科学实证与文化阐释:中国新史学之双轨

中国新史学中最常见的两种历史研究方式是科学实证与文化阐释,前者旨在建立历史事实之真或寻求历史演变之理,后者则以探寻历史之意义或彰显切实之史识为目标,此二者可谓中国新史学之"双轨"。中国新史学正是沿此"双轨"向前发展的。从新史学之"双轨"着眼,并依据"新异性的标准",中国新史学界应有"八大家",他们分别是:梁启超、王国维、陈寅恪、胡适、顾颉刚、傅斯年、郭沫若和钱穆。科学实证与文化阐释,这两种不同的历史研究取径,展示了中国新史学研究的多元面相,二者之间是相互融通的,并无根本性的冲突与对垒,其在治史观念与方法上亦可做到相互补益,相得益彰。许冠三在《新史学九十年》中因陷入"科学"迷思的褊狭"新史学观",以科学实证拒斥文化阐释,故而未能将钱穆基于"文化"视角来研究历史的文化史学视为新史学。钱穆的新史学特质主要表现为:在继承中国传统史学遗产之基础上,注重历史研究主体与客体的统一,以文化为本位,以阐释为取径,其典型表现是"以士释史";以中国为立场,注重探寻本国历史文化之意义,探求与本国历史文化相符合之史识,强调历史学的经世致用功能。钱穆的新史学观与后现代主义在批判科学主义历史学、反对文化一元论和西方中心主义历史观等方面多有契合之处,但其以"于客观中求实证"为基础的历史认识论与走向历史虚无主义的后现代主义有着本质的区别。     

“The Old New-Intellectuals” in the May Fourth New Cultural Movement*

During the May Fourth New Cultural Movement, three debates on new/Western and old/Chinese cultures were respectively carried out between the journal New Youth and Lin Qinnan, Chen Duxiu and Du Yaquan, as well as Zhang Dongsun and Fu Sinian. New Youth, Chen Duxiu and Zhang Dongsun were regarded as the “new school,” whereas their opponents “the old new-intellectuals.” The difference between them lies in their attitudes towards traditions instead of their new or old knowledge. After three heated debates, New Youth won a total victory in big cities, because the so-called “urban youths” needed a radical cultural reform plan and a simple guide for action. On the contrary, “town youths” who lived in small cities and towns did not care about the attitudinal difference of two sides. They paid more attention to absorbing new knowledge from both sides and were more sympathetic to tradition.     

Excavation on Nimowa Island,Louisiade Archipelago,Papua New Guinea: Insights Into Cultural Practices and the Development of Exchange Networks in the Southern Massim Region

Small-scale excavation was undertaken at the Malakai site on the small island of Nimowa, located in the Louisiade Archipelago, Massim region, Papua New Guinea. This is the first excavation to be reported in detail from the archipelago, with the Malakai site providing insight into cultural practices on the island and pottery exchange in the southern Massim region. A stratified deposit was revealed with dense cultural material, first inhabited from 1350 to 1290 cal. BP, with a subsequent period of settlement within the last 460–300 cal. years. Pottery, shell, and stone artifacts were recovered, as well as human skeletal remains in a primary burial context, which contributes to understanding regional patterns of prehistoric mortuary activity. It is argued that Nimowa was already part of an exchange network that encompassed many of the southern Massim islands when the Malakai site was first occupied. There is increased diversity in the number of vessel forms in later prehistory, but with remarkable continuity in the decorative motifs over time, suggesting some degree of regional social cohesion in the southern Massim. It appears that the northern Massim islands were not a major supplier of pottery to Nimowa. The implications for the prehistory of the wider region are subsequently discussed.     

Conodonts and tabulate corals from the Upper Ordovician Angullong Formation of central New South Wales,Australia

Zhen, Y.Y., Wang, G.X. &; Percival, I.G., August 2016. Conodonts and tabulate corals from the Upper Ordovician Angullong Formation of central New South Wales, Australia. Alcheringa 41, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518.

The Angullong Formation is the youngest Ordovician unit exposed in the Cliefden Caves area of central New South Wales. Its maximum age is constrained by a Styracograptus uncinatus graptolite Biozone fauna at the very top of the underlying Malongulli Formation, but the few fossils previously reported from higher in the Angullong Formation are either long-ranging or poorly known. From allochthonous limestone clasts in the middle part of the formation, we document a conodont fauna comprising Aphelognathus grandis, A. solidum, Aphelognathus sp., Aphelognathus? sp., Belodina confluens, Drepanoistodus suberectus, Panderodus gracilis, Panderodus sp., Phragmodus undatus, Pseudobelodina inclinata and Pseudobelodina? sp. aff. P. obtusa, which supports correlation with the Aphelognathus grandis Biozone (late Katian) of the North American Midcontinent succession. The species concepts of Aphelognathus and Pseudobelodina are reviewed in detail. Associated corals are exclusively tabulates, dominated by agetolitids, including Agetolites angullongensis sp. nov., Heliolites orientalis, Hemiagetolites breviseptatus, Hemiagetolites sp. cf. H. spinimarginatus, Navoites sp. cf. N. circumflexa, Plasmoporella bacilliforma, P. marginata, Quepora sp. cf. Q. calamus and Sarcinula sp. Affinities of the coral fauna from the Angullong Formation are closer to faunas from northern NSW and northern Queensland than to the locally recognized Fauna III of late Eastonian age in central NSW. We propose a subdivision of Fauna III to account for this difference, with the late Katian Fauna IIIB characterized by the incoming of agetolitid corals. The currently known distribution of representatives of this group with adequate age constraints suggests that agetolitids possibly originated in North China, subsequently migrating to Tarim, South China and adjacent peri-Gondwanan terranes while also spreading eastward to northern Gondwana, where they progressively moved through eastern Australia to reach the central NSW region by the early Bolindian.

Yong Yi Zhen* (yong-yi.zhen@industry.nsw.gov.au) and Ian G. Percival (ian.percival@industry.nsw.gov.au), Geological Survey of New South Wales, W.B. Clarke Geoscience Centre, 947–953 Londonderry Road, Londonderry, NSW 2753, Australia; Guangxu Wang (gxwang@nigpas.ac.cn), State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, 39 East Beijing Road Nanjing 210008 PR China.     

Touch in anthropometry: Enacting race in Dutch New Guinea 1903–1909

Starting from the idea that race is an assemblage, the author investigates two instances of touch in anthropometry. Firstly, the detailed instructions for mechanized measurements of “the living”. Second, the practices involved in actual measurements of Papuans in Dutch New Guinea during two expeditions in 1903 and 1909.     

Paving the way for new regional industrial paths: actors and modes of change in Scania’s games industry

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarly work has enhanced our understanding of how new path development activities are enabled or constrained by ‘regional environments’, made up of pre-existing industrial structures, knowledge organizations, support structures and institutional configurations. This paper moves beyond overly static views on regional environments. We develop a dynamic perspective by analysing conceptually and empirically how a constraining environment can be transformed into one that enables the development of new growth paths. The paper offers a typology of various modes of change, including layering, adaptation and novel application that are used by key actors to ‘manipulate’ the regional support structures to facilitate new regional industrial path development. The conceptual framework is applied to a case study of the digital games industry in the region of Scania, southern Sweden. Our findings suggest that the creation of a more enabling environment for the growth of the digital games industry has been the outcome of multi-scalar processes and combinations of various modes of change employed by a few key individuals operating in the newly emerging path.     

Deceptive data? The role of the investigators in the New Survey of London Life and Labour 1928–32

The data collected by the New Survey of London Life and Labour between 1928 and 1932 is one of the most significant resources of detailed household information for the interwar period, with data extracted for almost 30,000 households, providing detailed information including birthplaces, hours of work, and wages. This article assesses the process of the original data collection, highlighting issues that mean users of the extracted data must proceed with a measure of caution. In particular, it demonstrates that one investigator employed by the survey, who provided information for around a fifth of households, appears to have regularly submitted generic and estimated information that problematizes the dataset.     

Colonialism in the periphery: Spanish linguistic policy in New Granada,c. 1574–1625

This article examines how the Spanish Crown's attempt to implement a systematic linguistic policy across the New World from the last quarter of the sixteenth century failed in the New Kingdom of Granada. Based on the ambiguous and problematic idea of ‘general languages’ that had arisen in Mexico and Peru, this one-size-fits-all policy was wholly unsuited to even the Muisca heartlands of the archdiocese of Santa Fe. Instead, local authorities settled on the use of bespoke translations of catechetical and pastoral texts into individual local languages, even at parish level, thereby reinforcing linguistic particularism—but availing themselves of the disciplinary and procedural framework of the legislation to support their strategy. In doing so, the article seeks to challenge established assumptions about the treatment of indigenous languages in New Granada in this period, and to throw new light on unanswered questions about the Spanish response to the region's linguistic heterogeneity.     

Rent,Real Estate,and Flood Mitigation in New Orleans East

This paper presents results from a study of environmental harm created in the collision of real estate speculation and the political process that governed extension of the urban frontier of New Orleans into its eastern wetlands. Near term concerns of rent‐seeking real estate capital and the contested politics of urban infrastructure expansion challenged a fragmented state charged with regulatory oversight and protection of investments in land and citizens. The paper engages theoretically the relative inattention of urban political ecology theory to rent as a way to theorize how capital flows through land, and argues for increased attention to the problem of land rent and the multiple scales of political engagement that manage ecological crisis immanent in the metabolism of nature and society under capitalism.