Popular culture in seventeenth-century England

Carl Schmitt emphatically rejected intermediate formations between peace and war. Analysing Schmitt's oscillation between the domestic and the international, the article suggests that the notion of ‘intermediate state’ provides a vital route to the core of Schmitt's political theory. The concept emerges in Schmitt's analysis of the Rhineland crisis, recurs in his vehement critique of Weimar pluralism, and, finally, reappears in his theory of modern war from the Third Reich to the Cold War. ‘Intermediate state’ has both qualitative and temporal aspects; it connotes not only categorical confusion and impurity but also instability and limited duration. Despite his criticism, Schmitt himself utilised the ambiguity, polysemy, and normative ambivalence of the intermediate state in his argumentation, finally giving it an open theological reinterpretation in his later work. Schmitt's theory of political conflict, consequently, is problematically bound to the vague intermediate state of perpetual conflict that he sought to avoid, and to the metaphorical aspects of the notion of battle that he explicitly rejected.     

Exeter-Hall Science and Evangelical Rhetoric in Mid-Victorian Britain

In the early and mid-Victorian period public pronouncements by evangelicals were often described as the antithesis of rational speech. The voice of science, by contrast, was routinely equated with the voice of reason. This disparity was particularly clear in satirical and critical commentary about the platform rhetoric associated with London's Exeter Hall, a key meeting place for evangelicals and a metonym for evangelical expressions of Christian belief. It was against this backdrop that the fledgling Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) inaugurated a popular series of lectures in 1845. Held in Exeter Hall from 1848, the series ran until 1865 and proved to be immensely popular. By investigating the ways in which the promotion of science was combined with religious exhortation in the YMCA lectures, this paper examines how evangelicals positioned themselves with respect to the growing cultural authority of science. The paper also argues that these efforts were indelibly marked by the Hall and the communicative medium in which they were made. As such, the paper sheds light on the significance of platform culture within and beyond evangelicalism and on the importance of venue and audience in understanding science and religion relations in an age of lecturing.     

Silas Marner,Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine: George Eliot's Ethics of Care

‘Silas Marner, Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine’ reads Eliot's novel Silas Marner through the history of medicine, and particularly in the context of Marner's strange cataleptic trances which embody his alienation and suffering. Eliot, I argue, employs catalepsy in order to investigate ideas of illness and care, especially as that relates to professional medicine and to ideas of community. Focusing on cataleptic case histories and on Eliot's personal health concerns I show how issues of care become philosophical questions about ethical responsibility. It is through Silas Marner and his catalepsy, I conclude, that Victorian scholars can come to understand more about what that means within Eliot's canon and, more widely, in the mid-Victorian period. Overall, the article provides a unique reading of Silas Marner, drawing on significant new archival research on catalepsy and in Eliot's writing of illness narratives.     

维多利亚时代中期英国中产阶级中上层的家庭意识探究

维多利亚时代中期 ,英国中上层中产阶级形成了颇具特色的家庭意识。在理念上 ,他们坚持公共生活领域和私人生活领域的分离 ,推崇贤妻良母型的“家庭天使” ,营造温和的家庭亲子关系。在现实中 ,却处处体现出性别的不平等和女性的不自由 ,因而有悖于自由平等的时代精神。当时 ,很多妇女屈从于现实的安排 ,但仍有少数知识女性觉醒 ,在争取自由平等的过程中对妇女解放有了理性的认识。对这一问题的探讨 ,有助于我们更好地理解英国家庭与社会现代化的曲折历程。     

Toast Songs Popular in Ngari

When guests came to visit Diya people in Ngari,the hosts would ask the young girl in the family to toast them with songs. Holding a wine cup, the girl would stand in front of the guests in turn, and after singing one song, would invite the guest to drink one cup of wine; each guest was serenaded with a different song, although all centered on blessing. From many different people, I have received details of the different songs that now fill my notebook. One song goes like this: In the azure a…     

凉州民俗禁忌

凉州地区自古以来是一个多种文化交融汇聚的地方,不同的风土人情、生活习惯,形成了独特的民俗文化景观。本文就凉州一带的特殊民间禁忌加以分析,以此认识凉州民俗的特殊性。