History,Differential Inclusions,and Narrative

Recent advances in the theory of dynamical systems, set‐valued analysis, and viability theory offer new and interesting perspectives on the shaping of social and historical time. Specific aspects of these theories are presented in several different areas to show their concrete applications in history and historical demo‐economy, and a parallel is established with novelist Tanizaki’s fictional technique. In connection with this, McCloskey’s 1991 comparison of storytelling with deterministic chaos is discussed and a critique of other models concerned with unpredictability in human affairs provided. Finally, the shapings of social and historical time are described in terms of the viable strategies at the heart of evolutionary processes involving human agents interacting with a variety of constraints. Sachiko could foresee great difficulties if her sister were to marry him, but at least for the time being they would not have to worry about what people thought. If on the other hand she married Itakura, she would be held up to public ridicule. Okubata seen by himself was not a happy choice, but he was certainly better than Itakura, and he could be their weapon to turn away the latter. 1 Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), part 2, chapter 26, 278.
     

历史学的文学之翼:"现代叙史"

当代历史研究中,结构的、分析的、计量的史学大行其道,而叙述的历史学则遭到强烈排斥。这带来了两个严重后果:对科学的盲信和史学研究中人的缺乏。这些更进一步导致了当代史学远离大众,大众对历史学的兴趣急剧降低。“现代叙史”试图纠正这一弊病。它强调历史和文学的同质性,认为历史学应该大胆地借用现代文学手法,恢复历史学对人的关注和其叙事功能,重新赢得读者。     

美国早期史研究中的自我探索与历史叙事 --评《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》

《透过一块晦暗的玻璃》体现了美国早期史研究领域的较新的发展趋势。这本论文集从小历史的角度来论述了早期美国史研究中关于个人认同的自我探索与边缘化状态的问题,并较好地弥补了大历史的缺陷,使人们从历史叙述、文本细读和语言学转向这三个方面更新了对小历史长处的认识。     

历史观与意识形态:世界历史叙事中的现代化理论

作为世界历史叙事的一种范式,现代化理论不仅体现了一种历史观,也展示了其意识形态的特质。现代化理论的意识形态功能包括：解释功能、压制宣传功能、整合和激发功能以及合法化功能,这些功能使世界历史叙事充斥着偏见与“公允”、“真理”与权力、压制与整合等悖论。这种悖论在历史观层面,则凸显为现代化的“历史观”和历史观的“现代化”二者之间的张力。只有克服二者之间的张力,才能超越现代化的“历史观”的局限,才能使历史观的“现代化”成为一种世界历史叙事的实践理念。     

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.     

From Barbarism to Religion: Church History and the Enlightened Narrative in Germany

The subject of this essay is the historical vision of the GermanCatholic Enlightenment as seen in the work of Michael IgnazSchmidt, a Catholic priest and author of the eleven-volume Historyof the Germans (1778–1793). A proper acknowledgement ofSchmidt's career helps us revise the standard account of Germanhistoricism and historical practice in the eighteenth century,and also sheds light on the place of religion in the GermanEnlightenment. Schmidt wrote a thoroughly modern ‘historyof manners’ that was indebted both to Voltaire and toRobertson. Yet his work passed into obscurity largely becausehe focused on the Holy Roman Empire and the Imperial Church—thetwo great casualties of the Napoleonic passage. Schmidt's viewof the Reformation, and, more importantly, of the history ofthe pre-Reformation German national Church, stands out in theprominence it assigns the Church as part of the history of thedevelopment of German manners. Schmidt's account throws intoquestion the common view in the history of the German ‘nation’that Germany could not be accorded the normal attributes ofa state and existed only as a ‘cultural nation’.The essay addresses the German problem of bi-confessionalism,and Schmidt's awareness of developments in Protestant theologyin the eighteenth century. While this paper does not try todeal comprehensively with all these issues, the essay showshow the agenda of reformist religion, national history, andthe Enlightened vision of Europe's Christian past coalescedin this unjustly forgotten work.     

平实叙事 寓论于史——评《转折年代——中国的1947年》

1945年9月3日,是中国抗战胜利纪念日,当中国国民党总裁、国民政府主席、军事委员会委员长蒋介石,一身戎装,志得意满地乘坐敞篷车巡视重庆市街,接受市民的欢呼时,他无论如何也不会想到,应他之邀正在重庆参加国共谈判、且就在前一晚的酒桌上     

At Last! The Voegelin Reader

ABSTRACT

The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, one of the great political scientists of the twentieth century, run to 34 volumes. The selection republished in this Reader will provide senior undergraduates and graduate students (and perhaps their teachers) with a wide-ranging introduction to Voegelin's modern but Aristotelean political science. The selection includes excerpts from his Autobiographical Reflections and from his best-known work, The New Science of Politics. There are several examples of his late an alytical essays. Readers unfamiliar with his relationship to Christianity, always a contentious issue, will find his discussions of the relationship of philosophical or noetic symbols and experiences to revelatory of pneumatic ones especially helpful. The editors and the University of Missouri Press have performed a major service to contemporary political science by making this se lection available.