Seductive Alienation: The American Way of Life Rearticulated in Occupied Japan

This article explores how the notion of American domesticity promoted by US occupation forces in postwar Japan was decoded and rearticulated by non-elite Japanese women, a social group that has been largely overlooked in studies of the global promotion of the American way of life during the early Cold War years. Specifically examined here is the case of Takehisa Chieko, an actress and the wife of an American officer, who enjoyed high visibility in popular women’s magazines as the embodiment of the idealised postwar American lifestyle. A reading of Takehisa’s magazine writings, interviews, and photographs suggests, however, that she was far from a passive recipient and transmitter of this cultural message. As such, a close unpacking of her rearticulation of the idea of American domesticity toward the particular socio-cultural fabric of postwar Japan reveals the particular nature of this supposedly universal American model. In demonstrating the various dilemmas that stemmed from confronting both the seductive and alienating features of the American way as promoted in occupied Japan, this study illuminates a point of rupture in the larger US global promotion of American domesticity as a means toward cultural hegemony and political containment in the early Cold War period.     

Images of Rabbi Uziel and their place in his commemoration

The article examines changes in the commemoration work and memorial discourse surrounding the first Sephardi Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, Rabbi Ben-Tzion Meir Hai Uziel. While commemoration work in the public sphere in Israel has dwindled over the years, there has been a revival of memory discourse in recent years, especially amongst Religious Zionists. The article proposes reasons for this resurgence, including a response to processes of Haredization of the Sephardi spiritual leadership in Israel and a quest for a source of inspiration for a moderate, Zionist Orthodox rabbinate.     

Socio-demographic differences of disability prevalence among the population aged 60 years and over in Bangladesh

This study aims to delineate the sociodemographic differences in disability prevalence across the population aged 60 years and over in Bangladesh, and to investigate the association of factors with reporting disability in later life. A microdata sample for those aged 60 years or over from the Census of Bangladesh 2011 was used where disability was assessed with a self-reported single response question. Logistic regression models were performed separately for men and women. Results reveal that the disability prevalence rate increased sharply with age, and it was higher among older women (5.2 per cent) compared to men (4.8 per cent). Physical and vision disabilities were the two categories with the highest prevalence of reported disabilities, with a higher prevalence of physical disability among men and vision disability among women. Being older, female, currently not in marital partnership, and having a lower educational attainment, not being employed, living alone, and residing in the rural areas were significantly associated with reporting disability in later life. The higher prevalence of disability among older women, those who are illiterate, and those residing in rural areas highlights the need for policies prioritising these groups. Special attention should also be given to those who are currently not in marital partnership, particularly women who are living alone.     

从“良渚全考古”到“良博全展示”——以良渚博物院2018年改陈策展为例

良渚考古工作历经八十余年,考古内涵不断丰富,考古价值不断提升,已进入到"良渚全考古"时代,是边发现、边研究、边保护、边利用、边传承的模式。2018年良渚博物院改陈,进入"良博全展示"阶段。现有的展览全面展示良渚考古成果,全面呈现良渚文化内涵,全面阐释良渚文明价值,全面解读良渚遗存信息。良渚的展示除了依靠文物本身或图文所呈现和传递的信息,还采用过程性展示、功能性展示、复原性展示、对比性展示、演变性展示、场景性展示等多种手段,多角度、全方位地解读和展示遗物,力图将良渚文物的故事讲清楚、讲明白。     

The Future of Utopia

The widespread notion that the city is secular and that therefore society’s future is secular is in need of serious reconsideration. This paper argues that religion does not melt away but rather morphs into modern forms of aspiration, speculation, and contention. Religion is therefore crucial to social inquiry into the nature of the urban. The paper argues that in Asia the Christian modern is close to the secular modern with fragments of rational planning and calculation in constant interplay with fragments of the magic of speculative modernity. Both communism and market capitalism are ideological cousins of Christian millenarianism. In a comparison of India, China, and Singapore it argues that the Christian form of modernity has been much better able to penetrate and coalesce with Sinic civilizational traditions than with Indic civilizational traditions.     

Introduction: Biographies Between Spheres of Empire

ABSTRACT

Biographical research offers a promising approach to the study of empire, imperialism and colonialism. The careers and life stories of individuals and generations show particularly clearly the disruptions and constraints, but also the new possibilities and mobilities, that were created by colonial rule. This special issue focuses on practices and experiences of boundary crossing in imperial and colonial history. It explores how ‘ordinary’ individuals and groups navigated between the different imperial spaces and spheres into which they were categorised according to the ideologies and regulations of the well-ordered colonial world. Africa offers particularly interesting cases for studying these issues because, first, it was a field of particularly rigid colonial distinctions and, second, different colonial empires overlapped and competed there with particular intensity. This introduction outlines briefly the relevance of biographical research for new approaches in imperial, colonial and African history, and highlights the major themes of the five articles comprising this special issue. It is argued that these new biographical approaches tell us much not only about life in Africa on the eve of and under colonial rule, but also more generally about both the power and the permeability of imperial domination and of colonial categories.     

Eine gelernte Lebensweise: Figurationen des Gelehrtenlebens zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit

A Learned Way of Life: Figurations of Scholarly Life between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. – With the erosion of professors' obligatory celibacy in northwestern European universities of the high Middle Ages, scholars found themselves facing the task of redefining their mode of life and establishing a new type of families, combining social reproduction and the transmission of academic knowledge, and adopting daily habits and dispositions which would allow them to lead the life of the mind within crowded family households without the collective discipline and material infrastructure provided by communal institutions, such as colleges. Building on the author's earlier work, the paper sketches a synthetic view of the major elements of the scholars' emerging way of life, arguing that this transformation provides a unique opportunity for studying how a way of life takes shape, being explicitly discussed and experimented with. Shaping a rational, or rather systematically rationalized way of life, it is argued, is a major contribution of the scientific tradition to making modern cultures.     

清宫大白伞盖佛母信仰探析

清代宫廷对白伞盖佛母的崇拜出现了显著的发展,特别在乾隆时期,除在宫中大量制作白伞盖佛母像外,还在北京及其周边地区的各大寺庙制作供奉精美的绘画和雕塑,甚至专门兴建寺院来供奉白伞盖佛母像。其信奉目的和崇拜方式等方面的特点,目前尚很少有专门的论述见诸文献。本文借助清宫档案及现存清代原状佛堂内白伞盖佛母的陈设情况,试图说明清代宫廷是将白伞盖佛母作为重要的福寿保护神来供奉的,并不是简单地继承元代的信仰传统而是另有传承和发展。     

1992年以来我国城镇居民居住消费的变化趋势

1992年之后,我国明确了建立社会主义市场经济体制的目标,城镇住房制度改革取得了实质性突破,城镇居民居住消费发生了深刻变化。居民购房公平自由,私有住房的比重急剧攀升,住房设施日益完善,居住环境不断优化,居住开支迅猛增长,城镇居民居住水平获得了前所未有的提高。然而受不正确的思想观念的影响,在居民居住消费过程中,一些诸如住宅私有率过高、住宅面积过大、一房伴终身等严重脱离实际需要和基本国情的问题日益突出。