A body passes by: the flâneur and the senses in nineteenth-century London and Paris

Abstract

The flâneur is well-known for being the most emblematic nineteenth-century observer of urban life. Critics have often compared the flâneur to a camera eye which records everything and insisted on the predominance of sight over other senses in the cognitive process. This article emphasises the embodiedness of the flâneur’s vision, which is an experience of all the senses. Urban public space can be envisaged as a ‘metabolic space,’ in which “the links between background and figures are very unstable” (Augoyard 1991). The moving body of the flâneur, which can adapt to this changing space, seems to be in an ideal position to apprehend the metabolic body of the city. The flâneur is not only a “transparent eye-ball” (Emerson 2003), he is “a living eye” which communicates with all the other senses and captures the whole experience of moving through the city. By looking at texts by Balzac, Baudelaire, Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, the article shows that flânerie is a sensory activity that shapes our perception of the city as much as the city shapes our own flâneries by transforming our bodies into scribes who write the “thicks and thins of the urban text” (de Certeau, 1984).     

Sex, self-interest and health care priorities

In this questionnaire study, individuals were asked to prioritise publicly provided preventive health care services, one of which would be unavailable to them by virtue of their sex. The aim was to establish whether men and women would exhibit different degrees of self-interest when making a constrained choice. Around 1800 subjects from east-central England prioritised three different types of cancer screening. Most also provided written explanations for their rankings and these were classified into explanatory themes. Logistic regressions using socio-demographic and attitude data predicted the type of screening chosen as first priority. The analysis revealed that many men and women did indeed assign similar priorities to the different types of screening and, even when the priorities differed, these were often justified by similar arguments relating to technical aspects of the interventions and to self-interest. However, women were far more likely than men to prioritise a type of screening from which they themselves would benefit directly and the variations in preferences and explanations between the sexes occurred primarily because of differences in other-regarding attitudes. The bias towards screening of females was driven by women's greater worries about the disease in question and by men's “benevolent sexism” with respect to women's wellbeing.     

Vowel harmony redux: Correct sounds,English loan words,and the sociocultural life of a phonological structure in Korean1

This paper examines an ideology of standard pronunciation and spelling of English loan words in South Korea through the lens of Korean vowel harmony. I focus specifically on the alternation between an older Japanese‐style ‘a’[a] and a newer Korean‐style ‘?’[?] for the mapping of mid‐vowels from English to Korean. The opposition between ‘a’ and ‘?’ also figures into the dichotomy of vowel classes between ‘yang’ or ‘light’ vowels and ‘yin’ or ‘dark’ vowels in Korean vowel harmony. This opposition is pervasive in Korean's rich stock of denotationally iconic words (e.g. onomatopoeia), where ablaut between vowel classes produces semantic and pragmatic contrasts. I suggest that this latter structure of phonological opposition has an influence on speakers’ perceptions of vowel difference and associated values in English loan words, despite an overarching ideology of standard pronunciation that is based on assumptions about phonetic fidelity. ? ??? ?? ???? ?? ?? ? ??? ? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ????. ??, ?? ???? ‘?’[a]? ‘?’[?]? ??(mapping)?? ?? ??? ??. ??? ?? ????? ‘?’? ?? ?? ??? ? ?????? ???? ???? ??(正音)?? ?????? ??. ?? ‘?’? ????? ???, ??? ???? ??? ????? ?(音)?? ???? ??. ???, ‘?’/‘?’? ??? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ??; ?, ??? ????? ????? ??? ??. ??, ????? ???? ????? ??? ??? ??? ? ? ??. ????, ????? ????? ????? ??? ?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ???. [Korean]     

Jewish power and powerlessness: Prague Zionists and the Paris Peace Conference

This article explores how perceptions of Jewish power shaped the negotiations between Czechoslovak leaders and Jewish minority representatives at the time of the Paris Peace Conference. In the aftermath of the First World War, Prague-based Zionists embarked on a mission to convince Czechoslovak elites that attacks on Jews were detrimental to the internal stability of the new state and to Czechoslovak interests abroad. As Edvard Bene?, the head of the Czechoslovak delegation in Paris, worked to cultivate an image of the new state as more “Western” and “civilised” than other successor states – a strategy meant to garner international support for Czechoslovak territorial demands and its projected absorption of large minority populations – Jewish activists encouraged his uncertainty with regard to Jews' influence on Western audiences and statesmen. They did so in order to convince him to accept their demands for special protection clauses for the new country's Jews. The paper thus shows that the unprecedented victimisation of Jews and the upsurge in antisemitism during and after the war coexisted with a new bold and public Jewish activism. Yet, Jewish leaders did not in the end have the ability to convince Bene? and his colleagues to give in to international Jewish demands for special protection. Instead, they sought to cultivate a strategic alliance between the state's Czech elite and the Jewish minority which centred on the claim that Czechoslovakia was a particularly welcoming and tolerant place for Jews, an image that would evolve into a significant component of the myth of Czechoslovakia as an island of democracy in Eastern Europe.     

巴黎文化产业的现状、特征与发展空间

“文化产业”作为当前经济活动的一个重要概念，在城市经济活动中发挥着越来越重要的影响。巴黎作为法国的历史、文化、经济中心，其“文化产业”从20世纪70年代以来随着城市经济的转型呈现蓬勃发展的势头。进入21世纪，巴黎“文化产业”的领域与空间也在不断变化与扩展。本文将试图对巴黎“文化产业”的发展作一梳理，以期对其“文化产业”的发展面貌作一阐释。     

Banking on fewer children: financial intermediation,fertility and economic development

This paper shows that financial intermediation can influence fertility and labor allocation decisions by raising market wages. The increase in wages induces some households to abandon “traditional” labor intensive methods of production managed at the household level and supply labor to “modern” sector firms. Since it is optimal for households in the modern sector to have fewer children, the labor allocation decision leads to lower national fertility. A panel VAR using financial intermediation, fertility and industrial employment share data in 87 countries is estimated. The empirical results show that the data are consistent with the theoretical predictions. Received: 20 October 1997/Accepted: 31 August 1998     

积极贯彻“十六大”精神 推进青海民族教育创新

文章认为,作为民族高等院校,要以"三个代表"重要思想为指导,坚持三个面向,狠抓四个创新(思想道德教育创新,教育教学改革创新,教学、科研、管理创新,教师、科研队伍建设创新),不断推进民族高等教育的发展.     

文化力:综合国力竞争的重要内容和强大精神动力

十六大关于文化建设和文化体制改革的论述高度重视文化力和精神力在综合国力竞争中的地位和作用,具有重大意义。文化力的系统构成包括文化创新生产能力、对人民的文化聚合能力、文化产品生产者和消费者的综合素质和精神状态("士气战斗力")、对外部文化的影响力。文化的力量,深深熔铸于民族的生命力、创造力和凝聚力之中。     

坚持“第一要务” 推进“二次创业”

文章论述了党的十六大报告提出的"必须把发展作为执政兴国的第一要务"的重要意义和深刻内涵,提出了发展北仑经济、推进北仑"二次创业"的思路.     

学习十六大精神之我见

学习十六大精神,进一步提高对“三个代表”重要思想的认识,按照“三个代表”重要思想的根本要求保持与时俱进的精神状态,深刻认识全面建设小康社会奋斗目标的重要意义,紧紧围绕这一目标开展各项工作。