Collecting Material Folklore: Motivations and Methods in the Owen and Hasluck Collections

As contributor to the mistakenly conceptualised concept of “belief legend,” I want to survey the historical antecedents and the circumstances that at a certain stage prompted researchers to identify this category, formerly classified as mythical or demonological legend. This was the time when legend scholars began field-collection, experiencing the profound attachment of narratives to living local folk religion. After decades of meticulous field observation, which has led to the accumulation of a more dependable stock of legendry from diverse national, subcultural, occupational groups, it becomes clear that folk belief is a part of any legend, therefore there is no need to maintain the term “belief legend.” Belief is the stimulator and the purpose of telling any narrative within the larger category of the legend genre; it is also the instigator of the legend dialectic. The current confusion caused by the whimsical application of terms such as “truth,” “rationality,” “belief,” and “believability” in scholarly legend interpretations, should caution us to avoid making biased, outsider's judgements instead of presenting the viewpoint of tellers and audiences.     

Between science and religion: The reaction to scientific naturalism in late Victorian England

From its ornamental and often bookish exterior to its use as an exegetical tool for understanding the Book of Nature, the 18th-century microscope was socialized as an instrument of letters as well as of science. This essay proposes a reading of the microscope as a literary artifact by examining its bindings, its texts and its illustrations. While the instrument promised to extend human sense perception and to give its user access to invisible worlds, it simultaneously threatened to alter received views concerning both aesthetics and social hierarchy. Nevertheless, the destabilizing effects of the microscopic message entered polite society cloaked in a veil of familiarity in the binding of a good book. The nostalgia-encrusted instrument absorbed the shock of the new.     

Drifting Along or Dropping into Homelessness: A Class Analysis of Responses to Homelessness

Abstract: Prominent assumptions about street homelessness and how it should be addressed originate primarily from middle class domiciled worldviews. This article draws on interviews with 58 street homeless people to develop a typology for explaining different forms of homelessness resulting from differences in class of origin. The concepts of social distance and abjection are used to illustrate how class politics manifests in street homelessness and in responses to this issue. Many of our homeless participants referred to two broad groupings of homeless people who display distinct experiences and cultures in their daily lives on the streets. Drifters are people who do not experience homelessness as a sharp disjuncture from their previously housed life. Street homelessness is a continuation of the hardships of their lower class backgrounds. Droppers are people who have “fallen” on hard times and aspire to return to mainstream middle class lifeworlds. Differentiating between these two groups provides a space for defamiliarizing dominant understandings of, and current generic responses to, homelessness and foregrounds the need for reorienting services to better meet the needs of drifters.     

Material constraints to popular imaginaries: The extractive economy and resource nationalism in Bolivia

Widespread neoliberal-era privatizations in South America's extractive economies rekindled longstanding social movement demands for nationalist control of non-renewable resources and propelled the region's left political turn over the last decade. In Bolivia, where resource extraction has dominated exports since colonial times, social movements employing resource nationalist master frames overturned governments in 1952, 2003, and 2005. In 2005 indigenous leader Evo Morales was elected president promising to direct resource wealth to generate economic development, but the structural constraints created by an extractive economy have made these goals impossible to achieve over the short and medium term. This article suggests that the clash between resource nationalist imaginaries embedded in contentious social movements and the realities of long-term extractive dependent economies not only limits government policy options but also fuels continued social protest.     

De la caída de Tenochtitlán al decaimiento del Make Sicko Seedy de Carlos Fuentes: Ciudades en crisis,mundos por nacer

Carlos Fuentes's 1987 carnivalesque novel, Cristóbal nonato, criticizes Mexico's prehispanic past through a satire of Tenochtitlán-Mexico City in the neoliberal, postnational era. This study consequently juxtaposes criticism, theory, and analysis from both imperial Aztec Mexico and nationalist modern Mexico. While the bulk of this 600-page novel confronts readers with a highly negative (although often risible) view of both Mexicos, it ultimately leads to a happy ending with a didactic twist: If Mexicans will stop abandoning Mexico for the North or other green pastures, and instead stay in Mexico despite its many problems, they can turn things around by their altruism and their activist determination.     

The Arabs of Kordofan: A study of adaptation

Zehn Jahre in Aequatoria, und die Rückkehr mit Emin Pacha. Von Major Gaetano Casati. Bamberg : Buchnersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1891.

Anleitung zur Bearbeitung meteorologischer Beobachtungen für die Klimatologie. Von Dr. Hugo Meyer, Assistent am Königlichen meteorologischen Institut. Berlin : Verlag von Julius Springer, 1891. Pp. 187.

Klimaschwankungen seit 1700, nebst Bemerkungen über die Klimaschwankungen der Diluvialzeit. Von Dr. Eduard Brückner, a. o. Professor der Geo‐graphie an der Universität zu Bern. Mit einer Tafel, 13 Fignren im Texte und zahlreichen Tabellen. Wien und Olmütz : Ed. Hölzel, 1890. Pp. 324.

Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae. Chronologisches Verzeichniss der auf der Geographie des Heiligen Landes bezüglichen Literatur von 333 bis 1878 und Versuch einer Cartographie. Herausgegeben von Reinhold Röhricht. Berlin : H. Reuther's Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1890. Pp. 744.

Chinesische Studien. Von Friedrich Hirth. Band I. München und Leipzig: G. Hirth's Verlag, 1890. Pp. 322.

Die Bildenden Künste lei den Dayaks auf Borneo. Ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen Kunstgeschichte. Von Alois Raimund Hein, k.k. Professor und Akade‐mischer Maler. Mit einem Titelbilde, zehn Tafeln, neunzig Text‐Illustrationen, und einer Karte. Wien : Alfred Hölder, 1890. Pp. xiv + 228.

Ethnographische Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Karolinen‐Archipels. Von J. S. Kubary, unter Mitwirkung von J. D. E. Schmeltz, Conservator am ethno‐graphischen Reichsmuseum in Leiden. Erstes Heft, mit 15 Tafeln. Leiden : Verlag von P. W. M. Trap, 1889. Pp. iv+114.

Religion der Alten Aegypter. Dargestellt von Dr. A. Wiedemann. Münster in Westphalen, 1890. Verlag der Aschendorffschen Buchhandlung. Pp. 175.

An Appeal to Pharaoh. The Negro Problem, and its Radical Solution. New York : Fords, Howard and Hulbert, 1890. Pp. 205.

A Historical Geography of the British Colonies. By C. P. Lucas, B.A. Vol. ii. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1890. Pp. 343. 12 Maps and Diagrams. Price 7s. 6d.

Geography of the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland. By the Eev. William Parr Greswell, M.A. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891. Pp. xii+154. 10 Maps. Price 6s.

School Geography. Kirchhoff and Sonnenschein. Junior course. London : Swan, Sonnenschein and Co., 1891. Pp. 144. 14 Plates. Price 2s. 6d.

Géographie Économique de l'Afrique, l'Asie, l'Océanie et l'Amérique. Par Marcel Dubois. Paris : G. Masson, 1889. Pp. 730.

English Rediscovery and Colonisation of America. By John B. and Marie A. Shipley. London : Elliot Stock ; not dated. Pp. xvi+151.

Meyers Konversations‐Lexikon. Siebzehnter Band. Leipzig und Wien. Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, 1890. Pp. 1059.

The Trees of North‐Eastern America. Illustrations from Original Sketches. By Charles S. Newhall. New York and London : G. N. Putman's Sons, 1890.

The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States, and the State of Aboriginal Society in the Scale of Civilisation represented by them. By Gates P. Thruston. Pp. xv+369. 17 Plates and 246 Cuts. Index. Price 4 dollars. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co., 1890.

The Antiquities of the State of Ohio. By Henry A. Shepherd. Pp. vi + 139. Maps, Plans, Illustrations. Price 2 dollars. Same Publishers.

Fort Ancient, Ohio. By Warren K. Moorehead. Pp. xii + 129. 2 Maps, 35 Phototypes. Price 2 dollars. Same Publishers.