(Originally written in November 6, 2019) Chunking Mansions... A place so crowded yet so lonely in middle of Tsim Tsa Tsui. It is crowded because a lot of people from South Asia and Africa, whether Hong Kong citizens, asylum seekers or illegal workers, strive to make a living. It is lonely because it is, in... Continue Reading →
Foucault states that power’s success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms (1978: 86). But what happens when power, acquired with means of violence, not only hides itself but is applauded by masses? What if violence becomes a trait of an identity that is celebrated? The documentary ‘The Act of Killing’ precisely... Continue Reading →
Consider whether Machiavelli’s idea that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved applies to contemporary politics. Does the emergence of democracy in many parts of the world alter this equation? If so, how so? If not, why not? When the two words ‘fear’ and ‘love’ come together in a sentence, it... Continue Reading →
Mahmood, S. (2012). Politics of piety: the islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. This thought-provoking yet complicated book is a groundbreaking analysis of the complex relationship between religious practices and beliefs of (some) Muslim women and modern secular liberal discourses on feminism and other issues. The ethnography, published in 2004 by... Continue Reading →
Barth, Fredrik. Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. 1st Pbk. Ed. with Corrections ed. London: Athlone, 1965. Print. Monographs on Social Anthropology ; No. 19. This fascinating yet terrifyingly complex ethnography, published in 1959, is about the Pashto-speaking people (Pathans) of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area called Swat. Fredrik Barth claims the main purpose of his study... Continue Reading →
Scholars since the late 20th century have been much interested with the concept of kawaii. We have come to a point in which the term is not only attractive to scholars of Japanese Studies but most people around the world, who have inevitably been in contact with products that inhabit the concept. But what exactly... Continue Reading →
Japan, an imperial power in history, has gone through various transformations in many areas such as economics, politics, consumerism, popular culture etc. And such transformations have surely changed Japan’s influence in the world after World War Two. Among the areas of vast transformations and novelties that Japan has gone through, I am particularly interested in... Continue Reading →
It has become widely accepted that, day by day, national borders are being erased in the world. With globalization, some local cultures, practices and commodities have become known worldwide to become an ingredient contributing to the so-called ‘global culture’. And with the contribution of ‘kawaii’ culture of Japan (be it in music, cartoons, or video... Continue Reading →
The recent European discourse on blasphemy as applied to the behavior of Muslim immigrants in Europe serves, paradoxically, at once to confirm and to deny difference. Angry Muslim responses to the publication of the Danish cartoons are seen by secularists as attempting to reintroduce a category that was once a mea ms of oppression in... Continue Reading →
What is the purpose of punishment? A tool for justice? Or a legitimate way of taking revenge? When justice is sought, why do we ask the question 'who should we punish' instead of asking 'why do we punish'? As Nietzsche writes in On the Genealogy of Morals, institutions of law take revenge out of the... Continue Reading →
