On Ambivalence and (Anti-)Normativity (or,Theology as a Way of Life?)

ABSTRACT

This essay argues that queer theory’s ongoing reflection about its own disciplinary identity yields insights that could benefit contemporary political theology. Exploring how internal discussions and debates on the queerness of queer theory can serve as an instructive analogy for similar conversations about the “theologicalness” of political theology, this essay proposes two potential insights that can be gleaned. First, political theology should continue to draw on and do theology, but it should not worry about venturing outside the bounds of what is presumed to be the theological. Theological reflection develops from, and also engenders, communicative and critical expressions, which are deeply important theological modes of political theology, central to its identity even as they appear at times to broaden or stray from it. Second, political theology should look more to politics, broadly understood as the various ways of ordering human life and the utilization and manifestation of power in that structuring, for the theology it offers. In these ways and more, this essay concludes, political theology, like queer theory, is both theory and praxis, a body of knowledge and way of life.     

Winds in the ionosphere—A review

Winds in the upper atmosphere, and their effect on the ionosphere, are reviewed with an emphasis on information useful to ionospheric studies. The winds are driven by pressure gradients from solar and auroral heating, with some forcing by tidal energy from below. Simple calculations which balance the pressure gradient by ion drag and Coriolis forces are generally unreliable, so large-scale numerical models of the coupled atmosphere and ionosphere are required. The accuracy of these global models is limited by uncertainties in the energy inputs at high latitudes and at the lower boundary (about 90 km). The best current wind data come from incoherent scatter radar or airglow installations, at a few sites and for only a few nights per month. Satellite data are also available for several years, and results to 1989 are incorporated in the global HWM90 model. This seems acceptable for determining mean winds at night, less good during the day, and least good in the southern hemisphere where few data were available. Plots are given to show the mean winds at different latitudes and longitudes, for use in ionospheric calculations.Meridional winds alter the height of the mid-latitude F layer, causing large changes in the effective loss rate. This is the major cause of observed seasonal changes, of differences between the hemispheres, and of changes at different longitudes. An increased knowledge of the winds is essential for further progress in F region studies. Ionospheric data provide the most promising route, using routinely scaled parameters. The simplest calculations compare observed peak heights, obtained from M (3000)F2, with the value h_o predicted by simplified “servo” equations. Errors occurring for some hours after sunrise can be overcome using model results to define h_o this allows rapid and accurate wind calculations at dip latitudes of 23–62°. Winds can also be obtained from full model calculations, designed to match observed values of peak height or density.     

Donggar Township Where Farmers I know(II)──40th Anniversary of the Democratic Reform

Beginninginthemid-1960s,IshuttledbetweenvillagesinDonggarTownship,DoilungdeqenCounty,locatedinthewesternsuburbsofLhasa.Iremainedthereforfouryears,andhavesincemaintainedcorrespondencewithsomeoftheresidentsthere.Geleg:SpotlightofExplosiveNewsDonggarwasrockedinthewinterof1982whenGeleg,PartySecretaryoftheDonggarPeople'sCommune,decidedtoquittheproductionteamtowhichheandCezholbelonged.Withfiveofhisrelativesheformedagrouptogoitalone.ThoughthiswascommoninsomeotherpartsofChina,itwasrareinTibet.…     

In The Shadow of the Stuart Pretenders: the Life of Francis Strickland ‘Man of Moidart’ (And Westmorland?)

This paper summarises significant events in the life of Francis Edward Joseph Strickland from his birth in 1691 at the exiled Stuart Court in Saint-Germain-en-Leye, near Paris, to his death in Carlisle during the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. Emphasis is placed on his various roles in the Stuart court and his involvement in the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite rebellions, including his malign influence on Bonnie Prince Charlie and his deteriorating relationship with his godfather James Francis Stuart, the Old Pretender. His life is evaluated in the context of his role and status within the wider exiled Jacobite circle.     

Spinoza’s Democratic Imagination

Spinoza is the great philosopher of the imagination and the first great philosopher of democracy. Rather than seeing democracy as a form of government that has overcome the need for imagination and symbols, he shows in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus that an enlightened state depends on three myths: the myth of the sovereignty of the people so as to reconcile democracy as rule by the people with each individual living as he or she wants to live; the myth that we are a people, emotionally and morally tied to some people more than to others; and, finally, the myth that the people comprises individuals who are responsible for their own destinies. The democratic imagination differs from earlier forms of politics in that the people construct the social imaginary for themselves and are guided by it without deception. It is the social imaginary thus created, or these three myths, that make room for freedom of thought and therefore for democracy.     

The New Spirituality,or The Democratization of Divinity and Vice Versa (Has the New Age Come of Age?)

America and indeed the West have been witnessing the emergence of a new spirituality. Where once one looked for God beyond oneself, many now claim to have found God within. Perhaps contrary to initial appearances, the New Spirituality embraces many important tenets of older philosophic and spiritual traditions. But for this very reason (among others), the New Spirituality also stands in need of critique informed by those same traditions. This article explores the character and origins of the New Spirituality and attempts a critique from the perspective of Socratic or classical political philosophy. The effort at critique yields a certain appreciation, including the suggestion that the New Spirituality might help us gain access to certain elements of the classical tradition. But the critique also addresses a troublesome utopian temper that raises serious questions about the wisdom and goodness of this growing movement.     

The Samoan Farmer: A Reluctant Object of Change?

Stagnation and a failure to break out of a subsistence-oriented type of production continue to characterize the agricultural sector in Western Samoa. The lack of dynamism in agriculture has variously been ascribed to subsistence affluence and limited wants, the inhibiting impact of fa'asamoa – the Samoan way of life – and, more recently, to the effects of migration, remittances, aid and bureaucracy on economic development. This article suggests that the explanatory power of these factors by themselves is unsatisfactory. Instead, it argues that an absence of secure market outlets offering predictable and sufficiently attractive prices to farmers and the lack of rural-urban links in general are at the heart of the problem. The economy seems to be caught in a vicious circle where farmers fail to commit themselves to production for the market because of a lack of secure outlets, while adequate downstream distribution and processing channels do not develop for lack of secure supplies. The interchangeable nature of commercial and subsistence production in agriculture, widespread access to overseas remittances, and the smallness of the domestic economy serve to perpetuate the deadlock.     

Tempi of Change: When Soloists don’t play Together. Arrhythmia in ‘Continuous’ Change

This contribution is centered on the question of tempi of change and the possibility of defining ternary scales of changes in a long archaeological sequence, which could match F. Braudel’s interpretative framework. Although I had recently considered a ternary scale of change to be a satisfactory framework even for a single category of artifacts, further analyses for this volume, on a longer time scale, revealed it as an intellectual construct that entirely depends on the choice of criteria. In addition, observed arrhythmia in change between two sets of data from the Franchthi Cave (Greece), chipped stone assemblages and ornaments, demonstrate the difficulty of defining global phases of change within a continuous sequence. In turn, this raises the fundamental problem of the choice of proxies used to define the prehistoric cultural entities whose transformations we seek to understand.     

State,market, and global political economy: genealogy of an (inter‐?) discipline

International Political Economy (IPE), as a diverse and fragmented field of inquiry, has often had trouble situating itself in the social sciences. This article argues that IPE belongs firmly in the broader tradition of political economy in the social sciences and begins by summarizing the emergence of IPE in its contemporary context, starting with the late 1960s and early 1970s debates among IR scholars on the nature and meaning of interdependence, of the importance of 'high' versus 'low' politics, and of 'transnational' versus 'international' relations. The article goes on to demonstrate that IPE has emerged in a far from coherent fashion, though this diversity and ecumenism is not to be deplored. The second section of the article argues that the core conceptual issue in IPE remains the nature of the state–market relationship. The way this relationship is viewed has a considerable impact on how the prospects for change in the structures—the normative and material underpinnings—of world order are to be understood. It argues that most IPE scholars, despite their protestations, still see the state and the market as separate and indeed antagonistic dynamics. The logic of the state and the market are distinct. Scholars need to take a final and decisive step in accepting that, in empirical and conceptual terms, the state and the market are part of the same, integrated system of governance: a state–market condominium that operates simultaneously through the competitive pressures of the market and the political processes that shape the boundaries and structures within which that competition (or lack thereof) takes place.     

Evil ThingsTurned IntoGood Things─In Memory of 40th Anniversary of the Democratic Rrform in Tibet

TheDemocraticReformconductedinTibetin1959startedwithsuppressionoftherebellionlaunchedbyreactionariesintheuppersocialstratainTibettostoptheDemocraticReformandsplitthemotherland.AsearlyasJuly1957,therewerePeoplewhoheldgrandritualsinthePotalaPalacetoacceptareportdeliveredbythereactionaryfourriversandsixmountainrangesmovementwhichdemandedthe14thDalaiLamaexerciseruleoverallTibetanareasinChina.Rightafterthat,ringleadersofthemovementgatheredinZhegutang,Shannan,organizingrebeltroopscalledther…