简析威廉斯文化唯物主义思想——纪念雷蒙德·威廉斯诞辰九十周年

作为西方国家极具影响力的马克思主义信仰者,雷蒙·威廉斯创立的文化唯物主义是种新型的西方马克思主义理论形态,他依照马克思主义的唯物主义立场,发展了自己的文化唯物论;特别是在构建文化唯物主义理论核心范畴中,用别样的视角,原创性地阐述了文化观、重新评介和阐发了对"基础——上层建筑"的解读。理解和理清这两个核心问题是认识文化唯物主义的关键。     

从田纳西·威廉斯的三部名剧看美国南方女性的悲哀

田纳西·威廉斯是美国著名的剧作家。他以塑造南方女性形象而闻名美国剧坛。本文基于美国南方历史文化的发展，对他20世纪40年代的三部名剧《玻璃动物园》、《欲望号街车》和《夏天和烟》中感人至深的三位女主人公阿曼达、布兰奇和阿尔玛进行了评析，指出这三位南方女性是种植园体制的产物，她们展示的是一代南方女性命运的悲剧，揭示了女性不能自强自立就要走向毁灭的道理。     

A 'Technological Idiot'? Raymond Williams and Communications Technology

Raymond Williams was a prolific cultural commentator and historian and his writing on communications technology provides a particularly relevant framework for understanding contemporary information-society innovations. Williams sought to distinguish questions of technique and technical invention from their realization in the fundamentally social organization of technologies themselves and emphasized the importance of agency and intention in structuring the uses to which technologies are put. Far from technology having an inescapable internal logic of development, innovation takes place within specific social and economic contexts. For Williams, this meant that there was no pre-determined outcome to the evolution of communications innovations but a series of complex interactions between innovations and the world into which they emerge. This article will provide an assessment of Williams' work on technological innovation, his critique of determinism and his commitment to democratic communications. Williams helps us to challenge the simplistic proposition that 'the Internet has changed our world' and enables us to understand instead the ways in which contemporary social relations set limits on the development of the Internet as a democratic medium.     

试析雷蒙·威廉斯的“文化”定义

威廉斯的“文化”定义一面为学界津津乐道、引为正典,一面却又遭遇着断章取义、不求甚解的粗暴误读。因此,有必要重新回返1950年代后期英国的社会历史情境,在多重结构性因素的参照之下,读解并勾连起威廉斯早期文本中的“文化”思想,进而探析威廉斯的“文化”定义之于“文化研究”的意义。     

威廉斯与马克思主义文化理论

文化是近年来人文学科关注的焦点,也是文学与美学话语论述的对象。马、恩在创建唯物史观过程中,既确立了文化问题的唯物主义解释原则,把经济和文化区分为基础和上层建筑,但是也强调文化的相对自主性,揭示了文化与政治、经济结构和阶级关系之间更复杂的关系。威廉斯在20世纪中后期的资本主义历史语境中,面对工人阶级文化和大众文化的兴起,建构出文化唯物主义理论,突出文化生产的社会性、物质性。在法兰克福学派的大众文化批判模式之外,提出了大众文化的建设性维度,丰富和发展了历史唯物主义对文化的形态和社会功能的理解。这在今天依然具有深刻启示与借鉴作用。     

Women and the Nobel Prize for peace

The Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded for over 100 years. While the formal criteria for selection have not changed, there has been an evolution in the kind of choices made. To better understand those choices I have grouped individual winners into five distinct categories. The two largest groups are national leaders working within the international legal system and peace activists. The other three are: opponents capable of exercising force who agree to stop using it; individuals pursuing justice, freedom and/or rights nonviolently as a prelude to peace; and those offering selfless service. Some winners have focused on ending conflict. This kind of peace is sometimes called `negative'. Others have sought a `positive' peace, one based on justice. While at least one woman falls into each of the categories, those which involve the application of law and/or force have only one woman each. Women are primarily peace activists. They won in ten of the seventy-one years that individuals won. Three won in the first fifty years. There was then a thirty-year hiatus, but since 1976 eight women have been winners. They vary in nationality, age and class, but in only one case did the individual work through well-established institutions. Most acted either as individuals or were founding participants in new organizations.     

Properties of Designs in Experiments on Spatial Lattices

ABSTRACT

When spatial variation is present in experiments, it is clearly sensible to use designs with favorable properties under both generalized and ordinary least squares. This will make the statistical analysis more robust to misspecification of the spatial model than would be the case if designs were based solely on generalized least squares. In this article, treatment information is introduced as a way of studying the ordinary least squares properties of designs. The treatment information is separated into orthogonal frequency or polynomial components which are assumed to be independent under the spatial model. The well-known trend-resistant designs are those with no treatment information at the very low order frequency or polynomial components which tend to have the higher variances under the spatial model. Ideally, designs would be chosen with all the treatment information distributed at the higher-order components. However, the results in this article show that there are limits on how much trend resistance can be achieved as there are many constraints on the treatment information. In addition, appropriately chosen Williams squares designs are shown to have favorable properties under both ordinary and generalized least squares. At all times, the ordinary least squares properties of the designs are balanced against the generalized least squares objectives of optimizing neighbor balance.     

文化研究中的阶级轨迹

阶级和种族、性别一样,是文化研究的三大母题之一。文化研究伯明翰传统如威廉斯、E.P.汤普森等人,历来关注阶级的分析。马克思曾经预言资本主义必将在阶级斗争中崩溃,为发达国家的产业工人所埋葬。但是时至今日,马克思的阶级预言并没有实现。资本主义面对自身的重重危机应对有方,正在有条不紊地图谋新发展,目前还看不出日薄西山的迹象。相反,工人阶级本身的存在形态,反倒愈益变得复杂迷离起来。在今天全球化的后工业社会里,阶级对立消失了吗?或者说,它是以怎样的新的形式表现出来?这是文化研究关注的一个焦点。     

内在理由与伦理生活

道德评价在人类生活中具有重要作用,但道德理性主义的盛行往往使得道德评价的复杂性没有得到充分重视。伯纳德·威廉斯提出的内在理由概念可以恰当地被理解为特别针对道德评价,对道德理性主义提出了一个重要挑战。面对对威廉斯的内在理由概念的某些重要批评,需要澄清和捍卫这个概念,在此基础上揭示它对于我们理解伦理生活的本质的一些含义。     

约翰·L.加迪斯与冷战"修正派"的论战

约翰·L.加迪斯与冷战修正派之间的论战涉及方法论和核心观点两个方面.在前一个方面,加迪斯指责修正派的"门户开放"范式和"合作主义"范式犯了"经济决定论"和"简约主义"的错误,是不合格的综合范式.在后一方面,加迪斯表达了与修正派的美国要为冷战形成负主要责任的相反观点,批评了威廉·A.威廉斯的"悲剧观",逐步向正统观点复归.在这种批评的基础上,加迪斯提出了"冷战史新研究"的议程,对此,修正派的劳埃德·加德纳进行了批评.加迪斯与修正派间的学术论争反映了美国冷战史学中现实主义和进步主义两大范式间的分野,背后隐藏的是权力和意识形态之争.加迪斯对修正派的批判具有重要的方法论意义,但其确立自己话语霸权的态度和保守主义立场是不可取的.