Begging Letters: Tin Trunk Literacy and the Empathy Economy of Tristan da Cunha,c. 1909–39

European colonialism fostered ‘radically constrained’ literacies in the global south dominated by the epistolary form produced by ‘tin trunk literati’ frequently scribing as amanuenses for collectives. Literacy on the British mid-South Atlantic island colony of Tristan da Cunha was marginal to the nineteenth century male exchange economy and consequently relegated to the female domestic sphere. With the shift from sail to steam in trans-oceanic shipping at the turn of the twentieth century the male exchange economy vanished and female literacy acquired a vital new importance in the creation and maintenance of an empathy economy with the Atlantic mainlands generating the manufactured imports essential to the colony’s survival. The low literacy level and new dependence for subsistence on writing undermined the patriarchal authority of ‘headmen’ and gave a small group of female amanuenses effective political power on the island. The latter worked hard to maintain their newfound power by thwarting repeated metropolitan attempts to spread literacy or socialise the island economy and fostering fear and ignorance of the outside world among the islanders. The profoundly conservative and even oppressive nature of ‘functional literacy’ on Tristan da Cunha in the first half of the twentieth century provides a corrective to the emancipatory claims made for ‘tin trunk literacy’ elsewhere in the global south.     

Hans Nielsen Hauge

In this article, the author examines the role Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771–1824) played in encouraging literacy in Norwegian peasant society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, an aspect of his ministry rarely discussed. This poorly educated son of a peasant broke the unwritten rule of never publishing texts for a large readership without the necessary educational skills. Thus he opened up a new literate space where the common person could express him-or herself on paper. Hauge printed around 40 different texts, 14 of them books, in a language the peasants could understand. This inspired his followers not only to read, but also to write, mainly letters to Hauge and to Haugeans in other parts of Norway. Some even became authors. Women played a central role in this wave of literacy spreading throughout the country. Based on Hauge’s original texts, the author presents some crucial aspects of his mentality and shows how his ministry served as a catalyst to the growth of literacy among peasants during the period.     

The Firm and Shaky Ground of Education for Sustainable Development

This paper employs academic and parable forms to evaluate critically the strengths and weaknesses, potentials and lacunae of education for sustainable development (ESD) and other sustainability-related educations. The meteoric rise to prominence of ESD is first briefly reviewed, as is the firm ground it now stands upon as an international and national educational priority. The remainder of the paper explores the shaky ground of ESD: the field's reliance on a goal, sustainable development, which, in its by-and-large continued embrace of the growth principle, is a myopic response to the Earth condition; the field's embrace of an instrumentalist conception of nature when such a conception itself feeds unsustainability; the overly skills/training orientation of ESD and its stunted engagement with a range of key aspects of the human-nature relationship; the failure of ESD to realize its original breadth and promise in its marginalization of the voice of peace, social justice, anti-discriminatory, indigenous and futures educators as well as that of sustainability educators in the South; its adoption of an anachronistic ‘steady state’ conception of nature. Finally, it is suggested that sustainability-related education would be enriched and enlivened by fomenting a dynamic complementarity between notions of transience and sustainability     

Literacy and Writing: Ideology in Practice

Four recent books deal with the origins of early writing systems, the implications of texts and artifacts on the development of cognitive process and social practice, and the importance of textual artifacts for cultural cohesion and attendant issues of power and identity. This review draws out the interrelation of writing and speech, the conceptualization of literacy as singular and autonomous or multiple and ideological, and where and how to place forms of visual communication within the paradigm of “literacy.”     

大学生媒介素养教育与高校图书馆服务功能之拓展

媒介形式和媒介内容的日趋多样化，使作为重要知识储备群体的大学生面临着空前复杂的媒介环境。在这一形势下，依托高校图书馆服务功能的拓展，开展大学生媒介素养教育具有重要的现实意义。     

Media literacy: the UK’s undead cultural policy

This article examines media literacy in the UK: a policy that emerged within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in the late 1990s, was adopted by the New Labour administration, and enshrined in the Communications Act 2003. That legislation gave the new media regulator, Ofcom, a duty to ‘promote’ media literacy, although it left the term undefined. The article describes how Ofcom managed this regulatory duty. It argues that over time, media literacy was progressively reduced in scope, focusing on two policy priorities related to the growth of the internet. In the process, media literacy’s broader educative purpose, so clearly articulated in much of the early policy rhetoric, was effectively marginalized. From the Coalition government onwards, the promotion of media literacy was reduced further to a matter of market research. Today, if not altogether dead, the policy is governed by entirely different priorities to those imagined at its birth.     

POSTPOSITIVISM AND THE LOGIC OF THE AVANT‐GARDE

The purpose of this article is to explore the conditions under which the postpositivist interest in rewriting or reinterpreting history could operate legitimately from a historical point of view. The first part of the article outlines and explains some of the key thematic elements of historical postpositivism. The second proceeds to investigate how these elements can be configured and related to each other within Arthur Danto's influential account of the development of contemporary art, and especially the avant‐garde. The intention is to acquire a sense of the working dynamics of postpositivist thought, so as to better understand its possible implications for the writing of history. In the concluding section an argument is proposed to the effect that, although the postpositivist interest in the rewriting of history can in principle be admitted as entirely legitimate, its legitimacy depends on introducing some substantive constraints on content, in addition to the formal considerations that postpositivist discourse generally tends to favor. It is further suggested that this constraint should take the form of a requirement on historical literacy whose meaning is, finally, elucidated by drawing a contrast with historical common sense.     

JGHE Biennial award for promoting excellence in teaching and learning 2003

The ability to use literature effectively is essential to provide context and interpret results for any research project. Undergraduate students in geographical disciplines are regularly required to produce research reports, yet formal training in effective literature use is minimal. In this study students were taught effective literature use methods in a workshop involving group work and class discussion. Comparison was made between current students’ and previous students’ performance to determine any improvement with the new teaching methods. Results demonstrate that a relatively basic approach of explicitly teaching effective literature use can be effective and improve students’ research report writing skills.     

The Technologization of Literacy

Currently,it is acknowledged that literacy is closely connected with technology,since technological literacy has fundamentally changed the ways to learn and teach.This paper aims at exploring the utilization of technology in literacy both inside and outside classroom and implication that how to take advantages of technology properly in daily teaching.     

Sir Gawain and the green knight and the literary achievement of the north-west Midlands: the historical background

The author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the other verse in BLMS. Cotton Nero A x ranks with his contemporaries, Chaucer and Langland, as one of the three great Middle English poets. Whilst this anonymous master and associated writers have been confidently ascribed to the north-west Midlands in the reign of Richard II, the social context of this literary achievement is still inadequately understood. Drawing on wider research on the social history of the region, and focusing on the career of one identifiable Cheshire poet of Chaucer's generation, this paper attempts to show what factors made this superficially inauspicious milieu at all conducive to high cultural attainment.The basic argument is that the richness and sophistication of the best north-west Midlands work are only comprehensible in terms of the considerable social mobility evidenced amongst the local population in this period. Large numbers of men from Cheshire and its environs can be traced in all corners of England, seeking their fortunes as soldiers, lawyers, clerks and merchants. This was the vibrant world in which the Gawain-poet and his fellows found not only appreciative audiences and generous patronage but also the new cultural influences and the courtly sophistication which characterise their more polished pieces.It is no coincidence that the last years of Richard II's reign, which witnessed the composition of the verse of BL MS. Cotton Nero A x, also saw the fortunes of local careerists soar to their apogee. In addition to their solid achievements in the professions, men from almost every family in Cheshire were being recruited into the royal household from 1397 onwards. With his well attested taste for fine literature, and with his extravagant generosity towards his Cheshire retainers, it is clear that if an aristocratic patron for the Gawain-poet is pre-supposed there is no more credible candidate than Richard II himself.