Debt Cancellation in the Classical and Hellenistic Poleis: Between Demagogy and Crisis Management

Abstract

This article discusses the way the ancient Greeks dealt with public and private debts, focusing on one specific aspect: debt cancellation. On the one hand, ancient Greeks were aware of the risks entailed in debt relief as a tool for fuelling civic strife: sources describe it as a demagogic or even criminal action often in association with the political agenda of tyrants. On the other hand, however, Greeks knew well also the benefic effects of debt cancellation in coping with financial and political crisis. In late accounts of archaic history, debt relief is the solution to civic strife and the foundation act of political order. Some public decrees of the Hellenistic period attest debt relief as a communal decision of the polis, dictated by the necessity of preventing or solving ongoing or imminent crises. This second meaning and purpose of debt cancellation should perhaps urge us to reconsider from a different perspective the “politics of debt” in today’s Europe.     

清代江浙地区栖流所的运营实态及其近代发展

Qiliu hospice in the Qing Dynasty were a sort of charitable organizations established for housing vagrants. According to the distinct functions they served, Qiliu hospice can be divided into different types. Those appeared in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces during the periods of Jiaqing and Daoguang were just a countermeasure to prevent the extortion of petty officials, which had very limited relief targets and measures. But in the modern times, with the quick development of society and great impact from the West, not only the sphere of Qiliu hospice’s relief targets expanded but also relief measures they adopted became more active, which show that Qiliu hospice have already started their course of modern transformation. Translated by Zhou Weiwei from Shixue Yuekan 史学月刊 (Journal of Historical Science), 2008, (2): 48–59     

Between the South Sea and the mountainous ridges: biopolitical assemblages in the Spanish colonial Americas

SUMMARY: Although the historical archaeology of the Spanish colonial world is currently witnessing an explosion of research in the Americas, the accompanying political economic framework has tended to remain little interrogated. This paper argues that Spanish colonial contexts bring into particular relief the entanglements between ‘core’ capitalist processes like ‘antimarkets’, dispossession and the disciplining of labour with the specific biopolitical ecologies assembled through co-option, coercion and accumulation. This perspective is explored through two archaeological case studies from Peru and Guatemala, where competing concerns about altitude, climate, disease, violence and populations of differentiated labouring bodies (both human and non-human) came to the fore in unexpected ways. The resulting discussion challenges the reliance on abstract analytical totalities like ‘capitalism’ and ‘colonialism’, and shifts attention towards the diverse assemblages of actors that shaped and continue to shape the processes central to political economic analyses.     

A Critical Analysis and Philosophical Review of ‘Rapid Reburial’: the Clarence project

In 2012, Australian cultural heritage practitioners and conservation scientists collaborated on a national underwater cultural heritage (UCH) reburial project, known as the Australian Historic Shipwreck Preservation Project (AHSPP) funded by the Australian Research Council. This resulted in the excavation, documentation and reburial of the ‘at risk’ shipwreck Clarence. Following the excavation, the site and associated artefacts were reburied and subsequently covered by shade cloth and finally, with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tarpaulins. After completion of the in situ reburial, a number of critical issues were put into sharp relief including: what constitutes the accurate identification of a site as being ‘at risk’; and the implications of ‘rapid reburial’.     

Jiangnan gentry’s responses to “The great famine in 1877–1878”: The famine relief in north Jiangsu

Although “The great famine in 1877–1878” breaking out in the early years of Emperor Guangxu’s reign has mainly struck North China areas, it has also great social impact on another important area—Jiangnan. The past surveys in academic circle basically ignore the meaning of this drought from the aspect of localism in Jiangnan. When an important movement of drought relief in modern China is mentioned, that is, the rise of charity relief in the late Qing Dynasty, the judgment is not totally accurate. In fact, when they were purely facing the drought, Jiangnan produced various responses carrying a firm stand of localism to protect their county and land. Among these responses, drought relief in the north of Jiangsu launched by gentries from Jiangnan is essentially a continuity of traditional drought relief in Jiangnan since the Ming and Qing dynasties. Translated by Luo Hui from Shehui Kexue Yanjiu 社会科学研究 (Social Science Research), 2008, (1): 129–139     

Music,antiquity and self-fashioning in the Accademia dei Lincei

The members of the Accademia dei Lincei are known chiefly for their achievements in early modern science, most notably supporting and funding Galileo’s projects. Their investigations of the natural world using both microscope and telescope were ground breaking, but potentially heretical. This article investigates aspects of their interest in the music of antiquity and its place in early modern Rome and Naples, presenting Fabio Colonna’s book La Sambuca lincea as a case study. The timing of the Lincean musical activities is juxtaposed with other significant events such as the injunctions against Galileo, throwing into relief some curious coincidences. The antique on the one hand evoked classical authority and was afforded due reverence, but could on the other, also provide the means of fashioning an outward identity different from internal intent. It will be suggested that elements of this antiquarian heritage are reflected in the patronage and cultural politics of the Accademia dei Lincei, whose participation in musica erudita, as evidenced in the work of Colonna, may have been part of a tacit display of corporate self-fashioning.     

The Panstereorama: City Models in the Balloon Era

The nineteenth-century ‘panstereorama’ was an urban relief model placed on display as a public spectacle. In this article, I consider first two affiliated forms that help to explain the genre, namely panorama paintings and plans-reliefs. I then go on to consider urban regional practices of city modelling in London and Paris before examining in detail panstereoramas representing Paris and New York. It is argued that this form of model urban cartography served as proxy for the view obtained from the increasingly popular balloon trip and that it accordingly provided virtual travel to, and a map of, the cities depicted.     

South Africa's Departure from the Commonwealth, 1960–1961

Famine threatened the lives of over twenty million residents of north China in 1920, prompting a massive, and ultimately successful, relief effort. Scholarship on the famine has largely credited China's foreign and coastal, cosmopolitan Chinese circles with this humanitarian feat at the expense of what was in fact a surprisingly effective Chinese state apparatus that year, as well as local relief operations by many famine-stricken communities themselves. This study captures a very specific moment of US and European cultural production on ‘China’ and ‘the Chinese’ in which the great north China famine of 1920–1 occurred, to argue that our current understanding of Chinese relief culture circa 1920 remains largely a product of foreign characterization (by the celebrated likes of Somerset Maugham and Bertrand Russell) and political commentary by reformist Chinese during a period of post-May Fourth cultural turmoil. If we hold the output of these writers up to alternative original sources on events that year, it becomes clear that the historiography on China's greatest humanitarian crisis of the first quarter of the twentieth century remains insufficiently insulated from the raw discursive climate in which the crisis unfolded.     

Charity and Justice in Global Poverty Relief

Peter Singer's message in One World: The Ethics of Globalisation is that we must now consider the whole of the world and all of its peoples our home. The penultimate chapter ‘One Community’ argues that there are no good reasons why those individuals who have the means should not donate to organisations that address the problems of global poverty relief. This, however, is not an adequate ethic; it does not provide the foundation we need in order to construct a sustainably just world order. Singer's recommendations may well lead to the construction of a world in which there is a significant reduction in the level of global poverty. However, Singer's route to poverty reduction is via charity, not justice. Global justice is not the same as individualist practical ethics, even if the latter is applied on a global scale. Singer's concerns for long-term global poverty relief will be better served by an agenda that promotes global institutional change, rather than one that is limited to hoping against donation fatigue among the world's affluent.     

Historical duty,palimpsestic time and migration in the Decade of Centenaries

Abstract

This article analyses Sonya Kelly’s How to Keep an Alien (Dublin Tiger Fringe, 2014) and ANU Production’s Vardo (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2014) in relationship to the performative backdrop of the Irish Decade of Centenaries (2012–22) and a series of key extra-theatrical political events have that featured asylum seekers and migrants prominently in Ireland and to a limited extent in Europe at large from 2012 to 2015. Both theatrical productions centrally engage tropes of Irish national memory vis-à-vis engagement with migration through a primary focus on women’s stories and premiered against the backdrop of the Decade of Centenaries. How to Keep an Alien and Vardo’s embrace of what M. Jacqui Alexander terms “palimpsestic time” and their critical focus on gender during this moment of the Decade of Centenaries models a theatrical dramaturgy that aids in reading key theatrical and extra-theatrical events featuring asylum seekers and migrants against one another. These works reveal the relationship between these events and the ongoing redefinition of Irish national memory and political community, a process thrown into sharp relief by the present commemorative mode. They insist that a turn to the past is inseparable from querying the lived political structures of the present, structures that have repeatedly displaced as well as instrumentalised the bodies of migrant women from the post-inward migration of the mid-1990s onwards.     

Decentring international and institutional famine relief in late nineteenth-century China: in search of the local

This article uses rural gazetteer biographies to examine village and household-level famine relief during the great North China Famine of 1876–9 to deepen our understanding of past relief methods and dynamics at the most local level. Despite the appearance of major works recently on famine in modern China, particularly on the Great Leap Forward, knowledge of Chinese famine relief remains thin and scattered considering the enormity of the subject. Nineteenth-century China saw intensifying international relief activity as well as the emergence of a vibrant charity-relief sector based in China's major cities, leading to the rise of prominent relief institutions in the twentieth century, such as the Chinese Red Cross. But the increasingly intense disasters of China's modern period also saw a surprising persistence of local humanitarian traditions still barely covered by historians.     

The graptolite Glossograptus Emmons and its proximal structure

Ni Yunan & Cooper, R. A., 1994:03:28. The graptolite Glossograptus Emmons and its proximal structure. Alcheringa 18, 161–167. ISSN 0311-5518.

New specimens of Glossograptus acanthus from the Ningkuo Shale of China, preserved in relief, help to resolve the much debated problem of the structure of Glossograptus. A model for the proximal structure of the genus is proposed, based on the new material and on Finney's (1978) Athens Shale specimens. The model confirms that Glossograptus has homologous structure and development with Pseudisograptus, and isograptid development type is primitive for the group containing both genera. A cladogram is presented in which the suborder Glossograptina Jaanusson (with families Glossograptidae and Cryptograptidae) together with family Corynoididae Bulman are subsumed within a redefined family Glossograptidae.     

Macropalaeontology of the Trochocyathus-Trematotrochus band (Paleocene/Eocene boundary), Dilwyn Formation,Otway Basin,Victoria

Two new brachythoracids are described from the Taemas Limestone. Arenipiscis westolli gen. et sp. nov. possesses a skull-roof with deeply embayed posterior and elongate anterolateral margins, a large fused rostropineal plate, and orbits anteriorly placed and deeply notching the skull. The visceral skull-roof surface is developed with strong relief. The trunk-shield is poorly known, but the median dorsal plate probably had a prominent carinal process. Errolosteus goodradigbeensis gen. et sp. nov. is known only by an incomplete skull-roof, and anterior lateral and posterior ventrolateral plates. It has a highly distinctive ridged ornament. The affinities of these forms are considered in a discussion of brachythoracid interrelationships, and it is concluded that they are interchangeable on a cladogram with Buchanosteus. Other brachythoracids from the fauna, recently described by White, are considered, and it is suggested that Goodradigbeeon is phyletically primitive and Taemasosteus phyletically advanced relative to Buchanosteus. Schemes of brachythoracid interrelationships recently proposed by Denison and by Miles &; Dennis are compared, and a new scheme is proposed.     

The body-mind of Oscar Wilde's reviews for the Pall Mall Gazette

Little is known about the circumstances of Oscar Wilde's employment by the Pall Mall Gazette, and even less is known about his engagement with its editorial policies. His reviews are often neglected, but when examined are considered in isolation rather than as a contribution to a serial format. The Pall Mall Gazette's structure provides a new context in which to understand Wilde's reviews, which were inevitably shaped by the paper's editorial policies. The paper hired reviewers who could help it maintain a balance between politics and light relief. With an understanding of audience affect and cognition, Wilde employed a range of strategies to manage reader response. The reviews analysed in this article show Wilde exploring the material, and psychological aspects of books and reading.     

Nazi camps on British soil: the excavation of Lager Wick forced labour camp in Jersey,Channel Islands

Abstract

The forced labour camp of Lager Wick in Jersey, built during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in 1942, is the first Nazi camp to be excavated on British soil. This paper presents the findings from three seasons of fieldwork (2014–16), and includes an analysis of the architecture of internment and the signposts it leaves for that which does not survive. It also draws into sharp relief the link between archaeology and oral testimony and the way that archaeology can both back up and disprove the historical record. Finally, this paper examines the important role that archaeology can play in uncovering and helping to normalize ‘taboo heritage’.     

Agents of altruism: the Great Irish Famine and Italian civil society (1847)

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the participation of individuals, networks and international organizations in transnational fundraising aimed at providing humanitarian relief aid. Focusing on fundraising campaigns organized in the Italian states in favour of Ireland in 1847, when the Great Famine scourged its population the most, the article highlights the agency of the fundraisers in setting in motion an economy of altruism that transcended groups’ boundaries and state borders. The activism and networking of a few well-established individuals in Rome were pivotal in mobilizing the lay and religious elites at a local level. In January and February 1847, the elites of the Italian capitals collected copious sums within private events and initiatives directed at their peers, while the Christian faiths present in Rome organized the first alms collections. This wave of altruism succeeded in setting humanitarian relief for Ireland as one of the goals of the global Catholic Church. In March, Pope Pius IX issued the Encyclical Praedecessores Nostros, appealing for Catholics to donate in favour of Ireland, and thereby generating much local fundraising, mainly in the Italian states and Southern Europe, until the early months of 1848. The Catholic clergy served the cause, raising money locally and taking charge of its delivery to Ireland, with partial coordination from Rome. Although implementing a transnational fundraising campaign involved obstacles of a political, logistical and financial nature, the alms collection raised in the Catholic churches aggregated many small donations over a considerable time span, providing more than double the amount raised in the lay initiatives organized by the elites of the Italian states. The article, based on unedited archival sources from the Italian, Vatican and Irish archives, shows how the charitable fundraisers overcame the obstacles imposed by state politics, international conflicts and transaction costs over the transnational circulation of ideas, initiatives and capitals.     

谢家福与光绪十五年江苏苏属水灾义赈

光绪十五年,江苏的苏属地区发生重大水灾,之前曾在华北等地举办义赈的苏州绅士谢家福发动各方力量举行义赈。他号召大批外地绅士前来协助,与本地绅士一起,共同举行散发钱物、以工代赈和掩埋尸棺等赈灾措施,在救灾中发挥了重大作用。此次义赈是首次以江南地区为对象的跨区域义赈活动,将江南绅士在以往外地义赈中取得的经验运用于本地,使江南地方社会亦能从义赈中受益,从而保证义赈活动能够继续得到江南地方社会的支持。此次义赈还首次提出和运用"官义合办"的新型赈灾模式,但也暴露出一些突出问题。     

清代中期直隶灾后跨省赈粮调度的定量重建与特征分析

本文基于历史文献资料,提取清代中期(1723-1850)直隶灾后朝廷组织的跨省赈粮调度相关记载,对逐年赈粮数量进行定量重建。结合同期水旱灾害强度,对其反映的政府救灾力度的总体变化趋势及时空分布特征进行分析,并进一步讨论其影响因素。结果显示,赈粮调度在雍正朝还并非常规赈灾措施,至乾隆朝成为常态,数量上达到顶峰,至嘉道时期则显著衰落;在空间上更偏重于直隶中部的近畿一带,南部则相对易被忽视。当其兴盛之时,在直隶灾后赈济中发挥的作用不可替代,其演变过程在一定程度上既是清王朝兴衰历程的缩影,亦受到各方面因素(如皇帝意志、灾害强度、区位条件、仓储状况、荒政效率等)的综合作用。从中总结的历史经验教训,也可作为当前防灾实践的参考。     

Poor relief administration in the 1840s,and its effect on the poor: the Carlton Gilbert Incorporation,and Holbeck,Leeds

A considerable corpus of literature addresses the poor relief crisis and its culmination, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. However, the Act's adoption was not uniform, temporally or geographically, and the role of West Riding Gilbert incorporations in delaying its local implementation, and the consequences of that delay, have received little attention. The environs of Leeds were less affected by the Act than elsewhere. Four sprawling incorporations comprising 160 townships, established under Gilbert's Act of 1782, obstructed the formation of New Poor Law unions. The largest, the Carlton Incorporation, included in its membership seven of the ten Leeds out-townships. Alongside member townships, others, interspersed but non-incorporated, like Holbeck in Leeds, might also administer relief predominantly in the tradition of Old Poor Law welfare mechanisms, with greater autonomy, and by select vestries, to which working men might be elected. Such was the case in Holbeck, where on three occasions in the 1840s Chartist administrations were returned. This paper examines the impact on the poor of relief administration in the Carlton Incorporation, and Holbeck, during the 1840s, introducing an analysis of the workings, policies, and effects of an example of Chartist local governance.     

Black Geographies of Respite: Relief,Recuperation, and Resonance at Florida A&M University

In this article, I argue that places of respite provide relief from the burdens of oppressive articulations and experiences of society and space and are produced through three general practices: relief as a practice that mitigates psychological and physical burdens of oppression; recuperation as a form of (self-)care that can help heal harms; and affirmative resonance as a practice of counter-storytelling that challenges hegemonic social narratives and internalises affirmative narratives for marginalised peoples. Through a case study with members of the Marching 100 at Florida A&M University (FAMU), I demonstrate how these relational practices produce FAMU as a multiscalar place of respite for black students. Finally, I claim that places of respite, produced through a black sense of place, offer scholars interested in affirmative black geographies an ontological object produced by (and productive of) visions and practices of black life and produced for the celebration and protection of black lives.