Zeitpfeile,Zeitfaltungen und Diskursanalyse: zu Kontinuitäten der Imaginationslehre

Time Lines, Folded Time, and Discourse Analysis: Continuities of Maternal Imagination. Focusing on a discourse‐oriented history of knowledge, this article deals with the relation between continuity and time. It will discuss concepts of linear and homogenous time and problematize a one‐sided focus on discontinuity and rupture in discourse analyses. After examining notions of continuity, discontinuity, and temporality in the work of Michel Foucault, I will ask how continuous elements can be theorized both as instruments and objects of research, without adopting a linear concept of time. Thus, Michel Serres' concept of folded time will be presented, because it implies a multiple, heterogenous and non‐linear temporality and entails both continuous and discontinuous entities. Thereby relations of power should be considered as factors influencing the shape of the folding. In this way, folded time can serve as a useful tool for discourse analysis, enabling to examine specific and local continuities that vary in different discursive formations. To give an example, I will briefly turn to the concept of women's imagination in pregnancy. According to most historical analyses, this concept declined in the middle of the 18^th century and persisted afterwards only as an outdated remainder in folk knowledge. Nevertheless, a closer examination reveals that knowledge on imagination was actively produced in medical advice literature and some scientific discourses until the first decades of the 20^th century. This demonstrates that an overemphasis both on rupture and on the timeline of academic medicine might conceal continuous elements and the folded time of specific knowledge formations.     

Towards a Female Topography of the Ancient Greek City: Case Studies from Late Archaic and Early Classical Athens (c.520–400 BCE)

In this article, I seek to move beyond the traditional, polarised model of ancient Greek cities which views the civic sphere as gendered male in contrast with the domestic sphere which was gendered female. I argue that this model oversimplifies a much more complex set of relationships, leading scholars to underplay the possibilities for female agency within the built environment of the Classical city (polis) and to underestimate the scope of women's activities within Greek society more generally. Taking Athens as an example, I suggest that space was not rigidly divided between ‘public’ and ‘private’ zones. Instead, a number of factors led to flexibility which enabled a woman to enter civic space in order to carry out a variety of activities on her own behalf, on behalf of her household and also as a representative of her household in the context of the wider community. The civic context was thus an inverse parallel for the domestic sphere which, although constructed as female, was clearly also an important arena for male activity.     

Hanoi 5000 Hoan Kiem Lakes: Using Art to Involve Young People in Urban Futures

In March-April 2007, a group of six Hanoi-based artists staged an exhibition of entitled “Hanoi 5000 Hoan Kiem Lakes”. Its purpose was to explore young people's visions of the future of their city and to stimulate discussion of the city's development from a non-planning perspective. To prepare for the exhibition, the artists undertook a survey among the youth of Hanoi, distributing a one-question questionnaire and interviewing on and off camera over 250 young people, randomly and selectively sampled in parks, on sidewalks, outside universities, and in university and school classes. Participants were invited to a workshop held by the artists at the exhibition to talk about how ideas get translated into art. This exhibition provided a timely intervention into debates over the landscape of Hanoi, what urban public space is and what it should be, and how non-technical, non-specialist views of the city can be incorporated into urban aspirations, thus acknowledging and encouraging the visions of the young people who will be the city's future leaders.     

Creating the 1831 Canadian Census Database

The 1831 census database is the newest addition to the series of 19th century Canadian census microdata available for social science research, thanks to a collaboration between the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) and FamilySearch. This article presents the work undertaken to prepare this database and the main challenges encountered in the course of this work. While the data extracted from the 1831 census are an invaluable tool for demographic research, particularly on account of the agricultural and industrial questions included in this census, cleaning these data have required particular attention to the age-sex-marital status tallies of the household co-residents. Additional efforts were devoted to integrating missing data for Montréal’s Notre-Dame parish and for other parishes.     

Francis Hutcheson on Luxury and Intemperance: The Mandeville Threat

This paper looks at two figures in the modern, European, eighteenth-century debate on luxury. It claims to better understand the differences between Francis Hutcheson and Bernard Mandeville by exploring how Hutcheson treated the topic of luxury as a distinction between two desires, thus differing from Mandeville's concept of luxury, and a concept of temperance based on moral sense. It explores why Hutcheson believed that luxury was a moral, social and political issue and particularly why he considered Mandeville the embodiment of a threat that went beyond simple considerations of the content of The Fable of the Bees to touch on reflections on the equilibrium of a social and political system. It aims to show how the psychological and the moral dimension were connected to Hutcheson's political theory and how luxury was one of the key points of this connection.