Suburban ethnicities: Home as the site of interethnic conviviality and racism

This article explores the ways in which the white working-class residents of a suburban English town reflect on their relationships with their British Asian Pakistani Muslim neighbors. Its focus is on how everyday constructions of home become sites for the intermingling of discourses of intercultural conviviality and racism. My contention is that the idea of home has not yet been given the detailed critical attention that it deserves in the sociological literature on everyday manifestations of multiculturalism, conviviality, and racism. My supposition is that a special focus on the idea of home as the site of conviviality offers a productive avenue to analyze how intercultural relationships are formed and how the norms of neighborliness are thought to break down, opening a space for commonplace racialized and racist stereotypes to take hold. The idea of home is central to the rhythm and landscape of the English suburbs. It conjures up the idea of a uniform and aspirational white space. Drawing on this imaginary of home, I shall trace how “white working class” “English,” “Scottish,” and “Anglo-Italian” residents’ everyday constructions of home become embroiled with their relationships with their British Asian Pakistani Muslim neighbors.     

Sensemaking in crisis situations: Drawing insights from epic war novels

Soldiers operate under conditions of extreme uncertainty and danger, in which sensemaking is both crucial and challenging. A grounded theory analysis of four epic war novels by veterans (Tolstoy, Remarque, Heller, O’Brien) provides insights into soldiers' sensemaking in combat. The findings are of theoretical and methodological relevance. Theoretically, this article contributes to sensemaking theory by identifying alternative sensemaking pathways besides the traditional enactment-selection-retention model. Additionally, while existing literature suggests that sensemaking failures result in organizational breakdown, this study shows that personnel may continue to do their work in the (fictional) belief that other organizational members can still make sense of the situation. Finally, methodologically, this article introduces grounded theory as a systematic approach to analyzing novels in contrast to current heterogeneous uses of literary fiction in organization and management studies.     

Professional blinders? The novel as an eye-opener in organizational analysis

ABSTRACT

Scholarly textbooks often follow a logic where suitable empirical cases are selected to illustrate the theoretical and analytical points that we as scholars want to make. But what would happen if we would do the opposite: build a textbook on a novel written by a novelist for such purpose and let the theories explain the actions and emotions of fictional characters? In this article, we share and reflect upon our experiences of co-authoring a textbook in organization theory together with a professional novelist. We argue that the novel can function as an eye-opener in organizational analysis, forcing us to look beyond more static and rationalistic perspectives on organizations as well as the stereotypes of such. We build and relate our experiences to the growing literature about using fiction in scholarly work and discuss the potential of such genre-bending work when we bring in flesh and blood into the analyses.     

Chinese,Japanese or ‘Oriental’?: Vietnamese-passing in ‘super-diverse’ London

The young British-born Vietnamese are a relatively invisible group in ‘super-diverse’ London who are often misidentified in their everyday encounters. Eluding more straightforward processes of ethnic or racial assignment, the young Vietnamese ‘pass’ in various different ways as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai or ‘Oriental’. Drawing upon primary interview data and participant observation, this article traces ‘passive’ and ‘deliberate’ forms of passing to highlight how intersecting processes of class, gender and place enable/engender different kinds of passing. It is argued that Vietnamese-passing challenges more ‘celebratory’ readings of (super-) diversity by concealing (and depoliticising) difference and erasing Vietnamese voices rather than allowing for their proliferation. It is suggested that practices of passing may become more common in super-diverse societies, as markers of visible difference become increasingly complex and less determinable, especially among newer, non-colonial migrant groups who are more ambiguously positioned within existing identity regimes.     

论萧伯纳戏剧对易卜生的继承与超越

易卜生与萧伯纳是欧洲戏剧现代进程中的两个关键人物。萧伯纳在其《易卜生主义的精华》中,把易卜生戏剧的主题认定为"理想主义者批判",指出易卜生的戏剧讨论技巧具有划时代的意义。萧伯纳创造性地误读了易卜生,并从其思想艺术中汲取力量,走上了自己的戏剧之路。萧伯纳早期戏剧的理想主义者批判,矛头针对维多利亚时代虚伪的道德风尚,20世纪后,则指向各种禁锢心灵的意识形态力量。通过"讨论"的系统应用,萧伯纳使戏剧从重视外部情节的冲突,转向表现思想观念的冲突。这种"萧式观念剧",超越了易卜生,引领了欧洲现代戏剧发展的新方向。     

新目录学派志:英国文学考据的兴起与没落

通过介绍以沃特·威尔逊·格雷格爵士为代表的目录派三杰，在对文学文本基本物质形态从手稿到印刷文本辨伪和考证批评的基础上，经过厘定文本讹误和四次重要的学术论战，确立了作者的神圣地位，让文学成为绝对科学化的大学学科，但新目录派最终却退出了现代西方文论思潮。观照几乎同时产生于印刷术所带来的学术分裂期的中国乾嘉派，它能够客观对待经学作者，并形成了系统的治学方法，从而稳步发展为今天的朴学大潮，在此视阈下分析并阐明新目录派无法形成体系的原因，恰在于其过分强调科学权威性而漠视了文学本身的独特因素造成的方枘圆凿，藉此提出中国治学方法借鉴于西方文论批评的可行性。     

Andrii Liubka’s Carbide: Ukrainian democratic reforms through a dark glass

ABSTRACT

The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine and its reforms are the topics of Andrii Liubka’s novel Karbid (Carbide, 2015). Employing Voltairean laughter and neo-Gothic aesthetics, Liubka presents the idea of European integration (one of the expected outcomes of the reforms) implemented practically by the corrupt elites of the imagined Transcarpathian town of Vedmediv as a money-laundering enterprise – an underground tunnel for smuggling drugs and people’s organs from Ukraine to Europe. The author proposes that the elites – most of whom are criminals – personify Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection in the novel and represent social spheres that need reform. Contrary to the Euromaidan goals, these comprador elites desire even stronger borders between Ukraine and the European Union, as these facilitate their shadow economy, and they subject the local population to economic and social decline, turning them into disposable human waste. By applying the concept of abjection in its psychoanalytic and social forms to Liubka’s tragicomic novel, the author argues that his text points to Ukraine’s struggle to define itself as “West” and shed its totalitarian legacy of the Soviet “East,” and brings attention to the conflict between the post-Euromaidan national strivings of Ukraine’s citizens and the rampant corruption that negates their efforts.     

邯郸成语典故的文化精神与当代价值

邯郸成语典故大量孕育于春秋战国至两汉时期,是其辉煌时代的一种特有的历史记忆形式,也是其注重事功的学术传统与全民皆商的土风民俗的必然产物。它蕴涵了变革图强、开放包容、厚德重法等主要文化精神,有着不容忽视的当代价值,并且可以通过与当代社会主义文化繁荣发展的密切结合来切实实现其当代价值转换。     

当代青年的道德表现与体系重构

从“杭州胡斌飙车案”、“复旦学子虐猫”到“时尚女孩拒绝帮扶摔伤老人”，形形色色的表象后蕴含着同一实质：当代中国青年在社会化过程中，面对西方思潮与社会转型的冲击，其价值观念、行为方式都已发生剧变，部分青年表现出道德自我意识膨胀、道德功利性明显、道德价值混乱等多方面的道德偏失。重构当代青年道德体系．培育与现代化社会发展相适应的道德人格和道德主体精神，使每个个体走出道德困惑，不仅是青年成人成才的自我要求，更是构建和谐社会的迫切需求。     

在传统与现代之间——20世纪40年代费孝通的英国观

费孝通英国观的形成是与他对英国民主传统的推崇与好感分不开的。尤其是在二战前后英国所表现出坚韧与不屈的民族精神,更加深了他对英国民主制度的认同。在其看来,英国民主虽历经数百年之演变,但其所蕴涵的民主精神却从未发生变化,对民意的尊重,对特权的藐视,追求社会公正公平成为英国民主传统中最核心的内容,由此也构成费孝通英国观的主要认知路径。