Department of Humanities

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A clear intention to effect such a modification: The NRTA and Treaty hunting and fishing rights
(2000) Irwin, Robert
The purpose of this article is to fill a gap in the historical literature regarding the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements; specifically, it aims to "provide insights into the negotiations leading to section 12 of the NRTA and identify the intent and purpose of the framers." The author, Robert Irwin, notes that the Supreme Court has made several decisions (e.g., Frank v. The Queen, Moosehunter v. The Queen, R. v. Horseman, R. v. Gladue, etc.) that have altered the understanding of Treaty rights and the NRTA regarding hunting and fishing rights, without the benefit of being able to draw on historical research on the NRTA, regarding the original intentions in its framing. Irwin asserts that in the construction of section 12 of the NRTA the Dominion intended "to ensure that Indians maintained their Treaty right of access to unoccupied Crown lands for the purpose of hunting, trapping and fishing;" it also "hoped to conserve game through wise management in the belief that this was important … because of Treaty rights;" and it recognized that hunting regulations and licensed fishing would be set by the provincial government. Irwin concludes by noting that the historical evidence suggests that "the government did not seek to extinguish and replace or merge and consolidate the Treaty rights with the NRTA."
A cross-channel marriage in limbo: Alexandre d’Arblay, Frances Burney, and the risks of revolutionary migration
(2020) Summers, Kelly
In late 1801, as the prospect of a truce between Britain and France raised the hopes of émigrés throughout the French Revolutionary diaspora, Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Piochard d’Arblay took a momentous gamble. After a decade abroad, he crossed the English Channel in the hopes of resurrecting his military career back home. It all went spectacularly wrong, and he, his wife—the English writer Frances Burney—and their son found themselves stranded in Napoleonic France after the collapse of the Peace of Amiens in 1803. Then as now, d’Arblay usually warrants mention as General Lafayette’s aide-de-camp or Burney’s trusted scribe. His status as an émigré had a undeniable impact on his famous wife’s later life and work, but d’Arblay’s fraught homecoming also provides a revealing window into the messy return and reintegration of those who left France during the Revolution. Their mass re-migration has been largely neglected in the otherwise flourishing field of émigré studies. What is more, as committed partners pursuing a new form of marriage—one based on affection and intellect rather than property or parentage— d’Arblay and Burney were forced to tackle the perils of bi-national marriage in the dawning age of nationalism and total war. While navigating competing loyalties and tenuous finances, the fate of their family hinged on contingencies like the Brumaire coup d’état; partisan patronage networks; and the proliferating demands of revolutionary bureaucracy and the Napoleonic “security state.” The Burney-d’Arblays’ recurrent reunions and separations offer firsthand insight into the dizzying upheavals of the 1790s and the complexities of political reconciliation that followed.
A philosophical defense of myth: Josef Pieper’s reading of Platonic Eschatology
(2021) Lorkovic, Edvard
This paper is born of an observation: Plato seems interested in, if not worried about, the afterlife, what happens after we die. The Republic, Gorgias, and Phaedo all end with a story about the world beyond finite human experience, an eschatological myth, whereas other dialogues, like the Meno, Phaedrus, and Apology, allude to the same. Although the myths in the Republic and the Phaedo incorporate more in addition, including apparent accounts of the structure of the universe (Republic616d-617d and Phaedo108d-113c), each of these stories represents an ostensibly theological event: the judgment of souls by divine, which is also to say completely wise and just, judges. Put simply, these myths are about the afterlife. This seemingly theological feature occupies a prominent place in otherwise philosophical texts: in the Gorgias, Socrates shares the myth with Callicles, a moral relativist and crass political realist who is unwilling to be persuaded by philosophical arguments that an unjust life is never profitable and that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it; in the Republic, Socrates concludes his defense of justice as the best kind of good, namely as something good in itself and for its results, by recounting a story told by Er, a warrior who was permitted to bear witness to the judgment of souls and return to the world of the living to report it, which shows that justice is rewarded in the afterlife even when it is not beneficial in the here and now; and in the Phaedo, Socrates tells the story to his friends after attempting to persuade them that the soul is undying and shortly before drinking the poison that will end his life, as a way, it would appear, of assuaging his friends’ fear of death and worry for his soul. In each case, Socrates treats the content of the eschatological myth seriously and connects it to the arguments that preceded.
A pragmatic and conservative measure: Catholic toleration in Quebec after the Treaty of Paris
(2011) Pollock, Carolee
In 1763, when Britain acquired the colony of Quebec from France by the Treaty of Paris, the colony’s loyalty could not be taken for granted. How could the quiescence of “His Majesty’s new subjects,” the Catholic Canadiens, be assured, especially if renewed war with France should ensue? Furthermore, the eighteenth-century British constitution was profoundly anti-Catholic. How could it be applied in a colony populated by Catholics? British colonial administrators sought to secure the acquiescence of the Canadiens by offering them a civil administration patterned after a conservative and paternalistic interpretation of the British constitution. But when the exclusion of Catholics from public life made the implementation of the conservative political structure they envisioned unworkable, they chose the structure over anti-Catholicism and moved to permit the Canadiens to participate in public life. Landed men were more important to a stable political order than Protestant men. The Governors promoted religious toleration for the Canadiens, but this toleration reflected pragmatic concerns about security in a frontier colony and a fundamentally conservative view of political legitimacy, rather than the liberal attitudes implied by the term toleration.
Alexander the Great's liberation of Rome and an idiosyncratic model of World history in the Chronicle of John Malalas, the Excerpta Latina Barbari, and Fulgentius' De Aetatibus
(2018) Garstad, Benjamin
In two sixth-century chronicles, the Greek original of the Excerpta Latina Barbari and the Chronographia of John Malalas, the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians are said to have been freed by Alexander from a combination of eastern peoples including the Assyrians, Chaldaeans, and Persians. The statement is, without a doubt, unhistorical; nevertheless, such deviations from the received historical record rarely represent simple mistakes, but more often purposeful and meaningful manipulations. In this case, Alexander's liberation of the Greeks and Egyptians can be accounted for with reference to the Alexander Romance, a legendary account of his career, but the principal source on Alexander in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. But the Romans remain a puzzle. The notice on Nebuchadnezzar in the Excerpta, however, says that he conquered the Romans. This notice, moreover, seems to intentionally parallel a brief description of Alexander in the Excerpta. Some examination of the details seems to reveal a model of history that placed more emphasis on symmetry and symbolism than on accuracy. The eastern peoples under Nebuchadnezzar and the western nations under Alexander successively achieve dominion over the world, that is, they each establish a world kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar plays the role of the conqueror and Alexander that of the liberator. Thus, there is demonstrable recourse to the rhetoric employed to describe the Persian Wars and other conflicts with eastern powers that goes back to Herodotus and the beginnings of Greek historiography. The broader circulation of this model seems to be evident in echoes of it that can be found in the contemporary De aetatibus mundi of Fulgentius.
Alexander the Great, the disguised dinner guest
(2018) Garstad, Benjamin
The Alexander Romance depicts Alexander going alone to the court of Darius disguised as his own messenger, dining with the Persians and advancing his own reputation as a munificent king. This episode substitutes a fictional scene for a number of dramatic banqueting incidents in the historical record that cast Alexander in a negative light, specifically, the burning of Persepolis, the proskynesis affair, and the wedding at Susa, which are all banqueting scenes concerned with Alexander's generosity, reputation, and relations with the Persians. It is also an opportunity for intertextual allusion, especially to Homer and Herodotus. It is, further, only one of many occasions in the Romance when Alexander is said to go alone to visit his enemies in disguise; these episodes integrate the composition and evince a concern with the treatment of ambassadors. It is finally one of the only instances of the explicit characterization of Alexander in the Romance.
Alexander’s gate and the unclean nations: translation, textual appropriation, and the construction of barriers
(2016) Garstad, Benjamin
The Alexander Romance and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius deserve a place in any discussion of the impact of the translator’s work on the construction of memory in multicultural societies. Both works are remarkable as the products and the objects of translation throughout the middle ages. Successive recensions of the Alexander Romance were translated, either from the original Greek or from Latin translations, into numerous vernacular languages until there were popular versions of the Romance in circulation from Iceland to Indonesia. The Apocalypse was first written in Syriac at the isolated monastery of Singara, but under the impulse of the initial Arab conquests it was translated into Greek and then Latin for a readership that stretched from one end of the Mediterranean to the other; translations into various vernaculars were made throughout the middle ages in places as far apart as England and Russia. The remarkable extent to which translation made both the Romance and the Apocalypse available to ever wider audiences has long been recognized. What has not necessarily been appreciated to the same extent is the cultural impact of these translations, especially in regard to the contact and conflict of cultures. I would like to redress this neglect by drawing attention to the implications of a single episode, one borrowed from the Apocalypse into a later recension of the Romance and perhaps the most famous incident in either work: Alexander walling up the Unclean Nations, the agents of the End Times, beyond the Mountains of the North. Up to the appearance of this incident Alexander had been seen, as he perhaps still is, as a conqueror who extended not only his own realm, but the cultural sphere of the Greeks as well, drawing barbarian peoples into the civilized world of the oikoumene. Under the impact of the Arab conquests, I will argue, Alexander was given the very different, but just as formidable, task of excluding foreign and exotic peoples from a world which was ideally homogeneous, represented by his confining of the Unclean Nations. This act symbolizes the reaction which characterized the next several centuries of Byzantine strategy, of retrenchment, defense of the frontiers, and assimilation of all deviant groups (pagans, heretics, and Jews) within the borders. The memory of Alexander inspired by repeated translations of the Romance and Apocalypse spawned this xenophobic response not only in Byzantium, but throughout Europe, until the Turks were at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Perhaps its legacy can still be discerned today in the inclination toward eschatological hysteria provoked by the perceived aggression of the Muslim world.
Alexander’s return to Greece in the Alexander romance
(2016) Garstad, Benjamin
The Alexander Romance, a largely fictional account of Alexander the Great, is full of odd and arresting discrepancies with the more trustworthy historical accounts of the conqueror’s career. The route of the campaign described in the Romance is not the least of these inconsistencies, taking Alexander, as it does, along roads he never traveled and to places he never saw. Perhaps the oddest and most remarkable deviation from the historical record in the Romance’s version of Alexander’s itinerary is not a visit to some unlikely, exotic, or fabulous locale, but his return to Greece in the midst of his eastern campaign. Whereas, in fact, Alexander crossed the Hellespont never to see Macedonia or Greece again, in the Romance he comes back to put down an uprising of the Greeks and lay waste Thebes before he finally defeats Darius and completes the conquest of the Persian Empire. As Stoneman notes, the narrative here is “[l]ike a film running in reverse,” and the effect can be just as comical and disconcerting.
Ancient rhetoric and Paul's apology: the compositional unity of 2 Corinthians
(2004) Garstad, Benjamin
It is always gratifying to see New Testament literature dealt with as a species of Graeco-Roman literature rather than as an idiosyncratic phenomenon in the Greek culture of the Roman Empire. Long's insightful book is a fine example of such a treatment. The purpose of his work is to argue the integrity of 2 Corinthians by reading it as an example of a forensic apologetic epistle. The perceived discontinuities, which have provided fodder for those exegetes who see 2 Corinthians as a composite of a number of different letters, are understood as deliberate breaks separating the distinct elements found in Greek and Latin oratorical theory and practice. Altogether, Long's monograph is thorough—perhaps excessively so—and convincing.
Apocalypse
(2012) Pseudo-Methodius; Garstad, Benjamin
This volume contains two texts that crossed the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity. The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was one of the first works composed in response to the Arab invasions and the establishment of the Muslim empire in the seventh century. In a matter of decades, it was translated from its original Syriac into Greek and from Greek into Latin. (Both the Greek and Latin texts are presented here.) The Apocalypse enjoyed immense popularity throughout the Middle Ages, informing expectations of the end of the world, responses to strange and exotic invaders like the Mongols and Turks, and even the legendary versions of the life of Alexander the Great. An Alexandrian World Chronicle (Excerpta Latina Barbari) was considered important by no less a humanist than Joseph Scaliger. He recognized it as a representative of an early stage in the Christian chronicle tradition that would dominate medieval historiography. The original Greek text may have been a diplomatic gift from the court of Justinian to a potential ally among Frankish royalty, translated two centuries later by the Franks themselves in their efforts to convert the pagan Saxons. In addition presenting a universal chronicle with a comprehensive ethnography and geography, the Excerpta offer a Euhemeristic narrative of the gods and another account of Alexander.
Assembling sovereignty: Canadian claims to the Athabasca district prior to Treaty No. 8
(2020) Irwin, Robert
Recent Canadian legal scholarship has emphasised the centrality of treaties between the colonial state and First Nations in the assertion of Canadian sovereignty over Indigenous lands. Historical interpretations, meanwhile, would suggest that sovereignty, rather than asserted, is assembled over time. Historically, sovereignty is understood to be contingent and layered; it is assembled through a series of ‘detours, improvisations and tinkering.’ This paper looks at the historical circumstances of Canadian sovereignty in the Athabasca district prior to the making of Treaty No. 8 with the First Nations. British sovereignty claims to Rupert's Land and the Northwestern Territories (including the area that came to be known as the Athabasca district), were assembled through the practices and activities of the Hudson's Bay Company. These claims were transferred to Canada in 1869 and Canada hesitantly and quietly took measures to further assemble and express its sovereignty in these lands. Canada surveyed and inventoried the Athabasca district's resources, commenced exploratory work on petroleum resources, provided relief from famine, financially supported schools for Indigenous children, and established and enforced a system of law. By the time Treaty No. 8 was negotiated in 1899, Canada had thus taken a series of steps to assemble and express its sovereignty in the district. Rather than establishing, asserting or legitimating Canadian sovereignty, Treaty No. 8 may be better understood as another measure in the process of assembling it.
Assembling sovereignty: Canadian claims to the Athabasca district prior to Treaty No. 8
(2020) Irwin, Robert
Recent Canadian legal scholarship has emphasised the centrality of treaties between the colonial state and First Nations in the assertion of Canadian sovereignty over Indigenous lands. Historical interpretations, meanwhile, would suggest that sovereignty, rather than asserted, is assembled over time. Historically, sovereignty is understood to be contingent and layered; it is assembled through a series of ‘detours, improvisations and tinkering.’ This paper looks at the historical circumstances of Canadian sovereignty in the Athabasca district prior to the making of Treaty No. 8 with the First Nations. British sovereignty claims to Rupert's Land and the Northwestern Territories (including the area that came to be known as the Athabasca district), were assembled through the practices and activities of the Hudson's Bay Company. These claims were transferred to Canada in 1869 and Canada hesitantly and quietly took measures to further assemble and express its sovereignty in these lands. Canada surveyed and inventoried the Athabasca district's resources, commenced exploratory work on petroleum resources, provided relief from famine, financially supported schools for Indigenous children, and established and enforced a system of law. By the time Treaty No. 8 was negotiated in 1899, Canada had thus taken a series of steps to assemble and express its sovereignty in the district. Rather than establishing, asserting or legitimating Canadian sovereignty, Treaty No. 8 may be better understood as another measure in the process of assembling it.
Augustine's time of death in City of God 13
(2019) Hannan, Sean
"Only a living person can be a dying one," writes Augustine in De ciuitate dei 13.9. For Augustine, this strange fact offers us an occasion for reflection. If we are indeed racing toward the end on a cursus ad mortem, when do we pass the finish line? A living person is "in life" (in uita), while a dead one is post mortem. But as ciu. 13.11 asks: is anyone ever in morte, "in death?" This question must be asked alongside an earlier one, which had motivated Augustine's struggle in Confessiones 11.14.17 to make sense of time from the very beginning: quid est enim tempus? What is at stake here is whether or not there is such a thing as an instant of death: a moment when someone is no longer alive but not yet dead, a moment when they are "dying" (moriens) in the present tense. If we want to understand Augustine's question about the time of death in ciu. 13, then we have to frame it in terms of the interrogation of time proper in conf. 11.
Authari in Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, Secundus of Trent, and the Alexander tradition in early Lombard Italy
(2016) Garstad, Benjamin
The vivid anecdotes in Paul the Deacon’s account of the Lombard king Authari have regularly been explained as the result of Lombard oral tradition, but, when compared with the historical and legendary accounts of Alexander the Great probably available in sixth-century Italy, they seem rather more likely to have a literary source. Authari seems to be modeled on Alexander, and the resulting portrait is not a flattering one. He is compared unfavorably to Agilulf, his successor as king and as husband to Queen Theudelinda. The author of this invidious comparison appears to be Secundus of Trent, one of Paul’s sources. Secundus’s authorship has not previously been widely considered, because it was generally assumed that his historiola must have been a severely abbreviated chronicle, without any kind of literary elaboration. If, however, we allow for the possibility that his history was more expansive and full-bodied, we can see Secundus pursuing a personally and politically important interest in his comparison of Authari and Agilulf. Not only did Secundus write under the patronage of Agilulf and Theudelinda—and so owed Agilulf some support—he officiated at the baptism of their son, Adaloald, while Authari had forbidden Catholic baptism to his Lombard subjects.
AΦEΣIMOΣ: a new reading in the Opramoas dossier from Rhodiapolis
(2013) Bailey, Colin
Although the Opramoas dossier at Rhodiapolis has been reconstructed and carefully studied, the size and extent of the inscription continue to invite analysis. This article focuses on the restoration of an adjective describing the days on which Opramoas' distributions took place. It traces some implications of the use of άφεσιμος and suggests that Opramoas described them as such in order to further advertise his munificence.
Barbarian interest in the Excerpta Latina Barbari
(2011) Garstad, Benjamin
Joseph Justus Scaliger dubbed the text of Parisinus Latinus 4884, the sole surviving witness to a Merovingian Latin translation of a now lost Greek world chronicle, the Excerpta Latina Barbari. The name was essentially a judgement on the linguistic abilities of the translator, but it is suggestive. What is there in the chronicle to appeal to the 'barbarian' inhabitants of Gaul? An answer to this question can offer some insight into the provenance of a neglected, but intriguing text. It will be proposed that the Greek original of the Excerpta was composed as a gift for the Austrasian king Theudebert I and was intended to elicit his aid in the war against the Ostrogothic rulers of Italy. The translation is another matter. It seems to have been undertaken about two centuries later in the context of the missionary push to the north and east from Frankish territory.
Belus in the Sacred History of Euhemerus
(2004) Garstad, Benjamin
Euhemerus of Messene (ﬂ. c. 300 b.c.e.) wrote a ﬁctitious narrative called the Sacred History (Hiera Anagraphe) in which he claimed to have sailed to Panchaea, an island beyond Arabia on the Ocean, and there discovered a stele on which was written the story of the time when the gods were mortal men and rulers of the whole earth. Ever since, there have been arguments over whether Euhemerus was an atheist or a revolutionary philosopher, whether he was an historian or a theologian, and whether he wrote in response to the political, or the religious reality of his day. Although the discussion of Zeus in the Sacred History is known to us only at third hand (from Eusebius’ summary of Diodorus’ rendition, and from Lactantius’ citations of Ennius’ Latin translation), it seems clear that Belus of Babylon held a place of importance in the story, and may help us to answer some of our questions in regard to Euhemerus. The narratives of Euhemerus and his followers are united by the basic theory that the gods of myth were ancient human kings and by certain consistent features, including travels throughout the world by the “gods” to encourage civilization and their own worship. In Euhemerus’ own narrative the ﬁrst item of note on Zeus’ itinerary is a visit to Belus in Babylon.
Breaking the shackles of the metropolitan thesis: Prairie history, the environment and layered identities
(1997) Irwin, Robert
This review of writings in Canadian prairie history and western American history suggests that a new synthesis of prairie history that searches for identity within a new framework is needed. Prairie historians must begin their work with an understanding of the relationships between people and the environment on the prairies. These environmental relationships provide the continuity upon which a new understanding of prairie identity can be constructed. This identity must be understood as an autonomous layer of consciousness rather than a "limited identity" within a national consciousness.
Byzantine matters (review)
(2015) Garstad, Benjamin
Averil Cameron offered colleagues and students alike a synthetic introduction to the history and culture of Byzantium in The Byzantines (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). This book is something different: a series of reflections on the current state of scholarship on Byzantium that are both erudite and accessible. To describe it as slender or brief (only 115 pages of text) is to belie the breadth of learning it encompasses and the dense mass of scholarly argument it penetrates. It is that rare gem, a profoundly learned book that may be read by the interested amateur in an evening.
Canada and the financing of the United Nations Emergency Force, 1957-1963
(2002) Carroll, Michael
The current financial crisis of the United Nations is generally traced to the peacekeeping mission in the Congo and its price tag. This paper proposes that the roots of financial unrest lie rather as early as 1956, in the financing of the United Nations Emergency Force. Peacekeeping funding quickly became a litmus test of support for the United Nations - a sign of policy beyond platitudes. In Canada, the political popularity of peacekeeping required that the Diefenbaker government play an active role in trying to resolve the UN's financial predicament. However, despite the advantages that UNEF and peacekeeping brought to an unstable world, there was in fact little that Canada or the United Nations could do to force individual nations to financially support collective UN policies.

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