Italian fashion: yesterday,today and tomorrow

The article considers Gianna Manzini's ‘La moda e una cosa seria’ (La Donna, 1935, July, 36–37) as a forerunner of current scholarly approaches to fashion in general and Italian fashion in particular, for three reasons. First, it asserts the importance of a gendered history of fashion; second, it argues for the importance of boundaries and lines of demarcation in the study of fashion that do not pertain solely to time but also to fields, disciplines and the other arts, as well as social and political domains; third, it raises the question of the relationship between fashion and nation. In examining how and when to establish the beginning or the origin of Italian fashion, the article argues for a long history of Italian fashion that stretches as far back as early modernity, thus reframing a number of historiographical questions. The article goes on to signal the difficulty involved in establishing neat points of ruptures and origins, and continuities in any historical or cultural spectrum in view of the porosity of national boundaries; and makes the case for considering fashion, both today's and that of yesteryear, in both its national and transnational dimensions.     

From fashion product industries to fashion: upgrading trends in traditional industry in Taiwan

In the 1990s, China opened its economic markets and replaced the New Institutional Economics (NIEs) of East Asia as the global centre for sourcing labour. This event changed the spatial and economic structure in Asia, especially in Taiwan. Based on the historical evolution of the textile and clothing industry in Taiwan, this study examined how traditional textile and apparel manufacturing was upgraded in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and in Tainan, the most historical city of Taiwan, under varying resource availability and under different city policies. While referring to both second-hand information and the literature, the results of interviews with fashion industry professionals were also considered. This study revealed that the potential to upgrade the fashion industry was highly associated with regional background characteristics. Additionally, lack of talent and the limited market for domestic brands create the largest bottleneck in the current fashion industry in Taiwan. Accordingly, the optimal solution for the fashion industry in Taiwan is to promote affordable Taiwanese brands and to use e-commerce. Such integration may enhance the position of the Taiwanese fashion industry in global networks.     

盛世美器话贴黄

一、我国的竹刻艺术历史悠久 竹刻艺术是我国传统工艺美术宝库中一朵璀璨的奇葩。我国的竹刻艺术历史悠久,据文献记载：“惟殷先人,有册有典”,这说明削竹为简册,文字书于竹,至少在商代已经流行。《礼记·玉藻》：“笏,天子以球王,诸侯以象,大夫以鱼须文竹,土竹本,象可也。”可见,竹笏是周朝仅次于玉、象牙笏的礼器。然而,在考古发掘中,由于历史与自然环境等因素,古代竹器不易保存,故发现很少。目前所见到的较早的竹雕器是湖北江陵拍马山战国楚墓中出土的三兽足竹卮和西汉马王堆一号汉墓出土的雕龙纹髹彩漆竹勺柄。《南齐书…     

Visual arts and cultural contexts: History and prehistory

Leppert, Richard. Art and the Committed Eye: The Cultural Functions of Imagery. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1996. xvii + 348 pp. including notes, references, and index. $63.00 cloth, $24.00 paper.

Carr, Christopher and Jill E. Neitzel, eds. Style, Society, and Person: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 1995. xx + 477 pp. including index. $69.50 cloth.     

Fortresses and fashion statements: gentry castles in fourteenth-century Northumberland

The fourteenth century saw a dramatic upsurge of new castle building in northern England. Not unreasonably, historians have associated this with the Scottish wars, seeing this proliferation as a direct response to Scottish raiding, and assuming that these castles were designed and built solely to perform a defensive military function. However, recent work on castles has questioned such purely functionalist interpretations. This article examines the castles built in the fourteenth century by the ‘gentry’ of Northumberland, the most exposed of all the border counties to Scottish attack, and sets them in their local and national contexts. Were these castles just built as defensive fortresses, or did they also serve a more symbolic role, in a society which had rapidly become militarised with the onset of war in 1296? Were they in fact intended as much to keep up with the neighbours as to keep out the Scots?     

Fortresses and fashion statements: gentry castles in fourteenth-century Northumberland

The fourteenth century saw a dramatic upsurge of new castle building in northern England. Not unreasonably, historians have associated this with the Scottish wars, seeing this proliferation as a direct response to Scottish raiding, and assuming that these castles were designed and built solely to perform a defensive military function. However, recent work on castles has questioned such purely functionalist interpretations. This article examines the castles built in the fourteenth century by the ‘gentry’ of Northumberland, the most exposed of all the border counties to Scottish attack, and sets them in their local and national contexts. Were these castles just built as defensive fortresses, or did they also serve a more symbolic role, in a society which had rapidly become militarised with the onset of war in 1296? Were they in fact intended as much to keep up with the neighbours as to keep out the Scots?     

The autonomous world reversed: comparing liberal policy and autonomy in the performing arts

Comparative studies of cultural policy commonly emphasize the way in which states treat the autonomy of the arts. Such studies often claim that liberal states promote autonomy, while social democratic states promote more external, instrumental values, such as solidarity, universalism and equality. This article challenges this conception by claiming that in actual cultural policy-making it is in fact the other way around. Based on a comparative study of theater policy in England, Norway and the Netherlands, I find that the focus on artistic autonomy is surprisingly absent in the liberal state of England, compared to what it is in the social democratic state of Norway. Conversely, English theaters are more obliged to work for, and with, the citizens and the community than theaters in Norway are. In the Netherlands, where recent development in general policy has headed in a liberal direction, artistic autonomy actually appears to be increasingly challenged.     

On Greenfield's Review of The Encyclopedia of African and African American Religions: A Response

Jack M. Potter. Thai Peasant Social Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.     

辽瓷造型与装饰艺术

辽代的瓷器,是我国古代契丹民族在接受隋唐五代时期汉化影响,并吸收中原地区丰厚的瓷化,创造出的独具民族特色和地域特色的实用工艺品。由于辽国是以契丹人为主要统治阶级的多民族地方政权,手工业工匠又主要是汉人和汉化很深的渤海人,因此,这种社会的经济状况决定了辽朝烧制瓷器的造型既有中原形式,又有契丹形式。中     

The nonprofit arts organization concept and its transformation in Korea

ABSTRACT

After the Korean War, both the autocratic and later democratic South Korean governments actively fostered the development of Korea’s arts sector, in part by emulating the organizational and legal structures of U.S. nonprofits. Yet, in this policy transfer, Korea has taken a different path, notably rearticulating the U.S.-style hands-off facilitation model to reflect and accommodate Korean political, institutional, and cultural exigencies. We analyze the effects of the resulting cultural policy on Korean public arts institutions, using documentary evidence and narratives from our case studies of two national arts organizations restructured by the government: The National Theater Company of Korea and the Seoul Arts Center. We employ the concept of cultural statism, conditioned by "culture as glorification," resource dependence, and path dependence, to understand the development of Korea’s public arts sector. Specifically, we consider: the government’s desire to use the arts to enhance its image on an international stage shaped by western liberal democratic values; arts leaders’ desire for reliable support (resource dependence); and the tendancy of Koreans to want to be associated with the stability and prestige of the government (path dependence).     

The process of privatisation of cultural heritage and the arts in Italy: analysis and perspectives

During the last decade, institutional changes in the cultural heritage sector triggered some fierce debate in Europe. This paper analyses the complex process of privatising cultural heritage and the arts in Italy, showing how the relationship between this process and urban regeneration policies is tacitly legitimising it, despite the harsh controversies it previously provoked. From a perspective of ‘territorialisation’ discussed in this paper, this policy process could enhance the involvement of the private sector, bringing to light new fields of research and application in the international heritage debate.     

企鹅滩的绅士

<正>什么?南非有企鹅?这又跟我们想象的不一样。这些企鹅体型较小,不到成人的膝盖高,毛色鲜明,颈部一圈黑色,就像穿了燕尾服一样,眼周一圈粉红,显得格外纯真可爱,被人们称为企鹅滩的"绅士"。离开好望角,前往漂砾湾的企鹅滩。和其他地点不一样的是,企鹅滩禁止游客带自拍杆进入景区。这一规矩的由来是这样的:前几年有一个不守规矩的游客用手机自拍杆偷了一枚     

The Origin of African Sheep: Archaeological and Genetic Perspectives

Indigenous African sheep genetic resources have been classified into two main groups, fat-tailed and thin-tailed sheep. The fat-tailed sheep are the most widely distributed, being found in a large part of North Africa (from Egypt to Algeria) and in Eastern and Southern Africa (from Eritrea to South Africa). The thin-tailed sheep are present mainly in Morocco, Sudan and in West Africa. African sheep were domesticated outside Africa. They share a common ancestry with European and Asian sheep. Archaeological information supports separate introductions and dispersion histories for the African thin-tailed and fat-tailed sheep. The first sheep entered Africa via the Isthmus of Suez and/or the southern Sinai Peninsula, between 7500 and 7000 BP. They were likely of the thin-tailed type. Fat-tailed sheep entered Africa through its northeastern part and the Horn of Africa. Mitochondrial DNA analysis supports a common maternal ancestral origin for all African sheep, while autosomal and Y chromosome DNA analysis indicates a distinct genetic history for African thin-tailed and sub-Saharan fat-tailed sheep. The main ancestral population of southern African fat-tailed sheep likely originated in East Africa. Further work is needed to assess the possible dispersion of sheep from western Africa to the southern African regions.