Memory,history and the classical tradition

‘Memory’ is often confused and mistaken for myth; this is in turn connected with the widespread use of mistaking collective mythology and common myth for the idea of a ‘collective memory’. This essay discusses memory and history terminology in the context of the generic concept ‘classical tradition’. The case study explored here – the nineteenth-century Walhalla ‘temple’ near Regensburg in Southern Germany – is an attempt to discuss the classical tradition, focusing on archaeology and architecture rather than philology), within the parameters of the memory and history debate in contemporary historiography. The essay aims to develop the position of the iconic and symbolic importance of antiquity and the classical tradition in the memory and history debate as well as in historical writing. The concluding remarks emphasise the necessity of historicising tradition and its genealogies, conceptualised here as a tradition of legacies.     

Towards a Definition of the pre-Classical Phoenician Temple

ABSTRACT

Though our knowledge of Iron Age Phoenician cultic architecture is quite limited, the available data suggests that pre-Classical Phoenician temples followed a similar plan which displayed several unique architectural features. This plan originated from a long held, Bronze Age, Canaanite tradition which became especially prominent along the northern Levantine coast from the Middle Bronze Age II, appearing alongside other temple plans. This article aims to demonstrate that during the Iron Age and most of the Persian period, this temple plan became the predominant temple type in Phoenicia and its dependencies. It was only during the late Persian period, that a drastic change occurred, and this millennia-old plan was abandoned in favor of other temple types. Nevertheless, it appears that despite this seemingly radical change, the most notable feature of the traditional plan was preserved.     

Defining the OE hearg: a preliminary archaeological and topographic examination of hearg place names and their hinterlands

The OE term hearg is interpreted variously as ‘pagan temple’, ‘hilltop sanctuary’ and even ‘idol’. It is a rare survival in the English place‐name record. When it can be identified, the place name is commonly considered to refer to a location of pre‐Christian religious activity, specifically a pagan Anglo‐Saxon temple. Taking inspiration from the extensive and methodologically well‐advanced studies in Scandinavia, which have successfully related place‐name evidence for cultic and religious sites with the archaeology and topography of these localities, this paper adopts and uses a similar methodology to investigate the archaeological and topographic character of a selection of hearg locations. The traditional interpretations of the place name are questioned and evidence is presented that these sites are characterized by long‐lived, localized cult practice spanning the late prehistoric to early historic periods, but with activity reaching a zenith in the late Iron Age to Romano‐British eras, rather than the fifth to seventh centuries AD.     

Suffragettes and Shrews: Unruly British Women in the Early Chinese Press (1900s–1910s)

This article examines the image of the British suffragettes in the early Chinese press up to the 1910s. By widely surveying newspapers and magazines, it shows that the common adoption of the shrew trope in depicting the suffragettes went beyond a reductive translational interaction between the West and the East. People's Stand, The Eastern Miscellany and other periodical publications present different ways in which diction, images, literary legacy, gender tradition and cultural demands all came into play in reconfiguring the Chinese shrew and her connections to the Western suffragettes. The shrew–suffragette linkage debunks notions of selling strategies and editorial ambivalence underlying the gesture of the press. Yet it was precisely this ambiguity that rendered the shrew image so polysemic and fruitful, eventually allowing this traditional character type to be positively associated with the new woman models in Chinese progressive discourses.     

The Temple of Apollo and Diana in Rome

‘The temple of Apollo and Diana’ is Vitruvius' example of the diastylos type, with comparatively wide‐spaced columns. Since there were only two Apollo temples in Rome, and that of Apollo ‘Sosianus’ outside the Porta Carmentalis was of the pycnostylos type, Vitruvius must have been referring to the temple on the Palatine dedicated by Imperator Caesar (soon to be Augustus) on 9 October 28 BC. That conclusion is normally contested or ignored, on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the remains of the concrete core of the platform on which the Palatine temple stood. I argue that the archaeological evidence should not be treated as decisive, and that the identification of the Palatine temple as a joint dedication to Apollo and his sister, perhaps with back‐to‐back cellae, may help to resolve the recent controversy over which way the temple faced.     

Compositional Form in Montaigne's Essais and the Self-Portrait

For centuries, the myth of the Oresteia has been one of the pillars of patriarchal cultures. The revisionist trend that has appeared in European literature in the last decades urges the establishment of a new symbolic order that embraces maternal genealogies. I sogni di Clitennestra (1981) by Dacia Maraini and Clitemnestra (1986) by María José Ragué-Arias rewrite the Orestes myth from a feminist perspective, warning about the dangers involved in the perception of the mother as a monstrous and phobic object that must be eliminated. Their works show that psychic matricide is not a viable way to acquire subjectivity, since it is based in masculine anxieties and in absolute identification with the father, which is in turn the base for a society also founded on violence. Maraini and Ragué-Arias vindicate Clytemnestra while denouncing the violence inherent to the patriarchal order of Western societies.     

Sentire Cum Brownsone: “Brownson’s Political Philosophy,Republican and Christian”

Abstract

Sentire cum Brownsone provides an exposition of the political philosophy of Orestes Brownson (1803–1876). Negatively, his disagreements with modern social contract theory and its underlying anthropology are laid out, while positively, his key concepts – the unwritten constitution, territorial democracy, and the American Republic – are unpacked. His thinking about the complex relationship between Christianity and America's constitutional order is also highlighted.     

‘Dark cognition’: W.B. Yeats,J.G. Herder and the imperfection of tradition

In this article I connect Revivalist politics in nineteenth-century Ireland to Enlightenment epistemology by exploring how the ideal of the Irish – or Celtic – folk tradition is embroiled in the problematic of theoretical modernity. I dispute Seamus Deane's ideological characterisation of the Irish tradition, emerging from his encounters with the work of Edmund Burke and Matthew Arnold, and propose an alternative characterisation using Johann Gottfried Herder's theories of the Volk and the origin of language. I show how, at a crucial point in European history, the folk tradition modelled a view of cognition and modernity, which stood apart from analytic rationalism and based itself upon a positive evaluation of the obscurity of sensation. Finally, I read this literary-aesthetic model of what Herder called ‘dark’ cognition into Yeats's early folkloric works of the 1890s, especially The Celtic Twilight; and I make the argument that this often-neglected text does not represent a degeneration of folkloric integrity into Celtic mysticism but a comedic trait of folk modernity.     

From Karl von Frisch to Neuroethology: A Methodological Perspective on the Frischean Tradition's Expansion into Neuroethology**

This paper examines a tradition of eusocial insect research stemming from the Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch. As I show in this paper, one of the most enduring features of the Frischean tradition has been an experimental methodology developed by Frisch in the early 1910s. By tracing this methodology's use through Frisch's student, Martin Lindauer, and two of Lindauer's students, Rüdiger Wehner and Randolf Menzel, this paper illuminates a surprising aspect of ethology's development during the last half of the 20^th century. Namely, it sheds light on how the Frischean tradition, a tradition that had a complicated relationship with ethology since the discipline's formation in the 1930s, produced scientists who became leading figures in neuroethology, the most prominent contemporary field of behavioral research to retain the label of “ethology.” Some of the features that distinguished Frisch's training method from the program of classical ethology and the work of his contemporaries later helped his academic descendants adapt the method to the neuroethological program.     

An Archaeology of History: The Wang Mang Nine Temples from Early Imperial China as Reconstructed by History and by Archaeology

In this paper, I examine the relationship between the construction of history by the textual history of early imperial China and by Chinese archaeology in the second half of the twentieth century, considering how these two fields of scholarship were directed by ideologies of the Chinese government. The locus for this investigation is the complex of imperial ancestral temples constructed by the emperor Wang Mang (r. 9–23 CE) for his brief interregnum dynasty. Although this group of buildings is described in the official dynastic history, compiled only fifty years after its construction, as having nine temple buildings with specific ancestors ascribed to each, its archaeological excavation in the late 1950s instead revealed twelve temples in a carefully organized plan. The discrepancy between the original construction of the temple complex and its subsequent revision in textual history is revealing in terms of the relationship between received tradition and individual action in the context of establishing imperial legitimacy, whereas the modern attempts to reconcile the discrepancy between textual history and excavated history are indicative of the relationship between Chinese archaeology of that period and the nationalist revision of history.     

The Riddle of Ishtar's Shoes: The Religious Significance of the Footprints at ‘Ain Dara from a Comparative Perspective

This essay analyzes the carved footprints in the Iron Age temple at ‘Ain Dara, Syria from a broadly comparative perspective. This methodology is necessitated by the fact that footprint iconography is very rare in ancient Near Eastern art. The diverse examples utilized in this paper to help explicate the footprints at ‘Ain Dara range from the Footprints of the Buddha (Buddhapadas) to the sullied feet of Jesus. Through analysis of footprint iconography in other religious contexts, I have drawn conclusions concerning the form and function of the temple footprints at ‘Ain Dara that have escaped other scholars of the ancient Near East.     

‘Because their patron never dies’: ecclesiastical freedmen,socio-religious interaction,and group formation under the aegis of ‘church property’ in the early medieval west (sixth to eleventh centuries)

In the early medieval west, patronate, as adapted from Roman law, was a fundamental category in determining the legal status of freedmen. In many cases it entailed a basic set of obligations. In an increasing number of situations, however, the patron became an ecclesiastical institution, since slaves and freed persons were often given to churches and monasteries. As ecclesiastical institutions regarded their patronal rights over freed persons as part of inalienable church property, the patronal relationship became permanent and inheritable. In Eastern Francia (the Rhineland and beyond) this transformed ecclesiastical freedmen into religiously defined social groups with potentially distinct aims, religious tasks, and organizational structures, and a shared notion of freedom. From the Carolingian period onward, it even became attractive to enter voluntarily into this status. It is argued here that with its underlying network of socio-religious relations, patronate over ecclesiastical freedmen and censuales can be better understood when considered as an element of a ‘temple society’.     

Genesis 38: The Search for Progeny and Heir

The construction of a second temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem during the early Achaemenid period is usually attributed to the religious fervor of ethnic Yehudite immigrants from Babylon. The general shape of reconstructions of this period most often follows the general outline of the events given in Ezra 1-6. According to this model, there were two attempts to build the temple, a first attempt in the reign of Cyrus and a second attempt in the reign of Darius. This paper proposes an alternative reconstruction, placing the entire construction project in the reign of Darius and attributing the primary motivation for the project to the needs of the Persian imperial administration rather than Yehudite religious sentiments.     

Avenging ‘Bridget’: Irish domestic servants and middle-class America in the short stories of Maeve Brennan

This article will examine the representation of Irish women servants in Maeve Brennan's short stories, first published in The New Yorker in the 1950s, and collected in The Rose Garden (2001). The Irish ‘Bridget’, the most publicly visible, if troubling, image of Irish womanhood in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, has received much-needed attention from historians and social scientists in the last decade, and is a central figure in discussions of Irish women and diasporic identity in the American context. Drawing on this body of work, and focusing in detail on key stories from the collection, including ‘The Bride’, ‘The View from the Kitchen’, ‘The Anachronism’, ‘The Divine Fireplace’, and ‘The Servants’ Dance', I argue that Brennan's reimagining of the Irish Bridget can be approached as a form of feminist revisionism, as Brennan's stories enter into a charged dialogue with the history of imagining the Irish woman servant as an undesirable but necessary presence in middle-class American domestic culture. Brennan's self-reflexive reworking of this paradigm is informed by her work as a satirist for The New Yorker, and proves an effective means of writing back to this problematic history, as she takes up recognisable tropes and motifs from earlier representations of Bridget in popular and literary culture, and alters them in knowing and subversive ways.     

Die bewertung des ungeborenen lebens im alten israel und im alten orient

Abstract

First, how does Haggai “construct” the temple, i.e. what view does he hold of it, its function and its significance? The answer here is that, whatever the Second Temple actually was, Haggai does not construct it as a place of sacrifice, a house of prayer, a location of the presence of God, a pivot of the economic system of Judah, a focus of ethnic identity, etc., but as a treasury. It must be rebuilt because it is a shame (not “glory") for Yahweh not to have a “house” in which treasures of silver and gold belonging to him can be stored and exhibited (2,7–9). And this temple must be rebuilt quickly because of the imminent political‐military upheaval ("shaking") of the earth that will result in booty in large quantities arriving in Jerusalem.

Second, is there anything in the text of the book that undermines this “construction” of the temple? Yes, there is an underlying conflict in the text (amounting to a deconstruction) over the issue of honour Yahweh is dishonoured by the ruined state of the temple, but it is not the rebuilding of the temple that will bring him honour. Further, the designation of the Judaeans and the “work of their hands” as “unclean” (2,14) deconstructs the text's placing responsibility for the rebuilding in their hands. Further still, the sudden narrowing of focus to Zerubbabel in the closing verses of the book (2,20–23), and the unprepared designation of him as an eschatological king, deconstructs the prophecy's professed concern with the temple.

Third, can these deconstructionists be deployed in the service of a reconstruction? Here I use the axiom that texts exist in order to repress social conflicts. Yes, we can first reconstitute the social reality implied by the text: from the deconstruction over the issue of honour we can reconstruct the conflict between enthusiasts for temple rebuilding and resisters. From the deconstruction over cleanness and uncleanness we can reconstruct the conflict between the leadership and the proletariat. From the deconstruction regarding Zerubbabel we can reconstruct the political conflict over the governorship.

And yes, we can secondly “construct” the social reality created by the reading of the text today. Here we can see how the reading of the text by biblical scholars functions as a repression of conflicts of interest and ideology among different groups of readers, and how the deconstructability of the text can serve to bring such conflict to consciousness.     

甘肃省永登县连城鲁土司属寺壁画的科学分析和时代研究

本项研究主要是运用光学显微镜、扫描电子显微镜和共聚焦显微激光拉曼光谱技术,分析了甘肃永登连城鲁土司属寺中的妙因寺、感恩寺和雷坛中的部分壁画。分析结果表明感恩寺和雷坛壁画基本保持了明代最初的绘制风格和内容。其中感恩寺主要壁画的绘画颜料和工艺特点鲜明,表明绘制该壁画的画工不同于绘制鲁土司属寺其他壁画的工匠;妙因寺万岁殿壁画存在后期改动和重绘的情况,其中万岁殿外回廊壁画主要部分的最初绘制时间要早于万岁殿大殿内壁画的最后绘制时间;而妙因寺塔尔殿壁画则绘制于19世纪后期。     

On the Life and Death of Earl GodwineGodwine During the Reign of Harold the First and Harthacnut

This report reviews and updates the evidence from the Roman temple site of Pagans Hill, Chew Stoke, North Somerset, which was partly excavated between 1949 and 1953. This includes a revised terminus post quem for the initial building of the temple complex of c. A.D. 262 and an emphasis of the importance of the location of the well on the axis of a planned layout. This is accompanied by a resumé of a reassessment by George Boon of the sculpture of the torso of a dog found in the well in 1951; this was formerly dated to the sixteenth century, but is now redated to the Roman period, and assigned to a group of temple sculpture. This has also stimulated discussion about the dedication of the temple, possibly to Apollo Cunomaglus. There is also a new review by Professor Vera Evison of the Anglo-Saxon glass jar from the temple well and other comparable vessels.

A further excavation in 1986 clarified certain ambiguous points in the earlier work, and added some new data, notably of prehistoric (Neolithic/Early Bronze Age and? Iron Age) use of the site, and of the construction of the Roman well. Finds reports include details of a collection of flints, prehistoric pottery, and industrial refuse; a review of the consolidated coin evidence, the first assessment of any faunal remains from the site and details of objects found by metal-detecting, the latter including a note on a rare coin of Edward the Confessor.