Affidavit of state farmers P. Osl. inv. no. 1468

The text is a declaration on oath by state farmers. During the Roman administration of Egypt, sworn declarations were used in a variety of contexts. However, although the text clearly concerns the administration of public land, the extant part of it does not reveal the precise nature of the undertaking documented here. In this article, possible contexts relating to the affidavit are discussed.     

A man and a book

A. Irving Hallowell. Culture and Experience. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974. (First published in 1955.) xiv + 434 pp. Figures, tables and bibliography. $6.95 (paper).     

St. Leon and the culture of the heart

This essay reads Godwin's second novel, St. Leon (1799), as an attempt to counter the asperity he expresses towards the domestic affections in his political philosophy of the 1790s. In St. Leon, Godwin seeks to square his newfound interest in the affections as a topic for fiction with his commitment to an anti-establishment political agenda. Though it is presented as a ‘eulogium’ to ‘the affections and charities of private life’, the narrative persistently undercuts the potential for the affections to stimulate readerly curiosity. The focus of the novel constantly shies away from the domestic scene, and instead propels the momentum forwards to the alchemical adventures that precipitate the disintegration of the very affections the novel purports to eulogise. The novel thus plays out Godwin's complicated desire to embrace, and yet simultaneously to deny, the importance of private emotions in the pursuit of political justice.     

THE TRANSNATIONALIZATION OF GENDER HISTORY

W omen's H istory in G lobal P erspective , Volume 1. Edited by Bonnie G. Smith.
B odies in C ontact: R ethinking C olonial E ncounters in W orld H istory. Edited by Antoinette Burton and Tony Ballantyne.