Footprint or fingerprint: international cultural policy as identity policy

This article focuses on government policy aimed at the presentation of the nation abroad through cultural activities and its relation to national identity, external cultural policy. The methodological framework is offered by the discourse analysis of Wodak and the notion of identity of Laclau and Mouffe, treating policy as a discourse. A closer look is taken at the concept of cultural diplomacy and the closely related term nation branding. This article will show how the shift in paradigm also changes the role of ‘the other’ in the construction of national identity and how this influences the role of the arts in international cultural policy.     

Science,industry and the colonial state: a shift from a German- to a Dutch-controlled cinchona and quinine cartel (1880–1920)

This study shows how control over delicately balanced supply chains from raw material to the final product shifted from one national industry to another. By 1920, Dutch cinchona producers and quinine manufacturers dominated the international cartel that controlled the worldwide production and distribution of quinine (an antimalarial), quinine sulphate (a semi-finished product) and cinchona (the raw material). Twenty years earlier, however, this cartel had been controlled by the German pharmaceutical industry. How can we understand the shift of power in the world’s first pharmaceutical cartel? We argue that the internal shift of power was largely the result of the following three factors: a global industrial laboratory revolution; the vertical integration of a transoceanic network of cinchona producers, quinine manufacturers, (colonial) scientists and state officials across the Dutch Empire; and Germany’s economic isolation during the First World War.     

The Kapthurin Formation revisited

This contribution reports on the results obtained from the 1980–7 research in the Kapthurin Formation (Baringo, Kenya) which aimed at the refinement of the chronology, stratigraphy and environmental evidence in order to establish a framework for the interpretation of the prehistoric sites. In 1966 a Late Acheulean industry with prepared-core technique and blade component, dated betweenca 0.82/0.64 myr and 0.23 myr had been described in the area concerned. All the sites belong to the middle Kapthurin formation which is situated in the Bruhnes normal polarity chron and has a lower limit of 0.58 myr. The upper limit of 0.23 myr could not be confirmed. The fauna is consistent with the available dating evidence. The sites are situated in a flat savanna landscape which was built up by a braided river system under slightly more humid conditions than the present climate. On some of the sites artifacts were found in association with palaeosoils. Although the interpretation of such assemblages must consider the impact of natural turbation processes, the palaeosoils provide exceptional conditions for comparing sites from the same phase of landscape stabilization. The present archaeological evidence suggests a sequence of Late Acheulean and Post-Acheulean (Sangoan?, Middle Stone Age) assemblages rather than the presence of one single industry as described previously. The relation between these assemblages and the two mandibles ofHomo sp. (aff.erectus) BK67 and BK8518 (found in 1966 and 1982) emphasizes the need for more research in the area.     

New Historicism: Postmodern Historiography Between Narrativism and Heterology

In recent discussionsof the work of new historicist critics like Stephen Greenblatt and Louis Montrose, it has oftenbeen remarked that the theory of history underlying their reading practice closely resembles thatof postmodern historiographers like Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit. Taking off from onesuch remark, the aim of the present article is twofold. First, I intend to provide a theoretical basisfrom which to substantiate the idea that new historicism can indeed be taken to be the literary-critical variant of what Frank Ankersmit has termed the "new historiography." Inthe second half of the article, this theoretical foundation will serve as the starting point of afurther analysis of both the theory and practice of new historicism in terms of its distinctlypostmodern historiographical project. I will argue that in order to fully characterize the newhistoricist reading method, we do well to distinguish between two variants of postmodernhistoricism: a narrativist one (best represented in the work of Michel Foucault) and aheterological one (of which Michel de Certeau's writings serve as a supreme example). Abrief survey of the two methodological options associated with these variants (discursive versuspsychoanalytical) is followed by an analysis of the work of the central representative of newhistoricism, Stephen Greenblatt. While the significant use of historical anecdotes in his workleaves unresolved the question to which of either approaches Greenblatt belongs, the distinctiondoes serve a clear heuristic purpose. In both cases, it points to the dangerous spot where the newhistoricism threatens to fall prey to the evils of the traditional historicism against which it defineditself.