Diagnosising the Identity Crisis of Culture: Are We Learning Nothing from History?

Abstract

This paper argues that we should think of culture and identity as separate concepts, involving distinct objects of enquiry. Whilst identity based theories tend to tell fragmented stories about culture and become overly concerned with difference and particular subjectivities, this paper claims that cultures emerge from a process of internal negotiation which requires only coherence and not homogeneity. In other words, members of cultures need not share all their features in order to be genuine members.     

The body as a form of representation

This article explores some discursive constructions of slums and the narrative foundations that sustain them. In such discourses, the distancing function of language demarcates a slum-line that defines and creates a “natural” separation between slums and the rest of urban populations to the extent that some see that the modern concept of slum opens an urban dimension of Orientalism. Slum discourses generate narratives that, after repeated exposure, accrue to become history, culture and knowledge. Drawing from Bruner's work on narrative accrual, this article studies how slum-narratives accrue according to specific agendas that determine lines of socio-political action on slum-dwellers.     

‘Meeting the Challenge’? The Liberal Democrats' Policy Review of 2005–2006

Even before the 2005 election, the Liberal Democrats' Federal Policy Committee had agreed on the need for a review of party policy, in response both to domestic and international political developments since 2001. Intended to build upon the 2002 policy document 'It's About Freedom', 2005 heralded the launch of a Meeting the Challenge policy review, which provided an unprecedented opportunity for party members at all levels to contribute towards the refinement of Liberal Democrat policies and develop a clearer political narrative. This would enable the party to articulate its principles and goals more effectively in the run-up to the next general election. Through a variety of intra-party channels, conduits and forums, hundreds of responses from party members, and local and regional Liberal Democrat parties, offered analyses and policy suggestions. On various issues, these revealed ongoing debates between the party's ( Orange Book ) 'liberals' and 'social democrats'. The outcome of this intra-party consultation exercise was the 2006 policy document 'Trust in People', which was emphatically endorsed at the party's annual conference. This will now provide the framework for further policy development and clarification during the next two years.     

Negotiating Difference Across Time: The Temporal Meanings of the Sydney Mardi Gras in Lesbian and Gay Life Narratives

This paper examines the temporal meanings of the annual LGBTI pride event, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Drawing on findings from a large-scale oral history project, the paper explores ways in which Australian lesbians and gay men place Mardi Gras within life narratives. Three temporal frameworks were commonly used by our interviewees. First, Mardi Gras acted as an annual temporal marker through which to plan a year. Second, changing personal understandings of Mardi Gras were used by interviewees to position themselves within the life course. Third, the shifting meanings of Mardi Gras were deployed as a means of narrating broader historical changes in the LGBTI community. We argue that, although lesbian and gay identities might now be considered increasingly mainstream and even “ordinary”, each of these temporal frameworks represents the continued differing experiences of time and space between homosexual and heterosexual lives.     

Narrative,Rhetorical Argument,and Ethical Authority

The great challenge of rhetorical argument is to make discourse ethical without making it less logical. This challenge is of central importance throughout the full range of practical argument, and understanding the relation of the ethical to the logical is one of the principal contributions the humanities, in this case the study of rhetoric, can make to legal scholarship. Aristotle’s Rhetoric shows how arguments can be ethical and can create ethical relations between speaker and hearer. I intend to apply Aristotle’s analysis to a phenomenon that did not yet exist for him, that of authority, by asking how the acts of asserting and accepting authority can be ethical acts. I take as a test case a peculiarly unfortunate and inept appeal to authority, that offered by the counsel for the District of Columbia in arguing Bolling v Sharp who cited Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott to clinch his point. By seeing just what goes wrong in such a maladroit appeal, I explore the rational, voluntary and ethical dimensions of a decision to accept a given commitment to authority. I use Joseph Raz’s analysis of authority and the relation of reason to authority, yet think I go beyond Raz by exploring the deliberate and voluntary nature of submission to authority. Choosing to be bound by an authority is an ethical act. As such it is always rational and yet never purely rational. The Supreme Court’s choice of authorities is part of its making itself into an authority, and is a paradigm of the ethical act of choosing to be obligated. Choosing to be committed or obligated is a central paradox of political theory and considerations of authority and obligation, at least since early social contract theorists. However, its importance for judicial reasoning, which at the same time chooses to submit to authority and itself becomes an authority, has not been noted. Consideration of the relations between the ethical and the logical can help us better to articulate the constitution of ethical authority. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

空间非正义的科幻城市表征：从激进技术景观生产到反抗叙事

现代城市空间生产的资本逻辑与政治性,使得空间非正义问题在全球化背景下贯穿城市化的历史与当前,并且将无可避免地向未来延续,也成为城市批判话语的重要视域。而科幻关于未来城市的想象,还通过技术维度凸显此一问题,并与现实城市之间形成互文和张力。科幻电影以技术想象来进行城市景观生产,从而对空间生产中的非正义问题进行激进表征,并通过反抗叙事来展示空间政治斗争的路径。以《大都会》《极乐空间》《雪国列车》等科幻电影为例,它们分别通过纵向对立、漂移隔离、横向浓缩等激进技术景观生产,来直接展示未来空间非正义的科幻城市形态。而这些科幻电影遵循文化消费逻辑的景观生产和反抗叙事,虽然蕴含着不同的话语策略,但都呈现出以二元对立为模式,从而将空间非正义及其反抗简单化的倾向。     

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.     

互动中的叙事模式--中国20世纪20年代雅俗小说形态研究

20世纪20年代中国雅俗小说在叙事模式方面存在较为明显的互动现象,具体表现在讲听模式与写读模式、情节模式与情调模式的转向、互动.叙事模式的互动不仅加速了通俗小说借鉴现代新小说的过程,促使了通俗小说由传统向现代的转变,而且促进了新小说的民族化叙事风格的形成,从而对现代小说格局的多元构建具有重要的价值和意义.     

The Child in European Human Rights Law

This article examines the category of ‘the child’ in European human rights law, based on an analysis of the child‐related jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. It argues that a full account of legal selfhood is constructed through the notion of ‘the child’ in this jurisprudence. The two notions – of ‘the child’ and ‘the self’ – are, from the outset, mutually dependent. The conceptualisation of ‘the child’ in human rights law is underpinned by an account of the self as originating in another and childhood is cast as enabling self‐understanding by making possible the formation of a narrative about the self. The vision of ‘the self’ that emerges is one of ‘the narrative self’, and I assess the implications of this both for the idea of childhood in which this narrative originates and for the vision of the human condition that is expressed in European human rights law more broadly.     

小说《红岩》生成过程中的文学史内涵解析

小说《红岩》的创作,典型地体现了建国后五六十年代文学创作中“集体化写作”特征,同时也真切地折射出有关革命历史的叙述在这一历史时期的“本质化”达成。追溯《红岩》的生成过程,比较《红岩》写作过程中所形成的三个文本之间的叙事差异,一定程度上也是对中国当代文学在某一历史时期文学创作机制与意识形态生产方式的一种考察。