Dressing for Succession in Norman Italy: The Mantle of King Roger II

The subject of this article is the mantle of the kings of Sicily, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Made in Palermo in the 1130s, it is often known as the mantle of Roger II. Following his coronation in 1130, King Roger II saw the need to ensure the succession of his sons. As part of his strategy to consolidate dynastic succession, Roger invested his sons with important titles in the mainland regions of the kingdom. This article has two parts: the first discusses the materials used to make the mantle, the journeys they took to reach Sicily and the diplomatic and commercial relationships necessary to acquire them. The second part argues that the mantle may have been made for the investiture ceremonies of the king’s sons and examines how the materials and their exoticism shaped the ceremonial meaning of the garment.     

The politics of imagining Asia: a genealogical analysis

Abstract

Following the recent trends of globalization and regionalization, the idea of Asia has been revived in political, economic, and cultural fields. This essay examines some of the various uses of this idea in modern East Asian and especially Chinese history. The essay consists of four parts. Part One discusses the derivativeness of the idea of Asia, that is, how this idea developed from modern European history, especially the nineteenth‐century European narrative of ‘World History,’ and it points out how the early modern Japanese ‘theory of shedding Asia’ derived from this narrative. Part Two studies the relationship between the idea of Asia and two forms of populism against the background of the Chinese and Russian revolutions – one, exemplified by Russian Narodism, attempted to use Asian particularity to challenge modern capitalism; the other, represented by Sun Yat‐sen, attempted to construct a nation‐state according to a socialist revolutionary program, and to develop agricultural capitalism under the particular social conditions of Asia. Part Three considers the differences and tensions between the ‘Great Asia‐ism’ of Chinese revolutionaries such as Sun and the Japanese idea of East Asia (Tōyō),and it discusses the need to overcome the categories of nation‐state and international relations in order to understand the question of Asia. Part Four discusses the need to go beyond early modern maritime‐centered accounts, nationalist frameworks, and Eurocentrism in re‐examining the question of Asia through historical research by focusing on the particular legacies of Asia and Toyo (such as the tributary system) and the problems of ‘early modernity.’     

Finding a voice,fighting for rights: the emergence of the transgender movement in Hong Kong 1

Abstract

This paper is intended to provide a space for reflection on Hong Kong’s transgender movement at its current stage, with particular reference to the objectives and activities of the Hong Kong Transgender Equality and Acceptance Movement (‘TEAM’). Established in 2002, TEAM was the first organized group of transgender people and supporters in Hong Kong. First, the paper examines the emergence of the transgender movement in Hong Kong, situating the stated objectives of TEAM in the broader social, legal and political context in Hong Kong. It then considers the successes and limitations of TEAM’s activities to date, measured against its objectives. Finally, it examines why Hong Kong’s transgender community has not yet fought for the right to legal recognition of their gender identity, as have transgender individuals and transgender movements in many other countries around the world. In the Asia‐Pacific region these include Australia, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and New Zealand. Through interviews with members of TEAM, the paper questions whether legal recognition is indeed a concern and/or priority for Hong Kong’s transgender community, and, if so, what prevents Hong Kong transgender people from claiming their right to legal recognition in the courts or through the political process.     

The concepts of individual, self, and group in Japanese National, Japanese-American, and European-American samples: a semantic differential analysis

This study empirically investigated variations in the semantic/affective construction of the concepts of “individual”, “self”, and “group” in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Data were collected on the semantic differential ratings for these concepts among 110 Japanese National (JN), 110 Japanese-American (JA), and 110 European-American (EA) university students. Compared to the other two samples, the JN sample rated the concept of “individual” as weaker and more fast, the concept of “self” as more fast, and the concept of “group” as more strong and more slow. It also was revealed that the JA sample’s ratings of the three concepts tended to fall between the JN and EA samples’ ratings. Altogether, the findings offer further evidence that the individualism-collectivism distinction has psychological implications and predictive power.     

Feeling freedom: Japanese and American wartime films on the liberation of the Philippines, 1943–1945

ABSTRACT

This article juxtaposes the Japanese wartime film Dawn of Freedom and Hollywood films on the Philippines during WWII as a method to analyze the representational strategies by which the U.S. and Japanese empires tried, respectively and in opposition to the other, to nurture the feeling that the peoples of the Philippines and beyond would enjoy freedom under their stewardships. Under pressure from the twin crises of colonialism and capitalism, the two empires sought to establish hegemony in the Asia-Pacific by fashioning a new model of empire that disavowed imperialist intentions and territorial aggrandizement while promising freedoms that included but went beyond national self-determination. The article focuses on four overlapping freedoms that run through the Japanese and Hollywood films: namely, political self-determination/consumerist freedom, freedom of self-sacrifice or the freedom to die, freedom in romance, and freedom from racism. Despite their differences, the author argues that the two sides in the imperial film wars shared much more than what is commonly realized and that the new strategy that advanced and yet disavowed imperialist ambitions while promoting the feeling of freedom, has great relevance for understanding the militarized world today.     

Marxism and Class Analysis. By André Béteille.

ABSTRACT

The emergence of a new type of consumer society was catalysed rather than impeded by the tumultuous events of the late 1960s. The rebels of 1968 contributed considerably to the breaking down of conservative obstacles to consumption, to the opening up of new markets and to the creation of a new type of consumer. At its heart, ‘1968’ was an intra-bourgeois confrontation pursued by an innovative minority. The many instances of personal transformation from protagonists of protest to pillars of the establishment can be interpreted in the context of communicative and consumerist modernization. The protesters' performative hedonism proved highly compatible with consumer culture. Protest culture, on the one hand, sought the publicity of consumer society as a spatial and moral sphere for its activities. The response of the ‘system’ to the protests, on the other hand, was surprisingly flexible and resulted in the further development of capitalism and consumer society in the late twentieth century.     

Measuring the Impact of Free Admission

The reintroduction of universal free admission to the government-sponsored museums is often cited by politicians and commentators as one of the principal cultural policy achievements of the current Labour administration. Both in terms of increasing the total number of visits to the sponsored museums and in encouraging new visitors from priority groups the policy has been a demonstrable success. The complexities of the data generated in support of free admission have hitherto, however, gone largely unexamined. This article therefore explores the ways in which government has gone about measuring the impact of its free admission policy. It traces the history of free admission to museums and galleries as a concept, before setting out the background to the reintroduction of universal free admission to those museums sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) that had introduced charging in the 1980s and 1990s. It then considers ways in which the impact of the policy can be measured, through use of the data generated by the 23 performance indicators used by DCMS in the funding agreements that it has with each of the museums. The article then considers the various factors that need to be taken into consideration in any assessment of the impact of the free admission policy, including the effect of new capital investment. The article concludes by suggesting that further work is needed to isolate the precise impact of free admission, particularly on attracting new audiences to museums and galleries.     

Ethnicity and nationalism: ideological struggles in Sarawak after the Second World War

This paper studies how ethnicity has influenced the construction of nationalism in two political movements that took place in Sarawak, a former British colony in North Borneo. It analyzes the discourse of colonialism, freedom and independence that revolved around two movements, namely the anti-cession movement and the underground communist movement, controlled respectively by the ethnic Malay and Chinese in Sarawak. A comparison of these two movements is made by looking at the fundamental differences between two movements and the way the British responded to them. In the analysis, local political developments as well as transnational links are taken into consideration as this paper assumes that transnational exposure was instrumental in shaping local nationalism. In doing so, the paper intends to explain the domination of ethnic nationalism in political discourse and institutions of Sarawak.     

Carpe Diem: Bandung,historical inequalities and development goals

The 1955 Bandung Afro-Asian solidarity conference symbolized the end of the colonial era and the beginning of new relations between the former colonial powers that had industrialized and the former colonies subsequently variously referred to as the developing countries, Third World or South. These changing relations also involved new discourses and modes of analysis. The nature and pattern of inequalities have also changed significantly over time, including during the recent period. Despite high levels of national level inequalities, about two thirds of overall economic inequality are due to disparities among countries. But the determinants of changing inequalities have also changed significantly as economic relations at both national and international levels have changed with economic, social and political transformations. In recent years, the ascendant developmentalist discourse of the 1960s and 1970s was undermined by the rise of conservative market fundamentalism. The discourse of development has continued to change as reflected by the lines and terms of conflict and contention. The four Development Decades of the late 20th century gave way to the Millennium Development Goals of the last decade and a half. The struggle to elaborate the Sustainable Development Goals for the next period is the most recent manifestation of this ongoing struggle.     

A Mediterranean of Relations for the Medieval Maghrib: Historiography in Question

References to relations between states, regions, communities and cultures have been a staple of historical thinking on the Mediterranean from the nineteenth century to the present day. Weathering changing academic trends and fashions, this vision of the Mediterranean has shaped the development of relevant historiographies, defining assumptions and approaches to an unrecognised extent. Focusing on the trajectory of this “Mediterranean of relations” in the historiography of the medieval Maghrib, this paper outlines some of the effects of its prevalence on the evolution of the concept of Mediterranean and argues for the inclusion of these considerations in the ongoing discussions around the medieval Mediterranean.     

Muslims and others: anecdotes,fragments, and uncertainties of evidence

Abstract

Against the intensified communalization of civil society and the emergence of new modes of racism in contemporary India, this essay juxtaposes different histories of the Other through critical insights into the construction and demonization of the Indian Muslim. Working through anecdotes and fragments, bits and pieces of history, this disjunctive discourse on the Other attempts to trouble liberal assumptions of cultural identity by calling attention to the uncertainties of evidence by which ethnic identities are politicized in diverse ways. While critiquing the exclusionary mode of 'othering', the essay also calls attention to more internalized modes of disidentification and the double-edged benefits of political identity for the underprivileged and dispossessed, whose own assertions of the self invariably complicate official identitarian constructions. The enigmas of the self are perhaps most vivid in the brutal evidence of genocide, where the apparent 'dead certainty' of killing the Other has been interpreted as a means of making 'persons out of bodies' (Arjun Appadurai). Countering this position, the essay argues that ethnic violence is facilitated by the 'dead certainty' of (in)justice, reinforced by the 'banality of violence' legitimized through state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.     

Asian internationalism: Bandung’s echo in a colonial metropolis

Abstract

This paper argues that two conflicting discourses of internationalism stood in uneasy counterpoint and contention in the Asian arena of the 1950s, reflected in the legacies of the Bandung conference. The first drew on a language of global citizenship and rights. The second saw the international system as a source of strength and support for state sovereignty, and state‐directed programmes of national development. The remainder of the paper uses the case of late‐colonial Singapore to examine the intersection of these two discourses of internationalism. An Asian internationalism, which spanned to include Africa over the course of the 1950s, became one of a stock of narratives that made Singapore’s ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’ possible, in the worlds of the hawkers, the dockworkers and the agriculturalists. The political aspirations of these groups were sacrificed, ultimately, to the goal of disciplined national development, supported by an international order that had closed in to defend the interests of state power.     

Between al-Andalus and Genoa: The “Embriaci Tower” Lustreware

This article examines a set of lustreware pottery discovered in the fill of the tower belonging to the Genoese family, the Embriaci. The finds are datable to the mid-thirteenth century, characterised by decorative patterns which are atypical in lustreware production in al-Andalus, though some comparisons can be drawn with the decorative patterns of the “vasos de la Alhambra” and the pottery known as “nazarí primitive”. The context of the discovery in Genoa will briefly be outlined, including the story of the family settlement (Part 1), the stratigraphic sequence (Part 2), and the stylistic connections to other pottery characterising it (Part 3). The formal and decorative elements characterising the lustreware pottery found in the Embriaci Tower will then be examined and compared (Part 4) with finds from the Upper Tyrrhenian region (Provence, Savona, Pisa). Part 5 will suggest that the finds are a specific type of decorated lustreware produced in the thirteenth century in al-Andalus (Murcia, Málaga and Almería). The concluding part (Part 6) will investigate the meaning of the presence of the set of imported ceramics in the “curia” of the Embriaci family in Genoa.

This type of pottery has only been discovered hitherto in excavation finds and architectural contexts (the so called “bacini”) in Italy and France. The identification of decorative and formal elements characterising this “group” of pottery will allow the identification of examples of this production outside of Italy and France. The publication of the findings will provide new data to develop an archaeological overview of commercial contacts between al-Andalus and the Tyrrhenian area (Provence, Liguria, Tuscany) during the thirteenth century.     

Planting virtual lemons: performing forest protection in the context of political performativity

The socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Laos (Lao PDR) has some of the largest intact forests in Southeast Asia, yet these are being quickly depleted by illegal logging, slash-and-burn farming, increasing population pressures, monocrop plantations, mining and dam building. Foreign government and nongovernmental organizations stage “infotainment” theatre plays to educate and inform the Lao public of its role in protecting the forests even though government projects and concessions are the primary causes of forest destruction. Because all the nationally subsidized performing arts troupes are government mouthpieces they cannot critique the government’s role. Foreign aid agencies funding the dramas are also made complicit in the hypocrisy of promoting forest protection to those with the least power to do so, while both performers and spectators know who is profiting the most from the sale of forest products. This article examines theatrical performances regarding forest protection presented in this context of performativity in which the state manipulates socialist rhetoric to conceal its actions that enrich its officials and capitalist partners at the expense of the rest of the Lao public.     

The ‘Non‐dit’ in the Zenana: representations of Muslim women in Islamic canonical texts,the neo‐colonial imagination and a feminist response from Bangladesh

Abstract

This essay recognizes that representations of the ‘Muslim woman’ as the Othered ‘object’ of the ‘Western’ gaze and the domesticated ‘object’ which the Islamic apologists strive hard to defend, are both constructions and false antitheses of each other. It seeks not the ‘truth’ regarding the Muslim women in the world of social reality but to examine how various representations of the women are constructed and to what effects and consequences these representations are mobilized. The essay proceeds in three stages. The first stage shows how the patriarchy mobilizes the Qur’an and the Hadith in order to construct the woman as the negative, the inessential and the abnormal of the man so as to exert complete subordination over her. However, the very act of attempting to mute the woman in Islam is the most strident proof that she is engaged in resistance against patriarchal control and the degree of resistance must be judged by the degree of patriarchal control. The second stage demonstrates how patriarchy operates in colonial and neo‐imperial landscape: it legitimizes the appropriation of Muslim woman ‘possessed’ by the Other (as exemplified by the orientalist seduction fantasy in William Dalrymple’s The White Mughals), but, haunted by the fear of rape and anxieties regarding the sexuality of the White woman possessed by the Self, it attempts to maintain strict control over her (as in the cases of Miss Wheeler in the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 and Private Jessica Lynch in the Iraq War). This struggle over the feminine body is perfectly in line with Islam’s hyper‐anxiousness to hide the female body and rigorously ensure monopolic possession over her. The third stage shows how Taslima Nasreen, a late‐20th century feminist from Bangladesh, speaks the unspoken and thereby attempts to subvert the normative representation of the muted women in her autobiographical novella, entitled āmār Meyebelā. In thus examining the representations of the Muslim women, this essay seeks an alternative ‘third space of enunciation’ and takes a distinct political stand located outside of the axis of the dichotomy of the ‘Western’ gaze and the construction of the Islamic theologians.     

Research at Arts Council England

Arts Council England is the national development agency for the arts in England, distributing public money from government and the National Lottery. The rationale for research at Arts Council England is explained, including the drivers behind a commitment to an increased research capacity. It is summarized how research takes place in the organization, the context in which work is undertaken and the key reporting requirements. Arts Council England works across a broad spectrum of artforms—from literature and the publishing sector, through dance and opera, to visual and multimedia arts. The research addresses all of these artforms as well as cross-cutting agendas such as employment, education and economic impact. Five broad areas are considered: evaluating the impact of Arts Council England's spending; audiences and participation in the arts; cultural employment and the arts economy; tools for the sector; and disseminating findings and informing policy. Details are given of some of the main research projects under each of these areas, and what is known now and where there are gaps in knowledge and challenges for the future are highlighted.     

Biculturalism and self-construal

Evidence on the dimensionality of self-construal points to the coexistence of both an independent and an interdependent self-image. Drawing on conceptualizations of the acculturation process, this study is a preliminary examination of the distinctiveness of four hypothesized self-construal patterns: Bicultural, Western, Traditional, and Culturally-alienated. Different types of individuals, having experienced varying amounts of cultural contact and having made different choices in adjusting to cultural groups, might portray distinctive self-construal patterns. Especially intriguing was the notion that those with a well developed sense of interdependence and a well developed sense of independence could be described as bicultural. To test this, persons from four a priori identified groups were selected to represent the four patterns of self-construal. We predicted that on a measure of self-construal, the mean scores of the respondents in the four groups would differ in strength with the bicultural experience group, in particular, exhibiting both a high independent and a high interdependent score on a measure of self-construals. Our hypotheses were supported. In terms of independent self-construal, the Bicultural and Western groups scored significantly higher than the Traditional and Alienated groups. For the interdependent self-construal, the Traditional and Bicultural groups scored significantly higher than the Western and Alienated groups. The bicultural group was the only group to score significantly higher on both types of construals. The availability of both types of self-construal would likely facilitate communication and adaptive behaviors for persons interacting in multiple cultures.     

‘The Manner of Submission’

ABSTRACT

In early modern London, gesture, demeanour and manners embodied the hierarchies of gender and status. An archive of litigation between male and female apprentices and their masters and mistresses offers a way to reconstruct the performances of power and submission in urban working households. Young men manifested all the misbehaviours of urban youth, both troublesome and central to the performance of masculinity; society expected them to display a subordination that was temporary. For a few young women, the contract of apprenticeship offered a route to independent labour. In learning the competence and assertiveness required for the marketplace, these women needed to manifest the internalized manners of a proper woman. When apprenticeships broke down, employers, fellow apprentices and neighbours painstakingly tracked and criticized the errors of demeanour and conduct on both sides. The resulting narratives give us a new insight into the meaning of early modern work.     

Authors' Biographies

ABSTRACT

This article critically engages with a contemporary play, Aur Kitne Tukde, staged in the Hindi language in various cities and towns in India and Pakistan, about gendered violence during Partition. It unsettles the master narrative of ‘honour’, ‘martyrdom’, ‘choice’ and women's ‘agency’ on Partition. The article also highlights the significance of the play in breaking the silences around Partition in the theatre, which, as compared with other cultural and literary mediums, reaches out to a larger section of people in unique ways. It underlines how the whole production of the play was a process of traversing and sharing the journey and trauma of Partition not only for the actors but also for the audiences. The article also tries to problematize the whole question of violence and its representation.