United with the Countrymen: Folklore Studies at Peking University, 1918–26

Late nineteenth and early twentieth century China faced a grave national crisis resulting from intense foreign pressure and a rigid political system that was incapable of adapting to the challenges of the modern world. China’s decline did, however, lead to a wave of nationalism that swept across Chinese society. Set against this backdrop, a new generation of patriotically minded intellectuals, one with relatively broad exposure to Western thinking and academic methods, turned its focus to enlightening the oppressed masses as a means of bringing about national salvation. These intellectuals pursued this forward-looking aim by looking to the past for inspiration. More specifically, they looked to folk culture as a means of connecting with the common people and weaving together a new discourse that promoted national unity. Under these circumstances, a group of professors at Peking University, including Zhou Zuoren, Liu Fu, and Gu Jiegang, began to search for vernacular works in folk culture. This article examines folklore studies at Peking University expanding from folksongs to folk customs and other forms of folk literature. It focuses on early folklorists’ activities, folklore organizations, and primary publications. Under the university’s influence, folklore studies appeared in various newspapers and other research institutions in Beijing and Shanghai in rapid succession.     

Autonomia and the Political: An Italian Cycle of Contention, 1972–1979

Sidney Tarrow has identified a ‘cycle of contention’ taking place in Italy between 1966 and 1972; Tarrow characterises the left-wing terrorism of the late 1970s as an after-effect of this cycle. However, there was a second cycle of contention between 1972 and 1979, incorporating the left-wing ‘armed struggle’ milieu alongside a group of related mass movements (notably the ‘area of Autonomia’, the ‘movement of 1977’ and the ‘proletarian youth movement’). The second cycle, unlike the first, was met with repression, and with the exclusion of its ideological and tactical innovations from the political mainstream. The difference between the two cycles relates to the role played by the Italian Communist Party, which functioned as a ‘gatekeeper’ in each case; the party's engagement with the first cycle can be characterised as inclusive, while its engagement with the second cycle was unremittingly exclusive.     

Italy at War 1935–2005: Report on the 2005 ASMI Annual Conference,Edinburgh, 25–26 November

‘Addiopizzo’ (Goodbye protection money) is a grassroots anti-mafia movement based in Palermo that stresses the individual consumer's responsibility for maintaining the Sicilian mafia's pizzo system. If you purchase products from a business that pays the pizzo you are indirectly supporting the mafia. By encouraging Palermitans to buy from ‘pizzo-free’ businesses, Addiopizzo uses the purchasing power of the consumer to fight organised crime. The community of ‘pizzo-free’ businesses is small but steadily growing whilst the number of critical consumers pledging to buy their products appears to have peaked. This article aims to investigate the reasons why consumers may be reluctant to support ‘pizzo-free’ businesses by asking those who have already made public their decision to do so. Whilst critical consumers cannot fully explain why the majority of Palermo's citizens continue to tolerate the pizzo system their attitudes towards them do highlight differences that may help to account for wider non-participation in Addiopizzo's campaign.     

Akshay Sarathi,Editor: Early Maritime Cultures in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean: Papers from a Conference Held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (African Studies Program) 23–24th October 2015, with Additional Contributions

Journal of Maritime Archaeology -     

Military Identities,Conventional Capability and the Politics of NATO Standardisation at the Beginning of the Second Cold War, 1970–1980

This paper uses equipment standardisation as a lens for examining power relationships and the importance of military identity in framing the development of NATO conventional capability. In the face of the Warsaw Pact's overwhelming military capacity the logic of standardisation was compelling. Standardising equipment and making military forces interoperable reduced logistics overlap, increased the tempo of operations and allowed partners to optimise manufacturing capacity. Applied carefully, standardisation would help NATO mount a successful conventional defence of Western Europe, a crucial aspect of the Alliance's flexible response strategy. In this paper, we apply Actor Network Theory to standardisation discussions thereby revealing the incoherence and volatility of NATO's collective strategic thinking and the vast networks of countervailing interests on which this is based.     

Proceedings at Meetings of the Royal Archæological Institute,June 4th, 1885

This is the report of three small research excavations at Waltham Abbey. Each was designed to answer specific questions about the destroyed east end of the Collegiate Church and the relation to it of the Augustinian extensions. Excavation in 1984 was across the chancel of the Collegiate Church which became the Augustinian central nave. In 1986 an area around the Collegiate ambulatory was dug and, in 1987, this was extended to establish the geometry of the apse.

In the area excavated there were no remains of a church which might pre-date the apse-and- ambulatory form. The eastern walls were taken down when the building was extended as part of the Augustinian re-foundation of 1177. Continuous but irregular Collegiate pier foundations were seen and four buttress projections, to the wall foundations, suggest that the aisles and ambulatory had been vaulted. The Collegiate chancel pier foundations seem to have been re-used and even the piers themselves appear to have been incorporated into the Augustinian design. Two new pier foundations for the Augustinian central nave were seen. This nave was wider than the adjacent chancel which caused problems of alignment. Part of the Augustinian north-aisle tiled pavement survived. A previously discovered curved foundation is now known to be that of a small ‘bubble’ chapel which was added between two adjacent buttresses of the Collegiate Church.

As a result of the excavations it is possible to predict the form of the second Collegiate church, of Romanesque style, and to suggest it was begun in the late eleventh century. To the west of the present excavations a much more modest apsidal end is still possible for Harold's original Collegiate Church dedicated c. 1060; no physical evidence of this church has been established with certainty but some possibilities are mentioned.

There is a full documentary survey and a discussion of parallels for the apse-and-ambulatory east end with Waltham having features in common with churches of other secular houses. Details are given of mortar analysis and of stonework which shows some clear parallels with the church begun at Durham c. 1095. There is a record of all previous work on the monastic site.     

Science and Politics in the Hawaiian Kingdom: The Progress of the Honolulu Social Science Association, 1882–87

The growth in studies of Indigenous responses to the gradual foreign control and American annexation of the Hawaiian Islands has provided an important corrective to dominant trends in earlier Hawaiian historiography, but there has been comparatively little recent work on the attitudes and values of those identified as colonizers. In particular, how Western ideas were understood and appropriated within the context of Hawaiian politics is not well known. This article extends scholarship demonstrating how in colonizing contexts, ideas about science could be mobilized as a moral resource and scientific societies could become distinct social formations. Specifically, the article shows how, during the pre-annexation period, the predominantly White and Hawaiian-born members of the Honolulu Social Science Association gathered in the performance of scientific modernity, with an implicit yet overarching political aim.     

The 24th International Conference on the History of Cartography,Moscow, Russia, 10–15 July 2011

Introduction to the History of Science. Volume III. Science and Learning in the Fourteenth Century. By George Sarton. Baltimore 1947. In 2 parts: XXXV + XI + 2155 PP.

W. W. Hyde. Ancient Greek Mariners. New York. 1947. XII+360. 5 maps.

Some American Contributions to the Art of Navigation 1519–1802. By Lawrence C. Wroth. Providence. 1947. 41 p.

Marcel Destombes. La Mappemonde de Petrus Plancius. Grav´e Par Josua van den Ende 1604, D'apràs L'unique Exemplaire de la Bibliothàque Nationale de Paris. Publication de la Société de Géographie de Hanoi. Tonkin. 1944. 52 p. XIII tab. Folio.

Ermano Armao. Vincenzo Coronelli. Cenni sull'Uomo e la sua vita‐‐‐catalogo ragionato delle sue opere —— Lettere — Fonti bibliografiche —— Indici. Biblicteca di bibliografia italiana diretta da Albano Sorbelli. XVII. Firenze. 1944. XI + 326. Fig.

El Rio Del Espi'Ritu Santo. An Essay on the Cartography or the Gulf Coast and the Adjacent Territory during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Jean Delanglez, S. J. Edited by Th. J. Me. Mahon. U. S. Catholic Historical Society, Monograph Series. XXI. New York. 1945. XIII+182 p. Facs.

Gamla Kartor. Varlden— Norden — Västkusten — Göteborg. Sjöfartsmuseet 4–30 Maj 1948. Göteborg. 1948. (Lund) 91 p. 12 Tab.

L'Africa Dalle Origini alla meta del Secolo XIX. Mostra Bibliografica. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze. Firenze. 1948. 81 p.

Catalogue of Maps in the Essex Record Office, 1566 —1875. Edited, for the Records Committee by F. G. Emmison. Essex County Council, Chelmsford. 1947, 106 p., 30 pl. Facs.

The John Carter Brown Library. Annual Report 1946–1947. Providence. 1947. 63 P.