Ancient Athens: democracy and empire1

This paper looks at the principal features of the Athenian democracy in the fifth century BC and of the Delian League, the fifth-century alliance which became an Athenian empire, and asks how it was that at the same time the Athenians built up an unprecedented degree of democracy in their internal affairs and an unprecedented degree of rule over other Greek states.     

Bodymaps: Sexing Space and Zoning Gender in Ancient Athens

In classical Athenian discourse, there are many examples that can usefully be summarised in terms of an opposition between the private, domestic, interior space of women and the public, civic, exterior space of men. Recently there have been a number of attempts to critique this discourse on several grounds. Some of these arguments are persuasive, but the net effect has been to allow the discourse itself to be neglected as a banal cliché or even as the product of a Liars School of Elite Male Authors. In this paper, I wish to re‐examine the discourse, hoping to demonstrate that, far from being banal, it is complex, resonant and consequential, and worthy of study in itself. The first part examines the gender terms andrōn/gynaikōnitis to refer to parts of houses and the evidence for men's and women's bodies as differently coloured by the spaces in which they spend time. The second part examines space and sexuality, the peculiar ‘spatial subjectivity’ linked to experiences of fear and desire. The third part suggests ways in which the discourse connects with other elements of the dispositif: images, architecture, urban topography and habitual practices.     

The History of the Jehovah's Witnesses: An Appraisal of Recent Scholarship

Zoe Knox's analysis of the English‐language historiography of the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was published in this journal in 2011. It assessed four types of historical writing on the organisation: the Watch Tower Society's own publications; material produced by two categories of detractors, namely ex‐Witnesses and Christians writing from other denominational perspectives; and academic studies. There are vast quantities of all but the last of these. Her article thus concluded with a call for scholars to take this religious community more seriously as an historical subject, echoing an appeal made by Rodney Stark and Laurence Iannaccone to social scientists in 1997. This review essay is intended to supplement Knox's historiographical analysis by appraising recent publications on the history of the Jehovah's Witnesses. As we shall see, although scholarship on this topic remains sparse, particularly given the organisation's visibility, since 2011 several important books have appeared alongside others which make contributions to the limited sum of our knowledge of the origins and emergence of the organisation and the way it has operated in different historical contexts. In short, the field requires reappraisal in light of these publications.     

Darwin on stage: evolutionary theory in the theatre

Abstract

The chirality of living matter, and of its chemical processes, is reviewed. It is argued that the development of chiral self-replicating systems from nonliving maner is perfectly possible from precursors tbat are available only in racemic form, and that external chiral influences are unnecessary for this development. Minimal conditions for the nonbiotic development of a self-replicating molecular species are discussed, and it is proposed that this development could occur in a small self-contained aqueous system exposed to sunlight and incorporating a limited supply of simple organic precursor molecules, provided that polyphosphates are continuously being synthesised photochemically and that a catalyst for phosphate transfer is continuously available. The importance of hydrolysis, at a rate comparable to synthesis, is emphasised.     

述论古典时期雅典城市的公共空间

本文主要论述古典时期雅典城市依托于公共建筑所形成的三类公共空间,即宗教性公共空间、市政性公共空间和文体性公共空间.雅典城市公共空间为城邦公有,向公众开放,是真正意义上的公有和公用空间,是城邦公共活动的中心.公共空间的形成和发展是希腊古典文化繁荣的重要基石.     

公民宗教与城邦政权——雅典城邦的宗教管理

本文通过对雅典城邦中神务人员与宗教律法的梳理,通过对雅典城邦所表现出来的所谓宗教自由与压抑的讨论发现,雅典城邦政权对宗教的管理是城邦政务的一个组成部分,而宗教管理中所体现出来的共同体意识表明了城邦政权对公民宗教的尊重、对大众利益的服从。城邦政权与宗教之间是一种相互影响、彼此支撑的关系。