信息定位型展览:提升中国博物馆品质的契机

信息定位型展览以博物馆的综合素质为基础,涉及到博物馆的收藏政策,藏品研究的深度与系统性,展览组织的合理性,展览的传播技术及与展览相关的辅助教育等。只有各个环节都符合科学的要求,才有可能建造观众喜欢看、看得懂,能得到启迪与教益的展览。因此,应以信息定位展览的建设为契机,确立以"保存社会记忆"为核心价值观的收藏政策;加强藏品研究,为信息定位型展览提供学术支撑;建立合理的程序与标准,开展展览评估,打造具有良好传播能力的展览;拓展深化传播效果,开展丰富的公众教育活动,从而从根本上提高当代博物馆的品质。     

博物馆策展人:学者艺术鉴赏家展览组织者——屈志仁先生专访

博物馆策展人的素质与能力是博物馆陈列展览特别是专题展览成功的关键因素之一.美国大都会艺术博物馆亚洲艺术部主任、国际著名博物馆策展人屈志仁先生以"忽必烈的时代"展为例指出:博物馆策展人应同时具备学者、艺术鉴赏家与展览组织者的素质与能力,通晓与展览有关的历史学、艺术史、文化史及文物与博物馆学等学科知识,组织、协调从研究策划...     

博物馆古建筑保护与功能提升——以南京博物院老大殿改造为例

南京博物院主体建筑老大殿,是中国近代建筑中唯一采用现代结构形式的仿辽代建筑。近年,南京博物院采用整体顶升、隔震加固等先进技术对其进行修缮保护,不仅有效增强了其抗震水平,还扩大了建筑的空间面积、提升了空间使用功能、丰富了展示内容和方式,为优秀古建筑的保护利用提供了新的技术思路,也为优秀古建筑的保护利用与博物馆馆舍建设及博物馆各项事业发展的相互促进积累了成功经验。     

Grassroots Environmental Activism and the Internet: Constructing a Green Public Sphere in China

The past three decades have seen the resurgence of China's civil society through the blossoming of NGOs that campaign for various marginalised interests, including environmental protection. Many studies have examined the co-evolution of the Internet and China's civil society. This paper examines the role of the Internet in strengthening grassroots environmental activism, taking into consideration the corporatised character of Chinese NGOs. Through a detailed ethnographic case study of a leading grassroots environmental group, the Global Village of Beijing (GVB), I argue that Internet technologies effectively empower resource-poor activists in their self-representation, information brokering, network building, public mobilisation and construction of discourse communities. The Net therefore contributes to the nascent formation of a green public sphere in China by fostering a discourse that counterbalances rapid economic development. Also discussed here are issues that hamper this process, including resource limitations, the fragmentation of online discourse communities, and the marginalisation and “caging” of environmental discourse.     

The Netherlands in the constellation of the eighteenth-century Western revolutions

In the constellation of the eighteenth-century revolutions, the French events have always occupied a dominant position. Consequently the other European upheavals have been considered as being provoked or strongly influenced by France. Yet, the Dutch revolutions in the 1780s and 1790s provide some important nuances to this interpretation. Before the French took over the Bastille, there was already a Dutch revolution with devoted Patriots, speaking about rights of man and constitutions. The Patriots had to flee abroad in 1787. In 1795, thanks to the French Army, they were able to return to their drawing boards, eager to think anew their government and society. This paper investigates how they did it and whether the American and French precedents were so influential after all in the construction of the Batavian Republic.     

Trace-element evidence for foreigners at a Maya port in Northern Yucatan

The present paper explores the potentials of trace elements in human dental enamel to indicate mobility and to detect the presence of individuals who had migrated into a community after childhood. Three Pre-Hispanic samples of infants from the Yucatán peninsula were chosen, one from the northern coast (Xcambó), one from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Campeche) and the last one from the tropical inland rain forest (Calakmul). Infants’ first permanent molars are the term of reference because infants were very likely born in the same place where they died and therefore are supposed to represent the local geo-chemical environment. Their chemical signature was then compared to the one of the adults from the site of Xcambó. The elemental composition was recorded by means of laser ablation-time of flight-ICP-MS. Sr and Ba (and secondly Mg and I) discriminate well the three infant samples. All the Early Classic adults from Xcambó fall within the range of variation of the site’s infants, while 25% of the Late Classic adults fall outside the range in agreement with archaeological, bioarcheological, and isotopic evidence. LA-ICP-Ms analyses of trace elements in archaeological samples can be an important analytical tool to detect foreigners in local populations. The selection of infants as reference values helps reduce the limits faced by trace element analyses in past human populations studies.     

Globalization in Solidarity

Abstract

Globalization is an economic, social, cultural, and political phenomenon. Considering globalization as evil in itself or as a panacea for all the problems is not realistic. In general, globalization is welcomed by the elite and the corporate sector in India, whereas the poor are generally against it. Considering the impact of globalization on economic life, culture, and the environment in India, this article tries to see why globalization needs to integrate the values of justice and solidarity if it really wants to facilitate true human development.

In spite of the advancement in technology, communication and trade, inequalities, exploitation, and corruption have increased in a globalized world. Economy needs ethics to function correctly. Globalization has an inherent tendency to bring homogeneity in socio-cultural and religious life. Consequently, the indigenous cultures feel threatened. Only by respecting the uniqueness of cultures, globalization can strengthen cultures through healthy dialogue rooted in solidarity. Another important aspect of solidarity is solidarity with nature. To enhance real human development, globalization should safeguard ecology, discerning the needs of the present generation, as well as future generations.

Globalization is not first all about money, market, or competition, but about people and their interconnectedness. Economic prosperity, if it does not ensure justice to all, will not lead to long-lasting peace and development. Justice is rooted in love and solidarity with all.     

THE CAREER OF L. S. BERG

The following appraisal is by Eduard M. Murzayev, physical geographer and toponymist, with interests in Mongolia and Central Asia, who was a student of Berg at Leningrad University, and since this graduation in 1930 has been associated with the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences USSR, first in Leningrad and after 1936 in Moscow. This article is based on a talk given by Murzayev in March 1976 at a memorial session of the Geographical Society USSR in Leningrad.     

Colonial intellectuals at the end of Empire: Manning Clark's Australia and Guy Butler's South Africa

Abstract

Colonial masters considered it their right to take human remains collected from colonies or plundered as a result of war. The skulls of Chief Mkwawa and the sub-chief Songea were looted in the same manner from Tanganyika (now Tanzania) to Germany. While Chief Mkwawa’s skull was returned in 1954, the demands for sub-chief Songea’s skull are ongoing, with the Tanzanian community contesting ownership of human remains in European museums. The absence of bones in graves, particularly those of chiefs, have a major impact on the colonised people as graves are associated with communities’ spirituality and wellbeing. This article shows that without a final resting place for the victims of colonialism, mourning is difficult, traumatic and endless. Individuals, communities and nations bestow social, cultural and political significance on human remains, even those curated in museums. The significance of each group is attached to the affective memorialisation of personal bereavement. What happens, then, when the memorialised graves were created at a time when mourning was impossible and the authority to bury or not to bury was in hands of the colonisers? How do the colonial plunder of human body parts and the demands for their return unfold in the contemporary history of Tanzania? These are some of the questions