Settlement Pattern Change in the Morea (Peloponnisos), c.A.D. 1700–1830

Abstract

The historiography of the Ottoman period (Tourkokratia) in what is now the state of Greece contains many untested propositions about both the nature and the consequences of Turkish rule (Hatzidimitriou 1982). Amongst these is the notion that during the Ottoman occupation the Christian population – or at least a sizeable proportion of it – was driven into the mountains. Our paper sets out to test the hypothesis – for such it is – using readily available published information on the settlements of the Morea (Peloponnisos) dating from c.1700 and c.1830. First, though, we specify the hypothesis and indicate the types of evidence which appear to give it support.     

Captivating thoughts: nocturnal pollution,imagination and the sleeping mind in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

ABSTRACT

Medieval attempts to understand nocturnal emissions – involuntary bodily excretions during sleep which were identified as morally ambiguous – became extensive explorations of the unique and problematic features of sleep and the mental state it produced. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, nocturnal pollutions became the object of an intensive scrutiny of sleep as a site of moral concern. Causal explanations often centred on human psychology, in particular the unusual status of the sleeping mind, in an attempt to understand the intricate ways in which mind, body and soul were uniquely bound together in sleep. The mental states before, during and after sleep were understood to interact with one another in complex ways which centred on questions of culpability and its lack. A comparison of medical, natural-philosophical, theological and canon law materials discussing nocturnal pollution reveals a preoccupation with the sleeper’s mind as exceptional, uncontrollable and problematic.     

Chemistry: Facts not Fiction

Abstract

Brecht has said that ‘the task of science is to lighten the laboriousness of human existence’ and some examples are given of the way chemistry has contributed to this task. Yet great challenges remain – atomic war and the population explosion – and it is essential to achieve a just and informed balance between benefits and risks. Uninformed criticism of chemistry in the media is roundly condemned, and tribute is paid to antipollution measures taken by the chemical industry. The common language which unites scientists from all nations must be used to further peace and understanding in the world.     

Children of migrants in China in the twenty-first century: trends,living arrangements,age-gender structure,and geography

ABSTRACT

Children – including those of migrants – are China’s future. Children of migrants now make up close to 40% of all children in China. This paper analyzes the recent trends from 2000 to 2016 and the major aspects of the children of migrants by distilling data from multiple large national surveys and assessing the very small rural left-behind children (LBC) population figures published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in 2016. The paper also develops a method to estimate the LBC population generated by migrants in each provincial destination between 2010 and 2015, linking up different but related populations (adult migrants, migrant children, and LBC) in the origins and destinations. This broader “origin-destination” framework allows us to pinpoint clearly a major driver of LBC and hence to identify provinces needing the most attention in national and provincial efforts to alleviate the problem of LBC.

Abbreviations: MC: Migrant Children; LBC: Left-Behind Children; MPR: Migration Participation Rate: LBCG: Left-Behind Children Generated     

Oraculorum Sibyllinorum fragmentum Osloense 1

This article discusses some textual questions in Ajax leading to the following conclusions: I. 54 add ?τ?? after λε?α?. – II. 208 the emendation ?ρεμ?α? (“rest”, “quietude”) suggested by Thiersch. – III. 405a–b the proposal κρ?τη / μοι to fill the lacuna. – IV. 476 defence of the line as transmitted. – V. 546 τοσ?νδε to go with ??νον. – VI. 719 ?νδρε?, ??λον τι πρ?τον instead of ?νδρε? ??λοι, τ? πρ?τον. – VII. 869 instead of με write γε. – VIII. 951 ?σ?ν? ?χθο? as a reference to Tecmessa’s heavy burden of woe.     

An irreconcilable first-place: the precarious life of tourism and heritage in a southern European historic centre

Abstract

This article discusses the ambiguous relationship between heritage tourism and everyday life in the historic centre of Naples. This area, long characterised by a lower-class residential population and intermittently considered off-limits to tourists, has over the last two decades become the focus of a burgeoning heritage tourism industry. The article adopts the idea of precariousness – understood contra conventional formulations as a condition that elicits both anxiety and emancipatory release – in order to make sense of the allure and repulsion that the historic centre exerts in tourist encounters with the city. Through three examples – a bus sightseeing tour, online responses to a New York Times article about Naples and local people’s perceptions of a pedestrianised piazza as a tourist contact zone – the article illustrates how the historic centre as a tourist destination is constituted by a mix of foreboding and excitement; where affective experience tends to trump the monumental gaze. Thinking in terms of precariousness not only underlines the contradictory role that this area plays in the local production of cultural heritage but also poses a challenge to those accounts that see in the advent of a visitor economy the inevitable ‘museumification’ and gentrification of historic centres.     

Geothermal Energy Concept and Problems

Abstract

Sudden changes of state occur at all levels of society, and have always done so, be they marriages ending in divorce, bankruptcies of industrial enterprises, or the collapse of empires. Can such social discontinuities, moving either from order to chaos – the more common event – or from disorder to stability, be compared with perhaps similar events in the natural sciences? Can a valid theory be established to cover the subject of social discontinuities? These questions are addressed after defining the subject, discussing the causes of discontinuities, illustrating various occurrences and stressing the urgency of an analysis of discontinuities, as many assume our present social–technological society is especially prone to collapse. It is concluded that the subject remains a challenge to the social scientist, primarily because the people who are affected by discontinuities constantly change their behaviour and thus affect the phenomenon. This distinguishes the social from the natural sciences.     

Wasting Coconuts? Consumption Versus Commerce in Colonial Wallis and Futuna

ABSTRACT

Early colonial officials and other newcomers frequently lamented the poor copra production in Wallis and Futuna, positioning the continued consumption of coconuts by Islanders as a waste. This article explores the contested uses of coconuts and the divergent visions of the islands’ landscape and future held by Islanders, officials, missionaries and traders during opening decades of French colony rule. In particular, a variety of incidents in the 1920s – from an indigenous co-operative to French expulsions – highlight the centrality of the emergent copra trade to the social and political status of these different groups. More broadly, however, the article demonstrates the failure of elites – both indigenous and newcomer – to substantially increase copra exports prior to the Depression in 1930, indicative of the limits of their ability to demand labour and transform the lifeways of the wider population.     

“There are only realities built in the mind”

Abstract

In the wake of the First World War, Vilhelm Bjerknes and his colleagues in Bergen established their so-called front meteorology. With their new concepts and models they “appropriated” the weather – to use Robert Marc Friedman's expression – for physics and for Norwegian science. A regular weather forecasting service was established at the same time for the whole of the Norwegian coast, and fishermen soon became the meteorologists’ primary allies in their struggle for state support and resources. This article examines how the alliance was established, how weather forecasting was “appropriated” by the coastal population, particularly in the north, and what difference this made.     

Albert Einstein,Physicist (1879–1955)

Abstract

Einstein's ideas changed man's thoughts about the totality of physics. These ideas were so fundamental for human thought that Einstein belongs to all the sciences and to all cultures. If ever there was a scientist whose centenary ought to be commemorated in an interdisciplinary journal, Einstein would be that one. This is because of the all-pervading influence of the revolution in physics in which Einstein played so paramount a part. Here we look back to what one man was able to contribute to transforming everyman's thought about the physical world. For the most part the lasting consequences are evident and well-known. Nevertheless, we have to observe that in some respect – not necessarily those emphasized by Einstein – the implications are still scarcely apprehended.     

Social and Spiritual Capital: Building ‘Emotional Resilience’ In Communities and Individuals

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between mental health, mental health promotion, religious communities and general issues of public health. It begins with an exploration of what is meant by mental health drawing a distinction between it, mental illness and mental health promotion, and argues that mental health can have a profound impact on physical health. The relationship between religious communities and the mentally ill is analysed next. Despite the attitudes of many in mental health provision, religious communities can offer a supportive environment for the mentally ill. The article avoids a ‘faith communities—good’, ‘mental health services—bad’ dichotomy, recognizing that religious communities can be excluding and discriminatory. The ambiguity of some experiences is recognized: are they forms of religious experience or symptoms of psychosis? The article highlights the inceasing advocacy of the user/survivor movement. In the final section, the relationship between mental health and public health is explored. It is suggested that religious communities can be places for the promotion of mental health. Mental health promotion is understood as aiming to strengthen both individuals and communities; its value is explored in relation to public health issues. It is suggested that those who are socially excluded are at a greater risk of some form of mental illness and that this may well impact on their physical health. Related to this are the beneficial effects of opportunities for participation in decision making, be it in the workplace or the local community. The article ends by arguing that service providers and service users need to be involved in decisions and planning. Further, some elements of mental health promotion will need to involve those outside the statutory sector.     

Allied escapers and the contadini in occupied Italy (1943 – 5) 1

Abstract

The little-known ‘great escape’ of Allied prisoners-of-war (some 50,000) held in Italian camps at the time of the armistice of 8 September 1943 provides the starting-point for a fresh interpretation of popular and peasant experience during the emergency of 1943 – 5. The article explores some of the main aspects of the ‘strange alliance’ between Allied fugitives and the Italian population, with particular attention to the mutual symbolic appropriation between former ‘enemies’ in the midst of a civil war and related collapse of the state.     

The Irish Sandow school: physical culture competitions in fin-de-siècle Ireland

ABSTRACT

Beginning with an examination of Ireland’s turn of the century interest in physical culture, this article highlights the case of Eugen Sandow’s “Great Competition” and its Irish contestants. Seen as a precursor for today’s bodybuilding competitions, Sandow’s contest enjoyed submission photographs from hundreds of half-naked men – many of whom were Irish – posing in Greco-Roman pose. In studying this topic, the article addresses two pressing issues. In the first instance, the article examines how and why physical culture competitions became a competitive outlet for Irishmen in the first decade of the twentieth century. Secondly, it argues that these contests were often connected to broader societal ideals surrounding acceptable forms of masculinity. The article thus examines a previously unexplored but nevertheless important part of sporting and athletic behaviour in early twentieth-century Ireland.     

Lucy Hutchinson,Lucretius and Soteriological Materialism

Abstract

This article examines Lucy Hutchinson's pervasive materialism, arguing that her use of corporeal imagery – in part shaped by her early translation of Lucretius – contributes to the soteriological purposes of her later works in multiple ways. Criticism on Hutchinson has tended to divorce the materialist imagery of her translation from the Calvinistic themes of her other writings. I argue, however, for the lasting presence of a materialism constructed from the vocabularies of Lucretian Epicureanism, Neoplatonism and John Owen. Focusing especially on the poem Order and Disorder and Hutchinson's theological tract to her daughter, I show how she uses materialism as a “means” to achieving assurance and grace. I suggest that these various responses to physical experience are part of Hutchinson's enduring investigation into the ontology of “Order” and “Disorder”, and her quest for stable spiritual being.     

Constructing places for the market: The case of Newcastle,NSW

Abstract

Cities with a heritage of heavy industry, such as Newcastle (NSW), face an insecure future as they undergo economic restructuring. The identities of cities are being refashioned by entrepreneurial urban governments, as part of a three‐pronged attempt to market their territories. A social construction approach reveals the problematic nature of these symbolic reconstructions, their partiality, the reduction of heritage to a commodity, and the eliding of socio‐economic disadvantage. The new post‐industrial identity for Newcastle disinherits working people, ignores the local indigenous peoples, and trivialises the role of women. The richly layered urban landscape and historically constructed narratives – the local heritage – have been cynically appropriated and transformed for the purposes of place marketing. The rhetoric of post‐industrialism conceals poverty and alienation, and the associated physical restructurings are displacing service‐dependent populations.     

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): The ritual moment of social death

This article is an ethnographic study of individuals self‐diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in Liverpool, UK. While much research on OCD has concentrated upon superstitious belief, psychosis and anxiety provoking disorder, the article focuses upon the relationship between the familiar and the strange in ordinary life, the ‘disquieting familiar’, captured by the Freudian idea of the uncanny. It investigates how misfortune, as opposed to psychological neurosis, becomes attached to mass‐produced objects and routines – the obsessive touching of kitchen taps, the compulsive checking of bank cards – and how repetitive rituals enacted by individuals are revealing of the effort to prevent the emergence of apprehension concealed in everyday habitus and physical, concrete activity.     

Palestine,Israel, Gaza,and the West Bank: the muddled mental maps of French and Israeli students

ABSTRACT

The Palestinian–Israeli Conflict is perceived by many – observers and parties to the conflict alike – as a struggle of two peoples over the same land. Yet, through this century-long conflict (and more so as Israel has expanded and deepened its occupation), what was once, perhaps, imagined as a single land has become an assortment of territories. These territories bear multiple names and different legal statuses, and their boundaries are often blurred. In light of the jumbled patchwork that Palestine–Israel has become, we examine the ways that the conflict’s territorial dimensions are imagined and represented. We study the mental maps of the region held by higher education students from Israel, both Jewish and Arab-Palestinian, as well as with university students from Montpellier, France. The representations indicate that while the French students were almost completely at a loss regarding the conflict’s spatial dimensions, the students from Israel were also confused, especially regarding the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We argue that these findings stem from a wider process of deterritorialization, linked to the conflicting relations between state and nation and intensified by a policy of chaotic spatial arrangements.     

Humans,Birds and Burial Practices at Ipiutak,Alaska: Perspectivism in the Western Arctic

ABSTRACT

Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence from the coast of western Alaska and St. Lawrence Island indicate that human inhabitants over the past 1500–2000 years incorporated birds into their diets, cosmologies, material culture, and daily activities. Following a brief discussion of the archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence for human–bird relations, this article explores the evidence for birds as both an economic and cosmological resource at the Ipiutak site on the northwest coast of Alaska. Several lines of evidence indicate that hunters and shamans have consistently attempted to mimic or acquire the abilities and physical attributes of select bird taxa, reflecting a sophisticated knowledge of bird behaviours and life histories. A specific concern with vision – shamanic, predatory, and post-mortem – is inferred from an unusual Ipiutak burial assemblage that contained a loon skull with ivory eyes. Considered in light of the broader cemetery assemblage, which includes artefacts with bird imagery, the Ipiutak material is interpreted as evidence of perspectivism in western arctic prehistory.     

‘It’s fun in the legs’: children’s dwelling in garden trampolines

ABSTRACT

Physical activity is critical for children’s current and future health status. Understanding how children’s everyday outdoor environments encourage movement could help progress the health-environment debate. In response to this, and adopting a theoretical focus upon dwelling, skills and the haptic engagement, this qualitative case study explores 25 Danish 10–11-year-old children’s everyday use of garden trampolines. Three principal methods of data generation were employed in the fieldwork: photo-elicited interviews, group interviews and participant observation at children’s important outdoor places. Findings suggest that garden trampolines are important everyday outdoor places for children that – among other things – can spark a vigorous physical movement in abundantly meaningful and joyful ways. Further, findings indicate that trampolines are places of inexhaustible movement opportunities, which operate through haptic sensations, feelings of skilfulness and attunement, expansions of the range of motions available to the body, and interactions between children. Implications for future research and design are highlighted.     

Heirs to Byzantium: identity and the Helleno-Romaic dichotomy amongst the Istanbul Greek migrant community in Greece

Abstract

The Istanbul Greek migrant community resident in Greece exists in the space between two homelands and two identities, expressed in the dichotomy between the Hellenic and the Romaic. The migrants exploit this flexibility and ambivalence in Greek identity to contextually navigate a range of social pressures – diaspora, discrimination, alienation, and even financial collapse. At times they pursue assimilation with their host population as the most Hellenic of the Hellenes, whilst at other times they assume a Romaic identity to distinguish themselves from the mainland Greeks. Deploying an identity rooted in Byzantium, the Istanbul Greeks are able to be Greek but more than simply Hellenic.