Anglophobia and anti-Semitism: The case of Alphonse Toussenel (1803-1885)

Alphonse Toussenel (1803-1885) was a utopian socialist who criticised the economic liberalism of the July Monarchy. He was a follower of Charles Fourier who denounced the ills of civilisation: individualism, egoism and class conflict. However, he was also the founder of modern French anti-Semitism. His writings inspired Edouard Drumont. The present article explores the links between Toussenel's brand of anti-Semitism, rooted in a revolutionary-nationalist reading of French history, and his almost equally aggressive Anglophobia. He described 'Londres-Juda' as an insatiable vampire sucking the lifeblood of France. In Toussenel's hands zoology became a vehicle for social criticism and his natural history books, as much as his political writings, were infused with anti-English sentiments. The English and the Jews represented external and internal threats to French national identity. An examination of Toussenel's writings helps to understand the joint presence of Anglophobia and anti-Semitism within social romanticism.     

‘A Wagner for the Jews’: Moses Pergament,Richard Wagner and anti-Semitism in Swedish cultural life in the interwar period

This article deals with the Finnish-Swedish, Jewish composer and author Moses Pergament and his relationship with Wagner's theories, anti-Semitism in particular, and their influence on the development of modern Swedish classical music during the interwar period. The author emphasizes the importance of recognizing that Pergament's reaction to Wagner's cultural theories was part and parcel of his struggle for assimilation. The basis of Pergament's interpretation of Wagner was the notion that it is possible to separate life and belief: the anti-Semitism and enthusiastic lechery were part of Wagner's life, to which it was not necessary to attach much importance. The beliefs, on the other hand, were there to be analysed. Furthermore, an explicit and public critique of Wagner's anti-Semitism was inconsistent with an attempt to gain a foothold in Swedish cultural life. As Wagner's anti-Semitism was well known but was deemed either acceptable or irrelevant, paying attention to it was by definition proof of a Jewish identification. To be accepted as a Swedish music critic, Pergament had to follow the unwritten rules of the game, amongst them the requirement not to exhibit his ‘Jewishness’ openly. The actions of certain members of Föreningen Svenska Tonsättare (FST, the Association of Swedish Composers) indicate that Pergament's work was not thought to indicate a Swedish identification. On the contrary, his reviews were seen as a threat to ‘Swedish music’, and with implicit references to Wagner this was attributed to Pergament's supposed lack of feeling for the ‘spirit of the Swedish people’.     

Anti-Semites on Zionism: From Indifference to Obsession

This article compares European and Middle Eastern anti-Semitism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the 1870s through the 1930s, in parallel fashion anti-Semitism became a mobilizing, all-embracing ideology in Europe, while the Arab world witnessed an eruption of anticolonial and nationalist sentiment, often directed against the Zionist project. Arab anti-Semitism featured the irrational and fantastic qualities of its European counterpart, but it took form against the reality of the Zionist project. The article draws a distinction between the realms of systemic intolerance, aggravated by socio-economic crisis, and political strife, driven by discrete events and policies. Its main sources are fin-de-siècle European anti-Semites' writings on Zionism, which are shown to be fundamentally different from the anti-Zionist rhetoric emanating from the Middle East at that time.     

‘Oxford in the bush’: the founding (and diminishing) ethos of Rhodes University

Over the years, many members of the Rhodes University community have proudly claimed their university to be a kind of transplanted Oxford, while others have viewed this claim as pretentious – hence the derogatory label ‘Oxford in the bush’. This article explores the connections and comparison between the two institutions. In the early twentieth century, both universities strongly identified with the British imperial cause; and for decades Rhodes University regularly celebrated its symbolic association with the historical figure of Cecil Rhodes, who also happens to be one of the most commemorated figures in Oxford. There was also a shared ethos, as both laid stress on a style of education that was character-building, a prerequisite for which was a strong grounding in the classics. There was, too, a cultural affinity between Rhodes and Oxford, exemplified in the strict segregation of the sexes, the importance attached to sporting achievement, and a tendency to engage in frivolous activities. The article goes on to show how over time the Oxford tradition at Rhodes came to be challenged and undermined, especially from the late 1960s onwards.     

Embracing the Language of Human Rights: International Women's Organisations,Feminism and Campaigns Against the Marriage Bar,c.1919–1960

This article considers four international women's organisations – the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, the International Federation of University Women and the Open Door International – and their campaigns for the right of married women to undertake paid work. It examines how each organisation adopted and engaged with the language of human rights in the late 1920s and 1930s. It is argued that after 1948, precisely because of its formal adoption by the UN, the language of human rights became less usable as a way to make the point that women still faced inequalities, and so other framings became more significant. This article contributes to historiographies on international women's organisations, offers a detailed discussion of their activism against the marriage bar, and challenges the conventional chronology of the concept and language of human rights.     

Lady Gregory's The Gaol Gate,Terence MacSwiney and the Abbey Theatre

In September 1920, a French translation of Lady Gregory's 1906 play The Gaol Gate was staged in a Parisian drawing room. The play's original setting outside the gate of Galway Gaol was transferred to Mountjoy Prison at a time of republican hunger strikes. The drama's central character of Denis Cahel – refusing to inform on his neighbours and hanged as a consequence – gained contemporary currency with Terence MacSwiney's hunger strike and impending death as both men had turned their bodies into a political tool. With a focus on the concept of the political body, this article illustrates the power of The Gaol Gate by tracing the play's provenance and production history, demonstrating its flexibility through performance in a particular historical context.     

Abortion and eugenics

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a revolution within foetal diagnostics. In roughly the same period, legal measures in many countries permitted the termination of pregnancies in cases of suspected foetal abnormalities. Critics have claimed that the resulting abortion policies resemble the old, state‐imposed eugenics of the early 20th century. This article presents some evidence to the contrary. In Norway, which is the article's main topic of concern, so‐called eugenic clauses in the abortion legislation were passed well before the revolution in foetal diagnostics. More importantly, other motives were historically more significant than eugenics for the development of modern Norwegian abortion policies. Consequently, any eugenic effect of these policies should be considered a result of coincidence rather than design – or so the article argues. Brief comparisons with the other Nordic countries are included.     

THE SYSTEM OF PROTECTED NATURAL AREAS IN THE USSR AND PROSPECTS FOR ITS DEVELOPMENT

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has developed a 10-category system for classifying the world's protected natural areas. The present article by two Soviet biogeographers, presented at Unesco's “Man and the Biosphere” conference in Minsk in 1983, analyzes the way in which the Soviet Union's protected areas fall into the classification system devised by the International Union. The article also discusses the types of protected areas found in the USSR, and the functions assigned to each. (The translation is by Philip R. Pryde, San Diego State University.)     

The Israeli left between culture and politics: Tzavta and Mapam, 1956–1973

The Tzavta club in Tel Aviv (until 1956 called the Center for Progressive Culture) was founded in 1946 by Hakibbutz Ha'artzi-Hashomer Hatza'ir kibbutz movement. Cultural activity was a traditional means used by political movements to increase their influence in society. However, as part of the “cultural front” of Hashomer Hatza'ir and Mapam, Tzavta had the additional goal of strengthening “ideological collectivism” among the members of the movement and the party. This article analyzes Tzavta's activity between 1956 and 1973, arguing that it was created to combine two functions – cultural and political. Although the leadership of Mapam intended to use the club as a political tool for disseminating the party's views and controlling internal conflicts, Tzavta became increasingly culturally autonomous and eventually uncontrollable.     

“The noble pirate”: The Voice of Peace offshore radio station

This article analyzes the case of Abie Nathan's “Voice of Peace” – an offshore pirate radio station that began broadcasting in 1973 off the coast of Tel Aviv. Although the station reflected the diffusion of this type of media transmission into the Middle East from Europe, particularly in its identification with pop music, the Voice of Peace was distinct in its political and ideological aims and in its positive reception. I argue that public enthusiasm for the Voice of Peace reflected not merely the yearning for pop music but the search for a “normal” life within the turmoil of Israel. By “tuning in” to the Voice of Peace, listeners found an escapist heterotopia – an alternative to Israel's hegemonic national characteristics.     

‘Comradeship’ and ‘Friendship’: Masculinity and Militarisation in Germany's Homosexual Emancipation Movement after the First World War

This article analyses the impact of the First World War on Germany's homosexual emancipation movement. I argue that the war was a turning point for the nation's gay movement, as it provided a central ideal – comradeship – which altered the ways in which homosexual rights organisations defined homosexuality and masculinity. A militarised rhetoric permeated the language of gay rights groups in the 1920s, providing a vision of a spiritually and politically emancipated hypermasculine gay man who fought to legitimise ‘friendship’ and secure civil rights. The article relies on the publications of three major homosexual rights organisations recently collected at the Schwules Archiv und Museum in Berlin.     

The Baptism of an Indian Juggler: Event and Narrative in the Swedish Press, 1827–1852

In 1827, an Indian juggler named Mooty Madua Samme converted to Christianity in Stockholm, Sweden. This historical event got much attention in the press at the time – as did his succeeding marriage to a Swedish woman named Erica – and was celebrated as a victory for the Evangelical Lutheran faith. Later, in the 1840s, a narrative depicting the event spread via a travelogue by Xavier Marmier, which was translated and mediated through the Swedish press, and reacted to by Samme's priest; in the 1850s, Samme's name surfaced again – now in context of the contemporary freedom of religion debates in Sweden. In this article, we explore Samme's baptism (and interrelatedly, his marriage) by looking at newspaper mediations of the event and the related narratives. Seen from a microhistorical perspective, we show how Samme's conversion and religious otherness was utilised in contemporary religious and political discussions, and we argue that the event and narratives surrounding the baptism can augment our understanding of the Swedish nineteenth century religio-cultural landscape in which he was situated.     

Zionism as told by Rashid Rida

Muhammad Rashid Rida, the editor of al-Manar and one of the preeminent Muslim thinkers of the twentieth century, published between 1898 and 1935 dozens of reports, analyses, and Quran exegesis on Jews, Zionism, and the Palestine question. His scholarship greatly influenced the Muslim Brothers and still reverberates in the Arab political discourse today. Based on the first systematic reading and contextualization of al-Manar's pertinent texts, this article examines and explains the radical shifts in Rida's views: from describing Zionism as a humanitarian enterprise of a virtuous nation to depicting it as a plan for ethnic cleansing; from expressing doubts about the ability of the Arabs to prevail against the Jews to proclaiming certainty that they would; and from condemning French anti-Semitism to embracing hateful theories about Jewish conspiracies and vices.     

Dealing with the past and planning the future: the urban renewal of Rome and Barcelona through the Olympic Games

Is there a link between Rome and Barcelona's past and their Olympic legacies? This article sheds further light on the two cities' urban renewals through the Olympics on the basis of a historical and comparative analysis, as well as through the lenses of regime theory. It argues that Rome's modest outcome and Barcelona's success can be linked to their capacity to deal with their controversial past. The article shows that this capacity played a major role in shaping the composition and equilibrium of the two cities' informal networks of local elected officials, bureaucrats and entrepreneurs who planned and implemented the Games (‘growth regimes’). The difficulties of Rome in coping with the Fascist experience resulted in a growth regime in which weak and divided public actors – split along the Fascist/anti-Fascist and Communist/anti-Communist lines – were unable to counterbalance private agents' interests. In contrast, Barcelona's ability to reconcile itself with the past – facilitated by the Spanish entry in the European Economic Community and by the end of the Cold War – eased the Francoist/anti-Francoist and the centralist/Catalan divides, hence allowing the public actors to promote a coalition around a project of ‘democratic restoration’ of the city which involved planners, local businessmen and citizens.     

Polemic,Parliament and History: Michael Foot versus David Owen

Michael Foot had good reasons for resenting Dr David Owen, who played a prominent role in the formation of the breakaway Social Democratic Party (SDP) while Foot was Labour's leader. In Loyalists and Loners (1986), a book of political pen‐portraits, Foot duly delivered a blistering attack on Owen, focusing on two charges – that Owen was consumed by personal ambition from an early stage of his career, and that he was an ideological turncoat who had wilfully misused the word ‘socialism’. The present article examines Foot's allegations in the light of various historical sources, including the private papers of both protagonists. It is argued that, though Foot's charges seem devastating at first sight – and have never been refuted by Owen or his admirers – they cannot be sustained after an impartial review of the evidence. This reappraisal provides new insights into Owen's remarkable and controversial career at two pivotal stages – his initial rise to ministerial office, and his decision to leave Labour.     

Talking about bodies online: Viagra,YouTube, and the politics of public(ized) sexualities

The development of Viagra in the late 1990s ushered in a new age of conversation about sex and sexuality, as men's bodily abilities were put on display for all to discuss. In 2005, the video-sharing technology YouTube was launched. Taken together, these technological innovations – both biomedical and representational – have produced debate around sex, sexualized and gendered bodies, and sexual health. This article interrogates Viagra-related representations posted on YouTube and analyzes sexuopharmaceuticals as a set of intertextualities that create space for both normative discourses and social critiques. Three analytic themes illustrate how Viagra-related YouTube videos (1) reinforce a regime of self-care within a wider context of individualized responsibility for one's sexual health, (2) highlight the values attached to the pharmasexed gendered body for men and women in the age of Viagra, and (3) provide disruptions, in the form of criticism, to the assumption that healthy bodies and relationships need pharmasexual enhancement. The article concludes by suggesting that social networking sites such as YouTube are managed public spaces through which one can interrogate the intertextualities that link discourses related to bodies and sexual health to the virtual and material spaces of everyday life.     

19世纪晚期法国反犹主义政治化原因初探

19世纪70年代以后,几乎所有西欧和中欧国家都出现了现代反犹主义思潮,其中法国尤为典型。当时,法国反犹主义的突出表现是反犹主义政治化,即反犹立法的确定、大规模的群众反犹运动以及民众对反犹观念狂热的、盲目的信仰。法国反犹主义政治化是个复杂的社会历史现象,是宗教、思想、历史、社会、经济、现实的政治状况等因素交互作用的结果,其中最为重要的是经济和现实的政治因素。     

The Personal Is Not Political: The Progressive Conservative Response to Social Issues

The American religious right is often taken as the paradigmatic illustration of how conservatives responded to contestation over social issues such as same-sex rights and abortion. This article establishes that the response of Canadian conservatives – as expressed by the Progressive Conservative party – was quite different. The Progressive Conservatives held to a norm, grounded in their party's version of conservative ideology, that rendered partisan mobilization on social issues illegitimate. Rather, the party treated such topics as moral issues on which decisions, if they had to be made at all, ought to be made on grounds of personal conscience. The norm helped limit social conservative mobilization in Canada until the early 1990s, when the Reform Party replaced the Progressive Conservatives as Canada's major right-wing party.     

National identity,devolution and secession in Canada,Britain and Spain*

ABSTRACT. The aim of this article is twofold. First, it examines whether devolution fosters the rise of dual identities – regional and national. Second, it considers whether devolution encourages secession or, on the contrary, it stands as a successful strategy in accommodating intra‐state national diversity. The article is divided into three parts. First it examines the changing attitudes towards Quebec's demands for recognition adopted by the Canadian government from the 1960s to the present. It starts by analysing the rise of Quebec nationalism in the 1960s and the efforts of the Canadian government to accommodate its demands within the federation. It then moves on to consider the radically new conception of Canadian unity and identity embraced by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and its immediate impact upon Quebec. The paper argues that Trudeau's ‘nation‐building’ strategy represented a retreat from the pro‐accommodation policies set in place to respond to the findings of the 1963 Royal Commission on Biculturalism & Bilingualism (known as the B&B Commission). Trudeau's definition of Canada as a bilingual and multicultural nation whose ten provinces should receive equal treatment alienated a significant number of Quebeckers. After Trudeau, various attempts were made to accommodate Quebec's demand to be recognised as a ‘distinct society’– Meech Lake Accord, Charlottetown Agreement. Their failure strengthened Quebec separatists, who obtained 49.4 per cent of the vote in the 1995 Referendum. Hence, initial attempts to accommodate Quebec in the 1960s were replaced by a recurrent confrontation between Canada's and Quebec's separate nation‐building strategies. Second, the article explores whether devolution fosters the emergence of dual identities – regional and national – within a single nation‐state. At this point, recent data on regional and national identity in Canada are presented and compared with data measuring similar variables in Spain and Britain. The three modern liberal democracies considered here include territorially circumscribed national minorities – nations without states ( Guibernau 1999 ) – endowed with a strong sense of identity based upon the belief in a common ethnic origin and a sense of shared ethnohistory – Quebec, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Scotland. Third, the article examines whether devolution feeds separatism by assessing support levels for current devolution arrangements in Canada, Spain and Britain. The article concludes by examining the reasons which might contribute to replacing separatist demands with a desire for greater devolution.