From ‘Breathless Catalogue’ to ‘Beyond Text’: A Hundred Years of Children’s Folklore Collecting

This lecture draws attention to research into children’s folklore in Britain from the last century, stressing its potential to inform understandings of contemporary childhoods, particularly children’s play. The emphasis is on archival sources, such as the collections of Norman Douglas, James Ritchie, and Iona and Peter Opie. The changing nature of contemporary evidence, such as children’s self-produced films of their play shared on YouTube, is also illustrated, and the importance of a multimodal approach stressed. The author compares the historical sources with the collectors’ published work, and highlights the need for rigour in appraising these differing forms of evidence.     

Representations of the Outbreak of World War II in Polish Film, 1945–67: From Partial Recognition to a Component of National Memory

In September 1939, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, starting World War II. The war’s end in 1945 marked not the true liberation of the country, but the beginning of a period of Soviet domination that ended only in 1989. As a result, for forty-five years of Polish history, the alliance made by the Hitler with Stalin in 1939 and its tragic consequences for Poland were taboo across society. Polish filmmakers presenting the beginning of World War II were constrained by realities of the Communist state and its own historical narratives. These films reflect what happened to their country in 1939 and highlight the political changes that occurred within Poland under Communist rule, as well as the impact of shifts in the regime itself. The most significant period in this regard was 1945–67, when the outbreak of war was first presented following the end of Stalinism, emerging as a component of national memory both generally and for the Communist authorities.     

Folklore’s Timeless Past,Ireland’s Present Past,and the Perception of Rural Houses in Early Historic Ireland

This study examines how the archaeology of historic Ireland has been interpreted. Two approaches to the history and archaeology of Ireland are identified. The first, the timeless past, has its roots in a neo-Lamarckian view of the past. This perspective was particularly developed in the work of geographer and ethnographer, Estyn Evans. The second view, associated in particular with a nationalist approach to Ireland’s past, looked to the west of the country where it was believed the culture had been preserved largely unchanged and in its purest form. The continuing impact of these frameworks upon the interpretation of rural settlement in the period 1200–1700 is examined. It is argued that historians and archaeologists alike have underestimated the quality of buildings.     

Humanitarian encounters: Biafra,NGOs and imaginings of the Third World in Britain and Ireland, 1967–70

This article examines the influence of the Biafran humanitarian crisis on British and Irish conceptions of the Third World. Drawing on evidence from non-government organizations (NGOs) in both countries, it argues that the explosion of non-governmental activity in this period, combined with the unprecedented attention afforded to the relief effort, crystallized a popular vision of the Third World that was rooted in western internationalism and the legacies of the imperial world. The model of humanitarian action pursued by Oxfam, Save the Children, Africa Concern and others transformed non-governmental actors into key mediators between the west and the Third World. Yet, this article argues, the image they presented and the tactics they pursued can only be understood as part of a broader adjustment to a decolonized world. From very different beginnings (British postcolonial responsibilities versus a strong anticolonial narrative in Ireland) considerable similarities emerged between British and Irish NGOs. The response to Biafra was an extension of the missionary and colonial service ethos, and generated a model of relief that privileged humanitarian action over local political and human agency. That paternalistic approach further reinforced traditional attitudes to the Third World through renewed emphases on donation, dependency, expatriate volunteers and western concepts of ‘needs’ and ‘development’. This article concludes, therefore, by arguing that Biafra played a vital role in the shift from imperial humanitarianism to neo-humanitarianism and the rise of liberal humanitarian governance. The vision of an inclusive ‘common humanity’ the NGOs espoused was in practice rooted in a very western understanding of humanitarian responsibilities and a very western image of the Third World.     

‘Accurate to the Point of Mania’: Eyewitness Testimony and Memory Making in Australia's Official Paintings of the First World War

The collection of official war art housed in the Australian War Memorial has played an important role in shaping a memory of the First World War for almost a century. This article explores the importance of eyewitness testimony in the production of war paintings for the Memorial's collection during the interwar years. Focusing on the repainting of official artist Harold Septimus Power's canvas Saving the Guns of Robecq, it explores the reasons why—in the inevitably contested construction of memory—Charles Bean and John Treloar privileged veterans’ memories over artists’ interpretations of the conflict. It argues that in the process of memory making aesthetics mattered less than portraying the war in a way acceptable to the men who had experienced it.     

‘Nuclear Sword of the Moslem World’?: the United States,Britain, Pakistan,and the ‘Islamic Bomb’, 1977–80

There exists today considerable fear of nuclear proliferation across the ‘Islamic world.’ Despite this, an issue that - in part - set the tone for contemporary debates has largely gone under-examined in the scholarly literature. The emergence of the ‘Islamic bomb’ idea in the late 1970s created a meme that remains with us today. Analysing the roots of this meme allows us to examine its creation and the attitudes of governments towards this alleged emergent nuclear-proliferation threat. This analysis demonstrates that while the media portrayed the ‘Islamic world’ as violent, undifferentiated, and determined to gain nuclear capability, the US and British governments assessed matters evidentially and came to the conclusion that the ‘Islamic bomb’ represented a propaganda problem rather than an imminent nuclear-proliferation concern. Attitudes towards the ‘Islamic bomb’ highlight media and governmental attitudes towards the changing power balances in the Middle East and South Asia during a turbulent and troubled period.     

At the Horizons of the Subject: Neo-liberalism,neo-conservatism and the rights of the child Part One: From ‘knowing’ fetus to ‘confused’ child

The inability of the child to represent his or her own interests as a legal subject (by definition), and the continued interest of the state in the child as a futurity or resource locks the child in an eternal pas de deux: the child continually approaches the possibility of ‘personhood’ but never achieves it. In the past 40 years, in western nations the child's legal personhood has been simultaneously invoked and constrained: through a growing array of persons and organizations that, as an exteriority, purport to ‘best represent the child’; and through an ever more finely gradated mapping of the child's interiority—which filters the child's voice through a range of interpretive theories, and mechanisms. In this myopic and hyperopic reading of the child, the child's voice disappears. This paper is the first of two examining the relationship of the child to the liberal notion of the subject. In the case law explored around fetal rights and custody issues in the United States and elsewhere we find a paradoxical situation where the ‘fetus’ is granted a more authoritative voice in terms of what it ‘wants’ than is the child, whose wishes are perpetually called into question. Together these papers raise questions about the nature of the subject qua individual. They highlight the potential for a ventriloquist discourse around the child whereby neo-liberal and neo-conservative groups that purport to speak for the child mobilize their own political interests.     

From the Body of Christ to Racial Homogeneity: Carl Schmitt's Mobilization of ‘Life’ against ‘the Spirit of Technicity’

This article traces the semantics of “life” and “vitality” in Carl Schmitt up to the 1930s. It shows that Schmitt deploys these vitalist elements against the modern “spirit of technicity” in his attempt to combat the lack of substantial ideas in modern politics. However, Schmitt himself cannot escape a fundamental political relativism. There remains an unstable tension at the heart of his thought between the quest for substance and the quest for order. The latter is relativist because it is a quest for order as such, any order. Although Schmitt's semantics of life and vitality is not drawn from a biological register, it adopted a völkisch meaning in 1933. Anti-Semitism becomes a form of life and racial homogeneity fills in for substance. The article concludes that, while there are good reasons for criticizing the modern “spirit of technicity,” Schmitt's critical model is fundamentally flawed.     

From Tongbo Village to Widow Village—The Legacy of the Chinese Civil War

Located on Dongshan Island,off the coast of Fujian province,is a typical rural village called Tongbo.On May 10,1950,147 men were abducted by the KMT army on its way to Taiwan.Since a majority of the men were already married,overnight,their wives became "widows," and most would remain so for the rest of their lives.Consequently,Tongbo village became more widely known as Widow Village.The first objective of this paper is to document the tragic experiences of men and women in Tongbo village,focusing on these forced separations in 1950,the possibility of reunion after 1987,and the struggle to cope with the difficulties in between.The second objective of this paper is to argue that while heartbreaking,the experiences of this village are not extraordinary in the context of the Chinese Civil War.What made the men and women in Tongbo extraordinary is not their collective suffering,but how these villagers suffered less,not more,than in many other places,because of the actions of three key figures.     

‘… This strange eventful history …’: France and the Second World War

Direction des Archives de France, La Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Guide des sources conservées en France 1939–1945 (Archives nationales, 1994), 1217pp., 350F., ISBN 2 86000 235 9

Burrin, P., La France à l'heure allemande 1940–1944 (Seuil, 1995), 559pp., 160F., ISBN 2 02 018322 6     

From ‘Free’ to ‘Fair’ Trade: The Evolution of Labour Laws in Colonial Hong Kong, 1958–62

By the mid-1950s the Colonial Office was working closely with officials in a rapidly industrialising Hong Kong to improve employment conditions by extending statutory rights to factory workers. From 1958 it wanted to accelerate the pace of legislative change to respond to the demands of social and business lobby groups. The colonial administration in Hong Kong was reluctant to regulate industry more stringently but, as pressure from Britain intensified, it decided that it had to act. In 1959, it amended an existing ordinance regulating the factory hours worked by women and young persons, and in 1962 introduced a new one providing every factory worker with an entitlement to holiday and sick pay. Labour-law making within Hong Kong, however, required the government to forge alliances with business groups, a drawn-out political process that allowed employers to secure significant concessions.     

‘Phrases Make History Here’: Churchill,Ireland and the Rhetoric of Empire

In the history of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial 1946–48, it is generally held that the United States was the dominating presence: General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, not only convened the court, but also openly insisted on an exoneration of the Japanese emperor; and American lawyers headed the prosecution team and assumed much of the workload for the defence. However, government documents, including correspondence from and to the participants, show that the Commonwealth governments exerted significant influence in many crucial matters, such as the drafting of the indictment and the judgment of the court. This article questions the standard emphasis on America's role and takes a fresh look at the relationship between the United States and the British Commonwealth of Nations.     

From resistance to revolution: the limits of nonviolence in Arendt’s ‘Civil Disobedience’

ABSTRACT

Arendt’s work on civil disobedience sets out an optimistic portrayal of the possibilities of such forms of action in re-energising the spirit of American politics in the late twentieth century. Civil disobedience should not simply be tolerated, she argued, but incorporated into the legal structure of the American political system. Her work is usually seen to promote an idea of civil disobedience that is thus bound to existing constitutional principles and essentially nonviolent. However, by looking at Arendt’s discussion and critique of various practices of civil disobedience in 1960s and 1970s America, specifically in relation to the nonviolence movement influenced by Martin Luther King, and on the other side, the more militant Black Power movement, a different idea of civil disobedience emerges. This paper argues that whilst, for Arendt, civil disobedience within America certainly possesses the constitutionally restorative potential she assigns to it, in a broader sense – theoretically, globally, and even in terms of alternative ideologies within America – her conception of civil disobedience is in itself neither necessarily constitutional, nor nonviolent. It is, instead, a form of revolutionary action, whose limits are set only by politics itself, and specifically, Arendt’s criterion of publicity.     

‘From Nitria to Sitria’: the construction of Peter Damian's Vita Beati Romualdi

This article examines the construction of Peter Damian's (c.1007–72) Vita Beati Romualdi (c.1042) as a piece of eleventh-century hagiography. Peter Damian was an erudite hermit, monk and reformer whose ideas on spiritual perfection helped to shape the ideals of the so-called ‘Gregorian Reform’ movement in the eleventh century. This article aims to contribute to recent historiography on the eleventh century through a re-examination of this important piece of hagiography, which has not been more thoroughly considered by medievalists since 1957 in Tabacco's critical edition. This article suggests that, through the biography of St Romuald, Peter Damian sought to promote the example of the Desert Fathers in formulating a more rigorous monastic rule, not only for his hermits at Fonte Avellana, but also for a wide monastic and lay audience. It also argues that there existed a gradual evolution in monastic ideology from the tenth century onwards, sponsored by ascetics like Damian who strove constantly to lead a more austere existence based on the Desert tradition and more particularly the Life of St Antony. In particular, the article pays attention to how Damian, as a hagiographer, was engaged in the construction of Romuald's sanctity.