The Common Good,Pluralism and the Small Church

Abstract

This paper discusses the understanding of “Common Good” that has been used by the Church of England, especially over the last five years. It suggests that its implicit universalism and identification of Christian morality with the ethical norms for the nation is premised on an understanding of the role of the Church which is no longer realistic. After a brief discussion of the latest statistics for church attendance and a comparison with other national churches in Northern Europe, I suggest that the Church of England is a “small church” and even that Christians constitute a religious minority. This means that the pursuit of the “Common Good” as defined by the church may simply be a piece of nostalgic longing for the time of the “big church.” The recent exclusions for the churches on same-sex marriage legislation indicate that the gap between most of the churches and the wider society. Rather than defining the common good, I suggest that in a pluralist society the churches which recognize their limited role will need to build alliances and common causes with other groups, both religious and secular.     

Reformulating Identities: British Settlers in Early Nineteenth-Century South Africa

This paper examines the formation of a colonial identity among settlers from the British Isles who were relocated to the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony in 1820. It suggests that material aspirations united certain of the settlers in a political programme, and thus began the erosion of imported class (and other) divisions. However, it argues that their establishment as a capitalist colonial class is an insufficient explanation for their construction of a shared and emotive British settler identity. The settlers modified their inherited discourses of class, race, gender and nationality in order to forge solidarity, and the imperative for solidarity derived not so much from their mutual desire for accumulation, but from a corresponding collective insecurity. Not only were settlers afraid of Khoikhoi labour rebellion and Xhosa reprisals for land loss; they also feared abandonment by a seemingly unsympathetic metropole. Their aggressive capitalist endeavour, and collective fear of its destabilizing consequences, were two sides of the same coin, informing the development of a unifying social identity. The paper goes on to consider the mechanisms through which that identity was sustained, including acts of landscape representation, the textual generation of collective memory and the practice of communally binding, quotidian, gendered routines.     

澳大利亚华人新移民回流:历史、现状与趋势

论文回顾了澳大利亚华人移民回流历史,分析了新千年以来华人新移民回流潮的现状、回流原因和趋势。认为从19世纪中叶起,受排华运动的影响,澳洲华人回流现象便已出现,且这种被迫回流现象一直延续到20世纪中叶"白澳政策"废除时。与老移民被迫回流不同的是,从20世纪90年代以来,由于中国经济与社会的持续繁荣与发展、澳大利亚移民政策调整等诸多因素的综合作用,澳洲华人新移民回流人口逐年增长,至新千年已初步呈现出一股方兴未艾的回流潮,并在较长的历史时期内,华人新移民回流潮仍将持续走向强劲。     

德意志之名:德国国名的起源与国号的演变

现代德语中,德国国名"Deutschland"一词起源于中世纪早期日耳曼民族语言的名称"theodiscus""diutisk"等词,具有语言、民族、地理和政治等多个层面的含义。国号中通常会包含国名的地理或民族因素,但长期以来,德国特殊的政治体制和政治形态导致中世纪时期大部分德国国号与自身的地理和民族名称相分离。直到1871年,"德意志"(Deutsch)才成为德国国号的主要部分; 1949年,"德国"(Deutschland)才成为国号的组成部分。德国的国号根据历代统治者政治理念的改变而不断变化。通过考察德国国名的起源与国号的演变,可以更为深刻地理解德国历史的特殊性和延续性。     

The Country,the City and the State in the Australian Settlement

The Australian Settlement, as formulated by Paul Kelly, had a sixth pillar: a settlement between the city and the country in which the state compensated people living in the country for the costs of remoteness and sparse settlement. This was underpinned by the reliance of Australian export performance on agriculture, by nation-building commitments to peopling the continent, and by agrarian beliefs in the virtues of country life. Australia's egalitarianism had a spatial and regional as well as a class dimension. Changes in Australia's economy, demography, and political culture have eroded these foundations, leaving rural Australia vulnerable to the neoliberal agenda. The dismantling of tariffs, the restructuring of agriculture, microeconomic reforms driven by National Competition Policy, and regional policy which stresses self-reliance, all treat rural Australia as a minor part of the nation rather than its economic and cultural foundation, and reject claims to special treatment. To give country Australia its own pillar makes visible the magnitude of the historic shifts which have taken place in the state's relationship to rural Australia since 1983 and brings it into the main frame for understanding Australia's abandonment of protective statism.     

On the Uniformity of Design and Purpose,in the Works and Customs of the Earliest Settlers in Britain,Evidenced by Comparative Archaeology

Abstract

Within the building and grounds of the Bell Inn, Alveley (Shropshire) there is preserved a group of sculptures, the style of which is unmistakably that of the Herefordshire School. Thought to derive from a 12th-century church in Alveley, the group is the product of at least two hands and includes zoomorphic interlace and other interlace, together with figural scenes of ‘Samson and the Lion’, ‘St Michael and a Serpent’, and a ‘Man in Foliage’. The sculpture is indicative of a lavish decorative scheme at Alveley, in a style that was vigorous, striking and readily associated with the needs of seigneurial patronage.

The sculpture may be dated to the period 1155-early 1160s, a chronology determined not only by stylistic comparisons, but also independently by a detailed examination of the patronage context. In the discussion of the patronage, Guy Lestrange, sheriff of Shropshire, is identified as the likely patron, and as being fairly typical of the kind of patron who generally supported the work of the School. It is further argued that the role of aristocratic affinities in artistic patronage has been over-emphasised and that, as in other aspects of aristocratic activity, neighbourhood was a more influential factor.