Disability Consciousness on the Frontlines of Urban Struggle

Drug wars, austerity and gentrification are interwoven social relations in many North American urban centres and are typically met with organising of varying degrees of militancy. Loïc Wacquant characterises many of these sites as highly stigmatised, associated with violence and pathology. In Toronto's downtown east end (DEE), one such stigmatised urban space, disabled activists are far from unfortunate casualties. They tend to refer to the DEE as an “urban battleground”, where disabled people politicise and challenge the DEE's pathology and stigma by linking into emerging radical disability politics across the global North and by developing localised revolutionary disability consciousness. Drawing on oral stories, zines and blogs of disabled activists and workers in Toronto's DEE, this article uses Rachel Gorman's dialectic of disability/disablement to analyse the emergence of revolutionary disability consciousness and the centrality of disabled people on the frontlines of anti‐gentrification and harm reduction organising in Toronto's DEE.     

FROM LEFT‐WING TO COMMUNIST MELANCHOLY: TRAVERSO'S WAGER

Enzo Traverso's inspired book Left‐Wing Melancholia revisits iconic representations of revolutionary hopes and defeats not to draw up an inventory of what has been lost but rather to remind his readers that past defeats also contain the traces of unfulfilled possibilities. After the end of the Soviet Union and the global triumph of neoliberal capitalism, the communist utopian imagination of a classless society, Traverso suggests, can be reignited through memorial practices of resilient, resistant melancholy. Traverso's argument draws on Walter Benjamin's notions of materialist history, redemptive memory, and knowing melancholy. Yet the nameless vanquished masses to whom Benjamin's concept of history seeks to do justice remain marginal in Traverso's book. Instead, revolutionary defeat is cast in the tragic mold of succeeding by failing, a trope exemplified by figures such as Auguste Blanqui, Charles Péguy, or Daniel Bensaïd. In response to Traverso's reliance on the transhistorical category of the tragic, this essay argues for a more abstractly theoretical understanding of left‐wing melancholy as conditioned by historically specific class relations that constrain and challenge the engaged intellectual. Moreover, this essay questions Traverso's dualistic treatment of politically committed (Benjamin, Brecht, C. L. R. James) and elitist intellectuals (Adorno) and concludes that the concept of left‐wing melancholy must ultimately be interrogated against the backdrop of a lingering uncertainty about the relationship between theory and praxis that, as Adorno claims, one can already find in Karl Marx—an uncertainty that is hence inscribed into the history of any Marxist theory of revolution and history.     

Yoshikatsu Sugiura's Contribution to the Development of Quantum Physics in Japan

Previous research in the history of physics has led us to believe that Yoshio Nishina (1890–1951) virtually single‐handedly imported quantum physics into Japan. However, there are first‐hand accounts that Yoshikatsu Sugiura (1895–1960) also played an important role. Sugiura made his name in quantum chemistry with his contribution to the Heitler‐London theory of the chemical bond. Yet, historians of physics have paid scant attention to him. This paper brings forward information on Sugiura from his letters, his scientific papers, and his own recollections until ca. 1930. By examining this material, the present paper studies Sugiura's accomplishments in Europe and his contributions to the development of quantum physics in Japan. We conclude that Sugiura was one of the most important physicists when it comes to the arrival of quantum physics in Japan. In addition, we assess why he has been under‐appreciated in the history of physics in Japan. Our historical study on Sugiura suggests that, in addition to the position Nishina and his students rightfully occupy, there still are important unexplored aspects in the history of Japanese quantum physics.     

The Impact of Forum Interdependence and Network Structure on Actor Performance in Complex Governance Systems

One of the main assumptions of the Ecology of Games Framework (EGF) is that governance processes are heavily affected by the interactions among policy actors that take place in multiple decision‐making forums, which often function interdependently. In this article, we use data collected in the Tampa Bay and California Delta water governance systems to examine how “biophysical interdependence”—the extent to which forums deal with interconnected policy problems—impacts the costs that actors face when they participate in forums, which in turn can affect their performance in them. Furthermore, we examine how the individual information exchange networks that actors have (i.e., their ego‐networks) can mediate the previous relationship. We find that actors with networks that have more closure are better able to mitigate the costs associated with participating in biophysically interdependent forums, thus leading to better in‐forum performance. Our findings shed new light on the relationship between structure and function in complex ecologies of games.     

Wissenschaftsstädte – Zur Bedeutung des Topos der ‘kreativen Stadt’ für die Wissensproduktion

Science Cities: What the Concept of the Creative City Means for Knowledge Production. – The article aims to show that the relationship of science and the city has changed since the 1970s in the context of the knowledgeable society. While cities have principally been regarded as the typical space of science, of new ideas and innovation for centuries, since the 1960s and 1970s universities, research institutes as well as industrial research institutes have relocated to the periphery of cities. There, however, these sites of knowledge have been organized in an ‘urban mode’. That means that the concept of the city as a place of science and innovation has determined the architectural, spatial, and social organization of these sites on the periphery of cities. Certain features of the city have been copied, such as social infrastructures, places of communication, restaurants, cafes etc., while others have been left out – housing, cinema, theatre etc. An ‘urban mode of knowledge production’ in the sense of a very stylized model of the city has become a tool to enhance the production of scientific and technological knowledge. – The article exemplifies this by focusing on a case study, namely of the so‐called ‘Science City’ of the Siemens Company in Munich‐Neuperlach.     

六世纪中后期的中国联珠纹织物

联珠纹在中国虽有更早的源头,但它从6世纪中期才开始流行。那时中国的联珠纹虽以粟特地区为中介受到萨珊艺术的影响,但也融入了自身的文化理解和艺术形式,这令联珠纹在很大程度上丧失了原有的萨珊图案寓意、改变了西方原貌。邺城等黄河中下游的丝织重镇,应是联珠纹织物在内地的重要产地。     

中国对瑞典国最早的全面记述——述清末写本《瑞典国记略》之历史由来

本文从中国对瑞典认识和记述的历史这一角度,介绍并论述了作者收藏的孤本书籍《瑞典国记略》。文章指出,迄至清朝末年,中国对瑞典的认识经历了如下六个阶段:第一阶段,从明末到清代康熙中期。通过西洋传教士的介绍,对瑞典开始有初步的了解。第二阶段,从康熙晚期到道光初年。主要是清朝官方和个别出洋商人,通过出使他国偶然接触到的瑞典国民并向所在国探问相关情况;或是与瑞典来华商船的直接接触;或是海外经商听闻的间接传说,对瑞典有了中国人自己的记述。第三阶段,道光二十年鸦片战争爆发前短暂的若千年期间。西洋传教士开始重新向中国介绍包括瑞典国在内的世界地理知识。第四阶段,从鸦片战争之后到同治四年。在中国人自己撰述的全球地理总志中,对瑞典有了更为丰富和清晰的记述。第五阶段,从同治六年到光绪中期。留下了一批中国人考察游历瑞典的日记,对瑞典的认识变得非常具体明晰,但还很不系统。第六阶段,光绪中期至清王朝结束。《瑞典国记略》就是这一时期的标志性著述,它是中国对瑞典最早的全面系统的记述。这部书虽然没有在社会上正式刊布,但在中国认识瑞典的历史上,仍具有里程碑式意义。     

Add shamans and stir? A critical review of the shamanism model of forager rock art production

The “shamanism” or “neurpsychological” model proposed by Lewis-Williams and colleagues has had a powerful impact on rock art research, and has significantly added to our knowledge of past foragers lifeways in southern Africa and elsewhere in the world. However, this model is primarily based on the view of shamanism as a universal and unvarying characteristic of foragers over space and time. This paper raises both theoretical and empirical problems with this view. The paper examines the relationship between the specific social roles and practices of shamanism and the overarching cosmological structures on which they are based in both southern Africa and Northern Eurasia. In both cases, the paper argues that many cosmological beliefs are highly persistent and durable, extending into prehistory, while the specific practices and roles of shamans are variable, changing to meet the immediate and local needs of their communities. This suggests that rock art is easier to relate to the overarching cosmological dispositions of the people that produced it and the paper closes by suggesting some theoretical and methodological alternatives recognizing this fact.     

肯尼迪政府调节国际收支逆差的政策

肯尼迪在美国面临巨额国际收支逆差的背景下入主白宫。严重的逆差导致美国的黄金大量外流,引起西方世界对美元信用的置疑。因此,调节逆差成为肯尼迪政府的重要使命。肯尼迪政府调节逆差的政策主要体现在肯尼迪提交给国会的两份特别咨文中,即1961年2月6日的“黄金和国际收支逆差特别咨文”和1963年7月18日的“国际收支特别咨文”。以两份咨文为蓝本,有关部门展开了系列的开源节流行动。美国的逆差调节行动使美国政府内部和北约盟国间的斗争起伏跌宕,充分暴露出权力政治的实质。     

朱熹《家礼》与明清徽州宗族以礼治族的实践

明清时期,在徽州社会中形成了对朱熹及其《家礼》极端崇拜的社会风气。徽州宗族多依据《家礼》进行本族内部的制度设计和制度建设,同时还十分重视对礼仪的执行与监督,旨在以此实现以礼治族、维持宗族社会秩序的目的。