The Chinese writer as empty signifier: a corpus-based analysis of the English-language reporting of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature

This study examines the English-language reporting of the award in 2012 of the Nobel Prize in Literature to the Chinese author, Mo Yan. Through the corpus-based analysis of news reporting in four countries, the study found that Mo was discursively produced as an “empty signifier” through which significant cultural-political work was done in an attempt to make sense of and manage a resurgent China. Specifically, the global cultural event of the Nobel Prize in Literature was used in the USA, Australian, and French news media largely to reproduce the dominant human rights discourse in which China's dissidents were highly prominent and highly valued. In the news media of the more culturally proximate India, the literary achievement was given greater prominence. The study's keyword and concordance analyses found a high degree of commonality in the linguistic strategies through which China was represented. The findings revealed that the English-language reporting of the Nobel Prize was characterized by narrow cosmopolitanism, in which “they” were invited to become part of “our” free world.     

The Search for Effective Alternatives to Conservatorship

This article explores outcomes of daily money management (DMM) services for older persons. It is based on research that examined the ability of DMM lo provide an alternative to court-appointed conservatorship that is less restrictive. Results indicate that although he DMM programs studied did not diven older persons from conservatorship, they appeared to offer several important advantages. These included helping older persons secure benefits and services, enhancing their financial security, and reducing financial exploitation.     

Now What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople

In 1992, a mental‐models‐based survey in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, revealed that educated laypeople often conflated global climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion, and appeared relatively unaware of the role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in global warming. This study compares those survey results with 2009 data from a sample of similarly well‐educated laypeople responding to the same survey instrument. Not surprisingly, following a decade of explosive attention to climate change in politics and in the mainstream media, survey respondents in 2009 showed higher awareness and comprehension of some climate change causes. Most notably, unlike those in 1992, 2009 respondents rarely mentioned ozone depletion as a cause of global warming. They were also far more likely to correctly volunteer energy use as a major cause of climate change; many in 2009 also cited natural processes and historical climatic cycles as key causes. When asked how to address the problem of climate change, while respondents in 1992 were unable to differentiate between general “good environmental practices” and actions specific to addressing climate change, respondents in 2009 have begun to appreciate the differences. Despite this, many individuals in 2009 still had incorrect beliefs about climate change, and still did not appear to fully appreciate key facts such as that global warming is primarily due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the single most important source of this carbon dioxide is the combustion of fossil fuels.     

The Politics of Pain and the End of Empire

This article is a discussion of the role of feeling and emotion, and particularly the experience of pain, in contemporary global political events. In placing pain at the center of an analysis of a lived experience of global politics, the aim is to forge strategies to resist neoliberal imperialism and to create emotionally literate political communities. Drawing on the work of Elaine Scarry, Sara Ahmed and Frantz Fanon, the article situates the concept of emotions in a modern colonial landscape that is both racialized and gendered, complicated by neoliberalism as a subjectivity that contains the scope for emotions. As a case study, the article considers the emotions of viewing the deliberate infliction of pain through the circulation of the ‘Abu Ghraib photos’, particularly in the form of recent museum exhibitions in the USA.     

邓小平时代主题论的再学习

论述了邓小平同志通过对当今世界动态演化和静态结构的把握 ,提出当代世界的主题是和平与发展的论断 ,并相应形成了发展论、开放论和策略论 ,立足本国 ,抓住时机 ,发展自己 ,从而极大地丰富了马列主义、毛泽东思想     

全球化场景中的文化认同——论中国20世纪90年代小说家的文化价值理想

为了探讨20世纪90年代小说界的文化价值理想,运用全球化理论,试图从文化认同的角度,剖析20世纪90年代中国小说家不同的文化认同和选择带来作者不同的文化价值理想取向,结论认为他们一方面为抛弃已留在后面的自我而不自在,一方面又感情复杂地等待外来文化的冲击,在两者的撕扯中不能自拔,并在整体上表现为一种文化价值理想的浑蒙状态。     

从“马萨诸塞州等诉环保局”案看美国环境法的新进展

美国联邦最高法院于2007年4月就"马萨诸塞州等诉环保局"案作出判决后,在美国国内产生广泛影响。在美国十多个州的推动下,美国联邦最高法院对该案的判决不仅进一步完善了环境法中的"起诉资格"理论,而且判决将推动美国环境保护局在控制全球变暖、减排温室气体特别是机动车排放上有所作为。联邦最高法院的这一判决也将对美国未来的环境和能源立法与政策产生巨大影响。     

困境与出路——"全球化"教育和国际理解教育

教育是促进文化间的理解与对话的重要手段,促进文化间理解与对话是当今世界和平与发展的重要内容。本文通过分析“全球化”的内在逻辑,揭示了一种在世界普遍存在的、披着全球化外衣的异化的教育形态——“全球化”教育,指出这种教育掩藏了种种陷阱。与此相应,提出了国际教育发展的新方向——国际理解教育。     

分布时滞Hopfield神经网络稳定性

针对分布时滞的Hopfield型神经网络构造了李雅普诺夫能量函数,证明了该网络的稳定性问题。证明过程中运用了引理的结论,充分利用了所取李雅普诺夫函数的特殊性,较多地运用了不等式分析方法及不等式放缩技巧。同时由于时滞的存在,证明过程中还涉及李雅普诺夫泛函问题。最后利用引理的结论得出了该网络全局一致渐近稳定的结论。     

全球性问题与全球治理的理论与实践

由全球化所引发的全球性人类困境问题使传统民族国家政府行为的局限性日益突出，全球性治理的理论和实践由此兴起。西方理论界在多个维度上探讨关于全球治理问题，涉及到民族国家主权、公民社会、世界主义民主模式、文明与文化等诸多方面。同时，各国政府、联合国等国际机构、跨国公司以及国际性非政府组织等也纷纷转变传统的行为模式，为全球治理的实践发展作出了重要的探索。