Narratives of national belonging: the domestic,the wild,and the mutant in Australian film

This article explores understandings of postcolonial national belonging through an analysis of cinematic representations of humans, animals and the environment. It does so by analyzing a series of Australian films about plants, animals or people who are out of place or out of control. The article registers some of the changing representations of Australian flora, fauna and, by association people, as native, domesticated, simpatico, feral and wild; interpreting these shifts as recalibrations of a moral hierarchy of cultural belonging. Films including Lantana (2001) Dir. Ray Lawrence; Razorback (1984) Dir. Russell Mulchay; Rogue (2007) Dir. Greg Mclean; and Black Water (2007) Dirs. David Nerlich and Andrew Traucki are read in terms of political anxieties. Drawing on work ‘that insists humans and animals are currently bound in a complex network of relationships’, I use these films to explore issues of the nation, place, belonging in relation to aliens and natives. Given that in the past 20 years there has been increasing recognition of the history of colonialism and its effects on Indigenous peoples but also a different but related blossoming of environmental nationalism, the key question that animates this research is how these understandings are represented in film and what work animals and plants might have played in filmic cultural representations of national belonging.     

以意识形态安全为核心加强高校国防教育

随着习近平总书记提出总体国家安全观，关于国家安全的研究不断丰富和扩大。文化安全作为国家安全的重要保障，意识形态领域的安全又是文化安全的根本要求，高校学生的思维易受外界影响，需要重点教育引导。高校国防教育活动作为意识形态安全教育的主要形式，对于加强国家文化安全有着重要作用。为了切实加强社会主义意识形态安全教育，为国家发展做好文化安全保障，高校国防教育应该从国家安全的高度指导教学，改革教育的内容和方式。     

National Language Capacity in Global Competition

The term national language capacity refers to the sum total of a nation’s ability to grasp linguistic resources, provide language services, deal with linguistic issues, develop the language, and related tasks. Key capacities include the possession of linguistic resources, utilization of language and language services, development and use of linguistic resources, the language of the members of the nation, reserves of linguistic talent, language management, development of language enterprises and linguistic influence. The development of informatization has made national language capacity an important part of national strength. It is hard power as well as soft power, playing a very important role in social progress and cultural inheritance, in promoting economic development and technological innovation, and in protecting a country’s national security and international development.     

How the host nation's boundary drawing affects immigrants’ belonging

Across Western democracies, the place for newcomers in the host society is debated, involving often a questioning of immigrants’ belonging to their new nation. This article argues that immigrants’ feeling of host national belonging depends on how the host nation imagines its community and its concomitant boundaries. Utilising survey and country level data in multilevel regressions, immigrants’ belonging is found to vary significantly across the 19 countries included. A central contribution is the finding that citizenship policies do not explain this cross-national variation. Instead, what matters is the informal boundary drawing produced in the majority population's conception of what is important for being part of the national ‘us'. Thus, immigrants’ belonging is significantly greater when the majority population prioritises attainable criteria of national membership. In addition, these priorities are shown to have deep historical roots as immigrants’ belonging is greater in settler countries and in nations which democratised early. By showing that national imageries have consequences for a country's welcoming capacities, and by showing that these welcoming capacities are historically path dependent, the study contributes to the debate within nationalism studies about national identity's causal significance.     

Trauma management: Chernobyl in Belarus and Ukraine

Although the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened in the Soviet Union in 1986, we still do not know how the most affected states – Ukraine and Belarus – have managed this tragedy since independence. Drawing on the concept of cultural trauma, this article compares Chernobyl narratives in Belarus and Ukraine over the past 28 years. It shows that national narratives of Chernobyl differ, representing the varying ways in which the state overcomes trauma. Our understanding of post‐communist transformations can be improved by analysing trauma management narratives and their importance for new national identity construction. These narratives also bring new insights to our vision of cultural trauma by linking it to ontological insecurity. The article demonstrates how the state can become an arena of trauma process as it commands material and symbolic resources to deal with trauma. In general, it contributes to a better understanding of how the same traumatic event can become a source of solidarity in one community, but a source of hostility in another.     

现代新儒家与中华民族精神内涵

现代新儒家对中华民族精神内涵的认识是不尽相同的,但中华民族精神蕴含在中华儒家文化之中是其理论共识。儒家的＂和谐＂与＂理性＂、＂内圣外王＂之道、人文精神、＂极高明而道中庸＂及＂心性之学＂等,都是中华民族精神固有的内涵。现代新儒家致力于从儒家文化视角来解读中华民族精神,是有失公正性的,不加分析地全盘肯定儒家文化及其蕴含的民族精神,也是不符合历史辩证法的。现代新儒家力图从深层的精神内核来认识儒家文化和中华民族精神,是中华民族自我认识过程的深化和发展,也是继续研究中华民族精神不可或缺的重要文化资源。     

Income inequality,poverty and crime across nations

We examine the relationship between income inequality, poverty, and different types of crime. Our results are consistent with recent research in showing that inequality is unrelated to homicide rates when poverty is controlled. In our multi‐level analyses of the International Crime Victimization Survey we find that inequality is unrelated to assault, robbery, burglary, and theft when poverty is controlled. We argue that there are also theoretical reasons to doubt that the level of income inequality of a country affects the likelihood of criminal behaviour.     

Teaching culture beyond nationalist boundaries: national identities,stereotyping, and culture in language education

The authors take a critical language pedagogy approach to examining a 2011 controversy over disparaging comments towards Mexicans made by commentators of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s automotive show Top Gear. In particular, they focus on the characterization of groups and individuals according to their nationality and examine the ubiquity of nationalism and its ability to shape our conception of culture and in turn our understandings of others as members of ‘X national culture.’ The fact that humor is often a justification for national stereotyping and that these stereotypes are also connected to racist discourse are also explored. In the second part of the article, the implications of the stereotyping debate for language classrooms are considered. The authors argue that the controversy itself can be used as a tool for critical engagement that helps students deconstruct the underlying nationalist paradigm in L2 classrooms and build greater intercultural awareness.

Español: Los autores examinan, desde una perspectiva de la pedagogía crítica del lenguaje, la controversia que surgió en el 2011 debido a los comentarios nocivos hechos hacia los mexicanos por los locutores del show automotriz del BBC, Top Gear. En particular, se enfocan en la caracterización de los grupos e individuos de acuerdo a su nacionalidad, y examinan la ubiquidad del nacionalismo y su capacidad para darle forma a nuestra conceptualización de la cultura y, a su vez, nuestra forma de ver a otros como miembros de una ‘cultural nacional X’. Los autores también exploran el hecho de que a menudo se utiliza el humor como una justificación para los estereotipos nacionales, y que estos estereotipos también están conectados al discurso racista. En la segunda parte del artículo, se consideran las implicaciones para la enseñanza de idiomas del debate sobre los estereotipos. Argumentan los autores que la controversia en sí se puede utilizar como una herramienta para promover una postura crítica que ayude a los alumnos a deconstruir el paradigma subyacente del nacionalismo en el salón de lenguas extranjeras y fomente la conciencia intercultural.     

高校学生社团在弘扬民族文化中的作用

民族文化对民族的延续和国家的存亡,无论在任何时候都具有特别重要的意义,在培育民族优秀精神品格方面也起着其他方式难以替代的重要作用。在高校,大学生社团作为文化传播的主体,具备弘扬民族文化不可估量的优势。充分发挥学校领导的作用、建立健全民族文化类社团的良性机制、发挥社团成员聪明才智、激发大学生对民族文化的兴趣、注重打造精品民族文化类社团,致力于弘扬民族文化途径的探索,在大学生群体中开展民族文化活动,对民族文化的传承和发展都具有重大的促进作用。     

Limits to “Jewish power”: how Slovak Jewish leaders negotiated restitution of property after the Second World War

This article examines how Jewish leaders in post-war Slovakia negotiated the restitution of property with the legislative and executive powers in Bratislava and Prague. The Jewish leaders were affiliated with two Slovak Jewish organisations founded in 1945: the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia (Ústredný sväz ?idovských nábo?enských obci na Slovensku, ÚS?NO) and the Organisation of Victims of Racial Persecution at the Hands of the Fascist Regime in Bratislava (Sdru?enie fa?istickým re?imom rasovo prenasledovaných v Bratislave, SRP). The Secretary General of the SRP, Dr Vojtech Winterstein, was the main voice negotiating and promoting the interests of the post-war Jewish community. His invaluable collection of documents – the Winterstein collection – provides the source base for this article.