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...     

The Judicial Bookshelf

"In law, also, men make a difference," ¹ counseled Felix Frankfurter the year before his appointment to the Supreme Court. Frankfurter highlighted one of the three critical components of judicial decision-making in constitutional law: alongside the text of the Constitution itself and the cases that pose various questions for decision are the women and men who answer those questions. Those answers, as Frankfurter believed, are invariably influenced by the values Justices bring with them to the Bench. Yet he was expressing no newfound truth, but an awareness that had been apparent for a long time. "Impressed with a conviction that the true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government," President George Washington wrote future Attorney General Edmund Randolph in 1789, "I have considered the first arrangement of the judicial department as essential to the happiness of our country and the stability of its political system." To be sure, the Court's role in the political system was unclear, but Washington realized the impact the Court might have in the young Republic. This required, he told Randolph, "the selection of the fittest characters to expound the laws and dispense justice." ² And as he filled the six seats Congress had authorized for the Supreme Court, the first President made sure that each nominee was a strong supporter of the new Constitution.     

The Judicial Bookshelf

Millions were reminded on January 20, 2009, that the inauguration of an American President is as remarkable as it is routine. In this distinctly republican rite, the chief executive publicly subordinates himself to the fundamental law of the land. As the Constitution dictates, “[b]efore he enters on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: ‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’” ¹ This display of constitutional fealty was remarkable because the variety of political systems, experiences, and cultures across today's globe graphically illustrates that the seamless and peaceful transfer of authority from one political party or individual to another, as was witnessed at President Barack Obama's inauguration and at President George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001, is not always a foregone occurrence everywhere. January's event was routine in that, from the outset of government under the Constitution and with the notable and tragic exception of 1860, the defeated party or individual has accepted, if not welcomed, the verdict rendered by the electoral process. That was the outcome even in 1800, when the notion of a violence‐free shift of control in a country founded on the principle of government by the “consent of the governed” ² was first put to the test at the presidential level. The assumption of authority by Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic‐Republicans from John Adams and the Federalists marked the world's first peaceful transfer of power from the vanquished to the victors as the result of an election. ³ Given the stark national partisan differences that had crystallized in the short time since ratification of the Constitution and the fact that finalization of the election required extraordinary intervention by the House of Representatives to break an Electoral College tie, this outcome was a greater achievement than is sometimes acknowledged. “Partisanship prevailed to the bitter end and showed no signs of abating,” according to one historian who has recently revisited this critical and precedent‐setting election. “Over the campaign's course, George Washington's vision of elite consensus leadership had died, and a popular two‐party republic … was born.” ⁴     

Oral Advocacy and the Re-emergence of a Supreme Court Bar

Over the past generation, roughly the period since 1980, there has been a discernible professionalization among the advocates before the Supreme Court, to the extent that one can speak of the emergence of a real Supreme Court bar. Before defending that proposition, it is probably worth considering whether advocacy makes a difference—whether oral argument matters. My view after one year on the opposite side of the bench is the same as that expressed by no less a figure than Justice John Marshall Harlan—the second one—forty-nine years ago, after he completed his year on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. ¹ Justice Harlan lamented what he saw as a growing tendency among the bar "to regard the oral argument as little more than a traditionally tolerated part of the appellate process," a chore "of little importance in the decision of appeals." ² This view, he said, was "greatly mistaken." ³ As Justice Harlan told the bar, "[Y]our oral argument on appeal is perhaps the most effective weapon you have got." ⁴     

Quartz recrystallization and fluid flow during contact metamorphism: a cathodoluminescence study

Cathodoluminescence (CL) images of quartz grains in the Appin Quartzite from the aureole of the Ballachulish Igneous Complex (Scotland) reveal a textural complexity that we interpret in the light of published models of the evolution of the contact aureole. Five distinct generations of quartz can be discriminated in CL. The oldest of these is a dark luminescing mottled quartz (Type 1 quartz) that occurs in the centres of pre‐existing grains, in samples collected from 210 m to 0.1 m from the contact. Dark mottled quartz is interpreted to be unrecrystallized material and has a regional metamorphic CL spectral signature. The onset of contact metamorphism resulted in grain growth visible in CL as a series of fine‐scale alternating bands of bright and dark luminescing material (Type 2 quartz), which we attribute to infiltration of repeated pulses of small amounts of H₂O along grain boundaries. Close to the intrusion, a subgrain‐scale network of intragranular, bright luminescing features could have resulted from either intragranular microcrack‐controlled infiltration of H₂O at high temperatures or intergranular cracking followed by grain growth (Type 3 quartz). Broad bands of bright material on grain boundaries in samples that are inferred to have undergone partial melting are interpreted as quartz crystallized from the melt phase (Type 4 quartz). The final stage in the textural development is marked by a series of aligned fractures, detected in CL by nonluminescing material (Type 5 quartz) and corresponding closely with trails of fluid inclusions. These fractures are interpreted as the pathways for late‐stage, low‐temperature, retrogressive fluids.