FROM LEFT‐WING TO COMMUNIST MELANCHOLY: TRAVERSO'S WAGER

Enzo Traverso's inspired book Left‐Wing Melancholia revisits iconic representations of revolutionary hopes and defeats not to draw up an inventory of what has been lost but rather to remind his readers that past defeats also contain the traces of unfulfilled possibilities. After the end of the Soviet Union and the global triumph of neoliberal capitalism, the communist utopian imagination of a classless society, Traverso suggests, can be reignited through memorial practices of resilient, resistant melancholy. Traverso's argument draws on Walter Benjamin's notions of materialist history, redemptive memory, and knowing melancholy. Yet the nameless vanquished masses to whom Benjamin's concept of history seeks to do justice remain marginal in Traverso's book. Instead, revolutionary defeat is cast in the tragic mold of succeeding by failing, a trope exemplified by figures such as Auguste Blanqui, Charles Péguy, or Daniel Bensaïd. In response to Traverso's reliance on the transhistorical category of the tragic, this essay argues for a more abstractly theoretical understanding of left‐wing melancholy as conditioned by historically specific class relations that constrain and challenge the engaged intellectual. Moreover, this essay questions Traverso's dualistic treatment of politically committed (Benjamin, Brecht, C. L. R. James) and elitist intellectuals (Adorno) and concludes that the concept of left‐wing melancholy must ultimately be interrogated against the backdrop of a lingering uncertainty about the relationship between theory and praxis that, as Adorno claims, one can already find in Karl Marx—an uncertainty that is hence inscribed into the history of any Marxist theory of revolution and history.     

中国马克思主义史学发展道路的思考

从五四运动到新中国成立前,自李大钊开始传播唯物史观,此后经郭沫若、吕振羽、范文澜、翦伯赞、侯外庐等的努力,马克思主义史学家坚持革命性与科学性结合,显示出自己建构研究中国历史体系的规模和力量,因而20世纪把中国史学推向了新阶段。建国后17年,马克思主义史学虽然经历过严重的曲折,但成绩仍是主要的,主要表现在:以唯物史观原理与中国实际相结合的方向得到坚持,形成百家争鸣的局面,在通史、断代史和专史领域以及大规模整理历史文献等方面都有重要成果;1958年以后教条化严重泛滥时,郭沫若、范文澜、翦伯赞等挺身而出进行抵制,一批熟悉历史考证的学者在唯物史观指导下,使史学达到新的境界。在改革开放的新时期,经过批判和反思极“左”路线危害,解放思想,史学出现了开拓进取、欣欣向荣的新局面。     

客观世界与文本世界的交锋--对新理论形态的马克思主义历史观评论的评论

蒋大椿先生提出的“唯物辩证的以实践为基础的系统史观”．在马克思主义历史观发展史上．是一种全新理论形态的历史观。无论是对于马克思主义历史观的发展,还是对于新世纪中国历史学的发展来说,它都具有重要的理论价值和现实意义。但是,由于评论者悬置客观实在的现实社会和历史,沉溺于马克思恩格斯文本建构起来的文本世界,加上评论者和蒋大椿先生之间在探索的问题、言说的平台和所处思想时段等方面的差距,因此,他们没有能够发现蒋先生的真问题和《思潮与发展》一文所具有的理论价值与现实意义。综览目前公开的评论,只能说这是一场极不相称的客观世界与文本世界之间的交锋。     

马克思学说研究会与中国共产主义组织的起源

以往若干史著记载了李大钊曾于1918年在北京发起过马克思学说研究会,但由于史料缺乏,近来多被学者否认。笔者根据当时的报载文章、早年俄国顾问撰写的《中共简史》,并参以当事者的回忆,认为马克思学说研究会确曾于1918年底至1919年上半年存在过。这个研究会的产生涉及苏俄人士与中国进步知识分子的初期联系与活动。虽然该会的参加人员、活动时间、组织形式都不怎么固定,是一个十分松散的非正式学会,却在中国开启了组织马克思主义团体的先河,成为中国共产主义组织的源头。     

A Negative Geography of Necessity

Abstract: One of the many unfortunate results of the long‐lived misconception that Marx was a “determinist” is a lack of engagement with his ideas of necessity and negation. Reading the Grundrisse's famous comments on the annihilation of space by time, I trace the Hegelian roots of these concepts to show that for both Marx ahd Hegel, negation is the very act of critique itself, and necessity is properly understood not as the force of history, but as the object of historical explanation–what makes things the way they are and not another. It is therefore crucial to critical geography's efforts to identify the possibilities for social change, for that analysis must be predicated on an understanding for how things have emerged in their present form, i.e. the one we have to work with. I argue that a negative geography of necessity is the essential basis for anything we might call a communist geography, a geography of “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things”.     

马克思主义史学的发展与新时期史学思潮

面对改革开放的新形势,受“左”倾思潮影响的教条主义史学面临来自多方面的挑战,史学危机的呼声不绝于耳,西方各种史学思潮纷至沓来。史学工作者本着解放思想、实事求是的原则,结合实际,重新学习,调整步伐,注重历史学的学科特性,与时俱进,使马克思主义史学获得了新的生机。     

马克思的五种社会形态理论与陈独秀的“二次革命论”

理论界在考察陈独秀的"二次革命论"的思想来源和理论基础时,往往与苏联和共产国际的指示、与其自身残存的资产阶级民主思想、与国共合作的实际环境相联系,实际上这只是一种表面现象.只要仔细阅读陈独秀的著述,不难发现,陈独秀在论述中国革命的一系列问题时,是基于其社会历史进化观,这种社会历史进化观深受马克思的五种社会形态理论的影响,可以说,马克思的五种社会形态理论才是陈独秀"二次革命论"的理论基础.     

正视·总结·继承·发展——2007年高教版《中国近现代史纲要》的理论特色

2007年高等教育出版社出版的《中国近现代史纲要》具有鲜明的文化发展意识、民族发展意识、史学批评意识、历史总结意识和自觉的会通意识等特点。该书的面世不仅有助于推动高校学生思想政治教育的深入和历史教育的进一步发展,而且还在一定意义上体现出当代中国马克思主义史学的理论意义和发展趋势,可以看作是中国马克思主义史学工作者进入21世纪后对中国近现代史的最新研究和解读。     

STRUCTURE AND AGENCY: CONTESTED CONCEPTS IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

The concepts of ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ have been of central significance to geographic research. This paper focuses on recent debates in critical social geography, and the contributions of Marxist, feminist, and postmodern perspectives to rethinking the structure-agency question. Significant changes in conceptualizing structure and agency are outlined, from early work in Marxist geography to current efforts to grapple with postmodern culture and identity. The paper demonstrates that critical geographic approaches to structure and agency have become more inclusive and nuanced, as researchers have addressed challenges posed by critiques and new perspectives. It concludes by considering the significance of place, space, and social difference in mediating processes of social change and thus in concrete explanations of how the ‘dialectical dance’ of structure and agency unfolds within particular locales. Les concepts de «structure» et d' «action» ont une importance capitate dans les recherches en géographie. Cet article porte sur les débats qui ont récemment eu cours dans le domaine de la géographie sociale critique et sur les contributions apportées par les tenants des points de vue marxiste, féministe et postmoderne dans la reconceptualisation du rapport entre la structure et faction. On y mentionne les importants changements qui ont eu lieu dans le domaine de la conceptualisation des structures et des actions, des premiers travaux effectués en géographie marxiste jusqu'aux récents efforts dé-ployés pour mieux saisir la culture et I'identité postmoderne. Ce texte démontre que dans le domaine de la géographie critique, on voit la structure et faction d'une manière plus englobante et plus nuancée à mesure que les chercheurs se sont penchés sur les défis soulevés par les critiques et les nouvelles perspectives. Nous finissons par évaluer la place qu'occupent I'endroit, I'espace et la différence sociale dans la médiation des processus du changement social - et ainsi dans les explications concrètes des variations de la « danse dialectique » de structure et de faction dans des milieux particuliers.     

Predicament and responses: Discussions of history education in early modern China

ABSTRACT

Since the early modern era, following the abolishment of the imperial civil service exam and the rise of modern schools, the subject of history was included in education at all levels, from primary to tertiary. However, in comparison with traditional society, the degree of attention devoted to historical knowledge has in fact declined rather than improved. In the 1920s, many contemporaries vocally criticized and pondered the low level of historical knowledge among primary and secondary school students, and occasionally voiced dissatisfaction with history education at the university level as well. Critics primarily focused their discussions on the insufficient attention for history classes, imperfect standards formulated for history classes, poor history teaching materials, and lack of qualified, specialized teachers, forming a universal consensus among contemporaries on the failure of history education. However, the widespread opprobrium attached to history education was closely tied to two facts: first, the historians of early modern China had as yet failed to compile a general history of China acceptable to the majority, greatly disappointing many educators; second, historical resources failed to exercise the mobilizing effect on early modern Chinese society that contemporaries had hoped for, and history thus often became the scapegoat paying the price for practical setbacks and failures in the political arena.