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.     

A Question of Trousers: Seafarers,Masculinity and Empire in the Shaping of British Male Dress,c. 1600–1800

Trousers have a history. The British-imperial biography of this garment reveals the significance of ready-made clothing production for naval and merchant administrations with global reach. This history demonstrates the significance of male sartorial experiments in colonial settings. And it also confirms the rising importance of imperial and maritime cultures in shaping masculine ideals and habits of dress. Ultimately, middle ranked and elite male Britons came to rethink their allegiance to breeches and hose, a mnemonic of the ancien régime. Social cross-dressing ensued, with men of higher status adopting the garb of nautical working men, at a time when mariners were increasingly esteemed. The study of trousers opens new vantage points from which to assess the forces altering British masculinity, forces that also reshaped material norms.     

Agrarian Capitalism and Poor Relief in England, 1500–1860: Rethinking the Origins of the Welfare State. By Larry Patriquin.

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's notion of narrative identity and on his observations concerning testimony in Memory, History, Forgetting, this article explores the operation of memory under two aspects, that of narrative identity and that of witness. This exercise involves some related discussion both of the history/memory problem and of the relationship between written and spoken traces in engaging the past. The methodological focus for the work is a written text of an unusual kind, comprising an extensive and detailed eyewitness account written, forgotten and re-discovered by the same individual – Lionel Curtis – after an intervening period of half a century.     

Medieval Diglossia: The Diversity of the Latin Christian Encounter with Written and Spoken Arabic in the “Crusader” County of Tripoli,with a Hitherto Unpublished Arabic Note from the Principality of Antioch (MS,AOM 3, Valletta: National Library of Malta,no. 51v)

The widespread use of Arabic in the “crusader” county of Tripoli was an obstacle between the Latin Christian Franks and their indigenous subjects. The concept of diglossia – the co-existence of divergent high and low registers within a single language – is an important but under-appreciated consideration. Arabic's marked diglossia militates against simplistic generalisations that the Franks either did or did not learn Arabic. The Romance-speaking, Latin-writing conquerors of the county of Tripoli failed to learn formal written Arabic to any appreciable degree. They did, however, learn informal spoken Arabic with more success. The Franks recognised the importance and utility of Arabic, so felt obliged to employ intermediaries – usually local Christians – to speak and write on their behalf. Some Arabic vocabulary entered the Frankish lexicon, but the consciously Latinising style of clerical authors often obscured this. Most surviving written sources from the Latin East are misleading at best, and sometimes deliberately so.     

Kinship,Camaraderie and Contestation: Fāṭimid Relations with the Ashrāf in the Fourth/Tenth Century.

The founding of the Fā?imid caliphate across the southern Mediterranean, and then in Egypt, Syria and the ?ijāz at the turn of the fourth/tenth century, necessitated its negotiation with the ashrāf, those who claimed lineal descent from the Prophet Mu?ammad, and who by this time had gained significant influence as a social class based on their charismatic descent. While other dynastic powers fostered relationships with various members of the ashrāf, the Fā?imid–ashrāf dynamics were distinctive in that the Fā?imids legitimised their rule as Ismā?īlī Shī?ī imām-caliphs, based on their claim of descent from the Prophet Mu?ammad, and as the sole successors to his authority and leadership over the Islamic world. Consequently, Fā?imid–ashrāf relations were permeated by fraternal camaraderie as well as by competing contestations based on their shared claim to Prophetic lineage.     

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.     

Coining Offences in England and Wales,c. 1675–1750: The Practical and the Personal

This article argues for a departure from previous conceptual frameworks that have categorised early modern coining offences as ‘social crimes’ similar to poaching, smuggling and riot. It seeks instead to complement the work undertaken by Malcolm Gaskill, Carl Wennerlind and Nicholas Tosney by contributing to their holistic interpretations of the offences from a variety of legal, economic and cultural perspectives. Through an analysis of elite views, cheap print, and the textual content of Mint depositions and trial summaries, this article argues that the ways in which contemporaries understood the practicalities of clipping, counterfeiting, and uttering as illicit depended largely on individual factors. These included the morality of work and labour, and specific roles and relationships of coiners.     

Poverty,Philanthropy and the State: Charities and the Working Classes in London 1918–79. By Katharine Bradley

Abstract

Nineteenth-century perceptions of alcoholism were shaped implicitly by notions of gender, class and morality. From 1879, legislation advocated the institutional management of inebriates as a response to the growing problem of habitual drunkenness. Examining the methods of treating varied classes of female alcoholics in three inebriate institutions between 1876 and 1898, this article highlights how reformatory and punitive treatment models were shaped by class and gender perceptions of the alcoholic. The article questions why the application of reformatory treatment models proved problematic and analyzes the points of tension encountered in the attempts to reform a mixed class of female patients.     

Return of the Kyai: representations of horror,commerce, and censorship in post‐Suharto Indonesian film and television 1

Abstract

In about half a decade since May 1998, changes have taken place in the content, production, distribution, exhibition, and discourse of Indonesian cinema. During Reformasi (1999–2001), the rules and regulations of cinema authorized under the New Order government of President Suharto began to be contested and re‐negotiated. The rise of new film genres and changes in concepts about existing genres and formats took place, new discourses emerged, and different communities and institutions arose that identified themselves with certain film genres or which used the medium of film for particular means, such as a medium for advocacy of human rights issues. Five to six years after 1998, it is apparent that besides changes, there are also many continuities: many old film institutions and structures for film production, distribution, and exhibition are still in place, and topics of discourses often recall past discourses of the New Order period or those held in the newly independent 1950s. This paper considers some of the changes in the understanding of genres and formulas within horror films, and discusses modes of representation and constraints in choices of subject matter in narrative practices in contemporary Indonesian cinema.     

Organizational Trust in Cultures with a History of Distrust: A Qualitative Study of Polish and Russian Leaders’ Perspectives and Experiences

This study aims to better understand how trust operates in organizations in countries, where history and culture have contributed to a norm of distrust. Personal interviews were conducted with nine organizational leaders in Poland and Russia who described trust and distrust in their organizations. The study is part of an extended body of inquiry on organizational trust, based in a research-driven model and five drivers of trust. The leaders considered trust important for organizational success in both countries, despite operating within a culture of distrust. Building trust in both countries was described as based on communication in known relationships and verifiable results.