The Dynamism of Integral Liberation: Reconsidering Gustavo Gutiérrez's Central Concept after “the End of History”

This essay questions Daniel Bell Jr.'s claim that liberation theology is ignorant of the links between the cultural and structural formations of capitalism. Focusing especially on Bell's treatment of the thought of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the article argues that Gutiérrez's concept of integral liberation provides a complex account of the manner in which the structural, cultural, and theological levels of liberation are interrelated. It contends, contra Bell, that Gutiérrez's concept does not reduce politics to “statecraft” but instead provides an illuminating framework for understanding the integrity of Christian life within the contemporary neoliberal globalization project. Finally, the paper moves to consider the manner in which Gutiérrez's concept might be fruitfully paired with Leslie Sklair's theorization of global capitalism in order to specify the process of liberation today.     

The Judgment of God and the Immeasurable: Political Theology and Organizations of Power

Abstract

This article considers how political theologies understand and organize power. It begins with an axiomatic understanding of politics as concerned with the organization of power. This understanding of politics requires a theological inquiry, as it is concerned with questions of piety and belief that underlie and direct power within these conscious organizations. It then provides a survey of three dominant forms of political theology: liberal political theology, exemplified by John D. Caputo; conservative political theology, exemplified by John Milbank; and political anti-theology, exemplified by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. It ends by way of a speculative account of a political non-theology, based on the non-philosophy of François Laruelle, that makes each of these political theologies relative to the immeasurable itself and thus turns them into simple material that may be used to construct relative different organizations of power with greater situational efficacies.     

美英“特殊关系”的构建与冷战的起源(1944-1950)

冷战起源是冷战史研究中的基本问题之一。美英“特殊关系”的设想（1944—1945）、迅速发展（1946—1947）和正式确立（1948—1950）三个阶段中的发展及其与苏联外交政策的战略互动,推动着冷战逐渐变为现实。美英“特殊关系”的形成和发展离不开植根于历史和现实中的战略基础——两国深厚的历史文化渊源,以及最高决策层之间密切的个人友谊网络;盎格鲁一撒克逊民族的恐惧感与冷战思维的发展;基于对外在威胁的相同理解而产生的捍卫资本主义政治经济体系的共同责任感与战略利益。冷战的起源伴随着全球规模的势力均衡的形成,然而,新的势力均衡对美英两国有着截然不同的意义。美英“特殊关系”是无形的,而冷战是有形的。无形的“特殊关系”推动着冷战的发展,有形的冷战也考验着无形的“特殊关系”。美英“特殊关系”的构建在无形之中构成了有形冷战起源的决定性因素。     

"Just War" and the Contemporary Art of Justifying the Unjustifiable

Abstract

This article assesses the recent application of "just war" criteria by Charles Reed. It is clear Reed has uncritically supported Anglo-American power by omitting a great deal of counter evidence and by misrepresenting opposing views. Some consideration is given to the ways in which intellectuals can unintentionally support violence and power.     

战犯问题与国共和谈

在国共两党战略决战阶段,中国共产党灵活地运用了战犯问题.无论是战犯名单的公布、严惩战犯原则的提出,还是北平和谈中关于这一原则的灵活执行及对桂系的争取,都是为了击破国民党政府的"和谈"攻势及企图,明确战争责任,将革命进行到底.     

农业和文明起源

文明起源在考古学上是一个复杂的问题,牵涉到人类社会的许多方面。其中一个重要方面就是农业。本文试图强调农业对文明起源所起的推动作用,并提出一些有关农业考古的看法,希望对目前正在进行的中华文明探源工程和类似课题有所帮助。     

Plasticity and the Future of Philosophy and Theology

Abstract

This article develops a theoretical and political critique of the contemporary notion of the deconstruction of Christianity, primarily in the later work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. The deconstruction of Christianity relies upon an understanding of temporality and messianicity derived from Heidegger and Benjamin, and we challenge this privileging of messianism in contemporary philosophy and theology. Messianism is contrasted with plasticity, and plasticity is shown to have resources to overcome the impasses of contemporary thought in a counter-messianic way. To oppose messianism is not to oppose theological thinking, but to open a creative and productive political space for a radical theological and philosophical reflection.     

Origins of the Creutzfeldt and Jakob Concept

A review of the publications of Hans Creutzfeldt and Alfons Jakob pertaining to the concept which bears their name (CJD) reveals that they described a neuropathological syndrome and were opposed to its classi- fication as a neurological disease. The evidence on which Creutzfeldt and Jakob based their view is reevaluated, and studies by other workers are cited in which a range of environmental and genetic factors generated the CJ syndrome, challenging the proposition that CJD is a disease with a single cause..     

Tourism consumption and the imagination of money

This paper supplements exisiting research on tourism consumption through a focus on money. It draws upon recent work in the geography of money and economic sociology, arguing that the understandings of money used by consumers are of importance to the social formation of tourism. Using a theoretical framework that links consumption studies and reconceptualizations of money, the paper develops a qualitative case study of British long-haul travellers. It concludes that consumers' understandings of money are integral to the ways in which tourists seek to engage with destinations, and points out some implications for the politics of tourism.     

Blondel,the Philosophy of Action and Liberation Theology

Abstract

Maurice Blondel's philosophy of action and concrete political theology provide foundations for modern theologies of action. By commencing with the reflective subject, Blondel compensates the deficiencies of collectivist Marxist social analysis. He did not live to complete his account of the social, political and economic implications of his philosophy, but they are realized in the work and witness of others: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Yves de Montcheuil, Henri de Lubac and John McNeill. Liberation theologians of diverse persuasions need especially to acknowledge their debt to Blondel in an era when, in Western societies, the fundamental context of action is no longer material but intellectual, spiritual and interpersonal. The abstract nature of his thought means that he frequently opens suggestive paths into further reflection rather than prescribing complete solutions to specific practical questions.     

孙吴兵法与战国时期的著书风气

本文用地下出土的《孙子兵法》材料与传世文献记载相印证,探讨了该书的原始及流传情况。从《孙子兵法》、《孙膑兵法》、《吴子》诸书的产生与发展入手,论证我国战国时期曾存在过的,假托圣人、智者与人问答的著书风气。而这种风气的形成,实肇源于兵书的影响。     

A Picturesque Modernity in 1920s Peru and Argentina: Ruins,Cuzco and Americanism in the Photographic Reportages of Variedades and Plus Ultra

This essay focuses on a series of pictorial reportages on the city of Cuzco and the surrounding region published in the Peruvian illustrated magazine Variedades in 1924 and 1925. Looking at the interplay of the aesthetic and documentary value of photographs, I analyse how the reportages on Cuzco’s architecture and ruins contributed to the indigenista proposal of regional and national identity and how, in so doing, they articulated an idea of modernity which opposed the main narrative of Western modernization produced by the magazine. I argue that Variedades became the discursive place of an interplay between opposite ideas of modernity since it afforded its readers-viewers a dual, almost conflictive, experience. Moreover, I posit that the magazine ‘mediated’ the regional discourse for the Limeño readers through the discourses of tourism and the picturesque familiarizing them with those ‘unknown’ regions. By comparing the reportages with similar documents published in the same decade by the Argentine magazine Plus Ultra, I also show that this was not something exclusive to Peru, but rather part of a broader Americanist trend that was shaping the relationship between native tradition and modernization as well as giving form to a proposal for a ‘pan-American’ identity in the 1920s.     

"总体战"和现代日本"间接金融体制"的形成

日本近代银行虽然早在明治初期已经发端 ,但是明治时代的日本企业基本上是依靠股份和企业内部资金储备扩大再生产 ,即所谓“内部金融时代”。直至 2 0世纪 30年代中期 ,日本企业仍处于主要以发行股票和债券融资的“直接金融” ,和主要以向银行借贷融资的“间接金融”二者并存 ,但以前者为主要的状态。在发动侵华战争、构筑总体战体制以后 ,日本金融体制发生了急剧变化 ,主要表现为资本市场日趋衰微 ,以向银行借贷为主的间接金融体制开始形成。这种体制在战后仍然得以延续。由美国主导的日本战后民主化改革 ,并没有使战时形成的金融体制发生根本性变革。     

War,Modernity, and Motion in the Edison Films of 1898

This essay examines films created by the Edison Company of the US military campaign in the Caribbean in 1898 and their projection and reception in Vaudeville theaters and other similar venues in the larger urban areas of the US. Through an analysis of these films in regards to their production and reception contexts, it discusses relationships between entertainment, nationalism, and colonialism in this early cinema. Features foregrounding technology, production capacity, tourism, and military campaigns in tropical settings are examined in order to explore the blurred boundaries between journalism and entertainment in the context and how specifically the technology of the incipient cinema shaped these perceptions. The venues, in which they were exhibited, situated these war films within larger variety shows including oddities, acrobats, skits, and musical entertainment, together with technological exhibitions involving devices revered for both their destructive and constructive capabilities. It considers, furthermore, how tourism and the possibilities for travel related to the war shaped entertainment and dialogued with public desires regarding American empire and the roles of the Caribbean and, by relation, Latin America in these scenarios. The essay seeks to underscore, finally, how these films, and the war that they attempt to depict, resonated deeply with a type of audience and a corresponding mode of spectatorship that would come to expect an entertaining dimension in journalism.     

Empire and Cultures of Militarism in Canada and the United States

While Canadians have been described as an “unmilitary people,” their historic affections for empire have contributed to a conspicuous reluctance to criticize past military exploits. A tradition of anti-imperialism, meanwhile, has colored American attitudes to war, and produced a powerful current of antiwar sentiment throughout US history – even as that nation developed into a dominant imperial power. This essay finds the source of these national discrepancies in the founding myths of each country and in subsequent demographic, economic, strategic, and ideological transformations which have both reinforced and challenged each nation's traditional responses to empire. The result is a relationship between war, imperialism, and national identity that is multifaceted, often paradoxical, and in certain instances, surprisingly antiquated.