Was There a Popular Culture in the Middle Ages?

With Bruce A. Rosenberg's article, “Was There a Popular Culture in the Middle Ages,” we come full circle, returning to some of the comments made by Charles Altman. Rosenberg's cautionary remark that segmenting the experienced world into “popular,”“folk,” and “elite,” is arbitrary and artificial does not discount thepractical value and necessity of constructing analytic categories in popular culture studies. What is essential, however, is that those of us studying “kopular”artifacts must also examine the ways in which they interact with other cultural aspects or segments.     

Innocence and Suffering in the Middle Ages: An Essay about Popular Taste and Popular Literature

Michael Stugrin's essay is both theoretical and practical: he suggests that texts, when viewed as “structures ofperception,” give us the “voices of the reality which they were part of and helped shape.” He then proceeds to apply this theory to a number of spiritual texts popular during the Middle Ages to give us an idea of popular taste at that time. Such texts were structured in a highly affective way to affirm testimonies o f faith and to commemorate God's promises to men. But perhaps most importantly, these spiritual texts, along with such texts as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and countless prose treatises and sermons, provided medieval audiences with a way of “knowing” within the context of human experience in a time of great cultural stress.     

Antecedents of Contemporary Witchcraft in the Middle Ages

Present interest in the occult can be seen i n the proliferation of horoscopes included in newspapers, in the incredible business of the palm reader, and i n the tremendous popularity of books like the Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby. I n such interest, the witch has always held a special place, and it should come as no surprise that witches frequently are female. As Elizabeth Tuckerpoints out i n her essay, the practice of herbal “magic” was often the task of so-called “wise women” in the Middle Ages, who specialized in “white witchcraft,” the cure o f disease with herbal mixtures. Such “white witchcraft,” however, was not favorably looked upon by the Church fathers; one wonders i f the distrust of female practitioners of “magic” had more to do with the fact that they were women who did not, for one reason or another, fit into society. The belief in the dual nature of the witch should not be overlooked; if the witch healed, she could also destroy. That duality remains today i n the instructions for witchcraft in such works as Paul Huson's Mastering Witchcraft.     

中世纪意大利城市国家发展的局限性

本文从意大利城市经济与政治发展的相互影响入手,分析了中世纪意大利城市国家发展的局限性。少数城市贵族通过控制行会而掌握了城市政府的权力,他们之间的利益冲突掩盖了城市居民的整体利益,导致无法对城市国家内最高政治权力的合法性达成一致,其结果是城市国家无法获得进一步的发展。     

Gender and insult in an Italian city: Bologna in the later Middle Ages

There are few studies of insult in later medieval Italy. This article aims not only to fill that gap, but also to show the value of applying one branch of modern linguistics to the evidence for medieval insult. The overall aim is to study the particularly gendered aspects of insult: what words and actions could men and women use against their own gender and against the other? The copious judicial archive of Bologna allows for extensive study of this phenomenon. The article falls into three parts: first, establishing the general pattern of insult; second, examining closely the strongest male term of insult; and finally investigating the practice of ‘doorscorning’, by which the doors of victims’ houses were defiled. To interpret the findings, methodological approaches are borrowed from anthropology, medieval legal theory and modern linguistics.     

中世纪美学中"光"的象征及其宗教意蕴

“光”是理解中世纪美学一个重要节点。在中世纪的象征艺术中,“光”的象征艺术在建筑、绘画及文学等艺术领域获得众多表现,并具有特定的宗教意蕴。“光”在中世纪主要作为外在的源泉、绝对的权威主体——上帝的象征而被表现,由此更好地理解中世纪基督教美学的神学品格。中世纪“光”的宗教形而上学意蕴之形成之逻各斯根源可以追溯到柏拉图的理念论,柏拉图具有先验性的理念论,他关于投向可见世界的眼睛的视觉和指向理念的灵魂的视觉的区分后由奥古斯丁发展为中世纪光照论(illum inatio)。普罗提诺波、埃里根纳、那文土拉等人都参与完善了中世纪“光”的象征理论。此外,中世纪“光”的象征理论同时好受到亚述、埃及等东方文化的影响。     

90年代中期以来日本大众意识浅析

20世纪 90年代日本大众意识的内向化在东西方冷战体制及泡沫经济崩溃的背景下产生 ,而阪神大地震和奥姆真理教事件对日本大众意识造成巨大冲击 ,说明当代日本的社会结构疲劳已深刻到不得不进行重大改革的程度。针对“国民”的现代西方市民意识的蔓延 ,构成了日本大众意识中十分突出的对现有政党的抵触心理 ,以及对传统官僚体制为主的政治结构、经济关系及利益分配体系的“市民性”反感。“亚文化”现象及搞笑型“民主”又凸显出大众政治意识的流动化与情绪化特征。日本进入了政治文化及大众意识上的转折时期。     

Popular culture and sporting life in the rural margins of late eighteenth-century England: the world of Robert Anderson, "The Cumberland Bard"

This study sets out to extend and challenge existing historiography on late eighteenth century British popular culture, customary sports, class and cultural identity, focusing upon the rural geo-political borderland of England. It suggests that prevailing class-based and more London-biased studies need to be balanced with more regionalist-based work, and shows the importance of northern regional leisure variants. The textual and historical analysis draws largely on the published works of a neglected working-class dialect poet, Robert Anderson, living and working in Cumberland, arguing that he represented a strain of 'bardic regionalism,' a variant of Katie Trumpener’s 'bardic nationalism.'     

现代俄罗斯文学的奇特起源:18世纪中叶对欧洲流行文学之模仿

现代俄罗斯文学之产生并非一蹴而就的,普希金只是完成了从古罗斯向现代俄罗斯转型的关键性人物。事实上,伴随着彼得一世改革,帝俄当局鼓励大规模译介欧洲流行作品,使得法国古典主义文学艺术长驱直入,以图培养俄国人欧洲贵族的风范。但是,报刊审查制度却未能阻挡流浪汉小说之类的历险记作品也随之进入俄国,并且这种看似低俗实则倡导人性解放之作,更受城市化进程中的市民读者阶层青睐。更重要的是,这种情形吻合加速学习欧洲的时代潮流,意外地启示了当时的译者也去模仿这些译作而创作俄罗斯文学,俄国第一批文学家费多尔·艾明、楚尔科夫和科马洛夫等,就创作了大量用欧洲历险记的结构去书写俄罗斯普通人的日常生活小说。这种小说为1812年抵抗拿破仑的卫国战争胜利之后俄罗斯旅行记及其诗学的孕育提供了扎实基础。     

大众文化的批判与辩护——当代西方大众文化理论述评

对于"大众文化",西方学界一直存在着不同的观点.批判者认为其是"欺骗群众的启蒙精神",是肤浅文化的同义语,是美国文化对本土文化的入侵,是民间文化的灾难.辩护者则认为,对大众文化的这些非难关系到一系列价值标准的判定,大众文化和趣味标准不应由意识形态的制造者来决定,大众文化与其说是将艺术降格为商品世界的符号的再生产,不如说它是一个转折点,即终结了旧的文化形式,并将符号和消费引入自身地位的界定之中.所以,传统的批判理论指责大众文化被框定在极度的消费主义之中,风格千篇一律的刻板单调和平庸陈腐,是无的放矢.大众文化或许同样可以对高雅文化说,它事实上什么也不缺.大众文化本质上是一种下层文化.大众用两种基本方式来对待自己的下层性:一是逃避;二是对抗.两者是相互联系在一起的,并且都包含着快乐和意义的相互作用.在逃避中快乐多于意义,在对抗中则意义比快乐更为重要.大众文化的负面影响表现为全球文化一体化和单一化的趋势,对人生深度、意义深度的消解,对艺术的神圣性、超越性的消解.