探究日常生活的“民俗性”——后传承时代民俗学“日常生活”转向的一种路径

在民俗的"后传承时代",民俗呈现为传承、消费、意识形态等不同形式,渗透到日常生活的方方面面,"传统""共同体"等民俗学既有的规定性概念难以把握这些社会文化现象,民俗学提出了"日常生活"转向的学术追求;民俗学的日常生活研究,不是以日常生活为对象,而是以日常生活作为目的和分类的方法,重新把握现代社会中的民俗现象,在流动的、意向性建构的"共同体"中探究民俗的意义;鲍辛格、岩本通弥等民俗学者通过发掘日常生活实践主体运用"过去的经验""历史化""故事化"地感知、表象生活世界,致力于寻求传统民俗学与现代日常生活的相通之处,为民俗学研究开辟了新径。结合理论铺垫与前人的研究实践,在此基础上尝试提出以"探究日常生活的‘民俗性’"作为民俗学"日常生活"转向的一种路径;民俗性,即实践主体在意向性生成的语境中运用"过去的经验"民俗化地感知、表象世界;民俗学需要从日常生活的表象中发现"民俗性",进而解释其社会文化意义。     

迈向实践的民俗定义

我的标题来源于丹·本-阿默思将民俗定义为"小群体内的艺术性交际"的论文,尽管他自己也反省这一定义对传统的忽视,一些学者也质疑此定义在民间生活和物质文化研究领域的适用性,但它已成为定位于表演的口头民俗研究的重要基准。伴随21世纪数字文化的出现,此定义受到新的检视,一些学者开始反思民俗的社会基础,评估作为民俗关键词的传统,倡导探求民俗的认知基础、行为和组织观念的构成以及当代理论的"实践转向"。我将对此进行回顾,根据实践理论提出一个简明的以传统为中心的民俗定义,保留对语境的关注,同时聚焦于以民俗实践为基础的知识或认知领域。"实践中的民俗"即是"将传统知识运用于实践或是从实践中提取传统知识"。     

语境、过程、表演者与朝向当下的民俗学——表演理论与中国民俗学的当代转型

本文对表演理论在中国民俗学领域近30年间的传播和实践历程进行了梳理和总结。该理论得以传入中国并被接纳有着多方面的内在因由,既与新时期中国社会的改革开放形势相适应,更与本土民俗学对生动鲜活的表演活动进行记录和对民俗进行整体性研究的迫切需求密切相关。中国民俗学者在本土化实践中体现出的将多种理论视角相融合、对历史维度的强调、对文本与语境关系的重新思考等,对表演理论有丰富和修正的作用。在表演理论直接和间接的影响与推动下,当代中国民俗学的研究取向逐渐向注重语境、过程、表演者和当下发生转型。     

民俗学中本真性话语的根源、局限及超越

民俗学中本真性话语的社会根源,是现代社会的某些群体(主要是中产阶级)对现代性所带来的社会异化的反思和反抗,这构成了学者的民俗研究和大众的民俗主义的共同根源。民俗学中的重要主题如个人本真性、共同体和手工美学等,是自我异化、社会异化和技术异化的反抗性想象。但由于其缺乏唯物主义视野,这一反抗的效用是有限的。只有在正视异化现实、变革异化现实的社会实践基础上,才有可能真正实现个人的本真性。     

主持人语

作为世界民俗学领域产生过重大影响的方法和视角,表演理论有着丰富的启示性,对其进行充分理解、本土化实践及反思,无疑对推动该理论的发展以及中国民俗学自身的建设都具有积极意义。为进一步深化和推进国内的相关研究,受《民俗研究》杂志的委托,我组织了这组专栏文章。其中,拙文《语境、过程、表演者与朝向当下的民俗学——表演理论与中国民俗学的当代转型》一文,     

民俗与生活世界的意义构造——论民俗学研究的理论向度

对民俗的行动主体、语境、表演和表达动力的强调所代表的民俗学理论转向,可以理解为一种正在发生着的、面向民俗本身的"意义"转向。"意义"而非"内容"成为关注焦点,意味着问题意识的变更,即从民俗是什么向民俗怎样的变更,从作为实体的民俗向作为建构过程的民俗的变更,从作为看的对象的民俗向作为看的视角本身的民俗的变更。这一转向,可以促成民俗学在与当代文化人类学、社会学、哲学特别是现象学传统相关思想的对勘中,在基础理论向度上和在面向生活世界的文化阐释与批评中,作出更富启示性的思考,以期获得有效讨论主体性问题、自由与行动问题,以及审美、伦理、政治问题的独立视角。     

中国民俗学转型发展与表演理论的对话关系

鲍曼的表演理论,反思并改变了民俗学研究的眼光与方向,推动了民俗学的研究范式从以"民间文学文本"为中心,向着以"表演性日常交流实践方式"为中心转变。中国民俗学近几十年来的转型发展,在关注"日常交流实践方式"的方向上,有诸多与表演理论不谋而合的表现,这主要不是因为受到了表演理论的影响,而是在研究中国社会生活的过程中,不断进行学术反思与创新的结果。这种情况说明,中国民俗学的主体性既取决于它与本国社会发展进程血肉相连的关系,也会在与各国民俗学进行对话式的交流中得以体现。     

日本民俗学“在野之学”的新定义——菅丰“新在野之学”的倡导与实践

新在野之学(新公共民俗学)是日本当代民俗学者菅丰的代表性理论,是对日本民俗学草创期"在野之学"的回归和再构建。该理论旨在打破长期以来由日本学院派民俗学者主导的封闭的学术体系,消除专业与非专业之间的隔阂,寻求学院派民俗学者、公共民俗学者、各类社会组织、普通民众等多样化行为体的协同合作。它要求民俗学者重视介入式的日常实践,成为当事人而不是旁观者;在实践过程中努力获得文化表现的正当性,谨记民俗传承人的权威性;植根于地方,将文化客体化并给予当地人必要的支持;对自我和他者的实践与研究以自反性、适应性的方式加以把握;不以实践为目的,而以民众的幸福为己任。     

美国民俗学的实践理论——兼论西蒙·布朗纳的有关阐释

西蒙·布朗纳于2020年在北京师范大学的系列讲座,紧紧围绕民俗学的实践理论这一主题进行。民俗学在世界范围内的兴起曾深刻影响了美国民俗学的道路,但美国不同于欧洲的特点使其民俗学长期以来强调个人主义、语言学路径与艺术文本,使得美国民俗学在"超级时代"来临后面临许多挑战。为此,布朗纳提出了以传统为中心的民俗学实践理论,这要求我们重新理解和阐释"实践"和"传统"这些重要概念,并从心意与认知的角度去解释现代社会中究竟是什么激发、活化与生产了传统。这种研究路径强调将物质与非物质交织在一起研究,也强调不同文化之间的比较与发现。在此系列课程中,他以大量中国民俗的事例与美国民俗相互比较,并大胆提出自己的猜想。他提出的实践理论和对中美民俗比较的设想,都可以为中国民俗学界带来启发。     

阿兰·邓迪斯的“宏大理论”建构与非物质文化遗产跨文化传播之实践理性

追求宏大理论抑或尊重地方性知识,是民俗学研究的"两极"。面对民俗学,特别是美国民俗学在当代的式微,阿兰·邓迪斯等学者将造成这一现象的主因归于民俗学者专注经验材料的搜集与呈现,而未能有效建构超越日常实践的宏大理论。作为将理论建构与经验实证相结合的有益尝试,邓迪斯的民俗解析实践启发了民俗学者突破经验世界的局限,以寻找独立民俗现象的普遍意义,并为当代非物质文化遗产保护实践及非遗内具之共享性,提供了可资借鉴的解释框架和认识论范式。在此基础上,非物质文化遗产的跨文化传播即是民俗学理论建设与经验实证相结合的新起点与新方向。     

Telling small stories: spaces of knowledge and the practice of geography

This article examines how the practice of learning geography, and the arenas in which knowledge-making takes place, can be usefully positioned within changing histories of the discipline. It contends that networks of action – understood through the intersection of social sites, subjects and sources – present a conceptual framework and narrative focus for the re-consideration of specific episodes from geography's past. The interventions made here are informed and illustrated by a 'small story' about the doing of geography. Based on different personal accounts, the story revives a series of events, encounters, dialogues and images dating back to the winter of 1951 at Glenmore Lodge, Scotland. This educational institution in the Cairngorm mountains offered children from urban areas the opportunity to learn field studies and the skills of 'outdoor citizenship'. Initially, the focus falls on Margaret Jack, a 14-year-old field-course participant. Her learning experiences are traced through personal letters, a diary and a field journal dating from that time, and her recent recollections of this event. Margaret's account dovetails with the story of her field studies instructor, Robin Murray. Robin's role is traced through his learning experiences as a geography undergraduate at Aberdeen University, and the recent recollections of Catriona Murray, his wife.     

Das Wissen der Schulden. Recht,Kulturtechnik und Alltagserfahrung im liberalen Kapitalismus

The Knowledge of Debt: Law, Media Technique, and Everyday Experience in Liberal Capitalism. Performing an object such as ‘the economy’ hinges on practices of formatting knowledge. The article proposes to look at such instituting moments in connection with social conflicts over the legitimate rules of exchange. This is exemplified by way of recounting the story of the codification of Swiss bankruptcy law in 1889. In order to homogenize the legal procedures of debt collection and bankruptcy, two subject categories were instituted: ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. These different categories were thought to account for the diverging temporalities and spaces of credit exchange in everyday economic life. The introduction of the commercial register, a media-technical apparatus, enabled a formal distinction between ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. However, this boundary was contested and proved to be porose.     

Two radiocarbon dates for freshwater shells from hierakonpolis: Archaeological and geological interpretations

Shells of two species of freshwater bivalve (Unio willcocksi Bullen Newton and Etheria elliptica Lamarck) from the predynastic Gerzean (Nagada II) Decorated Tomb at Hierakonpolis, Egypt have given dates of 5000±90 bp for the tomb, and 12,900±120 bp for an episode of Nile terrace accumulation (correlated here with the Sahaba-Darau aggradation event). The archaeological and geological significance of these results is discussed, together with an outline of problems associated with radiocarbon dating of shell. Comparisons are made with the few other radiocarbon dates available for the Predynastic period in Egypt and possible reasons for the presence of shells in the tomb are considered.     

Some chronological implications of a fossil molluscan assemblage from a neolithic site at Brook,Kent, England

The later post-glacial history of a valley in the chalk escarpment near Brook, Kent, is described, based on molluscan stratigraphy, archaeological evidence and radio-carbon dating. Differences in size and colour banding, respectively, of fossil and living representatives of two species of land snails, Pomatias elegans (Müller) and Cepaea nemoralis (L.), are correlated with climatic change during the post-glacial period. The problems of the use of fossil shells of these species as samples for radiocarbon dating are discussed.     

China's Dynamic Industrial Sector: The Internet Industry

A Singapore-based economic geographer explores and analyzes the spatially uneven evolution of the Internet industry in China, arguing that the country's immense regional disparity in the provision of Internet services is best explained by the interplay of place- and path-dependence. The author demonstrates how the highly uneven regional endowments in relevant industrial and entrepreneurial resources have led to the substantial and persistent regional imbalance within China's emerging "new economy." His initial survey of the country's 100 leading Internet content providers (firms), identified from a listing of ca. 11,700 commercial websites, is selectively augmented to reflect an increase of over 70 million Internet users in 2007, reaching a total of 253 million in June 2008, and thus overtaking the United States as the world's largest Internet market. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L10, L86, O30. 6 figures, 1 table, 53 references.     

The 1911 International Exposition in Rome: architecture, archaeology, and national identity

This paper discusses the 1911 International Exposition in Rome and illustrates how this patriotic celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Italian Sate utilized symbolic landscapes of architecture and archaeology to promote nationalist sentiments of italianità and romanità centered on the young capital of Rome. Through modern art exhibitions at the Valle Giulia, scientific conferences at the Castel Sant’Angelo, archaeological exhibits on the Roman Empire in the Baths of Diocletian, and regional Italian pavilions in the Piazza d’Armi, exposition officials offered a complex representation of Italian national identity that was modern yet ancient, cosmopolitan yet bucolic, European yet regional, and imperial yet developing.     

The Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great – The Need for Medical Analysis: Reply to Commentaries

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. By elucidating the nature of his death, we can better interpret various aspects of Alexandrian history. Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome. It would therefore be of significance to note that one of the greatest leaders in history who conquered much of the then known world may have been suffering from a physical disability.     

Hospital Drama: Visual Theatres of the Medical Rendezvous from Asylum to Hospital with Reference to Specific Works by Anna Furse

Abstract

This paper is informed by Furse’s practice as a theatre maker in two fields of output that are connected by two factors: first, the presence of the woman patient — hysteric/subfertile respectively — within the clinical gaze; second, the significance of the womb to each pathology. In the treatment of each (explored in Furse’s theatre), lens based technologies play their part, whilst the cultural and medical can be seen to have overlapped to produce specific meaning with regard to Her body and its spectacularity. The article presents an overview of some of the key issues in precisely how the woman’s body becomes spectacular within this prosthetic medical gaze and how the medical — and theatrically designed spaces to represent these — become meaningful and potent proxemics that in turn inform medical/ theatrical spectatorship. Overarching nineteenth-century protocols at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris (where Furse’s Augustine (Big Hysteria) is set) to contemporary imaging technologies used in the treatment of subfertility with Assisted Reproduction Technologies (the topic of her Art of A.R.T. projects), it examines the way in which photography develops through cinema to X-Ray, ultrasound and then 3D/4D ultrasound to ‘capture’ the woman’s body in ways by which she becomes muted and exposed. These occular technologies that extend the gaze, first to an exterior subject and then, eventually, traversing the flesh without knife, lend specific performativity to the ‘patient’ women, within the context of hysterias and reproductive impairments respectively. Finally, issues of suspension of disbelief are addressed. The spectator’s faith in the screen-based image of Her spectacular body is interrupted in Furse’s work, which is also keenly interested in the effect of such imagery on the woman’s sense of Self. The historical and cultural leaps in this article argue that there is indeed a trajectory through the history of medical imaging since the first application of photography to anatomy to the more advanced scoping technologies of medical imaging today, and that in each era, the production of these images remain fraught with cultural implications.     

The Death of Alexander the Great – A Spinal Twist of Fate

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. Physical depictions of this historical figure reveal the likelihood of a cervical scoliotic deformity. This is substantiated with the medical history and is correlated with his untimely death. For the first time, it is concluded that Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome.