Griffith and the Narrative Pattern of the American Civil－War Movies

From the perspective of the movie history of the centennial American Civil War, this paper expounds the collective memory and the historical reconstruction of the Civil War and post－war reconstruction of the American nation, especially the southern states, where the “Southern Myth” was born. It focuses on the analysis of the direct impact of this myth on Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, exposes the basic pattern of the theme, and demonstrates the far－reaching influence on the following Civil－War movies within the century; henceforth it provides a cultural historical analytical framework for the future study of the American centennial Civil－War movies.     

女性主义叙事意识形态阐释中的类比转义

转义(trope)和类比(analogy)是女性主义叙事意识形态阐释的核心逻辑,是对男权主义传统的“性类比思维”进行逆向类比推理,从底层思维逻辑质疑二元对立模式,受到20世纪60年代至80年代思想学术界研究范式转型的深刻影响。以“个人的即政治的”理念变迁、伍尔夫叙事的价值之争、对《笑忘书》的意识形态阐释为例,可见女性主义理论批评从理念、理论批评到阐释案例不同层面以类比转义方式解构“二元对立”。借助类比转义,女性主义叙事的意识形态阐释得以深入揭示类比叙事、二元对立的“确定性”与“非确定性”等深层社会意识和文化符码,但也可能因推理方式本身的缺陷出现主观偏误。     

Narratives of the EU in Israel/Palestine: narrative “stickiness” and the formation of expectations

ABSTRACT

Analysis of narrative can help identify the expectations actors hold about each other in international relations. This article triangulates a mix of elite interviews, media content analysis and an original Q-sort public opinion methodology to map the presence of narratives about EU relations among young Israelis and Palestinians. Our aim is not to explain the effects of EU public diplomacy in these countries. Instead we aim to identify the narrative “terrain” or conditions that the EU communicates to and with and, drawing on feminist and everyday narrative studies, to examine the role of affect and identity to explain why some narratives are more “sticky” than others in those societies. We find, first, a broad recognition that the EU’s capacity to act in international relations is necessary but limited in the face of greater challenges in the international system, and indeed, within the EU itself. We find, second, little evidence that young people radically reshape the narratives they encounter in their public spheres, but nevertheless some important divisions emerge that pose problems for how EU policymakers can communicate consistently without dismaying some citizens in third countries.     

The couple relationship when the female partner has an acquired physical disability

ABSTRACT

‘Whereas the couple relationship is described to be the relationship which is typically the most impacted by disability, spousal support is presented to be the most important form of support following such. To date little is known about the exchange of support and the impact of an acquired physical disability on the couple relationship, especially when considering the perspectives of both partners. Taking a feminist, a resilience and a systemic perspective, this paper seeks to address these gaps by presenting the stories told by three heterosexual couples in whom the females sustained an acquired locomotor disability in the course of the relationship. Individual and joint semi-structured interviews were held with each participating couple. The aim was to systemically understand how the beliefs, ideas and attitudes of each partner mutually contributed to the resilience and maintenance of the couple unit over time, taking also into consideration the contextual factors which helped or hindered the couples in this process.Thematic narrative analysis of the stories told showed how coping post-disability was brought about by mutual and reciprocal circular patterns of interaction initiated and maintained within the couple relationship and influenced by the socio-cultural context. Whereas it was difficult to decipher which party had started off these processes, their occurrence over time limited the burden experienced by both parties because of the disability. The females in this study were empathic and endowed with a sense of gratitude whilst the males were caring and supportive. Both parties were determined to help each other in times of need and to survive the disability ordeal as a couple even if this entailed self-sacrifice and adjustment. Such research presents novel insights about couples impacted by an acquired locomotor disability and the practices and interventions which practitioners, clinicians and policy makers can adopt in supporting couples following such’.     

以心理治疗反思社会文化

20世纪50年代以后出现的行为(认知-行为)治疗范式致力于治疗方法与技术的创新和改进,旨在提高人们对环境的适应性,但却忽略了对社会和社会文化的考察;人本主义治疗范式把关注的焦点放在社会和社会文化上,以探索适合人的全面发展的社会和文化条件,可是没能在治疗的技术和方法上有所建树.20世纪末,受后现代思潮影响而出现的叙事治疗范式创造性地提出了"外化问题"的技术,并在此基础上整合了微观和宏观的治疗取向,把治疗实践和反思主流文化成功地结合在一起,从而为心理治疗领域注入了新的活力.     

Multimodal narratives in SIA's “Singapore Girl” TV advertisements – from branding with femininity to branding with provenance and authenticity?

This paper analyses the multimodal narratives in Singapore Airlines (SIA)’s TV advertisements. Adapting the concept of the foreground–background continuum in multimodal interaction analysis, the first section of this paper analyses the narratives in 10 TV commercials available online from 1970s to 2013. Following the comparative analysis, a close investigation from a social semiotic perspective is conducted on SIA's latest TV advertisement in 2013. Through the analysis, this study shows how gendered representations of the Singapore Girl are manipulated in SIA's advertisements. It also reveals how these gendered representations adopted by SIA are married with contemporary branding philosophies, which also work to cloak them in relation to the use of increasingly well-rounded narrative structure. This study hopes to shed light on the understanding of how gender and sexist ideologies and representations are discursively embodied in contemporary branding strategies used by large-scale advertisements and campaigns spanning a long period.     

Queering the World or Worlding the Queer? New Readings of Anna Kavan’s Who Are You?

Abstract

This essay explores world-literary and queer approaches to Anna Kavan’s little discussed 1963 novel Who Are You?. It argues that world-literary scholarship demonstrates the centrality of white colonial masculinity to capitalist modernity, while a queer reading highlights the anxious performativity at the heart of such power. The most distinctive feature of Kavan’s text is its unusual format, whereby the story is told once, in detail, before immediately being retold, in more concise fashion and with some adjustments. What both fields add to the analysis of this formal deviation is a shared concern with the failings of normative order—whether that be the bourgeois, heteropatriarchal family or the capitalist system itself—and, in turn, the relationship of such failure to narrative disjuncture.     

美国关键矿产安全的脆弱性识别与韧性操作逻辑

关键矿产安全是满足国防工业基础建设、助推清洁能源产业转型以及实现诸多高新技术研发与落地等国家安全需要的核心要素。供应链的安全则是关键矿产安全的核心,而生产与开发能力、回收技术发展、地缘政治竞争等因素皆会影响供应链的稳定性。存在严重对外依赖的现实使得美国为摆脱关键矿产安全的脆弱性,开始追求关键矿产的安全韧性。但在全球实力和地位相对下降的背景下,美国将地缘政治竞争视为影响供应安全的最重要因素。因此,美国在关键矿产安全领域表现出双重叙事：一方面,美国秉持生存叙事,力图通过减少关键矿产供应链的脆弱性,增强韧性,以保障国家安全的基本需求;另一方面,美国又主张权力叙事,将关键矿产安全韧性视为操作工具,以谋求全球控制和主导地位。在双重叙事的交织下,美国通过政治化关键矿产评估、构建排他性供应链等策略,意图在国际舞台上塑造有利于己的格局。而此种刻意制造安全焦虑、拉动“小圈子”、分割全球发展力量的举措给全球安全韧性带来严重冲击,威胁全人类的福祉,中国要高度警觉其进一步的举措,并积极进行应对。     

Letting Go of the Cold Facts

“Letting Go of the Cold Facts” argues that Malik Benjelloul’s award-winning Searching for Sugar Man offers a nostalgic reflection on the intersections between politics and music culture in South Africa during Apartheid. The veracity of the film’s account of the career of Six to Rodriguez is less important to its project than its re-animation of a lost moment in the history of popular music, a moment when music consumption appeared to be endowed with cultural and political significance. At the same time, the film’s nostalgic impulses blind it to the complexities of the racialized histories with which it engages.