The Indus Valley Tradition of Pakistan and western India

Over the last several decades new sets of information have provided a more detailed understanding of the rise and character of the Indus Civilization as well as its decline and decentralization. This article begins with a summary of the major historical developments in the archaeology of the Indus Valley Tradition and a definition of terms found in the literature. A general discussion of the environmental setting and certain preconditions for the rise of urban and state-level society is followed by a summary of the major aspects of the Harappan Phase of the Indus Valley Tradition. This summary includes discussions of settlement patterns, subsistence, architecture, trade and exchange, specialized crafts, language, religion, and social organization. The Localization Era or decentralization of the urban centers is also addressed.     

Atomic structures: the architecture of nuclear nationalism in India and Pakistan

Abstract

A half-century after their completion, India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) stand out as unchallenged architectural advertisements for ‘nuclear nationalism’. Elsewhere, Atoms for Peace reactors made no pretence to architectural refinement. In the right hands, however, ‘Cold War Modern’ could express the hard power of the nuclear age. For India and Pakistan, these nuclear laboratory complexes became the public faces of the peaceful atom that held out the promise, and masked the peril, of the atomic age at home and abroad, and deliberately deflected attention away from clandestine nuclear weapons programmes. BARC and PINSTECH, envisioned as cornerstones for self-confident and self-reliant programmes of nuclear physics, embodied the paradox of postcolonial science, necessarily borrowing from the West but determined to break the cycle of dependency, in defiance of Western expectations.     

早期创造社与胡适的翻译论争

早期创造社在<新青年>主导的新文化运动遭多方批评的氛围中挑战国内新文坛,双方人脉及日本文学的影响不同当为主因.这无疑体现在各自创作手法和翻译方法的差异上.在此背景下,早期创造社与胡适发生一场翻译论争.从翻译技术层面来讲,此论争主要在郁达夫文重点所指"直译"、"意译"孰真及译文版本等几个方面展开;但就实质而言,此论争涉及双方在派分、主张及争胜等多方面的观念歧异与人事纠葛.不过,撇开意气,从创造新文学事业方面看,双方实有合作的必要.遗憾的是,双方虽然和好,但由于性格差异,郁达夫与郭沫若最终走上了与以胡适为中心的主流学界关系亲疏不同的合离之路.     

Fashionability: Abraham Moon and the Creation of British Cloth for the Global Market

Abstract

An early nineteenth-century pink silk crepe gown adorned with thousands of faux pearls was one of the highlights of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Autumn 2010 exhibit Fashioning Fashion. During conservation treatment, the faux pearls were examined in detail in order to inform conservation decision-making and a curious manufacturing method was found, namely a practice developed in the seventeenth century by a French rosary maker: delicate and hollow glass beads were filled with a slurry of material derived from fish scales and gelatin or sturgeon glue. This information supported treatment decisions for the piece and is shared here to disseminate information on the history and manufacture of faux pearls and to inform collections care approaches for costume decorated with these extraordinary and fragile beads. This approach demonstrates how detailed examination of an object can act as the catalyst for exploring the history of manufacturing technology as well as deepening understanding of dress history.     

论甘地与印度的分裂

甘地为印度的民族独立作出了独特的贡献,但他和穆斯林联盟及国大党大多数主要领导人一样,对于印度的分裂也应该负有一定程度的责任,因为他对于加速印度分裂的因素--真纳由民族主义者转变为种族主义者、穆盟势力的增强成长起了很大作用,在关键时刻没有利用自己在印度国民中的威望和影响尽可能避免分裂局面的出现.     

Securing the heights: The vertical dimension of the Siachen conflict between India and Pakistan in the Eastern Karakoram

The Siachen conflict between India and Pakistan is often referred to as the coldest war, or, the endless war atop the roof of the world. The high altitude and extreme climate create a hostile environment that has caused by far the most casualties and imposed tremendous costs on both sides. This environmental setting is usually only cited to underline the absurdity of this more than 30 year old conflict. We, however, argue that rather than being a constraint upon the conflict, the terrain itself is central to the genesis and continuation of the conflict. Further, the vertical dimension is the focus of contestation and the site where mountaineering practices, cartographic imagination and military logic intersect. The inaccessibility imposed by the terrain also implies that far from being a frozen conflict there is a temporal dynamism, as improvements in technology and logistics alter the possibility of maintaining the status quo.     

Review Article:Rediscovering India under the British

O.P. KEJARIWAL. The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past 1784–1838. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. xiv, 293. $24.95 (US);

TAPAN RAYCHAUDHUM. Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. xviii, 369. $39.95 (US);

JOAN G. ROLAND. Jews in British India: Identity in a Colonial Era. Hanover, N.H. and London: University Press of New England, 1989. Pp. xiii, 355. $40.00 (US);

NANCY GARDNER CASSELS. Religion and Pilgrim Tax under the Company Raj. Riverdale, Md.: The Riverdale Company, 1988. Pp. xiii, 184. $34.00 (US);

APARNA MUKHERJEE. British Colonial Policy in Burma: An Aspect of Colonialism in South-East Asia 1840–1885. Riverdale, Md.: The Riverdale Company, 1988. Pp. x, 559. $34.00 (US).     

Problematizing Labour's Agency: Rescaling Collective Bargaining in British Columbia Pulp and Paper Mills

Abstract: This paper focuses on the contradictory nature and sometimes unintended consequences of workers’ efforts to defend particular communities against the ravages of capital restructuring. In the past decade, pattern collective bargaining in the highly unionized British Columbia pulp and paper industry has faced enormous strains due to intense industry restructuring. Our analysis focuses on the repercussions of actions taken by union locals in two British Columbia towns—Port Alice and Port Alberni—to try to secure the survival of their pulp and paper mills and, even in the case of Port Alice, the continued existence of the community. Our analysis resonates with recent debates surrounding worker agency as well as writing in the 1980s which addressed the often contradictory and problematic nature of workers’ struggles to “defend place”; writing largely neglected in more recent work in labour geography.