Han Chinese,Manchu, and Western Spaces: The Changing Facade of Imperial Education in Qing Beijing

The physical spaces of imperial education during the Qing were carefully constructed sites of political architecture that sought to shape the behavior of princes, emperors, and their teachers while projecting dynamic images of power. This article examines a range of buildings associated with the Qing pedagogical apparatus. It argues that the changing spaces of imperial education drew on both classical ideals and international iconographies of power to create and disseminate a fluid vision of rule. In the eighteenth century, the Qianlong emperor ordered the construction of the Biyong Hall at the center of the Imperial Academy in Beijing for exclusive use by the emperor during the Imperial Lecture, combining classical Han Chinese and Manchu expressions of authority. Throughout the nineteenth century, heirs to the throne and young emperors were trained in classrooms filled with calligraphy penned by their ancestors. Aphorisms drawing on the Confucian classics, as well as Daoist and Buddhist texts, urged the young rulers to strive for dynastic renewal. Finally, at the start of the twentieth century as the Qing worked to transition to a constitutional monarchy, imperial classrooms around Beijing were infused with Western architectural styles, incorporating new strands of authority for the reforming Qing dynasty.     

The World Map as an Emblem: Abraham Ortelius and the Stoic Contemplation

Although the close association of word and image in medieval cartography is widely acknowledged, the significance of the relationship after the rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geography and throughout the Renaissance has been overlooked, despite Abraham Ortelius's choice of the term ‘Reader’ for users of the Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570). In this paper, the map of the world, which (as in Ptolemy's Geography) opens Ortelius's Theatrum, is analysed to show how Ortelius's concept of space was very different from Ptolemy's. Attention is drawn to the content of the texts on the map, to Ortelius's notion of geography as the eye of history, and to the importance in the Renaissance of the emblem as a conceit, or device, in the system of acquisition and transmission of knowledge. As in emblems, the words on Ortelius's map are not there to explain or to comment on what is seen but to give the image meaning; the purpose of the map is to invite contemplation of God's world. The map is contradictory, however; for Ortelius's accurate and up‐to‐date presentation of the physical world is qualified by a verbal statement that the world is ‘nothing’, a mere pinpoint in the immensity of the universe. It is concluded that Ortelius was not a geographer in the same way Ptolemy was, and that Ortelius was using geography as a philosopher and his world map as an illustration of his moral and religious thinking.     

First Trials to Set Up a Microwave Reflectometric Tool for the Survey of Historic Timber Structures

Timber structures can be degraded during their life both by structural problems and by biological degradation factors like fungi and insects. The occurrence of those biodegradation agents could lead to a loss of their structural integrity, in the absence of appropriate maintenance. An early assessment of the decay is even more important when the wooden structures are part of historical buildings, in the interest of conservation of cultural heritage.

This article presents an application of microwave reflectometry for the in situ evaluation of timber structures. The measurement system allows detecting anomalies inside the material in a non-destructive and non-invasive manner.

The reflection coefficient is measured by means of a vector network analyzer (VNA) using a double-ridge antenna which transmits the continuous-wave (CW) microwave signal and receives the signal reflected by the material under investigation.

Measurements on laboratory models demonstrated the feasibility of the method. Results obtained on timber beam sections, compared with the findings of traditional investigation methodologies, demonstrate the potentiality of microwave reflectometry, suggesting its possible usefulness during the diagnostic phase as a non-invasive tool for preliminary screening.     

Villagizing the city: turning rural ethnic heritage into urban modernity in southwest China

This paper examines the rural ethnic heritage-inspired transformation of the built environment of a relatively small county town in China. The paper explores the ways village-based ethnic heritage is being repositioned by local leaders as a resource for tourism-oriented revenue generation and for ‘improving’ the ‘quality’ and behaviour of town residents. Viewing heritage as a ‘technology of government,’ the paper provides an analysis based on three interrelated themes: the discourses by which town leaders and planners have conceived the heritage development project as one of improvement, the spatial practices by which those discourses have been realised in the built environment, and the ways residents themselves have appropriated and ‘inhabited’ this new ‘villagized’ city as they go about their everyday urban lives. Based on ethnographic field work, a survey, and extended interviews over a period of four years, the paper finds the town leadership’s faith in the ability of the built environment to shape and improve the conduct of citizens to be overstated. While the town’s transformation has generated a new sense of urban modernity among residents, their ways of inhabiting and using urban space have little relevance to the ‘heritagized’ environment in which they now live.     

Urbanization,ruination, and refusal: racialized geographies in 1920s Rio de Janeiro

This article focuses on a community located in downtown Rio de Janeiro that was destroyed to make way for the commemorations of Brazil’s Centenary of Independence in 1922. Morro do Castelo was once a space customarily inhabited by Afro-descendants, but Italian and Portuguese immigrants predominated there by the time of its destruction. I argue that whatever Castelo’s racial heterogeneity it was imagined and treated as a black space by planners and policy makers, hence its disposability. In Castelo's neglect during the colonial period and in the urbanization projects that sought to destroy it in the first two decades of the 20th century, one can discern the continuity of imperial processes of ruination of racialized spaces and bodies. The article examines ways in which residents of Morro do Castelo established territory and engaged in various forms of refusal when faced with the ruination of their neighborhood. The spatial practices of the hillside’s diverse population suggest that its various racialized and ethnic groups mapped difference onto a palimpsestic site that defied official classificatory systems and troubled official mappings of the concept city.     

Parading urban togetherness: a video record of Brussels' Zinneke Parade

This article introduces the concept of urban togetherness to parade research. We suggest that some parades are practices that establish urban relations and not community, carnival or consumerist relations. We develop this new perspective on the basis of a literature review and an analysis of a parade in Brussels, the Zinneke Parade. In the literature review, we distinguish between three existing perspectives on parades. Research has argued that parades serve to build community and claim identity, to suspend social positions and to enable tourist/consumerist relations. In our analysis, we focus on concrete features of the Zinneke Parade obtained through video recording showing the costumes and objects carried along, the rhythm and sounds, and the borders and interactions established during the parade. We argue that the Zinneke Parade should be understood as a form of urban togetherness in which participants and spectators are exposed to each other in a practice that does not necessarily lead to identification and shared meaning.     

东西互鉴：胡适诗学与意象主义关系再考察

胡适诗学致力于意象的构建与运用,主张以白话入诗,推崇朴实简约的诗风,追求诗体大解放。这与同时代大洋彼岸由埃兹拉·庞德引领的意象派主张有诸多相似之处。基于跨文化的视角,我们不难发现,这两个文学事件间的关系实际上源远流长,彼此遥相呼应,构成了一道特殊的文学景观。胡适的诗学思想是其中国基础、美国经验以及意象主义者的中国想象这三重资源碰触、融合的结果,是东西互鉴的产物,是中美文学、文化交流双向性特点的典型呈现。     

中、日城市内部空间结构比较研究

本文从城市土地利用和生活空间结构两个方面,对中、日城市内部空间结构进行了对比,并从职住关系的视角解释了其形成机制。     

多源数据结合的城市生活空间质量评价——以南京为例

在当前我国社会经济转型的背景下,城市生活空间质量成为居民、学界与政府关注的焦点。采用多源数据,拓展了已有城市生活空间质量的评价维度与评价方法,从舒适性、便利性、健康性、安全性、社会性五个维度构建了评价指标体系,并通过GIS空间分析方法,以南京为例进行了生活空间质量评价并识别其空间分布规律。实证分析表明：①南京的城市生活空间质量存在着明显的空间分异。高质量生活空间呈现明显的等级集聚特征,主中心位于核心区周边1-3 km的圈层,低质量生活空间总体分布较为分散。②在构成生活空间质量的五个维度中,舒适性和社会性的发展质量呈现由城市中心向外围递增的趋势,便利性的发展质量呈现由城市中心向外围递减的趋势,健康性受城市环境质量分布趋势的影响,呈现由西北向东南递减的趋势,安全性的高值集聚不显著而低值集聚于城市中心区。     

仪式活动视角下的集体记忆和象征空间的建构过程及其机制研究——以南京大学校庆典礼为例

仪式活动是集体记忆、象征空间与地方认同建构源头,因其研究有助于揭示城市各空间尺度内的公共生活竞争的内在机制,因此已成为西方文化地理学的重要研究命题;但此类以仪式活动为视角,揭示集体记忆、象征空间建构过程及其机制的研究,在国内极少。鉴于其研究重要意义,文章以南京大学校庆典礼为例,运用文献研究、田野考察、访谈等多种定性与定量方法,探讨了自上而下的仪式活动,即校庆建构集体记忆、象征空间、地方认同的过程及其机制,为校园特别是新校园或扩建校园的纪念物建设与规划提供科学依据。