The Oaxaca Commune and Mexico's Coming Insurrection

Abstract: Was the “Oaxaca Commune” an ephemeral insurrection, an explosion of popular rage, without enduring consequences? Was it a specific expression of autonomous movements, an experiment anticipating the direction some of them are taking? Or was it an isolated, singular episode of people's struggles? As yet we do not have enough of an historical perspective to fully appreciate the nature and impact of the events of 2006 in Oaxaca that attracted the world's attention. But it is worth exploring them and discussing a tentative hypothesis about their nature and meaning for autonomous movements in Mexico and beyond, when the gap between means and ends is closed and the shape of the struggle is also the shape of the society the struggle attempts to create. These provisional notes can thus be seen as an introduction to a research agenda.     

美国新闻界与国会报道自由

美国宪法规定国会对公众开放,但这并不意味着作为人民耳目和代言人的新闻界就能够自由、真实、全面地报道国会的活动了。为此新闻界在众议院和参议院都进行了长期的斗争。新闻界在经历由党派报纸向商业报纸过渡的过程中,持续推动以国会报道自由的形式公开美国国会信息。经过与国会特权、保密行为长达半个多世纪的博弈,终于取得了稳定的驻国会山记者团制度,使美国国会成为最早得到系统信息公开报道的政府部门。     

“共和”与“民主”的趋同——美国革命时期对“共和政体”的重新界定

在美国革命时期,"共和"这一古老政治词汇的含义发生了重大变化。美国建国者参照各种政治理论和历史经验,结合他们所处社会的特点,不仅成功建立了一种新型政体,而且为它做了全面的辩护和诠释,从而完成了对"共和政体"的重新界定。这种新型的共和政体,不再是"人民"与贵族分享权力的混合政体,而是完全建立在"人民主权"基础上的代表制政体,它的社会基础、价值取向和适应范围都发生了深刻变化,与古典共和理念之间形成了明显的差异。与此同时,"民主"的概念也得以扩充,"人民"通过代表制行使政治权力的政府,与"人民"亲自掌握权力的政府一样,都可以叫做"民主"。这两个交错并行的观念转化过程,不仅塑造了现代意义上的"共和"与"民主"的概念,而且使得两个原本含义不同的政体名称,最终变成了同义词。     

美国法律史研究领域的"赫斯特革命"

J .威拉德·赫斯特教授在 2 0世纪下半叶使美国法律史研究走出了专注于法律自身演变的所谓法律内史的黑盒子 ,转而从法律和社会的相互作用中探讨美国法律的历史发展 ,在法律史学界掀起了一场“赫斯特革命” ,结果使美国法律史研究经历了一次群星荟萃的学术复兴。尽管“赫斯特革命”的局限性在世纪之交时变得日益明显 ,但它在美国法律史研究中的主流地位仍未动摇。因此 ,不研究赫斯特和他的影响 ,就不可能有新的突破 ,对于在美国法律史研究上尚处于起步阶段的中国学术界来说 ,就更是如此     

Fear and Foreign Bodies: The Bible and "Post-Racial" American Identity

Abstract

The Bible has played a prominent role in US political discourse, shaping ideas of race, ethnicity and identity. Its influence on the political landscape today is most evident within conservative politics—among evangelical Christians and the Tea Party Movement. At least in perception, its influence has been divisive. What role do biblical scholars and academic theologians have to play in contemporary social and political discourse, particularly with respect to race? This article approaches the question first by way of the concept of the political as espoused by Carl Schmitt and the category "race," both as applied to antiquity and to the modern period; second, through a reading of Genesis 20; and third, through attention to contemporary discussions of race among contextual and liberation theologians, focusing on the problem of essentialism in the constitution of identity. The article concludes by drawing together these elements to offer thoughts on a future course of American identity in the context of post-race desires and fears.     

论美国报刊媒体的大众化(1865-1914)

19世纪下半叶,美国社会开始从“精英时代”进入“大众时代”。当时的报刊杂志恰当地映照了这种变化,主要表现在主观性的政党报刊转向客观性的独立报刊;廉价又通俗的报刊杂志的兴起等。     

Women,Nationalism and the Philippine Revolution

Abstract. Filipino women participated actively in the Philippine Revolution (1896–1902), performing a wide range of tasks essential to sustaining the revolutionary challenge against Spanish and American imperialism. Though largely omitted from mainstream histories of the nationalist revolution, women's involvement has been recorded in several marginalised texts. However, these texts have invariably used a limiting format based on presenting biographies of outstanding women. This article suggests an alternative approach, by situating the history of revolutionary Filipino women within a comparative framework. The article outlines key ideas of feminist writers who have analysed women's participation in nationalist struggles from an international perspective. Drawing on these ideas, some new approaches to women in the Philippine Revolution are suggested.     

The Use of Gasoline: Value, Oil, and the "American way of life"

Abstract:  While the critical literature has focused on the geography of oil production, the politics of "outrageous" gasoline prices in the United States provide a fertile path toward understanding the wider geography of petro-capitalism. Despite the deepening contradictions of US oil consumption, "pain at the pump" discourse projects a political sense of entitlement to low priced gasoline. I use a value-theoretical perspective to examine this politics as not only about the quantitative spectrum of price, but also the historical sedimentation of qualitative use-values inscribed in the commodity gasoline. Gasoline is analyzed both as a use-value among many within the postwar value of labor power and as a singular use-value fueling broader imaginaries of a national "American way of life." While use-value still represents an open site of cultural and political struggle infused within value itself, the case of gasoline illustrates how use-values are not automatically mobilized toward politically savory ends.     

The "rights" of husbands and the "duties" of wives: power and desire in the American bedroom, 1850-1910

Historians of the nineteenth-century family have long argued for the dominance of a patriarchal model of marital relations in which demanding husbands subjected their passionless wives to a continual grind of emotional and sexual brutalization. This perspective has been challenged by revisionist historians who have argued that the compasionate marital ideal, characterized by considerate husbands and sexually satisfied wives, best reflected the experiences of middle-class married men and women. Based on the sexual experiences described in the pamphlets, letters, and newspaper articles written by sexual radicals known as "Free Lovers," this article argues that the late nineteenth-century marriage bed still was a site of conflict. Opening the door into the Victorian bedroom, the Free Lovers provide a unique view of both marital models in operation and transition that sheds light on the dynamic of change in which married couples struggled, failed,and sometimes achieved the erotic relationships promised by the companionate ideal.     

Leadership and Coordination in Legislatures: The "President" of the First American Congress: 1774-1789

We analyze the viability of the office of President of Congress as a source of leadership in the Continental and Confederation Congresses.1 Our primary interest is in institutionally grounded, as opposed to and separate from charismatic or personal, bases for leadership. We show that virtually every institutional support for leadership power recognized to be at work in the modern Congress was absent in the Continental Congresses. We trace the origins of these limitations on leadership power and potential to a series of decisions taken during 1774 and 1775 and substantially maintained and even elaborated over the fifteen-year history of the Congress. The result was that even though the institution was awash in "leaders," men like Virginia's Peyton Randolph, Massachusetts' John Hancock, and New York's John Jay, stable and effective "leadership" from the office of President of Congress proved to be impossible.     

一个美国人的飞虎队之旅

我最初的目的是收集老兵的口述历史,可悲的是,许多非常有价值的人都去世了,有的因年老无法表述清楚.在今后的5到10年里,将再也没有老兵和见证人了.我常常遇到同样的回答:"某某可以告诉你这一问题,但是他在两年前去世了."