辛亥百年,沅澧群英——《辛亥沅澧人物史话》课程建设随笔

在波澜壮阔的辛亥革命中,地处湘西北的常德诞生了一批品质优秀的民主革命志士,他们在辛亥革命的不同时期扮演了重要的角色,对近代中国历史的进程作出了较大的贡献。为了缅怀革命先烈,继承革命传统,湖南文理学院历史专业增开了《辛亥沅澧人物史话》。就该课程的开设动因、基本原则、主要内容、学习方法和建设意义作个简单汇报,以期对高校特色课程建设和改革进行探讨。     

近10年唐宋妇女史研究的回顾与反思

近10年来,唐宋妇女史研究取得了累累硕果,发表论文专著百余篇,涉及诸多层面,主要有妇女地位问题、妇女生活、特殊群体妇女研究等方面,但也存在诸多不足,仍需要加强研究。     

The power of everyday subordination: exploring the silencing and disempowerment of Chinese migrant domestic workers

This paper examines how Chinese female migrant domestic workers are influenced by different forms of subordination; how norms, practices, and power relations enable and legitimize their subordination; and the ways in which subordination elicits compliance while silencing and disempowering the workers. I advance a new perspective on subordination, linking forms of subordination with forms of consciousness. Consciousness of one’s treatment and how one is changed by it informs the decision of whether to remain silent. Compliance, silencing, and disempowerment are facilitated by recognizable and subtle forms of subordination that can directly control individuals’ actions, shift their perspectives, and cause them to act against their own interests. When workers are not conscious of the insidious impact of subtle subordination upon their attitudes, perspectives, and behavior, they are far less likely to resist.     

百年以来中国共产党推进国家现代化的历史演进——基于概念史研究的论析

推进国家现代化是百年以来中国共产党孜孜以求的奋斗目标。为应对资本主义现代化的冲击,中国共产党在长期的革命斗争中逐渐明晰:现代化之于中国的首要意义在于改变落后挨打的命运,赢得国家独立,迎接现代化成为先进政党改变落后国家状态的战略选择。新中国成立后,中国共产党最初将现代化定义为工业化,将其作为摆脱贫穷落后面貌的根本途径,并在探索中逐步明确和丰富了“社会主义现代化”的发展目标与基本内涵,开启了追赶世界现代化的征程。党的十八大以来,中国共产党人愈加自信,“社会主义现代化”就是要实现中华民族的伟大复兴和人民对美好生活的向往,而中国式现代化道路也是可以引领世界现代化前进方向的中国智慧。     

Our wildest imagination: violence,narrative, and sympathetic identification

ABSTRACT

At this polarizing moment in American politics identifying with the experiences of others feels especially difficult, but it is vital for sharing a world in common. Scholars in a variety of disciplines have argued that narratives, and especially literary ones, can help us cultivate this capacity by soliciting sympathetic identification with particular characters. In doing so, narratives can help us to be more ethically and political responsive to other human beings. This is a limited view of the potential for narratives to solicit sympathetic identification, and it prevents us from identifying and grappling with our resistances to identifying with others. In this article I propose a more expansive view – inspired by Elizabeth Costello, a character in JM Coetzee’s novel of the same name – that there are no bounds to our capacities for sympathetic identification. Through critical readings of Waiting for the Barbarians and Animal Farm I explore the possibility that we might identify with people who cause others to suffer, and perhaps even with animals too. Both sorts of identification engender fierce resistance. Identifying with those who cause suffering demands that we grapple with our own capacities for cruelty and violence. Identifying with animals demands that we confront what is animal in ourselves – the perilous instincts that, unmoderated, incline us to aggression. Acknowledging and working through – without rejecting or disavowing – our capacities for cruelty and our animal instincts is necessary for the practices of sympathetic identification upon which sharing a world depends.     

‘Without Education You Can Never Become President’: Teenage Pregnancy and Pseudo-empowerment in Post-Ebola Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the emergence of ‘teenage pregnancy’ as a new policy focus in post-Ebola Sierra Leone and explores how Sierra Leoneans interpret the problem of ‘teenage pregnancy’. I argue that the new policy focus is not indicative of changing or new problems. Rather, ‘teenage pregnancy’ has created opportunities for donors and the Government of Sierra Leone to continue cooperation in gender politics. At the same time, Sierra Leoneans are clearly concerned about ‘teenage pregnancy’, and many agree with sensitization campaigns that responsibilize young women and girls while downplaying structural factors that render them vulnerable to arrangements involving transactional sex.     

Feminism in the Humanitarian Machine. Introduction to the Special Section on ‘The Politics of Intervention Against (Conflict-Related) Sexual and Gender-based Violence’

ABSTRACT

The prevention and mitigation of sexual and gender-based violence in (post-) conflict societies has become an important humanitarian activity. This introductory article examines the analytical discourses on these interventions, the institutionalization of SGBV expertise in international politics, and the emancipatory potential of anti-SGBV practices. It argues that the confluence of feminist professional activism and militarized humanitarian interventionism produced specific international activities against SGBV. As part of the institutionalization of gender themes in international politics, feminist emancipatory claims have been taken up by humanitarian organizations. The normal operating state of the humanitarian machine, however, undercuts its potential contribution to social transformation towards larger gender equality in (post-) conflict societies.     

Demotic humanitarians: historical perspectives on the global reach of local initiatives, 1940–2017

Abstract

This article focuses on over 70 years of demotic humanitarianism from a grassroots perspective. Using the archives of Hudfam and Elizabeth Wilson as well as more recent oral history of local nongovernmental organisations in the West Yorkshire region of the United Kingdom, this paper seeks to cast a new light on the complex network of humanitarianism enabled by local groups. The concept of demotic humanitarians will be used here to denote the modest scale of this work, but also the humanitarians’ self-perception as local agents of internationalism acting within localised networks. From the creation of Hudfam in 1942 (before Oxfam but in Huddersfield) to the birth of the Christian African Relief Trust or local partnerships with Ghana, this article shows how entangled in other social and political initiatives demotic humanitarians were.     

Violence in the city that belongs to no one: urban distinctiveness and interconnected insecurities in Nairobi (Kenya)

ABSTRACT

Rapid urbanisation in the global South has prompted attention to the causes and dynamics of urban violence. Yet, much research tends to either analyse urban violence without attention to the broader conflict complexes of which it forms a part, neglecting linkages between different forms of urban violence and between urban and rural dynamics, or conversely study violence in cities without acknowledging the particularities of the urban context. In this article, we conceptualise urban violence, theorise how it is shaped by urban dynamics and explore its manifestations in Nairobi, Kenya. We find that while Nairobi is not uniquely violent inside Kenya, violence takes on distinct urban forms given city-level processes, and also that urban violence has led to policies that increase securitisation and militarisation of the city. Our analysis thus improves knowledge of how criminal and political violence is shaped by and shapes the stability of developing cities.     

创新党史学习教育的有效途径

加强党员干部的党史学习教育,是提高党的建设科学化水平的重要途径。目前,各级培训机构在党史教育中还存在着不少问题,如对党史教育重视程度不够、存在＂庸俗化＂倾向、专业人才缺乏、教育方式针对性不强等。因此,相关部门必须高度重视并合理安排党员干部进行党史学习教育,加强党史教育工作队伍建设。各级培训部门在党史教育过程中要突出重点把握规律,增强其有效性和针对性。