Just a Little Bend on the S-Curve: The Rise and Fall of Linguistic Change in Post-Classical Biblical Hebrew

The paper deals with the text-critical challenge and the variationist analysis in application to the historical linguistics of Biblical Hebrew, coming out in recent research, particularly in Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew by Robert Rezetko and Ian Young (2014). Different textual transmissions have become part of the linguistic corpus and an indispensable part of historical-linguistic research. Variationist analysis corroborates that some explicit innovative processes in the standard literary idiom of the Persian period were reversed by the conservative tendency, distinctive in the Qumran corpus, so that it will be more accurate to speak about two different stages in Late Biblical Hebrew development: Persian period and Late Hellenistic—early Roman periods.     

Modernization,colonialism, and the new anthropology of sport

Abstract

Anthropologists Niko Besnier, Susan Brownell, and Thomas Carter have recently contributed a theoretically- and empirically-updated account of sport anthropology, the burgeoning, heterogenous, productive field dedicated to the myriad forms of sport and physical activity in human societies. This essay dialogically relates their contribution with previous conceptions of sport anthropology to better understand the interconnections between global and local contexts of physical culture and the relations between anthropological inquiry and important issues like social power, biopolitics, and colonialism. The essay specifically highlights the authors’ contextualization of assumptions of modernization and categorizations of “primitive” and “pre-modern” sport, arguing that a postcolonial approach to sport anthropology results in a more inclusive, nuanced framework for studying the anthropological dimensions of physical culture.     

Understanding urban anthropology: A review of anthropology of the city

Edwin Eames and Judith Granich Goode, eds. Anthropology of the City. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1977. 344 pp. Bibliography, indexes. $8.95.     

Visual anthropology and sensory ethnography in contemporary Sardinia: a film of a different kind

Lorenzo Valerio (1810–1865), though a key figure in Piedmontese and Italian politics, a newspaper editor of note and a leading light of both the Associazione Agraria and the Associazione Italo-Slava, has not been accorded in recent years the attention he merits. With the publication, however, of the first four volumes of his correspondence,? ?Lorenzo Valerio, Carteggio (1825–1865), four volumes, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Turin 1991–2003, assembled by Luigi Firpo, Guido Quazza and Franco Venturi, with vol. 1 (1825–1841) edited by Luigi Firpo and Adriano Viarengo, and vol. II (1842–1847), vol. III (1848) and vol. IV (1849) edited by Adriano Viarengo. it is now possible to map more precisely Valerio's activities and influence, in Risorgimento Italy and far beyond it. These letters provide their principal editor, Adriano Viarengo, with the opportunity to review a number of crucial historiographical questions in Risorgimento scholarship, among them, the nature of moderate hegemony, the political vision of the Sinistra subalpina, and the complex relations between Italian patriots and Slav Romantic nationalists active within the Austrian Empire. This article is designed both to portray Valerio and his world, and to reflect upon the contribution Viarengo has made, whether in his introductions to the correspondence or in his ancillary essays, to the study of the Risorgimento.

‘…?a good enough sort, but neither fish nor fowl?…’

Giuseppe Mazzini [Letter, 6 March 1851, to his mother]     

Introduction: Anthropology,Collecting and Colonial Governmentalities

This special issue contributes to an emerging literature on the materialities of colonial government by considering the changing relations between practices of data collecting, styles of anthropological knowing and modes of governing which target the conduct of colonial and metropolitan populations. Drawing on comparative studies from Australia; the Australian administered territory of Papua; France; French Indo-China; New Zealand; North America and the UK; the papers consider the implications of different forms of knowledge associated with practices of collecting—anthropology, archaeology, folklore studies, demography—in apparatuses of rule in various late nineteenth and early twentieth-century contexts. This introduction outlines the rationale for the volume and elaborates the concept of “anthropological assemblage” which helps focus the authors' explorations of the socio-technical agencements which connected museum, field, metropolis and colony during this period. In doing so, it points towards a series of broader themes—the relationship between pastoral power and ethnographic expertise; the Antipodean career of the Americanist culture concept; and the role of colonial centres of calculation in the circulation of knowledge, practices of collecting and regimes of governing—which suggest productive future lines of inquiry for “practical histories” of anthropology.     

Quantitative basin modeling: present state and future developments towards predictability

A critique review of the state of quantitative basin modeling is presented. Over the last 15 years, a number of models are proposed to advance our understanding of basin evolution. However, as of present, most basin models are two dimensional (2‐D) and subject to significant simplifications such as depth‐ or effective stress‐dependent porosity, no stress calculations, isotropic fracture permeability, etc. In this paper, promising areas for future development are identified. The use of extensive data sets to calibrate basin models requires a comprehensive reaction, transport, mechanical (RTM) model in order to generate the synthetic response. An automated approach to integrate comprehensive basin modeling and seismic, well‐log and other type of data is suggested. The approach takes advantage of comprehensive RTM basin modeling to complete an algorithm based on information theory that places basin modeling on a rigorous foundation. Incompleteness in a model can self‐consistently be compensated for by an increase in the amount of observed data used. The method can be used to calibrate the transport, mechanical, or other laws underlying the model. As the procedure is fully automated, the predictions can be continuously updated as new observed data become available. Finally, the procedure makes it possible to augment the model itself as new processes are added in a way that is dictated by the available data. In summary, the automated data/model integration places basin simulation in a novel context of informatics that allows for data to be used to minimize and assess risk in the prediction of reservoir location and characteristics.     

Spectacles of Ethnographic and Historical Imaginations: Kamatapur Movement and the Rajbanshi Quest to Rediscover their Past and Selves

India since independence has experienced a series of movements based on “identity politics” demanding separate states and reorganization of its internal state boundaries. Much of the contemporary discussions find uneven development and unequal access to power accelerated by regionalism and linguistic fanatism responsible for these movements. Through the study of social movements of Koch–Rajbanshi people in North Bengal, the paper argues that these movements display a timeless quest and aspirations of people that are rooted in their deep sense of history. People's unique sense of history or “historical imaginations” are contextualized within the secular language of socio-economic injustices and socio-cultural differences celebrated in a spectacular manner through these movements marked by re-interpretation, re-writing of the past, real yet imagined, time bound yet eternal. Today the Koch–Rajbanshi people are creating a “new past” and an identity which is a blend of colonial ethnography on one hand and Rajbanshi mythographies on the other. The paper also questions the dichotomy that apparently exists between the past and the present.     

Terms in place and time: A case study from the Anthropological Index Online*

An analysis of terms, and keywords that have appeared over the last 50 years in the Anthropological Index (now AIO) challenges anthropology's purported universal coverage of regions and topics. Anthropological article production published in specialized periodicals leaves many areas uncovered, some topics marginalized, or absent. The article takes the presence or absence of keywords in articles in anthropological literature from all world regions to ask what may have generated these gaps. We argue that keyword use can reveal the role that geographical positioning, languages spoken, and national histories may have had in anthropological production. Shamanism and cognate concepts such as animism and spirit possession are taken to guide an analysis of the anthropological production in different languages through the use of keywords that appear in the coverage of AIO. The research demonstrates how far keywords use is shaped by contingent adjustments to predicaments and theoretical concerns with complex historical roots.     

Virtual anthropology and forensic arts: the facial reconstruction of Ferrante Gonzaga

In the last few years virtual anthropology has been used to solve different problems that could not be properly addressed using a traditional anthropological approach. Mainly when dealing with mummies or embalmed bodies, the virtual approach is the only solution to carry out a detailed analysis of the skeleton without jeopardizing the integrity of the physical remains.     

Understanding criminal mobility: the case of the Neapolitan Camorra

Italian mafias are now present and active abroad, and many national legal economies are undermined by their activities. The American government responded to this threat in 2011 by introducing an ‘executive order’ that blacklisted the Camorra's (the Neapolitan mafia) activities in the United States. Recently, there has been a growing debate on criminal mobility and, in particular, why, when and how Italian mafiosi move out of their territory of origin and expand into new foreign territories. Recent literature suggests that Italian mafias change their behaviour across territories and will succeed in ‘transplanting’ when there are emerging new markets. This article examines some brief case studies of camorristi in Europe to discuss these concepts of mafia mobility; and it concludes by suggesting that there is no ‘one size fits all’ analysis and that more attention should be paid to the interdependence of territories.     

Introduction to the special issue on numerical modeling of hydrothermal fluids

This special issue on the numerical modeling of hydrothermal fluids is an outgrowth of a thematic session convened at the 2007 Geological Society of America meeting in Denver. Here we briefly review some of the previous research into numerical modeling of hydrothermal fluids and summarize the contributions in this special issue. We find that despite decades of progress, there is still great untapped potential for providing insights into the behavior of hydrothermal fluids by numerical modeling.     

Government and (non)event: the promise of control

Control rooms routinely deal with happenings that might become events. They attempt to hide events and their possibility from the users of infrastructure by undertaking various forms of action to stop events coming to pass. Based on ethnographic research in a motorway control room, in this paper we describe how events are grasped and handled and subject to the effect of control. Focusing on how the promise of control is provisionally achieved through detection–diagnosis–response work, we show how control room action is situated on the ambiguous line between event and non- or quasi-event and involves making happenings that might be or might become events into their opposite: non-events, or routine occurrences. We use the case of the work of control rooms in dialogue with Michel Foucault on the relation between ‘government and event’ and Lauren Berlant on ‘modes of eventfulness’ to challenge the emphasis on the event as dramatic transformation in some current research on securing life and some geographical work on events. Paying close attention to what control rooms do shows the multiplicity of relations between government and (non)event, and invites us to expand the ‘modes of eventfulness’ that social and cultural geographers learn to sense and disclose.     

Medical anthropology and the analysis of health policy

Donahue, John. The Nicaraguan Revolution in Health. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin and Garvey, 1986. xi + 156 pp. including illustrations, references, and index. $27.95 cloth.

Justice, Judith. Culture and Health Development in Nepal. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. vi + 202 pp. including appendices, notes to pages, bibliography, and index. $29.95 cloth.

Low, Setha. Culture, Politics, and Medicine in Costa Rica. Bedford Hills, New York: Redgrave, 1985. vii + 131 pp. including appendix, references, and index.     

Nexus thinking and the geographies of children,youth and families: towards an integrated research agenda

ABSTRACT

This paper argues for and demonstrates the value of integrating nexus thinking - a conceptual and policy framework for the multiple interdependencies between resources, most commonly food, water and energy – into the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families (GCYF). Through discussion of the two areas’ current limitations, a review of existing GCYF work on food, water, energy and materiality, and secondary auto-analysis of data generated on families’ situated environmental concerns in India and the UK, the paper identifies three key contributions of an integrated nexus thinking-GCYF research agenda. Firstly, nexus thinking can advance understandings of how children and young people negotiate multi-scalar social, political, economic and ecological processes; secondly, an integrated agenda can ‘embody’ nexus thinking by situating children and families in the nexus of interconnections; thirdly, nexus thinking offers a policy-relevant frame through which GCYF can engage questions of intergenerational justice with questions of resource sustainability.     

The re-emergence of wardship: Aboriginal Australians and the promise of citizenship

In this paper, I suggest that the category of ‘ward,’ a designation used for Aboriginal Australians in the 1950s and 1960s, has re-emerged in contemporary Northern Territory (NT) life. Wardship represents an in-between status, neither citizens nor non-citizens, but rather an anticipatory citizenship formation constructed by the Australian state. The ward is a not-yet citizen, and the deeds, acts, and discourses that define the ward's capacities to act as a political subject can maintain their anticipatory nature even as people ‘achieve’ formal citizenship. Wardship can be layered on top of citizen and non-citizen status alike. Rather than accounting for the grey areas between ‘citizen’ and ‘non-citizen,’ therefore, wards exist beyond this theoretical continuum, demanding a more nuanced accounting of political subjectivities and people's relationships to the state.I trace the emergence of the category ‘ward’ in the 1950s and 1960s in Australia and its re-emergence for Aboriginal Australians impacted by the 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response legislation. The promise of citizenship offered by the status of ‘ward’ is built upon expectations about family life, economic activity, and appropriate behaviour. These assumptions underscore an implicit bargain between individuals and the state, that neoliberalised self-discipline will lead to both formal citizenship rights and a sense of belonging. Built-in impediments, however, ensure that this bargain is difficult, if not impossible, to fulfil.     

Inequality and the return to structure in anthropology

The four books under review are all more or less explicitly critical of the impact of post-modernism on socio-cultural anthropology and archaeology. They all call for the building of anthropology by reconnecting to the earlier traditions of structural and comparative analysis. Although spanning both socio-cultural anthropology and archaeology, they set the focus clearly on the pervasive influence of inequality on social processes. The different authors demonstrate the explanatory power of concepts such as class, surplus, inequality, and structure for a multitude of contexts from prehistoric foragers to neo-liberal market ideologies.     

Science,anthropology, and the study of communication

Charles F. Hockett. The View From Language: Selected Essays 1948–1974. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1977. Tables, figures, references, bibliography, and index. $15.00.     

On the Ambivalence of Orthodoxy in American Anthropology

The establishment of professional anthropology is contrasted with the flawed limits and freedom of early self-trained anthropologists working outside of the academy. The work of ethnographer and linguist Jaime de Angulo and photographer Edward S. Curtis are oppositional examples of early 20th century self-trained anthropologically informed field research. While Curtis's career illustrates how work outside of academic anthropological circles often failed to document Indian culture, de Angulo's work provides an example of a brilliant scholar producing innovative, high quality work that would have been difficult to produce under the strictures of early 20th century academic life.