The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: protection of human rights in Australia*

This commentary reflects on the legacy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its 70th anniversary, in terms of the protection of human rights within Australia. I reflect on Australia’s failure to implement domestically the terms of the two founding Covenants, and the resulting piecemeal protections that exist for human rights. I finish by considering the growing complexities in understanding human rights, responsibilities, and limits.     

Before Columbia: The FWP and American Oral History Research

This article compares and contrasts the approaches of the NewDeal Federal Writers' Project and the Columbia Oral HistoryProgram in an effort to reconsider the paradoxical history oforal history research in the United States and its relationshipto how many oral historians today look at their work and thehistory of their field. As it turns out, the theoretical andsocial concerns of the FWP projects are closer to current theoreticalconcerns of oral historians than the work Allan Nevins conductedin the early years of the Columbia project. The article alsoshows how awareness of the history of the intellectual and culturalcurrents that affect oral history projects in general, and theFWP's work in particular—interviews with former slaves,tenant farmers, industrial workers, and members of ethnic minorities—canhelp us analyze and use those materials. It argues that an awarenessof continuity and discontinuity in the history of oral historymakes it possible for today's oral historians to have a productivedialogue with their predecessors in the field.     

How Political Support Influences Red Tape through Developmental Culture

This study examines the interrelationship between external political support, internal organizational factors, and red tape, using a sample of information managers from state health and human service agencies. The study defines a red tape model and tests the model by structural equation modeling method. The study finds that political support has a direct effect on red tape. The higher the political support, the lower the level of red tape. The study also confirms an indirect effect of political support on red tape, mediated by developmental culture. Indirect effect through goal clarity has the correct sign but is not statistically significant. Practical recommendations are made for the political environment to provide the opportunity for managerial reforms that are often advocated.     

Eine gelernte Lebensweise: Figurationen des Gelehrtenlebens zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit

A Learned Way of Life: Figurations of Scholarly Life between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. – With the erosion of professors' obligatory celibacy in northwestern European universities of the high Middle Ages, scholars found themselves facing the task of redefining their mode of life and establishing a new type of families, combining social reproduction and the transmission of academic knowledge, and adopting daily habits and dispositions which would allow them to lead the life of the mind within crowded family households without the collective discipline and material infrastructure provided by communal institutions, such as colleges. Building on the author's earlier work, the paper sketches a synthetic view of the major elements of the scholars' emerging way of life, arguing that this transformation provides a unique opportunity for studying how a way of life takes shape, being explicitly discussed and experimented with. Shaping a rational, or rather systematically rationalized way of life, it is argued, is a major contribution of the scientific tradition to making modern cultures.     

Wissenschaftsstädte – Zur Bedeutung des Topos der ‘kreativen Stadt’ für die Wissensproduktion

Science Cities: What the Concept of the Creative City Means for Knowledge Production. – The article aims to show that the relationship of science and the city has changed since the 1970s in the context of the knowledgeable society. While cities have principally been regarded as the typical space of science, of new ideas and innovation for centuries, since the 1960s and 1970s universities, research institutes as well as industrial research institutes have relocated to the periphery of cities. There, however, these sites of knowledge have been organized in an ‘urban mode’. That means that the concept of the city as a place of science and innovation has determined the architectural, spatial, and social organization of these sites on the periphery of cities. Certain features of the city have been copied, such as social infrastructures, places of communication, restaurants, cafes etc., while others have been left out – housing, cinema, theatre etc. An ‘urban mode of knowledge production’ in the sense of a very stylized model of the city has become a tool to enhance the production of scientific and technological knowledge. – The article exemplifies this by focusing on a case study, namely of the so‐called ‘Science City’ of the Siemens Company in Munich‐Neuperlach.     

六世纪中后期的中国联珠纹织物

联珠纹在中国虽有更早的源头,但它从6世纪中期才开始流行。那时中国的联珠纹虽以粟特地区为中介受到萨珊艺术的影响,但也融入了自身的文化理解和艺术形式,这令联珠纹在很大程度上丧失了原有的萨珊图案寓意、改变了西方原貌。邺城等黄河中下游的丝织重镇,应是联珠纹织物在内地的重要产地。     

中国对瑞典国最早的全面记述——述清末写本《瑞典国记略》之历史由来

本文从中国对瑞典认识和记述的历史这一角度,介绍并论述了作者收藏的孤本书籍《瑞典国记略》。文章指出,迄至清朝末年,中国对瑞典的认识经历了如下六个阶段:第一阶段,从明末到清代康熙中期。通过西洋传教士的介绍,对瑞典开始有初步的了解。第二阶段,从康熙晚期到道光初年。主要是清朝官方和个别出洋商人,通过出使他国偶然接触到的瑞典国民并向所在国探问相关情况;或是与瑞典来华商船的直接接触;或是海外经商听闻的间接传说,对瑞典有了中国人自己的记述。第三阶段,道光二十年鸦片战争爆发前短暂的若千年期间。西洋传教士开始重新向中国介绍包括瑞典国在内的世界地理知识。第四阶段,从鸦片战争之后到同治四年。在中国人自己撰述的全球地理总志中,对瑞典有了更为丰富和清晰的记述。第五阶段,从同治六年到光绪中期。留下了一批中国人考察游历瑞典的日记,对瑞典的认识变得非常具体明晰,但还很不系统。第六阶段,光绪中期至清王朝结束。《瑞典国记略》就是这一时期的标志性著述,它是中国对瑞典最早的全面系统的记述。这部书虽然没有在社会上正式刊布,但在中国认识瑞典的历史上,仍具有里程碑式意义。     

中国古代漆器的锥画艺术和鎗艺术

考古发现的汉代漆器"锥画",是用作画工具"锥"来命名的艺术形式,称为"针刻"欠妥。锥画发明于战国时期,但尚未见到实物。汉代漆器锥画高度繁荣,大量汉代锥画漆器陆续出土。三国至唐时期,锥画鎗金艺术得到了继承和发展;及至宋元,漆器锥画鎗金以全新的面貌出现;发展到明清,锥画鎗金多与其他漆器艺术形式相结合,呈现出千文万华的漆艺局面。     

The political will and the administrative won't? Mathieu Thomassin and his dauphins (Charles III and Louis II)

The delphinal counsellor Mathieu Thomassin composed a Breviere des anciens droys … du Dauphiné de Viennoys (c.1453) after a career of 30 years in the service of Charles III (the French king Charles VII) and Louis II (the future Louis XI). This was his first major historical text in French, but has been overshadowed by his better-known Registre delphinal, commissioned by Louis II in 1456. This article analyses the historical culture and the conception of history revealed in the Breviere. It notes how Thomassin's careful definitions of frontiers in the past and present reflect his experience of territorial disputes. History and geography are imbued with polemic, however, allowing Thomassin to override competing claims to territory or autonomy by delphinal opponents within and outside the Dauphiné. The principles set out in the Breviere were refined and extended in the Registre. However, it is unlikely that either work was ever intended for wide circulation; rather, they were written to provide ‘authentic’ texts which could be consulted primarily by other delphinal officers. As such, they reflect on occasion the divergence of views between a proto-professional administrator, with a concern for the long-term, and his preoccupied (if not dilettante) prince, much more subject to the requirements of realpolitik.     

Add shamans and stir? A critical review of the shamanism model of forager rock art production

The “shamanism” or “neurpsychological” model proposed by Lewis-Williams and colleagues has had a powerful impact on rock art research, and has significantly added to our knowledge of past foragers lifeways in southern Africa and elsewhere in the world. However, this model is primarily based on the view of shamanism as a universal and unvarying characteristic of foragers over space and time. This paper raises both theoretical and empirical problems with this view. The paper examines the relationship between the specific social roles and practices of shamanism and the overarching cosmological structures on which they are based in both southern Africa and Northern Eurasia. In both cases, the paper argues that many cosmological beliefs are highly persistent and durable, extending into prehistory, while the specific practices and roles of shamans are variable, changing to meet the immediate and local needs of their communities. This suggests that rock art is easier to relate to the overarching cosmological dispositions of the people that produced it and the paper closes by suggesting some theoretical and methodological alternatives recognizing this fact.