The Politics of Memory: Cultural Interaction and Confrontation among the Haunting Ghosts of Russians, Japanese, and Chinese in Harbin

This dissertation focuses on a spatial analysis of the cultural memories of Harbin, a city in Northeast China, a former (semi)colony of Russia and Japan, and a habitat of more than forty nationalities from across the world in the first half of the twentieth century. Harbins history, determined in great part by a large foreign presence, is still a matter of contention in China and elsewhere. By adopting Pierre Noras concept of lieux de mmoire (places of memory), Henri Lefebvres notion of the social production of space, and concepts and theories of many others, this dissertation investigates the contested memories of Harbin through the lens of architecture, literature, film, and television drama. It conducts interdisciplinary and inter-medial examinations of Harbin as an encompassing lieu de mmoire, where various practices demonstrate, individually and collectively, differently yet consistently, the social signification of the citys pasts in the present, enriching the city with ambivalent and contradictory meanings, and contributing to the social production of the memorial space and spatial memory of the city. This dissertation examines Harbin as a contact zone amongst Russia, Japan, and China, and as a periphery of the cultural heartland of China. It attaches importance to memories as an arena for the contemporary Harbiners to negotiate the divergent ideologies, power contests, and economic and cultural concerns. The city itself is a palimpsest, a text which has experienced, and is experiencing, a process of being effaced and rewritten, translated, and resignified. The citys contested past overlaps with its present, persistently haunting and shaping the city, while experiencing metamorphosis and resurrection. Overshadowed by the real-and-imagined ghosts of the past, Harbin continues to function as a contested contact zone and frontier that de-territorializes Chinas homogeneous cultural identity from the periphery. In this way, Harbin describes a local particularism by evoking a future-oriented reinvigoration of its cosmopolitan past in the current context of globalization. In this process, contemporary Harbiners demonstrate ambivalence and paradox in promoting the citys exoticism as much as complying with the states construction of nationalism

Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts. EVA 2018 Florence

The Publication is following the yearly Editions of EVA FLORENCE. The State of Art is presented regarding the Application of Technologies (in particular of digital type) to Cultural Heritage. The more recent results of the Researches in the considered Area are presented. Information Technologies of interest for Culture Heritage are presented: multimedia systems, data-bases, data protection, access to digital content, Virtual Galleries. Particular reference is reserved to digital images (Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts), regarding Cultural Institutions (Museums, Libraries, Palace - Monuments, Archaeological Sites). The International Conference includes the following Sessions: Strategic Issues; New Sciences and Culture Developments and Applications; New Technical Developments & Applications; Museums - Virtual Galleries and Related Initiatives; Art and Humanities Ecosystem & Applications; Access to the Culture Information. Two Workshops regard: Innovation and Enterprise; the Cloud Systems connected to the Culture (eCulture Cloud) in the Smart Cities context. The more recent results of the Researches at national and international are reported in the Area of Technologies and Culture Heritage, also with experimental demonstrations of developed Activities

Imperial Genus: The Formation and Limits of the Human in Modern Korea and Japan

"Imperial Genus begins with the turn to world culture and ideas of the generally human in Japan’s cultural policy in Korea in 1919. How were concepts of the human’s genus‑being operative in the discourses of the Japanese empire? How did they inform the imagination and representation of modernity in colonial Korea? Travis Workman delves into these questions through texts in philosophy, literature, and social science. Imperial Genus focuses on how notions of human generality mediated uncertainty between the transcendental and the empirical, the universal and the particular, and empire and colony. It shows how cosmopolitan cultural principles, the proletarian arts, and Pan‑Asian imperial nationalism converged with practices of colonial governmentality. It is a genealogy of the various articulations of the human’s genus‑being within modern humanist thinking in East Asia, as well as an exploration of the limits of the human as both concept and historical figure.

The Cowboy Way: A Study of Leadership As Portrayed in Western Film

This study sought to examine leadership through the medium of film, specifically the genre of the western. The western is iconographic; representative of the American ethos, the western embodied the frontier myth. The purposes of this study were to examine how leadership was portrayed in a selected sample of western films dating from 1945 to 1995, and to categorize and characterize the leadership methods exhibited in each film. Qualitative in design, the study was concerned with broad description and discovery. Using observation as the data collection technique and content analysis as the research method, the study examined a sample of 29 pre-selected western films released between 1945 and 1995. Individual samples displaying leadership dynamics were drawn from each film through the use of verbatims and character analysis. Each film was examined for examples of leadership in order to gain a better understanding of the role that leadership played in the western and to ascertain leadership models exhibited in the genre. Conclusions of the study emphasized the diverse portrayals of leadership exhibited through this genre. The western showed a depth of character in relation to leadership, displaying a variety of styles, motifs, and characteristics representative of several leadership theories. Some of the concepts of leadership, and the underlying theories and styles portrayed, revealed a universal quality about leadership that transcended theoretical research. The western was a multi-faceted venue through which to study leadership, providing a unique perspective on the dynamics involved in the leadership process both through theory and by praxis

Imperial Genus: The Formation and Limits of the Human in Modern Korea and Japan

"Imperial Genus begins with the turn to world culture and ideas of the generally human in Japan’s cultural policy in Korea in 1919. How were concepts of the human’s genus‑being operative in the discourses of the Japanese empire? How did they inform the imagination and representation of modernity in colonial Korea? Travis Workman delves into these questions through texts in philosophy, literature, and social science. Imperial Genus focuses on how notions of human generality mediated uncertainty between the transcendental and the empirical, the universal and the particular, and empire and colony. It shows how cosmopolitan cultural principles, the proletarian arts, and Pan‑Asian imperial nationalism converged with practices of colonial governmentality. It is a genealogy of the various articulations of the human’s genus‑being within modern humanist thinking in East Asia, as well as an exploration of the limits of the human as both concept and historical figure.

Housing quality and lost (public) space in Croatia

IN ENGLISH: In the post-socialist period and within the current social transition context, urban and rural Croatia has, just like other transition countries, experienced many changes in the social structure and space. One example is the housing quality which is a replica of the situation in the Croatian society and has also undergone some major changes. Socially oriented housing construction co-financed by the state and the cities is in an unfavourable position compared to private housing construction. In the last twenty years the amount of the social housing construction has been only a minor part of the total contruction work in the country. For instance, out of nine newly planned residential housing developments in Zagreb, the capital city, only three have been completed and the work on the rest of them has stopped and is unlikely to continue. Private construction work prevails especially on the edge of the city and is characterised by high density housing. This type of housing construction doesn't benefit the majority of citizens in search of accommodation (price per square meter is too high, low-quality building). There is also a big problem of the community facilities (primary and secondary infrastructure, schools, kindergartens, playgrounds, green areas, sidewalks, public transport etc.). The existing globalisation-transition circumstances of the Croatian society corroborate the fact which experts of various profiles often point out: ignoring the process of (urban) planning will irreparably damage the space. The city transformation shows the absence of comprehensive urban planning which results in an ever increasing number of random buildings which do not fit in the surroundings. This leads up to yet another important issue – the shrinking and, in some cases, disappearance of public space which becomes the “lost space“. In recent years there has been a lot of building in the city core and on the edge which does not quite fit in the existing urban structure, image or the skyline of the city. The current situation in the process of planning can be characterized as a conflict and imbalance between the powerful actors (mostly political and economic) and less powerful actors (mostly professional and civil). The actors who have the political power and influence and the ones who possess the capital are forming an “alliance” between two important layers of the social structure. The lack of civil and professional actors, “lost spatial actors”, and therefore of civic aggregation is also present and that is also the cause of public space “disappearance” and undermined process of public participation. --------------- IN CROATIAN: U postsocijalističkom razdoblju i trenutnom tranzicijskom kontekstu urbana i ruralna Hrvatska su, kao i ostale tranzicijske zemlje, doživjele mnoge promjene u društvenoj strukturi i samom prostoru. Na primjeru kvalitete stanovanja kao replike stanja u hrvatskom društvu mogu se vidjeti značajne promjene. Društveno usmjerena stambena izgradnja sufinancirana od strane države i gradova je stoga rjeđa i u nepovoljnijoj je situaciji prema privatnoj stanogradnji. Zadnjih dvadeset godina udjel socijalne stambene gradnje je zanemariv u ukupnoj izgradnji na razini zemlje. Primjerice, od devet planiranih stambenih naselja izgrađenih po modelu POS-a u Zagrebu samo su tri i završena. Na ostalima je proces gradnje zastao i ne čini se da će se privesti kraju. Privatna je gradnje prisutnija, posebno na rubovima grada, a obilježava je visoka gustoća gradnje. Ovakav tip gradnje ne odgovara većini stanovnika koji su u procesu potražnje stambene nekretnine (visoka cijena kvadratnog metra, a slaba kvaliteta gradnje). Postoji također i problem nedostatne opremljenosti susjedstva (primarna i sekundarna infrastruktura, škole, vrtići, igrališta, zelene površine, pješačke staze, javni transport itd.). Navedene globalizacijsko-tranzicijske okolnosti hrvatskog društva potvrđuju ono što eksperti različitih profila ističu, a to je da će ignoriranje procesa (urbanog) planiranja nepovratno uništiti prostor gradova. Ovakve transformacije pokazuju nedostatak sustavnog urbanog planiranja što rezultira sve većim brojem zgrada koje se ne uklapaju u neposrednu okolinu. To nadalje dovodi do drugog važnog aspekta – smanjivanja i u nekim slučajevima, nestanka javnog prostora koji postaje „izgubljeni prostor“. Posljednjih je godina izgrađen velik broj zgrada, i u središtu i na rubovima grada, koje se ne uklapaju u postojeću urbanu strukturu, izgled ili vizuru grada. Ovakvu situaciju obilježavaju sukob i neravnoteža između moćnijih društvenih aktera (većinom političkih i ekonomskih) i onih manje moćnih (većinom profesionalnih i civilnih). Politički i ekonomski akteri se često povezuju u „savez“ dvaju najjačih u društvenoj strukturi. S druge strane nedostatak utjecaja civilnih i profesionalnih aktera kao „izgubljenih prostornih aktera“ dovodi do „nestanka“ javnih prostora te smanjenja važnosti procesa participacije (sudjelovanja javnosti)