A reexamination of the reasons for the closure of the Dunhuang Library Cave

Abstract

Cave 17 or the cave library is located on the northern wall in the hallway of Cave 16 in Mogao Caves, Dunhuang. The murals on the cover layer of Cave 16 are closely connected with the reason why the cave library was sealed. The transformation tableaux of the thousand Buddhas on the cover layer of Cave 16 seems to reflect the thought of the Final Dharma, which could be dated in the late Guiyijun period when Dunhuang was ruled by the Cao family. In 1052, the trend of the Final-Dharma thought flourished in the Liao Dynasty. With the frequent communications between the Guiyijun regime and the Liao, this trend came to Dunhuang and merged with the original thought of the Final Dharma in this region, which tremendously impacted the Buddhist community in Dunhuang. So the local Buddhist community made the transformation tableaux on the mural of Cave 16 and also transformed Cave 17 for storing Buddhist texts as a response to the coming Final Dharma. These activities seem to have led to the eventual sealing of Cave 17.     

Classifying Like a State: Land Dispossession on Eastern Crete’s Contested Mountains

Despite the widespread attention to capital investments in land and property around the globe, the active re-regulating role of the neoliberal state in processes of “accumulation by dispossession” remains underexplored. Through an in-depth look at the dispossession of highly fragmented and loosely regulated private land for windfarm investments on Crete’s eastern corner, Sitia, this paper re-affirms the political nature of the forcible appropriation of land for large-scale investments; dissects the specific mechanisms in which the state dispossesses land on behalf of investors and promotes the forcible appropriation of land from below; and problematises the dialectic relationship of both rupture and continuity between crisis and inherited, path-dependent relations embedded in land. The transformation of Sitia’s loosely regulated, informal relations on land is made possible through the mobilisation of the state’s bureaucratic and normalising powers, which redefine the concept of forest and dispossess through classifying land as such.     

Governing a Liminal Land Deal: The Biopolitics and Necropolitics of Gender

Over the past decade, there has been a surge in large-scale land acquisitions around the world. Yet, increasing evidence suggests that many of the prominent land deals signed during the global land rush are struggling to materialise. This emergent pattern of liminality has important implications for understanding the everyday, contingent, and gendered processes of land deal governance and subject formation. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article examines the gendered governance of a “liminal” land deal in coastal Tanzania, through a case of the EcoEnergy Sugar Project. It shows how the project's prolonged delay has given rise, over time, to two contradistinctive sets of actors and mechanisms of control: biopolitical interventions of international development consultants focused on livelihood improvements, and necropolitical interventions of district paramilitary forces focused on surveillance and violence. While seemingly contradictory, I argue that both enactments of power fundamentally relied on and reproduced normative gender in rural Tanzania.     

From the State to the Shareholder: Rent and the Production of Shareholder Value in Real Estate

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, the use of real estate tax credits to generate shareholder value for investors increased significantly. While tax credits are lauded as crucial to the delivery of social goods like affordable housing, the multiplier effects they supposedly generate fail to account for the hollowing out of the state that occurs as public funds are transferred to shareholders. Through a detailed case study of the historic tax credit industry in the United States, this research shows how many of the banks and financial institutions investing in tax credits have come to rely on overly engineered forms of landownership, deeply discounted credit pricing, and a wave of stock buybacks to boost their corporate profitability. This paper therefore develops a theoretical framework to understand taxation as a financialised accumulation strategy where the state serves as an important—if not problematic—source of real estate profit.     

中晚唐两制草诏格局的形成及演变

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李家崖文化年代再议

李家崖文化典型器类与晚商早期商式铜、陶器的共存关系表明,李家崖文化的年代上限应为殷墟一期,该文化早期与朱开沟文化晚期部分器物形制接近,也表明两种文化之间年代紧密衔接。李家崖文化晚期出现的弧裆鬲与仿铜风格的鬲、鼎分属先周文化和殷商文化因素,据此可推定李家崖文化的年代下限为西周早期,相关文献中关于"鬼方"等北方部族的描述也与上述认识契合。     

胡家草场汉简与尹湾汉简数术文献中的“刑德行时”

荆州胡家草场12号汉墓出土竹简《五行日书》按端、令、罚、刑、德五时占测为事、初病、生子诸事项的吉凶。这篇文献与尹湾汉墓出土的《刑德行时》大体属于同一文献的不同版本,两相比照,有助于加深对其文本源流、内涵的理解和认识。     

洛阳新发现唐天宝三载石幢考释

2016年8月,洛阳匾额博物馆前施工时挖出一件唐代石幢的幢身,据其刻铭可知,该石幢立于唐天宝三载(744年),为彭城县尉张悌所立,其上所刻经文为《佛说业报差别经·施灯明功德品》。经考证,该石幢应为唐代佛寺灯台的幢形灯身。此外,张悌为比丘尼之"养男"的身份也为同类刻铭中少见,为研究唐人的日常生活提供了重要的实物材料。