China in Australia: The Discourses of Changst

Abstract

China matters significantly to contemporary Australia in terms of trade relations, capital movements, education and global order. Australian public discourse on China, however, inhabits two conflicting parallel universes, one a narrative of economic complementarity, the other of fear and anxiety. The spectre of the rise of China haunts Australian society in and among these two spheres: one in which China’s economic rise is to be encouraged as a sign of it joining the capitalist world system, and the other in which China’s ascent is regarded as a threat to be contained. The paper examines this problematic discourse, calling it Changst [China angst], arguing that it is permeated with a developmentalist logic (Chakrabarty, 2000) that misreads China through the homogenising history of both capitalism and Eurocentrism. This reading of China as but a copy of Western capitalism evokes anxiety because its distinctive forms of capital flow disrupt the comforting teleology. Equally, when Chinese society, including its education system, is perceived as not-yet modern, this induces fear of cultural contamination from the outpouring of Chinese international students. The exploration of this anxiety is conducted via six Australian case studies, showing how China’s engagement with Australia produces intense but unwarranted angst.     

Literacy,authorship, and belief in medieval and renaissance Europe

Heresy and Literacy, 1000–1530. Edited by Peter Biller and Anne Hudson, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 23 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), xxv + 293 pp., £37.50/$59.95 cloth.

Literature, Politics and National Identity: Reformation to Renaissance. By Andrew Hadfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), xvii + 261 pp., £35.00/$59.59 cloth.

Early Cambridge Theatres: College, University, and Town Stages, 1464–1720. By Alan H. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), xiv + 179 pp., £35.00/$59.95 cloth.     

Cesium magnetometer surveys at a Pithouse Site near Silver City,New Mexico

The La Gila Encantada Site is located on an isolated ridge top north of Silver City, New Mexico in an area defined culturally as the Mimbres Mogollon region. The 180 m × 80 m (14400 m²) sized site was originally recorded as a dense scatter of ceramics, lithics, and ground stone along with a number of surface depressions that appear to represent pithouses. Cesium magnetometer surveys were conducted to identify hearths, pithouse boundaries, and activity areas outside of pithouses in support of archaeological investigations, and to test this instrument's ability to image these features. This paper presents a characterization of the magnetic signature of a pithouse as a magnetic high in the center caused by the central hearth, low magnetic variability along the floor of the house, and then increased magnetic variability at the pithouse boundary. This characterization was successfully confirmed for three pithouses using cesium magnetometery and archaeological excavation.     

AMS C dating the Protoaurignacian/Early Aurignacian of Isturitz,France. Implications for Neanderthal–modern human interaction and the timing of technical and cultural innovations in Europe

This paper presents new AMS radiocarbon dating results of six ungulate bones from the current excavation of Isturitz Cave, France, layer C 4c4. The assemblage from this layer exhibits a suite of traits closely aligned with the Early Aurignacian, but with some aspects that bear strong similarities with the Protoaurignacian, with possible in situ technological transformation. Accurate and precise dating of the late Middle Palaeolithic and the early Upper Palaeolithic periods is critical to our understanding of the possible relationship between final Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe. As such, a rigorous set of sample selection and evaluation protocols was developed and used in this research. Among these, only cutmarked bones were selected and a total of 31 targets were made, giving a weighted average of 37,180 ± 420 BP for this assemblage and providing a terminus ante quem for the ornaments, decorated artefact and amber pendants beneath it. The implications and importance of these results to debates concerning the chronological relationship between the Châtelperronian, Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian and associated debates regarding hominin dispersal, interaction and the timing of technical and cultural innovations are discussed.