Talking about The Shape of Water: three women dip their toes in

Abstract

This article is about a film called The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro, which was released in 2017 and won the Best Picture award at the 2018 Oscars. The three authors of this article, all friends, had each enjoyed The Shape of Water, so went for a second viewing together. Our enjoyment had been somewhat at odds with criticisms of the film, mostly made by other members of the disabled people’s community/disabled academics. After seeing the film again, we found it to be a ground-breaking portrayal of a disabled woman. This article is a summary of the discussion which ensued. Our discussion of The Shape of Water is a current issue because we found ourselves disagreeing with, and questioning, a number of complaints about the representation of disability and impairment within the film. At a time when the film industry is making noises about inclusion, it is important that we know what we are asking for, and avoid demands which may be counterproductive to the cultural recognition of disabled people. This film is still being shown in cinemas in the UK and elsewhere.     

人工智能体刑法地位的教义学反思

随着智慧社会的到来，人工智能体广泛应用于社会各个领域，智能水平不断提升，与之相关的犯罪问题逐渐走向理论和实践的焦点。人工智能体冲击着刑法教义学主体和客体相区分的二元结构，引发了广泛的讨论和争议。探讨人工智能体的刑法地位应当改变混同分析主体性和能力性的思路，区分不法和责任两个层面进行研究。应基于人工智能的发展阶段，明确现阶段人工智能体仍然属于弱人工智能，因此其无法成为犯罪人或被害人，也无法具备责任能力或承担刑事责任。但是人工智能体日益可能成为犯罪对象，与之相关的自然人和法人犯罪也应当受到重视。探讨人工智能相关的刑法问题应当立足于教义学的基本立场与理论范式。     

The self as the locus of morality: A comparison between Charles Taylor and George Herbert Mead's theories of the moral constitution of the self

This paper provides a critical comparison of two leading exponents of the relationship between morality and selfhood: Charles Taylor and George Herbert Mead. Specifically, it seeks to provide an assessment of the contribution each approach is able to make to a social theory of morality that has the self at its heart. Ultimately, it is argued that Taylor's phenomenological account neglects the significance of interaction and social relations in his conceptualisation of the relationship between morality and self, which undermines the capacity of his framework to explain how moral understandings and dialogic moral subjectivity develop in a world of shared meaning. I then argue that Mead's pragmatist interactionist approach overcomes many of the flaws in Taylor's framework, and offers a grounded conceptualisation of the relationship between self and morality that is able to provide a basis for a properly social account of moral subjectivity.     

At the intersection of idealized youth and marginalized almost-adulthood: how girls negotiate young motherhood in London,Ontario

This article discusses how young mothers in London, a mid-size city in Canada, utilize a drop-in centre service while attending an alternative programme to acquire secondary school credits. The central arguments made here are informed by key concepts in the field of girlhood studies. With its attention to the interconnections between gender, age, and generation as well as other aspects of social identity, girlhood studies provides crucial insight into the lived experiences of young mothers who straddle the space between girlhood and adulthood. We interpret the experiences of the young mothers who participated in this study in light of shifting meanings and expectations of girls and girlhood in the neoliberal era. Drawing on the concept of the ideal neoliberal girl subject embodied in the ‘can do’ and ‘at risk’ girl, this paper highlights the tensions in accessing a drop-in centre, which functions as both a site of security and surveillance, for a group of young mothers receiving social services. The findings revealed how girls who are mothers struggle to live in the present to assert a legitimate maternal identity even as they are prepared for the future through neoliberal public policies and other disciplinary practices.     

Beyond bureaucracy and entrepreneurialism: Examining the multiple discursive codes informing the work,careers and subjectivities of management graduates

This paper examines how discursive codes and demands associated with ‘bureaucratic and entrepreneurial regimes’ of work and career organization shape the work, careers and subjectivities of management graduates. The study is based on an analysis of 30 narratives of management professionals who graduated from an Austrian business school in the early 1970s or 2000s. Its insights suggest that variegated discursive codes manifest in the graduates’ articulated professional practices and subjectivities, thereby challenging established assumptions regarding the organization of work and careers. While the practices and subjectivities of the 1970s graduates are often informed by codes and demands ascribed to ‘entrepreneurialism’, those of the 2000s graduates are infused with several codes commonly portrayed as ‘bureaucratic’.     

Fabrication of a desired truth: the oblivion of a Naxalite woman in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (2013) explores effects of the 1967 Communist Naxalbari uprising in West Bengal India. Irrespective of the glowing reviews the author earned for her truthful representations, the novel presents the pro-Communist uprising in a particular discursive regime that establishes a particular way of remembering and forgetting. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of ‘subjugated knowledges,’ this essay seeks to examine the epistemic hegemonies and mainstream perspectives of the novel that have confined particular experiences and memories of the movement to the margins and rendered them unworthy of epistemic respect in the battle among power/knowledge frameworks. The novel reconstitutes a gendered history of the movement in which women’s story of engagement is spatiotemporally erased and reformulated. I argue that the genealogy of this particular oversight is rooted in the heteronormative capitalist ideology of the States that exercises discursive power over individuals to fabricate a desired truth.     

论民事诉讼程序中的个人主体性——以程序利益与程序主体的关系为视角

国家主体型、国家—个人主体型和个人主体型三种不同类型的程序主体性,反应了诉讼程序从国家控制到个体的人的自由的发展趋势。现代诉讼程序强调程序主体的个人主体性,个体的人应当成为程序独立的自主、自在性主体,这就需要其在诉讼程序中具有独立的属己利益支撑。民事诉讼程序应当淡化国家色彩,以个人的程序利益保障为基点,实现个人的独立性程序地位,进而使民事诉讼程序获得真正的独立性。     

Recalling the ‘Islam of the parents’ liberal and secular Muslims redefining the contours of religious authenticity

Scholarship on Islam in Europe has largely invested in examining the generational dynamics in the lived religious experiences of Muslims. Within this perspective, the idea of a generation gap, which revolves around a distinction between ‘tradition’ and ‘religion’, has figured as an important account in assessing some of these religious transformations. Drawing on fieldwork with Belgian Muslims of Moroccan origin, this paper seeks to nuance this perspective by exploring accounts wherein this ‘traditional’ Islam of the parents is actively reclaimed. This was especially the case for respondents who were quite critical of Islamic revivalist trends. In many of these stories, the parents’ Islam was understood as tolerant and open, in a way that was consonant with ‘tradition’. By focusing on these narratives, a first aim of the paper is to understand how genealogy and ancestry figure as distinct criteria in determining the ‘real Islam’. A second aim is to complicate the understanding of the liberal and modern self, and its relationship to the past.     

贫困农户脱贫主体性不足的发生逻辑

“干部积极干，农户站边看”的贫困群体脱贫逆化现象影响着农村社会的健康发展和脱贫攻坚工作的高效开展。通过田野调查发现，贫困农户脱贫主体性不足的发生逻辑首先在于小农理性下受利益驱使的农户形成争当贫困户的“自愿型贫困”，造成贫困农户“不愿”脱贫；其次，贫困农户在贫困识别、资源匹配和脱贫行动选择方面因决策受限形成“边缘化治贫”，造成农户的“不能”脱贫；最后，贫困农户受贫困文化影响导致“精神贫困”，造成贫困农户的“内卷化脱贫”。因此，需要从增加贫困农户脱贫意愿和强化贫困农户内生脱贫能力两个维度来构建贫困农户的有效脱贫主体性。     

试论社会主义核心价值构建的人性维度

市场经济负面影响的日益显现及西方所谓普世价值的冲击，使不少国人陷入价值错乱、虚无的状态，亟待对其加强价值引导。社会主义核心价值的提出及构建可谓正当其时。价值与核心价值的构建，必须遵循人性维度。运用理性思维去把握人性，形成科学的人性理论，并将其付之于现实生活予以检验，把握人性的真实，才能为核心价值构建奠定人性的坚实基石。