A History of the Concept of the Stimulus and the Role it Played in the Neurosciences

The term stimulus, as it was used in science from its earliest appearance in the sixteenth century up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, shows a gradual progress in denotation from the physical object designed to produce nervous and muscular excitation to the generically conceived event or object that initiates sensory or motor activity. To this shift corresponds a shift in the understanding of sensory experience. Johannes Müller's law of specific energy of sensory nerves played a major role in the shift, and Hermann von Helmholtz gave the shift its most thorough philosophical explanation.     

‘In common for everyone’: shared space and private possessions in the English parish church nave

ABSTRACT

Medieval historians have long emphasised the social significance of the installation of fixed and owned seats in English parish churches, but its impact was affective and ideological too. Since the late thirteenth century, church authorities had decreed that all worshippers should have equal access to the nave but seating introduced an object with many of the characteristics of private property into space theoretically held in common. Judges and bishops not only rued this as a corruption of Christian egalitarianism but also feared the opportunities for sensory enrichment, privacy and conflict that came with purchased pews. A new proprietary culture developed in churches that stimulated new practices, affective bonds and ideas about how entitlements and hierarchies from parochial life should or could be transplanted into the nave space.     

Ancients and moderns in medieval music theory: from Guido of Arezzo to Jacobus

ABSTRACT

Medieval discourse about both the theory and practice of music featured much debate about the views of moderni and antiqui from when Guido of Arezzo devised a new way of recording pitch in the early eleventh century to the complaints of Jacobus in the early fourteenth century about new forms of measured music in the ars nova. There was also a shift from a Boethian notion that practical music was a manifestation of cosmic music, towards a more Aristotelian model, that privileged music as sensory experience. That this could have a profound effect on human emotion was articulated by Johannes de Grocheio writing about music c. 1270 and Guy of Saint-Denis soon after 1300 about plainchant. Jacobus, writing in the 1320s, was troubled by this shift in thinking about music not as reflections of transcendent realities, but as sounds of human invention that served to move the soul. He argued that musical patterns should reflect a transcendent harmony that was both cosmic and celestial.     

从朝鲜时代的宫中仪礼看遮日的功能和特性——以19世纪以后宫中宴享为中心

朝鲜时代宫中举行仪礼行事时,经常排设和使用一种名为“遮日”的能够隔断日射和降雨的幕构造设施。作者以19世纪以后宫中宴享为中心分析了遮日的功能与特性,详细探讨了遮日的构成、种类、材料和排设方式等具体特性,并对在宫中仪礼行事的举行地如何使用遮日加以推断性的复原。     

高句丽与汉魏晋及北族政权的朝贡关系

1—5世纪初,无论是统一王朝时期,还是王朝分裂、政权频繁更替时期,高句丽对中原王朝和北族政权都采取积极朝贡的姿态,朝贡活动呈现出单向、双向、多向的变化,先后向十多个王朝和政权进行朝贡。随着政治形势和朝贡对象的变化,高句丽朝贡活动的目的及其与朝贡对象的关系也有一定的变化。     

Epistemological paradigms in the perception and assessment of vernacular architecture

The current situation of vernacular architecture is a result of the different perspectives of agents who have some sort of direct or indirect relationship with the architecture of the past which has influenced attitudes and ways of thinking, thus guaranteeing its assessment and survival. Therefore, this article reviews recent currents of thought and theories encapsulating the increased value of vernacular architecture. In the eighteenth century, this architecture made the romantic ideals of rural society synonymous with its surroundings, territory and country. In the twentieth century, a select few modernist intellectuals carried out in-depth studies of this architectural type in relation to its formal values. Now, in the twenty-first century, it has become the object of technological and scientific analysis for many experts. The current situation still presents many unresolved problems, which are perhaps the result of little thought having been put into specific aspects of the process of vernacular architecture.     

Reading menageries: using eighteenth-century print sources to historicise the sensorium of menagerie spectators and their encounters with exotic animals

Histories of exotic animal collection and display in Britain during the long eighteenth century have not been conventionally concerned with the sensory or bodily experiences of menagerie spectators. Olfactory, haptic and aural impressions – as well as the affective responses of laughter, disgust, anger and sympathy, are conspicuously absent in attempts to historicise animal collections. This paper principally argues that these often historically intangible and transient sensory experiences with animals were culturally significant acts or readings that produced meaning. To understand how spectators utilised their senses as an interpretive tool in reading menageries the article draws upon eighteenth-century understandings of the senses and bodily comfort. The manipulation of exotic animal bodies in menageries during the long eighteenth century had significant implications for British spectators. It is argued that their specific notions of Britishness in relationship to these captive animals from foreign climes articulated elite cultural notions of gender, climate and national character. In writing a sensory history of exotic animals in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain the author contextualises the reading of contemporary print material with the concomitant experience of the material animals to which this print matter referred. What emerges is a reminder that the act of reading should not be isolated from the production of knowledge through other embodied experiences since such a dichotomy is arguably problematic for historians.     

从Travel到Tourism--论19世纪英国旅游概念的变易

19世纪初期“tourism”见诸英语,后又取代“travel”的主流地位,标志着英国古典旅行观向现代旅游观的转变。“tourism”概念由于适应了工业文明时代旅游大众化、市场化、产业化的需要,因而从市井俚语上升为20世纪西方旅游理论的主流概念。厘清它与汉语中“旅游”概念之间深刻的文化差异,是中国旅游学界应对西方旅游理论的一大关键。     

Reconsidering the Metamorphosis of Io: on Texts,Images and Dates

This article reconsiders the portrayal of Io's metamorphosis in texts and images from the fifth century BCE. It discusses points of synchronicity and diachronicity, innovation and variety in this myth. While the depiction of Io on vases may not help us date with more certainty the texts of the fifth century BCE, including the Prometheus Bound and Bacchylides’ Ode 19, I argue that the comparison between texts and images may draw attention, instead, to a synchronic variety in the depiction of Io in the decades preceding and following the mid-fifth century BCE. This shift in perspective leads me to advance the proposition that myth interpretation may be revitalized by a paradigm shift from “tree” to “network”.     

From Confinement to Attachment: Michel Foucault on the Rise of the School

This article develops a Foucauldian account of the rise of the modern school, on the basis of a thorough examination of all references to education in Foucault's work. It analyses the seventeenth-century origins of mass schooling and traces its development up to the nineteenth century. It identifies several overlapping stages in this multifaceted and largely contingent development, particularly a fundamental shift from a negative to a positive conception of the school. This Foucauldian understanding of the rise of schooling as a disciplinary technology suggests that an initial focus on the exclusion or confinement of disorderly groups was gradually superseded by a focus on the inclusion or “attachment” of diverse individuals and on the development of their potential. It concludes by cautioning against over-simplistic applications of Foucault's work to the field of education.     

Depth records and ocean volumes: Ocean profiling by sounding technology, 1850-1930

Oceanographic research commencing in the mid-19th century could not rely on the direct observation of its object, but had to create its images of ocean depth through remote investigation. Depth became a matter of scientific definitions, systematic measurements, and graphic representations. In the course of a century, the opaque ocean of the 1850s was densely depicted in physical terms and transformed into a technically and scientifically sound oceanic volume. Tracing the history of deep-sea sounding technology from wire sounding around 1850 to acoustic sounding in the early 1920s, the paper investigates the relation and interplay between conceptual, pictorial, and technological depth performance. Addressing the conditions and limitations oceanographers encountered in producing single measurements and arranging them into profiles and contour line charts, the paper takes on a narrative approach to spatial representation: resembling a narrated or written story, the texture of depth depended on the richness and coherence of its plots.     

Early Contributions to the Reflex Chain Hypothesis

The reflex chain hypothesis was developed to explain the observation that successive movements could be linked together into a contiguous sequence. From the established principles of reflex physiology and association psychology, scientists in the last half of the 19th century began to develop the notion that each of a series of movements may be linked through the sensory results of prior movements. In addition, the same basic principles were applied to mental actions, thus providing a credible explanation for all behavior. The wide applicability of this hypothesis made it an important influence on the scientific thought in the early 20th century.     

Early contributions to the reflex chain hypothesis

The reflex chain hypothesis was developed to explain the observation that successive movements could be linked together into a contiguous sequence. From the established principles of reflex physiology and association psychology, scientists in the last half of the 19th century began to develop the notion that each of a series of movements may be linked through the sensory results of prior movements. In addition, the same basic principles were applied to mental actions, thus providing a credible explanation for all behavior. The wide applicability of this hpothesis made it an important influence on the scientific thought in the early 20th century.     

Galen's ideas on neurological function

Galen was the leading physician of the Roman empire during the last half of the second century. Unlike some of his predecessors, Galen concluded that the brain controlled cognition and willed action. The initial evidence for this doctrine was that the brain was the site of termination of all of the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. Galen presumed that the information from these five senses was organized by a part of the brain that generated a concept of an object common to all senses; this part of the brain he considered to be the area of common sense. Galen thought that he could differentiate sensory from motor nerves (not nerve fibers) by palpation. Sensory nerves were soft because they needed to be impressed with the essence of the object seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted. Motor nerve fibers were very hard because they needed to carry the force of the will from the brain to the muscles. Strong willed people had especially firm motor nerve fibers; hence, the modern term that a person with great bravery has 'nerves of steel'. Galen considered that common sense, cognition, and memory were functions of the brain. Personality and emotion were not generated by the brain, but rather by the body as a whole (or perhaps by the heart and liver). Galen's studies of respiration and of the recurrent laryngeal nerve solidified the knowledge that the brain, not the chest, was the site of the rational power that guides human behavior. This doctrine has continued from Galen's time to the present.     

Between archives and the site: the 19th-century iron and steel industry in the Monklands,Central Scotland

Abstract

A case is made that attention should shift from the archaeology of process, guided largely by the archival evidence, to the archaeology of practice by scrutinizing the material record. Holistic Context Analysis applied to the industrial soils and finds at Moffat Upper Steam Forge has led to a more coherent and realistic picture of construction and demolition at the site, as well as of its puddling industry, than could be learned from the historical narrative of the iron and steel industry in the Monklands, the most industrialized part of Scotland in the 19th century.     

‘You say that the Messiah has come …’: The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish polemics of the high middle ages

This article suggests that the ‘Disputation of Ceuta’ provides a link between the Christian anti-Jewish polemical discourse of the twelfth century, produced largely for internal consumption, and the active missionising of the thirteenth century. Having purportedly taken place in the North African port of Ceuta between a Christian merchant from Genoa and a Jew from Ceuta at the time of Almohad rule (1179), the disputation displays the signs of a major shift in the Christian contra Judaeos strategies. Unlike other twelfth-century works of this genre, which address a variety of points central to Jewish-Christian debate, the Ceuta Disputation is remarkably consistent in its emphasis on one particular issue – that of the coming of the Messiah. The messianic content of this disputation thus foreshadows the central thrust of the thirteenth-century Dominican mission to the Jews, which finds its fullest expression at the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. The article explains the prominence of this theme in the period by suggesting that the extraordinary emphasis on the Messiah in the Ceuta Disputation could be the result of the Christian protagonist's meeting with the North African Jew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerable interest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta had or had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed in the Disputation's text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews and Christians.     

‘You say that the Messiah has come …’: The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish polemics of the high middle ages

This article suggests that the ‘Disputation of Ceuta’ provides a link between the Christian anti-Jewish polemical discourse of the twelfth century, produced largely for internal consumption, and the active missionising of the thirteenth century. Having purportedly taken place in the North African port of Ceuta between a Christian merchant from Genoa and a Jew from Ceuta at the time of Almohad rule (1179), the disputation displays the signs of a major shift in the Christian contra Judaeos strategies. Unlike other twelfth-century works of this genre, which address a variety of points central to Jewish-Christian debate, the Ceuta Disputation is remarkably consistent in its emphasis on one particular issue – that of the coming of the Messiah. The messianic content of this disputation thus foreshadows the central thrust of the thirteenth-century Dominican mission to the Jews, which finds its fullest expression at the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. The article explains the prominence of this theme in the period by suggesting that the extraordinary emphasis on the Messiah in the Ceuta Disputation could be the result of the Christian protagonist's meeting with the North African Jew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerable interest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta had or had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed in the Disputation's text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews and Christians.     

Dative Case Marking in Vafsi within the OT Framework

The dative case in Vafsi appears in three structures: (a) the case of the experiencer in sensory verbs, (b) the case of the indirect object (IO), and (c) the case of the object of the preposition /da/ (to), or the preposition /az/ (to), or the enclitic /-o/ (to), or the object of the postposition /rā/ (for). In Vafsi, as in many other Indo-European languages, sensory verbs necessitate the emergence of quirky subjects which have the experiencer function and are dative case marked. In order to analyze the dative case marking in Vafsi using optimality theory, this article uses the faithfulness constraint of faith-lex and the markedness constraint hierarchy of *ERG>>*DAT>>*ACC>>*NOM. Vafsi always allocates the dative case to the IO of the ditransitive verbs. This phenomenon is illustrated by use of an optimality theory (OT) tableau. Some Vafsi ditransitive verbs dative case mark the IOs using adpositions. If so, Vafsi differential adpositional case marking (DACM) will rule, as the IOs are objects of adposition (OAs) simultaneously.     

The history of ‘Social Technology’, 1898–1930

Since the term was first coined, in the late nineteenth century, ‘social technology’ has had a mixed fate. Whereas ‘technology’ has become one of the keywords of the twentieth century, ‘social technology’ never quite seemed to settle in the vocabulary of social theory. In this article, we focus on the early history of ‘social technology’, tracing its spread from its origin in the sociology department at the University of Chicago, and describing the increasing competition from the term ‘social engineering’ starting in the 1920s. We argue that this shift in terminology is significant, because it is an index of changing ideas about the demarcation of sociology, about the application of science in the betterment of society and about the nature of technology.