The Future of Utopia

The widespread notion that the city is secular and that therefore society’s future is secular is in need of serious reconsideration. This paper argues that religion does not melt away but rather morphs into modern forms of aspiration, speculation, and contention. Religion is therefore crucial to social inquiry into the nature of the urban. The paper argues that in Asia the Christian modern is close to the secular modern with fragments of rational planning and calculation in constant interplay with fragments of the magic of speculative modernity. Both communism and market capitalism are ideological cousins of Christian millenarianism. In a comparison of India, China, and Singapore it argues that the Christian form of modernity has been much better able to penetrate and coalesce with Sinic civilizational traditions than with Indic civilizational traditions.     

Of Peaceable Kingdoms and Lawless Frontiers: Exploring the Relationship between History,Mythology and Gun Culture in the North American West

The United States is more violent than Canada and it always has been. Even in the face of mass shootings, most Americans remain culturally and politically resistant to the sorts of gun control measures that have long existed in Canada. America’s unique gun culture is embedded in the history, imagery, and especially the mythology of the American frontier. Canada had its own frontier experience and has its own history of gun ownership, but it does not have a parallel gun culture. This article presents a comparative analysis of post-Civil War/post-Confederation frontier history and mythology, and examines the construction of contrasting cultural narratives of America’s “Wild West” and Canada’s “Mild West.” It suggests that US–Canadian differences in gun laws and gun culture—even in the borderlands region of Alberta/Montana—are better explained by the countries’ two different frontier mythologies than by their actual western histories.     

Assessment of open spaces in inland medium-sized cities of eastern Andalusia (Spain) through complementary approaches: spatial-configurational analysis and decision support

The benefits of urban open spaces for improving the quality of life and sustainability in cities are widely recognized. The functions they perform within the framework established by urban planning, as well as their metrics, are now more complex than in the past. It is convenient to develop methodologies for the evaluation of these spaces adapted to the present time to check their level of efficiency, which is useful in urban planning for the establishment of new urban open spaces. The aim of this study is to classify such spaces through a methodology that integrates spatial analysis, configuration analysis, and decision support so as to understand their complexity from a more advanced analytical perspective. In order to do this, a prior exploration of specific literature is carried out, which allows the characterization of the functions of urban open spaces by means of the corresponding analysis variables in a weighted manner. The integrated combination of these advanced tools is a step forward in achieving consistent and detailed results for urban open spaces. They perform their functions best in dense, central, equipped, accessible, connected, and easily walkable urban environments. In addition, future recommendations are provided.     

Urban memory and planning: investigating the use of oral history

Investigation of the reciprocal relation between individuals and space within its cultural and historical evolution allow us to conceive the intrinsic qualities and dynamics of any space in its context and to develop new conceptions to explain what kind of a place it is. Oral history provides opportunities to listen to the voice of space as well as a new way to discover its unique and different characteristics that give the users the feeling of belonging and place attachment. In this study, the place of oral history method in historiography, its use in diverse disciplines related to the shaping of urban space, such as urban planning and architecture, and the possible contribution of oral history to planning and designing urban space are discussed. It is revealed that the use of oral history in research and practice can give effect to develop a sense of belonging for all users and to achieve sustainability of urban memory. For this reason, place-based studies and utilization of oral history method within them are of significant importance, for either acquiring the knowledge embedded in memories or understanding the expectations of users or to provide solutions to place-based problems.     

The technical is political: settler colonialism and the Australian Indigenous policy system

Contemporary Australian Indigenous policy changes rapidly and regularly fails to deliver its stated aims. Additionally, political and social relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the Australian state remain complex and contested. This article draws on critical Indigenous theory, alongside the increasingly influential scholarly paradigm of settler colonialism, to draw these two elements together. It highlights the ongoing nature of colonial conflict, and the partisan nature of state institutions and processes. While policy is usually framed as a depoliticised, technical practice of public management for Indigenous wellbeing, I suggest that it also seeks to ‘domesticate’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, perform their dysfunction and demonstrate state legitimacy. This is especially the case in Australia, which has a long tradition of framing domestic welfare policy – rather than legal agreements – as the ‘solution’ to settler colonial conflict.     

日本右翼势力支持"台独"的历史考察

日本右翼势力对“台独”的支持大体经历了三个时期:战后初期,日本右翼势力是“台独”逆流的始作俑者和首开“台独”运动先河的罪魁祸首;冷战时期,日本右翼势力不仅在中日复交前使本国成为“台独”势力的大本营,而且在中日复交后仍一如既往、不遗余力地支持“台独”;后冷战时期,日本右翼势力支持“台独”不仅变本加厉,而且呈现出民间与政界配合、右翼与政府呼应之特点。     

鄂、西鄂、东鄂辨证——兼论湖北称鄂之由来

基于考古资料并结合前人研究成果,梳理了乡宁之鄂、沁阳之鄂、随州之鄂、南阳之鄂的地望变迁。西周早期为南控南淮夷、荆蛮,周封鄂于今随州。周夷王时,将鄂迁徙到今河南南阳市宛城区新店乡西鄂故城一带,周代南土防线亦随之收缩。约在春秋早期楚将南阳盆地纳入政治版图之时鄂国已消亡。战国中期前后,西鄂为楚封鄂君之地。垂沙之役后,鄂君东迁大冶鄂王城,始有东鄂。秦及汉初于东鄂故地设鄂县,其后又在南阳鄂国故地设县,因江夏先有鄂县,故称南阳之鄂为西鄂。湖北简称鄂与西周时期随州鄂国或南阳西鄂并无直接关系,而是与行政区划变迁及武昌九省通衢的地位日渐重要有关。武昌有“鄂”之别称,是湖北省简称鄂的直接原因。     

学习十六大精神做好对台工作

中共十六大报告有关台湾问题的分析很精辟,不但包含了我党以往行之有效的政策,而且根据目前海峡两岸形势的变化提出了一些新的主张,概括起来就是五个坚持、三个新意,明确了今后对台工作的思路和重点.当前,台湾的"台独"势力利用台湾岛内的省籍情结和台湾同胞"出头天"的思想,将台湾人民的台湾意识向"台独"方面引导,造成了我们统一前景的严峻形势,而"出头天"思想的产生与中国近代史特别是台湾近500年历史对台湾民众心态的影响是分不开的,只有了解和理解广大台胞的心态,才能有针对性地做好新时期的对台工作.     

All Aboard! Travel Films,Railroads, and the North American West, 1897–1910

Beginning with the first travelogues of the late 1890s, the film and tourism industries collaborated both directly and indirectly to shape representations of North America’s western landscape and its people. These non-narrative motion pictures intersected with the rise of mass consumerism, modern tourism, the forces of imperialism and colonialism, as well as industrialized forms of transportation. In particular, railroad travel films from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the Northern Pacific Railway Company transformed motion-picture goers into armchair tourists, exposing audiences to the scenic wonders of the West. These transcontinental railroads, themselves products of nation-building initiatives, competed against one another to increase passenger traffic by marketing the sublime and often overlapping landscapes of the American and Canadian Wests as potent nationalist and unifying symbols that heralded each country’s uniqueness.