Black and White or Technicolor

This article traces the repression of a signifying elements like color in the art of the late medieval period and coordinates it with the rise of text, sovereignty and legal order in the 16th century. It uses Deleuze’s notions of life and the virtual as a springboard for an analysis of the power of color in Giotto, Fra Angelico, Grunewald, Cranach and Holbein. It traces a trajectory from an art in the late Middle Ages that decodes and escapes judgment through a joyful use of color to a privileging of text (be it biblical or legal), repression of color and its reterritorialization in classical representation, a despotic regime of signs – seen quite literally in the portrait of the imperial and despotic monarch, Henry VIII. This trajectory in art is linked to an analogous movement: the imposition and extension of sovereignty and the legal system as well as the colonization of social life by law in the formative period of the nation state. The challenge is to create a world of technicolor, to actualize the color of living and the living of color. Without it, there is only law, in black and white.

马克思主义哲学视野下的中国传统和谐思想

和谐思想是中国传统文化的精华,也是马克思主义哲学的精华。中国传统文化强调人与自然的和谐、人与人的和谐、人自我身心内外的和谐,以社会“普遍和谐”为最高理想。马克思主义哲学则是在科学的世界观和方法论的基础上为人类描绘了一幅和谐发展的美好蓝图。中国传统和谐思想与马克思主义和谐观的相通之处,可以为构建当代中国的新型发展模式提供有益的思想借鉴。     

法律解释（学）的理据、概念及价值

法律解释学自产生之日起,就一直受到种种质疑（如它可能导致法治的消解）,而法律解释学界迄今似乎并未有力地回应这些质疑。之所以造成这种局面,主要是因为法律解释学本身还没能清楚地解决如下一些问题：它的理论依据似乎游移于传统解释学与哲学解释学之间;它对“解释”的解释并不清晰,因为当前的法律解释学似乎没能意识到解释其实同时是方法、存在并且还具有哲学研究的属性;它一定程度上无视法律解释学与法律解释之间的互渗、纠缠,这种无视反过来又模糊了它对自身的定位;等等。可以说,只有当法律解释学厘清了上述问题,才可能较好地回应当前的诸种质疑,进而证立其自身的必要性和正当性。     

大陆移民与万叶古歌

日本古代大陆移民虽擅长汉字汉文,但对于日本本土文学样式＂和歌＂却似乎并不在行。可是,在古代日本的政治与社交活动中,和歌是必不可少的工具。为了保持与日本本土氏族之间的交流,大陆移民开始摸索适合于自身的作歌方法,而由此逐渐形成了一股使用古歌的风潮。     

中国优秀传统文化在社会主义核心价值体系建设中的角色扮演

建设社会主义核心价值体系,中国传统道德文化扮演着不可或缺的角色。社会主义核心价值体系的建设不能机械照搬中国传统道德文化,应充分发掘传统道德文化的价值,对传统道德文化进行正学与开新。只有这样,才能凸显传统道德文化在社会主义核心价值体系建设中的独特魅力。     

论中国传统文化视域的“网络群体极化”

互联网在现代生活中的重要性日益凸显,但互联网上频发的"网络群体极化"带来了一系列的社会问题。中国传统价值观中道德至上,个人价值、权利和自由的缺失是"网络群体极化"的潜在根由,为解决"网络群体极化"问题,建设健康、有序、文明的网络文化,需要加强互联网法治建设。     

Knowledge free and ‘unfree’: Epistemic tensions in plant knowledge at the Cape in the 17th and 18 th centuries1

ABSTRACT

This article utilises the same epistemic objects, particular indigenous medicinal plants of the Cape region, to explore the gamut of epistemologies in contested, dynamic tension in the early Cape Colony: That of the frontiersman, the Khoikhoi, the Sonqua or Sankwe, and the slave. Drawing on a transdisciplinary set of literatures, the article puts Africana studies, the study of indigenous knowledge systems, and social studies of science and technology in wider conversation with each other, and argues for the adoption of an epistemic openness, methodologies which ‘braid’ seemingly separate strands of social history and differing knowledge practices, and cross-border collaboration among scholars of African and African diasporic knowledges. The findings and interpretation suggest new ways to view the ‘multiplexity’ of early indigenous southern African botanical, therapeutic and ecological knowledges, as well as the necessity for rethinking both the construction of colonial sciences and contemporary concerns about indigenous knowledge, biosciences and their 21^st century interaction.     

Traditional institutions and the rural development challenges in Africa: Gender and agricultural transformation perspectives

Abstract

The tension between the conception of traditional leadership systems as mere cultural institutions and the lack of interest and/or ability to use them as practical development tools in Africa has prompted their critical reappraisal in this article. The article is based on the need for African countries to endeavour to achieve a dialectical mediation between traditional leadership institutions on the one hand and concrete rural development projects on the other, for the purpose of promoting sustainable development. It is argued that there is much that traditional institutions can do to influence activities in rural areas. Any lack of such involvement on the part of traditional leadership systems can only lead to little transformation in rural areas. The article discusses this position with reference to two rural activity systems related to gender-based issues and agricultural development. The article is structured in four parts. The first section is devoted to the introduction, the second and third sections examine the roles traditional leaders could play in the areas of gender and agricultural development, while the final section comprises the conclusion.     

Ideological and pedagogical tensions in an environmental sustainability education project: A review of adult education practices around Lake Fundudzi,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Research in poor communities in South Africa faces intellectual challenges and tensions which offer lessons for evaluating environmental education (EE). This article illuminates five such tensions that emerged during the course of an adult environmental education programme, implemented from 1999 to 2002, in communities surrounding the catchment of Lake Fundudzi in South Africa: tensions arose between traditional and modern concepts of community; between traditional and post-apartheid structures of local governance; between liberal empowerment and traditional conservationist ideologies; and also within and between environmental ideologies and research paradigms. Paramount among the lessons learned is the need to develop multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary (MIT) practices that are sensitive to local community and environmental needs, and to solutions expressed through local residents, community workers and academics – in other words, the recognition and affirmation of local indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs).