The Politics of Subjectivity in Vangelis Raptopoulos’s Urban Stories

In this article I offer a critical analysis of the spatial cultures of modern Athens through the urban portraits presented in three fictive stories by Vangelis Raptopoulos—“At the Bottom of the Sea” (Sto Vytho), “One-Way Street” (Monodromos), and “Long-Distance Call” (Yperastiko)—from his 1995 collection “In Pieces” (Kommatakia). I argue that by constructing first-person fictive narratives, written in confessional prose, Raptopoulos problematizes the notion of subjectivity in its varying relationships to modern urban and spatial cultures. My main focus is on the practice of subjective recitations of urban space in view of the narrator’s experiences of imaginative and physical spatial appropriation. I argue that these experiences and the fragmentary style, through which they are conveyed in the stories, are an incisive critique of the official planning practices of urban public space and prescribed practices of spatial mobility. By drawing on the critical-philosophical and critical-historical literature, with particular reference to Benjamin, Foucault, Lefebvre, and de Certeau, this article contributes to the broader critique of the politics of subjectivity in modern Europe.     

The Politics of Hella Wuolijoki’s Autobiography

This article approaches the Finnish-Estonian Jill-of-all-trades, Hella Wuolijoki (1886–1954), through her autobiographical writings. She was active in business, politics, science and culture during a turbulent time in Finnish history, and her radical political stance and unorthodox methods made her a controversial person. The article revisits the concept of persona, as it has been used in history of science, in order to analyse how Wuolijoki used her autobiographical writings to expand the field of acceptable actions for women, and to justify her own life choices.     

The Politics of Archaeology in North Korea: Construction and Deterioration of Toh’s Knowledge

This paper considers how North Korean archaeology developed during the 1950-60s. Archaeological implementation, under the law of historical process in North Korea, was not perfectly compatible with true Marxist ideology; the actual archaeological movement went in a different direction. Archaeological activity in the North was not free from political constraints. Thus, it is more appropriate to say that the regime and archaeologists shared the same goal: to build a national identity. Emulating Marxist archaeology was the ostensible goal, whereas adopting the culture-historical approach was the more practical goal.     

The Mystery of St Cuthbert’s Ducks: An Adventure in Hagiography

‘St Cuthbert’s duck’ is a folk name for the common eider (Somateria mollissima). The saint’s affinity for the black-and-white ducks has been accepted uncritically for centuries. For such a well-documented saint, however, his ducks are strangely absent from early records. His near-contemporary hagiographers, including the Venerable Bede, make no mention of waterfowl. The enduring association begins almost five centuries after his death in a piece of twelfth-century folklorismus.     

“The Painter in Two Frames”: An Archaeological Investigation of Kamal-ol Molk’s Agency in the Field of Art and Politics

An agent’s actions in different fields and its changes can leave material traces. Therefore, archaeology in its broadest methodological meaning surveys material culture and seeks to investigate an agent’s action in a process. Our archaeological excavation in Neshat Garden led to the discovery of material traces of lifestyle changes of a well-known agent from the late Qajar/early Pahlavi era. Mohammad-e Qafari, nicknamed Kamal-ol Molk, was a famous painter of the Qajar court. He left the court in middle age and entered politics as an agent of opposition. Kamal’s journey to Europe was a turning point that extended to the end of his life. At the same time, Iran’s sociopolitical context experienced significant evolution, including the Mashroute Movement and the rise of Pahlavi dynasty to power. Such mutations made Kamal-ol Molk abandon/change his activities in the field of art, sponsored by the power structure, to engage in political activity. His exile/compulsory migration to a faraway village in northeastern Iran is the outcome of his political activities. The present research is based on archaeological surveys and excavations in two sites: Kamal-ol Molk’s house and Neshat Garden. The archaeological investigation of Kamal’s life in context, his paintings, letters, and photos as a long-term process reveals an artist who was also political. His agency in politics was so effective that in order for the “holy honorable party” to survive, he sometimes ordered assassinations.     

‘An Angel Directs the Storm’: The Religious Politics of American Neoconservatism

Abstract

In his inaugural speech, President George W. Bush suggested that the mission of America to spread freedom and democracy in the world is a divinely authored mission. The intention first announced in Bush's inaugural to globalize an American Christian vision of freedom and democracy, and of free market capitalism, reflects the theological underpinnings of the neo-conservativism of the Bush administration. In this article I trace the remarkable continuities between the neo-conservative political theology of Bush and his acolytes and more mainstream Niebuhrian approaches to democracy and the ‘manifest destiny’ of America. I then subject the emergence of an American imperium, and the political theology associated with it, to a critique in dialogue with early Christian critics of Roman Empire, and with the Christian pacifist tradition as recently retrieved by North American theological ethicists John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas.     

The Last Episode of an Iranian Teacher’s Bag: Children’s Lives as the Smaller Copies of their Parents’ in Contemporary Iran

How can the desired culture of a dictatorial system be transmitted from one generation to another? The focus of dictators on children could be an answer. Factually in such a system, children are located in a value system which teaches them what to do or what not to do in purpose of being good for the political system since the very beginning of their lives. In Iran, the traditional educational system teaches children to act as adults; people who are able to discern which action is bad and which is good. The exceptions are usually the ones who deconstruct the cultural/political structure and begin to resist based on their agencies. In the present paper, we argue the process of education (formal and informal) in Iran based on two sets of material cultural remains. The first is the Qajar (nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photos of children) and the second is the school compositions of 19 students found in the bag of a teacher who died in the devastating earthquake of Bam in 2003, in South Eastern Iran. The bag was found during a contemporary archaeological project.     

Lampon’s Episode in Xenophon’s Ephesiaca: The Reformulation of a Goatherd

The article examines the figure of Lampon, an uncharacteristic goatherd appearing in a folk-tale-like story in Xenophon’s Ephesiaca 2.9–12. It has long been recognized by critics that the circumstances of the Euripidean Electra are recalled in the episode under discussion. Comparisons are made with the Euripidean scene and the “reshuffling” of the main roles is expounded, including the novelist’s decision to make Anthia the partner of a goatherd and not the wife of a lowly farmer. On the basis of thematic and verbal similarities, it is argued that Xenophon appears to have a direct knowledge of Euripides’ Electra, which he imaginatively exploits. Subtle details of occupation and name are also discussed in relation to the stereotypical α?π?λο? and the ?γροικο?. A characteristic feature recalling the Aristotelian notion of ?γροικ?α is pointed, and it is concluded that Xenophon skilfully subverts the stereotypes, as he does not endow Lampon with the traditional negative marking of ?γροικοι and α?π?λοι, and indeed moulds an anti-aipolos.     

The Ideational Dimension of Federalism: The ‘Australian Model’ and the Politics of Equalisation in Canada

This article examines the ideational dimension of federalism and its consequences for the analysis of policy development. With this objective in mind, the article offers an explanation for Canada's rejection of the two main aspects of the ‘Australian model’ of equalisation: the assessment of expenditure needs and the existence of an arms-length commission to determine payments. As argued, the ideological prevalence of provincial autonomy in Canada explains why federal officials opted to reject the ‘Australian model’ as they prepared to establish the country's program and why subsequent reforms never introduced a needs-assessment dimension or created an arms-length agency to administer equalisation. At the theoretical level, this article shows how ideational factors can shape policy outcomes.     

The Demographics of Dystopia: The Muslim City in Asia’s Future

This essay argues that UN projected population growth will not only lead to more Muslims in Asia’s cities in a purely numerical sense, but also to more Muslim cities in a proportional and cultural sense through the continuation of existing trajectories of ‘de-cosmopolitanization’. Urban life will be deeply affected by this increasing shift from cities that are not merely majority Muslim, but are also increasingly Muslim in moral, social or political terms. Inevitably such changes will affect the lives of urban citizens, none more so than women. The essay then asks whether population growth will allow these cities to maintain their ‘globalizing’ trajectory of increasing interconnection. Having framed its analysis around the ‘hard’ outcomes of demographic change, the analysis then turns to ‘soft’ outcomes by tackling the question of the likely contours of the increasingly divergent versions of Islam produced by the competitive religious economies of the modern Asian city.     

The development of ∂/interconsonantal laryngeal in Iranian

Conclusion The examination of the material has shown that the only indisputable counter-example against Meillet's theory is Av. (p)tar- and its derivatives -fr and tirya-. All the other examples have been shown to be wrong, or at least to have other and in my opinion better explanations. Other theories beside Meillet's have been rejected, either because they are based upon such presuppositions as make them objectionable from a methodological point of view, or because they do not explain the actual facts as they stand. Even though no convincing explanation has been found to make ptar- fit in with Meillet's theory, I do not think that this word alone is justification enough for abandoning this otherwise well-founded theory and replace it with one which can perhaps account for this word, but is in other respects inferior to Meillet's.This article is an adaption of a part of my thesis for the degree of Magister Artium in Comparative Indo-European linguistics at the University of Oslo. I thank Professor F. O. Lindeman and Research fellow P. Skjærvø for their assistance in the preparation, and Professor F. B. J. Kuiper for valuable comments on some points in the article.     

The Temporality of Eternal Prosperity: Prospero’s Labors of Love in The Tempest

In this essay, I examine the role of providence in Shakespeare’s The Tempest alongside the concept of history that Kierkegaard develops in Philosophical Fragments. I argue that the art of the play is contained in Prospero’s historical and loving engagement with the past. In short, I undertake to show that, in stark contrast to the Greek and Roman conception of time as fate, it is in viewing love as both the temporal origin and the eternal goal of existence that the time of our lives is rendered providential, that is, meaningful and historical.     

The Enduring Fear and Allure of Miscegenation: In Response to John Hobson’s The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics

This brief intervention challenges John Hobson's view in The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics that anti-miscegenation sentiments are a thing of the past in international relations theory. Rather, it is argued, anti-miscegenation continues to live in international practices, such as consociational peace agreements and “two-state solutions,” as well as in the persistent unwillingness of international relations scholars to actively embrace trespassing of borders, particularly of racial and cultural ones. Thus Hobson's erudite, epic work is both hopeful and not – built upon binaries and distinctions, devoid of grey zones, blind to gender and sex and their relations to racial difference and international hierarchies it provides few openings, few possibilities for alternative politics or even for serious contestation of the racialized status quo that we inhabit at the moment.