Heritage Tourism in the Caribbean: The Politics of Culture after Neoliberalism

As neoliberalism has taken root in the Caribbean, heritage tourism has grown enormously. Using examples drawn from the Trinidad Carnival, this article shows how culture becomes a marketing force in the wake of increasingly difficult economic times in the Caribbean. As selling culture increases in importance for the overall economic health of Caribbean economies, it becomes, more and more, the focus of Caribbean states and state agencies and a basis for state sovereignty. Drawing on Foucault's notion of biopower, the article draws a connection between the increasing importance of cultural performances for state revenue and government intervention into those performances.     

The clown's carnival in the hospital: a semiotic analysis of the medical clown's performance

The medical clown's multimodal performance in the hospital takes place within its rigid space. A clown in a hospital is a paradox. “Medical clowning” is a metaphor taken from two seemingly unrelated fields of meaning, juxtaposing what is medical, scientific, serious and logical with clowning, emotions, carnival spirit and humour. The clown addresses barriers erected by illness, pain, alienation and distress with a continuous flexible performance of humour and fantasy tailored to changing conditions and circumstances. A clown, by definition, threatens the public order and seemingly has no place in the hospital paradigm. The current article compares medical clowns to carnival clowns, examines the medical clown's flexible performance, illustrates it with case studies, presents a semiotic analysis of the clown's journey through the hospital and examines the significance of the performance on the ideological level.     

《阴道独白》的跨国旅行

本文运用萨伊德(Edward Said)的"理论旅行"的概念以及巴赫金(Mikhial Bahktin)的狂欢理论,对《阴道独白》这一女性主义的文本从美国到中国又传回美国的跨国旅行和本土化的过程进行了描述和分析,旨在探讨第三世界妇女运动在全球化时代如何与西方的女性主义理论和实践进行对话,从而达成一种从边缘到中心的反向的知识流动(reverse flow of knowledge)。     

网络的哲学分析

从哲学存在论的角度看,网络具有深刻的存在论意义。网络与文本一样,有创作者,有解读者,正是在这种创作和解读的循环过程中,网络直接介入到我们最基本的存在层面,成为我们这个时代和生存于这个时代的人存在的场所、样式和背景。我们应该关注网络的人文世界,因为具有科学外表的计算机科学术语—"网络",不仅具有人文意义,而且是人们居于特定生命理念和目的构造出来显示自身生命和存在的一种生存方式。     

The tone of laughter and the strangely warm comedy of Hagimoto Kin'ichi

Featuring the comedian Hagimoto Kin'ichi as on-screen father, the hybrid drama-variety show Kinchan no doko made yaru no! (How far will Kinchan go! 1976–1986) won a loyal following of viewers and critics who praised the ‘warmth’ of its parodic television family, describing it as affectively more real and compelling than depictions of the family in traditional dramatic portrayals. Through close readings of scenes from the show and the critical discourse surrounding it, I consider how the show created a consensus that its laughter was tonally warm, and thus well fitted to the domestic space in which television would be viewed. Further, I argue that the show's producers created this impression by inserting the show and Hagimoto's public persona within contemporary discourses on laughter, domesticity, and normative femininity. In doing so, my analysis highlights the ascendant role commercial television played in shaping and harnessing these discourses, and re-assesses, through the lens of the affective experience of 1970s and ’80s media culture, the cultural shifts taking place in Japan during these decades.     

Paradoxes of “Free Floating” and Controversy of Betrayal: Intellectuals' Reflections on Themselves Against the Background of Terror

Throughout the 1900s, intellectuals have been defined as a “privileged minority” (according to Chomsky), or as outsiders, whose “free floating” condition (Mannheim) guarantees their functioning as “custodians of values like reason and justice” (Hofstadter). Julien Benda accused intellectuals of betraying this mission. But, perhaps, betrayal is built into the very nature of their privileged position; perhaps, by pretending to be “free floating,” generations of intellectuals have actually been constructing predictable paradigms, using calamity as a new kind of raw material for the old myth of lucrimax (Etkind). The tragic experience of Russian intellectuals provides us with fresh insight for this discussion.     

The “Orange revolution” and the “sacred” birth of a civic-republican Ukrainian nation

The article analyzes the “sacred” dimension of the Ukrainian “Orange revolution”, its festive or carnivalesque quality, and properties of a communal ritual. The author argues that Ukrainian citizens who protested against the stolen elections in Kyiv found themselves in the liminoid situation of temporary egalitarian utopianism. This situation resulted in the emergence of communitas, and engendered a powerful feeling of the birth of a civic-republican Ukrainian nation. The festive nature of the “Orange revolution”, sanctioned by the overwhelming confidence in fighting for the rightful democratic cause, reinforced the impression of renewing the society along Western liberal democratic patterns.     

Transgression and (sexual) citizenship: the political struggle for self-determination within BDSM communities

There has been – and continues to be – a tension within the political strategies of sexual minority communities claiming citizenship. Whilst attempting to forge a political self-determination based on being (dissident) sexual subjects, members of sexually diverse communities have frequently engaged in political practices that normalize their diversity to accord with wider socio-cultural conventions. In this article, we address this issue in relation to the political strategies of one of the most marginalized sexual identities/practices: BDSM. By drawing on the work of Foucault, Rose, Rabinow and Bahktin, we advance a case for how it may be possible for dissident sexual communities to resist the normalizing effects of citizenship whilst still making claims for legal recognition and wider social acknowledgment. Key to the argument is the theorization of a position wherein carnival transgression operates within a dialectical integration of ideology and utopia as a mode of citizenship.