‘Envisioning the Past: Art,Historiography and Public History’*

Abstract

This essay considers the role that art and history might play together in public history projects. It discusses public history not in terms of ‘learning lessons’, ‘public debate’ and ‘transferable skills’ but instead in terms of creative thinking in the public sphere. The essay draws upon the author’s experiences of working with artists on a series of exhibitions themed around the history of an arts centre’s late Georgian and Victorian buildings and their inhabitants in Sheffield. It explores the synergies between artistic and historical ways of knowing and argues that collaborations with artists provide an opportunity for academic historians to reengage the imaginative aspects of professional academic history. It also explores the value of art’s expressive power and its potential to pose new questions and suggest new answers for both public and historians’ understanding of the past.     

‘Facing’ Identity in a ‘Faceless’ Society: Physiognomy,Facial Appearance and Identity Perception in Eighteenth-Century London

English men and women confronted many new questions about the relationship between identity and appearance during the eighteenth century. How did the face reveal information about a person’s character, morality, health, class, gender, nationality and race? How should faces be perceived in forms of social interaction? Could appearances be trusted? Through analysis of physiognomic texts, urban literature, aesthetic treatises, conduct books and cosmetic manuals, this article examines the changing social and cultural meanings attached to the face, and developments in the ways contemporary authors advised it should be ‘read’ as a signifier of character, identity and social difference in eighteenth-century London.     

The representation of ‘Asia’, ‘occupational forces’ and ‘women’ against the backdrop of post‐war Japanese culture: from the system of censorship to the present

This paper is one of the attempts to show how each East‐Asian regional country’s memory of the war has been related to the post‐war literatures and movies restricted by the structure of the Cold War. In particular, this paper takes up the issue of how the structure of Japanese culture after World War II was heavily influenced by the Cold War. When Japan was under the Occupational Forces, Japanese writers and film directors settling on the subject matter of the war were not free from the strain of the systematic censorship by GHQ. Translating into mechanisms of their works using the body or woman (comfort woman) by squarely facing the facts of the East‐Asian history, this paper reconsiders the body of post‐colonial Japan.     

The Street Robber and the Gentleman Highwayman: Changing Representations and Perceptions of Robbery in London, 1690–1800

Owing to the growth of urban crime, the expansion of print culture, and changing cultural attitudes, a remarkably diverse range of positive and negative images of robbery were disseminated in eighteenth-century London. Attitudes in the 1690s were already ambivalent, but repeated negative reports in newspapers and trial accounts contributed to the identification, in the 1720s during a perceived crime wave, of the ‘street robber’ as a particularly threatening criminal. In response, the concept of the polite gentleman highwayman emerged, epitomized in representations of James Maclaine at mid-century. From the 1770s, however, the appeal of the gentleman highwayman began to wane, and all forms of robbery came to be seen as equally undesirable.     

‘The Charlatanry of the Learned’: On the Moral Economy of the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Germany

The notion of charlatanism is central to the social workings of the eighteenth-century republic of letters. Starting with Johann Burkhard Mencke's famous treatise The Charlatanry of the Learned, this paper traces how accusations of academic and scientific misconduct put in terms of ‘charlatanry’ initially helped to produce the new species of the erudite ‘charlatan’. Facing a growing complexity of scientific culture, this new frame of meaning, structured by numerous examples of scientific misconduct, offered a way of mapping the world of learning. But besides its cognitive impacts, the discourse of charlatanry allowed the creation of symbolic boundaries, which determined decisions as to the affiliation or non-affiliation to this recently forming scientific community by separating honourable from dishonourable scientific personae. Speaking of charlatanry therefore always implied a social distinction as much as a scientific one. The discourses on charlatanry also mirror differentiations within the scientific field. At first dominated by a critique built on courteous or bourgeois values, the scientific field later developed its own criteria of appraisal, such as authorship, originality, transparency, etc. Attracting the attention of a growing public sphere, the explicit verbalization of claims which were not related to the value system of a republic of letters primarily concerned with the production and distribution of knowledge finally led to a more implicit moral economy of science.     

The Vietnam War and the ‘Miracle of East Asia’

Abstract

The Muslim community in Sri Lanka has a pre-Islamic origin. Ethnically they are a mixed group, but changing political fortunes throughout the course of Sri Lankan history have made them realize that their identity lies in holding fast to the religion of Islam and not to any ethnic category. The current Sinhala-Tamil ethnic war has once again reinforced the need to hold on to the religious identity even more tightly. However, recent economic and political changes in the country and changes taking place in the Muslim world have injected new concerns for the community to worry about. The community is well and truly trapped in a political quagmire. This article highlights some aspects of this predicament.     

‘Dad's Back’: Mapping Masculinities,Moralities and the Law in the Novels of Margery Allingham

Crime fiction was, in its ‘Golden Age’ form, a new product of the interwar middlebrow. It was a particular and very popular way in which conservative-modern problematics about the domestic and about human emotional relationships but also about criminality and the law were talked through. This article examines the novels of Margery Allingham as an exemplar of this genre with reference to her own professional and gender identity as well as the broader cultural context. Crime fiction was one of several kinds of crime (particularly murder) stories, both fictional and ‘real life’, which circulated between the official discourses of the law and middle-class culture. This discussion explores Allingham's treatment of masculinities and of sexuality. It argues that narrative techniques that used the Gothic problematized the interrelationships of morality, modernity and history, and also inflected the pleasures of leisure reading with wider ‘middlebrow’ concerns about the gendered status of the modern citizen and more diffuse cultures of punishment and social responsibility.     

The ‘Isle of Vice’? Youth,class and the post-war holiday on the Isle of Man

This article broadens our knowledge of post-war holidaymaking (c. 1950–80) by adopting the Isle of Man as a case study. A popular holiday resort from the late nineteenth century, the Isle of Man experienced considerable political turbulence during the 1950s and 1960s about how best to stay competitive as a seaside resort, where authorities employed uniquely stringent methods to contain rowdiness and protect the island’s ‘respectable’ atmosphere. The first two sections examine the leisure habits of the young and working class in a holiday context, integrating this analysis with perceptions of their behaviour gleaned from oral interviews with local residents. The concluding section explores how the presence of holidaymakers on the Isle of Man – uniquely among seaside resorts in the British Isles – informed (and in some cases emboldened) a sense of national identity. Oral history, complemented by the Hansard reports of the Isle of Man parliament and local press coverage, sheds light on the activities of the post-war working class at play, and how the presence of holidaymakers fortified Manx national consciousness.     

Stewart,O’Reilly,and The Rumble 2012: Alternative Political Debate in the Age of Hybridity

This study explores the internet-only political debate held in the run-up to the 2012 U.S. presidential election between political-entertainment personalities Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly. Independently produced and financed through a version of crowd-funding, the debate offers a window into the fundamentally hybrid nature of contemporary mediated political discourse. A novel form of hybrid celebrity politics afforded by emergent technological, economic, and cultural forces, the so-called “Rumble in the Air Conditioned Auditorium” interwove televisual celebrity, political advocacy, affective spectacle, and deliberative exchange. In so doing, it spoke to the increasingly complicated nature of representation, authenticity, and the possibilities of political speech in a hybrid media age.     

The left‐wing movement in Malaya,Singapore and Borneo in the 1960s: ‘an era of hope or devil’s decade’?

Abstract

The 1960s was a period of Leftwing resurgence in the world. As Britain was disengaging from its empire, the ethnically plural societies she had generated within her protectorates and colonies in Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei threw up anti‐colonial movements that began struggling towards self‐determination and national independence. These movements manifested the ideologies of communism, socialism, nationalism and communalism. As British imperialism began planning its retreat, the competition for power among the local movements became intense. In Malaya, the largest of the five colonial territories, the communist party launched an armed rebellion in 1948 in the name of national liberation and independence, but made little headway. As Singapore and Malaya were closely linked and ruled, Britain introduced emergency rule in both territories. Most leftwing parties disappeared. Nationalist and communalist parties in Malaya emerged and eventually succeeded in securing national independence from Britain in 1957. Singapore was given a measure of limited self‐government in 1955, while Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei were gradually awakened towards self‐government. Leftwing parties re‐surfaced in Malaya, and in Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei in the 1950s and 1960s, and made some headway in parliamentary elections. This paper presents a historical account of their resurgence, which was however short‐lived.     

Scholastic Treatments of Maintaining One's Fama (Reputation/Good Name) and the Correction of Private ‘Passions’ for the Public Good and Public Legitimacy

This article deals with the relationship between an individual's passions and his public reputation or fama, as these were evaluated in specific public fora from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. In examining attitudes to heresy, heterodoxy and orthodoxy, the role of authoritative reason in the disciplining of unruly or harmful passions and an unchecked will provides some insight into contemporary attitudes to obedience, social conformity and the common good. The article attempts to highlight pre-modern attitudes to the community and its perspective on acceptable character formation and its legitimate, public display, without which the community was thought to be threatened if not destroyed.     

‘Second death’, or revival of the ‘third world’ in the context of neo‐liberal globalization

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze the historical change in the Third World in its emergent stage, in the authoritarian stage and in the current democratic stage and, thereafter, find a way to revive the Bandung spirit in the current globalization context. I define the Bandung spirit as one of a ‘non‐aligned self‐helped “organization against” the dominant powerful countries’; that is, spirit of ‘anti‐predominance’. This spirit has emerged on the base of such domestic orientation and realities as economic self‐reliance, nationally integrated political regime, convergence of the state and civil society around anti‐colonialism. However, according to intensification of the Cold War confrontation on the international level and its centrifugal influence, the early Third World changed to a ‘new’ authoritarian Third World. The Third World in this stage could be characterized by an exclusive authoritarian political regime, dependent‐developmentalist economic orientation and coercively repressed and mobilized, in the top‐down way, civil society. This authoritarian Third World began to be confronted with a strong struggle from the bottom for democratization. In order for democratization of the Third World to become its true revival in the context of globalization, the following tasks should be considered. First, the democratic Third World should be a great driving force for the institutionalization of the transnational public regulatory mechanism. Second, the democratic Third World countries try to go over a kind of ‘transformed’ dependent development strategy. Third, democratization should go along with recovery of political inclusiveness and openness of the state to civil society’s demands. Thereafter, I tried to construct globalist re‐interpretation of the Bandung, by way of conceptualizing the current globalization as imperial globalization, unlike the imperialist globalization which the historical Bandung wanted to confront. I argue that the Bandung spirit of collective self‐help organizations against the newly emerging dominant order should be revived in this worse imperial globalization context. In addition, I argue that a nationalist resistance is also one component of the multiple resistances in the current imperial globalization.     

Wartime Holidays and the ‘Myth of the Blitz’

Published histories of the British home front during the Second World War, both academic and popular, say little or nothing about civilian holidays; the implication is that for most people they did not exist. This article disputes that reading. Complementing earlier work on officially sponsored ‘Holidays at Home’, the article first looks briefly at 1930s holiday expectations, then summarizes government measures to restrain ‘unnecessary’ wartime travel. Using rail-travel statistics, memoirs and diaries, contemporary novels, local press reports, Mass-Observation and other surveys it shows that throughout the war large numbers of people took holidays much as they had in peacetime. This apparent contradiction is then discussed in relation to, for instance, ideas of ‘normality’ and ‘wartime’, the survival of class in Britain, the wartime economy and the debate on the ‘myth of the blitz’ view of civilian behaviour.     

‘A Million Little Bonds’: Infidelity,Divorce and the Emotional Worlds of Marriage in British Women’s Magazines of the 1930s

This article examines infidelity discourse within women's magazines of the 1930s. Marking a departure from existing studies that have explored representations of ideal marriage, it uses discussions of marital breakdown as a lens through which to consider conceptualisations of love within marriage. It demonstrates how, in the interwar period, notions of mutual emotional investment were used to reinforce marriages that were deemed to be in breakdown. Muddying the perceived binary between individuals and the institution of marriage, this research highlights how the latter could be bolstered, rather than challenged, by recourse to the emotional worlds of spouses.     

Alternative responses to ‘the modern dream’: the sources and contradictions of Rural Reconstruction in China

ABSTRACT

The title is supposed to be a paradox, as the two notions are opposed in Gramsci’s work: hegemony being the heterogeneous aspect of the dominating alliance in a given historical period (e.g. fascism), whereas the national‐popular representing the unified cultural resistance from below. The question mark thus refers to a short circuit of opposites, to an unexpected consequence of liberation itself, rather than to the domination of some new cultural industry, as the one Adorno had fought against. Not that cultural industries aren’t stronger than ever; but cultural studies have developed various strategies to critique them over the post‐war years. I want to argue here that the new amorphous world without transcendence and alternative (usually called ‘globalization’) puts the discipline in a more difficult situation. Is there a danger of cultural studies becoming an accomplice to such a new hegemonic culture of the global‐popular?