考生·考官·学政——试论洪亮吉的科举人生

洪亮吉十四岁学习写作八股文,开始科名之争。在科举之路上跌打滚爬了三十多年,四十五岁成进士,两年后充顺天乡试同考官,四十八岁奉命视学贵州。从其考生、考官、学政的经历可以管窥乾嘉年间科场实况,这对于研究乾嘉年间的科举制度有很大的认知价值,亦有助于了解当时的士子心态与社会风气。     

张之洞在中国通商银行创办过程中的言论述评

在中国通商银行创办的过程中,张之洞和盛宣怀在一系列问题上发生了矛盾和冲突。张之洞主张先办铁路后办银行,不愿意保举盛宣怀创办并督理银行,迟迟才同意对御史管廷献的奏折列名复奏,并对中国通商银行提出了一些限制条件。其思想动机,本质上是利益之争,是为了防止盛宣怀由控制中国通商银行进而控制芦汉铁路。张之洞和盛宣怀之间的派系矛盾、张之洞重“官”轻“商”的“官本位”思想及其现代银行意识的淡薄等因素也都影响到他对盛宣怀创办中国通商银行的态度。     

清科举考试中的"补殿试"、"未殿试"问题

清朝科举考试中的补殿试,是指会试中式者未参加当年殿试,而参加以后科年的殿试;所谓未殿试,是指会试中式者不再参加以后科年的殿试.由于对这部分人的称呼不明确,著录标准也不统一,就使得文献在这类人员的著录问题上产生许多混乱.     

Nature,space and distances in an imperial boundary network: The delimitation of the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau boundary

This article discusses an episode of boundary delimitation/demarcation conducted between British and German imperial powers on the central African Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau in the late 1890s. I situate vignettes on the boundary's delimitation in 1897-98 within broader processes of imperial territorialisation to note that the boundary eventually produced on the plateau represented a fabrication resolving tensions between its ‘natural’ and textual sources. Specifically, I argue the boundary was produced to mediate between a diplomatic nature, written in metropolitan worlds by diplomats and cartographers, and a colonial nature, a zone of phenomenal experiences, inhuman encounters and ‘sensation’ (Wark, 2016). I emphasise the experience of technical practice to suggest that this itself represented a form of imperial power, capable of challenging or ‘deferring’ (Bhabha, 2012) metropolitan circuits of governance and knowledge production, not least by revealing the liveliness of the material world undergoing imperial territorialisation. Sensation produced the form of the writings and archives of survey-exploration: often confounded by problems of their data and surroundings, commissioners made the epistemological and subjective manoeuvrings through which they appeared to rise above their inert surroundings to master them. But this does not characterise the experience of fieldwork on the plateau, which was constituted by a panoply of technical situations wherein delineations between objects, observers and their material settings were indeterminable.     

John Bull’s Other Vineyard: Selling Australian Wine in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Nineteenth-century Australian wine makers saw Britain as the natural market for their wines and envisioned themselves as participants in a greater imperial economy, so Australian wine should be considered in discussions of imperial commodities and the reception of popular imperialism in advertising. The Australians’ concentrated efforts to sell their wines to British consumers were stymied, though, by high tariffs and negative impressions of the quality of Australian wines, and Australia would remain a marginal player in the British wine market until the second half of the twentieth century. This article uses four case studies to argue that Australian wines were promoted in Britain in the nineteenth century and that the marketing strategies hinged on associating Australian wines with imperial unity and the civilisation of Australian settler society.     

清科举考试中的“补殿试”、“未殿试”问题

清朝科举考试中的补殿试,是指会试中式者未参加当年殿试,而参加以后科年的殿试;所谓未殿试,是指会试中式者不再参加以后科年的殿试。由于对这部分人的称呼不明确,著录标准也不统一,就使得文献在这类人员的著录问题上产生许多混乱。     

《四库全书总目》纠误两则

于中国历史与文化的研究赐惠颇多的《四库全书总目》亦有纰漏之处,我们发现该书在明代史料鉴别上出现了两处失误:将《姜氏秘史》与《革除编年》、《续藏书》与《熙朝名臣实录》各自看作两本不同的书,并给予迥异的评价。通过考证,《革除编年》即《姜氏秘史》,《熙朝名臣实录》即《续藏书》。《四库全书总目》一书两收两评的失误,让我们体会到当时政治对学术的干预及做学问之难。     

Breeding for insect-resistant cotton across imperial networks, 1924-1950

This paper investigates the elevated expectations and dramatic downturns of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation’s African experimentation program. It follows the trials of U.4, an insect-resistant variety bred to withstand continental growing conditions, whose expansion through east and southern Africa was filled with promise but ended in disappointment. My argument has two strands. First, U.4 was a product of imperial connections. It was an amalgam of breeding knowledge accumulated in India, specialized training received in Trinidad, and specimens imported from across the empire. Transnational scientific networks were crucial to the Corporation’s initial breeding successes. Second, the story that follows suggests that imperial scientific experts did not impose the Corporation’s research goals monolithically across a wide range of African environments. Rather, Corporation scientists recognized the diversity of African environments and adapted their breeding programs to match local agro-ecological realities. I suggest that the ECGC breeding program is a story of expert knowledge that incorporated rather than undermined ecological specificity.     

辽代平原公主墓志考释

在辽宁阜新县八家子乡乌兰木图山南麓,有一处辽代后族萧氏的家族墓地,即乌兰木图辽墓群。1981年1月在此发现了辽圣宗太平九年(1029年)的萧仅墓[1],1996年7     

The Pahlavi National Library Project: Education and Modernization in Late Pahlavi Iran

This paper examines the Pahlavi National Library, the planning for which began in 1972 and expired in 1978 on the eve of the Islamic Revolution. The Pahlavi National Library was to rank in size and eminence with the great libraries of the world, yet this extraordinary project has hitherto received little to no scholarly attention. Using documents primarily from the archives of the shah’s cultural counsellor at the imperial court, Shojā?eddin Shafā, this paper looks in detail at a number of initiatives spearheaded by Shafā from the early 1960s, which essentially laid the groundwork for the Pahlavi National Library, in order to understand how the shah’s regime used culture and scholarship to further its political goals. The paper proceeds to investigate the Pahlavi National Library, analyzing it in the context of the shah’s domestic and foreign policy objectives.