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Rather than China versus Islam, the overarching theme of this special issue is “Islam in China/China in Islam.” In thinking through “Islam in China,” we argue that the relationship between China and Islam is not one of opposition, but rather one of cultural, linguistic, and economic imbrication. Indeed, it is difficult to describe Islam and China as two separate or essentialized entities. For some Muslim minorities in certain regions of China, there is no distinction between neo-Confucianism and Islam or between the nation-state and the global umma (community of Muslims). Through intellectual labor, modes of prayer and worship, art, calligraphy, architecture, cuisine, linguistic creoles, and legal pluralism, these Muslims embody multiple cultural referents. For other Muslim minorities in other regions in China, political and economic circumstances present challenges to living in accordance with Islam while also being a citizen of the PRC. In other words, the Muslim experience in China encompasses a complex mosaic of accommodation, adjustment, preservation, and, at times, resistance. Thus, generalizations about this incredibly diverse population are unhelpful, and careful attention must be paid to history, politics, and place...

In what is in retrospect easily recognized as one of the three or four truly groundbreaking essays in environmental aesthetics, Francis Sparshott distinguishes a number of different ways of conceptualizing our relationships to our environments. Such different conceptualizations, he argues, deeply influence the ways in which we aesthetically experience both environments and the things that occupy them. It follows that understanding of, and thus education about, our environmental conceptualizations are of the utmost importance to our aesthetic appreciation. In this article I follow up some of Sparshott's insights by considering the ways in which a number of rather common conceptualizations of environments relate to what is an increasingly important feature of our built environments--what is commonly referred to as "environmental architecture." In doing so, I hope to make clear how aesthetic education concerning these common conceptualizations is vital for the appreciation of not only environmental architecture but the whole of our built environment. (Contains 24 notes.)

In this essay, the author addresses the question of environmental aesthetics as an issue in aesthetic education. The question is that of exactly "how" to appreciate a landscape appropriately and of exactly "what" is relevant to such appreciation. If aesthetic education is the business of teaching appropriate aesthetic appreciation, then, concerning the landscape, the key question is that of what to teach to instill such an appreciation. What skills, talents, information, and knowledge must be given to children, peers, and even to the artists themselves, in order to engender a rich, appropriate appreciation of landscapes? To put it in another way: What is the correct "curriculum" for teaching the appropriate aesthetic appreciation of landscapes? The writer approaches the question by working through a number of topics, each of which might be considered a candidate for such a curriculum. Eight different items (form, common knowledge, science, history, contemporary use, myth, symbol, and art) are considered. Each is queried regarding what role, if any, it should play in the curriculum. (Contains 19 notes.)