Failed States After 9/11: What Did We Know and What Have We Learned?

This paper addresses the relationship between accumulated knowledge and U.S. policy dealing with failed states and terrorism. The central thesis is threefold: (1) that more was known about the possible linkages between failing states and terrorism than appears in pre-9/11 U.S. policies; (2) that since 9/11 some important realignment of knowledge and practice has occurred, but it remains partial and incomplete; and (3) that new knowledge, especially about the policies to sustain and promote legitimate governance, needs to be generated in order to support an effective grand strategy for addressing the threats and challenges of the twenty-first century. The paper recommends such a grand strategy and, in addition to the required new knowledge, a significant reorganization of the U.S. national security policy-making apparatus. International studies curricula appear well suited for contributing to that new knowledge and the practitioners we require.     

《水浒传》与百年"好汉山东"叙事

就山东的地域文化来说,占主流地位的是以孔孟为代表的儒家思想。但是,作为一种文化形象,体现着民间色彩的"好汉山东"形象却更为人们所认同、流传更广泛。这一现象的出现,与《水浒传》的传播有着极大关系。《水浒传》不仅在"好汉山东"这一地域文化形象的建构过程中起了重要作用,也以其特色鲜明的英雄叙事传统,深深地影响了百年"好汉山东"的文学想象与书写方式。     

浅谈铁路大型客站的立体防控

由于铁路在社会生产生活中特殊的地位,形成了我国“火车站多是该城市最繁华地段”这一特殊的格局,也形成了全国各地火车站及周边地区治安较为复杂的治安局面。过去株洲站治安突出问题主要有:(一)劳务性扛包进出站;(二)抢夺、抢劫;(三)站台扒窃;(四)违法拉客、捡拾乞讨;(五)盗窃铁路运输物资。对此,株洲站采取了查、堵、防、打、建等一系列立体防控措施,改变了辖区治安面貌。     

论后现代小说的叙事特征

在后现代主义与现代主义之间,尽管并不存在像现代主义跟现实主义之间那样的明显"断裂",但其间依然显示了独特性。后现代小说在叙事方面显示出如下特征:对作品的复制与多重复制,融合事实与虚构、现实与神话、原创与模仿,消解文学不同类别和体裁的界限,叙述主体的"本体论"运用与戏拟式变换,不可靠叙述者大量出现。     

Our wildest imagination: violence,narrative, and sympathetic identification

ABSTRACT

At this polarizing moment in American politics identifying with the experiences of others feels especially difficult, but it is vital for sharing a world in common. Scholars in a variety of disciplines have argued that narratives, and especially literary ones, can help us cultivate this capacity by soliciting sympathetic identification with particular characters. In doing so, narratives can help us to be more ethically and political responsive to other human beings. This is a limited view of the potential for narratives to solicit sympathetic identification, and it prevents us from identifying and grappling with our resistances to identifying with others. In this article I propose a more expansive view – inspired by Elizabeth Costello, a character in JM Coetzee’s novel of the same name – that there are no bounds to our capacities for sympathetic identification. Through critical readings of Waiting for the Barbarians and Animal Farm I explore the possibility that we might identify with people who cause others to suffer, and perhaps even with animals too. Both sorts of identification engender fierce resistance. Identifying with those who cause suffering demands that we grapple with our own capacities for cruelty and violence. Identifying with animals demands that we confront what is animal in ourselves – the perilous instincts that, unmoderated, incline us to aggression. Acknowledging and working through – without rejecting or disavowing – our capacities for cruelty and our animal instincts is necessary for the practices of sympathetic identification upon which sharing a world depends.     

Unexpected Persistence Amidst Enlargement Stasis: Usages of Europe in Turkey’s Nuclear Energy Debate

Recent studies on European Union (EU) Enlargement have emphasised the importance of usages of ‘Europe’ by domestic actors as a necessary condition for the EU to have an impact on domestic politics. We study the usages of Europe in the critical case of Turkey’s nuclear energy policy. We analyse the narratives and actions of domestic actors in Turkey to identify if they use ‘Europe’ (the EU and the idea of Europe). We reach the counter-intuitive finding of usages by both state and non-state actors, which illustrates that usages of Europe can persist despite enlargement stasis in candidate states.     

The artist as a medium and the artwork as metaphor in Murakami Haruki’s fiction

Abstract

In many of Murakami Haruki’s works, the protagonist is in a profession close to the world of literature, although usually not exactly a writer. In their role as translators, advertising copywriters, journalists, or editors, Murakami’s protagonists are invested with the task of rearranging fragments of reality into narrative or artistic form, and/or of transmitting a message. This process is emotionally charged, often involving a supernatural dimension. While the process of reconstructing a narrative is largely unconscious, the narrator’s choice to act in this capacity is deliberate, and is presented as a way of fulfilling his responsibility towards others. I read this element as an expression of Murakami’s vision of the role of a writer in society. The figure of the artist-narrator takes an interesting form in Kishidanchō-Goroshi (Killing Commendatore, 2017), where the protagonist, a visual artist specialising in realistic portraits, decides to pursue a more creative approach to painting that leads him to a series of supernatural adventures. Through a close reading of the novel, this article investigates how Murakami’s portrayal of the artist as a shaman-like figure functions like a metaphor for the role of the literary author as a catalyst that enables people to connect with their inner self and with each other.     

快感的考古消费:文博类文创产业的产品特性研究

中国文创产业发展到今天的水平,应当重视产业细分与产业细分条件下产品特色的开发问题。对故宫文创业的个案进行“知识考古学”研究和考察的结果表明,文博类文创产品的基本特性为快感的考古消费,快感消费为产品经济面向的一端,考古则显示了该类产品的文化内涵。它通常包含了知识性、叙事性、场景性的精神内容。所谓知识性将涉及教育、权威、权力批判等几个方面的内涵;叙事性包含文本性、历史秩序性和可阐释性等内容;场景性则通过展演、姿态的造型等凸显。     

后"伊斯兰国"时期恐怖意识形态蔓延:一个新的讨论框架

当前,国际联军打击“伊斯兰国”战事已进入尾声,然而,地面战场的失败并不意味着“伊斯兰国”思想的消亡。从萨拉菲-吉哈德主义极端意识形态发展脉络框架下考察,“伊斯兰国”在这一思想脉络中的独特历史地位塑造了它当前与未来的思想发展方式。国际社会需要认识到,当前反恐战争所面对的“战败者”可能并不认为自己已经失败,其意识形态过去近半个世纪危机式发展赋予了“伊斯兰国”面对失败的独特抵抗能力。“基地”组织在2011年被击溃后的历史也证明,在可预见的未来,“伊斯兰国”将很有可能继续在扩大其基本怀旧式叙事、赋予战败以合法性的同时,还将通过“全球恐怖商标”下的“特许经营”模式,将一种“暴力即思想”的恐怖思想内核进一步扩散并升级。国际社会打击“伊斯兰国”战争,可能刚刚到一个需要进行“中期评估”的时候,这场战争远未结束。     

Adaptive strategies of smaller foreign investors in the Russian agricultural sector: identity,narrative and performance

This paper utilises a qualitative narrative analysis approach to examine smaller foreign investors operating within the Russian agricultural sector as private farmers: the foreign versions of the krestyansko-fermerskiye khoziaistva (peasant farms) that were the early focus of agrarian reform. With difficulty experienced by foreign investment in Russian agriculture, and with the Putin administration shifting its focus to larger scale agriculture, interest lies in the fate of these smaller foreign investors, set in the broader question of: ‘Is there really a future for smaller foreign investors in Russia?’ The investors were aligned along a performance and narrative spectrum, and the construction of their identities – guided by their adaptive processes on the ‘Turnerian’ frontier – were found to shape their business conduct, and interactions with labour forces and regional authorities. Negative prejudgment of the labour force existed amongst the investors – with associated negative notions of trust, inefficiency, laziness, morality, and sexual deviancy – and they were involved in explicit or ambiguous forms of gift-gifting, drawing parallels to Soviet blat behaviour. This paper concludes that despite efforts to construct identity, the narratives of the investors betrayed themselves in certain aspects, with elements of ‘undoing’ in the identity process.