A Cultural History of the British Census: Envisioning the Multitude in the Nineteenth Century, by Kathrin LevitanStatistics and the Public Sphere: Numbers and the People in Modern Britain, c. 1800–2000, edited by Tom Crook and Glen O'Hara

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 297
Author(s):  
Alborn
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 51-87
Author(s):  
Nguyễn Tuấn Cường ◽  
Phạm Văn Tuấn ◽  
Nguyễn Văn Thanh

This essay is a study of the woodblock print culture at Khê Hồi temple in Thường Tín district, Hà Tây province (belonging to present day Hà Nội), a temple that is located in the same area as two other temples addressed in this volume (Thắng Nghiêm temple and Phổ Nhân temple). After describing the temple’s history and the various Buddhist schools that have influenced Khê Hồi temple, this essay proceeds to describe and analyze the temple’s extant woodblock collection (over 700 plates, and many books), which was discovered in 2001. The essay goes on to examine the circulation of books printed from the temple’s woodblock collection by means of: (1) comparing the temple’s woodblocks with Buddhist texts in the collection of the Institute of Sino-Nôm Studies and (2) examining neighboring temples to determine whether or not they have preserved books printed from Khê Hồi temple’s woodblocks. Through analyzing the history of woodblocks and their circulation pertaining to Khê Hồi temple in the context of nineteenth-century Buddhist woodblocks and texts in Northern Vietnam, this essay argues that Buddhism played a preponderant role in the creation and dissemination of printed texts in nineteenth-century Vietnam. During this period, although Buddhist print culture was already quite developed, the circulation of printed texts was largely limited to temples, and had not yet become widespread in secular society or the “public sphere” at large. This would later change during the “Buddhist Revival” of 1920–1945, when printing and print culture had already taken on their modern form.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Gerardo Serra ◽  
Morten Jerven

Abstract This article reconstructs the controversies following the release of the figures from Nigeria's 1963 population census. As the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliament and for the distribution of resources, the census is a valuable entry point into postcolonial Nigeria's political culture. After presenting an overview of how the Africanist literature has conceptualized the politics of population counting, the article analyses the role of the press in constructing the meaning and implications of the 1963 count. In contrast with the literature's emphasis on identification, categorization, and enumeration, our focus is on how the census results informed a broader range of visual and textual narratives. It is argued that analysing the multiple ways in which demographic sources shape debates about trust, identity, and the state in the public sphere results in a richer understanding of the politics of counting people and narrows the gap between demographic and cultural history.


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