The contested interpretation of heritage landscapes in northern Ireland

Abstract

Because the nature of society is both negotiated and contested, cultural artefacts, including heritage landscapes, will be invested with differing and conflicting meanings by various social groups. This is but one aspect of what might be termed the dissonance of heritage. The present discussion is framed within the context of the argument that relics of the past are a resource to be selectively exploited in accordance with contemporary political and cultural demands. The paper uses the example of Ulster's Folk and Transport Museum to examine these issues. It concludes that while consumers do appreciate the cultural complexity of the Museum's role as one medium of communication of identity in a contested society, the institution's effectiveness in this regard is undermined by the middle‐class bias of those consumers.     

Figuring space,marking time: Contested identities in Canada

Abstract

Conflicting concepts of identity have long exercised the Canadian imagination. The central focus of this paper is the role of institutionalised memory in promoting centralist patriotic sentiments. The association between the development of a consciousness and knowledge of the nation is illustrated by the founding of the Canadian Club, the Champlain Society and the Canadian Geographical Society. Attention is also directed to Canada's Historic Sites and Monuments Board, founded in 1919. Throughout its 75‐year history, the HSMB has commemorated events, places and people of historical significance for Canada in some 1600 sites. As may be expected, there have been shifts in emphasis in the national meta‐narratives over time, as is also demonstrated by the recent Charles Richard Bronfman Foundation's ‘Heritage Moments’. Taken together, these initiatives demonstrate a dynamic agenda of reconstituting national memory, national self‐knowledge, and national identity.     

A new giant python from the Pliocene Bluff Downs Local Fauna of northeastern Queensland

Liasis dubudingala n. sp., described on the basis of isolated vertebrae from the Early Pliocene Bluff Downs Local Fauna, is the largest snake known from Australia. Dependance of vertebral proportions on intracolumnar position indicates that the fossil taxon can be excluded from the Morelia/Python clade. High neural spines suggest possible affinity with Liasis olivacea, whereas a posterior dentary fragment with small teeth is unlike L. olivacea and more similar to Liasis mackloti or species of Bothrochilus and Leiopython. As these extant species have all recently been treated as members of Liasis, the new species is assigned to that genus.     

The Chinese–Korean co-production pact: collaborative encounters and the accelerating expansion of Chinese cinema

Official film co-production treaties are designed by policymakers to stimulate a range of collaborations, technology transfers, and joint funding initiatives in the industry. Since July 2004, the Chinese government has used this top-down approach to cultural diplomacy as a symbolic tool for advancing Chinese cinema and opening the domestic market to a host of willing international partners. Korean filmmakers in particular have exploited the (often informal) opportunities presented, engaging in vigorous cooperation with Chinese colleagues across all sectors of the production ecosystem. The continuing flow of Chinese–Korean transnational film encounters, underpinned by influential personal networks, resulted in the signing of a formal China–Korea co-production agreement in July 2014. To examine the efficacy of this policy intervention, this article analyzes the diversity of film collaboration that preceded this agreement and its impact on transnational filmmaking in China. It investigates the strategies used in the remaking of Korean auteur Lee Man Hee’s 1966 melodrama Late Autumn (2010), technical innovation in the VFX-heavy Mr. Go (2013), and the making of mega-distributor CJ E&M’s romance drama A Wedding Invitation (2013) to illustrate how Korean firms and practitioners are expanding the commercial entertainment boundaries of Chinese cinema. In so doing, it also reveals how Chinese film companies are enabling the Korean film industry to internationalize its approach to overseas markets beyond the kind of conspicuous policy initiatives tailored for a globalized cultural economy.