Recent Publications by Sidney Fellows

Christopher Page, The Christian West and its Singers: The First Thousand Years

Aidulfus, Crimleicus, Andreas, Wiborada…The men and women who sang the sacred music of the West, from late antiquity to the central Middle Ages, have never had a history of their own. Many of them remain unremembered. This book provides such a history for the first time. Using epitaphs, images from the catacombs, chronicles, lives of saints, and a great wealth of other sources, written and pictorial, it traces the rise of the Western-Christian ministry of music from its fragmentary beginnings in the house-churches, through to the consolidation of Christianity – in one of various contemporary forms – as the official religion of the Roman Empire. The narrative then passes on to the singers of the new barbarian kingdoms, to the Carolingian achievement – which owed so much to singers – and on to the tumult of the eleventh-century church which impelled, first as an aid to singers, the defining technology of the Western musical tradition: staff notation.

 

Eugenio F. Biagini, British Democracy and Irish Nationalism 1876–1906 (Cambridge, 2007)

British Democracy and Irish Nationalism is a study of the way the debate on Home Rule for Ireland transformed popular understandings of liberty, citizenship and human rights throughout the United Kingdom. It argues that between 1876 and 1906 the Irish question sparked off a national crisis of public conscience which acted as the main catalyst in the remaking of popular radicalism in these islands. This was not only because of Ireland's intrinsic importance within the Union and the constitution, but also because the 'Irish cause' came to be identified with democracy, constitutional freedoms and humanitarianism. As politics was transformed both by the rise of the ‘party machine’ and an aggressively populist and emotional leadership style, the Gladstonian insistence that policy should reflect moral imperatives made some contemporaries speak of the ‘feminization of liberalism’. The related politics of emotionalism (both Gladstonian and Unionist) did not aid in finding a solution to either the Home Rule or the Ulster problem, but created a popular culture of human rights based on the conviction that, ultimately, politics should be guided by non-negotiable moral imperatives.

 

Tim Blanning, The Triumph of Music: the rise of composers, musicians and their art (Penguin: London, 2008); also published by Harvard University Press.

The Triumph of Music chronicles the rise of music and musicians in the West from lowly balladeers to Masters employed by fickle patrons, to the Great Composers of genius, to today’s rock stars. How, he asks, did music progress from subordinate status to its present position of supremacy among the creative arts? Mozart was literally booted out of the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg “with a kick to my arse,” as he expressed it. Yet, less than a hundred years later, Europe’s most powerful ruler—Emperor William I of Germany—paid homage to Wagner by travelling to Bayreuth to attend the debut of The Ring. Today Bono, who was touted as the next President of the World Bank in 2006, travels the world, telling politicians what to do — and they have to seem to listen.
    The path to fame and independence began when new instruments allowed musicians to showcase their creativity, and music publishing allowed masterworks to be performed widely in concert halls erected to accommodate growing public interest. No longer merely an instrument to celebrate the greater glory of a reigning sovereign or Supreme Being, music was, by the nineteenth century, to be worshipped in its own right. In the twentieth century, new technological, social, and spatial forces combined to make music ever more popular and ubiquitous.
    In a concluding chapter, Tim Blanning considers music in conjunction with nationalism, race, and sex. Although not always in step, music, society, and politics, he shows, march in the same direction.

 

Bernhard Fulda, Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Press and Politics offers a new interpretation of the fate of Germany's first democracy and the advent of Hitler's Third Reich. It is the first study to explore the role of the press in the politics of the Weimar Republic, and to ask how influential it really was in undermining democratic values.

Anyone who seeks to understand the relationship between the press and politics in Germany at this time has to confront a central problem. Newspapers certainly told their readers how to vote, especially at election time. It was widely accepted that the press wielded immense political power. And yet power ultimately fell to Adolf Hitler, a radical politician whose party press had been strikingly unsuccessful.

Press and Politics unravels this apparent paradox by focusing on Berlin, the political centre of the Weimar Republic and the capital of the German press. The book examines the complex relationship between media presentation, popular reception, and political attitudes in this period. What was the relationship between newspaper circulation and electoral behaviour? Which papers did well, and why? What was the nature of political coverage in the press? Who was most influenced by it? Bernhard Fulda addresses all these questions and more, looking at the nature and impact of newspaper reporting on German politics, politicians, and voters. He shows how the press personalized politics, how politicians were turned into celebrities or hate figures, and how - through deliberate distortions - individual newspapers succeeded in building up a plausible, partisan counter-reality.

Gabriel Horn, with G., Barnes, J., Brownsword, R., Deakin, J.F.W., Gilmore, I., Hickman, M., Iversen, L., Robbins, T., Taylor, E. and Wolff, J. (2008). Brain science, addiction and drugs. Academy of Medical Sciences (London, 2008). (http://www.acmedsci.ac.uk/p99puid126.html)

Brain science, addiction and drugs is the report of a working group chaired by Gabriel Horn. The group was established by the Academy of Medical Sciences in response to a request from the government to review the likely medical and societal impact of advances in the brain sciences on the use of psychoactive substances. The working group considered the use of these substances as recreational drugs, as medicines for the treatment of mental ill health and as agents to enhance cognitive performance. Recommendations are made in the report for future research needs and for public policy.

 

Michael Lamb, and colleagues,Tell me what happened: Structured investigative interviews with victims and witnesses of child abuse (Chichester: Wiley, 2008)

Drawing on 15 years of research in collaboration with police officers and social workers in several countries, the authors explains how children as young as four can provide valuable information about abuse they have experienced or witnessed.

 

Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: the formation of a European identity (Cambridge University Press, 2008); also published as Karl der Grosse, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft and Primus Verlag Darmstadt 2008.

Charlemagne is often claimed as the greatest ruler in Europe before Napoleon. In this comprehensive and new study of the original sources, Charlemagne and his reputation are reexamined. The book investigates both what we can know about Charlemagne and what we think we know. It charts the development of the Carolingian empire from its beginnings, and the formation of a European identity during Charlemagne's reign, within the context of the interaction between the practical consequences of Frankish expansion and Frankish perceptions and uses of the past. It documents the astonishing changes effected throughout Charlemagne's forty-six period of rule. It offers a completely fresh and critical examination of the contemporary sources produced during Charlemagne's lifetime. However problematic they may be, they have the merit of reflecting perceptions and conditions during his reign. The book is divided into five sections, addressing narrative representations of Charlemagne, the creation of the Carolingian dynasty and the growth of the kingdom, the court and the royal household, communications and identities in the Frankish realm in the context of government, and Charlemagne's religious and cultural strategies.

 

H.B.Nisbet, Lessing: Eine Biographie. Translated into German by Karl S. Guthke. Munich, C.H. Beck Verlag, 2008. 1,024pp.

There are over seventy biographies of the dramatist, critic, and thinker Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781), but the standard biography has remained Erich Schmidt's two-volume account, first published in 1884-92. The present work contains an equally comprehensive account of Lessing's life, work, and times, and incorporates the findings of research on Lessing and the German Enlightenment over the last century, together with many new insights.

 

Reid Barbour & Claire Preston, Thomas Browne: The World Proposed (Oxford, 2008).

Doctor, linguist, scientist, natural historian, and writer of what is
probably the most remarkable prose in the English language, Sir Thomas
Browne was a virtuoso in learning whose many interests form a representative
portrait of his age. To understand the period which we more usually refer to
as the Civil War, the Restoration, or the Scientific Revolution, we need to
understand parts of the intellectual and spiritual background that are often
neglected and which Browne magnificently figures forth.

This collection of essays about all aspects of Thomas Browne's work and
thought is the first such volume to appear in 25 years. It offers the
specialist and the student a wide-ranging array of essays by an
international team of leading scholars in seventeenth-century literary
studies who extend our understanding of this extremely influential and
representative early-modern polymath by embracing recent developments in the
field, including literary-scientific relations, the development of Anglican
spirituality, civil networks of intellectual exchange, the rise of
antiquarianism, and Browne's own legacy in modern literature.

 

Michael Ramage

The design and construction of Crossway, a recently completed net zero carbon home in Staplehurst, will be featured on Grand Designs on February 18th at 9 pm, BBC Channel 4. Crossway was designed by architect Richard Hawkes with structural design and engineering by Michael Ramage, Department of Architecture and Fellow of Sidney Sussex, and Philip Cooper (K) of ScottWilson Consulting Engineers.

The primary structure of the home is a 20m span tile vault. The design and construction techniques are adapted from historic Mediterranean tradition of timbrel vaulting, a 600-year-old construction system that uses thin bricks to create lightweight and durable buildings. In particular, the load-bearing masonry is used to construct roof vaults achieving high structural strength with minimal material. This load-bearing masonry tradition defines the geometry, gives great thermal mass and supports the living roof. ‘Kent peg’ roof tiles, made in the area for centuries, are adapted for structural vaulting.

The intensive planted roof will be key to the building’s camouflage, enabling the building to change with the seasons. Crossway recognizes the subtleties presented by an exposed countryside setting. By replacing a blight on the landscape with an environmentally conceived and executed design it successfully exists with the surroundings by day and by night, in summer and in winter. The naturally sculpted building changes with the landscape and the seasons. Unspoiled rural darkness is kept intact by placing no windows on elevations that can be seen from afar.

Links:

Department of Architecture http://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/
Hawkes Architecture www.hawkesarchitecture.co.uk
ScottWilson http://www.scottwilson.com/
Grand Designs http://www.channel4.com/4homes/on-tv/grand-designs/
Crossway Blog http://crossway.tumblr.com/

 

Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov, 'The Black Box: Notes on the Anthropology of the Enemy' in Inner Asia, 10 (Special Issue: Cadres, Discourse and Late Socialism), 37-63.

This article critically revisits the Foucauldian perspective on modernity by exploring the constitutive importance of limits of transparency in relations of power and knowledge. It differentiates between Foucault’s Panopticon as a model formodernity,which posits a total visibility of subject undermodern gaze, and what I call cybernetic ways of knowing that posit the ‘black box’of the inner self that is blocked fromvisibility. The case in point is a comparative study of two anthropologies – two groups of anthropological cadres – the American anthropologists who in the 1940s were involved in emerging Soviet studies, and Soviet anthropologists of the 1920s and 1930s who took part in Soviet reforms. The article draws attention to similarities in their perspective of images and notions of the enemy: the ‘enemy of the people’ within Soviet society and the Soviet society as the West’s Cold War enemy. In doing so, the aimof this article is to develop an ethnographic perspective on state socialism that does not depend on a foundationaldualist distinction between ‘Soviet’ and ‘Western’ or ‘socialist’ and ‘capitalist’modernity as a starting point.