Civic religion in late medieval Europe

This article reassesses the value of a term that has proved very durable in late medieval historiography. It identifies three main research clusters using ‘civic religion’ (North American, Francophone and Germanic), and examines inherent problems with the term, particularly its association with ‘civil religion’ and its ambiguity of meaning, at once ‘urban’ (specific to towns) and ‘municipal’ (governmental). The term has been applied particularly to the city-states of northern Italy: the article also looks at three different cities outside this region, Zaragoza, Bruges and Salisbury, as case studies to consider the term's wider applicability. Despite their differences, this article argues that there were in all of them common religious practices associated with urban government; and that ‘civic religion’ does serve as a useful term to classify these practices as a basis for future research – not as aspects of advancing ‘civil religion’, but to describe the connections and elisions that city councils made in sacred terms between ‘municipal’ and ‘urban’ interests.     

North Korea’s Response to US Army Propaganda Leaflets during the Korean War

This study examines a particular aspect of the history of North and South Korea’s bbira (propaganda leaflets), focusing on North Korea’s propaganda strategies in response to US propaganda during the Korean War, including perceptions of propaganda leaflets targeting North Koreans and counterstrategies used against them. The research herein analyses Munhakyesul, the leaflets during the Korean War, and the leaflets held by the DMZ Museum. The findings of this study reveal characteristics of and differences between the psychological tactics used by North Korea and the US during the Korean War, as exhibited through the use of these propaganda leaflets.     

Pathways of confinement: the legal constitution of carceral spaces in France’s social housing estates

This paper analyzes the enactment and evolution of article L.126 of the Code of Construction and Housing (CCH) in France and demonstrates the careful ways lawmakers have redefined ‘common areas’ in social housing estates as carceral spaces. It argues that such transformation has inserted these areas into a ‘carceral continuum’ that facilitates the arrest, prosecution and confinement of young people ‘hanging out’ in ‘common areas’. Drawing on the work of legal geographers on the co-constitutive relationship of law and space, and urban and carceral geographers exploring the criminalization of urban space and the extension of the carceral state, the paper illustrates how the pathways of confinement are legally constituted. The legal process documented here seeks to highlight the law’s meaning-making capacity and the complex legal practices – by actors and institutions located at multiple scales – which significantly condition urban practices and relationships. The analysis suggests, finally, that law’s constitutive power has limits that are brought to the fore by anti-police violence struggles. Pathways of confinement are, thus, fragile networks dependent upon the ongoing enactments, discourses, and practices by lawmakers and law-enforcers.     

夏侯玄论——兼论魏晋之际谯郡夏侯氏门风之变化及其门第之上升

夏侯玄是正始、嘉平年间亲曹氏名士群体的主要代表,他提出了一系列代表曹爽集团政治改革的理论主张,建议并直接指挥了意在提高曹爽声望的伐蜀之役,受到司马氏父子的嫉恨。在玄学思想活动中,早在太和年间他便参与“浮华交会”,与荀粲等交往,颇具玄学修养。特别是他利用其地位,组织、协调玄谈,成为一时“宗主”。他虽习玄,但依然谨守礼法,儒玄并综,“情礼兼到”,引领魏晋以降之士风,成为一代楷模。对其家族而言,其名士化标志着夏侯氏门风逐渐尚文,门第逐渐士族化。     

Making space,making race: reconstituting white privilege in Buckhead,Atlanta

The comfortable relationship between the overwhelmingly white, southern Atlanta neighborhood of Buckhead and a major hub of nightlife in the region unraveled in the early 2000s as the entire nightclub cluster was delegitimized, discursively constructed as dangerous and out of control, and ultimately razed to make space for luxury shopping. This paper sets out to query what social and cultural relations account for this massive and unpredicted reconfiguration of urban space in the epicenter of wealth, whiteness, and power in Atlanta. By mobilizing the concept of the socio-spatial dialectic (Soja 1980, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70: 207–225), we draw on Pulido's (2000, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90: 12–40) work on the construction and perpetuation of white privilege to argue that the racialized production of space is a relevant framework for understanding the processes at work in Buckhead. We argue that race was an unstated but deeply important social relation shaping the process by which this particular space was remade. In so doing, we seek to advance the literature on whiteness by demonstrating the ways in which it articulates with the political economy of cities in the present conjuncture.     

China's Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006-2010): From "Getting Rich First" to "Common Prosperity"

China's Eleventh Five-Year Plan, which sets the directions for national development for the 2006 to 2010 period, has been described as a revolutionary plan. This paper examines the Plan's goal to build a "harmonious socialist society" by enabling disadvantaged groups and less developed regions to share the fruits of economic growth. It first describes the Plan's main principles and major quantitative targets for the five-year period. In the second half of the paper, the author argues that the emphasis on "common prosperity" can be explained by the rise in inequality over more than two decades, by a new political administration that seeks to establish its own path while endorsing ideas from past regimes, and by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao's more open and consultative style of leadership. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O20, O53, P21. 1 figure, 2 tables, 58 references.     

Cerebral White Matter — Historical Evolution of Facts and Notions Concerning the Organization of the Fiber Pathways of the Brain

Gross and microscopic studies by early investigators led the cerebral white matter from being regarded as an amorphous mass to an intricately organized system of fasciculi that facilitate the highest expression of cerebral activity. Here we pay homage to the anatomists whose observations resulted in the evolution of ideas about the cerebral white matter. We also draw attention to limitations of the earlier methodologies and to some of the conflicts and controversies that have characterized this field and that persist in the current literature. We conclude with brief reference to the principles of organization of the fiber pathways derived from our studies in the monkey using the autoradiographic tract tracing technique, another step in the ongoing investigations of the cerebral white matter. This historical review has contemporary relevance because the fiber pathways of the brain are crucial components of the distributed neural circuits that subserve nervous system function; the clinical manifestations of white matter damage are recognized with greater frequency and clarity; and magnetic resonance imaging tractography has made it possible to view these fiber bundles within the living human brain.     

Smoke and Mirrors: Inverting the Discourse on Tobacco

Abstract: Understanding the mechanisms that construct and maintain the taken‐for‐granted, “common sense” understandings of everyday life is an essential prerequisite for reconfiguring conditions in more progressive directions. Highlighting particular moments, when these processes can be made visible, and drawing appropriate insights from such interrogations is useful not only for illuminating the fundamental malleability of “common sense” (itself a crucial element of change), but also for providing suggestive strategies and tactics for effectuating change. Here the construction and reconstruction of the “common sense” around tobacco is offered as an instructive case.