Scholarly Controversy Research Articles

A Public Forum: “Scholarly Controversy: Whiteness and the Historians' Imagination”

Since the publication of David Roediger's The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (New York, 1991), the study of “whiteness” has become a dominant organizing principle in US labor history as well as other fields. In the last eleven years, historians have churned out an innumerable number of articles and books using the concept of whiteness to reshape the way the field. On November 30, 2001, a couple hundred graduate students, academics, and activists packed a New York University hall to hear seven prominent scholars, who have written on both labor and race, debate the impact of whiteness studies on US labor history. The evening began with Eric Arnesen (University of Illinois at Chicago) offering his assessment. Arnesen was followed by the six other scholars who responded to him and offered their own views on whiteness studies. The editors of International Labor and Working-Class History (ILWCH) organized this public forum because of the interest generated by the symposium on the same issue that appeared in the fall 2001 issue of their journal. Along with ILWCH, the event was sponsored by the New York University History Department and the Committee on Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research. The forum was quite a success as the panelists and the audience engaged in lively and occasionally heated discussion on the relative strengths and political ramifications of whiteness studies.

Richard Hooker's Reputation

Richard Hooker emerged from the Reformed Protestant milieu of Elizabethan Oxford to establish his own idiosyncratic theological ground in a comparatively brief career, principally through his monumental Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Before his death in 1600, debate over his purposes and theological stance was sparked by the controversial tract A Christian Letter; very quickly his memory was claimed by rival parties in the English Church and he gained an authoritative status, partly (paradoxically) because of early polemical use of his work by English Roman Catholics. This article studies the remarkably varied attempts to capture him over the next three centuries: by Laudian Anglicans, their evangelical opponents in the Church, Tories, Whigs, even dissenters and deists. It shows how Tories stressed his ecclesiology and were embarrassed by his statements on political consent and contract, and Whigs claimed him as a spiritual ancestor, although in the eighteenth century Bishop William Warburton came to see him as an opponent of significance. Only with the Oxford Movement's determined annexation of his memory in the wake of the 1836 edition of his works by John Keble did his memory become comparatively uncontested, at least until the development of modern scholarly controversy.

Assessing Whiteness Scholarship: A Response to James Barrett, David Brody, Barbara Fields, Eric Foner, Victoria Hattam, and Adolph Reed

The valuable and thoughtful responses to my essay, “Whiteness and the Historians' Imagination,” illustrate the existence of a wide range of opinions on the emergence, claims, and methodologies of the whiteness genre in US and US labor history. Like Eric Foner, it is my hope that this scholarly controversy will mark the beginning of a much longer discussion that will draw in many more participants from history, American Studies, political science, and other disciplines. This is a debate that I believe is long overdue. While David Brody is certainly correct to note that readers have not been so “dazzled” that they could not be critical of whiteness scholarship, serious historiographical assessments of the genre's strengths and weaknesses have been scarce. This scholarly controversy, which aims at providing such an assessment, will not and should not be the final word on the subject. In this response, I welcome the opportunity to address a fraction of the many important issues raised by James Barrett, David Brody, Barbara Fields, Eric Foner, Victoria Hattam, and Adolph Reed.

Pindar's Sympotic "Epinicia"

There has been a great deal of scholarly controversy lately as to whether Pindar's epinicia were performed by a chorus or a solo voice i. My interest here, however, is not so much in the mode of per formance as its locus and context, but these may ultimately have some bearing on the current debate. The association of epinician poetry with the komos, whether it actually performed the victory ode or merely accompanied the solo singer on arrival at the site of the victory celebration, has been amply documented by Malcolm Heath 2. The reception of the komos at its destination often signals the beginning of the epinician performance. The victory celebration might occur at a sanctuary at the site of the victory or in the victor's home town; it might also take place at the home of the victor or that of his patron 3. But whatever the venue, the immediate context for epinician perfor

A Date with Adonis

During the classical period Athenian women gathered once a year to celebrate the Adonia. With ritualised lament they shared Aphrodite's grief over the death of Adonis, her youthful lover. This was not an official festival of the state or any of its political subdivisions; it was not publicly financed or regulated. It was celebrated informally by small, ad hoc groups of women (citizens and non-citizens, friends, relatives, neighbours) on the roofs of their houses. This unusual festival has long intrigued modern commentators, who have suggested a wide variety of interpretations regarding its nature and meaning—including one recently offered by this author. My purpose in this short article is to focus on one particular aspect of the Adonia—its date. Like almost everything else about this festival, its celebration-date has been the subject of scholarly controversy. Three seasons of the year have found advocates, winter being the lone discard.

Koriwns Biographie des Mesrop Maštoc': Übersetzung und Kommentar by Gabriele Winkler

BOOK REVIEWS 501 not succeed. This failure, they argue, opened the way for ambitious chieftains like Alaric to exploit the ensuing rivalries between Eastern and Western courts. Whatever one thinks of these conclusions, they are nonetheless based on current scholarship and reasonably argued. The same cannot be said about the authors' treatment of the equally significant religious developments of this reign, which saw a quantum leap in the level of coercion against non-Catholic Christians and pagans. Here the authors are content to paste together a collage of views, taken uncritically from such disparate sources as Edward Gibbon and Ambrose of Milan. If by so doing they aimed at impartiality, what they hit was cartoon, with the sober Theodosius of other chapters now a "persecuting fanatic , priest-ridden to the point of puppetry" (p. 70). Not coincidentally, at this point the authors' rhetoric goes over the top as well, including a summation of Theodosius' religious policy as "the Christianity of the monks and the mobs, expressed in the language of imperial law; inspired not by a sober policy of desirable religious aims, but the ruler's dread of damnation and need for magical prescriptions to counteract the juju"(pp. 120-121). While not, therefore, a comprehensive reassessment of the career ofTheodosius , this is nevertheless a book with many useful things to say about a pivotal period in Roman relations with Germanic peoples. There are some proofreading errors that should be corrected in any subsequent edition: Theta for Phi in the Greek spelling of Theodosius (p.24); four years, not six, for the time between Adrianople and 382 (p. 334); 306 instead of 307 as the date of Constantine's rule (p.37); eighteen months instead of three years forJulian's rule (p.51); 395, not 394, for the death ofTheodosius (p. 138); 251, not 231,forGallienus (p.190). A marginal comment: I have rarely seen a book with so many useless, unnecessary and occasionally misdirected notes. Is quantity of notes the new criterion for publishing generalist works with university presses? H. A. Drake University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara Koriwns Biographie des Mesrop Mastoc': Übersetzung und Kommentar. By Gabriele Winkler. [Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 245.] (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. 1994. Pp. 452.) The conversion of Armenia to Christianity was a long process. Of the first stage—the infiltration of Christians from Asia Minor to the west and from Syria to the south—little is known. The emergence of the Church as a factor in Armenian politics was marked by the consecration of St. Gregory (the Illuminator ) at Caesarea in 314 as the country's first bishop. But the full impact of Christianity as the dominant cultural force came only a century later with the invention of a national script. The person responsible for this dramatic devel- 502 BOOK REVIEWS opment was Mastoc', also known in later texts as Mesrop. He was born between 361 and 364 and received a good Greek education. After a successful early career in the royal chancellery he abandoned the secular world for the ascetic life, and with his disciples engaged in numerous missionary travels in remoter parts of Armenia. His biography was written by Koriwn, one of his disciples, not long after the master's death in 439 or 440. This short work thus has a double significance. It is the earliest evidence for the creation of the native script, which was immediately followed by the rapid translation of necessary ecclesiastical texts into Armenian. And being probably the first original work written in that language, it is important as an influential document in the development ofArmenian literature. Such an important text has not passed unnoticed in previous scholarship. This new translation with commentary is particularly valuable in that it provides a comprehensive review and critical assessment of earlier studies. There has been much scope for scholarly controversy; for although the Armenian text is only forty pages long, its episodic character and lack of clear dating have led to numerous problems, including the actual order of the narrative. Furthermore , a second recension was composed at a later date under the influence of the History by Movsës Xorenac'i (of disputed date, probably early eighth century ). Professor Winkler here...

Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies -- Documents -- Score

Mozart's unfinished Requiem has long been shrouded in mystery. Mozart undertook the commission for an Austrian nobleman, little knowing that he was to write a requiem for himself. Inevitably, the secrecy surrounding the anonymous commission, the circumstances of Mozart's death, the unfinished state of the work, and its completion under the direction of Mozart's widow, Constanze, have precipitated two centuries of romantic speculation and scholarly controversy. Christoph Wolff provides a critical introduction to the Requiem in its many facets. Part I of his study focuses on the tangled genesis and completion of the work and its fascinating early reception history until Constanze's death. Wolff summarizes the current state of research on the subject, provides new perspectives on Mozart's conception of the whole work, and surveys his contributions to the movements composed posthumously by his assistant, Sussmayr. Part II provides a musical analysis of Mozart's composition, including contextual, structural, and interpretive aspects. Part III consists of an annotated collection of the principal literary documents (1791-1839) that illuminate the fascinating early history of the Requiem. The book concludes with a complete edition of the work that is at the center of Wolff's study, the authentic score of the Requiem--Mozart's fragment--supplemented by crucial excerpts from Sussmayr's 1792 Requiem completion.

Don't take it literally: Themistocles and the case of the inedible victuals

There is a standard tradition in the ancient sources, which makes its first appearance at Thucydides 1.138.5, that, when Themistocles had fled into exile and been given the equivalent of political asylum by the Persian King Artaxerxes, he was ‘given’ the three Asiatic Greek cities of Magnesia, Myus and Lampsacus. There has been a fair amount of scholarly controversy over how the King could ‘give’ Themistocles Lampsacus, a city of great strategic importance on the Hellespont, which, by the mid-460s, was almost certainly within the ambit of the Delian League, i.e. no longer his to give. My concern in this paper is not with that political problem, but rather with a different, though related, issue – whether valid conclusions can be drawn from the Thucydides passage and the subsequent tradition for the social and economic history of these three cities in the classical period. I suggest that they cannot.

The Historical Implications of Middle Kingdom Scarabs Found in Palestine Bearing Private Names and Titles of Officials

The presence of Middle Kingdom Egyptian scarabs bearing private names and titles of officials in Middle Bronze Age Canaan generated a scholarly controversy regarding the relations between Egypt and Palestine during that period. Analysis of distinctive characteristics of the scarabs, and of the contexts (whenever available) in which they were found in Egypt, indicates that their original function was primarily as funerary amulets. Examination of the inscriptions and the archaeological contexts of officials' scarabs found in Palestine demonstrates that the scarabs reached Canaan, after having been plundered from tombs in Egypt, no earlier than the time of the 13th Dynasty, and that their main use in Canaan was, similar to Egypt, as funerary amulets. It is suggested that scarabs, including those bearing private names and titles of officials, initially arrived in Palestine through the Asiatics who settled in the eastern Delta during the late Middle Kingdom.

Geoffrey Chaucer: Building the Fragments of the Canterbury Tales by Jerome Mandel

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER ciaos it in part addresses; to the medievalists reading this review, I highly recommend the volume as both stimulating and accessible. KATHLEEN AsHLEY University of Southern Maine JEROME MANDEL. Geoffrey Chaucer: Building the Fragments ofthe Canter­ bury Tales. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1992. Pp. 257. $39.50. Ever since Chaucer died and left behind him not The Canterbury Tales but "a mass of papers in which the tales he had written formed a series of fragments," as Derek Pearsall puts it in his recent biography (The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992}, p. 233), scholars and critics have tried to discover the poet's intentions about the eventual plan of the collection. Most of these claims are either uncontroversially general or implausibly specific; the currently prevailing approach seems to be rather more commonsensical and pragmatic than speculative, as exem­ plified by Derek Pearsall's eminently helpful account in his The Canterbury Tales (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985). He comes down very firmly on the side of those who find in the individual tales the real achievement of the collection and who refuse to join in the "game offree association," which he dismisses as "the activity not ofthe critically alert mind striving to partici­ pate with Chaucer in his imaginative engagement with his matter, but of the mind idling among its reminiscences ofthe Tales" (p. 50). This may be a somewhat extreme position, and it will certainly not stop readers from discovering for themselves all kinds of links and parallels between various Tales, but it is more trustworthy than more or less inspired guesses about Chaucer's hidden intentions. Jerome Mandel's book must be read in this context, but it is different from most previous hypothetical structures because he makes the much more modest and plausible claim that it is the fragments, not the Tales as a whole, that are unified, i.e., made "coherent in terms of structure, theme, and characters" by Chaucer (p. 17). This is argued with a wealth of detail, persuasive eloquence, and infectious enthusiasm. One virtue of Mandel's book seems to me that one need not necessarily be convinced by evety single observation or perhaps even by his general thesis to find his argu224 REVIEWS ment stimulating and useful. For one thing, it is very reader-friendly: there is ample and fair documentation, dissenting critics are treated without any righteous superiority, and objections are openmindedly admitted. In this spirit scholarly controversy genuinely enriches our understanding of the text, independent of our consent. Each chapter ofMandel's book is devoted to one fragment, and each tries to show that the stories Chaucer chose to link have more in common with each other than they have with any other part of The Canterbury Tales. Starting with minor and sometimes marginal but often striking details, Mandel proceeds to discuss the areas in which he finds the most demon­ strable links: structure, theme, and character. Thus The Clerk's Tale and The Merchant's Tale are linked by their common structure (council, marriage agreement, test, restoration) in a number of surprisingly similar details. More doubtful is perhaps the claim that the themes treated in both tales are significantly related to each other to the exclusion ofothers, and it takes some goodwill in the reader to agree with Mandel that January and Walter "are more like each other than they are like any other characters in the Canterbury Tales" (p. 41). Still, he has a way of holding our attention until we see at least the reasonableness of his point, especially since he is careful to dissociate himselffrom more extreme claims. There are many debatable observations, such as the belief that "Chaucer deliberately set Griselda and May into the same fragment to unify it because they complement each other" (p. 45); it is surprising how many correspondences, parallels and contrasts you can find if you look long and hard enough at Chaucer's words. This may also be the impression ofreaders when they come to chapter 2, where the performances of the Pardoner and the Physician, including the performers themselves, are presented as "unlike the sequence of events in any...

Liberal Republicans or Republican Liberals? The Political Thought of the Founders Reconsidered

Discussions of the political thought of the Founders once concentrated exclusively on the Federalists. The Antifederalist opponents of the Constitution were generally dismissed as men of little faith, consigned to the margins of the American political tradition. One of the distinguishing features of recent scholarship is its willingness to acknowledge that our constitutional tradition was shaped by the lively debate between Federalists and Antifederalists. Supporters of the Constitution refined and elaborated their understanding of the document in response to Antifederalist complaints. Most scholars would now grant that recovering the original understanding of the Constitution requires exploring the points of view of both sides of the ratification controversy. Richard Sinopoli's thoughtful study of the role of citizenship in the political thought of the Federalists and Antifederalists makes a number of important contributions to our understanding of the Founding period. 1 The Foundations of American Citizenship is framed in terms of the current scholarly controversy over the relative influence of republican and liberal ideas on the political thought of the Founders. Proponents of the republican synthesis argue that virtue was a crucial concept in American political discourse during the Founding period. Virtue required individuals to take an active part in government and further required individuals to act in the public interest. Against this view, proponents of the neoliberal interpretation argue that American political discourse was evolving toward a liberal political philosophy that stressed the primacy of individual rights and accepted the reality of interest-oriented political behavior. More than one commentator on this historiographic controversy has suggested that the existing labels now employed by historians fail to capture the complexity of eighteenth-century po-

Sur deux discours-programmes : à propos d'A.K. 3,10,3-11,11

The debate opposing Mettius Fufetius and Tullus Hostilius is anything but a mere scholarly controversy. On the contrary, it places itself under the sign of the αρχαία και φιλόσοφος ρητορική so dear to the heart of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. His manner is both that of the political thinker wishing to explain the everlastingness of an empire considered as having no end and that of the historian for whom Rome was a Greek city, and even the most Greek of Greek cities.

Money, Despotism, and Public Opinion in Early Eighteenth-Century France: John Law and the Debate on Royal Credit

Previous articleNext article No AccessMoney, Despotism, and Public Opinion in Early Eighteenth-Century France: John Law and the Debate on Royal CreditThomas E. KaiserThomas E. Kaiser Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 63, Number 1Mar., 1991 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/244256 Views: 27Total views on this site Citations: 31Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1991 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Christopher Pihl Mastering the narrative and the dirty tricks of trade: The re-establishment of a Swedish bank in 1668, Business History 6 (Jan 2022): 1–23.https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2025221Edward Jones Corredera The assembly of public trust: republicanism and the birth of political economy in eighteenth-century Spain, History of European Ideas (Apr 2021): 1–19.https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2021.1913026Robert F. Bruner, Scott C. Miller The First Modern Financial Crises: The South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles in Historical Perspective, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 32, no.44 (Dec 2020): 17–33.https://doi.org/10.1111/jacf.12429Charly Coleman The Spirit of Speculation, French Historical Studies 42, no.22 (Apr 2019): 203–237.https://doi.org/10.1215/00161071-7300041TYSON LEUCHTER THE ILLIMITABLE RIGHT: DEBATING THE MEANING OF PROPERTY AND THE MARCHÉ À TERME IN NAPOLEONIC FRANCE, Modern Intellectual History 15, no.11 (Mar 2016): 3–32.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244316000081Catherine Larrère Montesquieu, critique de Law. Qui est l’ennemi du libéralisme ?, Cahiers d'économie Politique n° 73, no.22 (Dec 2017): 13–30.https://doi.org/10.3917/cep.073.0013Andrew Scott Bibby The Maligned Merchant and the New History of Commerce, (Jan 2016): 73–87.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137477224_5 Bibliographie, (Sep 2014): 203–215.https://doi.org/10.3917/arco.legay.2014.01.0203Antonio Calvo Maturana “Is it useful to deceive the people?” The Debate on Public Information in Spain at the End of the Ancien Régime (1780–1808), The Journal of Modern History 86, no.11 (Jul 2015): 1–46.https://doi.org/10.1086/674342Brian P. Simpson John Law’s Financial Scam and the South Sea Bubble, (Jan 2014): 171–185.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137331496_8 Credit and Old Regime Economies of Regard, (Jan 2013): 21–55.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-002 Critiques and Crises of the Credit System, (Jan 2013): 56–95.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-003 Incredible Style, (Jan 2013): 96–138.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-004 Credit in the Female Fashion Trades of Eighteenth-Century Paris, (Jan 2013): 139–194.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-005 Fashion Merchants, (Jan 2013): 195–245.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-006 Madame Déficit and Her Minister of Fashion, (Jan 2013): 246–282.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-007 Family Affairs, (Jan 2013): 283–315.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-008 Conclusion, (Jan 2013): 316–328.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-009 Notes, (Jan 2013): 329–382.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-010 Bibliography, (Jan 2013): 383–406.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377443-011Gail Bossenga Origins of the French Revolution, History Compass 5, no.44 (Jun 2007): 1294–1337.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00448.xNoel D. Johnson Banking on the King: The Evolution of the Royal Revenue Farms in Old Regime France, The Journal of Economic History 66, no.44 (Nov 2006): 963–991.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050706000398Mark Goldie, Robert Wokler The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, 22 (Mar 2008).https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521374224 Henry Clark Grain Trade Information: Economic Conflict and Political Culture under Terray, 1770–1774 Clark, The Journal of Modern History 76, no.44 (Jul 2015): 793–834.https://doi.org/10.1086/427569Leandro Prados de la Escosura Exceptionalism and Industrialisation, 12 (Dec 2009).https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511523830David Stasavage Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State, 24 (Nov 2009).https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511510557 David Kammerling Smith Structuring Politics in Early Eighteenth‐Century France: The Political Innovations of the French Council of Commerce Smith, The Journal of Modern History 74, no.33 (Jul 2015): 490–537.https://doi.org/10.1086/345110 Richard Bonney What's New about the New French Fiscal History? Bonney, The Journal of Modern History 70, no.33 (Jul 2015): 639–667.https://doi.org/10.1086/235120 Michael Kwass A Kingdom of Taxpayers: State Formation, Privilege, and Political Culture in Eighteenth‐Century France Kwass, The Journal of Modern History 70, no.22 (Jul 2015): 295–339.https://doi.org/10.1086/235070Philip T. Hoffman, Gilles Postel-Vinay, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal Redistribution and Long-Term Private Debt in Paris, 1660–1726, The Journal of Economic History 55, no.22 (Mar 2009): 256–284.https://doi.org/10.1017/S002205070004105XSerge Noiret Publications on financial history 1990–1992, Financial History Review 1, no.22 (Sep 2008): 157–199.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565000001104

Appraising American Cold War Policy by its Means of Implementation

The cold war has been discussed in a literature so massive, much of it so excellent, that it takes what may be a foolish intrepidity for a nonspecialist to venture into the scholarly controversy over the great conflict. ' And yet, convinced from my earlier reading of the hundreds of foreign travelers who visited the United States in the nineteenth century that some newcomers to a place can offer interesting insights that had not occurred to longtime residents,2 I trust that a relative newcomer in this instance to a historical theme may also be capable of offering an approach to it that is not hackneyed. My recent attempts to absorb the cold war literature suggest that one way of appraising the foreign policy of the United States since the end of World War II is to address a question that has not often been asked: what light is thrown on that policy when we focus on the means American leaders have relied on to implement it?3 What a nation's leaders call its policy is after all only its stated policy. More revealing of what a government is up to than its professed purposes are the things it actually does ostensibly to realize these purposes. That statesmen may be completely sincere in affirming the lofty goals of the policies they pursue provides no assurance that these policies are in fact congruent with their professed objectives. Policymakers are not immune to self-delusion. The biblical adage that by their deeds shall we know them, does not brush off human motives as insignificant. Its wisdom lies in its recognition that, since people are inclined to put their own actions, no matter how sordid, in the best possible light, these actions are better understood by their actual consequences, when these consequences could have been foreseen, than by the hopes, conscious or subconscious, of those performing the actions. (Unanticipated consequences are not helpful in this context.) Let me proceed then to an examination of some of the important means by which the United States has waged cold war and the implications of its reliance on these means. Exigencies of space dictate that the discussion that follows be both selective and concise. I shall appraise the justifications offered

Seeing through metaphor: Teaching figurative literacy

Bruce Fraser's metaphor for metaphor was nicely illustrated by its contexta multi-disciplinary discussion in which linguists, philosophers, psychologists, scientists, educators, and other academics trained their talents on that powerful but elusive trope. Though full of promising approaches, the symposium did not reach consensus on any of the major questions about metaphor: what it is, how it works, whether it is essential or inessential to communication--or, indeed, whether it is to be encouraged, discouraged, or simply tolerated. As symposia like Metaphor and Thought and On Metaphor show, scholars continue to differ strongly and vociferously about the nature, implications, and value of metaphor. But the complexity of metaphor--and the scholarly controversy it generates--should not discourage attempts to grapple with it in the college classroom, even-or especially-at the introductory level. On the contrary, metaphor is so essential to language and thought, so inescapable in everyday life, that it should be a prominent topic in any liberal arts curriculum--especially in those courses that purport to analyze human communication. trouble is not that metaphor is ignored in the current liberal arts curriculum--though it seems to receive little attention outside the study of languages and literature--but rather that it tends to be taught inconsistently or even misleadingly. Indeed, in a recent essay, J. Hillis Miller pointed out that many popular rhetorics reiterate well-exploded assumptions about metaphor: e. g., that it is supplemental or inessential to argument (primarily illustrative) and that it is clearly distinguishable from literal language (50-54). If composition teachers are likely to teach metaphor as an optional persuasive device, literature teachers are likely to present it primarily, if not exclusively, as a poetic device. For various reasons and in various ways, teachers and textbooks too often perpetuate inappropriate and outdated ideas about metaphor, it is as though, for the sake of simplicity, introductory physics confined itself to presenting a Newtonian view of the universe. Like many contemporary critics, Miller adopts a Nietzschean position, that metaphor is inescapable because language is fundamentally figurative: The pervasively figurative nature of language is the destructive element' in which, to borrow Stein's advice in Lord Jim, writers must immerse' themselves in order to swim at all (54). And he rejects the argument that it is impossible or impractical to teach this to beginning college students (55). What follows is an attempt to suggest how this might be done--to outline what an introductory college curriculum in metaphoric literacy ought to cover, and why, and how such a curriculum might be

The “Rank and File” and the Social History of the Working Class

Labor history continues to progress. It continues, too, to transform itself from a field staffed by enthusiasts and partisans into a discipline peopled with scholars sympathetic to their subject but also highly conscious of the methods, theories and interpretive frameworks within which they work. The last few years in particular have witnessed a considerable intensification of scholarly controversy within labor history and a growing sophistication of debate. To some extent the discussion parallels the ongoing conversation among social historians about the boundaries of social history, the power of primarily social explanation and the role of language, culture and politics in social history. Unfortunately, however, the stepping up of debate in labor history coincides with a dip – temporary, one hopes, but perhaps more long-term – in the fortunes of labor movements themselves. This conjuncture seems to have produced a sense of pessimism and malaise as the sentimental accompaniment to many of the debates within labor history.

The assessment, treatment and community outcome of insanity acquittees: Forensic history and response to treatment

The rather startling similarities in the controversies surrounding the insanity defense over several centuries (Golding & Roesch, 1987; Hans, 1986; Hermann, 1983a; Shah, 1986) underscore the transhistorical and deeply rooted problems involved in the development of a rational and coherent policy for adjudicating criminal non-responsibility on grounds of mental disorder. The importance of developing a clear and coherent set of social, legislative and clinical policies with respect to insanity acquittees, regardless of the statistical infrequency of the insanity verdict (Pasewark & McGinley, 1985), is made patently clear by the continuing legal, public, and scholarly controversy which surrounds the defense. Modern sentiments following John Hinckley’s acquittal by reason of insanity differ little from those of Queen Victoria, “We have seen the trials of Oxford and MacNaughten conducted by the ablest lawyers of the dayand they allow and advise the Jury to pronounce the verdict of not guilty on account of insanity, whilst everybody is morally convinced that both malefactors were perfectly conscious and aware of what they did” (cited in Walker, 1968, p. 168). It is quite clear that the bundle of problems surrounding the insanity defense and the disposition of insanity acquittees will remain a focal problem, whether or not one abolishes or modifies the plea.’ Until both social science researchers and political decision-makers, as well as the lay public, have available a longitu-

An Explication of the de Hebdomadibus of Boethius in the Light of St. Thomas’s Commentary

AN EXPLICATION OF THE DE HEBDOMADIBUS OF BOETHIUS IN THE LlGHT OF ST. THOMAS'S COMMENTARY HE WRITINGS o:f Ancius Manlius Severinus Boehius exercised a powerful influence on the nature and evelopment o:f mediaeval philosophy. The extent of his influence was such that I think it fair to say that anyone seeking more than a superficial grasp of mediaeval philosophy must acquire some first-hand knowledge of his work. The trouble is, however, that while The Corwlsation of Philosophy is well-known and much commented upon, Boethius's other works are relatively neglected.1 Included in this latter group are the five theological tractates, one of which has this imposing title: Quomodo Substantiae In Eo Quad Sint Bonae Sint Cum Non Sint Substantialia Bona. This tractate also has the more managable title De Hebdomadibus and it is as such that I shall refer to it throughout this article.2 I have chosen to give an explication of the De Hebdomadibus for three reasons. First the problem with which it deals (the nature of the relation between goodness and substance) is intrinsically interesting and Boethius's solution to the problem is a model of philosophical analysis. Second, in addition to the fact that the philosophical status of the nine axioms listed in the tractate is a matter of some scholarly controversy, the answer to the obvious question of how these axioms function in the tractate as a whole is not at all clear. And third, this tractate is philosophically significant to those philosophers who take St. 1 I am obliged to Professor Ralph Mcinerny for awakening my interest in Boethius and for his suggestion that the De Hebdomadibus would repay careful study. 2 All references are to the H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand edition of The Theological Traotates and The Consolation of Philosophy, in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973). 419 420 GERARD CASEY Thomas as their inspiration since it appears that St. Thomas's existence/essence distinction is adumbrated here. I shall begin my explication by giving a brief overview of the main lines of the tractate. Then I shall lay out the arguments contained in the statement and resolution of the dilemma which Boethius constructs, indicating (by means of Roman numerals in parentheses ) where I think particular axioms are meant to apply. Finally, I shall display the axioms as perspicuously as possible and comment on them. Overview The groundplan of the De Hebdomadibus is as follows. It begins with a brief introduction which contains the nine axioms. Then the problem to be considered is outlined in the form of the following dilemma. Things which are are good. This is the basic assumption which will generate the dilemma. Things which are good are so either by virtue of their substance or by participation. If they are good by virtue of their substance then, since God is the only substantial good, we arrive at an impious conclusion: we identify creatures with their Creator. lf they are good by participation then we generate a contradiction : things do and do not tend toward the good. Therefore , the conclusion must be that things which are are not good, which manifestly contradicts the basic assumption. Boethius's solution to the dilemma makes use of a thought-experiment. Abstracting from the first good he distinguishes locutions such as ' to be ' from locutions such as ' to be good.' On the basis of this distinction he is led to conclude that goodness is either a property of things or a principle of things. Re-introducing the notion of the first good, he notes that it is good by virtue of its very being. Secondary goods are also good by virtue of their being but only because that being derives from the will of the first good. Boethius cautions us against likening the being of particular things to the being of the first good and concludes the tractate by considering and refuting two objections to his solution. THE DE HEBDOMADIBUS IN THE LIGHT OF ST. THOMAS 421 The theme of the tractate is the problem of how substances can be good in virtue of their being without, at the same time...

The Worker-Owned Firm: The Idea and Its Conceptual Limits

Recent events in law and public policy, in scholarly development and research controversy, and in practical innovations call for a clarification and specification of what is meant by the term the worker-ownedfirm. What seems an uncomplicated idea turns out to embody conceptual problems. We propose a careful definition that includes three broad forms of worker-owned ventures but excludes other organizational forms that may be confused with them. The promptings and considerations for the elements of the definition are presented. These include specification of goals and goal hierarchies, legal formalities, passive and active ownership rights, and the integration of all these in various organizational forms.

Riel and the Rebellion of 1885 Reconsidered

When, in 1983, the first edition of Riel and the Rebellion was published, the scholarly controversy concerning Thomas Flanagan's interpretation of the Rebellion of 1885 escalated to one of national significance. One of the few books that presents a countervailing view to the traditional interpretation of the events of 1885, Riel and the Rebellion contends that the Metis were, to some extent, responsible for the alienation of their lands, and that Riel himself was a more destructive than constructive force in the history of western Canada. After over fifteen years, issues such as land claims and native rights have in fact moved beyond the level of academic debate; Flanagan's work remains timely and the additions to the book in this new edition reflect the continued currency of its content. In the second edition, the author addresses a number of issues, including the cultural mythology surrounding Riel, the recent campaign to pardon Riel (with some discussion of a theory that contends that Riel's trial was unfair), the Manitoba lands question, and new primary research conducted by Flanagan concerning Metis land claims at Laurent. Undoubtedly, this unique work will continue to spark controversy and garner attention because of its relevance to many larger contemporary political debates concerning native rights and land claims.