后现代主义与后现代史学

后现代主义是 2 0世纪 70年代在欧美等西方学术界兴起的一种社会思潮。近些年来 ,我国学界对于后现代主义作品的介绍颇多 ,但对其进行认真研究的论著则较少。本文对后现代、后现代主义和后现代史学的发展过程进行了疏理 ,尤其是就后现代史学对现代史学的挑战作了认真的探析 ,认为后现代史学的核心是力图动摇西方现代历史编撰学的基础 ,颠覆西方自启蒙以来建立起来的历史观念     

后现代女性主义的思想渊源浅析

后现代女性主义的思想与观点有以下几方面：第一,消解中心和本源,破除男女二元对立的思维模式。第二,关于话语即权力的理论。第三,否定所有的宏大理论体系,更加关注差异,以及化与历史的特殊性与多元性,并提出了整合的思维模式。第四,关于身体的思想。第五,关于惩戒凝视的观点。人们从这几个方面都不难发现其有后现代主义的思想渊源及影响,后现代女性主义的研究态势是人们应予以密切关注的。     

后现代主义与历史研究

本刊自本期起开辟《国外史学的新发展》栏目 ,主要发表各类文章介绍和评述国外史学自 2 0世纪 70年代以来的新发展。国外史学自 2 0世纪 70年代以后的新发展是值得我们十分注意和认真研究的。可以说 ,这次新发展的意义并不下于上次 ;也就是说 ,上次的发展标志着新史学取代传统史学 ,使史学走上新的发展道路 ,而这次的新发展 ,可以说是对新史学的挑战 ,预示着一种更新的史学可能出现。如果说上次的变化的发端是在上个世纪之交 ,即 1 9、2 0世纪之交的话 ,那么这个世纪之交 ,即 2 0、2 1世纪之交发生的这次变化不也正是一次同样深刻的变化的发端吗 ?因此 ,我们要预测 2 1世纪国外史学的发展 ,就不可不深入了解 2 0世纪 70年代以后的这次新发展。而在全球化趋势日益发展的今天 ,各国间的文化学术交流越来越频繁 ,我国史学的发展既不可能不和国外史学发生相互影响 ,也不可能再闭关自守 ,不去了解和研究国外史学的变化。总之 ,无论从哪个角度讲 ,我们都应加强对国外史学新发展的研究。2 0世纪 70年代国外史学的新发展 ,我们可以简略地概括为三个方面 ,即 :一 ,西方新史学的转型 ;二 ,后现代主义对史学的冲击和影响 ;三 ,苏联解体前后 ,俄国史学的剧变。当然 ,这三个方面并不能概括国外史学发展的全部 ,但应该     

Postmodernism and the Revival of Socialism as Critique

Socialism as a political philosophy confronts many theoretical and empirical challenges in our contemporary world. Some thinkers consider it obsolete and others aspire to reformulate it by couching it in a more pragmatist idiom. My aim here is to show that the salient features of socialism, those that are worth preserving, presuppose the indispensability of critique and reflective subjectivity in a sense that goes beyond pragmatism. To develop my argument for a socialist theory that can benefit from postmodern challenges without surrendering its critical force, I review some recent ideas in the socialist discourse and I contrast them with Cornelius Castoriades's theory of socialism. I conclude by defending the possibility for a new articulation of the socialist project, one that takes into account past failures as well as the shortcomings of current socialist trends.     

Archaeology without gravity: Postmodernism and the past

Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the past and the present have become commonplace: anthropologists now situate cultures in their historical contexts, while historians pursue particularistic ends within politicoeconomic or ideational structures. Archaeologists have cast their nets even more widely, not only toward anthropology and history, but to fields ranging from molecular biology to hermeneutics. Postmodernist approaches maintain that archaeologists should be looking at the past from multiple perspectives and listening to its multivocality. Archaeologists, in fact, not only develop different ways of understanding the past, but actually develop alternative pasts. This paper argues that multiple paths to alternative pasts enhance archaeological understanding and, at the same time, stimulate the development of archaeological theory.     

Agency, Postmodernism, and the Causes of Change

This theme issue's call for papers notes that "several prevalent and influential historical practices of the last thirty years have limited agency's significance, . . . seeing the human as the patient of History rather than its agent." The questions implicit in this statement are nowhere more urgent than in those practices collectively known as the "linguistic turn." Yet such questions have been explored sparsely enough in relation to this movement that some adherents can still insist that the ideas they favor do not devalue agency, while many simply ignore the issue and incorporate agency as an integral part of their work. By examining a largely unremarked episode in Michel Foucault's highly influential thought and considering its connections to foundational assumptions of the linguistic turn, we seek to demonstrate in detail why the premises that underlie both structuralism and poststructuralism (the theoretical movements most deeply implicated in the direction the linguistic turn has taken in history) logically require the denial of agency as a causal force and ultimately compel the conclusion that no change can occur in realities as interpreted by humans. We illustrate the intractability of these logical problems by analyzing unsatisfactory defenses from some of the few linguistic-turn historians who have discussed relevant issues, after which we conclude by suggesting that attention to current work in linguistics and cognitive science may help resolve such difficulties.     

From Historicism to Postmodernism: Historiography in the Twentieth Century

Book reviewed in this article:
Georg G. Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge     

英俄私分帕米尔与清政府的立场

本文以19世纪末的中亚为背景,运用新近刊布的国内外档案、文书等第一手资料,详尽论述了清末英俄以强凌弱,私分帕米尔,瓜分中国领土的经过,并对清政府为捍卫国土主权,与英俄据理力争的严正立场予以新的阐释,以深入理解该时期英俄争夺中亚势力范围的真实目的和清政府的领土主权意识,对稳定新疆局势,维护祖统一有一定的现实意义。     

霍布斯鲍姆史学思想的现实关怀和意识形态立场分析

本文以霍布斯鲍姆史学思想与社会价值基础为视角 ,从其史学思想的现实关怀问题切入 ,透过历史认识主体之意识形态立场与史学之社会政治功能关系问题的思考 ,揭示出霍布斯鲍姆是一位具有强烈责任感和凝重使命感的人文科学家。     

世界文化遗产保护的东方立场

东方主义思维正借全球化浪潮在世界文化遗产保护领域蔓延。东方文化遗产保护除匆忙应对来自西方的质疑外,当务之急应根据东方文化遗产的特征和保护实际联合建立世界文化遗产保护的东方立场。东方文化遗产除应保护以《威尼斯宪章》为基础的国际惯例中强调的有形文化遗产物质基础外,还应更加突出保护文化遗产蕴含的人类集体记忆、文化基因、文化认同、文化凝聚力等精神内涵。建立世界文化遗产保护的东方立场,有利于通过保护东方文化遗产,继而保护面临西方强势文化同化危险的东方文化。     

从后现代主义到浪漫主义——一种史学观念的回归

浪漫主义史学与后现代主义史学都是对现代性作出的回应。基于对空间的关注,它们都反对现代主义的线性历史观,强调史学研究的多重视角。在历史观念和历史书写上,它们呈现出诸多相似性:如对特殊主义、地域主义、偶然性、奇闻轶事、多元性、开放性、差异性的强调;在怀乡情绪中表现历史写作的诗性和审美维度;对微观史和日常生活史的书写等。这表明后现代主义史学在某种程度上是对浪漫主义史学更高层次的回归。     

No Angst and All Play: Postmodernism and the Humanities

Abstract

There is widespread disagreement about Tocqueville's conception of human nature, some going so far as to say that Tocqueville possessed no unified conception of human nature at all. In this paper, I aim to provide the essential principles of Tocqueville's conception of human nature through an examination of the way in which he describes the power of human circumstances, such as physical environment, social state, and religion, to shape human character by extracting the principles underlying these transformations. There is no “natural man” or man “in the state of nature” but instead a set of psychic operations that reveal a picture of human nature in which human freedom, or the ability to initiate action in pursuit of important objects, lies at the heart of human life.     

On Authority and Political Destination: Michael Polanyi and the Threshold of Postmodernism

ABSTRACT

This study challenges a prevalent view that Aquinas's political thought develops over time on the question of legitimate resistance to tyranny. Many scholars argue that Aquinas gradually restricts the scope of legitimate political resistance and morally permissible tyrannicide. On this view Aquinas defends tyrannicide in his early Commentary on the Sentences, adds strong qualifications in the Summa Theologiae, and finally repudiates tyrannicide in De Regno. This study finds the evidence for such a development lacking and seeks to rehabilitate a long and diverse Thomistic tradition of legitimate resistance including tyrannicide. Indeed, a close reading of De Regno shows that Aquinas upholds a doctrine of political resistance and defends the legitimacy of tyrannicide under certain circumstances. Moreover, Aquinas's doctrine of political resistance is wide open and underdeveloped. Later attempts to clarify and qualify Aquinas's doctrine of political resistance, therefore, are appropriate and even necessary.     

History, the Referent, and Narrative: Reflections on Postmodernism Now

This essay surveys the present position of postmodernism with respect to the effect of its ideas upon historiography. For this purpose it looks at a number of writings by historians that have been a response to postmodernism including the recently published collection of articles, The Postmodern History Reader . The essay argues that, in contrast to scholars in the field of literary studies, the American historical profession has been much more resistant to postmodernist doctrines and that the latters' influence upon the thinking and practice of historians is not only fading but increasingly destined to fade. The essay also presents a critical discussion of the current philosophy of postmodernism in its bearing upon historiography, directed chiefly against its claim that the world has undergone an epochal transition from the modern to a postmodern age; its theory of language and linguistic idealism; its opposition to historical realism and denial of the actuality of the past as a possible object of reference; and its theory of historical narrative as unconstrained fictional construction. This discussion includes a consideration of the work of postmodernist thinkers such as J.-F. Lyotard, of the recent books by David Roberts and Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr. which espouse a postmodernist theory of history, and of the narrativist theory of Hayden White. The essay also notes some of the reasons for postmodernism's appeal; and while it does not deny that postmodernist philosophy may have served a useful purpose in provoking historians to be more self-critical and aware of their presuppositions and procedures, it maintains that its skeptical and politicized view of historical inquiry is deeply mistaken, out of accord with the way historians themselves think about their work, and incapable of providing an understanding of historiography as a form of thought engaged in the attainment of knowledge and understanding of the human past.