Inventing modern Japan: Hobsbawm,Foucault and Meiji history

Takashi Fujitani. Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. US$40.00, hardcover.

James Edward Ketelaar. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and its Persecution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. US$35.00, hardcover; US$17.95, paper.     

Foucault,deleuze, and the ontology of networks

The concept of the network has become embedded in social thought and imagery, articulating what at root is inarticulable. The network metaphor occupies an ontological space, but this space, insofar as it is posed as a philosophical question, seems to assume a network-like shape itself. It may be particularly rewarding to read the constellations studied by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze from this point of view, in light of the analysis of the preconditions of networks. This paper examines how the question of the ontology of networks is addressed by these thinkers, especially with regard to the historicity of ontology.     

Foucault,realism and the power discourse in international relations

The work of Michel Foucault highlights the need to rethink the assumptions of disciplines such as international relations which have tended to remain narrow, universalist and positivist. In particular, the key concept of power has largely escaped critical inquiry. This article seeks to open up the power discourse in international relations by exploring the limits of traditional approaches such as realism and even critical theory, arguing for a ‘post‐positivist’ approach which incorporates Foucault's insights into the nature of power. Indeed, it goes beyond much of the ‘Third Debate’ in directly focusing on power and rearticulating its form and content as a category of analysis in international relations.     

嵩阳书院：中州教育史上的明珠

书院之名始于唐代,最初只是收藏、校刊书籍、辨明典章的地方。五代时,由于战争的影响,官学衰废,士子苦无就学之所,于是自动择地读书。一些学者在佛教禅林制度的影响下,选择风景优美的山林名胜之地,作为“群居讲学之所”,出现了具有学校性质的书院。书院的创办者或为私人,或为官府,不少有名学者讲学其间,采用个别钻研、相互问答、聚众讲教相结合的教学方法,     

Predicament and responses: Discussions of history education in early modern China

ABSTRACT

Since the early modern era, following the abolishment of the imperial civil service exam and the rise of modern schools, the subject of history was included in education at all levels, from primary to tertiary. However, in comparison with traditional society, the degree of attention devoted to historical knowledge has in fact declined rather than improved. In the 1920s, many contemporaries vocally criticized and pondered the low level of historical knowledge among primary and secondary school students, and occasionally voiced dissatisfaction with history education at the university level as well. Critics primarily focused their discussions on the insufficient attention for history classes, imperfect standards formulated for history classes, poor history teaching materials, and lack of qualified, specialized teachers, forming a universal consensus among contemporaries on the failure of history education. However, the widespread opprobrium attached to history education was closely tied to two facts: first, the historians of early modern China had as yet failed to compile a general history of China acceptable to the majority, greatly disappointing many educators; second, historical resources failed to exercise the mobilizing effect on early modern Chinese society that contemporaries had hoped for, and history thus often became the scapegoat paying the price for practical setbacks and failures in the political arena.     

Foucault,space and primary school dining rooms

This paper takes up recent debates within Children's Geographies as to the ‘usefulness’ of theory and its application to school dining rooms. The paper argues that in particular, Foucault's notions of governmentality have the potential to advance theoretical understandings of the spatiality of school dining rooms, the social relationships that occur within them and that in addition this can have relevant practical and policy implications that could impact upon the everyday lives of children that are both constituted by and constitutive of this space.     

Foucault and the politics of our selves

Exploring the apparent tension between Foucault's analyses of technologies of domination -- the ways in which the subject is constituted by power-knowledge relations -- and of technologies of the self -- the ways in which individuals constitute themselves through practices of freedom -- this article endeavors to make two points: first, the interpretive claim that Foucault's own attempts to analyse both aspects of the politics of our selves are neither contradictory nor incoherent; and second, the constructive claim that Foucault's analysis of the politics of our selves, though not entirely satisfactory as it stands, provides important resources for the project of critical social theory.     

藏族妇女教育历史回顾

藏族妇女教育是藏族教育的重要组成部分。本文通过回顾藏族妇女教育的近现代史,透视藏族社会妇女教育的发展历程,指出藏族妇女教育仍是不容忽视的重要问题。     

Actors and structures in the selection of knowledge: A case in the history of Swedish higher education

In the early modern period (16–18th centuries), churches and state administrations alike strove to eradicate Evil. Neither they nor society at large accepted a conceptual differentiation between crime and sin.

The two worst kinds of Evil early modern societies could imagine were organized arson and witchcraft. Although both of them were delusions, they nevertheless promoted state building. Networks of itinerant street beggars were supposed to have been paid by foreign powers to set fire in towns and villages. These vagrant arsonists can be regarded as the terrorists of the early modern period. Witches were persons who had allegedly made a compact with the devil. They were thought to randomly use maleficent magic to harm individuals as well as whole regions.

When law enforcement agencies and suspicious peasants or townspeople tried to identify persons who might be arsonist terrorists or witches they used the category ‘Evil’. Anyone who ignored the behavioral standards of society ever so slightly could be suspected of being utterly evil. The concept of Evil linked petty, commonplace immorality and the worst crimes imaginable to each other and to the mindless hatred of demons. This pre-modern concept of the banality of Evil was called into question by the legal reforms of the 17th century. It was finally rejected by the enlightenment that negated the imagined continuum of Evil.

Witches and arsonist terrorists shared a number of characteristics. They were both said to form conspiracies that mirrored everyday society like an evil twin. The crimes they perpetrated lacked any purpose or reason, they were motivated by sheer malice. The worst forms of Evil had certain qualities of an epidemic: Witchcraft and terrorism were supposed to be always on the rise. The evil people were victimizers as well as victims. The imagery of Evil even implied that the evildoers resembled those they were supposed to have harmed.

The fear of terrorist vagrants and witches as well as other conspiracy theories can be traced back to the Black Death. The plague of the 14th century not only sparked anti-Semitism. It lend force and credibility to the idea of an irrationally destructive, ever-growing secret organization as the epitome of Evil.