Portraits in the Background of “Nothingness” Sheikh Jabber Burnt House, an Object of Persian Gulf War

War is a common heritage of Middle East, the experience of war was changed to a dramatic propaganda in Iran while the southern neighbor of Iran experienced it in another way: oblivion. In such a context, both states attempt to change the facts of the war, one to a process of sanctification and one to the portraits of nothingness. We, as archaeologists, were accidentally encountered with a heritage of Persian Gulf War during a contemporary archaeology project. Our curiosity made us to take a look at Jabber house, a forgotten building, a domestic architecture destroyed by a racket during the war. What was recorded in our frames was actually an artistic work, out of its original context. Our subjectivity as archaeologists made us to think about the other objects fossilized in museums, they are out of their painful context and structure, they are only beautiful, the portraits in the background of nothingness, in a burnt gallery. Persian Gulf War is treated in Kuwait as a negative heritage, what is discussed in this article as the main theme??a negative heritage lost its original context and meaning: Sheikh Jabber house.     

‘Together apart’ or ‘apart together’? – middle-class parents’ choice of playgrounds and playground interactions in socially diverse neighbourhoods

Taking an everyday life setting, namely playgrounds, as a starting point, the paper foregrounds a nuanced analysis of the internal differentiations of the middle class’s positioning in regard to social diversity. In so doing, the paper contributes to debates on contemporary segregation research, (dis-)affiliation of the middle classes in inner-city diverse neighbourhoods and geographies of encounter. Empirical findings are based on an analysis of the narratives and daily spatial routines of middle-class parents in three inner-city neighbourhoods in a major German town. The findings contradict the conventional wisdom that middle-class parents would always seek a socially homogeneous environment in which to raise their children and show the presence of a middle-class fraction with a collective orientation. The analysis highlights the need for a closer look at playgrounds as a setting for cross-social interaction and, in terms of micro-level politics, a setting to promote diverse and inclusive neighbourhoods.     

Adapting Western Style Regional Planning to Russia: The University of Massachusetts‐Pskov Region Partnership

Reflecting on 5 years of experience in an ongoing partnership between the University of Massachusetts and the Pskov region in Russia, this paper analyses the process of introducing Western style planning in a provincial region in Russia at the post-Soviet era. After describing the region, the participants, and some changes undergoing in Russia, the key elements of the project, its accomplishments and some problems encountered are reported. The distinguishing characteristics of this project are its attempt at a unified approach that combines academic, consulting and public policy elements, and its success as a partnership in which Americans and Russians together attempt to find the best way to introduce Western style planning in a country moving from a centralized to a free market economy.     

Foucault, fields of governability, and the population–family–economy nexus in China

It was only in the early twentieth century that China discovered that it had a population, at least if a population is understood not as a simple number of people but instead in terms of such features as variable levels of health, birth and death rates, age, sex, dependency ratios, and so on—as an object with a distinct rationality and intrinsic dynamics that can be made the target of a specific kind of direct intervention. In 1900, such a developmentalist conception of the population simply did not exist in China; by the 1930s, it pervaded the entire social and political field from top to bottom. Through a reading of a series of foundational texts in population and family reformism in China, this paper argues that this birth of the Chinese population occurred as a result of a general transformation of practices of governing, one that necessarily also involved a reconceptualization of the family and a new logic of overall social rationalization; in short, the isolation of a population–family–economy nexus as a central field of modern governing. This process is captured by elaborating and extending Foucault's studies of the historical emergence of apparatuses (dispositifs) into a notion of fields of governability. Finally, this paper argues that the one-child policy, launched in the late 1970s, should be understood not in isolation from the imposition of the “family-responsibility system” in agriculture and market reforms in exactly that period, but as part—mutatis mutandis—of a return to a form of governing that was developed in the first half of the twentieth century.     

Reconnecting with darkness: gloomy landscapes,lightless places

This paper investigates the effects and affects of darkness, a condition that is progressively becoming less familiar for those of us in the over-illuminated West. In countering the prevailing cultural understanding that darkness is a negative condition, I draw attention to other historical and cultural ways of positively valuing darkness. Subsequently, in drawing on two sites, a gloomy landscape at a dark sky park in South Scotland, and a tourist attraction in which a simulation of New York is experienced in a completely dark environment, I explore the multivalent qualities of darkness. In foregrounding the becoming of sensory experience in gloomy space, I highlight the mobilisation of alternative modes of visual perception in as well as the emergence of non-visual apprehensions, and suggest that the potentialities of darkness might foster progressive forms of conviviality, communication and imagination.     

Verbs,Voyeurism, and the Stalker Narrative in Cortázar's "Continuidad de los parques"

Julio Cortázar's "Continuidad de los parques" can be described as a stalker narrative in two different senses. Not only is it a story about a stalker with murderous intentions, it is also a story in which the reader is turned into a stalker.

Modalization in verbs, or the use of the subjunctive and qualifiers, has been discussed by critics such as Tzvetan Todorov as a characteristic of the fantastic in literature. What has not been studied is the alternating use of aspect in the past, here between the verb tenses the preterite and the imperfect, as a technique that aids in the subtle creation of the reader as a stalker. Cortázar uses these two verb tenses to form and shape the narrative, moving it in the desired direction and, in the process, aiding in his creation of the image of the stalker. Both the careful manipulation of the preterite and the imperfect and the careful interplay between the two are the vehicle of invasion, an invasion perpetrated by the stalker, in which the reader is made complicit.     

幕末与明治时期日本人的上海认识——从高杉晋作的《游清五录》到远山景直的《上海》

对于幕末与明治时期的日本人而言,上海首先是中国的上海;同时上海也是世界、尤其是西洋的上海,租界区域出现了与此前的中国本土迥然相异的新的样态;再次是与日本紧密相关的上海,19世纪末期以后,在虹口一带形成了以日本居留民为主体的日本人社会。这样一个多元组合、多重叠加、既相对分离又互相交融、同时其经济政治文化的影响力日益凸显的都市,对于正在走向东亚乃至世界舞台的近代日本而言,无疑是一个巨大的存在,因此,这一时期日本人对于上海的认识,首先是对于以上海为媒介的中国的认识,其次是对于与上海相关的世界的认识,同时也是对于通过上海所体现出来的中日关系的认识因此,近代上海对于这一时期的日本人,实际上具有三层意义：观察中国的现场;透视世界的窗口;反观日本本身的泰照系,     

Account of a Roman Sepulchre at Geldestone,Norfolk

Rescue excavation between 1988 and 1990 in advance of river erosion examined a substantial part of the small medieval rural hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge and later post-medieval farm. Established in the latter half of the twelfth century for the infirm, including lepers, the hospital layout consisted of a detached stone chapel adjacent to the river crossing, with a timber hall to the west. This hall was destroyed by fire, and a sequence of timber buildings were then constructed in adjacent areas. By the fifteenth century these structures also included a stone building, possibly a refectory. The first small chapel was replaced in the thirteenth century by a larger structure, which went through a period of expansion and then subsequent contraction by the fifteenth century. Only in the fourteenth century were a hall, probably a guesthouse or the master's lodgings, and dovecote built adjacent to the chapel. The cemetery to the south of the chapel was partially examined. The site appears to have been a largely economically self-sufficient unit with an attached farm. The hospital was abandoned during the latter half of the fifteenth century, but the site and some of the buildings were subsequently reoccupied as a farm from the mid-seventeenth century. The farmhouse underwent conversion from a longhouse to a house of hearth-passage plan in the early eighteenth century. The former chapel was reused as a byre and additional stables constructed. The farm was moved to its present location to the south in the mid-eighteenth century and the former hospital site finally abandoned.     

Context for a carnyx: excavation of a long-lived ritual site at Leitchestown,Deskford, Moray,north-east Scotland

Excavations at the findspot of the Deskford carnyx, a major piece of Iron Age decorated metalwork found in a bog in the early nineteenth century, revealed a special location with a long history. Early Neolithic activity on the adjacent ridge consisted of massive postholes and pits, suggesting a ceremonial site. An Early Bronze Age cremation became the focus for a feasting event in the Middle Bronze Age. Around this time, peat began to form in the valley, with vessels of pot and wood smashed and deposited there; these activities on ridge and bog may be connected. Activity in the bog intensified in the later Iron Age, when offerings included quartz pebbles, the dismantled carnyx head, and two unusual animal bone deposits. The ridge was cut off at this period by a complex enclosure system. This Iron Age activity is interpreted as communal rituals at a time of increasing social tension. The site’s significance in this period may stem from its unusual landscape character, with flowing water to one side and a bog to the other. The area saw occasional activity in the Early Medieval period, but its significance had waned.     

The unbearable weight of music: The intermezzo

The affordances of musical experience, its capacity to become our mode of being-in-the-world, especially in ritual situations, can be turned against us into an aversive sonic attack that bends the social arc into a liminality without end, a time in between that goes nowhere. And when this happens, we have entered the realm of music torture, a relatively recent innovation in that dark art that was ushered into the world in full force at the beginning of the 21st century. Music became part of a regime of no-touch torture inflicted upon detainees in the ‘global war on terror’, itself a war without end. In this article, the author argues for an ontomusicology that understands music as ritual and ritual as music – in this case, ritual that inverts Victor Turner’s notion of communitas, with all of its attendant modes of being-with, into a solitary mode of existence with no hope of escape, a musical ritual torture, a perpetual intermezzo.     

Land as a Transactional Asset: Moral Economy and Market Logic in Contested Land Acquisition in India

The state seizure of land from farmers for development projects has triggered numerous protests in India. How far can these protests be characterized as a Polanyian countermovement to reclaim rights on land, resisting the encroachment of neoliberal market forces on society? Based on field research conducted in 2013–17 in two villages in prosperous western Uttar Pradesh that were host to a series of dramatic and violent protests in 2011, this article argues that rather than reclaiming land from commodification, the farmers were using the land as a market instrument, a transactional asset, in negotiating for a better deal within a dominant market-driven template. The author suggests that valuing land as a transactional asset to be deployed in the market symbolizes a new moral economy in this region, prompted by increasing risk in farming, improved economic standing and aspirations, and a lack of faith in the neoliberalizing state and political institutions.     

J.S. Marais,a great South African historian: a personal re-assessment

This article is a personal assessment aimed to establish J.S. Marais’s legacy. It is written in the light of the insights I gained as I interacted with him as an undergraduate and honours student (starting in 1949), as a research student, and finally as a departmental colleague over a period of ten years or so. It begins with my experience of his teaching. He was a poor lecturer, especially to large classes. This improved with smaller classes. He came into his own in the honours year. He was a specialist in South African history as a case study in the colonial era, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Marais was excellent as a supervisor of postgraduate research from honours to doctoral level, empathetic and patient in handling his students’ needs. A further feature of his honours teaching was his development of a course in historical method and philosophy of history. Next, the article covers Marais’s preparation for an academic career, first at UCT and then at Oxford, leading in both cases to BA and honours degrees. Then his studies culminated in his doctoral thesis on the colonisation of New Zealand. This enabled him by 1927 to become a lecturer at UCT, a post he held until he moved to Wits as a senior lecturer in 1937. Marais’s high reputation rested mainly on his books. The article continues with an assessment of each of these, including their reception by his colleagues. The article ends with an appraisal of Marais’s qualities. Poor as an administrator, he was outstanding as a head of department at the intellectual level and also as a leader of the joint campaign of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and UCT against the imposition of apartheid on the universities.     

SOCIAL CHANGE AND METALWORKING IN THE EARLY IRON AGE: AN APPROACH FROM NORTH-WEST IBERIA

This paper analyses social transformations in the Early Iron Age based on a holistic and longue durée approach applied to the first fortified habitats in the Iberian north-west. Through a comprehensive review of two paradigmatic settlements of the EIA in the province of A Coruña (Galicia, north-west Iberia), Punta de Muros and A Graña, a comparison is drawn between the social and territorial dynamics of this period by means of an in-depth analysis of the main characteristics of both settlements. Accordingly, a greater level of social complexity during the phases of occupation of the settlement of Punta de Muros has been identified, in contrast to the resistance to change observed in A Graña. Based on these conclusions, the role of metalworking and its symbolic value in fostering and legitimizing these social and territorial transformations and in the development of Iron Age communities are analysed.     

山西大同南郊区田村北魏墓发掘简报

墓葬位于大同市南郑区水泊寺乡田村村北,为长斜坡墓道砖构单室墓,由墓道、甬道、墓室组成。墓室平面呈方形,墓室北侧置石棺床,以石板搭成床框与床榻,石板问有榫卯结构相连,棺床立面饰浮雕纹样。棺床上置石灰枕。出土随葬器物以陶质类器物为主,包括陶俑和生活用器模型,多施有红彩。通过墓葬形制及出土器物的类比,确定墓葬的时代应为北魏太和年间。     

The generation and propagation of atmospheric gravity waves observed during the Worldwide Atmospheric Gravity-wave Study (WAGS)

During the Worldwide Atmospheric Gravity-wave Study (WAGS) in October 1985, the EISCAT incoherent scatter radar was used to observe the generation of atmospheric gravity waves in the auroral zone in conjunction with a network of magnetometers and riometers. At the same time a chain of five ionosondes, an HF-Doppler system, a meteor radar and a radio telescope array were used to monitor any waves propagating southwards over the U.K.The EISCAT measurements indicated that in the evening sector both Joule heating and Lorentz forcing were sufficiently strong to generate waves, and both frequently showed an intrinsic periodicity caused by periodic variation in the magnetospheric electric field.Two occasions have been examined in detail where the onset of a source with intrinsic periodicity was followed by a propagating wave of the same period which was detected about an hour later, travelling southwards at speeds of over 300 m s⁻¹, by the ionosondes and the HF-Doppler radar. In both cases the delay in arrival was consistent with the observed velocity, which suggests a direct relationship between a source in the auroral zone and a wave observed at mid-latitude.     

Testaments of two cities: A comparative analysis of the wills of medieval Genoa and Douai

A comparison of testamentary practice in medieval Genoa with that in Douai, France, reveals how differing social orientations resulted in profoundly contrasting social practices. Genoese society was chiefly privately orientated, and patrimony in Genoa was correspondingly transmitted along a vertical dimension. The public nature of the process in Douai, meanwhile, was correlated with a wide distribution of legacies on a horizontal axis. Women in Douai, therefore, enjoyed a scope of action not experienced by their Genoese counterparts. These circumstances, in turn, require a re‐evaluation of the so‐called ‘Frauenfrage‘ — the supposed problem of too many unmarried women.     

Symbol and power: the Dalai Lama as a charismatic leader

This article originated in a brief but inspiring analysis by Margaret Nowak. Nowak used Sherry Ortner's concept of ‘summarising symbol’ to imply that, much the same way as the American flag was the epitome of the United States to each and every American, the Dalai Lama encompasses everything Tibetan to the Tibetan people. What does this comparison say about the Dalai Lama? I examine the relationship between symbol, power and charisma with Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama, as a case in point. With exile, there has been a shift in the symbolic importance of the Dalai Lama, both as a man and as an institution, from a symbol of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism to a symbol of the Tibetan cause and, more generally, to a symbol of Buddhism in the world. These changes have given Tenzin Gyatso a new authority in the Tibetan community: he is now the unique and unquestioned leader of the Tibetan cause in the world. I discuss the problems that occur when a symbol is also a man and a leader, as well as the solutions proposed, at a moment when the Tibetan community in exile is experiencing democratisation.     

Locating widows in mid-nineteenth century Pictou County,Nova Scotia

This article takes up the challenge of how to begin to include women in the historical geography of the Maritimes. It makes an intervention through a case study of the place of widows in one mid-19th century county in Nova Scotia. For women, widowhood was a life-phase of conflicting emotions, replete with the contradiction that came from the loss of a patriarch. While it offered potential freedom, widowhood could also signal uncertainty, and often, dependence. The cultural identity and economic and legal treatment of widows represented a strongly patriarchal age in which the doctrines of a ‘cult of domesticity’ and an ideology of ‘separate spheres’ influenced the life-course of widows. Spatial change often accompanied widowhood, with widows moving into a room in their old house, or to a new location.