MYTH,TOTEMISM AND THE CREATION OF CLANS

This paper considers the relationship between two component types or categories of myth from the Yirrkala region of north-eastern Arnhem Land, which I define respectively as those of inheritance and creation. I argue that the existence of the two components of myth reflects conceptual problems associated with the transfer of power from the ancestral past to the present, in these clan-based societies in which the structure of the clan system is believed to be ancestrally preordained, yet the creation of clans is part of a continuing political process. The paper places Yolngu totemism in the context of the politics of group relations, and focuses on the tension between autonomy and exchange which provides much of the underlying dynamic to Yolngu social organisation. The totemic/mythological system has the flexibility to enable ancestral precedence to apparently underlie group organisation despite the latter's inherently imminent and contextual nature. The structure of the mythological system, and the particular way in which it articulates with the politics of group organisation, enables the network of ancestral tracks associated with the myths of creation to be perpetuated in a way that makes them both distal and protected from the disorderly changes of the present, yet an integral part of the process of social reproduction.     

THE OUTSIDE AND INSIDE IN NORWEGIAN AND ENGLISH PRISONS

This article is based on our first experiences visiting prisons, and being surprised by the ways in which the inside and outside often seemed indistinct. One of our narratives comes from England, the other from Norway. Our analysis emerges from a recognition that, despite visiting prisons for different research projects in different countries, our experiences in prison spaces shared striking similarities. We had each expected prisons to have clear and demarcated boundaries between inside and outside, consistent with Goffman's binary distinctions in the total institution model. However, this model was not a good fit with our view of prisons, since it did not capture the importance of indistinction. The inside and outside were often entangled and fused with one another, having both distinctions and indistinctions simultaneously. The seemingly incompatible juxtapositions between inside and outside were consistent with the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia, as a better fit with our ideas. Our observations improve our understanding of confinement as a dynamic and often contradictory state of be-tweenness. After exploring our personal narratives from visiting prisons, some theoretical implications of the concept of heter-otopia within institutional research are discussed and contrasted to that of total institution.     

W的感官神话

当全球许多酒店都对宠物说NO的时候,首尔W酒店不仅为你的宠物准备好了食物、玩具,甚至他们在为你研发著名的W标志睡床的时候,也没有忘记你的四脚宠物。入住的客人只要多支付25％的房费就可以让宠物和你享受一样的待遇,当然宠物的体重不能超过18千克。每天客人还可以在酒店专门设计的2公里林间慢跑路线上,和宠物散步、嬉戏。     

THE ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY

An Open Elite? England 1540–1880. By Lawrence Stone and Jeanne C. Fawtier Stone. Aristocratic Century: The Peerage of Eighteenth-Century England. By John Cannon. The English Aristocracy: A Comparative Synthesis. By M.L. Bush.     

MYTH IN HISTORY,PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AS MYTH: ON THE AMBIVALENCE OF HANS BLUMENBERG'S INTERPRETATION OF ERNST CASSIRER'S THEORY OF MYTH

This essay explores the different interpretations proposed by Ernst Cassirer and Hans Blumenberg of the relation between Platonic philosophy and myth as a means of bringing to light a fundamental divergence in their respective conceptions of what precisely myth is. It attempts to show that their conceptions of myth are closely related to their respective assumptions concerning the historical significance of myth and regarding the sense of history more generally. Their divergent conceptions of myth and of history, I argue, are at the same time not simply matters of abstract speculation, but spring from fundamental presuppositions concerning myth's political significance. The present elucidation aims not only to set in relief one or another of the ways in which Cassirer or Blumenberg understood myth, nor even to present Blumenberg's critical reception of Cassirer's theories, but above all to contribute to the interpretation of the political implications of myth and of its historical potency in our contemporary epoch.     

HENRY VAUGHAN,THE LIBERATION OF THE CREATURES,AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH CALVINISM

This article examines how Richard Bernard’s commentary on the Book of Ruth, Ruths Recompence (1628), was constructed so as to deliver its messages, specifically those reflecting Bernard’s concern with living well. Attention is drawn to certain parts of the exposition which exemplify Bernard’s views and one part, especially, which caused him perplexity. This last pertains to a central element of Ruth which challenges Bernard and his early modern predecessors, in particular, in expounding the book. This is Ruth’s approach in Chapter 3, following the advice of her mother-in-law, Naomi, to their kinsman, Boaz, on the threshing floor, alone by night to request marriage according to the levirate law. Such an approach is contrary to the voluminous literature in the early modern period setting out how women should conduct themselves. Regarding other parts of the exposition, the article shows how Bernard taught such lessons as desirable relations between masters and servants.