Teleological Narrative Research Articles

The future of the nation foretold in its museums

With the opening of several new musées de la société in France we gain an exceptionally rich and revelatory way of understanding the society-wide debates about what France is and what it should be in the new millennium. Each of the museums discussed offers pieces of the contested stories of a new France in a new age. Taken together, they ask whether it is possible, or even desirable, today to tell a single and teleological national narrative, the roman national of the patriot-historians of the Third Republic. What did immigrants contribute to the making of today’s nation? What is the relationship of postcolonial France to its one-time colonial empire? How did biological and cultural evolution combine to make human societies? And now, with the opening of the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, how did, and how do, French vernacular cultures relate to those of Europe and the Mediterranean world? The article argues that a way of understanding this complex of questions is to follow the stories that the new museums tell – or the disagreements about what stories they ought to tell. For these questions go to matters of high state policy, international economic interests, cultural outreach, the relations of regions to capitals, tourism, and indeed claims about what it means to be French today.

Socialist Worlds of Dissent and Discontent after Stalinism

Socialist Worlds of Dissent and Discontent after Stalinism Polly Jones (bio) Jonathan Bolton , Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism. 360 pp. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press , 2012 . ISBN-13 978-0674064386 . $49.95 . Sheila Fitzpatrick , Vladimir A. Kozlov , and Sergei V. Mironenko , eds., Sedition: Everyday Resistance in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. 414 pp. New Haven : Yale University Press , 2011 . ISBN-13 978-0300111699 . $70.00 . Friederike Kind-Kovacs and Jessie Labov , Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media during and after Socialism. 378 pp. New York : Berghahn Books , 2012 . ISBN-13 978-0857455857 . $95.00 . Denis Kozlov , The Readers of “Novyi mir”: Coming to Terms with the Stalinist Past. 442 pp. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press , 2013 . ISBN-13 978-0674072879 . $55.00 . A leaflet criticizing Nikita Khrushchev, reproduced in four copies. A charter-petition calling for change in Czechoslovakia, signed by several thousand citizens. A 40-page autobiographical letter, sent to a Soviet literary journal with no hope of publication. An obscene curse, shouted at a Stalin statue in Tallinn. These are just some of the critical statements made by Eastern bloc citizens over the three decades after Stalin’s death featured in these four studies. Not all of these were expressions of protest or even complaint, and many [End Page 637] were more private than public, but they all assumed the right to comment on socialist life, and sometimes on the political system as a whole. Some statements, such as the publications of the bloc’s varied dissident movements, were known internationally at the time they were made, but many more have only been discovered in archives since 1989–91. The collapse of state socialism has not only fueled research into such unofficial—if not necessarily dissident—discourse within post-Stalinist cultures but has also significantly shaped its modes of inquiry: such commentaries and complaints about life under socialism are often analyzed primarily in terms of their role in undermining, eroding, or destroying the system and its ideology. These four studies of post-Stalinist culture and politics all offer plentiful new evidence of the diversity and vitality of such unofficial discourse but at times channel it into teleological narratives of regime collapse, measurements of social and political significance, and binary notions of state and society. By placing these studies in the context of other recent scholarship on post-Stalinism, late socialism, and dissent, this essay proposes some alternative perspectives on their rich and thought-provoking findings. The four texts under review sketch a rough spectrum from responses to Soviet publications through relatively apolitical but controversial complaint to more theorized and institutionalized dissident activity across the Eastern bloc. At the least dissident end of this spectrum, Denis Kozlov’s impressively exhaustive survey of the huge archive of readers’ letters at the most liberal Soviet thick journal Novyi mir extends older studies of the journal’s “permitted dissent”—its decade and a half of publishing works at the outer limit of regime tolerance—into an examination of how its readership reacted to such publications.1 His intellectual history of the 1950s and 1960s presents this period as a key juncture in the journal’s history but also in the evolution of Soviet culture as a whole, a time when Stalinist dogmas were attacked in print and consequently dissolved in the minds of the Soviet people. Novyi mir, more than any other media outlet and certainly more than “de-Stalinizing” party leaders according to Kozlov, produced a genuine thaw in popular attitudes to the Soviet past and to the Soviet “media language,” which proved impervious to the Soviet authorities’ freeze on the journal and broader cultural politics in the late 1960s. From Stalin’s death up until this crackdown, the Soviet authorities permitted publications such as Vladimir Pomerantsev’s “On Sincerity in Literature,” Ilya Ehrenburg’s (Il´ia Erenburg’s) memoirs, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and Emil Kardin’s “Legends [End Page 638] and Facts,” but then just as often turned against them, vilifying both their authors and the journal. Meticulously researched and lucidly presented by Kozlov, these cycles of permission and...

Queer time in global city Singapore: Neoliberal futures and the ‘freedom to love’

In the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore, efforts to shake off an authoritarian image and foster a creative economy have led to significant changes in sexual citizenship since the early 2000s. Most remarked upon has been the government’s new liberalized approach to public expressions of homosexuality while it simultaneously upholds legislation and policies that discriminate against gays and lesbians. Critical scholarly and activist responses to this state of affairs abound, with many pressing for the ‘freedom to love’ for sexual minorities. In this article, I extend this emergent queer critique by arguing for the need to move laterally away from a single-issue, sexual identity-based project in order to launch other lines of critique and highlight additional avenues for political struggle. I situate this ostensible contest between heterosexuality and homosexuality as just one facet of a much larger story about the ways in which heteronormativity works through teleological narratives of progress and social reproduction in Singapore. Specifically, I highlight the family’s function as a regulative governing fiction in the city-state, setting out the ways in which the ‘proper family’ has been carefully cultivated throughout Singapore’s colonial and postcolonial history to produce both a stable population of ‘quality’ citizens as well as multiple ‘queered’ others who fall outside the very particular heterosexual family norm upon which Singapore’s developmental aims have come to rest.

Canadian Performance Genealogies: A Roundtable

The following is an edited transcription of roundtable conversation held on 3 June 2013 at Canadian Association for Theatre Research conference in Victoria, BC. The original blog referenced below can be accessed at http://performancegenealogies.wordpress.com/. Heather Davis-Fisch: The idea for this panel came out of series of conversations that roundtable participants have had over last couple of years. It became clear to us that there was interest in focused conversation about how we understand and construct pasts of performances taking place in and on lands now known as Canada. There was particular interest in looking at historiographical and methodological approaches that operate in, and are appropriate to Canadian contexts. We began with idea of performance genealogies, taking as our starting point Joseph Roach's description of performance genealogies in Cities of Dead. In Roach's words, genealogies document--and suspect--the historical transmission and dissemination of cultural practices through collective representations (25). This provides one theoretical framework for putting theatrical, extra-theatrical, and non-theatrical performances in conversation with one another and for describing the disparities between history as it is discursively transmitted and memory as it is publicly enacted by bodies that bear its consequences (26). In preparing for this roundtable, one of our central concerns was problematizing idea of genealogies and examining other frameworks for interpreting and connecting performances of past. Beginning with question of what theoretical models and methods of genealogies are appropriate--or inappropriate--to Canadian contexts, each of our participants has chosen keyword to investigate, tracking out in sense, keyword's genealogy. In blog discussions preparing for our panel today, Marlis drew our attention to Jill Lane's article on merits of keywords approach in Latin American performance, making point that this approach emerges as potential solution to several problems in Canadian performance history as well. Marlis wrote: a keywords approach works against unidirectional singular narrative approach of more traditional Western scholarship and brings ambiguity, contestation, and debate to light. In this respect, I see obvious connections to Foucault's use of genealogy to move away from singular, linear teleological narratives (i.e. A begat B begat C begat D but it all started with A) (Canadian). In other words, this approach allows us to look for connections that might be obscured by national, or linear, or institutional approaches. Keywords also lead us to consider how language and vocabulary construct how we understand past, particularly when we look at how language shapes or marks discursive and critical moves. Before turning to our roundtable participants, I want to flag three meta-questions that run beneath our discussion. First, why have certain narratives of performance unfolded or prevailed in Canadian performance studies and histories and what investments--personal, institutional, regional, aesthetic or political-are preserved in these choices? Second, genealogical approach and other alternative approaches to performative past challenge binaries between theatre/performance, past/present, space/time, but attempting to disrupt these binaries often generates new binaries. One notable example of this is archive/repertoire. We want to identify when we wrestle with these binaries and to ask what our investments in these binaries symptomatize. Finally, we want to raise questions of ethics, concerning who decides which events, performances, or histories count, what violence we commit or repeat in representing past, and what epistemologies or ontologies we privilege. Each participant will begin by giving short description of term she has been working with and then we will address three questions that emerged from our online discussions. …

Teleological historical narrative as a strategy for constructing political antagonism: The example of the narrative of Estonia's regaining of independence

Teleological historical narrative as a strategy for constructing political antagonism: The example of the narrative of Estonia's regaining of independence

Writing and the Administration of Medieval Towns: Medieval Urban Literacy I ed. by Marco Mostert and Anna Adamska (review)

Reviewed by: Writing and the Administration of Medieval Towns: Medieval Urban Literacy I ed. by Marco Mostert and Anna Adamska Nicholas Brodie Mostert, Marco and Anna Adamska, eds, Writing and the Administration of Medieval Towns: Medieval Urban Literacy I (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 27), Turnhout, Brepols, 2014; hardback; pp. xvi, 366; 26 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503549590. This volume addresses ‘institutional’ or ‘civic’ literacy through a collection of ‘articles discussing the production, uses, and preservation of records for the purposes of municipal administration’ (p. 4). Several areas of contribution to scholarship stand out. Firstly, the very particularity of the contributions goes some way to helping the reader spot what is geographically or chronologically particular, and what is more commonly European. Secondly, this volume puts a wide range of research on European archives, towns, and literacy into English. Thirdly, the researchers present many methodological propositions that will have broader application beyond their own particular studies. Finally, there is an excellent and consistent focus on the surviving written word: its production, use, destruction, storage, survival, and how it has been and can be studied. Some urban exemplars open the collection. Inger Larsson examines the shift from runic to Latin script in Swedish towns, highlighting early literacy. Geertrui Van Synghel explores the relationship between town and region in ’s-Hertogenbosch, suggesting that rural–urban dynamic influenced the production and keeping of records. Hannes Obermair suggests the Alpine towns were in a unique ‘creole’ cultural border zone worthy of further study. José López-Villalba’s insightful study of Castilian urban chanceries would make a good reference paper for scholars contemplating medieval and early modern town archives. Jeroen Benders examined the north-eastern Low Countries, introducing the archival prospects and particularities of the region. Katalin Szende situates medieval Hungarian towns within wider Western European historiographical concerns, providing a welcome focus on the materiality of written sources. Agnieszka Bartoszewicz surveys record-makers and record making in small Polish towns in connection with universities and legal culture. Part II of the volume focuses on urban archives as ‘places of power, memory, and secrets’. Here, a variety of case studies explore a range of issues that will generally be of interest beyond their particular settings. Andreas Litschel explores oral forms of communication in a period of documentary proliferation, arguing that archival developments stem from systemic and procedural modes, rather than necessarily being a demonstration of increasing urban governance and control. Hannes Lowagie looks at political [End Page 199] motivations behind the copying, circulation, and preservation of particular documents in Ghent. It nicely complements the preceding paper, similarly drawing attention to the processes of archive formation that do not conform to teleological narratives of the rise of government. Sarah Rees Jones charts civic literacy in England, and argues that a greater comparative approach is needed for future studies. Michael Jucker focuses on urban secrecy, linking surviving archival collections to their political context. Christoph Weber illustrates how secrecy and confidentiality were normal elements of urban business in Italian Communes. Bastian Walter examines cedulae inclusae in the Burgundian Wars in terms of manipulation of events, shared policies, and the fostering of trust and reciprocity. In Part III, the focus shifts to the litterati. Branka Grbavac examines the professional formation of notaries in Dalmatia, draws interesting conclusions about the shifting composition in notaries’ backgrounds, and highlights regional links with north-central Italy. Ágnes Flóra focuses on the notaries of Transylvania, arguing that there is evidence of continuity in practices through the medieval and early modern periods, and points out how the notary was an important local official with duties and responsibilities that extended significantly beyond the role of a clerk. Marco Mostert then concludes the volume with a welcome discussion of schools and education. Nicholas Brodie The University of Tasmania Copyright © 2014 Nicholas Brodie

The Tears of Sovereignty: Perspectives of Power in Renaissance Drama by Philip Lorenz (review)

Philip Lorenz. The Tears of Sovereignty: Perspectives of Power in Renaissance Drama. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 379. $45.00. The central concept of this book hinges around a play on words in the title: specifically, a double entendre for the word tears, which can mean the product either of weeping or shredding of fabric. What is conveyed by this word play is at once a destruction and a nostalgia for what has been destroyed. So what we have here is a narrative--trendily postmodern, with an After-Image instead of a conclusion--but nonetheless a fairly teleological narrative of disintegration and reconstruction/restoration of the sovereign ruler. The pattern here is cyclical, as may be seen in the (mostly) alliterative titles for the chapters: Breakdown, Reanimation Resistance, Transformation, and Return. The author offers a unique take on Ernst Kantorowicz's famous formulation of the king's two bodies with the introduction of such complicating metaphors as organ transplant. The spice he adds to this updating of an old and familiar, but yummy, recipe consists of apparently farfetched but relevant cinematic allusions, such as to Pedro Almodovar's 1999 film All About My Mother. Combine this with a very au courant theoretical framework of a hodgepodge of European political philosophers, most notably Giorgio Agamben, and you have what is in the end a substantial, well-nuanced, and sophisticated comparative study of representations of sovereignty in early modern Spanish and English drama. The authors offered for consideration here are the familiar ones: William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, and Calderon de la Barca. And one potentially regrettable fact is that the plays discussed in each case are the same old worn-out canonical fare: Richard II, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale for Shakespeare; Fuenteovejuna for Lope de Vega; and Life is a Dream for Calderon. But this is the rare book that actually manages to say something relatively new about each play. This is no small accomplishment, and the author is to be congratulated both for his incisive analysis of each of the works in question and for the creative ways in which he combines disparate elements from two distinct national dramatic traditions. Seldom has this reviewer seen so genuinely comparative a study as this one. The haunting the entire text of this book is the Jesuit theologian Francisco Suarez. I say phantom not because he is not there explicitly, but because he got burned--literally, or at least his work did, in a spectacular bonfire scene that opens this book. On December 1, 1613, almost exactly 400 years ago, King James I of England ordered a ritual burning of work Defensio fidei in front of Saint Paul's Cathedral As Lorenz so eloquently states, Suarez's book landed in England like a bomb, not only challenging Royalist claims that James's power was directly derived from God but also threatening to undermine the king's authority over the bodies and souls of his subjects (1-2). In essence, Defensio fidei was a casuistical defense of revolution and civil disobedience; it authorized the use of violent force, under certain circumstances, to resist and even overthrow a king. Basically, it justified regicide. For those erudite readers such as James who could understand enough Latin to grasp fully the implications of his argument, this was heady stuff indeed. One possible weakness of Lorenz's presentation is that by the time of King James's reign, Latin had already ceased to be so pervasive as it was in former eras. (Clear evidence of this appears in George Ruggle's contemporaneous play Ignoramus [1615], in which Latin is literally demonized by association with demonic possession.) There is probably a limit to how pervasive his ideas could really be if fewer and fewer people were able to read and comprehend them. But nonetheless, Lorenz is right to identify Suarez as the most important anti-sovereignty thinker of his era; and as such, he hovers over the text of this book like an avenging fury. …

The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature (review)

SEER, 91, 4, OCTOBER 2013 880 work, rather than upon the more purely political writings’ (p. 7). Shaw’s visit to Stalin’s Russia — which has been the subject of a number of studies of British and European intellectual life over the years — is dealt with in the fifth and longest chapter. Inevitably, Shaw does not come out of this well; Sobolev and Wrenn show that Shaw cannot have been ignorant of the consequences of the policy of collectivization that had recently been inaugurated, and as someone whoadmiredbothHitlerandMussolini,hecouldnotevenlayclaimtothecause of anti-fascism espoused by other apologists at the time. Shaw’s subsequent wrangling over royalty payments for Soviet productions of his plays (which he demanded be paid in sterling rather than roubles) further problematizises the picture of his professed socialism. Yet trying to grasp the precise details of Shaw’s political engagement with Soviet Russia is perhaps impossible; as Soboleva and Wrenn briefly but judiciously suggest, ‘Shaw went to the Soviet Union wishing to be convinced of the conclusions he had already drawn – namely that this system was the only “hope of the world”’ (p. 167). Similarly, by situating Shaw’s interest in the Soviet experiment within a broader study of the evolution of his dramatic career, Soboleva and Wrenn reveal that his fascination with the figure of Stalin was part of a broader scepticism about liberal democracy that had its roots in his reading of Carlyle and Nietzsche, as well as in his encounters with Russian radicals around the turn of the century. Recently, scholars in translation and reception studies have begun to emphasize the role of institutions in mediating the relationships between foreign cultures. By contrast, The Only Hope of the World: George Bernard Shaw and Russia seems to be indebted to an older model of criticism that privileges notions of individual influence and interest. Nonetheless, Soboleva and Wrenn’s efforts reveal the continued methodological important of established models of comparative literary study, and their achievements will be of interest not just to Shavians, but to all readers interested in Britain’s fascination with Russia from Crimea to the Cold War. Wadham College, University of Oxford Philip Ross Bullock Dobrenko, Evgeny and Balina, Marina (eds). The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeandNewYork,2011.297pp.Chronology.Notes.Bibliographies. Index. £18.99: $29.99 (paperback). This Cambridge Companion features a stellar lineup of senior scholars surveying subfields that they not only have led, but sometimes also invented. In addition to Katerina Clark on ‘Russian Epic Novels of the Soviet Period’ and Mark Lipovetsky on ‘Post-Soviet Literature’, the book features Caryl Emerson on ‘Russian Critical Theory’, David Bethea (with Siggy Frank) on ‘Exile and REVIEWS 881 Russian Literature’, and Stephanie Sandler on ‘Poetry after 1930’ among its other riches. Jam-packed with historical information and critical assessment, the volume cannot be adequately surveyed and assessed in a brief review. All fifteen chapters are well-written, informative and authoritative. Each chapter throws up welcome surprises with its selection and its narrative, but it is in the details — the adjectives — that one can really judge the authors’ originality. What is most pleasing about such volumes is often that scholars at the top of their fields can describe broad phenomena in ways that are instructive for the beginner and still revelatory for those more familiar with the topic. In this sense I would single out Boris Gasparov’s essay ‘Poetry of the Silver Age’, which follows the standard teleological narrative (Decadence begat Symbolism begat Acmeism begat Futurism), but in thought-provoking and contentious ways: ‘Symbolist polysemy was based on the universal network of symbols, within which individual symbols could easily be transformed into each other. Acmeist polysemy arises from individual ideas or images resounding against each other due to the “duration of the global cultural tradition”’ (p. 10). As in Stephanie Sandler’s chapter, one might have wished for more quotations from the poetry — and for translations that convey more of its changing verbal texture — but alongside a carefully selected anthology of verse these essays will provide readers of all levels with much food for thought. Similar praise is due to Nikolay Bogomolov for his magisterial analytical survey...

Affecting phantasm: the genesis of Pakistan in The Heart Divided

This article explores the Partition narrative put forward by Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’s novel The Heart Divided (1957), which is set in 1930s and 1940s colonial India. It argues that the novel’s teleological narrative proposes both the inevitability and desirability of Pakistan as it emerged from and through nationalist liberation movements for Indian independence. It utilizes theories of affect to illuminate the ways in which affects of belonging power much of the drive for the creation of Pakistan in the novel, and are used to consolidate a sense of Hindu–Muslim difference. The article furthermore proposes that emotions exist in tension with bureaucracy, and that affects of belonging to the nation repress the violence that characterized Partition. The analysis engages with the novel as a Partition narrative that does not address the human cost of Partition.

The British State and the Irish Rebellion of 1916: An Intelligence Failure Or a Failure of Response?

The teleological narrative that has dominated the handling of intelligence by the British state in the events that led up to the 1916 Irish Rebellion in Dublin has been characterised as a cocktail of incompetence and mendacity. Using new and existing archive material this article argues that both the cabinet in London and key members of the Irish Executive in Dublin were supplied with accurate and timely intelligence by the Admiralty's signals intelligence unit, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police with respect to this event. Far from being a failure of intelligence here is evidence to show that there occurred a failure of response on behalf of key decision-makers. The warnings that were given by intelligence organisations were filtered through the existing policy preferences and assumptions. As a result of these factors accurate evaluations and sound judgement were not exercised by key officials, such as Sir Matthew Nathan, in Dublin Castle.

The origins of the Lebanese national idea, 1840-1920

THE ORIGINS OF THE LEBANESE NATIONAL IDEA, 1840-1920 Carol Hakim Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013 (xi + 364 pages, bibliography, index) $85.00 (cloth)Reviewed by Joan ChakerAgainst teleological accounts that locate origins of national ideas in a distant past and trace their evolution along a linear path into present, Carol Hakim's Origins of Lebanese National Idea cautiously refrains from foreclosing on historical narrative by attending to cleavages and conflicting interests within continuously shifting nationalist alignments. In Hakim's textured account, Lebanon is not simply a Christian state for a Christian population that developed separatist tendencies, nor is it just an entity fabricated and supported by great powers for sake of colonial project.The narrative begins in 1840s, when Maronite clergy first raised idea of Mount Lebanon as a political unit. Hakim highlights role of these clergymen's contacts with French during this period (chapter one), leading up to establishment of a new regime in 1842, which came to be known as Dual Qaimaqamiyya (chapter two). The third chapter continues with sectarian massacres of 1860, French military intervention, and establishment of yet another form of local administration for region-the mutasarrifiyya (chapter four). In late nineteenth century, a new elite defended a secular Lebanism in form of an enlarged autonomous entity within a greater Syria. This project, however, was not a direct descendant of mutasarrifiyya, Hakim argues, but a pushback against control by Maronite clergy and traditional notable families that characterized that regime (chapters five and six). From this perspective, mutasarrifiyya appears as a reestablishment of Ottoman authority over Mount Lebanon, and Hakim resists the temptation to establish a linear link between that administration and Republic of Lebanon proclaimed in 1920 (99).Hakim similarly sheds new light on Lebanese delegation's demand for expanded territory at Versailles peace conference of 1919. The expanded boundaries, she demonstrates, were not conceived organically among Lebanese nationalists, but corresponded to territory suggested by French general Beaufort back in 1860, upon establishment of mutasarrifiyya. Most significantly, Hakim shows that earlier versions of Lebanism were not independentist projects. Turn-of-the-century Lebanism was not expressed as an alternative to Ottomanism, she argues, but as a part of broader reforms taking place in Ottoman Empire. Appeals for an independent Lebanese state not be raised until fall of Ottoman Empire (chapter eight).Where avoidance of a teleological narrative may cause historian to leave a great deal to historical contingency, Hakim repeatedly points to overarching structures that explain crystallization of national or sectarian communities into political identities across global South in nineteenth century. She considers Lebanism in conjunction with other fledgling currents in region, such as Ottomanism, Arabism, and Syrianism, and places them all within broader context of integration into world economy. She discusses economic transformations such as intensification of trade with West, expanded production of raw silk and other cash crops, developments in transport, and emergence of a new social class of merchants, middlemen, and enriched peasants. Hakim's categories of analysis remain identity-based (the Maronites, the French), but she also shows limits of defining historical agents in a manner that does not take into consideration economic dimension. For instance, while on one page, we read that Maronite patriarch's project to restore Bashir II would have constituted a victory for Maronites, on following page, Hakim complicates picture: Several forces in community had divergent projects and ambitions. …

River of dark dreams: slavery and empire in the cotton kingdom

River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom. By Walter Johnson. (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. 526. Illustrations, tables, notes, acknowledgments, index. $35.00.)Nearly million slaves arrived in the Mississippi Valley between 1820 and 1860, Walter Johnson tells us. There were more millionaires there in 1860 than in any other region of the United States and, in that same year, 3500 steamboat trips brought $220 million worth of cotton and other com- modities to the port of New Orleans. The dark dreams of the book are the aspirations of planters, whose path to riches required the cruel and ma- nipulative treatment of enslaved black people and who eventually sought expansion into Central America and the Caribbean Sea in violation of federal law. This regional approach to the Mississippi Valley makes sense, although non-specialist could finish the book unaware that there were plantations in Louisiana that used the labor of 125,000 enslaved people to produce half of the sugar consumed in the United States.Historians and general readers alike, however, will come away from this book knowing good deal more than they did. Johnson's two chapters on steamboat transportation, for example, explain the technology of the boats, the operation and limitations of the industry, the pilots' skill, the public's enthusiasm, passenger accommodations and behavior, the intense competition over speed, and the significant possibility of collision or explosion that would result in large numbers of people being drowned, scalded, or both. Johnson gives an excellent description and analysis of cotton production as well as the credit and marketing mechanisms that made it possible. Placing all this within world-historical context of busi- ness enterprise, he makes convincing case for the idea that cotton plant- ers were simply capitalists of non-industrial sort.Southern imperialism grew out of economic limitations. As early as 1840, steamboats had connected the 17,000 miles of navigable rivers in the Mississippi Valley, making the shipping industry less attractive to valley capital. In the 1850s, when railroads began to reach the Mississippi, the outlook worsened. Meanwhile, planters and merchants increasingly felt themselves under the yoke of northern economic and political interests in Congress and wished for direct access to world markets. In the New Or- leans region, the answer to these problems involved expanding into Cuba and Nicaragua rather than Kansas and Nebraska. Johnson argues that greater appreciation for filibustering and the complementary movement to reopen the foreign slave trade would free Civil War historiography from a set of anachronistic spatial frames and teleological narratives limited to secession and the land area that became the Confederacy (p. …

The Time That Binds: Constitutionalism, Museums, and the Production of Political Community

In this paper I explore the deployment of time in imaginations of political community. Specifically, I consider the use of continuous, chronological time in constructing a clear, transparent, and knowable history, as well as the construction of time itself as a smooth teleological narrative from which political projects, communities, and subjects are imagined through and from. Ultimately, I argue that time functions as an ‘anamorphic orientation’ that lends legitimacy to the project of pursuing the destinal figure of community. However, these anamorphic orientations are not totalising. Drawing on primary research from the British Museum, as well as the work of Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin, I demonstrate that these smooth and coherent conceptions of political community can and are disrupted through misunderstanding and confusion of the museum’s intended programming. These instances serve as important reminders of the ways in which anamorphic orientations, such as the naturalisation of chronological time, cannot entirely suffocate the plurality of the world.

Renée R. Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English VerseThe Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse. Renée R. Trilling. Toronto and Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Pp. ix+296.

<i>Renée R. Trilling</i>, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse<i>The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse</i>. Renée R. Trilling. Toronto and Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Pp. ix+296.

History, a Literary Artifact? The Traveling Concept of Narrative in/on Historiographic Discourse

History, a Literary Artifact? The Traveling Concept of Narrative in/on Historiographic Discourse

“A Revolution of Love”: Ramón Emeterio Betances, Anténor Firmin, and Affective Communities in the Caribbean

This article examines the revolutionary politics of Puerto Rican intellectual and physician Ramon Emeterio Betances (1827–98) through an inter-Caribbean lens that goes beyond teleological and insular narratives of national liberation and identity. An under-examined figure in Caribbean intellectual history, Betances stood out among his fellow Cuban and Puerto Ricans revolutionaries for his singular experiences of dislocation: he lived most of his life in France, he included Haiti within his vision of a Caribbean federation, and he was of African descent. The article focuses on Betances’s resignification of the Haitian Revolution within the transatlantic context of the Ten Years War in Cuba, looking at two key pamphlets: his translation of US radical abolitionist Wendell Phillips’s encomiastic biography of Toussaint Louverture, “Touissant L’ouverture” (1869), and “A Cuba libre,” an account of the life of Haitian revolutionary general and president Alexandre Petion (1871). Though Betances aligns himself with Phillips’s prophetic brand of abolitionism, his distinct romantic discourse concerning the Haitian Revolution and Petion is ultimately linked to his affinity for French republicanism. I also explore Betances’s friendship with the Haitian intellectual and politician Antenor Firmin (1850–1911) and the latter’s musings about Betances, Haiti, and the Caribbean in Letters from Saint Thomas (1910), showing how the uses of community in Betances and Firmin signify an incipient “Latin” form of identification.

Decolonising Property: Exploring Ethics, Land, and Time, through Housing Interventions in Contemporary Australia

The idea of property is a fundamental and foundational component of modern industrialised economies and yet, as a growing body of work shows, property is far from settled as a concept, or as a set series of relationships—whether between institutions, humans, places, and/or other species. Property systems are part of emergent, complex socioecological systems, reflecting and manifesting social and political phenomena, and asserting particular forms of citizen/self as acceptable, preferable and dominant. Predominant Western understandings of property rely on, enable, and anticipate increases in property value over time, reflecting particular conceptualisations and experiences of time shaped by Judeo—Christian teleological narratives in which time moves towards a perfect state that ironically remains perpetually imminent. This essay is concerned with tracing the ontological baggage of predominant understandings of property and time and exploring the terrain of their Others, as well as exploring the shifts in relationships between these in a decolonising and postmodern Australian context. This paper will reveal some of the diversity of what and how societies think about property and time, to suggest we may be starting—albeit 21—to acknowledge and engage with multiple and complex iterations of these.

The British State and the Irish Rebellion of 1916: An Intelligence Failure or a Failure of Response?

The teleological narrative that has dominated the handling of intelligence by the British state in the events that led up to the 1916 Irish Rebellion in Dublin has been characterised as a cocktail of incompetence and mendacity. Using new and existing archive material this article argues that both the cabinet in London and key members of the Irish Executive in Dublin were supplied with accurate and timely intelligence by the Admiralty's signals intelligence unit, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police with respect to this event. Far from being a failure of intelligence here is evidence to show that there occurred a failure of response on behalf of key decision-makers. The warnings that were given by intelligence organisations were filtered through the existing policy preferences and assumptions. As a result of these factors accurate evaluations and sound judgement were not exercised by key officials, such as Sir Matthew Nathan, in Dublin Castle.

Editorial

Editorial Jenn Stephenson, Review Editor The famous epigraph from E. M. Forster's novel Howards End, "Only connect ... ," might very well serve for this edition of the Views and Reviews section of CTR. Epitomizing the theme of the novel, the phrase "Only connect ..." speaks to the benefits its turn-of-the-century characters derive from forging relationships between individuals of differing economic and social background, gender, education, and philosophical outlook. As the novel demonstrates, links between points of difference open up new possibilities and perspectives. Each of the pieces presented here takes a slightly different approach to this notion of connection, but all demonstrate the stimulating intellectual animation, delightful pleasure in belonging, and often much-needed support found in interconnected communities engaged in a shared enterprise. To honour the hundredth anniversary season of Ottawa Little Theatre (OLT), Robin C. Whittaker delves into the rich history of the company. Launched in 1913 as the Society for the Study and Production of Dramatic Art, the OLT now produces ten plays annually, employing approximately two hundred volunteers over the season. As a nonprofessionalized company (Whittaker eschews the label "amateur"), the OLT places a high value on both the community it serves as a kind of regional theatre for the Ottawa area and the community of its creative members. About its choice not to become a professional company, as other contemporary little theatres did, executive director Lynn McGuigan says, "That discussion has gone on for many years .... Of course some of [the members] have a desire to become professional, ... but fundamentally our people love coming here to 'play' and want to maintain a space where they can do that." As the theme of connection goes, Samuel Beckett's existential Waiting for Godot figures large in our imagination as perhaps the antithesis of connection. In a dystopian world of seemingly malevolent objects, non sequiturs, and incomplete actions, Vladimir and Estragon are isolated from their material world and from other people. Perhaps we might say they are alone together, but still alone. However, in a recent Fringe production of Godot, reviewed for CTR by David Yee, the play becomes a triumph of community. Reconceived by performers Eric Craig and David Christo with Caden Douglas, this Godot is a fifty-four-hour marathon as the play is performed as a continuous loop until the clock runs out. On the one hand, [End Page 61] the extreme number of repeated iterations emphasizes the characters' entrapment in a hopeless eternal cycle. On the other hand, this same extremity over time sets up a strong teleological narrative in the quest for completion. It is in this heightened situation that the project becomes in its final moments a grandly uplifting triumph, not only for the actors but also for the devoted community of audience members who have accompanied them. Pleasure taken in the interpersonal connections generated in the creation of performance work is also the focus of Natalie Harrower's review of the film documentary Girls on Top by director Cassandra Nicolaou. Produced during the rehearsals and performances of Soulpepper's 2007 run of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, the documentary celebrates the emotional bonds formed by the members of the acting company. In her review, Harrower brings into focus the contrast between the undermining, competitive, and selfish behaviour of the play's characters with the warm, funny, and, most of all, supportive environment in the rehearsal hall and the dressing rooms. Watching the documentary will make you wish you could be part of this community, too. Applying the same ideals of community and collaboration that we laud in the creation of theatre to the creation of theatre and performance scholarship, six students from the Graduate Program in Theatre Studies at York are challenging the status quo of solo authorship to work as an ensemble. Joseph Roach writes, "We imagine ourselves as sole, isolated humanists laboring away in our carrel without any connection or indebtedness to (or participation in) a larger network of thinking that actually puts our ideas into the form that makes them interesting. I want to acknowledge those networks of connection in which each of us is a nodal point, not an isolated star" (qtd. in Young). Bradley...

On Children’s Literature and the (Im)Possibility of It Gets Better

It Gets Better and Children's Literature: An Overview In response to a devastating rash of reported queer youth suicides in fall of 2010, American writer Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller founded It Gets Better project, a website inviting adults to submit videos that offer messages of hope and encouragement to youth who may be struggling with their sexualities in difficult environments. (1) Fueled by contributions from public figures like Barack Obama and a host of celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres, It Gets Better has garnered widespread attention and received over fifty thousand user-created video submissions that have been viewed more than fifty million times (What is). The It Gets Better book, co-edited by Savage and Miller, was released in March 2011 and appeared on New York Times bestseller list within weeks, and an It Gets Better documentary special profiling several queer teens was broadcast on MTV and Logo in February 2012. As It Get Betters popularity surged, however, critiques of project quickly surfaced. (2) Tavia Nyong'o notes that It Gets Better primarily hails an upwardly mobile class of white gay youth while excluding those for whom adulthood does not necessarily bring a reprieve from forms of anti-queer violence--particularly, Nyong'o writes, gender nonconforming and/or trans people. Sponsored by Gay-Straight Alliance of San Francisco, Make It Better project takes aim at passivity implicit n It Gets Better--the idea that simply enduring adolescence will result in improved social conditions--by offering practical tools for taking action against homophobia in schools and communities and on a national level. (3) In a Guardian article, Jasbir Puar expresses concern with narrowing of queerness' significance for both adults and youth: she argues that It Gets Better showcases a narrow class of successful adults and reinforces idea that queer youth are inevitably prone to suicide and bullying. For Puar, many adult It Gets Better contributors are invested in versions of family that stray little--if at all--from heteronormative and from narratives of upward mobility that [echo] now discredited 'pull yourself up from bootstraps' immigrant motto (In Wake). She concludes, thus ['it gets better'] might turn out to mean, you get more normal (In Wake). And in a frank Facebook post, queer activist Charlotte Cooper challenges idea that queer youth require adult stories to survive, writing, I wish there was some kind of an It Gets Better campaign in which fucked up queer teenagers give reassurance and advice to windy and pompous bourgie grown-up homos. There is a provocative tension between It Gets Betters stated purpose and way seems to circulate. On one hand, It Gets Better claims to be about queer youth: project directly addresses itself to this audience and ostensible crisis in which finds itself. (4) As Savage notes in his introduction to It Gets Better book, the point of project is to give despairing ]kids hope. The point is to let them know that things do get better, using examples of our own lives (6). On other hand, taking into account ever-growing array of responses to and critiques of It Gets Better, project appears to be more about adult hopes and anxieties surrounding how queer youth should be addressed than about queer youth themselves. As circulates through a variety of media, It Gets Better accumulates (mostly adult-authored) personal stories that echo project's primary, teleological narrative of development and resilience and an expansive body of (mostly adult-authored) critical interventions that interrogate pedagogical value and appropriateness of message that it gets better while gesturing, more broadly, to project's political failings. In other words, It Gets Better does not circulate according to ways that imagines its audience. …