Playing the Ghost: Ghost Hoaxing and Supernaturalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Victoria,Australia

This article employs a Jungian analytical perspective in its exploration of the phenomenon of ghost hoaxing in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century colonial Victoria, Australia, as observed through its reportage in the print media of the era.     

Short notices

AGERON, C.‐R. and MICHEL, M. (eds), L'Ere des décolonisations, Karthala, 1996, 516 pp., 170F., ISBN 2 86537 579 X

BRIAN, E. and DEMEULENAERE‐DOUYERE, C. (eds), Histoire et mémoire de l'Académie des sciences. Guide de Recherches, TEC & DOC Lavoisier, 1996, 449 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 2 7430 0148

CORRÉARD, M.‐H. (ed.), The Pocket Oxford‐Hachette French Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1996, 784 pp., £7.99, ISBN 0 19 864534 1

CORRÉARD, M.‐H. and O'NEILL, M. (eds), Oxford Starter Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1997, 400 pp., £6.99, ISBN 0 19 864527 9

DURAND, P., Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé, Gallimard, 1998, 252 pp., 54F., ISBN 2 07 038939 1 (collection ‘Folio')

HAFEN, L. (ed.), French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West, (Selected with an Introduction by Janet Lecompte) University of Nebraska Press, 1997, 333 pp., £13.95, ISBN 0 8032 7302 9

SOULEZ‐LARIVIÈRE,, D. Grand Soir pour la justice, Seuil, 1997, 175 pp., 110F., ISBN 2 02 032215 3

STEINBERG, P., Chroniques d'ailleurs, Ramsay, 1996, 190 pp., 92F., ISBN 2 84114 133 0     

Local area farming Plans — a common reality for farmers and conservationists in the Scottish Highlands?

This paper supports the need for new policy developments to produce farm conservation plans specific to local areas. It explores attitudes to land management for conservation and economic goals, and presents views of fanners and local conservationists, who are directly involved in agri‐environmental and farm woodland schemes, in three regions of the Highlands of Scotland. It reviews the current state of Scottish agri‐environmental schemes, and presents results of on‐farm workshops conducted with farmers and conservationists and discusses common management plan approaches for environmental action. It concludes that farmers and conservationists are already considering the advantages of local area planning at a local area level and agree that there should be focus on addressing local site specific issues which take into account both the whole farm and its wider environment.     

Voter migration as a source of electoral change in the Rocky Mountain West

Examining county-level voting patterns since 1992, this paper describes the rising strength of the Democratic Party in the Rocky Mountain West and explores domestic migration (voter mobility) as a cause of the electoral change. Other theories of electoral change (voter conversion, voter mobilization and generational replacement) are analyzed and found less significant than a voter migration theory. A spatial autoregressive model also presents evidence of significant contextual “neighborhood effects” contributing to electoral change in the region. Relying on IRS tax-filer migration data, Census data and voting results for all Western counties since 1992, this work finds a significant correlation between growing Democratic strength and in-migration of new voters who generally hail from more Democratic environments than the Western counties into which they are emigrating. The strongest correlations emerge in counties where the share of creative class occupations is also growing quickly. Migrating voters are building a new Western community – a community of creative classes, childless households and urban professionals who are more likely to vote Democrat than the rural conservatives they are increasingly outnumbering.     

Taking the Hill: Archaeological Survey and Excavation of German Communication Trenches on the Summit of Mont St Quentin

The following presents the results of a limited programme of field investigation carried out on the site of German communication trenches running through woodland on the summit of Mont St Quentin, just outside the town of Péronne, in the Somme region of Picardy. The aim of the project was to assess the archaeological potential of features related to the Battle of Mont St Quentin, which took place in August/September 1918 and was co-directed by Tony Pollard and Iain Banks. The fieldwork, which consisted of topographic survey, metal detector survey and limited excavation, was carried out over ten days, between 29 August and 9 September 2011. The action, by men of the Australian Second Division, saw the Germans pushed off their strong position on the hill, and thereafter the recapture of Péronne. As a result, three Victoria Crosses were awarded, and General Rawlinson described the battle as the finest achievement of the war. Given its place in the history of Australian military endeavour on the Western Front, the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne has taken out a fifty-year lease on an area of land within Mont St Quentin Wood, which is an initiative supported by the Australian government via the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. This ground includes a number of German communication trenches, along with other features such as shell holes. The intention is to include this area in a heritage trail (Australian Remembrance Trail), which will incorporate other sites of Australian activity, including Fromelles, Villers-Bretonneux and Hamel. In order to maximise the impact and educational value of the site it has been subject to archaeological investigation, an exercise that will add to our understanding of events there, and also provide information and material for a proposed interpretation centre.     

A Thorn in the Side: Ian Hunter,Cultural Studies,and the Humanities

Summary

What are the connections between Ian Hunter's specific criticisms of cultural studies and his more general criticisms of those strands of the humanities that take issue with instrumental reasoning? How are these connections informed by his assessments of the limitations, and the consequences, of the ‘moment of theory’? What are the implications of his critique of anti-instrumental defences of the humanities for contemporary debates concerning the future trajectories of cultural studies? In exploring these questions I consider the continuities between Hunter's initial criticisms of cultural studies and the broader contours of his subsequent engagements with contemporary diagnoses of the fading critical vocation of the humanities. While endorsing the general tenor of Hunter's remarks on these questions, I conclude by arguing the need for genealogies of cultural studies and of the humanities that cast their nets more widely than Hunter's primary focus on textual disciplines.