Captain Canuck,audience response,and the project of Canadian nationalism

This paper addresses the role of comic books in interpellating national identities, locating the process of national identity formation in the interplay between popular culture producers and their audiences as described by Althusser (1977 Althusser, L. 1977. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, London: New Left Books.  [Google Scholar]) and McGee (1975 McGee, M. 1975. In search of ‘the people’: a rhetorical alternative. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 61: 235–249. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The empirical section of this paper focuses on Captain Canuck, a Canadian-produced comic book originating in the 1970s and sporadically published through the present day. The authors engaged in a qualitative content analysis of the Captain Canuck comic books, searching for themes and markers of Canadian-ness and looking for audience identifications with those themes and markers in the ‘letter to the editor’ columns published within the comic books themselves. The study finds that through the many incarnations of Captain Canuck various versions of Canadian identity have been projected, with varying degrees of support by the readership. The role of the USA in Canadian identity formation looms large, especially in the positioning of Canadian quality and multiculturalism against the tacitly American lack thereof. Another finding of this research is that there has been a fundamental change in the way Canadian identity is structured as a new, commercially driven Canadiana culture industry has arisen since the 1970s.     

Learning and teaching online with the UK census

This paper describes the online learning and teaching resources that are currently being developed for the contemporary and historical UK censuses as part of a project that is being funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to support its ‘Information Environment’. The online resources are intended to support learners and teachers in the UK Higher and Further Education sectors who are interested in UK census data. A variety of resources is available including: interactive online tutorials with practical exercises, textual materials, web pages and PowerPoint slides. The materials have been designed to be as flexible as possible encouraging a ‘pick and mix’ approach to the use of the resources. The resources are also intended to facilitate the use of 2001 census data. Feedback from student piloting and consultation workshops is also considered. All the resources can be accessed at: http://www.chcc.ac.uk.     

清末新政时期中国使节制度变革述论

使节制度是近代外交制度的重要组成部分。中国近代使节制度产生于总理衙门时期。清末新政十年间,清政府通过严格出使大臣的选用标准,统筹使馆随员的使用,实现使馆定员定岗,控制出使经费的使用,健全使馆武官制度,重申中国接受及派遣使领的合法权利,对中国近代使节制度进行了变革与完善。这一时期的变革围绕集权、高效展开,极大地推动了中国使节制度的近代化。     

1928年安徽人口普查研究

通过梳理1928年安徽人口普查的背景、制度和执行情况,分析普查数据,可以得知此次人口普查执行得力,普查结果可信度较高。但由于种种原因,此次人口普查所得人口数量与实际人口仍有相当差距。利用以中国土地利用调查为代表的区域性人口抽样调查的结果,通过调整人口性别比可以对1928年安徽人口数量进行大概规模的复原。     

The European defence project and the Prague summit

This article reviews the state of the two security and defence institutions available to west Europeans: NATO and the EU's common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). In each case, the authors assess the political maturity and stability of the institution, and then ask what it can contribute in terms of coordinated military capability to west European's strategic readiness. NATO's Prague summit in November 2002 will address the thorny issue of the next tranche of post–Cold War enlargement. But beyond the predictable debate about which candidates to admit, and what should be offered to those unsuccessful in their bid, there will be a far more urgent and important agenda to be discussed at Prague—the military capabilities of the European allies. Given that ESDP is still far from achieving its capability goals, the authors argue that the time is right for European allies to begin thinking in terms of generating a composite, joint strike force which could be configured to be interoperable with US forces and which could salvage something useful from the disheartening lack of progress in developing a European military capability.     

The Canadian Rebellion,the American South,and Slavery

ABSTRACT

In the past few decades, thanks in large part to the work of several historians that appears in my edited collection, Revolutions Across Borders: Jacksonian America and the Canadian Rebellion (2019), there is a growing trend to consider the Canadian Rebellion within an American historical and historiographical context. Despite this exciting new research, most studies on the Rebellion and the United States continue to focus on the northern borderland. However, the Canadian Rebellion was a significant event that gained attention all over the United States, including the American South. Similar to the North, the American South was also invested in the outcome of the Rebellion. This was due to one reason: slavery. By specifically focusing on the American South and, more importantly, its influence on American foreign policy during the period, I want to encourage historians to take a more definitive stance; that slavery—just like the Panic of 1837, the Anglo-American rapprochement of thepost-War-of-1812 period, or the fear of British retaliation—played a major role in the United States Government’s official opposition to the Rebellion.