Exceptionalism

The idea that Japan is playing an ‘alternative role’ in its foreign policy—that it is keeping a ‘conspicuously low profile’ and that its stance is in some sense ‘unique’—has been a recurring theme of analysis of Japanese foreign policy. This
article aims to critique this idea of Japanese exceptionalism, epitomised for instance in the ‘aikido state’ metaphor. By analysing Japan’srole in the Six-Party Talks—arguably a suitable case for testing this metaphor—the article concludes that, far from keeping a low profile, Tokyo has exercised obstructive power overother actors involved in the talks. This conclusion is substantiated by comparison withTokyo’s role in other important instances of North Korea policy coordination over the period. By comparing Japanese behaviour with that of the USA, China, Russia and North Korea, the article concludes, furthermore, that the concepts of ‘obstructionism’and ‘power’ facilitate understanding of their behaviour as well—with the implication that Japan’s foreign policy is not so unique.

God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America
by Christopher Buck
Kingston, NY: Educator's International Press, 2015

Contents
Introduction, by J. Gordon Melton
Chapter 1: America: Nation and Notion
Chapter 2: Native American Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 3: Protestant Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 4: The Christian Right’s Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 5: Catholic Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 6: Jewish Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 7: Mormon Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 8: Christian Identity Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 9: Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 10: Contemporary Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 11: Buddhist Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 12: Baha’i Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 13: Conclusion: How Minority Faiths Redefined America’s World Role

Two sample chapters (by publisher's permission):
1.  Native American Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 2)
2.  Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 9)

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/God-Apple-Pie-Religious-Visions/dp/1891928155/

Introduction by J. Gordon Melton,
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Baylor University

Far from being an interesting additional topic for the religious dilettante, the discussion around the theological reality that is America, periodically bursts forth as an important item on the nation's agenda, from the place of prayer services in the White House, to the issuance of an annual government report on religious persecution, to the rise of contemporary terrorism. As one traces radical Islam, for example, one arrives at the writings of one Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who spent some of his younger years in America, and came away with his own vision of a country mired in sin and decadence. He would posit America as the image of everything he hoped to escape in promoting the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now, in all honesty, I must admit that over the years as I encountered all of the intriguing, even fascinating, ideas about America in the great cosmic scheme of things, I never got around to systematically gathering the different visions and trying to make sense of them in any detailed fashion. Thus, I have been more than happy to receive, and now with this modest introduction, pass along to my scholarly colleagues and the reading public the work of Christopher Buck.

During his years of observation and research, Buck has surveyed the spectrum of visions of America that have energized and motivated the America's religious community, and has selected from among them a sample that both (1) represents the spectrum of opinion about America and its importance, and (2) highlights the more important visions of America that have shaped and are continuing to shape the way we understand this country we call home. His work calls us to become self-conscious about the assumptions we use in our day-to-day movements that massage the ways we approach our neighbors, our colleagues at work, and the politicians for whom we vote.

Buck begins with the visions of America present at the founding of the nation, aspects of which still strongly permeate the culture today, and have found a new home among conservative Protestants in their innovative idea of Christian America. Amid the Protestant context, we often forget the role of the Roman Catholic Church, which became the largest religious body in America in the 1840s and is now three times larger than its nearest competitor. At the end of the nineteenth century, a controversy on Americanism would erupt around Catholic visions of their place in a changing world that would drive it from participation in the nation's public square for a half-century, and molded its reentrance after World War II.

And then there are all the other-than-Christian religions, from Ahmadiyya Muslims to Zoroastrians, all of which possess their its own vision of America that shapes their appropriation of life in the United States and guides their development as their place in the nation was challenged, then accepted, and most recently affirmed and even celebrated by the nation as a whole. We have watched as Buddhists have carved out a place as cultural peacemakers, Muslims have struggled with separation of religion and government, and Baha'is have tried to understand the communication of their founder, Baha'u'llah, with the presidents of the Americas collectively, and with 'Abdu'l-Baha's statements about the destiny of America in particular. All of this occurs in the ebb and flow of religious life. One day we envision the possible unity of America's religions only to be thrown up against the many harsh divisions, which motivates us once more to seek realms of agreement, which again highlights the array of issues that can drive wedges between those who accept the label "American" as part of their self-identity.

In conclusion, I can, as a scholar, reflect on the contribution that this book, Religious Myths and Visions of America: God and Apple Pie, is making to our understanding of the American mosaic and how various segments of the religious community have found their way to being American. As an informed citizen I welcome its information that allows me to empathize with and make informed decisions relative to those with whom I might align (or oppose) as I sally forth in the public square. And on a personal level, I welcome the author's invitation for me to meet anew the residents of my neighborhood, those who shop in the same stores I do, send their children to the same schools my grandchildren attend, and diligently work toward their own appropriation of the American dream.

J. Gordon Melton
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History
Baylor University

January 2015 — This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

A central pillar of contemporary conspiracy theories is the notion that all modern wars were secretely plotted and instigated by the Federal Reserve Bank. In these circles, the founding of the so called "Creature from Jekyll Island" in 1913 is considered a coup d'état of the international haute finance which enabled the U.S.'s entry into World War One a year later and the building of the American Empire. Also right-wing libertarians critical of U.S. foreign interventions like the U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul have led a long struggle to "End the Fed" (as his 2009 book is called), and signs to "End the Fed" could also be seen at demonstrations of the international Occupy movement leading to heated debates and confrontations. Against these conspiracy theories and drawing on key American historians' debates, this paper scrutinizes the actual historical origins of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and shows that the founding of the Federal Reserve took place not in a period of defeat but rather the advance of subaltern social forces and that the Federal Reserve Act is an embodiment of a historic compromise between various social classes and class fractions in the political economy of the United States prior to World War One. Drawing on the theoretical tradition of neo-Gramscianism, the paper argues that the emergence of a U.S. variant of a central bank is best understood in terms of Antonio Gramsci's concept of "trasformismo" which, in an historically open-ended process, created the Federal Reserve and a U.S. variant of "social imperialism" as a result of the "law of unintended consequences" of historical social movements. In other words, the American Empire was not the result of a devious plan by an all-powerful American or transnational ruling class, but rather its Making was the consequence of a political process in which subaltern social forces, unable to fundamentally challenge the existing power structure as such, are co-opted, absorbed and inscribe themselves into that very structure.

This essay is a reflection on coming to terms with the category ‘tribal’ through a decade and a half of researching the Northeast. As a non-historian who has worked on issues as diverse as agricultural change, pro-development groups, Northeast migrants, race and the media, and inter-ethnic relations in urban India, I come to this essay from a position of puzzlement: What am I supposed to do with the category ‘tribal’? Challenge it? Adopt it? Stand up for it? Further, what are ‘we’, as scholars engaged with the Northeast professionally and personally, to do with the category? On the one hand, scholars are finely attuned to the category as a thin colonial construction, and scarcely a seminar or special issue goes by without a call to challenge the category, deconstruct it, rethink it, or lay bare its precarious assumptions. On the other hand, the category is used by those subject to it, is desired by those who do not have it, and is resolute in a great deal of scholarship on the region as evidence for an ongoing ‘identity crisis’ that offers a ready-made logic for almost everything. As many authors have pointed out, including many in this volume, communities of the region, particularly in the hill areas, are largely de-historicized in this process: history is for the valleys, anthropology for the hills. As such, the past is told as a series of recent encounters: communities in the region emerged out of primitive pasts through contact with colonial authorities and missionaries, were categorized and subject to forms of colonial subjugation which dramatically altered their previously unchanging lives, and were then forced to survive in the modern Indian state. Recent scholarship has posed a major challenge to these standard practices of understanding the region. Despite these welcome shifts, I still find the category challenging, particularly as much of my academic life has required me to explain ‘tribal’ for audiences outside the Northeast, and often outside South Asia entirely. Further, having used race as a way of analysing the politics of integration, solidarity, and representation for Northeast communities in India, I have noted a fascinating reaction from scholars anxious about the use of race lest it transgress the tribal/non-tribal distinction in the region. This has called for a careful retelling of a particular historical narrative by scholars and by activists and politicians. In this paper, I explore the resoluteness of the category ‘tribal’, and some alternative ways of approaching it, by using the example of Meghalaya. Although I have conducted little research in Meghalaya since 2010 as my focus has shifted to other parts of the region, Meghalaya was the first place I went as a researcher. I spent almost a decade researching here – almost all of it in the Khasi Hills – including all my doctoral work. Thus, it was – and remains – the setting where I have struggled most with the category of ‘tribal’: its past, its legacy, and what I am to make of it. Though this, I suggest, holds true for other contexts in the Northeast too.

This is a published abstract of the thesis.
American exceptionalism is widely believed to be rooted in the Puritan New England. This point of view is objected in the thesis. By examining Puritan and Separatist attitudes to their own communities and to their motherland and New England, the author suggests that both Puritans and Separatists did not consider any of the entities mentioned above to be exceptional. It is argued that the both religious groups, although in a slightly different way, conceived themselves as an integral part of a wider, reformed or even "universal catholic (meaning protestant)" community. In the very beginning of their colonial enterprise, American lands apparently were not considered to be exceptional, and were regarded as a temporal shelter or a "wilderness" of temptations.

Everyday acts that challenge the militarization of life in the border
land come in many forms, in the case of Kakching Gardens these come
in the seemingly mundane act of occupying public space away from the
gaze of the armed forces to express femininity, masculinity, and heteronormative procreation. This is not as seductive or easy to categorise as bold protests in Imphal but reveals a different kind of agency— one that is more accessible to more people, based on an overlooked use of bodies in a militarised environment. Secondly, borders are not simply materialized
at the designated site— at zero- point— but manifest across the landscape in barracks, checkpoints, and a raft of spatial controls and interdependencies between the armed forces and civilians. All of which have deeply gendered implications for the lives of women and men living in this landscape and moving through it. Despite the imaginary of connectivity, the borderland still remains a militarised frontier and spaces like Kakching Gardens are rare— and important— exceptions. Evident too is the juxtaposition between a relative lack of development, often articulated as a chaotic built environment and dysfunctional infrastructure, in civilian space and the orderliness, technology, and functional infrastructure of military space occupying adjacent tracts of land in and around Kakching.

This excellent collection mobilizes Agamben’s provocative account of biopolitics to reckon with the history and present of colonial subjectivation, as well as the possibilities for postcolonial transformation. It is an important addition to contemporary political analysis of the centrality of colonialism in the formation of the modern Western state.
Catherine Mills, University of Sydney

В статье анализируется этногосударственная идентичность английских пуритан в раннестюартовскую эпоху. Именно в это время, когда в связи с Реформацией общеевро-пейское христианское единство уже распалось, а национальные идентичности в Европе только начали формироваться, особенно интересно взглянуть на Англию, население ко-торой, в связи с островным положением и особенностями исторического развития, чаще разделяло изоляционистские идеи, нежели его континентальные соседи. Проблема, раз-бираемая в статье, заключается в следующем. В пуританских источниках этой эпохи встречаются, казалось бы, противоречивые высказывания. С одной стороны, многочис-ленны «англоцентристские» заявления (Англия – «избранный народ»), что позволило ря-ду историков говорить о раннем английском «национализме». С другой стороны, пури-тане всегда стремились доказать свою общность с европейским протестантским сообще-ством. Автор статьи приходит к выводу, что кажущаяся «противоречивость» идентично-сти пуритан – представления об «исключительности» Англии и одновременно о европей-ском единстве – объясняется протестантским учением о церкви. Церковь Англии, к кото-рой принадлежали пуритане, была государственной, и потому понятия этнической и ре-лигиозной принадлежности для англичан сливались воедино. В связи с этим, вопрос об идентичности для пуритан фактически был вопросом о том, насколько Церковь Англии отличается от европейских церквей. На основе анализа пуританских богословских сочи-нений и проповедей автор делает вывод о том, что пуритане прежде всего чувствовали свою принадлежность к европейскому протестантскому миру: они считали церковь Ан-глии органической частью кафолической церкви (в христианском контексте представле-ния об «исключительности» церкви приравнивались бы к расколу). Уверенность же в особой милости Бога к церкви Англии вызывала у пуритан не чувство превосходства над европейскими церквями, а обеспокоенность в связи с ответственностью своей церкви за судьбы христианства. Таким образом, говорить об англоцентричности пуритан в ранне-стюартовскую эпоху кажется преждевременным.

The article examines the ethnical and civil identity of the English Puritans in the Early Stuart epoch. This period, characterized by the collapse of the European confessional unity due to Reformation, and the rise of national identities in Europe, is especially interesting for investi-gation of identity-building process in England, as her people due to the insularity of their country and distinctive traits of historical process, more often than their European neighbours claimed the isolationist ideas. The main issue dealt with in the article, is as following. The Puritan sources of the period provide a researcher with seemingly controversial ideas. On the one hand, there are numerous “anglocentric” statements (like England being a “chosen nation”), which made some historians state the existence of the early English “nationalism”. On the other hand, the sources make it evident, that the Puritans sought to prove their unity with the European Protestant communion. The author of the article arrives to the conclusion that the contradiction of the Puritans’ identity (the concepts of the English exceptionalism and of the European unity at the same time) are explained well by the Protestant ecclesiology they shared. The Church of England, to which the Puritans belonged, has been a national church, and this is why the concepts of national and religious identities merged into one for her members. This is why the issue of identity, in fact, meant to a Puritan an extent, to which the Church of England differed from the European churches. Basing on the analysis of the Puritan theological works and sermons, the author arrives to the conclusion that, first of all, the Puritans felt they belonged to the European Protestant world, as they considered the Church of England to be an integral part of the “Catholic” univer-sal church (according to the Christian ecclesiology, a church exceptionalism would mean a schism). The belief in God’s grace granted to England did not arouse among them the feeling of superiority over the European churches, but caused a concern of the responsibility for the future of the Christianity their church assumed. Thus, it seems not appropriate to claim the existence of anglocentric identity of the Puritans in the early Stuart epoch.

Existing accounts of India’s relationship with the global nuclear non-proliferation regime have almost exclusively focused on the drivers of security and interests as they function at the level of the Indian state. This chapter argues that the key to understanding India’s engagement with the non-proliferation regime is an appreciation of salient international norms enshrined within and beyond the NPT, India’s response to these norms, and India's own historical efforts at normative innovation. The chapter’s main conclusion is that New Delhi’s search for international status as a nuclear responsible, in particular, has served to validate and strengthen several key norms of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, despite India’s complicated position vis-à-vis the regime. India remains, however, far from functioning as a manager or norm-setter within the regime.

Rarely have civilisations ever experienced the rapid evolution into a superpower the way America has. Indeed, America is unique in terms of its origins and its status as the first modern democracy which separates it from other nations. Much in the same way that nations such as Ancient Greece and Great Britain believed in their own exceptionalism only to later lose hegemonic influence, this paper argues that America has followed the same pattern. This essay’s scope is limited to American Exceptionalism in the context of foreign policy, as the concept is too vast to discuss in all its lengths. There is little substantiation that the same qualities of exceptionalism exist in contemporary America due to the particular ways in which war and peacetime relations, cultural imperialism, economic, expansionist and isolationist policies have been conducted, along with the use of the concept in shaping nationalist identity within an ideological framework If America continues to confront foreign policy in this way, it cannot maintain the idea of its own exceptionalism in the 21st century. This essay explores the indicated tenets of foreign policy in relation to American Exceptionalism.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) completed 100 years of its existence in July 2021, with the last 70 plus years spent as the ruling party in China. The centenary occasioned a fresh consideration by the CPC of the challenges to its identity, legitimacy and power. Using select speeches and commentaries produced by the CPC in the context of the centenary, this article analyses how the Party deploys discourses on its history to articulate its concerns and promote its interests today. It also looks at how these interpretations of the Party’s history and role in China translate into a growing sense of exceptionalism in the Party-state. The article argues that despite frequent calls to ‘seek truth from facts’, an overriding desire to retain power is once again pushing the CPC down the path towards dogmatism.

This article uses dreams, portents, and prognostications as an entry point into what some scholars have recently called ‘Ottoman exceptionalism’. Drawing on sources in Turkish and Arabic, it traces beliefs about the Ottoman dynasty and empire’s superiority, divine favour, and special role in history from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. I begin with the ‘seeds’ of the topic in the empire’s early years and myths of origin, including a number of dream stories, before moving to full-scale political exceptionalism. Looking closer, I then identify an eschatological strand in the lead-up to the Islamic millennium that centred on the dynasty’s role in the end time. The millennium’s uneventful passing led to the dissolution of this strand but not of ideas about exceptionalism itself, which in later forms turned inward, depicting the empire as ‘eternal’ and projecting its rule to an undetermined future period.

Scholarship on Global Constitutionalism is often grounded in a normative monism and in a teleological vision of history that perceives the Chinese approach to the global legal order and its underlying normative assumptions as exceptional. In this paper, I argue that thinking Chinese experience simply in terms of exceptionalism or deviance limits our understanding of the assumptions that underpin some of the theories on the current international legal order as well as the Chinese conception of normativity. In the paper, I first look at the Chinese approach towards the elements that constitute the so-called Trinitarian mantra promoted by Global Constitutionalism (human rights, rule of law, democracy). Next, I examine the limits of adopting the notion of 'exceptionality' in characterizing Chinese international behaviour. In conclusion, I call for a more pluralistic approach.

Christopher Buck, Review of Steven K. Green,
"Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding."
(Oxford University Press, 2015). 
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
83.4 (December 2015): 1183–1186.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfv068.

ABSTRACT
"Inventing a Christian America" deconstructs—and reconstructs—the myth of America as a Christian nation. Steven K. Green (Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Religion, Law, and Democracy at Willamette University) argues both sides of the issue with skill, precision, clarity, and even sensitivity—characteristic of a constitutional law professor who is also a trained historian. A distinctive feature of this monograph is its attention to law. The result is a history of “Christian America” with an added legal dimension within American history and thought.

This research project explores how notions of Canadian exceptionalism are being challenged and/
or reproduced in responses of students of seven Canadian universities to a survey related to
internationalization of higher education. The study analyses data from surveys (n=1451)
completed by undergraduate students in different disciplines collected between 2013 and 2015.
This data is part of a larger database of surveys that was developed within the Ethical
Internationalization in Higher Education (EIHE) research project (2012–2016).
This research adopts a mixed-methods approach to the analysis of quantitative and qualitative
data. A post-representational approach to the methodology of social cartography is used to map
two facets of the data. These facets are the general discursive field in which various exceptionalist
tendencies are being contested and/or reproduced, and the multiple dimensions of articulations of
exceptionalist tendencies.
Canadian exceptionalism is in this research understood as a complex set of self-constitutive
discursive practices, policies, self-perceptions and assumptions that simultaneously affirm and
construct an imaginary of Canadian society and Canadian nationals as morally, ethically and
culturally superior by exalting both the nationals’ and the nation-state’s inherent character as
already good global citizens. Exceptionalism is used as an umbrella term that joins together
several problematic aspects of unexamined ennobled narratives about the nation and national
subjects. In this research the concept of exceptionalism is developed by drawing on multiple
critiques of different aspects of liberal subjectivities.
The findings suggest that exceptionalist tendencies and articulations can be observed in the
responses of both international and Canadian students. They also suggest that while critical
thinking and engagement with diversity are valued highly by almost all students, the responses in
the survey exhibit a high level of ambivalence in terms of how (and to what extent) critical
thinking is deployed, while diversity is often constructed in commodified ways that seem to
indicate a desire for consumption of the Other’s difference for personal and/or national benefit.

This book is about Roger Williams (ca. 1603-83), who was banished from the colony of Massachusetts Bay for advocating freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, Native American rights, and related matters.  He founded the town of Providence in what became Rhode Island on the basis of full liberty of conscience and complete separation of religion and government.  For additional information, see the uploaded PDF and links.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle e-book editions at Amazon websites throughout the world.  The paperback is also available at some other websites and bookstores.

See also my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOlUZaehYk7WmwW8v9oBMzQ) about Roger Williams, including an interview (https://youtu.be/mGRl5lIbdYY) with me about this book.

For Errata and Supplemental Comments, see the separate document uploaded at https://www.academia.edu/13798228/Errata_and_Supplemental_Comments_to_The_First_American_Founder_Roger_Williams_and_Freedom_of_Conscience.

Alan E. Johnson

Indian diplomacy has often been accused of carrying a ‘moralising tone’. This article examines the roots of ideas of exceptionalism in Indian diplomacy, particularly those centring on India's moral leadership aspirations. By exploring the discourses, identities and institutions that shaped Indian diplomacy and diplomatic institutions in the decades before and after Independence, it shows how Indian diplomats drew lines of comparison between their nation and others, understood India's global standing, and conceived of special moral responsibilities for India in world politics. Since moral leadership aspirations persist as a component of Indian foreign policy today, a historical and institutional analysis of diplomatic self-understandings can be of contemporary relevance to scholars and practitioners seeking to understand India's increasingly influential global role.

The economic crash in Iceland created a sense of social and political collapse that extended far beyond the economic realm. Calls for a "New Iceland" were invoked, where the Icelandic political arena would be "cleaned" and reimagined in drastic ways. In this article, I explore how ideas circulating in the wider European region about how Icelanders dealt exceptionally well with the crisis not only failed to reflect the lived effects of the collapse but also echoed long-standing nationalist ideals of Icelanders' imagined reality of themselves. I show how nation branding in Iceland after 2010 added to the conception that Iceland dealt with the crisis in an exceptional way, and I critically ask why Iceland received such a positive depiction in the international media.

In the last few years, technologists, and global theorists have concluded that the world has entered into the Fourth Industrial Revolution—a dramatic advancement in technological capabilities and industrial impact, particularly due to the development of dual-use Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Automation. Communities of interest have expressed a wide spectrum of concerns regarding the lack of regulation and policy surrounding the development and fielding of these dual-use, advanced technologies worldwide. Using Profiler Plus Leadership Traits Analysis, and the Asilomar AI Principles as a baseline, a qualitative, comparative, historical study of the US and China’s political norms, was conducted with a Constructivist and Actor-Network Theory lens, to annotate norms and gaps which will most likely influence the development of AI Security and Value Alignment. The analysis depicted the US as Norm Entrepreneur and China as Norm Compliant, with China displaying greater parity with the Asilomar Principles; albeit using an ethno-cultural, socialist, utilitarian approach. This paper found that the US and China’s political behaviors will depict a competitive exceptionalism, and weaponized utilization of advanced technologies with minimal international oversight or consensus, making international ethically aligned values highly difficult and unlikely prior to their deployment.

Key Words: Artificial Intelligence, Value Alignment, AI Policy, Ethical AI, Asilomar Principles, International Norms

The migration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony had crucial consequences for the seventeenth century England and her colonies. It provided momentum for the Great Migration on the eve of the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, it preconditioned the advance of theocracy and local exceptionalism in Massachusetts, and finally, it fostered the development of ‘New England Puritanism’, which influenced the both sides of Atlantic. However, these impressive outcomes could not be known at the very start of emigration to Massachusetts in 1628–1631. Did English men and women ever notice this migration? Was it seen as something exceptional? Did it have any impact on domestic issues in England? Relying on promotional literature, sermons, and correspondence, this paper places migration to Massachusetts within transatlantic context of the early Stuart period and explores the views of its participants and observers. It argues that migration to Massachusetts between 1628 and 1631 was never regarded as an exceptional opportunity. Although mobility was not uncommon for English society, its discourse generally favoured other destinations such as Ireland, the Netherlands or the West Indies. Even the ‘godly’ regarded Massachusetts as just one of the suitable settlements and stressed its unexceptional nature. However, the paper outlines two crucial impacts, the discourse of early Massachusetts migration did have on the English society. First, it improved public perception of potential emigrants by upgrading their image from the ‘idle drones’ of John Smith to the respectful ‘godly’. Secondly, it introduced contemporary religious controversy into the discussions of migration to America, thus setting the discourse of Reformation in transatlantic perspective.

Grandeur and Exceptionalism are both ideologies which have been adopted round the globe. Countries like America adopted one of these two quite early on in government and leadership, similarly to French culture. Over the years, state leadership will change and the ideology will adapt and alter. This essay shall describe both Exceptionalism and Grandeur, relating each one specifically to America and France. It shall then explain why certain leaders chose each ideology, finally stating that France originated as Exceptionalism before the decline into a more Grandeur standing, whilst America began humble, gaining in power to believe in Exceptionalism.

This presentation discusses city branding campaigns as initial elements of entrepreneurial city policies. Moreover, it is argued that these political strategies of exceptionalizing urban spaces are causing social disconnect and protest. Exemplary this is illustrated by empirical material from grassroots protests in the city of Berlin – theorized by using the framework of Henri Lefèbvre's »Spatial Triad«, eventually, as spatial democratizations of democracy.

La conquête de l’Ouest aux États-Unis ainsi que la Conquête du Désert en Argentine sont similaires à de nombreux aspects. En effet, ces deux événements furent centraux dans la construction de leurs états respectifs mais ils jouèrent également un rôle grâce aux idéologies et aux mythes qu’ils avaient contribué à créer. Ceux-ci continuèrent à avoir une grande influence après la fin de l’expansion territoriale formant socle de valeurs et d’objectifs communs à l’ensemble de la nation. Cependant, les guerres civiles qui agitèrent autant l’Argentine que les États-Unis durant les années 1860 bouleversèrent les équilibres nationaux et mythiques. Ainsi, les mythes et idéologies de la conquête connurent une profonde modification et furent remaniées pour permettre aux deux jeunes républiques meurtries de se reconstruire à la fois économiquement, socialement mais aussi de manière identitaire. Notre recherche vise à étudier ces mutations afin de comprendre comment et pourquoi les mythes et idéologies de la conquête participèrent à la construction d’une vision belliqueuse et sélective de la nation. Cette étude nous conduira à appréhender les rôles clefs que tinrent la violence, la crainte de l’altérité, l’exceptionalisme mais aussi la notion de puissance internationale.

As Derrida has argued, the constitution of the criminal is related to the constitution of the sovereign, and both are situated outside the law, one above and one below it. The present contribution explores the way organised crime is excluded from the political realm and how this exclusion reproduces statist claims to sovereignty through exceptional measures which outlaw the (organised) criminal. This exploration is carried out by critically engaging with the dichotomy between economics and politics. I investigate what this tells us about the way the sovereign and the criminal are mutually and relationally constituted through the opposition between what is ideological and ascribed to the realm of politics and what is non-ideological and ascribed to the realm of economics. This dichotomy is explored through an analysis of the Italian State's antimafia legislation, which relies upon the opposition between States and illicit violent non-state actors, but also on their internal diffe...

Here we continue our attempt to get someone, anyone really, to join the attempt to create a Yiddish linguistics and Ashkenazic history based on (a) facts and (b) the premise that Jews are the same species as other humans and so (c) need general linguistics not sergeant major "Jewish linguistics".  Here we lay out the core set of issues and state our view that western Ashkenazim are not migrants from France c. 1000 but roman citizens who with other non-Jewish Romans lived in Roman cities that happened to get overrun by Germanic tribes, that the French words and names in Ashkenazic speech are relatively late borrowings, not substratal (the real substratum is a different kind of Romance that can now be described but that is not done here), and that there is not one scintilla of evidence for the Jews of SE Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe (including those who in historical times spoke Czech or Hungarian or Russian as their first language) being anything other than early waves of migrants from the West who simply gave up German as their first language (tho the evidence that they were that is not strong either).  We concede that we are too stupid and badly educated and too old to understand how from absence of evidence one deduces absence of Germanness.  It is just not a syllogism we ever learned or ever will.

As Derrida has argued, the constitution of the criminal is related to the constitution of the sovereign, and both are situated outside the law, one above and one below it. The present contribution explores the way organised crime is excluded from the political realm and how this exclusion reproduces statist claims to sovereignty through exceptional measures which outlaw the (organised) criminal. This exploration is carried out by critically engaging with the dichotomy between economics and politics. I investigate what this tells us about the way the sovereign and the criminal are mutually and relationally constituted through the opposition between what is ideological and ascribed to the realm of politics and what is non-ideological and ascribed to the realm of economics. This dichotomy is explored through an analysis of the Italian State’s antimafia legislation, which relies upon the opposition between States and illicit violent non-state actors, but also on their internal differentiation, with the terrorist seen as political and ideological, and the organised criminal as non-ideological and apolitical, and therefore more dangerous than the terrorist. Through this differentiation, the sovereign Italian State reproduces itself vis à vis the mafioso. In the second part of my analysis, I investigate the counter discourse of the mafia.

This article explores perceptions and representations of Nigeria and Nigerians in the popular global imaginary. It analyses selected popular media narratives in order to foreground contradictions and paradoxes in the ways in which the country and people of Nigeria are discursively constructed. By doing so, it interrogates stereotypes of corruption and criminality as well as myths of exceptionalism about Nigeria and Nigerians
originating from both within and outside the country. The analysis reveals that the generalised portrayal of Nigeria and Nigerians as exceptional social subjects is characterised by contradictions and inaccuracies in dominant representational practices and cannot be justified by the verifiable empirical information available on the country and its people.

Scholarly approaches to the Greek crisis usually centered on its political character, tackle it as “a state of exception” or emphasize its “exceptional” features. Departing from a discussion on the nature of the crisis, in this article
I examine social reactions to “it,” focusing on grassroots economic activity. I undertake a case study of a “solidarity economy” movement and from there I explore the wider political repercussions of this activity that has appeared in
contemporary Greece where grassroots social welfare projects are organized in order to address hardships in the actors’ livelihoods. In this way, I explore the meaning of solidarity, a term that has become ubiquitous in the public
discourse of contemporary Greece. Through an ethnographic study of the activities of a movement that organizes anti-middleman food distributions in Greece, I argue that such activities not only tackle the immediate effects of the
crisis but also pose a conscious, wider critique to austerity politics. Activists’ appeal to solidarity economies is informed by their aim to formulate more efficient distribution cooperatives in the future.

Kant, die humanitäre Intervention und der moralische Exzeptionalismus1 Wilfried Hinsch Kants Schrift Zum ewigen Frieden von 1795 ist populär. Vieles, was Kant in ihr sagt, passt gut zu dem, was wir heute über Krieg und Frie-den denken. Die ironische Entlarvung ...

Exceptionalism is the view that one group is better than other groups and, by virtue of its alleged superiority, is not subject to the same constraints. Here we identify national exceptionalism in the responses made by political leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom to the covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. First, we observe that responses appealed to national values and national character and were marked by a denial of the severity of the situation. Second, we suggest an analogy between national exceptionalism and unrealistic optimism, i.e., people’s tendency to make rosier predictions about their future than is warranted by the evidence due to illusions of superiority and control. Finally, we argue that, at the national level, exceptionalism gave rise to an assumption of invulnerability that made for slow responses to the pandemic, and at the individual level, it served as a justification of people’s failures to adopt safety behaviors.

In this commentary, I welcome An et al.’s (2021) commitment to explore the role of Confucian thought in the contemporary practices of statehood in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Nonetheless, I also take issue with the authors’ argument that a Confucian geopolitics is needed to replace inadequate ‘Western geopolitical frameworks’. Confucian philosophies promote a hierarchical social order based on authority and subordination, and the way in which they are selectively and strategically utilized in contemporary China represents an important subject of analysis. However, they should not be viewed as a framework of analysis, as they obscure rather than shed light on spatial and class struggles – even in the hybridized stylization endorsed by An et al. Critical political economic and critical geopolitical perspectives with a global theoretical orientation and a knowledge of place and culture offer more promise in the disentangling of state practices and social relations in the PRC.

Course Syllabus

RELIGIOUS MYTHS OF AMERICA
Professor Christopher Buck
Michigan State University

IAH 211C, Areas Studies and Multicultural Civilizations: The Americas

ATL (Tier I writing requirement).
312 Bessey (Spring 2004).
Mon./Wed. 7:00-8:50 p.m. (Spring 2004).

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course was originally designed for "Myth, Self and Religion" (REL 205), in which I proposed a special topic: "Myths of America, Religion, and the Democratic Self." Instead of looking at "dead" myths of antiquity, my intent was focus on modern or "living" myths in the American experience. The rationale for the new course design was post 9-11 curricular relevance, issues of religious responses to modernity, and the evolving and expanding idea of America.

Indeed, there exist several "theologies of America" that relate concepts of personal salvation/liberation to notions of social salvation, including perspectives on America's world role. Thus, instead of adopting a traditional curricular approach, as represented by Joseph Campbell's book title, Myths To Live By (New York: Viking Press, 1972), I proposed an alternative approach as exemplified by Mary Midgley's recent book, Myths We Live By (London: Routledge, 2003). Dr. Ken Waltzer, Director of MSU's Center for Integrative Study of Arts and Humanities (CISAH), proposed that this course be offered as an IAH-211C course instead. This is how the course you are now taking came to be. …

Beyond Bellah's notion of a master myth of America, we will discover that there are other myths of America that are themselves proper objects of study. I have chosen specifically religious perspectives, because an interesting social phenomenon is at work here: While every American has a personal view as to what it means to be an American, I have found that there are actually entire communities ("faith-communities," as scholars say) that hold religious convictions about America. Some scholars have called such group-held views "theologies of America."

What do Mormons have to say about the U.S. Constitution? What do Black Muslims believe about the future of the white race in America? How do many Protestants look at the United States in prophecy? What have Catholic Popes had to say about America? What do the Baha'is predict about the spiritual destiny of America? What have the Hopi Indians told the world from the pulpit of the United Nations? With a little research, these are easy enough questions to answer. This course is unique in that these questions have been brought together for the first time as a new approach to the "idea of America" in American studies.

Our "framework of analysis" (the way we will look at myths of America) consists of four dimensions: (1) identity (America's past), mission (America's present), destiny (America's future), and social policy (how we get from America's "mission" to America's "destiny"). This approach to myth, which may be thought of as a form of "sociofunctionalism," recognizes the fact that myths convey social and moral values. Myths, moreover, serve as conceptual models for society and furnish what Richard Comstock calls a "symbolic articulation of the social patterns" of a given society. As William Doty, author of Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000) states: "Myths provide 'charters' insofar as they justify and exemplify the social order" (132).

The great contribution the sociofunctionalists to the study of myth was to establish clear connections between social order and the myths that sustain it, against the view that myths are merely imaginary, misguided perceptions of reality with little social value. In this course, you will need to ask yourself, "How do each of these myths translate into social behavior? In other words, how have these myths been acted out historically and how are they "performed" today? Pay close attention also to how myths change over time as a function of how society evolves.

It was with high hopes that Prime Minister Edward Heath took the UK into the European Economic Community (EEC) on 1 January 1973. It was a moment that signalled an acceptance of Britain’s role as a European, rather than global power, and drastically altered the Community. However, within twelve months it was clear that the UK’s relationship with its European partners was in trouble. Most historians argue that the UK’s challenges during the first year of membership were caused by poor timing, as Britain’s entry coincided with the Year of Europe Affair and October Yom Kippur War. But, is this a sufficient explanation?

This paper will explore Britain’s adjustment to Community membership during the year 1973, with a specific focus on Britain’s budgetary contributions. It will examine attempts to reduce the impact of Britain’s budgetary contributions on the balance of payments through the modification of existing Community policies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy. In doing so, this paper will evaluate the strategies that Britain’s politicians and diplomats adopted for negotiating in the Community. It will explore the perception of British diplomacy held by the French government and the European Commission. It will ask what impact Britain’s adversarial political culture had on the ability of its diplomats to adjust to the Community’s way of conducting political business.

Ultimately, this paper will argue that the combination of unsustainable terms of membership and a strong institutional attachment to the ‘Westminster model’ contributed to Britain’s difficult transition to Community membership. It will offer conclusions about the nature of the UK’s relationship with European integration, particularly in the context of Britain’s characterisation as the awkward partner. For entry did not settle Britain into Europe, and the high hopes for Community membership held by Britain’s political elite were left largely unfulfilled.

The Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, visited Moscow last week for discussions with Vladimir Putin. Dimitrios Triantaphyllou writes on the extent to which EU governments should be concerned at the potential for Greece to seek help from Russia in order to leverage its negotiations with Germany and other creditors within the EU. He notes that while the Greek government has insisted it will not seek financial aid from Russia, there remains legitimate concern over how close the relationship between Greece and Russia actually is.