James Cowles Prichard and the Linguistic Foundations of Ethnology**

This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work on Celtic comparative philology made him not only one of the earliest British adopters of German comparative grammar, but a comparative philologist of European stature in his own right. More generally, linguistic evidence helped Prichard to keep his magnum opus, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, as logically ordered as possible, and therefore to turn ethnology into a discipline with analytical aspirations on a global scale.     

Monastic diet in Late Antique Egypt: zooarchaeological finds from Kom el-Nana and Tell el-Amarna,Middle Egypt

Abstract

Contemporary literature suggests that meat and fish were not common fare of monastic communities in Egypt during the Late Antique Period (AD 330 to 642). A sizeable assemblage of fishbone from the Monastery at Kom el-Nana has allowed, in conjunction with other zooarchaeological material, a reappraisal of this assumption. In addition, comparative data from the adjacent Pharaonic site at Tell el-Amarna have highlighted distinct cultural differences in the utilisation of the mammal, bird and especially the fish remains between the sites. The difference in size of the catfish Synodontis schall demonstrates that in contrast to the ancient Egyptians the monks were targeting very small fish, most likely for salting in ceramic vessels.     

Francesco Patrizi da Cherso and the anti-Aristotelian tradition: interpreting the Discussiones Peripateticae (1581)

ABSTRACT

This paper tries to present a different view of Francesco Patrizi’s anti-Aristotelian philology such as it transpires in his masterful monograph of 1581, the Discussiones Peripateticae, the influence of which was widely felt in seventeenth-century Europe. The book is the product of a learned, Hellenizing, and deeply inspired critique of a major doctrinal corpus from classical antiquity, and it is usually taken as a stepping stone in a self-righteous fight by “modern” philosophers to replace Aristotelianism as the dominant academic system. This essay is revisionist on the second of these accounts.     

Jens Bircherod’s In Timaeum exercitatio historico-philologico-philosophica (1682): Platonic cosmology in seventeenth-century Denmark

ABSTRACT

This article examines a previously unstudied dissertation on Plato’s Timaeus presumably authored by the Danish bishop Jens Bircherod (1658–1708). By means of a study of Bircherod’s sources and interpretative method, it assesses the place of his In Timaeum exercitatio historico-philologico-philosophica (1682) in the history of philology and philosophy, and in the context of seventeenth-century Lutheran pedagogy. It shows how Bircherod makes use of Plato’s dialogue against the background of early modern religious debates, and how his method largely follows the historicist approach that had begun to characterise the reception history of the Timaeus since the late sixteenth century. It argues that Bircherod wrote his historical-philological-philosophical exercise on the Timaeus to demonstrate the existence of divine providence and monotheistic tendencies in antiquity, and to harness Plato’s cosmological treatise to the cause of Christian apologetics.     

Crossing the Great Divides: Hans Aarsleff's Lessons for Nineteenth-Century Intellectual Historians

SUMMARY

This essay discusses Hans Aarsleff's long battle to demonstrate the importance of the French and British thinkers of the mid-eighteenth century to the development of modern linguistic thought. Contesting claims that German scholars were the first to develop historicised theories of language, Aarsleff, along with his Princeton colleagues Lionel Gossman and Anthony Grafton, helped pioneer longue durée studies of the history of philology and of historiography that cross national boundaries as well as the so-called Sattelzeit (stretching from about 1780 until 1820). Although the importance of his work was, for a long time, little appreciated by modern intellectual historians, this essay argues that it is time that we fully learned Aarsleff's lessons.     

Hiding in plain sight: the Coptic Museum in the Egyptian cultural landscape

Abstract

Museums have long been important tools of nation building and of helping nations deal with their increasing diversity. The Arab Spring of 2011 brought massive social upheaval and change to the Middle East. Egypt experienced particularly dramatic changes. Long-standing fissures around who qualifies as an Egyptian, which groups dominate in this secular or religious nation, and what it means to be an Egyptian today came to the fore. How did different groups fare within this negotiation and what role did cultural institutions play? We explore these struggles through the lens of the Coptic Museum and the experiences of the Coptic community. We argue that the Museum historici s es Copticism, or depicts it as an historical, bounded period in Egyptian history. It also embraces a historical narrative that sees Copts as the direct descendants of the Pharaohs, and therefore the original Egyptians, although some later converted to Islam. By so doing, the Museum positions the community centrally but unchallengingly within the ever-changing ‘master’ national narrative, whether in its more religious or secular form. By telling this particular story, the community saves itself and its materials, but it also constructs and perpetuates its paradoxically central, but marginal position in the nation.     

Water Mamas among the Makushi in Guyana

Abstract

This article examines folklore concerning water spirits among the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana. Makushi accounts of spirits called ‘water mamas’—twingram or Tuenkaron in Makushi—associate these beings with white people in both past and present. The case is presented here that this folklore reflects Makushi histories and experiences of European contact, colonialism in Dutch and British Guiana, and ongoing relations with Europeans and other outsiders. The themes of abduction, enticement, capricious wealth, and exotic ‘palaces’ found in stories of water mamas relate to these histories and experiences and inscribe them into the present landscape in Guyana. In addition to describing beliefs in water mamas and examining Makushi histories of interaction with Europeans, the article begins to explore the comparative context of this folklore in relation to other beliefs in water spirits across Amazonia and beyond.     

Mixed messages Archaeology and the media

Abstract

Over the past few years in the UK, archaeology has joined gardening, cookery and home make-overs as a motherlode for popular TV programming and feature articles. From a period of shifting uncomfortably between dull, if worthy, accounts of new finds with a limited non-academic significance, and the blatant sensationalisation of evidence, there is an increasing tendency to make more of any ‘mysterious’ data particularly that involving bodies, Egyptians, cosmic links, drugs and sex. It makes for good viewing figures, but some archaeologists have expressed concern that the stories are skewing the subject. This paper offers evidence from the front-lines of both journalism and archaeology – and suggests that archaeologists should pay more attention to how they, too, tell stories.

[The grave]contained an inhumed body wearing hobnailed footwear accompanied by a small New Forest beaker placed at the neck. The body had been covered by a board of planks nailed together which rested on a ledge left towards the bottom of the grave pit.' (Cunliffe, 1991: 8)

SUNSPOT! The 1,700 year old skeleton of an womanstill wearing leather boots – has been dug up byarchaeologists on a farm at Over Wallop, Hants.' (The Sun, August 1991).     

Opening up the Compendium: An Evaluation of International Comparative Planning Research Methodologies

It is two decades since the European Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems and Policies was conceived. Since its publication in 1997, the Compendium has become a widely cited reference in comparative planning literature.¹ It remains one of the few comprehensive reviews of spatial planning policy and practice across western Europe. The Compendium also represents one of the few studies to develop a typology for distinguishing between national planning systems. A number of comparative research studies on spatial planning have since built on the methodological foundations laid by the Compendium although its typology of national planning systems is not always used or interpreted as originally intended for a variety of reasons. In the context of extensive reform of planning approaches in Europe, the paper examines what can be learned about methodologies for international comparative research in planning based on the experience of the Compendium study and subsequent major comparative planning studies. We conclude that while broad typologies remain useful in explaining general trends, they may hide as much as they reveal. Future studies should widen the criteria used to build ideal types beyond formal characteristics in order to address planning in practice.     

Auerbach,Madness, and the East

ABSTRACT

Erich Auerbach’s lack of interest in engaging with non-Western contexts and literatures has often led critics to identify varying degrees of Eurocentric bias in his work. This perception of bias obfuscates the depths of Auerbach’s thought regarding the non-European, who does have a central place in Auerbach’s overall vision, not only of philology and Western literature, but also of humanism and historical progress generally. This articles accounts for the centrality of the non-European in Auerbach’s notion of realism.     

Archaeometric Clearinghouse XX

Abstract

This article is a review of three recent monographs concerned with the later Middle Cypriote and Late Cypriote periods on Cyprus (ca. 1700–1200 B.C.). Each study focuses narrowly on archaeological, philological, or historical problems associated specifically with Cyprus or more generally with interrelations among Aegean, Cypriote, and eastern Mediterranean cultures. Oblivious to common interests, the authors reflect their own particularistic concerns: philology, toponymy, stone anchors. The three publications reviewed serve both as a framework and as a vehicle for presentation of a balanced discussion of archaeological, historical, and theoretical problems associated with Middle/Late Bronze Age Cyprus and its role in eastern Mediterranean maritime trade. In conclusion, and as an alternative, a concise synthesis of cultural and socio-historical patterns on Cyprus ca. 1700–1200 B.C. is presented.

The three volumes under review are: L. Hellbing, Alasia Problems. StudMedArch 57 (P. Åström's Förlag: Göteborg 1979); D. E. McCaslin, Stone Anchors in Antiquity: Coastal Settlements and Maritime Trade Routes in the Eastern Mediterranean. StudMedArch 61 (P. Åström's Förlag: Göteborg 1980); J. Strange, Caphtor/Keftiu, A New Investigation. Acta Theologica Danica 14 (E. J. Brill: Leiden 1980).     

The scope and aims of human geography

Egypt and the Egyptians. By the Rev. J. O. Bevan, M.A., F S.A. London : George Allen and Sons, 1909. Price 5s. net.

With Mulai Hafid at Fez: Behind the Scenes in Morocco. By Lawrence Harris, F.R.G.S. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1909. Price 7s. 6d. net.

The Panama Canal and its Makers. By Vaughan Cornish, D.Sc., F.R.G.S. London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1909. Price 5s. net.

Labrador. By Wilfred T. Grenfell, C.M.G., M.D., and others. New York : The Macmillan Company, 1909. Price 10s. net.

Across Papua. By Colonel Kenneth Mackay. London : Witherby and Co., 1909. Price 7s. 6d. net.

Life and Labour in Australia. By E. Waltham. London : H. J. Drane, Limited, 1909. Price 3s. 6d.     

Recognizing and undisciplining feminist geography in the Caribbean

Abstract

The aim of this piece is to provide an overview of the state of feminist geography in the Anglo-Caribbean. In doing so via the metaphor of a gayap, we provide a précis of work that has been completed by feminist geographers across the region; offer an analysis of the historical, structural, and institutional obstacles of why it is not more robust; and propose that it can be seen across the region via an undisciplined and anti-orthodox standpoint. In addition, we review how Caribbean feminist scholarship and praxis contributes to feminist geographies through analyses of how people in the region, particularly women, are contesting, negotiating, disrupting, and responding to prevailing heteropatriarchal ideologies across differing social contexts and political arrangements within the Caribbean.     

Stanley Hauerwas,With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology

Abstract

The dualism between logos and praxis is still a root-cause of contemporary theological and religious discourse. Consequently, interreligious dialogue is divided as a field either related to comparative theology or philosophy or in pursuit of a common action for social justice. Instead of the traditional logos and the liberationist praxis, this paper will argue the Tao as an alternative paradigm that overcomes this dualism and is more germane to this age of globalization in the ecological crisis. It will propose three reconfigurations of interreligious dialogue; (1) from an "either-or" mode of thinking to a "bothand" way of life (T'ai-chi), (2) from an epistemology of knowing to a discernment of the way toward life in and through sociocosmic narratives of the exploited life (ch'i), and (3) from an ideologically motivated action based on a historico-anthropocentric subjectivity to a participatory embodiment in an intersubjective communion with the theanthropocosmic trajectory (Tao).     

Towards a Framework for Cooperation: Spatial Public Diplomacy on the Island of Ireland

Abstract

European spatial planning arguments advocate a blend of strategic thinking, coordination and related initiatives to promote and secure territorial cohesion. These ambitions embrace a set of normative agendas around economic, social and environmental convergence, competitiveness, policy coordination and efficient infrastructure provision across space. In practice, territorial management then involves devising interventions across inter-connecting scales of governance which comprise complex agency relations, differentiated places and defined communities. In transnational contexts, attempts to foster appropriate spatial governance arrangements and relations across sovereign borders necessitate re-crafting planning and development cultures and service delivery practices to advance territorial cohesion. Transnational working necessarily involves cooperation across an extended range of institutions, interests, influences and potential actors. This paper examines attempts to secure bi-lateral commitment to a joint planning framework for the two distinct territories on the island of Ireland. Specifically, it traces the formal and informal activities involved in the development of the 2013 Framework for Cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Informed by ideas of cross-border regionalism, it discusses the necessary spatial public diplomacy involved in the social reconstruction of strategic spatial planning to improve policy coordination and cross-border working.     

Upending Infrastructure: Tamarod,Resistance, and Agency after the January 25th Revolution in Egypt

In this paper, I review recent contributions to theories of resistance and agency in the context of anthropology of Egypt. Drawing on ethnography conducted in Egypt after the January 25th Revolution and then after the election of Mohamed Morsi as President, I analyse the mass mobilization movement in Egypt called Tamarod. Tamarod led the effort to have twenty-two million Egyptians sign a call for President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood to step down, and mobilized an estimated twelve million to come on the street for a mass demonstration on 30 June, after which Morsi was removed from power. Rather than critique the notion of Tamarod as resistance, as a dupe of the Military, or as the legitimate voice of the Egyptian people and their agency, I argue that Tamarod made visible, and rendered available for political goals, a social infrastructure of communicative channels in Egypt. More generally, the paper shows concretely, and as concomitant processes, how agency is embedded in infrastructure and how infrastructure is upended in uprisings.     

Sorcery and Sovereignty: Bodin’s Political Economy of the Occult

ABSTRACT

While much has been written on Six Books on the Commonwealth and his Demonmania, scholarship on Jean Bodin generally treats these as two separate areas of inquiry. Moreover, discussions of Bodin’s economic writing, especially his Reply to Malestroit are nearly universally lacking in these discussions. In this paper, I analyze all three of these works together, arguing that Bodin’s political economic perspectives on money, population, and the state form the ground for his interest in witches, sorcery, and the occult. By highlighting the historical context of rising mercantilism and the widespread peasant rebellions that contested it, I argue that Bodin’s maintains a unified and coherent philosophy across his political, economic, theological, and demonological works. This materialist reinterpretation of Bodin argues that his philosophy chiefly concerns a defense of mercantile state wealth accumulation, in which witch hunting plays a crucial role of population discipline and reproductive pronatalism.     

Cultural policy archetypes: the bathwater and the baby

ABSTRACT

Cultural policy archetypes have been fundamental to comparative cultural policy study and continue to be influential in both everyday and scholarly characterizations of national cultural policy systems. This paper explores the proposition that cultural policy archetypes reflect what people believe to be true about culture – their cultural ideologies. Cultural ideologies are integral to the formation of cultural policy and, thus, must be considered in any theory that hopes to measure the extent to which and explain why cultural policies differ. Cultural ideologies embody ideas about why culture is important and how it should be governed. Those ideologies spotlight certain administrative mechanisms, overemphasizing their role in systems that actually are deeply administratively hybrid. This makes archetypes poor tools for analyzing the mechanisms of cultural policy; however, because archetypes tell us about cultural ideologies in straightforward and powerful ways, it is essential that they continue to be a part of comparative cultural policy study.     

Bioturbation of Submerged Sites by the Asiatic Clam: A Case Study from Amistad Reservoir SW Texas

Abstract

Burrowing clams represent a poorly studied threat to shallowly buried and submerged archaeological sites across North America. Test excavations at a formerly submerged prehistoric terrace site in SW Texas unearthed burrowing clams (Asiatic clam Corbicula fluminea) in, under; and around features. A review of this clam's ecology, burrowing habits, geographical distribution, and presence in this and other archacological sites illustrates the potential for significant sediment disturbances.     

Planning Cultures and Histories: Influences on the Evolution of Planning Systems and Spatial Development Patterns

Abstract

This special issue addresses the influences of planning cultures and histories on the evolution of planning systems and spatial development. As well as providing an international comparative perspective on these issues, the collection of articles also engages in a search for new conceptual frameworks and alternative points of view to better understand and explain these differences. The articles focus on three main aspects: the change in planning systems and its impact on spatial development patterns; the interrelationship between planning cultures and histories from a path-dependency perspective; and the variations in physical development patterns resulting from different planning cultures and histories. Papers from different parts of the European continent present evidence at different scales to illustrate these aspects. In all cases, the specific combinations of political, ideological, social, economic and technological factors are important in determining urban and regional planning trajectories as well as spatial development patterns.