Countryside-versus-City in European Thought: German and British Anti-Urbanism between the Wars

The idea that the city is a place of sin and immorality is as old as urban civilization. But what does anti-urban thought mean in societies which are highly urbanized under the conditions of modern industrialism? Furthermore, is anti-urbanism in the interwar period a German völkisch phenomenon––one further stride on Germany's special path? And what does rural revival and the “back-to-the-land” cult mean in Great Britain, the first industrial nation? This article seeks to provide an answer to these questions by exploring anti-urbanist writing between the End of the First World War and 1933 in Germany, and 1939 in Britain. By examining two key themes it aims to show that the clear-cut distinction between German anti-urban radicalisation and the West's coming to terms with urbanisation cannot be maintained. Firstly, attention will be drawn to the ambiguity of perceptions of the city in the writings of “Conservative Revolutionary” authors in the Weimar Republic. In a second step, the British “back-to-the-land” movement, whose advocates developed comprehensive anti-urban third-way theories in the interwar period and were themselves part of a broader popular anti-industrial movement and a rural cult throughout the 1930s, will be examined.     

Discourse analysis and non-representational theories in heritage studies: a non-reductionist take on their compatibility

ABSTRACT

In the last ten years or so, we have witnessed a shift towards so-called non-representational theories in heritage studies. In non-representational theories, one is interested in cognition, affect, and emotion, as well as textual or visual representations of heritage. This turn can be viewed as a prolongation of the popular approach of analysing heritage as discourse, in which heritage is viewed as a cultural process from which the objects of heritage evolve. However, this paper will demonstrate that some proponents of non-representational theories seem to have overlooked an already established linguistic tradition of analysing affect and emotion ‘in’ texts. Since human affect and emotion are linked with semiotic meaning-making, I argue that it is futile to attempt to separate discourse analysis and non-representational theories. I forward an argument that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Critical Realism (CR) as a philosophy of science may serve as platforms where non-representational and representational approaches can meet to more fully grasp how we represent and respond to heritage.     

The ‘creative township’ in the post-apartheid: globalisation,nation building or gentrification?

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the ambiguities of post-Apartheid public cultural policies in South Africa by focusing on the case of the Red Location Museum and Cultural precinct (RLMCP), a multisectoral project for socio-economic development, based on tourism, art, culture, heritagisation and urban regeneration, implemented in Red Location, one of the oldest townships of Port Elizabeth. In the post-Apartheid period, cultural policies have been employed as catch-all policies that could lead to urban renewal, desegregation and development. The case of the RLMCP drives home how efforts to use art and culture as leverages to transform townships into the core of the creative city and into the prototype of a new form of neighbourhood led to exclusionary representations and patterns; moreover, it is an example of how cultural policies enforce gentrification dynamics at the local level, in the name of restructuring urban governance and rescaling the city to the global dimension.     

Die geskilpunte in die investituurstryd

Abstract

Representations of urban Africans in ‘black films’ have kept pace with changing apartheid policies and legislation governing the migration of Africans to South African urban centres. ‘Black films’ have gone from depicting Africans in urban centres as an undifferentiated mass to more nuanced and complex representations that reflect a changing society. However, what has remained constant in all the films discussed in this paper is the thematic preoccupation with African crime and criminality, as well as the compulsion to moralise that crime doesn't pay.     

‘Mother's Little Helper’: The Crisis of Psychoanalysis and the Miltown Resolution

This paper examines the discourse surrounding the release in 1955 of Miltown, America's first psychotropic wonder drug. According to many histories of psychiatry, Miltown heralded the arrival of a new paradigm in treating psychiatric patients – as a drug that operated on a neurochemical level, it was argued to replace a psychoanalytic approach with its focus on the mother‐child relation. Between 1955 and 1960, articles about pharmaceutical miracle cures for mental illnesses filled mass‐circulation news magazines and top fashion magazines. Through analysis of these representations, this article shows how the newly discovered pills came to be associated with existing concerns about conditions problematically referred to as ‘maternal conditions,’ ranging from a woman's frigidity, to a bride's uncertainty, to a wife's infidelity. Using these representations, the paper demonstrates how in American popular culture, psychoanalytic notions of motherhood prevalent in the 1950s shaped early understandings and uses of psychotropic drugs.     

Zwischenstadt as a travelling concept: towards a critical discussion of mobile ideas in transnational planning discourses on urban sprawl

This article contributes to the advancement of the critical analysis of transnational flows of planning ideas with a particular focus on debates around urban sprawl. It emphasizes that travelling concepts tend to lose their critical content en route, and explores how they could be revived. Our argument starts by identifying the drawbacks of comparative studies in planning, and suggests an exploration of Edward Said’s notion of travelling theories to avoid these dangers. Chronicling the import of the German concept of Zwischenstadt – which literally translated means ‘(in)between city’ – into the Swedish planning research discourse on urban sprawl, we examine how travelling concepts tend to become institutionalized during their journey. We then explore ways to revive the critical content of Zwischenstadt by first considering translations of the context of travelling concepts and then deliberations on their literal translation, which emphasizes the fruitfulness of a landscape perspective as a critical lens on urbanization processes.     

On “Natural” Uncertainty: The Philosophical Underpinnings of Uncertainty in Economics,with Special Reference to Knight and Strauss

Abstract

While current discourse has failed and will continue to fail to adequately integrate uncertainty into economic theory, this work explores how political philosophy can provide a better understanding of uncertainty. Specifically, political philosophy can answer most of the questions posed by Frank Knight's proposition of uncertainty in economic theory. In elaborating on Knight's reservations relating to Pragmatism, this work suggests that Knight's approach might well be revised to more adequately embrace the recent developments in American philosophy, especially those suggested by Leo Strauss. Significantly, it can be argued that Strauss provides a stronger foundation for the proposition of uncertainty in economic theory than Knight's application of Pragmatism around 1921. An understanding of uncertainty, which is based on Strauss, might be referred to as “natural” uncertainty, and this form of uncertainty may provide a point where political philosophy might begin to gain some traction within economic theory.     

George W. Bush's War on Terrorism and Sin

Abstract

In George W. Bush's inaugural address, informed by ‘compassionate conservatism’, there was a tension between two familiar goals in US political discourse: conserving the status quo and changing the world for the better by cleansing it of sin. In Bush's discursive construction of the war on terrorism, ‘compassionate conservatism’ and the construction of sin were folded into a unified discourse, with the emphasis on preventing dangerous change rather than creating positive change. A static state of safety, constantly protected by ‘compassionate conservatism’ and war, is now offered by American conservatives as the most viable and most patriotic way to stave off the forces of sin.     

Historians,the War of American Independence,and the Persistence of the Exceptionalist Ideal

Prince Kaunitz and the Balance of Power; Franz A.J. Szabo

The American Revolution in an International Perspective: Views from Bicentennial Symposia; Lawrence S. Kaplan

The Reign of Sir Edward Grey as British Foreign Secretary F.H. HINSLEY, ed. British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1977. Pp. 702; ZARA S. STEINER. Britain and the Origins of the First World War. New York: St Martins Press 1977. Pp. 305.; Samuel R. Williamson, Jr     

Cultural racism: Something rotten in the state of Denmark?

Cultural racism has found fertile territory in a post-industrial Europe experiencing economic crisis and social disintegration, but its manifestations vary between countries. Denmark, a country traditionally regarded as liberal and tolerant, experienced a fundamental shift in attitude during the early 1980s that has seen it emerge potentially as one of the most racist countries in Europe. Paradoxically, liberal values are used as justification for negative representations of 'others'. This paper examines the place-specific manifestations of cultural racism in Denmark, which can be identified as essentially anti-Muslim and anti-refugee. Through the use of interviews with minority women, newspaper extracts and material propagated by far-right organizations, the paper traces the evolution of this discourse, identifying its key actors as: specific far-right anti-immigration groups; the media; and a culturally deterministic academic research tradition. The subtle manifestation of cultural racism in Denmark, coupled with inadequate anti-racist opposition or legislation, have rendered it particularly damaging, and 'legitimated' a range of racist policies and practices.     

Sexing the Self: Geographies of engagement and encounter

Geographic research on the construction of sexual identity takes inspiration from two main sources. The first is the post-structural literature that suggests sexual subjects are sutured to identities created in the realms of discourse. The second is a psychoanalytical tradition concerned with the desires and disgusts experienced by sexual subjects as they seek to reconcile their inner selves with the outside world. In this paper an attempt is made to combine these contrasting perspectives by exploring the way sexualities are negotiated by individuals as they encounter a world that is both real and imagined. The utility of this approach is illustrated with reference to the author's research on sex work, which demonstrates that the making of sexual identities involves a dynamic relation between Self and Other--a relation that is subsequently encoded in representations of space. The paper concludes that the making of sexual identities can only be understood by examining the ways that representation and experience entwine in specific places to create sexual identities that are fractured, contested and always becoming.     

From the Preface to the French edition of Une exigence infinie

Abstract

In 2008, Rowan Williams sparked a huge controversy in Britain by pleading for more recognition of shari'a law. The present paper aims to explore Mike Higton's suggestion that this plea actually results from Williams's defence of the Enlightenment. The paper will first show that Williams's plea for increased recognition of shari'a is in line with the Enlightenment ideal of sociability. It will subsequently show that this does not mean that Williams gives up on the importance of the secular law. Special attention will be given to the two fundamental principles behind Williams's views on shari'a and these principles will be developed with the help of Edward Schillebeeckx's view of ‘the humanum’. Finally, the paper will also indicate that Williams's two fundamental principles offer a way to better understand the biblical commandment to love one's neighbour—a view that will be developed with reference to the work of Slavoj Zizek.     

The Archaeological Heritage of Iraq in Historical Perspective

Abstract

In this paper I argue that members of the public are simultaneously attracted to and alienated by the uncannyin archaeology. I examine the role of popular culture representations of archaeology in these conflicting but connected processes, and strategies for overcoming them. By exploring Freud's notion of the unheimlich, or uncanny, in relation to archaeology and autopsies, I argue that it is mediated by popular culture, which alienates the public from the actual uncanny practices. By considering the relationship between archaeologists and the public as a discourse between actors and their audience, I examine ways in which this alienation can be overcome. My aim is to offer a better understanding of the complex ways in which people engage with archaeology.     

Death at St Bernard's: Anti-vivisection,Medicine and the Gothic

Displaying a Gothic fascination with the misapplication of science, Edward Berdoe's St Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student (1887) was one of a number of novels in the 1880s that repackaged the horrors of vivisection for public consumption. Although the novel can be dismissed as derivative, it departed from standard themes found in other anti-vivisection texts. Through the device of a hero struggling with the moral implications of science and the reckless treatment of patients, St Bernard's challenged the legitimacy of the teaching hospital. The present article moves debate about the Gothic, literature and science beyond well-known texts by Stevenson and Wells to examine how St Bernard's combined ‘the methods of science with the methods of romance’ and shifted the anti-vivisection narrative into the hospital. In locating the novel within anti-vivisectionist uses of fiction and late-Victorian anxieties about experimental medicine and the teaching hospital, the article explores the novel's relationship with other anti-vivisection texts and Gothic fiction, and examines what it says about scientific practices and mentalities. St Bernard's fashioned a very different hospital from existing representations to warn readers of how brutish students and cruel doctors tortured patients. In doing so, the novel recast the teaching hospital as an uncanny and dangerous place.     

Sir Edward Grey,France, and the Entente: How to Catch the Perfect Angler?

ABSTRACT

This article will focus on the nine-year relationship between British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and the French Ambassador at London Paul Cambon, principally during the years 1912 to 1914. It will show how the French perceived Sir Edward Grey himself, his foreign policy, and his understanding of the Entente. It will analyse the means by which Cambon in particular, and through him the French in general, sought to coax from the Foreign Secretary some form of Franco-British alliance. It will do so by analysing three things: first, what Paul Cambon hoped to obtain from Sir Edward Grey and how; second, the Anglo-German Haldane Mission in which Grey's manoeuvring got the better of Cambon; and third, the Grey-Cambon letters of November 1912, when Cambon got the better of Grey. More broadly the article might be seen as an example of how ambassadors seek to secure policies from the country to which they are accredited and how foreign ministers attempt to parry them.     

The Absence of the Establishing Shot in Slovak Films of the 1960s

Abstract

This article asks why several Czech and Slovak directors of the 1960s employed what might be referred to as a non-establishing-shot technique. To state that the employment of this technique was a reaction to Socialist Realism and to a Socialist society leaves unanswered the question of ‘how’ this reaction against the collectivization of the characters and the stories carried out under the aesthetics of Socialist Realism was expressed. More significantly, it was a reaction against the forced collectivization of society under the Communist regime. The absence of the establishing shot was a means of returning individuality, uniqueness and differences to characters. It was a way of stating that a society is formed by the sum of its parts, that is, its individual members. This article deals mainly with the Slovak side of the New Wave, hitherto neglected by western scholars. It asks why and how five directors (Stefan Uher, Peter Solan, Juraj Jakubisko, Du?an Hanák and Alain Robbe-Grillet) made use of the non-establishing-shot technique; how they developed the technique; and in what ways they used it in a different manner to their Czech counterparts.     

National Identity and Everyday Cultures in Contemporary France: Re-Constructing Frenchness through ‘Third Kind’ Representations of the Cités (1960–2000)*

This article examines the role played in France by the culture du quotidien (everyday culture) in establishing a more integrated image of the nation and identity. It suggests that since the 1960s, dominant media discourse in France, and artistic representations of the urban periphery, have often perpetuated an image of the cités as menacing spaces detached from the national community and emblematic of France's postmodern crisis. Focusing on everyday cultural creations about the Grand Ensemble in La Courneuve, it argues that the ‘ordinariness’ of the lives these creations convey, along with the residents’ cultural practices and their continuing sense of belonging, effectively treats geography, culture and history in a way that questions the standard externalising discourse about the cités. Despite their limits in terms of circulation, these cultural artefacts of a ‘third kind’ offer images that contribute to challenging the ‘banlieues myth’ and help re-construct a French identity perceived under threat. 1 ?[1] I express my gratitude to Dr Karima Laachir, Professor Kate Ince and Dr Jackie Clarke for their support, comments and advice, while preparing this article. I am also indebted to the challenging and inspiring contributions made by the participants of the ASMCF conference held in Manchester in September 2008. Finally, my thanks go to the inhabitants of La Courneuve who, like Dr Roger Amar, kindly accepted to discuss their views on French contemporary society.      

The European Family and Athenian Fatherland: Political Metaphors Ancient and Modern

Abstract

This article explores the role and modes of operation of metaphorical framing in ancient Greek and modern European and American political discourse. It looks at how concepts such as citizenship, ownership, family, morality, finance, sport, war, domination, human life, and animals are used to reframe political issues in ways promoted by the speaker, and how they may continue to be reshaped in the ongoing political discourse. The analysis of examples of ancient Athenian public rhetoric and of modern European and American political debates reveals the differences and some striking similarities in the ways political and civic values were expressed and reframed in antiquity and how they are used today. This essay also discusses the potential effects of such framing in antiquity and in more recent times.     

A Collision of Masculinities: Men,Modernity and Urban Transportation in American-Colonial Manila

Abstract:

Early twentieth-century Manila saw the motorisation of its urban transport system. This was a significant transformation not only because of the technological changes it brought about but more importantly because of its role in shaping the highly gendered discourse of colonial modernity. Motorised vehicles, like the streetcar and the automobile, were trumpeted as masculine and modern machines by America’s civilising mission. This colonial discourse was continuously shaped and subverted by a collision of masculinities coming from different directions. This essay will focus on four different male groups in an effort to understand how transport motorisation influenced their sense of masculinity. White American colonisers imagined themselves as modern men destined to bring civilisation to the colony through technology. The native elites used the coloniser as their model by appropriating the symbols of masculine modernity. While the male workers of the modern transport sector gained knowledge of and access to the domains of those in power, those in the traditional sector became targets of vilification by the native and colonial elites. Instead of a duel between two sets of masculinity (coloniser vs. colonised) what emerged was a complex set of relationships influenced by the socioeconomic differences that separated these four groups.     

The Great East Window of Gloucester Cathedral and its Heraldic Glass

Although the coats of arms in the great east window of Gloucester Cathedral are often associated with Edward III’s 1346–47 military campaign in France, the window’s function as a commemorative monument has never been thoroughly studied. The aim of this paper is to provide a political and social contextualisation to the heraldry of the east window, while considering its symbolic meaning (and possible intention) in the framework of the window’s iconography and spatial setting. In regarding the heraldry as thematically connected to the window’s overall theme, and by examining the window in correlation to contemporary discourse on England’s military victories, this paper demonstrates how the window’s composition evokes the exalted social position of Edward III’s military companions after the victories in the first phase of the Hundred Years War. Additionally, this paper argues that the window coincides with Edward III’s kingly ideals by celebrating his rule and lineage as divinely blessed, while affirming his right to the French throne.