1 samuel 19: David and the Teraphim. and the Emplotted Narrative

This article interprets the use of teraphim in 1 Sam 19,13 through a historiographical lens. A close reading of 1 Sam 13-19 reveals Saul's doomed kingship (a lack of God's presence) and God's continual presence with David. Drawing on Hayden White's historiography, archaeological material, and textual sources, one can see how the teraphim functions as part of the emplotted (arranged) narrative of David and Saul, emphasizing the leitmotiv that runs through David's rise and Saul's decline. The author of the 1 Sam 19 arranged the narrative vis-a-vis David and Saul in such a way that her or his audience would understand.     

Ancient Israel on Political Leadership: Between the Book Ends

Abstract

Looking to the US presidential election of 2008, this paper considers models of leadership as they are rendered in the Books of I and II Kings in the Hebrew Bible. That corpus of historical memory is informed by the theo-political traditions of covenant in the book of Deuteronomy. At the beginning of the corpus, Solomon is presented as a leader committed to the pursuit of self-aggrandizement on the basis of political autonomy that need account to none. At the end of the corpus Josiah is presented as a king who practiced public power congruent with the neighborly requirements of Torah. The issue raised by this critical tradition concerns autonomy and moral accountability. There is, of course, no direct transfer of this tradition to US politics. But the testimony of the text lingers, ever critical, even until our time and place, a testimony about limit, connectedness, and consequences.     

Augustine on Justice: A Reconsideration of City of God,Book 19

I argue that Augustine’s message in City of God, Book 19, has been consistently misinterpreted and hence a vital part of his argument in City of God has been misunderstood. The received reading of Book 19, as found in the work of Mary Clark, Rowan Williams, John Milbank, Oliver O’Donovan and Robert Dodaro, is that in Book 19 Augustine rejected the possibility of finding social and political justice among pagans. I argue that Augustine reached no such conclusion in Book 19. On the contrary, I find that the only justice that Augustine denied to pagans in Book 19 was justice as righteousness, that is, the justice of worshipping and serving the true God. He found that pagans claimed justice as righteousness for themselves and on this basis claimed that Rome had been a republic. Augustine denied that pagans could ever possess justice as righteousness, and hence denied that pagan Rome had ever been a republic.     

The Gibeonite Deception: Reflections on the Interplay between Law and Narrative in Josh 9

The paper relates the redaction history of Josh 9 to the development of legal concepts in Deuteronomy and beyond. It shows that the earliest version of the text provided an impartial portrayal of a peace treaty between Gibeon and Israel, which prepared for the events recounted in Josh 10. After the emergence of the law of ?ērem (Deut 20,15-18), this original version of Josh 9 implied an open contradiction to Deuteronomy’s warfare legislation. As a result, a first Deuteronomistic editor (D 1) introduced the idea that the Gibeonites had tricked the Israelites into making a covenant and thus saved their lives with deceit. At this stage of the literary development, the prohibition of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land (e.g. Deut 7,2) was not in view yet. Compared to the ?ērem, the respective prohibition represents a later stage in the development of the legal material (perhaps triggered by the D 1 version of Josh 9). It is only reflected in a second Deuteronomistic layer (D 2) of the chapter, which should afterwards receive one more major editorial reworking by a priestly hand.     

论宋代民间诉讼的保障与局限

宋代是诉讼制度大发展的时代,其突出表现是越诉和直诉制度的完备。这些制度无疑为民间诉讼的发展提供了制度保证,但由于官僚政治内在的弱点以及贱讼思想的一贯存在,越诉和直诉制度在执行中尚存在种种弊端。另一方面,由于宋代家法的复苏并呈现出新的聚居特点,家法对诉讼的消弭作用也在不断增强。尽管宋代民间诉讼虽出现了以江西为核心的南方地区多讼和讼学不断发展的现象,但在国法和家法的双重压力下,其发展受到重重限制。     

Beauty and belief: Aesthetics and religion in Victorian literature

This article is in part an intervention in the ongoing debate inaugurated by Peter Harrison in 2002 when he called into question the validity of what had come by then to be called ‘the voluntarism and science thesis.’ Though it subsequently drew support from such historians of science as J.E. McGuire, Margaret Osler, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and, more recently, John Henry (in rebuttal of Harrison), the origins of the thesis are usually traced back to articles published in 1934–1936 and 1961 respectively by the philosopher Michael Foster and the historian of ideas Francis Oakley. While classifying Foster’s work as pertaining to the ecology of ideas rather than their history, the article argues for the complementarity of the two approaches and seeks, not only to vindicate the voluntarism and science thesis itself but also to locate it within the broader constellation of ideas embracing legal and political as well as natural philosophy that the political philosopher Michael Oakeshott characterized as pertaining to a fundamental tradition of European thinking dominated by the master conceptions of Will and Artifice.     

华夏论坛:留住山川之神

大漠莽野,高山巨流,如今都有不倦的旅人的行踪.越来越多的人们走向原野,走向山川,即使只是短暂地逃离俗世,让奔忙劳碌的心,在原野上获得了慰藉. 行走在大地上的人们,各自寻找着他们的乐园.但在我心目中,真正的旅人,寻找和向往的应该是大地之"灵",山川之"神".     

Science in Dispute: Debating the Authority of Knowledge in an Environmental Contestation

This paper is an examination of science, as it is understood and contested between conservationists and developers in an application to construct a salt mine in Western Australia. If the salt mine were to go ahead, it would have become the largest salt mine in the world, adjacent to a World Heritage Area. Thus, the application triggered significant local interest in the potential environmental impacts on surrounding ecological systems. As the only means for the public to have an impact on decision‐making is through the environmental approvals process, much of the debate revolved around the validity and legitimacy of knowledge gained through ecological science. This paper focuses on the ways in which the conservationists and developers moulded and shaped scientific knowledge to fit their opposing beliefs, values, and aims. However, rather than focus on the overtly political manipulation of science, I examine why particular interpretations of science are considered legitimate by some participants in the dispute, while others are not. In particular, I ask, what does it take for particular scientific ‘facts' to be considered legitimate? To do so, I examine how the conservationists and developers came to conceptualise and frame science within the dispute. I argue that for members of either group to consider any scientific knowledge legitimate, it is first judged on its ability to resonate with their own worldviews, experiences, and aim.     

合作与冲突：劳资纠纷中的资本家阶级

20世纪上半叶劳资纠纷日趋激烈.在认知层面,资本家阶级高倡劳资合作主义,鲜有例外.无论是以发展中国实业为抱负,抑或以追求利润最大化为目的,劳资合作,共谋发展,对资方都有利而无害;但作为不同的阶级、阶层或利益群体,劳资两方自有天然的矛盾和冲突,在实践层面,资方往往能本合作主义之精神,做出某种程度的妥协,求得冲突的缓和或解决,但亦不乏坚持顽抗者.资方是否做出妥协,主要取决于对其利益得失的权衡.     

The Changing Faces of Canada: Images of Canada in National Geographic

Carol Shields, one of Canada's and America's most popular and critically acclaimed writers, is the perfect example of the former permeability of the Canada–United States border. Born Carol Ann Warner in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1935, she married Canadian engineering student Donald Shields and immigrated with him to Canada in 1957, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1971. Between her immigration to Canada and her death nearly half a century later, Shields criss-crossed the 49^th parallel – traditionally known as the world's longest undefended border, until 9/11 drastically changed travel – with ease. Her fictional characters cross the Canada–United States border with equal ease. Shields crosses borders not only literally, but also figuratively, as she travels from genre to genre with ease. Most famous for her fiction, Shields published in many genres, including poetry, drama, short stories, biography, and literary criticism, and she incorporates these other genres in her novels. Thus, Shields shows how art can cross borders with exemplary grace.     

The origins of the entertainment industry: the operetta in late nineteenth-century Italy

Abstract

How does a new successful musical genre impose itself, define its audiences and repertoires and eventually replace older genres? The essay examines the case of operetta from its French origins to the specific diffusion in the Italian entertainment system. Here the popularity of the ‘little opera’ coming from France and later from Vienna grew along with a new system of theaters, politeama and café chantants. They were run by a new generation of entrepreneurs and publishers such as Sonzogno, interested in diffuse new forms of musical leisure. The rising of the Italian operetta found strong resistance from the traditional opera world at the turn of the nineteenth century, when the distinction between artistic music and music as entertainment was being consolidated and we can find a sort of passing of the baton between opera and operetta as the major popular musical genre.     

A trade balance: litigation and negotiation in the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement system

The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been widely accepted as representing the legalisation of world trading rules. However, it is important to reflect on the limits of this legalisation thesis in terms of the interface between international and domestic policy processes. By locating trading disputes in a political analysis of policy implementation, it is argued that it is difficult to establish conceptually how the WTO dispute settlement system could have authority separate from and above the conventional international politics of trade policy relations. Instead, the article argues that case outcomes should be expected to be largely the product of domestic political institutions and policy processes, and how these intersect with developments in the WTO dispute settlement system. Brief studies of the Australian government's dispute settlement strategy and two high-profile WTO disputes—the US upland cotton and European Union sugar cases—serve to suggest that the authority of international trade law is not as significant as assumed by the legalisation thesis. Rather, domestic politics and institutions have an important impact on the outcome of trade disputes.