Tag: Mystique

Free Download Karen J. J. Leong, "The China Mystique: Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, Mayling Soong, and the Transformation of American Orientalism"
English | 2005 | pages: 263 | ISBN: 0520244230, 0520244222 | PDF | 1,7 mb
Throughout the history of the United States, images of China have populated the American imagination. Always in flux, these images shift rapidly, as they did during the early decades of the twentieth century. In this erudite and original study, Karen J. Leong explores the gendering of American orientalism during the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing on three women who were popularly and publicly associated with China―Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, and Mayling Soong―Leong shows how each negotiated what it meant to be American, Chinese American, and Chinese against the backdrop of changes in the United States as a national community and as an international power.

Free Download Knowing and the Mystique of Logic and Rules: True Statements in Knowing and Action * Computer Modelling of Human Knowing Activity * Coherent Description as the Core of Scholarship and Science By Peter Naur (auth.)
1995 | 368 Pages | ISBN: 9048146097 | PDF | 7 MB
Human knowing is examined as it emerges from classical empirical psychology, with its ramifications into language, computing, science, and scholarship. While the discussion takes empirical support from a wide range, claims for the significance of logic and rules are challenged throughout. Highlights of the discussion: knowing is a matter of habits or dispositions that guide the person’s stream of consciousness; rules of language have no significance in language production and understanding, being descriptions of linguistic styles; statements that may be true or false enter into ordinary linguistic activity, not as elements of messages, but merely as summaries of situations, with a view to action; in computer programming the significance of logic, proof, and formalized description, is incidental and subject to the programmer’s personality; analysis of computer modelling of the mental activity shows that in describing human knowing the computer is irrelevant; in accounting for the scholarly/scientific activity, logic and rules are impotent; a novel theory: scholarship and science have coherent descriptions as their core. The discussion addresses questions that are basic to advanced applications of computers and to students of language and science.

Free Download H. E. Baber, "The Multicultural Mystique: The Liberal Case Against Diversity"
English | ISBN: 1591025532 | 2008 | 260 pages | PDF | 14 MB
Most literature on multiculturalism assumes, without argument or compelling empirical evidence, that immigrants and members of ethnic minorities prefer to identify with their ancestral cultures. According to the received view, multiculturalism benefits ethnic minorities, who want to maintain distinct cultures and keep to themselves. And it protects them from the pressure to assimilate to the majority culture.Philosopher H. E. Baber scrutinizes these assumptions in this critique of the notion of multiculturalism. Baber asks whether it could be that many, or even most, members of ethnic minorities want to shed their ethnic identities and assimilate to the dominant culture. She suggests that multiculturalism imposes ethnic scripts on minorities and thus locks them out of the opportunity to assimilate. In effect, it becomes a form of ethnic stereotyping and discrimination. Multiculturalism, when transformed into an ideology as it often is, benefits cultural preservationists at the expense of members of ethnic minorities who wish to assimilate-arguably the majority. Perversely, it then labels those who would resist such stereotyping as atypical, inauthentic, or even self-hating. Baber argues that liberals, or anyone who favors the expansion of individual liberty, should reject a multiculturalism that restricts personal freedom by classifying and identifying people on the basis of unchosen characteristics such as ancestry and appearance. Like all Americans, ethnic minorities should be encouraged to "invent themselves," to affiliate with groups of their own choosing and be identified as they wish.