The Irish rent … and mended: transitional textual communities in nineteenth-century America

In this paper, traditional folkloric forms that were ritualised and practised in pre-Famine Ireland are examined. So, too, are the strategies that storytellers employed in disseminating the imaginative aspects of the oral tradition to their audiences. Following the disruption of the storytelling tradition precipitated by the Great Famine and emigration, the fabric of Irish storytelling lay threadbare, both in Ireland and abroad. Of interest is the fact that in America the less “heroic” and more subtle strands of Irish folklore resurfaced in the theatrical venues that developed during the second half of the nineteenth century, namely, minstrelsy, Vaudeville, and Tin Pan Alley. By the turn of twentieth century, the Irish were responding to other “heroic” depictions of themselves, not only with protestation but also with “tongue-in-cheek” laughter. Their grounding in a variety of folkloric texts in Ireland enabled them to transition to multiple kinds of accommodation and expressive resistance.     

On Sophron fr. 3 K.-A. (Athenaeus 11.480 B)

After a brief review of some of the general problems posed by Sophron’s work, the paper analyses Sophron’s fr. 3 K.-A., offering a detailed commentary and a new interpretation of the passage.     

A Great American Scholar of the Royal Navy? The Disputed Legacy of Arthur Marder Revisited

This article examines the scholarly reputation of the late Professor Arthur J. Marder. Once universally acclaimed as the doyen of historians of the Royal Navy in the First World War era, in recent times his work has come in for sustained criticism from a small group of revisionist historians, who not only dispute his conclusions, but argue that his entire methodology and approach were fundamentally flawed. This article assesses the specific charges of inadequate scholarship levelled against Marder by these revisionist historians and concludes that, while aspects of Marder's analysis may well be open to dispute, there are no grounds for attacking his scholarly integrity. On the contrary, he thoroughly deserves his reputation as a pioneering and painstaking scholar.     

水东宋氏职衔考

水东宋氏从唐初至明末统治贵州水东地区,唐宋元明四朝先后封赐诸多官衔。通过对水宋氏所任职衔的研究,可充分认识其兴起、发展、兴盛和衰亡过程,也可窥见中央王朝的治黔方略及贵阳政区的形成过程。     

Who Lived in Mauermanshoek Shelter, Korannaberg, South Africa?

Mauermanshoek Shelter, in the Korannaberg of the eastern Free State, has traditional San hunter–gatherer rock art together with white finger-painted horsemen of uncertain authorship. The excavated material dates to between 3500 bp and approximately 200 bp. The lithic assemblages show little change throughout, but ceramics, glass beads, and domesticated animal remains appear in the uppermost levels. The issue of most interest is that of the shelter's occupancy in the last few hundred years. Historical records show that the ethnic composition of the eastern Free State was complex during this time and that there were both aggressive and cooperative interactions between the various groups. Kora pastoralists were notorious stock raiders and the secure identification of other people on the landscape was complicated by a tendency for early writers to call all raiders Kora. A combination of archaeological and historical evidence suggests that San occupied the shelter for most of its history but that Kora herders may have been responsible for the finger-painted horsemen somewhere between 1837 and 1851 when a Wesleyan Mission Station, Merumetsu, served the Kora of Korannaberg.La grotte de Mauermanshoek, située dans le Korannaberg, à l'est de la province du Free State, contient des peintres rupestres de tradition San, réalisées par des chasseurs/bergers, ainsi que des cavaliers blancs, peint avec le doigt, d'une origine incertaine. Le matériel qu'on a trouvé dans les fouilles daté d'une période entre 3500 bp et approximativement 200 bp. L'industrie lithique est très homogène sur l'ensemble du site, mais des céramiques, des perles de verre et des restes d'animaux domestiques sont présents aux niveaux supérieurs. L'occupation de l'abri pendant les quelques centaines d'années passées est d'un inérêt tout particulier. Selon les archives historiques, la composition ethnique de la partie est du Free State était, à l'époque, complexe et il y avait les interactions à la fois agressifs et coopératifs entre les groupes différents. Les pasteurs Kora sont bien connus pour leur réputation d'attaquer les troupeaux mais l'identification certaine des autres peuplades est compliquée par le fait que les premiers écrivains rapportaient tous les aggresseurs comme des Kora. Une combinaison d'indices archeologiques et historiques suggère que les San occupèrent cette grotte pour la plus grande partie de son histoire mais que des bergers Kora pourraient être à l'origine des cavaliers peints avec le doigt, probablement entre 1837–1851, la période durant laquelle une mission Wesleyan servait le Kora de la région du Korannaberg.     

Examining the effect of occupational structure on social mobility – an investigation of A Black Country village 1851–1901

This article continues research into social mobility in England in the nineteenth century by examining the links with different occupational structures, socio-economic and industry/occupation, for a specific location. This allows an examination of the impact of the characteristics of these structures on occupational and thence on social mobility. Occupational mobility has long been recognised as a major determinant of social mobility and has been the subject of a number of papers, usually to determine how much a specific variable affects the level and type of mobility observed. Rarely do these analyses consider the location’s occupational structure, and its changes, as a determinant of the level of mobility. This paper finds that much of the variability of occupational mobility of a locality is determined by the characteristics of the different industries and occupations in that location. Industries and occupations provide a context within which other factors, such as literacy, operate.     

Meaning in a Changing Context: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach to Authorial Revision

Summary

In this article, I seek to develop a genetic/diachronic approach to the phenomenon of authorial revision, and to the interpretation of texts that exist in multiple versions. In all such cases, the reconstruction of textual meaning cannot be separated from the reconstruction of the process through which the text in its ‘final’ form came into being; furthermore, an understanding of the author's intentions in (re)writing cannot be entirely separated from an understanding of his/her motives for (re)writing. This article is divided into three sections. In the first section, I consider recent trends in editorial and literary theory that aim at characterising texts in terms of processes rather than products, in order to uphold the equal dignity of each version without losing sight of its connectedness to other stages in the history of the text. In the second section, I discuss how Quentin Skinner's views on meaning and context apply to cases of authorial revision, and I suggest that some key aspects of Skinner's contextualism need to be reconsidered. In the concluding section, I focus on a case study in order to demonstrate the operational value of such a genetic and motive-based approach to authorial revision: more particularly, I seek to show how a close examination of Jean Bodin's rewriting practices in the Methodus (1566–1572) and the République (1576) can throw new light on his shift from a concept of limited sovereignty to one of absolute sovereignty.     

《河南通史》评议

《河南通史》是河南省“八五”社会科学规划重点项目成果,填补了河南地区没有地方通史的空白。该书在研究特色上有自己的特点和优长之处,也有较高的学术价值。主要表现在:既在全国整体中写河南,又注意突出河南地方特色;注重中国古代历史上的一些重大问题的研究;资料翔实,既广泛运用典型的正史资料,又充分使用方志资料,并重视使用考古资料,实现了考古与文献资料的结合;注意吸收学术界的最新成果,观点多有创新。不足之处是,某些观点还有可商榷之处,各卷之间的布局不够均衡,某些部分显得单薄。     

《四库全书》载《图绘宝鉴》底本考原

四库全书辑入的《图绘宝鉴》是一部重要的古代画史作,其内容与本书其他重要版本多有不同,使研究颇感困惑。通过对四库本与正德本、津逮秘书本及借绿草堂本等版本的比较,发现四库本的底本孔府本并非正德本,而应是嘉靖本或其增补本毛大伦本：并同时推论出嘉靖本的底本是正德本的一个残本。     

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。