西方文化史研究的现状与趋势

当代国外的西方文化史研究具有实用性、多元化、国际化的特点,研究内容从单纯的政治文化、军事文化、宗教文化扩展到经济文化、社会文化、比较文化、心理发展文化以及影视文化等领域,研究视角大体包括概览性研究、分类性研究、阶段性研究、国别性研究、比较性研究、理论性研究。中国的西方文化史研究是随着西方文化在近代中国的扩张和传播而兴起的,上个世纪90年代以来成为一门重要的学科并取得了丰硕的成果,有关的著述大体可分为综述性、专门性、比较性和理论性四类。无论是国外的还是国内的西方文化史研究,许多涉及“西方文化史”本体的问题迄今仍未得到很好的解决。     

超国家民族经济网络的运营：华商大会与韩商大会的比较分析

选择华商与韩商大会作为个案,运用比较研究的方法,对华商网络与韩商网络的运营机制及其特征进行了阐述和分析。韩商大会与华商大会是两个最具规模的离线网络协力系统,在强化网络成员之间的联系与沟通乃至在构筑民族共同体方面具有十分重要的意义。两个大会在会议周期、运营体系和世界性影响力方面又具有很大差异。     

Plot by Plot: Plotting Urbanism as an Ordinary Process of Urbanisation

With this paper, we analyse an ordinary urban process, which has received little attention so far, and propose a new concept to take account of it: plotting urbanism. It is usually subsumed under terms like “urban informality” or “incremental urbanism” and not studied as a distinct process. In comparing Lagos, Istanbul and Shenzhen we captured four defining features of plotting urbanism: first, it unfolds in a piecemeal fashion with limited comprehensive planning. Second, it emerges from specific territorial compromises often resulting from conflicts between overlapping modes of territorial regulation, land tenure and property rights. Third, plotting is based on commodification of housing and land, which might accentuate socio-economic differentiations between property-owners, who often live in the same area, and their tenants. The term “plotting” highlights the key role of the plot in the process. It also alludes to strategic acts of collaboration for individual and collective benefit.     

A Comparative Study on Economies of Harappa and Erlitou Sites

Harappa and Erlitou are representative sites of the Indus and early Chinese civilizations respectively. With different geographical environments, the two regions took different paths to civilization. The Indus civilization established early“city-states” based on regional groups. Under the influence of the loose power structure of the“city-states,” the Harappan culture formed an open economic system that was market-oriented. Foreign trade was prosperous and played an important role in its economy. The early Chinese civilization established a wide-area kingship state. Under the influence of the pyramidal power structure, the economic system of the Erlitou culture was dominated by the state and served the ruling class. Foreign trade accounted for a low proportion of its economy. Differences between the two sites are the epitome of those between the development patterns of the two early civilizations and have important research value.     

Measuring the performance of planning: the conformance of Italian landscape planning practices with the European Landscape Convention

The assessment of the performance of planning is debated. The evaluation of the conformance of a given national planning system with a set of principles is similarly received with critical and favourable remarks. A relevant case study consists of the conformance of European landscape planning practice with the principles of the European Landscape Convention (ELC). Italy incorporated in 2004 the principles of the ELC with the Code on Cultural Assets and Landscape (CL), which opened the way for new laws, tools, observatories and atlases. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of an assessment exercise concerning the conformance with the ELC of planning practice in Italy. We scrutinize planning systems and tools established by peripheral administrations, according to a qualitative and comparative framework. We refine our analysis by focusing on 10 most recent cases and identifying critical issues in current landscape planning practice. The results are promising and show that landscape planning in Italy is increasingly in line with the ELC.     

Auerbach,Madness, and the East

ABSTRACT

Erich Auerbach’s lack of interest in engaging with non-Western contexts and literatures has often led critics to identify varying degrees of Eurocentric bias in his work. This perception of bias obfuscates the depths of Auerbach’s thought regarding the non-European, who does have a central place in Auerbach’s overall vision, not only of philology and Western literature, but also of humanism and historical progress generally. This articles accounts for the centrality of the non-European in Auerbach’s notion of realism.     

Economic Globalization and its Problems: A Response to Eaton,Herpel, and Moe-Lobeda and Spencer

Abstract

Building on the other papers in this issue, I offer a theological critique of economic globalization. The theory, or "theology" that supports it leads people of good will, despite the many negative consequences of the globalized pursuit of growth, to pursue such growth, as measured by GDP, as the goal of economic policy. This economistic theology takes no account of human community or ecological sustainability. Until it is changed economists will continue to direct us toward catastrophe.     

Muslim Contestations over Religion and the State in the Middle East

Abstract

With the future of the Middle East uncertain and unstable, claims to holding the authentic Islamic understanding of the role of religion in politics remain competed over in a political struggle for support, with sides believing that whoever can articulate the authenticity of their vision of government would become more able to influence public opinion. While one train of thought posits Islamic governance as an authentic and correct form of polity for the region which would bring about accountable, elected government, the other claims that Islam is fundamentally silent on the issue of the "state," and that notions of an "Islamic state" or caliphate are in fact dictatorial and antithetical to orthodox Islam, though Islamic values can inform the individual in their role as a citizen within a democratic state. This article will briefly examine the genealogy of these two competing claims from a Sunni Muslim perspective after examining the dominant approaches to analysing political Islamic groups, while also questioning whether it is fundamentally necessary to insert democratic ideals into such a discussion.     

'With a strong hand and an outstretched arm' the meaning of the expression byd hzqh wbzrw' ntwyh

The expression ''with a strong hand and an outstretched arm'' is usually understood as being an expression of the power of God. There are various suggestions as to which aspect of his power is indicated: The power of inflicting plague and sickness or his power as a warrior - or whether the expression is used as a counterpart to Egyptian royal terminology. It is suggested here that the expression does refer to the power of inflicting plague and sickness, for the following reasons: ''With a strong hand and an outstretched arm'' is a parallelism between two collocations of words, ''strong hand'' and ''outstretched hand'' (''arm'' + the verb ''stretch out''). When the two collocations, both containing the word ''hand'', were made to form a parallelism, the element ''arm'' was the added to one of them to achieve variation between the units of the parallelism. The element ''arm'', which often has a military connotation, is then an extraneous component to the expression. The outcome of ''stretching out the hand'' in the Pentateuch and the historical books is miraculous events, some of these being a number of the plagues. The expression does not seem to have any military connotation in the account of the Exodus. A comparison with the literatures of other Semitic languages shows that in the ancient Near East not only ''the hand'' of a deity inflicting plague and sickness can be found, but actually ''a strong hand''. In most of the occurrences of the expression in the Pentateuch apparently the entire experience of Israel in Egypt is signified. Only in Exod 3,19; 6,1; (where we cannot be sure whether the arm belongs to YHWH or to Pharaoh) and 6,6 the expression is connected to specific traditions in the account of the Exodus, and these are exactly the plague traditions.