Geographic and Historical Observations on the Future of a Federal Russia

A paper assessing prospects for the future of federalism in Russia investigates geographic and other factors that historically have either promoted or inhibited the unity of the Russian state. Among the major factors complicating the process of forging a new federal relationship among Russia's central government, republics, and oblast-level units, the paper focuses on the question of the Russian state's legitimacy, the only partial character of democratization, limited experience with constitutional federalism, and contradictions between individual and ethnic rights. 2 tables, 19 references.     

Geographic and Linguistic Reflections on Moent and Dubbelde Ree: Two of Australia's First Recorded Placenames

The year 2006 marks the quatercentenary of the first known European charting of any part of the Australian coastline, when the Dutch mariner Willem Janszoon explored 300 kms of the north‐west coast of Cape York Peninsula. He bestowed seven placenames, two of which, Moent and Dubbelde Ree have ambiguous meanings or referents. This paper attempts to resolve the enigmas behind these names by considering geographic, linguistic and historical evidence. Moent is particularly challenging, with several possible linguistic sources, some more plausible than others. The most compelling evidence points to it either referring to the western entrance to Endeavour Strait, or a Dutch rendition of an Indigenous Australian word. Dubbelde Ree is less problematic. The issue surrounding this name is whether its second element is meant to be Ree, an abbreviation of Reede (‘Roadstead’), or Rev, an abbreviation of Revier (‘River’). The search for the meaning of these placenames has provided credible evidence demonstrating that Janszoon explored the coastline in greater detail than has hitherto been thought, and that, in all likelihood, made contact with the local inhabitants.     

Urban Pattern Dichotomy in Tirana: Socio-spatial Impact of Liberalism

Transition from a centralized to a market economy yielded different responses from the former Eastern Bloc countries with economic performance directly affecting spatial composition of the cities. Post-socialist urban transformations across Central and Eastern Europe exhibit main, common features but always preserve singularities, characteristic of individual states. This paper, by using comparative methods and urban planning analyses, emphasizes differences in the degree of change for inner city areas under same transition conditions. Drawing on empirical evidence from Tirana, the paper stresses the fact that besides the obvious general change in the communism-inherited urban fabric, the degree of this change is predicated on the area's centrality and its pre-transitional urban pattern. It is pointed out that this spatial change follows a mutually interactive, parallel path with the socio-economic composition of the city. The peculiarity of Tirana stands in the fact that post-socialist socio-spatial transformations are better defined by Balkanization (implying individuality and hostility) rather than segregation (which implies clustering).     

Reflections on Retelling a Renaissance Murder

This mischievously artful essay plays out on several levels; think of them as storeys of an imaginary castle much like the real, solid, central Italian one it explores and expounds. On its own ground floor, the essay recounts a gruesome murder, a noble husband's midnight revenge upon his wife and upon her bastard lover, his own half–brother, in her castle chamber, in bed. In sex. Of course. The murder itself is pure Renaissance, quintessential Boccaccio or Bandello, but the aftermath, in fort and village, is more singular, more ethnographically delightful, as castle and village trace a ceremonious passage from frozen limbo to fluid grief and storytelling, finally set in motion by the arrival of the dead wife's brother. Meanwhile, one flight up, the essay retells my own investigation of the real castle's geometry, as I clambered through rooms, peered out windows, prowled the roof, and scanned blueprints seeking the places of the plotters' plots. In an expository attic, I lodge reflections on my teaching stratagems, as I led a first–year seminar into detection's crafts and exposition's ploys. All the while, on its rooftop, this essay dances among fantastical chimneys and turrets of high theory and literary practice, musing on the patent irony of artful artifice, which evokes both the irony and the pathos of scholars' cool histories about hot deeds and feelings. Art suggests we authors had best hide ourselves, unlike normal essayists, so as not to spoil the show. But, I posit, our self–effacement is so conspicuous that it proclaims our presence, as in fact it should, and, by so doing, trumpets the necessary tensions of our artifice and craft. Thus artfulness itself nicely both proclaims and celebrates the bittersweet frustrations of historians' and readers' quest for knowledge and, especially, for experience of a lost past.     

The Difficulties of Gender in France: Reflections on a Concept

This article examines the cultural and institutional resistance to the use of gender as a category in French historiography. In France, history, and, more specifically, women's history, has not really assimilated the openings offered by the problematics of the construction of differences, nor the logical consequences of the use of gender. Cultural differences are partly responsible for this, and the polysemic nature of the word genre may add to the confusion. With a few exceptions, women's history in France is reluctant to engage in a historical analysis which would take into account the founding role of hierarchy and of relations of power and difference which are central to gender.     

A fertile mother Russia: pronatalist propaganda in revolutionary Russia

The Soviet consultation with its attendant propaganda, visiting nurses, and vacation homes attempted to set science and the doctor as the ultimate authority in matters of child rearing in place of old authorities, deny the contention that motherhood was a natural ability of women, and take over the father's place in the home. Soviet health care policy bridges pre- and postrevolutionary thought, blurred the boundaries between public and private, and mirrored international natalist policies. However, the application of these policies conformed to Soviet concepts of citizens' duties and state imperatives.     

Geographical Analysis: Reflections of a Recovering Editor

This paper considers the past and future of the journal Geographical Analysis (GA), as well as the broader field of spatial analysis. From my experiences as a former editor of GA, I first identify three external trends that I feel will provide the backdrop for the future evolution of spatial analysis. These surround the rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science as disciplines. The paper also considers the structural changes that are occurring in the organization of science, and the trend toward democratization of spatial analysis and spatial data. I identify critical areas for methodological advances along with some opportunities for the rebranding of GA in the new era of data science.     

基于区域视角的中国工业旅游发展的思考

本文以全国工业旅游示范点为样本,对工业旅游点的区域分布特征及空间密度差异、工业旅游点所属行业的区域分布特征与空间密度差异进行初步分析,并探索这些特征与各区域工业发展特征的相关性,在此基础上,从制定区域工业旅游发展规划、选择工业旅游空间开发模式、构筑"无边界"的区域工业旅游合作方式等方面对各级区域范围的工业旅游发展进行探讨.