Crossing the Line: Limits and Desire in Historical Interpretation

This essay focuses on the relationship within western humanism between attitudes toward textual interpretation and views of the human self in an attempt to unsettle the dichotomy between humanist and antihumanist approaches to the past. It has three main parts. First, it uses Umberto Eco's recent reflections on the limits of interpretation to explore current debates about the aims of interpretation. In particular, it asks what it means to frame the problem of interpretation specifically as a problem of establishing limits. Given the many possible vocabularies to compare and evaluate competing hermeneutic approaches, what are the implications of adopting one that speaks in terms of limits, of an “in bounds” and an “out of bounds?” Second, the essay draws on the work of Donna Haraway and Stephanie Jed to argue that a discourse about interpretation that seeks to establish the limits of interpretation excludes as out of bounds precisely those methodological strategies that most effectively analyze the mutually sustaining relationship between assumptions about texts and assumptions about selves. Third, the essay explores the relationship between interpretation and subjectivity at one key historical moment to show how to move beyond the strict dichotomy between humanist and antihumanist assumptions.     

William Bennett's Heresy: Male Same-Sex Desire and the Art of the Eucharist

In 1869, W.J.E. Bennett, one of the most prominent Anglo-Catholic ritualists in Victorian England, was on trial for heresy. He had caused particular outrage by claiming that Jesus Christ was visually present in the Eucharist. This article explores the links between Bennett's writings and his campaign of rebuilding works at his parish church at Frome in Somerset. Bennett advanced a form of incarnational theology that was sufficiently radical that he can be said to have participated in, and even to have contributed to, the development of the visual expression of same-sex desire in later Victorian Britain. The cultural politics of the aestheticized body of Christ mean that incarnational theology can be considered in relation to the development of new forms of homoerotic expression. Bennett's visual and textual legacy suggests avenues for further research into the aesthetic aspects of Victorian religiosity and the religiosity of art.     

The Reformation of the Eyes: Apparitions and Optics in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe

Apparitions were the subject of fierce theological and philosophical debate in the period after the Reformation. But these controversies also raised issues fundamental to the nature and organization of human vision. They crossed and recrossed the boundaries between religion and the science and psychology of optics. Apparitions, after all, are things that appear, and spectres are things that are seen. Before they could mean anything to anyone they had to be correctly identified as phenomena. Their religious role, whether Protestant or Catholic, presupposed a perceptual judgement — essentially visual in character — about just what they were. During the early modern period this judgement — this visual identification — became vastly more complex and contentious than ever before, certainly much more so than in the case of medieval ghosts. The sceptics, natural magicians, and atheists turned apparitions into optical tricks played by nature or human artifice; the religious controversialists and demonologists thought that demons might also be responsible. This essay argues that the debate that ensued, irrespective of the confessional allegiances of the protagonists, was the occasion for some of the most sustained and sophisticated of the early modern arguments about truth and illusion in the visual world.     

Ballots and billions: Clive Palmer's personal party

Founded and led by the billionaire businessman, Clive Palmer, the Palmer United Party (PUP) achieved what was arguably the best debut result of recent decades at the 2013 Australian federal election. This article examines PUP's ideology, organisation and campaigning strategies along with the implications of its experiences to date for Australian party politics. Based on an analysis of original party documents, policies, media communications and semi-structured interviews with PUP candidates and key figures across Australia, we find evidence of a party which is utterly dominated by its leader, which was deliberately never built to last, whose ideology cannot be easily classified and whose campaigning was well-funded but extremely disorganised. We conclude that its experience shows how more professionalised new personal parties in Australia should be able to do even better electorally in the future.     

Theories of the Sublime in the Dutch Golden Age: Franciscus Junius,Joost van den Vondel and Petrus Wittewrongel

This article explores how writers from the Dutch Golden Age thought about human contact with that which is elevated far above everyday life. The Dutch Republic offers an interesting context because of the strikingly early use there by seventeenth-century humanists of the Greek concept ?ψο?, from (pseudo-)Longinus, to discuss how writers, artists and their audiences were able to surpass human limitations thanks to an intense imagination which transported them to supreme heights. Dutch poets also used the Latin sublimis to discuss how mankind constantly aims at that which is far above it, but, despite this, can never entirely be a part of it. Thirdly, protestant writers discuss the concept of the Fear of God by explaining that elevated contact with God should be accompanied by the contrasting emotions of attraction and fear. With reference to the humanist Franciscus Junius, poet Joost van den Vondel and preacher Petrus Wittewrongel, I will discuss how these artistic, literary and religious discourses concerning contact with the sublime are related to one another.     

Haunting the State: Rumours,Spectral Apparitions and the Longing for Buddhist Charisma in Laos

Buddhist ascetic monks and hermits that move largely outside of the institutional structures of the monastic order (sangha) have a long history in mainland Southeast Asia. In Lao Buddhism these figures seem to have largely disappeared, but due to their charismatic qualities they still occupy a crucial position in the social imaginary. This article explores rumours and narratives about the existence of ascetic monks and hermits in contemporary Laos. I argue that rumours about, and narratives of, spectral apparitions of these figures express a longing for Buddhist charisma that is partially rooted in Laos’ revolutionary past, and in recent social and economic changes. As Buddhist charisma can point to alternative, personalised sources of power, I argue that rumours and spectral apparitions can be interpreted as haunting, and therefore afflicting and challenging the current politics of religion of the Lao state.     

开封名胜古迹的装饰艺术

开封是一座历史悠久的化名城。战国的魏、五代的梁、汉、晋、周以及北宋与金,都曾于此建都,号称七朝都会。开封又是历代郡、州、府、路、省的首邑,向为政治、经济、化中心。特别是北宋在此建都长达168年,曾有“汴京富丽天下无”的说法。它没有山川之奇秀,没有林泉之幽美,而是以古代劳动人民巧夺天工的建筑艺术取胜。但令人遗憾的是,那些浸蕴着历代工匠智慧与血汗的高楼雄台、御殿巧阁大都毁于兵火与天灾。     

历史的追寻--2004年丝绸之路佛教艺术与历史文化学术考察活动侧记

2004年8月14日至28日兰州大学敦煌学研究所成功举办了“2004年丝绸之路佛教艺术与历史化学术考察活动”,共有台湾地区师生59人参加了这次考察活动。这次考察活动在学术指导小组的带领下,参观了丝绸古道上的物古迹和名景点,增强了台湾师生对祖国大陆的认同感和自豪感,因此这次活动不但具有学术价值,还有更重要的现实意义。     

Caste and the Desire for Belonging

Questions of power and competition have figured prominently in the expanding debate about Dalit assertion. This article moves beyond the rhetoric of caste wars to engage with the affective and emotional dimension of caste. The focus is on the urban environment, where caste unity is challenged by the centrifugal forces of urban living. The article demonstrates how Khatiks in Bhopal are reunited through a festival culture that straddles class differentiation, factional politics and generational gaps. The emerging formation signifies the continuing strength of caste sentiments in the city and demonstrates how Dalits create arenas for publicly declaring pride in their heritage both within and beyond the political arena.     

历史传说与历史研究--《揭开淇澳历史之谜》书后

广东省有个珠海市。市里有个淇澳岛。岛上有个淇澳村。村里有条用花岗岩石板铺成、全长约两公里的白石街。由这条街留下一段当地居民抗击“番鬼佬”的历史传说。说法多种多样,细节各有不同,基本内容则是：清道光年间(有的说十三年,有的说十六     

Karel R. van Kooij (ed.), ABIA South and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology Index

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

Introduction: Danto and His Critics: After the End of Art and Art History

In Bielefeld, Germany in April, 1997 an author conference was devoted to Arthur C. Danto's 1995 Mellon Lectures After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (Princeton,1997). This essay provides an introduction to seven essays given at that conference and expanded for this Theme Issue of History and Theory . Danto presented his view of the nature of art in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981). He then added in the Mellon lectures a sociological perspective on the current situation of the visual arts, and an Hegelian historiography. The history of art has ended, Danto claims, and we now live in a posthistorical era. Since in his well-known book on historiography, Analytical Philosophy of History (1965), Danto is unsympathetic to Hegel's speculative ways of thinking about history, his adaptation of this Hegelian framework is surprising. Danto's strategy in After the End of Art is best understood by grasping the way in which he transformed the purely philosophical account of The Transfiguration into a historical account. Recognizing that his philosophical analysis provided a good way of explaining the development of art in the modern period, Danto radically changed the context of his argument. In this process, he opened up discussion of some serious but as yet unanswered questions about his original thesis, and about the plausibility of Hegel's claim that the history of art has ended.
Hegel . . . did not declare that modern art had ended or would disintegrate. . . . his attitude towards future art was optimistic, not pessimistic. . . . According to his dialectic . . . art . . . has no end but will evolve forever with time.