Liberating sex, knowing desire: "scientia sexualis" and epistemic turning points in the history of sexuality

This study considers the role of epistemic turning points in the historiography of sexuality. Disentangling the historical complexity of "scientia sexualis," I argue that the late 19th century and the mid-20th century constitute two critical epistemic junctures in the genealogy of sexual liberation, as the notion of free love slowly gave way to the idea of sexual freedom in modern western society. I also explore the value of the Foucauldian approach for the study of the history of sexuality in non-western contexts. Drawing on examples from Republican China (1912-49), I propose that the Foucauldian insight concerning the emergence of a "homosexual identity" in the West can serve as a useful guide for thinking about similar issues in the history of sexuality and the historical epistemology of sexology in modern East Asia.     

“Northern Girls”: Cultural Politics of Agency and South China’s Migrant Literature

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with the cultural politics of agency, and explores the relationship between cultural form, migrant experience and social change. It traces the emergence of a range of literary forms in south China and how these new cultural forms provide hitherto unavailable space to contest the state- and market-driven narratives, which tend to link dagongmei’s (rural migrant women’s) sexuality with inexperience and vulnerability on the one hand, and criminality, immorality and incivility on the other. The paper suggests that these newly emerging cultural forms present alternative perspectives on the practical circumstances, moral rationalities and emotional consequences that condition and shape migrant women’s sexual experience, and for this reason, they constitute important points of intervention.     

In praise of counter-conduct

Without access to Michel Foucault's courses, it was extremely difficult to understand his reorientation from an analysis of the strategies and tactics of power immanent in the modern discourse on sexuality (1976) to an analysis of the ancient forms and modalities of relation to oneself by which one constituted oneself as a moral subject of sexual conduct (1984). In short, Foucault's passage from the political to the ethical dimension of sexuality seemed sudden and inexplicable. Moreover, it was clear from his published essays and interviews that this displacement of focus had consequences far beyond the specific domain of the history of sexuality. "Security, Territory, Population" (Foucault, 2007) contains a conceptual hinge, a key concept, that allows us to link together the political and ethical axes of Foucault's thought. Indeed, it is Foucault's analysis of the notions of conduct and counter-conduct in his lecture of 1 March 1978 that seems to me to constitute one of the richest and most brilliant moments in the entire course. Is is astonishing, and of profound significance, that the autonomous sphere of conduct has been more or less invisible in the history of modern (as opposed to ancient) moral and political philosophy. This article argues that a new attention should be given to this notion, both in Foucault's work and more generally.     

The New Washington Consensus: Millennial Philanthropy and the Making of Global Market Subjects

This paper outlines the emergence of a New Washington Consensus associated with leading philanthropies of the new millennium. This emergent development paradigm by no means represents a historic break with the market rationalities of neoliberalism, nor does it represent a radical departure from older models of early 20th century philanthropy. Rather, it is new in its global ambition to foster resilient market subjects for a globalized world; and new in its employment of micro‐market transformations to compensate for macro‐market failures. Focusing on reforms pioneered by the new philanthropic partnerships in education and global health, the paper indicates how the targets of intervention are identified as communities that have been failed by both governments and markets. The resulting interventions are commonly justified in terms of “return on investment”. But the problems they target keep returning because the underlying causes of failure are left unaddressed.     

Transformation of forest policy regimes in Finland since the 19th century

In this paper, interpretations of sustainable forestry are investigated against the historical background of transformations in the industrial utilisation of forests. Three distinct forest policy regimes in Finland since the 19th century are identified. First, the introduction of the German forestry model, with the central notion of sustained yield, and the establishment of the Finnish Forest Service took place simultaneously in the latter half of the 19th century. These actions aimed at changing patterns of local forest use considered detrimental to long-term forest utilisation. Second, a national forest sector was established during the 20th century. Industrial forestry was seen as a guarantee of economic independence for the new nation-state. Third, during a recent phase the influence of non-governmental organisations and international forest industry companies has increased, and traditional power relations have changed as issues such as biodiversity, forest certification and global investments have been introduced to the debates. It is concluded that the recent transformations in forest management should be read as transformations in industrial forestry rather than as abandonment of industrial forest use models; the legacy of the 19th century German forest science still prevails in forest management.     

CUERDA SECA CERAMICS FROM AL‐ANDALUS,ISLAMIC SPAIN AND PORTUGAL (10TH−12TH CENTURIES AD): INVESTIGATION WITH SEM–EDX AND CATHODOLUMINESCENCE*

Since little is known about the cuerda seca technique, our aim has been to complete an initial analysis of 11th‐century cuerda seca by studying fragments from the 10th century (Pechina, Almería) and the 12th century (Mértola and Almería), so as to establish the diachronic evolution of this technique. Characteristics specific to cuerda seca ceramic glazes were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and quantitative chemical analysis with energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectrometry (EDX). The chemical compositions of the different‐coloured glazes (green, black, yellow and white) have given us valuable indications about the evolution of the technique. The opacification mode and the firing process were also investigated. With the help of cathodoluminescence (CL) and the study of modern ‘cuerda seca’ glazed ceramics, new hypotheses regarding the number of firing stages, taking into account glaze and paste transformations and their interactions, are put forward.     

Multilingual literacy at the Lusignan court: the Cypriot royal chancery and its Byzantine heritage

Abstract

An important aspect of the social and administrative transformations resulting from the establishment of Western feudal lordships and colonial regimes in Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean was the emergence of a multilingual literacy in the contact zones between foreign elites and the native population. This article examines these phenomena with respect to the royal chancery of the Lusignan kingdom of Cyprus from the late twelfth until the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is argued that the Frankish ruling class of the island opted for a parallel use of Latin and Byzantine chancery practices without fusing them into hybrid mixtures. The Lusignan lords adopted Byzantine titles, symbols of authority and modes of expression for legal transactions with Greek subjects and the local tax system. Another area in which the heritage of the imperial chancery helped express new forms of hegemonial self-representation was the kingdom's diplomatic relations with non-Frankish rulers.     

Processional walking: Theorising the ‘place’ of movement in notions of dwelling

This article rethinks dwelling as an active and emergent process through which (re)connections to place are valorised by humans collectively walking with each other in a recursive manner. We revisit Heidegger's notion of dwelling, often criticised for perpetuating enclosure and stasis, by revealing the interconnections between dwelling and movement. Drawing on a two‐century old religious procession—the Manchester and Salford Whit Walks—as an empirical example, our interpretive analysis is centred around three themes. First, we demonstrate how dwelling becomes embodied in performative and collective movement. Second, we examine how dwelling in this context is reinforced through repetition and iteration of that movement. Third, we show how such movement is reliant on repair and maintenance work, which facilitates the (re)emergence of dwelling. We contribute, therefore, empirical insights into how dwelling emerges from a movement through place which, in turn, cements a being in place. Finally, this article has important implications for thinking about how the movement of citizens through processional forms of walking can be a powerful tool for underpinning feelings of dwelling and related concepts of sense of place and civic pride.     

The "Metaphor of Life": Herder's Philosophy of History and Uneven Developments in Late Eighteenth-Century Natural Sciences

The origins of the evolutionary concept of history have normally been associated with the development of an organicist notion of society. The meaning of this notion, in turn, has been assumed as something perfectly established and clear, almost self-evident. This assumption has prevented any close scrutiny of it. As this article tries to show, the idea of "organism" that underlies the emergence of the evolutionary concept of history, far from being "self-evident," has an intricate history and underwent a number of radical and successive redefinitions from the mid-eighteenth century up to approximately 1830 (the heyday of Romanticism and the period in which the first modern "philosophies of history" took form). More specifically, this paper traces some of these transformations in order to contextualize and shed some new light on Herder's philosophy of history and the complex process of its inception—a process that was not concluded by the end of his intellectual career. As the article shows, Herder did not actually succeed in solving some key problems involved in an evolutionary concept of history. The difficulties he found were analogous to those that emerged at that very moment in the development of a dynamic, onto-genetical theory (that is, a theory of the embryo's transformation), and both were ultimately linked to the combination of some uneven developments produced in the natural sciences of that time. Herder's philosophy of history thus appears as a paradoxical (and highly unusual, seen from a epistemological point of view) case of a system of thought that formulates problems which it is still radically unable to solve, lacking the tools to devise a possible solution for them.     

Contemporary ‘Folk’ Dynamics: Shifting Visions and Meanings in the Goalpariya Folk Music of Assam

Abstract

Goalpariya music is a genre of folk music sung primarily by women. Common among the rural labouring classes, the songs deal with women’s desires, emotions, sensuality, and longings. Since the 1950s, major transformations have emerged within the performative space of the folk tradition, especially with the coming of Pratima Barua Pandey into this field. From an original mundane setting, Goalpariya music has now moved to an international musical performance context. This article explores this transition of the music from the ‘common folk’ to a ‘respectable’ platform. The article analyses how folk traditions may undergo a range of shifts to adapt to various social, economic, and cultural forces. Paradoxically, these transformations also lead to the emergence of a politics of authenticity, leading to a questioning of the concepts of tradition, authenticity, and cultural purity. The findings of this study are the outcome of fieldwork conducted in Gauripur and Guwahati in Assam, India.     

Towards a European spatial planning policy: Theoretical dilemmas and institutional implications

This article examines the emergence, the present configuration and the perspectives of a spatial planning policy at a European level in the light of the institutional and economic properties embodied in the nature of the European integration process. First, it recapitulates the main historical steps through which the idea of a European view about spatial questions has been developed as a combined result of cohesion and solidarity objectives and liberal market constraints. On the basis of these complementary and competitive principles, the article explores the conceptual identity of the emerging policy and discusses especially the reorientations of the spatial justice concept under a market integration paradigm. Finally, it presents the fundamental traits for the institutional design of the new policy, which lead to the reshaping of the traditional hierarchical, substantialist and normative profile of welfare spatial intervention towards an horizontal, procedural and pluralist model of collective spatial coordination. The article comes to the conclusion that the conceptual and institutional innovations to which the emergence of a European spatial planning policy is submitted constitute a part of a more general rearrangement in the legitimation basis of public policies in a post‐national and post‐welfare Europe. Recognition of these transformations could be seen both as a search for new forms of governance beyond the state and as a chance for rethinking traditional concepts of social theory in a time of change.     

Three Twentieth-Century Multiauthored Neurological Handbooks – A Historical Analysis and Bibliometric Comparison

The emergence of neurology as a separate specialty from internal medicine and psychiatry took several decades, starting at the end of the nineteenth century. This can be adequately reconstructed by focusing on the establishment of specialized journals, societies, university chairs, the invention and application of specific instruments, medical practices, and certainly also the publication of pivotal textbooks in the field. Particularly around 1900, the German-speaking countries played an integral role in this process. In this article, one aspect is extensively explored, notably the publication (in the twentieth century) of three comprehensive and influential multivolume and multiauthor handbooks entirely devoted to neurology. All available volumes of Max Lewandowsky's Handbuch der Neurologie (1910–1914) and the Handbuch der Neurologie (1935–1937) of Oswald Bumke and Otfrid Foerster were analyzed. The handbooks were then compared with Pierre Vinken's and George Bruyn's Handbook of Clinical Neurology (1968–2002).

Over the span of nearly a century these publications became ever more comprehensive and developed into a global, encompassing project as is reflected in the increasing number of foreign authors. Whereas the first two handbooks were published mainly in German, “Vinken & Bruyn” was eventually published entirely in English, indicating the general changes in the scientific language of neurology after World War II. Distinctions include the uniformity of the series, manner of editorial involvement, thematic comprehensiveness, inclusion of volume editors in “Vinken & Bruyn,” and the provision of index volumes. The increasing use of authorities in various neurological subspecialties is an important factor by which these handbooks contrast with many compact neurological textbooks that were available at the time.

For historiographical purposes, the three neurological handbooks considered here were important sources for the general study of the history of medicine and science and the history of neurology in particular. Moreover, they served as important catalyzers of the emergence of neurology as a new clinical specialty during the first decades of the twentieth century.     

International Harvester,the U.S. South,and the makings of international development in the early 20th century

This article draws on insights into the making of an American empire and the formative nature of the early 20th century in order to interrogate the international imaginations and national practices of International Harvester Corporation, one of the United States' largest international corporations. Based on archival research, it documents how International Harvester imagined its new international markets as the inevitable extension of their national expansion, and the transformations that their products would bring to their new consumers similar to the transformations that those products were bringing to farmers living in the United States, particularly African-Americans in the American South. In addition, this article explores how International Harvester's interventions in the American South deployed tactics of governance that contributed to what became a dominant set of practices of postwar international development, in particular, the problematizing of a space/region, and the rendering of its solution as a technical one. This case study suggests that some of the practices that characterize American international development have their roots in the early 20th century, particularly in the American South.     

Stable isotopes as indicators of change in the food procurement and food preference of Viking Age and Early Christian populations on Gotland (Sweden)

Archaeological samples of human and faunal remains dating from the Viking (9–11th century AD) and Early Christian (11–12th century AD) periods of Gotland, Sweden were assayed through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis in order to investigate whether changes in subsistence occurred between these periods, particularly regarding the importance of seafood. The study was concerned with how the dietary regime of the Baltic trading port and farming settlement at Ridanäs, Gotland was affected by the widespread environmental and sociocultural transformations that characterized the end of the Viking Age. More generally, the research considers how changes in both food procurement and preference may account for observed differences in the dietary regimes of individuals from the Viking Age and the Early Christian period.     

The Eighth Argument. Identity,Ethnicity and Political Culture in Sixteenth-Century Scandinavia

What was a Swede in the 16th century? How did people identify themselves and others, and what political role did collective identities play before the coming of modern nationalism? One would perhaps expect that there exist many works proposing answers to such questions. Within the humanities, there has been a steadily increasing interest in culture and identities in the last few decades. Nevertheless, few have asked such questions. When dealing with medieval and early modern Europe, historians have put the questions rather in this way: Was the Swede of the 16th century Swedish in the modern sense? Did nations and/or nationalism exist before the end of the 18th century? The discussion of medieval and early modern identities has been severely limited by "the nationalicistic trap". Identities before the late 18th century have been studied in order to look for the roots of modern national identity, to find out where nations originate, or to argue that nationalism is a purely modern phenomenon. I intend to fall into that trap myself later in this article, discussing why nationalism and national identity are less fitting concepts when dealing with the 16th century. But basically, I seek to uncover and conceptualize the identities of the time in their own right.     

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。     

Placing Sanctuaries in Their Socio‐Political Landscapes: A Diachronic Approach to the Late Iron Age Communities in South‐East Iberia (Fourth–Second Centuries BC)

This paper explores the relationship between the historical dynamics and the transformations observed in pre‐Roman cult places in eastern Iberia between the fourth and second centuries BC. These are analysed through a case study: the sanctuary of La Luz (Murcia), located in the Segura Valley, in south‐east Iberia. Three main religious changes are discussed from this perspective: the development of the sanctuary in the fourth century BC, the changes observed in its archaeological record in the third century BC, and finally its destruction in the second century BC. These offer a diachronic view of the transformations, and illustrate the different levels at which they were expressed, from the archaeological record to the landscape. The work aims to provide a different perspective from previous studies in this area and a new view of the cult places in south‐east Iberia within their socio‐political landscape and the Mediterranean historical context.     

Electrical instruments in 19th century France,between makers and users

Abstract

Having quickly described new historiographical approaches to scientific instruments, this paper explores some characteristics of the evolution of the relationship between scientific instrument makers and French physicists in the 19th century. Artisans without a scientific culture at the dawn of the century, a certain number of instrument makers were integrated into the scientific community by its end, sharing their practices and their values. These builders served as mediators between different physicists, between physicists and members of other disciplines like physiology and, finally, between savants and the world of technology (telegraphy and then industrial electricity). Symmetrically, a significant number of French physicists left mathematical physics for a physics based on instruments and their development. The emergence, extension, and eventual disappearance of the different contexts of use of an instrument (amateurs, public performances, teaching, research, medicine, telegraphy, industry, etc) illustrate both the boundary crossings between these different domains and the major role that use played in successive reconfigurations of instruments.     

中朝日近代世界秩序观的形成与外交取向比较研究

19世纪中后期,西力东侵,维系原来中国、朝鲜和日本三国关系的条件发生了变化,东亚地区三个古老的国家开始相继实现对外开放的历史进程。三国在向近代外交迈进的过程中表现出不同的姿态。中朝两国的统治者都不能以对世界变局的正确认识以及健康的心态迎接来自西方的挑战,融入新的国际秩序。只有日本在新的形势面前适时摒弃传统的世界观,以近代世界观看待东亚秩序问题,进而建立一个以日本为中心的东亚新秩序。三国在19世纪中后期不同的外交取向,与其是否能够与时俱进,形成近代世界秩序观有着直接的关系。     

Des Professionnels de la Chaire dans la France de L’?ge Classique

Starting in the 1630s, in French towns, the rise of sermons gave an increasing group of clerics the possibility to become preachers. This article analyses this process of professionalization. First, it takes a look at a number of long - and sometimes quite profitable - careers of men as preachers. Second, it analyzes the know-how that was then developed for to make and recite the sermon. Finally, the article focuses on the transformations brought about by the increasing importance of written communication during the 18(th) century.