Haunting the State: Rumours,Spectral Apparitions and the Longing for Buddhist Charisma in Laos

Buddhist ascetic monks and hermits that move largely outside of the institutional structures of the monastic order (sangha) have a long history in mainland Southeast Asia. In Lao Buddhism these figures seem to have largely disappeared, but due to their charismatic qualities they still occupy a crucial position in the social imaginary. This article explores rumours and narratives about the existence of ascetic monks and hermits in contemporary Laos. I argue that rumours about, and narratives of, spectral apparitions of these figures express a longing for Buddhist charisma that is partially rooted in Laos’ revolutionary past, and in recent social and economic changes. As Buddhist charisma can point to alternative, personalised sources of power, I argue that rumours and spectral apparitions can be interpreted as haunting, and therefore afflicting and challenging the current politics of religion of the Lao state.     

THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE: ENGLISH OBSERVATION OF IRISH SOCIAL CUSTOMS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract

In seventeenth-century cheap print on supernatural themes, the reader is often struck by gaps, silences, and things that do not quite add up. The article explores ways of reading between the lines to expose and perhaps make sense of these discontinuities. It asks what cultural work is performed by the supernatural in such texts, and speculates on the uses served by ghosts, fairies and demons both in the self-representation of subaltern, often female, individuals and in the textual strategies of the pamphlet writers.     

弄玉、紫玉传说蕴含的历史“远景”

本文对弄玉、紫玉传说所蕴含历史价值的相似处作出分析,认为它们的历史“远景”是上古公女丧葬中的人殉制度。同时,本文亦辨析了在两则传说文本定型的过程中,后代所融入的文化元素：神鬼观念和墓葬风俗。     

莱夷玉文化板块探析——胶县三里河大汶口文化玉器解读

胶县三里河大汶口文化玉器有璇玑形玉环(玉圆孔边刃三牙器)、玉镞(包括方、圆两种锥形器和四式玉镞)、钏、耳坠、管、环以及鞍形饰、马蹄形饰共35件。玉圆孔边刃三牙器应为女巫事神的玉神器,玉镞中的12件用作尸主口中之唅(琀),体现了鬼神食玉的原始巫教理念。由于三里河大汶口文化遗址和墓葬的地理位置靠山面海,不可避免带有海洋性文化的特点,玉圆孔边刃三牙器就是海洋性玉文化的的象征和例证。距今4500年前后,女巫以玉圆孔边刃三牙器事神,标志着其原始宗教仍处于女巫事神的早期阶段,远远落后于东北夷、东夷两大玉文化男巫为教主的阶段。大汶口文化始于公元前4300年,到公元前2500年前后发展为山东龙山文化。该文化处于北夷、南越两大玉文化板块之间,昊夷玉文化板块之东,故厘定为莱夷玉文化板块。三里河大汶口文化玉器中的玉圆孔边刃器的出现,是莱夷玉文化板块即胶东半岛玉文化板块的标志和结晶,而胶县三里河一带也就是两个玉文化板块的碰撞带和撞击点。     

Social monsters and the walking dead in William of Newburgh's Historia rerum Anglicarum

William of Newburgh's Historia rerum Anglicarum (c.1198) is one of the foremost literary artefacts of the late twelfth century. Contained within Book V are four narratives that detail encounters with the walking dead (‘revenants’). This article contends that the specific placement of these narratives within the Historia encourages the reader to make a metaphysical connection between the activities of the revenant and the conduct of social malcontents. The paper analyses the medieval concept of monstrousness and the cultural context of the Historia’s creation, and argues that learned theories of disease causation underscored the base narratology of the four revenant encounters. Following an appraisal of the unrest caused by Williams FitzOsbert and Longchamp, as well as the kings of England and France, the paper concludes by evaluating the ways in which their social monstrosity was encapsulated by the destabilising and destructive tendencies of the walking corpse.     

CHRONOCENOSIS: HOW TO IMAGINE THE MULTIPLICITY OF TEMPORALITIES WITHOUT LOSING THE EMPHASIS ON POWER AND CONFLICTS

The twentieth century witnessed the historicization of the categories of time and space. Instead of functioning as a universal category, moving from the past to the present and from the present to the future, time has multiplied into temporalities, and historians have looked for adequate metaphors to describe this multiplicity, its many ways of moving forward and backward, its acceleration and decelerations, its entanglements, and its conflicts and struggles for hegemony. The editors of Power and Time: Temporalities in Conflict and the Making of History offer a thought-provoking concept by translating biocenosis, the coexistence of different species in the same environment, to time studies and thus using the term “chronocenosis” to refer to different temporalities sharing the same embattled space. The volume covers a large variety of case studies—ranging from early modern Chinese historical novels to attempts to bring together social and biological time in the discussion of the Anthropocene—and draws together disciplines that are not usually discussed in studies of temporalities, disciplines ranging from law to the history of science.     

宋代的尚巫之风及其危害

信鬼尚巫之俗发展到宋代．由于阶级矛盾的推动、佛道世俗化的刺激。加上统治者对它采取的暧昧政策。呈现出沉渣泛起之势。其时。巫风泛起,流播全国,染及社会各阶层,浸及社会生活各个方面。给社会带来严重的危害。其危害主要表现为：毒害信徒的身心健康,影响民众的生活和生产。败坏社会风气,扰乱社会秩序,甚至危及到赵宋王朝政治上的安定。     

Ghostliness in Asian Diasporic Film and Literature

This paper examines the ways in which tropes of ghostliness and haunting are deployed in three recent books to describe the cultural effects of globalisation, modernisation and transnational movement in contemporary Asian and Asian diasporic film and literature.