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.     

THE CONTEST OVER CONTEXT IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Recent articles critical of the use of context in contextual intellectual history have identified contextual method with the post‐1960s work of the “Cambridge School,” which is regarded as being grounded in a flawed theory of textual interpretation. Focusing on German cultural and political history, this article shows that a contextual historiography was already fully developed in seventeenth‐century ecclesiastical history, and a parallel version of this approach had developed in the field of constitutional history. The modern critique of context emerged only with the appearance of dialectical philosophical history in the first decades of the nineteenth century. The article argues that rather than representing a scholarly engagement with contextual historiography, the central plank of the dialectical critique of contextualism—the notion that contextual explication of thought is insufficient because context itself has transcendental conditions—is actually a cultural‐political attack on it launched on behalf of a hostile and incommensurable academic culture.     

The philosopher,the ordinary believer,and their piety: Spinoza’s philosophical religion

This paper explores the nature and working of Spinoza’s philosophical religion. In doing so, it critically engages with Carlos Fraenkel’s study of the tradition of philosophical religions and Spinoza’s place in it. Spinoza can be said to be part of this tradition because the relation of his philosophical conception of God to the conceptions of God of some popular religions (especially Christianity) can be construed as that of the universal versus the particular, in which the particular expresses something of the universal, in an inadequate yet more readily accessible way. The account of Spinoza’s philosophical religion provided is kindred to Fraenkel’s, but it also explicitly discusses a crucial issue which Fraenkel only sparingly addresses, viz. the question how we must envisage the transition from a confused, imaginary to a more rational conception of God. A related issue the paper addresses concerns the question whether – and, if so, how – the dogmas of the universal faith can be reinterpreted philosophically. These discussions underpin a critical assessment of Fraenkel’s claim that Spinoza’s philosophical religion project is, ultimately, flawed.     

The Philosophy of a Persona

Summary

The essay collects Ian Hunter's central theoretical and methodological arguments from their various interpretative contexts and restates them in order to consider criticisms, real and imagined. Is Hunter's criticism of common forms of philosophical history itself open to such criticism, making its validity dependent upon prior adoption of a philosophical stance? Is his empirical intellectual history a form of ‘social’ reductionism?     

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     

Emancipation as a Matter of Style

Abstract

This article will focus upon the relationship between humour, politics and theology. More precisely, it will inquire whether there is some kind of correlation between style of humour and political standpoint in two contemporary Marxist authors that also have an interest in theology, the British literary critic Terry Eagleton and the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj ?i?ek. If Eagleton’s style is characterized by the strategic use of wit, influenced by the late Dominican friar and philosopher Herbert McCabe, ?i?ek’s use of humour in his philosophy is more about the telling of jokes that supposedly illustrate a political predicament, thus creating a humorous disidentification on behalf of the reader with her or his circumstances. The article ends with the suggestion that there is indeed a relationship between humour, politics and eschatology in Eagleton and ?i?ek, but that their different senses of humour also correspond to differing political agendas. But one should beware of generalizing this insight, as all authors might not be as stylistically gifted as those two.     

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.”     

对旅游本质的哲学辨析

对旅游本质的正确认识是关系到旅游学科建设和旅游业健康发展的重要命题,然而这一问题在学术界至今未能得到很好解决。从哲学的视角来辨析,旅游的本质应是“体验”,即旅游者的异地身心自由体验。将体验视为旅游本质的理由是：体验是旅游现象所具有的最一般、最普遍、最稳定的共同属性,体验是旅游现象区别于其他现象的独特属性,体验是规定和影响旅游现象中其他非本质属性的根本,体验是旅游活动产生、变化及发展的依据,这些理由符合哲学关于本质研究的特点及规定性。     

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。