Playing with Fire: The 4th Duke of Hamilton's Jacobite Politics and the Union

James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton and the Scots jacobites are generally linked in analyses of the final years of the Scots polity. Indeed, Hamilton is often presented as the leader of the jacobite party in the Scottish parliament. Yet both contemporaries and historians have been unsure what to make of his on-again, off-again, conduct with respect to the exiled Stuarts and France. This has fuelled an ongoing debate about Hamilton's erratic and highly enigmatic behaviour during the winter of 1706–7, when the Union was passing the Scottish parliament. Was he genuinely opposing the Union? Was he duped by the court? Or was he, ‘bought and sold for English gold ’? This essay takes a fresh look at the duke and his part in the Union crisis in the light of new and previously underused jacobite sources with a view to better understanding Hamilton's aims, objectives, and influence with this crucial group. Only the jacobites and the Cameronians were potentially willing to take their opposition to the Union to God's Acre. But neither party immediately flew to arms in response to passage of a union they both believed was a betrayal of everything they held dear, and Hamilton was a major factor in their failure to do so. This essay thus takes a close look at the duke's part in preventing a major national uprising against the Union in the winter of 1706–7 and advances a new interpretation of his conduct and significance throughout the Union crisis.     

发展中的江苏省世界文化遗产保护事业

苏州古典园林和南京明孝陵被列入世界文化遗产名录,这两处世界文化遗产的保护,由以传统方式的文物保存上升到对世界文化遗产的科学管理和保护。     

侗年文化探析与开发利用

侗年是国家级非物质文化遗产名录,其传说众多,内容丰富,内涵厚重,仪式多姿,特色鲜明,并具有历史沿袭的悠久性、文化性格的复合性、文化形式的多彩性、活动时间的延长性、活动区域的宽广性等特征。本文从田野调查入手,以时代的视角与理念,对侗年的诸多文化现象进行了系统梳理与阐释剖析,并结合湘黔桂鄂侗族地区经济社会的发展提出了对侗年文化资源进行整合、传承、保护和开发利用的对策及举措。     

The origins of the entertainment industry: the operetta in late nineteenth-century Italy

Abstract

How does a new successful musical genre impose itself, define its audiences and repertoires and eventually replace older genres? The essay examines the case of operetta from its French origins to the specific diffusion in the Italian entertainment system. Here the popularity of the ‘little opera’ coming from France and later from Vienna grew along with a new system of theaters, politeama and café chantants. They were run by a new generation of entrepreneurs and publishers such as Sonzogno, interested in diffuse new forms of musical leisure. The rising of the Italian operetta found strong resistance from the traditional opera world at the turn of the nineteenth century, when the distinction between artistic music and music as entertainment was being consolidated and we can find a sort of passing of the baton between opera and operetta as the major popular musical genre.     

Cultural Landscapes of Britain

'Britain' and 'cultural landscape' as used here are defined. The World Heritage categorisation provides the basis for a brief review of the range of such landscapes in Britain, with specific examples being named and briefly characterised. Relict landscapes are particularly noted. 'Threats to cultural landscapes are identified as of both development and decrepitude. A short discussion of the purpose and viability of cultural landscapes in Britain, for national and global purposes, concludes by noting a number of British cultural landscapes recognisable in World Heritage terms and potentially relevant to the European Landscape Convention 2000.     

The rise of cultural landscapes

The new interest in cultural landscapes is forcing a reappraisal of concepts of countryside heritage. First the traditional split between cultural and natural values is challenged. Second, modern landscape studies emphasise the subjectivity of landscape assessment, and this is subverting the former tendency to aspire to objectivity in evaluation. The acceptance of ‘associative’ value in landscape is an indicator of this. Modern landscape studies also emphasise the interrelationships between processes and aspects of value, and this is encouraging specialists to communicate across disciplinary frontiers. The desire by ecologists in the mid‐1980s to have cultural landscapes inscribed on the World Heritage list caused a re‐assessment of the World Heritage Criteria, and an initiative by ICOMOS brought this process to a conclusion in 1992. However the reappraisal of concepts of countryside value imply that there are many other philosophical and practical matters still to be resolved.     

近现代文物缺失辩解

近现代文物缺失诸多,譬如,品类不全、难以一层分类、信息混交、价值无法量化、寿命短暂、赝品众多等。现将其揭示出来,并说明其存在形式及原因。     

Using Teaching Observations and Reflective Practice to Challenge Conventions and Conceptions of Teaching in Geography

Cultural activities such as teaching and learning are highly complex systems that are deeply embedded in a wider culture and these factors impede change. Despite feeling directly the effect of the recent drive towards mass participation in higher education, most lecturers have not accounted for these changes in their teaching methods. Unless lecturers engage in critical reflection and ongoing discovery they stay trapped in unexamined judgements, interpretations, assumptions and expectations. Collaborative teaching observations and reflective practice were conducted by the author and colleagues with a range of experience within a geography department. Several surprising discrepancies appeared between lecturers' expectations and observations of the teaching sessions. The experience showed that, regardless of teaching experience, lectures allow the lecturer in his/her routine practice to neither appreciate his/her performance nor be aware of student understanding. Reflection on these experiences caused the re-evaluation of events and experience and the investigation of other firmly held beliefs that were frustrating and difficult to explain. If lecturers are to become proactive in their professional development, to question their teaching practice and become reflective practitioners, then our teaching culture must embrace the need for change and differences in teaching and learning.