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421. PAK-TURKEY RELATIONS: On the Common Ties

Author:
Munir Hussain
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
After a decade of stagnant relations, Pakistan-Turkey relations seem to be improving in the right direction. Both countries have traditionally enjoyed close and cordial relations. The manifold commonalties between the two countries have been reinforced by the firm resolve of their leadership to further deepen mutual cooperation in all fields.
Topic:
International Relations, International Affairs, and History
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Turkey, Middle East, and Asia

422. Writer Ryszard Kapuscinski: An Optimist in the Heart of Darkness

Author:
Tomasz Zalewski
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
European Affairs
Institution:
The European Institute
Abstract:
Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski was an exception in gaining an international following for his writings – in translation, of course. He succeeded by writing directly about the people in oppressed, poor continents. His humanity stemmed partly from his origins in Soviet-era Poland.
Topic:
Civil Society and History
Political Geography:
Europe, Poland, and Soviet Union

423. Techno-Religious Imaginaries: On the Spiritual Telegraph and the Circum-Atlantic World of the 19th Century

Author:
Jeremy Stolow
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
Whether looking at matters of invention and design, of distribution and ownership, or of reception and use, popular histories of technology are typically framed within one of two meta-narratives: the optimistic or the dystopian. In the former case, technologies are seen as benign instruments that fulfill the needs, intentions, and desires of their human users. An extreme form of such technophilia can be found in the pages of the American magazine Wired, and among techno-gurus such as Nicholas Negroponte, who wax poetic about an imminent world populated by therapeutic Barbie dolls, selfcleaning shirts, driverless cars, and a range of devices enabling immediate access to inexhaustible supplies of media and information. This optimism has a considerable progeny, one root of which might be traced back to early modern European conceptions of the mechanical order of nature, and its susceptibility to ever-advancing human powers of inspection and rational design. In this tradition, technology is a pliable handmaiden to the forward march of history, taking such forms as the Haussmannized city, the Macadamized countryside, the prosthetically enhanced body, or the digitized archive. On the other hand, there is a tradition of thinking about technology, such as one finds in the philosophical writings of Martin Heidegger or Jacques Ellul, which is both dystopian and technophobic. Here one is presented with a vision of technology as an autonomous, self-directed realm, indifferent and impervious to our feeble calls for restraint, democratic control, or humane purpose. In this scheme, modern technologies resemble juggernauts running loose in the world, devouring the natural environment, and even human bodies, and transforming them into raw materials for their own mechanical processes.
Topic:
Globalization, Religion, Science and Technology, and History
Political Geography:
America

424. The combatants of “certain death”. The sense of sacrifice seen through the “Great War”

Author:
François Lagrange
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Testimonies and historical analyses often identify the experiences of the combatants of the “Great War” to sacrifices. Nothing links them, at first looks, to the defined features of voluntary death (kamikazes or suicide-bombings). However some elements allow, at the margins, for example in the frame of the French experiences of WWI, to see common traits between the discourses on self-sacrifice on the one hand, voluntary death on the other. An analysis of the conceptions of military authors before 1914 allows reconstructing their radical vision of self-sacrifice in war leading to a valorisation of “certain death”. A complementary investigation reveals, at the beginning of the “Great War”, some cases of “certain death”. Although limited in number, these borderline-cases are significant. They shall not be overlooked in the comparative approach of the different senses and practices of self-sacrifice.
Topic:
War and History
Political Geography:
Europe

425. Violence as Historical Time

Author:
Timothy Brook
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
September 11 is a date that has become fixed in the calendar of public memory. For one side in the conflict between the United States and the Islamic network opposed to its power in the Middle East, the shocking display of destruction is remembered as a day of infamy; for the other side, as a day of martyrdom. Which of these claims is true—indeed, whether either is true—depends on the identity and political imagination of the person doing the remembering. But regardless of which meaning the day is now made to bear, the leadership on both sides of the conflict agree on one thing: this was a moment in time that cannot and should not be forgotten. For some, on both sides, 9/11 deserves to be seen as a genuine turning point in history, changing the global political order in a way that allows no going back. For others, again on both sides, it might more usefully be seen as a moment of illumination, when the sudden flash of violence lit a political landscape whose contours theretofore had been difficult to see.1 Whether as a turning point or a moment of illumination, whether as infamy or martyrdom, 9/11 has become a point in time signifying more than the events that took place on that day.
Topic:
Terrorism and History
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

426. The Pacte Civile de Solidarité and the History of Sexuality [Dossier: The PaCS in Historical Perspective]

Author:
Robert A. Nye
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
It is useful to think about the debate and passage of the recent legislation on the PACS in terms of the long run of the history of sexuality in France. Owing in part to a perceived demographic crisis, the French have expressed a strong bias in favor of reproductive sexuality. This has meant that sexual discourse has discouraged non-procreative sexuality, including same sex sexuality, and favored heterosexual relationships, which have been regarded as the only legitimate foundation for family life. Despite the decriminalization of homosexuality, this historic bias continues to shape public debate about marriage and the family, as the recent debate over the PACS reveals.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
France

427. Comment on Robert Nye's "The Pacte Civile de Solidarité and the History of Sexuality" [Dossier: The PaCS in Historical Perspective]

Author:
Joan W. Scott
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Robert Nye's elegant essay rightly puts the PaCS, and the debates about it into a historical context of French natalism. At least since the late nineteenth century, reproduction has been the raison d'être of the married couple and the state has often made fertility synonymous with patriotism. From this has followed all manner of representations, many of them contradictory. Although it surely was the case, as Nys shows, that marriage was eroticized and marital love idealized, it was also the case that reproduction and sexual satisfaction were considered separate domains.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
France

428. History, Globalization, and Globality: Preliminary Thoughts

Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
During reviews of the project application by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, we were asked how the outcomes would differ from results achieved by funding the specific investigations - each of our projects - as standard grants. How would we achieve collaborative results? What would be gained from collaborative effort? What does society gain?
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and History

429. Women In The French Resistance: Revisiting the Historical Record

Author:
Claire Andrieu
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
If the Resistance as a whole is part of French identity, the different types of resistance, among them that of women, do not benefit from the same status. On the contrary, official commemorations of the Resistance are based upon two implicit statements: that the Resistance and the nation are somewhat equivalent - the Resistance being viewed as the uprising of the whole nation - and that to differentiate among the resisters would go against the very principles of the Resistance, its universalism, its refusal to make any distinction in race or origin. The assimilationism that is part of the ideology of the French Republic hinders the recognition of particularisms, whether regional, cultural or gendered. The Resistance has two national heroes, General de Gaulle since 1940, and Jean Moulin since 1964, both male and French. But no group has yet demanded the implementation of an affirmative action policy for the process of heroization. The French fear of multiculturalism -or any recognition of particularisms - could be sufficient to explain the slow development of women's studies in France, and indeed, the history of women resisters has not yet been studied as much as that of the Resistance as a whole. There were other factors that prevented it from developing. After reviewing the available bibliography, I propose some new directions of research which - as elementary and unsophisticated as they are - may break down some stereotypes and allow us to glimpse some aspects of the Resistance that traditional history has neglected.
Topic:
History
Political Geography:
France

430. Antiracism Without Races: Politics and Policy in a "Color-Blind" State

Author:
Erik Bleich
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Since the end of the Second World War, millions of immigrants have arrived on French shores. Although such an influx of foreigners has not been unusual in French history, the origin of the postwar migrants was of a different character than that of previous eras. Prior to World War II, the vast majority of immigrants to France came from within Europe. Since 1945, however, an important percentage of migrants have come from non- European sources. Whether from former colonies in North Africa, Southeast Asia, or sub- Saharan Africa, from overseas departments and territories, or from countries such as Turkey or Sri Lanka, recent immigration has created a new ethnic and cultural pluralism in France. At the end of the 1990s, the visibly nonwhite population of France totals approximately five percent of all French residents. With millions of ethnic-minority citizens and denizens, the new France wears a substantially different face from that of the prewar era.
Topic:
Politics and History
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Turkey, France, Sri Lanka, North Africa, and Southeast Asia