While the cliché of “academic freedom” has unfortunately led to a freedom that is often merely “academic,” I would argue that institutions of higher learning are greater expressions of our freedom than any other institution, including that of the government itself. What does “academic freedom” tell us about freedom in general, and what does freedom, in general, tell us about academic freedom in particular? Having distinguished the common, “negative” notion of freedom identified with individualism or, as it is more commonly understood, doing what one wants without outside constraint, from the more positive view of freedom discussed in the first part of this book that identifies the notion with our creativity and potential originality in acting in accord with our highest—divine or absolute—aspirations, we are now in a better position to apply this positive notion to other institutions and “zones,” beginning with academia and then proceeding to politics, free speech, artistic freedom (the music of Beethoven) and, finally, friendship.

As we learned in the previous chapters, positive freedom requires work. We have seen this in the case of Sisyphus, whom Camus declared happy not despite the fact of his incessant, “proletariat” toil but because he knew it was the “price to be paid” for challenging the absolute authority of the gods. We have also seen this in the case of Nietzsche, for whom artistic freedom is not achieved by simply ignoring the “tyranny of arbitrary laws” and traditions but by working with and struggling against them. And, finally, we have seen this in the case of Kant, for whom moral goodness is only achieved by ignoring precisely those contingent forms of self-interest that define our so-called personal, individual freedom. As noted in the Introduction to this work, positive freedom has nothing to do with the freedom of the individual with which it is often confused, as in Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom.

One thing that is clear in approaching the question of academic freedom is that it, too, is largely defined in opposition to personal, individual freedom and in accord with the work that is necessary to make such freedom possible.

Singing

Kunqu singing, often called water-milled singing (shuimo qiang 水磨腔), is characterized by slow tempi, sustained pitches, and melisma, in which syllables are sung over several notes (Marjory Liu 1974, 65). Voice is usually accompanied by the flute which is the most important instrument in the orchestra. Most scenes have a principal aria (zhuqu 主曲), considered central to the scene's performance. In kunqu the melody is always carried by the singer and the orchestra together, and unlike in many other xiqu genres arias feature no orchestral bridges (guomen 過門). Given that there are “no instrumental interludes where the voice can rest” (Strassberg 1976, 52), where and how to breathe becomes an important consideration, and is often marked on scores.

Arias are divided into two melodic modes, the northern-style melodies (beiqu 北曲), with their seven-note diatonic scale, and southern-style melodies (nanqu 南曲), which are fundamentally pentatonic, using the other two notes only for ornamentation (Mark 2013, 21). Kunqu circles generally consider the former to represent the “spirit of the north” as it is more “male, exalted, lively, and rapid,” while the latter is considered to represent the “spirit of the south” as it is “soft, fluid, and melodious” (Tsiang Un-kai 1932, 14), using slower tempi, more melisma, and “expansive rhythmic structures” (Nine Modes Manual Online 2022). Broadly speaking, northern-style arias may be more martial and strident, and southern-styles more romantic and mellifluous in character.

Since Chinese is a modal language, the melody is deeply structured by the tones associated with each character (Marjory Liu 1974). The pronunciation of certain characters also depends on whether the aria is in the northern or the southern style. One of the most important phonetic distinctions between singing northern- and southern-style arias involves the entering tone (rusheng 入聲) characters. In southern-style arias, entering tones are usually sung with a glottal stop, ref lecting pronunciations in Wu dialects (and other forms of southern Chinese) and furnishing a “tremendously dynamic effect … which brings out every detail of the melismatic patterns and yet does not destroy the overall coherence” (ibid., 84).

The Paris Peace Conference afforded an opportunity for the Zionist Organization to explain its reasons for a Jewish national home. Israeli historian Tom Segev called the peace conference “the pinnacle of Weizmann's diplomatic achievements.” Segev wrote that Weizmann “managed to ensure that the British would remain in Palestine.” Segev explained Weizmann's success: “Weizmann, at the head of the Zionist delegation, pleaded for the international ratification of the Balfour Declaration. As a result, the League of Nations agreed to grant a mandate to the British, empowering them to govern Palestine, that included an explicit responsibility to help the Jews establish a national home in the country. The mandate was Weizmann's own personal achievement.”

Segev's assessment reflects what the Narrative came to reflect, that the Zionist Organization succeeded at the Paris Peace Conference in convincing the world to promote its objectives. The reality was far different. In Paris, the Zionist Organization did not move the international dial on the topic of Zionism. Nor did it ensure that Britain would remain in Palestine. Britain had its own reasons for doing so. Neither did it gain agreement from the League of Nations, which was not yet in existence. And when the League did address Palestine, as we shall see, it did not empower Britain to govern there or to promote a Jewish national home.

Weizmann gave himself less credit than did Segev for his performance in Paris. In his memoir, Weizmann, who was not known for understating his own successes, could find nothing more positive to say about his achievements in Paris than that the Zionist participation resulted in some “good press in France.”

The invitation issued to the Zionist Organization to make a statement at the Paris Peace Conference did afford it a chance to state its case in a forum that could shape events. The major powers were gathered to arrange peace with Germany and Turkey and to make decisions about territory being taken from them. The Zionist Organization made both a written and an oral presentation.

In its written plea, the Zionist Organization laid out a plan for Britain to control Palestine, quite a bold move for a non-governmental organization.

A Missing Legacy?

Robert K. Merton did not identify as a sociologist of culture and would have rejected this label as an attempt to pigeonhole his sociological style. When forced to adopt professional titles, he used to introduce himself to nonacademic audiences simply as a sociologist or, while addressing colleagues, resorting to the denominations of those American Sociological Association (ASA) and International Sociological Association (ISA) sections he belonged to: sociological theory and sociology of science. In his New York Times obituary (it is their policy to make the eulogy conform to the deceased person's thought, so that one might even take the commendation literally as a personal statement), it is handed down to posterity that Merton coined the concept of “theories of the middle range,” which refers to “undertakings that steered clear of grand speculative and abstract doctrines while also avoiding pedantic inquiries that were unlikely to yield significant results.” His contribution to the study of science is synthesized with the same brevity with which, according to Merton, scientists should provide information about themselves and their actions: “Merton gained his pioneering reputation as a sociologist of science, exploring how scientists behave and what it is that motivates, rewards, and intimidates them.”

Although RKM (Robert K. Merton loved abbreviations, even when it came to his own name) did not make “culture” the subject of his sociological research and did not consider it as the sole guiding principle of his investigations, his work nevertheless offers several insights worthy of consideration for those who have devoted themselves, in one way or another, to the sociology of culture. If some scholars in this subfield wanted to make RKM a “reference individual” (Merton 1968b, 357–359), they would easily turn to his publications that examine cultural productions empirically, but there are also other writings in which cultural characteristics are given an important place in the design of sociological research. Monographs that belong to the former category include Science, Technolog y and Society in Seventeenth Century England (Merton 1938a [1970)], Mass Persuasion (Merton 1946 [2004]), On the Shoulders of Giants (Merton 1965 [1985]), and The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity (Merton and Barber 2004), as well as countless of his essays (almost all his contributions on the different aspects of scientists’ activities, however, are collected in one volume: Merton 1979).

Sometimes need is—indeed—the mother of invention; sometimes, remarkable individuals and institutions can creatively solve community-level problems in the face of extreme political and financial constraints. This book is about such experiments in local governance resulting from the growing demands created by rapid urbanization. In writing about them in comparative context, I aim to shed light on some of the inner workings of local leadership in public and community sectors in ways that improve our understanding of how the practice of development is unfolding across a wide range of countries, predominantly in the Global South.

By now, it is common parlance to think of the development states of Asia and elsewhere as national behemoths implementing various versions of Modernist projects such as those detailed by Jim Scott (1998), whose version posits an ever-increasing exercise of state authority over the daily lives of citizens. Counterposed to such descriptions of strong development states are extensive descriptions of elaborate networks of informal and non-state-sanctioned community groups seeking grassroots decision-making authority. Concurrent with these two streams of thinking, involving state and non-state political actors, are the more formulaic development economics approaches whereby investments in capital result in the rewards of economic development, as has long been articulated by practitioners of development wishing to downplay the political aspects of their work.

Without undervaluing these precedents, this book navigates waters in which local governing bodies mitigate powerful nation-states—waters in which community activists channel their organizing capacities into urban infrastructure projects and in which community organizations model non-traditional development finance mechanisms. In charting this route, the book borrows perspectives and methods from each vantage point as a way to show how local government actors are not only providing a range of development alternatives but also managing new forms of public participation amidst rapidly changing local societies and politics.

Where these local arrangements come into play before a national development state creates large infrastructure systems to respond to urbanization needs, sociopolitical structures become embedded within daily practice and sometimes form the basis for a participatory version of self-governance. It is my argument that these kinds of arrangements should be seen as the seeds of a resilient form of governance in a rapidly urbanizing and developing global context.

About Masters’ Lectures

The purpose of this book is to help researchers, students, and theatregoers get a sense of how actor knowledge is structured and expressed in Chinese traditional theatre (xiqu 戲曲), specifically in the form of kunqu 崑曲. To this end, it offers some of the necessary tools to interpret what goes on when actors are onstage, placing performance practice within its network of transmission, vocabulary of technique, repertoire structure, and institutional context. Outside of China and Chinese theatre studies, few theatre practitioners have a clear sense of how actor training or repertoire transmission in China actually function, or their terms of reference. Yet theatre accounts such as these are important not only to help enthusiasts and researchers come to grips with xiqu on its own terms but also to assist those who would like to work respectfully on intercultural projects involving xiqu. This introduction can only briskly sketch some information about kunqu that should make the lectures more intelligible to the reader newly coming to Chinese theatre. If we succeed in our aims, the book itself may serve as the introduction to kunqu.

Knowledge about xiqu exists largely in an embodied form. The accessibility of artist expertise has been circumscribed by its tradition of oral transmission. Historically, hard-won knowledge of this kind has not been lightly shared; many aspects of theatre artistry have been regarded as sensitive, even proprietary. Transmission is sometimes treated as delicately as material inheritance. Fortunately for the aficionado, amateur performer, and researcher, xiqu actor accounts of their performance practice began to be published in periodicals in the Republican era (1912–1949) and in books after 1949. Audiovisual lectures were also sporadically recorded, but it is only in recent years that large-scale and more systematic projects to document xiqu theatre practice have appeared. The largest such enterprise to date for kunqu is Masters’ Lectures on One Hundred Kunqu Scenes (Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi 崑曲百種, 大師說戲) (Yip Siu Hing and Masters’ Studio 2014). The present book consists of annotated translations of 12 of its lectures, not even one eighth of the original Chinese project's scope.

By referencing the Balfour Declaration in the 1948 proclamation of Jewish statehood, the founders of Israel took the Balfour Declaration to mean that Britain had promised a state. The meaning of the Balfour Declaration in that regard was a matter of debate all through the period Britain governed Palestine. The Zionist Organization aimed for statehood, and it played a role in implementing British policy in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration itself, however, avoided any definition of “national home.”

The context of the adoption and delivery of the statement provides clues. The War Cabinet, in instructing Balfour to convey its statement to the English Zionists, asked him to “take a suitable opportunity of making the following declaration of sympathy with the Zionist aspirations.” The Zionists aspired to statehood. In the communications leading up to the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the English Zionists pressed for a statement that would strongly imply an aim of statehood. Draft language was exchanged that would have recited that the Government “accepts the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people.” The War Cabinet's rejection of such phrasing was deliberate. The Balfour Declaration did not by its terms envisage Jewish statehood in Palestine.

In the aftermath of World War I, protection of minority groups was high on the international agenda. New borders were generating new minorities. For example, a German population group who found themselves within Poland as a result of a border shift came to be protected by treaty, so that they could continue to develop in a German cultural environment. Germans inhabiting the sector of Poland in question were guaranteed a right to conduct primary schooling in the German language, in schools funded by the Polish government. In Palestine, the Jews, similarly, were expected to be a minority, hence “national home” might mean something similar. The treaty on Poland did not, to be sure, use the term “national home,” but the term served readily as shorthand for what was spelled out in that treaty.

Concern immediately arose on the Arab side in any event about what the War Cabinet had in mind. Hussein bin Ali asked the British Government to clarify.

The writers of the Passover Haggadah brought together four passages from disparate portions of the Torah to frame the allegory of the four sons:

We can appropriate this passage for another use. The story of the four sons illustrates the four tasks of Jewish Studies.

The wise son's question represents Jewish Studies scholars hashing out matters related to Jewish law, Jewish custom, Jewish history and Jewish thought among themselves. This son is wise because he is one of the learned scholars discussing Jewish matters at a high level with other learned scholars. Like any proud Jewish family, we love to put our wise children in front of company. One can find Ruth Wisse, for example, not only on the pages of prestigious academic journals, but on radio and television. Jacques Derrida made no secret of the Talmudic influence on his deconstructive methodol ogy which spread to secular philosophy, literary theory and throughout the social sciences. The wise siblings own their Jewishness and it informs their questioning.

Ajia 阿甲 (1907–1994) was the alias and professional name of Fu Lüheng 符律衡. A playwright and director, he was an important intellectual figure in Communist theatre reform, starting from his arrival in Yan’an in 1938 and culminating with his involvement in the revolutionary operas of the 1960s, especially The Red Lantern. He helped to create and institutionalize the role of xiqu stage directors (Xing Fan 2018, Chap. 9). For a summary of his theatre theory, see Liu Yizhen (1988).

Bai Honglin 白鴻林 (1920–1987) was a wusheng performer trained by his father. He taught martial stage movements to students of the “first kunqu class” [Appendix I] in Shanghai before moving to Henan to work in a yuju [Appendix J] troupe in 1958.

Cai Yaoxian 蔡瑶銑 (1943–2005) specialized in guimendan and zhengdan role types. Though graduating from the Shanghai school in 1961, she moved to the Northern Company [Appendix I] in 1979 where she became their leading dan during the 1980s and 1990s, often performing opposite Hou Shaokui. She won a Plum Blossom Prize in 1988.

Cai Zhengren 蔡正仁 (b. 1941), see Lecture 6.

Chang Xiangyu 常香玉 (1923–2004) was a yuju dan, known for her striking voice. Her performance of the woman warrior Hua Mulan 花木蘭 became popular nationally as a result of a 1956 film.

Chen Baichen 陳白塵 (1908–1994) was an author of fiction and huaju drama, now best remembered for his wartime satires. He became an important cultural official in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and produced patriotic plays such as Song of the Great Wind, which in 1980 was adapted for kunqu as Empress Lü Usurps the Throne.

Chen Furui 陳富瑞 (1904–1971) was a jing ju wusheng. After an acting career during the Republican period, he became a key wusheng instructor for the Shanghai Troupe in the 1950s.

Cheng Yonglong 程永龍 (1873–1946) was a jing ju hualian, especially popular in the Republican era for playing the Three Kingdoms hero Guan Yu.

I start with family memories that date back to the Civil War. Three generations of Beneckes and Zillmans had seen some form of military service before I needed to address my own military service in 1966–69. In 1861, Louis Benecke was a recent immigrant from Germany to Missouri when the Civil War began. Louis joined the Union Army and fought the Battle of Shiloh, was captured by Confederate forces, released after six months and continued service for the Union cause. That background set the stage for a lifetime of law practice and government leadership in his home town of Brunswick, Missouri.

His daughter Luci married Christian Zillman. Christian had attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis for two years but then withdrawn for further civilian education leading to a law degree and a career in law practice in Chicago. Christian was too old for the WW I draft. Our WW I family veteran was my grandmother's second husband, William Mack. Uncle Bill served in General John J.Pershing's American Expeditionary Force.

Christian and Luci's oldest son, Theodore (after Teddy Roosevelt) was born in 1905. He was 12-years old when America entered WW I. He was certainly old enough to appreciate the American involvement in the War and the fact thar he might someday face military service. Before then, however, he had graduated from the University of Wisconsin, joined the family law practice, suffered through the Great Depression and in 1936 married my mother, Helen.

On Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, Dad was 36 and Mom was 28. Congress had reinstated the draft in Fall 1940 after the German blitzkrieg had conquered France in little more than a month. Young American males who had survived the Great Depression now faced participation in war against two of the world's major military powers.

Dad's age left him out of the first draft calls and discouraged him from immediately volunteering. Within two years, however, it was clear that the draft would need to reach men in their late 30s or older. Dad was inducted into the United States Army and underwent basic training with boys and young men half a generation younger than he was at Fort Benning, Georgia. Dad's athletic skills saw him through basic training. He then opted for Officer Candidate School. Various assignments around the United States followed.

To this point, our discussion has focused on social and cultural changes, but what of changes to the land? In the deep historical past, before China's landscape was radically altered by the hand of man, the North presented the flat but forested horizons of the Central Plain. Beyond the Taihang Mountains that mark the western edge of the Plain lay the broken landscape of the river basins that cut the friable soils called loess. Rainfall across the North is irregular, although in ancient times evidence suggests it was more plentiful than today. Nevertheless, although the soils are fertile and easy to till, the rivers and other water sources could dry up, as they do today. Without irrigation, agriculture is unreliable for crops are likely to wither and die.

In contrast, the South was a land of mountains and forests, riven by valleys marked by free-flowing rivers. Rainfall is abundant, the rivers are broad and the landscape is dotted with lakes, large and small. There was a wide and abundant diversity of plant and animal life: snakes and fish, deer, birds and mammals big and small, even tigers, rhinoceros and elephants. Liu Zongyuan wrote from his exile in the deepest South that the world around him was filled with unfamiliar noises and scents. It was a world that Liu and his colleagues feared. To many, however, the South was both exotic and seductive, so much so that phlegmatic northerners worried that it could captivate and corrupt the unwary, turn them away from the stern moral values on which northern culture was based, and convert them into hedonistic barbarians. As the late eighth-century poet Bao He wrote to a friend about going South as an official:

For those willing to bear its challenges, this was a land filled with opportunity. The verdant bottomlands and coastal plains had rich soils that beckoned to be tilled. Its exotic products: fruits such as oranges, bananas, lychee and longyan, medicinals such as rhino horn and elephant tusk, and exotic meats and herbs, found ready markets in the cities of the North. But it was also filled with dangers, both real and imaginary.

A reasonably robust stylistic distinction divides the main troupes into southern (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Suzhou, Zhejiang), northern, and Hunan styles. This division affects both what and how repertoire is performed. The “southern” troupes largely derive their repertoire from the “chuan” generation whereas northern and Hunan styles each have independent lineages and inheritance.

In ordinary conversation, troupes are not given full names but instead are referred to by a two-character abbreviation consisting of a place designation and “kun” 崑 for kunqu or kunju. Before the Cultural Revolution, perhaps because of the unwelcome elite associations of kunqu, Zhejiang and Jiangsu kunqu troupes were also suju [Appendix J] troupes, while Shanghai kunqu actors were also included in jing ju youth troupes. After the Cultural Revolution, these were reconstituted as kunqu-only troupes and the Jiangsu Company's Suzhou ensemble became an independent company. At present, the distinction between “troupe” (tuan 團) and “company” ( yuan 院) is not institutionally substantial.

Hunan Troupe (Xiangkun 湘崑)

Hunan Kunju Troupe (Hunan sheng kunju tuan 湖南省崑劇團)

The Hunan Troupe was founded in 1960 and became a provincial-level organization in 1964. Situated in the city of Chenzhou 郴州, the troupe is geographically isolated from the genre's core areas and performs in a distinct style, so it has been relatively peripheral to the revival of national interest in kunqu.

Jiangsu Company (Shengkun 省崑)

Jiangsu Kunju Company ( Jiangsu sheng kunju yuan 江蘇省崑劇院)

The success of Fifteen Strings of Cash caused the Suzhou municipal government to form the Jiangsu Suju and Kunju Troupe ( Jiangsu sheng su-kunju tuan 江蘇省蘇崑劇團) in 1956, replacing an existing suju company. In 1960, a troupe of 30 people, including Zhang Jiqing, was split off and moved to the provincial capital of Nanjing while another group continued in Suzhou.1In 1970, during the Cultural Revolution, the troupe briefly became the second provincial jing ju troupe, Second Peking Opera Troupe of Jiangsu Province ( Jiangsu sheng jingju er tuan 江蘇省京劇二團). Regrouping in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, it acquired its current name (going from “troupe” to “company”) and venue.