The Vita Gregorii and Ethnogenesis in Anglo-Saxon Britain

Abstract

'The Vita Gregorii and Ethnogenesis in Anglo-Saxon Britain'. During the Migration Period, ethnic and political identities emerged amongst the barbarians in the West. In Britain, the barbarian newcomers came to see themselves as a single gens — the English people. Although this has usually been seen as a smooth and almost inevitable process of ethnogenesis, an analysis of an oft overlooked hagiography, the Vita Gregorii, will demonstrate that ideas of ethnicity carried political currency, at least in early-eighth-century Northumbria. Moreover, the notion that all the barbarian newcomers belonged to a single gens found dissenters, evidenced in part by the Vita Wilfridi, which regarded a local, Northumbrian identity as primary. This interpretation places the Anglo-Saxons alongside their Continental counterparts, allowing events in Britain to be understood in a manner harmonious with the broader experiences of the West.     

The After School Routines of Literature-Devoted Urban Children

This paper discusses the out of school routines of a group of ‘literature-devoted’ children of the city of Madrid (Spain). The children and families were recruited for the study at a library, a children's bookstore and a puppet show in a park. Participants provided information on their weekly routines through several procedures: surveys, photographs of their daily lives, interviews based on the photographs and interviews with parents. We develop a spatially based model that allows us to identify four styles of activity in children's out of school lives: homebound children, non-scheduled children, outdoor and scheduled children, and fully scheduled children. Our results suggest that there is significant diversity in the ways in which children's after-school time is organized, even within a middle-class and socially homogeneous sample as the one in this study. Also, the range of activities our participants engage in seems to contradict current portraits of Western urban children's lives as constrained.     

Searching for resonance: scientific patterns in Complicite's Mnemonic and A Disappearing Number

Abstract

After the international success of Mnemonic, Complicite have once again brought science and drama together in a new theatre piece, A Disappearing Number. Both plays place scientists in the limelight, though their 'scientific' content is very different: Mnemonic was based on the discovery of a Neolithic man in the Alps, and used neurology and archaeology to explore notions of memory and history; A Disappearing Number focuses on our fascination with infinity, and dramatises the 'mysterious and romantic mathematical collaboration' between G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan. The two pieces are, however, remarkably similar in plot and structure, and in their common exploration of the metaphorical and theatrical potential of scientific discourse. Moreover, they both use science as a narrative tool to explore our relation to time and mortality. This review presents them in parallel and examines the particular integration of ideas and aesthetics which characterises Complicite's work: a tireless search for connections, and a constant translation of ideas between different theatrical languages, be they verbal, visual or musical.     

Henry Longueville Mansel and the origins of agnosticism

Abstract

The central theme of John Locke's Of the Conduct of the Understanding is human error. The Conduct was conceived as an additional chapter to An Essay concerning Understanding, but it was never finished and published posthumously in 1706 as a separate work. Modern authors have regarded the Conduct as an educational treatise. Indeed, the analysis in this work of the nature and causes of error and the ways to prevent and remedy error gives rise to numerous educational reflections. However, the aim of the present article is to show that these views should be understood within the specific epistemological context of a two-stage analysis of ideas, the first stage consisting of individual ideas that should all be clear and distinct, and the second stage consisting of reasonings based on combinations of these ideas. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

Radical (Evangelical) Democracy: The Dreams and Nightmares of Martin Luther King,Jr. and Antonio Negri

Abstract

This essay critically examines the theories of radical democracy offered by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision of the beloved community and Antonio Negri's vision of the multitude. The radical democratic visions of King and Negri continue to critically inform progressive reflections on democratic theory and propel new dreams of democracy. Despite their similarities, the differences between Negri and King are substantial. I argue that Negri's dream of the multitude and King's dream of beloved community have been shaped by different conceptions of radical democracy. While Negri works out of a tradition of Italian Marxism, King works within a critical tradition of prophetic evangelicalism. Thus, the political task, according to King, is to translate Jesus' teaching of the Kingdom of God into a beloved community on earth. King's creative negotiation of transcendence and history provides the requisite theological and political resources to develop a truly transcendent and immanent vision of a radical democratic society that is attentive to the demands and dignity of "all God's children."     

The credibility of scientific expertise in a culture of suspicion

Abstract

Scientists and other technical experts in the UK increasingly complain that their credibility is being eroded and that the public is ever more reluctant to believe what they say. This is sometimes seen as a part of a larger 'problem of trust', afflicting all our major institutions: science attracts suspicion because it is no longer perceived as independent and is regarded instead as tied to the interests of those institutions. But it is suggested here that the credibility of scientific expertise actually remains remarkably high, that the so called 'problem of trust' is not a problem at all, and that the rise of a culture of suspicion, which does admittedly cause experts some slight inconvenience at times, is nonetheless something they should welcome and encourage.     

Spinoza on art and the cultivation of a disposition toward joyful living

ABSTRACT

This paper forms part of a larger project which seeks to derive a theory of art from a close reading of Spinoza's work. It focuses on the importance of the aligned terms of ingenium and dispositio, which are both used to discuss the central importance of “dispostion” to our capacity to live well. While it is not possible to avoid affects, it is possible to order them in such a way that their negative impacts are lessened and their positive impacts are enhanced. We begin by underlining the importance of disposition to opening the way to understanding. We connect this to Spinoza's acknowledgement of the importance of art in helping to provide a plan for living. We turn to readings of ingenium in the work of Moreau and Balibar to further explore how the concept of disposition helps us to recognise the capacities of works of art to affect their audiences.     

Teresa de Ávila: Portrait of the saint as a young woman

ABSTRACT

Teresa de Jesús (known as Teresa de Ávila in the English-speaking world) began life in a comfortable, merchant-class family. The daughter and granddaughter of conversos, she was one of twelve children (two from the first marriage of Don Alonso de Cepeda, Teresa's father, and ten from the second). She received a good education for a girl of her period and class, probably learning to read and write from parents and tutors, and then studying at a convent boarding school. She undoubtedly learned the importance of letter writing from her father, as business in early modern Europe was conducted largely through correspondence. Although traditional biographers paint a romanticized view of Teresa's girlhood, a careful reading of her Vida, letters, and other documents reveals that there were many strains on the Cedepa-Ahumada household. Among the causes were the Cepedas' deteriorating financial situation, societal pressures on conversos, the death of Teresa's mother, tensions among the siblings, the departure of Teresa's brothers for the New World, and Teresa's illness.     

‘That street is taking us to home’: young children’s photographs of public spaces

ABSTRACT

Children’s identities constitute and are constituted by the everyday spaces they inhabit. Though there are innumerable accounts of what adults think public spaces like subways and city streets mean to children, fewer recorded accounts exist from young children themselves (Faulkner and Zolkos 2016, “Introduction.” In Critical Childhood Studies and the Practice of Interdisciplinarity, ix–xvii. Lexington: Lanham.). In this work I explored 2- – 5-year-old children’s conceptions of public space through the photographs they took and the narratives they told in and around those images. I focused on how children imaged their spaces, how their narrative fragments added layers of story to the images’ contents, and how their photographic performances acted as ‘visual voice’ (Burke 2005, “‘Play in Focus’: Children Researching Their Own Spaces and Places for Play.” Children Youth and Environments 15 (1): 27–53.), highlighting for us how they see themselves and their positions within the larger urban environment. The young children’s photographs depicted their growing autonomy and mobility within an urban context, attunements to non-human forms of the city, and knowledge of what it means to live in their communities.     

Oracular Ventriloquism: Political Theology in The Female American

ABSTRACT

This essay scrutinizes a scene of colonial religious conversion that appears in the pseudonymous 1767 novel, The Female American. The protagonist's use of ventriloquism and indigenous technology to create the illusion of divine intervention is considered in the light of Carl Schmitt's suggestion that secular political power inherits and translates forms of pre-modern theological authority. The novel's dual investments in proto-feminist literary representation and Anglican missionary proselytism are in tension with one another and help to explain the central character's ambivalence toward her inventive mode of conversion. Hence, the novel dramatizes the Euro-colonial disavowal of theological and decisionist force while, at the same time, hinting at the democratizing potential of forms of fictional address.     

The temptations of William Pascoe Crook: An experience of cultural difference in the Marquesas, 1797—1798

Abstract

The missionary William Pascoe Crook was the first European to make an extended residence in the Marquesas. He failed to make a single convert in the two years he was there but instead risked a ‘conversion’ of sorts in everyday compromises between fitting in with, and preserving his independence from, a way of life he found to be abhorrent. This paper reconstructs the quality of Crook's experience during his sojourn in the Marquesas and reflects on the ethnographic ‘Account of the Marquesas Islands’ compiled on his return to London in 1799. It emphasises the processes by which Crook came to a partial understanding of tapu and the role of mimicry in his adaptation to lapu as a force that will make sense of him, but that he himself does not comprehend. The paper relates Crook's experience of cultural difference to problems in the anthropological concept of culture.     

Reinhold Niebuhr and the US War on Terror: A Response to Dr Gilkey

Abstract

Building upon Langdon Gilkey's reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society, this article examines Niebuhr's enduring contribution in relation to two pressing international concerns: religious terrorism and the US War on Terror. As these two issues are characterized by their suppression of reason, I argue that Niebuhr's critical understanding of reason, a human rational capacity to consider interests other than one's own, offers an important resource in rectifying the disorder created by the two issues. Despite his stringent critique of a liberal idealistic view of reason, Niebuhr refused to completely deny the value of reason; although reason is always tainted by sin, it is not entirely ineffectual. This critical notion of reason is a necessary antidote to the unilateralism of the Bush administration and religious fundamentalism which altogether reject a dialogical, reflective value of reason. In an increasingly interdependent global society, a critical use of reason is indispensable for the achievement of global peace and justice.     

Reforming asylums,reforming public attitudes: J.R. Lord and Montagu Lomax's representations of mental hospitals and the community, 1921–1931

Abstract

J.R. Lord and Montagu Lomax offered competing visions of the relationship between mental hospitals and the community in a decade when asylums were subjected to extensive official and public scrutiny. The background of both men arguably informed their divergent outlook on mental hospitals. Lomax's work targeted reform at mental hospitals, through public and governmental intervention. Lord, however, advocated a leading role for mental hospitals in community mental health, and called for reform of public attitudes and laws inhibiting mental hospital development. This paper suggests that Lord effectively inverted Lomax's core arguments, selectively focusing on aspects of social service and aftercare to present a more positive picture of mental hospitals. Targeting different (public/professional) audiences, Lord and Lomax each based their case for reform on a particular perspective of the public. It is argued that to appreciate their respective attitudes to asylums one must also consider their representations of the public.     

The impacts of parental migration on children’s subjective well-being in rural china: a double-edged sword

ABSTRACT

The emerging problem of left-behind children has attracted mounting academic and policy attention. Prior studies primarily cast light on left-behind children’s education, health, and behavior, while their subjective well-being is much less understood yet. Based on a nationally representative sample of rural children aged 10–15 in 2014, we examine the impacts of different types of parental migration on children’s subjective well-being and how these affects vary between boys and girls. The results show that parental migration is a double-edged sword: children from both-parent migrant families report compromised life satisfaction and relationship quality compared with those in integral families, and mother-only migration significantly lowers children’s subjective health. On the flip side, father-only migration enhances children’s aspiration for attaining college, an encouraging effect that is even stronger than that of parental education and family income. These effects are heterogeneous by children’s gender: boys seem to be more susceptible to the disruptive effects of both-parent migration; mother-only migration effectively promotes girls’ educational aspiration while father-only migration promotes boys’. This study portrays a comprehensive image of left-behind children. Relaxation of hukou restriction, equal access to education, and revitalization of rural economies are imperative to improve the well-being of left-behind children.

Abbreviations: LBC: Left-behing children; SWB: subjective well-being     

A Review of “Church,State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine”

Abstract

The Mandragola is a microcosm of Machiavelli's thought. As a comedy, every detail is under Machiavelli's control, and there are no losers: private vices yield public benefits. All Machiavelli's characters are not equal in either the choice worthiness of their goals or abilities. Who is the hero of this comedy? Machiavelli's clues prompts exploring his allusions to classical and patristic sources but, most importantly, to Livy. Parallels in The Mandragola and Livy connect Nicia with the Roman founder, Brutus. In his ambitious goal, freedom from conventional shame, and consequent triumph over misfortune, Nicia emerges as exemplifying Machiavellian virtue.     

Street children's lives and actor-networks

This article investigates the street-children phenomenon and their view of street life as actor-networks in Pelotas, Brazil. Street children manipulate actor-networks to reach their life goals. They physically approach certain actors and withdraw from others. To explore this phenomenon, I acquired qualitative data about the lives of 19 street children over 7 years. Manifold methods were utilised: observation, interviews, poems, walkabouts and drawings. The most important actors from the children's perspective affecting street life, such as other street children, police, violence, trees offering safety, street knowledge, sunglasses, drugs and states of mind, were discovered. I analysed children's lives by combining actor-network theory and time-geography, which clarified why same actors may hold varying meanings depending on the other actors in the networks. Furthermore, the capacity of actors is influenced by the intensity of the connection between actors and the reasons why certain actors are enrolled in the networks.     

Prophetic Perfectionism: The Afterlives of Nat Turner and John Brown

ABSTRACT

Recent fiction, film, art, and scholarship on nineteenth-century American abolitionists Nat Turner and John Brown shed light on the politics of their prophetic religion. Both men led violent rebellions against slavery for which they were executed. Prophetic perfectionism drove Turner and Brown but tended to fade in works about them. Exceptions to this pattern of reception include Jacob Lawrence's John Brown series (1941), Nate Parker's film The Birth of a Nation (2016), and Ted Smith's book Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics (2014). This essay situates Turner's and Brown's prophetic perfectionism and their reception in the context of contemporary political theologies and aesthetics of religion and race.     

‘NOBLESSE DE ROBE’ IN A CLASSLESS SOCIETY

This article deals with the effect of ownership and control of land on women's remarriages in early modern Western Norway. Marrying a tenant widow gave her new husband the right to tenure. On freeholder farms the eldest son, according to Norwegian odelsrett and åseterett, had the right to inherit the farm. When land-seeking youngsters obtained tenure by marrying tenant widows, these widows became highly attractive marriage partners, in contrast to widows of freeholder peasants where no secure position could be obtained for the new husband. Legal succession rights thus highly restricted the decisions of freeholder peasants' widows. Tenant widows had a wider range of choices closely linked to their control over land and land transfer. They were not mere passive marriage objects. In an open tenant land market widows could choose between running their farm by hired labour or with assistance from their children, they could remarry and thus acquire male labour in their household or they might benefit from giving up their tenure. Their decisions to a considerable degree influenced succession patterns on Norwegian tenant farms in the early modern period.     

“The Most Hated Woman in America”: Madalyn Murray and the Crusade against School Prayer

Throughout her life, Madalyn Murray (O'Hair) tried to obliterate the concept of God and Christianity. She first burst onto the national stage in the early 1960s with a lawsuit against the religious exercises her son was subjected to in a Baltimore, Maryland, public school. A colorful woman who flouted convention, Murray despised religion: “If people want to go to church and be crazy fools, that's their business. But I don't want them praying in ball parks, legislatures, courts and schools. … They can believe in their virgin birth and the rest of their mumbo jumbo, as long as they don't interfere with me, my children, my home, my job, my money or my intellectual views.” At a time when religious conviction was often equated with patriotism, Murray's public statements were regarded as heretical. The media naturally sought her out and as the public learned more about her, Murray was demonized as a belligerent, loudmouthed crank—“the most hated woman in America.” She was not, in fact, the first person to challenge school prayer successfully. That distinction belonged to a fellow atheist, Lawrence Roth, in Engel v. Vitale (1962), a highly unpopular decision against a state-devised prayer in New York. But unlike the reclusive Roth, Murray gravitated to the limelight and became the leader of American atheism in the late twentieth century.     

Theatre Elicitation: developing a potentially child-friendly method with children aged 8–12

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the growing body of literature published in Children Geographies on the importance of involving children in research processes. Inspired by participatory creative methods such as photo elicitation and popular/forum theatre, we have developed a potentially child-friendly tool referred to as Theatre Elicitation (TE). The objective of TE is to use theatre forms as a means of data collection in the context of a negotiated research process. In a pilot project in which we explore TE, children shared their perceptions of happiness. This was inspired by a UNICEF Report [2007. Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries. Innocenti Report Card 7. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre] that listed ‘Dutch children’ as the happiest of the world. The focus of this article is the development of TE as an interactive research tool. Insights were gained into the meaning of ‘child-friendly’ research, shifting power relations between children, peers and adults, and how children’s own positioning in lived experiences contextualized concepts such as ‘Dutch children’.