Enlightenment and Prophecy: The Jews and Neo-Hellenic Nationalism

ABSTRACT

Even before the rise of nationalism and its counterpart anti-Semitism sensu stricto, anti-Judaic prejudices and stereotypes were widespread in the Christian Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire. These attitudes arose mainly from the commercial antagonism between the Christian and Jewish communities during the crisis that beset the empire from the seventeenth century onward. To examine these attitudes more closely, this article first focuses on the extreme anti-Judaic discourse in the sermons of eighteenth-century Father Cosmas Aitolos (Cosmas of Aetolia; d. 1779), an itinerant monk, who was canonized in 1961. It then turns to Rhigas Velestinlis’s enlightened vision of a tolerant multi-ethnic, multi-religious republic, which gradually replaced the Sultan’s oriental despotism, in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians were to be equal citizens. But this vision sank into oblivion, as the aspiration to national independence and to ethnical homogeneity prevailed in Greece, as well as everywhere in the Balkans. Although the early advocates of enlightened Greek nationalism embraced the language of citizenship and emancipation, they excluded from it the proviso of multi-ethnicity. Accordingly, they perceived the “Jewish Question” as one of gradually integrating a “foreign” religious minority into the Greek nation by “re-educating them in the values of Hellenism,” in the words of Adamandios Korais (1748–1833), and according them full citizenship only in the generations to come. All three distinctive attitudes towards the Jews are traceable in subsequent ideological trends and conflicts in Modern Greece.     

On the Margins of Colonialism: Contact Zones in the Aru Islands

ABSTRACT

The Aru Islands are situated at the eastern end of the Indian Ocean, in the southern Moluccas. They are also one of the easternmost places in the world where Islam and Christianity gained a (limited) foothold in the early-modern period, and marked the outer reach of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The present article discusses Western-Arunese relations in the seventeenth century in terms of economic exchange and political networks. Although Aru society was stateless and relatively egalitarian and eluded strong colonial control up to the late colonial period, it was still a source of natural products, such as pearls, birds-of-paradise, turtle-shells, destined for luxury consumption in Asia and Europe. Aru society was thus positioned in a global economic network while leaving it largely ungoverned. Colonial archival data yield important information about the indigenous responses to European attempts to control the flow of goods. They both support Roy Ellen’s claim that the economic flows in eastern Indonesia extended beyond the control of VOC, and provide parallels to James Scott’s thesis of state-avoidance among the ethnic minorities in mainland Southeast Asia.     

犹太启蒙运动初探

本以现代化理论为视角,探讨了犹太启蒙运动(即哈斯卡拉)的思想根源,认为哈斯卡拉正是欧洲启蒙运动在隔都高墙之内的表现、反应与延伸。章指出,犹太启蒙运动的基本主张如呼吁犹太人走出隔都、顺应社会潮流改革犹太教、大力发展现代教育等无不反映了犹太人对现代化的向往与追求。因此,犹太启蒙运动标志着犹太化现代化的肇始。这一理性主义运动在解放思想、促进民族化的更新等方面确实起到了有目共睹的作用,但也留下了惨痛的教训,许多犹太人背离了自己的传统,全然放弃了犹太教。     

Revolution and the Jews

Taking the public demonstrations in France after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo as its starting point, the essay considers the active role Jews played in shaping the relationship between religion and politics in modern Europe to argue that this history can allow us to think more expansively about the position of Islam in current discussions of theo-politics in France and Europe more broadly.     

On the Margins: Enduring Pre-Modern Water Management Strategies In and Around the Registan Desert,Afghanistan

The Registan Desert in southern Afghanistan has, like most deserts, traditionally been regarded as a barren, hostile space, devoid of human occupation other than occasional nomad campsites and an isolated 11th-century a.d. fortress. Detailed analysis of a strip of high resolution satellite imagery available through Google Earth and stretching into the Registan has revealed the presence of over 800 hitherto unrecorded archaeological sites. Many of these sites relate to water management, and predate the modern era. The water installations form networks of sites which facilitated the opportunistic exploitation of grazing following periodic rains, desert farming, travel, trade and exchange over hundreds of years, if not longer. Extrapolating from this detailed analysis, we argue that thousands of other sites have yet to be discovered in the Registan. These water management networks warrant further study in the field and protection from neglect, construction, recreational four-wheel driving, and looting.     

论新启蒙运动

新启蒙运动是中国共产党为配合抗日民族统一战线的建立而在思想文化领域里发起的一场运动.它吸引了一些具有自由主义倾向的知识界人士参加.但是从一开始,这一运动内部就充满分歧,共产党人和自由主义者对"思想自由"、"新哲学"、"理性"等概念的解释完全不同.共产党人还为新启蒙运动设定了长远的政治目标和现实的政治斗争对象.抗战进入相持阶段后,新启蒙运动的口号已不适应变化了的形势,共产党人从此不再热心于新启蒙运动,取而代之的是学术中国化运动.     

Concealed Communities: The People at the Margins

The “concealed communities” of our title are the people archaeologists have often labeled as “marginal.” Archaeologists writing about both prehistoric and historic periods have commonly made a range of assumptions about margins and marginality, and their discussions have often categorized marginality as ecological, economic, or socio-political. Whilst it has been common to privilege one or other of these categories in order to explain how societies worked, they are rarely mutually exclusive. In addition, since marginality is relative, virtually any group might be made marginal depending on people’s perspectives in the past or present. Sometimes marginality can be imposed (economically or politically), and sometimes even actively chosen. Defining the “margin” is a complex business, and the term needs sensitive, context-orientated use to make it useful for archaeologists.