Book-hunters and Book-huntresses: Gender and Cultures of Antiquarian Book Collecting in Britain,c. 1880–1900

The late-nineteenth century saw private book collecting gain a renewed respectability and cultural cachet as a leisure pursuit for the upper- and middle classes. This paper examines representations of collectors in the literature belonging to a new genre of writing which emerged for the ‘book-hunter’: a late-Victorian variant of the book-collecting passion which could encompass aesthetes and antiquarians as well as aspiring amateurs of more moderate means. It will show how, during the 1880s and 1890s, this particular type of collecting practice was used rhetorically in a range of printed material to venerate ‘gentlemanly’ book-buying, in contrast to feminine forms of engagement with old books in particular. In spite of women's comparative lack of advantage in the market for antiquarian editions, however, I argue that such a critique would not have been articulated so forcefully had women not been taking a determined interest in rare books. Evidence from central London booksellers during this period suggests that a variety of women were making antiquarian collections of their own. Male bibliophiles who denigrated female book-buyers in the periodical press were attempting to partially invent a homosocial tradition of collecting in order to distance their own pursuit from what they saw as the more emasculating elements of modern consumerism. This was a response not just to developments in contemporary print culture, but also to the growing appreciation of second-hand goods of all kinds among affluent female consumers with aesthetic and literary tastes shaped independently of male judgments.     

Single female tenants in South Delhi – gender,class and morality in a globalizing city

Based on ethnographic data gathered over 12 months of fieldwork with unmarried women living alone or in flat-shares in different middle class South Delhi localities, this article traces the way shifting gendered norms – often epitomized by growing numbers of single women households – are negotiated within class specific and highly localized contexts of the residential neighborhood. Despite growing economic opportunities for middle class and elite women, cultural anxieties surrounding the notion of ‘delayed’ marriage and women living outside of the familial or marital home persist and obstruct attempts at establishing independent households. Single women experience difficulties finding apartments to rent; have to contend with hostile intrusions from neighbors; or feel obliged to self-monitor their behavior within their neighborhoods. As South Delhi’s liberalised urban landscape has become home to an increasingly globalized, consumerist middle class, disciplinary measures such as curfews, regulations over houseguests and increased surveillance simultaneously indicate a middle class recalibrating its gendered social coordinates by proving its commitment to values of female propriety. While popular discourses draw juxtaposed imaginaries of the ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional’ in their depictions of increasing individualism and a loosening of ‘traditional’ role expectations, this article demonstrates the need to consider the different structural conditions and local inflections in which struggles over women’s agency take place. Looking beyond the supposedly universalizing forces of globalized consumer modernity, the residential neighborhood hereby provides a view into the lived experiences of – at times incongruous – mechanisms at play in societies undergoing social change.     

Erotic Modesty: (Ad)dressing Female Sexuality and Propriety in Open and Closed Drawers,USA, 1800–1930

When middle–class women began to wear drawers in the early 1800s, they were feminised by fabric, ornamentation and an open crotch. Incorporating open drawers into respectable women’s dress within a framework of ‘passionlessness’ constructed female sexuality as both erotic and modest. Crotch construction figured in the twentieth–century struggle to establish modern boundaries of women’s sexual propriety. The accepted sexual and moral meanings generated by open– and closed–crotch undergarments reversed as women increasingly chose to wear closed drawers during a period of women’s greater public presence and feminist activism. The transition from open to closed drawers reveals not only the power of clothing as a medium of significance, but how women’s struggles for autonomy interact with resistant social forces to reconfigure gender distinctions.     

“Turkish Dames” and “English Mastiffs”: The “Turk” and the Female Body in Massinger’s The Renegado

Abstract

In early modern travel discourse, exploration of ‘distant’ or ‘other’ lands is typically configured as some aspect of the female body. Power relations between East and West were often described in terms of conquest or ravishment, the site of which is typically the female body, as might be seen in early modern English literary response to the Ottoman. Couched in terms of the menace the Ottoman poses to the Western Christian, Massinger’s The Renegado courts parallels between sexual license, female rebellion, and religion to address domestic threats at home–not from the Ottoman Empire, but rather from the rebellious English women, who represent a clear danger to the patriarchal hegemony.     

Original DocumentsCharter of Hugh of Bayeux to the Church and Canons of St. Mary of Torrington,temp. Henry II

The ‘Northern British Cooking-Pot’ stems from Saxo-Norman antecedents, and is found in two basic light-coloured fabrics, the ‘Gritty Northern’ and the ‘Staxton Ware Type’. From Yorkshire the type spread in the early thirteenth century west over the Pennines to Carlisle and thence to south-west Scotland. Present evidence suggests that while ‘Gritty Northern’ ware traditions may have spread to eastern Scotland by an overland route, there is reason to suppose there was close contact between the potteries of Fife and Angus and those of the Scarborough district in the late thirteenth century. While in Scotland there is a considerable hybridization of forms and fabrics, ‘Gritty Northern’ ware appears predominant north of the Forth, ‘Staxton Type’ ware to the south. In the fourteenth century distinctively Scottish local variants occur. French and Low Countries influences on early Scottish pottery are discussed, a tentative Scottish cooking-pot type-series put forward, and a gazetteer of sites producing rim-sherds given.     

Engaging China’s new foreign policy in the South Pacific

China’s declared foreign policy of ‘non-interference’ is contradicted by its actions in recent times. Beyond activities in the East and South China Seas, the involvement of China in negotiations on the Korean Peninsula, the evacuation of Chinese citizens from various crises, and the deployment of Chinese combat troops to peacekeeping missions in Africa have indicated China’s growing interests in the shape of world affairs, coinciding with a growing economic and military capacity to influence them. Much attention has been given to the potential consequences of great-power competition between the USA and China, but little focus has been given to the impact these trends may have in the outlying regions of Chinese foreign policy. One such place is Melanesia in the South Pacific—a subregion where a small influence from a Chinese perspective can have a significant impact on Pacific Island Countries. This article postulates that, over time, there is potential for the consequences of Chinese interests to lead to accidental friction, and suggests that this risk can be mitigated through increased cooperation.     

Embodied cosmopolitanisms: the subjective mobility of migrants working in the global sex industry

Anti-trafficking rhetoric and policies emphasise the extent of exploitation and coercion of female migrant sex workers and obfuscate the shared ambivalences and contradictions experienced by migrant female sex workers and their male agents and partners. By engaging in the global sex industry, both young men and women negotiate their aspiration to cosmopolitan late modern lifestyles against the prevalence of essentialist patriarchal gender values and sexual mores at home. In the process, established gender normativities, legitimising women's subjection to men, are both reproduced and challenged. The evidence informing this article shows that a minority of women are coerced into the sex industry. There is a direct link between the adherence to essentialist gender/sexual roles and the recourse to violence and exploitation, because migrants' prolonged involvement in the sex industry coincides with the adherence to more cosmopolitan gender/sexual roles, translating into less authoritarian and violent discourses and practices. Hegemonic understandings of migrants' involvement in the global sex industry in terms of ‘trafficking’ erase these important dynamics and dimensions, which underpin intricate feelings and experiences of advantage, disadvantage and exploitation. By failing to engage with the meanings that migrants working in the sex industry ascribe to their working and personal lives, the (anti)trafficking logic of ‘humanitarian intervention’ enforces forms of solidarity and support that appeal to the minority and harm the majority of the people they are supposed to ‘rescue’.     

Kennedy's international legacy,fifty years on

This article explores historical assessments of the foreign policy of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated fifty years ago. It traces the evolution of JFK historiography from the uncritical so‐called ‘Camelot’ school to harsh revisionist critiques in the 1980s and 1990s, and on to the current ‘third wave’ of scholarship. The article focuses in particular on new work concerning JFK's handling of the Berlin and Cuba superpower crises, his role in expanding the United States’ involvement in Vietnam (and whether blame for this war can be assigned to him) and larger questions about his approach to the danger of nuclear holocaust and the possibility of defusing Cold War tensions. The conclusion to the article examines his various peace‐seeking initiatives in the months following the Cuban Missile Crisis, and suggests that Kennedy may have been turning towards a more critical view of American Cold War politics when he was killed in Dallas in November 1963.     

The English trade at Bruges in the last years of Edward III

Records of confiscations of English property undertaken by the Flemish authorities in 1371 provide invaluable information on the mechanics of the English trade at Bruges, the ‘marketplace of the medieval world’, in the years immediately after the removal of the wool staple to Calais. Bruges continued to be the midpoint for the reconsignment of sizeable quantities of English wool, a trade in which Italian entrepreneurs played a considerable role. English broadcloths, although technically forbidden in Flanders as infringements of native textile monopolies, also found a ready market. The chief business of the English community in Bruges, however, was importing, through the brokers of Bruges and by direct contact with other foreigners, luxury items from Italy and Castile and bulk commodities from Germany and the eastern Low Countries.     

Work and wages,natural law,politics & the eighteenth-century French trades

This paper discusses three adaptations of Shakespeare's history plays written during the 1720s. These texts, I contend, counter claims that positive representations of women during this period were confined to the domestic sphere. In these plays women are active participants in the public realm of politics and commerce. The heroines of Ambrose Philips’ Humfrey Duke of Gloucester (1723), Aaron Hill's King Henry the Fifth (1723) and Theophilus Cibber's King Henry the Sixth (1724), rather than being driven by love and domestic duty, act on political motivation. Patriotism, which characterises these women, is the primary political slogan of all three plays. These female protagonists exemplify the value of a patriotic political conduct that crosses party lines. Their unpartisan or universal brand of patriotism anticipates the opposition views expressed by Bolingbroke in the following decade. This paper also addresses the broad consensus amongst Feminist critics that women in adaptations of Shakespeare provide little more than mere ‘breeches roles’ titillation. The histories of Philips, Hill and Cibber represent heroines who, no less than their male counterparts, exercise control during political crises. These women are not objects of titillation but subjects for emulation.     

Infection, contagion, and public health in late medieval and early modern German imperial towns

From today's point of view, the concepts of "miasma" and "contagion" appear to be two mutually exclusive perceptions of the spread of epidemic diseases, and quite a number of historians have tried to discuss the history of public health and epidemic diseases in terms of a progression from the miasmic to the contagionist concept. More detailed local studies, however, indicate how extremely misleading it may be to separate such medical concepts and ideas from their actual historical context. The article presented here, based on local studies in late medieval and early modern imperial towns in southern Germany, demonstrates to what extent the inhabitants of these towns had notions of both "miasma" and "contagion." Furthermore, a contextual analysis of language shows that they did not see a necessity to strictly distinguish between these different concepts relating to the spread of diseases. Tracing the meaning of "infection" and "contagion," we find that these terms were used in connection with various diseases, and that a change in the use of the expressions does not necessarily imply a change of the corresponding notion. Moreover, a coexistence of differing perceptions cannot--as some historians have suggested--be attributed to a divergence between the academic medicine and the popular ideas of that period. A survey of measures and actions in the public health sector indicates that a coexistence of--from our point of view--inconsistent concepts helped the authorities as well as the individuals to find means of defense and consolation during all those crises caused by epidemic diseases--crises that occurred very frequently in these towns during the late medieval and early modern periods. As the article demonstrates, the interaction during such crises reveals the continuity of ancient rituals and concepts as well as the adoption of new insights resulting from changes in the economical, political, scientific, religious, and social structures.     

Useful work for idle hands or a brightening and elevating influence? The introduction of the Brabazon Employment Scheme to Glasgow’s public institutions in the late 19th century

Women’s ability to effect changes in welfare policy during the later workings of the new Poor Law has been presented as a ‘marginal influence’ within past historiography. This perspective is contested in recent empirical work, which argues for a more positive view of female agency. The Brabazon Employment Scheme was a charitable initiative, which occupied the poor unable to take part in the routine work of public institutions. Findings from its operation in Glasgow demonstrate how women drew upon philanthropic experience as well as elected positions in the management of institutions to secure the scheme’s introduction in these settings. While the initiative originated in the English workhouses, local women extended the Brabazon activities to address gaps in welfare provision for asylum patients. In doing so, the article shows how organised charity continued to function as an avenue of support for the poor alongside municipal relief into the early 20th century.     

“千人针”——一个军国“美谈”的生成与传播

军国“美谈”是近代日本战争文化的重要组成部分。在诸多“美谈”中,“千人针”故事的流传尤为广泛,颇具典型意义。日本传统社会对虎与女子的观念,构建了“千人针”现象的两个关键性民俗元素。日本军政当局对这一现象进行加工、改造,使之成为符合军国主义的“美谈”。日俄战争时期,“千人针美谈”开始生成,“九一八”事变后广为流传,日本全面侵华战争初期则极度泛滥。随着战争进入持久阶段,“千人针美谈”开始退潮。战时“千人针美谈”的广泛传播,既缘于爱国妇人会、国防妇人会、在乡军人会等半官方民间团体对妇女缝针活动的大力推崇,也得力于报刊、广播、电影等军国媒体的推波助澜。“千人针美谈”的生成与传播实质上是一部日本民众情感与军国体制的互动史,反映出战争环境下民众情感世界的复杂面相。     

The English trade at Bruges in the last years of Edward III

Records of confiscations of English property undertaken by the Flemish authorities in 1371 provide invaluable information on the mechanics of the English trade at Bruges, the ‘marketplace of the medieval world’, in the years immediately after the removal of the wool staple to Calais. Bruges continued to be the midpoint for the reconsignment of sizeable quantities of English wool, a trade in which Italian entrepreneurs played a considerable role. English broadcloths, although technically forbidden in Flanders as infringements of native textile monopolies, also found a ready market. The chief business of the English community in Bruges, however, was importing, through the brokers of Bruges and by direct contact with other foreigners, luxury items from Italy and Castile and bulk commodities from Germany and the eastern Low Countries.     

The space between: globalization,liminal spaces and personal relations in rural Costa Rica

Globalization facilitates the movement of people, goods, ideologies and even diseases across borders and into local communities. This article explores the liminal space created by tourism in the rural Costa Rican community of Monteverde as a site where the movement of people, especially Western women (women from the global North), intersects, contests and even reinforces existing heteropatriarchal ideologies. Theories from feminist geography and anthropology provide a lens for understanding and interpreting how Western women and local residents (both male and female) perceive, construct and interact with each other. We argue that ‘liminality’ or the sense of being ‘betwixt and between’ – physically, socially and ideologically – allows Western women a space to both challenge the hegemony of heteropatriarchal ideology and reconstitute it in their sexual relationships with local men. We also explore the implications that sexual relationships between Western women and local men have for local women. We stress the urgency to understand and articulate the nature of these sexual relationships in light of the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic.     

Morals,modern identities and the Catholic woman: fashion in Famiglia Cristiana, 1954–1968

Abstract

This article uses the prism of dress to explore the ways in which ordinary women negotiated Catholic morality codes in Italy during the great social transformations of the ‘economic miracle’ and afterwards. These years saw dramatic changes in gender roles and the influence of the mass media in society, as well as a rapid increase in migration, urbanization and financial well-being among Italians, and all of these changes were reflected in a very visible, everyday sense in changing fashions. At the same time, the Church was on the defensive and launched a morality crusade, focusing particularly on feminine ‘purity’ and modesty in dress, seeing more modern ways as a threat to Catholic values and traditions. Here, the advice column of Italy's leading – Catholic – magazine in these years is used to examine how individual Catholic women negotiated the competing influences of these years as they decided how to dress.     

Gendered Labour in the Ideological Discourse of French Marxism: The Parti Ouvrier Français, 1882–1905

This article studies the intersection between the Marxist paradigm of class and the feminist paradigm of gender in the ideological rhetoric of the Parti Ouvrier Français between 1882 and 1905, focusing upon the movement’s understanding of women workers. It argues that, although the POF was far more interested in the gender dimension of labour than most historians have recognized, its approach to the female proletariat was vitiated by its ‘productivist’ world view and its tendency to reduce all labour to factory employment, while the French Marxists’ proto-feminist commitment to women workers as a revolutionary force was undermined by recurrent paternalism.     

The Missing Rib: Mobilizing Church Women for Change in Papua New Guinea

This paper examines the particular shape taken by a modern instance of ‘Third World’ feminism. In Papua New Guinea, an emerging nexus between grassroots female activism and Christian churches is helping to liberate and empower some female citizens in a state which in practice has neglected women's interests and gender relations despite early national rhetoric about the importance of women to nation‐building. Tracing the origins of modern women's fellowship groups to the early work of female missionaries with indigenous women, the paper considers the increasing politicization of women's organizations during the last two decades as they expand their ‘traditional’ preoccupation with spiritual, domestic, and welfare matters to embrace wider social, political, and human rights issues. In the course of surveying church women's groupings in Papua New Guinea, the paper looks specifically at the National Council of Women, women's groups in East New Britain Province, the United Church Women's Fellowship, and women's involvements in the developing ecumenical movement. The paper concludes by contrasting the class dimensions of grassroots Christian women's activism to official denial of the existence of class differentiation or exploitation in this purportedly egalitarian Melanesian state.     

The Low Countries' connection: landscape and the struggle over representation around 1600

In Anglophone geography, the concept of landscape is often defined in visual terms as the expression of a spatial rationality. Historically, the strongly visual qualities of landscape tend to be related to early capitalist developments in Italy and the Low Countries. Yet, recent scholarly interventions have asserted that landscape in early modern Europe also animated so-called ‘platial’ (or place-oriented) practices and ideologies of political representation, justice, and custom. This paper seeks to bring these diverging platial and spatial approaches together through an examination of political and visual representation of landscape in the northern Low Countries around 1600. It is argued that the tensions between platial notions of landscape and spatial rationality were unceasingly pertinent to the protracted struggles over political representation in the Low Countries during the revolt against Spain. Visual representations of landscape provided ways to take in, reflect upon, and codify those struggles. The Dutch landscape remained entangled in a double dialectic in which spatial and platial modes of political and visual representation mutually shaped each other.     

Embodying modernity: reading narratives of Indian women's sexual autonomy and violation

References are often made in contemporary Indian discourse, both popular and academic, to the ‘new Indian woman’, a subject position that is seen as coterminous with the emerging identity of the Indian nation as modern – the ‘new India’. This article unpacks key discourses that construct the ‘new woman’ in the public imagination and suggests that the modernity of this imagined figure is founded upon a notion of autonomy that is deeply embodied. While the characteristics of this embodied modernity challenge influential feminist arguments as to the ‘shallow’ modernity of the ‘new Indian woman’, it nonetheless has problematic implications from a feminist perspective. The narrative shaped by these discourses around the question of what it means to be modern not only perpetuates an historically pervasive reductionism in which woman is seen to be defined and determined by the corporeal but also, and more problematically, constructs a boundary around the notion of modern womanhood that excludes women whose bodily autonomy has been compromised, for example through sexual assault. This narrative exclusion is perpetrated in at least three ways: through a discursive rendering of the woman as passive, the objectification of the woman, and a narrative structure that mimics the act of violation. Such erasure of the autonomy of sexually violated women is not inevitable, however, and an analysis of two ‘counter-narratives’ demonstrates how discourses of rape may both reinscribe the autonomy of such women and re-orient the reader to a position of empathy rather than opposition.