Colonial Rule,Cultural Relations and the British Council in Cyprus, 1935–55

ABSTRACT

This article offers an examination of the British Council’s early stages of expansion in Cyprus under British rule, from 1935 to 1955, before the start of the Greek Cypriot anti-colonial struggle (1955–59). It argues that the British Council’s development and quality of activities in the British colony were affected by various factors such as the peculiar political difficulties encountered in the island due to the rise of Greek nationalism and the growing influence of the Church of Cyprus over the local public; the mismanagement of the local British Institutes by some of the Council’s representatives; and the financial stringencies hindering the Council’s ambitions. Through the investigation of primary material, accessed at the Cyprus State Archive in Nicosia (Cyprus) and at the National Archives in London (UK), the article traces and critically analyses for the first time the Council’s early steps in colonial cultural policy-making, using Cyprus as a case study. During the 20-year period under examination, British experiments in culture attempted to attract the Cypriots’ interest and convince them of the importance of the British connection. The British and colonial governments envisaged that through cultural influence they could safeguard the consent of the governed. In this way, British presence in Cyprus could be retained and Britain would be able to protect its strategic, political and economic interests in the region. However, research reveals that the Council’s efforts in the colony were more often than not misguided, its activities proving ineffective, its hopes misplaced. Although the aspiration was that the British Council should be a powerful instrument of Britain’s foreign policy in the colonies, this article shows that in Cyprus it had a tumultuous childhood. Caught up in the realities of the Second World War, the rise of nationalism, the thread of communism, and amid the climate of Cold War, the British Empire was coming at an end, while the British Council was fighting to survive.     

Catholic Mission and Conversion in Scandinavia

The relation between mission, religious conversion and identity construction is the subject of my paper. On a concrete level, I discuss the Catholic mission and conversions in Scandinavia from the middle of the 19th century to the present time. Up to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Catholic Church strongly emphasised its claim to be the only true church, and as a consequence, all non-Catholic regions were regarded as missionary areas. Most of the priests and sisters working in Scandinavia were foreigners, whereas converts from Protestantism dominated the parishes. I pay special attention to the question of national and religious identity and the changing discourses of Catholic conversion, reflected in conversion narratives.     

The burden of choosing wisely: biopolitics at the beginning of life

Recent transformations in French maternal health care demonstrate how the government of the beginning of life encompasses an individual woman's desires and aspirations for the uses of her own body. Women are increasingly solicited by the French health care system to express their feelings, their wishes, and their distress to a medical professional for whom the solicitation of such narratives has become a professional specificity. This essay focuses on transformations of governmental power in the realm of reproduction articulated within French maternal health care policy, professional midwifery journals, and women's health activist literature. Crucially, the regulation of reproduction in France no longer takes place primarily through sanction or prohibition, but rather through what sociologist Dominique Memmi claims is the solicitation of narratives about one's own desires and hopes for the fate of one's body, a ‘delegated biopolitics’ of reproductive control. This essay suggests that the contemporary government of reproduction entrusts individuals with little more and no less than the imperative to ‘choose wisely.’     

The family,sexual morality and gender identity in the communist tradition in Italy (1921–1956)

This essay will compare the model of the communist family during the era of Palmiro Togliatti's ‘partito nuovo’, beginning with the famous ‘svolta di Salerno’ in 1944, with the model outlined when the Italian Communist Party (PCdI) was first founded in 1921. The sources used vary, spanning memoirs, literature, the press and autobiographies of political activists. The aim of this essay is to expand the research on the ‘communist tradition’; to examine the characteristics of both its theoretical thinking and pedagogic structure; to explore the nature of its propaganda; and to study the individual experiences of activists.     

The congresses of Italian scientists between Europe and the Risorgimento (1839 – 75)

Abstract

This article reconstructs the history of the Italian scientific congresses from 1839 until 1875. The congresses are analyzed in the context of the political Risorgimento, but also as a reflection of relations among social groups, and between society and institutions. We examine the troubled coexistence of a minority interested primarily in encouraging the professionalization of science in state institutions of learning, and a broader sector of eminent citizens that placed the value of ‘expertise’ alongside the values of birth and social ranking. This complicated coexistence was the chief reason that the Italian congresses failed, and after 1861, as well, in their effort to establish a national scientific association comparable to those existing in many other countries, both inside and outside Europe. This essay reconstructs the main points and phases of the debate and the changes in the relations among the social and professional groups and scientific work, up until the foundation of a Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze (SIPS, Italian Association for the Advancement of Science), which explicitly rejected the heritage of the Risorgimento.     

Urban shrinkage: an unspoken challenge of spatial planning in Russian small and medium-sized cities

Shrinkage since the collapse of state socialism has been evident in many Russian cities, especially in small and medium-sized (SMS) ones. The Russian state, de jure, has been promoting the idea of self-governance; thereby, urban municipalities ought to develop and adopt own planning decisions to cope with various challenges, including those related to depopulation. The current research focuses on planning responses to urban shrinkage. It aims at understanding how the phenomenon is conceptualized in the planning documents of Russian SMS cities and what solutions are proposed to cope with it in the conditions inherited from the Soviet times housing and infrastructural deficit. The empirical evidence for the analysis is drawn from over 70 SMS cities located in Central and Southern Russia. Results state that despite obvious and persisting urban shrinkage, most of the reviewed documents ignore or underestimate the phenomenon. Instead of suggesting flexible solutions, which would help overcome the shortage of urban infrastructure not aggravating shrinkages’ effects in the cityscape, long-term spatial plans are being developed with hope for future growth proposing measures that contribute to the intensification of urban sprawl and fragmentation.     

Modelling Uncertainties of Italian Code-Conforming Structures for the Purpose of Seismic Response Analysis

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the multivariate statistical model of the structure-related modelling uncertainty, developed with reference to reinforced concrete, masonry, steel, and seismically isolated buildings, within the framework of the RINTC project. The model describes the variability of material properties as well as the uncertainty associated with the adopted response models. Specific aspects of each structural typology are also discussed, with a focus on the statistical dependence of the random variables in the model. Finally, the paper describes also the efficient sampling procedure adopted. Effect of model uncertainty on response for each typology are discussed in the corresponding papers within this special issue dedicated to the RINTC project.