Between political emancipation and creole hegemony: Viscardo’s Letter to the Spanish Americans (c. 1791)

Viscardo’s Letter to the Spanish Americans inaugurates a tradition of nonconformist political writing against Spanish colonial rule during the second half of the eighteenth century, a period characterized by the Crown’s attempt to reorganize several aspects of the colonial administration. As an ex-Jesuit living in exile after the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from all Spanish territories in 1767, Viscardo had a political as much as a personal motive in designing a project that would cut the colonial ties between Spain and the New World. His plans for emancipation included the instauration of a monarchical form of government, but his design was out of touch with reality and would have hardly been taken seriously by the inhabitants had a British-backed expeditionary force reached the coasts of Chile and Peru, as he had planned. While Viscardo’s Letter may have stirred a sense of creole patriotism some years after his death, the political scruples of the ancien regime based on social privileges and racial distinctions were too strong to be dismantled by mere ideals of freedom, justice and equality. Thus, effective political participation was restricted to the creole elite, whom Viscardo saw as the legitimate guarantor of social order and economic prosperity.     

Potters and pigments: preliminary technological assessment of pigment recipes of American majolica by synchrotron radiation micro-X-ray diffraction (Sr-μXRD)

This paper assesses the impact of European ceramics on preexisting American potting technologies. Specifically we investigate the technological features of pigments used for production of colonial American majolica. In order to achieve this goal, majolica sherds from Puebla (4), and Oaxaca (2), both in Mexico, from Antigua (Guatemala) (2), from Panama (1), and from Mission San Luis (Florida) (5) were analyzed by synchrotron micro-X-ray diffraction (μ-XRD). Eleven out of these fourteen samples were also analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The combination of micro-chemical and micro-structural techniques provides a cross sectional profile of the constituent minerals present ultimately providing information about the nature and distribution of the pigments used in their decorations, their dissolution in the glassy matrix, and the formation of crystalline compounds. Our results reveal significant differences among productions.     

从信仰到信：美国民俗学的民间宗教研究

从记录整理零碎片段的迷信观念,到把握民间信仰的文化整体,再到关注民众日常生活中的活态宗教实践,美国民俗学的民间宗教研究在过去60年中发生了根本性变化。作为民俗研究的一个重要领域,这和民俗学学科研究范式从文本到表演,到实践的整体转型密切相关,和代表性的表演理论既本质关联又有所差异。通过分析不同时期代表性学者对民间宗教信仰的界定与研究,可以勾勒出该领域基本理论视角和方法论变迁的学术史轨迹。     

Book reviews

CHINA

CHIU‐YEE CHEUNG. Lu Xun: the Chinese “Gentle” Nietzsche. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001. xviii, 197 pp. SFR 56.00, paper.

PAMELA KYLE CROSSLEY. The Manchus. Oxford and Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1997; 2002. xvi, 239 pp. 26 plates, 2 maps. £30.00, hardcover; £16.99, paper.

GLORIA DAVIES (ed). Voicing Concerns: contemporary Chinese Critical Inquiry. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, 2001. xii, 270 pp. US$75.00, hardcover; US$26.95, paper.

ANDREW F. JONES. Yellow Music—media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001. ix, 213 pp. Glossary, notes, bibliography, index. US$49.95 hardcover, $17.95 paper.

KAM LOUIE. Theorising Chinese Masculinity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 239 pp. Bibliography, index. A$80.00, hardcover.

LUNG‐KEE SUN. The Chinese National Character: from Nationhood to Individuality. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. xx, 299 pp. US$65.95, hardcover.

JAPAN, KOREA

MICHAEL LEWIS. Becoming Apart: national Power and Local Politics in Toyama, 1868–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Harvard East Asian Monographs, no. 192. $US45.00, hardcover.

KATO SHUICHI. A Sheep's Song: a Writer's Reminiscences of Japan and the World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 470 pp. Translated and annotated by Chia‐ning Chang. Index. US$24.95, paper.

SUSAN FISHER (ed). Nostalgic Journeys: literary Pilgrimages between Japan and the West. Proceedings of a conference held in Vancouver, British Columbia, September 1999. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, Institute of Asian Research, 2001. 194 pp. Notes on contributors. No price given, paper.

MICHAEL MOLASKY and STEVE RABSON (eds). Southern Exposure: modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000. 362 pp. Introduction, Notes on translators. US$27.95, paper.

RAJYASHREE PANDEY. Writing and Renunciation in Medieval Japan: the Works of the Poet‐Priest Kamo no Chōmei. Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies No. 21, Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1998. xi, 197 pp. US$32.95/£24.50, hardcover.

TAKAMIZAWA JUNKO. My Brother Hideo Kobayashi. Translated by James Wada, introduction by Leith Morton. Sydney: Wild Peony, 2001. x, 166 pp. Photographs. A$30.00, paper.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTRAL ASIA

I. QADEER, K. SEN and K. NAYAR. Public Health and the Poverty of Reform. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001. Rs 700, hardcover.

JAVED AHMAD KHAN. India and West Asia: emerging Markets in the Liberalisation Era. New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London: Sage Publications, 1999. 263 pp. Rs. 395, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

PHILIP J. ELDRIDGE. The Politics of Human Rights in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge, 2001. 256 pp. £55.00, hardcover.

KASIAN TEJAPIRA. Commodifying Marxism. The Formation of Modern Thai Radical Culture, 1927–1958. (Kyoto Area Studies on Asia, Centre for Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Volume 3). Kyoto: Kyoto University Press; Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2001. xiv, 390 pp. Index. No price given, paper.

NICHOLAS TARLING. A Sudden Rampage: the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia, 1941–1945. London: C. Hurst & Company, 2001. xvi, 286 pp. £12.95, paper.     

金源女真姓氏谱及改汉姓之分类与特点

对金源女真姓氏的研究,民族学界曾进行过考论和探讨．开创了先例,奠定了基础。本文着重从姓氏与谱牒探源、金源女真姓氏谱状况、女真改汉字姓的分类和特点、女真姓与后世满洲姓的关系四方面来探讨金源女真姓氏学,以增进和完善中华各民族姓氏学的研究领域和范围,并推进少数民族的姓氏研究向纵深发展。     

对匈奴收继婚制度的再探讨--匈奴婚姻制度研究之一

匈奴的婚姻制度较为复杂,收继婚是其最具特色的婚姻制度之一。史籍中匈奴的收继婚只笼统概述为“父死,妻其后母;兄弟死,尽取其妻妻之”,实际上,它有着相当严格的法则和收继顺序。同时,匈奴的收继婚不仅是一种婚姻制度,而且还是匈奴身份继承制度的重要组成部分和一种赡养制度。