The Triumphant Equestrian

The life of the Ming scholar and Catholic convert Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (1562–1633) drew unprecedented attention throughout China in the 19th and 20th centuries. Writers and public figures across China’s rapidly changing society praised Xu as an ideal model for modern Chinese citizens. This sudden celebrity may seem surprising, as Xu’s name had fallen into obscurity in the centuries following his death, and his life and works were only remembered by descendants and local people in his hometown of Shanghai. Why was Xu’s legacy revived three hundred years later, and what relevance did it actually have for Chinese society in the twilight of the Qing dynasty and the Republican period? This article tackles these questions by tracing the reestablishment and development of the new Jesuit mission in Shanghai since 1842. It investigates how the memory of Xu was recovered and reinserted in the public imagination of modern China.     

Nation,Ethnicity, and Canada in Laura Goodman Salverson’s The Viking Heart

This article argues that expressions of national identity in twentieth-century Euro-Canadian literature often conceive of the nation as existing in both ethnic and ostensibly pluralist, immigration-based models, and that the former is frequently valorized over the latter, resulting in the implicit legitimation of settler colonialism. It does so by examining a few major theorizations of nationalism—constructivism, ethno-symbolism, and ethnonationalism—and suggesting that literary critics’ frequent adherence to the constructivism of Benedict Anderson can sometimes obscure the aforementioned dynamic. Finally, this article reads Laura Goodman Salverson’s The Viking Heart (1923) as a text that renders in all its contradiction the problem of ethnicity and nation in Canada, arguing that Salverson combines (but does not synthesize) the twin forces of ethnicity and liberal pluralism that make up the Euro-Canadian imagination’s split conception of the nation.     

Reflections on Faith and Film in Hail,Caesar!

While Hail, Caesar! written, directed, and produced by Ethan and Joel Coen initially appears to be merely a light satire of classic Hollywood of the 40s and 50s, it also comments upon several kinds of faith, religious and otherwise. Most obviously, the film humorously critiques the Bible-blockbuster films of the era, as being fairly insincere, manipulative, and too conveniently reconciling of secular, Christian, and Jewish perspectives. But careful examination reveals that four different kinds of faith are dealt with in the film: 1) Christian faith, 2) communist faith, 3) faith in Hollywood, and 4) Jewish faith. The second of these is mercilessly mocked, but the first and third are dealt with more sympathetically. The Bible-blockbuster film, as well as the efforts of the studio fixer Eddie Mannix to cover-over scandas in the lives of not a few of the actors and directors, are both efforts to support a the 1950s cultural consensus. That consensus involves a good deal of hypocrisy, but the Coens present the best case they can for understanding those like Mannix who seek to maintain it, even if they show why it ultimately cannot be. Most interestingly, while the film does little to examine Jewish faith itself, it uses the classic Jewish prohibition of graven images to criticize both Christianity and the basic activity of Hollywood. The film illustrates why the 50s cultural consensus could not hold, and raises troubling questions about the long-term impact of cinema itself.     

LOCAL FOOD,URBANIZATION, AND TRANSPORT‐RELATED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

We argue that “buying local” does not necessarily reduce transport‐related greenhouse gas emissions, even if production technologies and yields are homogeneous in space. We develop a partial‐equilibrium model of rural‐urban systems where the spatial distribution of food production within and between regions is endogenous. We exhibit cases where locating some food production in the least‐urbanized regions results in lower emissions and higher welfare than if all regions are self‐sufficient. The optimal spatial allocation of food production does not exclude the possibility that some regions should be self‐sufficient, provided that their urban population sizes are neither too large nor too small.     

REGIONAL TECHNOLOGICAL DYNAMISM AND NONCOMPETE CLAUSES: EVIDENCE FROM A NATURAL EXPERIMENT

In this paper, we examine the causal impact of enforceable covenants not to compete (CNCs) on labor market matching and the technological dynamism of regions. Exploiting the fact that the Michigan Antitrust Reform Act (MARA) of 1985 inadvertently repealed Michigan' s prohibition on CNC enforcement, we show that technical professionals in Michigan became increasingly likely to switch industry relative to similar workers in other U.S. states after prohibition. Workers switching industries after the introduction of MARA also earned lower wages, implying that they shifted into technical fields where their skills from previous employment were less productive. Estimates further show that the technological dynamism of Michigan declined in tandem, as fewer workers shifted into new types of jobs associated with recent technological advances. These findings are consistent with the view that skilled professionals that are subject to CNCs are more likely to leave their field of work postemployment to avoid lawsuits.     

The third-millennium tombs and settlement at Mowaihat in the Emirate of Ajman, U.A.E.

Evidence of a settlement located near two late third-millennium tombs excavated at Mowaihat in the Emirate of Ajman is presented in order to complete the documentation of this site. Although the settlement evidence is only slight, especially when compared with the substantial architecture of the tombs, it is not atypical of contemporary sites in this region. A possible interpretation is, therefore, proposed in an attempt to explain the various third-millennium tomb and settlement associations that have been reported from the Gulf coast of the United Arab Emirates.