Pre‐Black Futures

Abstract: In this essay I look at the contemporary production of surplus life in liberal democracies, and how it manifests a new type of sovereign spatial power. This power operates through the capacity to exile individuals and populations who are defined—in advance—as risk failures. I investigate further the ways that these pre‐known risk failures are determined through historical and geographical processes of racial formation, arguing that certain kinds of bodies have become vessels for concepts of risk formed in anticipation of an inevitable future. This “inevitable future” involves the formation of populations, which I term Pre‐Black, who are projected as outside of the enabling web of pastoral power. Moreover, as a consequence of this pre‐failure, individuals and populations can be forcefully and, more importantly, “justifiably” removed from commonly held spaces and resources in a contemporary liberal form of sovereign dispossession.     

论“孔子未作《春秋》”说的生成逻辑

面对两千多年以来"孔子作《春秋》"之成说,20世纪20年代以顾颉刚、钱玄同为首的疑古派力倡"孔子未作《春秋》"说,此说竟在近一个世纪内风靡学术界,至今仍不乏持论者。然而,内置于这一论点形成和推证整个历史过程的深层逻辑,实际上是一种"指向性历史构境",是由对史料的截断式去取或臆解误读造成的。这种构境已经超出了史学研究"适度的想象"的范围,带有明显的主观蓄意性;欲在理论上加固这一推理逻辑的尝试同样是不能成立的。     

上海城市私房的社会主义改造

新中国成立后,新民主主义的房屋政策明确保护城市私房的所有权和经营权。1956年以后由保护转变为改造,1958年时达到高潮,至1964年全国范围内的私房改造基本结束。公私合营和国家经租是主要的改造方式。由于改造中使用了整风和群众运动中一些"左"的做法,致使改造工作过头,遗留下来一些问题。     

Implications of hydro-political dependency for international water cooperation and conflict: Insights from new data

Hydro-political dependencies between countries are widely regarded as having important implications for international water cooperation and conflict. Quantitative ex-post empirical research on the subject so far uses very simple characterizations of international river geography to proxy for such dependencies, though. The authors developed a new geo-spatial dataset for water catchments worldwide. This dataset combines elevation models, flow accumulation approaches, hydrological data, and data on international boundaries to generate more precise and nuanced measures of hydro-political dependencies among riparian countries. The paper discusses these measurement concepts, illustrates how dependencies are distributed worldwide, and revisits three prominent quantitative studies on the issue to show how using improved data affects empirical findings. In contrast to a very popular presumption, upstream–downstream dependencies turn out to have a very small to insignificant effect on international water cooperation or conflict.     

民初贵州的“实业兴黔”讨论

辛亥革命后,振兴实业成为朝野各界的共同心声。贵州的知识分子也借助报刊这一传媒,对在贵州振兴实业进行了广泛而深入的讨论。贵州舆论界普遍认为,贵州落后的经济社会状况和特殊的自然条件决定了贵州必须振兴实业。振兴实业要分轻重缓急,应以农业和矿业为要务,要群策群力,有的放矢,要引进西方先进技术和经营管理模式等。这次大讨论,为贵州知识分子就实业兴黔问题深入交换意见搭建了一个平台,展现了知识分子的思想脉动、贵州情怀。但是,知识界设计的实业兴黔的路子存在着明显的缺陷。     

The development of party rule in the judiciary: personnel changes and political transformation of the Nanjing government’s judicial center, 1927–1937

After the establishment of the Nanjing Nationalist government in 1927, the Guomindang (GMD) gradually founded a national regime and started to implement the principle of “governing the nation by the party.” But the party-rule was not implemented immediately and effectively. In the early years of the Nationalist government, its judicial branch mostly hired former Beiyang judicial officials, who generally pursued the ideals of judicial independence and politics transcending party lines, ideals established in the Beiyang period. In 1932, when Ju Zheng became the president of the Judicial Yuan, founding members of the GMD began to replace the Beiyang officials in the judicial center. This personnel change was completed around 1935. Meanwhile, due to national crisis and the GMD’s concern that the judicial status quo did not meet its political needs, the GMD began to emphasize the political nature of the judiciary and to advocate the party-ization of the judiciary. Consequently, eight years after the founding of the Nanjing Nationalist government, GMD party members began to obtain de facto control of the judicial center, symbolizing the completion of the shift from Beiyang judicial practices to GMD party-rule in the judiciary. Nevertheless, during the following years, the GMD failed to penetrate, dominate, and integrate the middle and lower levels of the judicial system, where the judicial ideals and personnel structures still strongly retained their Beiyang legacy.     

近世浙江丧葬习俗的区域特征及地域差异

本文以历代地方志及现代民俗学调查报告为基础,并结合其它相关历史文献资料,对近世时期流行于浙江地区的土葬、火葬、二次葬、潮魂葬等丧葬习俗的区域特征及地域差异,作了简要的介绍及总结,在此基础上对制约浙江地区丧葬习俗地域差异的因素进行了分析、阐述。     

工程建设招投标环节职务犯罪的法律规制研究

现阶段工程建设领域业已成为职务犯罪的高发领域,涉案金额大,后果严重,给国家和人民利益造成了巨大损失,其中以工程建设招投标环节违法违规问题尤为突出。正确认识工程建设招投标环节职务犯罪的特点和规律,有效预防和遏制该领域的职务犯罪活动,是我们必须认真思考和研究的课题。     

Terra Economica: Waste and the Production of Enclosed Nature

Abstract: This essay provides an analysis of the “dirty” history and geography of enclosure, as both an instance of primitive accumulation and a production of nature. Specifically, I reconsider the English enclosures as a struggle over the land‐use designation of “waste”. Whereas both open fields and common waste lands were an essential and valuable part of the common right economy, advocates of enclosure came to see these same lands as wasted commons; lands that were potentially, but not yet, improved. This dialectic of waste and potential permeates the fabric of the nature produced through enclosure, which I name terra economica. Typically, this terrain has been understood as a passive repository of free resources, extending across absolute space. While such accounts consider the making of nature into a universal means of production, it is equally important to consider the ways in which nature is produced as a universal condition of production.     

The state comes home: Radiation and in-situ dispossession in Canada

In 1975 it was discovered that the small Ontario community of Port Hope was widely contaminated with radioactive waste from the local uranium refinery, including hundreds of homes. Through close analysis of state archives, regulatory documents, media, and key informant interviews, I analyze how the radioactive contamination of the home constitutes an in-situ dispossession, a material, corporeal and psychosocial dislocation in everyday life. In so doing, I reveal discrepancies between internal state positions and those publically conveyed, while showing how the categories of normal and abnormal are malleable social constructs and geopolitical tools of state power. By investigating the contamination of Port Hope through the lens of everyday life, I aim to add to critical geographies of home while contributing to scholarship demonstrating the multi-scalar interconnectedness of body, home, and nation-state.