Introduction

Abstract

This paper examines mechanical drawings made between 1811 and 1835 by Cesar Nicolas Leblanc, draftsman and engraver for the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, for publication by the French patent ministry. It compares Leblanc's engravings with the original drawings of the same machines, drawings which mechanics and inventors had submitted with their patent applications and upon which Leblanc based his published copies. The paper further compares Leblanc's patent engravings with his engravings of other machines, ones of proven utility. Leblanc developed a visual vocabulary to accompany Conservatoire Director Gerard‐Joseph Christian's philosophy of industrial mechanics, and used it to expose a crucial ambiguity in French patenting practice. Patented machines were unproven machines, Leblanc's patent engravings argued, while his other engravings endorsed machines of known value.     

Scottish Windpumps & Windmills: New Information

Abstract

The author has examined documentary sources concerning the pioneering Lombe's Silk Mill on the River Derwent in Derby. He has combined evidence from both Italian and British sources with the physical remains and provided a reconstruction of the mill and its machinery layout. Its importance as a precursor of factory production in Britain is discussed.     

New Technologies of Embroidered Robe Production and Changing Gender Roles in Zaria,Nigeria, 1950–2005

Abstract

The old walled section of the Northern Nigerian town of Zaria known as Zaria City is renowned for the production of elaborately hand-embroidered robes, worn by men throughout Nigeria and West Africa. These garments are of some antiquity, yet they continue to be produced. None the less, there have been several changes in their production, including the introduction and expanded use of embroidery machines and new materials by men, new marketing practices, and women's hand-embroidery of robes. These changes are closely linked with political, economic, and socio-cultural factors, reflecting technological innovation, changes in gender-associated work, and the impact of federal import regulations in Zaria.     

Confronting Contradictions: Genre Subversion and Feminist Politics in Agnès Varda's L'une chante,l'autre pas

French filmmaker Agnès Varda's career has been largely defined by contradiction. She is acknowledged as influential, yet often discussed independently from the advanced filmmaking practices and intellectual debates of her New Wave generation. Her musical, L'une chante, l'autre pas, was particularly misunderstood: film critics and feminist scholars praised the film's feminist storyline, but found that the unexpected musical numbers undercut the seriousness of the feminist message, resulting in a film that is ultimately incongruous. Through archival excavation of Varda's sources, I argue that the film's incongruity was in fact intentional, an expansion of advanced filmmaking theories and strategies, in dialogue with influential Brechtian texts and contemporary feminist debates. This essay reveals specific social and economic factors that influenced the production and reception of the film and reconsiders apparent contradictions in Varda's career.     

The Changing Cycle of Engineering Materials A Tribute to H. M. Finniston,Materials Scientist and Engineer

Abstract

In this, the second Finniston Lecture, the growth in the production, usage and disposal of engineering materials is reviewed on a worldwide scale over the period of Sir Monty's lifetime. He worked in all stages of the cycle. The materials treated are steel and the common non-ferrous metals, the bulk plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinylchloride, polystyrene) and Portland cement. The total tonnage used is determined by improvement in quality, both in production and in service, the market demands, substitution by other materials and waste minimisation. These are considered for each material so as to show an emerging future in which demand per caput decreases as living standards rise. This fact, coupled with a philosophy of 'do more with less' and the pressures of environmental concerns are leading to an important change of emphasis within the materials cycle occasioned by the demand to increase the recyclability not only of the materials but also of the components made from them.     

Cleaning up down South: Supermarkets,ethical trade and African horticulture

Supermarkets in Great Britain have joined the country's Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) in order to demonstrate their commitment to social welfare and environmental standards in their supply chains. They have been particularly concerned to enforce ethical as well as food safety standards in the African horticultural industry, which has historically depended on cheap labour to produce high-value vegetables. The supermarkets' 'ethical turn' appears to signal an important change from forms of commodity fetishism that obscured exploitative relations of food production in the South. This paper, however, argues that in an era of high food anxiety for both retailers and consumers, ethical standards are themselves fetishized. It also shows how the effort to impose such standards on Zambia's horticultural export industry resembles the colonial 'hygienic mission', and faces a similar contradiction.     

Hegel and Historicism

Abstract

This article summarises the story of the production of the historical volumes by the South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET). SADET was established after former president Thabo Mbeki expressed concern that there was very limited research done on the achievement of a peaceful political settlement in South Africa after decades of violent conflict. SADET's mission is, and has been to conduct a major study of South Africa's political history between 1960 and 1994. The focus of the article is on the project's editorial structure and on its research methodology, particularly the benefits and limitations of the use of oral interviews as the main research tool.     

Defying Comprehension: Resistance to Uniform Appearance in Depicting the Poor, 1770s to 1830s

Abstract

Applied to contemporary Western clothing as part of the new cultural turn in textile history, anthropology provides unique insights into the relationship between commerce and culture; into the symbolic and social processes that influence the market; and into the ways capitalism functions as a cultural system, not just as a purely economic one. This paper takes an anthropological approach to children's clothing and the changing consumer culture of childhood in Britain in the mid-twentieth century, seen through a particular company (Pasolds Ltd.), their Ladybird symbol and its associated popular culture, and an iconic garment, the Ladybird dressing gown. It provides a case study in a field and period dominated to date by studies of American children's garments and material culture and focuses on the production, advertising and indirect marketing of children's clothing through public culture, from the producer's point of view, a perspective hitherto generally overlooked in work on children's clothes and consumer culture in the mid-twentieth century.     

Reconstructing Kilmainham: the topography and architecture of the chief priory of the Knights Hospitaller in Ireland,c.1170–1349

ABSTRACT

For almost 400 years the Knights of St John of Jerusalem – the Knights Hospitaller – maintained a priory in Kilmainham, Co. Dublin, as their principal residence in Ireland. Nothing survives of it above ground. The priory's early history and topography are mainly shrouded in mystery, but a fourteenth-century registrum illuminates the workings of its community and the character of its members, and provides valuable evidence relating to the appearance of its architecture and layout when it was at the peak of its prosperity. Yet the registrum has never been subjected to detailed scrutiny. Recent research on the Hospitallers in Ireland on the one hand, and on the organisation of domestic space in medieval contexts in Ireland on the other, has prompted this comprehensive appraisal of the evidence in Kilmainham's registrum.     

Radical Political Theology

Abstract

This essay investigates the claim, advanced by a number of contributors to Theology and the Political, that the potential for political transformation requires an analogical ontology. I argue that this is not the case, and that an ontology of immanence, as found primarily in the work of Gilles Deleuze, provides an alternative and superior paradigm for political transformation. This argument is advanced by examining the manner in which immanence enables a novel approach to creation. Such immanent creation is distinct in that it departs from analogy's dependence on the transcendent as well as from capitalism's dependence on communication.     

Geophysical Investigations at Teotepec,Mexico (1000 B.C.–A.D. 1000)

Abstract

Recent investigations at the site of Teotepec in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas in southern Veracruz, Mexico explored Middle Formative through Late Classic (1000 B.C.–A.D. 1000) socioeconomic conditions. A central focus was the form and function of the site's distinctive architectural configuration, the Long Plaza Group. During the 2007 and 2008 field seasons, a systematic geophysical survey of Teotepec obtained initial information on the layout, orientation, and possible function of the site's central architectural core. Results from the survey allow for a clear definition of the site's Long Plaza Group in addition to the identification of a possible ball court along its eastern edge. It is also clear that Teotepecans incorporated natural features into their architectural core by placing a pyramid atop a volcanic landform and modifying a natural basalt flow in order to create a level plaza. Finally, the geophysical data indicate significant time depth in architectural construction by suggesting diffirent mound construction techniques, thus underscoring the importance of Teotepec as a persistent place in a region marked by significant population fluctuations in the Formative and Classic periods.     

An Early Eighteenth Century Scottish Saltwork: Arran,c.1710 – 1735

Abstract

Historians have paid little attention to Scotland's salt industry. The few physical traces of its existence have not been seriously examined and interpreted by industrial archaeologists. This article presents some new material about saltmaking on the west coast of Scotland but more importantly it argues that the site under review here, on Arran in the Firth of Clyde, represents the earliest known upstanding remains of the type of saltwork which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ranged along both shores of the river Forth, from where the bulk of Scotland's salt production came.     

Much Ado About Dugald: The Chequered Career of Dugald Stewart's Letter to Sir William Forbes on James Beattie's Essay on Truth

Summary

Although Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo's An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie has long served as an invaluable resource for those interested in Beattie's life and thought, there has been little scholarship on the genesis of Forbes's book. This article considers the role played by Dugald Stewart—as well as that of his friend, Archibald Alison—in the making of Forbes's Life of Beattie. It also examines the reasons for Forbes's decision not to print Stewart's letter in its entirety in the Life of Beattie and explores the letter's significance for understanding Stewart's philosophical development.     

The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China: 1

Abstract

Desert landscapes are the least understood among terrain types of the Earth. The dearth of basic information on arid landforms has resulted in the misconception that the desert is man-made and that, therefore, we can 'fix it'. Scientific evidence indicates that deserts are part of the natural features of both Earth and Mars. They form as a result of the lack or scarcity of rain, which may be cyclical. The basic layout of today's arid terrain appears to have formed during humid periods in the geological past. Understanding of such features and those caused by wind erosion and deposition is essential to the development of deserts and semiarid lands for the benefit of mankind. Images obtained by spacecraft provide a new tool that is very useful in this regard, particularly in the location of groundwater resources to be used at times of cyclical droughts.     

The Excavation of Clydach Ironworks

Abstract

The Clydach Ironworks began production around the turn of the nineteenth century, supplying a Forge and Rolling Mill in the same valley with pig iron until the 1870s, when through a lack of funds, the concern passed into the hands of an Abergavenny solicitor. This is a report based on the archaeological work undertaken at the Ironworks from 1986-1988 and represents the author's term as Site Archaeologist. It argues that the blast for Furnaces 1 and 2 was supplied by two waterwheels and that Furnace 3 is in fact the fourth furnace to have been constructed, partially overlying the site of one wheel pit. This pit would have belonged to the 42 foot wheel adjacent to Furnace 2 which is illustrated on an 1813 engraving.     

Receiving Royals in Later Medieval York: Civic Ceremony and the Municipal Elite, 1478–1503

Abstract

This article examines the later medieval royal entry ceremony in York from the perspective of the social groups that designed and produced the spectacle. Deliberations of York's civic council comprise the main body of evidence for this study. It is argued that a mercantile oligarchy controlled the production of ceremony at every level. York's merchants dominated the design of civic receptions by excluding other secular and ecclesiastical groups native to the city from the decision-making process, and by resisting external interference by groups such as the nobility. The civic council made use of the topography of the city to reinforce the mercantile dimensions of the ceremony and to create a ceremonial space where they could communicate with the royal visitor. The merchant élite also adapted the form and content of the city's nuanced Corpus Christi celebrations to the royal entry. By these means they displayed and consolidated their position at the pinnacle of urban society at a time when their dominance over the city's economic, social and political structures was weakening.     

The Mechanical Farm of 2030

Abstract

After introducing influences which will affect mechanization of agriculture over the next 50 years, the review deals separately with three aspects of equipment on farms. These are machinery for arable farming, equipment used in livestock husbandry, and the hardware and software likely to assist farm management. The bulk of crop production is predicted to be carried out by a system of field gantries which will replace today's tractor and implements. The gantries will be fitted with automatic guidance but will still carry an operator who will be provided with extensive monitoring instrumentation. Second, monitoring of livestock growth or yield will be computer based. Health and breeding will also be automatically monitored and controlled, and farm staff will be aided by a robot, whose functions will include remote viewing and sensing, routine animal and feed handling operations, and assistance with animal herding. Computers will be used extensively in farm management with on-farm machines linked permanently to national information data banks, to suppliers and organizations who purchase from the farm and to consultant organizations. Computers will also be used for planning decisions based on operational research predictive methods and particularly for daily work planning.     

Our Heritage – Our Future

Abstract

Much of our present technology can be traced to the great discoveries at the beginning of our century, particularly relativity and quantum mechanics. This is our heritage. Based on these, reasonable extrapolations can be made for our future, and are here exemplified by microelectronics, lasers, molecular biology, new material, aviation and nuclear energy. But often the unexpected development is the most important, here compared with non-linear equations in mathematics. Man's great future will arise from such non-linearities and the space telescope may bring a new field theory, redundancy in computers may give us thinking machines and finally the discovery – or the proof of absence – of extra-terrestrial life will bring the greatest of all non-linear changes. It is concluded that human imagination is unlimited, that imagination lets man grow to transcend his limits and to fulfil his dreams.     

The Shadow Field of Reindeer Management: A Case Study from Finland

Abstract

This article applies the analytical concept of shadow field in relation to reindeer management, to explain why some herders and reindeer herding cooperatives do not adhere to government regulations on herd size. The underlying processes and structures related to reindeer numbers are exemplified through two case studies of two Finnish reindeer herding cooperatives, which for several years have exceeded the total allowable quota of reindeer. The case studies reveal a different reality of reindeer management, which functions according to a logic and agenda not always understood by the State authorities or incorporated into the management decisions. This reality is the outcome of anomalies in the official reindeer management system, including the system's disclosure of herders from the decision-making process, the system's provision of self-determination and self-monitoring regarding the organisation of reindeer herding to the cooperatives, the system's weak external control and a subsidy system which promotes reindeer ownership instead of production. Combined, these anomalies enable and encourage the formation of a shadow field of reindeer management. This paper uses as its theoretical framework Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, and focuses especially on the key notion of field and shadow field in addressing the Common Pool Resource discussion related to reindeer herding.     

Blessed are the Peacemakers: Canada,the United Nations,and the Search for a Korean Armistice, 1952–53

Abstract

Canada's post-war role as a middle power within the UN system and a strong advocate of negotiated settlement of international disputes focuses on Lester Pearson's role in the Suez Crisis of 1956 and dates Canada's new diplomatic stance from that time. This article argues that Canada's emerging diplomatic stance in fact is grounded in the diplomacy surrounding the Korean War at the beginning of that decade.