Disney World as Structure and Symbol: Re-Creation of the American Experience

It has been said that the Disney theme parks are the cities America wishes it had; immune to death and taxes, clean, orderly, crime-free family style environments of optimism and nostalgia, politically independent, with the advantages but few of the vices of real cities. Treatments of the amusement park in political terms, such as Michael Harrington's Atlantic article, “To the disney Station,” while invariably critical, indicate the important position these places have attained as complex institutions in themselves—living commentaries on society at Large, as well as important standard-setters for new social, political and economic philosophy for planning and control in all sectors of national life. In this way, Disney's worlds—and parks built under their influence—have come to be viewed as societies in miniature, reliable images of work, leisure, human relations and politics in the larger world outside. Here anthropologist David Johnson uses morphology as the key to discerning the meanings of these prototype parks for basic cultural values in many aspects, including work, class, economic order, technology, individualism, history, and cross-cultural adventure. In fact, these Disney versions have now themselves become a special mode of first-hand experience in the repertoire of the great national shared experience.     

Disneyland and Walt Disney World: Traditional Values in Futuristic Form

The Disney parks—Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida—presented a radical refinement and departure from the traditions of the amusement park: the theme park. Designed for the values of long distance travel, suburban lifestyle, family life, the major vacation excursion, and the new visual culture of telecommunications, these places have grown to attain the status of national popular culture capitals. Because of their importance to American life, these institutions have suffered more than their share of attacks as key symbols ofpopular culture. Like all such targets of elitist ire (led by such accusations as “plastic” and “mindless”), the Disney parks must be experienced carefully and studied closely to see beyond these simplistic slings and arrows. Emerging from this study was a contention directly opposed to the common wisdom of the theme parks' futuristic and artificial nature: they may in fact serve as cultural preserves for the most nostalgic images and dreams of a nation. They are a very special kind of museum, of course—of past and future not as they were or will be but as popular taste has shaped and nurtured them in the collective imagination. The Disney “archive” of Americana is thus highly valuable as a display of popular thought on every featured theme.     

Cedar Point: A Park in Progress

This is a biography of an amusement park, Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, by its marketing director. This life history, using sources close to the park and in the popular press ouer many decades, traces the many shifts in circumstance, philosophy and mood in its development ouer a span from 1897 to its present status as “one of the great parks of the country.” This case study of a single park that has incorporated characteristics of many growth stages ofparks ingeneral serues as a capsule history: from its beginnings as a resort; expansion of rides and attractions during the flush years of the 1920s; the backsliding deterioration of the Depression years and the immediatepost- War period; the decline of the big-city parks and the moue to the suburbs in the 50s; and the Disney effect: the advent of the national super theme park, with its revolutionary impact on the traditional park concept. According to Hildebrandt, Cedar Point is “the only modern superpark that also has an ancient history…. the only old-time amusement park to successfully make the transition to the new amusement park culture.”     

Office of Economic Opportunity: U.S.A.

The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), was created at the height of Lyndon Johnson's “Great Society” anti-poverty programmes. It represented a degree of radical activism that reached its culmination in the 89th Congress (1965-66) and indeed has never been repeated: that Congress was perhaps the only genuinely left-liberal one this century (outside the New Deal era, at any rate). The OEO's social policies were tied to a particular theory of public and social administration: that a “rival” federal agency to the existing ones (Health, Education and Welfare, now Health and Human Services; Housing, and Urban Development, et al) could escape their conservative norms. Both at the federal level and in the “field” agencies it spanned to implement its programmes, the new approach to social administration was to by-pass traditional channels. This short, illustrative rather than definitive article, examines how such an approach was undermined by both the U.S. political structure and by traditional “politics as usual”. It is but a snapshot of the era. However, it hints at the general problems that such approaches to “by-passing” traditional agencies and attempting to develop a new autonomy in social reform may have in many countries, especially those with decentralized political structures. For, while decentralized politics provides opportunities as well as barriers to reformers seeking to by-pass traditional elites (which themselves tend to be decentralized, mirroring political structures), it is suggested here that the balance sheet will tend to be negative from the viewpoint of reformist social administration.     

COI Policies: Tax Dollars Should Not Be Used to Fund U.S. Institutions Not Making the Grade

Over two billion dollars was awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in research funding from 2010 to March 2012 to institutions receiving a grade of “C,” “D,” or “F” on their conflict of interest policies, as determined by the American Medical Student Association's scorecard on conflict of interest policies. More institutional oversight is needed with regard to assuring conflict of interest policies at U.S. research institutions are adequate. As stewards of public funds, HHS should require a minimum standard which institutional conflict of interest policies should meet, beyond current regulatory requirements, before granting funding.     

The Sale of Two Cities: A Semiotic Comparison of Disneyland with Marriott's Great America

Much is revealed through the contrast of two related but divergent forms. In this essay, Elizabeth Mechlingand Jay Mechlingcontrast Disneyland with a later but more loosely themed park, Marriott's Great America in Santa Clara, California. Using the perspectives and methods of semiotics in Louis Marin's Marxist reading, this essay asks, “What are the stories that Disneyland and Marriott's Great America tell?…the ways in which popular culture both teaches and evokes stories that ‘think themselves’ in our minds.” These two parks, though allied in the theme format and rooted in a common bourgeois capitalist culture, are found to promote very different attitudes and values.     

G.H. Mead's Understanding of the Nature of Speech in the Light of Contemporary Research

The following analysis demonstrates that G.H. Mead's understanding of human speech (what Mead often referred to as “the vocal gesture”) is remarkably consistent with today's interdisciplinary field that studies speech as a natural behavior with an evolutionary history. Mead seems to have captured major empirical and theoretical insights more than half a century before the contemporary field began to take shape. In that field the framework known as “Tinbergen's Four Questions,” developed in ecology to study naturally occurring behavior in nonhuman animals, has been an effective organizing framework for research on human speech. It is used in this paper to organize the comparison of Mead with contemporary scholars. The analysis concludes that Mead was, in a sense, “beyond” the Four Questions by recognizing the limitations of reductionist methods in understanding the nature of conscious phenomena, especially language. Mead's socially situated model of the nature of human speech makes him relevant to today's field where some see an undervaluation of the treatment of language as a social process.     

Followership,deity and leadership

Two questions are addressed in this article: 1. Why are people attracted to leaders? 2. How are leaders' images construed? The first question is analyzed by using the concept of “deity” as a frame of reference for an “ideal model” of leadership. God as a “screen of projections” can satisfy the believer's fundamental needs and desires, as well as serving as a reference for causal attributions and a provider of transcendental meaning. Using Construal Level Theory (CLT) (Libermann & Trope, 1998), deity, as a frame of reference, also facilitates analysis of the second question. This analysis explains universal principles underlying the leadership construal, and the psychological principles and culture‐bound processes relevant to construing different images of leadership in different collectives.     

The Effect of Negative Campaign Advertising on Vote Choice: The Mediating Influence of Gender*

Objective. Some studies of negative campaign advertising's impact argue that a backlash or “boomerang effect” exists. However, the appropriate conceptualization of a boomerang effect might not be an immediate backlash against the sponsor but a delayed response that comes after repeated exposure to negative campaign advertisements. Method. We conducted an experiment using a variation of the pretest‐posttest control group design in which treatment groups were exposed to varying numbers of negative campaign advertisements. Results. There is a parabolic effect of repeated exposure to negative advertisements that is gender specific. Among women, the sponsor initially benefits from an enhanced image but suffers a decline in image when the voters become overexposed to negative advertisements. Conclusion. A reconceptualization of the “boomerang effect” of negative campaign advertising is in order.     

Part II: Death in Literature. Poetry as Epitaph

Anyone tolerably versed in American literature will realize that we could have devoted our entire collection to attitudes toward death in American literature. Such a collection could be tightly organized and valuable, but it might also be redundant for an audience which consists primarily of loosened-up literary folk to begin with. So we offer, instead of standard selections, a group of essays which, though they are about death in literature, use literature as a vehicle for discussing either theoretical or practical interpretations of death in American society and letters. Karen Campbell's essay, “Poetry as Epitaph,” uses Emily Dickinson's poetry to illustrate and embody current international theories about death and language. We place this contribution first in this section because it serves as a transition between Gravestones and Epitaphs and Death in Literature: Dickinson was writing at the same historical moment discussed by Kenneth Ames in “Ideologies in Stone,” a fact the reader may wish to remember while reading “Poetry as Epitaph;” and Karen Campbell treats Dickinson's poetry as epitaphic in style and genre. Sonia Gernes' “Life After Life: Katherine Anne Porter's Version” uses Porter's “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” to illustrate and make provocative suggestions about Raymond Moody's theses in Life After Life. Leslier Fiedler's contribution is an extract from a speech given under the auspices of an organization studying the humanist's response to child abuse, and is part of a series of lectures on that subject. He discusses infanticide through literature and then through popular culture. Marvin Kohl takes issue with some of Professor Fiedler's conclusions.     

Education and Smart Growth Policies in U.S. Cities: A Response to Lenahan O'Connell*

Objective. This response to Lenahan O'Connell's article “Exploring the Social Roots of Smart Growth Policy Adoption by Cities” examines whether the relationship between education and the adoption of smart growth programs in U.S. cities is reflective of the new political culture and rooted in postmaterial values or, perhaps, just reflective of a slightly different way of thinking about traditional economic development. Methods. Using data for 45 U.S. cities that have articulated broad policies to try to become more sustainable, this analysis includes a measure of the severity of air pollution as an indicator of the need for smart growth programs. Results. The measure of need is more strongly related to the pursuit of smart growth than is either education or income. Conclusions. Since the level of air pollution is frequently understood to make economic growth difficult or impossible, the results suggest that smart growth programs might be just as likely motivated by traditional economic development as by postmaterial values, and there is a need to develop a deeper understanding of the motivates for adopting such programs.     

Fantasy Lands and Kinesthetic Thrills

ABSTRACT

This article proposes that Coney Island's enclosed amusement parks aided in the transformation of spectacle as total-body experience. By studying the ways that Coney Island's unique beachside resort produced entertainment that appealed to all of the senses, we seek to “make sense” of the amusement area in its historical and geographic specificity. Even in its early years of development the beachside resort was touted (and critiqued) in the popular press as a carnivalesque atmosphere that escalated the senses. With the opening of Steeplechase, Luna Park and Dreamland Coney Island's enclosed amusement parks provided dream worlds of technological and architectural wonder that invited kinesthetic. Coney Island reconfigured the dizzying effects of urbanism, modernity and the capitalist machine as entertainment, inviting pleasure seekers to experience the shock of modernity as fun. Mechanical amusements celebrated and fostered thrill seekers as sensuous beings who experienced leisure not just through their eyes but with and through their entire bodies. Though the impossibilities of recreating the sensorial experiences of pleasure seekers at Coney Island remains a methodological limitation, this article contributes to literature that understands the senses as lived, embodied phenomena that are products of culture.     

试论费孝通的“乡寰视野”

本文根据费孝通的有关理论、观点提出“乡寰视野”、“劦业乡”两个概念，尝试以此来诠释费孝通关于中国城乡社会发展与世界经济之“休戚与共”的理论和实践活动。文章阐述了费孝通“乡寰视野”观的渊源、演进；从概念结构上解明“乡寰视野”中的“乡”和“寰”，以及“劦业乡”各自的内涵构成；通过对映衬费孝通“乡寰视野”历史意识的理论梳理，以及对费孝通晚年就“乡”“寰”关系问题所作阐述的把握，试图以更具综合性的视域对费孝通的这一重要思想作出较为系统的学理解释。文章最后指出，费孝通倡导“文化自觉”体现出了更为宽广、更为仁至的人文关怀的情愫。“乡寰视野”中的纯真的愿景，是“‘美好社会’的意念”。     

Social Representations and Repression: Examining the First Formulations of Freud and Moscovici

The English edition of Moscovici's classic work on the social representation of psychoanalysis enables us to reflect on the historical origins of psychoanalytic ideas and of social representation theory itself. Moscovici claimed that science was both univocal and abstract and, in these respects, it differs from the social representations of commonsense. This paper explores these notions, especially in relation to Moscovici's claim that psychoanalytic theory is to be found in Freud's first formulations. It is suggested that some of the processes, which Moscovici attributes to the passage of psychoanalytic ideas to commonsense, can be found occur in the early history of psychoanalysis. This can be seen in Freud's criticisms of the way Jung used the concept of “complex”. Moreover, psychoanalytic theory could never be univocal for it incorporated the voices of patients and their representations of the world. An examination of Studies on Hysteria reveals further multivocality as Freud uses both the “action” language of ordinary life and the reified, nominalized language of science. Examples are given in relation to the first formulations of the key psychoanalytic concept of “repression”. Some comparisons are made between Freud's first formulations of “repression” and Moscovici's first formulations of “social representation”.     

The Meaning of Meaning in Sociology. The Achievements and Shortcomings of Alfred Schutz's Phenomenological Sociology

Phenomenological sociology was founded at the beginning of 1930s by Alfred Schutz. His mundane phenomenology sought to combine impulses drawn from Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and Weber's action theory. It was made famous at the turn of 1960s and 1970s by Garfinkel's ethnomethodology and Berger & Luckmann's social constructionism. This paper deals with the notable accomplishments of Schutz and his followers and then proceeds to a shared shortcoming, which is that the phenomenological approach is unable to understand meaning in any other way but as actors's knowledge. Therefore, phenomenological sociologists are forced to describe the actor's interpretations of meaning as transparent to the actor him/herself, even if they sometimes make heroic attempts to escape the limitations of the phenomenological conception. The limitation is apparent in Husserl's and Schutz's definition of meaning as a “reflective intentional act”, Garfinkel's use of the term “accounting” to refer to a signifying effect, and the way Berger and Luckmann describe their social theory as “sociology of knowledge”. Today, similar confusions are present in Michael Polanyi's “tacit knowledge”and in Giddens' structuration theory.     

Learning from parents: A qualitative interview study on how parents experience their journey through the Dutch child protection system

The quality of parents' experiences with the child protection system (CPS) is related to the outcomes of their family's process in the system. The importance of collaboration with parents in child protection is underpinned by human and children's rights conventions addressing the right for family life and parents being first responsible in fulfilling children's rights. We interviewed 20 parents about their experiences with the Dutch CPS. Our thematic analysis shows that a CPS serving the best interests of their children is most important to parents. To realize this, professionals should (1) “not let it happen but do something,” (2) “get a clear picture of the family's situation,” and (3) “take parents seriously.” Parents emphasize that a system providing sufficient “money, time, and knowledge” is needed to facilitate professionals. Their experiences seem to influence their trust in the system and their attitude towards it. This study shows new insights in parents' experiences, such as their advice to professionals to determine the truth and to be decisive. This deepened knowledge about parents' experiences is essential for evaluating and improving the CPS.     

The Achilles' heel of scale service design in social security administration: The case of the United Kingdom's Universal Credit

This article takes a critical view of the United Kingdom government's design for the delivery of the Universal Credit (UC) benefit reforms. It is argued that the UC is destined to fail because of the policy's extension into specifying the means (“digital by default”) of delivery for such services. The authors argue that an unseen but ubiquitous set of “scale” management assumptions has been allowed to infiltrate the means by which the government intends to enact its headline policy objective to “make work pay”. Following Seddon's “Vanguard Method”, a practical example of how a better service was designed in a local authority housing benefits service is then examined. Results from this service include being able to deal with up to 50 per cent more demand, with fewer resources, in half the official target time. Finally, the article will conclude with a call for more evidence‐based policy.     

A Century of Korean Narrative in Chinese Literature

东亚睦邻关系源远流长,近百年来却遭到严峻的挑战。在民族国家的多事之秋,中国文学和中华民族一道承担苦难,思考出路,在关注自己启蒙、救亡、独立和振兴的同时,也关注对自己的命运发生过深刻影响的国际力量,对朝鲜半岛民族国家的关注和认知具有特殊的文化情感和命运体悟。一百多年来,中国文学对朝鲜的认知经历了四个阶段：以朝鲜的亡国为鉴镜,反省危机四伏的中国现状;引朝鲜人民为共同抗敌、休戚与共的战友;在南北朝鲜分裂的局面下,引北方为战友使南方处于缺席状态;在“华风”与“韩流”的互动中,把文学对韩国的认知推向穿透历史、牵连血性的深度。

关键词: 中国文学?朝鲜叙事?鉴镜?互动交流

The harmonious relationship among East Asian countries has a very long history. However, it has faced serious challenges in the past hundred years. In these eventful years for our nation, Chinese literature, like the Chinese people, has endured hardships and pondered ways of extricating the country from its malaise. In addition to being concerned over China's enlightenment, salvation, independence and rejuvenation, writers have also paid considerable attention to important international forces that had a strong influence on their country's fate. Concern over and understanding of the Korean nation had a particular emotional charge and relevance to their own fate. Over the course of a century, Chinese literature's awareness of Korea went through four stages. In the first, Korea's loss of independence served as a mirror of China's own dangerous position, menaced on all sides; in the second, the Korean people were seen as comrades‐in‐arms combating foreign foes; in the third, when the Korean Peninsula was divided, North Koreans continued to be regarded as comrades‐in‐arms while South Korea was not acknowledged; and in the final stage, amidst the interaction between “China style” and the “Korean wave,” Chinese literature's awareness of Korea expanded through a penetrating appreciation of Korean history involving deep ties of courage and uprightness.     

A Pedagogical Model of Clinical Supervision of Adolescents as Therapeutic Caretakers for Children and Each Other

This article describes a model of supervision provided to adolescents who function as therapeutic “caretakers” with children in a unique neighborhood community mental health organization located in the South Bronx. Rooted in theories of community mental health, social support, and pedagogy, the article describes the recruitment process, training, and supervision given to the organization's adolescent “caretakers” to ensure that they will develop the attitudes and skills needed in their therapeutic interactions with children. Particular emphasis is placed on “in vivo” supervisory processes derived from the organization's pedagogical model. The model's usefulness is not limited to training adolescent therapeutic caretakers and is readily applicable to training professional or nonprofessional helpers in a variety of settings (e.g., collaborative partnerships with schools and community agencies where personnel are trained to serve directly or in an auxiliary role as therapeutic change agents).     

民间传说中傅山士大夫形象的多维构建

傅山是明末清初士大夫阶层的中坚,也是明遗民的代表,得到了官方与民众的双重认可。傅山传说既进入了国家话语的“大传统”,也进入了民间文化的“小传统”。比较而言,“大传统”中的傅山形象单一而平面化;“小传统”中的傅山形象全面而立体化。文章以民间流布的傅山传说为研究对象,参考典籍文献中相关记载,探寻傅山士大夫形象在民众话语中的多维构建,挖掘此形象在明清易代之际的革新与转变。文章提出：弘扬以傅山为代表的士大夫所承载的“以天下为己任”与“明道救世”的责任担当意识,对当代中国梦的践行具有促进作用。