Drama societies in the French Revolution: from Jacobin enthusiasts to royalist amateurs

During the French Revolution the network of Jacobin clubs wasto an extent mirrored by the existence of drama societies. Encouragedby the militants who took part in them and by the governmentof the Year II, they knew how to stage patriotic theatre. Theycompeted with the professional companies and reproduced theirregulations concerning morality and charity, the individualsanctions on unmotivated artists and control over repertoryby the municipalities. These formal measures were not necessarilya proof of quality, but members of their audiences were indulgentsince they were used to amateur theatre and because they approvedof the ideas being represented. Nevertheless, drama societieswere the victims of political purges and, in the Year IV, thesetheatres of propaganda were taken over by moderates and royalists,a development which led to their closure by the Directory.     

Moyens Techniques et Reproduction Sonore

Sans résumé Philippe Despoix enseigne la littérature comparée à l’université de Montréal où il dirige le Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes. Ses recherches portent sur la fonction des médias techniques dans les processus mémoriels et de transferts interculturels. Il a notamment publié éthiques du désenchantement (Paris, L’Harmattan, 1995) et Le Monde mesuré (Genève, Droz, 2005). Nicolas Donin est chercheur en musicologie à l’Ircam, où il dirige l’équipe ?Analyse des pratiques musicales?. Ses travaux portent sur les œuvres, les pratiques et esthétiques musicales savantes. Il a notamment codirigé, avec Bernard Stiegler, Révolutions industrielles de la musique, numéro spécial des Cahiers de médiologie (n^o 18, 2004). L’Analyse musicale, une pratique et son histoire, ouvrage réalisé en collaboration avec Rémy Campos, est à para?tre (Genève, Conservatoire de Genève/Droz).     

Le Médium Technique: Objet et <Emphasis Type="Italic">A Priori</Emphasis>

In his fragment on music, Max Weber reduces the empirically describable musical object to the «technical medium» utilized by each culture on condition that its analysis remains heterogeneous in the face of aesthetic valorisations. Weber emphasises that the phonographic reproduction of sound constitutes the condition of possibility of an empirical analysis of the musical material, the point of departure of a modern comparative musicology. The empirical approach and cultural comparison thus appear linked in an «empirico-transcendental» crossover which makes both an object and an a priori out of the technical medium. The article explains this methodological choice and its consequences for a comparative sociology of art.     

Early Neolithic obsidians in Sardinia (Western Mediterranean): the Su Carroppu case

All the obsidians from the undisturbed Early Neolithic (Cardial ware phase I) layer of the Su Carroppu rock-shelter (Sardinia island) were studied. Their elemental composition and that of obsidians from the Monte Arci (Sardinia) volcanic complex was determined by ion beam analysis (PIXE). A comparison between the composition of Su Carroppu artefacts, analysed non-destructively, and that of Western Mediterranean analysed in the same conditions shows that the archaeological material belongs to the SA, SB2 and SC Monte Arci-types, to the exclusion of the SB1 type. The typological/technological study of this industry allowed us to reconstruct two chaînes opératoires, for the production of blades (using predominantly SC obsidians) and of flakes (based exclusively on SA and SB2 obsidians), respectively, but on the whole, assemblage blade/bladelet production was performed somewhat preferably with SA and SB2 types. Thus, in the earliest EN culture known on the island, ancient man had, for the making of its obsidian toolkit, a highly adaptive behaviour applied to the reduction of different useful obsidian sources.     

Beyond ‘resistance’: rethinking nonhuman agency for a ‘more-than-human’ world

This article argues that rethinking historical agency to include nonhuman agents is one way to integrate better animals into historical narratives. Drawing on posthumanist theories from geography, anthropology and science and technology studies (STS), and forming part of a growing interest in nonhuman, particularly animal, agency, it aims to clear some theoretical and historiographical ground to provide a basis for claims that nature has agency. It then argues that environmental and animal historians have too readily equated nonhuman agency with ‘resistance’, a concept that does not easily map onto animal behaviour and one which also fails to capture the diversity of nonhuman agencies. Using case studies of Police rescue dogs in early twentieth-century France and animals on the Western Front, it argues that exploring the diverse types of nonhuman agencies and their deep and multiple entanglements with human agents will extend studies of nonhumans beyond the resistance model.     

Textual Authority and Its Naturalization in Liang Shuming's Dong–Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue

This article discusses how Liang Shuming's Dong–Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue (Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies) adopted a genealogical mode of textual authorization which took shape in its depiction of Chinese history as a failure to live up to an ideal way of life imagined by Confucius. Implied in this discourse was the idea that Liang himself had been the first Confucian to understand what Confucius had truly meant. This genealogical discourse authorizing Liang and his text by linking them directly to Confucius was further strengthened by a rhetoric which naturalized the discourse passed down from Confucius to Liang, distinguishing it from other forms of discourse seen as artificial. Finally, the text's genealogical discourse also managed to incorporate the May Fourth critique of Confucianism by rejecting the historical manifestations of Confucianism before salvaging an ideal imagined by Confucius which was presented as uncontaminated by history and Confucianism's enmeshment in state power.     

The Ties that Unwind: Civic and Ethnic Imaginings in New Zealand

Abstract. This paper argues that examining the interweaving of ethnic and civic elements best explains current tensions in ethnic politics in New Zealand in elite state and nation‐building and how these shape patterns of inclusion or exclusion of aboriginal and immigrant minorities. Theories of ethnic and civic nationalism are discussed briefly and the distinctiveness of settler societies is explored. Recent trends promoting biculturalism and multiculturalism are examined. A discussion of legal citizenship since 1840 reveals the linkages and persistence of three historical trajectories – the decolonising of aboriginal people (Maori), the de‐colonial movement among Pakeha (‘white Europeans’), and the partial de‐alienising of immigration. These trajectories, I conclude, reflect in‐built tensions between different historical and current ethnic and civic representations of the New Zealand nation‐state.