Between hagiography and historiography: Chabad,scholars of Hasidism,and the case of the portrait of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady

The portrait of Shneur Zalman of Liady is one of the most popular images in modern Jewish iconography. Published at the end of the nineteenth century, the portrait has quickly gained popularity both within and without the Chabad community. However, unlike the religious audience, which reveres the portrait as a faithful representation of the founder of Chabad, the secular, academic audience rejects it as fraudulent, together with all the supporting evidence provided by Chabad. This article revisits the history of the portrait’s creation and publication, paying particular attention to Russian documentation produced by Chabad in the 1930s, which has so far been entirely ignored by the scholarship. It identifies the portrait’s alleged painter and owner as well as other characters mentioned in these documents, with the aim of verifying Chabad’s version of events. Although this article does not answer conclusively whether the portrait is authentic or not, it proffers corroborating evidence for the Chabad point of view, and briefly discusses future research possibilities for the topic. Furthermore, the article considers the ways in which the leadership of Chabad used the history of the portrait to consolidate the movement and discusses the challenges that Chabad partisan historiography poses for the academic study of Hasidism.     

Jia’s The Chinese Version

Abstract

The Chinese Character Simplification Programme of 1955–1957 that remains a national standard by force of law in the People’s Republic of China, not only degraded the aesthetic properties of the Chinese written character, but also hindered literacy by means of a haphazard formal reduction of the number of strokes, and by eliminating two-thirds of characters from the lexicon of those allowed for publication. In The Chinese Version painting series by Jia (b.1979), the artist arranges Chinese characters according to formal rather than semantic criteria, in order to generate by means of their juxtaposition, abstract or figurative patterns. Each character may retain its individual meaning, but not its function as a sequential syntagm. This strategy invests the characters with a formal aspect to ‘return’ that which was mutilated by the Simplification Programme. As the Simplification Programme’s formal changes ended characters’ role as image-signs, the artist’s choice to present each work as a painting alludes to their lost image capacity while appearing to imitate the outward aspect of printed characters, thereby implicitly turning against itself the pretext of character simplification for the sake of efficiency.     

China’s modern image – contemporary Chinese art

Abstract

As a worldwide cultural phenomenon, contemporary art in China has not only been used as a diplomatic language but also a reflection of contemporary Chinese culture. Contemporary Chinese art, as an emerging field to display China’s global role, provides an important perspective to study China’s self-position in global relations, China’s diplomacy in exercising its soft power, contemporary Chinese culture, and the reinvention of China’s cultural/national identity in post-Mao China. Using the 2000 Shanghai Biennale and the Chinese pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale as case studies, this article investigates how the fluid construct of Chineseness is successfully promoted and demonstrated through the government’s support of contemporary Chinese art.     

Fighting words? Joning as conflict talk and identity performance among African American preadolescents

This study examines how preadolescent African American students in Washington, D.C., used a linguistic practice called ‘joning,’ a style of verbal play similar to ritual insults, in peer interactions. Sociolinguists have focused on how children socialize each other into vernacular styles appropriate for peer group use but often assume that they disalign with social and linguistic norms for classroom behavior. Drawing from a nine‐month ethnographic study that the author conducted in an after‐school program, this article analyzes the structure and function of joning as a vernacular style of African American Vernacular English and its uses in constructing classroom identities. Joning often facilitated student learning, but it was perceived as a socially and physically risky linguistic practice because of its uses as conflict talk in the local community. Focusing on preadolescence as a key stage of language socialization, this article shows how minority students modify peer‐learned linguistic practices to pursue academic success on their own terms.     

Lena Finkle’s magic arc: hybrid influences in the Russian American graphic novel

ABSTRACT

The article examines Anya Ulinich’s graphic narrative Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel and the novel’s use of visual culture from both the author’s Russian and US American backgrounds. The article interrogates the use of history and timelines, Russian art history and Russian art education in Ulinich’s text. It also analyzes other literary constructs that influenced Ulinich’s novel: US American comics/graphic novels and their use of stereotype, and novels by Russian-speaking Jewish American writers, with their thematized Jewishness.     

In search of African history: the re-appropriation of photographic archives by contemporary visual artists

The digital revolution has fundamentally changed our relationship to archives, by accelerating their “dusting off” and their re-appropriation, particularly in the art world. This article will show the ways in which some contemporary visual artists use new digital technologies to provide new ways of storing, reading and retrieving contemporary African history. Such artists do so by revisiting diverse forms of archives that are mainly photographic, and which were produced during the colonial and independence eras.     

传统文化典籍的大众传播——以《百家讲坛》为例

伴随《百家讲坛》的热播,争议之声渐起,这与它后期的市场定位密切相关。由于栏目目标受众定位为＂初中生＂,必然降低其学术标准,因此遭到学者的批判。之所以出现异议,主要是批评者的学术期待和《百家讲坛》栏目的市场性质错位等原因所致。     

探析微博在高职高专艺术类专业英语教学中的应用

本文探讨微博用于高职高专艺术类专业英语教学的教学模式,并辅以教学实例进行解析,为英语教学提供了新视角。     

技术语境下的艺术

每一次根本性技术的发明都会改变人类的思维方式和价值体系。艺术变革也具有这种性质,现代艺术以强烈的革命态度表示出与传统价值观的决裂。艺术阐释的重心也从艺术创作和美学转向生产和消费领域。在这种情况下,法兰克福学派关于技术异化的批判,仍然具有警示作用;而艺术作为人类情感的一种表现形式、作为人文关怀的一种方式,在新时代的生态语境中,应该重新获取这些崇高意义。艺术变化与技术发展有直接的联系,除此之外,还与政治、经济、意识形态、精神、观念、艺术家等有着直接或间接的联系。综合考察这些因素,才能够探明艺术变革的真正原因。但未来发展情形仍然不明了,需要科学家和伦理学家共同努力。科技“由谁来控制”和“如何控制”是解决问题的核心所在。     

Art for integration: political rationalities and technologies of governmentalisation in the city of Malmö

Cities increasingly use artistic and cultural activities to promote active citizenship and social cohesion. We suggest that city-sponsored cultural and artistic practices in Sweden are finding a new discursive context in migration. In this article, we look at two artistic and cultural institutions in Malmö, Sweden: Arena 305 and Drömmarnas hus. We develop a typology of governmentalisation based on the work of Nicholas Rose and Peter Miller, which allows us to describe the governing activity of Arena 305 and Drömmarnas hus. What becomes visible is the discrepancy between the moral form of the political rationalities and the technologies of government: even though institutions may harbour ideals and principles of inclusion, they are perfectly capable of sustaining activities that brighten the very boundaries they set out to challenge.