Russian Peasant Beliefs and Practices Concerning Death and the Supernatural Collected in Novosokol'niki Region,Pskov Province,Russia, 1995. Part I: The Restless Dead,Wizards and Spirit Beings

Fieldwork in a remote area of rural Russia, a rare opportunity for an ethnographer from western Europe, provided the basic material for this article. Its findings, presented in a historical perspective, reveal a significant degree of continuity with beliefs and practices of the past in spite of the pressures of an official ideology opposed to all aspects of the supernatural.     

International Trade Fairs and Global Buzz. Part II: Practices of Global Buzz

International trade fairs bring together agents from all over the world for a limited time period. They create a dense ecology of communication and information flows, referred to as “global buzz”. Global buzz associated with face-to-face (F2F) communication is extremely important for agents participating in these events as it generates access to developments occurring in different parts of the world. It helps to maintain and intensify existing networks, establish new networks or “trans-local pipelines” and support the development of shared attitudes and understandings. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence about the significance of global buzz in its manifold forms. Our research emphasizes the benefits that result from four sets of closely interrelated practices: (i) global knowledge exchange based on F2F interaction, (ii) exploration of market trends, (iii) problem solving and idea generation and (iv) network generation and pipeline-building in interpretative communities. The paper argues that practices of acquiring information, networking and dealing with competition differ substantially according to industry, firm and product characteristics. Our analysis of global buzz practices draws from more than 460 semi-structured interviews, which were conducted between 2004 and 2006 at seven national and international trade fairs in Frankfurt/Main, Hannover and Nürnberg, Germany.     

Electoral Behavior in the Russian Far East, 1995-2000: Contextual and Compositional Effects

A group of political scientists specializing in Russia's post-Soviet electoral behavior explores the question of whether genuinely regional effects of voting behavior can be discerned (and at what scale) by controlling for variations in compositional characteristics measured by aggregate social and economic data. The paper seeks to identify situations in which contextual effects may be operating, using a scale of analysis that is intermediate between regional (oblast)-level case studies and nationwide surveys—that of the Russian Far East macroregion. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O50, Z10. 4 tables, 40 references, 1 appendix.     

The Religious,the Secular,and the Natural Sciences: Nietzsche and the Death of God

When, in The Gay Science, Nietzsche poses the question of how the natural sciences are possible, he insists that they depend not on a principle that is natural but on the will to truth, the will not to deceive even oneself, with which, he holds, “we stand on moral ground.” Yet, that the natural sciences stand on ground that is moral also means, for Nietzsche, that their origin is to be located in “a faith that is thousands of years old,” a faith that, in the Genealogy of Morals, he develops as presupposing what he calls the ascetic ideals of Judaism and Christianity. Further, in holding that the natural sciences have their origin in principles that are biblical, Nietzsche goes on to indicate that, like the natural sciences, his own critical position, unconditionally honest atheism, is, in forbidding itself “the lie involved in belief in God,” not opposed to, but is rather an expression of, Judaism and Christianity's ascetic ideals. In addressing the interrelationships among the religious, the secular, and the natural sciences in light of Nietzsche, I argue that the natural sciences have their origin in principles that are not natural but that are no less religious than secular.     

碑刻资料所见明清山西忻州地区民间信仰

明清时期,山西忻州地区民间信仰内涵十分丰富,既有对自然神、历史人物的崇拜,也有对宗教神灵、其他民间神灵的敬奉,这一现象在当地的碑刻资料中记载甚为详尽。民众对神灵的信仰集中体现了功利性、自发性以及地方性的特点,透过这些特性,可以窥探到明清时期忻州地区干旱少雨、战争频发的地理、社会环境。而民间信仰在保护自然环境、稳定社会秩序、调节民众心理方面亦生产了一定的积极影响。     

Russian ‘deniable’ intervention in Ukraine: how and why Russia broke the rules

The Russian military interventions in Ukraine, which have led to the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and to the entrenchment of separatist enclaves in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, directly challenge the post‐Cold War European state system. Russia has consistently denied any wrongdoing or illegal military involvement and has presented its policies as a reaction to the repression of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. This article argues that it is important to examine and contest unfounded Russian legal and political claims used by Moscow to justify its interventions. The article proceeds to assess in detail three different explanations of the Russian operations in Ukraine: geopolitical competition and structural power (including the strategic benefits of seizing Crimea); identity and ideational factors; and the search for domestic political consolidation in Russia. These have all played a role, although the role of identity appears the least convincing in explaining the timing and scope of Russian encroachments on Ukrainian territorial integrity and the disruption of Ukrainian statehood.     

Re-evaluating the Neolithic: The Impact and the Consolidation of Farming Practices in the Cantabrian Region (Northern Spain)

Research projects undertaken in the Cantabrian region since 1980 have produced new, high-quality information about the neolithisation process(es) in this area. It is now necessary to review this archaeological information and test the main hypotheses put forward to explain it. This paper presents an update on the archaeological evidence (sites, chronological dates, archaeozoological, archaeobotanical and technological information) for the early Neolithic in the Cantabrian region. It summarizes recent research on neolithisation in the region, and assesses the impact of this process during the early Neolithic, and its later consolidation. Although the available information is still incomplete, it is now possible to identify the focal point of the introduction of elements characteristic of the Neolithic way of life in the region. Current evidence suggests that it is in the eastern sector, where the earliest arrival of domesticates and new technologies such as pottery has been attested. The existence of continuities—such as sustained reliance on hunting and gathering and the coexistence of old and new funerary rites—suggests the persistence of native populations, which gradually participated in the neolithisation process after an ‘availability phase’.     

Black Gloss Pottery: Production Sites and Technology in Northern Etruria,Part II: Gloss Technology

The present study aims to understand the reasons for the visual differences of black gloss pottery found in northern Etruria. The results obtained by conventional (scanning electron microscope, electron microprobe) and synchrotron (X‐ray diffraction, X‐ray absorption spectroscopy) techniques indicate that the thickness, porosity or chemical composition of the different types of gloss cannot be used as the principal distinguishing factor. The size of quartz or feldspar crystals may well be a critical factor responsible for the matt effect in some samples, while the range of mixtures of iron compounds indicated by XRD and XAS could be the reason for differences in colour and reflectivity. The Fe L‐edge XAS results in particular show that a correlation does exist between the oxidation state characteristics and the visual appearance. The Si, Fe and Al contents seem to further discriminate the different types of gloss that have differing visual appearances.     

Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology,Part II

Abstract

The progression of archaeology in the midcontinent over the past 40 years has moved on a series of different but overlapping fronts: regional, governmental, institutional, disciplinary, and personal. This collection of thoughts by both longtime and relatively young practitioners of our field suggests the many ways that archaeology has changed for the good—and maybe not so good—depending on our own experiences. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology (MCJA) has changed along with these developments. Part I of this discussion centered on the need for, and foundation of, MCJA. Part II is more diverse, with the archaeologists who have participated in the field for the last 40 years reflecting on the shifts in archaeology within their regions—both in terms of practice and institutional practices. The forces of national economics and academic politics and the changing sensibilities toward our public constituencies described here are themes that continue to influence us today.