On Political Theology: The Hidden Dialogue between C. Schmitt and Ernst H. Kantorowicz in The King's Two Bodies

In recent years, Ernst H. Kantorowicz's work The King's Two Bodies (1957) has been the object of both historical and philosophical research. Kantorowicz decided to subtitle his book ‘A Study in Medieval Political Theology’, but few scholars have actually recognised his work as research in ‘political theology’. The aim of this article, then, is to uncover the sense(s) in which his book might be considered a work of ‘political theology’, especially in the sense coined by Carl Schmitt in 1922. Such a discussion ultimately aims to contribute to the foundation of political-theology research, a subject that has been widespread among European intellectuals in the twentieth century and which continues to be a focus of interest. This article argues that Kantorowicz's book can be interpreted as a practice of—and also an enriching addition to—Schmitt's thesis on political theology, even if it does not mention Schmitt's name. Such a conclusion is only possible by accepting that there was a heated dialogue between Kantorowicz and Schmitt through Erik Peterson's work. The article further discusses its approach with other scholars that, even though they are based on similar hypotheses, make different conclusions.     

Toward a Received History of the Holocaust

In this article, I examine both the problem of so-called postmodern history as it relates to the Holocaust and suggest the ways that Saul Friedlander's recent work successfully mediates between the somewhat overly polemicized positions of “relativist” and “positivist” history. In this context, I find that in his search for an adequately self-reflexive historical narrative for the Holocaust, Hayden White's proposed notion of “middle-voicedness” may recommend itself more as a process for eyewitness writers than as a style for historians after the fact. From here, I look at the ways Saul Friedlander's reflections on the historian's voice not only mediate between White's notions of the ironic mode and middle-voicedness, but also suggest the basis for an uncanny history in its own right: an anti-redemptory narrative that works through, yet never actually bridges, the gap between a survivor's “deep memory” and historical narrative. For finally, it may be the very idea of “deep memory” and its incompatibility to narrative that constitutes one of the central challenges to Holocaust historiography. What can be done with what Friedlander has termed “deep memory” of the survivor, that which remains essentially unrepresentable? Is it possible to write a history that includes some oblique reference to such deep memory, but which leaves it essentially intact, untouched and thereby deep? In this section, I suggest, after Patrick Hutton, that “What is at issue here is not how history can recover memory, but, rather, what memory will bequeath to history.” That is, what shall we do with the living memory of survivors? How will it enter (or not enter) the historical record? Or to paraphrase Hutton again, “How will the past be remembered as it passes from living memory to history?” Will it always be regarded as so overly laden with pathos as to make it unreliable as documentary evidence? Or is there a place for the understanding of the witness, as subjective and skewed as it may be, for our larger historical understanding of events? In partial answer to these questions, I attempt to extend Friedlander's insights toward a narrow kind of history-telling I call “received history”—a double-stranded narrative that tells a survivor-historian's story and my own relationship to it. Such a narrative would chart not just the life of the survivor-historian itself but also the measurable effect of the tellings—both his telling and mine—on my own life's story. Together, they would compose a received history of the Holocaust and its afterlife in the author's mind—my “vicarious past.”     

‘Dead dads’: memory narratives of war-related fatherlessness in Germany

After the Second World War, there were estimated to be around 20 million half-orphans in Europe. In Germany alone, 5.3 million soldiers killed in action left behind approximately 1.2 million widows, nearly 2.5 million half-orphans and about 100,000 complete orphans. This article examines how men and women from various social strata in western and eastern Germany remember their fathers who died in the war and in what way he has been stored in the family's collective memory. The analysis focuses on 30 life-history interviews with men and women from eastern and western Germany with various social and religious backgrounds, all of whom were born between 1935 and 1945 and had little or no memory of their fathers. The following questions are relevant: what memories did children have of their fathers, and what images of them were related by mothers and relatives? What individual, political, social and memory-cultural factors characterise a child's memory of her or his father? The article also analyses trans-generational transmissions and conflicts of how the father's past is remembered.     

Montesquieu's Shadow: Debating reform in the Austrian Netherlands

Arthur Ruppin was the central figure in the Zionist colonization project in Palestine-Land of Israel in the decades preceded the establishment of the state of Israel. Ruppin's immense contribution gave him in Zionist historiography the title of ‘The Father of Jewish settlement in Palestine.’ Nevertheless, in spite of the title ‘Father’, Zionist historiography actually treats him as a ‘Zionist clerk,’ diminishing his role to an apolitical expert on bureaucracy and the economy. Exploring the reasons for his ambiguous position in Zionist historiography and memory, the historical account in the following article reveals how formative were his activities not only in the establishment of the bureaucratic field of the Yishuv (pre-state of Israel), but also in producing and disseminating the modern Hebrew identity models, consequently the article analyzes the relation of these models to the German-social Darwinist perceptions and practices, which shaped Ruppin's cultural identity, weltanschauung and actions.     

There will always be a Gaza war: Duration,abduction, and intractable conflict (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This article reflects on the idea of intractable violence in Palestine/Israel by considering the work of temporality. It considers the latest round of intense violence during the summer 2014 Gaza war in terms of Henri Bergson's notion of ‘duration’, in conversation with Steve Caton's reflections on conflict and duration during his fieldwork in Yemen. Duration provides insight into how collective publics understand, interpret and act in situations of intense conflict; how these knowledges and actions are influenced, discerned but not predetermined, by the way memory shapes perception.     

Bringing Memory Home: Historical (Post)Memory and Patricio Pron's El espíritu de mis padres sigue subiendo en la lluvia (2011)

Published in 2011, Patricio Pron's semi-autobiographical novel details the return of a young Argentine academic to visit his dying father in Buenos Aires, and points precisely to the problematic generational inheritance that characterises the work of Argentina's second generation of dictatorship victims. Negotiating both personal and appropriated memories of his father's militancy during Argentina's last dictatorship (1976–1983), the protagonist gestures to memory not as a source of any objective or official history, but to its inherent quality as a subjective, postponed and mediated construct. Playing with the distinction between history and memory, the novel problematises the potential of postmemory's insistence on creative investment and highlights the difficulties inherent in the re-writing of history as an attempt to understand the past. By building on critical debates surrounding the application of post-Holocaust theory in Argentina, this article will place theories of postmemory firmly within an Argentine context and call for the need to reassess the political nature of the legacy inherited by this second generation. While advancing the discussion of these political elements of Argentine postmemory, attention will thus be drawn to the mechanisms of mnemonic transfer both between and within generations, highlighting how the subjective modification of what is being remembered allows Pron to move beyond an objectively unknowable past and look toward a future that is both open to, and shaped by, his contemporaries.     

A RETRIEVAL OF HISTORICISM: FRANK ANKERSMIT'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND POLITICS

Frank Ankersmit is often perceived as a postmodern thinker, as a European Hayden White, or as an author whose work in political philosophy can safely be ignored by those interested only in his philosophy of history. Although none of these perceptions is entirely wrong, they are of little help in understanding the nature of Ankersmit's work and the sources on which it draws. Specifically, they do not elucidate the extent to which Ankersmit raises questions different from White's, finds himself inspired by continental European traditions, responds to specifically Dutch concerns, and is as active as a public intellectual as he has been prolific in philosophy of history. In order to propose a more comprehensive and balanced interpretation of Ankersmit's work, this article offers a contextual reading based largely on Dutch‐language sources, some of which are unknown even in the Netherlands. The thesis advanced is that Ankersmit draws consistently on nineteenth‐century German historicism as interpreted by Friedrich Meinecke and advocated by his Groningen teacher, Ernst Kossmann. Without forcing each and every element of Ankersmit's oeuvre into a historicist mold, the article demonstrates that some of its most salient aspects can profitably be read as attempts at translating and modifying historicist key notions into late twentieth‐century categories. Also, without creating a father myth of the sort that White helped create around his teacher William Bossenbrook, the article argues that Ankersmit at crucial moments in his intellectual trajectory draws on texts and authors central to Kossmann's research interests.     

Defending the West in All Its Amplitude: The Liberal Conservative Vision of Roger Scruton

This article explores the mixture of conservatism and liberalism that informs Roger Scruton's political and philosophical reflection. It highlights his response to the “culture of repudiation,” his resistance to totalitarianism, his defense of national loyalty (as opposed to ideological nationalism), his conservative-minded environmentalism, and his defense of order—and government—against libertarian and leftist assaults on legitimate authority. In particular, it explores a fruitful tension in Scruton's thought between a robust acknowledgment of the Christian features of Western civilization (a civilization that is unthinkable without a Christian emphasis on confession and forgiveness) and Scruton's forthright defense of the secular state against Islamist fanaticism. The article also explores affinities and differences between Scruton's understanding of the West's conjugation of Christianity and secularism and Pierre Manent's critique of radical secularism. The article concludes with reflections on Scruton's judicious melding of truth and liberty, and philosophy and Christianity.     

Reappraising Walter Bagehot's Liberalism: Discussion,Public Opinion,and the Meaning of Parliamentary Government

Summary

This article offers a novel and comprehensive account of Walter Bagehot's political thought. It ties together an interpretation of Bagehot's liberal commitment to norms of discussion and deliberation, with an analysis of Bagehot's extensive arguments about the institutions of representative government. We show how Bagehot's opposition to American-style presidentialism, to parliamentary democracy, and to proportional representation were profoundly shaped by his conceptions of government by discussion, and the rule of public opinion. Bagehot's criticisms of English parliamentarianism, both of its pre-1832 and post-1832 varieties were also motivated by those principles, as was his own proposal for parliamentary reform. By examining the whole range of Bagehot's writings on representative government (not merely his preference for parliamentarianism over presidentialism) and by connecting his institutional recommendations to his liberal principles, we are also able to better clarify Bagehot's position in Victorian political thought. The article concludes with a discussion of the debate leading up to the Second Reform Act, in which we elucidate Bagehot's disagreements with other prominent exponents of liberalism including John Stuart Mill, the “university liberals,” and Robert Lowe.     

The year 1009: St Bruno of Querfurt between Poland and Rus'

This paper deals with the last mission of St Bruno of Querfurt (d.9 March 1009) which has received controversial treatment from a number of scholars working independently of each other. This state of affairs may be explained not only by reference to different preferences of scholarly research in the countries of east-central Europe, but also to the fact that the very sources of the martyrdom are rather problematic in themselves. Our research has shown that accounts produced by Peter Damian or Ademar of Chabannes must be taken more seriously than was the case up to now, since they provide details that, taken together with other sources, show that the martyrdom in question caused a mutual rivalry between Polish and Rus'ian rulers, Boleslaw and Vladimir, for the benefits that might have been derived from St Bruno's glorious death and possession of his relics. It is also to be emphasised that St Bruno's last mission was most promising to the local ruler named Nethimer who received baptism but finally failed to secure the gains of his new status as a Christian ruler. This tug of war between Polish and Rus' rulers may, at least in part, account for the fact that after some initial steps the incipient cult of St Bruno became extinct in their respective countries and his memory was condemned to the long centuries of virtual oblivion.     

Postmaterial Values and Age: The Case of Australia

Inglehart's thesis of value change is one of the most widely discussed accounts of social and political change in advanced Western nations. This article offers a critique of Inglehart's thesis and a clarification of the Australian case. While critics of Inglehart have attacked the validity of his values measures, or sought to improve them, we use Inglehart's own values index to show that even if--as Inglehart claims--his measures are valid, the age/values predictions do not hold as the theory suggests in Australia. In a recent article, Inglehart and Abramson (1999, 673) cite Australia among a group of '28 high-income' countries that exhibit 'stronger relationships between values and age' than found in the United States. We dispute Inglehart and Abramson's findings in relation to Australia. We show that the relationship between age and values in Australia, like the United States, is very weak, highlight the problematic nature of assuming a linear relationship between age and values without evidence, and discover a new non-linear relationship between values and birth cohorts in Australia that has implications for the study of values research internationally.     

Thomas Graham Brown (1882–1965): Behind the Scenes at the Cardiff Institute of Physiology

Thomas Graham Brown undertook seminal experiments on the neural control of locomotion between 1910 and 1915. Although elected to the Royal Society in 1927, his locomotion research was largely ignored until the 1960s when it was championed and extended by the distinguished neuroscientist, Anders Lundberg. Puzzlingly, Graham Brown's published research stopped in the 1920s and he became renowned as a mountaineer. In this article, we review his life and multifaceted career, including his active neurological service in WWI. We outline events behind the scenes during his tenure at Cardiff's Institute of Physiology in Wales, UK, including an interview with his technician, Terrence J. Surman, who worked in this institute for over half a century.     

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1872–1905): A Pioneering Scholar of Modern Nationalism

Abstract. This essay attempts to place the contributions of the sociologist Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1872–1905) within the history of the scholarship of nationalism. Though absent from present scholarly literature on the question, Kelles-Krauz's contribution to the study of nationalism was outstanding. The article advances three arguments: that Kelles-Krauz was among the first to treat modem nationalism as an object of serious study, that his approach was more typical of our day than his, and that his arguments anticipated many of the major positions of today's scholars. In order to defend the first claim, the article briefly considers the contributions of scholars who preceded Kelles-Krauz. In order to defend the second and third claims, the article briefly characterises Kelles-Krauz's sociological method and presents his answers to some of the central questions of today's scholarly literature on nationalism.     

Capture Life: The ‘Document-Monument’ in Recent Commemorations of Hugo Chávez

The recent passing of Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela from 1999 till 2013, produced a juncture in the nation's imaginary that immediately sparked numerous and diverse commemorative practices. This article explores this sudden demand for a coherent and enduring memory of the late president by analysing different official postures and commemorative strategies. These are initially placed in the context of key historiographical tropes of the Bolivarian Revolution, and then analysed in light of such tropes. Specifically, the discussion identifies a thirst for ‘documents’, used in the broad sense proposed by Jacques Le Goff, which converged on the presidential body, the social body and public space as potential stimuli for memory. In this context, the initial possibilities of embalming Chávez's body, free tattoos of his signature and its use to decorate government buildings, appeal to the archive as a source of authority and as the commencement of history, as Jacques Derrida has it, while extrapolating the president's signature as a mobile and reproducible image of power to seek the eternal presence of the ‘líder eterno’ (eternal leader) as an anchor for political unity.     

Alan Wilson – contributions to research on population and migration

ABSTRACT

This article reviews Alan Wilson's research on population and migration in the 1970s and the 2010s, which supplements his principal contribution - mathematical modelling of urban and regional systems. In the 1970s, drawing on input-output models of economies and working with Philip Rees, Wilson established the accounting basis for Andrei Rogers' multi-regional projection model, adding international migration. Innovative methods were developed to complete demographic accounts, where there were data gaps. In the 2010s, working with Adam Dennett, Wilson systematized methods for estimating migration flows between regions in Europe, employing his family of spatial interaction models. The key aim of both research strands was to ensure that no information was ignored to ensure consistency in population and migration models. The influence of Wilson's contributions to research on population and migration is traced through a survey of subsequent research.     

Calvin and Natural Rights

Abstract

This article applauds the recent rise of scholarly attention to studying the relation of religion to natural rights in general and Calvinism in particular. Against the strong belief in some quarters that appeals to nature, including the idea of rights, do not play a significant role in Calvin's thought, the article concurs with recent (and some not so recent) work to the contrary, arguing that such appeals do occupy an important, if ambiguous, place for Calvin. However, the article resists explaining the variations in his thought as the result of changing interpretations over time. Rather, it is contended that these matters were a source of tension throughout Calvin's career. He struggled not so much with the question of the natural knowledge of rights, but of the ability to choose to act on that knowledge. In conclusion, the article hints that Calvin's ambivalence on this issue sowed the seeds for significant divergence among his descendants.     

The Influence of Goethe's Farbenlehre on Early Geological Map Colouring: Goethe's Contribution to Christian Keferstein's General Charte von Teutschland (1821)

An analysis of Goethe's Farbenlehre (Theory of Colours), and of its significance for the development of geological mapping, requires an interdisciplinary approach and specific knowledge of both the history of cartography and the science of chromatics. Thus far there has been little research in either of these areas by historians of geological cartography or by students of Goethe's Farbenlehre. In particular, the influence of Goethe's Theory of Colours on early geological map colouring has not yet been explored, and the present article is an attempt to rectify that omission. After an introduction to the emergence of geological maps during the Age of Enlightenment, the discussion focuses on Goethe's substantial contribution to the selection of colours for Christian Keferstein's General Charte von Teutschland (1821). Detailed study of the available textual and cartographical source material reveals that Goethe applied the principles of his Farbenlehre as a basis for the colour chart that Keferstein used to delineate the rock formations shown on his map. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the extent to which the joint Goethe–Keferstein venture influenced the future of geological map design.     

Olei Hagardom: Between official and popular memory

This article examines the interaction between official memory and popular memory through the case study of Olei Hagardom – Jewish underground fighters executed by the British in Mandatory Palestine. Studies of collective memory usually maintain that the ruling elite, with its control of state resources, dominates collective memory formation. However, the case of Olei Hargardom demonstrates the potentially limited power of institutional commemoration and exclusion in a democratic society. David Ben-Gurion and his government's attempt to exclude these right-wing heroes from the national pantheon had limited impact. Menachem Begin's persistent, partisan political efforts to include them were only partially successful. Ultimately, Olei Hargardom became entrenched in Israeli collective memory as a result of apolitical literary works, popular culture, and the establishment of a site of memory by spontaneous, grassroots efforts.     

Mountbatten,the royal family,and British influence in post-independence India and Burma

One of the unexplored themes in the career of Mountbatten is why more use was not made of his services in similar contexts in the years after his Indian viceroyalty and governor-generalship. This article examines his influence in private and unofficial capacities in his dealings with post-independence India and Burma in the 1960s and early 1970s. In India it considers Mountbatten's efforts on behalf of the Indian princes when Indira Gandhi's government threatened their privy purses and privileges. In Burma it discusses Mountbatten's attempts to persuade Burma to return to the Commonwealth and his influence over General Ne Win, Burma's military ruler. Mountbatten was unsuccessful in both cases. By contrast in Burma, Princess Alexandra was better placed to represent British interests, suggesting perhaps that we should look more closely at the role of members of the royal family in promoting Britain's foreign policy.