Thomas Carlyle's Calvinist dialogue with the nineteenth-century periodical press

This article signals at a dearth of critical engagement with Thomas Carlyle's Presbyterian heritage resulting from the received whiggish narrative of his Calvinism as unenlightened, anachronistic, and backward-looking. It proceeds to challenge this view by examining closely Carlyle's creative use of key Calvinist concepts in his cosmopolitan and enlightened dialogue with the contemporary periodical press over British and European cultures. Carlyle is shown to be an adept purveyor both of the Edinburgh Magazine's enlightened idiom and of Blackwood's morally conservative and artistically cosmopolitan agendas, while also making creative capital of the Anti-Jacobin's powerful Gothic imagery and of the critical verve of the Westminster Review. The main addressees of Carlyle's reading of the signs of the times, I argue, are contemporary Whigs. Carlyle's depiction of Macaulay as a ‘spiritual hippopotamus’ spells Carlyle's broader critique of the modern lack of imagination of the spiritual which sponsors deterministic religious and secular readings of reality. Carlyle displays his enlightened Calvinist perspective in discussing the French Revolution through such key Scottish Enlightenment concepts as free will, conscience, civilisational and moral progress, and divine providence. Insightful and creative use of his inherited Scottish Calvinist heritage characterises Carlyle's open, cosmopolitan reading of the signs of the times.     

National identity during periods of controversy: celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Phoenix,Arizona

Cinco de Mayo, celebrated by Mexican Americans as well as Americans of other ethnicities, provides an opportunity to examine the influence of ethnic festivals on broader US identity. Given the recent controversy over the immigration bill, State Bill 1070, passed in Arizona in 2010, the themes presented in newspaper articles concerning the celebration of the holiday in Phoenix, Arizona (2006–11) and the public response to these articles are examined. This examination reveals the intense contestation associated with the presentation of symbols and themes of national identity during periods of political controversy. It also illustrates that ordinary people have strong, long‐standing opinions about the future of the nation and national identity and will express their opinions when an outlet is provided to them