The Evolution of Population Distribution on the Iberian Peninsula: A Transnational Approach (1877–2001)

Abstract

Surpassing the national perspective usually adopted, the authors confirmed the existence of a pattern of population distribution common to the whole Iberian Peninsula in the long run. This pattern is clearly associated with geographical factors. These variables seem to have more weight in explaining changes between 1877/78 and 1940 than in the period from 1940 to 2001. The observation of the cross-border region has shown that proximity to the frontier has not generated any distinct pattern of population density on either side of the boundary line. The spatial coherence of the observed phenomena throughout the Peninsula and of its evolution, independent of the border between states, reinforces the importance of geographic factors in their explanation. At the same time, this verification opens up new issues related to the effect of national political and economic policies.     

Facts and Philosophy in Neurophysiology. The 200th Anniversary of Johannes Müller (1801–1858)

Johannes Müller was the founder of the first school of physiology in Germany. His anatomical, morphological and physiological research as well as his epistemological view of scientific medicine opened the way to a deeper understanding of the structure and the function of the organism. With important discoveries like the law of sense energy, the reflex movement and the definition of different organic stimuli, he enriched the knowledge of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and sensory physiology and smoothed the way to an experimental physiology. All his famous students like Hermann von Helmholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Ernst Brücke, Jakob Henle, Robert Remak, Rudolf Virchow and Ernst Haeckel solved many crucial research problems, which Müller identified and pointed out to them as open questions, due to the insufficient methods of investigation. Müller's research method, epistemological view of biological sciences, and his open-minded personal style encouraged the development of new methods adapted to particular problems.     

Make-believe: fashion and Cinelandia in Rizzoli's Lei (1933–38)

Amidst the wide array of women's magazines published in Italy in the 1930s, Lei. Rivista di vita femminile presents a compelling case study of the make-believe effect achieved through fashion and the allure of the silver screen. Published by Angelo Rizzoli between 1933 and 1938, Lei stands out for a cosmopolitan, American-looking lifestyle that champions an Italian ‘new woman’, aware of her own new image and enmeshed in a fantastic world of romantic novels and movie stars. This essay studies the paradoxes and complexities of an Italian illustrated periodical promoting the image of a fashionable woman in the midst of growing imperialism and autarchy, and publishing the work of Leica photographers, Lucio Ridenti and Paul Wolff in particular. Lei reflects the fundamental ambivalence of this time, promoting Italian fashion through Hollywood as a way to counteract the French fashion industry, and inviting women to role-play through the allure of their image.     

Johannes Janssonius’s Map of Dalmatia and the Ottoman–Venetian Borderland (1650)

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the map of Dalmatia by Johannes Janssonius and maps by his contemporaries. Janssonius’s cartographical models and the sources of the printed text accompanying his map are identified. The roles of Croatian cartographers and Venetian and Ottoman reports dealing with the border are uncovered. The importance of Janssonius’s map in disseminating knowledge about the little-known geography and history of Dalmatia, and the ways in which the map influenced perception of that country in the Ottoman Empire borderlands in general, are assessed.     

Science and Politics in the Hawaiian Kingdom: The Progress of the Honolulu Social Science Association, 1882–87

The growth in studies of Indigenous responses to the gradual foreign control and American annexation of the Hawaiian Islands has provided an important corrective to dominant trends in earlier Hawaiian historiography, but there has been comparatively little recent work on the attitudes and values of those identified as colonizers. In particular, how Western ideas were understood and appropriated within the context of Hawaiian politics is not well known. This article extends scholarship demonstrating how in colonizing contexts, ideas about science could be mobilized as a moral resource and scientific societies could become distinct social formations. Specifically, the article shows how, during the pre-annexation period, the predominantly White and Hawaiian-born members of the Honolulu Social Science Association gathered in the performance of scientific modernity, with an implicit yet overarching political aim.     

The Rise and Fall of a Partnership: The British Council and the Islamic Republic of Iran (2001–09)

This paper examines a partnership between the British Council and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) that emerged in March 2001 as a result of their shared aspiration for collaboration in scientific, academic and cultural arena. The alliance came as a surprise because after twenty-three years of antagonism on the part of the government of the IRI, the hostile attitudes were put aside virtually overnight to reunite with an old adversary for a mutual collaboration. The present qualitative study examines the reasons behind the start of the partnership, the domains within which the British Council was permitted to operate in Iran, and the reasons behind the end of the partnership. The data were gathered from various sources, including field-notes, policy documents analysis, personal interviews, and various online sources. The findings reveal that the duration of the partnership was closely intertwined with the rise and fall of the reformist administration, under President Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005). The partnership began mainly due to efforts made by the reformist administration to take the IRI out of its international isolation and thus became inactive not long after the reformist administration, and eventually came to an end in January 2009, under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.     

Geologists and Folklorists: Cultural Evolution and “The Science of Folklore”

As has been made clear by recent inquiries in FLS News (Spittal 1996; Wylie 1966) and the republication of Kathleen Basford's 1978 book The Green Man (1996), there is a great deal of interest in the enigmatic “Green Man,” that foliate head which appears so frequently among medieval church carvings. The term itself came into general usage following Lady Raglan's 1939 article in Folklore, “The ‘Green Man’ in Church Architecture,” but examination of her original work reveals that her choice of the term “Green Man” was, on her own evidence, based more upon inspiration than fact. As a means of beginning an inquiry into the nature and meaning of the phenomenon, the present article is an investigation into the true name of the Green Man.     

The neuroscience of Helmholtz and the theories of Johannes Müller. Part 2: Sensation and perception

In this, our continuation paper on Helmholtz and Müller, we examine Helmholtz's contributions to sensation and perception, with emphasis on his extension and modification of Müller's theory of specific nerve energies. The material is again presented in biographical-chronological context. We also examine Helmholtz's views on depth and space perception, and his empirical theory of knowledge, which are also compared to Müller's views. It will be shown that Helmholtz remained stimulated by the thoughts and doctrines of Johannes Müller in the sensory-perceptual part of his career, which began early in the 1850s and ended with his death. Nevertheless, Helmholtz's own experiments and new discoveries by others sometimes led him to quite different conclusions.