GERMANY IN TIMES OF CRISIS: PASSIVE REVOLUTION,STRUGGLE OVER HEGEMONY AND NEW NATIONALISM

Germany appears as the case in point of a country that is getting through the current crisis rather well. Central to this “success” is the passive revolution that the country has undergone in the 2000s during which a state‐led restructuring of the regime of accumulation has resulted in the creation of a new stratum of working poor and an overall lowering of wages. Following a discussion of this passive revolution and the resulting mass impoverishment, this article explores the struggle over cultural hegemony, which has surfaced in various controversies since the beginning of the current economic crisis in 2007. I argue that there is a passive consensus concerning “poverty” – which is unpopular, but regarded as inevitable – that is outweighed by an active consent concerning “Germany” – an immensely popular notion. In Germany, a new nationalism that blends classism and racism in the service of the economic competitiveness of the nation is argued to be at the core of cultural hegemony in these times of crisis.     

SCARCITY AND AGRICULTURAL LAND RENT IN LIGHT OF THE CAPITAL CONTROVERSY: THREE VIEWS*

This paper examines the different theories of agricultural land rent proposed by the neoclassical, Marxist, and neo-Ricardian schools of economic thought. In so doing the paper undertakes two tasks: first, to explore the different definitions of scarcity that emerge from each school; and secondly to check the consistency between the view of scarcity and the analytical theory of rent that each school proposes. It is concluded that for each of the schools there is an inconsistency between their respective view of scarcity and the corresponding theory of rent, although the reasons for that inconsistency vary. It is further argued that although this inconsistency cannot be resolved for the case of neoclassical economics, there is some prospect of resolution for Marxist and neo-Ricardian theories.     

IN SEARCH OF NEW TIMES: TEMPORALITY IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND COUNTER‐ENLIGHTENMENT

Isaiah Berlin and other representatives of historicism have made the Enlightenment and the Counter‐Enlightenment into opposite cultures. The Counter‐Enlightenment is a criticism of the Enlightenment from within, so in many respects they overlap. However, with regard to perceptions of time they contradict each other. The times of the Enlightenment lean heavily toward chronology and can be labeled as “empty,” whereas the time perceptions of the Counter‐Enlightenment can be called “incarnated” and are identical with historical times. As a consequence the differences between the two temporalities lead necessarily to differences in synchronization.     

A TURNING POINT IN THEORY OF HISTORY: THE PLACE OF HAYDEN WHITE IN THE HISTORY OF METAHISTORY

This article intends to place Hayden White's reflection on the basic principles of meaning-construction in history into the historical context of modern historical studies. It first presents the self-understanding of professional historians in which they emphasize the academic (wissenschaftlichen) character of the discipline. In this way of reflection, the traditional (premodern) interpretation of history as a part of rhetoric was pushed back and replaced by methodological argumentation about the rules of research (with an emphasis on source critique). Historiography, or the presentation of the results of research in a narrative form, was not completely neglected, but was not widely recognized. After the analytical insight into the narrative form of historical knowledge, significant discussion of the principles of historical thinking dramatically changed from the issue of research to that of representation (historiography). Hayden White's Metahistory (1973) marked this change paradigmatically. It turned the shift from rhetoric to science in its contrary direction: a new turn to rhetoric was proclaimed. This new anti-turn set off a hitherto unanswered question as to how research methodology should be treated. Source critique was not refuted but did not attract significant attention. The research procedure of interpretation, in contrast, was met by a new understanding and interest: it was identified as representation by the linguistic procedures of meaning-construction. Its role as a part of historical method, however, was completely ignored. The article ends with a still unresolved problem of metahistory, namely the relationship between interpretation and representation. They are not identical, but are closely related. Their synthesis and their differences have to be systematically inquired into and reflected upon if metahistory is to step forward and engage in this task. Then the merits of White's return to rhetoric will be appreciated as well as its one-sidedness criticized, before a further step is taken.     

THE TEETH OF TIME: PIERRE HADOT ON MEANING AND MISUNDERSTANDING IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS1

The French philosopher and intellectual historian Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) is known primarily for his conception of philosophy as spiritual exercise, which was an essential reference for the later Foucault. An aspect of his work that has received less attention is a set of methodological reflections on intellectual history and on the relationship between philosophy and history. Hadot was trained initially as a philosopher and was interested in existentialism as well as in the convergence between philosophy and poetry. Yet he chose to become a historian of philosophy and produced extensive philological work on neo‐Platonism and ancient philosophy in general. He found a philosophical rationale for this shift in his encounter with Wittgenstein's philosophy in the mid‐1950s (Hadot was one of Wittgenstein's earliest French readers and interpreters). For Hadot, ancient philosophy must be understood as a series of language games, and each language game must be situated within the concrete conditions in which it happened. The reference to Wittgenstein therefore supports a strongly contextualist and historicist stance. It also supports its exact opposite: presentist appropriations of ancient texts are entirely legitimate, and they are the only way ancient philosophy can be existentially meaningful to us. Hadot addresses the contradiction by embracing it fully and claiming that his own practice aims at a coincidence of opposites (a concept borrowed from the Heraclitean tradition). For Hadot the fullest and truest way of doing philosophy is to be a philosopher and a historian at the same time.     

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF MODERN TIMES: DIFFERENT CONCEPTS OF TIME AND THE MODERNIST PERSPECTIVE

Given World and Time is a collection of essays that summarizes much of the recent work on the theory of time, including cultural, political, and social conceptualizations of temporality. The grounding narrative of this collection, roughly stated, leads from the German and German‐Jewish ideas of a temporality of crisis developed in the 1920s, to the French poststructuralism of the 1960s and 1970s, and concludes with the American syntheses of the 1980s and 1990s. Methodologically, the book weaves together different historical narratives with a new emphasis on their temporal dimension, all seen from the perspective of critical theory and recent cultural critique. However, it is interesting to point out that the majority of the articles do not challenge the classic critical tools of modernism, in spite of the frequent reference to poststructuralist critique. The volume editor has also not acknowledged more recent work that treats similar topics and themes through the application of a radical political critique, most significantly the work associated with biopolitics and the so‐called theological turn.     

1. INTRODUCTION: MULTIPLE TIMES AND THE WORK OF SYNCHRONIZATION

In this essay, which introduces the History and Theory forum on Multiple Temporalities, I want to discuss how the existence of a plurality or a multiplicity of times has been conceptualized in the historiographical tradition, partly by entering into a dialogue with recent writers, historians, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and literary scholars, partly by returning to the eighteenth century, to the origin of “the modern regime of historicity” (Hartog). In these theoretical and historical investigations I aim to do two things: on the one hand, to explore and discuss different ways of conceptualizing multiple times, in terms of nonsynchronicities, layers of time, or natural and historical times; on the other hand, to trace how these multiple times have been compared, unified, and adapted by means of elaborate conceptual and material practices that I here call “practices of synchronization.” From the eighteenth century onward, these synchronizing practices, inspired by, but by no means reducible to, chronology have given rise to homogeneous, linear, and teleological time, often identified as modern time per se, or simply referred to as “progress.” In focusing on the practices of synchronization, however, I want to show how this regime of temporality during its entire existence, but especially at the moment of its emergence in the eighteenth century and at the present moment of its possible collapse, has been challenged by other times, other temporalities, slower, faster, with other rhythms, other successions of events, other narratives, and so on.     

旅游跨文化学习中的主客互动——阳朔太极拳的教与学

中国传统文化的传播对于实现文化自信具有重要意义。本文关注了近年火热的“外国人赴阳朔学太极”现象，综合运用非参与式观察法、深度访谈法与文本分析法，以“身体符号”的意义变迁为研究脉络，探讨“外国人学太极”这一跨文化情境下的主客互动活动，分析外国人赴阳朔学太极的动因、互动过程与内在机制。研究发现：从互动媒介来看，身体作为符号在跨文化情境中发挥着重要的媒介作用，身体符号的意义也在跨文化互动中逐渐深化；从互动过程来看，不同主体的角色和观念以身体符号为媒介在跨文化互动中实现交互协商，由此加深主体对于自我的认知。人与人之间的学习型紧密联结强化了人与地方之间的关系。     

THE ALLURE OF DARK TIMES: MAX WEBER,POLITICS, AND THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM

This article argues that realist invocations of Weber rely on an unrealistic reading of Weber's realism. In order to escape the allure of Weber's dramatic posture of crisis, we place his seminal lecture on “Politics as a Vocation” (1919) in its historical and philosophical context of a revolutionary conjuncture of dramatic proportions, compounded by a broader crisis of historicism. Weber's rhetoric, we argue, carries with it not only the emotion of crisis but is also the expression of a deeper intellectual impasse. The fatalistic despair of his position had already been detected by some of his closest contemporaries for whom Weber did not appear as a door‐opener to a historically situated theory of political action but as a telling and intriguing impasse. Although the disastrous history of interwar Europe seems to confirm Weber's bleakest predictions, it would be perverse to elevate contingent failure to the level of retrospective vindication.     

THOMAS WATSON,PEASANT-POET: THE READING,WRITING AND RELIGION OF A CUMBRIAN DRY-STONE WALLER

Abstract

This article describes and elucidates the making of Manchester Chartism, with special reference to the Reform Crisis of 1830–32 and its role in highlighting and confirming divisions within and between groups of radicals. For all the importance of personalities, ideas, organisations and national as well as local reform issues, the history of Chartism in Manchester was shaped above all by the town's political configuration. Political and class identities became stronger in 1830–32. This, and subsequent differences of opinion on key questions, ensured that no inclusive reform alliance was possible in Manchester. After examining the Reform Crisis of 1830–32, tracing the separation of middle-class from working-class activists and exploring the internal schisms within plebeian and respectable middle-class campaigns, this article shows how the polarisation of the early 1830s continued into the Chartist period. Problems of contact, communication and sympathy between the different groups were never overcome, and Manchester Chartism would itself experience fragmentation and resistance, just as earlier popular mobilisations in the town had been divided and opposed.     

近十五年来真实性在国内外旅游中的研究对比

旅游界对真实性研究了四十多年,尚无统一的定论。近十五年是国内外真实性研究的大发展时期,更是填补了国内真实性研究的空白。本文主要着眼于近十五年来真实性在国内外的研究,分别从理论研究、真实性与旅游保护开发、真实性与旅游经营管理、真实性与旅游发展等几个方面进行对比,总结出国内对真实性研究与国外研究的差距,得到我国未来对真实性研究的方向和启示。     

LEAD ISOTOPE AND TRACE ELEMENT ANALYSIS IN THE STUDY OF OVER A HUNDRED SOUTH INDIAN METAL ICONS*

Technical investigations were made on 130 South Indian statuary images and a few miscellaneous artefacts mostly sampled from the Government Museum, Madras, India, and from the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, UK. Lead isotope investigations were attempted on 60 of these, and compositional analysis for 18 elements on 115, using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy; thus, for 40 objects both lead isotope and trace element analysis was done. From the isotopic and elemental framework, insights are obtained into some art-historical problems of images and artefacts of the Pre-Pallava, Pallava, Chola (i.e., Vijayalaya Chola), Later Chola (i.e., Chalukya-Chola and Later Pandya), Vijayanagara (and Early Nayaka) and Later Nayaka (and Maratha) dynasties, spanning the Early Christian era to the nineteenth century, along with a few other regional styles. Inferences are also made regarding provenance of the lead and the early use of zinc and brass in the early historic period (c. fourth century BC—fourth century AD).     

中国旅游业、旅游学和旅游规划的30年述评

改革开放30年是中国旅游业、旅游学和旅游规划发展的关键时期。无论是旅游业的转型升级,还是旅游学理论的自主创新,或者是旅游规划的演进更替,都取得了十分可喜的成绩。这其中,一些关键事件对我国旅游业、旅游学和旅游规划的发展起到了至关重要的作用。认识和分析这些重要事件,反思其在改革开放30年中的发展进程,对我国实施旅游强国战略具有重要的现实意义。