Intimations of democratic impatience: The Book of Job

This article challenges democratic theorists’ disregard for democratic impatience by showing that the Book of Job not only defends impatience but that it intimates the merits of democratic impatience. Job is impatient along four dimensions that should speak to democratic theorists: he refuses to suffer, identifies his suffering as unjust, seeks to hold arbitrary power accountable, and recognizes patience’s irrationality in the face of injustice. Critically, I demonstrate that Job remains impatient in his mind, and thus does not abandon impatience – not even in an epilogue designed to stifle his impatient voice. While Job’s impatience is justified, it is not yet democratic, for it reneges on broader democratic claims, is not shared, and is undermined by his social privilege. I thus turn to Job’s wife – who is “Everywoman” both in a feminist and more generally democratic sense – to more fully develop a concept of democratic impatience.     

The Two Eschatological Perspectives of the Book of Daniel

The revelatory traditions found in chs. 2,7-12 of the book of Daniel are exceptional in connecting the historical circumstances pertaining to the persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes with the eschatological hopes of the Hebrew Bible. We will argue that the nature of this connection is twofold. On the one hand, for the redactor who gave the book of Daniel its canonical form, the distress associated with Antiochus was the distress associated with the last days. On the other hand, for the original composers of the book of Daniel, the distress associated with Antiochus was only a precursor to the distress associated with the last days. Finally, we will apply the insights gained from making this argument to the question of the book of Daniel’s composition.     

民族英雄的尺度：《白话本国史》教科书案研究

1935年,国民党上海市党部以吕思勉《白话本国史》"丑诋岳飞,推崇秦桧"为由而责令修改;有人以此控告商务印书馆与吕思勉,法院决定不起诉。《白话本国史》中的岳飞叙述,不利于在民族危机中激发民族意识来抵抗日本侵略;但其中反军阀思想,有利于国民党加强中央权力,又为南京政府所需要。该案的处理方式反映了国民党政府对民族英雄叙述的尺度:尊崇岳飞为民族英雄,突出其反抗外族侵略的一面,希望借助其抗金形象来振发国民志气;同时把岳飞叙述限制于抗金事迹中,弱化其武将身份,警惕其对军阀政治的影响,以加强国家统一。     

Torah as maternal return: chiastic copulation and the reconception of sacred history. or,un(k)notting the love in the law1

Torah, the name of the first five books of the “sacred history” comprised by the Hebrew Bible, tends to be translated as “Law” and to be affiliated with the separating “Law of the Father.” But Torah means “teaching.” Venerable tradition allies this teaching with feminine Wisdom, “a tree of life.” Theories of poetic language elaborated by such scholars as Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous facilitate discovering beneath the Torah's fractured and labyrinthine surface a way of return to the mother. This way is embodied in the inversions, textuality, and concentricity of the rhetorical trope of chiasmus, which exceeds the bounds of the Law to provide a form for the expression of “woman's desire” and so for the feminine text. Exploring as such the doubly chiastic poem in which, when naming woman in Eden, a human being (adam) changes its name to man (iysh) challenges man's biblical history, while restoring the memory of interconnection with the mother and all life. Reduplications of this transformative moment expand upon sacred history in terms of the Torah's central injunction to love one's neighbor as oneself.     

Using Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty to rethink cultural policy: a case of Poland

The overarching aim of this paper is to rethink the normative aspects of Polish cultural policy after 1989, using a conceptual framework built upon Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of liberty. More specifically, this article aims to analyse the rhetoric used in cultural policy and the practice of policy-making, in order to uncover and characterise the normative role that the state has played in shaping and executing cultural policy in Poland after 1989. The analysis shows that Polish cultural policy has been dominated by a perfectionist logic, which corresponds to Isaiah Berlin’s concept of positive liberty. It means that cultural policy has not been axiologically neutral but instead it has been based on state’s judgements about what kind of art is worthy support. On the other hand, the analysis shows that Polish cultural policy after 1989 cannot be classified as negative liberty.     

论王先谦的《五洲地理志略》

《五洲地理志略》是王先谦晚年在学术研究方向转变之后所撰的一本比较成熟的史地学著作。作者以传播、普及中外历史地理知识为宗旨,向人们介绍西方史地学知识,并且将忧国意识与传统的史学方法融入撰写内容之中。作者对中外相关书籍认真比较后,广搜博采,严密考订,尤其关注于新近出现的人文地理大事件。作者重视探讨救亡途径,故而该书的撰述还体现出经世思想与忧患意识的时代特征。     

Nudging Bentham: indirect legislation and (neo-)liberal politics

SUMMARY

The debates over Sunstein and Thaler’s Nudge oppose libertarianism and paternalism, or defend the authors’ proposed manipulation of individuals’ ‘choice architectures’ as a consistent system of libertarian paternalism. My essay looks beyond the terms of this debate and revisits Bentham’s ‘Indirect Legislation’ in order to excavate the issues raised by the deployment of technologies of behavioural economics in schemes of government. On the one hand, nudging is nothing other than a mild and carefully considered mode of indirect legislation, and the authors are right to join Bentham in pointing out that the landscape they seek to improve is always with us; we are always already governed and governing others, and we might as well govern and be governed better than we do/are. On the other hand, nudge-like innovations reveal the extent to which Bentham’s insights have been captured by a disciplinary orientation that removes its subjects from political space. Put differently, the issue with this kind of government is not that it interferes with our liberty so much as that it presumes our lack of political orientation and efficacy. Bentham’s liberal subjects inhabit a public and even republican space that Sunstein and Thaler’s neo-liberal subjects have long since abandoned.     

语图关系视野下的《列女传》文本及其图像

西汉刘向的《列女传》以其传、颂、图三位一体的编撰方式在中国古代典籍中别具一格,正因为如此,《列女传》文本及其图像在后世流传过程中,必然涉及到其文本（语言文字）与图像的关系问题。不同时代,不同类型的《列女传》文本与图像中,其语图关系的紧密程度也有所区别。一方面,《列女传》中语象与图像在这种相互模仿、相互斗争的模式中共同发展、共同进步;另一方面,语象与图像结合程度的不同也带来了叙事强度上的区别。     

Yoram Hazony and Leo Strauss on the Relation between Philosophy and Revelation

This essay challenges Yoram Hazony's ostensible correction of Leo Strauss's account of the tension between philosophy and revelation in Hazony's book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. While Hazony persuasively demonstrates the value of the Hebrew Bible, notably the half that he calls the “History of Israel,” as a work of rational political theory, emphasizing the difference in function between the Torah and the Christian “New Testament” (which serves chiefly to “bear witness” to particular events, rather than account for the permanent character of human and political life), he wrongly accuses Strauss of sharing the position of the radically antiphilosophic Christian theologian Tertullian that the Bible and classical philosophy are “absolutely oppos[ed],” even though Strauss, unlike Tertullian, takes the side of philosophy rather than the Bible in this conflict. Contrary to the impression Hazony conveys, Strauss readily acknowledged that the believer, no less than the philosopher, is obliged to make use of reason in his quest for truth and noted the critical areas of agreement between the Torah and classical philosophy. He simply emphasized the conflict between philosophy's reliance on reason as the ultimate guide to truth and the dependence of the Bible on belief in divine revelation, a dependence that Hazony implausibly seems to deny. And Hazony's challenge to the very distinction between reason and revelation threatens to weaken our appreciation of both sides of this tension, which Strauss identified as the source of the West's “vitality.”     

日本学者松本洪对中国历史植被变迁的开拓性研究

[提要]本文对日本学者松本洪撰写的《上代北支那の森林》一书进行了介绍性评价,指出该书是较早系统研究中国北方历史时期植被变迁的一部重要著作,但由于历史原因,中国历史地理学界对此书是一无所闻。松本洪在上个世纪40年代初期完成的这部著作,具有重要的先导意义,特别是在利用历史文献记载来复原中国北方古代森林植被形态这一点上,史念海后来所做的研究虽然在学术深度上要远远超出于松本洪之上,并且还普遍结合有实地考察和对考古发掘资料的运用,但是其基本思路和研究方法却与松本洪完全相同。因此,松本洪理应作为中国历史植被变迁研究的开拓者而被写在近代学术史里。     

再析金毓黻《中国史学史》撰写中的影响因素

金毓黻的<中国史学史>在撰写过程中受到了梁启超和朱希祖的影响,但金毓黻并非只是简单地采纳、承袭他们的观点;而梁、朱二人对金氏<中国史学史>撰写中的影响因素,也从另一个方面反映了金毓黻史学思想的某些进程.     

Soft balancing against the US ‘pivot to Asia’: China’s geostrategic rationale for establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

The existing accounts about the China-led multilateral development bank—the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)—have focused on the USA’s policy concerns and the economic and commercial reasons for China having established it. Two deeper questions are left unaddressed: Was there any strategic rationale for China to initiate a new multilateral development bank and, if so, how effective is China’s strategy? From a neorealist balance-of-power perspective, this article argues that China has felt threatened by the Obama administration’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific strategy. In response, China is opting for a soft-balancing policy to carve out a regional security space in Eurasia in order to mitigate the threat coming from its east. China’s material power, premised on the fact that the country is a huge domestic market and flush with cash, has proved irresistible for Asian states, with the exception of Japan, to be enticed away from the USA. On the one hand, this article adds weight to the claim that although the USA remains the pre-eminent military power in the Asia-Pacific, it has fallen into a relative decline in regional economic governance; on the other, China’s soft balancing has its own limitations in forming like-minded partnerships with, and offering security guarantees to, AIIB members. A China-led regional order is yet to have arrived, even with the AIIB.     

‘It’s Like Biting Your Own Tail’: Pedro Lemebel’s Queer Response to the Challenge of Subversion in Neoliberal Times

Using the methods of textual analysis and in conversation with both Latin American cultural studies and queer studies, the essay examines the ways that Pedro Lemebel’s diverse body of work – ranging from live performances, fiction, non-fictional crónicas, and interviews – engages the limits of subversion in neoliberal times. On the one hand, Lemebel’s work has been routinely framed in terms of its subversion of gendered, sexual, and political norms. On the other hand, scholars and commentators have not deeply engaged the many ways that Lemebel’s own work comments on and represents the challenges of producing subversive cultural productions in a globalized, late capitalist environment in which subversion, including his own, can be undone precisely when it is most celebrated, valued, and commodified. Reading Lemebel’s commentaries and interviews as producing cultural criticism that complements his better-known crónicas’ and performances’ ideological narratives, the essay argues that Lemebel’s oeuvre repeatedly addresses the challenges of performing a delicate dance between resistance and co-optation, given his acknowledged inseparability from the market. Taking Lemebel as a model for this balancing act, the essay ultimately aims to reveal and critique some of the ways that we academics tend to read sexual dissidence as successful subversion without recognizing its complications and limits.     

On Political Theology: The Hidden Dialogue between C. Schmitt and Ernst H. Kantorowicz in The King's Two Bodies

In recent years, Ernst H. Kantorowicz's work The King's Two Bodies (1957) has been the object of both historical and philosophical research. Kantorowicz decided to subtitle his book ‘A Study in Medieval Political Theology’, but few scholars have actually recognised his work as research in ‘political theology’. The aim of this article, then, is to uncover the sense(s) in which his book might be considered a work of ‘political theology’, especially in the sense coined by Carl Schmitt in 1922. Such a discussion ultimately aims to contribute to the foundation of political-theology research, a subject that has been widespread among European intellectuals in the twentieth century and which continues to be a focus of interest. This article argues that Kantorowicz's book can be interpreted as a practice of—and also an enriching addition to—Schmitt's thesis on political theology, even if it does not mention Schmitt's name. Such a conclusion is only possible by accepting that there was a heated dialogue between Kantorowicz and Schmitt through Erik Peterson's work. The article further discusses its approach with other scholars that, even though they are based on similar hypotheses, make different conclusions.     

Job’s Enemies in 30,17-18

Verses 30,17-18 in Job’s final speech are notoriously difficult for interpretation. Typically offered understandings of these verses by modern exegetes cannot be anchored in the text, and appear to be too simplistic for the Jobian context. The purpose of this paper is to understand vv. 17-18 from the perspective of the contradictory objectives that the ailing Job and his fearful community have. It is being argued that a cogent understanding of these verses can be obtained if it is assumed that they deal with Job’s closest circle of intimates (apart of his three friends) and his tragic disappointment in them, perhaps because of their effort to isolate him and prevent contagion. Such reading can be obtained by assuming only the revocalizations of just two words (????, ??????) in the MT.     

The crisis of the Italian state: then and now

Abstract

The article argues that Patrick McCarthy's Crisis of the Italian State was a book of great value by an author who was a partisan in the struggle to reform the Italian political system. The book's argument that lasting reform of Italian politics is only possible if middle class Italians begin to act as citizens, rather than as clients who regard the state as a source of potential largesse, has proved to be a far-sighted one, although at the time it seemed simplistic. Many of Italy's current troubles stem from the failure of Italy to go beyond the ‘overworked state’.     

Ultra-modern thoughts: political theology in Leo Strauss’s Philosophy and Law

A primary theme in Leo Strauss’s early work is how medieval Jewish and Islamic political philosophy, while influenced by Plato, differs from him in crucial ways. This theme is central to Strauss’s 1935 book Philosophy and Law. Philosophy and Law concerns the medieval ‘philosophic foundation of the law,’ which provides a rational justification of revelation. For Strauss, the foundation provides this justification by virtue of some difference it has from Plato. In this paper, I offer a new interpretation of Strauss’s view of this difference. I suggest that, for Strauss, whereas Plato conceived of the legislator and his legislation, the foundation conceives of the sovereign and his sovereign laws. On this basis, I also suggest a solution to a perennial mystery of Philosophy and Law: Strauss claims that the medieval foundation reveals ‘ultra-modern thoughts,’ yet does not explicitly state the identity of these thoughts. I suggest that their author is Carl Schmitt.     

Identities,Rationality and Taiwan’s China Policy: The Dynamics of Cross-Strait Exchanges

Identities have been viewed as determining Taiwan’s China policy, but this article argues that identities cannot explain Taipei’s China policy without reference to rationality. The article develops a theoretical framework that synthesises identities and rationality and examines Taipei’s cross-Strait exchange programs. We argue that whether Taipei imposes or relaxes bans on cross-Strait exchanges depends not only on its identities but also on its rational decisions in response to the status of cross-Strait relations. On the one hand, a Taiwanese administration that upholds a one-China identity rationally restricts exchanges when cross-Strait relations are tense; conversely, it opens exchanges during cross-Strait détente. On the other hand, when Taipei embraces a Taiwanese identity, it is only in times of cross-Strait tensions that Taipei advances exchanges as a rational gesture of goodwill taken to avoid spirals of tension; conversely, exchanges will be low on Taipei’s policy priority list when cross-Strait crises recede.