Finding Thoreau in French Canada: The Ideological Legacy of the American Revolution

Henry David Thoreau’s Yankee in Canada is easily overlooked. Because it is so selective in its depiction of life in the St. Lawrence River valley, historians of mid-nineteenth-century Canada have shown little interest in Thoreau’s first-hand account. To American readers, it offers little of the characteristic Thoreau found in Walden and Resistance to Civil Government. Yet, it is highly significant as an expression of national self-definition. Thoreau borrowed themes at least as old as the American Revolution when noting the pernicious rule of Catholic and British power in Canada. He set out to expose the promise of republican values by emphasizing the contrast between these and the poor and morally stunted life under Old World institutions. His work must therefore be interpreted as a call to his audience to commit more deeply than ever to the ideals that animated the Great Republic’s founding moment. It must also stand as a civic interpretation of American nationality at a time when this perspective was waning. Before long, Old World peoples would be racialized and the ideological embrace of the republican values advanced by Thoreau would no longer suffice in making American citizens.     

Conflicting obituaries: the Abyssinian ‘outlaw’ Debeb as treacherous bandit and romantic hero in late nineteenth-century Italian imagination

In 1886 the Abyssinian chief Debeb became a public figure in Italy as a rapacious colonial bandit. However, over the next five years he acquired additional public personas, even contradictory ones: as a condottiero ally, a ladies' man, a traitor, a young Abyssinian aristocrat and pretender to an ancient throne, a chivalrous warrior, and a figure representing the frontier and an Africa mysterious and hidden to Europeans. Upon his 1891 death in combat, he was the subject of conflicting Italian press obituaries. For some commentators, Debeb exemplified treacherous and deceitful African character, an explanation for Italy's colonial disappointments and defeats. However, other commentators clothed him in a romanticised mystique and found in him martial and even chivalrous traits to admire and emulate. To this extent his persona blurred the line demarcating the African ‘other’. Although he first appeared to Italians as a bandit, the notion of the bandit as a folk hero (the ‘noble robber’ or ‘social bandit’, Hobsbawm) does not fit his case. A more fruitful approach is to consider his multi-faceted public persona as reflecting the ongoing Italian debate over ‘national character’ (Patriarca). In the figure of Debeb, public debates over colonialism and ‘national character’ merged, with each contributing to the other.     

Reconstructed nationalism in Taiwan: a politicised and economically driven identity

Since the late 1980s, Taiwan has been engulfed in waves of both democratisation and integration with mainland China. These two waves have pulled identity reconstruction in Taiwan in two different directions. In the process of democratisation, a shift to a majoritarian system encouraged a Taiwanese renaissance on the political platform and consequently led to the deconstruction of Chinese identity. On the other hand, in the 1990s, with the high mobility of capital and people across the Taiwan Strait, close economic ties could have put the brakes on Taiwan independence movements. Hence, this paper uses random coefficient models to explore how the democratic transition and increasing cross‐strait relations brought about psychological and structural mechanisms that motivated people to opt for identity change in Taiwan. It also attempts to investigate how people dealt with the dissonance between rising Taiwanese nationalism and the economic interests that deterred a radical Taiwanese identity.     

ENTANGLED MEMORY: TOWARD A THIRD WAVE IN MEMORY STUDIES

This essay takes up the call for a “third phase” in memory studies and makes theoretical and methodological suggestions for its further development. Starting from an understanding of memory that centers on memory's temporality, its relation to language, and its quality as a social action, the essay puts forward the concept of “entangled memory.” On a theoretical level, it brings to the fore the entangledness of acts of remembering. In a synchronic perspective, memory's entangledness is presented as twofold. Every act of remembering inscribes an individual in multiple social frames. This polyphony entails the simultaneous existence of concurrent interpretations of the past. In a diachronic perspective, memory is entangled in the dynamic relation between single acts of remembering and changing mnemonic patterns. Memory scholars therefore uncover boundless cross‐referential configurations. Wishing to enhance the dialogue between the theoretical and the empirical parts of memory studies, we propose four devices that serve as a heuristic in the study of memory's entanglement: chronology against time, conflict, generations, and self‐reflexivity. Current debates on European memory permit us to explore the possible benefits that the concept of entangled memory carries for memory studies.     

Conciencia nacional y devoción jacobea en el Poema de Fernán González

Jacobean devotion and national awareness are closely related in the Poema de Fernán González (PFG). The great advance of the Reconquest in the thirteenth century and the reevaluation of the past that it caused enabled the broad Hispanic perspective of the PFG. Spain is not only a distant and longed-for reality (“regnum Gothorum”) but a current political concept. This is the frame of the PFG's intense Castilian sentiment. Castile is the bastion of the Visigothic monarchy, which did not yield to the Muslims and was the foundation for the recovery of Spain. The territorial diversity becomes the outstanding feature of this country, in which the “Montaña” takes an important role. Confronting the proposal of the cult of Saint Millán by the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, the author of the PFG, aware of the damages that such a cult was causing to his monastery, clings to the Jacobean devotion that achieved a broad Hispanic scope.     

国家文化公园:理论溯源、现实问题与制度探索

"十三五"以来,我国文化遗产保护事业进入新阶段,但是文化遗产管理体系复杂、多头管理、权责不明等问题一直未得到解决.因此,国家文化公园建设过程中,应首先理顺国家文化公园与既有遗产保护体系之间的逻辑与关系,建立以重大文化遗产为主体的国家文化公园体系;以保护传承为首要目标,构建统一规范高效的国家文化公园管理体制;突出国家代表...     

历史时期河西走廊多民族文化的交流与整合

河西走廊是我国古代西北多民族多文化分布的重要地区,民族文化交流与整合持续发生。本文通过对河西走廊多民族文化发展过程、动因及机制的分析,认为异质文化因子的不断介入,使河西文化在变化中寻求发展,在发展中取得一致。多民族文化的交流与整合是形成河西走廊以汉族儒家文化为主体兼容其他少数民族文化的地域复合体的主要推动力。     

民族精神研究与史学理论的思考

民族精神研究是史学领域的重要问题。本文仅就民族精神内涵研究与民族历史特点、民族精神与历史发展大势、民族精神与爱国主义史学的关系,以及弘扬民族精神的理论和方法等问题展开讨论,从而指出,站在时代的高度从中华民族的历史进程中把握民族精神的历史特点,继承史学传统,在历史典籍中进一步挖掘传统民族精神的深刻底蕴,并通过借鉴其他学科的理论和方法开展对史学理论的创新和发展,是新时期历史学家要深入思考的问题。     

抗战时期陕甘宁边区的国民教育

陕甘宁边区的教育经历了曲折的探索过程,从旧教育模式到创立自己的教育模式,由强迫教育到尊重群众的自愿与需要,由包办到民办公助,形成了具有鲜明时代特色的教育体制。、国民教育培养出的毕业生成为社会的有用之才,提高了陕甘宁边区文化程度,培养了大量专门人才。抗战时期陕甘宁边区的教育从抗战的环境和边区的实际出发,坚持教育同抗战、同社会、同生产劳动相结合的方针,为抗战培养人才,消除了群众中的文盲、迷信、不卫生的习惯,解决了群众生产和生活中的实际问题,既推动了边区教育事业的发展,也但排了边区经济、社会的进步,为抗战作出了重要贡献。     

同盟会，国民革命的联盟——关于同盟会的性质问题

本文认为同盟会的性质不是如过去学术界所说的为资产阶级政党,而是全国各阶级革命群众的联合政党、国民革命的联盟.本文主要从三个方面展开论述:1、从同盟会的三民主义纲领来看,它不仅反映了资产阶级的利益和要求,也代表了包括地主、工人、农民在内的当时一切反对西方列强侵略,要求推翻清朝,振兴中华,改变现状的人们和阶级的利益.2、从同盟会的成员来看,既有资产阶级,也有地主、工人、农民和其他各阶级及其知识分子.3、从同盟会领袖孙中山的思想来看,也不是仅站在资产阶级立场上讲话,而是代表了全国各族各阶级,尤其是工人农民的共同利益.