宗教工作协调机制,进一步加强有关宗教问题的广泛国际合作,维护国家的政治安全。     

新疆南疆阿克陶县社会稳定的调查与思考

新疆南疆社会安全稳定关系新疆、西北乃至全国稳定。阿克陶县作为新疆南疆重镇,有着特殊的地理位置、较为复杂的社情。该县在宗教事务管理、基层组织建设、基层社会管理方面取得了一定的成效,但从当前反分裂斗争的复杂性和尖锐性来看,境内外"三股势力"竭尽全力煽动群众进行各种破坏活动,极端宗教和民族分裂势力的渗透也愈加严重,抵御意识形态领域渗透的任务严峻。需要通过加强边境管理、强化对可疑人员的甄别、核查力度,强化意识形态领域的反分裂斗争,加强推进基层组织建设等方面筑牢社会稳定基础。     

The Ethical Irrationality of the World: Weber and Hindu Ethics

Abstract

This paper argues that Weber ought to be read as a comparative ethicist who brings his German intellectual inheritance, especially Schopenauer and Nietzsche, to a dialogue with ethical traditions in India and China. It shows that Weber not only had a supple understanding of the tensions within Hindu ethics, his own account of value often closely corresponds to Hindu axiology and was enriched by an encounter with it.     

"恐怖邪教"与人格扭曲

"恐怖邪教"是现代邪教和恐怖主义结合在一起孳生的怪胎."恐怖邪教"进行暴力恐怖活动的目的是为了维护其以极端性和残暴性建立的"权威地位"和左右民众的能力.在伦理层面上,"恐怖邪教"蔑视人的个性,蔑视人的尊严,背弃人文精神,最终导致信众严重的人格扭曲,应从伦理上加以批判.     

积极稳妥地处理好共产党员信仰宗教的问题

在少数民族聚居地区和信教群众聚居地区开展保持共产党员先进性教育,必须注重研究解决好特殊性问题。在解决共产党员信仰宗教问题上不能犯操之过急的幼稚病,要坚决纠正在共产党员信仰宗教问题上存在着的认识误区,坚定不移地贯彻执行党的宗教信仰自由政策,坚持不懈地对党员进行马克思主义无神论教育,把党员信教与随顺民族风俗区别开来,积极而稳妥地处理好共产党员信仰宗教的问题。