Women’s everyday spirituality in Diamond Way Buddhism: an auto-photographic study

The Western world is experiencing increasing popularity of new religious movements whose adherents tend to spirituality, a subjective, personal form of religion. These spiritual forms shape the spaces of everyday life, their meanings, perceptions, and experiences, which is starting to be reflected in new geographies of religion. In Czechia, one of the most rapidly growing new religious movements is Diamond Way Buddhism. This contribution focuses on how Diamond Way spirituality is lived and experienced in space. The paper explores this phenomenon using the method of auto-photography. We asked six women to photograph places important to them in their daily lives and interpret their spiritual meaning. This method allows exploration of women’s spirituality in the everyday spaces where it is perceived and experienced, such as kitchens, buses, or natural sites. The results show that women have a specific way of experiencing Buddhism in seemingly secular space which they describe through feminine characteristics of transcendence. Everyday spaces become spiritual through the subjects’ emotional and continual experiencing of Buddhism, while the officially sacred space of a Buddhist center is incorporated into everyday life activities of women. The division between sacred and secular spaces often described by scholars is therefore challenged.     

Poromoi Tamu and the Case of the Drowning Village: History, Lost Places and the Stories We Tell

Archaeological excavations at an ancestral village site within rainforest in Papua New Guinea has revealed buried cultural evidence that can be explained in a number of ways. While interpretations based on Western archaeological methods suggest regional landscape dynamics informed by geomorphological processes, Indigenous Rumu oral traditions suggest an interpretation of the site’s stratigraphy based on the workings of spiritual forces. The role of story-telling and new information in site interpretation and understanding is explored in light of these different yet complementary accounts.     

从突破部族社会桎梏的意义去认识周初变革——兼谈五种社会形态问题

周初的政治变革,打破了殷商时期以血缘纽带为依托的族邦方国结构,使中国历史从此走上了一条崭新的发展道路。它使生活于广大地域的人们开始突破狭小的、具有极强稳定性的族邦结构社会的桎梏,而形成了一种以语言文字、道德伦理和风俗习惯等文化认同为纽带的、强固紧密的精神凝聚力量,从而具有了不断向更高社会阶段发展的现实基础。     

The Great Physician: mainline Protestant ministers’ expectations of doctors, 1840–1900

I argue that mainline Protestant clergymen adapted to the scientific and cultural developments of the post-Darwin era by encouraging a separation of bodily healing and spiritual healing that was unprecedented in Christianity. I use ministers’ depictions of Jesus in their addresses to physicians to illustrate this change. In 1840 ministers insisted that doctors’ value lay in their willingness to mimic Jesus’s example by healing both bodies and souls. As doctors gained authority in the late 1800s, the clergyman’s new ideal doctor stayed abreast of scientific developments and stuck to healing bodies. Ministers increasingly portrayed Jesus as an exclusively spiritual healer.     

They're here—I can feel them: the epistemic spaces of Indigenous and Western Knowledges

Indigenous Knowledges (IK) are continually contrasted with Western positivist sciences. Yet the usual conception of IK—as a translatable knowledge about things—renders incomprehensible its discussion as a spiritual or ethical practice. A practice taking place within what we call an epistemic space. A moose hunting event can demonstrate how IK is produced through the epistemic spaces within which hunting is performed. Part of the performance is becoming-animal; as practiced by Koyukon Athabascans, a moose hunt reproduces the social relations between hunter and prey, spiritual relations that demonstrate an ontology and ethics seemingly distinct from those of the Western wildlife sciences founded upon Enlightenment humanism. Yet such ‘Western–Indigenous’ dichotomies falsely indicate entirely separable spaces within which to produce accounts of reality. Instead, this account of a moose hunt demonstrates an assemblage of actors within one space, who together become more than the authors' individual positions and selves, and becomes an event. We additionally argue that more faithfully representing this assemblage requires changing the form of the usual academic paper. Thus tacking between a narrative and theoretical approach that switches from each of our first-person points of view, we aim to depict how knowledge of one hunting event becomes assembled.     

Imaging the materiality of a diaspora: Recording the biographies of Greek Orthodox church buildings in London

The materiality of world diasporas – in every form, from landmark features to everyday objects – is a relatively modern approach towards studying the diasporas' relationship with both homeland and hostland. Photo narratives and various modes of imaging can be employed to better record, assess and disseminate the narratives of diasporic lifeways in terms of their material culture. This article examines how Greek Orthodox communities have altered Western denomination church buildings in London to serve their spiritual and community needs. The new, amalgamated characteristics are described, while the debate around the role these religious communities should play in the hostland is also discussed.     

山地旅游的非功用性体验研究——基于云南玉龙雪山游记的扎根理论分析

在旅游个性化、情感化、精神性消费渐成趋势背景下,具有丰富非功用性特质的山地旅游迎来发展新机遇.在提出山地旅游非功用性体验这一新概念的基础上,应用扎根理论分析方法对玉龙雪山案例地网络游记资料进行逐级编码,洞察山地旅游非功用性体验发展过程及实现方式等.研究表明:山地旅游非功用性体验是在山地旅游场的精神导引下、在情绪和情感的...     

Cadence,war and security

An increased incidence of attack has been identified as a major characteristic of the new threat posed by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. This article considers what such a change means for Western national security systems by examining how different parts of the system change over time. It becomes evident that Western national security systems are structured on an assumption of comparatively slow state-based threats. In contrast, terrorist franchises operate at a faster pace, are more 'lightweight' and can adapt within the operational and capability cycles of Western governments. Neither network-centric warfare nor an improved assessment of the threat, called for by some, offers a panacea in this regard. Rather, it is clear that not only do Western governments need to adjust their operational and capability cycles, but that they also need a greater diversity of responses to increase overall national security resilience and offer more tools for policy-makers.     

历史、文化与民族:20世纪前期中国文化史的兴起

20世纪初,西方“文化”概念成为整理传统中国历史遗产的重要概念工具。国人编纂文化史有意展现传统中国的文化成就,反映出中西文化竞争下,国人隐秘的文化争胜意识。“文化”与“历史”结合,逐渐成为历史叙事的核心概念。文化史在史学研究的对象、价值判断、时代分期、研究方法等方面发展出自身特征,亦反映出西方文明史、文化史在理论和实践方面对中国“新史学”的影响。文化史在实践中注重对民族历史生活的呈现,表现出民族史的特征,其叙述特定群体或民族社会生活的方方面面,揭示群体的精神内核。历史、文化与民族融会一体,在西学东渐、传统文化权威失坠的情况下,文化史构建了一种彰显社会凝聚力的叙事。     

Voter migration as a source of electoral change in the Rocky Mountain West

Examining county-level voting patterns since 1992, this paper describes the rising strength of the Democratic Party in the Rocky Mountain West and explores domestic migration (voter mobility) as a cause of the electoral change. Other theories of electoral change (voter conversion, voter mobilization and generational replacement) are analyzed and found less significant than a voter migration theory. A spatial autoregressive model also presents evidence of significant contextual “neighborhood effects” contributing to electoral change in the region. Relying on IRS tax-filer migration data, Census data and voting results for all Western counties since 1992, this work finds a significant correlation between growing Democratic strength and in-migration of new voters who generally hail from more Democratic environments than the Western counties into which they are emigrating. The strongest correlations emerge in counties where the share of creative class occupations is also growing quickly. Migrating voters are building a new Western community – a community of creative classes, childless households and urban professionals who are more likely to vote Democrat than the rural conservatives they are increasingly outnumbering.     

Modern China's cultural transformation – problems and prospects

Modern China's cultural transformation has been a long, torturous, and complex process that even now has yet to come to a conclusion. Previous publications on China's intellectual and cultural history have touched on this issue to some extent, but there have been few wide‐ranging, focused, and systematic studies. This article is based on the author's systematic research into this question and argues that the Chinese people, burdened with the weight of a long history and with deeply ingrained cultural traditions, must negotiate the complexities and uncertainties of the present as they adapt to a new era and build a new culture. Questions of culture manifest themselves in many different ways: in distinctions between Eastern and Western culture and between “Chinese” and “barbarian”, in the different resources and possibilities inherent in ancient and modern culture, in the fate of China's ethnic minorities, and in the relationship between material and spiritual “civilization”. In addition, social conditions can pose almost insurmountable problems in the process of cultural transformation. These problems can only be solved when the whole nation is engaged in the practice of study and struggle, and the cultures of the world become more intimately linked through communication and the flow of ideas. Even then, solutions will not be quick in coming and the process of cultural change is necessarily gradual in nature. The transformation of China's culture in recent times and the modernization of the country as a whole are fundamentally concurrent processes that show a marked tendency towards globalization and individualism. Thus, externally, China must adhere to the idea of greater cultural openness while, internally, we must support the liberation of the people, and foster a positive creative spirit to the fullest potential.     

湖北宜昌万福垴遗址出土费昂斯珠科技分析与研究

湖北宜昌万福垴遗址是西周中晚期至春秋时期的以楚文化为主的遗存,以该遗址M8出土的费昂斯(faience)珠为研究对象,以期通过分析其成分和结构特征并讨论其工艺特征,丰富对长江中下游地区该时期费昂斯的相关认识。本研究使用扫描电子显微镜,分析结果显示费昂斯制品以富钾费昂斯及混合碱费昂斯为主。再依据以往发表的西周时期费昂斯制品的科技研究,结合考古发掘相关材料,试图从费昂斯器物使用方式的角度,窥视其在古人精神文明进程中的角色,反观费昂斯在中原地区的发展脉络。     

欧美旅游者在秦始皇帝陵博物院的情感体验时空变化

以时空思维为指导,从情感社会学、认知心理学、时间地理学等多学科角度,深入地展开了对旅游者情感体验的研究。采用访谈、问卷等方法,系统探索了欧美旅游者情感体验的影响因素。基于秦始皇帝陵博物院实际情况与欧美旅游者的表达习惯,参考双因素情感模型,确定基本情感词汇,建立情感轮分析模型进行数据收集,计算旅游者情感体验值。从时间、空间及路径3个角度,探索秦始皇帝陵博物院欧美旅游者情感体验的时间、空间变化规律和路径变化规律。研究发现秦始皇帝陵博物院欧美旅游者的积极情感体验整体呈倒“U”型波动,消极情感体验整体呈“U”型波动;欧美旅游者情感体验的空间分布表现出聚集节点与景区主要展馆高度契合的特点;旅游者的游览路径和游览顺序会影响其情感体验。     

论加强党的执政资源建设--兼论党的精神资源建设

执政资源是政党执政的必备条件,其形态主要有物质、政治、精神三大类,其中精神资源是执政党生存和发展的重要思想保证。批判地继承和吸收中华民族的传统优秀思想化,大胆借鉴和汲取人类社会的一切明成果,努力实现古今中外各种先进精神资源的对接与融合,进一步巩固马克思主义在精神资源领域的主导地位,自觉捍卫民族优秀思想化在精神资源领域的主体地位,始终代表中国先进化的前进方向,是新时期加强党的精神资源建设的重要任务和必由之路。     

Spiritual Warfare in Machiavelli's Prince

Machiavelli uses metaphors to convey meaning beyond the surface of his text. Access to his metaphors often begins via his “mistakes,” such as his calling (in chapter 12 of the Prince) Philip II of Macedon a “mercenary,” when in fact Philip was no such thing. This article focuses on chapters 12–14 of The Prince and explores the metaphoric meanings of Machiavelli's four types of soldiers—mercenary, auxiliary, mixed, and one's own—to explicate Machiavelli's account of how the mind of the West was conquered via “spiritual warfare.” It then explains Machiavelli's strategy for re-conquest by a new spiritual army trained by Machiavelli that will fight to defeat the regnant spiritual power and further Machiavelli's new principles.     

论东晋清谈的积极意义

西晋末年社会大崩溃引发了信仰危机,土族社会的精神“彼岸”随之倒塌,传统的价值系统失去了最后依托。辨名析理的清谈活动,对东晋社会的稳定,具有十分积极的意义：一方面,清谈所洋溢的人关怀,使“永嘉南奔”中陷入绝望的精英阶层,感到生命的尊严和化的价值,振奋了低落的士气;另一方面,清谈创造了自由争鸣的学术氛围,使佛教哲学得以渗入中国思想化的深层,在儒家伦理与佛教轮回报应之间架起了桥梁,为中华民族终极关怀找到了新的支点。     

Pursuing the Peripheral Path? A Path-Dependent Analysis of the Frankfurt and Munich Fairs

As a result of increasing competition and internationalization, many Western European cities have invested in exhibition facilities. Surprisingly, many new exhibition centres emerge in the urban periphery. An assessment of the 34 largest exhibition centres in Western Europe shows that only 16 are still centrally located while 18 now have a peripheral location. This is a drastic break from the traditional location of these centres in inner city cores. Behind this observation of spatial change is a complex set of dilemmas about investments in current or new locations. A fresh analytical model (based on assumptions of path dependency) is constructed and employed to analyse time and place specific determinants and opportunities. Two contrasting cases are selected in comparable German cities. Frankfurt decided to renew its facilities in the centre of the city, whereas Munich opened a relocated exhibition centre in 1998. Based on these case studies, the paper concludes that there is no autonomous force pulling exhibition centres towards the periphery, but it is rather a misfit between the central location and new physical, functional, spatial, and institutional demands that causes a facility to move.     

中西遗产保护比较的几点思考:一个跨文化的视角

近年来,西方国家世界遗产保护体系的实践经验对中国遗产保护产生了深远的影响。从跨文化的视角看,中国遗产保护在借鉴西方的遗产保护体制时,需要注意保护体制和管理对象的差别,也要注意东西文化的差异导致的对遗产保护中"原真性"的不同理解。因此,中国遗产保护既要重视传统历史文化和物质遗产中的精神元素,也要考虑在保护、传承和利用文化遗产的基础上充分发挥其社会功能,更要从中西方的文化差异出发,在遵守国际保护理论精神的基础上,探索出符合中国国情和文化特征的保护理论和方法。     

Calamus in Bolton: Spirituality and Homosexual Desire in Late Victorian England

In 1885 a small group of men began to meet regularly in Bolton, England, to discuss the poetry of Walt Whitman. They thought that Whitman's writings could provide the basis of a new religion, as well as offering spiritual guidance for the people in an age of mass politics. Intense friendships developed between some of the group as well as an interest in the nature of homosexuality. In order to explain their own quasi‐homosexual attachments, they created a new understanding of spiritual love and of an alternate self. These ideas influenced and were influenced by the work of Edward Carpenter.     

春秋天信仰的特点

春秋帝崇拜式微,天信仰几乎取代西周天帝信仰。天作为春秋至上神,其突出的特点是权能的广泛性、意志的权威性和赏罚的道德性。春秋天命和天道是天的意志的固定表达方式,从“天”的意志到“天命”到“天道”,是一个从天神的意志到冥冥之中的命运到社会自然法则的转化。在这个转变过程中,天的人格色彩愈趋淡化。春秋天信仰对于现存社会秩序的作用犹如双刃剑,既维护又破坏,具有道德约束、心理平衡和精神支撵功能以及认识功能。春秋人不求在天信仰的精神世界中获得永恒,而是理性地寻求对现实的信念、生活态度和生存价值。