In recent years, the far right “culture war” has to an increasing extent been allowed to set the terms for cultural policy debates, in Sweden and internationally. In the Swedish context, empty accusations against public cultural institutions of “wokeist” bias and “cancel culture” have found support in a public report from the governmental Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis, which claims that national public funding bodies are imposing politically correct demands on their applicants, with a “detrimental influence” on the freedom of (...) art. This article shows that the ACPA lacks grounds for these claims. Taking its cue from the ACPA’s report, it instead focuses on the fundamental and contested concept of the freedom or the autonomy of art. It seeks to outline what would need to characterise a critical concept of the autonomy of art today, and asks what the political implications would be of a rigorous understanding of such a concept. It argues that cultural policy should be understood as a project of cultural democratization, which should in turn be understood as a project of autonomy. (shrink)

While it is well known that Zhuangzi uses metaphor extensively, there is much less appreciation of the role that it plays in his thought-a topic that is investigated in this essay. At the same time, this investigation is closely concerned with questions about the nature of metaphor. Comparisons are made between a central metaphorical structure in the Zhuangzi on the one hand and contemporary views of the nature of metaphor by Donald Davidson and by Lakoff and Johnson on the other. (...) It is hoped that these comparisons will help to illuminate the central metaphorical structure and its role in the philosophy of the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

The term zhen 真 in the Zhuangzi 莊子 is commonly associated with the zhen ren 真人 or "true person." We find metaphorical descriptions such as that he can go through fire and water unharmed. On the other hand, some scholars would claim that there is a more mystical element to the Zhuangzi that is missed if we think that such descriptions are "merely" metaphorical. However, the term zhen is not only applied to the zhen ren, and this essay has the (...) broader aim of investigating its various meanings and uses in the Zhuangzi. We shall situate our understanding of the zhen ren within the context of this broader investigation.Zhen has several applications throughout the text. To begin with, it may be used to affirm that .. (shrink)

: While it is well known that Zhuangzi uses metaphor extensively, there is much less appreciation of the role that it plays in his thought—a topic that is investigated in this essay. At the same time, this investigation is closely concerned with questions about the nature of metaphor. Comparisons are made between a central metaphorical structure in the Zhuangzi on the one hand and contemporary views of the nature of metaphor by Donald Davidson and by Lakoff and Johnson on the (...) other. It is hoped that these comparisons will help to illuminate the central metaphorical structure and its role in the philosophy of the Zhuangzi. (shrink)

Some commentators hold that Xunzi's criticism of Mencius' thesis that human nature is good depends more on Xunzi's definition of xing or nature than on substantive argument. Some also claim that Xunzi is committed to accepting Mencius' thesis. A more precise account of Xunzi's critique is offered here, based on an elaboration of his distinction in the "Xing e pian" between ke yi (capacity) and neng (ability). Others have noted this distinction, but no one has sufficiently appreciated its role in (...) making Xunzi's critique more systematic and substantive than it is usually thought to be. (shrink)

Under Mencius' influence jen has been regarded as part of a theory of nature. As such, commentators have had difficulty resolving the apparent paradox in "Analects" 9.1 that Confucius rarely talked about jen. No paradox arises if jen is seen as a practice involving self-cultivation as a never-ending task and the immediacy of ethical commitment where a cluster of emotions, attitudes, and values are expressed. Jen is an ethical orientation from which one speaks and acts--not particular qualities that one might (...) enumerate and claim to possess. As such, the internal relation between jen and li does not amount to their being the same thing, as implied by some recent writers. (shrink)

: Some commentators hold that Xunzi's criticism of Mencius' thesis that human nature is good depends more on Xunzi's definition of xing or nature than on substantive argument. Some also claim that Xunzi is committed to accepting Mencius' thesis. A more precise account of Xunzi's critique is offered here, based on an elaboration of his distinction in the "Xing e pian" between ke yi (capacity) and neng (ability). Others have noted this distinction, but no one has sufficiently appreciated its role (...) in making Xunzi's critique more systematic and substantive than it is usually thought to be. (shrink)

Speaking about the state of the Hollywood film industry at the 2008 Academy Awards, the Oscars’ host – comedian Jon Stewart – made the following wry assessment: ‘Not all films did as well as Juno obviously. The films that were made about the Iraq War, let’s face it, did not do as well. But I’m telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theatres we can turn this around. I don’t care if it takes 100 (...) years. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. We cannot let the audience win.’ The films he is referring to include Home of the Brave (2006), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Stop-Loss (2008) – all of which focus on the personal cost to American soldiers on their return to civilian life, as well as exposing the failure of the US invasion of Iraq at home and abroad. Despite their topical subject matter, these movies were, for the most part, commercial failures. This article seeks to investigate audience indifference (Jean Baudrillard claims a certain indifference is a fundamental consequence of the Western globalising ideology) to mainstream cinematic depictions of the post September 11 invasion of Iraq, via a consideration of the trauma and abjection depicted in these films. Baudrillard’s hypotheses on terrorism – as a symbolic challenge put forth by terrorism (embodied by the attack on the Twin Towers) – and the West’s incapacity to respond to it, forms the basis for our investigation of the limits of these films to incite and engage viewers. His writings offer a lens through which to consider how ‘terrorism’ operates symbolically, and fundamentally, the dilemmas this raises for a Western psyche grappling with how the ‘terrorist threat’ might be answered, engaged with, responded to. (shrink)

"The desert opens up beyond the proliferation of big box chains, car dealerships, fast food joints, and the bland sprawl along California State Highway 62. Out there, where signs of familiar habitation seem to fade from view, a change occurs in the landscape: small, dusty, mostly abandoned cabins dot the arid flatland. The majority of the existing cabins, historically found throughout the larger region known as the Morongo Basin, lie east of Twentynine Palms in outlying Wonder Valley. The curious presence (...) of these structures signifies that you are entering one of the few remaining clusters of "jackrabbit" homesteads in the American West. The mostly derelict structures-many vacant, some inhabited-are the physical reminder of former occupants who were the last to form the U.S. government's Small Tract Act of 1938." "One of the many land acts designed to dispose of "useless" federal lands from the public domain, the Small Tract Act authorized citizens to lease up to five acres of desert for recreational purposes or for use as a home or business. When the applicant made the required improvements to his or her claim by constructing a small dwelling within the three-year lease, they could file for a patent-the federal government's form of a deed. This mid-century homestead movement reflects the quintessential American desire to claim territory and own a piece of land even when the property in question was deemed "worthless" from an economic and governmental perspective."--Jacket. (shrink)

ExcerptAmerica’s prestige as the bearer of a liberal democratic world order has taken a dent due to both geopolitical power shifts and the debilitating polarization of American democratic culture. Relatedly, symbolic power has been shifting away from liberal ideals and standards of legitimacy globally.1 It has become ever harder to deny that a variety of non-Western civilizational states, China chief among them, will not conform, nor even try to conform, to the West’s liberal democratic standards. Though these states imported (...) all kinds of Western-style institutions in their earlier phases of modernization, they now seem ever more determined to break free from the West’s gravitational pull. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe provision of gifts and payments for healthy volunteer subjects remains an important topic in global health research ethics. This paper provides empirical insights into theoretical debat...

Ao dai is a typical long dress of Viet Nam used to be worn by both men and women of the Viet and other ethnic peoples. In her shaping and development history, Viet Nam became a place that converged various cultural flows such as the Vietnamese indigenous culture and that of the Chinese, Champa and Indian etc. To the end of the 19th century, especially the 20th, Viet Nam continued to be influenced by the French culture and the American ways (...) of living. The acceptance of cultures from various nationalities and communities from the North to South, East to West made it possible for the Vietnamese fashion designers to harmonize all into an Ao dai for the Vietnamese women. This article will synthesize and analyze three renovation movements of Ao dai in the 20th century. It also discusses about these processes and introduces typical innovators whose contribution has created the Ao dai as it is today, a traditional dress that represents history of the Vietnamese culture, aesthetic sense, art and vitality. (shrink)

A recent project at the University of Denver Libraries used handwritten text recognition (HTR) software to create transcriptions of records from the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society (JCRS), a tuberculosis sanatorium located in Denver, Colorado from 1904 to 1954. Among a great many other potential uses, these type- and hand-written records give insight into the human experience of disease and epidemic, its treatment, its effect on cultures, and of Jewish immigration to and early life in the American West. Our intent (...) is to provide these transcripts as data so the text may be computationally analyzed, pursuant to a larger effort in developing capacity in services and infrastructure to support digital humanities as a library, and to contribute to the emerging HTR ecosystem in archival work. Just because we can, however, doesn’t always mean we should: the realities of publishing large datasets online that contain medical and personal histories of potentially vulnerable people and communities introduce serious ethical considerations. This paper both underscores the value of HTR and frames ethical considerations related to protecting data derived from it. It suggests a terms-of-use intervention perhaps valuable to similar projects, one that balances meeting the research needs of digital scholars with the care and respect of persons, their communities and inheritors, who lives produced the very data now valuable to those researchers. (shrink)