鸟儿的色彩盛宴

<正>秋天鹬鸻迁徙,总体数量比春天少了许多许多,而且也没有了春天的生机勃勃,难以看到有规则的鸟浪,成鸟都带着小鸟,以补充能量和休息为主,更多的是责任。说起拍摄水鸟的经历,我至今耿耿于怀,以至于这几年都不愿和水鸟有纠葛。2015年的劳动节前夕,我在江苏小洋口拍摄,鸟况非常好,光线也非常好,无论海滩还是内塘;无论鸟阵还是珍稀鸟,一齐上阵,我拍得不亦乐乎,几天的工夫,拍摄的片子就装满了一个硬盘。     

古老的土族“圈圈席”

一次偶然的机会,我到互助土族自治县五十镇的一个土族朋友家祝贺婚礼,发现了一种让人吃惊的待客习俗：十多人在羊圈里围成一圈,坐在地上的麦草上,在用墙板支起的简陋桌上吃饭,餐具都是木制品,如木碗、木勺、木盘、木碟、木筷（采自当地的一种灌木）等,显得十分朴素,这种习俗我平生第一次见,顿时好奇地问：“待客怎么没有桌子和凳子,坐在地上,是不是太困难啊？”     

Thomas Traherne,Thomas Hobbes,and the Rhetoric of Realism

Abstract

Thomas Traherne has often been seen as a mystic detached from the turbulence of his period. Recent scholarship has attempted to place him more firmly in context. This article contributes to this trend in arguing that Traherne's late works, especially Commentaries of Heaven, were shaped by the pressure of responding to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Though Traherne makes only one direct reference to Hobbes, his idiosyncrasies in thought, argument, and mode of expression are all fundamentally influenced by the need to counter Hobbes's account of ethics, metaphysics, and language. Traherne is particularly concerned to assert and display an ardent realism against Hobbes's nominalism. In doing so, he creates a complicated play of rhetorical figures, especially abusio or catachresis, as embodying theological commitments. This both places Traherne more clearly against the background of the intellectual history of the period in which he lived, and demonstrates his particularity as a writer.     

The Dahomean Feast: Royal Women,Private Politics,and Culinary Practices in Atlantic West Africa

Feasting is a central component of elite power strategies in complex societies worldwide. In the precolonial Kingdom of Dahomey, located in the Republic of Bénin, public feasts were a critical component of royal strategies to attract and bind political subjects over the course of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, a period of dramatic political transformation on the Bight of Benin. Archaeological excavations within the domestic quarters of a series of Dahomean royal palace sites have yielded diverse faunal and ceramic assemblages that represent clear examples of (1) ritualized food consumption and (2) everyday culinary practices. In this paper, faunal and ceramic evidence from two excavated contexts is marshaled to distinguish the archaeological signatures of feasting in Dahomey, highlighting the importance of private feasts in attempts to build political influence in the domestic zones of Dahomean royal palaces. In particular, this analysis foregrounds how royal women jockeyed for power and influence during a period of political uncertainty.     

A Royal Progress in the North: James I at Carlisle Castle and the Feast of Brougham,August 1617

Abstract

Following Pride's Purge in 1648, the majority of Lancashire's MPs were excluded or chose to withdraw from Parliament, whilst the county committees and the commission of the peace were all purged and remodelled during the course of the Commonwealth (1649–53). Men who had served in county government for many years were removed from office by the new regime, whilst a number of new men were promoted from obscurity to take their place. This article examines these changes to the administration of Lancashire during the Commonwealth, finding that county government became greatly contracted as fewer men held more offices. Nevertheless, despite the prominence of some townsmen during this period, gentility never ceased to be the norm for provincial government.