‘A Large and Longstanding Body’: Historical Authority in the Science of Sex

This chapter draws on the literature reviews of 387 books and articles about sex differences to argue that the scientific authority of the sex binary is often rhetorically established through misleading, revisionist histories of the field.

“The Yankees, Señor General, Are Not Like Us:” Vallejo, Bancroft, and the Construction of California History

This article explores the relationship between Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vallejo was one of the most important contributors to Bancroft’s massive History of California. He entrusted to Bancroft thirty-six volumes of primary source documents and his own five-volume manuscript on California history. He also encouraged other Californios to share their own family documents with Bancroft and to provide oral histories of the Mexican era. Vallejo believed that he was working in partnership with Bancroft, who would in turn compose a sensitive and community-based account of pre-U.S. California. But Vallejo was deeply upset about Bancroft’s finished product, which he believed deliberately suppressed the Hispanic contribution. The conflict between Vallejo and Bancroft lays bare a series of issues revolving around inclusion, omission, and the nature of historical authority that have remained crucial in the construction of Western history.

Emerging African American Pentecostal Sources in Public Theology

Theological authority is of paramount importance for the future of African American Pentecostal public theology. Largely ignored as authoritative sources by white Pentecostals in the years following the Azusa Street Revival, black Pentecostals were often snubbed by black denominations as well. Consequently, at the traditional table of theological discourse, black Pentecostal pastors have been notably absent. The question of theological authority in black Pentecostalism can be answered, in part, by examining its historically relevant contributions to theology in general, and to black liberation theology in particular. Early social prophetic theologians left a treasure trove of leadership hermeneutics and models for public engagement. This article highlights four pastors who left legacies built on their roles as pioneers in the black Pentecostal movement. The biographic profiles reveal sources of i) historical authority within the broad contours of the black Pentecostal tradition, and, ii). innovative hermeneutics as valid models for engaging public theology.

Deconstructing Unlawful Act Manslaughter

The aim of this article is to separate out and justify two means of proving manslaughter by an unlawful (and dangerous) act. One is manslaughter by an act of intended bodily harm. The other is manslaughter by an unlawful and dangerous act. Some historical authority for these two kinds of unlawful act manslaughter is established, but the line of argument centres on the separate justifications for each kind. The justification for manslaughter by an act of intended bodily harm centres on the relationship between intention and luck. The justification for manslaughter by an unlawful and dangerous act concentrates on the distinction between negligence and heedlessness. This article concludes that manslaughter by an act of intended bodily harm may be justifiable, but that this may be possible where death is caused through any advertent crime. This is with a view to potential development or reform through the courts or Law Commission.

Primitivism in America

Historians most often use the term primitivism to refer to the attempt to reconstruct a religious tradition’s original theology, structure, or beliefs. Primitivists believe that the earliest expressions of the faith are the most efficacious, powerful, and valid, and hence they attempt to recapture them in as complete a form as it is possible for them to imagine. Thus, they frequently dissent from established religious traditions, believing that those constructed under the primitive impulse achieve superior purity. Of course, these attempts are normally incomplete or inaccurate, reflecting the desires or needs of the group doing the restoring more than the original version of whatever faith is involved. Primitivism has taken on a number of forms throughout American history. This essay follows a chronological approach, but uses Richard Hughes’s designations of “ethical,” “ecclesiastical,” and “experiential” primitivism to distinguish among various movements and provide some order to the narrative. These are common impulses in American religion, particularly in the years immediately following the American Revolution commonly called the Second Great Awakening. The language of primitivism has provided Americans with the weight of historical authority, often invoked to overturn established hierarchies and replace them with forms of religious practice deemed, alternately, more democratic, more biblical, more conducive to religious experience, or more ethically demanding. Whatever the case, primitivism has spoken to the American impulse toward reform, resistance to institution, and individual capacity.