America’s ‘Religion of Civility’ and the Calvinization of the World

This article examines the importance of Calvinism in producing the public/political “mind-set” of the United States, and how, after the Second World War, the export of this mind-set was as significant as the export of democracy, rock-’n’-roll, jeans, and Coca-Cola. It discusses the historical legacy and evolution of Calvinism from a civil religion to a religion of civility, and how the form and manner of Calvinist thinking—more specifically its ethic and aesthetic—has persisted in a secular manner so that much that Calvin would have found damnable is now intrinsic to the “religion of civility.” It then concludes that the central principles and practices of this religion of civility have had success within nations already “Christianized” but, perhaps understandably, not outside of that sphere.     

Evolution of the Concept of ‘Extracellular Matrix’ in the Brain

The question as to whether an extracellular matrix exists between cells in the adult brain has been debated since the end of the last century. In the early years, zones containing neuropil and glial processes were mistakenly believed to represent this substance. But Golgi's discovery of the “perineuronal net” paved the way for future study of the true extracellular matrix. In the 1950s, application of histochemical techniques established the existence of interstitial material between nerve cells. Unfortunately the similarity between the pericellular distribution of this material and Golgi's “pericellular nets” was overlooked. The detection of an extracellular volume fraction in the central nervous system furnished further indirect proof for the existence of an extracellular matrix in the brain. However, the repeated failure of electron microscopy to reveal a substantial space between cell processes undermined the acceptance of the concept of “extracellular matrix” in the central nervous system. Nowadays this concept has, however, been firmly established.     

The Eighteenth-Century ‘Restoration’ of the West Portals of Saint-Denis and the Problem of the Lintels

Abstract

The west portals of Saint-Denis are believed to have incorporated lintels which would have been engaged with the doorposts below impost level. The lintels are presumed to have been removed in 1771 when various damaging work was carried out on the doorways. Irregularities in the upper courses of the doorposts appear to confirm this theory and many scholars have speculated upon the form of the lost lintels. It can be demonstrated, however, that the narrow nineteenth-century lintels in situ above impost level follow the original twelfth-century design: substantial lintels were at no time engaged with the doorposts. The disorder of the upper doorposts can nevertheless be attributed to the 1771 campaign. At that time the doorposts were dismantled and reassembled carelessly, without leaving enough room for the reinsertion of the upper courses: those of the central portal were merely trimmed while those of the lateral portals were replaced.     

Anton Dumitriu,the ‘Axiomatic Culture’ and the ‘Crisis of the West’

Anton Dumitriu (1905–92) was a Romanian philosopher and logician who attempted to develop the more or less consistent theory of an ‘axiomatic’ tradition, referring to culture and civilisation in the ‘East’ (defined actually as Far East) vs. the ‘West’ (mainly Europe, both Western and East-Central) especially in the inter-war and post-war periods. Dumitriu's essays on Romanian culture or on Eastern vs. Western culture as published in his book Eleatic and Heraclitic Cultures (1987) will make the object of this study. This work is a revised version of his East and West (1943). It should be noted that most of the material discussed here is actually still available only in Romanian since Dumitriu's work on Logic is already translated into English, but his musings on culture and civilisation are available only in Romanian and are, consequently, almost unknown outside the country. This study attempts to make up for that and also to connect Dumitriu's views on culture and civilisation or East and West both to earlier Romanian views and currents in defining culture as well as to contemporary general European trends, while also taking into account the context of the Communist regime in which the second edition of his book was issued.     

Some Notes on the History of the Cardinals’ Rings

Missionary activity in the eighth century was carried out in the eastern frontier zone of the Frankish kingdom—Frisia, Hessen, Franconia, Thuringia, Bavaria. The ecclesiastical centres in Hessen, St Boniface's base area, tended to be elevated sites in strategic positions, already enclosed and in the gift of the Frankish ruling house. The re-use of fortified sites for monastic foundations echoes, and may derive from, similar use in Britain and Ireland of Roman military sites and prehistoric hill-forts. The west end of churches directly associated with St Boniface received special treatment, in one case at least as a result of influence from St Peter's, Rome.

The substance of this paper was delivered to the Institute at its meeting on 15 October 1980.     

The Idea of the Social Contract in the History of ‘Agreementism’

One of the recurrent motifs in political thought is the idea of the social contract, according to which a society, a government, or moral principles depend for their existence on agreements between voluntary agents. This association between the social contract and “agreementism” implies that there is nothing about the terminology of contracts that distinguishes it from that of other types of agreements constitutive of normativity. This essay tests this assumption by surveying the terminology of the social contract and by proposing two hypotheses. The first is that all attempts at analysing the idea of the social contract require a formal conceptual frame of reference that is distinguishable from agreementism. The second is that social contract theories can be grouped into four trends, even if the authors of each of these trends are unable to form a coherent body of doctrine. These trends are the Iberian Catholic version of the Counter-Reformation; the Protestant individualist trend of the Enlightenment; the quasi-dialectical trend of the radical Enlightenment; and the contemporary trend of public morality.     

A Reevaluation of the Kesil’s Image in the Book of Qohelet

Abstract

During the early stages of its evolution, the book of Kings was a history narrative uninfluenced by Deuteronomy. Later, as the scroll ceased to express an interpretation of the past—that is to say, ceased to be a history narrative—it began to reflect a literary dialogue with Deuteronomy. At no point in time was Kings both Deuteronomistic and a history, and it was not, therefore, a component of Martin Noth’s hypothetical Deuteronomistic History. Rather, the pre-canonical scroll is best defined as an anthology, or “reader,” of fanciful stories about fallible nebi’im (prophets and kings) who find themselves in relationship with a fallible patron god. Ironically, because Kings was preserved as sacred literature, its god has been reconceptualized, against the plain sense of the text, as a reliable, just, and compassionate patron god.     

On the Use of the Term ‘Non-Anglo Archaeologists’

Many universities in India teach in both English and Hindi to separate classes—the students have an option to choose their language of instruction. Thus the claim of non-Anglo archaeologists as being co-opted raises the double question of being co-opted by whom and for what purpose? If it is the case that there are co-opted third and fourth world archaeologists, then who is to blame and how may this situation be rectified. I feel every-one has the answer to this question and nothing more needs be said about it. My sympathies rest with the co-opted.     

On the ‘arcane modern science of Kremlinology’ or the case of the vanishing birthdays

This article focuses on Stalin’s 70th birthday celebration, 22 December 1949, in order to examine what Americans knew of the Soviet Union, how they knew it and what sense they made. I explore the plight of the American correspondent in late-Stalinist Moscow, the limits to Americans’ knowledge of the Soviet Union and the origins of Kremlinological practices. In the last five years of Josef Stalin’s reign, amid the last flurry of his palace purges, from 1948 until the Generalissimo’s death on 5 March 1953, the Soviet Union all-but closed to western observation. It was a factor vital to the erection of the Iron Curtain and beginning of the Cold War that has yet to become central to its scholarship     

Integration and the negotiation of ‘here’ and ‘there’: the case of British Arab activists

Immigrant-receiving societies are increasingly emphasizing the need for immigrants to integrate into mainstream life. In Britain, this trend has manifested itself in ‘social cohesion’ discourses and policies. Discussions about social cohesion have often focused on the residential patterns of immigrant and minority groups in British cities, with the assumption that residential patterns are an indication of social integration. Integration, however, is also a socio-political process by which dominant and subordinate groups negotiate the terms of social membership. We explore the ways in which British Arab activists conceptualize their membership in and responsibilities to their places of settlement; we also consider how they reconcile notions of integration with their connections to their places of origin. Our study participants speak of the need for immigrants to participate actively in their society of settlement, but they reject the idea that integration requires cultural conformity or exclusive loyalty to Britain. Their definition of integration as a dialogue between distinctive but equal groups sharing a given place provides a normative alternative to social cohesion discourses.     

Pachymeres on the ‘Amourioi’ of Kastamonu

Abstract

In a recent article Professor Cl. Cahen pointed out various problems resulting from the history of the region of Kastamonu, which on account of its remoteness from the political centres attracted little attention from the chroniclers. One of the problems is the incompatibility of the narratives of the oriental sources and the writings of the Byzantine historian George Pachymeres with respect to some events of the reign of the Seljuk Sultan Masud II: Pachymeres while referring to the history of Kastamonu produces a certain Ali Amourios, his brother Nasir ed-din <inline-graphic href="splitsection4_in1.tif"/>—a person of lesser importance—and their father, whom he also names Amourios. The same Amourios and his sons are also mentioned by Nikephoros Gregoras, who, however, passes over in silence the sons' names.     

Contesting the ‘greening’ of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon

The 21st century has witnessed a resurgence of hydropower projects across the globe, with the energy source an integral part of contemporary sustainable energy transitions. Yet, the environmentalist credentials of hydropower remain contested by anti-dam movements. This paper details the cases of the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós dams in the Brazilian Amazon to explore how the development, submission and acceptance of an Environmental Impact Assessment provides a key site in the contestation of hydroelectric projects. Whilst the provision of this document – and the wider environmental licensing process – represents a key component in the asserted ‘green-ness’ of hydropower, opposition groups extend the scope of analysis to include indirect and cumulative impacts that remain understudied in official assessments. This paper analyses interviews and questionnaires with and documents provided by national and international civil society organisations to trace this process of challenge and critique. It details how civil society actors forward alternative assessments of the impacts of the projects studied, uncovering and illuminating overlooked and understudied externalities of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon. An analysis of this process not only demonstrates that the ‘green’ credentials of hydropower remain far from assured but also highlights how anti-dam actors advance new ‘sustainabilities’ to discredit the terrain upon which such credentials are set.     

‘Unlocking the cage door’: the spatiality of counselling

This paper examines the spatiality of counselling, focusing on ideas about positions, boundaries and spaces emerging from practitioners' accounts. Counsellors describe counselling as a practice within which the relative positions of self and other are explored and negotiated. To that end, counsellors adopt a contradictory position in relation to expertise, claiming to be experts in not being experts. Counselling transgresses bureaucratic boundaries between different forms of care, and normative boundaries of secrecy. In their place, counselling works with spatio-temporal, confidentiality and ethical boundaries, which are simultaneously concrete and specific, fluid and illusory. These boundaries create spaces within which the interplay of reality and fantasy can be explored. These spaces can be understood in terms of processes of exteriorizing the inner worlds of clients and interiorizing external spaces including those made available by counsellors and counselling services. The spatiality of care associated with counselling strategically invokes binary distinctions, for example, between reality and fantasy, but also disrupts dualistic conceptualizations of space in favour of an understanding of space as simultaneously real, imagined, material and symbolic.     

The writings of Ademar of Chabannes,the Peace of 994, and the ‘Terrors of the Year 1000’

The belief that apocalyptic expectations existed at the turn of the first millennium is no longer widely held, even though some recent scholars have suggested they did. This paper seeks to confirm the notion that, at least in the monastic milieu, belief that the Last Judgement was imminent did exist in the decades around the year 1000. To support this argument, this paper will examine the writings of the monk, Ademar of Chabannes. In his work of history and the sermons he wrote near the end of his life, Ademar reveals his own eschatological mentality. His history, it will be argued, contains numerous accounts of prodigies and signs that indicated Ademar and his contemporaries thought that they were living in the Last Days. Ademar's apocalypticism is revealed even more fully in his sermons, which were organised along the lines of salvation history. His account in the sermons of the Peace of God council of 994, which also appears in the history, clearly demonstrates his eschatological sensibility. His record of this council, written over 30 years after the event, it will be argued, is apocalyptic in both form and content. The structure of his account is arranged in the tradition of apocalyptic literature, and the events he records are described in language drawn from the Revelation of John and the book of Isaiah. Ademar also drew on the idea of the refreshment of the saints found in the writings of Jerome and of Bede in his explanation of the events of 994. Ademar's writings, therefore, reveal the existence of apocalyptic expectations at the turn of the first millennium.     

Herodotus’ Use of Aeschylus’ Persae as a Source for the Battle of Salamis

Herodotus demonstrably used Aeschylus’ Persae at various points in his account of the battle of Salamis. The author argues that Herodotus relied on the Persae far more heavily and in far more places than commonly admitted owing to Herodotus’ thoroughgoing interpretation and revision of his source. Tracing such interpretation and revision reveals much about Herodotus as an historian; moreover, the demonstrable use of a written source (which Herodotus, in fact, never mentions) raises additional questions about the extent of Herodotus’ reliance upon written sources elsewhere.