两个世界,还是一个世界?--论美国华裔文学作品中华人的"文化认同"问题

尽管美国学术界已对一批美籍华裔作家创作的文艺作品给予了特定的关注,但这些作品至今仍然没能成为美国文学传统的一部分;大多数美国读者还是把这些作品视为"局外人"或"另类人"的故事.本文试图从审视海外华文文学的角度,对这批作品中的两篇著名小说做一些探讨.本文所讨论的两篇作品分别是谭恩美的长篇小说<喜福会>和汤婷婷的长篇小说<顽猴爷的赝书>.在讨论中,本文将专注于两篇小说所反映的一个海外华人共有的问题,即"文化认同"问题.作为华人移民的第二代,谭恩美和汤婷婷都在其小说中着重表现了中国移民的母体文化与美国主流文化的对峙,居美华人与其他族群的冲突,以及居美华人自身男女之间、两代人或几代人之间的矛盾."文化认同"的问题就存在或产生于这类对峙、冲突和矛盾中.本文认为,两篇小说不仅揭示了以上种种的矛盾和冲突,而且还都努力为居美华人走出"文化认同"的危机指出了方向,当然两位作者所采用的视点和处理手法很不一样.     

西班牙天主教语境下的宗教政策--16-18世纪菲律宾华侨皈依天主教研究

西班牙是欧洲最早向海外扩张的殖民国家之一,15世纪末地理大发现后其海外扩张的主要动机是攫取东方财富和传播天主教,企图在亚洲建立"东方天主教帝国",这使得它在海外殖民的过程中所实施的政策与其它殖民国家显著不同,即注重从宗教文化上对殖民地人民进行同化.本文探讨了西班牙在天主教语境下对菲律宾华侨的宗教政策和华侨的反应,以及这种政策所产生的结果.     

美国华人社会与"9·11"事件

"9·11"事件对美国华人而言,它是一次灾难,更是一次机会.华人社会在事件中的表现,让美国主流社会重新认识了华人社会.     

Islands,the Anthropocene,and Decolonisation

The Anthropocene is deployed as incontrovertible fact, yet its foundations merit strong critique to challenge how particular voices and locations are absented, silenced, or enrolled in the fallacies that attend this epochal framework. Other placed, grounded, and scale-sensitive explanations exist for present and future state scenarios, including on islands—often the focus of apocalyptic thinking. Dealing with historical and contemporary struggles to decolonise is more powerful than engaging with a reified framework that is part of ongoing colonial-imperial excesses, uneven development, and racial capitalism. This work considers how four of us, as instigating authors, worked with five others, as collaborating authors, to understand academic works, activism, and artistic expressions of island life and concerns. Our aim was to learn about how and why their efforts to prioritise decolonisation is at the heart of what is needed to shore up island peoples’ futures.     

Caring for Country: History and Alchemy in the Making and Management of Indigenous Australian Land

This paper traces the history of ‘caring for country’ tropes in writing about indigenous Australian land and land management. While ‘caring for country’ initially referred to dynamic land use and ownership practices, it progressively became a less historical, more primordial, conception of indigenous land ownership, use, and management. In reviewing constructions of ‘land’ in scholarly literatures and policy debates, I seek to explain how they interact with local indigenous practices and idioms. Drawing on examples from the cultural and linguistic fields of A?angu, speakers of Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, I examine a variety of concurrent uses of ‘country’, ‘caring’, or ‘nurturance’ and ‘caring for country’. A cross‐linguistic perspective on these objectifications – in English, Aboriginal English, and central Australian indigenous languages – shows how they may attend selectively to the historical specificity of indigenous experience. But this, I argue, may be the key to their efficacy in intercultural projects. Coded messages in bilingual documents reflect a kind of agency whereby A?angu choose to leave equivocal histories unstated and thereby reconstitute government projects in terms that work for them. The referential flexibility around idioms of land and nurturance is a kind of alchemy in language and social life that is the condition of the success of actual land management activities. Terms including ‘country’ and ‘caring for country’ elide the socio‐political dynamics that otherwise complicate actual rights and uses of land. That is why they can form the social basis of common activities, the production of ‘congeniality’ both within A?angu social life and at the interface with outsiders, in land management and other fields.     

Beyond descriptive neurology: Broca,cerebral hemodynamics,and cortical function

Pierre-Paul Broca’s studies in neurobiology remain of interest. I review a previously neglected aspect of Broca’s work in which he presages the use of modern scanning techniques. Broca’s goal was to correlate cerebral metabolism to regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) using a novel method, to which he referred as cerebral thermometry. Broca attempted to measure changes in temperatures from the ischemic area and across the watershed regions during a stroke, and the increased CBF produced by performing a cognitive task such as reading aloud. The method involved measurements of local temperatures at specific points about the head with an array of strategically placed thermometers much as EEG electrodes are arrayed to record the electrical activity of the brain. Although his technique was inaccurate and unreliable, the concept of measuring CBF as a diagnostic aid and as a cognitive research tool was prescient. Broca’s limitation was not conceptual but purely technological. Broca’s attempt to measure CBF as a surrogate for cerebral metabolism was conceptually valid but premature because he lacked the technology necessary to do so.     

Polish migrant women’s narratives about language,racialised and gendered difference in Barcelona

The European Union expansion in 2004 resulted in significant changes in migration in Europe. For Spain, which did not open its labour market to the new accession countries until 2006, the extent of Polish migration has been substantially smaller than in countries like Britain. Hence, little scholarly attention has been paid to the experiences of Polish migrants in the Iberian Peninsula. Compared to other European cities, the case of Barcelona is significant, especially in terms of cultural diversity, Catalan identity and bilingual status, something that the newcomers are often unaware of. By drawing on the conceptual framework of conviviality and on data gathered through participant observation, narrative interviews and a focus group conducted with Polish women in Barcelona, this article concentrates on various forms of encounters with the local population. It argues that race, ethnicity, gender, language and spatiality are important factors influencing convivial relations. It contributes to the existing literature by exploring various forms and degrees of conviviality discussed as situated, not necessarily free from tensions and racialised and gendered perceptions of the Other.     

(Un)Doing Constitutionalism: The Cases of Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong

Based on the cases of Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong, this article reviews the Court judgments and discussions about the criminal charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “disrupting public order” used against Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong respectively. Through a review of the discourses of Chinese legal scholars surrounding the two cases, we focus on the conflicting arguments regarding the Chinese Constitution and the Constitutional right to freedom of expression. This article concludes with an analysis of the political meaning of the two cases by revisiting the debate about the implementation of a Constitutional review and by reflecting upon the political contention between the government’s recent re-ideologisation of the Constitution and the growing calls of Chinese citizens who advocate Constitutionalism as a proxy for political reform.