HOW THE VISUAL IS SPATIAL: CONTEMPORARY SPATIAL HISTORY,NEO-MARXISM,AND THE GHOST OF BRAUDEL

Contemporary spatial history is founded on the potential for maps and other visualizations to show the historical constructedness of space, usually in broadly neo-Marxist terms, yet neo-Marxist geographical theory is famously critical of visual representation, especially mapping. At stake in this contradiction isn't just the relationship between digital enthusiasm and spatial theory (or the wider spatial turn), but the theoretical status of the visual itself in spatial scholarship. It raises a crucial question: how does visual material—everything from today's statistical maps and cutting-edge data graphics to the broader use of primary-source photographs or drawings—in fact shape our understanding of space, and what theoretical work does it do? By extension, how can humanists make critical theoretical interventions through their own visual production? This article proposes an analytic vocabulary of “visual argument” grounded in an image-focused rereading of two canonical bodies of work: the neo-Marxist theory most cited by spatial history (Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Doreen Massey, and Edward Soja) and the conspicuously uncited work of Fernand Braudel. By focusing on how these authors’ illustrations make claims about spatial subjectivity and the historicity of space—especially through visual relationships of background and foreground—I argue for a new way of understanding and responding to this work and to the visual project of spatial history today. A visual analysis highlights not only the limitations of neo-Marxism but also the pervasiveness of certain assumptions—shared across the neo-Marxists, Braudel, and digital visualization—about temporality, the natural/human dichotomy, and the methodological tensions between argument and visualization. I present my own mapping of Phoenix as one possibility for an argument-driven rethinking of familiar visual commitments, which also suggests a broader meditation on the relationship between visual and textual scholarship.     

Gender,Power, and the Denial Of Intimacy in Chinese Studies and Beyond

This article identifies and critically examines four recurring concerns in writings on Chinese gender and sexuality: (1) Emphasis on extreme cases of women's suffering to produce a more dramatic effect. (2) Focus only one gender's perspective and disregard of the role of social class. (3) De-emphasis on men's place within the subjective domain and overlooking how emotional bonds unite couples. (4) Depiction of the erotic as simply the manifestation of prevailing sexual ideology, which encourages viewing male/female interaction as an exercise in power and dominance, and discourages interpretation of the erotic as an aesthetic experience.     

Destination unknown: Rokkasho and the international future of nuclear reprocessing

The much discussed expansion of investment in nuclear power in response to global warming and energy scarcity depends on solutions being found to the management and disposal of spent reactor fuels. The reprocessing route, involving the separation from radioactive waste of plutonium and uranium and their subsequent recycling, has long been advocated. However, experience shows that it suffers from chronic problems of coordination, usually resulting in mismatches of supply and demand and large stockpiles of plutonium. Just as the UK is withdrawing, Japan is embarking on large-scale reprocessing with the opening of the facility at Rokkasho which seems destined to produce large surpluses of plutonium against a background of heightened concerns over nuclear proliferation. In the meantime, the Bush administration has ended the United States'blanket opposition to reprocessing and is proposing a controversial new discrimination between'fuel-cycle'and'non-fuel-cycle'states. Confusion reigns.     

HUMANS, LAND, AND LANDSCAPE: A PROPOSAL FOR CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

Four sources for the elaboration of a redefinition of culture and for the outlining of a revised method for cultural geography are examined: superorganicist and related ideas (White), symbolic and interactionist ideas (Geertz), institutional and interactionist views (Wagner), and symbolic interactionism and human ecology (Ericksen). These four are discussed within the broader context of human and land relations and of the evolution of cultural geography, especially the schools of Vidal and Sauer. Cultural geography emerged as a secondary interest within geography, despite compelling nineteenth-century input, but is now taking cognizance of an array of social science concepts. A focus on theory, on institutions and other groups, on communication, and on symboling helps both spatial and non-spatial behaviour to be understood as a consequence of group allegiance. The resulting cultural landscape can be interpreted both functionally and symbolically. En vue de redéfinir la culture et de réviser la méthodologie propre à la géographie culturelle, quatre approches sont examinées: les idées ‘superorganistes’ et celles qui s'y rapportent (White), les idées symboliques et les interactionistes (Geertz), les vues institutionnelles et interacionistes (Wagner), et l'interactionisme symbolique et l'écologie humaine (Ericksen). Ces quatre approches sont discutées dans le cadre plus large des relations en-tre les humains et la terre et de l'évolution de la géographie culturelle, particulièrement celui des écoles de Vidal et de Sauer, La géographie culturelle, qui ne présente qu'un intérêt secondaire a l'intérieur de la geographic, en dépit d'une importante contribution à la discipline au dix-neuvième siècle, emprunte maintenant une kyrielle de concepts aux sciences sociales. En insistant sur la théorie, sur les institutions et autres groupes, sur la communication et les symbols, il devient plus facile de comprendre le comportement spatial et non-spatial comme le résultat d'appartenance à un groupe. Le pays-age culturel produit peut être envisagéà la fois dans sa fonctionalité et sa symbolique.     

International nuclear order: a rejoinder

The article‘Nuclear enlightenment and counter‐enlightenment by William Walker opened the special issue of International Affairs which was published in May 2007. In it, he claimed that the United States departed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, at the height of its hegemonic influence, from a conception of international nuclear order that it had held to, with few interruptions, over several decades. By so doing, it contributed substantially to the order's currently perceived demise. In responding to criticisms from other participants in the special issue, William Walker defends his arguments while acknowledging the enlightenment trope's fragility; reemphasizes the essential contractual nature of the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which some critics denied; stresses the order's reliance on a judicious balancing (which has temporarily been lost) of realist and constitutional strategies; rejects assertions that the NPT is not a disarmament treaty; argues that the‘muddling through’advocated by some authors cannot suffice; and offers reasons why the despondency of several among them may have been overplayed, and why a new phase of consolidation of order might (just might) lie ahead, not least because of the reconsideration of US international strategies that has begun and the widely perceived urgency of preventing further proliferation and avoiding a resumption of arms racing.