“The Cause of This Blackness”: The Early American Republic and the Construction of Race

Abstract

Race is routinely defined as “socially constructed,” from which it follows that there was a time before its construction. What that time looked like, and how Africans were then viewed by white Americans, is difficult to perceive from a vantage point within the paradigm of race. This essay considers important but neglected cultural referents to argue that a binary distinction between black and white did not emerge on theoretical grounds until the 1780s, when Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia shrewdly redirected growing challenges to slavery into quasi-metaphysical reflections on the gulf between whites and blacks.     

From here to eternity?: The practice of knowledge transfer in dispersed and co-located project organizations

This paper extends theoretical and empirical debates on knowledge transfer practices in geographically dispersed project teams using a range of communications media. It presents quantitative data comparing work interactions between dispersed and co-located teams in five international, project-based firms. It shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, their respective practices are similar for many work activities such as search and routine information exchange. However dispersed team members validate, verify and consult differently to the respective co-located teams. Qualitative data from interviews and observation then illustrates typical interactions using the differing means and media available to the observed project teams, such as task decomposition and emergency corrective work. Due to an unfortunate oversight one of the references in this article is incomplete. It can be found here.     

Between Byzantium and Jerusalem? The principality of Antioch,Renaud of Châtillon,and the penance of Mamistra in 1158

In the summer of 1158, Manuel I Komnenos, emperor of Byzantium, brought a large force into Cilicia to quell Armenian resistance and to seek retribution for an attack launched on the Byzantine island of Cyprus by Renaud of Châtillon, prince of Antioch. In haste, Renaud came to the city of Mamistra, and performed a humiliating penance before agreeing to imperial overlordship. Historians have long conceived of this act as one forced on Renaud by Manuel and King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, and as marking the creation of a political condominium, which divided Antioch between these two rulers. This article seeks to challenge the established opinion by drawing attention to the diplomatic skill demonstrated by the Antiochenes, and the independence with which they pursued and secured close and favourable ties to Byzantium.     

A Review of “Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government”

We explore the sensitivity of Congress to statements of administration policy (SAPs) and signing statements in the struggle with the executive over policy. We hypothesize that the nature and use of objections contained in these presidential communications generates additional congressional oversight. To test whether this happens, we developed a dataset with all SAPs, signing statements, and congressional oversight hearings from 1997 through 2007. The results indicate that the type and number of objections raised in presidential communications affects congressional oversight activity.     

Radiocarbon dating and the “old wood” problem: The case of the Hohokam chronology

Many archaeological chronologies, including that of the Hohokam in southern Arizona, are based on a series of radiocarbon dates on wood. This paper argues that because of variability in rates of wood decay processes (in the environment and in systemic context), such archaeological chronologies are potentially biased towards excessive antiquity by an old wood problem and must be reassessed. Following the theoretical insights of Dean (1978), this paper sets forth principles and procedures for relating radiocarbon dates to cultural events. Emphasis is placed on identifying and taking into account the formation processes of (1) the dated specimens and (2) the deposits that yielded them. This methodological framework is applied to Hohokam radiocarbon dates, and a chronology much shorter than the original Gladwin-Haury formulation is supported.     

Self-Orientalization and Dislocation: The Uses and Abuses of the “Aryan” Discourse in Iran

The claim to belong to the “Aryan race,” believed to be rooted in the ancient self-designation ariya, is a fundamental pillar of the Iranian nationalist discourse. This paper aims to show that in fact it is a twentieth-century import from Europe, where after being instrumentalized for colonial endeavors and Nazi atrocities, it has become almost completely discredited. Yet Iranians continue to nonchalantly refer to themselves as Aryans and the myth of the “land of Aryans” persists, even in academic circles. It will be argued that the reason for this resilience is the specific role Aryanism plays in Iranian identity politics, and the strategies designed to manage the trauma of the encounter with Europe.     

“The Hunting of the Earl of Rone.” The Emergence of “New” Folklore Motifs: Individual Creativity and Group Control

In 1798, a French expeditionary force under General Humbert landed in County Mayo to support the United Irishmen's rebellion. Both the French and their local allies were eventually defeated by British and Yeomanry troops, but the memory of the events and personalities of “the Year of the French” was still strong when the Irish Folklore Commission started its collecting mission in the 1930s. This article suggests that the folk narratives of these events can be collated into an alternative, and more democratic, version of the rebellion. Popular interest rested not with the French general (except as a scapegoat for defeat) but with local men (and women) of less elevated status. The common people of Ireland were, in their own narratives, less directed from above and more agents in their own right. These are less a corrective to the supposedly “authoritative” histories written by professionals and diffused through the media and education system, than a coherent, alternative historiography.1 The ballad “The Men of the West” was composed by William Rooney, one of the most enthusiastic organisers of the centenary commemorations of 1798. The ballad was set to the air of “Eoghan Cóir,” a song attributed to the eighteenth‐century Mayo poet Richard Barrett [Riocard Bairéad], who was implicated in the Rebellion.