“Learning Mandarin Can Be Humbling”

正CHINESE is not an impossible language to learn,but the process certainly has its hurdles.German-Austrian Andreas Laimboeck is one person with plenty of stories to share about it."Sometimes it is really humiliating,"he said.Once,after four months of fulltime Chinese study,Laimboeck tried to     

German Grapes Flourish in China

正ON March 28,at the invitation of the German Krber Foundation in Berlin,President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on China’s foreign policy.Special mention was given to German winemaker Norbert Gorres."Norbert Gorres is a wine expert who,together with his assistant Hans Beu,made 17 trips to Zaozhuang City in east China’s Shandong Province between 2000and 2009 to share his knowledge of viticulture and grafting technology with local farmers.He also authorized the local winery to make world-class wine under his family business label.In those nine years,Gorres and Beu jointly subsidized eight impoverished students in Zaozhuang to fi nance their studies.In 2007,when Beu’s health deteriorated,he asked Gorres to personally deliver one final donation of     

Cultural difference in the national state: from trouser-selling Jews to unbridled multiculturalism

ABSTRACT

Stoetzler explores a series of newspaper and journal articles published in Germany in 1879–81 that are part of what later came to be called the ‘Berlin Antisemitism Dispute’. In these articles, anti-Jewish remarks by the historian and right-wing liberal politician Heinrich von Treitschke were responded to by leading political and academic figures, including Theodor Mommsen, Moritz Lazarus and Ludwig Bamberger. Treitschke's texts have been seen as crucial to the development of modern antisemitism in Germany, but the debate that they provoked also points to some of the conceptual weaknesses of the liberal critique of antisemitism. Stoetzler suggests that both Treitschke's support for antisemitism and the ambivalence evident in the views of his opponents are rooted in the contradiction between inclusionary and exclusionary tendencies inherent in the nation-state. To the extent that liberal society constitutes itself in the form of a national state, it cannot but strive to guarantee, or produce, some degree of homogeneity or conformity in the form of a national culture that, in turn, cannot be separated from issues of morality and religion. Stoetzler argues that a discussion of the Berlin Antisemitism Dispute in its specific context of German nineteenth-century liberalism, if interpreted in the more general framework of modern liberal society, can contribute to current debates on nationalism, patriotism, ethnic minorities, immigration and ‘multicultural society’.     

SS: Germany’s federal election in september 2009 – Elections in times of duress – Introduction

This paper introduces the special symposium. It provides (1) an overview of the broad campaign themes; (2) introduces several questions pertinent to German electoral politics; (3) highlights the broader theoretical implications of this symposium for the research literature.     

East–West Culture through the Eyes of a German Scholar

正The East-West Dichotomy:The Conceptual Contrast Between Eastern and WestErn Cultures Author:Thorsten Pattberg226 pages,paperback Price:RMB 80Published by Foreign Languages Press in Beijing,2013DOES a universe of dif erences separate the two hemispheres that make up Eastern and Western cultures?Or,even in our multicultural world,has the phenomenon always been that of either the West wind dominating in the East,or the East wind dominating in the West?Is equilibrium between     

‘Good-bye Pompey,komm bald zurück’: Stevie Smith's Vision of Germany in Novel on Yellow Paper

Abstract

In Stevie Smith's debut novel Novel on Yellow Paper, set in 1936, the narrator Pompey Casmilus recalls several trips to Germany she made in the years shortly before the rise of the Hitler regime. The memories of these German travels are linked to Pompey's love affair with a Swiss-German student named Karl with whom she has spent time in both England and Germany. The essay explores the significance of the German theme in the novel. This theme emerges in Pompey's memories of Germany and Karl, which at first glance appear to be random moments of recollection. However, the German theme also asserts itself in what I call Pompey's German voice, a distinct narrative voice that uses a specific German vocabulary and mimics German speech patterns, which appears at different points throughout the novel and is not exclusively linked to Pompey's memories of Germany. The essay argues that this narrative voice, the Karl-Pompey romance plot and the narrator's obsessive concern with Jewishness combine into an exploration of the Anglo-German relationship in the inter-war years and the attraction which Germany held for some British visitors during the 1920s and early 1930s, an attraction which is linked to previous literary explorations of the country by British writers such as D. H. Lawrence and which by 1936 has taken on an ominous significance as Pompey observes from afar the atrocities being committed within Germany in the name of the Hitler regime.     

德、法文学领域“古今之争”辨析——以现代性时间观念为视野

德、法文学领域的"古今之争"体现了两国知识界在现代化转型期对于时间问题的关切。由于历史、传统、经济、文化及地域等多方面差异,法国知识界多信奉"线性时间观"及与之伴生的乐观"历史进步论",德国知识界则对"线性时间观"态度谨慎,倾向于一种杂糅了"线性时间观"和"轮状时间观"的"文化时间观"。这种"向后看"的文化自觉不仅使德国启蒙界在时间观念上独树一帜,更导致其在现代化转型路径的选择中走上了一条"文化现代化"优于"社会现代化"的独特路径。     

Conceptions Of Liberty Deprivation

This article adopts a theoretical and comparative perspective on the prisoner's legal status in England and Wales. Applying the principles of human rights, legality and proportionality, it argues that the prisoner's legal status must rest on a divisible conception of liberty. Such a conception must distinguish clearly between the liberty lost, and the rights restricted, by the imposition of the custodial sentence as opposed to the administration of prisons (the key distinction). In order for this to be achieved, the conception of the prisoner's legal status must also establish the purpose or purposes of the custodial sanction as distinct from the purpose of prison administration. Through comparison with Germany, the article demonstrates that the common law concept of the prisoner's legal status is unstable. Vacillating between a divisible and indivisible conception of the prisoner's liberty, the English conception of the prisoner's legal status lacks a foundation firm enough to satisfy the principles of human rights, legality and proportionality.     

'His Finest Hour?' George Bush and the Diplomacy of German Unification

This article examines the diplomatic record of the Bush administration with particular reference to its role in German unification. Based upon memoir material and new sources made available since 1989, it argues that the administration in general - and George Bush in particular - played an indispensable role during these critical years. First, Bush's unequivocal support for unification drove the process forward and reinforced Germany's commitment to NATO. By reassuring countries like France, the US also managed to compel reluctant Europeans to accept unification. Finally, by working closely with Gorbachev and Shevarnadze, Washington was also able to persuade the USSR to accept what many had once thought quite unacceptable to the Russians: a united Germany within NATO. Given the part that the President played in all this, the authors suggest that the generally accepted view of Bush as a politician without purpose or plan has to be questioned. The 'statesman without a vision' who emerges from this reading of events is seen as having been a more forceful and effective diplomatic leader than some of his critics have been prepared to concede.     

德国对冲基金监管制度研究

对冲基金起源于20世纪40年代末的美国。它是指通过非公开方式向少数机构投资者或富裕个人募集资金而设立,资产类别、投资技巧或杠杆使用不受或很少受到限制,基金经理也作为基金的一个主要投资者,具有以绝对回报为中心的业绩提成费用结构的投资资本组合。德国于2003年12月颁布《投资法》和《投资税法》对德国对冲基金业的发展及其监管做出了具体规定,首次从法律上明确允许对冲基金的发展,这对德国对冲基金市场的培育和繁荣具有里程碑的重大意义。