吉本《罗马帝国衰亡史》的史学贡献

作为具有批判精神的启蒙史学家,吉本在书中有许多新观念、新思想。吉本把孟德斯鸠等先辈开创的启蒙史学发扬光大,理论之光烛照了史学的黑暗。能寻找历史事件的因果关系,找出内在的关联性。吉本的垂训史观脱离了低俗,显示卓尔不凡。揭穿了宗友的神秘面纱,敢于闯荡教堂奥秘。揭示宗教的本质是人不是神。人类创造了宗教,塑造了神,神又愚弄了人类。把宗教神秘、神圣化是人类的一大错误。吉本初露民权民治思想具有前瞻性意义。《罗马帝国衰亡史》不仅是罗马帝国历史的最权威著作,而且在史识与史学思想上都为世界史坛做出重大贡献。     

由强化到弱化:近代中国教会大学宗教元素变化研究

在20世纪初,教会大学曾经在中国占据了很重要的位置,对中国高等教育发展起到了很大的推动作用。教会大学在融入中国教育体系的过程中,办学宗旨、宗教课程、宗教活动、基督徒人数等宗教元素逐渐弱化。采用文献法对教会大学宗教元素的弱化过程进行分析,有助于了解近代中国高等教育的生态环境与发展状况。     

The Foundation of Russian History,Jordanville, New York: A Decade-Long Travel Account

This column piece describes the Foundation of Russian History located on the grounds of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, New York and the author’s knowledge of the state of the collections today, how things have changed over the past decade, as well as future possibilities for development, collaboration and use.     

FOR THE PERIOD APRIL-JUNE, 2004

ABSTRACT

The history of Christian censorship up to the sixteenth century reveals scattered attempts to censor works of individual authors, but neither a systematic effort to formulate rules for regulating printers, booksellers, and authors, nor an effort to compile a comprehensive list of prohibited books. The first such attempt was made by the Council of Trent, which formulated a set of rules for printing, selling, and censoring books. These “Tridentine rules” were accompanied by a list of forbidden books, and together they formed the first Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1564). The Index underwent many revisions, the most important being the 1900 edition of Pope Leo XIII, which replaced the Tridentine rules with a set of Decreta Generalia on censoring and prohibiting books. Publication of the Index continued until its abolition in 1966. The reasons for its demise include the triumph of the Reformation and the rise of the nation-state, mass literacy, and mass communications.     

古罗马角斗表演场域中“人”的研究

古罗马角斗表演活动历史悠久,但参与或者观看角斗表演活动的各阶层却形态各异。奴隶阶层中只有部分奴隶参与角斗表演,绝大多数奴隶却是看台上欢呼的观众。罗马的皇帝表面上热衷于举办角斗表演活动,实际上他们通过角斗活动在拉选票,谋取政治利益。真正热爱角斗活动的是罗马的贵族和骑士,因为观看角斗活动不但是他们日常生活的一部分,而且是他们娱乐的主要内容。罗马平民也是角斗活动最狂热的支持者和观赏者,但他们是被动的,因为罗马统治者抛给他们的只有角斗表演活动。     

Engagement with empires: Irish Catholic female religious teachers in colonial South Australia 1868–1901

This paper addresses the roles of Irish Catholic female religious institutes for teachers in the context of the recent debates about education and empire. Nineteenth century colonial South Australia provides an opportunity to examine such institutes, for example the Irish Dominicans from Cabra Dublin, the Irish Mercy Institute from Baggot Street, Dublin, and to a much lesser extent, the English Dominicans from Stone in England. The discussion canvasses the notion of the role of these religious teachers within three empires: the British Empire, the Irish church acting as a ‘Second Empire’, and within a third empire, the ‘Woman's Empire’. Key aspects in examining the flow or transference of education by these Sisters in a colonial setting, lie in their own histories, their spiritual focus, the schools they established for their students, and the curriculum they adopted in the social and geographic environments in which they found themselves.     

论罗马法中的人格剥夺

刑罚制度是人类文明的一种,作为对犯罪这种反社会行为的“否定之否定”,刑罚制度中无疑会具有更多的强制性因素;一旦这些强制性因素被滥用,刑罚就具有滑向野蛮的巨大危险.而刑罚最野蛮的表现,莫过于否定“人之为人”的资格,在法律上将人由主体降格为客体.这种“人格剥夺刑”在人类历史之处曾经普遍存在.回顾罗马法中的人格剥夺制度,为系统研究“人格剥夺刑”的发展、演变及消亡可奠定必备的基础.     

建筑形象与权威表现——中世纪教堂与皇宫视角下的社会性建筑

凡在本质上抽象的东西,只有具体表现出来,才能够遗留下来.建筑与权威就是在这里被串联起来.风格上的统一性和庄重性,效用上的公众性和权威性,这是一个社会性建筑最重要的两点.建筑本身所具有的社会性与文化的同构对应性使得它成为阐述时代总体特征的最有力的实证.用最具表现力的社会性建筑固化权威展示统治理念在政治社会学上是具有重要意义的,哥特式建筑取代罗马式建筑不是偶然,是教会意识形态在建筑风格上作出的选择.     

Mineralogical and microstructural characteristics of historic Roman cement renders from Budapest,Hungary

Roman cements, one of the most extensively produced types of hydraulic binders of the second half of the 19th century, played an important role in the architecture of many European countries. This paper deals with the chemical-mineralogical and microstructural characterisation of historic Roman cement renders from Budapest, Hungary. Different microscopic techniques were used on polished thin sections and fracture surfaces in order to understand the method of producing these renders and the effect of urban pollution on them. The renders exhibited characteristics typical to a Roman cement mortar, such as high binder to aggregate ratios (b/a), mostly fine-grained aggregates and high capillary porosity, but without the shrinkage cracks that are also normally present. This research suggests that coarse residual cement grains may have acted in a manner similar to aggregates by absorbing stress and thereby reducing the formation of shrinkage cracks. Based on the mineral characteristics of residual cement grains, the samples could be divided into two groups, which correspond to either a higher or lower temperature of calcination of the original source material of the cement. Chemical characteristics of the binders suggest the presence of intermixed CaCO₃ originating from the carbonation of hydration products and partly from residual calcium carbonate of the raw material. Despite dense and often impermeable coats applied in later renovations and exposure to a polluted urban environment, which resulted in formation of gypsum on the surface of the renders, the samples show good to excellent state of preservation after more than a century. The strong “house of cards”-like arrangement of the complex C-(A)-S-H-type phases is responsible for both the high capillary porosity and the good resistance of Roman cement renders to atmospheric pollution and potentially damaging salts such as Na- and K-chlorides which are found near the base of the building due to sidewalk de-icing. These results help to better understand the behaviour of historic Roman cement renders, which in turn assists in making good decisions in choosing a repair material to future restorations of 19th century façades built with this material.     

Historical construction and Australian Catholic education: accounting for school funding policy from the cultural politics of Australian education

This paper seeks to explain why the policy history of school funding in regard to Australian Catholic Education looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The questions addressed are, first, why has the funding of Catholic schools in Australia become an occluded historical site since the 1970s, despite the controversy in which popular accounts of the funding of Australian schools is mired, and when its prevalence so completely dominated the discourses of Australian education in the prior century? Second, has funding policy discourse been defined and contained and what basis is there for contesting such discourse in light of events since that period of time? Third, which or whose policy version triumphs and becomes the accepted policy process and which other policy approaches are obliterated in this process? The theoretical perspective adopted in this paper draws from both postmodern critiques and cultural theories of historical construction, as framed within Foucauldian Studies.