男权文化下的女性命运——读《王氏之死》有感

史景迁先生编著的《王氏之死》一书通过描写普通妇女——王氏来揭示明末清初时期农村妇女的悲惨处境,小人物大历史是本书的一大写作特色。王氏虽已成为历史．但她却以另一种形式生活在当下,女性虽能经济独立,但却没能获得真正的解放,问题的关键在于盛行数千年的男权文化。只有重构道德标准和行事准则,形成一种尊重女性、男女平等的社会文化和社会氛围,王氏才能真正的离去。     

君王的悲剧——从结构主义视角看麦克白之死

《麦克白》是莎士比亚四大悲剧中探讨人性最为深刻的一部。主人公麦克白因为受到别人的权诱,从英雄最终沦为部将的刀下亡魂。许多批评家也因此对其惨死的原因进行过多种探讨。本文在前人研究的基础上,运用结构主义文学批评理论对麦克白的死亡原因进行扩展性解析。     

丝绸之路上的宗教文化接触

丝绸之路是古代中国与其他国家、地区、民族之间物质文化和精神文化相互交流的产物,是东西方文明相互接触与碰撞的结果,同样也是中华民族实行对外开放政策的有力证明。历史上,丝绸之路是中外经济、文化交流的桥梁,把古代中国文化与中亚、西亚、波斯,甚至古希腊、罗马文化紧密联系起来。本文介绍了丝绸之路的概况、起源和交通路线等,以及在丝绸之路上发生的文化接触,论述各种宗教在丝绸之路上的传播,探讨丝绸之路上中国与西域各国在宗教方面的文化接触。     

男权社会下女性的悲哀——读《王氏之死》有感

《王氏之死》展现的是清初山东郯城、淄川农村人民的贫苦生活,通过对底层人民生活的描述揭示出中国封建社会农民的悲惨命运。主角之一的王氏不堪生活的重压,与人私奔,终惨死在丈夫手下,反映出男权社会中女性的悲惨命运。王氏虽已死去,但是在当今社会男尊女卑的观点依旧存在,只有真正做到男女平等,\"王氏\"才能真正的离开。     

“贾谊之死”的多重原因与历史书写

贾谊是西汉著名政治家和思想家,《史记》《汉书》《汉纪》和《资治通鉴》对“贾谊之死”的书写不尽相同。贾谊之死应该是匈奴侵边、黄河决堤以及谪居长沙等多重因素的结果。司马迁在贾谊文本中投射自我的生命体验与情感创伤,运用自责过度、哭泣而死等叙事手法,放大梁怀王坠马偶然性事件的影响,凸出贾谊敏感脆弱的文人形象,将贾谊悲剧塑造成为典型的性格悲剧,生成集体记忆的源头和主文本。透过贾谊之死的历史书写,我们可以观察司马迁如何理解悲剧与命运,如何在平衡事实与价值关系的过程中实现历史事实与人生启示的有机统一,以及不同书写背后所折射出的创作初心与史学观念殊异。     

区域史研究与方志利用——论史景迁《王氏之死》

近几十年,中国史学研究出现重视地方、深入平民的部分转向.伴随区域史研究的兴起,方志资料受到高度重视.美国汉学家史景迁曾撰写小书《王氏之死》,可谓方志入史的学术典范.通过方志资料挖掘,史景迁建构了明清交替之际山东郯城动荡的城乡面貌,体现了方志入史的价值.但由于核心故事没有充分展开,也折射出历史研究过分依赖方志时导致的问题.盛世修志,当代中国已有数次编修方志的热潮.对于中国当代史研究而言,审视方志价值,合理利用方志,意义尤为深远.     

灵魂的审判——浅析曹禺话剧《日出》中陈白露之死

《日出》作为曹禺的代表作,具有深刻的时代价值意义,剧本以30年代初期半殖民地半封建社会的中国社会为大背景,以陈白露的出现到消失为整个线索,控诉了“损不足以奉有余”的社会现实,将社会各个阶层的丑陋暴露无遗。生活似剧,但又超脱于剧,曹禺让人们认识了陈白露,却终归是一场悲剧。为什么陈白露要选择在日出之前死去,从人性的角度分析,这既是对自身的救赎,也是对自身灵魂的审判。     

从《飞蛾之死》和《小麻雀》看弱小生命的生存

动荡的二十世纪上半叶,中西方都在战争和萧条中对人的命运苦苦思索着。《飞蛾之死》中小小的飞蛾维护生命给人抗争的勇气,《小麻雀》中受伤小雀那生死的悬念给人抗击的理性思考。弱者如何生存,其实也就是面对浩淼自然而相形平常的人类如何生存的问题。两相比较,可以反省目前人类自身的生存状态。     

汉画像石“事死如生”丧葬文化探究——以商丘博物馆馆藏汉画像石为例

汉画像石作为古代丧葬艺术中一朵绚丽的奇葩,在厚葬之风盛行的汉代得到了迅猛的发展。河南商丘作为汉画像石分布较为集中的地区,其出土的汉画像石类型多样、题材广泛,上至神仙世界、下至社会生活,生动反映了汉代人民的现实生活和精神追求,可谓一部涵盖广泛的汉代社会百科全书,从中我们可以窥探汉代人对于死后“灵魂不灭”以及升仙思想的推崇,对“事死如生”丧葬文化的无限向往与极度推崇。     

生活：省察后的幸福——从苏格拉底之死所想到的

苏格拉底用死告诉我们无知之知不仅是对自己的自知之明,而且包括一种主动的、不断驳斥虚假知识的求知活动。我们要做的从无知中做到个人的省察,积极地做个人反思,从省察中寻找人生的真正价值——幸福。     

A first meeting place: John Webber’s An Interview Between Captain Cook and the Natives (January 1777)

On 26 January 1777, on the first stage of his third voyage to the Pacific, James Cook anchored in Adventure Bay on what is now called Bruny Island, Tasmania. Cook encountered the local Nuonenne people on two occasions, the second of which was recorded in an unfinished drawing (possibly done on the spot) by the expedition’s artist, John Webber. Comments in their journals from officers and sailors on board Cook’s ships indicate that the European perceptions and representations of Aboriginal people were initially mediated by the explorers’ stereotypical understanding of other races. However, through a close reading of a number of structural features of Webber’s composition – symmetry, resemblances in opposition, chiasmus, a figure who acts as a spectatorial stand-in, spatialisation – it is argued that Webber’s drawing recognises the Aboriginal people encountered by the British as individuals, attends to the dramaturgy of the encounter, and is marked in various ways by a powerful and grounded indigenous agency. It is proposed that anthropologist Marshall Sahlins’ paradoxical aphorism ‘structure of the conjuncture’ might be used to illuminate and designate the particular quality of events, the ‘indigenous countersigns’, depicted by Webber in this drawing.     

The Burial of the Dead: the British Army on the Western Front, 1914–18

Abstract

This article examines the ‘war culture’ that developed within the British Army with regard to death and burial on the Western Front. Soldiers on the battle?elds responded to the presence of death and the bodies of the dead through a speci?c framework that was used to understand this perverse and violent landscape. This drew upon pre-war practices and emphasized the physicality of the corpse in the desire to ensure a ‘decent’ burial for a ‘pal’.     

Planning Culture—A Concept to Explain the Evolution of Planning Policies and Processes in Europe?

Abstract

This article examines the complex relations between spatial planning and its cultural context (including the specific socio-economic patterns and related cultural norms, values, traditions and attitudes). To be able to analyze the extent to which spatial planning adapts to external pressures such as Europeanization, a “culturized planning model” with the three dimensions “planning artefacts”, “planning environment” and “societal environment” is used. It can be observed that the “harmonization” of spatial planning practices can result from external pressures such as EU regulations as well as (horizontal) collective learning processes. However, “harmonization” does not necessarily result in convergence. Adaptational pressures such as Europeanization often result in the customization of existing structures, frames and policies (“planning artefacts” and “planning environment”) but do not fundamentally change the underlying core cultural traits (“societal environment”). These cultural traits are quite resistant to change and help maintain a diversity of planning cultures and policies in Europe.     

Locating processes of identification: studying the precipitates of re-memory through artefacts in the British Asian home

Memory has been figured as an important process of placing and locating people and communities, both geographically and socially. Memory has also been significant in research on people who are not part of a formal record of history. This memory work includes a focus on black identity, especially in the work of Toni Morrison and Paul Gilroy. This paper seeks to examine the relevance of memory and re-memory for the social geographies of the South Asian population in Britain. In the first section I examine visual and material cultures as mechanisms for memory, especially their role in figuring diasporic positioning, and identity politics. These memories are in the form of testimonies and biographical narratives. In the paper I have argued for the relevance and value of re-memory in understanding the narratives of British Asian heritage in the everyday domestic environment. Re-memory is an alternative social narrative to memory as it is a form of memory that is not an individual linear, biographical narrative. Re-memory is a conceptualization of encounters with memories, stimulated through scents, sounds and textures in the everyday. 'Home possessions' constitute precipitates of re-memories and narrated histories. These are souvenirs from the traversed landscapes of the journey, signifiers of 'other' narrations of the past not directly experienced but which incorporate narrations of other's oral histories or social histories that are part of the diasporic community's re-memories. Collectively, visual and material cultures are identified as precipitates of these re-memories in the form of historical artefacts of heritage and tradition.     

“Hugon come erindwards”: Finnegans Wake and Ireland’s Huguenots

This paper analyses the rich variety of allusions to the Huguenots in Finnegans Wake, and considers the reasons for Joyce’s interest in this group of Protestant émigrés. Joyce makes several references to the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, the apotheosis of Huguenot persecution at the hands of the French Catholics, and he draws analogy between their experience and that of other groups of heretics and dissenters. Joyce celebrates the social, commercial, and cultural impact made by the migrants and their descendants, which was disproportionately great for the size of the diaspora. I argue that there are several reasons for Joyce’s engagement with the Huguenots. Their story of sectarian persecution, dispossession, and exile recalls the Irish Catholic experience, but it offers balance to the narrative of Catholic victimhood in depicting a Protestant group that suffered comparable oppression. Most importantly, the remarkable success with which the Huguenots integrated into Irish society offers a positive model for the plurality that Joyce espoused throughout his writing career, culminating in his final work.