The ghost of essentialism and the trap of binarism: six theses on the Soviet empire

This article endeavors to open a new critical space for Soviet studies and for nationalities studies more generally. Through analyses of recent trends in Soviet studies, the article dismantles the frequently used opposition between subjective and objective approaches to Soviet empire and suggests instead that truths and categories, whether considered “subjective” or “objective,” are constructed discursively, through legitimizing certain interpretive models over the others. The article also argues against disciplinary avoidance of “what is” questions (e.g. “what is a nation?”) and claims that an excessive concern for (re)producing essentialism should not hinder scholarly inquiry. Several new lines of inquiry for the study of the Soviet empire are suggested and also applicable in nationalities studies more generally: research on the role of symbolic violence in manufacturing consent and research concerning the role of affect in producing linkages between the performative life of a singular human being and the pedagogical discourse of a nation or empire. The article also offers an analysis of the Soviet Union as an empire in becoming and it advocates for postcolonial approaches within Soviet studies. The practical dimensions of Soviet rule are exemplified with data from the Baltic borderlands in the postwar years.     

马克思现代性批判的三重维度

马克思现代性批判不是单向度的线性推进,而是在三个相互连接层面上的有序布展。具体表现为：以异化劳动为尺度的现代性伦理批判;以分工为基础的现代性实证批判;以资本为核心的现代性本质批判。     

Anna Kavan’s Ice and Alan Burns’ Europe After the Rain: Repetition with a Difference

Abstract

While Anna Kavan’s work has been largely ignored by critics, the responses of those who have noticed her have been dominated by two assertions. First, many of those wishing to assert her importance and power have seen her work as sui generis, the result of her isolation from the surrounding literary culture. Second, numerous feminist critics have seen her work as reproducing the worst effects of patriarchal domination. This article, through a reading of Kavan’s final novel, Ice (1967), challenges both of these assessments of Kavan. It suggests that, if we notice and try to account for the similarities between Ice and a novel published two years earlier, Alan Burns’ Europe After the Rain (1965), Kavan’s novel can be read as challenging patriarchal domination through a bold and innovative reworking of the reader’s ‘suspension of disbelief’.     

An Ethical Interpretation of Free Will and Game-Playing in Harold Pinter's The Lover

Harold Pinter's The Lover (1963) arouses reflections on the marital ethics. As the main plot of the play, the game-playing between Richard and Sarah in their house demonstrates literally the social and ethical transformation during 1960s—1970s. By using the artistic technique of role-switching, Pinter intends to decode the fact that Man is an existence of Sphinx factor, composing human and animal factors, which causes the extramarital love. During the erotic game, the couple is controlled by the animal factors, and their free will overcomes the moral obligation within the ethical conflicts. There is no doubt that the essence of game-playing is how to make the ethical choice. At the same time, the negative effects from the extramarital love is also emphasized.     

Democracia radical,entre la crítica y el nihilismo: un abordaje de la propuesta desde el diálogo entre Ernesto Laclau y Slavoj Žižek

This article hypothesizes that the work of Ernesto Laclau is a proposal that aims to be a review, in times of crisis, to the very idea of criticism. Throughout the years, this thinker has defended his proposal for radical democracy to different remarks and rants. In these pages, we propose resuming talks between Laclau and Slavoj Žižek as one of the possible ways to address this debate. Given the difficulty of providing an exhaustive answer to the main question in our debate, we have raised the issue in terms of the “risks” or “dangers” that the work of Laclau approaches, while avoiding definitive statements.     

青年马克思走向政治批判的“卢格因素”研究

青年黑格尔派构成了马克思早期理论发展的重要背景，然而在传统的哲学解读视域下，学界仅仅关注马克思与费尔巴哈、鲍威尔等人的关系，而对马克思与卢格的学术关联关注不多，这就使一些重要的问题被忽略。比如，在宗教批判占主导地位的氛围下，马克思究竟是如何走向政治批判的。卢格是青年黑格尔派政治批判哲学的创始人，引导了青年黑格尔派由宗教批判转向政治批判。梳理马克思与卢格的理论关系，有助于我们回答青年马克思理论研究中被忽略的问题，比较清晰地勾勒青年马克思思想发展的历程，为青年马克思思想研究提供可信的历史线索。     

马克思对李嘉图地租理论的批判及其方法论意义--以《1861-1863年经济学手稿》为视角

马克思的地租理论是在批判和继承李嘉图地租理论的基础上完成的。马克思在《1861-1863年经济学手稿》中对李嘉图地租理论的劳动价值论基础给予高度肯定，对其地租定义及前提、级差地租、绝对地租等理论错误等进行了分析批判，指出其根源在于对生产关系非历史超历史的理解。马克思从现实的社会再生产出发确立了完备的地租理论，阐明了资本主义地租的社会生产关系本质，彰显出科学的方法论。     

寻找伦理存在的自我——《培尔·金特》中的理性意志与伦理选择

易卜生的诗剧《培尔·金特》是一则关于斯芬克斯因子的不同组合与变化的寓言,展示了理性意志、自由意志和非理性意志之间的伦理冲突.培尔的“白日梦”是其兽性因子的表达与彰显,培尔的“出行”是对伦理责任的逃逸和规避,是其理性意志处于蒙昧状态、非理性意志肆意膨胀的体现;培尔的“归家”是其理性意识得到提升,克服非理性意志,摆脱兽性因子,向人性因子靠拢的选择,最终成为与兽相区别的、伦理的存在.本文紧扣“白日梦”“出行”“归家”三条伦理主线,通过逐一解构伦理选择、伦理身份、伦理意识等若干伦理结,来试图剖析易卜生蕴含在作品深处的道德旨趣:在受到道德指引、遵守道德准则的情况下,人的理性意志就会增强,人性因子得以彰显,人会成为一种伦理的存在;如果缺乏伦理意识,违背道德准则,缺乏道德指引,人的非理性意志就会占据上风,兽性因子就会失控,人就会误入歧途,实施伦理犯罪,引发伦理混乱.     

The disciplinary,interdisciplinary and global dimensions of African studies

Abstract

In discussing African studies or any other field, it is important to note that the economies and cultures of knowledge production are an integral part of complex and sometimes contradictory, but always changing, institutional, intellectual and ideological processes and practices that occur, simultaneously, at national and transnational, or local and global levels. From their inception, universities have always been, or aspired to be, universalistic and universalising institutions. This is not the place to examine the changes and challenges facing universities in Africa and elsewhere, a subject dealt with at length in African universities in the twenty‐first century (Zeleza and Olokoshi 2004). It is simply to point out that African studies ‐ the production of African(ist) knowledges ‐ has concrete and conceptual, and material and moral contexts, which create the variations that are so evident across the world and across disciplines.This article is divided into four parts. First, it explores the changing disciplinary and interdisciplinary architecture of knowledge in general. Second, it examines the disciplinary encounters of African studies in the major social science and humanities disciplines, from anthropology, sociology, literature, linguistics and philosophy, to history, political science, economics geography and psychology. It focuses on the interdisciplinary challenges of the field in which the engagements of African studies with interdisciplinary programmes such as women's and gender studies, public health studies, art studies, and communication studies, and with interdisciplinary paradigms including cultural studies and postcolonial studies are probed. Finally, this article looks at the focus on the study of Africa in international studies, that is, the state of African studies as seen through the paradigms of globalisation and in different global regions, principally Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia and Russia), the Americas (the United States of America (US), the Caribbean and Brazil), and Asia‐Pacific (India, Australia, China and Japan). Space does not allow for a more systematic analysis of African studies within Africa itself, a subject implied in the observations in the article, but which deserves an extended treatment in its own right.     

Victimage and mortification: Terrorism and its coverage in the media

This article analyzes the state of aviation security, beginning with the characteristics of the air transportation system that complicate the achievement of a high level of security. It analyzes the situation that existed prior to 9/11 and then evaluates the changes that have occurred since. It concludes that no overall systematic program has yet been put in place to deal with the threats that terrorism poses to the various elements of aviation. It also argues that aviation security, indeed homeland security, requires incorporating antiterrorism into foreign policy and ongoing attempts to deal with the underlying factors that promote terrorism.‐