Chiefdoms and the emergence of private property in land

A prevailing characteristic of complex, stratified societies is unequal access to critical resources, and in most cases land is the most fundamental of those resources. Gaining an understanding how relations to land are transformed is viewed as integral to revealing the origins of social inequality. Recent scholarship has proposed an evolution of property rights in land from open access to private property, the latter condition having been attributed to nation states. However, some scholars have concluded from their examinations of Early Medieval Irish texts that land within Irish chiefdoms was regarded as a commodity. The analysis carried out in this paper reveals that in Early Medieval Ireland some land could be considered to be private property, but the holding and transfer of land was restricted to chieftains and their dependents, the lands of commoners being held communally. The closest counterpart to this mode of land ownership is the form of feudalism proposed for the Classic and Post-Classic Maya.     

The right to say everything

Can one say everything? Does one have the right to say everything? This essay distinguishes these two questions, and seeks to clarify them with reference to two French writers for whom the questions are central: Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida. Blanchot considers the questions with respect to the Marquis de Sade and Louis‐René des Fore?ts. For Blanchot, the right to say everything is not supported by an appeal to the integrity of the self; rather, it is linked to a kenosis of the “I.” His account leaves important questions unaddressed. For Derrida, however, the right to say everything is enshrined in modern democracy and sustained by reference to a “democracy to come.” Brief as it is, Derrida's response to the questions is the most satisfactory that we have to date.     

The right to social welfare in early medieval Iceland

As a rule poor relief in medieval Europe was practised in the form of charity by Church, monasteries and rich people. They distributed their alms to the poor, who received them gratefully and humbly. From early medieval Iceland elaborate social laws have come down to us that are remarkable in their originality for the period. We shall describe these laws, and investigate their history, development and the reason of their existence.     

The right to be heard: Citizenship and language

In this paper we address the importance and contestation of language in terms of citizenship and the development of political communities by focusing on the example of a minority language – British Sign Language. Language is crucial to debates about citizenship and belonging because the State has to rely on language for its very functioning, indeed political practice itself is a form of communicative action. For individuals language is deeply implicated in their ability to claim and maintain their rights and in their affective connections with others and sense of identification. The paper therefore begins by identifying that Deaf people's legal entitlements (e.g. to vote) are an abstract form of citizenship because as sign language users they have difficulties understanding both political and wider civil institutions and practices, and so lack the cultural proficiencies necessary to exercise citizenship in a substantive sense. We then go onto consider citizenship in the broader sense of how groups are included or situated in the public sphere, and in doing so to consider the extent to which Deaf people might be understood to have a liveable place in an oral society. The final section examines how the sense of injustice which flows from Deaf people's experiences of marginalisation in the public realm means that they are developing alternative forms of political commitment predicated on non-state spaces of belonging – where they can live their language – at both local and transnational scales. The paper concludes by reflecting on the notion of differentiated citizenship and the implications of Deaf people's claims to language rights.     

The right to social welfare in early medieval Iceland

As a rule poor relief in medieval Europe was practised in the form of charity by Church, monasteries and rich people. They distributed their alms to the poor, who received them gratefully and humbly. From early medieval Iceland elaborate social laws have come down to us that are remarkable in their originality for the period. We shall describe these laws, and investigate their history, development and the reason of their existence.     

井田学说与小农经济下的均田思想和农地产权

井田学说在中国历史上引起过长期争论.井地制不等于井田制.井田学说的中心点是均田,井田制以并田学说定位,同时必须包含均分土地、私有产权、规定税率三个要素.中国古代私田的普遍化是通过国家政策得以实现,而这个政策所依据的理论,又是由孟轲恒产论和"必有圭田"说从根本上做出解释.私人占田到一定时期,就出现土地兼并,导致占田不均.解决占田问题的措施有限田令、均田令、王田令等,提出的方案如农地自耕农化等.农地问题在任何时代都是围绕着人口与土地的关系,它又涉及两个不同问题.一是就业人数与耕地面积的关系,二是生存人数与耕地面积的关系.     

The right to life movement: sources,development, and strategies

This article considers the history of the anti-abortion movement by first reviewing and assessing current images and interpretations of the movement, including the negative images used by the mass media as well as the interpretation which categorizes the movement as one of moral and political conservatism and that set out by Kristin Luker which sees the conflict between anti-abortion and pro-choice women as being between women who have lived radically different lives. The second section of the essay sets forth an explanation of the social sources and context of the pro-life movement, which is diverse and complex because it is embraced by those who see abortion as a civil rights question, as a family values issues, as a class/cultural issue, as a Church-related issue, as a gender issue, as a right-to-life issue embracing euthanasia, or as a movement of political conservatives. The institutional origins and development of the movement are explored in the next section. The next two section are devoted to two phases of the movement's search for a strategy. The first phase involved an attempt to use educational materials designed to reveal the reality rather than the abstract aspects of abortion. After Roe vs. Wade, attaching a "Human Life Amendment" to the constitution became a strategic goal. The second phase involved attempting to reverse the Roe decision by gaining the appointment of pro-life jurists to the Supreme Court. The pro-life movement entered national politics through the efforts of Catholic Bishops, the emergence of the New Right, and its own increasing political sophistication. The final section of the essay considers the situation after the Supreme Court's decision in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, which allowed states to restrict abortion. This decision precipitated a decline in support for the anti-abortion forces because the American public would rather have completely free access to abortion than a complete ban. The movement continues to have strength, however, and will likely neither ultimately succeed nor completely disappear from the political landscape.     

迎头色谱法在评价调湿剂性能上的应用

利用迎头色谱脱附曲线,测定了水蒸汽在调湿剂中的扩散系数。结果表明,当清除了载气流速、调湿剂粒径以及色谱柱轴向扩散等众多干扰因素的影响后,由迎头色谱法测得的水蒸汽在调湿剂中的扩散系数值可用于评价调湿剂的响应速度。     

The archaeology of private life: the Dudley Castle condoms

Abstract

During excavations of the mid 1980s at Dudley Castle in the West Midlands the contents of the keep garderobe were recovered intact and processed by sieving and hand-sorting, with samples being subjected to full laboratory analysis. The latrine was sealed during demolition of the castle’s defences in 1647, the intact deposit containing both the domestic and organic remains of the occupying royalist force which defended the castle under siege conditions between 1642 and 1646. Examination of the compacted organic mass of the latrine produced fragments of ten individual animal-membrane condoms, which were subsequently taken to the Department of Scientific Research, British Museum, for further analysis. The terminus ante quem deposit of 1647 represents the earliest definitive physical evidence for the use of animal-membrane condoms in post-medieval Europe, although at this early date it is impossible to know for sure whether they were designed as prophylactics for protection against venereal disease or as contraceptive devices. This report comprises a note on the excavation of the Dudley Castle garderobe and the process of recovery (PB and SL), a full scientific report on the condoms which includes a comparative examination of a set of late 18th-century condoms in the British Museum collections (CC), and concludes with a discussion of the significance of the Dudley Castle finds in the light of the historical evidence for early condom technology and use (DG). This paper was edited for publication by DG.     

The public and private history of eugenics: an introduction

Inspired by our experience addressing the legacy of eugenics at California State University, Sacramento, this special issue presents an array of articles representative of diverse approaches to the historical investigation of eugenics. This article provides an introduction to the history of eugenics and explores the ways in which public history is particularly well suited to shape the historical memory of eugenics and encourage dialogue about contemporary biotechnologies.