What Time Is Japan? Problems of Comparative (Intercultural) Historiography

Rather than reflect on the process of an alleged "modernization" of historical scholarship, an intercultural comparison of historiography should take the European origins of academic history as its starting point. The reason, as this article argues, is that in non-European countries the European genealogy of the discipline of history continued to structure interpretations of the past. Both on the level of method, but more importantly on the level of interpretive strategies, "Europe" remained the yardstick for historiographical explanation. This article will use the example of postwar Japanese historiography to show that historians resorted to a European model in order to turn seemingly unconnected events in the Japanese past into a historical narrative. This is not to imply, however, that Japanese historiography passively relied on concepts from Western discourse. On the contrary, Japanese historians appropriated and transformed the elements of this discourse in the specific geopolitical setting of the 1940s and 1950s. This act of appropriation served the political purpose of positioning Japan with respect to Asia and the "West." However, on an epistemological level, the priority of "Europe" persisted; Japanese historiography remained a "derivative discourse." Studies in comparative historiography, therefore, should be attentive to these traces of the European descent of academic history and privilege the transnational history of historiography over meditations on its internal rationalization.     

Reviews

Hafez: Dance of Life Michael Boylan, et. al. Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 1987, 109 pp.

Once Upon a Time (Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud) Mohamad Ali Jamalzada. Translated by Heshmat Moayyad and Paul Sprachman. New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1985. Modern Persian Literature Series, Number 6.

Banking and Empire in Iran: The History of the British Bank of the Middle East, Volume I Geoffrey Jones. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, xiii + 340 pp., plus 30 pp. of appendices, 36 of notes, and 12 of index.

Iranian Jewry's Hour of Peril and Heroism: A Study of Babai Ibn Lutfs Chronicle (1617–1662) Vera Basch Moreen. New York and Jerusalem: The American Academy of Jewish Research, 1987, xv + 247 pp. (American Academy for Jewish Research, Texts and Studies, Volume VI)

The Formation of Islamic Art Oleg Grabar. Revised and enlarged edition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987, xix + 232 pp., 131 illustrations, bibliography, index.

Language, Status, and Power William O. Beeman. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986, xx + 255 pp., bibliography (p. 213), notes (p. 236) and indices (p. 224).

Highlights of Persian Art Richard Ettinghausen and Ehsan Yarshater, eds. New York: Persian Art Series, no. 1, Bibliotheca Persica, 1982, xii + 391 pp, 250 illustrations in color and black and white.

The Iranian Military Under the Islamic Republic Nikola B. Schahgaldian, with the assistance of Gina Barkhordarian. Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, 1987, 164 pp. $15.00.

The Origins of the Iranian‐American Alliance, 1941–1953 Mark Hamilton Lytle. New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1987, xxi + 239 pp. $49.50

Cultural Foundation of Iranian Politics M. Reza Behnam. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986, 188 pp. $19.95.

Sorayya in a Coma Esmail Fassih. London: Zed Books, 1985.

The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American‐Iranian Relations James Bill. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988, 520 pp.

The Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic Nikki Keddie and Eric Hoogland, eds. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1986, 246 pp. $14.95 paperback.

The Elementary Structures of Political Life: Rural Development in Pahlevi Iran Grace Goodell. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, 344 pp., bibliography and index to p. 362.

Moralia: Les Notions Morales dans la Litterature Persane du 3el9e au 7ell3e Siecle Charles‐Henri de Fouchecour. Paris: Institut Francais de Recherche en Iran, 1986, 514 pp.

Iran and the West: A Critical Bibliography Cyrus Ghani. London and New York: Kegan Paul International (Methuen Inc., Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1987, viii + 967 pp., index. $85.00.

Workers and Revolution in Iran Assef Bayat. London: Zed Books Ltd., 1987, 227 pp., including notes, bibliography, index.

Letters and Essays, 1886–1913 Mirza Abü‐Fadl Gulpaygani Translated and annotated by Juan R. I. Cole. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1985, n.p;

The Master in ‘Akka (Reprinted from The Life and Teachings of ‘Abbas Effendi, 2nd rev. ed., New York; London: Putnam, 1912) Myron H. Phelps. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1985, n.p;

In Iran: Studies in Badi and Baha'i History, Volume 3 Peter Smith, ed. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1986, n.p.

Selections from the Writings of E. G. Browne on the Badi and Baha'i Religions Moojan Momen, ed. Oxford: George Ronald, 1987, 499 pp. $29.50.

The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods, Peter Jackson and the late Laurence Lockhart, eds., Cambridge, 1986, xxiii, 1987 pp. 72 plates.

The Iran‐Iraq War and Western Security, 1984–1987: Strategic Implications and Policy Options Anthony H. Cordesman. London: Jane's Publishing Company Limited, 1987, 185 pp.

Mission to Tehran General Robert E. Huyser. New York: Harper and Row, 1986, ix + 298 pp., index to p. 306. $20.95.

Garden of the Brave in War Terence O'Donnell. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988, 216 pp.

Agriculture and Regional Development in Iran, 1962–1978 Nima Nattagh, Cambridgeshire, England: Menas Studies in Continuity and Change, Middle East and North African Studies Press Limited, 19, 105 pp. $7.00 paperback.

The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iran‐Iraq Conflict Majid Khadduri. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, 173 pp., notes, appendices, and index to p. 236. $24.95 hardback.

Gurgan Faiences Mehdi Bahrami. Cairo: Le Scribe Egyptien, 1949; reprint edition Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 1988, 134 pp., 48 pls. $39.95 hardback.

Arda Wiraz Namag. The Iranian ‘Divina Commedia’. Fereydun Vahman. London and Malmo: Scandinavian Institue of Asian Studies Monograph Series no. 53, Curzon Press, 1986, 326 pp.     

“To see things in an objective light”: the Dakota Access Pipeline and the ongoing construction of settler colonial landscapes

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the discourses used by proponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) as claims of universality to which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and allied activists mounted a movement of opposition in 2014–2017. We position our analysis within the historical context of Lakota and Dakota resistance to settler colonialism, which has endured since the nineteenth century. From publicly available texts circulated by key actors in the conflict over the construction of this pipeline project, we identify themes that proponents of this project drew upon to articulate their representations of the land as universal. We suggest that claims like these, when naturalized in practice, have historically materialized in settler colonial landscapes. With the concept of settler colonial landscapes, we focus on ways of seeing and representing places that have facilitated the dispossession of Indigenous people from their territory as well as the construction of a settler-dominated community. In this way, we develop a cultural geographical understanding of the ongoing construction of settler colonial landscapes as a process dependent on claims to neutrality and objectivity.     

Early Carboniferous Siphonodella (Conodonta) faunas from eastern Australia

Early to Middle Tournaisian conodont faunas with Siphonodella from ten sections in eastern Australia, between Gloucester in New South Wales and Rockhampton in Queensland, may be referred to the following ‘standard’ zones; 1 sulcata, 2 upper duplicata, 3 sandbergi, 4 lower crenulata and 5 isosticha-upper crenulata, in ascending order. In eastern Australia the first occurrences of Gnathodus cuneiformis, G. delicatus, G. typicus and Protognathodus cordiformis, near the base of the lower crenulata zone, are significantly earlier than in Europe and North America. Consequently the base of the isosticha-upper crenulata zone in eastern Australia is defined by the first appearance of G. punctatus rather than that of G. delicatus. On the present evidence it is difficult to reconcile some brachiopod and conodont occurrences in the Early-Middle Tournaisian of eastern Australia.

Seventeen discrete conodont species are discussed, four of which are described informally: Dinodus sp. nov. A, Dinodus sp. nov. B, Pinacognathus sp. nov. A, and a species of Siphonodella transitional between S. cooperi and S. crenulata.     

Through the eyes of a deacon: lesser clergy,major donors,and institutional property in fifth-century Rome

This is a study of the cults of two holy deacons at Rome: St Stephen and St Laurence. It is argued that the narratives associated with these saints were a medium for the resolution of two key, overlapping areas of tension: status anxiety within the clerical hierarchy, and relations between clergy and wealthy lay patrons. Controlling the ambitions of lesser clergy on the one hand, and on the other commanding the attention of major donors, absorbed a great deal of the energies of Roman priests and their bishop in this period. These issues converged on the figure of the deacon, understood in its early Christian sense as the helper/patron of the bishop. Defining the role of ‘deacons’ through the medium of saint cult was a necessary condition of the institutional development of the Roman church, and of church property.