ETHNICITY AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN ANTEBELLUM NORTH CAROLINA

Abstract

During the early to mid-nineteenth century, the expanding market revolution caused the broad distribution of a wide variety of mass-produced goods, even to frontier regions of the United States. This analysis uses the material assemblages from three contemporaneous sites (ca. 1840–50) in southwestern North Carolina that represent the households of Cherokee and white tenants and enslaved African Americans. Analyses of three distinct artifact classes suggest a homogenized material culture in which faunal remains are more illustrative than other artifact classes in identifying ethnicity.     

Red Toryism and the Case of the Lost Revolution

Abstract

This article explores the theological commitments of Red Toryism through an engagement with the work of Phillip Blond and John Milbank. Investigating the notion of the common good in Red Toryism from ecclesiological and ecological perspectives, and making a comparison with the "long revolution" proposed by Raymond Williams, I argue that Red Toryism misses the theological potential of the long revolution. Losing this revolution presses theology without warrant towards an unnecessarily conservative construal of civil society.     

FAMILY,KINSHIP AND REVOLUTION: THE RUSSIAN NOBILITY, 1917-23

Abstract

This article examines the importance of family and kin to the Russian nobility during the Russian Revolution. It focuses on the experiences of four interrelated families to show how nobles used family connections for a variety of purposes prior to I9I7. This helped them to maintain their predominant position within tsarist society. The article argues that these links continued after the revolution, helping nobles survive everyday hardship and official persecution under the new regime; in some cases, surprisingly large family ‘communities’ of nobles emerged. These communities persisted into the I920S and even when they disbanded the wider family maintained its central position in noble life.     

Introduction to the themed section ‘digital heritage and the public’

Abstract

This introductory essay for the themed issue “Digital Heritage and the Public” begins by alluding to the profound effect of the digital revolution in how society manages the production, administration, publication and access to information. The effect on heritage is noticeable in all fields. The process of digitalisation, traceable from the early days in the 1960s, is increasingly impinging on the relationship between the professionals and the public. Critics have debated on the advantages and challenges of the digital revolution in the heritage field. Related to that discussion, in this themed issue the first article by Taylor and Gibson questions whether the assumption often made inextricably linking the digital media with democracy is correct. This contribution is followed by two others in focusing on case studies of use of digital media in heritage. Mazel explains about three projects in which their use has facilitated access and encouraged public participation to rock art sites in Northern England. In the last article of this issue, Purkis argues that in the ‘Local People’ exhibition she organised in Derry/Londonderry, digital media allowed the creation of heritage out of people’s ordinary lives. This way of disrupting ideas of heritage also turned the museum into a contact zone, a place for cultural and social mediation.     

THE 20TH-CENTURY REVOLUTION IN TEXTILE MACHINES AND PROCESSES. PART 2: TEXTURED YARNS AND OTHER TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

This is the second of a two-part study on the archaeology and technological development of the machine textile industry in the 20th century. The previous paper, Part 1 (IAR, 35·2), described the changes in two long-established textile technologies: the production of yarns from short fibres such as cotton and wool; and the weaving of fabrics. The main part of this paper describes completely new technologies that resulted from the manufacture of new continuous filament yarns. Other technologies are also mentioned.     

The Neapolitan revolution of 1799∗

Abstract

1999 marks the second centenary of the Neapolitan revolution of 1799. The following three short articles examine the ways in which historical interpretations of the revolution and its place in Italian history have changed over time and the ways in which the images and memories of the revolution have been used to transmit powerful political and cultural messages.     

CONTEMPORARY AND RECENT ARCHAEOLOGY IN PRACTICE

Abstract

The archaeology of the 20th century has been studied since the 1960s, but it is only more recently that explicit theoretical and methodological issues have been explored by the wider archaeological profession. This paper explores some of those issues in the contexts of developer-funded archaeology and community archaeology. Ways in which the archaeology of the more recent past may both help and hinder the discipline are considered, together with the relevance of archaeology to society at large.     

Music and the Aesthetic Copernican Revolution of the Eighteenth Century

ABSTRACT

In the mid-eighteenth century music underwent a sudden and drastic revolution when composers “discovered” a new dimension to their art. This had immense repercussions on the philosophy of art, for the music created before and after this divide represents two different species of aesthetic experience, which in due course affected our understanding of the meaning and import of the other arts as well. Despite the immense aesthetic repercussions of this Copernican revolution in music, philosophers of art seem not to have taken much notice of it. This essay details the emergence of the relevant musical criteria during the eighteenth century and dwells on their long-term impacts on the philosophy of art.     

SOUSA VITERBO AND THE IDEA OF INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of Sousa Viterbo's contribution to industrial archaeology. This Portuguese historian and archaeologist not only employed and printed both the terms ‘archaeology of industry’ and ‘industrial archaeology’ in the late 19th century, but also left behind a number of writings which secure his place as a true ancestor of the current industrial archaeology. Selected excerpts of three of Viterbo's texts written between 1896 and 1902 are here translated into English for the first time.     

Research note: The Scottish household survey

Abstract

My personal recollection of the ‘relevance revolution’ in the 1970s is that it was a reaction to a quantitative geography that was overly-focused on technique and under-concerned with real-world issues. The consequent search for relevance took the form of a commitment to liberal- and left-leaning ideologies and issues. This differed from concepts of relevance as pertinence/timeliness, or as applied geography. Postmodern thought is significant in current debates on relevance in all three of its manifestations: relevance as commitment, pertinence and application.     

Forks in the Road: Energy Policies in Canada and the US since the Shale Revolution

ABSTRACT

This article examines policy responses in Canada and the US to the shale revolution and changing North American oil and gas markets. We outline the effect of the shale revolution on North American oil and gas markets, and how the subsequent energy policy choices in each country changed the relationship between Canada and the US. In the US, increasing production, combined with the policy imperative of maintaining energy security, led to less support for Canadian supply and the subsequent on-off-on saga of the Keystone XL pipeline. In Canada, growing concern about the balance between the environment and the economy led to stalled pipeline development and reform of regulatory systems, problems exacerbated by the new policy direction in the US.     

Correspondence

Abstract

One root of the resurgence of interest in the place of religion in human affairs lies in the postmodernist critique of materialist explanations, combined with the heightened sense of living in a new, possibly ‘post-secular’, age distinct from classical modernity. Secular ideologies such as Marxism have lost ground since the end of the cold war saw the resurgence of ethnic and religious violence in some of the successor states to Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The theocratic character of the Iranian revolution and the rise of the religious right in the United States also help to explain why religion is the defining characteristic of the new order which Samuel Huntington portrays as the ‘clash of civilizations’. The events following 11 September 2001 have done little to distract from the preoccupation with religious fundamentalism.     

The Buddhist Ineffable Self and a Possible Indian Political Subject

ABSTRACT

It is well known that the sovereign, the cakkavatin, in India is the one who turns the wheel of dhamma. What is not so well appreciated is that the Buddha’s dhammachakkapabbatana, the turning of the wheel of dhamma and the attainment of nibbana, can be read as a political act, involving the emergence of a political subject. It will be seen that the 4th Century AD Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu’s vijnanavadin notion of the Ineffable Self (anavilapya atman) helps us unravel the epistemological underpinnings of the political subject in consonance with the revolutionary act of turning the wheel of dhamma. Seen in this light, we can better appreciate B. R. Ambedkar’s attempt at treating Buddhism as the “Revolution” against the Brahminical “Counter-Revolution,” something whose implications unfold almost daily in India’s political struggles. What can be called (in academic-speak) Buddha’s “pluralist non-essentialist framework,” even a convergence of sorts between Buddha and Spinoza, does not necessarily exclude the notion of a revolutionary political subject. This opens up the possibility of reading Buddha's notion of the turning of the wheel of dhamma alongside more recent ideas of revolution as another turning and churning.     

DISOBEDIENT BOYS AND PROMISCUOUS GIRLS

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, numerous public investigations have been carried out around the world on the abuse of children in out-of-home care. In the case of Iceland, commissions were appointed by the Icelandic government in 2007 to examine the historical abuse of children and youth in institutions monitored by local or state authorities during the second half of the 20th century. All the institutions subject to national investigations in Iceland were created during the postwar era, the earliest one in 1947. This article addresses the discourse on institutions and out-of-home care from a long-time perspective. It is shown that ideas on those institutions came to the fore during the early 20th century and were closely linked to progressive ideas on child welfare at the time. World War II and the British occupation of Iceland shaped the views on institutional care, and the postwar era was a period of intensive institutionalization of children and youth. The study also shows that the rhetoric concerning disobedient youth was heavily gendered. Whereas boys were accused of petty larceny, truancy and vagrancy, the main evils of girls were related to their morals, promiscuity being their chief vice.     

Ukraine after five years of conflict

ABSTRACT

The “Euromaidan” revolution, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and the proxy war in eastern Ukraine through Europe and the West’s relations with Russia into crisis in 2014. Five years later, while the domestic scene has stabilized to some extent and Russia’s control of Crimea seems unassailable, the war in eastern Ukraine drags on, the status of Crimea is contested, and Ukrainians roundly rejected the government that came to power after the revolution. The papers in this special issue of the journal consider several outstanding issues in Ukraine and in its relations with Russia and the West.     

French anarchists and the continuing power of May 1968

Abstract

The social insurrection of May 1968 in France continues to provoke strong political debate. Compared to most French politicians and social commentators who dismiss or condemn it as an excessive adolescent rebellion, French anarchists contend that it was a substantial political rupture because participants challenged the legitimacy of all hierarchy and domination in every realm of society. Research into a wide range of French anarchist books and articles from 1988 to the present reveals several distinct approaches to May 68. Beyond narratives of the events themselves, anarchists emphasised the rapid spread and delight with horizontalist social relations of mutual aid and respect on campuses and in workplaces and neighbourhoods as 10 million French people went on strike for several weeks. This liberating experience, they contend, transformed the social consciousness of large numbers and led to the great surge of anarchic autonomous social movements in different realms in the 1970s. These writings also reveal important debate among anarchists themselves on whether May 68 was a revolution, whether revolution is even possible and how to organise a revolutionary movement.     

Estimating Antebellum Passenger Costs: A Hub-and-Spoke Approach

Abstract

Over 30,000 miles of railroad and 4,000 miles of canals were constructed in the United States between 1815 and 1861. However, the lack of data has prevented the study of this “transportation revolution” for most cities. This article thus enables a closer study of antebellum travel improvements by constructing a hub-and-spoke network that is capable of estimating the cost of passenger travel from New York City and Philadelphia to any U.S. city in 1836, 1850, 1856, 1859, and 1867. The semi-parametric approach provides an accurate cost estimate by using available historical information to determine the travel cost to all other cities.     

Two theories of resistance in the German Enlightenment*

ABSTRACT

Can there be a legal or a moral right to resist the government? Scholarly interest in the right of resistance has rarely focused on German philosophy, which has often been considered unusually committed to authority. Yet, during the Enlightenment German philosophers regularly attempted to justify not just conscientious refusal but also revolution. This essay explores the two dominant justifications, which were based in Wolffian perfectionism and Kantian relational theory. It argues that we can best understand the complexity of these theories of resistance by exploring their contrasting views on the state’s purpose: providing material and spiritual welfare, or establishing freedom as independence.