《睡虎地秦墓竹简》词语札记十则

《睡虎地秦墓竹简》是出土秦简中的重要文献,对其研究日渐深入。本文运用训诂、文字、音韵等知识,对《睡虎地秦墓竹简》中“筭、、、播、、索、、、、等训,注中的失误,对一些义提出己见。     

旅游者"符号性消费"行为之思考--由"雅虎中国"的一项调查说起

改革开放以来,我国某些社会阶层的消费行为呈现出符号化、时尚性、讲究身份象征等倾向,即所谓“符号性消费”。本文从“雅虎中国”网的一项调查入手,通过云南元阳梯田案例,证明这一现象在旅游消费行为中也客观存在。某些旅游者认为,旅游是一种时尚追求,选择到哪里旅游、怎样旅游,都能体现出人们对自己社会角色扮演的定位和评价,以及对自己地位区隔的认可和接受。这种“符号性消费”行为对旅游地的社会建构意义应该引起关注。     

Nation-building and Canada's national symbolic order, 1993–2015

This article examines the symbolic construction of Canadian national identity by the 1993–2006 Liberal governments and the 2006–2015 Conservative governments. To do so, it employs the concept of a ‘national symbolic order’, which refers to the complex set of public symbols that invoke, transport, and define claims to a shared national identity. Within Canada's national symbolic order, we focus on the state's use of national symbols across two domains: Speeches from the Throne and banknotes. Our analysis shows that Canada's recent Conservative government has used both of these domains to reshape Canadian national identity in ways that accord with neo-conservative values and ideology, and that it has done so in a coherent, consistent, and comprehensive fashion. This analysis highlights the symbolic strategies employed by state actors in linking particular ideologies to their nation-building projects; these strategies span multiple political and policy spaces.     

CREATIVE CLUSTERS IN BERLIN: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE QUALITY OF PLACE IN PRENZLAUER BERG AND KREUZBERG

Urban creative clusters are currently a major focus of attention, as their prominent position in both local political and academic circles makes evident. Many authors stress the importance of spatial concentration for creative industries. However, only a few studies have focused on the individual entrepreneur. As a result, empirical evidence of the meaning of urban place as a site for social networks and a space for inspiration is still scarce. This is of some consequence as entrepreneurs provide a crucial link between creative activities and economic change and development. This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating how different creative entrepreneurs choose and evaluate their location. Using qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs in two creative clusters in the Berlin neighbourhoods Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg, this article shows the significance of the look and feel of specific places and explains how and for whom local networks are important.     

Performing Inequality in Mediterranean Diplomacy

Abstract

Early modern Mediterranean diplomacy was marked by multiple and contrasting claims to superiority which derived from competing normative orders. These practices are the focus of the first part of this paper, which shows how claims to superiority were performed in the practice of diplomacy and how stable and pacific relations could be maintained within a context of competing normative orders. Instead of privileging the religious divide between Islam and Christianity, the paper suggests that a better understanding of how multiple universalisms interacted with each other in practice may better explain the apparently paradoxical durability of pacific relations between Muslim and Christian rulers in the wider Mediterranean area of the early modern period. The second part reframes the transformations in Franco-Tunisian diplomatic practice from the late eighteenth century onward within the context of a global history of growing imbalances. The espousal of definitions of sovereignty derived from the European ius gentium to the exclusion of all others led to a redefinition of who had the rights and honors to engage in foreign relations. The early modern pluralism evolved into an increasingly unequal bipolarity, finally resulting in the economic, military and symbolic predominance of allegedly ‘civilized’ European powers over the ‘uncivilized’ rest.