The Case of William Dick: Ransom County, North Dakota

In May 2009, a decision of the United States Supreme Court with North Dakota roots turned fifty years old. A case unique in the annals of the law, Dick v. New York Life Insurance Company ¹ still fascinates lawyers today. Factually, the case presented a strange question: could an experienced hunter accidentally shoot himself not once, but twice? Some of North Dakota's finest lawyers, including Philip Vogel, Donald Holand, and Norman Tenneson, aimed to get to the bottom of that matter. The judges were equally impressive: Judge Ronald Davies of the federal district court; Judge John Sanborn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; and Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice Felix Frankfurter. Finally, as a matter of Supreme Court jurisprudence, Dick may have been the last time the High Court granted a petition for certiorari in a case that turned almost exclusively on questions of fact. In honor of its golden anniversary, this article recounts the captivating story of Dick v. New York Life.     

The Primacy of Science in Modernity,of Technology in Postmodernity,and of Ideology in the History of Technology

The abrupt reversal of culturally ascribed primacy in the science–technology relationship—namely, from the primacy of science relative to technology prior to circa 1980, to the primacy of technology relative to science since about that date—is proposed as a demarcator of postmodernity from modernity: modernity is when ‘science’ could, and often did, denote technology too; postmodernity is when science is subsumed under technology. In support of that demarcation criterion, I evidence the breadth and strength of modernity’s presupposition of the primacy of science to and for technology by showing its preposterous hold upon social theorists—Marx, Veblen, Dewey—whose principles logically required the reverse, viz. the primacy of practice; upon 19th and 20th century engineers and industrialists, social actors whose practical interests likewise required the reverse; and upon the principal theorizers in the 1970s of the role of science in late 20th century technology and society. The reversal in primacy between science and technology ca 1980 came too unexpectedly, too quickly, and, above all, too unreflectively to have resulted from the weight of evidence or the force of logic. Rather, it was a concomitant of the onset of postmodernity. Oddly, historians of technology have remained almost wholly unacknowledging of postmodernity’s epochal elevation of the cultural standing of the subject of their studies, and, specifically, have ignored technology’s elevation relative to science. This I attribute to the ideological character of that discipline, and, specifically, to its strategy of ignoration of science.     

The Politics of Suffering: Progress,Modernity and the Adolescent Crisis

A concern for progress is central to the public agendas of modern societies. Political actors compete with one another mainly with regard to their respective claims to bring about a better future, particularly in the economic and technological spheres. The focus on progress has, however, deeper roots which date back to the aspirations of the Enlightenment. Around that time, the belief arose that systematic improvements are made possible by the structural features of modern society and culture, improvements that will gradually release humanity from much of the suffering characterising its historical past. This article argues the persistence of a culture of progress, rather than easing suffering, in fact enhances and mobilises it for the pursuit of superficial forms of gain. It is also claimed the attempt by Habermas' critical theory to develop a broader and more satisfactory conception of progress fails to address this problem. The article suggests an alternative and more fundamental critique of progressive ideas is required. It reflects upon these abstract theoretical questions in connection with the concrete example of the 'adolescent crisis' and the role ideas of progress play within it.     

Performing Buddhist Modernity: The Lumbini Festival, Tokyo 1925

This paper looks at the 1920s Tokyo transformation of hanamatsuri (the celebration of the Buddha's birthday) from a local observance to a mass public spectacle. The Lumbini Festival was a performance of Buddhist modernity orchestrated to promote links between Japan and Asia and present Japan as leader of Asia. The Lumbini Festival appeared in 1925, the same year as did the Young East , an English language journal published in Tokyo to promote the trans-Asian Buddhist fellowship. Neither was a state initiative, but both nevertheless contributed to the formation and naturalisation of links between Japan and its Asian neighbours and the development of the Japanese empire. The Lumbini festival naturalised Buddhist brotherhood in Tokyo; the Young East , by reporting it through Asia and the West, promoted ideas of their shared Buddhist heritage, and of a Buddhist basis for social reform and Asian modernity.     

后现代、现代性重建与中国的现代性问题

后现代主义对现代性的批判为人们提供了一个理解现代的有益视角,它有利于揭示现代性充满矛盾和悖论的一面,促使人们加强对现代性的反思并发掘其尚未释放的理性潜能,从而实现现代性的重建。就中国的后现代主义者而言,他们对现代性的批判过多地集中于剖析其“西化”本质,忽视了现代性的某些普遍内涵,使中国的现代性问题局限于中西对立的二元视野。客观地评价中国的现代性,就应当突破上述理论框架,认识到现代性中所包含的普遍性与特殊性之间的张力,同时借鉴后现代主义的建设性作用,努力实现现代性的解放功能。     

The public relevance of the church and Catholicism in Italy

Abstract

This article highlights the particular situation of the Catholic religion in Italy which distinguishes itself for its systematic organization, active association-forming and cultural vitality, unrivalled in any other European country either Protestant or Catholic. On the one hand the church in Italy still disposes of such a wealth of clergy and religious figures, dioceses and parishes, educational and social institutions, ecclesiastical groups and associations, and so on, that it can maintain a diffuse presence scattered over the national territory; it deploys numerous forces and resources which form an integral part of normal social relationships that animate civil society. On the other hand, the church and Italian Catholicism today are particularly active at a cultural level, with their contribution of ideas and experience on vital questions arising in social coexistence (ranging from the family to bioethics, from religious freedom to the secular State, from national identity to the multiethnic presence, and so on).     

世俗化与法国天主教的现代定位

本文主要分为三个部分：第一部分,通过当前关于世俗化理论争论的梳理,说明法国世俗化问题的理论意义;第二部分,说明法国世俗化的特殊表现,强调了法国世俗化是一种非自然形式,是历史、理念、政治斗争交汇产生的结果,同时指出在西欧国家中,法国是世俗化表现最为激烈的国家;第三部分,通过分析法国天主教在世俗化之后的现代定位（包括组织定位、思想定位和文化定位）,说明即使在法国被公认为完全世俗化的国度里,宗教仍然具有不可忽视的地位和影响。与现代化相结合的世俗化理论值得作出重要的修正。     

Miles Hollingworth,The Pilgrim City: St Augustine of Hippo and his Innovation in Political Thought

Abstract

This paper examines the changing pattern of the relationship between religious communities and the state. It argues that the church, in the light of what is actually being offered to it by the state in terms of partnership, should, on the basis of its own frame of reference, refuse the terms and conditions of cooperation. The first section charts the developments which shape this emerging relationship since the early 1990s, most notably, the strengthening of the public voice of minority faith communities. The second section analyses the debates about the role of religious communities in generating social cohesion and social capital in the context of debates about the importance of civil society to liberal democracy. The third section assesses whether the emergent shape of relations between the state and faith communities conforms to or contradicts a liberal account of the role of religious discourse in the public square. In contrast, the last two sections focus on the place of the church in this emergent relationship and analyse the opportunities and pitfalls confronting the church in the light of contemporary political theology. The primary theologies drawn on are represented by the work of Stanley Hauerwas, John Paul II and Joan Lockwood and Oliver O'Donovan.     

Between Virgins and Priests: The Feminisation of Catholicism and Priestly Masculinity in Nineteenth-Century Spain

The feminisation of religion in the nineteenth-century has been broadly discussed by historians and sociologists. Considering the main contributions of that debate from a critical perspective, this article defends the hypothesis that the Catholic Church identified itself with the same characteristics with which it defined femininity in the nineteenth-century through the symbolic link with the Virgin Mary. Although this discursive feminisation of Catholicism left laymen in a difficult situation, it did contribute to reinforcing the patriarchal and hierarchical structure of the Church. The great challenge to bishops and priests, the leading subjects in the project of re-Christianising society, was to demonstrate their condition as men within a feminised organisation. This article will mainly focus on Spain, although with the international perspective that any study about Catholicism requires.