A journey to Mars: John Dewey’s lectures and inquiry in China

ABSTRACT

Instead of the framework of influence–acceptance commonly used in previous studies, the author uses new sources to reexamine John Dewey’s visit to China from the perspective of interactive experience. This study presents Dewey’s lectures in China as the result of interrelationships among a variety of elements – Columbia University, different hosts and audiences, the media, all levels of the Chinese government, the domestic situation in the United States, the international situation, and Dewey’s expectations and work – against the general background of China’s New Culture Movement and new educational reforms. Dewey’s speeches on democracy, science, and new education were remarkably successful in the first year of his visit to China, but began to meet with resistance from some students beginning in June 1920. Because of the Red Scare in the United States, Dewey had to stay in China. In the second year of his visit, he gave warmly welcomed lectures on the same topics in Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong Provinces. With a deeper understanding of China, Dewey not only identified himself with reform plans but also began to pay more attention to China’s economic problems. His inquiry into the problems confronting China is a good example of what he advocated in his lectures: seeing democracy, science, and new education as a way of thinking and carrying out actions and making intellectual choices while moving forward.     

The Armada Tapestries in the Old Palace of Westminster

The tapestry series of the ‘Defeat of the Spanish Armada’ was a national artistic treasure which hung in the old Palace of Westminster from the mid 17th century until the fire of 1834. This article outlines the creation of the tapestries in the 1590s and covers the major treatments of them in illustrations of parliamentary interiors and in John Pine's 1739 engravings; it ends with a short account of the curious episode of the tapestry which escaped the conflagration. In the absence of any known historical record of how the tapestries were displayed, suggestions are offered about how many and in what order they hung in the two chambers occupied successively by the house of lords (before and after 1801), and about how they were physically supported on the walls of the Parliament Chamber.     

Atomic structures: the architecture of nuclear nationalism in India and Pakistan

Abstract

A half-century after their completion, India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) stand out as unchallenged architectural advertisements for ‘nuclear nationalism’. Elsewhere, Atoms for Peace reactors made no pretence to architectural refinement. In the right hands, however, ‘Cold War Modern’ could express the hard power of the nuclear age. For India and Pakistan, these nuclear laboratory complexes became the public faces of the peaceful atom that held out the promise, and masked the peril, of the atomic age at home and abroad, and deliberately deflected attention away from clandestine nuclear weapons programmes. BARC and PINSTECH, envisioned as cornerstones for self-confident and self-reliant programmes of nuclear physics, embodied the paradox of postcolonial science, necessarily borrowing from the West but determined to break the cycle of dependency, in defiance of Western expectations.     

States of Insecurity

Under Communism, Albania and North Korea rejected de-Stalinisation, clung to leader cults, and, after the acrimonious break between Moscow and Beijing, championed ‘self-reliance’. Often mentioned in passing, the Albanian–North Korean parallel has seldom been analysed. This article highlights three aspects that shaped the Communist regimes' insecurity: the social dynamics of war and early threats; the challenge presented by de-Stalinisation in 1956; and the momentous Sino–Soviet split in the early 1960s. Like the boisterous language of Marxism-Leninism and the drive to engineer a non-capitalist society, insecurity was also built into the Communist international system. Clinging to Stalinist methods, then, was also a reflection of the self-destructive potential of calls for reforming the Communist system, which threatened to tear the Eastern bloc apart. Tirana and Pyongyang pursued different paths to ‘self-reliance’, yet they could not help speaking a similar language and facing similar problems. North Korea ultimately joined the Non-Aligned Movement but achieved little success in the Third World. The irony is that tiny, isolated Albania, which shunned the Movement, ultimately ended up non-aligned: violently critical of Moscow, Beijing, and Washington, and distrustful of practically everyone else.     

Smoking bans for private vehicles: children's rights and children's voices

Smoking bans have recently expanded to private vehicles in which children are present. This study considers the place of children's rights and children's voices in this policy initiative, with respect to the Canadian context, where vehicular smoking bans have been widely adopted. First, we examine print media reports, finding children's right to health was acknowledged less frequently than an array of competing adult rights. Children's voices were largely absent from the record. Second, we report on focus groups involving 23 young people in Edmonton, Alberta, highlighting participants' strong support for bans, based on their knowledge of health harms, aversion to smoke, and awareness that children have limited ability to contest adult authority in vehicles. We conclude that vehicular smoking bans may address the situation whereby children are forced to share an unhealthy environment, in breach of their rights.     

Reaching across: institutional barriers to cross‐ethnic parties in post‐conflict societies and the case of Northern Ireland

This paper investigates the paradox in post‐conflict societies of continued marginality of cross‐ethnic parties despite significant convergence in public attitudes and identities. In so doing, it examines the argument that parties that attempt to reach across the divide are constrained by consocational institutions designed to accommodate rival identities in such environments. The paper explores this puzzle in the context of Northern Ireland, drawing upon qualitative evidence from elite interviews and focus groups collected in 2012 and 2013. It concludes that cross‐community parties operating in the region do encounter formal institutional barriers, but that such barriers only partially explain the phenomenon and an interplay between formal and informal constraints underlies their position of relatively limited electoral success.     

1971年印巴危机期间美国的难民政策与美印在难民问题上的角力

1971年印巴危机是冷战时代一次具有重大国际影响的地区危机。危机期间,因受东巴内战与印巴冲突的双重影响,大量东巴居民逃往印度,沦为难民。东巴难民持续涌入印度不仅是东巴危机转变为印巴危机的主要诱因,同时也是导致南亚持续紧张、敌对氛围难以消解的重要根源。为妥善解决难民问题,美国积极谋划,投入大量人力、物力、财力,意图妥善解决难民问题,化解危机。但是美国采取的积极措施并未减缓危机冲突的不断升级。在处理难民问题的过程中,美巴政策协调趋于一致,而印度与美巴在难民问题上的政策倾向却渐行渐远。归根究底,是否应该在难民问题上附加最终促成东巴独立的政治条件是美巴与印度的根本分歧所在。而这一根本分歧的悬而未决最终成为引爆第三次印巴战争的导火索。     

元代徽州路的军功家族

文章利用《汪氏渊源录》和《回岭汪氏宗谱》以及相关元代文集为主要参考资料,研究了元代徽州路的军功家族群体,尤其是其中的典型个案———婺源回岭汪氏。作者认为婺源回岭汪元龙、汪元圭兄弟在宋元易代之际,因为归附蒙元及“保障乡里”之功走上致身荣显的仕宦之路,他们不仅自身建立了可观的权势,而且有效地将之世代传承,以与元朝统治相始终,最终使婺源回岭汪氏家族成为“朱紫满庭”的“新安巨室”。在元代的徽州,类似的军功家族分布广泛,人数众多,深具影响。他们的出现,与元代统治者重视“根脚”的政治铨选原则紧密相关,与那些在蒙元征服战争中出现的“汉军世家”具有相似的来源和特点。     

建国前夕英美对华政策的分歧及其原因

新中国建立前夕,鉴于英美在华的利益侧重点、外交传统以及与国民党及其政府的历史关系存在不同,两国在对华政策上出现分歧,最终在诸如是否撤出中国、是否对新中国实施贸易管制以及是否打破国民党对上海的封锁等系列问题上立场迥异,争执激烈,并最终各行其是。根本而言,这是英美经通盘考虑后从自身利益出发所做出的政策抉择,同时也是两国不同的外交传统在对华政策层面上的集中体现。