Visions of the North-West

Like so many European cities that developed city planning to handle urbanization and industrialization in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the municipality of Copenhagen (Denmark) discussed, planned, and erected new neighbourhoods for the growing working-class population on the city outskirts. In doing so, the politicians and professionals expressed different visions of the working class and its territories, thus creating a symbolic space of representations alongside the physical spaces of the actual neighbourhoods. Taking the north-west neighbourhood of Copenhagen as a case, I investigate the socio-historical construction of this neighbourhood from the early 1900s to 1950. Drawing on a selection of state policies and municipal plans and debates, as well as on public debates among the professionals who took part in building the new neighbourhood, I analyse the symbolic struggles involved in the construction of the neighbourhood and the population that was meant to live there.     

关于中国前近代社会“非封建”的对话

《"封建"考论》引起的学术争论,展现出学界对"封建"名实问题及社会形态学说的不同理解。日本京都学派代表学者谷川道雄与《"封建"考论》作者冯天瑜就此展开对话,取得相近的认识,他们以为,将秦至清中国社会称为"封建社会"的"泛化封建"观是教条主义产物,不能谓之"马克思主义史学成果"。从中国历史的实际出发,而不是从斯大林规定的"五形态"说出发,是论析中国前近代社会性质的健康起点;尊重马克思的封建观,恢复其本来面目,是正确对待马克思历史学说的首要前提,不应将马克思尖锐批评的泛化封建观强加到马克思头上。对"封建"概念的阐释和运用,应取古今演绎、东西涵化的正途。在精准概念与真确史实的相互观照中,显现中国前近代社会的非封建性及其与西欧、日本前近代社会的封建性之间的差异。     

Towards a Critical Anthology of Pre-Modern Bosom Serpent Folklore

We present a preview of our work for a critical anthology of medieval and pre-medieval fantastic folklore narratives about animals in the human body. These are generally referred to among English-speaking scholars as ‘bosom serpent’ legends. In particular, we provide here two of the most ancient texts from the section of the anthology on medieval Scandinavia. We also offer two little-known narratives, a medieval Latin saint’s life and one from the Byzantine Greek world.     

The Location of Medieval/Pre-Modern and Biblical Ziklag

Abstract

Most modern attempts to identify biblical Ziklag build on the pioneering work of Edward Robinson. Analysis of the medieval and pre-modern observations made by Father Felix Fabri, in Evagatorium in Terræ Sanctæ, Arabiæ et Egypti Peregrinationem and Sionpilger, and Eugène Roger, in La Terre Sainte, provide support for the identification of biblical Ziklag with Tell esh-Shari'ah (Tel Sera') during these periods. Such a medieval and pre-modern identification provides support for this same modern identification of biblical Ziklag and militates against competing identifications with Tell el-Hesi (Tel Hasi), Khirbet Meshash (Tel Masos), Tell es-Seba' (Tel Beer-Sheva), and Tell Khuweilifeh (Tel Halif).     

前现代国际体系与尧舜禹时代

多元一体是早期中国区域文明发展的重要特征。从国际关系学的角度看,尧舜禹时期以黄河及长江流域为中心,包括北起辽河流域,南至珠江流域的广大地区,各早期文明实体及正在向文明社会迈进的各原始部落或部族,在社会一文化、经济、政治与军事互动充分发展的基础上,已经构成为一个区域性的前现代国际体系。尧舜禹政治集团,则是建立在方国联盟基础上的一种国际次体系。     

Toward an Inferential Method for Evaluating Public Works Projects in Pre-Modern China

Abstract

Quand une lecture vous élève l'esprit, et qu'elle vous inspire des sentiments nobles et courageux, ne cherchez pas une autre règle pour juger l'ouvrage; il est bon, et fait de main d'ouvrier.—La Bruyère¹     

Holy Nigerian Nationalisms and Apocalyptic Visions of the Nation

Abstract. This article examines the rise of religious political radicalism and its critique and appropriation of secular Nigerian nationalism. It argues that the revitalisation and radicalisation of religion in Nigeria is both an expression of the deep legitimacy crisis confronting secular nationalism and a means of resolving such a crisis. Religion is seen as fundamental to nationalism because it provides the sacred normative essence that ultimately enables individuals and communities to accept as permanent and meaningful the suffering which is integral to a national identity. In ‘holy nationalism’, the collective emotional force of nationalism merges with religion so that the two are one and the same. God chose a particular people and promised them a particular land.     

Worlds in Mind: the Experience of an Outside World in a Community of the Finisterre Range of Papua New Guinea

This paper deals with how the Yupno's mental image of proper settlement patterns has been changed through the experience of an ‘outside world’. The Yupno inhabit a rugged, extremely remote, mountainous region of the Eastern Finisterre Range in the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea. Teptep is the administrative centre. The region is one of the last unexplored areas of Papua New Guinea. The old Yupno grew up in an isolated world, which was bounded both externally (they knew only their own valley) and internally (the fenced-in dwelling house was the centre of the settlement structure). After the Second World War, however, the valley was ‘opened’: schools were established and some younger Yupno left their valley to visit the cities of Madang and Lae. This experience of the ‘outside world’ changed the mental image of their own settlement territory. When asked to draw their own area, i.e. to externalise their mental image in the sense of Piaget, the Yupno without ‘outside’-experience (the old men and the children without school education) drew a closed, usually oval world with the Yupno river at its centre (the valley as the ‘world’), whereas those who had ‘outside’-experience drew an open, rectangular map laden with details.