Forms of secularism and multiculturalism: Charles Taylor and Ireland

This article seeks to frame the work of the Canadian political philosopher Charles Taylor in terms of its significance for Irish culture. Taylor came to wide prominence for his work on multiculturalism, but the varying ways he understands this term are especially important for Ireland. “Multiculturalism 1” speaks to the kinds of difficulties between nationalist and Unionist communities in Northern Ireland. “Multiculturalism 2” speaks to the more widely understood meaning of the term, which is connected to a cultural diversity that is often born of immigration. Taylor has had a strong role in the emergence of the term “interculturalism” to describe a form of cultural diversity that explicitly seeks to balance the needs of minority and majority cultures, and in Canada and Quebec that term has taken on a different understanding than the one that is common in Ireland. That work on interculturalism also strongly underwrites Taylor’s work on secularism, and he traces that social phenomenon in ways with clear relevance for Ireland. Although Taylor’s explicit engagement with Ireland is rare, it is clearly time to bring his work into the mainstream of studies of Irish culture.     

How to Be an Intentionalist

The general aim of this paper is to establish the plausibility of a postfoundational intentionalism. Its specific aim is to respond to criticisms of my work made by Vivienne Brown in a paper "On Some Problems with Weak Intentionalism for Intellectual History." Postfoundationalism is often associated with a new textualism according to which there is no outside to the text. In contrast, I suggest that postfoundationalists can legitimate our postulating intentions, actions, and other historical objects outside of the text. They can do so by reference to, first, philosophical commitments to general classes of objects, and, second, inference to the best explanation with respect to particular objects belonging to such classes. This postfoundational intentionalism sets up a suitable context within which to address Brown's more specific questions.     

从神圣到世俗--读《祭坛古歌与中国文化》

中华文化是多元一体的.从宇宙观和思想倾向来说,在儒家影响下的中华文化--上层文化之外,还有一种或几种未受或少受儒家影响的中华文化,即民间文化或下层文化;从地缘观念来说,在古之中原文化之外,还有多种边缘文化,东部的海岱或后起的齐鲁文化,东南部的河姆渡-良渚或后起的吴越文化,西南部的巴蜀和爨僰,以及藏、西域、通古斯-满蒙等文化,…….这些各有特点、各有优长的多元文化,有交叉,有融合,有影响,有排拒,在历史的发展长途中,逐渐形成了多元一体格局的中华文化.     

The Sublime Dissociation of the Past: Or How to Be(come) What One Is No Longer

Forgetting has rarely been investigated in historical theory. Insofar as it attracted the attention of theorists at all, forgetting has ordinarily been considered to be a defect in our relationship to the past that should be overcome in one way or another. The only exception is Nietzsche who so provocatively sung the praises of forgetting in his On the Use and Abuse of History (1874). But Nietzsche’s conception is the easy victim of a consistent historicism and therefore in need of correction. Four types of forgetting are identified in this essay. Central in the essay’s argument is the fourth type. This is the kind of forgetting taking place when a civilization “commits suicide” by exchanging a previous identity for a new one. Hegel’s moving account of the conflict between Socrates and the Athenian state is presented as the paradigmatic example of this kind of forgetting. Two conclusions follow from an analysis of this type of forgetting. First, we can now understand what should be recognized as a civilization’s historical sublime and how the notions of the historical sublime and of collective trauma are related. Second, it follows that myth and (scientific) history do not exclude each other; on the contrary, (scientific) history creates myth. This should not be taken to be a defect of history, for this is precisely how it should be.     

Andrea's Baggage: Reading (in) Laforet's Nada

One overlooked feature of Andrea's arrival in Barcelona at the beginning of Nada is the old and battered suitcase that she drags with her to her relatives’ apartment. It is filled almost entirely with books, books that—we may assume—she has read and plans to read again. Reading, it is clear, has played a large part in her intellectual and psychological formation as a teenager, but one of the strands of her overall maturation process during the forthcoming year will involve achieving a greater understanding of the distortions involved in how people (including her) see life through the optic of literature and literature through the optic of life. Gradually disabused of her overly literary adolescent imaginings, then, she eventually becomes a writer—of the text that is Nada—who is well aware of the traps that reading and writing hold.     

Epidemics During the Anglo-Saxon Period (Reginald Taylor Prize Essay)

Abstract

Archaeological analysis of the fabric suggests that the nave of the Romanesque church was built from east to west in the usual way and not, as the current literature proposes, from west to east. This conclusion has implications for the iconography of the architecture in that various features in the two eastern bays of the nave can be assessed, not as pure decoration, but as liturgical markers for the position of the nave altar. Comparative study of individual features and related buildings suggest that the master mason was trained in East Anglia but worked to a brief drawn up in the ambient of the ‘school’ of Durham Cathedral. The same evidence confirms the established date bracket of the first two-thirds of the twelfth century, while the case for identifying the lost eastern half as part of Harold's mid eleventh-century foundation is rejected in favour of its belonging to the same twelfth-century build as the start of the nave.     

How to talk (and not to talk) about school shootings

In this guest editorial, the author addresses the latest school shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This event is weighed up against reports written by prominent academics, including anthropologists, during previous school shootings.     

重读甲申--写在八旗入关360周年之际(下)

甲申年(1644年)八旗人关,从而影响了中国历史发展近三百年之久。八旗人关给中国社会带来了一系列变化,首先八旗在清初多种势力角斗中控制了局势,实现了统一。其次八旗成为维护国家统一的基本力量。第三八旗人关打破了中原传统的“华夷之辨”思想定势。第四八旗成为多民族友好相处的典型。第五八旗中涌现出众多人才,为社会进步做出了贡献．第六八旗对其他民族化采取尊重态度,使各民族化得以传承。当然八旗制度也存在弊病,这是清代中叶以后八旗衰落的主要原因。     

颐和园养云轩未罹火患

咸丰十年(1860年)十月,英法联军兵临京都,“三山五园”同罹火难,清漪园内一片瓦砾。光绪十四年(1888年)二月,光绪帝正式下谕在清漪园废墟上营建颐和园。但颐和园内究竟是否还留存有清漪园时期的古建筑,这一问题变得愈来愈模糊难识,笔者通过考察和分析认为,颐和园内养云轩当属清漪园幸存的古建筑之一。     

The singular vision of William Charles Wells (1757-1817)

William Charles Wells retained an interest in vision throughout his life. His first book was on single vision with two eyes; he integrated vision and eye movements to determine principles of visual direction. On the basis of experiments and observations he formulated three principles of visual direction, which can readily be demonstrated. In the course of these studies, he also examined visual acuity, accommodation and convergence, visual persistence, and visual vertigo. Insights into visual processing were mainly derived from observations of afterimages that were used to provide an index of how the eyes moved. His experiments enabled him to distinguish between the consequences of active and passive eye movements (later called outflow and inflow) as well as describing nystagmus following body rotation. After providing a brief account of Wells's life, his neglected research on vision is described and assessed.     

Afghanada,or How to be a Good (Canadian) Soldier

The CBC radio show Afghanada, a “grunt’s-eye” view of the Canadian Forces’ deployment in Afghanistan (2006–2011), is one of the few fictionalized engagements with the conduct and consequences of the war. Despite its significance, Afghanada has only received limited critical attention and was usually interpreted as a symptom of the “militarization” of Canadian culture. This article argues that Afghanada is more adequately conceptualized as a cultural site where the most important issues brought up by war were negotiated and new boundaries of legitimacy and acceptability drawn. Afghanada tackles the question of combat versus peacekeeping as the primary task of the Canadian military, cooperation with the United States, and national unity. While the show extends the boundaries of societal acceptability by portraying combat as necessary, it also negotiates new limits within which combat is legitimate and enables multiple interpretations regarding the desirability and costs of the evolution of Canada’s military.