A conception of the self in the later middle ages

This paper presents a conception of the nature of the individual self in the late middle ages, involving the stance from which the ‘I’ beholds the world (in this case, one newly more autonomous from the corporate/ecclesiastical world view), and the manner in which the self (‘I’) apprehends itself (in this case, self-apprehension involves sensing that one's essentially public face is ‘being seen’ as standing out from the group by others, as well as knowing oneself via ‘reflections’ from others). A theme of ‘seeing’ the world from a more autonomous standpoint while ‘being seen’ as a more separated psychic entity is discerned, which is in keeping with an emphasis on vision in this age, discerned by other researchers. The paper bases its case partly on examination of the arguments and evidence cited by other researchers who have studied the self or individuality in the later middle ages.     

Settler nationalism: Ulster unionism and postcolonial theory

Despite the capacity of postcolonial theory to accommodate a wide variety of situations, one area of postcolonial experience still has not received much attention – the experience of non-hegemonic settler colonies, that is settler colonies that did not in the end succeed in dominating native populations politically or culturally. Analysis of the unionist community in Northern Ireland offers a number of refinements to postcolonial theory at the same time that it demonstrates how postcolonial theory can enrich our understanding of non-hegemonic settler populations. While every postcolonial culture, native or settler, is uniquely structured by specific historical circumstances, there are features that many of these cultures share, such as hybridity, estrangement, incommensurability, contradiction, mimicry, miscognition, ambivalence, resistance, and the construction of mythical/historical narratives. The structure of these features, however, differs between native and settler cultures, and it differs in a way that makes one culture the mirror image of the other. This should not be surprising since the same colonial situation produces both native nationalism and settler nationalism, and they are both subject to similar colonial contradictions. Recognising settler nationalism as a legitimate part of postcolonial studies opens up the possibility of exploiting the in-betweenness of settler cultures. Emphasising this in-betweenness, and thus its affinities with native nationalism, suggests that settlers, particularly non-hegemonic settlers, are likely to find more in common with the natives they see themselves in opposition to rather than with the colonisers they identify with.     

Fieldwork@40: fieldwork in geography higher education

ABSTRACT

Fieldwork is the most powerful learning invitation in the toolkit of Geographical Education. This review of papers in The Journal of Geography in Higher Education (JGHE) suggests seven modes in the development of fieldwork. These are arrayed as a kind of historical, perhaps evolutionary, sequence but most remain current in Geography fieldwork practice. At the far end (1960s) of the sequence are didactic modes that are teacher centred and use the field as an adjunct to the classroom, in the middle (1990s) are modes that involve active learning and focus on the development of students as investigators and at the near end (2010s) are those that centred on the field study area and its qualities, that involve concern about the ethics of student engagement and that employ blended learning technologies. The review charts the JGHE’s gradual shift away from its original, almost exclusively, UK-focus toward something rather more international and inclusive. Fieldwork is where Geographers learn “from doing” Geography to “do” Geography. Its special attributes include providing experiential, sometimes transformative, learning through the immersion of the learner in the field experience. In 40 years, JGHE has helped Geography Fieldwork move from the margins of the curriculum to its current place at its core.     

When things were ‘closing-in’ and ‘rolling up’: the imaginative geography of Elizabeth Bowen’s Anglo-Irish war novel The Last September

This paper examines the imaginative geography of Elizabeth Bowen’s 1929 novel The Last September. Drawing on Said’s analysis of imaginative geographies as registers of territorial identity, I consider the ways in which Bowen’s text maps Anglo-Irish territorial identity in early twentieth-century Ireland. Reading the text as an authoritative, albeit subjective, record of Anglo-Irish experience in Ireland, I identify four interconnected spaces which constitute the imaginative geography of the novel: the open, empty and isolated country; a wider landscape of resistance and control; a distant but necessary England; and an historical landscape of colonial decline. In conclusion, I outline how the concept of imaginative geographies provides a useful lens through which the often fragmented and conflicted nature of territorial identities, both during and after the colonial period, can be explored.     

A Japanese “Girl's Reading” of Dostoevsky's Poor Folk: Senuma Kayô and the Origins of Japanese “Girls' Literature”

Senuma Kayô (1875–1915) was Japan's first woman translator from Russian. She is now remembered mainly for her translations from Chekhov. This paper examines one of Kayô's early works, Mazushiki shôjo (A Poor Girl, 1904), translated from Dostoevsky's Poor Folk, which was one of the first Japanese translations of a work by Dostoevsky to be made directly from the Russian original. Kayô chose to translate only a part of Dostoevsky's work, focusing on the memoir of the character Varvara, in which her first love and its tragic end are recounted. While the central theme of Dostoevsky's work is poverty and its impact on human relationships, in Kayô's translation the central theme is Varvara's misfortune in love. In this emphasis Kayô found a “girl's story” in Dostoevsky's novel, and Mazushiki shôjo foreshadowed a new wave of Japanese girls' literature, which attracted many new female readers. Kayô's translation style is examined to see how it contributed to the development of a style appropriate to girls' story writing.     

Verbs,Voyeurism, and the Stalker Narrative in Cortázar's "Continuidad de los parques"

Julio Cortázar's "Continuidad de los parques" can be described as a stalker narrative in two different senses. Not only is it a story about a stalker with murderous intentions, it is also a story in which the reader is turned into a stalker.

Modalization in verbs, or the use of the subjunctive and qualifiers, has been discussed by critics such as Tzvetan Todorov as a characteristic of the fantastic in literature. What has not been studied is the alternating use of aspect in the past, here between the verb tenses the preterite and the imperfect, as a technique that aids in the subtle creation of the reader as a stalker. Cortázar uses these two verb tenses to form and shape the narrative, moving it in the desired direction and, in the process, aiding in his creation of the image of the stalker. Both the careful manipulation of the preterite and the imperfect and the careful interplay between the two are the vehicle of invasion, an invasion perpetrated by the stalker, in which the reader is made complicit.     

Commentary Animal Domestication: Toward a Definition

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a pioneering French aviator who helped to open airmail routes in North Africa and South America during the interwar years of the early twentieth century. He was also a celebrated author who described his piloting experiences and the relations between aviation, society and human development in several popular books. Saint-Exupéry's writings contain vivid representations of landscapes, places and people from the novel perspective of the airborne observer. Based on analysis of the revised editions of most of the English-language translations of Saint-Exupéry's published works, this article reveals that his writings contain a distinctive ‘geography from above’ in which landscapes and places are culturally constructed and myths about various ‘others’ are reproduced. Such a view was important: it allowed powerful visualisations to be created and communicated, and its expressions accompanied and legitimated the imperial expropriation of land.     

Teaching “notre littérature”: The Place of la littérature québécoise in the Curriculum in Quebec

Recent calls for a greater emphasis on the teaching of Quebec literature from primary school to cégep once more link the teaching of Quebec literature with the survival of a language and a culture. The current debate echoes those which have taken place over the last 100 years, both under the denominational system of education and since the Révolution tranquille. Different pedagogical and ideological factors have influenced not only whether Francophone Canadian literature has been taught, but also what has been taught and how it has been taught. Anxieties about the status, history and definition of “notre littérature” have recurred throughout the century, as have concerns about the relationship between the literature of Quebec and the literature of metropolitan France. This article will discuss the teaching of literature in Quebec since 1900 to conclude with a consideration of the teaching of Francophone Canadian literature in Quebec today.     

When Natural met Social: A Review of Collaboration between the Natural and Social Sciences

Abstract

This paper investigates the opportunities for further collaboration between the natural and social sciences. From 81 systematically identified and reviewed papers published in scientific journals, it became clear that complex situations that depend on human behaviour as well as natural processes require natural–social science collaboration. The creation of a community of collaborative natural–social science research, that learns from and can contribute to best practice across the sciences, is advocated to support natural– social science collaboration. Across disciplines, it became clear that such a community should deal with (1) difference between paradigms in the current sciences; (2) creation of skills and competences of the involved scientists; (3) scarcity of institutions sympathetic to collaborative research; and (4) the internal organization of collaborative projects.     

The supreme court of Israel: Formative years, 1948–1955

In seeking to establish a paradigm of a literary “New Jew” for the early twentieth century, we must view the cultural developments of the time on the background of European modernist culture. During this period the European “New Jew” underwent many incarnations, including Max Nordau's muscular hero, Buber's “Renaissance” Jew, Berdyczewski's Nietzschean “new man,” Herzl's “authentic Jew,” and the Hebrew literary talush (rootless person). All the divergent ideas of Jewish renewal propounded in Europe were united in Shaul Tchernichovsky's poetry, either through deliberate reference or as a result of the tenor of the time. This article examines Tchernichovsky's implicit conception of the “New Jew” through two poems: “Lenokhah pesel Apollo” (Before a statue of Apollo, 1899) and “Ani – li misheli ein klum” (I have nothing of my own, 1937).