Squashed dreams and rare breeds: ableism and the arbiters of life and death

The week beginning 29 June 2015 is not just historic for the closure of the Independent Living Fund in the United Kingdom, but for me was the week they decided that my life is not worth investing in; they being NHS England, NICE and, with them, the Department of Health. They chose not to support the enzyme replacement therapy that has been not only keeping me alive, but giving me a quality of life – enabling me to return to finish my Disability Studies PhD exploring how Christian leaders explain disability, where ethics have become the main topic, and to rebuild my career – or so I thought.     

Orientalising deafness: race and disability in imperial Britain

This article explores the conflations and connections that postcolonial and disability scholars have drawn between ‘race’, ‘colonialism’ and ‘disability’ from a historical perspective. By looking at the connections drawn between ‘race’ and ‘disability’ in the context of nineteenth-century imperial Britain, I hope to probe beyond them to examine the origins and implications of their interplay. I do so by focusing on ideas about deafness, an impairment radically reconfigured in the colonial period, and inflected with concerns about degeneration, belonging, heredity and difference. Disability, I argue, not only operated as an additional ‘category of difference’ alongside ‘race’ as a way of categorising and subjugating the various ‘others’ of Empire, but intersected with it. The ‘colonisation’ of disabled people in Britain and the ‘racial other’ by the British were not simply simultaneous processes or even analogous ones, but were part and parcel of the same cultural and discursive system. The colonising context of the nineteenth century, a period when British political, economic and cultural expansion over areas of South Asia, Australasia and Africa increased markedly, structured the way in which all forms of difference were recognised and expressed, including the difference of deafness. So too did the shifts in the raced and gendered thinking that accompanied it, as new forms of knowledge were developed to justify, explain and contest Britain's global position and new languages were developed through which to articulate otherness. Such developments reconfigured the meaning of disability. Disability was, in effect, ‘orientalised’. ‘Race’ I argue was formative in shaping what we have come to understand as ‘disability’ and vice versa; they were related fantasies of difference.     

释蒙元时期长方形圣旨牌文字

本文认为,蒙元时期蒙古语长方形圣旨牌文字aldaqu ükügü是固定词组,表示"处死"之义.文章指出,彭大雅在其《黑鞑事略》中所述"按答奚"为"杀",与蒙古语aldaqu对应,其中的"奚"字对音不确,该用"忽".彭大雅对这一词组的解释更是断章取义,以后者"死"替代前者"罚",把"罚"当成"杀",颠倒二词之义,导致惊人的大错.     

内蒙古包头市突厥鲁尼文查干敖包铭文考释——兼论后突厥汗国“黑沙南庭”之所在

在内蒙古包头市达尔罕茂明安联合旗发现的突厥鲁尼文查干敖包铭文,是内蒙古迄今发现的唯一的突厥鲁尼文文献史料.根据查干敖包铭文的发现地点及其印记,可推断该铭文应属于后突厥汗国可汗家族阿史那氏的旁系家族,纪年约在7世纪末至8世纪初,极有可能为迄今发现的最早的突厥鲁尼文文献史料.结合汉籍史料和笔者的田野调查,可推断后突厥汗国的“黑沙南庭”即为达茂旗一带的草原.而查干敖包铭文,则印证笔者有关“黑沙南庭”的这一推论不误.     

争国本：君臣博弈的政治解读

万历年间册立太子之争被称为＂争国本＂,围绕册立皇长子朱常洛还是皇三子朱常洵,明神宗万历与廷臣进行了旷日持久的博弈。整个事件由廷臣温和的建议开始,经过长期而激烈的斗争,以至于谣言四起,最后借助太后的力量得以解决,按祖制皇长子朱常洵被册立为太子,皇三子朱常洛受封福王。争国本是认识明朝政治运作的典型样本,折射了专制王朝政治运作的内在逻辑。     

关于明代廷杖的仪式解读

廷杖是明代帝王对士人的公开处罚,作为帝王报复“犯上”朝臣的残忍攻击和污辱,其目的在于让民众意识到皇权的至高无上、不可侵犯,也是对其他官员和社会民众的恫吓,以儆效尤.若以仪式视角来审视,这种处罚形式承载着维护皇权的政治功能,是朝廷权力走向的一种“控制仪式”;就整个仪式原由和过程来看,廷杖是“重建”受到挑战的皇权的仪式;从仪式的终极性意义来看,廷杖处罚是受杖士人实现其人生终极意义的道德场域.廷杖伴随明朝始终,其最终消逝则反映了明代政治变迁与传统士人处世心态的微妙变化.     

南宋词科取士与制文之体关系论略

两宋的词科考试作为科举考试之一种,其制度的设立对两宋骈文的发展有着不可低估的作用。南宋文人由词科入等而入西掖、北门,进而执掌内外之制的现象颇为常见,朝廷诰命、典章巨制的写作从初习词科的模拟之作成为视草代言之体,由此也生发出一些较北宋而言更为复杂的文体观念。词科与制文的关系主要体现在:应试词科衍生出一批进卷、行卷行为,并出现了大量的类书,促进了四六文的兴盛,影响了馆阁的制书写作;对典故的谙习、制度的熟稔与制文体式的遵循是应试词科的基本要求,词科者入等者在馆职写作中也承续了词科文体。词科与制文的关系如此密切,以至宁宗嘉定以后,轻视宏词科的直接后果,是导致了两制之文的衰落。词科的发展也引起时人对"词科习气"的批评,而所谓的"词科习气",与南宋骈文对北宋骈文的变异有关。另外,由词科入等或曾应举过词科的士人中,有不少人也有着兼学理学的倾向,他们也试图在朝廷的公文写作中复返汉代遗风。     

Contradictions and crises of neoliberal–imperial globalization and the political opportunity structures for the Global Justice Movements

The Global Justice Movements emerged in the context of the contradictions and crisis of neoliberal–imperial globalization and the critique of it. They therefore express and provide a basis for the politicization of the negative consequences of post-Fordism and its crisis. This article examines the structural changes of the last 30 years from a Gramscian perspective of neoliberal globalization as a “passive revolution” and as the deepening of a “imperial mode of living” at a global scale. It is argued that examining structural changes helps us to understand why protest and social movements re-emerged around the year 2000. The article discusses some central features of the Global Justice Movements by focusing on the international Attac movement and the recent Occupy movement.     

清代钦差大臣之司法权

清代钦差大臣司法权主要体现在审理地方官员违法犯罪案件和京控案件两个方面,由于钦差大臣具有的特殊身份和地位,其司法权的行使对清代地方官员行政失职和腐败案件的发现与彻查起到了关键性作用,同时也对地方司法审判起到了重要的监督作用。但由于钦差大臣本身也是官僚群体中不可分割的一员,其司法权的行使不可避免的受到各方因素的掣肘,在一定程度上影响了其司法功能的正常发挥。