Notes and News

Abstract

This paper seeks to cast some light on a so-called Green Man ivory knife handle from Perth and on the cultural context from which it sprang. It was made and lost or disposed of during the 14th century and, although its full life-story includes its archaeological recovery and subsequent curation in Perth Museum, its main importance lies in what it can tell us of medieval people. Exploring its material and production, its function as a handle, its iconography and its cultural background reveals this importance. Bringing these strands together gives us a snapshot of medieval cognition, focusing, on the way elements of seasonal ritual were consumed in the medieval burgh of Perth.     

Planning the Cultural Quarter in Birmingham's Eastside

Cultural planning and the development of cultural quarters has become a new orthodoxy in the revitalization of inner city industrial districts, yet this orthodoxy is now widely questioned as to whether it delivers on its promises. In Birmingham UK, the aim to create a new cultural quarter in the industrial inner city area of Eastside represents a unique opportunity for the city to examine and learn from past lessons of the “cultural turn” in urban policy. The article examines these lessons and whether the Eastside scheme is set to repeat the mistakes of the past     

陕北地区文化生态旅游开发的价值体系与提升策略

文化生态旅游在概念上已初步形成广泛的共识,成为一个热门的研究课题,其与文化旅游和生态旅游有着许多相互关联,本文对这三个概念进行了辨析。文化产业近年来在我国得到了广泛的重视,陕北地区拥有丰富的文化资源和生态特色,本文对陕北地区发展文化生态旅游的背景进行了分析,并构建了陕北地区文化生态旅游开发的价值体系,其包括资源价值、投资价值、产业价值、品牌价值和生态价值,最后,本文为陕北地区文化生态旅游开发的价值提升提出了几点策略。     

Competition or exhibition? The Olympic arts and cultural policy rhetoric

Though they are widely forgotten today, the modern Olympic Games once offered competitive medals for art. This tradition, which lasted through the seven summer Games held from 1912 to 1948, found artists competing for gold much as athletes do now. These artists represented their nation in judged competitive events showcasing artistic works. In its initial form, the ‘pentathlon of the muses,’ as it was called, included competitive events in Architecture, Musical Composition, Sculpture, Painting, and Literature. This paper considers the history of these arts competitions and their eventual demise as a study in cultural policy, arguing that no understanding of cultural policy is sufficient unless it considers the rhetorical factors that contribute to its formation. Without abandoning the Foucauldian backbone of cultural-policy studies, this argument makes an interdisciplinary plea to open cultural policy studies to the field of rhetorical scholarship, which it has almost wholly neglected to date.     

Theoretical reflections

The article starts with a discussion about the frequent statement that culture is a marginal area in politics. It proceeds with an analysis of the phenomenon and concept of “the cultural turn” and its possible consequences for cultural democracy. Then there follows a reflection on the potential power of religion and culture in political developments. After these introductory sections I present and discuss what I call five “democracy dimensions” of cultural policy: norms and ideologies; distribution of economic resources; institutional structures and decision‐making procedures; agents and interests in the policy‐making process; and access to and participation in cultural life. The conclusion is that under certain circumstances culture may mobilise huge masses of people in political actions but this is unlikely to happen in Western European democracies where culture in a long historical process has been privatised and isolated from big politics by the establishment of a specific sphere with its own structures, norms, logics and discourses. It is questionable if cultural policies will be more democratic under the reign of global capitalism and new liberalism. “The cultural turn” is an ambivalent phenomenon which cannot by itself bring about more cultural democracy. The future of cultural democracy cannot be decided for by cultural life or the cultural policy system themselves, it is dependent on what will happen to democracy as a total political system, of which cultural policy is only a small part.     

拷贝与借鉴--论渤海国与唐廷和日本的文化交流

渤海国从建国伊始,便积极从事对外,特别是与唐廷和日本的文化交流促进了其政治体制的成熟和经济的发展,本文认为渤海国热心于对外文化交流的动因,最初是出于藩国本身政治和军事的需要,并从意识形态,生活方式,文学艺术三个方面,分析了其在对外文化交流过程中,对唐廷和日本文化的不同摄取方式,渤海国对盛唐文化全盘吸收,使用的是拷贝式的摄取方式,而与日本的文化交流,则是同一文化圈内各子文化系统之间的借鉴式交流,文章还就渤海国在政治实体消亡后,灿烂辉煌的渤海文化几乎顷刻淹灭的文化发展史之迷,作了尝试性回答。     

“茶马古道”遗产保护中的文化品牌建设

文化遗产可以展现一个地区的文化脉络,也是评价该地区文化深度与厚度的要素之一。对待历史功能在现代社会发生了一些转变的文化遗产,应该加以保护还是改善开发是学界引发广泛讨论的论题。而冻结与封存并不能体现文化遗产的价值,尽管茶马古道的部分历史功能已经消逝或改变,但其在过去近20年问已经以一个文化标签的形式进入了大众文化视域,成为一个区域形象符号。树立品牌建设观念,遵循文化品牌建设的原则、规律进行综合性的保护与利用,是此类跨区域、跨民族、跨文化类型的文化遗产保护与传承的重要方式。     

Conceptualizing Greek cultural policy: the non‐democratization of public culture

This paper concentrates on several of the most significant moments of Greek cultural policy since World War II, together with its key concepts. It traces the cultural policy of the country, its main changes and its relationship with politics through a socio‐cultural analysis and a look at the political and cultural events which occurred. The concepts of national identity, hegemony, civilizing mission, democratization, and cultural democracy are applicable in this framework. Despite various attempts at reforms, the country's cultural policy could be characterized as ‘path dependent’; it connected unwaveringly to its two main objectives: heritage and the arts.     

For a Critical Cultural Political Economy

This paper argues that, if cultural political economy is to be worthwhile, it needs to be critical of its object. In order to develop its critical understanding of contemporary society, it needs to do at least three things. Firstly, while the cultural turn has corrected and sometimes inverted economic reductionism's dismissive treatment of culture and the lifeworld, it needs to avoid reducing economic systems to the lifeworld in which they are embedded, so that the extent to which systems are responsible for economic and cultural effects—good or bad—is not obscured. Secondly, it needs to take a more critical look at the social and cultural embedding of economic activities, and at the way system mechanisms of capital accumulation and uneven development have powerful dis embedding and disruptive effects. Thirdly, it needs to reconsider, rather than ignore, classical political economy, which was always cultural and is still of relevance today, even though it failed to anticipate new issues of cultural and political significance, such as the politics of identity.     

高分子材料Si97在砖质文物保护方面的应用研究

为找寻适宜砖质文物防风化保护的新材料,摸索出一套较完善的保护方法和经验.在找出导致砖质文物风化、酥碱的主要原因后,对十几种高分子材料进行防水、防酸、防盐、防污染、耐热老化、耐紫外线等试验,从中选择出较为理想的新型保护加固材料Si-97.该材料用于风化、酥碱的砖质文物中,使残损砖质文物得到了一定的保护和加固.不仅达到了延长砖质文物寿命的目的,而且减少了维修经费.Si-97材料是在有机硅中加入二甲基硅烷、胺基硅烷、环氧硅烷等材料进行改性而成,增加了有机硅聚合物的柔韧性、降低了脆性,提高了材料的耐老化性能.Si-97具有较好的保护效果,社会效益和经济效益明显.建议推广应用.     

Cultural democracy: an ecological and capabilities approach

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been sustained critique of the conceptual and normative foundations of UK cultural policy – the paternalism of ‘excellence and access’ and the neoliberal logic of ‘creative industries’. Whilst these critiques are well established, there is little work offering alternative foundations. This paper makes a contribution to this task. It does so in three ways. Firstly, by identifying ‘cultural democracy’ as a key discourse offering a counter-formulation of what the aims of cultural policy could and should be, and analysing uses of this term, it highlights the need to more effectively conceptualize cultural opportunity. Secondly, drawing on research with one UK-based initiative, Get Creative, the paper identifies a particularly consequential aspect of cultural opportunity: its ecological nature. Thirdly, it shows that the capabilities approach to human development provides ideas with the potential to help build new conceptual and normative foundations for cultural policy. Proposing a distinctive account of cultural democracy characterized by systemic support for cultural capabilities, the paper concludes by indicating the implications this may have for research, policy and practice.     

新时期文化产业建设考察

文化与文化生产、文化产业是不同性质、不同层次的概念。新中国对文化事业和文化产业的理解既受到经济发展水平的限制,也受到意识形态观念的影响。从单一的文化建设向文化事业与文化产业并举的转变反映了新时期理论界、文化界对社会主义文化建设理论的大胆探索和积极实践。群众文化作为意识形态的一部分,因其具有广泛的大众娱乐消费基础以及与传统文化和民间文化的紧密联系,成为催生文化产业最丰饶的沃土。文化经济正崛起为21世纪我国新的经济增长点,文化产业处于大发展时期。而文化产品作为文化的载体,其生产与传播方式的变革必然会对文化的传承与发展产生巨大的影响。文化的核心是价值观,文化传统必定持续地存在并显现于文化生活和文化产品中。在繁荣文化经济的同时,如何处理当代文化与传统文化、民族文化与外来文化的关系,是发展繁荣社会主义文化必须面对的课题。     

Positivism as cultural policy: art and social change in the works of Comte and Saint-Simon

When discussing positivism today, it almost systematically falls into the realm of epistemological discourse. This discursive turn is primarily the by-product of the social sciences’ now-traditional approach to positivism—a turn which has been seen as largely dismissive of positivism for its antiquated and reductionist approaches to research. Without trying to make an apologetic account of positivism, this article reframes it in its broader social and historical dimensions. In particular, this article aims to illustrate how positivism—as a social and political movement—conveyed a cultural policy. In other words, this article attempts to re-engage with the intellectual legacy of positivism to resituate its significance in cultural and artistic terms in French culture, society and beyond. By drawing on the notion of implicit cultural policy, this article retraces the steps of positivism and specifically builds a case for its influence on French cultural policy in the Third Republic.     

论我国城市化过程中的城乡文化整合

早期的城乡隔离制度造成了我国现存的城乡文化"二元结构",从而极大地影响了城乡文化的交流与发展。因此,必须进行城乡文化整合。本文就城市化过程中,影响城乡文化整合的因子进行了灰色关联度分析,得出了各因子对城乡文化整合进度的影响强弱排序;并且提出了通过加强小城镇的建设来推进我国的城乡文化整合,其中主要包括加快发展小城镇乡镇企业和发展小城镇文化产业。笔者认为,发展小城镇文化产业应该从四个方面入手:第一,增大小城镇文化教育及科技投入。第二,立足提高小城镇人口的文化素质,增加文化整合的底蕴。第三,建立城市帮扶小城镇的长效机制,加快推进城市文化的扩容和普及。第四,拓宽融资渠道,建设小城镇文化产业。     

Cultural evolution: a basic concept for human and historical geography

The concept of cultural evolution profoundly affected the objectives and methods employed in the social sciences in the earlier part of this century but it has largely been ignored by geographers. In recent years a number of American cultural anthropologists have re-examined the concept of cultural evolution, including Sahlins and Service, who consider that cultural evolution is analogous to biological evolution involving the diversification of cultural forms through adaptive modification and the progress of culture through successive levels of development. They have called these two processes specific evolution and general evolution respectively and from these two perspectives on cultural evolution they have developed the Law of Cultural Dominance. Certain operational problems exist in the application of the concept of cultural evolution, but once they have been surmounted it promises to constitute a valuable mode of explanation in the analysis of cultures and cultural change.     

论文化生态学的理论发展与新构架

本文本着批判地吸收不同学科领域有关文化生态的理论和方法,在系统论与生态观的指导下,积极发挥地理学研究文化生态学的优势,对文化生态学从基本概念到核心理论进行了重构,阐发了以文化生态系统为其研究对象、现代文化生态学的宏观、中观、微观研究领域观点。试图籍此完善文化生态学的理论体系并进一步增强其实践性。     

Cultural traffic in Lübeck and Danzig in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

In this examination of patterns of cultural traffic in Lübeck and Danzig in the 16th and 17th centuries it is argued that while Danzig was strongly influenced by Dutch commercial contacts and exercised a very strong cultural influence on its Polish hinterland, Lübeck was open to a more diffuse range of external cultural influences, and competed as a centre of culture with its neighbours. Two assumptions are tested here: that a relationship existed between cultural innovation based on external stimuli and levels of commercial prosperity in cities, and that the more passive a city became in terms of international trade, the more it was influenced by external cultural trends. It is concluded that the cultural experiences of the two cities were shaped as much by their relationship with their hinterlands as they were by changing patterns of international trade during the 16th and 17th centuries.     

基于文化意象视角的宗教遗产地旅游文化内涵挖掘——以五台山为例

随着旅游体验方式转变,挖掘文化内涵为游客塑造高峰旅游体验成为必然趋势。中国是一个宗教旅游资源丰富的大国,宗教遗产旅游作为一种具有深刻文化内涵的专项旅游产品,文化内涵的挖掘和传承是开发的核心。但目前宗教遗产地普遍存在着遗产文化内涵展示不足,深厚的文化内涵和较高的审美价值未能为游客所感知。凝练遗产旅游地的文化意象,将其"活化","可视化"成为必然。以佛教文化为主的宗教旅游成为五台山旅游的根本,"文殊五台,智慧舞台"的文化意象成为五台山宗教遗产地的主题统领。五台山佛教文化遗产地的文化内涵挖掘必须在此主题下展开和进行。     

近代城市历史文化街区文化景观演变研究——以大连旅顺太阳沟为例

以大连市旅顺太阳沟为例,采用新文化地理学的观点,借鉴后殖民主义相关理论,考察了殖民地时期、原苏联红军接管时期和现代社会三个时期下文化景观的表征变化,得出三个结论:①话语和权力是景观表征的主要决定因素,日俄殖民者、原苏联红军、军队和政府及开发商是三个时期景观表征的权力主体;②利益相关者在景观和空间的塑造中也扮演了重要角色;③殖民城市有屈辱历史,但不代表有屈辱文化。保护太阳沟文化景观刻不容缓,首要任务就是进行体制创新;太阳沟应大力发展文化产业。     

The dark side of cultural policy: economic and political instrumentalisation,white elephants,and corruption in Valencian cultural institutions

Cultural policy is usually assessed as a positive element for socio-economic development and therefore, its criticism is generally confined to poor implementation and discussion of its social effects. However, it is occasionally analysed as an instrument that produces unsustainable development, as a generator of white elephants, or as a means of waste, corruption, and clientelistic domination of the political sphere. This is what we might call the ‘dark side’ of cultural policy. Our case study of the city of Valencia (Spain), focussing on two of its major cultural institutions, the Valencian Institute of Modern Art and the Palace of Arts, exemplifies this cultural policy dimension. This article aims to analyse the systemic and contextual causes of this phenomenon of cronyistic behaviour and to elucidate in what sense it can be understood as a contingent drift specific to a particular territory or as a structural condition of cultural policy.