Poetics of place and the transformation of the Russian Jewish American self in Lara Vapnyar’s The Scent of Pine and Yelena Akhtiorskaya’s Panic in a Suitcase

ABSTRACT

In The Scent of Pine and Panic in a Suitcase, Russian Jewish American authors Lara Vapnyar and Yelena Akhtiorskaya explore the interiority of the immigrant self in various stages of the immigrant journey from the former Soviet Union to the United States and back. Both novels display a general trend in this literature to move away from the prescribed paradigms of Jewish American immigrant self-understanding, and toward a more private sense of the immigrant self, a movement away from the familiar confines of immigrant urban enclaves and toward a poetics of place that expands the modalities in which post-Soviet Jewish characters interact with US American space.     

Intercultural encounters as a ‘Mind Body’ experience: a case study in Jerusalem

This study presents new techniques for teaching diversity, when dealing with the challenges of multicultural society. We present a course model, which incorporates methods that have been developed by the Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), and continue to disclose and analyse some of the reactions and evaluations we received from the participating students. Findings revealed that the CMBM techniques contributed considerably to the intercultural atmosphere. CMBM contributed in creating added value, in improving self-efficacy and in advancing similarity perceptions in intercultural communication. Moreover, CMBM developed greater trust and emotional support among group members, thus may contribute to reach the educational goals. This study advances composite theoretical accounts into a set of conclusions for bridging intercultural encounters challenges through mind–body techniques.     

Stakeholder identities in Britain's neoliberal ethical community: Polish narratives of earned citizenship in the context of the UK's EU referendum

This article examines the narrative strategies through which Polish migrants in the UK challenge the formal rights of political membership and attempt to redefine the boundaries of ‘citizenship’ along notions of deservedness. The analysed qualitative data originate from an online survey conducted in the months before the 2016 EU referendum, and the narratives emerge from the open‐text answers to two survey questions concerning attitudes towards the referendum and the exclusion of resident EU nationals from the electoral process. The analysis identifies and describes three narrative strategies in reaction to the public discourses surrounding the EU referendum – namely discursive complicity, intergroup hostility and defensive assertiveness – which attempt to redefine the conditions of membership in Britain's ‘ethical community’ in respect to welfare practices. Examining these processes simultaneously ‘from below’ and ‘from outside’ the national political community, the paper argues, can reveal more of the transformation taking place in conceptions of citizenship at the sociological level, and the article aims to identify the contours of a ‘neoliberal communitarian citizenship’ as internalized by mobile EU citizens.     

Intonation,identity and contact‐induced change among Polish‐speaking migrants in the U.K.

This article examines intonational variation in a language contact situation. The study contributes to sociolinguistic research on the social meaning of intonational variation (Podesva 2006 ; Levon 2014 ). Intonation is studied in a multilingual context of global mobility: within a group of Polish‐speaking migrants in Britain who, thanks to cheap transportation and new channels of communication, could make use of linguistic resources unlimited by territorial boundaries from the beginning of their transnational experience. The study shows that speakers with seemingly similar linguistic and cultural profiles make use of intonation patterns in different ways in the context of the narrative of the self: speakers oriented towards the global economy and the English‐speaking world incorporate a mainly English intonational pattern, the fall‐rise, with increased frequency to do interactional work that it does in English, while other groups maintain Standard Polish norms. As shown, intonational variation participates in the creation of fluid identities that blur linguistic and sociocultural boundaries.     

Racism and xenophobia experienced by Polish migrants in the UK before and after Brexit vote

In recent years the public discourses on Polish migration in the UK have rapidly turned hostile, especially in the context of economic crisis in 2008, and subsequently after the EU referendum in 2016. While initially Poles have been perceived as a ‘desirable’ migrant group and labelled as ‘invisible’ due to their whiteness, this perception shifted to the representation of these migrants as taking jobs from British workers, putting a strain on public services and welfare. While racist and xenophobic violence has been particularly noted following the Brexit vote, Polish migrants experienced various forms of racist abuse before that. This paper draws on narrative interviews with Polish migrant women illustrating their experiences of racism and xenophobia in Greater Manchester before and after the Brexit vote, and how they make sense of anti-Polish discourses and attitudes. This paper illustrates the importance of the interplay between the media and political discourses, class, race and the local context in shaping relations between Polish migrants and the local population.     

历史记录着他们——俄罗斯犹太人在华活动

1881年和1894年,因俄国的两次排犹反犹浪潮,推动了犹太人的迁移行动。在19世纪末至20世纪初,俄国犹太人开始陆续向中国东北地区移民,主要居住在哈尔滨等城市。1917年俄国十月革命后,许多俄罗斯犹太人和大批白俄来到中国东北,也有部分人到了天津和上海等城市。他们属于较穷苦的阿什肯纳兹犹太人,构成了中国最早的一批犹太难民。他们在华的经济、文化、宗教活动对当时的部分中国城市生活起过一定的作用。     

论哲学与14世纪末犹太人改宗基督教的关系

13世纪,哲学在西班牙犹太人当中获得广泛的传播和发展;在14世纪末,大批犹太人在暴乱之后改宗成为基督徒。哲学是否是导致犹太人背叛犹太教的原因?由于哲学与信仰之间的内在冲突,一些人确有可能因学习哲学而失去信仰。但在特定的历史条件下,大批犹太人的改宗不应由哲学负责。一般民众宗教观念的变化主要是由现实原因造成的,而与少数哲学家的异端思想无关。     

论犹太家庭与社会观念的传统

家庭与社团观念从圣经时代以来一直是正统犹太教信徒乃至全体犹太人心目中最重要的社会观念,成为犹太宗教和犹太意识的基础.从社会、历史、宗教、文化等方面来研究犹太家庭和社团作为犹太社会两大柱石的意义,反思斯宾诺莎、马克思、马丁·布伯、卡普兰等现当代学者对犹太家庭与社会观念传统的研究和批评,有助于认识犹太宗教的本质意义和犹太人身份的现实意义.     

中国汇率制度改革的现实选择：波兰模式

中国作为世界上最大的转型国家之一,正经历着从计划经济体制向市场经济体制转变的过程,人民币汇率制度也面临着严峻的冲击和挑战。文章之所以选择波兰的汇率制度改革进行分析研究,是因为波兰改革的成功经验对我国有非常重要的借鉴意义。首先,波兰的汇率制度改革也是在从计划经济向市场经济转型的过程中进行的;其次,波兰汇率制度改革过程中的宏观经济状况与中国十分相似。波兰当年所面临的问题,今天的中国已经遇到或同样面临着,所以,通过剖析波兰汇率制度改革的历程,总结转型国家汇率制度变迁中的历史经验,以期对中国汇率制度改革有所启示。     

纳粹屠犹研究在中国

从历史的角度审视中国学术界自20世纪80年代起开展的关于纳粹屠犹问题的研究,考察了中国学术界对纳粹屠犹事件的认识,分析了纳粹屠犹教育在中国的开展及其意义.