Monkey business: human–animal conflicts in urban Singapore

Ongoing human–long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) conflicts in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Singapore, have seen native macaques significantly affected, as residential development encroaches into animals' habitat, destroying important wildlife corridors. The search for a more humane treatment of these transgressive animals can be seen as an attempt to extend and include non-human animals within humanistic notions of ethics and care, in the process destabilizing the assumed divide between human/animal. Yet, a feasible solution is difficult to reach as National Parks Board (NParks), the state agency overseeing the conservation of reserves and wildlife, has to negotiate constantly between their goal of maintaining biodiversity and appeasing the complaining residents. The paper seek to understand urban–wilderness conflicts between human–macaque, showing that the divide between tamed/wild is multi-sited, ambiguous and constantly shifting. In this regard, we are especially interested in the role of intermediaries in initiating actions to ‘make discursive as well as material space’ for macaques in the reserve. Intermediaries, here referring to NParks and animal activists, are actors who do not reside near the reserve thus having no frequent encounters with wildlife, yet are enrolled as mitigators during instances of human–animal conflicts.     

“Land of Unfinished Monuments”: The Ruins-in-Reverse of Nineteenth-Century America

Abstract

By focusing on the design and reception of successfully completed monuments, historians have overlooked the presence in nineteenth-century America of monuments that were left unfinished for decades, or even aborted altogether. This article recovers numerous such monuments, and shows how contemporaries seized on them not merely for their aesthetic value as homegrown ruins to be visited and sketched, but also for their rhetorical value as expressions of unfinished political and social struggles. In refashioning these incipient historical memorials as ironic anti-monuments to contemporary problems, diverse groups – radical workingmen and conservative Whigs, female activists and chauvinist newspapermen, patriotic Americans and critical Englishmen, proslavery southerners and abolitionist northerners – elaborated a broader discourse of unfinishedness. The fragments of these monuments could even figure the nation itself as a work-in-progress, contrary to current arguments about the construction of national identity through notions of organic wholeness. The article also questions scholars' assumption that monuments inevitably promote a culture of forgetting by projecting images of consensus and closure. In turning to the reception of monuments during their often-lengthy construction, we can perceive their more complex relationship to dominant ideologies and narratives of the nation-state.     

Is technology the enemy of culture?

This article examines how changes in technology affect the strategies various national governments have adopted to protect their respective cultures. The focus is primarily on national policies toward film and television. National quota systems that limit the import of American entertainment products will soon be made impossible to enforce, thanks to new digital and satellite technologies. Economic incentives will still make American products attractive to proliferating private television channels, but narrow‐casting and cable distribution will offer new opportunities for locally produced shows and movies. Increasingly, those countries that wish to continue to protect their cultures from the homogenizing trends of global markets dominated by American films and television programs, will need to move away from quotas and toward subsidies. Moreover, they will have an interest in promoting technologies that are favorable to the promotion of national culture. Financial instruments that reduce risk to local producers may also be appropriate.     

Book reviews

Aldeghi, I., et al., Vécu et devenir des chômeurs de longue durée (La Documentation Française, 1992), 123pp., 100F., ISBN 2 11 002644 8

Baker, K.M., Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 372pp., £32.50 hbk., £11.95 pbk., ISBN 0 521 34618 5 and 0 521 38578 4

Blancquart, M.‐C., and Cahne, P., Littérature française du XX^e (PUF, 1992), 564pp., ISBN 2 130 44810 0

Brunet, P., ed., France et Grande‐Bretagne rurales. Rural France and Great Britain (Centre de Recherches sur l'Evolution de la Vie Rurale, Université de Caen, 1991), 510pp., 180F., ISBN 2 905 46162 4

Caune, J., La Culture en action. De Vilar à Lang: le sens perdu (Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1992), 368pp., 130F.

Coleman, J., and Parker, G., French and the Enterprise Path (AFLS‐CILT, 1992), 200pp., £8.95

Collot, S., Les Lieux de désir: topologie amoureuse de Zola (Hachette Université, 1992), 192pp., 150F., ‘Recherches Littéraires’ Collection, ISBN 2 010 18816 0

Coutel, C., ed., La République et l'école; une anthologie (Presses‐Pocket, 1992), 288pp., ISBN 2 266 04474 5

Crosland, M., Science under control: the French Academy of Sciences, 1795–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1992), 454pp., £60.00, ISBN 0 521 41373 7

David, M., Le Printemps de la Fraternité: genèse et vicissitudes, 1830–1851 (Aubier, 1992), 396pp., 180F., ISBN 2 700 72237 X

Debray, R., Vie et mort de l'image (Gallimard, 1992), 140F., 412pp., ISBN 2 070 72816 1

Drieu la Rochelle, P., Journal 1939–1945 (Gallimard, 1992), 521pp., 140F., ISBN 2 070 72307 0

Durand, J.‐D. et al., Cent ans de catholicisme social à Lyon et en Rhône‐Alpes. Actes du Colloque de Lyon, 18–19 janvier 1991 (Les Editions Ouvrières, 1992), 566pp., 170F., ISBN 2 708 22954 0

Estienne, P., Les régions françaises (Masson, 1991), 2 vols, 264pp., 272pp., 180F., 190F., ISBN 2 225 82509 2, 2 225 82590 4 respectively

Fougeyrollas, P., L'Attraction du futur: un essai sur la signification du présent (Méridiens Klincksieck), 274pp., 140F., ISBN 2 865 63299 7

Gaillac, H., Les Maisons de correction 1830–1945 (Editions Cujas, 1991), 464pp., 120F., ISBN 2 254 92404 X

Genet‐Delacroix, M.‐C., Art et Etat sous la III^e République. Le Système des Beaux‐Arts 1870 (Publications de la Sorbonne, 1992), lviii+433pp., 190F., ISBN 2 859 44219 7

Hagège, C., Le Souffle de la Langue (Odile Jacob, 1992), 286pp.+9pp. of maps, 130F., ISBN 2 738 10182 8

Hancock, M.D. et al., Politics in Western Europe (Macmillan, 1993), 526pp., £14.99, ISBN 0 000 00000 0

Hardman, J., Louis XVI (Yale University Press, 1993), 264pp., £25.00, ISBN 0 300 05719 9

Hargreaves, A.G., Voices from the North African immigrant community in France. Immigration and identity in Bear fiction (Berg, 1991), 175pp., £29.50, ISBN 0 854 96649 8

Harpaz, E., Benjamin Constant et Madame Récamier (lettres 1807–1830) (Honoré Champion, 1992), 362pp., 140F., ISBN 2 852 03706 8

Hudson, J., and Tosser, N., Business French (Made Simple, 1992), 426pp., £8.95, ISBN 0 730 60299 6

Jones, H.S., The French State in Question. Public Law and Political Argument in the Third Republic (CUP, 1993), 231pp., £30., ISBN 2 521 43149 2

Kolebka, G., Dépressions sur une partie de la France (Seghers, 1991), 164pp., 100F., ISBN 2 232 10341 2

Lagrée, M., and Roche, J., Tombes de mémoire: le dévotion populaire aux victimes de la Révolution dans l'Ouest (Rennes Apogée, 1993), 148pp., 125F., ISBN 2 909 27512 4

Lefebvre, D., Guy Mollet: Le mal aimé (Plon, 1992), 545pp., 149F., ISBN Z 259 02465 3

Lemalet, M., Lettres d'Algérie, 1954–1962: La guerre des appelés, la mémoire d'une génération (Jean‐Claude Lattès, 1992), 360pp., 139F., ISBN 2 709 61145 7

Lyotard, J.‐F., The inhuman (Polity Press, 1991), 216pp., £35, ISBN 0 745 69772 1

Michel, P., and Nivet, J.‐F., Octave Mirbeau; l'imprécateur au c?ur fidèle (Librarie Séguier, 1990), 1019pp., ISBN 2 877 36162 4

Ministère du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Formation Professionnelle, Le Tourisme Social et Familial (La Documentation Française, 1992), 333pp., 180F., ISBN 9 782 11002757 3

Oriol, P., Les immigrés devant les urnes: le droit de vote des étrangers (CIEMI/L'Harmattan, 1992), 223pp., 120F., ISBN 2 738 41246 7

Remond, R., et al., Paul Touvier et l'Eglise. Rapport de la Commission historique instituée par le cardinal Decourtray (Fayard, 1992), 418pp., 130F., ISBN 2 213 02880 X

Richardot, J.‐P., Le peuple protestant français aujourd'hui (Laffont, 1992), 388pp., ISBN 2 221 07364 9

Sainteny, G., Les Verts (PUF, 1991), 127pp., ISBN 2 130 44491 1

Sainte‐Beuve, C.‐A., La Vie des lettres (Hermann, 1992), 4 vols. I: Moyen‐#afAge et Renaissance, 184pp., ISBN 2 705 66176 X; II: Le Siècle de Versailles, 240pp., ISBN 2 705 66177 8; III: Les Lumières et les salons, 192pp., ISBN 2 705 66178 6; IV: Le Siècle du progrès, 212pp., ISBN 2 705 66179 4, 60F. each.

Scientrier, P., Tester et enrichir ses connaissances en littérature (Marabout, 1992), 287pp., ISBN 2 501 01757 9

Scriven, M., and Wagstaff, P., eds., War and society in twentieth‐century France (Berg, 1991), xii+304pp., ISBN 0 854 96292 1

Servent, P., Le Mythe Pétain. Verdun ou les tranchées de la mémoire (Editions Payot, 1992), 283pp., 120F., ISBN 2 228 88500 2

Sowerwine, C., and Magnien, C., Madeleine Pelletier, une féministe dans l'arène politique (Editions Ouvrières, 1992), 250pp., 125F., ISBN 2 708 22960 5

Stanley, J.L., ed., From Georges Sorel, vol. 2: Hermeneutics and the Sciences, translated by John and Charlotte Stanley. (New Brunswick and London, Transaction Books, 1990), 219pp., ISBN 0 887 38304 1     

Learning to sail the Duyfken replica

The rig of the Duyfken 'replica', a reconstruction Dutch jacht of c . 1600 is described. Sail-handling techniques and sailing performance including steering with a whipstaff are also described. Experiments to improve sailing efficiency, some prompted by analysis of contemporary iconography, are discussed.