Visit of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nicholas Bulganin to Britain in April 1956

This article examines the visit of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nicholas Bulganin to Britain in April 1956. It concludes that the closer acquaintance of the leaders of the USSR and Britain, the establishment of personal ties between them, and the clarification of mutual positions at the uneasy talks in London played a positive role in Soviet-British relations.     

Global Gay and Soviet Queen: Polish Transformation and Discourses of Homosexual Gender Variance

The paper discusses the ways in which gender variance of gay, male-bodied persons was positioned within the East/West divide after 1989. The critical media reading is based on gay press columns from the 1990s. While in Polish culture, as in the West, homosexuality was traditionally linked to gender variance, in the 1990s the new gay identity was established as gender-normative — a task much facilitated by the fact that in Poland the development of gay identity was preceded by a medicalized and heteronormative concept of transsexuality. The study shows that gay imagery was highly influenced by the ‘global gay’ capitalist ideal and the ‘chasing the West’ narrative of progress and liberation. After 1989, homosexual gender variance became a taboo that was only discussed in the gay erotic press in satirical columns in which the term ciota was used (queen, auntie). In the columns, cioty were ridiculed and degraded, but also positioned as more authentic and noble. Their femininity was framed in the misogynist discourse of flawed, uncontrollable physiology and emotional instability, which corresponds with the second meaning of the word ‘ciota’ in Polish — menstruation. Ultimately, the change from the Soviet queen to the respectable Western gay was legitimized by the use of nostalgic rhetoric and the fact that ciota was equated with the fallen communist regime and ‘gay’ with blooming capitalism.     

The Development of General Earth Science in the USSR During the Soviet Period

General earth science, or general physical geography, is viewed as one of three synthetic physical-geographic disciplines, the two others being landscape science, or regional physical geography, and paleo-geography. General earth science is concerned with the earth's geographic or landscape envelope as a whole and with its general patterns: the laws of zonality and integrity of the landscape envelope, the circulation of matter, rhythmicity, polar asymmetry and other regularities.     

晚清思想变革的另一面向:《多妻毒》中的澳大利亚华人书写

论文以1909年至1910年间在澳大利亚华文报刊《警东新报》上连载的文言小说《多妻毒》为例,探讨了身处20世纪初的澳大利亚华人知识分子,透过华人书写反映晚清时期澳大利亚华人与当时国内思想界之间的密切联系,以及百年前海外华人的民族认同、文化自信与思想局限。他们不仅关心个体的悲惨遭遇与艰辛生活,更关注国家衰弱与国民意识落后;不仅抒发了晚清海外华人身为儒学之士的家国情怀,更在风起云涌的改革思潮中引发批判还是传承传统文化的辩证思考。在进一步探究海外知识分子启蒙底层华人思想以及自身思想革新的基础上,观照海外华人与国内晚清思想界的殊途同归。     

Reformist hagiography: the Life of St Roding of Beaulieu and the struggle for power in early eleventh-century Lotharingia

This article explores an example of ‘reformist’ hagiographic production in early eleventh-century Lotharingia by focusing on the Life of St Roding of Beaulieu, a small monastery in the diocese of Verdun. Until recently, this text was interpreted exclusively in terms of the scant information it provides for this institution's early medieval history and in terms of its ideological message regarding monastic discipline and leadership. By integrating the composition of this text into the then-current regional geography and political context, this article proposes a new approach to its interpretation and to the understanding of Beaulieu’s ‘monastic reform’ in general. Close analysis of the narrative reveals that its production was inspired by specific issues relating to local and regional politics in the mid-1010s, and that parts of the institution's recent history were veiled allegorically behind the portrayal of Roding. However, rapid changes in power relationships rendered those aspects of the text outdated within a few years. This raises significant questions regarding the long-term relevance of such hidden stories and the degree to which their ideological, political and other messages remained accessible to medieval audiences.     

健讼之人与地方公共事务--以清代漕讼为中心

如果说清代社会存在所谓公共领域的话 ,那么健讼之人就是这个领域的积极参与者之一。他们挺身抗帮 ,包揽词讼 ,以独特的方式承担了地方公共事务。这一点 ,在层出不穷的漕案中有相当明显的表现。     

讼师对法秩序的冲击与清朝严治讼师立法

讼师势力的发展在地方行政资源严重不足以及行政兼理司法的体制下,直接影响其司法功能的实现,致使原有的法律秩序受到巨大冲击。乾嘉时期严治讼师定例,不但背离了“教唆词讼”本律的立法精神,走向重刑主义,而且使讼师的所有活动都在严禁之列,对民事诉讼制度的负面影响甚大。     

Masters of Healing: Cocaine and the Ideal of the Victorian Medical Man

This article offers a new perspective on the relationship between cocaine and medical practitioners in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Cocaine is often understood as one of a number of potentially addictive substances to which Victorian physicians and surgeons were regularly exposed, and tempted to indulge in. However, while cocaine has frequently been associated with discourses of addiction, this article proposes that it was also widely represented as a technological triumph, and that the drug was frequently used as a symbol for the scientific and moral virtues of the medical man. The argument draws on popular journalism, medical publications, and fiction to establish the cultural context of cocaine at the fin de siècle. In 1884, cocaine was revealed to be the first effective local anaesthetic, and this article traces the processes by which cocaine came to be regarded as the iconic achievement of nineteenth-century therapeutic science. This aura of innovative brilliance in turn communicated itself to the medical professionals who employed cocaine in their work, so that many patients and practitioners alike depicted cocaine as a most fitting emblem for the idealized selfhood of the modern medical man. This idea also informs portrayals of the drug in fiction, and I conclude with a detailed analysis of L. T. Meade’s 1895 short story, ‘The Red Bracelet’ (published in the Strand Magazine as part of Meade’s series, ‘Stories from the Diary of a Doctor’), as an example of the way in which cocaine functions as metaphor for the physician’s unassailable moral primacy and technical excellence.     

The Nanjing Courtesan Ma Shouzhen (1548–1604): Gender,Space and Painting in the Late Ming Pleasure Quarter

The city of Nanjing in the late Ming period (1550–1644) was a bustling commercial and cultural centre. In its pleasure quarter along the Qinhuai River, literati and officials mingled with elite courtesans who, educated in painting, poetry and music, used their cultural capital in order enhance their visibility and sociability, and obtain the literati's patronage. The extraordinary gender relations of the entertainment district were specific to its socio‐historical environment, where courtesans, although still highly dependent on men, partook in the public scene and exceeded some gender stereotypes and Confucian values, as they owned material goods and enjoyed higher physical mobility than their female counterparts in the gentry. The geographical space shared by courtesans and literati was principally a social and intellectual space, where they generated cultural productions and established social practices. In order to explore the concepts of gender and space in urban settings, this article analyses the case of the as redundant elite courtesan Ma Shouzhen (1548–1604), who was a renowned painter and poetess. A close look at her case contributes to further understanding the construction of social space and expressions of gendered subjectivity in the southern metropolitan courtesan environment.