Pyrographies: Photography and the good death

This essay theorizes the ethical potential of photography or what I call “pyrography” by enacting a version of care for death in attending closely to a sort of rehearsal for the deathbed in French photographer and writer Hervé Guibert's photo-novel Suzanne and Louise first published by Gallimard in 1980, the same year as Roland Barthes's famous essay on photography, Camera Lucida. The essay develops the transformative ethical possibilities of and queer political potentialities of pyrography by reading Guibert's project with his two elderly aunts in relation to the work of two of Guibert's intimates: Michel Foucault's “The Social Triumph of the Sexual Will” and Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida and Mourning Diary. In Mourning Diary, Barthes describes the plan for Camera Lucida as an ephemeral monument to his dead mother whose loss he calls, following the last work of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott: “the catastrophe that has already occurred.” Through its own writing with fire of the death we fear that has already occurred and that we cannot access directly, photography may enable the kind of “as if” work or projective imaginative enactment for which Winnicott calls. This essay put this concept of the photographic pyre or pyrographies to work to characterize a kind of photographic act. Pyrography is a facture of and with the flammable, not of and about the past, but for the present and future. It is a practice of making volatile structures for feeling with the taboo scenes of the conjunction of old age, desire, and death that create spaces not just for mourning the losses that have actually happened. Pyrographies shape spaces in which one might begin to imagine and transact with care the losses and the letting go yet to come. Pyrographies, I am suggesting, trade in the illusions of presence. They give us the catastrophe that has already occurred in palpable form, enabling us to negotiate shame and fear but also desire toward the seemingly impossible: the good death.     

“Peace propaganda”? the application of Chomsky’s propaganda model to the Daily Nation’s coverage of the 2013 Kenyan elections

This article uses the third and fourth filters of Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model, namely, official sources and flak, to examine how the Daily Nation, which is the largest circulating newspaper in Kenya, covered the 2013 Kenyan elections. In the run up to the elections, several institutions, among them the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) of Kenya and the Media Council of Kenya (MCK), organised several workshops with media owners and journalists in the name of “peace journalism” to avoid a repeat of the 2007/2008 post-election violence. Although such efforts paid off because there was no physical post-election violence, questions have been raised as to whether this extensive peace training translated to “peace propaganda” making journalists and the media in general engage in excessive self-censorship in the name of peaceful elections thereby neglecting their watchdog role. Using the findings from a qualitative content analysis of the Daily Nation as a case study and semi-structured interviews with civil society organisations as media monitors, it can be arguably observed that the Daily Nation avoided any “contentious electoral issues” for fear of flak and relied overly on the IEBC and other government agencies as official sources of critical electoral information.     

Inventing terrorists: the nexus of intelligence and Islamophobia

The transatlantic Islamophobia industry, emboldened by US intelligence efforts to entrap Muslims, appears to have helped to increase permissible levels of Islamophobia across the US, as illustrated by the fiery anti-Muslim rhetoric during the 2016 presidential campaign. In this article, I first look at five key leaders of the Islamophobia industry who also claim to be “terrorism experts” and have links to US and Israeli intelligence. I then describe US law enforcement’s mass surveillance of Muslims and its invention of terrorists, including a map of the “successful terrorist prosecutions” claimed by the US Department of Justice, most of which were tried only as criminal cases. Finally, I explore in-depth the case against the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity based in Texas that was run by Palestinian-Americans and targeted by both the state and the Islamophobia industry for its dubious links to “terrorism”, helping to legitimate the Bush W. Administration’s “War on Terror”. I argue that this nexus of intelligence and Islamophobia has empowered anti-Muslim voices that were formerly marginal.     

论虚拟财产的刑法保护

随着网络游戏产业的迅速发展,因虚拟财产发生的纠纷也日益增多,对于虚拟财产所引发的社会关系争议急需相关法律加以规制。目前我国对虚拟财产的保护没有明确的法律规定,在各种保护手段中,刑法的保护手段应该作为重要手段之一。文章阐述了虚拟财产刑法保护的必要性和可行性,提出了构建虚拟财产刑法保护的立法建议,从而使广大的网络游戏玩家的合法权益能得到法律的有效保护,进而使我国的网络游戏产业能得到更广阔的发展空间。     

论信息时代军事思维的发展

信息时代,军事实践方式的转换导致并要求军事思维领域发生革命性的变化。与以往时代的军事思维相比,信息时代的军事思维具有跨结构、跨层次的整合功能,虚拟思维成为重要的思维方式,思维的手段、结果也趋于精确化。     

关于强迫虚拟"性行为"的本质及其处罚的思考

关于强迫虚拟"性行为",即虚拟强奸行为和虚拟强制猥亵行为,学术界对此并没有理论研究热情,而司法机关在实践中,对部分具有危害性的虚拟性行为如组织虚拟卖淫以及虚拟卖淫行为以组织表演淫秽罪、传播淫秽物品牟利罪、传播淫秽物品罪等罪名进行定罪量刑.但是,虚拟强奸和虚拟强制猥亵行为却处于惩罚上的空白地段.因此,很有必要启动立法程序对此类危害行为进行立法规定,以便及时地以刑罚的方法进行调整.     

Is Catalonia Immune to Racism? An Analysis of Intolerant Political Discourses of Mainstream Party Representatives (2010–2011)

Despite the reduced presence of the far-right in Catalonia, anti-immigrant stances and discourses have occupied a central position during political campaigns for local, autonomous, and national elections in 2010–2011. The Catalan case is based on the analysis of three case studies: the local exclusion from the census of undocumented immigrants by the city of Vic, the campaign of the People's Party candidate in Badalona containing hate speech against Roma, and the burqa bans issued by the city of Lleida. Representatives of mainstream political parties, mainly right wing, became the main exponents of intolerance in Catalonia by putting forward that cultural pluralism and diversity challenge the possibility of living together in society.     

Integration period of e-learning in universities： A survey in Turkey

E-learning is an important subject for successful university education. It is known that during the integration period of e-learning, universities face difficulties and trade-offs that will discourage their adoption. This study concentrates on e-learning with benefits and problems faced throughout the integration period by stakeholders and finally the university as a new education program method. The study aims to look at the factors which affect the integration period of e-learning programs and measure the drivers that affect the adoption process The research method is based on quantitative analysis which generally searches information about the factors＇ effectiveness related to the integration level of e-learning. During the empirical analysis, factors are categorized and measured according to their effectiveness, and then questionnaire study has examined the factors＇ effectiveness related to the adoption success of e-learning by using statistical analysis methods. The information about the factors that is effective for e-learning integration provides considerable educational framework for universities, instructors, students and also for information technology experts and other decision makers that manage the electronic environment for e-learning.     

论张爱玲的小说间离审美理论

隔与不隔是王国维重要的美学概念,张爱玲则从京戏间离处理方法与技巧里提炼出洋人看京戏的小说审美理论。外行看热闹,洋人看京戏始终与京戏隔着一层,但他也自得其乐;内行看门道,行家看京戏与京戏不隔,他看到京戏唱念做打功夫及文化底蕴,心领神会。张爱玲认为艺术家要具备洋人看京戏与行家看京戏隔与不隔两种视角,既能站在生活之内看人生,也能站在生活之外看人间。通过隔与不隔,艺术家在世界、作品与读者之间建立一个适当的审美距离,便于读者思考人生与人性中的问题,从而达到一种间离审美效果。     

3Q大战反垄断终审判决中相关市场界定与市场支配地位认定的相关问题

最高人民法院在奇虎诉腾讯滥用市场支配地位纠纷终审判决中对相关市场界定、市场支配地位认定及二者的关系问题进行了精辟的论述。我们将从该案二审亲历者的角度出发,结合国内外相关判例,对该判决中关于相关市场界定中的责任分配、假定垄断者测试在相关市场界定中的地位、替代性分析应遵循的多数且重要原则,以及从动态竞争的角度正确看待市场份额在市场支配地位认定中的作用、市场支配地位认定的综合分析方法等进行详细的解读和必要的归纳。最高人民法院的前述审理思路和认定结论无疑将对后续的反垄断诉讼、行政调查及企业的合规必然产生深远的影响。