Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Berbstein, Freud and the Legacy of Moses
What is communicated from one generation to the next is not only what is explicitly stated or what is set forth by precept and example, but also what is unconscious communicated. Unless we pay attention to these unconscious dynamics of transmission, we will never understand the receptivity (and resistance) to a living tradition.
Obama on his smoking habit
A day after signing major legislation regulating tobacco, Mr. Obama acknowledged that he still smokes cigarettes from time to time, something his aides refused to discuss on Monday.
“As a former smoker, have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes,” he said in response to a question. “Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. I don’t do it in front of my kids. I don’t do it in front of my family. I would say I am 95 percent cured. But there are times where I mess up.”
from NYT
“As a former smoker, have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes,” he said in response to a question. “Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. I don’t do it in front of my kids. I don’t do it in front of my family. I would say I am 95 percent cured. But there are times where I mess up.”
from NYT
Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China
Edgar Snow and his widow Lois Snow
http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/interviews/int.snow.html
http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/interviews/int.snow.html
Monday, June 08, 2009
From The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
waxing and waning of the moon (p. 28).
"Well I have to admit," she said with a note of resignation (p. 30).
tiff: 1. A fit of irritation. 2. A petty quarrel.
The sudden mention of Kumiko's elder brother had put me on (off) guard (p. 33).
"too busy, I'll probably buy myself a sandwich later" (p. 33).
"Would you by any chance be free this afternoon?" "You might say that." (p. 34)
"I had better do as I was told" (p. 35).
Would you by any chance be acquainted with the Pacific Hotel across from the Shinagawa Station?" (p. 35).
Stop yanking at me! (To pull with a quick, strong movement; jerk)
Commute to and from work
I restrained myself (p. 38).
The more I spent time with this woman, the more I seem to smell trouble (p. 41).
She was defiled by Noboru Wataya (p. 41).
I kept hoping all the while that there were no acquaintances of mine in the vicinity (p. 44).
I nodded silently - without the slightest inkling of what she was talking about (p. 44).
I poured myself some more beer (p. 47).
He was apparently a rather famous fortune-teller, but he lived very simply - even ascetically (p. 50).
After a brief coughing fit, he spat a glob of phlegm (p. 51).
Space out:
space someone out
to cause someone to become giddy. The circus clowns just spaced me out. The hilarious spectacle spaced out the entire audience.
See also: out, space
space out
to become giddy or disoriented. Judy spaced out during the meeting and I didn't understand a word she said. I have a tendency to space out at the end of a hard day.
Most cleaners will get rid of things that aren't claimed in three months (p. 54).
I stood still, straining my ears, but I couldn't tell whether it was our phone or a neighbor's (p. 58).
I passed directly beneath the eaves of other houses (p. 58).
I snapped my eyes open (p. 61).
Again she walked with a slight limp (p. 61).
I don't know the tune, but it had no melody at all" (p.61).
"Come to think of it, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," she said, "you were unemployed. Are you still?" (p. 64).
I limp when my parents are around because I don't want to go to school (pp. 64-65).
In the weeks follwing the decision to send he back, her grandmother became increasingly overwrought (p. 70).
Kumiko became a difficult, taciturn child in these new surroundings (p. 71).
Why hadn't I died in my sister's place? (p. 71).
She did everything she could to find a way into Kumiko's heart (p. 71).
I didn't need yet another way to demonstrate how inferior I was to her as a human being (p. 71).
They egged him on, providing him with the best tutors their money could buy (p. 73).
But he was tall and slim and had an air of good breeding (p. 75).
"Well I have to admit," she said with a note of resignation (p. 30).
tiff: 1. A fit of irritation. 2. A petty quarrel.
The sudden mention of Kumiko's elder brother had put me on (off) guard (p. 33).
"too busy, I'll probably buy myself a sandwich later" (p. 33).
"Would you by any chance be free this afternoon?" "You might say that." (p. 34)
"I had better do as I was told" (p. 35).
Would you by any chance be acquainted with the Pacific Hotel across from the Shinagawa Station?" (p. 35).
Stop yanking at me! (To pull with a quick, strong movement; jerk)
Commute to and from work
I restrained myself (p. 38).
The more I spent time with this woman, the more I seem to smell trouble (p. 41).
She was defiled by Noboru Wataya (p. 41).
I kept hoping all the while that there were no acquaintances of mine in the vicinity (p. 44).
I nodded silently - without the slightest inkling of what she was talking about (p. 44).
I poured myself some more beer (p. 47).
He was apparently a rather famous fortune-teller, but he lived very simply - even ascetically (p. 50).
After a brief coughing fit, he spat a glob of phlegm (p. 51).
Space out:
space someone out
to cause someone to become giddy. The circus clowns just spaced me out. The hilarious spectacle spaced out the entire audience.
See also: out, space
space out
to become giddy or disoriented. Judy spaced out during the meeting and I didn't understand a word she said. I have a tendency to space out at the end of a hard day.
Most cleaners will get rid of things that aren't claimed in three months (p. 54).
I stood still, straining my ears, but I couldn't tell whether it was our phone or a neighbor's (p. 58).
I passed directly beneath the eaves of other houses (p. 58).
I snapped my eyes open (p. 61).
Again she walked with a slight limp (p. 61).
I don't know the tune, but it had no melody at all" (p.61).
"Come to think of it, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," she said, "you were unemployed. Are you still?" (p. 64).
I limp when my parents are around because I don't want to go to school (pp. 64-65).
In the weeks follwing the decision to send he back, her grandmother became increasingly overwrought (p. 70).
Kumiko became a difficult, taciturn child in these new surroundings (p. 71).
Why hadn't I died in my sister's place? (p. 71).
She did everything she could to find a way into Kumiko's heart (p. 71).
I didn't need yet another way to demonstrate how inferior I was to her as a human being (p. 71).
They egged him on, providing him with the best tutors their money could buy (p. 73).
But he was tall and slim and had an air of good breeding (p. 75).
Salon article on Murakami
The heroes in Haruki Murakami's dazzling, addictive and rather strange novels ("A Wild Sheep Chase," "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World") don't fit the stereotype of conformist, work-obsessed Japanese men at all. They're dreamy, brainy introverts, drunk on culture (high and pop), with a tendency to get mixed up with mysterious women and outlandish conspiracies. Toru Okada, the narrator of Murakami's latest opus, "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," spends a good portion of the novel in luxuriant unemployment -- cooking, reading, swimming and waiting for a series of peculiar characters to pop by and tell him their tragic stories. Since Murakami doesn't hide his identification with his heroes, it's no surprise to learn that he has long felt like an odd man out in his native land, even among other writers. What's more remarkable is the novelist's recent rapprochement with Japan and his countrymen, culminating in the year he spent interviewing victims of the Aum cult's poison gas attack on a Tokyo subway in March 1995.
Murakami says this reassessment began during the four years he spent at Princeton, writing "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." Besides giving him an impressive command of English, Murakami's sojourn in America had an emotional impact that he finds difficult to articulate even today, two years after his return to Japan. With Wanderlust editor Don George, who stepped in to translate at a key moment, I met with Murakami during his brief West Coast book tour to promote "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." The novelist's slow, careful responses to our questions seemed more the result of a rare, utterly unself-conscious sincerity (he seldom gives interviews) than any language barrier.
http://www.salon.com/books/int/1997/12/cov_si_16int.html
Murakami says this reassessment began during the four years he spent at Princeton, writing "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." Besides giving him an impressive command of English, Murakami's sojourn in America had an emotional impact that he finds difficult to articulate even today, two years after his return to Japan. With Wanderlust editor Don George, who stepped in to translate at a key moment, I met with Murakami during his brief West Coast book tour to promote "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." The novelist's slow, careful responses to our questions seemed more the result of a rare, utterly unself-conscious sincerity (he seldom gives interviews) than any language barrier.
http://www.salon.com/books/int/1997/12/cov_si_16int.html
Noboru Wataya and Academe
"In any case, Noboru Wataya graduated from his elite private preparatory school, majored in economics at the University of Tokyo, and graduated from this top institution with top grades.
His father expected him to enter the government or a major corporation upon graduation from the university, but Noboru Wataya chose to remain in academe and become a scholar. He was no fool. He know what he was best suited for: not the real world of group (communal) action but a world that called for the disciplined and systematic use of knowledge, that prized the individual skills of the intellect. He did two years of graduate study at Yale before returning to the graduate school at Tokyo. He followed hi parents' promptings shortly thereafter and agreed to an arranged marriage, but that lated no more than two years. After his divorce, he returned to his parents' home to live with them. By the time I first met him, Noboru Wataya was a fully developed oddity, a thoroughly disagreeable character (p. 74).
Murakami, Haruki (1997). The wind up bird chronicle. Knope: New York.
His father expected him to enter the government or a major corporation upon graduation from the university, but Noboru Wataya chose to remain in academe and become a scholar. He was no fool. He know what he was best suited for: not the real world of group (communal) action but a world that called for the disciplined and systematic use of knowledge, that prized the individual skills of the intellect. He did two years of graduate study at Yale before returning to the graduate school at Tokyo. He followed hi parents' promptings shortly thereafter and agreed to an arranged marriage, but that lated no more than two years. After his divorce, he returned to his parents' home to live with them. By the time I first met him, Noboru Wataya was a fully developed oddity, a thoroughly disagreeable character (p. 74).
Murakami, Haruki (1997). The wind up bird chronicle. Knope: New York.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
In 1954 Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law School where she was one of only nine women in a class of more than five hundred. After the birth of their daughter, Martin was diagnosed with testicular cancer. During this period, Ginsburg attended class and took notes for both of them, typed her husband's papers to his dictation, and cared for their daughter and her sick husband, while making Harvard Law Review.
Allen Ginsberg
Ginsberg is best known for the poem "Howl" (1956), celebrating his friends who were members of the Beat Generation and attacking what he saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity
Brian Reynolds Myers
Myers concentrates his research in the field of North Korean Studies. He claims that the Soviet Stalinist literary doctrine of socialist realism failed in North Korea, that late President Kim Il Sung’s 1955 Juche speech is not nationalist, that son and successor Kim Jong Il is a symbolic "mother" figure for the regime, and that North Korea is a fascistic race-based nationalist state, not a Stalinist state.
far-lightest country
nationalistic
racist country
http://web.dongseo.ac.kr/~dis/sub3.html
far-lightest country
nationalistic
racist country
http://web.dongseo.ac.kr/~dis/sub3.html
Friday, June 05, 2009
Wear Out / Tear Out
http://dic.impact.pe.kr/ecmaster-cgi/search.cgi?kwd=wear
http://www.pronunciationworkshop.com/americanpronunciationdemo.htm?gclid=CLbB-pT385oCFSAgDQodGjHHeg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9XBogKE-A0&feature=channel
http://www.pronunciationworkshop.com/americanpronunciationdemo.htm?gclid=CLbB-pT385oCFSAgDQodGjHHeg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9XBogKE-A0&feature=channel
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
ZELIZER MEMORY AND JOURNALISM
Part of this disregard may have to do with a lingering presumption that journalism’s treatments of the past are more closely aligned with mainstream historical work than
with memory. In that journalists’ address to the past by defi nition runs contrary to their
own concern for the present, journalism at fi rst glance seems an ill-suited setting to
provide a meaningful tracking of the past. For as long as journalism has been around,
the popular assumption has been that it provides a fi rst, rather than fi nal, draft of the past, leaving to the historians the fi nal processing of journalism’s raw events. Against such a division of labor, journalism has come to be seen as a setting driven more by its emphasis on the here-and-now than on the there-and-then, restricted by temporal limitations associated with rapidly overturning deadlines. Journalists distinguish themselves from those dealing with the past by aspiring to a sense of newsworthiness that draws from proximity, topicality and novelty, and they are motivated by an ongoing need to fill a depleting news-hole despite high stakes, a frantic pace and uncertain resources. In this regard, the past seems somewhat beyond the boundaries of what journalists can and ought to do in accomplishing their work goals (Zelizer, 1993a).
As Edy (1999: 74) succinctly states:
the fact that news media make use of historical events at all is somewhat counterintuitive.
Journalists have traditionally placed a high value on being the fi rst to publicize
new information. Extra editions, news fl ashes, and program interruptions for
important new information all testify to a desire to present the latest information to
audiences. Many stories go out of date and cannot be used if there is not space in
the news product for them on the day that they occur.
All of this suggests that the particular division of labor by which journalists take care of the present and historians take care of the past, both sharing a reverence for truth, facts and reality, has blinded both in considering what else happens when journalists look backward. That myopic vision has extended in large part to memory studies. Not only has there been little attempt to single out what is unique about journalism in addressing the days of yore, but discussions of memory have not suffi ciently recognized that journalism’s treatment of the present often includes a treatment of the past. Nor have they accounted for the fact that journalism’s treatment of the past tends to be as variable, malleable and dynamic as other kinds of memory work. Journalism and journalists are an unobvious but fertile site of memory, and their status as memory agents needs to be better understood.
with memory. In that journalists’ address to the past by defi nition runs contrary to their
own concern for the present, journalism at fi rst glance seems an ill-suited setting to
provide a meaningful tracking of the past. For as long as journalism has been around,
the popular assumption has been that it provides a fi rst, rather than fi nal, draft of the past, leaving to the historians the fi nal processing of journalism’s raw events. Against such a division of labor, journalism has come to be seen as a setting driven more by its emphasis on the here-and-now than on the there-and-then, restricted by temporal limitations associated with rapidly overturning deadlines. Journalists distinguish themselves from those dealing with the past by aspiring to a sense of newsworthiness that draws from proximity, topicality and novelty, and they are motivated by an ongoing need to fill a depleting news-hole despite high stakes, a frantic pace and uncertain resources. In this regard, the past seems somewhat beyond the boundaries of what journalists can and ought to do in accomplishing their work goals (Zelizer, 1993a).
As Edy (1999: 74) succinctly states:
the fact that news media make use of historical events at all is somewhat counterintuitive.
Journalists have traditionally placed a high value on being the fi rst to publicize
new information. Extra editions, news fl ashes, and program interruptions for
important new information all testify to a desire to present the latest information to
audiences. Many stories go out of date and cannot be used if there is not space in
the news product for them on the day that they occur.
All of this suggests that the particular division of labor by which journalists take care of the present and historians take care of the past, both sharing a reverence for truth, facts and reality, has blinded both in considering what else happens when journalists look backward. That myopic vision has extended in large part to memory studies. Not only has there been little attempt to single out what is unique about journalism in addressing the days of yore, but discussions of memory have not suffi ciently recognized that journalism’s treatment of the present often includes a treatment of the past. Nor have they accounted for the fact that journalism’s treatment of the past tends to be as variable, malleable and dynamic as other kinds of memory work. Journalism and journalists are an unobvious but fertile site of memory, and their status as memory agents needs to be better understood.
Paul Connerton
http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/staff/researchFellowsAndAssociates.html
How Societies Remember (Themes in the Social Sciences)
How Societies Remember (Themes in the Social Sciences)
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Geert Hofstede
What are Hofstede's five Cultural Dimensions?
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/
Power Distance Index (PDI) that is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that 'all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others'.
Individualism (IDV) on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are inte-grated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word 'collectivism' in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.
Masculinity (MAS) versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women's values differ less among societies than men's values; (b) men's values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women's values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women's values on the other. The assertive pole has been called 'masculine' and the modest, caring pole 'feminine'. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men's values and women's values.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions.
Long-Term Orientation (LTO) versus short-term orientation: this fifth dimension was found in a study among students in 23 countries around the world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars It can be said to deal with Virtue regardless of Truth. Values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face'. Both the positively and the negatively rated values of this dimension are found in the teachings of Confucius, the most influential Chinese philosopher who lived around 500 B.C.; however, the dimension also applies to countries without a Confucian heritage.
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/
Power Distance Index (PDI) that is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international experience will be aware that 'all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others'.
Individualism (IDV) on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are inte-grated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word 'collectivism' in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.
Masculinity (MAS) versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women's values differ less among societies than men's values; (b) men's values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women's values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women's values on the other. The assertive pole has been called 'masculine' and the modest, caring pole 'feminine'. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men's values and women's values.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) deals with a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions.
Long-Term Orientation (LTO) versus short-term orientation: this fifth dimension was found in a study among students in 23 countries around the world, using a questionnaire designed by Chinese scholars It can be said to deal with Virtue regardless of Truth. Values associated with Long Term Orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with Short Term Orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one's 'face'. Both the positively and the negatively rated values of this dimension are found in the teachings of Confucius, the most influential Chinese philosopher who lived around 500 B.C.; however, the dimension also applies to countries without a Confucian heritage.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Flowtv.org
FlowTV is a critical forum on television and media culture published by the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at Austin. Flow’s mission is to provide a space where the public can discuss the changing landscape of contemporary media.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Dates Numbers Places
http://www.cmu.edu/styleguide/dates_numbers.html
http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/punc-hyphen.html
http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/punc-hyphen.html
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Taiwan Documents
http://www.taiwandocuments.org/index.htm
THE TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIALS
http://www.cnd.org/mirror/nanjing/NMTT.html
UN document
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft%20articles/7_1_1950.pdf
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/imt1945.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=gfaGv_JJRnEC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=Nürnberg+Charter&source=bl&ots=or9geOcy7Z&sig=bMf4k59baaOZtn1xtSLW6vvDkzE&hl=en&ei=jkzzScvAGpWuMomb1csP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA73,M1
아시아 평화와 역사교육연대
http://www.ilovehistory.or.kr/index.php
동북아 역사 재단
http://www.historyfoundation.or.kr/MA/
THE TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIALS
http://www.cnd.org/mirror/nanjing/NMTT.html
UN document
http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft%20articles/7_1_1950.pdf
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/imt1945.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=gfaGv_JJRnEC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=Nürnberg+Charter&source=bl&ots=or9geOcy7Z&sig=bMf4k59baaOZtn1xtSLW6vvDkzE&hl=en&ei=jkzzScvAGpWuMomb1csP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA73,M1
아시아 평화와 역사교육연대
http://www.ilovehistory.or.kr/index.php
동북아 역사 재단
http://www.historyfoundation.or.kr/MA/
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Junichiro Koizumi
Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎 Koizumi Jun'ichirō, born January 8, 1942)
Junichiro (first name) Koizumi (last name)
Junichiro (first name) Koizumi (last name)
Monday, March 09, 2009
Amos Funkenstein
`Renaissance man’ Amos Funkenstein dies at age 58
Friday, November 17, 1995 | by NATALIE WEINSTEIN, Bulletin Staff | obituaries
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/2028/-renaissance-man-amos-funkenstein-dies-at-age-58/
Called a genius and Renaissance man by his academic colleagues, Amos Funkenstein was known for reciting long passages verbatim in Latin, German and Greek decades after reading them.
Winner of the coveted Israel Prize for History, the U.C. Berkeley history professor could lecture effortlessly on nearly any element of Jewish or non-Jewish civilization from the biblical period through the 20th century.
Raised an Orthodox Jew in pre-state Israel, he was considered the quintessential apikoros -- a heretic who knew the tradition inside and out, yet rejected any belief in its divine origin.
Funkenstein died Saturday, Nov. 11 in Berkeley after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 58.
"He was truly a Renaissance man in terms of intellectual interest," said Professor David Biale, director of the Berkeley-based Graduate Theological Union's Center for Jewish Studies. "He was probably the only genius I've ever met."
Considered rare even among world-class academics for his intellectual abilities, Funkenstein was primarily a historian of Judaism, medieval intellectualism and science.
He authored seven books and more than 50 articles, writing in German, Hebrew, English and French. His books included "Perceptions of Jewish History," "Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century," and "Sociology of Ignorance," which he wrote with childhood friend Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. At the time of his death, he was working on a multivolume study of the social and cultural context of knowledge in Western history since antiquity.
"He had razor-sharp analytic abilities," said Robert Alter, a U.C. Berkeley professor of Hebrew and comparative literature who officiated at Funkenstein's funeral service on Tuesday. "He was very, very focused on thinking. That was his way of life."
Educated in a religious school in Jerusalem, Funkenstein served in the Israeli army and then studied for two years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before transferring to the Free University of Berlin in the late 1950s. He earned his doctorate in history and philosophy at the university and began his teaching career there.
In 1967, he was hired to teach at UCLA. In the early 1970s, Biale became one of Funkenstein's graduate students and teaching assistants. From the start, Biale knew Funkenstein was different.
"He was beyond anyone else I ever encountered as a teacher," he said.
Funkenstein could offer detailed critiques of books he had read 20 years earlier, Biale recalled, and he would doodle mathematical proofs for fun.
"He had a photographic memory," Biale said. But even this ability was just intellectual pyrotechnics. "What counted with him was originality."
Unlike many of his peers in academia, Funkenstein rejected much of the formality associated with the job. He wanted students to call him by his first name and became friends with many of them.
In the late 1970s while still at UCLA, Funkenstein began teaching part of the year at Tel Aviv University, where he held an endowed chair in history and the philosophy of science. He stayed in Southern California until 1986 when Stanford University hired him as the first Daniel E. Koshland professor of Jewish culture and history as part of its fledgling Jewish studies program.
Funkenstein returned to UCLA three years later, but then left again when U.C. Berkeley hired him in 1991 as its Koret professor of Jewish history.
Among his lasting marks in the Bay Area: his role in creating the new joint doctoral program in Jewish studies between U.C. Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union.
In addition to winning earlier this year an Israel Prize, the highest honor bestowed by the Jewish state, Funkenstein had been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship at Ecole des Hautes Ecoles in Paris a decade ago.
In the early 1980s, Funkenstein also became an activist in the Israeli peace movement and worked to convince the government to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1991, he told the Jewish Bulletin that "the occupation of the West Bank has now reached the point where it's illegitimate," and he compared the lack of rights for Palestinians to the status of Jews living in Germany in the mid-1930s.
Last fall, Funkenstein was diagnosed with lung cancer, which spread to other organs. Soon after, Alter recalled, "he made this principal decision: As long as he could, he would go on doing what he loved."
Funkenstein continued working on his book and teaching classes at U.C. Berkeley until about a month ago when he came down with pneumonia and suffered a heart attack.
But even a few days before his death, he was still making plans for the future.
"He never lost faith in life," said Tony Long, a U.C. Berkeley classics professor.
Funkenstein was buried Tuesday in the Tel Shalom section of the Rolling Hills Memorial Park in Richmond.
He is survived by his wife, Esti Funkenstein of Berkeley, and two children from his first marriage, Jakob Funkenstein of Toulouse, France, and Daniela Funkenstein of Los Angeles.
Friday, November 17, 1995 | by NATALIE WEINSTEIN, Bulletin Staff | obituaries
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/2028/-renaissance-man-amos-funkenstein-dies-at-age-58/
Called a genius and Renaissance man by his academic colleagues, Amos Funkenstein was known for reciting long passages verbatim in Latin, German and Greek decades after reading them.
Winner of the coveted Israel Prize for History, the U.C. Berkeley history professor could lecture effortlessly on nearly any element of Jewish or non-Jewish civilization from the biblical period through the 20th century.
Raised an Orthodox Jew in pre-state Israel, he was considered the quintessential apikoros -- a heretic who knew the tradition inside and out, yet rejected any belief in its divine origin.
Funkenstein died Saturday, Nov. 11 in Berkeley after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 58.
"He was truly a Renaissance man in terms of intellectual interest," said Professor David Biale, director of the Berkeley-based Graduate Theological Union's Center for Jewish Studies. "He was probably the only genius I've ever met."
Considered rare even among world-class academics for his intellectual abilities, Funkenstein was primarily a historian of Judaism, medieval intellectualism and science.
He authored seven books and more than 50 articles, writing in German, Hebrew, English and French. His books included "Perceptions of Jewish History," "Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century," and "Sociology of Ignorance," which he wrote with childhood friend Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. At the time of his death, he was working on a multivolume study of the social and cultural context of knowledge in Western history since antiquity.
"He had razor-sharp analytic abilities," said Robert Alter, a U.C. Berkeley professor of Hebrew and comparative literature who officiated at Funkenstein's funeral service on Tuesday. "He was very, very focused on thinking. That was his way of life."
Educated in a religious school in Jerusalem, Funkenstein served in the Israeli army and then studied for two years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before transferring to the Free University of Berlin in the late 1950s. He earned his doctorate in history and philosophy at the university and began his teaching career there.
In 1967, he was hired to teach at UCLA. In the early 1970s, Biale became one of Funkenstein's graduate students and teaching assistants. From the start, Biale knew Funkenstein was different.
"He was beyond anyone else I ever encountered as a teacher," he said.
Funkenstein could offer detailed critiques of books he had read 20 years earlier, Biale recalled, and he would doodle mathematical proofs for fun.
"He had a photographic memory," Biale said. But even this ability was just intellectual pyrotechnics. "What counted with him was originality."
Unlike many of his peers in academia, Funkenstein rejected much of the formality associated with the job. He wanted students to call him by his first name and became friends with many of them.
In the late 1970s while still at UCLA, Funkenstein began teaching part of the year at Tel Aviv University, where he held an endowed chair in history and the philosophy of science. He stayed in Southern California until 1986 when Stanford University hired him as the first Daniel E. Koshland professor of Jewish culture and history as part of its fledgling Jewish studies program.
Funkenstein returned to UCLA three years later, but then left again when U.C. Berkeley hired him in 1991 as its Koret professor of Jewish history.
Among his lasting marks in the Bay Area: his role in creating the new joint doctoral program in Jewish studies between U.C. Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union.
In addition to winning earlier this year an Israel Prize, the highest honor bestowed by the Jewish state, Funkenstein had been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship at Ecole des Hautes Ecoles in Paris a decade ago.
In the early 1980s, Funkenstein also became an activist in the Israeli peace movement and worked to convince the government to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 1991, he told the Jewish Bulletin that "the occupation of the West Bank has now reached the point where it's illegitimate," and he compared the lack of rights for Palestinians to the status of Jews living in Germany in the mid-1930s.
Last fall, Funkenstein was diagnosed with lung cancer, which spread to other organs. Soon after, Alter recalled, "he made this principal decision: As long as he could, he would go on doing what he loved."
Funkenstein continued working on his book and teaching classes at U.C. Berkeley until about a month ago when he came down with pneumonia and suffered a heart attack.
But even a few days before his death, he was still making plans for the future.
"He never lost faith in life," said Tony Long, a U.C. Berkeley classics professor.
Funkenstein was buried Tuesday in the Tel Shalom section of the Rolling Hills Memorial Park in Richmond.
He is survived by his wife, Esti Funkenstein of Berkeley, and two children from his first marriage, Jakob Funkenstein of Toulouse, France, and Daniela Funkenstein of Los Angeles.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
In Carmaker’s Collapse, a Microcosm of South Korea’s Woes, a NYTimes Article
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: February 23, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — When Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, China’s largest carmaker, set its sights on overseas expansion in 2004, it first took a small hop across the Yellow Sea. It bought a controlling stake in Ssangyong Motor of South Korea, the most ambitious foreign venture for China’s surging auto industry.
Five years later, Shanghai Auto’s marriage with Ssangyong, a milestone of China’s rising industrial clout and South Korea’s deepening economic ties with its neighbor, is falling apart in acrimony and criminal investigations.
Walloped by declining sales and bitter battles with its Chinese parent, Ssangyong filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Its combative labor unions and some South Korean commentators have vilified Shanghai Auto as an exploitative owner that siphoned off Ssangyong’s technology, reneged on promises to invest, and dumped the company when the market turned sour.
Shanghai Auto has a different account of what went wrong. But the collapse of the venture is a black eye for China, which has pushed its top state-owned companies, including Shanghai Auto, to use the country’s enormous dollar-based savings to expand abroad. It may also serve as a cautionary tale for Western companies seeking a lifeline from cash-rich Chinese businesses during the financial crisis.
“The Chinese made us rosy promises and then betrayed us,” said Lee Chang-kun, a member of Ssangyong’s labor union.
The Shanghai company, which has partnerships with General Motors and Volkswagen in China that make it the country’s largest carmaker, said its troubles in South Korea revealed a deep-seated Korean bias against the Chinese. The company said South Korea remained fraught with difficulties for foreign investors, despite Seoul’s professed commitment to open up its economy.
“We hope that South Koreans of all walks of life will become objective and fair and abandon their prejudices against foreign investors,” Shanghai Auto said in response to written questions.
South Korea embraced China over the past decade as an economic and political partner, partly to offset its traditional dependence on the United States. Since the two countries formally ended Korean War-era hostilities and re-established diplomatic ties in 1992, China has replaced the United States as South Korea’s biggest trading partner.
But just as many South Koreans fret about the United States, it did not take long for many here to worry about overreliance on China as well. Korea is sandwiched between China and Japan and has come under the sway of both countries in the past.
Against this backdrop, modern-day failures like Ssangyong — and a similarly acrimonious breakup between BOE Technology Group, a Chinese electronics company, and Hydis of South Korea — loom large in Korean minds.
In 2003, BOE paid $380 million to buy Hydis, which makes displays for cellphones and laptop computers. A year later, Shanghai Auto bought 48.9 percent of Ssangyong, a specialist in sport utility vehicles and luxury sedans, for $510 million. It later increased its stake to 51.33 percent.
The Ssangyong purchase gave Shanghai Auto, known mostly for producing cars in China with foreign technology, an international brand of its own. Hu Maoyuan, Shanghai Auto’s president, said the deal allowed his company to “branch out into the global market.” Ssangyong researchers helped Shanghai Auto develop the Roewe, Shanghai Auto’s first independently made luxury car.
South Korea, once one of the most closed of the major industrial economies, began opening up to more foreign investment after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Foreign companies snapped up Korean banks and industrial concerns at fire-sale prices. When some later cashed out with sizable profits, South Korean workers began referring to them as meoktwi, a slang term that translates as “a thief who eats and runs away.”
Those fears increased when BOE used technology transferred from Hydis to build a new display panel factory in Beijing. When Hydis later ran into financial trouble, BOE did not pump in more money, leaving it to file for bankruptcy protection in 2006, according to Hydis employees. Now sold to a Taiwanese company, Hydis is a shell of its former self.
“BOE got the technology they wanted. All we got was layoffs,” said Hwang Pil-sang, a Hydis worker.
Shanghai Auto and Ssangyong never had much of a honeymoon. When the Shanghai company took over, Ssangyong was reporting net profits of $510 million a year. It was planning to roll out its new S.U.V. series: Kyron and Actyon.
But the new cars sold below expectations. Ssangyong’s hopes that Shanghai Auto could ease its entry into the rapidly growing but tightly regulated China market went largely unrealized, Ssangyong workers say. Heavy tariffs hindered Ssangyong’s sales in China. Ssangyong’s attempt to build a joint venture factory there faced red tape.
The two companies also clashed over how to expand sales. The 5,200-worker union demanded that the Chinese company infuse more cash, market more aggressively and speed up development of new models.
Shanghai Auto said that it had agreed to invest more in Ssangyong, but argued that it intended to reinvest profits Ssangyong was earning. When Ssangyong’s profits sank, so did the available cash to invest, the Chinese company said.
Chinese managers began shedding hundreds of Ssangyong workers in 2006, and relations spiraled downward. Ssangyong employees went on strike for nearly two months. Workers barricaded themselves inside the factory and locked the managers out.
The Ssangyong union also accused Shanghai Auto of stealing technology, setting off one investigation by prosecutors in 2006 and another last year. Last July, acting on tips from the National Intelligence Service, prosecutors raided Ssangyong’s research center, searching for evidence of illicit technology leaks.
The union’s allegations are disputed by Shanghai Auto. The Shanghai company says it has a normal technological give and take with its subsidiary. It shared its own technology with Ssangyong. It properly accounted for and compensated Ssangyong for Korean technology it took back to China, the company says.
No charges have resulted from the legal inquiry. But it generated headlines in South Korea, where the media were already abuzz with reports of high-profile industrial espionage cases in which former employees of South Korea’s biggest exporters — Hyundai and Kia Motors, LG Electronics, the Daewoo shipyard and the steel maker Posco — were convicted of leaking, or plotting to leak, sensitive technology to Chinese companies.
In December, union members surrounded a car carrying Shanghai Auto officials and held it hostage for seven hours outside their factory south of Seoul, accusing the executives of absconding with proprietary technology.
Yang Hyeong-geun, a 20-year veteran of the Ssangyong assembly lines, said he and his colleagues initially welcomed Shanghai Auto because the Chinese company promised job security, entry to the vast China market, and new investment to double Ssangyong’s annual capacity, to 400,000 cars.
“We trusted their promise to help us into the vast Chinese market,” Mr. Yang said. “In the end, they kept none of their promises, and they got what they wanted: our technology.”
Published: February 23, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — When Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, China’s largest carmaker, set its sights on overseas expansion in 2004, it first took a small hop across the Yellow Sea. It bought a controlling stake in Ssangyong Motor of South Korea, the most ambitious foreign venture for China’s surging auto industry.
Five years later, Shanghai Auto’s marriage with Ssangyong, a milestone of China’s rising industrial clout and South Korea’s deepening economic ties with its neighbor, is falling apart in acrimony and criminal investigations.
Walloped by declining sales and bitter battles with its Chinese parent, Ssangyong filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Its combative labor unions and some South Korean commentators have vilified Shanghai Auto as an exploitative owner that siphoned off Ssangyong’s technology, reneged on promises to invest, and dumped the company when the market turned sour.
Shanghai Auto has a different account of what went wrong. But the collapse of the venture is a black eye for China, which has pushed its top state-owned companies, including Shanghai Auto, to use the country’s enormous dollar-based savings to expand abroad. It may also serve as a cautionary tale for Western companies seeking a lifeline from cash-rich Chinese businesses during the financial crisis.
“The Chinese made us rosy promises and then betrayed us,” said Lee Chang-kun, a member of Ssangyong’s labor union.
The Shanghai company, which has partnerships with General Motors and Volkswagen in China that make it the country’s largest carmaker, said its troubles in South Korea revealed a deep-seated Korean bias against the Chinese. The company said South Korea remained fraught with difficulties for foreign investors, despite Seoul’s professed commitment to open up its economy.
“We hope that South Koreans of all walks of life will become objective and fair and abandon their prejudices against foreign investors,” Shanghai Auto said in response to written questions.
South Korea embraced China over the past decade as an economic and political partner, partly to offset its traditional dependence on the United States. Since the two countries formally ended Korean War-era hostilities and re-established diplomatic ties in 1992, China has replaced the United States as South Korea’s biggest trading partner.
But just as many South Koreans fret about the United States, it did not take long for many here to worry about overreliance on China as well. Korea is sandwiched between China and Japan and has come under the sway of both countries in the past.
Against this backdrop, modern-day failures like Ssangyong — and a similarly acrimonious breakup between BOE Technology Group, a Chinese electronics company, and Hydis of South Korea — loom large in Korean minds.
In 2003, BOE paid $380 million to buy Hydis, which makes displays for cellphones and laptop computers. A year later, Shanghai Auto bought 48.9 percent of Ssangyong, a specialist in sport utility vehicles and luxury sedans, for $510 million. It later increased its stake to 51.33 percent.
The Ssangyong purchase gave Shanghai Auto, known mostly for producing cars in China with foreign technology, an international brand of its own. Hu Maoyuan, Shanghai Auto’s president, said the deal allowed his company to “branch out into the global market.” Ssangyong researchers helped Shanghai Auto develop the Roewe, Shanghai Auto’s first independently made luxury car.
South Korea, once one of the most closed of the major industrial economies, began opening up to more foreign investment after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Foreign companies snapped up Korean banks and industrial concerns at fire-sale prices. When some later cashed out with sizable profits, South Korean workers began referring to them as meoktwi, a slang term that translates as “a thief who eats and runs away.”
Those fears increased when BOE used technology transferred from Hydis to build a new display panel factory in Beijing. When Hydis later ran into financial trouble, BOE did not pump in more money, leaving it to file for bankruptcy protection in 2006, according to Hydis employees. Now sold to a Taiwanese company, Hydis is a shell of its former self.
“BOE got the technology they wanted. All we got was layoffs,” said Hwang Pil-sang, a Hydis worker.
Shanghai Auto and Ssangyong never had much of a honeymoon. When the Shanghai company took over, Ssangyong was reporting net profits of $510 million a year. It was planning to roll out its new S.U.V. series: Kyron and Actyon.
But the new cars sold below expectations. Ssangyong’s hopes that Shanghai Auto could ease its entry into the rapidly growing but tightly regulated China market went largely unrealized, Ssangyong workers say. Heavy tariffs hindered Ssangyong’s sales in China. Ssangyong’s attempt to build a joint venture factory there faced red tape.
The two companies also clashed over how to expand sales. The 5,200-worker union demanded that the Chinese company infuse more cash, market more aggressively and speed up development of new models.
Shanghai Auto said that it had agreed to invest more in Ssangyong, but argued that it intended to reinvest profits Ssangyong was earning. When Ssangyong’s profits sank, so did the available cash to invest, the Chinese company said.
Chinese managers began shedding hundreds of Ssangyong workers in 2006, and relations spiraled downward. Ssangyong employees went on strike for nearly two months. Workers barricaded themselves inside the factory and locked the managers out.
The Ssangyong union also accused Shanghai Auto of stealing technology, setting off one investigation by prosecutors in 2006 and another last year. Last July, acting on tips from the National Intelligence Service, prosecutors raided Ssangyong’s research center, searching for evidence of illicit technology leaks.
The union’s allegations are disputed by Shanghai Auto. The Shanghai company says it has a normal technological give and take with its subsidiary. It shared its own technology with Ssangyong. It properly accounted for and compensated Ssangyong for Korean technology it took back to China, the company says.
No charges have resulted from the legal inquiry. But it generated headlines in South Korea, where the media were already abuzz with reports of high-profile industrial espionage cases in which former employees of South Korea’s biggest exporters — Hyundai and Kia Motors, LG Electronics, the Daewoo shipyard and the steel maker Posco — were convicted of leaking, or plotting to leak, sensitive technology to Chinese companies.
In December, union members surrounded a car carrying Shanghai Auto officials and held it hostage for seven hours outside their factory south of Seoul, accusing the executives of absconding with proprietary technology.
Yang Hyeong-geun, a 20-year veteran of the Ssangyong assembly lines, said he and his colleagues initially welcomed Shanghai Auto because the Chinese company promised job security, entry to the vast China market, and new investment to double Ssangyong’s annual capacity, to 400,000 cars.
“We trusted their promise to help us into the vast Chinese market,” Mr. Yang said. “In the end, they kept none of their promises, and they got what they wanted: our technology.”
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