The Revenge of Practical Reason? A Review Essay On Gananath Obeyesekere's The Apotheosis of Captain Cook

The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. By Gananath Obeyesekere. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii + 251. Price $US 24.95.     

THE HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY RESEARCH AGENDA

Substantial opportunities exist for social scientists, humanists practitioners, and other scholars to contribute to research on higher education policy. Not only is the university or college an interesting study objective itself but also with higher education in the United States and worldwide so immersed in public policy considerations, the relations between academe and government raise many political, economic and other Questions. Some issues currently on the research agenda are listed here. The consequences of higher education policy research are also considered.     

Reviews

GOEBBELS AND NATIONAL SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA 1925–1945. Ernest K. Bramsted. London, The Cresset Press; East Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 1965, Pp. xxxvii + 488. $12.50 (U.S.).

AUSTRIA, GERMANY, AND THE ANSCHLUSS, 1931–38; Jürgen Gehl. London, Oxford University Press, 1963. Pp. x + 212. 49/9d. (Australian).

RUSSIA AFTER KHRUSHCHEV. Robert Conquest. London, Pall Mall, 1965. Pp. 267. $6.60 Australian.

BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN. J. S. Roucek and K. V. Lottich. Caxton Press, Caldwell (Idaho, U.S.A.), 1964. Pp. 631. $8.95 (U.S.).

EAST WEST TRADE. A SYMPOSIUM. Philip E. Uren (ed.). Toronto, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1966. Pp. 181. Hard cover, $3.00. Paperback, $2.00 (Canadian).

SOUTHEAST ASIA'S SECOND FRONT. THE POWER STRUGGLE IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. Arnold Brackman. New York, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1966. Pp. xv + 341. $7.00 (Australian).

THE DIMENSIONS OF CONFLICT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. Bernard K. Gordon. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1966. Pp. xiv + 201. $2.70 (Australian).

FUNDAMENTALS OF GUERILLA WARFARE. Abdul Haris Nosution. London, Pall Mall Press, 1965. Pp. 324. $4.25 (Australian).

FROM ENMITY TO ALLIANCE. U.S.‐AUSTRALIAN RELATIONS, 1931–1941. Raymond A. Esthus. Melbourne University Press, 1965. Pp. xii + 180. 45/‐ Australian.

AUSTRALIAN CITIZEN. HERBERT BROOKES 1867–1963. Rohan Rivett. Melbourne University Press. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1965. Pp. xiv + 218. 65/‐ Australian.

AUSTRALIA AND THE MONARCHY. A SYMPOSIUM. Geoffrey Dutton (ed.). Melbourne, Sun Books, 1966. Pp. 182. $1.00 Australian.

CANADA'S ROLE AS A MIDDLE POWER. J. King Gordon (ed.). Contemporary Affairs Series No. 35, Toronto, The Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1966. Pp. xiv + 212. Can. $3.50 hard cover, $2.00 paperback.     

Islamisation and politics in Sudan

Sudan achieved an Islamic revolution recently without violence. Through a ‘creeping’ revolution that started in the 1970s, Islamic fundamentalists have consolidated their power through wealth and systematic control of the civil service, the economy, the judiciary and the armed forces. The fact that the major political parties in northern Sudan, except the Communist Party, have been affiliated to religious sects does not mean all Muslims support the Sharia. Fundamentalists comprise 20% of Sudan's Muslim population, but they are richer, better organised and more highly motivated. The implementation of the Sharia has been accompanied by the entrenchment of dictatorial rule, a weakening of institutions, the erosion of civil liberties, the aggravation of the civil war in southern Sudan and an ever‐worsening economic malaise. The revolution has also caused apprehension in Washington and some African and Arab states, but there is as yet no evidence that Sudan poses a direct threat to its neighbours.     

Le déplacement des pôles du théâtre francophone: Malcolm de Chazal et l’arrière-scène tibétaine

Acclaimed by the Parisian Surrealist circles in 1948, Malcolm de Chazal, the French-speaking Mauritian writer and painter, opted for unchartered literary territories in his subsequent works. In the 1950s, he wrote a collection of dramas that tended to decentre his writing practice towards Asian perspectives. References to Indo-Mauritian culture assuredly provided him with a major source of inspiration to deliver a culturally hybrid theatre. Yet Tibet may seem at first a rather unlikely referent in his work. One can nevertheless demonstrate by comparing the author’s numerous references to Tibet that it is not only meaningful in his entire work but also that it is a central and neglected aspect of his geo-literary agenda.     

Networked Spirits and Smart Séances: Aura and the Anthropological Gaze in the Era of the Internet of Things

2015 has been declared the year of the “Internet of Things”, the promised (or threatened) era when our commodities communicate among themselves. But even the most optimistic prognostications cannot conceal deep ambivalences about objects and agency. How do we think about our things when they communicate and act independently of us? How do we frame our relationships with them? How do we articulate distributed intelligence? And how are others imbricated in those relationships? Yet, anthropologists have been asking these questions for some time, and, in this essay, I revisit some ghosts of anthropology's past in order to prompt spectral evocation of these anthropological futures. Through revisiting anthropological fascinations with the nineteenth-century séances, phantasmagoria, commodities and auras, this essay looks to nineteenth-century confusions not only to reflect on the confusions of the present, but also to gesture to possible futures where our lively things might help us challenge suspect dichotomies of human and non-human.     

Keeping it real? Subcultural graffiti,street art,heritage and authenticity

This article considers the implications of framing subcultural graffiti and street art as heritage. Attention is paid to subcultural graffiti’s relationship to street art and the incompatibility of its traditions of illegality, illegibility, anti-commercialism and transience with the formalised structures of heritage frameworks. It is argued that the continued integration of street art and subcultural graffiti into formal heritage frameworks will undermine their authenticity and mean that traditional definitions of heritage, vandalism and the historic environment will all need to be revisited. The article contributes to the current re-theorisation of heritage’s relationship with erasure by proposing that subcultural graffiti should be perceived as an example of ‘alternative heritage’ whose authenticity might only be assured by avoiding the application of official heritage frameworks and tolerating loss in the historic environment.