Popular Hazards and Policy Rhetoric

Popular hazards are common activities that involve some risks of harm, such as driving a car, possessing or shooting a gun, drinking alcohol, or smoking marijuana. In each of these cases, many millions of Americans engage in the activity, but only a small fraction of them harm themselves or other people. Because the activity is so common, the number harmed may be substantial, although more serious harms tend to be much more infrequent than less serious harms. Social policy debates almost always focus on some particular popular hazard, yet we can see rhetorical similarities—parallel arguments—in how advocates frame what are understood to be very different social issues. Thus, discourse about legalizing recreational marijuana use tends to invoke claims that are quite similar to those opposing further gun control. The category of popular hazards allows us to recognize parallels in policy debates about seemingly unrelated social issues. Focusing on the underlying policy issue—balancing popularity and hazardousness—encourages considering alternative ways to construct social policies.     

Compulsion mechanisms: state-movement dynamics in Buenos Aires

The article reveals and explains the workings of generally ignored mechanism of state–movement interaction proposed by Charles Tilly, namely the compulsion mechanism. Specifically, two types of compulsion mechanisms will be defined: compulsive support and compulsive control. In both types, without using physical repression, the state’s institutions reinforce the movement’s identity while also prompting it to adapt its repertoire of strategies to the state institutions’ requirements. Empirically, this article focuses on the interaction of the assembly movement with the state in the City of Buenos Aires. This movement emerged as a result of the socioeconomic and political crises of 2001–2002 in Argentina. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, the purpose is to unpack how the assembly movement’s identities and strategies were built and how its interaction with the state evolved.     

天津民间宗教现实活动调查与对策研究

1980年代以来,随着我国改革开放国策的强劲推行和由此带来的社会巨大变化,与全国各地的民间宗教一样,天津民间宗教也出现了复活的态势,特别是步入21世纪以后,更是呈现出日益兴盛的发展趋势。 为了掌握天津民间宗教现实活动的真实情况,2008年7月至2009年6月,笔者运用宗教人类学的理论与方法,对活跃在天津的民间宗教,展开了田野调查。一年来,笔者走访了南开区、津南区、北辰区、西青区、东丽区、大港区、静海县、蓟县等地民间宗教活动比较盛行的七八个乡村城镇,调查了近百名男女老少信众,召开了十几次座谈会,并多次参加民间宗教举办的各种法会,现场观察了广大信众的信仰活动。为了调查天津民间宗教与外埠民间宗教的渊源关系,笔者还前往河北省沧县、平乡县和山东省惠民县、章丘县,调查了那里的民间宗教活动。此外,在调查过程中,笔者还采取社会学的“问卷”方法,向民间宗教信众发放了200份“问卷”。与此同时,笔者又采用宗教历史学的理论与方法,对天津民间宗教历史进行了简略回溯。在此基础上,笔者对天津民间宗教的历史与现状、天津民间宗教现实活动的特点进行了分析与研究,并就如何正确认识和妥善处理当代天津宗教信仰领域中的民间宗教问题,提出了对策建议。     

科普英语评价理论分析

本文以评价理论为理论基础,从科普英语的语言、语境和作者—读者关系所体现的人际情感意义出发,使用Systemic Coder统计工具分析百篇英语科普短文,说明科普英语也大量使用评价资源,几乎用到了评价理论全部的评价资源范畴,情态、鉴赏和语势资源也同样频繁使用,直接证明了科普英语表达人际情感和态度意义,体现作者与读者的协商和对话。     

构建民族的、科学的、大众的马克思主义

中国化的马克思主义必须体现中华民族的特性,成为中华文明优秀传统的继承者和体现者;必须体现科学性,是科学精神与人文精神的载体,是中国人民科学的世界观、方法论和精神家园;必须面向人民大众、服务人民大众、满足人民大众的需要。中国的马克思主义必须是民族的、科学的、大众的马克思主义。     

我国公民检举权的理论基础

公民检举权既是为了满足人们的现实生活需要而产生的,同时也是历史文化积淀的结果,它具有深厚的理论基础。公民检举权来源于人民主权。公民通过行使检举权,来保证自己主权的实现。公民检举权同时也是公民运用自己的监督权利来制约国家权力的违法失职行为,因而是权利制约理论以及抵抗权理论的逻辑延伸。     

直觉、理性、人心:梁漱溟对中国文化解读的三阶段

梁漱溟对中国文化的解读经历了直觉、理性、人心三个阶段,他的直觉说有两层含义,一为认识的直观,二为本能的良知良能,随着认识的深入他逐渐意识到用"直觉"理解中国文化的不妥,遂而提出了"理性"与"人心"的概念,而且梁漱溟对"理性"和"人心"赋予了特殊的含义。通过对"直觉"、"理性"和"人心"(梁漱溟在不同时期对文化的解读核心用语)的梳理,我们可以看出梁漱溟对文化尤其是对中国文化解读的得与失。尤为重要的是,梁漱溟对"良知良能"的来源试图结合现代的生物科学予以新的解答,这是对"人心"或曰"良知良能"的终极性思考。     

宋代宫廷贵族音乐的衰落与市民通俗音乐的繁荣

宋代是中国古代音乐发展的一个转型期。随着商品经济的繁荣与社会生产力水平的提高,城市得到了很大的发展。市民阶层及其音乐文化,逐渐替代宫廷贵族音乐而发展成为社会的主流音乐文化——市民通俗音乐文化。这种音乐文化注重写实主义,具有热情奔放和浅显直白的特点。戏曲音乐无疑是众多市民通俗音乐体裁中的杰出代表,综合运用诗、歌、舞等综合舞台形式,将市民阶层的寻常故事搬上舞台,赢得了市民群众的普遍欢迎。在瓦舍勾栏、酒肆茶楼、寺庙道观或街头巷尾等公共场所的演出活动中,不断吸收各类文化形态和艺术体裁的精髓,完成了由滑稽小戏向成熟戏剧的过渡,宣告了剧曲音乐时代的到来。     

The cultural currency of a 'good' sense of humour: British comedy and new forms of distinction

Traditionally considered lowbrow art par excellence, British comedy has grown steadily in legitimacy since the 'Alternative Comedy Movement' of the early 1980s. Yet while there might be evidence of a transformation in British comic production, there is little understanding of how this has been reflected in patterns of consumption. Indeed, there is a remarkable absence of studies probing comedy taste in British cultural sociology, most notably in Bennett et al's (2009) recent and otherwise exhaustive mapping of cultural taste and participation. This paper aims to plug this gap in the literature by examining contemporary comedy taste cultures in Britain. Drawing on a large-scale survey and in-depth interviews carried out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it argues that comedy now represents an emerging field for the culturally privileged to activate their cultural capital resources. However, unlike previous studies on cultural capital and taste, this research finds that field-specific 'comic cultural capital' is mobilized less through taste for certain legitimate 'objects' of comedy and more through the expression of rarefied and somewhat 'disinterested'styles of comic appreciation. In short, it is 'embodied' rather than 'objectified' forms of cultural capital that largely distinguish the privileged in the field of comedy.     

The sociology of popular music, interdisciplinarity and aesthetic autonomy

This paper considers the impact of interdisciplinarity upon sociological research, focusing on one particular case: the academic study of popular music. 'Popular music studies' is an area of research characterized by interdisciplinarity and, in keeping with broader intellectual trends, this approach is assumed to offer significant advantages. As such, popular music studies is broadly typical of contemporary intellectual and governmental attitudes regarding the best way to research specific topics. Such interdisciplinarity, however, has potential costs and this paper highlights one of the most significant: an over-emphasis upon shared substantive interests and subsequent undervaluation of shared epistemological understandings. The end result is a form of 'ghettoization' within sociology itself, with residents of any particular ghetto displaying little awareness of developments in neighbouring ghettos. Reporting from one such ghetto, this paper considers some of the ways in which the sociology of popular music has been limited by its positioning within an interdisciplinary environment and suggests two strategies for developing a more fully-realized sociology of popular music. First, based on the assumption that a sociological understanding of popular music shares much in common with a sociological understanding of everything else, this paper calls for increased intradisciplinary research between sociologists of varying specialisms. The second strategy, however, involves a reconceptualization of the disciplinary limits of sociology, as it argues that a sociology of popular music needs to accept musical specificity as part of its remit. Such acceptance has thus far been limited not only by an interdisciplinary context but also by the long-standing sociological scepticism toward the analysis of aesthetic objects. As such, this paper offers an intervention into wider debates concerning the remit of sociological enquiry, and whether it is ever appropriate for sociological analyses of culture to consider 'internal' aesthetic structures. In relation to the specific case study, the paper argues that considering musical specificity is a necessary component of a sociology of popular music, and some possibilities for developing a 'materialist sociology of music' are outlined.