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Chinese classical dance, influenced by Confucian thought, showcases both its aesthetic value and profound cultural heritage. This article primarily explores how Confucian thought is reflected in the performance techniques and cultural practices of Chinese classical dance. This article also proposed the “beauty” and “virtue” in “rites and music” of Confucianism, and combined them with the performance of Chinese classical dancing. It further examines how the Confucian ideals of “beauty” and “virtue” in “rites and music” are embodied in Chinese classical dance performances, teaching and dissemination, creation of works and cultural spirit. Among them, Confucianism emphasizes the moral concept of “people oriented”, which is integrated into the creation and performance of Chinese classical dance, enhancing the spiritual connotation of Chinese classical dance performance. This article found that, during the long development process of Chinese classical dance, a set of excellent artistic standards has gradually developed, which plays a decisive role in the emergence and development of Chinese classical dance. The article reveals that Confucianism has contributed to the development of high artistic standards in Chinese classical dance, which is crucial to its evolution and significance.

The Peace Corps program was once considered an unconventional approach to American diplomacy centered on pragmatic philosophy. The iniciative of Peace Corps in China was perceived as an extraordinary endeavor, yet it has been effectively operating in China for nearly thirty years. The volunteers involved in the program have been instrumental in promoting people-to-people exchanges between the United States and China, drawing from their experiences in cultural immersion. The creation of the “U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers” path was intended to improve bilateral relations between the two nations. Despite opposition from the U.S. Congress, the Peace Corps has not surpassed the foreign policy of the Untied States. However, when the Peace Corps program goes against the policy between the United States and China , it has to end its development in China. This contradicts the claimed political neutrality of the Peace Corps. Throughout the “U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers” program, most volunteers have worked in universities in large cities. Consequently, the cultural adaptation environment for Peace Corps volunteers in China is unique. They are presented with more challenging cultural differences, with relatively lower acculturation stress in their material life. The Peace Corps enables most volunteers to bolster cultural exchanges between China and the United States through active cultural learning support. The development of the Peace Corps project in China reveals no fundamental distinction between its activities in China and other countries. Hence, the “U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers” program of the Peace Corps is not an exception to the pragmatic diplomatic philosophy of the United States.

This article looks at how the description of existing material elements (environments and objects) could be used to both cultivate past memories and create new memories for the future, with the ultimate goal of generating a sense of community between individuals who lived apart from each other. It will take as case-study two letters sent by Ansellus, then cantor of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, to the cathedral chapter of Notre-Dame in Paris around 1120, which attest in an exceptional way the various means which could be employed to reach this goal, from a skillful use of rhetoric to the sharing of gifts (in this case, of relics) and of knowledge connected, from the circulation of envoys to the establishment of a confraternity of prayer.

From the perspective of pragmatic diplomatic philosophy, Peace Corps can benefit the United States, which is an important reason for the domestic support it receives within the United States. Through the volunteers’ acculturation experience, cultural exchanges between the United States and host countries are promoted and the awareness of the American society about the Third World countries is raised, which is the true value of the Peace Corps from the perspective of American interests. As members of American society, Peace Corps volunteers gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the Third World in their host countries, which is not only an important part of improving the awareness of the American society the Third World, but is also an important bridge to spread this awareness in the United States. When volunteers return to the United States after finishing their service, they bring their understanding of the Third World to different industries and fields in American domestic society. Among them, American education and diplomacy are mostly affected. These are of great significance in improving the international vision and awareness of American education and the reliability of American foreign policy.

This paper is about dogmata (judgements) in the third book of the Discourses. I examine first their content and distinguish between dogmata with general content and those with person-specific content. The Discourses do not have the kind of progression from the latter to the former that we find in Plato’s Socratic dialogues. I then turn to the attitude of Epictetus’ interlocutor or addressee and show that some of the dogmata targeted by Epictetus are not yet possessed at the time of instruction. Here too he differs from Plato’s Socrates. Despite Socrates’ significance in other respects for the Discourses, Epictetus’ treatment of dogmata should be understood in the light of Stoic moral psychology rather than Socratic elenchus.

English is now the dominant language in the higher education sector in Europe, as can be seen from objective indicators such as the growing number of degree programmes which use English as a medium of instruction. Teaching subjects through the medium of English (English Medium Instruction or EMI) may raise a series of questions and challenges for what concerns the accreditation and training of teaching staff. University language centres can play a fundamental role in helping the academic staff from feeling pushed towards teaching through English without a great deal of training and preparation. The present contribution reports on the activities implemented by the Language Centre in order to assist those members of the teaching staff (lecturers) who are confronted with the inherent challenges of teaching through English on a daily basis, and also highlights possible future avenues of research and instances of best practices.

In popular culture, the stereotypically iconized “geek” can be identified in different media narratives from mainstream television to magazines. Drawing upon insights from sociolinguistics and business communication studies, this paper attempts to identify the discursive constructs of “being geek” in Chinese digital business communication. By collecting the discourse data of online customer reviews from amazon.cn and analyzing the data based on the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study investigates how linguistic mechanisms operate in the shaping of geek culture and the construction of “being geek” in the participatory communication of business. The results revealed lexical variables and generic intertextuality are prominent in the discourse construction of “being geek”, to create a stimulus for a promotional culture in business communication.

Attraverso la comparazione delle lettere di raccomandazione di cinque celebri dignitari ecclesiastici del secolo XII (Bernardo di Chiaravalle, Pietro il Venerabile, Pietro di Celle, Gilberto Foliot, e Giovanni di Salisbury), questo studio si propone di mostrare che gli elogi che questi testi contengono non sono “stereotipati”, nel senso di indipendenti da qualsiasi caratteristica della lettera, ma sono invece influenzati da vari fattori. In particolare, le tendenze peculiari di ciascun autore si riflettono negli elogi, e questi ultimi sembrano scelti in base al tipo di beneficiario e di richiesta. Se ne deduce che gli elogi riflettono l’esistenza di un repertorio – largamente condiviso – di caratteristiche positive idealmente associate a un determinato ruolo, per esempio quello di chierico, monaco, vescovo o abate, e perfino di segretario e messaggero.

Si ritiene a volte che l'invenzione della stampa abbia innescato il cambiamento nel modo di concepire l'oggetto libro, segnando il passaggio dall'idea medievale a quella moderna. Occorre però tenere presente che esiste un'importante evoluzione interna al medioevo e che l'invenzione della stampa, per quanto fondamentale, è da inserire all'interno di questo processo più ampio, che a partire dal XII secolo circa trasforma l'uso e la funzione stessa della scrittura, rivoluziona il modo di leggere e di conseguenza il libro stesso, sia concettualmente sia come oggetto fisico. L'approccio scelto per questo studio mira a risalire alle radici culturali dei cambiamenti nelle pratiche del lavoro intellettuale e, viceversa, a indagare se e come tali cambiamenti abbiano potuto influenzare, attraverso le opere stesse, la cultura dell'epoca. Il fenomeno oggetto specifico dell'indagine è l'autografia letteraria d'autore che, eccezionale nell'alto medioevo, è testimoniata da una nuova e ininterrotta serie di casi a partire dall'XI-XII secolo, per poi diffondersi nei secoli successivi. Il panorama culturale della fine del medioevo appare dunque caratterizzato dalla tensione tra una ricorrente aspirazione all'individualizzazione del rapporto tra l'autore e il suo testo, che si realizzava in un modello di produzione libraria basato su uno stretto controllo dell'autore sul prodotto finale, dal punto di vista sia filologico-testuale sia grafico e materiale, e l'opposta tendenza all'allentamento del controllo dell'autore sulla propria opera, come naturale conseguenza di una sempre più vasta circolazione dei testi ma anche di una diversa concezione del ruolo autoriale. It is generally believed that the invention of printing triggered a cultural change, marking the passage between the medieval idea of the book and the modern one. It should be noted, though, that there was an important evolution through the Late Middle Ages, and that the printing revolution, however crucial, must be placed inside the wider process that from the XIIth century onwards transformed the use and function of writing, of reading and, consequently, the book itself, both theoretically and physically. The aim of this study is to track the cultural roots of the changes in the practices of intellectual work and, viceversa, to determine whether and how such changes may have influenced, through the literary production, late medieval culture. I have focused on the phenomenon of literary autography which, very unusual in the Early Middle Ages, is attested by a new and uninterrupted series of examples from the XIth-XIIth centuries onwards. The cultural landscape of the end of the Middle Ages appears therefore marked by the tension between a recurring drive towards an individualisation of the relation between an author and his work and a strict control by the author over the final product (both philologically and graphically) and an opposite trend leading to the loosening of the author's control over his work, as a natural result of the circulation of the texts but also of a different idea of the authorial role.