Eating Hawai'i: local foods and place-making in Hawai'i Regional Cuisine

In this paper, we look at what it means to ‘eat Hawai'i’ and examine how Hawai'i Regional Cuisine (HRC) imagines, produces, and consumes place through particular constructions of local foods. The term ‘local’ attaches to foods as a marker of numerous positive attributes such as seasonal, sustainable, and community-based. Drawing upon ongoing ethnographic research on Hawai'i Island, we examine spatial and discursive constructions of local and how this particular cuisine places itself in local food networks while simultaneously using place to localize itself within the Island's food networks. Using a case study approach to carefully contextualize localness, we show how Merriman's Restaurant and HRC complicate notions of alternative and local food systems in its discursive and material production and reproduction of Local food and locally grown food.     

East and West in Jewish nationalism: conflicting types in the Zionist vision?

ABSTRACT. This article analyses the ethnic and civic components of the early Zionist movement. The debate over whether Zionism was an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement or a Western‐civic movement began with the birth of Zionism. The article also investigates the conflict that broke out in 1902 surrounding the publication of Herzl's utopian vision, Altneuland. Ahad Ha'am, a leader of Hibbat Zion and ‘Eastern’ cultural Zionism, sharply attacked Herzl's ‘Western’ political Zionism, which he considered to be disconnected from the cultural foundations of historical Judaism. Instead, Ahad Ha'am supported the Eastern Zionist utopia of Elchanan Leib Lewinsky. Hans Kohn, a leading researcher of nationalism, distinguished between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ nationalist movements. He argued that Herzl's political heritage led the Zionist movement to become an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement. The debate over the character of Jewish nationalism – ethnic or civic – continues to engage researchers and remains a topic of public debate in Israel even today. As this article demonstrates, the debate between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Zionism has its foundations in the origins of the Zionist movement. A close look at the vision held by both groups challenges Kohn's dichotomy as well as his understanding of the Zionist movement.     

Campaigning and governing: an analysis of berlusconi's rhetorical leadership

This article explores the communication strategy of Silvio Berlusconi through the analytical framework of the ‘permanent campaign’ model. Beginning with the distinction between ‘personal popularity’ and ‘political consensus’, the article looks at the different aspects of Berlusconi's political communication strategy since his election victory in May 2001 and assesses the rationale and effectiveness of his permanent campaign. The author concludes that, despite Berlusconi's strong commitment to the communication process, his leadership appears more similar to the rhetorical Presidency model than to the experiences of leaders who have shown that campaigning can also be used to govern. The article identifies two key limits: (1) the link between the drive for personal popularity and the building of support for the government's main policies appears weak; (2) all communication strategies are undermined by deep divisions within the ruling coalition.     

Shamanism,sanity and remoteness in Russia

This article looks at the attempted trek of a ‘warrior shaman’ Alexandr Gabyshev from Yakutsk to Moscow, where his aim was to try to drive ‘the demon’ Putin out of the Kremlin. In particular, it explores Russian online responses to Gabyshev's campaign, as well as local reactions in the region where he was arrested, Buryatia. It is argued that the discourses of support are a sort of ‘removal’ (Saxer & Andersson 2019) within a nation state, establishing a deep rift between the local and distant observers. While it may take new forms, this disjunction is rooted in a long history of Russia's complicated relationship with its own orient.     

The public moralist versus ethnocentrism: John Stuart Mill's French enterprise

This article connects Mill's experience with France and the French with his theoretical vindication of the significance of studying foreign cultures and peoples, and offers an assessment both of the way in which he applied his views on this matter to his life‐long connection with France and of the overall part this enterprise had in his conception of his role as one of the ‘moral teachers of England’. It is argued that, whatever the merits of Mill's theory of half‐truths might be with regard to a number of philosophical or epistemological controversies, his application of it in the realm of the disputes and misunderstandings between nations is defensible and commendable.     

A Tale of Two Train Journeys: Lawrence Bragg,C. P. Snow and The ‘Two Cultures’

It was during two train-journey meetings with the physicist William Lawrence Bragg (1890–1971) that both Charles Percy Snow's (1905–1980) civil service career and, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, the ‘two cultures’ metaphor originated. The first part of this paper is concerned with the background, consequences and significance of the first of these journeys: Kettering station in 1939. It will address the somewhat hazy record of Snow's wartime work found in existing accounts, and argue that Snow's wartime experience helped shape his characterisation of the scientific side of his ‘two cultures’. The second part of this paper deals with Bragg's intellectual influence on Snow, tracing the former's interest in ‘two cultures’ arguments prior to probable encounters between the two on the Cambridge to London train in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including a historically hazy one in which together they allegedly coined the famous phrase. In examining their early relationship, it becomes clear that Bragg was a key influence and support in Snow's career as an administrator and as a cultural commentator.     

President Obama at mid‐term

This article provides an analysis of President Obama at mid‐term. It looks at the mid‐term elections from the perspective of the political issues that informed the debate, the implications of Republican control of the House of Representatives for both legislation and relations between the administration and Congress, and the policy areas where cooperation and possible progress is possible. The article looks at the Tea Party movement as a collection of single issue and multi‐issue political groups ranging from ‘nativists’ to Christian fundamentalists to the eclectic and unprecedented combination of fiscal and social conservatives seen at Glen Beck's ‘honoring America’ event at the Washington Monument. This broad movement may be seen as a classical revitalization movement, not unlike those described by Anthony F. C. Wallace. It is opposed by another ‘revitalization movement’ namely the ‘American renewal’ promised by Obama as he ran for office in 2008. These countervailing narratives—in effect two different versions of America, one reflecting the Tea Party broadly conceived and the other reflecting Obama's ‘promise’—are seeking political traction among independents. The implications of this struggle are momentous. The prevailing narrative will frame policy going forward on a range of domestic issues and on selected foreign policy questions, which will include the present debate on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia and the upcoming debate on China, which will have even further reaching effects. Finally, this article describes Obama's struggle to frame his policy successes and the ensuing debate in a favourable light. His opponents have sought to limit his progress by presenting him as ‘the other”, an effective but destructive technique that could have longer term effects on the domestic political discourse. However, the author remains an optimist; he believes, together with 50 per cent of Americans, the president is likable, logical and gives a good speech, and that he will be re‐elected in 2012.     

Travel,migration, exile: Garibaldi's global fame

In this article, it is argued that Garibaldi's global fame owes much to his own experiences as a migrant and exile in the Americas. Overseas, Garibaldi not only acquired several practical and political skills, he also built up an important network of friends and supporters and became a hybrid figure able to adapt his image to diverse political settings. At the same time, Garibaldi relied on the trope of exile, developed by people like Ugo Foscolo, to define his opposition to, first, Italy's Restoration governments and, after Italian unification, the new moderate liberal regime. The article also looks at Garibaldi's life on Caprera and it is further argued that here Garibaldi combined elements of his previous experiences to fashion a role for himself as a ‘foreigner in Italy’. Garibaldi was a symbol of many worlds as well as a hero of two and it is precisely this hybrid nature of his appeal that can explain his global popularity.     

Western Arrernte Pmere Kwetethe Spirits

This article explores the difference between the meaning and use of TGH Strehlow's term pmara kutata (his spelling) and of pmere kwetethe (modern spelling) in contemporary Western Arrernte society. The expression pmara kutata features prominently in TGH Strehlow's oeuvre. He defined pmara kutata, as the ‘centre of a local totemic clan’, ‘sacred site’ and the ‘everlasting home’ where an important local totemic ancestor originated and /or passed to his last rest. Interestingly enough the term pmara kutata or pmere kwetethe seems to have undergone a semantic shift. In contemporary Western Arrernte society pmere kwetethe is used to denote a range of spirit beings with different characters that dwell on and in the landscape. In English the expression pmere kwetethe is sometimes glossed as ‘the spirits of the land’ or ‘the invisible people‘.     

Vienna and the Jews, 1867–1938: A cultural history

This article examines Ernest Belfort Bax's interpretation of the French Revolution and traces the impact that his idea of the Revolution had on his philosophy and his political thought. The first section considers Bax's understanding of the Revolution in the context of his theory of history and analyses his conception of the Revolution's legacy, drawing particularly on his portraits of Robespierre, Marat and Babeuf. The second section shows how the lessons Bax drew from this history shaped his socialist republicanism and discusses his support for Jacobin methods of revolutionary change. The third section of the article looks at the ways in which Bax's reading of revolutionary history affected his internationalism and shows how his ‘anti-patriotism’ led him to support the Anglo-French campaign in 1914. I argue that the Bax's understanding of the French Revolution gave body to his philosophy and greatly influenced his understanding of the socialist struggle. Bax believed that socialists had history on their side, but was so emboldened by the idea of the Revolution that he was led to advance a view of socialist change that undermined the historic values that socialism was supposed to enshrine.     

‘A Young Tory’? The Early Parliamentary Career of Charles James Fox 1768–74

This article seeks to redress the neglect, even by his biographers, of Fox's early career, when he made over 250 speeches in the house of commons in six years. The period when young Fox supported government was an inappropriate prelude to his later fame as opponent of Prime Minister Pitt and champion of ‘liberal causes’. He was anything but a ‘man of the people’ in his authoritarian attitude and detestation of popular opinion, and yet there were signs that he would not be an administration man in the mould of his father, Henry Fox.     

Crisis in consciousness: The thought of Ernst Troeltsch

This article examines the ‘revolutionary liberal’ outlook expounded by the young Italian journalist and intellectual, Piero Gobetti, immediately following the First World War. It considers the historical evolution of his ‘agonistic’ liberalism according to which conflict rather than consensus serves as the basis of social and political renewal. The article traces the formation of Gobetti's thought from his idealist response to the crisis of the liberal state through to his endorsement of the communist revolutionaries in Turin and his denunciation of fascism as the continuation of Italy's failed tradition of compromise. Whilst Gobetti's views presently resonate with a growing interest in the agonistic dimension of politics, it is argued that his elitism and his understanding of liberalism as a ‘civic religion’ reveal challenging tensions in his thought.     

Derrida and fidelity to history

In the first part of this paper Hugh Rayment-Pickard challenges Mark Bevir's assumption that Derrida does not care about historical or other kinds of truth. A consideration of Derrida's early work on Husserl shows deconstruction to be a kind of skepsis or epoche launched in search of the truth. Yet deconstruction reveals the truth as ‘undecidable’, which means that Derrida's commitment to the truth must take the form of ‘faith’. The second part of the paper considers an example of definite intentional meaning given in Mark Bevir's Logic: Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux. On examination, Petrach's motivation can be seen to be radically divided between secular and religious concerns, a split vividly illustrated in his imaginary dialogue with St Augustine: The Secret. Finally, Rayment-Pickard looks briefly at Derrida's own dialogue with St Augustine, ‘Circumfession’, which also argues that human intentions are irreducibly complex and plural.     

The International Character of a Trimmer: Interest,Reason of State,and Balance of Power in Halifax's Political Thought

This article argues that George Savile's thought casts light on international relations in the seventeenth century. Halifax's life and works concern not only England's domestic politics, but also its foreign affairs. Indeed, he develops a clear vision of international politics. This article analyses Halifax's international thought, in particular three concepts that are closely related to one another: ‘interest’, ‘reason of state’, and ‘balance of power’. Through the study of these ideas, this article will try to point out both the novelty of Halifax's thought compared with that of his contemporaries, and to reverse the stereotypical understanding of his intellectual legacy and political behaviour. The ‘trimmer’ contrasts with Louis XIV's attempt to establish a universal monarchy across Europe, outlining a doctrine of moderation that seeks to ensure liberty, security, and restraint in international relations.     

Derrida and fidelity to history

In the first part of this paper Hugh Rayment-Pickard challenges Mark Bevir's assumption that Derrida does not care about historical or other kinds of truth. A consideration of Derrida's early work on Husserl shows deconstruction to be a kind of skepsis or epoche launched in search of the truth. Yet deconstruction reveals the truth as ‘undecidable’, which means that Derrida's commitment to the truth must take the form of ‘faith’. The second part of the paper considers an example of definite intentional meaning given in Mark Bevir's Logic: Petrarch's ascent of Mont Ventoux. On examination, Petrach's motivation can be seen to be radically divided between secular and religious concerns, a split vividly illustrated in his imaginary dialogue with St Augustine: The Secret. Finally, Rayment-Pickard looks briefly at Derrida's own dialogue with St Augustine, ‘Circumfession’, which also argues that human intentions are irreducibly complex and plural.     

Churchill's ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech in Context: The Attempt to Achieve a ‘Good Understanding on All Points’ with Stalin's Soviet Union

More than 70 years ago, on 5 March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his ‘iron curtain’ speech at Westminster College in Fulton. The speech immediately attracted worldwide attention and proved to be highly controversial. Most contemporaries in East and West and the vast majority of subsequent historians interpreted the speech as Churchill's call for western resistance to Stalin's expansionist policies and the continuation of the wartime ‘special relationship’ between Washington and London. This article argues, however, that Churchill's speech has been misunderstood. When set in the context of Churchill's other pronouncements on world affairs during his time as leader of the opposition between 1945 and 1951 and in view of his vigorously pursued ‘Big Three’ ‘summit diplomacy’ with Moscow and Washington after he returned as Prime Minister in 1951, the ‘iron curtain’ speech must be seen in a different light. It becomes clear that this famous speech was not Churchill's sabre-rattling call for commencing or energizing the East--West conflict with the Soviet Union. Quite to the contrary, his speech was meant to prevent the escalation of this conflict and avoid the dangerous clash between the world's greatest powers that soon became known as the Cold War.     

James Mill's treatment of religion and the History of British India

James Mill's History of British India’ (1817) played a major role in re-shaping the English policy and attitudes in India throughout the nineteenth century. This article questions the widely held view that the ‘HBI’ heralded the utilitarian justification of colonisation found for instance in John Stuart Mill's writings. It suggests that James Mill's role as a proponent of ‘utilitarian imperialism’ has been overstated, and argues that much of Mill's criticism of Indian society arose from the continuing influence of his religious education as well as from his links with a network of Presbyterian and Evangelical thinkers. It is only after his death that the colonialist views put forward in the History of British India were re-interpreted in light of his later attachment to utilitarianism.     

On Political Theology: The Hidden Dialogue between C. Schmitt and Ernst H. Kantorowicz in The King's Two Bodies

In recent years, Ernst H. Kantorowicz's work The King's Two Bodies (1957) has been the object of both historical and philosophical research. Kantorowicz decided to subtitle his book ‘A Study in Medieval Political Theology’, but few scholars have actually recognised his work as research in ‘political theology’. The aim of this article, then, is to uncover the sense(s) in which his book might be considered a work of ‘political theology’, especially in the sense coined by Carl Schmitt in 1922. Such a discussion ultimately aims to contribute to the foundation of political-theology research, a subject that has been widespread among European intellectuals in the twentieth century and which continues to be a focus of interest. This article argues that Kantorowicz's book can be interpreted as a practice of—and also an enriching addition to—Schmitt's thesis on political theology, even if it does not mention Schmitt's name. Such a conclusion is only possible by accepting that there was a heated dialogue between Kantorowicz and Schmitt through Erik Peterson's work. The article further discusses its approach with other scholars that, even though they are based on similar hypotheses, make different conclusions.     

Syria: from ‘authoritarian upgrading’ to revolution?

Syria was, until recently, seen as a ‘successful’ example of authoritarian ‘upgrading’ or ‘modernization;’ yet in 2011 the Syrian regime faced revolution from below: what went wrong? Bashar al‐Asad inherited a flawed regime yet managed to start the integration of his country into the world capitalist market, without forfeiting the nationalist card by, for instance, attempting to acquire legitimacy from opposition to Israel and the US invasion of Iraq. Yet, despite his expectations and that of most analysts, his regime proved susceptible to the Arab uprising. This article examines the causes and development of the Syrian uprising of 2011. It contextualizes the revolt by showing how the construction of the regime built in vulnerabilities requiring constant ‘upgradings’ that produced a more durable regime but had long term costs. It focuses on Bashar al‐Asad's struggles to ‘modernize’ authoritarianism by consolidating his own ‘reformist’ faction, balancing between the regime's nationalist legitimacy and its need for incorporation into the world economy; his shifting of the regime's social base to a new class of crony capitalists; and his effort to manage participatory pressures through limited liberalization and ‘divide and rule’. The seeds of the uprising are located in these changes, notably the abandonment of the regime's rural constituency and debilitating of its institutions. Yet, it was Asad's inadequate response to legitimate grievances and excessive repression that turned demands for reform into attempted revolution. The article then analyses the uprising, looking at the contrary social bases and strategies of regime and opposition, and the dynamics by which violence and foreign intervention have escalated, before finishing with comments on the likely prognosis.     

Calls for educating girls in the Third World: futurity,girls and the ‘Third World Woman’

In this article I examine three calls for Western support for girls' education in the ‘developing world’. Using transnational feminist theory and discourse analysis I look at three examples of these calls; Three Cups of Tea, ‘Because I Am a Girl’ and the United National Girls Education Initiative. I suggest that what Mohanty (1988) terms the ‘Third World Woman’ – a homogeneous, static image of women in the third world – is the spectre used to motivate Western support. Through representations of girls, Western viewers/readers are hailed to invest in order to save the girl-child from the haunting ‘Third World Woman’. The girl-child, through her particularity as a girl, her future womanhood as motherhood and her neoliberal potential, becomes presented as emblems of a better future with the investment of Westerners.