Pitfalls & Promises AU/WI 2016 No.19 by Retrospect Journal & Magazine

SCHOOL OF HISTORY CLASSICS ARCHAEOLOGY

AU/WI 2016

ISSUE NÂ° 19

Retrospect Journal.

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

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INDEX

AU/WI 2016

Rebellion [Netflix]

HISTORICAL FICTION

Anthropoid [Film]

The Suppliant Women [Theatre] The Crown [Netflix]

’With the Goethe against the Negroes?’, Cultural Propaganda and Anti-War Journalism, 1914-15

Edinburgh’s Fallen Alumni

5 MINUTES WITH...

46-51

THE GREAT WAR COLUMN

The University of Edinburgh, Rudyard Kipling and the Great War

Scotland and Europe: A Lecture from Tom Devine Studying History in France My Year Abroad: Scotland vs France

Life after grad and what I wished I knew before

Akhenaten’s Benevolence

Examining Promises Through Confucius

American thoughts on the Presidential Election (as of September 2016)

Frank Cogliano’s September Lectures

Panafricanism and Western Domination

Mao Zedong’s Social Policies

’I Lost my Heart at Wounded Knee’

Native History at the University of British Columbia

70-75

ACADEMIC

26-45

His bloody project [Book]

56-69

This is Opera [TV]

EDINBURGH VOICES

Amistad [Film]

52-55

SOCIETIES

History Classics Archaeology LAMPS

REVIEWS

Editor’s note

10-25

06/09

CONTENTS

Dr Robert Crowcroft, HCA Professor Emeritus Robert Darnton, Harvard University

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THE TEAM Charlotte Lauder | Editor in Chief and President Charles Nurick | Deputy Editor and Secretary Lauren-Leigh Porter | Senior Radio Editor and Treasurer Sarah Thomson Kara Ross Felix Carpenter Alice Williamson Martin Greenacre Rebecca Rosser Ciara McKay Laura Skinner

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| Editors

Ashleigh Jackson | Great War Columnist Sophia Fothergill Emma Marriot | Columnists Rocco Astore Kelly Beasley

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Emma Simpson | Social Secretary Megan Strain | Fundraising Officer Ellie Parker Jacob Hull Tess Johnston Susie Curtis Polina Andreeva Josh Stein Osanna Lau

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| Digital Editors

| Radio Editors

Adam Bircher | Video Editor Silvia Razakova | Design Editor

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LEGEND AND CONTRIBUTORS

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SOCIETIES H

HISTORY

CLASSICS

ARCHAEOLOGY

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CONTRIBUTORS Rebecca Foster Ciara McKay Cat Price Charlotte Lauder Rebecca Rosser Kara Ross Luise Elsaesser Pablo Perez Ruiz Jenisha Sabaratnam Rocco Astore Ashleigh Jackson Lewis Twiby Professor George H. Gilliam Felix Carpenter Martin Greenacre Sarah Thomson Alice Bromfield Hilary Bell Sophia Fothergill

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From the editor:

AN ODE TO RETROSPECT R

CHARLOTTE LAUDER

Welcome to Retrospect’s AU/WI 2016 ‘Pitfalls & Promises’, our 19th issue since 2006. I feel immensely proud to sign my name against this wonderful issue. The following note is my welcome to you, and an ode to this publication: March 2016 was something of a crossroads for Retrospect Journal. As with most university societies, the obvious task of handing over to the next set of students loomed and there was a feeling of change throughout the team. After failing to persuade Kerry Gilsenan – our wonderful former Editor in Chief and to whom Retrospect owes a great deal – to stay in Edinburgh another year, she turned to me to take over the task of running the publication. This, I had not expected, but with the knowledge that I had Charles, our seasoned Editor, and Lauren, our bright new Radio and Podcast star as my trusted supports, the task seemed far less daunting. Feeling somewhat like Frost before his diverging roads, I could see two paths in Retrospect’s future. And, like Frost, there was only one option. Despite our creativity continuing to flourish – just take a look at our terrific Ed24 Journals; we produced a whole issue in just 24 hours! – like many student publications, readership of our printed issues has experienced a decline. On the day of our Annual General Meeting, the Independent newspaper announced that it would b e mov i ng on l i ne. T he

announcement set the tone for the AGM and the year to come. For a small student publication like Retrospect, admitting that the cost of printing was far greater than we could realistically raise the funds for was a hard task. From that day, it was clear Retrospect’s future lay in online territory. Without a doubt, this was a cause for anxiety. How could a journal whose essence lay in beautifully printed journals possibly survive when these copies were taken away? No danger. With the mantle of Editor in Chief firmly in my hands, the A-Team theme tune sounded (at least in my head) and we rallied to the Retrospect van full pelt. A new, bigger, team of enthusiastic students was recruited; Digital Editors were hired; a Radio Team was created; membership cards were ordered; a new plan of action was devised; I actually learned how to do IT stuff. As I met our newly recruited team members over coffee fixes during the exam period and over the summer, thankfully, the enthusiasm for the revamped Retrospect was mutual on both sides of the coffee cup. I am incredibly lucky to have around me a dedicated, fun and motivated team who are just as happy to spend another hour perfecting the edit on a newly submitted article or radio show, as they are posing for another shot, naked, for a charity calendar in aid of Waverley Care.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

During September, I continued to bleat on about Retrospect at University Welcome Week events, meet-and-greets and whenever I met an interested (or were they sympathetic?) soul. ‘We are the only undergraduate journal of our kind in the UK!’ I would say, (slightly dubious). ‘Award-winning journal’ became a well-used phrase, (completely true). ‘Think of us as the History, Classics and Archaeology school’s official source for student creativity’ (not completely true, I’ll admit, but we make a strong claim). Extensively pushing Retrospect into the limelight has been the easy task here. The much harder task was ensuring that there was proof in the pudding. And now, as I write my Editor’s note for our digitally created (!) issue, Pitfalls & Promises, I can safely say we have the mother of all puddings here. This issue is an arc de triomphe and it has been a joy to oversee. Beginning from nothing, it has come to encapsulate everything that we wanted from a ‘new’ Retrospect Journal. In no small words, this is due to my wonderful team, to whom this issue is dedicated. Pitfalls & Promises is a testament to them – not least because they chose its name – and to their willingness and creativity that each of them has demonstrated in the name of Retrospect. From fundraising events like Text a Toastie, to charitable efforts like the Shoebox Appeal, and posing in a cold Buccleuch Place seminar room for a Naked Calendar, to creating and producing, week after week, a brand new radio show – The Past Presents – and continuing a great one, History & Chill, they have constructed a whole new website, gained us new followers and created a fresh and invigorated design for the journal. (Many thanks go to Silvia for designing such a beautiful new layout for us).

Even turning up each Monday in Appleton Tower, they have been wonderful all semester. I also dedicate this issue to those who have written for us. Pitfalls & Promises has it all: where else would you find an interview with one of Harvard University’s most respected Emeritus Professors, interviewed by Pablo Perez Ruiz, a fourth year history undergraduate? Where else would you find a column on Edinburgh University’s experience of the Great War, written by Ashleigh Jackson, our newly created Great War columnist? Or a piece of fiction from Lewis Twiby, poignantly inspired by Native American history? Or Luise, a German speaking student writing eloquently in English about her homeland’s reaction to the First World War? What other Scottish undergraduate historical journal receives not one, but three, international submissions? Email me when you find a comparison. The diversity and breadth of all our submissions this year has inspired us to create new categories this semester: ‘Edinburgh Voices’, ‘5 Minutes with…’ and ‘The Great War Column’. I look forward to seeing these categories in January too. This issue has given me and the Team a fruitful sense of achievement. I wait with baited breath to see what limits we push next semester. (What will 2017 hold for the world?) As you read, I know you are enjoying virtually flicking and clicking through this issue, because, why wouldn’t you? We are Retrospect, we are the best, and you will read us, write for us and listen to us.

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The Classics Society has had a fantastic first semester. We have had at least one social every week ranging from old favourites like the Toga Pub Crawl to new events like a trip to the theatre: we have been jam-packed with activity! Since the 2014-15 academic year we have held fortnightly get-togethers in the pub which has been even better this year and has allowed us to get to know all of our new members. We also collaborated with the other school societies and Retrospect Journal for a very successful pub quiz. We even managed to get our academic staff involved in a Classics themed quiz, complete with an emoji picture round, (we let them win). There has been a fantastic series of seminars this semester with visitors from far and wide, including some of our very own staff delivering talks on subjects ranging from hairstyles to rhetoric. We are looking forward to a bigger and better second semester with events such as bowling, a University Challenge quiz and, of course, our annual ‘innovative learning week’ trip to Berlin next February!

CLASSICS

HISTORY

It is safe to say that the History Society has kicked off this academic year with a bang! Thanks to an extremely dedicated committee and an active student body, the society has grown to the biggest it has ever been within a single semester. Welcome Week was an incredible opportunity to throw some amazing events to meet the new cohort of students and welcome back the older years. While our trip to visit Edinburgh Castle was a great way to see the beauties of Edinburgh in the day, by night, our annual pub crawl was attended by over 300 students! It has been a fantastic year for our intramural sports teams. We now have four teams playing in their respective leagues. Whether you’re interested in rugby, football or netball, we have a welcoming team ready for you to get involved with, both men and women of a variety of abilities and experience. Looking ahead, we have a very exciting trip to Lisbon, Portugal, coming up in February 2017. Planning has also begun for our annual Burns Supper in January, as well as next semester’s academic lecture series! Finally, in the New Year we will be beginning a ‘History for Schools’ programme, partnering up university students with local high school history classes – so keep your eye’s peeled for more information! This November we had our glamourous Annual Winter Ball at the Balmoral Hotel. It was fantastic night and a great way to celebrate the end of the semester. That night, our charity raffle managed to raise £600 for the charity Edinburgh Rape Crisis, so a massive thank you to everyone who attended! This fabulous event and many others like it can all be found on our Facebook page, so give us a like to keep up to date on all our opportunities!

RUBY TRUDGEN Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ edunihistorysoc/ Twitter: @edunihistsoc

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank everyone who has become involved in our brilliant first semester. We look forward to seeing you next year! ALEX NIELD Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ edclassicssoc/ Twitter: @Edclassicssoc

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The Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society (LAMPS)

LAMPS

It has been a great semester for Archaeology Society - affectionately, Archsoc - with a running start into the new academic year. We started Welcome Week with our ‘X Marks the Spot’ scavenger hunt across Edinburgh, which ended in Clerks Bar for some celebratory mingling. We have been overflowing with events: we visited the Celts Exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland; we had a Spooktacular Halloween tour of Edinburgh’s graveyards and the vaults under South Bridge, and a movie viewing; and our Christmas Party to kick off the Christmas season.

ARCHAEOLOGY

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Our seminar series has been a great success, with something for everyone - from Neolithic Jade Axes to the St. Kilda Archaeologist. We have some fantastic fieldwork opportunities coming up for the chance to be involved in different types of volunteering depending on your interests. Keep an eye on our newsletter and Facebook page for more information! Next semester, we have our legendary Fieldwork Fair returning offering history, classics and archaeology students the opportunity to network with possible employers from the Cultural and Arts sector and explore fieldwork choices both within and outwith the University. Our End of Year Party is scheduled at the close of next semester, so watch this space for the event’s information!

Thanks to all who have been involved with Archsoc over the last year, it wouldn’t be the same without you! HEATHER ROSS Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ EdinburghArchSoc/?fref=ts Twitter: @EdinArchSoc Instagram: @edinarch

The Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society (LAMPS) aims to promote the academic study of the Late Antique and Medieval periods at the University of Edinburgh, while encouraging interdisciplinary connections between students. We host weekly academic seminars on Monday evenings where our members have an opportunity to present their current research. This term we asked for papers to address the theme ‘Freedom’, which has inspired some excellent papers and a fantastic roundtable discussion on the medieval in film. LAMPS also travels to Scottish Heritage sites relevant to the theme of each semester. In October, we organised a Castle Crawl during which we visited Caerlaverock Castle, Sweetheart Abbey, and Morton Castle. More locally, we ventured to Craigmillar Castle and Linlithgow Palace. This semester we have also been working with the Edinburgh Medieval Pigment Project (EMPP), in conjunction with ECA, to grow plants that are associated with the making of medieval manuscript pigment. Additionally, LAMPS has organised a variety of social events in order to engage our members from all disciplines and backgrounds, including a Medieval Pub Quiz, a Halloween ghost tour, a holiday party, and a visit to the National Museum of Scotland. MEGAN HYNEK Upcoming Events for 2017: - Trips to Inchcolm Abbey, Dunfermline Palace & Abbey, Rosslyn Chapel, Doune Castle, Temple Kirk, and a Spring Castle Crawl to heritage sites in Perthshire, including Loch Leven Castle - LAMPS Ceilidh, Medieval Board Games Night, and film night Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/ EdinburghLAMPS/ Twitter: @LAMPS_Edinburgh Instagram: @lampsedinburgh email: lampsedinburgh@gmail.com.

REVIEWS 11

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AMISTAD: AN UNROMANTIC VISION OF THE SLAVE TRADE

REBECCA FOSTER

A few weeks ago I was cuddled up on the couch with my other half, who made the fundamental mistake of allowing a history student to be in charge of the movie selection. A fellow historian had recently recommended Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film Amistad, and I jumped at the chance to watch it when it came on.

Starring Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey and Morgan Freeman, the film follows the African captives upon the slave ship and their legal battle within the American court system. During the on-board mutiny the captives murdered many of the crew, but spared their Spanish navigators in the hope that they could return home; but instead of reaching Africa, they were tricked by their navigators who had in fact taken them north, where they were shortly captured not far from Long Island by the USS Washington. Having arrived in the United States, they were arrested, unable to speak English, and facing a lifetime of slavery. However, with the aid of an abolitionist lawyer, the captives begin their legal battle to establish themselves as freemen (and freewomen) and return to Africa.

This historical drama is based on Through the clever use of the 1839 mutiny on the Spanish flashbacks, Spielberg illustrates the transatlantic slave ship La Amistad. horrors of the ‘Middle Passage’ and

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the harrowing conditions that were all too common within the transatlantic slave trade. The film pulls no punches in displaying the cruelty suffered by the millions of African men, women, and children who were sold into slavery. It makes no attempt to be glamorous but instead portrays the grim realities of human trafficking and bondage, including starvation, whippings, and death. The film builds up to the captives’ appearance in front of the Supreme Court in the case of United States v. The Amistad (1841), and includes a particularly stirring speech by former President, and pro-abolitionist, John Quincy Adams. Throughout the film the Africans’ case is contextualised by the growing tensions within the United States: not only the debate surrounding slavery, but also party politics, presidential election campaigns, and the looming threat of civil war. The film also represents

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the existing tensions of the time between the United States and the European powers of Great Britain and Spain. With the British abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, Spanish slave smugglers had become a lot more common, and both of these nations had great interest in the outcome of this case. The film explores their relationships with the United States during this period, particularly with its portrayal of Spanish-United States diplomatic relations under Queen Isabella II. This film is excellent for anyone interested in African history, American history, or the history of the transatlantic slave trade. As I am currently writing my dissertation on slavery within the West Indies I found it particularly fascinating. However, perhaps it is not the best contender for date night… although we both enjoyed the film it did take some of the romance out of the evening!

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ANTHROPOID: THE CZECH ASSASSINATION PLOT

CIARA MCKAY

Anthropoid seems a strange name for a film, but makes sense once you realise that this was a codename for a secret Czech plan to assassinate one of the highest ranking Nazi officers, Reinhard Heydrich, in 1942. The acting ‘Reichsprotektor’ of Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich was notorious for his vicious methods. This film relates the story of how two men were tasked by the Czech Government in exile with the assassination of one of Hitler’s top men. The film begins with the parachute drop of Jozef Gabcik and Josef Valcik into a snow covered forest. Not even this goes smoothly for them, and there is the feeling that their mission might be cursed from

the outset. Cillian Murphy plays Jozef Gabcik, the senior of the two would-be assassins, with a reticent, underlying violence. While compel ling, M u r p h y ’s characterisation of Gabcik is very like that of his Peaky Blinders character, Thomas Shelby, and the sense that he is becoming increasingly typecast does somewhat damage his credibility. Josef Valcik is portrayed by Jamie Dornan, as a younger but possibly more emotionally damaged man. It is hinted that he suffers from some type of stress disorder, which can make him hesitant in dangerous situations. Dornan is the weaker of the two actors and does not manage to convey as much of an emotional range. Once Gabcik and Valcik meet the leaders of the resistance in Prague, there is debate over whether assassinating Heydrich is the best plan. Members of the Czech resistance highlight the very real concerns that such action may lead to reprisals against innocent Czech people and the replacement of Heydrich with some other, equally b r u t a l , f i g u r e . Fe e l i n g disenfranchised and isolated, they argue that the Czech government in exile are out of touch with the situation on the ground in Prague. Toby Jones gives a solid performance as Uncle Hajsky, one of the resistance leaders. The predominantly male cast is enhanced by the addition of two

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supporting female roles, the love interests of Gabcik and Valcik, who offer differing illustrations of the lives of women at this time. Lenka, played by Czech actress Anna GeislerovĂĄ, is the older and wiser of the two women; as the daughter of a soldier, she has no illusions about the horror of war. Charlotte Le Bon portrays Marie with naivety, as a girl whose romantic ideas of war are quickly contradicted. There is a drabness to the film that perhaps serves as a reminder that the resistance groups in the Second World War did not find their work exciting, but a necessity. The dramaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oppressive atmosphere gives a realistic impression of resistance work, but does slow the pace of the film in comparison with more conventional, and less historical, thrillers. Without giving too much away, the most emotional and action packed scenes take place as the film draws towards its conclusion. Anthropoid does a good job of bringing to life a piece of Czech history that might not be familiar to general audiences without compromising on factual accuracy. It raises interesting questions about whether such assassinations can cause more trouble for ordinary people than they prevent. It is difficult to call it enjoyable, but it is certainly hard-hitting.

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REBELLION: IRISH WOMEN AND THE EASTER RISING

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CIARA MCKAY A co-production between the Irish television station RTÉ and American SundanceTV, Rebellion was commissioned in order to mark the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rebellion. It has been available on Netflix since April of this year. The production value of this series is high; costumes and sets from the upper class areas of Dublin are beautiful and bring to life a world that we only usually get to view in black and white footage. The series follows three women (May, Liza and Frances), each from middle or upper class backgrounds, whose lives are changed by the events of April and May 1916. The soapy storyline involving the secretary May, played by Sarah Greene, and her British government official lover begins to drag fairly quickly. May spends much of the series resenting those around her; and it is never really clear why the other women like her in the first place. Liza, portrayed by Charlie Mu r phy, ha s a simila rly melodramatic plotline involving an unwanted engagement to an officer in the British army and a

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forbidden love with an Irish volunteer. This could be played to more gripping effect, but Liza (who should be a go-getter, considering that she is studying medicine and s e c r e t l y s up p o r t s I r i s h independence) remains withdrawn in every situation. Even when confronted with an Irish boy in danger, instead of rushing to help him, she merely calls him in the hope of attracting his attention. Our third heroine, Frances, played by Ruth Bradley, is a teacher at St Enda’s School (founded by Pádraig Pearse), and is ready to die for the cause. However, as the series continues she is disillusioned by Pearse, who is frequently sexist towards her, and she becomes more concerned with living to fight another day. Frances is possibly the most difficult of the heroines to relate to, as her character is not very well developed on a personal level.

really developed beyond their relation to more affluent characters, or to men. The slums themselves also look more comfortable than they likely were.

The series received a poor reception in the Irish press due, in part, to its perceived factual inaccuracies, and its occasionally unsympathetic portrayals of the heroes of the Rebellion. For instance, Pádraig Pearse is portrayed as a vain, misogynistic fanatic and never really seems to interact with any of the action that takes place. The programme also asks viewers to suspend their disbelief when shown Irish Volunteers openly walking around Dublin in their uniforms during the siege, with seeming impunity. It is highly doubtful that this would have been possible in the Dublin of the Easter Rising. Questions have also been raised over the scenes which depict Irish Volunteers shooting looters in the It may have been more interesting, street. though less glamorous, for the programme to explore the ways in If you are looking for a programme which life changed for working that is aesthetically pleasing and class women. Although working enjoyable in a surface-level way, class women are featured in the Rebellion is possibly for you. series, they are often secondary However, if you want to watch characters. Perhaps the producers something that will verse you have tried too hard to appeal to a completely accurately in the history Downton Abbey audience; some of Easter 1916 in Dublin, you might the misery of the slums is shown, want to look elsewhere. but those who live there are never

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THE LYCEUM’S THE SUPPLIANT WOMEN ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE, ACTS TOURING COMPANY

CAT PRICE

Despite being conceived almost 2,500 years ago, Aeschylus’ play ‘The Suppliant Women’ runs rife with themes still pertinent in our modern world, addressing the issues of immigration, feminism, war, and democracy. As the first surviving play of Aeschylus’ lost trilogy, ‘The Suppliant Women’ follows the fifty daughters of Danaus who, fleeing the forced marriages of the Egyptian sons of Aegyptus, arrive in Argos seeking sanctuary. The performance opened in the style of an ancient Greek play whereupon the benefactors, the audience, were thanked for financing the show. A libation (drink offering) of wine was then poured onto the front of the stage to the god of theatre Dionysus by a city official, on my night MSP Willie Rennie, while the chorus sang a libation prayer. The chorus of 30 female volunteers, dressed in colourful modern day clothing, filed onto the stage clutching supplication branches wrapped in white cloth, singing of their arduous travels across land and sea, pleading for asylum from their Egyptian cousins. In a climate of rising societal tensions, especially post-Brexit, the opening of the play drove home the uncomfortable truths of the ongoing refugee crisis, compelling the audience to keep this in mind throughout the performance. S a r a h M i l av i c D av i e s

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choreographed the chorus in daringly complex and collective movements, vigorously portraying the turbulent experiences of the women fleeing from their masculine world of violence. The united movement of the chorus effortlessly met John Browne’s earthy yet intricate composition, charging the stage with raw and powerful emotion and bringing a moving human exploration of the refugee struggle to the stage. As the women prayed for the acceptance and protection of the people of Argos, the king of the city, Pelasgus, entered. The colourful, almost tribal, appearance of the chorus vividly contrasted to the crisp suit worn by Pelasgus, emphasising the foreign nature of the chorus and echoing the ancient Greek trope of non-Greek cultures being alien and barbaric. The staging of the chorus and Pelasgus highlighted the latter’s supremacy as both man and king as he loomed over the women observing their non-Greek appearance. The women’s desperate wish for acceptance as they wrestled with the expectation to assimilate and abandon their ident it y wa s p ower f u l ly encompassed by their reply: ‘we cannot hide that we are foreign’. As Pelasgus decides to ‘act or not act’, mulling over the risk of war to his city, the women convoluted the predicament, threatening to hang themselves using their scarves

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should they be rejected by the Argives. The presence of the black scarves throughout the play served as a constant reminder of this impending promise. The women were then left to fend for themselves outside the city walls to wait for the vote of the Argives, bringing the contemporary struggles of refugees to mind as they wait for the decisions of European countries over immigration. As the wait, the chorus combined their scarves to form a bull, powerfully illustrating the shared fate of their ancestor Io, a victim of Zeus’ infidelity, to the actions of men. Night falls on the stage and the chorus lighting the stage with candles were perturbingly disturbed by the advancing sons of Aegyptus brandishing torches of fire. The uncomfortable implication of rape transcended into the audience’s modern thought as the women were ripped from their huddled formations and sent into a frenzy across the stage. The distressing scene ended as the Argives arrived and accepted the women into the city, meeting them with a double standard in which the women were to assimilate by marriage. Owing to its lost ending, the play closed brusquely as the chorus cried their refusal of marriage and called for equality as both women and seekers of asylum – a call that doesn’t seem so ancient after all.

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THE CROWN H

CHARLOTTE LAUDER The Queen is one of the most influential and consistent figures in modern British culture. She is now the longest reigning monarch in British history, and, since the death of the King of Thailand in October this year, she is now also the longest reigning monarch in the world. Throughout her sixty four year reign there have been countless documentaries and programmes about her. If you have managed to sit through any of them, they all revolve around the same recurring issues: her father King George VI’s untimely death; her young marriage to an exiled Greek and Danish royal (Prince Philip); the tension with her sister Princess Margaret; her unique sense of style; and, lastly, the Queen’s troubled relationship with her children, their spouses, and the modern British media. With such presence in the public consciousness, it comes as no surprise that the most popular streaming service in the world commissioned a new series on the most popular royal family in the world. The Crown is Netflix’s newest original series, and its biggest and most expensive gamble to date. Written and directed by academy award-winner Peter Morgan of The

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Queen and Frost/Nixon fame, the total cost of the Left Bank Pictures production was £100 million. And it’s clear to see why. The first episode opens in dramatic style, with the afflicted King George VI coughing up blood into a toilet. It’s a firm statement of intent: to show the most regal of our society in the most undignified of positions, setting the tone for the rest of the ten episodes. Winston Churchill, unexpectedly and expertly played by John Lithgow, is decrepit, grumpy and manipulating, a contrast to his usual depiction as the majestic Prime Minister and war hero. Doctor Who star Matt Smith’s Prince Philip is equally unlikeable, but overall extremely well-captured. The tension between him and Claire Foy’s dewy-eyed Queen Elizabeth drives the show; they constantly come up against her diverging roles, of mother and of monarch. The show is a cinematic depiction of the Queen’s early reign and the Royal Family’s life in 1950s England. It is sweeping, dramatic, overly emotional and wholeheartedly sentimental. In other words, an easy watch and often a bit of a tearjerker, thanks to its impressive score by Rupert Gregson-Williams. Aside from being an aesthetically pleasing show, The Crown does well in its depiction of postwar British history. It ensures that the often forgotten

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aspects of the Queen’s early reign are not forgotten, paying as much attention to the power struggle in Churchill’s cabinet as it does to exploring the emotions of the newly widowed Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. It devotes at least three episodes to the lingering impact of the Abdication Crisis of 1937 through the gruesomely creepy portrayal of the Duke of Windsor by Alex Jennings. One episode in particular, ‘Act of God’, is pa r tic u la rly il lu m inating. Wonderful CGI aids the telling of ‘The Great Smog of 1952’, in which at least 12,000 people died during three days of heavy climate-induced smog that brought Britain to its knees. This episode sees the sudden death of intriguing character Venetia Scott, played by break-out star Kate Phillips, whose dramatic passing ruled out my predictions of a salacious Downing Street affair with Churchill. Indeed, the show takes no real risks or creative licence. Instead, it stays very close to its intentions, that of portraying the Queen as the steadfast and oblivious monarch she has always been, while exploring the sometimes overlooked int ricacies of government and monarchy that revolved around her. It manages to satisfy the historian, the loyalists and the general public, whilst giving history students a classy excuse to procrastinate.

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THIS IS OPERA

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REBECCA ROSSER

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The presenter realises a historical account of the most famous operas in order to enable the audience to situate these works and appreciate their objectives and evolution. Additionally, he emphasises certain traits about composers’ lives, such as their fears, beliefs, love interests and expectations, in order to really understand operas as the product of ordinary men with extraordinary musical gifts who wanted to convey a message to a lover, to society or to the ruling class.

relatable. To illustrate this with a few examples, Spanish teenagers express their romantic feelings to exemplify Fidelio’s love, British football fans’ passion for the Champions League serves to better appreciate Händel’s Zadok the Priest, tennis players exemplify the Bel ca nto, t he A merica n multimillionaire Jacqueline Siegel represents Manon’s personality, and children help appreciate the wonder of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Thus, the presenter manages to explain a specific feature of one of these thirty operas to these people. This constitutes an incredibly important detail of the programme, as viewers watch how normal people with no knowledge or even with an absolute prior disinterest towards opera end up understanding and appreciating a special aspect of Carmen, Tristan and Isolde, Seville’s Barber or Madame Butterfly, but also leave feeling that they have learned something valuable that they can share with their friends at the dinner table or over a pint. And this is the key to This is Opera’s success - it finds ways to connect with people and to gain access into their homes and hearts.

Furthermore, as opposed to other boring documentaries about opera which bombard and intimidate viewers with information, Gener compares opera music and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with our times, our quotidian lives and our interests, making opera much more approachable and

This is Opera explores the socioeconomic, political and cultural characteristics of the Baroque, Neoclassic, Romantic, Enlightenment, and Modernist periods by comparing them to the twenty-first century and to people’s particular habits. To accomplish this, Gener travels around the world

People think that opera is for posh people dressed up in black tie. This is Opera defies this conception. Its host and presenter, Ramon Gener, argues that opera is for everyone and that everyone should be able to enjoy it, whether that is in black tie or in jeans - in his case, in Salsa jeans, colourful blazers and Desigual handkerchiefs. Gener’s objective is to approximate opera to the public, enabling TV viewers from all backgrounds to relate to the music, the lyrics and the values of each opera. And he is incredibly successful at it.

playing popular songs on his piano in the middle of the street until he gets a group of twenty to thirty people to whom he then explains a particular trait of an opera. He does this in his own way and in the manner of the people he visits. His passion and excitement about opera is the same in Spanish, English, Italian or German. However, his comparisons are different. This is Opera demonstrates an extensive previous study of the culture of each country and its hot topics. For example, to explain the rivalry between Händel’s The Royal Academy of Music and The Opera of Music, Ramon Gener goes to a British football stadium and exemplifies the reasons behind this confrontation with politics (Labour versus Conservative), football (Chelsea versus Arsenal), athletics (Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett), and even rock (The Beatles versus The Rolling Stones). As outrageous and far-fetched as this may seem to some, the metaphors and comparisons employed across the thirty episodes are brilliantly linked to the musical pieces and to past and present popular culture. Opera lovers or experts may feel that this is an introductory TV show, which offers no new information or insights to them. However, This is Opera enables opera fans to put further reason and logic into their passion, while at the same time allowing disinterested opera sceptics to give the genre a chance and to embrace its magical notes and life lessons.

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HIS BLOODY PROJECT: DOCUMENTS RELATED TO THE CASE OF RODRICK MACRAE by Graeme Macrae Burnet

KARA ROSS

One of Scotland’s foremost emerging literary talents, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s second novel, His Bloody Project, toes the fine line between literature and fiction. Compelling, and at times disturbing, it could certainly be labelled crime fiction, and could even perhaps come under the heading of psychological thriller; yet neither of these generic classifications accords this novel the respect it deserves. It was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016 and, though it lost out to Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, its literary merit has now been recognised on the international stage. This novel takes part in a growing canon of texts which concern themselves with the lives of rural Scots in the days before the mass displacement of the Highland clearances: people who lived in villages comprised of four or five families; who lived and died on the generosity of the land; and who thought of Glasgow and Edinburgh as impossibly remote, both in terms of distance and of comprehension, yet said goodbye to family members who would sail across the Atlantic. Set in the 1850’s, the focal point of His Bloody Project is Rodrick

Macrae, a young farmer who lives in a small, secluded village in the north west of Scotland. He is accused of the brutal murder of three of his neighbours, including a young woman and a toddler – for which he accepts full culpability. The centrepiece of the novel is his written account of the events which led him to commit these crimes, written at the request of his advocate who wishes to save him from being hanged by pleading insanity. It is undoubtedly a beautiful piece of writing. It paints with poignant clarity the splendour of Roddy’s surroundings, as well as the isolation and claustrophobia of existence in this remote coastal community. In some ways, this novel feels like a love letter to the homeland of its author. The lyrical depiction of Scotland is meant to echo that of Peter May’s Lewis Trilogy. But the novel pays further homage to Scotland’s literary history, the intertextuality of the book revealing its debt to its forefathers, James Hogg, Lewis Grassis Gibbon, Robert Louis Stevenson and even James Macpherson. Burnet surrounds the main prose narrative with other ‘documents, such as medical reports, a transcript of the criminal trial, and witness statements. Indeed, the novel’s title is almost that of a historical journal article. According

to the author, these texts are provided to inform our judgements – we might argue that they are there to confuse us more. Placing the question of authorial trust at the centre of the novel, Burnet begins by attesting that all of these texts are real historical documents; that this crime really happened, and that it was committed by one of his ancestors. We therefore begin Roddy’s narrative with a sense of unease that never fully dissipates and that accents the traces of uncertainty that silently establish themselves at its margins. Yet, though we never really trust our narrator, a sense of the injustice of his situation builds throughout the text, ultimately leading us to question what justice is or means. This crime fiction is not about whodunit: at the end, the reader is left to consider why these crimes were committed. However, this is a question which requires more than the evidence which the author provides and we begin to question whether figuring out the answer is actually the point of the book. This novel comes recommended both for aficionados of crime fiction and for novices. With all the intrigue expected of the genre, it also offers something fresh and profound and will retain a place in your thoughts long after the book is closed.

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“WITH THE GOETHE AGAINST THE NEGROES?”, CULTURAL PROPAGANDA AND ANTI-WAR JOURNALISM, 1914-15

LUISE ELSAESSER

“Wars are processes of catharsis and purification, they are fields of virtue and awakeners of heroes” - Karl Kraus, The Last Days of Mankind, 1922

As an example of empty idioms towards the horror of war, such claims emanated from newspapers and other statements during the First World War. Karl Kraus thought of the Great War as a complete disaster, which might not be obvious in his play, but which was actually caused by failure of understanding by the audience. He accused mainly the press of camouflaging the reality of war by making it a literary moment. But not only the Austrian press regarded the war as a process of ‘catharsis and purification’. Numerous members of the intellectual elite of t he G e r m a n E mpi re conceptualized the war as a defense of their ‘culture’ in the interest of nation. But why did entrenched groups, which harshly criticized the Wilhelmine society in the prewar years, suddenly get behind the concept of ‘nation’? Was the defense

of their own human and world view a homogenous process? Surprisingly, the centenary of the First World War that came alongside an almost unmanageable number of new publications has not led to a more intensive, dedicated juxtaposition of intellectuals and world images at the level of literature and art. Yet little is known about how anti-war journalism was able to establish itself, whilst a massive propagandist armament constructed a ‘Culture War’. Clearly, both groups drew on nationalism as a community-building concept, emerging in connection with an international level. In their social latitude, the events and reactions to the experiences of August 1914 were not at all homogenous. Panic buying and anxiety for the soldiers were paralleled by chauvinistic outbursts. This article will capture the enabling link between certain narratives under consideration of important aspects of the cultural propaganda and the anti-warjournalism. THE NATION ADDRESS IN 1914 The German Empire did not emerge in a process of inner democratization. The consequence of the German-French war (1870 to 1871) was less precipitated by an incorruptible historic logic than by coincidences, skilful conduct of war, strategy and tactic. The

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constitution of the new Empire tried to be conservative and progressive at the same time, looking to find a balance between federa lism, Un it a r ia n ism, sovereignty of people, monarchy and the Prussian hegemony among the 25 single states. This most complex of tasks conveys the multilayered ambivalences of the German Empire. Within the German Empire there prevailed an optimistic mood towards the future caused by e conom ic a nd s c ie nt i f ic improvement that led to a selfconfident national morality of the young nation. This met with disapproval among the younger generation, who were eager to develop a new human and world view, and which makes the war euphoria of the summer and autumn of 1914 explicable. A movement that is referred to today as the ‘ideas of 1914’ elevated the outbreak of the war to an ethnic-cultural event a n d p r ov id e d d i f f e r e nt interpretations and objectives that functioned as a construction of reason.

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worldview. It became necessary to defend German Culture against western civilisation. German professors supplied a variety of speeches, formulating solutions to the national question. Having a resonance mainly among the educated middle-class and the bureaucratic elites, this led to the contrast of the culture versus civilisation, German socialism against western capitalism, inwardness versus frivolity, organisation and community in opposition to western individualism. The national-pedagogical value is for example appreciated by Hermann Hesse “as altogether very high. To be ripped out of the stupid capitalists - peace did good for many people”. Those irritating attempts of countless writers who glorified their nation and vilified the opponent, make an essential element of propaganda in World War I. Beyond this, these groups did not use nationalism merely as their goal, but rather for transportation of their own ideas. Only when the nationalism inherent of dichotomy approached a more and more extreme form of nationalism in terms of interpreting the self and the other, there emerged criticism of the civilisation by the German Culture. So as a counterpart nationalism required a level, which existed outside of the public and national territory. Referring to nationalism in course of World War I created legitimation. Despite censorship, which did not follow entirely coherent rules in Germany anyway, a lot of scholars, writers, poets and artist expressed themselves through the media to imagine, communicate, realise and memorise the war. An example of cultural propaganda in the immediate context of August 1914 is to illustrate this.

THE CULTURAL WAR When the crisis of July 1914 degenerated into a Pan-European war in August, everyone assumed innocence. The entry into war was a matter of self-defence to the German Empire. In this ‘being surrounded’ rhetoric, the Emperor and government were selling mobilisation – as numerous scholars and intellectuals have spoken of for years. It is however appropriate to distinguish the historic dynamic of August 1914 from a simultaneously emerging narrative of an ethnic community and the ‘ideas of 1914’ in order to conceive the experience of August 1914 in an analytically sensible way. This narrative is to be outlined as follows: dissatisfaction with the present led to the emergence of a neo-idealistic THE ‘PROCLAMATION TO THE

CULTURAL WORLD’ – THE MANIFEST OF THE NINETYTHREE In a lot of writings, the war freed the actual political events of their power political calculus and raised them to a cultural catharsis. One such piece of self-justification was signed by ninety-three members of the cultural elite in the Empire. It was published on the 3rd October 1914 as an answer to the invasion of the neutral Belgium and the devastation of the library in Leuven. Initiated by the writer Ludwig Fulda, the ‘Proclamation to the Cultural World’ had the intention to gain back the sympathies of the international publicity. Many just signed the text without even having knowledge of its factual accuracy and content. Signed by people like Max Planck, Theodor Mommsen, Friedrich Naumann and Max Liebermann, the manifesto protested against the lies which were allegedly disseminated about Germany: “It is not true, that Germany caused this war…It is not true, that we sacrilegious committed a breach of neutrality in Belgium”. With its claim to infallibility it quickly became a symbol of German arrogance and barbary abroad. The proclamation didn’t even back off to produce allegations against their opponents. So would Belgium have been run over by Britain or France if not by the Germans? Equally indigent were the signatures by the deployment of soldiers from the British and French colonies: “The least right to act as a defender of European civilization have those who ally with the Russians and Serbs and offering the world the shameful spectacle of rushing Mongols and Negroes to the white race.” The manifesto is closed with the words: “Believe us! Believe us, that we will fight this battle to its end as a cultural nation to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, a

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Kant is just as divine as his stove and his plaice. Therefore, we avow with our names and honour!” With the intellectual legacy of Goethe, so they obviously believed, the battle against the ‘negroes’ and the western civilisation were to be fought. This manifesto launched the war of words among the European intellectual about the ethic valuation of war related events and it reveals that nationalism is negotiated beyond a geographically defined nation. Yet it would be a mistake to make up a causal coherence between literary-artistic affirmation before 1914 and World War I as propaganda did not follow an entirely linear direction. Au contraire, there were a few voices which warned against the catastrophic consequences of a war. One of this critical institutions was the magazine ‘The Action’ edited by Franz Pfemfert. ‘THE ACTION’ – AN INSTITUTION OF THE ANTI-WAR-JOURNALISM ‘The Action’ opposed the political and economic order of the German Empire, which was, according to the editor, strengthened and supported by the ideological values of nationalism and patriotism. While on the one hand the parliament would represent illusory promises of those in power and capitalism would be the basis for exploitation of the masses, whilst on the other the militant nationalism would constitute the backbone of an aggressive and materialistic national consciousness. Insofar as ‘The Action’ reflected the common opinion of intellectuals in the Wilhelmine period. But unlike the signatories of the manifest ‘The Action’ faced the outbreak of the Great War in a remarkably hostile manner. There were three different columns that were directly turned against war. First, the ‘Little Letterbox’. Second, the rubric ‘I Cut Out the

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Time’ and last - but not least - the obituaries ‘Verses from Battlefield’. The first two of them protested war in a polemic way by the uncommented publication and exposure of propaganda-journalistic warmongering. In the centre of the ‘Little Letterbox’ stood the critique of the war enthusiasms in the German press and of individual German artists. The rubric ‘I Cut Out the Time’ was summarised by Paul Raabe as “a chamber of horrors upon a lack of disposition, taste, thoughts in reports on war and war time”, which caused as “an embarrassing document of human weakness…unease, disconcertment, yes…even humiliation”. The section consisted of generic assemblies of text extracts and quotations. Pfemfert succeeded in illustrating and criticising the war behaviour of society. The editor of ‘The Action’ revealed apologetic war clichés and unmasked war reality. An example which demonstrates the horrible dehumanisation of Belgian citizens was originally published in the ‘Berliner Tagblatt’ in 1915: “Praise God there are cheerful episodes. On Saturday…we marched into the burning Ethe [Belgium]. Here we got into a street fight, which was not very bloody for us due to the resident’s gutlessness. We took everything male and all ham and bacon too, because firstly the human being does have to subsist on something, and no one likes being shot in the back either. At a door lay a wounded Franktireur, and near him grunted peacefully a fine fat sow. The major who rode by called out to us: ‘Take the sow!’, whereupon a man asked promptly: ‘Which one, major?’” Technically the second rubric, but here referred to as the last for thematic reasons are ‘Verses from Battlefield’, which were first published on 26th September 1914. These death notices offered an

alternative to the conventional obituaries, because Pfemfert refused to follow their nationalistic jargon. These obituaries were the exact opposite of the usual ones during war. They were designed with a simple black frame, and lacked the otherwise customary nationalistic symbols. Even when regarding the content these announcements did not occupy anything heroic, but acquainted plainly the date of death of intellectual figures, regardless of the nation. Clearly the editor of ‘The Action’ worked out a way to construct a sort of counter-public. Opposite to the ninety-three, which signed the ‘Proclamation to the Cultural World’ uncritical and without verifying the facts, Pfemfert kept his plausibility and credibility throughout World War I. Nevertheless, it is to consider that the anti-war-journalism of Pfemfert had led to a community of war opponents. If nationalism is seen as a social construct, which expresses itself in a sense of community, it appears that Pfemfert indeed did not follow the hypernationalism of the war, but was too occupied by the term nationalism, probably unconsciously, in a different way than the average war enthusiast. CONCLUSION The need for justification of war became an issue for the cultural elites of the German Empire. The propaganda legitimized the ‘great seminal catastrophe’ of the 20th century (George F. Kennan) with the help of nationalism. The ‘Proclamation to the Cultural World’ tasked itself not only to appeal inward, but also to tout for the favour of a global public. The thesis that nationalism retroacted in this context from an international level back to the nation, in the sense of excluding everything culturally foreign and by their exclusion

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created a community, can be approved accordingly. In a different manner the antiwar-journalism created a solidary group, which excluded war enthusiasts rigorously. The editor of the magazine ‘The Action’ occupied the term nationalism in a different way than the signatories of the manifest of the ninety-three. The commitment of ‘The Action’ was based on a synthesis of expressionistic art and political subversive polemics, whose goal were a fundamental transformation of the Wilhelmine society. This aim is at the bottom comparable to the one of the manifest. However, was the war society as a whole the enemy of ‘The Action’, so was it the western civilisation to the war enthusiasts. Both ways were nationally charged. Critics continued to find ways to express their thoughts. In the course of war, excitement flew away quickly. The cultural war failed in the end and made place for disillusionment and a republic in 1918. The warriors of words fought not anymore against the ‘negroes’, but against the system of the Weimar Republic.

Böhme, Klaus, ‘Aufruf an die Kulturwelt’, in: Aufrufe und Reden deutscher Professoren im Ersten Weltkrieg, (Stuttgart, 1975). Plenge, Johann, Eine Kriegsvorlesung über die deutsche Volkswirtschaft. Das Zeitalter der Volksgenossenschaft, (Berlin, 1915). [...] Bibliography continued online

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PANAFRICANISM AND WESTERN DOMINATION

WAS PAN-AFRICANISM A RESPONSE TO WESTERN DOMINATION FORMED ACCORDING TO WESTERN EXPECTATIONS OF THE COLONISED?

Toussaint’s failure was the failure of enlightenment, not of darkness - C.L.R James, Black Jacobins.

This is where the African intellectual lives in paradoxical terms: powerful yet powerless. - Toyin Falola, Nationalism and African Intellectuals.

PABLO PEREZ RUIZ

Pan-Africanism, when taken as a broad ‘group of movements’ with ‘no single nucleus’ and stemming from the experiences of the African diaspora, cannot be seen as a simple, reactive response to Western domination and discrimination, but rather as a creative, transterritorial solidarity movement that predated some of the current debates around transnational migration. After defining the concepts of African diaspora and pan-Africanism, this essay will discuss the ‘Western’ origins of pan-Africanism, and the case for pan-Africanism as a response rooted in Western epistemology and

according to Western expectations of the colonised. Two case studies will be analysed: that of Senghor’s Negritude and Diop’s Afrocentrism, together with their respective critiques by Fanon and Appiah. The Western-dependent nature of some pan-African thought can be understood through Foucault’s notion of bounded resistance, although with certain qualifications. Ultimately, although agreeing with El Saadawi that ‘migrants cannot replace those who continue to struggle and work at home in Africa’, the merits of panAfricanism, with its legacy of transterritoriality as a particular example, have to be recognised as open spaces of resistance through which the African intellectual diaspora asserted their agency and negotiated their conf licted identities. This article does however fall into two common biases that follow from the nature of the existing sources: it prioritises the literate African elites over the many others that left no written records, and it provides a male-centric perspective of pan-Africanism. The notions of pan-Africanism and African diaspora are highly elusive terms in the literature. Starting from Adi and Sherwood’s assertion that ‘there has never been one universally accepted definition of what constitutes pan-Africanism’,

this article advocates for Shepperson’s view of panAfricanism as a ‘group of movements’ with no ‘single nucleus’. That allows for the inclusion of different perspectives such as Afrocentrism and Negritude, seeing panAfricanism as both a series of movements and ideas celebrating ‘Africanness’ and resisting racism and exploitation. Lemelle and Kelley have eloquently framed panAfricanism as an ‘oppositional ideology’; a crucial point when assessing its reliance on Western epistemology and expectations. Pan-Africanism’s status as a ‘transnational solidarity’ is also important to understand its relation to the African diaspora; panAfricanism’s trans-geographical and long-lasting nature has made it take different forms at different times and locations, sometimes leading to conflicting agendas. In what refers to the term ‘African diaspora’, a broad definition is preferred to accommodate a range of perspectives. Shepperson is again helpful in his view of the African diaspora as more extended in time and space than has been commonly supposed. Although originally intended as a counter-narrative of American slavery and European colonial discourse and in an attempt to develop an affirmative version of African history, the idea of African diaspora has now become

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accepted in the mainstream literature. Two problematic issues arise from this notion of diaspora: first, the danger of emphasising com mon ex perience over differences, which Falola has dealt with by talking about different strategies but common struggles; second, the danger of using the term African diaspora as a pretext to talk about something else, what Achille Mbembe sees as the West’s tendency to use Africa as an intermediary to ‘accede to its own subconscious.’ A broad conception of diaspora and pan-Africanism are thus necessary to contextualise the experiences of the thinkers considered below. To understand the wider nature of pan-Africanism we need to first look at its roots. Although Falola has pointed out the difficulties in dating the origins of the movement, which included experiences of slavery in America, colonization of Africa by Europeans, and worldwide racism, influential thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois have asserted that pan-Africanism ‘had no deep roots in Africa itself’, but rather originated in the places of the African diaspora. Before 1945, the core of the panAfrican movement resided in the diaspora and it was the shared experience of racism across ethniclines that created the first opportunities to mobilize. Early pa n-A f rica nism wa s t hus considerably influenced by its place of origin, i.e. North America and Britain, and the frames of thought it provided. The case of North America is particularly interesting, as the difficulty of tracing back one’s origin led to the ‘adoption of Africa as one single “nation”.’ The adoption of Christian elements in early North-American panAfricanism is evident in its ‘bias towards imperialist forms of progress and Christianisation’ and its ‘evangelistic approach to Africa.’ Early civil rights leader Thomas Fortune affirmed that ‘Christian religion [in Africa] is destined to supplant all other religious systems

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of belief, because it is the best code of moral philosophy ever given to man’. Others like Edward Blyden expressed similar thoughts, and the Bible was the key text for many pan-Africanists of the nineteenth century. At the other side of the Atlantic, the pan-Africanism originating in Britain with the founding of the African Association in 1897 and the First pan-African Conference held in London in 1900 also exhibited some features derived from its origin within the West. The publicity announcing the conference did not call for the complete destruction of Empire, but was framed in terms of the need to ‘influence public opinion on existing proceedings and conditions affecting the welfare of Natives in various parts of the Empire’. The aim was to persuade the metropole and to influence domestic public opinion by using the frameworks of thought of the coloniser. Whether the use of the oppressor’s language and discourse by panAfricanists in North America and Britain was a conscious strategic move or an unconscious, dependent reaction to Western domination requires a brief mention of the Western (mis)education received by many of those in the African intellectual diaspora. As Adi has highlighted, the British had a vested interest in ‘developing a class of Africans sympathetic to the interest of the British ruling class’ and in teaching these Africans the British traditions of governance. With this in mind, tracing the education of many of the leaders of the African diaspora shows the influence that Western education may have had on their thought and behaviour. Molony’s exhaustive biography of Nyerere’s formative years has shown the influence that being educated in Edinburgh had on Nyerere’s political thought, and also how the experience of exile heightened his awareness of racism and colonialism. The experience of exile reinforced an ‘African identity’ in many intellectuals; Horton, also educated

in Edinburgh, adopted the name ‘Africanus’ during his time in Britain. C.L.R. James’ Letters from London is another good example of the disappointment faced by a ‘Black Englishman’ in Britain, and his writing simultaneously uses the colonisers’ most refined language while being critical of the realities in the metropole. Although being subjects of the French rather than the British Empire, both Diop and Senghor studied at the Sorbonne, and the first was granted French citizenship, joined the French army, and became the first African ‘immortal’ member of the Académie Française. There is a crucial element of class in the African diaspora’s elites adoption of Western epistemology and attitudes, and subsequently in their response to the West through pan-Africanism. Ultimately, ‘the way in which a group enters a society has a profound impact upon their social status and their social psychology’, and the position of the African diaspora intellectual as both powerful and powerless was key in their articulation of panAfricanism. The study of the particular cases of Senghor’s Negritude and Diop’s Afrocentrism can help elucidate some of the tensions mentioned above. In ‘Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century’, Senghor argues for a ‘black personality,’ the African’s certain way of ‘conceiving life and of living it,’ and defines negritude as ‘the sum of the cultural values of the black world’. Building on the ideas of ‘African uniqueness’ developed by German ethnologist Leo Frobenius, Senghor opposes African and European ontologies: the first ‘conceives the world as a fundamentally mobile reality’, the latter as ‘objective, static, and dichotomic.’ Senghor creates the philosophical category of the ‘African Man’ (note the gendered language), and elevates him to the highest form of being after God. Negritude thus becomes ‘morality

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in action’, deriving from the African’s natural trait of living according to the moral law. There is a feeling of essentialism and disconnection from reality all throughout the piece, which can be read as an attempt for selfconfirmation and reassurance by an intellectual member of the African diaspora. Fanon was highly critical of Senghor, and saw his search for a ‘black culture’ as a product of the ‘anxiety shared by native intellectuals to shrink away from that Western culture in which they all risk being swamped.’ There is indeed a tension within the piece, and it is not clear who Senghor is writing for. Senghor seems to be, as exposed by Fanon, trying to ‘rehabilitate himself and to escape from the claws of colonialism’, but his thought is still too inscribed within the same epistemology as that of the coloniser. Moreover, Fanon criticised a particular kind of African intellectual for dedicating his/her efforts to comparing ‘coins and sarcophagi’ instead of joining the political struggle against colonialism. Culture would ultimately be created through national struggle rather than through intellectuals trying to ‘renew contact with the oldest and most pre-colonial springs of life of their people.’

Thus, Senghor disputes the idea of the European superior subject by creating an even more superior African subject, while Diop contests European history of civilization by creating an African-Egyptian alternative. They are both oppositional but dependent accounts existing within the wider framework of pan-Africanism as an ‘oppositional ideology’. But merely dismissing Diop and Senghor’s account as incomplete, co-opted modes of resistance, would be unfair, and would assume the existence of a ‘true’ form of resistance derived from ‘pure’ or ‘authentic’ African culture which has been untouched by the West. Moreover, it would assume that the intellectual diaspora’s Western education and access to Western culture is more problematic in their relation to pan-Africanism and African modernity than that of the masses. Re-reading Foucault, true resistance is possible if seen as a ‘multiplicity of points of resistance’ with no single ‘soul of revolt’. This fits C.L.R. James’ idea that ‘those people who are in Western civilization, who have grown up in it, but made to feel and themselves feeling that they are outside, have a unique insight into their society’. To the idea of resistance as revisited above, it is fundamental to add an awareness of both discursive and political-economic forms of oppression, as highlighted by both Fanon and Sekou Toure among ot he r s . T he i nte l le c t u a l decolonization must come hand in hand with an awareness of the social realities on the ground, and Diop had been quite successful in his call for a ‘politically engaged objectivity’, playing with Western ideals of objectivity while calling for action.

African pride. In The African Origin of Civilization, Diop reversed European ideas of Africa as an ‘indispensable negative trope in the language of modernity.’ European conceptions of history relied on Africa being backwards for Europe to be modern, and it is this rhetorical artifice that Diop set out to challenge by calling to rehabilitate African people’s place in history through a ‘cultural revolution’ that allows Africans to explain their own historical past. This cultural revolution would allow Africans to ‘define the image of a modern Africa reconciled with its past and preparing for its future.’ The mention of Africa’s future means political engagement against European chauvinism, and not just intellectual lucubrations. However, writers like Appiah have been highly critical of Diop, calling his writings ‘Europe Upside Down’: criticizing the West through Western (specifically Victorian) modes of t hin k ing. T he preoccupation with the Ancient world, the prejudice against cultures without writing, and the prioritising of the ‘great male leader’ make Diop’s Afrocentrism an ‘essentially reactive structure’ according to Appiah. Trying to identify a common origin on African civilization only replicates European attempts to find an origin for Turning now to the pan-Africanism Western culture. of Diop, his Afrocentric ideas need to be framed as an attempt to With these two case studies in emancipate Africa from the Euro- mind, Foucault’s notion of resistance centric vision of history. Against can be a helpful framework to the Western imperial version of conceptualise the tensions in the history, Diop formulated an pan-Africanism of the African alternative thesis which saw intellectual diaspora. Foucault’s Egyptian civilization as a black view of resistance as dependent on civilization and as the ‘initiator’ of power and existing within power Western civilization, thus seems to fit the argument so far: challenging the Western view of African intellectuals in the diaspora, civilization originating in Ancient having received a Western Greece. Ancient Egypt is seen as education, could only contest their the basis of African cultural (and own upbringing with the tools that political) unity and as a reason for this education had provided them.

Looking more closely at both Senghor and Diop can therefore not only expand our ideas of

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resistance and of the agency of the African intellectual diaspora but also enrich our understanding of migration and transnationalism. Tageldin has eloquently argued that Senghor’s pan-Africanism predates contemporary debates of transterritoriality and trans-nationalism. By manipulating ‘race and culture to defy the limits that politics might impose on more “worldly” histories and geographies’, Senghor (and other pan-Africanists) transcended geographical lines. Despite his sometimes ‘nativist’ conception of Africa, Senghor’s negritude can be also read as transborder and transcontinental, i.e. including those in the diaspora. Migration was the context for the writings of both Diop, Senghor and others, and their writings have to be read in light of their concerns for Africa and for themselves, especially in what refers to the tension between assimilation and individuality. As Falola has highlighted, ‘migration can create a profound need to understand the homeland’, and the impossibility for many in the diaspora to become full citizens of their host countries may have played in their transnationalism and connections with their homeland. Although the experiences of transnationalism in the first half of the twentieth century may have been limited to a small African elite, they were in many ways precursors of the later generations in their tendency to build and maintain multiple linkages with their countries of origin. Despite the origins of panAfricanism within the West and the role of a Western-educated elite of pan-African thinkers, the thought of intellectuals such as Senghor or Diop cannot merely be seen as futile, ‘impure’ resistance but as creative attempts to deal with multiple issues ranging from identity and the experience of

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migration to racism and oppression. Although elements of class are important, and some thinkers such as Senghor might have lacked an awareness about or involvement in the political and economic realities in Africa, the members of the African intellectual diaspora can be seen as precursors of later debates around transnationalism and transterritoriality. Despite its focus on the more intellectual side of panAfricanism, this essay does not suggest the separation between the ideological and the practical in panAfricanism, as they have both been highly intertwined across panAfrican history. Moreover, the individual treatment of writers and intellectuals does not intend to abstract them from the broader movements of which they were part, but was used as a more manageable approach to the topic. Ultimately, the stretch in time and space of pan-Africanism and the African diaspora makes this account one of the multiple possible explorations of pan-Africanism, one of multiple ‘points of resistance’, one trace of agency in the larger span of African history.

Adi, Hakim, ‘Pan-Africanism and West African Nationalism in Britain’, African Studies Review, 43 (2000), pp.69-82. Adi, Hakim and Sherwood, Marika, PanAfrican History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787 (London, 2003). Adi, Hakim, ‘African Political Thinkers, Pan-Africanism and the Politics of Exile, 18501970’, Immigrants and Minorities 30 (2012), pp.263-291. [...] Bibliography continued online

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PHARAOH AKHENATEN’S ORDAINED BENEVOLENCE: USING FAMILIAL TRAITS AND RELIGION TO ASSERT KINGLY AUTHORITY AND POWER IN ANCIENT EGYPT JENISHA SABARATNAM

University of California, Berkeley

As Pharaoh of Lower and Upper Egypt, King Akhenaten undoubtedly had immense power over his land and subjects throughout his seventeen year rule of the 18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Though it was common for Pharaohs to justify their rule through religion, Akhenaten took it one step further. He changed the primary god of worship from Amun to Aten, and used poems and steles* - among other things - to assert his dominance, validate his rule, and defend his religious reforms. (*a stele is a stone or wooden slab, erected as a tall monument and was used in Ancient Egypt for funerary purposes, to mark sacred territories and as territorial boundaries used by Akhenaten.) Akhenaten uses both the poem, ‘the Hymn to the Aton’, and the stele of his family to promote his authority and power over Egypt and his subjects. Throughout the poem, Akhenaten unduly praises the God Aten to the point where he indirectly asserts his own kingly power to be greater than even that of Aten’s. While in stark contrast, the image carved into the stele depicts Akhenaten as affectionate and familial, with Aten approving and blessing the Pharaoh in this respect. However, though the stele presents the king’s supposedly tender and benevolent personality,

rather than his military might - as earlier Pharaohs had done Akhenaten uses the altruistic message of the stele as a way to deceptively promote his own kingly supremacy and justification of his reign. King Akhenaten asserted his dominance as a righteous ruler of Egypt by focusing on religious power exclusive only to the king. Upon becoming king, Akhenaton changed the traditionally central god of worship from Amun (known as the king of all gods) to Aten, the sun god, while also evidently merging Aten’s name into his own. In fact, Akhenaten dedicated so much of his time to religion and religious reforms, that he ended up ‘ignor[ing] the military and administrative problems of the Egyptian empire.’ It is interesting to note however that Akhenaten experienced no dire consequences of his extreme actions, whether it be heavily controlling one aspect of everyday life or having a complete lack of control in another. In fact it wasn’t until Akhenaton’s son, Tutankhamen, came into power that these religious reforms - to many of the people’s relief - ended. This clearly shows that those under the Pharaoh, either out of respect or fear of his power, were constrained from speaking out - no matter how much the Egyptian people may have disliked his actions. This speaks immensely of a Pharaoh’s power during the height of Egyptian civilization. In ‘Hymn to the Aton’, Akhenaten excessively praises the god Aten;

his position as the only ruler to actually worship this god portrays him as the supreme leader. This further indicates that he has power matching, or even surpassing, that of Aten. Akhenaten’s praises to the god are seen right from the beginning of the poem in which he declares: ‘Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven, / Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!’ Though Akhenaten continues to compliment Aten, he does so by referring to himself in the third person: ‘Thou art in my heart, / And there is no other that knows thee / Save thy son [Akhenaten], /For thou hast made him well-versed in thy plane and in thy strength.’ Akhenaten indirectly honors himself by claiming that God Aten’s actions have in fact been to elevate himself as the king. This is emphasised in the final lines of the poem: ‘But when thou risest again, / Everything is made to flourish for the king, / Since thou didst found the earth / An raise them up for thy son, / Who came forth from thy body: / The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, ... Ahk-en-Aton’ Thus, regardless of the manner or expanse that Akhenaten credits the God Aten with, it is only another technique employed in order to benefit the establishment of his own authority. The subjects reading this poem are presented with the image that their king, ordained by god, has a direct link to an immeasurable amount of holy power. In contrast, Akhenaten use the stele - titled ‘House-shrine’ - to

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similarly boast of his power, but in a more modest and shrewder way than in ‘Hymn to the Aton’. The stele features his family gathered under the blessing of Aten, and illustrates to the people that Akhenaten’s family - his wife, Nefertiti, and his three daughters - is privy to the authority and access that comes with being descendants of Aten. The stele shows that Akhenaten along with his wife are the only representatives of God on Earth. Anything Aten claimed to express to Akhenaten relating to religion, rule and power had to be taken as the utmost truth. This gave him power beyond that of any earlier Pharaoh. He could single-handedly make decisions for Egypt based on his personal preferences and opinions, while using religion and his sole connection with Aten as the justification for his judgments and actions. This stele was small enough to be mass produced and for people to keep in their homes, serving as a physical reminder of A k henaten’s aut horitative governance in his subjects’ private homes. Akhenaten managed to deceive his people and bring them to believe that his power was really just a byproduct of his humbleness and kindness. The stele also has a second component that is subtler in the way Akhenaten defends his power. One major feature of the stele is the way Akhenaten is portrayed in relation to his wife, Nefertiti. In a day and age when women were undoubtedly secondary to men, and when Pharaohs themselves had multiple wives, the stele would have had a huge impact on the population of that time to see Akhenaten not only carved to be directly facing his wife, but also sitting on the same plane, as opposed to above her. He is tenderly and carefully holding his child, probably his eldest due to the larger size of this child compared to the others, for a kiss, while his wife holds their other

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two children. This image of a complete family is significant as it depicts to the people that Akenaten is both loving and caring. To add to this message, Aten, portrayed as a sun disc, is centered directly above the family, extending his rays in the form of hands out towards them and his hands almost touching both Akhenaten’s and Nefertiti’s faces, approving and blessing them as the rightful rulers of Egypt. By changing the primary god of worship and therefore the religion of Egypt during this reign, Akhenaten became the only link between the god Aten and his subjects. This would have given him immeasurable power in the way he could rule by using Aten’s name as a validation for any of his actions. However in so doing, he also needed to prove to his people that he was as powerful, or even more so, as previous kings. Through ‘Hymn to the Aton’ Akhenaten desired to show his direct authority by praising the god Aten and ended up honoring himself more than the god. He was able to gain justified supremacy through the worship and reverence of his people towards him. ‘Hymn to the Aton’ and the ‘House-shrine’ a re va lu able sou rces i n understanding how the Pharaoh wished to portray himself - as more commanding than the gods themselves - and, therefore, cannot be used as the consensus for the beliefs of the common population.

Edited by Pritchard, James B. “Hymn to the Aton: Religious Reform and Monotheism”. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969. Translated by John A. Wilson. “House-shrine” stele. New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, ca. 1340 BCE.

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THE SOCIAL POLICIES OF MAO ZEDONG: HIS IMPACT ON

WOMEN IN CHINA H

NELL BROWN In October 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong emerged as the ‘absolute ruler of China’ following a period of bitter conflict between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CCP). The CCP usurped the KMT at the end of the protracted Chinese Civil War. The emergence of the CCP resulted in the ‘sweeping away of Chinese tradition’ and a backlash against Confucianism. Confucianism is a philosophy based on the teachings of Confucius, (551479 BCE). The teachings emphasize ‘proper and righteous social behavior, respect for and obedience to parents, deference to elders and superiors, the preservation of social harmony, and the value of education.’ Confucianism has been the basis, historically, for traditional culture in China, as well as in other East Asian regions. However, in 1949, Mao made clear that he intended to establish China as a ‘brand-new socialist country’ through the destruction of Confucian values. One particular aspect of this was changing the structure of society through social policies and legislation in order to address the subjugation of women. In 1954, Mao enshrined in law the equality of men and women through Article 96 of the Constitution. Mao appeared to be addressing gender disparity in his legislation, unlike

the Nationalists who ‘did not make gender equality a priority.’ Mao has been described as a ‘radical and enthusiastic advocate of women’s equality’, but this is arguably a simplification. The partial emancipation of women, after the CCP took power from the KMT, helped Mao to facilitate his socialist society more easily. Mao was wellknown for his ‘strong egalitarian slogan: ‘women hold half the sky’’. This slogan, however, has in many ways masked the real ways in which new social policy and legislation both advanced and hindered women during the Maoist era. The most significant policy shift at the beginning of Mao’s period of rule was in relation to marriage. In May 1950, the PRC introduced the New Marriage Law, which has been described by Neil J. Diamant as ‘one of the most dramatic efforts ever by a state to change the ‘traditional’ family into one more suited to the ‘modern world’ and to a particular political ideology.’ The Nationalist government had introduced reforms which banned footbinding and ‘discourag[ed] polygamy’ during the period of the Republic. These reforms, however, were limited and did not re-address the gender balance or truly liberate women in a meaningful way. The New Marriage Law, however, was part of a ‘national campaign to ‘smash feudal marriage’ and liberate women from the shackles of arranged marriages’. Many initially considered the new legislation to be too extreme. For Mao, however, the New Marriage Law was part

of creating a new society in which ‘the rigid hierarchical and patriarchal structures of feudal society’ no longer existed. The legislation sought to ensure an end to ‘the superiority of man over woman’, and to create a democratic marriage system that was ‘based on free choice of partners, on monogamy, on equal rights for both sexes, and on the protection of the lawful interests of women and children.’ It also outlawed bigamy and concubinage, whilst raising the legal marriage age to 18 years for women and 20 for men. The legislation was progressive for a country that had previously had such an entrenched patriarchal system. Although on the surface, Mao’s social policy appeared to advance and not hinder women and readjust the skewed gender balance away from men, Jianfu Chen is critical of the initial impact of the New Marriage Law on women and their status within Chinese society. He suggests that while ‘mass participation in enforcing the law during 1950 and 1953’ took place, with ‘70% of the mainland area being reached by propaganda concerning the Law,’ ultimately, the legislation was ‘largely ignored in the 1960s and 1970s.’ Madsen agrees that the New Marriage Law was ‘not vigorously enforced in the countryside.’ He argues that weak implementation of the CCP’s Marriage Law meant that the legislation ‘did not deeply affect the basic structure of rural family life’ as Mao had intended. The legislation and its contents,

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which may have secured a greater status for women within the institution of marriage during the 1950s and onwards, was largely ignored despite Mao’s emphasis on its promulgation. Prior to 1949, Madsen asserts, it was not unusual for marriages to be arranged by parents ‘in such a way that the bride and groom would not meet until the day of their wedding.’ The New Marriage Law was intended to break this Chinese tradition and allow individuals greater freedom to choose their partner. Although Madsen suggests that ‘children gradually gained more of a say in who their spouse would be than they had had in the early twentieth century,’ it took time for this to become more widespread. Even when men and women gained increasing freedom to be involved in choosing their partner, Madsen emphasizes that marriage, even after the rise of Mao, remained ‘an arrangement between families rather than individuals.’ The impact of Mao’s new policies, relating to marriage, was arguably not significant in terms of swiftly deconstructing the entrenched patriarchal system that pervaded China in the 20th century. Marriage inequality was embedded within traditional Chinese society and Mao failed to adequately alter this. The content of the New Marriage Law had the potential to enact unquestionable change within China but the CCP lost focus on the issue, as the economy and other issues began to take precedence. Although Mao failed to significantly improve the position of women within marriage, the CCP did manage, ‘despite relatively low levels of income per head’, to improve ‘the health status of the population’ in China during the Maoist era. Whilst Mao is often criticized for his failings and personal contribution to the tragedies during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, he did make some positive changes to Chinese society

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during his time as leader. Everett Rogers suggests that it was, in part, the Cultural Revolution that led Mao to recognize the changes that were needed within China’s healthcare structure. Rogers describes how, in June 1967, ‘the Minister of Health and all six vice ministers were removed from office...and the ministry’s normal functions came to a virtual standstill.’ Efforts were made to fill the “temporary vacuum created by a lack of central government direction after 1966” but most attempts to create “an effective, low-cost rural health system” failed. An experiment, however, in areas of the Shanghai Municipality whereby “mobile medical teams were sent from urban hospitals to train ‘barefoot doctors’ in rural areas” was looked upon favorably by Mao. The whole concept “was consistent with Maoist philosophy on local self-reliance and...selfless service to the people.” William Joseph describes barefoot doctors as “paramedics trained (usually by medical teams of the People’s Liberation Army) to attend to the primary and preventive medical needs of people in China’s rural areas during the Maoist era, especially in the early 1970s.” They usually were local individuals and tended to be “farmers with limited medical training combining western and traditional medicines.” The emergence of barefoot doctors signified a new era in China, where the health of Chinese people, particularly in rural China, was deemed important by the state. From Mao and the CCP’s perspective, a healthy population ensured a productive population. Short and Zhang argue that the Chinese state succeeded in improving the health of their population largely due to this “distribution of resources toward cheaper, cost-effective preventative services.” The concept of barefoot doctors was deemed so successful in China that it received “world attention.” For rural families, the training of barefoot doctors was a

very welcome development. Individuals living in rural areas of China were victims of “the urban bias of medical services.” Zhang and Unschuld suggest that in 1964 “health-care expenditure for 8.3 million urban citizens covered by the state was more than that for 500 million peasants.” The introduction of barefoot doctors from 1968 sought to readdress the balance and distribution of health services as “mobile teams of doctors from urban hospitals were sent to deliver health care and train indigenous paramedics.” Barefoot doctors could not administer the same level of care as properly trained doctors but they both improved health in rural areas and decreased health care costs by preventing the emergence or progression of many minor health problems. In 1968, when barefoot doctors were first introduced, “the traditional health system...was very strong in rural China.” In order to prevent any opposition to the barefoot doctor program, “traditional medicine was integrated with Western medicine in barefoot doctor training, and many traditional practitioners were retrained.” In terms of improving the lives of women in rural areas, the barefoot doctor program was hugely transformative. It helped to reduce the disparity between women in rural and urban areas. Women in rural areas were, after the arrival of barefoot doctors, more likely to be able to access services relating to their maternal health that women in urban areas usually had access to, with barefoot doctors being supported by health aides. Health aides’ responsibilities with regards to maternal health included “distributing contraceptive pills,” and “involvement in other aspects of birth planning.” Their work was largely related to ensuring prevention of health problems. With regards to women, health aides sought to ensure, with the assistance of barefoot doctors that

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pregnancies were avoided or planned, in a reversal of Mao’s early policy encouraging women to have numerous children. In the early years of the Mao era, population growth was prized within Chinese society as it was believed that “a mobilized and energized labor force could break through all obstacles to development.” It soon became apparent, however, that despite “rapid gains in economic recovery and expansion in the 1950s, there was not enough food grain...to meet the need.” This was alongside shortages in land, housing, and employment. Despite Mao’s initial belief that “China’s large population was its greatest resource,” the CCP quickly acknowledged the necessity of moving to “create a comprehensive planning apparatus.” It resulted in access for women to birth planning amenities, eventually including contraceptives as well as, even in some rural areas, advice. It is crucial to note, however, as Tyrene White articulates that birth planning was not introduced in order to enable “childbearing-age couples” to “choose whether and when to have children.” Rather it was intended to ensure “the subjection of childbearing to the state’s machinery of economic planning.” The emergence of birth planning undoubtedly ensured that pregnancies could be avoided in rural areas but it was usually offered so that women could be used for their labor in order for production targets to be met. Although some women, both in rural and urban areas, may have viewed the opportunity to “plan their children and use birth control to prevent early or unwanted pregnancies” as a progressive step, in reality, it was the beginning of a shift towards the adoption of the one-child policy. Whilst Mao was dead by 1979, when the one-child policy was “launched by the Deng regime”, the policy, which took

away maternal freedom and rights from women across both urban and rural China, was without question “merely built on the pattern that had already been established” by Mao, and was “the logical and radical outcome of the idea of jihua shengyu” (“birth planning”). What was initially masked as an opportunity for greater freedom for individuals to plan pregnancies around their contributions to CCP’s new socialist society, became an opportunity for the state to greatly intervene in the lives of Chinese women and their families. The CCP had posed themselves as “committed to the liberation of women and equal rights for men and women,” however, their ultimate interference in women’s private lives signified a considerably less liberated society. As overpopulation became exacerbated, and it became increasingly clear that demand could not be met for food and other resources, shifting the role of women from child bearers to laborers solved multiple problems. It ensured a large workforce with fewer women prevented from carrying out hard labor due to pregnancy, whilst, at the same time, ensuring the population was reduced towards a manageable level. The introduction of barefoot doctors helped to improve the safety of pregnancy and ensure better maternal health, but it ultimately came alongside another detrimental shift in policy which sought to reduce women’s freedom to have children as they pleased in order to ensure a plentiful labor force and a return to a sustainable population size. The role of women in the labor force is significant in terms of the changing status of women during the Maoist period. There is much debate over whether women’s movement into the workforce, particularly in rural areas, signaled an advancement for women. In some respects women

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were entering a traditionally male sphere, however, many women objected to the expectation that they should have to carry out extremely hard labor, despite, in some cases, their inferior strength. Prior to 1949, although women could enter the workforce in a limited capacity, Burnett argues that despite “women pursuing higher levels of education”, women “had reason to hesitate” when deciding whether to enter. Before the Maoist period, there were fewer jobs open to women, pay was significantly lower even for the same work, and “women employed outside of the home often faced overwhelming societal disapproval.” Burnett suggests that before the Maoist era, women entering the workforce were considered “to be little better than prostitutes.” The negative connotations associated with women entering the workforce dissuaded many from fulfilling their potential outside of the domestic sphere. The Mao era provided an opportunity for change. Before 1949, only around “seven and a half percent of the workforce” was made up of women, whereas after 1949, women were deemed, at least in theory, to “hold up half the sky” according to Mao’s widespread rhetoric on gender parity.67 During the Mao era, many women entered the workforce, both by choice and by compulsion. Jin Yihong is one of the most prominent scholars who has documented the experiences of the “Iron Girls” during the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. She has suggested more broadly that the CCP’s “interventionist state policies during the Mao era” resulted in women becoming “the first reserve labour force and peasants the second.” Although the movement of women into the labor force and the “expansion of the occupational fields open to women” signified the destruction of some “gender

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boundaries in employment opportunities,” it also prompted a backlash from some women who questioned why women wanted to, or were being made to, carry out what they considered strenuous “men’s work.” The shift of women from roles within households to roles within the labor force took place in both the rural and urban spheres. Jin describes how “during the Cultural Revolution...even rural women began to achieve an ostensible equa lity with their ma le counterparts” while undertaking strenuous agricultural work. In the 1960s and 1970s, especially, large droves of women “entered traditionally male occupations.” Urban women began entering the workforce in large numbers at the end of the 1950s. Urban women were important because they enabled the CCP to implement their “radical policy of industrialization.” Urban women, as opposed to women in rural areas, benefited from their “difference in social status” according to Jin. She emphasizes how there were “labour protection policies in place” for women entering male professions in urban areas including “a gynaecological exam every two years, plus clinics for female workers to which rural women were not granted access.” The experiences of women differed depending on whether they were working in urban or rural areas. Experiences of the Mao era undoubtedly differed depending on region and gender. The “mantra that ‘men and women are the same’”, which was continually emphasized by Mao, appeared, as Lin articulates, to “offer women of that era with the possibility to challenge the traditional gendered division of labour” and other areas in which gender affected women’s freedom and rights. Although propaganda appeared to offer a “whole

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generation of young women...an independent life on an equal footing with men,” this conclusion is misleading and simplistic. Women were gradually, during the Maoist era, able to enter the previously male-dominated workforce in both urban and rural areas, however, this came at a cost. Women were expected to “do the same work as men”, while maintaining the household. Women took on an equal share of labor in agriculture and industrial roles, but their share of domestic responsibilities rarely diminished. Although it is possible to view the shift from the Republican period to the Maoist period, as an advancement and progression of women, this argument must be qualified. Whilst gender boundaries to the workforce were torn down, this was predominantly in order to boost the socialist economy and ensure production targets were met. The legislation permitting women to take on previously male occupations was less a case of creating an equal society, in which women and men assumed equal roles, as Mao’s rhetoric led many to believe, and rather a way of boosting the number of individuals contributing to the CCP’s high production targets. To outsiders, the Maoist period appeared progressive in some ways with regard to gender equality, but it was not this simple. In the 1954 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Article 96 states that women “enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of political, economic, cultural, social and domestic life.” The 1954 Constitution was progressive in other ways too. Article 85 states that “citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law,” while Article 86 specifically states that “women have equal rights with men to vote and stand for election.” The 1954 Constitution, without question,

marks a significant shift from traditional gender policy to a more progressive policy incorporating notable aspects of gender equality. In reality, however, this shielded the fact that women still faced gender discrimination. Although they technically had acquired equal rights with men in many aspects of their lives, the domestic sphere remained solely their territory. What gender equality essentially resulted in therefore was a situation where women were taking on arduous roles within industrial and agricultural workforces alongside men to advance China, but were also having to maintain the domestic sphere alone. The Maoist period signified a breakaway from its predecessor, the Republic of China (1912-1949) but as Burnett articulates Mao’s “ambitious reforms for women’s rights and equality...did not always amount to significant substantive change for women”. Mao’s leadership traditional ideas about marriage were very slowly reversed, resulting in limited freedom for both women and men. Women gained greater access to maternal health-care especially after barefoot doctors emerged nationally in 1968, and women were finally able to enter the traditionally male agricultural and industrial workforces. It was not a period of dramatic progress in gender equality but the removal of various barriers to gender equality definitely marked progress, at least to some extent. Although the New Marriage Law in 1950 was only very loosely applied, its contents revealed a new way of thinking that went against traditional Chinese society based on Confucianism. Many of the social policies implemented by Mao, although not necessarily advancing women in real terms, indicated a shift away from traditional thinking and gender norms to more modern ideas of gender equality. Although

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Mao’s policies and rhetoric did not always have women’s best interests at heart, the acknowledgment of women playing a role in society outside of the domestic sphere, altered the status of women. The inclusion of women, as equals, in the 1954 Constitution, signifies, at the very least, a shift away from the traditional gender norms that had existed rigidly within China until 1949. Social policies implemented during the Maoist era had both positive and negative consequences for women in the People’s Republic of China. For many women, the Maoist period offered them an opportunity to gain greater control over their lives in terms of marriage, childbearing, and their labor than they had experienced during the Republic of China. As women entered previously male professions, especially during the Cultural Revolution, it “alleviated the perception that women do not belong in the workforce at all.” Before Mao had mobilized women for his labor force, it was not widely accepted that women were even able to carry out male roles in urban industrial roles or agricultural roles in rural areas. At the very least therefore, women proved that they were capable of carrying out traditionally male professions and roles, even if this came at a cost to their health as a result of being overworked and forced to carry out extremely strenuous activities. For other women, Mao’s social policies created an environment where despite technically having greater freedom and equality, according to new legislation, they remained restricted by domestic responsibilities. Overall, however, whilst the Mao era cannot be deemed an era of progressive readjustment of gender norms, women technically had greater equality with men than they had had previously in pre-1949

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China. It is true that women were no longer found solely in the home after 1949, and this should, at the very least, be considered progress. Ultimately though, changing traditional societal norms and expectations is much more difficult than changing policy and legislation, and the experience of women in China during the twentieth century is indicative of this. Maoist social policy resulted in women being able to demonstrate that they were capable of more than confinement within the domestic sphere. The Maoist era was a not a revolution in terms of gender equality, but it was undoubtedly an awakening.

Anon, Constitution of the People’s Republic of China: Adopted on September 20, 1954 by the First National People’s Congress of the Republic of China, at its first session (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1954). Burnett, Jamie, “Women’s Employment Rights in China: Creating Harmony for Women in the Workplace” in Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 17:2 (2010) pp.289-318. Chen, Jianfu, Chinese Law: Context and Transformation (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2008).

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EXAMINING PROMISES THROUGH CONFUCIUS’ ANALECTS ROCCO ASTORE

City of New York University

In the Analects, some of Confucius’ central ideas revolve around issues concerning how people should conduct themselves. One form of behavior that he repeatedly advises people to be aware of is their use of speech. Though he states that people should speak truthfully, he also describes those who always keep their word as petty-minded and stubborn. One question that arises from Confucius’ incongruent claims is how can people always be truthful, while at the same time adhering to his recommendations that it is not always prudent to keep promises? According to Confucius, there are certain ethical values and models of behavior that people should diligently embrace and follow. One form of conduct that he places under scrutiny is people’s use of speech. To him, it is of the utmost importance for people to use speech responsibly, and to in order to do so, they must be able to reinforce their words with actions. Confucius claims that people can learn how to correctly use speech by mimicking the dignified sages of old, who were hesitant to make remarks about certain things, as they knew that their words could potentially cause them to have to fulfil unrealistic favors. In other

words, Confucius believes that if people imitated the great seers of the past, who refrained from foolhardy speech, they would have a much easier time avoiding the impossible demands of others. Confucius describes those who partake in spreading falsehoods as immoral, because their exclamations are ultimately useless and detrimental to those affected by them, including themselves. That is, those who are dishonest do not only hurt others, but hurt themselves because, in time, the results of their insincerities will cause them sorrow. According to Confucius, when people make promises, they are not always prudent, as their attempts to fulfil those obligations can lead them to tackling insurmountable tasks. That is, when people make promises, they may encounter unforeseen obstacles that can undermine their ability to be true to their word, which can wreck or foil the fulfillment of those pledges. Moreover, he believes that people should refrain from speaking in ways that weaken their ability to keep promises. In other words, when people falsely claim that their words reflect their powers to act, they behave immorally, because, in reality, their desire to keep those promises does not reflect their ability to fulfill them. Another reason why Confucius urges people to refrain from making promises is that he believes that the effects of their actions, as opposed to their intentions, are

what have real moral worth. That is, he warns against making promises, because, irrespective of people’s aims, it is not their intentions that matter, rather it is the effects that their actions have. Because promises do not always turn out well, it follows that taking them on is not always the smartest of decisions. Confucius goes on to examine why it is foolish and nonsensical of people to always to keep their word. According to Confucius, people are stubborn to think that they can keep all of their pledges since it involves regularly taking up challenges that are avoidable, and sometimes unachievable. That is, he believes that the realities of life justify that it is not always possible or even wise to keep promises because they sometimes invite unnecessary burdens and failed consequences. Accordingly, he describes those who intend to keep all of their promises as smallminded because they are not analyzing or taking into account the long term effects of what can happen if they fail to fulfill those obligations. Instead, Confucius recommends that people should refrain from making oaths and if they should still choose to take on those duties, it is better for them to put in place what can fulfill those promises even before they arise. That is, though he advises people to avoid making promises, it follows that if they still decide to do so, the

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best way to handle those situations is by fulfilling them as soon as possible or even before others outright ask for assistance. Though Confucius advises people to refrain from making oaths, he nevertheless describes those who go above and beyond in keeping their promises as being superior since their actions outweigh their words. Confucius believes that individuals whose actions exceed their claims are good since they are not boastful, but rather efficient accomplishers. This emphasis on the value of people’s actions finds its roots in his belief that ching, or reverence, is necessary for everyone to practice since it lays the foundations for benevolent moral attitudes. In other words, the decorum that leads people to ethical ways of living derives from their venerable acts, and since speech is an act, Confucius claims that people must regulate it, to ensure that it is always a means to only righteous ends. Consequently, people would be correct to infer that from a Confucian standpoint being reverent in speech is a prerequisite for making good promises, since those who master the use of their words, or whose speech is nil in comparison to the benevolence of their good deeds, have cultivated the right attitude to handle oaths. One may infer that to Confucius there is a way that people can remain trustworthy, while not keeping their promises. One way in which people can be consistent in their words and deeds is by refraining from make promises altogether. That is, people can embrace Confucius’ recommendations to desist from making promises, which, in turn, can prevent them from having to withstand the negative views of others. When people refuse to make promises they can still be trustworthy because by being open about their inabilities to fulfill another’s wants or needs, they are sincere for not hiding, or

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downplaying their shortcomings. Furthermore, people who do not hide their powerlessness to fulfill certain pledges are wise because they are avoiding future conflicts with those they would be letting down. Finally, one may claim that people can still be moral despite not fulfilling their duties since the actions that can follow from keeping those obligations has real ethical value, and not their personal intentions. In addition, if a person fails to fulfill a promise that can result in causing a lot of grief, it follows that they are acting ethically. That is, when people can accurately infer what will result from their abetting malevolent promises, it is the case that those who ditch those nefarious pledges are doing good. Also, because Confucius claims that moral values find their roots in the effects of people’s actions and not in their intentions, it follows that when individuals do not keep conspiratorial promises, they are protecting the welfare of others, and thus they are acting morally upright. Those who leave malicious oaths unfulfilled are preventing others from having to endure their undesirable effects, and thus, their failures are ultimately providing for the common good. Confucius claims that those who abstain from fulfilling damaging promises avoid affecting others, since, by not agreeing to their petitioners wishes, they are combating their immoral intentions. It is not impossible for people to ask others to do nefarious deeds, but it is imperative for those who refuse to do so to speak out and act against them. In other words, people who understand what can be harmful to others, and who refrain from doing wrongs on behalf of the malevolent, are compassionately moral because their refusals help to undermine the malicious wills of those who beseeched them. Moreover, since those who care for the benefit of others are behaving genuinely, it

follows that they are being true to themselves. Those who take care to avoid damaging the well-beings of others are being sincere, since, by refusing to spread harm, either in word or deed, they are backing their refusals with appropriate actions. By describing the qualities of those who choose to speak in ways that do not reflect their abilities to fulfill their promises Confucius shows that those people are unlike those who do fulfill their promises with matching actions. By suggesting that it is safest to avoid making pledges, especially when people know that they cannot fulfill them, was brought to light to show how one can still be trustworthy even in light of not keeping promises.

Confucius. D.C. Lau trans., Analects. (London: Penguin Classics, 1979). 59-160.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBU AND THE GREAT WAR

ASHLEIGH JACKSON The University of Edinburgh, like many other institutions across the country, did not escape the Great War unscathed. A Roll of Honour was published in 1921, after the cessation of hostilities, to commemorate the fallen alumni of the university. This record provides a wealth of information for those hoping to research the war and its impact on society. The introduction of the document is written by J.A. Ewing, the principal and vice-chancellor of the university from 1916 until his retirement in 1929. The duration of his appointment meant he presided over the university during part of the conflict, witnessing the effects of the war on further education first hand. 944 members of the university were killed in

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URGH, RUDYARD KIPLING

action during the war. The record comprises a ‘Roll of the Fallen’, as well as a record of those who survived the conflict, detailing alumni who served during the war, chiefly concerning those at the front. Where possible, the record includes photographs of alumni [as can be seen above]. The editor has also sought to include personal details such as education, occupation, military service details and where they died.

Interestingly, Rudyard Kipling visited the university in July 1920, delivering a speech which is included at the beginning of the Roll of Honour.

Upon the outbreak of war, 600 students and graduates received commissions in the army. A significant proportion of university alumni became medical officers, owing to Edinburgh’s large and prestigious medical school. It is clear then, that the war significantly disrupted university life. Notably, Lord Kitchener, who was Secretary of State for War in 1914-1916 was also the rector of the University during this period. As such, his portrait is included in the Roll of Honour, highlighting a significant connection between the university and the First World War.

Kipling captures the great sacrifice made by these men, who fought not only for their freedom, but for the freedom of others. Throughout the war, Kipling was a prolific orator, supporting the war effort by calling for recruits. He is famous for his poetry and short stories but during the First World War he also became a key propagandist. His articles sought to uphold morale. He stressed the bravery of the soldiers at the front and wrote in an upbeat tone, becoming something of a spin-doctor. When reporting on the Battle of Jutland in 1916 he gave a positive interpretation of

“That they turned without fear or question from the Gates of Learning to those of the Grave in order that free men might still continue to learn freedom, is their glory but not their glory alone.” – Rudyard Kipling, July 1920

the conflict despite huge losses to the British army. Kipling’s poignant speech at Edinburgh in 1920 connected the fallen alumni through their mutual commitment to academia. He sought to highlight how their sacrifice enabled future generations to ‘continue to learn’. Kipling’s attitude was perhaps at odds with the general feeling of grief that captured the nation after the war, despite victory. This speech, like many of his other speeches, is undoubtedly a piece of propaganda, an attempt to revive a nation paralysed by loss. This column will endeavour to bring this document to life throughout the coming academic year. Forthcoming articles will focus on individuals from the Roll of Honour, in an attempt to understand the university’s connections to the Great War and the experiences of alumni during the conflict. The size of the record alone indicates the scale of the sacrifice, and the university’s contribution to the war effort.

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FIRST EDINBURGH ALUMNUS KILLED DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

James Crozier was a former medical student at the University of Edinburgh and was tragically killed within the first few weeks of World War I.

Roll of Honour further lists those that were wounded, as well as details of the various roles of alumni in the conflict. James Crozier is the second name on the Roll of Honour, which is organised alphabetically rather than chronologically. James is reported as having been killed in action on 27 August 1914. Further records tragically reveal that he had only arrived in France a mere 13 days earlier and that his death occurred on his first day of active combat. James served in the B Company of the 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, after having joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1912 before enlisting in 1914.

The Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Roll of Honour from 1915 lists the first of those to be killed during the opening months of the conflict. The document, which can be found at the National Library of Scotland, records 16 Edinburgh alumni killed between August 1914 and January 1915. The

James was originally from Cheshire but had moved to Scotland where he attended Loretto School in Musselburgh between 1906-1909. From 1910, he read Medicine at Edinburgh for two years while living with relatives in Longyester. We can only assume that Jamesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

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medical ambitions came to an end rifles. From James’s unit, a mere in 1912 when he joined the RSF. four officers survived their first Tragically, they would never be day of battle. resumed. The first British casualty of the The chronology of events war is reported to have been on 21 surrounding James’s premature August 1914, less than a week before death remains fragmented. the death of James Crozier. John However, from the limited Parr is widely believed to have been information available, it is possible the first British Commonwealth to put together a timeline of his soldier to be killed in action during experiences. Having enlisted in the conflict. Both deaths marked 1914, he was taken to Flanders, the start of a long and bloody war landing at Le Havre on 14 August 1914. Within two weeks, he would News of James’s death did not be dead. reach home until October 1914. An obituary was printed in the On 27 August 1914, James’s unit Haddington Courier, which prepared for their first day of active provides biographical information service. They were based near and highlights the importance of Etreux, in northern France, and newspapers as an archival resource had been given the task of halting in historical research. Memorials a German advance. However, they across Midlothian pay further were outnumbered six to one by tribute to James, including those the German troops. James is alleged at Loretto School and the Holy to have shouted, ‘There they are, Trinity Church in Haddington. come on men!’ as he exposed himself James was repatriated, unlike so to the onslaught of the enemy’s many of those killed during the

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First World War. His gravestone is located at St Mary’s Church in Haddington, along with other members of his family. James may have been the first Edinburgh University alumnus to be killed, but he would not be the last. In the first year of the war, 18 alumni were counted among the war dead, however this would increase to over 160 in 1916 alone. The university suffered the deaths of hundreds of alumni, as well as many wounded, as a result of the conflict.

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I LOST MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE

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LEWIS TWIBY Snow drifted gently from the grey sky, matching the sadness in his heart: the heart that had been ripped from him. All the warmth that had been in his mother’s body had started to drift away. A warmth that had kept him safe through his ten years. A warmth that ended when the blue-coated soldier had fired upon his mother. Her body was the only thing that stopped him from sharing her fate. He was so scared. His entire body shivered through fear and the biting cold. What was going to happen to him now? He had been scared when they had fled with the other Hunkpapa to join Chief Spotted Elk when the Indian agents had killed noble Sitting Bull. Almost a man, he had vowed not to cry but his mother let him weep into her shoulder as they fled to the new reservation. Life had been hard on the old reservation: the ground was dry, crops refused to grow, wasting diseases took people like his father away, the rations were meagre, and the warriors could not hunt the buffalo even if the Indian agents said they could, because there was none left. Sitting Bull had given them hope though. Sitting Bull who had managed to get so many to safety when they went to war against Long Hair Custer. Who had parlayed with the Americans on behalf of the Sioux people. Who had visited the big cities in the east with the funny-man Buffalo Bill. Now he was gone. Gone like his father, his grandfather…and now his mother. Tears had frozen on his cheeks. Gently he kissed her on her forehead and took off the Ghost Shirt which he wore over his normal one. He placed it around his mother’s body so she would not get cold. She hated the cold. For that reason he used to throw snowballs at her when the snows came. “I hope the Ghost Shirt works better for you, mother,” he sniffed. A smiling warrior had given him the shirt during their flight after

Sitting Bull’s death. He had never taken it off since. He had even urged his mother to wear it. Were the southern Navajo right? He had heard from the warriors that they had rejected the Ghost Dance. The young warriors had partaken in the ritual to make them immune from the bullets of the bluecoats, drive the invaders from their land, bring back their ancestors, and bring back the buffalo. He had been so excited. A chance to see his father again. It did not matter in the end. The dead remained dead, the buffalo were nowhere to be seen, bullets still killed them, and their land continued to be taken. The snow crunched with his every step. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Before he lost his heart he had loved that sound. In a distant memory, he remembered his father showing him how to make a man out of snow. They had stuck stones into it to make a head and found some crow feathers, as dark as the night sky, to make hair. He and his friends had then pelted his father with snow. It was only two years ago but it felt like a lifetime. The bluecoats had taken everyone he loved from him: his father from the wasting disease, his mother from the bullet, his friends lost during their exodus from the reservation. For all he knew they could be lying in the snow like his mother. All around him were tepees flattened by the long departed roar of the soldiers’ bullets, snow greedily drinking up the red blood, and gouges in the white from people fleeing, along with their pursuers. He was not scared of encountering any of the soldiers. It would be a relief. He could join his mother and father. Or maybe the stories of the young scouts were true about soldiers taking children to be raised by white families. Maybe he could tell a white family about what was happening to his people and they could tell the leader of the Americans what was happening. The leader of the Americans would see what the army and agents were doing, and

would give them back their lands, and give them medicine and guns and buffalo. Except that the only people around, Lakota or American, were lying dead in the snow. A loud snort and the crunch of snow brought his mind back to the frozen reservation. Was it an American soldier, or a Lakota warrior? The rider wore a rifle across his back, brown trousers, and a white Ghost Shirt. His dark hair had smatterings of white, but not thanks to the snow. Upon his face were tell-tale lines of age. The aged warrior nimbly jumped off his horse like a man of half his years to land in the snow with a crunch. He waded through the snow to kneel before him. “Are you lost my boy?” he asked in Lakota. “Where are your parents and kin?” He felt tears welling up behind his eyes. To avoid his shame, he looked at the snow seeing it melt as his salty tears dropped to the earth. He felt the warrior grasp him in an embrace. “Do not fear child. We may be separated from them for now but we shall be reunited. Come, I shall take you somewhere safe.” He took the warrior’s hand and together they waded through the snow. The aged warrior gently lifted him onto the horse. “I am Mahpiya Icahtagya,” the warrior said smiling. “Chaska,” he replied. Not wasting any time they soon left the scene of broken dreams and hearts. The snow continued to fall as if they had never been there.

Brogan, Hugh, The Penguin History of the United States, Second Edition, (1999, London) Brown, Dee, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, (1971, New York) Foner, Eric, Give me Liberty!: An American History, (2004, New York)

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AMERICAN THOUGHTS ON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION -AS OF SEPTEMBER 2016caucuses or primaries. We are now paying the price for years of political apathy and avoidance. Clinton and Trump! Is this really the best we have to offer? It is very easy to become influential in American politics. One simply has to show up, and be present to vote. The vice presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin in 2008 showed that one need not be well educated or well informed in order to reach political heights. Two years later, a swarm of angry, misinformed Republicans joined to so-called TEA [Taxed Enough Already!] Party movement and not only hijacked the Republican Party but gained control of the legislative branch of both the federal and many state governments. What had been a slow race to the bottom accelerated.

being captured by a man who never theretofore had claimed to be a Democrat; the price Democrats paid to avoid Sanders was reluctant acceptance of the heavily damaged Clinton. In the past few dozen years, African-Americans who have offered for public office have found that pre-election polling consistently overestimates their support. Apparently respondents to surveys do not want to appear racist, so tell the pollster that they will vote for the black man or woman when, in the privacy of the polling booth, they in fact vote white. The same phenomena may be at work this year. Trump is so – for want of a better word – disreputable on so many levels that many likely Trump voters are embarrassed to admit their preference. Many Americans are still virulently racist. They won’t admit to it, but they will vote Trump because they know his real slogan is ‘Make America White Again’. Unless Clinton had a lead in national polls of 8 to 10 points in the days leading up to the election she will be in trouble.

Many citizens who were well prepared for public service – women and men who had been leaders in their businesses or professions, who pay attention to civic issues, who care about community – chose not PROFESSOR GEORGE H. to engage in hand-to-hand combat GILLIAM with the insurgents: Americans University of Virginia claim not to be class conscious but in fact issues of class played a large Regardless of the outcome of this part in the decision of many to election, one hopes that it will serve as a wake-up call to those who have The great philosopher Woody abjure political participation. chosen to remain on the sidelines. Allen once remarked that 80 per cent of life is just showing up. Most In a year in which the ‘best and Good people cannot abdicate Americans have stopped showing brightest’ did not want to dirty leadership to the likes of Trump their hands it was easy for highly- and Clinton. But to take politics to up at political events. This year, only about 9 per cent motivated outsiders to win control. a higher ground the good people (fewer than one in ten!) of the The Republican Party now is run have got to re-emerge in the nittypopulation actually voted in the by a minority of the minority. The gritty of politics. They have to start Republican and Democratic Democratic Party narrowly avoided showing up.

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SCOTLAND AND EUROPE: THE PAST SHAPING THE FUTURE THIS ARTICLE FOLLOWS ON FROM A LECTURE OF THE SAME TITLE DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR SIR TOM DEVINE, GEORGE SQUARE LECTURE THEATRE, 27/09/16.

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deeper, to an ‘old Scotia’ obscured by amnesic clouds. A picture is painted of Scots as a nomadic people: restless, transient, mercantile. During the seventeenth century it is estimated up to 60,000 Scots descended onto the European continent in search of prosperity. Professor Devine inserts his eponymous ‘Devine Paradox’ FELIX theory, that by 1851 Scotland was CARPENTER the most industrialised country per capita in Europe, yet had almost Professor Sir Tom Devine enters the highest levels of emigration. the stage, introduced as the foremost historian of modern Scottish A series of politically potent history. Professor Devine is that historical curiosities are brought unusual thing: an establishment up. Scots colonising Poland, with figure who in 2014 supported 400 merchant communities lining Scottish independence, at the cost the Vistula. The phrase ‘as mean as of – he would later remind his a Scot’ emerged from this, describing audience – the friendship of our a certain Thomas Chalmers, known last Prime Minister. While this for his ability to undercut Polish lecture more directly pointed itself rival businesses due to his towards the realities of Brexit unscrupulousness. These Scots were Britain rather than the Neverendum, also nicknamed ‘the Jews of Poland’ the two naturally conflated as the for this tendency. After the hour drew on. Whatever the politics Reformation, the Act of Union in at hand, Professor Devine has a 1707 and the Jacobite rebellions, rare grasp of Scottish political and political refugees fled south to the social affairs over the past few low countries, and in turn brought centuries. Among his first remarks: back the intellectual European idealism that would flower into the ‘The future is not my period.’ Scottish Enlightenment. NonIt is a peculiarity of British industrialised nations, such as the Imperial history that Scots were so Russia of Peter and Catherine the overrepresented in colonial pursuits Great sought highly trained Scottish of all kinds. During the nineteenth engineers and doctors to boost century, between a quarter and a society – Professor Devine offering third of all posts in the Empire were the truism ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’ filled by Scots, even though their By 1760 Scottish banks were owed number made up only a tenth of a non-inflation adjusted £2.6 the United Kingdom’s population. million across the globe, due to Today, when Scots think of their their ambitious global credit role in the past internationally, it schemes. is this phenomenon that is most In the pre-Empire era, it was striking. But Professor Devine’s Europe that dominated Scottish thesis requires us to delve back internationalism, but it was these

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internationalist forays that positioned Scots so naturally to assume the imperial banner and lead Britain’s exploits in the following century. Professor Devine notes that £10,000 worth of that total of Scottish loans was to a certain George Washington of Virginia. Scotland was already looking beyond the European continent. Concluding, Professor Devine refers to former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s phrase, ‘Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role.’ His parting question: whether Scotland will find its role either in Europe or as part of the United Kingdom? Brexit is mentioned, but doubt is cast on its materialisation. In the question and answer session, I go back to a point made in the lecture about the lack of pro-Brexit voices in mainstream Scottish politics – particularly the SNP – and whether this is due to a genuine pro-European sentiment or politicised anti-Englishness. The response points to polls showing more violent opposition in Scotland to the perceived unreformed, opaque European bureaucracy than even in England, as well as a to a general lack of knowledge about European institutions or European representatives among Scots; tellingly, anti-Englishness is not addressed. The last question of the evening asks whether the hypothesised European connection is overshadowed by the AngloScottish relationship, and union. Professor Devine f umbles momentarily, and then offers wryly, ‘When you are in bed together you get the warmth, but it can be too warm.’

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STUDYING HISTORY IN FRANCE H

MARTIN GREENACRE

In Britain, we have an absurd fixation with university league tables. In the absence of a similar system in France, I knew little of what to expect when I arrived in Dijon for my year abroad studying history at the Université de Bourgogne. The titles of the courses were not even released until the first week of classes, and the course choice was so limited that I, with a preference for modern social history, found myself writing an essay about the history of bears in the middle ages. This is because students at Dijon are required to take courses from Antiquity, medieval, modern and contemporary periods. It was interesting to note the differences in terminology. L’histoire moderne is what we refer to as the early modern period, ending at the French Revolution, followed by histoire contemporaine, which is the period we call modern history. I also took a course entitled Temps présent, which was essentially postwar French history stretching all the way up until the 2005 French riots, and which brought in sociologica l concepts a nd demographic trends. In their final year, history students at Dijon choose between continuing this broad historical degree, or studying ‘approaches to the contemporary world’, which focused on contemporary history,

but which brought in courses on international relations, sociology, and the media. There is a significant stress on the interdisciplinary nature of history. Similarly, a common complaint of non-British history professors at the University of Edinburgh is the monolingualism of students, which is a product of our culture. In Dijon, every history student is made to take a language throughout all three years of their degree. Interestingly, language courses are delivered in classes uniquely composed of history students, the courses being tailor-made to fit with the discipline. Other disciplines such as geography and sociology are also seen as essential to the historian, and are made requisites of the course. Partly as a result of this rigid course structure, a French university often feels like a factory, where everybody arrives knowing their future career path and chooses a degree in service of this. One professor, while giving feedback on a student’s presentation, said, ‘If you want to become a teacher, you cannot write on the board in abbreviations’, without first asking whether said student wished to become a teacher. Skills such as critical thinking did not seem to be such a priority, and there were no tutorial-style discussions as I was used to in the UK. That being said, professors were nonetheless passionate about their subjects, and had the freedom to tailor courses to their interests. My favourite course was entitled ‘La table des Européens’, and gave a history of food in Europe,

including the development of restaurants, the arrival of colonial ingredients, and the link between food and cultural identity. It is a course only a French professor could come up with. And he duly began the first lecture with a game of finish-the-sentence, which went like this: “Italians eat… Pasta. The British eat… badly. The French eat… well.’ The events in Paris on 13 November 2015 were a sombre reminder of the importance of what we have chosen to study, prompting some difficult speeches from professors. One professor of Temps présent had a particularly important reminder for us. Terrorism, she said, is “not the radicalisation of Islam, but the Islamisation of radicalism”. While I was not necessarily impressed by the educational system during my year at a French university, the academic experience was more valuable than I had anticipated. It is always interesting to see how another country approaches history. This is not even to mention the extraordinary opportunities outside of the classroom that a year abroad offers. It would be a great tragedy were future students to miss out on similar opportunities to study abroad. I promised myself I would not mention Brexit. That’s it, I need to go and hide under my desk.

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MY YEAR ABROAD: SCOTLAND VERSUS FRANCE H

KARA ROSS

Having just returned from a year studying in the south of France to the harsh reality of fourth year, it is hard not to reflect on the differences between the Scottish higher education system and that of our cross-channel neighbour. University education in France was an experience much like life itself: at times unpredictable, frustrating, comical, and frequently more boring than you might like it to be. To be dry and factual (with jokes and the constant smell of soft narcotics aside), the main difference between Université Paul Valéry and the University of Edinburgh was that, here, we are taught with a mind to introduce us to the world of academia and academic practices. In France, the main educational intent was more vocational. Enter a fun anecdote to elucidate the contrast - a group of Erasmus students and I question our tutor about an essay submission that will constitute 50 per cent of our final grade for the course. Unsure about the required length, style, and indeed subject, you may imagine we have some queries, to which he replies collectively – in drawled, heavily-accented Queen’s English – ‘I don’t give a f***’. I mostly studied literature while I was abroad, but a number of my courses were largely history based and these tended to be slightly more interesting. One of the courses I

enjoyed most was a social sciences course about the birth and growth of the concept of the Republic of Letters: a community of thinkers and writers, once real and conceptual, which was based upon ideals of religious tolerance and collective endeavour and was designed to circulate knowledge and ideas across Europe and the New World. The term was first used in its Latin form in a letter from Francesco Barbaro to Poggio Bracciolini in 1417 and it is generally agreed that it was first translated and applied to a specific community in Pierre Bayle’s journal Nouvelles de la République des Lettres in 1684. The course was split into two parts. The first, explaining how this imagined community had influenced Enlightenment thought and the French Revolution, I understood. The second, somehow linking this period of history to a discussion of the development of the academic field of Cultural Studies in the latter half of the 20th century, I learned at the end of a particularly painful oral exam, I did not. Undeterred by the memories of my tutor kindly enlightening me at the end of my exam exactly how I had misunderstood the course and telling me conspiratorially, ‘We’ll give you an Erasmus mark’; the idea of this imagined community has had a lasting effect on me. Reading intertextuality in modern literary texts, we still see the attempt to forge such networks: the attempts of writers to reimagine or to write themselves into a canon. Though founded on ideals of

openness and tolerance, over the last five hundred years or so, this activity has contributed to the entrenchment of deep-rooted misogyny and imperialist tendencies in European literary traditions. While writers are able to create networks of deference in their work, they are simultaneously able to easily, and consciously, exclude certain voices. At Retrospect Journal, we are a direct product of the Republic of Letters; a journal is an imagined, intellectual community, inviting people to share their thoughts in an open and tolerant way. However, as much as these communities are positive things, we must be conscious that the creation of a community can be an intrinsically exclusive action, and must always endeavour to remedy this.

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FRANK COGLIANO’S SEPTEMBER LECTURES A REVIEW OF PROFESSOR COGLIANO’S LECTURES ‘THE 2016 AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: PRECEDENTS AND REFLECTIONS’ AND “YOU THINK THE 2016 US ELECTION IS BAD? YOU SHOULD TRY 1800!”

SARAH THOMSON

With the U.S. presidential election looming ever closer, there has been no shortage of exhibits, film screenings and lectures to entertain American history enthusiasts in Edinburgh. Over the last two weeks I have had the good fortune to attend not one, but two talks by Edinburgh University’s inimitable and wellloved Professor of American History, Frank Cogliano. The first, titled ‘The 2016 American Presidential Election: Precedents and Reflections’, was hosted by the National Library of Scotland and was so popular that I arrived to discover that tickets had sold out two months ago - luckily I was able to sneak my way in. In his usual humorous yet informative style Professor Cogliano deftly guided the audience through the history of the Electoral College system, pausing to explain that yes, it is technically possible for the election to end in a tie (apparently we have all to pay close attention to Nebraska and Maine). Drawing upon a range of historic presidential elections Professor Cogliano offered a number of potential outcomes for the forthcoming election, but neglected to go ‘on record’ with any prediction for November 8!

With the upcoming election, it made perfect sense for an American historian to kick off Edinburgh University History Society’s annual lecture series. Professor Cogliano reprised his role of ‘unofficial guide to presidential elections’ to address a lecture theatre full of history enthusiasts. His title, ‘You think the 2016 US election is bad? You should try 1800!’, undoubtedly drew some curious audience members (and fans of the Broadway musical Hamilton) and he provided some much needed reassurance that perhaps the 2016 election is not as unprecedented as the media would like us to believe. Both lectures were thoroughly enjoyable and I would encourage presidential enthusiasts to keep a look out for the many events happening around Edinburgh as Election Day draws closer. Finally, for any keen election fanatics, Professor Cogliano highly recommends visiting www.270towin.com, where you can design your own map predicting the outcome of the election (he is sorry to say that his Fantasy Football team has suffered dreadfully as a result of this newfound source of entertainment!).

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STUDYING HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA H

ALICE BROMFIELD

It is exciting to get the chance to write an article on something you are learning about. I’m a linguistics student, but here at the University of British Columbia (UBC) I am taking an elective history class, entitled ‘History of the Indigenous People of North America’ and let me just tell you, it is awesome. It is so incredible to learn about the history of something that is so relevant to where you are and where the history is really still being written. So I am going to tell you about just a small part of the history of where I now live in Vancouver, Canada. Historically, when the Europeans arrived at a new territory that they believed to be ‘uncivilised’ they would lay claim to ownership of it, regardless of whether native people were living there or not. There were two main justifications that they would cite for this interminable land grabbing. Firstly, there was a concept named terra nullis that basically meant that when they discovered the land no one (formally or officially) owned the land. Sure, aboriginal peoples could be living there but as they did not have western treaties and

land ownership laws, their ownership was not regarded as lawful. Secondly there was a doctrine known as ‘The Doctrine of Discovery’. This stated that the westerners colonising the unknown lands that they stumbled upon were doing a favour to those living there. They were ‘bringing civilisation to the heathens’. This doctrine was deeply intertwined with religion, as the colonials argued they were bringing religion to the aboriginals of the land, which is exactly what they need, right? The Pope backed this doctrine; all the way from the Vatican he endorsed them and ruled that it was lawful for the colonists to take ownership of the land they discovered on their righteous quest. This toxic combination of ideas (and obviously various other things) has left one massive colonial hangover in Canada with regards to ownership of land inhabited by Indigenous people. There are currently six hundred and thirty four recognized First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, and yes, they all need somewhere to live. Following the colonists taking ownership of the

land, when the Canadian Government was formed, it assumed ownership of all of Canadian land. To this day, First Nations reserves are federal crown land. Already, in my short three weeks of classes, I have heard about various cases of the Canadian Government ‘relocating’ whole communities of First Nations people to places that are not their ancestral lands. From the course I have been able to establish that Indigenous people have a very different relationship with the land to non-Indigenous people. The only way that I can explain it is to say that Indigenous people find ways to work with the land they inhabit, to make the most of it without damaging it; they are the first sustainability warriors, if you like. Non-Indigenous people use up the land; they don’t work with the land, they work against it or on it. But I digress, this is not a sustainability article. The point I was getting to is that First Nations bands have been moved to areas that do not have the resources they need or the space they need for activities such as hunting. As a result, the relationship between many First Nations peoples and the

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Canadian Government has been tumultuous. However, there is hope; relatively recently the reconciliation process began. The federal government has issued apologies to various Indigenous bands for relocation and mistreatment. The University of British Columbia Point Grey campus, which is where I now live, is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the First Nations Musqueam people. I am relieved to be able to say that the University of British Columbia has a long standing partnership with the Musqueam Indian Band. The positive relationship between the

University and the Musqueam people can really be felt and seen around the campus. For example, there are signs in hən̓ q̓əmin̓əm̓ which is the native language of the Musqueam, and there are courses offered to learn this, and other, local native languages. In 2006, a Memorandum of Affiliation was signed by the Musqueam people and the University, formalising the relationship between the two. Hopefully in the future more positive relationships like the one between the Musqueam and UBC will be formed around Canada to help the reconciliation and healing process for the indigenous people of Canada.

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LIFE AFTER GRAD (AND WHAT I WISHED I KNEW BEFORE) HILARY BELL

Former Editor at Retrospect

When I first visited Edinburgh six years ago (six years!), I fell in love with the city: the towering architecture as you emerge from Waverley; the big skies; the fact it has a mountain right in the middle of it. Since then, I’ve done two degrees at Edinburgh (German and English undergrad, Literature and Society MSc) and now have a job (a job!). So when I was asked to write this column about life after graduation, I was a bit overwhelmed. What do I know now that I didn’t know then? And would any of that be useful to you, lovely readers? I’m currently the Production and Editorial Manager at Luath Press. I’m basically in charge of turning a word document into a real book. For any of you looking to get into publishing, I can confirm – it’s really, really fun. Life after graduation obviously has its pros and cons (where have all my friends and coursemates gone?), but I’ll try and focus on the positive aspects of adult life in Edinburgh.

life terribly, it was a-mazing to be paid while being on holiday – and to not have to worry about impending deadlines. So, for any fourth years stressing out about the end of university (as I was), fear not. It’s actually quite fun. I also imagined that the end of university equated to the end of all learning. Obviously there was lots to know for my job, but after handing in my dissertation, I thought that was that. No more reading lists or book hauls at the library. Finis. But actually, there are quite a lot of schemes and courses that quite easily fit around the nine-to-five working week. The university does evening short courses, for one. Second, the Scottish Youth Publishers (SYP) (if you’re looking to get into publishing, join them immediately – they’re sups friendly) run two mentoring schemes and lots of evening workshops and talks. There’s also the other odd gem floating about, such as the Scottish Review of Books Emerging Critics course on which I was lucky to be offered a place – it involves lots of writing and mentoring, which I was sad about missing out on after leaving Retrospect.

First of all, the holidays: I’ve just been away for a week. If I had still been a student taking my holiday, I would have been stressed about all the reading I should have been And, oh Retrospect. My time doing. Even though I miss student writing and editing at Retrospect

has genuinely helped me so much in my current role. My advice would be to get stuck in. Promise yourself you’ll write at least one thing every semester. Try and find out about the opportunities for editing or organising any events. The skills and experiences I got from Retrospect will stick with me for life – in addition to that, everyone involved is so supportive of each other. Linking into that, though, is my one proper piece of advice: don’t do too much. When I came to uni I wanted to do EVERYTHING. I joined approximately seven sports clubs and tried to write for The Student newspaper alongside keeping up with all of my classes. Similarly, in fourth year, I was anxious about not having enough relevant experience for the jobs I was applying to. So what I would say is, do not stress. Choose your priorities. Depending on your workload, choose one or two clubs to really get stuck into (Retrospect being one of them, obvs), perhaps try and do an internship or some work experience during a summer holiday (something I never did until the summer of my MSc) and enjoy the ride. You’re already more ahead than you think you are.

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5 MINUTES WITH...

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5 Minutes With...

DOCTOR ROBERT CROWCROFT Dr Robert Crowcroft has been teaching at the University of Edinburgh for five years, and currently teaches an honours class entitled ‘From New Jerusalem to New Labour: The Labour Party in Contemporary Britain’.

SOPHIA FOTHERGILL

CAN YOU BRIEFLY SUMMARISE YOUR AREA OF INTEREST IN HISTORY? I work on modern British political history. Most of my work is underpinned by an interest in the character, and imperatives, of democratic politics. That is what I am most concerned with. I have written on the Conservative and Labour parties, the history of Britain during the Second World War, and political leadership. I have also edited mass-market reference books on British history for Oxford University Press. WHY DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN POLITICAL HISTORY SPECIFICALLY? An excellent question! The answer, quite simply, is that in my view political history is the most important form of history there is. Other approaches are immensely valuable, but everything flows from political history. As the historian John Vincent wrote, ‘there are too many dead bodies on the stage to begin anywhere else’. Everyone appears to enjoy discussing it. Political history no longer holds the same position of pre-eminence within the discipline that it once did, and, arguably, that is a real shame. Political historians should never have capitulated so meekly.

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We have a strong group of political period was one in which the history scholars here at Edinburgh, leadership showed little respect for thank goodness. the party, and this stored up considerable resentment. The Blair TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU FEEL and Brown governments also made THAT ALL VOTERS SHOULD what are now seen by some as HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF unacceptable compromises with THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL capitalism and free markets; there PARTIES, AND WHY? has been a backlash against it. The One of the ways in which political Iraq War is now an emotive part history serves a valuable social of Labour folklore. Overall, there purpose is in encouraging the public is a sense that the New Labour to be more aware, thoughtful leadership were guilty of betraying citizens. To take two, rather obvious (that word again) various things, examples. The Thatcher era within and this eventually led to a radical the Conservative party marked a shift in the culture of the Labour significant break with traditional party. One also has to recall that Conservative statecraft, and yet, Corbyn encouraged lots of new in our era, Thatcherism is now members to join the party and vote widely considered to represent ‘real’ for him, something which has conservatism. That’s historically certainly compounded the dubious. The current state of the discomfort of so-called Labour Labour party is quite novel, and ‘moderates’. Something else one has history does not provide much of to bear in mind is the general a guide to what will happen next. existential crisis of Labour statecraft That said, many of Labour’s current provoked by the fall of New Labour. problems have deep historical roots. Labour enjoyed thirteen years in The party has always been fixated power, including a prolonged period with the spectre of ‘betrayal’, and of global economic prosperity, this has long impacted its politics. electoral popularity and a weak Every Labour leader has had to opposition. And yet Labour was worry about being compared to still unable to create the kind of James Ramsay MacDonald, who society that it desires. That is an (allegedly) betrayed the party in acute intellectual problem, one that 1931. the party does not appear able to resolve. It is intriguing! WHY DO YOU THINK JEREMY CORBYN HAS BECOME LEADER ONE APPROACH TO THE OF THE LABOUR PARTY? OF THE LABOUR PARTY The current ascendancy of Jeremy HISTORY EMPHASISES THE FREQUENT Corbyn and John McDonnell is DIVIDES IN THE PARTY BETWEEN fascinating. I think there are a THE ‘LEFT’ AND ‘RIGHT’ number of factors. The New Labour FACTIONS. WHY DO YOU THINK

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THIS PROBLEM IS SPECIFIC TO THE LABOUR PARTY, AND CAN YOU OFFER ANY EXPLANATION AS TO WHY THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY TENDS TO APPEAR MORE UNITED? Every party is factionalised, the Conservative party being no exception. Historically, the Conservatives have usually been cunning enough to keep this away from the glare of public view, though that has changed in the last thirty years. Yet thinking about the divisions within Labour in terms of ‘left versus right’ often tells us little. For one thing, there have always been multiple factions on ‘the left’ and ‘the right’. Moreover, many of the most important conflicts within Labour have not actually been related to doctrinal inclination. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown spent more than a decade manoeuvring against one another. At stake was power, not ideology. The same happened between Clement Attlee and Herbert Morrison. Their rivalry shaped politics atop the Labour party between 1935 and 1955. Framing one’s objections to somebody else as ideological is a useful way of presenting your ambitions in a more acceptable fashion. A lot of the time, at least, we should not take these claims too seriously.

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PROFESSOR ROBERT DARNTON

Professor Robert Darnton is an American cultural historian and academic librarian who specializes in 18th-century France. He has studied at Harvard University, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar, and Princeton University where he taught history from 1968 to 2007. He is currently the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor Emeritus, and the Harvard University Librarian.

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PABLO PEREZ RUIZ HOW DID THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF YOUR YOUTH AFFECT THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD? ‘I was born in 1939, in New York City and raised in the suburbs mainly. It is a mysterious process how childhood experiences shape a worldview. But I should explain that everyone in my family had worked for newspapers. My father was killed as war correspondent in the Pacific during World War Two, and my mother was an Editor, working for New York Times during summers, and my younger brother had a long career in the New York Times.’ These early experiences influenced Robert’s interest in how information travelled, how opinion was formed, and how the printed word became a force, both in the present and the past. LOOKING BACK, WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF YOUR TIME AT HARVARD ON YOUR VIEW OF THE ROLE OF ARCHIVES? ‘When I was a student at Harvard, and also at Oxford, there were never courses in the history of books. In fact, the phrase itself wasn’t used.’ Indeed, it was more common in France as histoire du livre. ‘As I dealt largely with French subjects in my research, I began contributing to book history without it being a coherent discipline.’ Since then, the history of books has emerged as

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field of study in the humanities and MEDIA AS REPOSITORIES OF social sciences. KNOWLEDGE? ‘I am very sceptical of making HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS THE parallels between the remote past DEVELOPING ROLE OF THE and the present; we can only see ARCHIVE THROUGHOUT HISTORY, the past through frameworks that AS FAR AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT? exists in the world that we inhabit, ‘Archives are generally created by so we tend to look for analogues or the state (although this varies parallels that seem to correspond historically). In the case of France, to things today. My preference is who has perhaps the best developed for an ethnographic approach to archives in all of Europe, the state history - which emphasizes on was keeping record of its activities differences rather than similarities.’ from as early as the sixteenth century.’ In France, there was a ONE OF THE TRADITIONAL conscious attempt to understand FUNCTIONS OF LIBRARIANS (AND and control the general population; BOOKSELLERS) IS TO MEDIATE ‘as archives are generated by BETWEEN READER AND BOOK, TO institutions, thus the character of GUIDE THE READER THROUGH THE institution shaped information in ENDLESS FIELD OF TEXTS IN A PHYSICAL SPACE, LIKE A LIBRARY the archives’. OR BOOKSHOP. DO LIBRARIANS WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE STILL HOLD THIS FUNCTION IN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STATE THE DIGITAL AGE? ‘It is a very good question that AND OPEN ACCESS? goes to the heart of the emerging ‘Most initiatives have taken place role of librarians and booksellers outside of the state. Certainly, in in digital age. In the case of the United States, those of us who librarians, printed books remain are committed to open access have extremely important, so it would set up our own servers; in the case be a mistake to dismiss the more of Harvard, we have had a long traditional role of librarian to find debate among faculty. After the information in printed books. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted, sale of printed books has increased it it now required that members make available, free of charge, their considerably in 2015, while sale of scholarly articles. Now all faculties ebooks has gone down by 10%. So of Harvard require them to deposit although there is a very important them in the Digital Access to digital environment that’s Scholarship at Harvard (DASH), developing, search engines are not which is consulted everywhere in adequate- not nearly enough of what you need. What is needed are the world.’ journals, their articles, and WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF SOCIAL databases. Librarians can always be trained to be digital’.

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HISTORY & CHILL Following our success last year, History & Chill is back for another year! Lauren, our Senior Radio Editor, presents the show on Fresh Air every Saturday from 12 to 1pm. The show is a fantastic way to zone out, take a break from studies, and hear something new about history, classics and archaeology in a different medium of learning. Facebook: https://www.facebook. com/historyandchill/?fref=ts Listen live: https://www.freshair. org.uk/

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THE PAST PRESENTS Retrospect now has two radio shows! Our newly created Radio Team, made up of Polina, Josh and Osanna, have been hard at work, on the air each week presenting, writing, producing and editing funny and well-informed shows. Topics this semester have included a discussion on monarchy, the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator, and a whole show dedicated to the Roman Empire. Tune in every Friday between 11am and 12 noon to hear their wonderful voices hitting the airwaves! Facebook: https://www.facebook. com/The-Past-Presents543769809149900/?fref=ts Listen live: https://www.freshair. org.uk/ Catch up with previous shows: https://soundcloud.com/user863670999

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www.bailliegifford.com

Retrospect Journal is delighted to continue our sponsorship and creative collaboration with Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh based Investment Management company. This year they have generously supported our vision for an online Retrospect Journal, by funding the creation of our new website, soon to be officially launched in January 2017. Their involvement with the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Career Service in partnership with the School of History, Classics and Archaeology have shed new light on alternative career paths for students of HCA and we hope to organise more collaborative events in this vein, next semester. Our regular meetings with Baillie Gifford have proven to be fruitful reassurances of the importance and need for creative outlets like Retrospect. Head to their website to find out more information on their Graduate Scheme: www.bailliegifford.com