The Rise and Fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–2): A Study in Transoceanic Political Culture

The rise and fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–82), India's first printed newspaper, is a narrative of prime importance to the history of Indian newspapers, and such is the context within which it has invariably been written. Previous works have approached Hicky's Gazette in a somewhat teleological and insular manner. These accounts have ignored the significance of foreign news among its content and fail to acknowledge Hicky's appropriation of political rhetoric from other parts of the British Empire. Through the contents of Hicky's Gazette we find Calcutta residents engaged in a transoceanic political discourse, criticising ‘nabobs’ with all the ferocity of the metropolitan British press; claiming the freedoms of Englishmen in common cause with the discontented, not only in Britain, but also in Ireland and America; and participating in discussions to regulate the governance of the East India Company through petitions of grievances. In the circulation of Hicky's paper throughout the presidencies and in the contributions of pseudonymous writers we find a platform for the politically discontented among the European community of Bengal whose voice is otherwise muted amidst the Francis-Hastings disputes and the steady stream of ‘official’ information between Calcutta and London.     

Consumption and the ‘Social Self’ in Medieval Southern England

Over the last 30 years we have become increasingly aware of the commercialising nature of the medieval English economy. However, these insights have had little impact on narratives of consumption, which persist in seeing it as a characteristic of modernity. Here it is argued that we must move away from seeing an early modern consumer revolution and instead think about consumption in medieval society, particularly to examine the implications of commercialisation for identity and selfhood. A framework is developed, building upon David G. Shaw’s use of the ‘social self’ and the writing of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, to explore how the increasing variability, and wider range, of objects impacted upon the negotiation of selfhood in the 13th–15th centuries.     

Decline or Transformation? Archaeology and the Late Medieval ‘Urban Decline’ in Southern England

Archaeological evidence is used to examine how urban life changed in the later medieval towns of Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire in southern England, in light of ongoing debates about the existence of a fifteenth-century urban ‘decline’. The article proposes that rather than seeking evidence of decline, we should consider how and why experiences of urban life vary. The role of towns in commercial and political networks is highlighted as a key cause of variability in late medieval urban experience.     

Computational Reproducibility in Archaeological Research: Basic Principles and a Case Study of Their Implementation

The use of computers and complex software is pervasive in archaeology, yet their role in the analytical pipeline is rarely exposed for other researchers to inspect or reuse. This limits the progress of archaeology because researchers cannot easily reproduce each other’s work to verify or extend it. Four general principles of reproducible research that have emerged in other fields are presented. An archaeological case study is described that shows how each principle can be implemented using freely available software. The costs and benefits of implementing reproducible research are assessed. The primary benefit, of sharing data in particular, is increased impact via an increased number of citations. The primary cost is the additional time required to enhance reproducibility, although the exact amount is difficult to quantify.     

Government and (non)event: the promise of control

Control rooms routinely deal with happenings that might become events. They attempt to hide events and their possibility from the users of infrastructure by undertaking various forms of action to stop events coming to pass. Based on ethnographic research in a motorway control room, in this paper we describe how events are grasped and handled and subject to the effect of control. Focusing on how the promise of control is provisionally achieved through detection–diagnosis–response work, we show how control room action is situated on the ambiguous line between event and non- or quasi-event and involves making happenings that might be or might become events into their opposite: non-events, or routine occurrences. We use the case of the work of control rooms in dialogue with Michel Foucault on the relation between ‘government and event’ and Lauren Berlant on ‘modes of eventfulness’ to challenge the emphasis on the event as dramatic transformation in some current research on securing life and some geographical work on events. Paying close attention to what control rooms do shows the multiplicity of relations between government and (non)event, and invites us to expand the ‘modes of eventfulness’ that social and cultural geographers learn to sense and disclose.     

The Godless Congress of 1938: Christian Fears About Communism in Great Britain*

In September 1938, the World Union of Freethinkers held a conference in London. Fascistant Protestants and many Catholic intellectuals and clerics called the event the “Godless Congress,” and they viewed it as a part of a communist attack on Christianity in Britain and wanted it to be banned. Mainstream Protestants were also provoked by the conference, but most believed that the congress provided Christianity with an opportunity to re‐assert itself. These varied but substantial reactions show that many Christians were ready and able to defend publicly their Christian faith against what they saw as atheistic communism.     

Language contact and education

Paul R. Turner, ed. Bilingualism in the Southwest. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973. xv+352 pp. Figures and index. $7.45.     

Eclectic and pragmatic: the colours of Dutch social and cultural geography

In the Netherlands, human geography has traditionally been an applied, practical science. Close ties have always existed with spatial planning and regional-economic policy. With good reason, the first generation of planning specialists—in the 1960s—consisted largely of people trained as geographers. Geographers were also the socio-spatial engineers of the welfare state (de Pater 2001b; de Pater and de Smidt 1989).     

A house of Treasures: The Account of Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25—Observations and Implications

The account of the reign of Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25 is a true house of treasures for those studying the book of Chronicles in its historical milieu or reconstructing the intellectual milieu of ancient Yehud. In particular, this study shows how 2 Chronicles 25 calls attention and sheds light on: (1) matters of time construction and periodization; (2) multiple temporal relations within one account in Chronicles and their significance for understanding both reading strategies of the intended and primary readerships and the organization of their memories of the past; (3) chaotic tendencies and their non-random distribution in the past that the readers are asked to remember and vicariously partake through reading and studying; (4) the significance of a memory of the past in which the size of armies diminishes through time; (5) concepts of “otherness” and the remembrance of some concrete constructions of “otherness” through the reading and rereading of the book; (6) otherness and the question of northern Israel; (7) attributes associated (or not) with being a Jerusalemite; and (8) on deontological vs. consequentionalist approaches to evaluate whether actions are to be judged right or wrong and the influence of a continuous remembrance of related events narrated in 2 Chronicles 25.     

Isaiah 1,4–9, Isaiah,and the events of 701 BCE in Judah

Abstract

The title of this paper points to the relationship between the Israelite cult as cultural performance and current trends in modern interpretation of the Psalms. The first part includes a review of the wellknown “spiritualisation” of cultic language which is compared to a new approach that describes this phenomenon as a “transformation” of cultic patterns. The second part intents to demonstrate how such transformations could have worked. The “liturgical” text of Ps 24 may serve as an eloquent example of this. Here, a fragment from the ancient temple cult is quoted in order to demonstrate the close connection between the secrets of the inner temple and everyday life. Ps 24 now appears to be an erudite text used for educational purposes.