From chriscd@jhu.edu Fri Nov 1 08:13:14 1996 01 Nov 1996 10:13:34 -0500 (EST) 01 Nov 1996 10:13:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 10:15:26 -0500 From: chris chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Error Condition Re: PEWS/E&T joint session] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Organization: Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.21218 USA Thu, 31 Oct 1996 12:29:24 -0400 (EDT) Thu, 31 Oct 1996 12:29:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 12:28:40 -0500 From: listproc@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Error Condition Re: PEWS/E&T joint session Sender: owner-wsn@csf.colorado.edu To: rudel@rci.rutgers.edu Reply-to: listproc@csf.colorado.edu rudel@rci.rutgers.edu: You are not subscribed to wsn@csf.colorado.edu. Your message is returned to you unprocessed. If you want to subscribe, send mail to listproc@csf.colorado.edu with the following request: subscribe WSN Your Name ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Oct 96 12:28:40 EST From: Thomas Rudel To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu, envtecsoc@csf.colorado.edu Subject: PEWS/E&T joint session In making up the call of papers for the 1997 ASA meetings in Toronto, the ASA staff inadvertently deleted one of the sessions being sponsored by the Environment and Technology Section. It is the joint PEWS/E&T session on the Political Economy of the Environment. ASA will print a correction in the next issue of Footnotes. In any event send your submissions for this session to: Tom Rudel, Department of Human Ecology, Cook College, Rutgers University, P.O. Box 231, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903. FAX: 908-932-6667. Deadline: January 10, 1997. Sorry for the confusion! Tom Rudel From rudel@rci.rutgers.edu Fri Nov 1 08:16:03 1996 Date: Fri, 1 Nov 96 10:16:29 EST From: Thomas Rudel To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: PEWS/E&T joint session, 1997 ASA meetings In the call for papers for the 1997 ASA meetings, the ASA staff inadvertently deleted the listing of the joint PEWS/Env. and Tech. session on the Political Economy of the Environment. ASA will print a correction in the next edition of Footnotes. In any event we will be organizing a session on the Political Economy of the Environment. Please send your submissions to: Tom Rudel, Department of Human Ecology, Cook College, Rutgers University, P.O. 231, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903, FAX: 908-932-6667. Deadline for submissions: January 10, 1997. Sorry for the confusion! Tom Rudel From B.K.Gills@newcastle.ac.uk Fri Nov 1 09:19:20 1996 From: "Barry Gills" To: agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 16:18:56 GMT0BST Subject: Re: Gunder Frank's response No. 2 Dear Gunder and all those involved in the current debate on WSN; I have been able to monitor only part of the discussion in the past two weeks due to editing responsibilities for special issues of Third World Quarterly and of New Political Economy forthcoming soon and being finalised now, but my 'silence' has not been due to a lack of interest. On the other hand, it might be construed as a 'meaningful silence' by some, since I have had reservations about the content, manner, and direction of much of what I have managed to read. Gunder has, true to form(!) now provided something of a summary (from his point of view of course) of most of the exchanges. I have read this today This brief reply is both to Gunder and an open contribution to all those involved in the debate. I think that there are some sound and important points to be made about the errors of excessive "Eurocentrism", but the critique of such excessive Eurocentrism can itself be taken to an extreme if we are not careful. Gunder and I have laid out the sketch of a single world economic system going back to the 3rd millennium BCE with A/B phases and hegemonic shifts, as ou are all no doubt fully aware. However, such a description was only the beginning and a signpost to a new research agenda. Many many questions remained unaddressed and the definition of the "world system" itself was in fact a minimalist one- i.e. regular exchange of surplus. In this sense it was fairly "economistic" or more appropriately "materialist". But defining the world economic system itself was and is by no means such a simple exercise. There is much much more that should be done to further develop such a conception of the world system. Sweeping generalisation, even when backed by much evidence, is still a risky business, espcially when taking in such vast time and space scales. When our own group (The World Historical Systems Group -IPE section- ISA) met in Lund Sweden over a year ago I argued that "over-systematicity" was a genuine problem in the world system approach initially developed in my joint work with Gunder Frank. Nor did we ever satisfactorily address the causes of economic cycles acroos the world system - to my mind. When we wrote early papers on Eurocentrism, we had a personal admonition from William H. McNeill not to over-state the case against European innovativeness in the early modern period. There was an earlier debate on this that Peter Taylor organised in Political Geography and which was later published as a book as well. McNeill's point is that it isn't necessary to argue that nothing special happened in Europe in order to make the point about its context being in a real world wide and more Asian centred world economy. I think this may be the right balance. Yes, the world system was more Asian centred for longer than many have argued, and this is a point Gunder and I developed together in Newcastle some 2 years ago, wrote a paper about and circulated it to some of you. Gunder has gone on to write an entire book about this and has done great service by doing so. Nevertheless, I think it is possible to tip the balance too far and make the mistake Bill McNeill warned us against. World economic "catalyst" was surely the real source of Europe's enormous burst of capital accumulation. We begin to arrive back at Wolf or other readings of the industrial revolution as the really sharp differentiating point between the "before European hegemony" in the world economy and "after European hegemony" and thus away from Wallerstein's 16th century break point on European hegemony. But we would still disagree with Wallerstein on Europe's role in bringing about a true world economic system (happened much earlier and not driven by European centres or ERuropean invention of capitalism). That's progress (no pun intended). Must go for now, Sincerely, Barry Gills From dlj@pobox.com Fri Nov 1 11:34:43 1996 Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 13:35:26 -0500 To: albert@U.Arizona.EDU From: David Lloyd-Jones Subject: Re: your mail At 11:39 AM 30/10/96 -0700, Albert J Bergesen wrote: > >My guess is that the growing evidence of Asian economic activity and the >lack of European exceptionalism in mode of production and religion make >the received theory from Marx to Weber to today that something >special happened in Europe that then, like a social virus, swirled out to >engulf the world, seem increasingly outmoded. This is the deep suspicion >that has led to this questioning of WST. > My goodness! if this were true then WST would have been much less W that the rest of us had given you credit for. -dlj. P.S.: "Lack of exceptionalism"?? I love it. Is this English for "que sera sera"? -d. From dlj@pobox.com Fri Nov 1 11:34:44 1996 Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 13:35:35 -0500 To: dasmith@orion.oac.uci.edu From: David Lloyd-Jones Subject: Re: "vulgar Marxism" versus "Al and Heidi Toffler" At 02:35 PM 29/10/96 -0800, Dave Smith wrote: >So Lloyd-Jones thinks that "World System(s)" is just "vulgar Marxism writ >large," but has only admiration for the "Al and Heidi's writing skill and >witty and tasteful use of detail"! Is this a JOKE?!! (Sadly, it doesn't >seem to be.) Dave, I find that most people who attack me are liars, and in Smith's case the lie lies in the word "only." If you will re-read my note to the net you will see that I eviscerated their three-revolutions theory. -dlj. From albert@U.Arizona.EDU Fri Nov 1 13:45:07 1996 Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 13:44:41 -0700 (MST) From: Albert J Bergesen To: wsn wsn Subject: till we meet again at the ASAs in Toronto WSNers--the debate on euro-exceptionalism seems to be dying down. Let me add one more thing. For those who will be attending the ASA meetings this coming August I have organized a sepecial session on just this topic. Gunder, Janet Abu-Lughod, Randy Collins and myself will consider the thesis that Marx Weber got it all wrong as to the rise of the West. I encourage everyone who can to attend and voice their opinion. al b. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 email: albert@u.arizona.edu From wwagar@binghamton.edu Fri Nov 1 15:24:03 1996 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 17:24:33 -0500 (EST) To: KHOO Khay Jin Subject: Re: eurocentrism In-Reply-To: Dear Khoo Khay Jin, Your message hits "the nail on the head." Squirming out of complicity for what has happened to the world since the "rise" of the West is certainly one apt explanation of the current vogue among Westerners of deploring and pitying "Eurocentric" approaches to modern world history. As I said in an earlier message, it's a combination of white liberal guilt and politically correct multiculturalism, which may amount to the same things in the mouths of whites. So white Western non-Eurocentrism may, indeed, constitute the epitome of Eurocentrism--in its present guilt-ridden phase, that is. We have plenty to feel guilty about, but that does not excuse denying the self-evident facts of modern world history. Thank you for your incisive contribution to this debate! W. Warren Wagar Binghamton University From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Mon Nov 4 05:53:23 1996 4 Nov 96 19:22:41 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Organization: Center of New Informational Tech. To: "Bruce R. McFarling" Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 19:21:47 -0600 (NSK) Subject: Eurocentrism: pro e contra Dear Bruce, I almost agree,but... Bruce McFarling : >In part, it is the difference between the > thesis "unusual and historically important things happened in Europe" and > "Europe is unique because of the unusual and historically important things > that happened there". The first is true -- but it is also true of other > regions of the globe, which is why the second is false. no objections here but what about such argument: "Europe is unique because no other civilization managed to assimilate achievements of almost all other living world civilizations, and no other civilization except the Western one (based on Europe) managed to disseminate so widely and deeply its (original or deeply assimilated) social, cultural, and technological patterns in all over the world" One can remind Sumerian states and agricultural technology, Phoenecian alphabetic system, Persian coins and province control, Judaic monotheism, Indian- Arabic numbers and maths, Chinese porcelain and gunpowder but ... can it be compared with overwhelming wide Western realm of patterns: Christianity originated in Roman Empire, nation-state political and legal forms, stock exchanges, financial systems, all modern sciences and almost all technologies, educational systems, democratic, liberal and human rights principles, genres and forms in literature, art, music, cinema, TV, computing, etc ? best regards, Nikolai *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From ba05105@binghamton.edu Mon Nov 4 08:14:52 1996 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 10:14:48 -0500 (EST) To: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Subject: Re: Eurocentrism: pro e contra In-Reply-To: <422FEA82CA6@cnit.nsu.ru> Re: Nikolai's message below-- I know I'm missing something, but it seems there are a few lessons of other civilizations the west failed to learn, regarding interacting peaceably with other cultures and the non-human world, preserving that which is worthwhile from the past, prioritizing livelihood over economic 'growth'... By the way, what may be the single most important cultural technology--movable type printing--was 'invented' in Europe only after they were aware that the Chinese had devised a machine to do something similar ('invented', therefore, in the same sense that the USSR 'invented' the atom bomb). Steven Sherman Binghamton University On Mon, 4 Nov 1996, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > Dear Bruce, > I almost agree,but... > > Bruce McFarling : > > >In part, it is the difference between the > > thesis "unusual and historically important things happened in Europe" and > > "Europe is unique because of the unusual and historically important things > > that happened there". The first is true -- but it is also true of other > > regions of the globe, which is why the second is false. > > no objections here but what about such argument: > > "Europe is unique because no other civilization managed to assimilate > achievements of almost all other living world civilizations, and no other > civilization except the Western one (based on Europe) managed to disseminate > so widely and deeply its (original or deeply assimilated) social, cultural, > and technological patterns in all over the world" > > One can remind Sumerian states and agricultural technology, > Phoenecian alphabetic system, Persian coins and province control, Judaic > monotheism, Indian- Arabic numbers and maths, Chinese porcelain and gunpowder > but ... > > can it be > compared with overwhelming wide Western realm of > patterns: Christianity originated in Roman Empire, nation-state > political and legal forms, stock exchanges, financial systems, all > modern sciences and almost all technologies, educational systems, democratic, > liberal and human rights principles, genres and forms in literature, art, > music, cinema, TV, computing, etc ? > > best regards, Nikolai > > > > > *********************************************************** > > Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy > Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University > rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk > Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA > > Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI > (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) > http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe > /philofhi.html > ************************************************************ > From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Mon Nov 4 09:18:03 1996 4 Nov 96 23:12:53 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Organization: Center of New Informational Tech. To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 23:12:43 -0600 (NSK) Subject: Re: Eurocentrism: pro e contra Dear Steven, you seem to confuse my thesis of uniqueness of Europe with pro-Europeism (= apologia of European (and Western) impact in World history). I did not evaluated morally (ecologically, etc) the European impact in that msg. It is in fact an open philosophy-of-history question and right you are the answer must be far from triumphal one. > > Re: Nikolai's message below-- I know I'm missing something, but it seems > there are a few lessons of other civilizations the west failed to learn, > regarding interacting peaceably with other cultures and the non-human > world, preserving that which is worthwhile from the past, prioritizing > livelihood over economic 'growth'... ok, but noone still managed to spread globally and realize non-locally these ideas. You have nothing again except Western uniqueness. The Club of Roma, Rio Forum, etc were organized by Western people. The same is with new rathe widely spreaded ideas of sustainable development, biological diversity, value of cultural diversity, 'Earth ethics', etc. >By the way, > what may be the single most important cultural technology--movable type > printing--was 'invented' in Europe only after they were aware that the > Chinese had devised a machine to do something similar ('invented', > therefore, in the same sense that the USSR 'invented' the atom bomb). as you remeber I emphasized effective ASSIMILATION and SPREAD in my uniqueness thesis, NOT invention (where before XVII-XVIII Europe seems not to be a leader). Tell me please what is the origin of MODERN PATTERNS of public houses, newspapers and periodicals publishing etc. Still Europe and US, not China, alas. Your analogy with the atom bomb invention also can serve us. It is absolutely not possible simply to "steal" the idea of such kind and complexity and to realize it in short time. Russian physics (Kurchatov,Sakharov, etc) had bright European(!) education and surely reached the front level of nuclear physics ( all education and sciences in Russia since Peter the Great are European, German originally, and by no means asiatic). Without this factor the bomb would not be realized that time in Russia. It seems that Europe was also quite ready for "stealing" printing technology and in historically short time has overcome Chinese originals. best, Nikolai Rozov *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu Mon Nov 4 11:01:40 1996 From: "J B Owens" Organization: Idaho State University To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 11:04:22 -0600, MDT Subject: CFP: Conf. on Hunting and Gathering Societies, Osaka ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 09:22:12 -0800 Reply-to: H-NET List for World History From: Ken Pomeranz Subject: CFP: Conf. on Hunting and Gathering Societies, Osaka From: "Philip C. Brown" H-JAPAN November 1, 1996 Call for Papers The 8th International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies will be held at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan during 26-30, October, 1998. The conference will be organized around the following topics: 1. Archaeology, Ethnoarcheology and Ethnohistory 2. Demography and Ecology 3. Gender and Social Change 4. Politics, Ethnicity and Identity 5. Foragers and Post-Foragers in Global Context 6. Education, Communication and Visions for the Future 7. Art, Symbolism and Cosmology 8. Visual Ethnography In addition, there will be discussions of both recent and ancient transformations, interactions of hunter-gatherers with their neighboring groups, and representations of them in the media and by academia. Apart from individual papers, we also welcome proposals for special sessions focused on specific themes. If you wish to organize such a session, please send us a one to two page statement of the focus of the session along with the names of some likely participants. Because of the limited number of rooms available at any one time,the number of papers presented will have to be restricted to about 80. Some applicants may be advised to present at the poster sessions. Only a few proposed sessions of excellence will be able to be accepted by the organizing committee. Titles and Abstracts of 150 words or less should be received in Osaka no later than 30th June 1997. The Co-chairs and other organizing committee members will meet in August 1997 to select papers and organize the sessions. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by 1 November 1997. No handling fee is required. The Papers, written in English, should be sent to Dr. Shuzo Koyama in Osaka by 30th June 1998. The length of each presentation including discussion will be about 30 minutes. Papers for precirculation should be no longer than 7000 words maximum and in English. Preregistration forms, Paper Abstracts and Titles, Papers should be sent to the following address: Dr. Shuzo Koyama, Co-Chair, CHAGS8, C/O CHAGS8 Project Office, 4th Research Department, National Museum of Ethnology, 10-1 Senri Expo Park, Suita City, Osaka, Japan 565; Fax 81-6-876-2160, 81-6-875-8255; e-mail:chags8@idc.minpaku.ac.jp Philip C. Brown 614-292-0904 Department of History, Ohio State University 230 West 17th Avenue, Columbus OH 43210 USA -------------------------end H-Japan message--------------------------- From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Mon Nov 4 19:57:07 1996 Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 13:55:47 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Eurocentrism: pro e contra In-reply-to: <422FEA82CA6@cnit.nsu.ru> To: "Nikolai S. Rozov" , wsn@csf.colorado.edu On Mon, 4 Nov 1996, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > Dear Bruce, > I almost agree,but... > > Bruce McFarling : > > >In part, it is the difference between the > > thesis "unusual and historically important things happened in Europe" and > > "Europe is unique because of the unusual and historically important things > > that happened there". The first is true -- but it is also true of other > > regions of the globe, which is why the second is false. > > no objections here but what about such argument: > > "Europe is unique because no other civilization managed to assimilate > achievements of almost all other living world civilizations, and no other > civilization except the Western one (based on Europe) managed to disseminate > so widely and deeply its (original or deeply assimilated) social, cultural, > and technological patterns in all over the world" Then West Asia would be unique, *if* none of the previous instances of this type of explosion were not also the instances with the widest and deepest impact up to *that* time -- a question for you historians on the list to address. In other words, why isn't that just the exponential improvement of technological capability, that antedates West Asia's temporary dominance by millenia, plus the fact that the West Asian explosion is the most recent? Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From andrei@rsuh.ru Tue Nov 5 05:50:49 1996 From: "Andrey Korotayev" Organization: rsuh To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 15:50:45 +0300 Subject: 7/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISI Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru 7/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISIS I finished my last posting (c3 weeks ago) with the following words: Again, I have not managed to finish the series of my messages today, having spelled out only one of the World System consequences I wanted to discuss. I have to speak about at least one other next time (and to finish my series with this). Though too much time (by network standrads) has passed since that moment, I still feel obliged to finish my series as I promised to. Now I shall try to be as brief as possible. PART 7. SOME WORLD SYSTEM CONSEQUENCES: TRIBAL STRUCTURES As has been already mentioned above Arabs elaborated a rather effective adoptation to the 6th century crisis to a considerable extent through the massive transformation of their state and chiefdom structures into the tribal ones. This could hardly be regarded as a degeneration because the newly elaborated tribal structures turned out to be able to serve the functional needs of rather comlex stratified societies. With the Islamic conquests these tribal structures and tribal ethos (al-qabaliyyah) appear to have proliferated through almost all of the territory of the new Islamic state (which occupied, incidentally, most of the central area of the World System). Of course, it should be stressed that there is not so much of al-qabaliyyah in Islam itself. Yet it seems necessary to take into account the following moments. To start with within the Russian Islamic Studies the Islamic civilization was traditionally designated as the Arab-Moslem one (which naturally often met strong objections on the part of our Moslem colleagues from the former Soviet Central Asia). However, I would stress that this designation is rather helpful in some respects. The fact is that this civilization (especially within the territory of the first Islamic Empire) seems to contain important Arab non-Islamic elements (and cannot be understood without taking them into account). And al- qabaliyyah appears to be one of them. It is important to mention that the Arabs were the dominant ethnos within the Islamic Empire at least till the Abbasid revolution in the middle of the 8th century AD; and the Arab culture as a whole (including its non-Islamic components, like al-qabaliyyah) acquired a rather high prestige and proliferated within the borders of the Empire. The proliferation of the tribal structures and tribal ethos seems to have had both positive and negative consequenses. On the one hand, in the areas where most of the population acquired the tribal organization it often permitted the existence of complex systems of non-oppressed agriculturalists (which is very difficult to find otherwise in the preindustrial world). One of the most evident cases is the North-East Yemen Highlands of this millennium, where the tribal organization for most time effectively prevented the exploitation of most agriculturalists (most plough agriculturalists being armed honourable tribesmen), at the meantime securing the existence of an intence network of markets, towns, centres of learning &c. Netwithstanding all the attractiveness of such systems some negative consequences of their proliferation should not be also overlooked. Looking rather attractive from inside they often looked entirely unattractive for their non-tribal neighbours, who often had to deal with rather destructive side-effects of their functioning. In general, the proliferation of the tribal structures seem to have played a rather important role in the inducing of the cyclical Khaldunian processes (for a model of such processes in addition to Ibn Khalduns al-Muqaddimah itself see e.g. Gellners Moslem Society [1982]) which contributed significantly to the Middle Eastern involution in the 11-18th cent., thus contributing to the loss by the former central part of the World System of its central role. From andrei@rsuh.ru Tue Nov 5 08:17:49 1996 From: "Andrey Korotayev" Organization: rsuh To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 18:17:43 +0300 Subject: 1-5/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISI Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru Dear WSNers, Actually, I started my series of postings on the 6th century AD World System crisis c2 months ago. Hence, by the moment the situation might be reminiscent of a well-known Greek story when the Spartiates claimed that they forgot the beginning of the speech by the moment when the speaker came to its end. Let alone the new subscribers who must be completely puzzled with what all this fuss is about. Hence, I have decided to recapitulate my postings in one text. FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISIS Daniel Foss and Barry Gills have drawn recently our attention to the 6th century AD World System crisis and the role of epidemics in it. I agree with Daniel that the role of epidemics seems to have been extremely important here, but I am afraid that this is rather a secondary (notwithstanding all its importance) factor, though I would look for at least one of its primary causes not quite in the same direction as Barry does. Naturally, I would start with South Arabia. Part 1. SOUTH ARABIAN PUZZLE I was for many years a bit puzzled by a strangely quick collapse of the South Arabian Empire of the "Kings of Saba and dhu:-Rayda:n and Hadramawt and Yamanat and Their Arabs in the Highland and the Coastal Plain" in the second half of the 6th century AD. Yes, at the beginning of this century South Arabia experienced a series of rather turbulent events: dhu:-Nuwa:s coup, violent persecutions of the Christians, Ethiopian invasions and conquest, rebellion (successful) of the Ethiopian soldiers deployed in Yemen, their leader (Abraha) getting the royal power &c. Then, however, under Abrahas rule the Empire seems to have stabilized and achieved reasonable florescence by the end of the 40s: Abraha managed to organize the successful repairs of the famous Ma:rib Dam (`Rmn), campaigns to Central and Northern Arabia &c. And then in the second half of the century the Empire simply collapses without any apparent reason. The study of this collapse is further complicated by the fact that the catastrophe appears to have been so profound that the written texts seem to have stopped to be produced in South Arabia - since the 7th decade of the 6th century (this decade including) we have no authentic dated South Arabian texts up to the Islamic Age - which stands in a sharp contrast with a comparatively well documented first 5 decades of the Century. The collapse seems to have been so profound that when in the 70s Khusraw [I] Parwe:z reluctantly sent (as a sort of punishment) a few hundred convicted criminals to conquer Yemen (considering this such an adventure that it would be wiser not to risk with the proper troops), they (the convicted criminals) did manage to conquer it. Part 2. NORTH ARABIAN PUZZLE Of course, it is evident that what happened in the 6th century Yemen was not an isolated event. Already if we look at Arabia as a whole we shall get a bit different perspective. To begin with, in the Soviet islamology up to the 1980s the dominant theory of the origins of Islam connected it with the crisis and degeneration of the clan-tribal system in the 6th - early 7th century Arabia, the state and class formation. A bit strange theory, I am afraid, as the very well-known facts show quite clearly that the actual processes were simply contrary to the ones described above. The clan-tribal systems in Pre-Islamic Arabia were strengthening and consolidating, whereas these were precisely the state structures which degenerated and disintegrated in the first century before al- Hijrah. Indeed at the beginning of the 6th century we see a few kingdoms controlling most of the Arabian territory: the already mentioned huge Taba:bi`ah Kingdom in Yemen (dominant not only over the whole Arabian South but also considerable parts of Central Arabia), the second Kindite Kingdom (the vassal of the first one) in Central Arabia, the Lakhmid Kingdom (dependent on the Sassanid Empire) in the Arabian North-West (controlling also a considerable part of Northern and Central Arabia), and the Ghassanid Kingdom (dependent on the Byzantine Empire) in the North-West. What is more, even in the territories outside the direct control of the above-mentioned kingdoms we normally find what should be more correctly described as chiefdoms rather than true tribes. Their heads often explicitly call themselves amla:k (sg. malik) "kings". The situation at the beginning of the next century (say, at the time of the beginning of Muh*ammads Prophecy) differs dramatically. ALL the above-mentioned great Arabian kingdoms had disappeared together with most smaller ones. There was almost no "kings" left in Arabia; and where there were chiefdoms a century before now we see true free tribes. This seems to support Gills rather than Foss. To quote Daniel Foss again: "It seems to me that you have presented, in South Arabia, an excellent example of the social impact of the Plague of Justinian. This, you recall, broke out in Constantinople and Antioch in 542. South Arabia was the only part of the peninsula with a dense peasant population and significant urban life." South Arabia was no doubt affected by the Plague of Justinian (I hope to mention some details in my following postings). But as we could see very similar processes appear to have taken place in the nomadic communities of the Arabian Desert, i.e. in the areas and among the populations which unlike the Arabian South are one of the best protected from the spread of the epidemics (one may recall some early Muslim rulers who would move to the Desert at the time of the epidemics spending the dangerous time in a sort of bedouin camp). PART 3. SOME NEGLECTED CAUSES OF THE CRISIS The answer to the Arabian puzzle which I would like to discuss now was offered to me by one of the leading Russian specialists in the environmental history, Dr. Dmitriy Prusakov (Oriental Institute, Moscow) who also supplied me with all the necessary literature. It appears that the 6th century AD evidenced the peak of the seismic activity in the Mediterranean region. Of course, on the spot of it is not quite self-evident what it has to do with the 6th century AD Arabian crisis. Of course, the earthquakes affected in some way the evolution of the 6th - early 7th cent. AD Arabian societies, leaving even some trace in al-Qura:n - cf. e.g. the beginning of the famous Earthquake su:rah (Idha: zulzilati l-ard*u zilza:la-ha: wa-rafa`ati l- ard*u athqa:la-ha wa-qa:la l-insa:nu ma: la-ha "When the earth is shaken with an earthquake, and the earth lifts its loads, and the man asks: `What has happened to it? &c). Stookey and Gryaznevich have already proposed to connect the final decline of the pre-Islamic South Arabian civilization with the seismic activity - indeed it may well have produced the final deadly blow for the most ancient civilization centres of the edges of the internal Yemeni desert, which were already on the brink of final collapse by the 6th century AD and which depended heavily on relatively large-scale irrigation structures that could be significantly affected by the earthquakes. But this does not seem to be the case with the kingdoms and chiefdoms of the Arabian North which could not be apparently affected by the earthquakes to a critical extent. Thus, the most significant outcome of the seismic activity seems to be volcano eruptions rather than earthquakes. Again, it is not self-evident how, say, the volcano eruptions on the Lipar Islands near Italy could affect the evolution of the Arabian communities. Again, what is significant here is not the direct effect - though some of the South Arabian sites were destroyed just in this way (though not necessarily in the 6th century). What is really important is the ashes which are thrown to the atmosphere in great quantities during such eruptions. And this could affect significantly really huge areas. E.g. volcanic dust would halt some of the sun rays and accumulate the humidity, causing various disbalances in the ecological systems, which could result in the outbursts of the numbers of the epidemic disease bearing animals, and the causal link between the seismic activity and the epidemics was noticed long ago. However, the most significant factor seems to be the accumulation of the atmosphere humidity by the volcanic dust causing severe draughts in the parts of the world rather distant from the active volcanoes themselves - and there are documented cases when, say, the volcano eruptions on the Lipar Islands near Italy caused severe draught in Mesopotamia (naturally, North Arabia could not have been affected in such cases either). Hence, the peak of the seismic activity in the Mediterranean region produced such an array of primary, secondary, and tertiary factors (earthquakes and volcano eruptions themselves, epidemics, draughts, barbarian invasions caused by the socio- ecological crises on the barbarian peripheries) which could pose a deadly threat for the survival of most of affected civilizations of the time. I myself have come to terms with the sudden death of the 1500 year old pre-Islamic South Arabian civilization when I realized that this happened simultaneously with the severe crisis in the Byzantine Empire which put it on the brink of an almost complete collapse (the early 7th - early 6th century comparison would produce for Byzantine results rather similar to the ones obtained above for the Arabian North and South in any case). And what was an almost deadly blow for strong Byzantine appeared to have been just a deadly blow for the weaker South Arabian civilization as well as to the most Arabian kingdoms. This is not a mere speculation, especially for the Arabian North. Indeed, as was mentioned above the second half of the 6th century history of South Arabia is documented very badly (especially, in comparison with the earlier periods). But this is not true for the Arabian North. It is not that by the early 7th - early 6th century comparison we can deduce that most North and Central Arabian kingdoms has disintegrated without knowing what happened in between. No, it is possible not only to deduce this disintegration, but also to get to know in some detail how this disintegration proceeded. Indeed, we have at our disposal e.g. the wonderful pre-Islamic Arab historical tradition, the so called Ayya:m al-`Arab "The Days of the Arabs". And one of the typical "Days" can be rendered as follows: there was some Arabian strongman (a head of a kingdom, or a chiefdom) who behaved sometimes in a bad and arrogant manner. Such a behaviour could consist of, say, shooting an arrow (just for fun) at a she-camel of some poor women (incidentally, an action which once precipitated 40 year long violent hostilities), but, very noticeably, it could be manifested in attempts to collect taxes in a "lean" year (usually caused by a draught). A typical reaction to "royal" misbehaviour would be that some tough bedouin guys would go to such a chief and just kill him, which would provoke the revenge attempts on the part of the murdered chiefs relatives, thus producing one more Arab "Day" which could last for years filled with series of violent actions on both sides. However, at the end we find original chiefdoms or kingdoms disintegrated with free true tribes on their places. PART 4. THE ARAB ADAPTATION TO THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISIS Actually, what was described at the end of my previous message may well be described as an important component of this rather effective adaptation. This was simply that most socio-political systems of the Arabs (or, for the extreme methodological individualists, the Arabs themselves - anyhow, it could be well described in both ways) reacted rather adequately to the socio- ecological crisis by getting rid of the rigid supra-tribal political structures (i.e. all those kings, chiefs and their retainers) which started posing a real threat to their very survival. Indeed, it is rather difficult to imagine anything more nasty than the royal messengers coming to you in a "lean year" (which may well have been preceded by one or two similar years) and demanding from you to pay royal taxes when you yourself have nothing to eat and to feed your children. However, the Arabs did not only destroyed most of those rigid political supra-communal structures alienating the tribal sovereignty, but also developed their alternatives - soft structures not posing any threat to the sovereignty of tribes. Most noticeable of them seems to be the development of the system of sacred enclaves, regular pilgrimages to them and accompanying this regular pilgrim fairs (mawa:sim). The result was the development of rather effective intersocietal networks, of which the best known is the Western Arabian religious-political area (the functioning and evolution of which, incidentally, left a noticeable trace on the history of the World System as a whole). It seems to have been formed as a result of the expansion of the zones of influence of the respective sanctuaries, their interweaving into one more or less integrated religious-political area. This of course was primarily a religious area, yet it had evident political dimensions too. It was in the pilgrimage-fairs (mawa:sim) at the above mentioned sanctuaries "that traditional tribal society established its manifold contacts, the exchange of the religious and cultural ideas, as well as the barter of products with only use-value. Furthermore, the various legal problems (armistice, debts, benefits, payment of blood-money, bailing out of prisoners, finding of clients, looking for disappeared persons, questions of heritage, etc.) of the participants were also settled there. This exchange of ideas and goods, as well as the spreading of legal customs and cults common to several tribes, that is, regular social contact in general, played no negligible role in the extension of particular tribal consciousness" (Simon 1989, 90; also see especially Wellhausen 1927, 88-91). As a result we can observe the formation of a certain political area more or less correlating with the religious one, an area where certain norms of not only religious, but also political culture were shared, where the people would avoid killing travellers in ashhur h*urum, the holy months (and would consider the same parts of the year as the holy months), where the representatives of various tribes would go to the same places to settle their conflicts, and would observe the same rules of political mediation &c. The most remarkable fact is the almost complete absence of significant intertribal warfare in "the area of the four sanctuaries" between the time of its final formation (i.e. h*arb al-Fija:r in the last decade of the 6- th century AD) and the start of the clashes with the Muslims. Actually at this time we can observe in the "Area of Four Sanctuaries" (In the early 7th century AD it covered not only Western Arabia, but also considerable parts of the other Arabian regions)cultural-political entity, which in the absence of any significant political centralization secured the existence of a huge cultural network within which a very intensive (and very productive) exchange of information, energy and matter took place. (Being polycentric the Western Arabian area seems to have had a considerably heterogeneous structure including a few interweaving subsystems centred on the respective sanctuaries. The best known is the hums amphyctiony centred on the Meccan sanctuary.) [Incidentally, this type of cultural-political entities seems to be ignored (without any reasonable justification) by practically all the "classical" theories of social evolution (e.g. Claessen, Skalnik 1978; Claessen et al. 1985; Fried 1967; Hallpike 1986; Lenski 1987; Parsons 1977; Sanderson 1990; Service 1971 [1962]) and does not seem to fit in all these essentially unilineal evolutionist schemes, especially in their most popular "band - tribe - chiefdom - state" version (with all its modifications). Indeed, all the Western Arabian polities of the early 7th century appear to have had a rather "primitive" socio-political structures (which seems to be valid even with respect to the Meccan community [see e.g. Dostal 1991]) and, according, to such schemes could be only classified as "autonomous communities", "tribes", at most as "chiefdoms" (though most Arabian "chiefdoms" seem to have disintegrated in the second half of the 6th century AD). However, they were parts of a much wider cultural-political entity whose overall level of social complexity may well be compared with the one of an average "early state"; though lacking the political centralization this entity fails to find its place in the above mentioned schemes (this appears to be true with respect to any processes of socio-cultural growth which are not accompanied by the growing political centralization, or especially going in hand with the political decentralization).]. In general, the Arabs appear to have developed a rather effective adaptation to the 6th century World System crisis. The soft intersocietal networks they created even permitted them to assume the role of the guardians of the important WS links in the WS Southern area a role which the Great Powers of the late 6th - early 7th century were already unable to perform (the point which Foss and I discussed on the WSN this summer). In Re: 2/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CR of Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:49:31 Barry Gills asks me: >I presume you are saying that >the general world economic crisis "levelled" the states and >chiefdoms >of the Arabian peninsula in its wake- setting back state >forms to >less complex formations? There is something in this statement that I cannot say and accept. The states and chiefdoms of the Central Arabia were not "levelled to less complex formations" in the course of the 6th century crisis but rather developed into a more complex, subtle and effective system. I would definitely avoid describing these processes as anything like "decline", "degeneration" or "regress". PART 5. ORIGINS OF ISLAM: SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-POLITICAL CONTEXT Though some pre-Islamic Arabian tribes managed to find a rather effective adaptation to the crisis along the lines described in the previous message, this adaptation does not appear to have been quite perfect everywhere. After the destruction of the political structures of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms not all the Arabian communities entirely succeeded in working out effective substitutes for them. They seem to have succeeded e.g. in the Meccan area (and that is why there was no sufficient space for Muh*ammads Prophetic activity there), but they do not seem to have been so successful in, say, Yathrib, where a few tribes could not sort out their relations in the absence of any effective super-tribal authority. Such a problem was not new in Arabia. And at the beginning of the 6th century the answer was quite clear - to send messengers to the Sassanids, or the Tubba` in Z*afa:r, and to ask them to appoint a king over those tribes. However, such a practice appear to have become unacceptable by the 7th century. The decades of fighting which led to the destruction of the most of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms seem to have also led to the elaboration of some definite "anti- royal" freedom-loving tribal ethos codified in the tribal historical traditions and poetry - see e.g. al-mu`allaqah of `Amr b. Kulthu:m, or such lines as "It is not forbidden to us to kill the kings!" (Al-Mufad*d*aliyya:t. al-Qa:hirah, 1964, N 42, 20), "How many of the most glorious kings we have killed!" (al-Qa:li:. Kita:b al=ama:li:. Bu:la:q, 1324h, 42). The reflections of this ethos seem to be present even in al-Qura:n - see XXVII/34: Al-mulu:k idha: dakhalu: qaryatan afsadu:-ha wa- ja`alu: a`izzata ahli-ha adhillatan wa-ka-dha:lika yaf`alu:n ("The kings, when they enter a town, they corrupt it; they make the most glorious of its folk the most base, they do it this way" - an ad hoc translation of mine"). The second Caliph, `Umar, would even say: "It was disgusting for the Arabs that one of them reigned over others... There have never been royal power over any Arab!" (T*abari:. Annales. I. Lugduni Batavorum, 1879, 2011-2012) - a striking contrast with the situation a century before when most Arabs were subject (in one, or another way) to the kings. Anyway, at the beginning of the 7th century a tribe which would recognize themselves as subjects of some terrestrial super- tribal political authority, a "king", risked to lose its honour. However, this seems not to be applicable to the authority of another type, the "celestial" one. Note, e.g. the words of a famous Arab poet al-H*ut*ayah said during the revolts of the Arab tribes after the death of the Prophet during the reign of the first Caliph, Abu:-Bakr: "We obeyed the Gods messenger, when he was among us. We are the servants of the God, not the servants of Abu: Bakr! I wonder if he will leave us to Bakr as inheritance." (Note: "Abu: Bakr" literally means "the father of Bakr"). Hence, the impression is that whereas for many Arab tribes becoming subjects of some terrestrial king was entirely unacceptable, was tantamount to an enormous loss of honour, the recognition of some "celestial" authority (naturally through its representative) was more or less acceptable. Another group of facts should be also taken into consideration here. The pre-Islamic Arabia knew rather well the figure of "prophet" (ka:hin). An average Arab seems to have known quite well how a "prophet" looked like, what the prophetic trans was &c. However, all the pre-7th century Arab prophets (kahanah) were the ones of the pagan deities. Hence, their authority was not the best possible ones, as the recognition of their authority would mean the recognition of the authority of the respective pagan deity, whereas all the cults of such deities would be normally connected with a specific tribe, whose protector this deity was - hence, such a recognition would imply the recognition of the authority of the respective tribe as well (as is amply evidenced e.g. by the South Arabian epigraphy). Hence, the best possible figure here would be rather some Monotheist prophet. However, the prophets of the established Monotheist Faiths would not be entirely suitable as well, as the recognition of their authority would imply the dependence on some extra-Arabian powers, or in the case of Judaism would put in an advantage position the Arab Jewish tribes. At the meantime there seems to have been a more or less independent Monotheist Arabian ("Rahmanist") tradition (this hypothesis is still under attack [Rippin &c], however I do not think it has been either finally proved, or rejected, and can be still regarded as a working hypothesis). However, its North Arabian adherents (h*unafa:) do not appear to have given any prophets before the 7th century. Yet, in the early 7th century both traditions (the Arabian tradition of prophecy and the Arabian Monotheist "Rah*manist" tradition) seem to have merged, producing what M.Piotrovskiy calls "the Arabian prophetic movement". It should be taken into consideration that in addition to Muh*ammad there were at least 5 other Monotheist prophets (pseudo-prophets, of course, from the Moslem point of view) in Arabia at the time of Muh*ammad. Beside one Judaic prophet in Yathrib and the para-Christian prophetess, Saja:h*, 3 other (al-Musaylimah, al-Aswad and T*ulayh*a b. Khuwaylid) seem to have belonged to the Arabian "Rah*manist" tradition. Note that both al-Musaylimah and al-Aswad called the God al- Rah*ma:n, just as was done by Muh*ammad, but also e.g. by the authors of numerous pre-Islamic Monotheist inscriptions of South Arabia (incidentally, most of them could be identified for sure neither as Jewish, nor as Christian). The Monotheist "Rahmanist" prophets appear to have represented a super-tribal authority just of the type many Arab tribes were looking for at this very time. Note, that all the Rahmanist prophets achieved considerable political success in their areas (al-Musaylimah in Yama:mah, T*ulayh*a in Central Arabia, al- Aswad in Yemen, though the political success of Saja:h* in the Arabian extreme North-West also appears relevant in this respect) - their success could not be compared with the one of Muh*ammad, but their political success was considerable, anyway, and they seem to show, any way, that in the early 7th century such a success could be achieved by a prophet rather than a king. In general, my impression is that the origins of Islam could be well considered as a rather logical outcome of the Arabian processes of adaptation to the 6th century crisis. From andrei@rsuh.ru Tue Nov 5 08:22:33 1996 From: "Andrey Korotayev" Organization: rsuh To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 18:22:49 +0300 Subject: 6-7/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISI Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 15:50:45 +0300 Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru From: "Andrey Korotayev" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: 7/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISI 7/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISIS I finished my last posting (c3 weeks ago) with the following words: Again, I have not managed to finish the series of my messages today, having spelled out only one of the World System consequences I wanted to discuss. I have to speak about at least one other next time (and to finish my series with this). Though too much time (by network standrads) has passed since that moment, I still feel obliged to finish my series as I promised to. Now I shall try to be as brief as possible. PART 7. SOME WORLD SYSTEM CONSEQUENCES: TRIBAL STRUCTURES As has been already mentioned above Arabs elaborated a rather effective adoptation to the 6th century crisis to a considerable extent through the massive transformation of their state and chiefdom structures into the tribal ones. This could hardly be regarded as a degeneration because the newly elaborated tribal structures turned out to be able to serve the functional needs of rather comlex stratified societies. With the Islamic conquests these tribal structures and tribal ethos (al-qabaliyyah) appear to have proliferated through almost all of the territory of the new Islamic state (which occupied, incidentally, most of the central area of the World System). Of course, it should be stressed that there is not so much of al-qabaliyyah in Islam itself. Yet it seems necessary to take into account the following moments. To start with within the Russian Islamic Studies the Islamic civilization was traditionally designated as the Arab-Moslem one (which naturally often met strong objections on the part of our Moslem colleagues from the former Soviet Central Asia). However, I would stress that this designation is rather helpful in some respects. The fact is that this civilization (especially within the territory of the first Islamic Empire) seems to contain important Arab non-Islamic elements (and cannot be understood without taking them into account). And al- qabaliyyah appears to be one of them. It is important to mention that the Arabs were the dominant ethnos within the Islamic Empire at least till the Abbasid revolution in the middle of the 8th century AD; and the Arab culture as a whole (including its non-Islamic components, like al-qabaliyyah) acquired a rather high prestige and proliferated within the borders of the Empire. The proliferation of the tribal structures and tribal ethos seems to have had both positive and negative consequenses. On the one hand, in the areas where most of the population acquired the tribal organization it often permitted the existence of complex systems of non-oppressed agriculturalists (which is very difficult to find otherwise in the preindustrial world). One of the most evident cases is the North-East Yemen Highlands of this millennium, where the tribal organization for most time effectively prevented the exploitation of most agriculturalists (most plough agriculturalists being armed honourable tribesmen), at the meantime securing the existence of an intence network of markets, towns, centres of learning &c. Netwithstanding all the attractiveness of such systems some negative consequences of their proliferation should not be also overlooked. Looking rather attractive from inside they often looked entirely unattractive for their non-tribal neighbours, who often had to deal with rather destructive side-effects of their functioning. In general, the proliferation of the tribal structures seem to have played a rather important role in the inducing of the cyclical Khaldunian processes (for a model of such processes in addition to Ibn Khalduns al-Muqaddimah itself see e.g. Gellners Moslem Society [1982]) which contributed significantly to the Middle Eastern involution in the 11-18th cent., thus contributing to the loss by the former central part of the World System of its central role. From atpll@leland.Stanford.EDU Tue Nov 5 09:05:17 1996 Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 08:05:13 -0800 (PST) From: pat lauderdale Sender: atpll@leland.Stanford.EDU To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: On Slavery (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 19:37:29 -0800 (PST) From: pat lauderdale To: listproc@csf.colorado.edu Subject: On Slavery The recent exchange has been illuminating, as much for what we don't know as what we do (at least, under some conditions). The comments on slavery, in large as an aside, remind me of the fact that nobody predicted the fall of the U.S.S.R., despite a few feeble claims to the contrary. With thousands predicting, you'd think probability alone would have led to a few correct predicitions. Of course, now that it's gone, as is one form of slavery, there are plenty of after-the-fact explanations. Pretty risky business, but our usual one. At the risk of misplaced concreteness (sic), it might be useful to consider the demise of planatation slavery in the U.S. The idea that slavery was ethically wrong or not cost effective (even if you include the scope condition of necessary threshold) was in existence long before the demise began. On the other hand, the sources of the transformation of the planatation in the U.S. South seem critical: 1. demand for "Black" labor in the North; 2. plagues encouraging agricultural diversity; 3. subsidies for limiting production on commodities such as cotton among others; 4. technological innovation, e.g., from hand labor to mechanized labor. Of course, the structural conduciveness via the world system is relevant, however, despite much friction there has been little light on why slavery changed in different parts of the globe at different times. If this had been a multiple guess question, then i would have had to chose cost effectiveness for the answer for the demise of slavery but that choice is misleading. The same goes for Civil Rights Revolutions, note the one in the l870s in the U.S. But, we are not stuck with multiple guess, so we still are left with the slavery question at the world systems level. Can the 5k approach provide some new answers? From atpll@leland.Stanford.EDU Tue Nov 5 09:06:41 1996 Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 08:06:37 -0800 (PST) From: pat lauderdale Sender: atpll@leland.Stanford.EDU To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: On Slavery (fwd) The world wrestling unfederated match between Gunder and the Tag-team of October 30 is over, at least, until the rematch. For that event, are there other topics in addition to slavery, i.e., the old world system impact on slavery? From andrei@rsuh.ru Tue Nov 5 10:19:01 1996 From: "Andrey Korotayev" Organization: rsuh To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 20:19:10 +0300 Subject: RIGHT VERSION: 6-7/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYS Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru PART 6. SOME WORLD SYSTEM CONSEQUENCES: PILGRIMAGE STRUCTURES >From what has been mentioned in the previous message it must be rather clear that to my mind the Arab adaptation to the 6th century AD crisis influenced the World System development mainly through one of its more or less logical outcomes, the formation of Islam. Indeed, it seems possible to show that the Islamic civilization incorporated many of the important patterns, structures, values and attitudes elaborated by the Arabs during this adaptation. One of the most obvious points here is the pilgrimage system of a typically Arabian type. Of course, the Arabian pilgrimage practices did not arise in the 6th century AD. They are much older being attested already in the first Arabian written documents of the beginning of the 1st millennium BC (e.g. in the earliest Sabaean epigraphy). However, it was in the 6th century AD when the most effective intersocietal communication network based largely on the enhanced pilgrimage practices was elaborated in Western Arabia, the network which served as a rather potent substitute for the rigid super-tribal political structures principally destructed by the Arabs during their adaptation to the 6th century crisis. Islam was embraced and spread by the people who grew up within the setting of the Western Arabian intersocietal network were the pilgrimage practices played an essential "structure- constituting" role. Of course, the pilgrimage (al-h*ajj) was prescribed by al-Qura:n, but not all such prescriptions and prohibitions were applied by the Arabs to the same extent (note e.g. the prohibition of wine [a rather popular drink in pre- Islamic Arabia] which was not applied quite fully as evidenced by the huge corpus of the Arab "wine poetry" [khamriyya:t]). The pilgrimage prescription was applied quite consistently and effectively, to a considerable extent because the necessity of the pilgrimage was self-evident for the Arabs. For a specialist in pre-Islamic Arabia the proliferation of the Islamic civilization appears (to a considerable degree) as a spread (in a rather modified form) of many important ancient Arabian structures following some patterns which could be traced in Arabia for about 1500 years before Islam. Perhaps, a bit surprisingly some of these patterns look more like South (rather than North) Arabian. The South Arabian religious-political areas were created firstly by the political expansion of their South Arabian states, which was accompanied by the expansion of the conquerors religion within the borders of the respective political entity, and the formation of the religious-political area, acquiring after that its own existence, relatively independent from the fate of its kingdom-creator (on evolution and functioning of an ancient South Arabian cultural-political area see e.g. two books of mine - ANCIENT YEMEN. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995 and PRE-ISLAMIC YEMEN. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1996). The Western Arabian religious-political area appears to have been mainly created by the proliferation of the religious authority of the respective sanctuaries (which could of course have some connection with the political activities of their guardians, however this political activity was entirely different from the mainly violent expansion of the South Arabian states). The expansion of the religious authority of the sanctuaries led to the spread of the correlating political culture. Hence, in the process of the formation of the South Arabian religious political areas "the politics went in front of religion", whereas in Western Arabia the religion appears to have "gone in front of the politics". Surprisingly, we can observe the South Arabian pattern with respect to the evolution of the religious-political area with the centre in Western Arabia in the Islamic Age. This religious political area is just what is usually called the "Islamic Civilization". Indeed, its evolution presents just the familiar South Arabian scheme of the development of a religious political area: the political (mainly military) expansion creates an "empire" - the religion of conquerors spreads within this Empire - after the disintegration of the Empire religious political area remains and expands beyond its borders; the population of the area shares common religious norms and common norms of political culture; a very important role in the integration of the religious- political area is played by the pilgrimage to the central sanctuary. Anyhow, the establishment of the Islamic Pilgrimage system had important consequences for the World System evolution. It should be taken into consideration that the pre-Islamic West Arabian pilgrimage system (on the basis of which the Islamic one was formed) was very well adapted to serve as an integrating mechanism for an intersocietal communication network lacking the political unity. It might not be a mere coincidence that the Islamic one turned out to have rather similar properties. Of course, for the first 150 years of Islam the Moslem pilgrimage area was more or less identical with the territory controlled by the united Islamic polity. However, after the disintegration of the latter, this system turned out to work precisely as its pre-Islamic Arabian counterparts, serving as an important integrating mechanism for an intersocietal communication network not united politically. Hence, one might suppose that one of the World System consequences of the Arab adaptation to the 6th century crisis was the formation of an important mechanism securing the integration of a huge intersocietal network covering some most important central areas of the WS (and many peripheral areas as well), a mechanism which secured the unity of some significant patterns, values and practices throughout all this territory, guaranteeing the annual meeting of the representatives of all the societies covered by the respective network in one place, the exchange of information between them, the constant re- integration of the network &c &c PART 7. SOME WORLD SYSTEM CONSEQUENCES: TRIBAL STRUCTURES As has been already mentioned above Arabs elaborated a rather effective adaptation to the 6th century crisis to a considerable extent through the massive transformation of their state and chiefdom structures into the tribal ones. This could hardly be regarded as a "degeneration" because the newly elaborated tribal structures turned out to be able to serve the functional needs of rather complex stratified societies. With the Islamic conquests these tribal structures and tribal ethos (al-qabaliyyah) appear to have proliferated through almost all of the territory of the new Islamic state (which occupied, incidentally, most of the central area of the World System). Of course, it should be stressed that there is not so much of al-qabaliyyah in Islam itself. Yet it seems necessary to take into account the following moments. To start with within the Russian Islamic Studies the Islamic civilization was traditionally designated as the "Arab-Moslem" one (which naturally often met strong objections on the part of our Moslem colleagues from the former Soviet Central Asia). However, I would stress that this designation is rather helpful in some respects. The fact is that this civilization (especially within the territory of the first Islamic Empire) seems to contain important Arab non-Islamic elements (and cannot be understood without taking them into account). And al- qabaliyyah appears to be one of them. It is important to mention that the Arabs were the dominant ethnos within the Islamic Empire at least till the Abbasid revolution in the middle of the 8th century AD; and the Arab culture as a whole (including its non-Islamic components, like al-qabaliyyah) acquired a rather high prestige and proliferated within the borders of the Empire. The proliferation of the tribal structures and tribal ethos seems to have had both positive and negative consequences. On the one hand, in the areas where most of the population acquired the tribal organization it often permitted the existence of complex systems of non-oppressed agriculturists (which is very difficult to find otherwise in the preindustrial world). One of the most evident cases is the North-East Yemen Highlands of this millennium, where the tribal organization for most time effectively prevented the exploitation of most agriculturists (most plough agriculturists being armed honourable tribesmen), at the meantime securing the existence of an intense network of markets, towns, centres of learning &c. Notwithstanding all the attractiveness of such systems some negative consequences of their proliferation should not be also overlooked. Looking rather attractive from inside they often looked entirely unattractive for their non-tribal neighbours, who often had to deal with rather destructive side-effects of their functioning. In general, the proliferation of the tribal structures seem to have played a rather important role in the inducing of the cyclical "Khaldunian" processes (for a model of such processes in addition to Ibn Khalduns al-Muqaddimah itself see e.g. Gellners "Moslem Society" [1982]) which contributed significantly to the Middle Eastern "involution" in the 11-18th cent., thus contributing to the loss by the former central part of the World System of its central role. From dale.wimberley@vt.edu Wed Nov 6 15:07:50 1996 Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 17:07:17 -0500 To: World-System Network From: dale.wimberley@vt.edu (Dale W Wimberley) Subject: PEWS web site "links to other sites" page The PEWS Section Website Committee is plodding along, and we'd like to ask for suggestions about categories to use for the "Links to other useful sites" page. The current list is below. I'd appreciate your reactions, suggestions, additions, subtractions, etc. (please reply directly to my e-mail address unless you really want your message to go to all of WSN). We are also interested in any suggestions of sites to be included. Please send the URL and name of the site. Thanks! World-systems sites Other global political economy sites Scholarly organizations Data sources Other academic sites Capital Labor Social movements and political organizations National governments International quasi-governmental organizations Resources on world regions Dale W. Wimberley Department of Sociology Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Wed Nov 6 15:32:33 1996 Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 17:32:58 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: Dale W Wimberley Subject: Re: PEWS web site "links to other sites" page In-Reply-To: world history - ther4e is already much cross posting between wsn and h-world. gunder frank On Wed, 6 Nov 1996, Dale W Wimberley wrote: > Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 17:07:17 -0500 > From: Dale W Wimberley > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: PEWS web site "links to other sites" page > > The PEWS Section Website Committee is plodding along, and we'd like to ask > for suggestions about categories to use for the "Links to other useful > sites" page. The current list is below. I'd appreciate your reactions, > suggestions, additions, subtractions, etc. (please reply directly to my > e-mail address unless you really want your message to go to all of WSN). > > We are also interested in any suggestions of sites to be included. Please > send the URL and name of the site. > > Thanks! > > > World-systems sites > Other global political economy sites > Scholarly organizations > Data sources > Other academic sites > Capital > Labor > Social movements and political organizations > National governments > International quasi-governmental organizations > Resources on world regions > > Dale W. Wimberley > Department of Sociology > Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University > > From mreview@igc.apc.org Wed Nov 6 18:52:51 1996 From: mreview@igc.apc.org Date: Wed, 6 Nov 1996 16:31:28 -0800 (PST) To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Exam/Review Copy Sender: mreview@igc.org Dear Educator/Reviewer: Monthly Review Press has a new title that you might find of interest. Exam/Review copies are available. Please contact Renee Pendergrass at mreview@igc.apc.org, Monthly Review Press, 122 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001, Tel: 1-800-670-9499, Fax: (212) 727-3676. RED CAT, WHITE CAT China and the Contradictions of "Market Socialism" by Robert Weil "Robert Weil has written a brilliant, powerfully argued book that cuts through the hogwash pouring from the West and from China about the 'miracle' of the Deng reforms. Weil shows how Deng's use of 'capitalism to build socialism' results in the use of 'socialism to build capitalism.' This is powerful stuff, must-reading for all those who care about the future of humanity." --William Hinton, author of "Fanshen" and "The Great Reversal" After fifteen years of "reforms," China faces a fundamental choice. Will it move toward private capitalism, or toward a renewal of the collective and socialist basis of its revolution? RED CAT, WHITE CAT begins by examining the tensions growing within "market socialism." Weil provides background on "marketization," the class forces that produced it, and the polarization and social dislocation that it is generating. Weil offers a timely analysis of the growing tensions between China and the United States and their roots in China's push to lead in the world market. He also describes the continuing contention between the legacies of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Finally, making the case for the inherent instability of "market socialism," Weil offers a challenging perspective on China after Deng, and the implications for the economic and political situation worldwide. Robert Weil teaches sociology and Asian studies at the college level. He taught for a year at Jilin University of Technology in Changchun, China. 0-85345-968-1 paper/$16.00 0-85345-967-3 cloth/$32.00/288 pp. Economics/International Studies/China chapters: Introduction: The "Third Way" China at the Brink Of Time and the Changjiang: Chinese History Past, Present, and Future Of Human Rights and Wrongs: China and the United States Meiguo, Zhongguo: "America the Beautiful" versus "China the Central" Mao and Deng: "One-and-a-Half-" or "Two-Line" Struggle? Conclusion: The Motive Force of History Notes Index From iwaller@binghamton.edu Thu Nov 7 06:22:04 1996 Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 08:21:59 -0500 (EST) To: mreview@igc.apc.org, WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK From: immanuel wallerstein Subject: Re: Exam/Review Copy nov. 6, 1996 dear mr, why don't you send me a copy at my mr associate rate. paperback if it exists, otherwise hc. yours/immanuel wallerstein At 04:31 PM 11/6/96 -0800, mreview@igc.apc.org wrote: >Dear Educator/Reviewer: > >Monthly Review Press has a new title that you might find of >interest. Exam/Review copies are available. Please contact Renee >Pendergrass at mreview@igc.apc.org, Monthly Review Press, 122 >West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001, Tel: 1-800-670-9499, >Fax: (212) 727-3676. > > >RED CAT, WHITE CAT >China and the Contradictions of "Market Socialism" >by Robert Weil > >"Robert Weil has written a brilliant, powerfully argued book that >cuts through the hogwash pouring from the West and from China >about the 'miracle' of the Deng reforms. Weil shows how Deng's >use of 'capitalism to build socialism' results in the use of >'socialism to build capitalism.' This is powerful stuff, >must-reading for all those who care about the future >of humanity." > --William Hinton, author of "Fanshen" and "The Great Reversal" > > >After fifteen years of "reforms," China faces a fundamental >choice. Will it move toward private capitalism, or toward a >renewal of the collective and socialist basis of its >revolution? > >RED CAT, WHITE CAT begins by examining the tensions growing >within "market socialism." Weil provides background on >"marketization," the class forces that produced it, and the >polarization and social dislocation that it is generating. >Weil offers a timely analysis of the growing tensions between >China and the United States and their roots in China's push to >lead in the world market. He also describes the continuing >contention between the legacies of Mao Zedong and Deng >Xiaoping. Finally, making the case for the inherent instability >of "market socialism," Weil offers a challenging perspective on >China after Deng, and the implications for the economic and >political situation worldwide. > >Robert Weil teaches sociology and Asian studies at the college >level. He taught for a year at Jilin University of Technology in >Changchun, China. > >0-85345-968-1 paper/$16.00 >0-85345-967-3 cloth/$32.00/288 pp. >Economics/International Studies/China > >chapters: > >Introduction: The "Third Way" > >China at the Brink > >Of Time and the Changjiang: > Chinese History Past, Present, and Future > >Of Human Rights and Wrongs: > China and the United States > >Meiguo, Zhongguo: "America the Beautiful" > versus "China the Central" > >Mao and Deng: "One-and-a-Half-" > or "Two-Line" Struggle? > >Conclusion: The Motive Force of History > >Notes > >Index > > > Immanuel Wallerstein iwaller@binghamton.edu Fernand Braudel Center Binghamton University Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 USA Tel: (1) (607) 777-4924 FAX: (i) (607) 777-4315 From dlj@pobox.com Thu Nov 7 06:41:57 1996 Date: Thu, 07 Nov 1996 08:43:00 -0500 To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK From: David Lloyd-Jones Subject: Re: Exam/Review Copy > >At 04:31 PM 11/6/96 -0800, mreview@igc.apc.org wrote: >>Dear Educator/Reviewer: >> >>Monthly Review Press has a new title that you might find of >>interest. Exam/Review copies are available. Please contact Renee >>Pendergrass at mreview@igc.apc.org, Monthly Review Press, 122 >>West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001, Tel: 1-800-670-9499, >>Fax: (212) 727-3676. >> >> >>RED CAT, WHITE CAT >>China and the Contradictions of "Market Socialism" >>by Robert Weil >> >>"Robert Weil has written a brilliant, powerfully argued book that >>cuts through the hogwash pouring from the West and from China >>about the 'miracle' of the Deng reforms. Weil shows how Deng's >>use of 'capitalism to build socialism' results in the use of >>'socialism to build capitalism.' This is powerful stuff, >>must-reading for all those who care about the future >>of humanity." >> --William Hinton, author of "Fanshen" and "The Great Reversal" I had the impression that Hinton's "Fanshen" had been exposed as a work of complete fantasy. The supposed success of the industrial city of Fanshen consisted entirely of fictional numbers made up by the locals to show their compliance with Great Leap Forward directives; Hinton then embroidered upon these. If this is correct -- and I would welcome correction if it is not -- then there is every reason to suspect that a book Hinton approves of would be at minimum propaganda for his preconceptions, and quite possibly a work of major dishonesty. -dlj. From GregoryS9@aol.com Thu Nov 7 18:05:43 1996 From: GregoryS9@aol.com Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 20:05:39 -0500 To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Special Issue on Immigration Dear WSN Readers, Now available is a special issue of Social Justice: "Immigration: A Civil Rights Issue for the Americas in the 21st Century" (Social Justice, Volume 23, No. 3, 1996, 190 pages) Edited by Suzanne Jonas and Suzie Dod Thomas, this special issue discusses the political forces shaping immigration policy in the U.S., its social impact in terms of detention and the curtailment of rights, as well as its ethnic and gender dynamics. In the current public debate over immigration, restrictionist forces have seized the initiative in defining the parameters of discussion, without considering fundamental civil rights issues. By contrast, this collection is informed by a global perspective and locates divergence as well as consensus among progressives within a civil rights framework. At only $12.00 per copy, with a 20% discount available for classroom orders, this 190-page perfect bound volume of such high-caliber authors represents quite a good value for your students. Table of Contents: Immigration: A Civil Rights Issue for the Americas in the 21st Century Editors' Introduction Susanne Jonas and Suzie Dod Thomas Beyond Sovereignty: Immigration Policy Making Today Saskia Sassen The Battle for the Border: Notes on Autonomous Migration, Transnational Communities, and the State Nestor Rodriguez Gender and International Labor Migration: A Networks Approach Linda Miller Matthei Are Immigration Controls Ethical? John Isbister Rethinking Immigration Policy and Citizenship in the Americas: A Regional Framework Susanne Jonas The Non-Stop Immigration Roller Coaster J.C. Malone The Chinese Suburban Immigration and Political Diversity in Monterey Park, California John Horton U.S. Immigration and Intergroup Relations in the Late Twentieth Century: African Americans and Latinos Nestor Rodriguez Treacherous Waters in Turbulent Times: Navigating the Recent Sea Change in U.S. Immigration Policy and Attitudes Lowell Sachs For an Immigration Policy Based on Human Rights David Bacon Right Wing Politics and the Anti-Immigration Cause Sara Diamond The Immigration Crisis: Detention as an Emerging Mechanism of Social Control Michael Welch Copies are $12.00 plus $3.00 for postage and handling. MasterCard and Visa orders may be sent to GregoryS9@aol.com (include account number and expiration); checks made out to Social Justice can be mailed to Social Justice, P.O. Box 40601, San Francisco, CA 94140. Thank you, Gregory Shank (Managing Editor) From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Sun Nov 10 01:17:37 1996 10 Nov 96 15:03:30 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Organization: Center of New Informational Tech. To: PHILOFHI@YORKU.CA Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 15:03:03 -0600 (NSK) Subject: Nothing more practical... One our professor of economics asked me as a philosopher about authorship of this aphorism: THERE IS NOTHING MORE PRACTICAL THAN A GOOD THEORY and shame on me I had nothing to answer. Our Russian dictionaries lack this phrase, maybe in this list or in some other lists somebody can help. Thanks, Nikolai *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From rkmoore@iol.ie Sun Nov 10 13:56:42 1996 Sun, 10 Nov 1996 20:56:00 GMT Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 20:56:00 GMT To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore) Subject: Re: slavery 5 Nov, pat lauderdale wrote: >On the other hand, the sources of the transformation of the >planatation in the U.S. South seem critical: 1. demand for "Black" labor >in the North; 2. plagues encouraging agricultural diversity; 3. subsidies >for limiting production on commodities such as cotton among others; 4. >technological innovation, e.g., from hand labor to mechanized labor. >...are there other topics in addition to slavery, i.e., the old world >system impact on slavery? I believe the history is clear re/ U.S. plantation transformation. It was _not_ a matter of cost-effectiveness, at least not directly, nor any other "failure" of the slave system -- cotton exports and profits were doing very well indeed, and the South bitterly resisted (to put it mildly) any systemic change. What happened is that the East Coast industrial elite had their own plans for American economic development -- protectionist development of a strong U.S. industrial base -- and this was in direct conflict with the economic and political agenda of the South. The East Coast wanted to end free-trade polices (which worked well for cotton), to open up more land for capital development, and to bring the South under an industrial-dominated economic regime. When they decided to act, they naturally exploited existing moral sentiment, but such was never causative. The cost-effectiveness of Slavery was an operative cause of the transformation, but only in that industrialists didn't see slavery as cost-effective for their development plans, not in that slavery was causing problems in the cotton economy. --- As usual, my desire is to relate our discussion to current events. Does anyone want to offer an explanation for the current re-emergence of slavery as a significant global economic factor? I refer, as examples, to the use of slave labor in China and India, and the now-underway conversion of the immense U.S. prison system into a rent-a-crook slave-labor system for U.S. corporations. -rkm From wood@crab.rutgers.edu Mon Nov 11 06:42:02 1996 Date: Mon, 11 Nov 96 8:41:59 EST From: Robert Wood To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Practical Theory Quote In response to N. Rozov: The quote, "There is nothing so practical as good theory," comes from Kurt Lewin, although I don't have the actual source handy. Bob Wood Rutgers-Camden From andrei@rsuh.ru Mon Nov 11 08:01:42 1996 From: "Andrey Korotayev" Organization: rsuh To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 18:01:57 +0300 Subject: CFP: Man & Nature Conference Reply-to: andrei@rsuh.ru ACADEMY OF URBAN ENVIRONMENT Centre for Socio-Natural Studies The subject of socio-natural studies are intercommunication, interdependency and mutual influence of processes, phenomena and events in society and nature in the past as well as in the future. As a result of the studies a new branch of science is being formed the Socio-Natural History (SNH). The SNH is a responce to a challenge of time, to a necessity of solving those problems which could not have yet been solved within the bounds of traditional disciplines. The results of the studies are published in series The Socio-Natural History. Materials of previous conferences were published in the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th parts of the series. Basic principles of the SNH are stated in the 7th part: E.S.Koulpin. Bifurkatsija Zapad-Vostok. M., 1996. THE SIXTH CONFERENCE Man and Nature Problems of the Socio-Natural History will take place at the beginning of September, 1997. As applications for participation summaries are accepted by the Conference Organizing Committee: a type-written text on two pages at two intervals (for inhabitants of Moscow, besides text, application in electronic form is necessary in a standard MS-DOS format, one disquette one application; those having e-mail could apply through it to ANDREI@RSUH.RU [attention Eduard Koulpin]). In addition to theses we would ask the applicants to let us know their whereabouts (address, office and home phone numbers) and brief CV. Experience of previous conferences has shown that active, constructive discussion is real with not more than 12 reports, hence are the criteria: 1) of acceptance and subsequent publication of summaries relevance to the Socio-Natural History; 2) of presentation at the Conference significance of subjects treated in the papers. Reports not accepted as plenary will be presented as posters. One of the sessions will be devoted exclusively to posters. Basic subjects for discussion: fundamental problems of the SNH; global ecological crisis, the SNH of Europe and Russia; comparative environmental studies of the West and the East; problems of the SNH teaching. We would ask you to send summaries by the 1st of January 1997 so that they could be published before the Conference. Selection of plenary papers will be made by the Academic Council for Socio-Natural Studies, Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the Council also considers proposals for round-table discussions. The Academic Council will let the applicants know about their participation in the Conference not later than April 1997. Besides sessions, a cultural program is planned: visits to museums and nature reserves. The Organizing Committee does not bear the responsibility for transportation tickets. You may make the acquaintance with the materials of the IIV- th Conferences Man and Nature Problems of the Socio-Natural History in the Libraries. On problems connected with the Conference, please, address: 117049, Moscow, Krymsky Val 8, Entrance 4, Centre for Socio- Natural Studies of Academy of Urban Envirinment (or to this e- mail number: ANDREI@RSUH.RU [attention Eduard Koulpin]. Head of the Centre D. Sc. (Philosophy) E.S.Koulpin From cscpo@polsci.umass.edu Mon Nov 11 21:27:17 1996 Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 23:25:22 -0500 From: "colin s. cavell" Subject: Final Update On Rethinking MARXISM Conference & Registration Form To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu, world-l@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu, psrt-l@mizzou1.missouri.edu, LISTSERV@UICVM.UIC.EDU, fisher@oah.indiana.edu, TRH@HET.PHAST.UMASS.EDU fg@HET.PHAST.UMASS.EDU, prasad@phast.umass.edu, jmendoza@educ.umass.edu, KeithM1662@aol.com, Vijay.Prashad@mail.cc.trincoll.edu, stefania@comdis.umass.edu, JOHNSON@alma.edu, tcurl@wnec.edu, Perrotth@ere.umontreal.ca, lisac@student.umass.edu, marquit@physics.spa.umn.edu, kriti@art.umass.edu, csoh@student.umass.edu, archimed@acad.umass.edu, JTyner34@aol.com, BTHORBJO@student.uwsuper.edu, dcloutie@student.uwsuper.edu, qi@wilde.oit.umass.edu, yimagan@educ.umass.edu, bsanchez@comdis.umass.edu, casperkatz@schoolph.umass.edu, pamela@educ.umass.edu, raza@som.umass.edu, dubois@afroam.umass.edu, danielle@educ.umass.edu, magda@educ.umass.edu, jacruz@argo.net, mary@uvahep.phys.virginia.edu, mary@uvaheb.phys.virginia.edu ********************************** Rethinking Marxism Presents Its Third International Gala Conference: "POLITICS AND LANGUAGES OF CONTEMPORARY MARXISM" December 5-8, 1996 University of Massachusetts, Amherst Full logistical information and preliminary schedule can be found at our web site: http://www.nd.edu/~plofmarx For further information: email: plofmarx@econs.umass.edu tel: 413-545-6361 "Politics and Languages of Contemporary Marxism," the third in Rethinking Marxism's series of international conferences, will continue its commitment to present a working forum open to all traditions within Marxism and the left. The conference will include more than 180 panel discussions, workshops, films, videos, and other forms of artistic presentation. PLENARY SESSIONS AND SPEAKERS I. Thursday, December 5, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. Opening Plenary: "Knowledge, Science, Marxism" Chair: Richard Wolff, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Presenters: Jack Amariglio, Merrimack College Sandra Harding, University of California, Los Angeles Vandana Shiva, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resources, Delhi, India II. Friday, December 6, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. "Class and Race: A Dialogue" Chair: Antonio Callari, Franklin and Marshall College Presenters: Etienne Balibar, University of Paris, X Cornel West, Harvard University III. Saturday, December 7, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. "Locations of Power" Chair: Andrew Parker, Amherst College Presenters: Wendy Brown, University of California, Santa Cruz Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley Wahneema Lubiano, Duke University IV. Sunday, 12:00 noon - 2:00 p.m. Closing Plenary: "Postmodern Socialism(s) and the Zapatista Struggle" Chair: Carmen Diana Deere, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Presenters: Roger Burbach, Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) Arturo Escobar, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Fernanda Navarro, University of Michoacan, Mexico THE 180 PANEL TOPICS INCLUDE OVER 500 PEOPLE PRESENTING WORK ON THE FOLLOWING PARTIAL LIST OF TOPICS . . . C.L.R. James Class and Mental Health Hegemony Today Performative Activism New Development Paradigms Postmodernism Derrida on Marx Communism Utopian Marxism Green Visions Globalization Black Marxism Postcolonial Theory Failure of Praxis The Labor Movement Television, News and Ideology Althusser after Althusser Multiculturalism and the University Marxism and Pedagogy Theoretical Concepts of Marxism Value Theory Green Visions of Radical Community Identity Politics Feminist Work in Global Politics Queer Theory Organizing for African American Equality Identity Politics and Political Subjects PERFORMANCE/FILM/VIDEOS Performance by Robbie McCauley, Friday, December 6, 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. "Struggles in Steel: A Story of African American Steelworkers", a showing and discussion led by producers Tony Buba and Ray Henderson, Friday, December 6, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. "Television Economies:" films and videos curated by Walid Ra'ad, shown throughout conference. ************************************************************************** PRE-REGISTRATION FORM: PRINT OUT AND MAIL TO THE ADDRESS BELOW ___________________________________________________________ Name _____________________________________________________________ Address _____________________________________________________________ City State Zip/Postal Code _____________________________________________________________ Country ______________________________________________________________ E-mail Telephone Please check the days for which you are registering [Thurs 1 p.m.-Sun 1 p.m.]: ___ Thursday ___Friday ___Saturday ___Sunday Checks in U.S. dollars should be made payable to AESA Conference Pre-registration ____ Full $50 ____ Full, Low Income $30 ____ Two Days $40 ____ Two Days, Low Income $25 ____ One Day $25 ____ One Day, Low Income $15 ____ Total PRE-REGISTRATION DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 23 Please send completed form and check to: Rob Garnett, Registrar Department of Economics Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX 76129 CHILD-CARE To obtain information on available subsidies and on providers, call (413-545-6361) or send e-mail (plofmarx@econs.umass.edu). All requests for subsidies must be received by November 23. SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER FOR RETHINKING MARXISM Guilford Publications, Inc. is happy to offer special Rethinking MARXISM subscription rates to conference registrants. Conference registrants can request a new (does not apply to renewals) subscription at the special low rates listed below: Subscription for Rethinking MARXISM ____ Regular (inside U.S.) $20 ____ Low Income $15 Shipping for non-U.S. subscriptions ____ Surface $5 ____ Air $ 15 *********************************************** Stephen Cullenberg office: (909) 787-5037, ext. 1573 Department of Economics fax: (909) 787-5685 University of California Stephen.Cullenberg@ucr.edu Riverside, CA 92521 From chriscd@jhu.edu Thu Nov 14 08:28:06 1996 14 Nov 1996 10:27:47 -0500 (EST) 14 Nov 1996 10:27:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 10:29:15 -0500 From: chris chase-dunn Subject: [Fwd: Internet in Mexico/perspective] To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Organization: Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.21218 USA Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:46:43 -0500 (EST) Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:46:18 -0500 (EST) 13 Nov 1996 14:40:51 -0600 (CST) by mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu (8.7.6/8.7.3/mcfeeley.mc-1.17) 13 Nov 1996 14:40:11 -0600 (CST) 13 Nov 1996 13:39:37 -0700 (MST) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 15:35:13 -0500 From: Molly Molloy Subject: Internet in Mexico/perspective Sender: owner-lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu To: lala-l , LASNET , latco , Ed Erazo , Gwen Gregory , "Nancy A. Oretskin" , laspau-l Reply-to: mmolloy@LIB.NMSU.EDU Here is an article from the LA Times that provides an interesting perspective on the development of information networks in Mexico. Molly Molloy New Mexico State University Library Las Cruces, NM 88001 505-646-6931 mmolloy@lib.nmsu.edu http://lib.nmsu.edu/staff/mmolloy *********************************************************************** Subject: Mexico: Window on Technology and the Poor (fwd) Mexico: Window on Technology and the Poor LA Times Monday, October 28, 1996 By Gary Chapman Over the Columbus Day weekend, I was in Mexico City attending and speaking at a conference marking the founding of the Mexican chapter of the Internet Society. That in itself was a potentially historic event. But that Saturday was also Dia de la Raza--"Day of the People"--celebrated in Washington by the largest Latino demonstration in U.S. history and in Mexico City by the first capital city demonstration of the famous Zapatista peasants from the mountains of southern Chiapas province. Mexico City is always a jolting brace of contrasts. But the juxtaposition of the Internet conference with the appearance of a Zapatista leader in the capital--the terminally ill Comandante Ramona, who gave a speech at a rally in the Zocalo, the city's imm ense central plaza--provided an especially striking symbol of the tensions that will dominate world politics in the coming century. The coexistence of the rich and the poor in Mexico City, the largest city in the world, characterizes the mega-cities of the globe, including several in the U.S. But a new element in Mexico is armed resistance by the poorest of the poor, first in the Chi apas revolt of early 1994 and earlier this year by surprise attacks in Guerrero and other regions. A showdown over democratic reform is looming, and that could be a harbinger of trends in other parts of the developing world. The growth of the Internet in Mexico has until recently been very slow, in large part because of the abysmal performance of the national telephone system run by Telefonos de Mexico, or Telmex, which until 1990 was a state-owned monopoly. Under the previou s government, Telmex was privatized and sold to a consortium of companies, including the Mexican conglomerate Grupo Carso, France Telecom and Southwestern Bell of the U.S. When Telmex was sold, it had only about 5 million access lines to serve a population of more than 80 million people, and service was slow, unreliable and expensive. Nevertheless, Telmex has been and continues to be one of the world's most profitable compa nies. A new Internet backbone for universities called Red Tecnologica Nacional, or RTN, was initiated in 1994. About 90% of Internet traffic in Mexico is handled through the universities connected to RTN. But commercial providers can now be found in nearly 50 Mexican cities. In January, the Mexican government will open the country's long-distance market to competition, and a Mexican subsidiary of MCI called Avantel has announced that it will offer Internet access. Because of these developments, university researchers and some Mexican entrepreneurs decided to launch the Mexican Internet Society. The new president is Jeffrey Fernandez, who runs the computer systems for the University of Guadalajara. The goals of the Mexican Internet Society are to promote the international vision of the Internet as a means of democratic communication and to help intensify Internet use in the country. Over the weekend of the founding conference, however, the newspapers in Mexico City were filled with breathless reports of the visit to the capital by Comandante Ramona. Over protests by the government, Zapatista leaders were invited to attend a weeklong Congress of Indigenous People, and, in a masterful stroke of imagery, they sent the tiny, dying Tzotzil Indian leader, who wore the symbolic black ski mask during her entire stay. Fittingly, the Zapatistas themselves are a forceful presence on the Internet. Jose Angel Gurria Trevino, Mexico's minister of foreign affairs, has said, "The shootings [in Chiapas] lasted 10 days only; since then, the war in Chiapas has been a war of i nks, of writings, and a war on the Internet." At the Internet conference, Jaime Morfin, a Mexican graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, presented a paper that described the Zapatista party's use of the Internet. Communiques are distributed by a coalition of support organizations in the U.S. called the National Commission for Democracy in Mexico. This coalition maintains Web sites, listservs (such as Chiapas95) and e-mail networks of activists. At a leisurely lunch in a breathtaking hacienda restaurant in Tlalpan south of the city, my Mexican friends and I chatted about the Zapatistas and the Internet. "[Subcomandante] Marcos has a laptop in the jungle, with a wireless or a satellite connectio n to the Internet," said one. "That's nonsense!" another retorted. "There are many myths about Marcos," someone else observed, smiling. "Myths that we enjoy. But he doesn't have an Internet connection." Eventually the conversation turned serious. "We fear for the middle class in this country," said Erick Huesca, one of the founding leaders of the Internet Society. The middle class of Mexico, never very strong, is the class most attached to the promise of the Internet, just as in other countries. But the fragile middle class is squeezed between two powerful forces: the ultra-rich and corrupt oligarchy that rules the country and the economy, and the tens of millions of poor who are increasingly fed up with deferral of equality by the global, "neo-liberal" economic order, symbolized by the North American Free Trade Agreement. As I contemplated the weathered and earnest faces of the peasants from Chiapas trudging through the Zocalo, it was clear that the Internet and cyberspace are not a solution to theirproblems. But if the middle class cannot generate and distribute wealth, it may be trampled by a conflict between the rich and the poor. The challenge of how the middle class can use education and technology to improve the prospects of the world's majority, the desperately poor, is the biggest issue of our times, and whether we face up to this will determine our fate for generations. Mexico is the country to watch carefully: What happens there will influence the future more than almost anything else. Gary Chapman Is Director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas. he Can Be Reached Via E-mail at Gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu Source: http://www.latimes.com/ sbin/my_iarecord.pl?NS-doc-path=/ httpd/docs/HOME/NEWS/CUTTING/ t000093807.html&NS-doc-offset=7&NS-collection=DailyNews&NS-search-set=/ var/tmp/328a0/aaaa005ec8a0b56& Posted here in compliance with the FAIR USE DOCTRINE for educational purposes. This is an educational forum. Not for commercial use. From elena@jhu.edu Wed Nov 20 04:39:47 1996 20 Nov 1996 06:39:34 -0500 (EST) 20 Nov 1996 06:39:33 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 06:39:23 -0500 From: Elena M Ermolaeva Subject: AAA meeting in San Francisco To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu The following panels of the opening today American Anthropological Association meeting might be of interest to WSN's subscribers. Elena Ermolaeva Nov. 20 - New Perspectives on the origin of pristine states - Strategies for development of Latin American Campesino Communities in the Emerging Global Economy - 3000 years of identity, cultural continuity and adaptation: Mixtec Archaeology, Ethnohistory and Ethnography - Critique-ing the new world order I: Indigenous and postcolonial interrogations - What's the big secret, anyway? How knowledge changes from place to place, time to time - Critique-ing the new world's order II: the shifting terms of global capitalism - Transformations: Discourse and Identity in postcolonial Pacific Nov. 21 - Traditional textiles of Southeast Asia and the Pacific in the Modern world - The Development and organization of sociopolitical complexity in tropical environment - Memory/Identity/History - Shades of Enlightenment and the cultural geography of hope, identity, and control - New world historical reconstructions - Grounding learning in place: strengthening the periphery in the face of globalization Nov. 22 - The role of national elites in the development process - Institutions and identities: unity and diversity in Europe-Building - Travel and transnational cultural production - Assesing the Anthropology of religion: past achievements and future directions - Reconsidering theories of labor in Europe Nov. 23 - The Global economy and poor women, the North in the South and the South in the North - Splitting the difference: transnational culture and the politics of localization - Gramsci, Hegemony and the critique of anthroplogy - Geographies of culture and power: critical localities, territorialization, and spatial imaginaries - Social Change and material culture ******* 9 pm - 1 am - AAA reception and dance. Back by popular demand: Dr Loco's Rockin' Jalapeno Band ******* Nov 24 - Snort it, pop it, slam it, smoke it: Man, Woman. - Culture and political economy: Prospect and Retrospect - Place and Process: Indigeneity and Ethnicity in North America - How others see us: american cultural anthropology as the observed rather than the observer - Marginal expressions in global culture: case studies from Mexico - Gender, social change, resistance - Ritual practice: studies of identity, resistance, and alliance - Global and local forces of development - Configuring Race and Ethnicity Within and Across Nation-States From chriscd@jhu.edu Fri Nov 22 08:38:00 1996 22 Nov 1996 10:37:45 -0500 (EST) 22 Nov 1996 10:37:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:39:17 -0500 From: chris chase-dunn Subject: a new article in the Journal of World-Systems Research To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Organization: Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.21218 USA There is now a new research article in Volume 2 of the Journal of World-Systems Research. The new piece is by George A. Barnett and Joseph G.T. Salisbury and the title is "Communication and Globalization: A longitudinal analysis of the International Telecommunications Network." This article, like all of the contents of JWSR, is available free from http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html Chris Chase-Dunn Editor, JWSR From joseph@indigo.ie Sun Nov 24 14:10:11 1996 From: "Karl Carlile" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 21:06:01 +0000 Subject: ZAIRE AND YANKEE IMPERIALISM A KARL CARLILE MESSAGE KARL: The Great Lakes Region crisis is essentially a product of inter-imperialist rivalry between Washington and Paris over the resources of Africa. The Hutu peoples are backed by French imperialism while the Tutsi people, as represented by the Rwandan government and the Eastern Zaire Tutsi rebels, are backed by American imperialism. The conflict between Tutsi and Hutu is the military and political form by which the conflict between Paris and Washington manifests itself in the central African region. The Rwandan Patriotic Front was trained and based in Uganda which is backed by Washington while the masses of Rwandan Hutus took up residence in Zaire which is backed by Paris. Eastern Zaire provided a base in which the Hutu militia and the former Rwandan government forces could recover and prepare themselves for a future offensive against RPF. However the RPF and the East Zairian Tutsi formed an alliance and challenged the Hutu forces based In Zaire. If Mobutu's pro-Francophone regime in Zaire is replaced by a pro-Anglophone regime then Washington will in effect have succeeded in replacing the French hold over Central Africa. Success here will r epresent a significant victory for American imperialism. In short the situation in the Central African region is as follows: There are tow imperialist led alliances in conflict with each other. On the side is the American led alliance involving the US, Uganda, Rwanda and the eastern Zairian rebels. On the other side is the French led alliance consisting of France, Zaire, the former Rwandan government forces together with the Hutu militia, the Interawa mee. In this way the Clinton administration will have proved itself a very effective when it comes to promoting the imperialist interests that it represents. NOTE: I use the terms Hutu and Tutsu with great reluctance. However I have not as of yet found a more accurate pair of labels with which to descirbe both parties to the conflict. From terisatu@uoguelph.ca Mon Nov 25 08:54:57 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 10:54:55 -0500 (EST) From: Terisa Turner To: Karl Carlile Subject: Re: ZAIRE AND YANKEE IMPERIALISM I generally agree with your posting on the Zaire and Yankee Imperialism lineup of interests. Canada is supporting the US and bowing to the French because the Canadian Commander is from Quebec, speqaks french, and possibly some of the Canadian soldiers identified to go (1500 of them) to the region are french speaking... but this is all clearly in the interests of the US which is working hard in the region to establish bases and a constituency at many levels. I would appreciate knowing web sites where current and indepth information about the military intervention and the so-called 'aid delivery' mission are covered. I have co-authored a short piece on the Rwanda Zaire intervention process which I could make available to those interested (it is coming out in the McGill University journal Labour, capital and society, in a couple of weeks, I am told. Terisa E. Turner E-mail: terisatu@uoguelph.ca Departments of Sociology & Anthropology and Political Studies University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, CANADA N1G 2W1 Home:(519)787-0609 | Bus:(519)824-4120 ext.3990 | Fax:(519)837-9561 From cr4@axe.humboldt.edu Mon Nov 25 14:32:50 1996 Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 13:32:47 -0800 (PST) From: Christopher Robinson To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: The next Green Revolution!?! In-Reply-To: The next Green Revolution!?! Apparently, an influential faction of GOs at the current World Food Conference is calling for the next "Green Revolution" to effectively feed the burgeoning world pop. Unfortunately, it's the old GR (i.e.: central " big plan", quick fix solutions utilizing reductionist high tech "one size fits all" approaches). The clarion call has gone out for recruiting genetically engineered "super crops", massive water allocation and irrigation schemes, much higher chemical fertilizer applications, etc... all apparently geared for (SURPRISE!) the same industrial scale, cash mono-crop ag we now are soooo familiar with. The same system that tends to concentrate ag profits into the hands of the few. Apparently ignored by these "gods of western know how" are (again SURPRISE!) the small scale, complex poly-crop farming operations typical of the "peasant" families that are most at risk in the coming crisis and who operate at the most appropriate scale to implement sustainable Said "big plan" ag systems, IMO, tend to drive these folks out of farming and into the streets of the "3rd world cities" to beg or die. A SUB committee on "sustainable ag" was formed but appears not to be getting the attention that the "whiz-bang BOYS" are harnessing. Most of the calls for sustainable, scale appropriate, and socially just solutions (for instance, empowering the matriarchs of poor families) are coming from (surprise #3) the NGO's that are meeting concurrently but apart from the formal conference. And so it goes. Don't "feed the world", but empower the "world" to FEED ITSELF in scale appropriate, dynamic balance with the biosphere. Regards Christopher M Robinson The Humboldt Sustainable Community Project The HumboldtNation admin@humnat.org From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Nov 25 15:34:58 1996 25 Nov 1996 17:32:57 -0500 (EST) 25 Nov 1996 17:32:35 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 17:33:59 -0500 From: chris chase-dunn Subject: searching the wsn mail archive To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Organization: Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.21218 USA Don Roper of CSF (Communications for a Sustainable Future) has added a search option to the WSN mail archive so that you can find posts that refer to a particular topic. Say you want to know what Dan Foss said about world party operations in New Zealand. You can type in "world party; New Zealand" and this will bring up Dan's witty comments. Just hit the "search" button at http://csf.Colorado.EDU/lists/wsn/ chris From OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu Tue Nov 26 10:35:58 1996 From: "J B Owens" Organization: Idaho State University To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 10:38:35 -0600, MDT Subject: conference on civilizations & religion ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 13:22:53 -0800 Reply-to: H-NET List for World History From: Ken Pomeranz Subject: conference on civilizations & religion The International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations will hold its 26th annual meeting, May 8-10, 1997, at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Although papers on a variety of topics are invited, the special theme will be Civilizations and Religion: What is their Relationship? Inquiries and abstracts may be sent to Dr. Ellen Berg, 4862 Reservoir Rd., NW, Washington, DC 20007; tek, (202) 337-3256; email: eberg@capaccess.org David Fahey (Miami Univ.) faheydm@muohio.edu From OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu Tue Nov 26 11:08:25 1996 From: "J B Owens" Organization: Idaho State University To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 11:11:26 -0600, MDT Subject: CFP: society for utopian studies ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 09:38:29 -0800 Reply-to: H-NET List for World History From: Ken Pomeranz Subject: CFP: society for utopian studies From: "P. Fitting" : THE SOCIETY FOR UTOPIAN STUDIES 1997 MEMBERSHIP/ CALL FOR PAPERS Founded in 1975, The Society for Utopian Studies is an international, interdisciplinary association devoted to the study of utopianism in all its forms with a particular emphasis on literary and experimental utopias. Scholars representing a wide variety of disciplines are active in the association and approach utopian studies from such diverse backgrounds as American Studies, Architecture, the Arts, Classics, Cultural Studies, Economics, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Gender Studies, History, Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and Urban Planning. The Society publishes the journal Utopian Studies and a newsletter, Utopus Discovered, which contains information about upcoming conferences and workshops, and details on publications in the field. The twenty-second annual meeting of the Society will be held in Memphis, Tennessee October 16-19, 1997. The Conference Coordinators are Professors Peter Fitting of the University of Toronto, Lyman Tower Sargent of the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Jennifer Wagner of the University of Memphis. For information about registration, travel and accommodations, please contact Professor Wagner, Department of English, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152 (901-678-4329, e-mail jawagner@cc.memphis.edu). If you wish to organize a panel or present a paper, please contact Professor Sargent, Department of Political Science, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis MO 63121-4499 (314-516-5521; fax 314-516-5268; e-mail sltsarg@umslvma.umsl.edu). The Society's annual meetings provide an ideal venue for intellectual interchange in a cooperative, non-competitive, congenial, and convivial environment. At the meeting the Society will present the Arthur O. Lewis Award for the best paper by a junior scholar given at the previous annual meeting and the Eugenio Battisti Award for the best article in each volume of Utopian Studies. Membership in the Society includes announcements regarding the annual meeting, Utopian Studies, and Utopus Discovered. Dues are $45.00 for regular membership, $20.00 for students, retired and unemployed. One can become a Sponsor for $100.00, a Benefactor for $200.00 or a Patron for $300.00. For more information on the Society, see our web-site at www.utoronto.ca/utopia ______________________________________________________________ MEMBERSHIP 1997 THE SOCIETY FOR UTOPIAN STUDIES Name___________________________________________________ Preferred Address for Mailings _______________________________________________________ Street_________________________________________________ City__________________________ State or Province ___________________ Zip or Post Code__________ Country_____________________ e-mail address_________________ Institutional Affiliation____________________ Special interests in utopian studies _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Are you willing to referee articles for Utopian Studies ________ Are you willing to review books for Utopian Studies ______ Make checks payable to: The Society for Utopian Studies (Checks should be drawn on a U.S. bank in U.S. dollars, or in the U.K. in the equivalent amount in British pounds, made out to Lyman Tower Sargent, or send an international money order). Mail to: Lyman Tower Sargent Society for Utopian Studies Department of Political Science University of Missouri-St. Louis St. Louis, MO 63121-4499