Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies

The memory wave in the humanities has contributed to the impressive revival of cultural history, but the success of memory studies has not been accompanied by significant conceptual and methodological advances in the research of collective memory processes. Most studies on memory focus on the representation of specific events within particular chronological, geographical, and media settings without reflecting on the audiences of the representations in question. As a result, the wealth of new insights into past and present historical cultures cannot be linked conclusively to specific social collectives and their historical consciousness. This methodological problem is even enhanced by the metaphorical use of psychological and neurological terminology, which misrepresents the social dynamics of collective memory as an effect and extension of individual, autobiographical memory. Some of these shortcomings can be addressed through the extensive contextualization of specific strategies of representation, which links facts of representation with facts of reception. As a result, the history of collective memory would be recast as a complex process of cultural production and consumption that acknowledges the persistence of cultural traditions as well as the ingenuity of memory makers and the subversive interests of memory consumers. The negotiations among these three different historical agents create the rules of engagement in the competitive arena of memory politics, and the reconstruction of these negotiations helps us distinguish among the abundance of failed collective memory initiatives on the one hand and the few cases of successful collective memory construction on the other. For this purpose, collective memory studies should adopt the methods of communication and media studies, especially with regard to media reception, and continue to use a wide range of interpretive tools from traditional historiography to poststructural approaches. From the perspective of collective memory studies, these two traditions are closely related and mutually beneficial, rather than mutually exclusive, ways of analyzing historical cultures.     

神鬼信仰意义域在仪式实践中的凸显与强化——以辽宁岫岩“太平香”祭祖还愿仪式为例

烧"太平香"是流传于辽宁岫岩地区的一种民间祭祖还愿仪式。文章在描述这一民俗事象的基础上,分析了仪式器具、行为和语言的象征意义,并指出神鬼信仰意义域正是以这些象征意义为启程工具在仪式实践中得到凸显与强化的。由此,一种超验性的实在被经验,为信仰和仪式的再生产做好了准备。作为民众意义世界和生活世界的组成部分,此类信仰和仪式应当被充分地理解和尊重。     

徽州传说人物许宣平的文化意义

作为徽州历史上最重要的传说人物之一的许宣平,由于在南唐沈汾《续仙传》中的被仙化,以至于后人难以相信他是现实中的人物。那么许宣平究竟是不是现实中存在的人物?许宣平及其故事在徽州具有怎样的文化意义?     

Spatial and Temporal Variation in Mesopotamian Agricultural Practices in the Khabur Basin,Syrian Jazira

While archaeologists have long recognized the value of regional analysis to define economic systems, relatively few archaeological data sets—principally settlement patterns, ceramics and lithics—have been used to assess regional-scale spatial variation and temporal change. As with other archaeological data sets, resolution of archaeobotanical data at a regional scale poses some formidable challenges. A new approach in the Near East uses archaeobotanical remains from multiple sites. The data have been drawn from midden assemblages that exhibit high variability between assemblages, requiring the use of random effects logistic regression models that can accommodate high variability. Our approach detects changes over time and over geographical region and tests the statistical significance of these changes. Results show a significant rise in crop-processing wastes, most probably from a specialized focus on barley processing at settlement and storage sites during the 3rd millenniumbc (Ninevite 5 and Early Jazira Periods). This shift to a greater representation of barley-processing by-products represented in middens can most probably be linked with an emerging specialization in pastoral production and re-settlement in arid regions of the northern Mesopotamian steppe in the 3rd millennium bc.     

古代制陶工程技术的含义、影响及研究目标

古代制陶包括工程和技术两方面:陶窑是土木工程的一种特殊形式,它为烧制陶器提供了可以反复使用的固定设施;技术为制作坯体和烧制陶器提供了工艺做法和工艺流程,二者相辅相成。古代制陶技术对瓷器的发明有直接影响,对冶金技术的发明、红烧土建筑技术的产生都有间接影响。研究古代制陶工程技术史的目标是创建中国特色制陶技术考古学。     

A Preliminary Critique of the Best and Good Practices Approach in European Spatial Planning and Policy-making

“Good practices” are found everywhere, particularly in European policies. They are usually taken for granted as familiar events in daily life. For actors involved in policy-making, it seems quite natural to produce, disseminate and use repertoires of good practices. This article discusses this phenomenon, arguing that “good practices” are one of the main tools in Europeanization processes, particularly for the European idea of “good governance”. Analyses of the Interact, Interreg and Urbact programmes of production of good practice repertoires lead to an examination of a number of characteristics of “good practice”: as a kind of regulation through sense-making processes, as a standardization tool in order to compare and measure performances in different situations, as an object of self-reflection and constitution of communities of practices, as a strategic representation and as an advocacy device.     

A history of conservation of built heritage sites of the Swahili Coast in Tanzania

The interaction between the Swahili Coast of the present-day Tanzanian coast and other parts of the Indian Ocean world dates back to the first millennium AD. This commercial communication resulted in the rise of several coastal city-states (stonebuilt towns), some of which date back to the tenth century. Unfortunately, some of these states started to collapse during the second half of the second millennium and the majority of them is in a ruinous state. These material remains, which according to the Tanzania’s Antiquities Act of 1964 deserve legal protection, have not been studied comprehensively mainly to establish their conservation history. The current article addresses this problem, and by analysing documents, it establishes the conservation history of monuments and historic buildings of the Swahili Coast in Tanzania. Research results indicate that some built heritage sites started decaying during the fourteenth century AD. Because of recognising the importance of these built heritage sites, communities of the region embarked on strategies to care these built heritage sites. This observation contradicts the European conventional wisdom maintaining that, in Africa, conservation of built heritage sites such as monuments and historic buildings began in the nineteenth century and was propagated by European colonialists.     

Life in the Swahili town house reveals the symbolic meaning of spaces and artefact assemblages

Swahili ethnographic information was used to interpret eighteenth-century coral house excavations in Lamu, Kenya. The author was especially interested in learning the symbolic or social meaning of durable objects that were found in archaeological assemblages. It was learned that many of the artefacts found in the excavations are related to rituals performed in Swahili houses. The spaces within the house are ranked and used to teach social position. Features of coral houses, animal remains, infant burials, shells, ceramics, and beads can be shown to have symbolic meaning within the Swahili context.

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Résumé L'auteur a utilisé des informations ethnographiques souahélies afin d'interpréter les fouilles de maisons en corail du 18e siècle à Lamu, Kenya. Elle s'intéressait surtout à connaître la signification symbolique ou sociale des objets non-périssables trouvés dans les assemblages archéologiques. Elle a appris que beaucoup des artefacts trouvés pendant les fouilles sont à rattacher aux rituels célébrés dans les maisons souahélies. Les espaces à l'intérieur de la maison sont classés et utilisés afin de montrer la position sociale. On peut démontrer que certaines particularités des maisons en corail, les restes de faune, les inhumations de tous petits enfants, la céramique et les grains de collier ont des significations symboliques dans leur contexte souahéli.

     

Pillar Tombs and the City: Creating a Sense of Shared Identity in Swahili Urban Space

This paper reviews published research on Swahili pillar tombs, as a specific type of tombs built of stone, by summarising records on almost fifty sites on the east coast of Africa. Dated to the 13th–16th centuries AD, the pillar tombs represented a core component of Swahili urban space. By considering their spatial setting, characteristics and comparative case studies from Africa and the Indian Ocean world, the paper reconsiders how pillar tombs might have functioned as a type of material infrastructure for creating social ties and notions of shared identity in a society that has never formally united.     

Finding Vikings in the Danelaw

Historical, artefactual and place‐name evidence indicates that Scandinavian migrants moved to eastern England in the ninth century AD, settling in the Danelaw. However, only a handful of characteristically Scandinavian burials have been found in the region. One, widely held, explanation is that most of these Scandinavian settlers quickly adopted local Christian burial customs, thus leaving Scandinavians indistinguishable from the Anglo‐Saxon population. We undertook osteological and isotopic analysis to investigate the presence of first‐generation Scandinavian migrants. Burials from Masham were typical of the later Anglo‐Saxon period and included men, women and children. The location and positioning of the four adult burials from Coppergate, however, are unusual for Anglo‐Scandinavian York. None of the skeletons revealed interpersonal violence. Isotopic evidence did not suggest a marine component in the diet of either group, but revealed migration on a regional, and possibly an international, scale. Combined strontium and oxygen isotope analysis should be used to investigate further both regional and Scandinavian migration in the later Anglo‐Saxon period.     

Finding the law in Myanmar

The law is difficult to find in Myanmar and the legal system is not accessible or transparent to its citizens. This article looks at some of the issues plaguing the country.     

Finding millet in the Roman world

Examining the evidence for millet in the Roman empire, during the period, circa 753 bc–610 ad, presents a number of challenges: a handful of scant mentions in the ancient surviving agrarian texts, only a few fortuitous preserved archaeological finds and limited archaeobotanical and isotopic evidence. Ancient agrarian texts note millet’s ecological preferences and multiple uses. Recent archaeobotanical and isotopic evidence has shown that millet was being used throughout the Roman period. The compiled data suggests that millet consumption was a more complex issue than the ancient sources alone would lead one to believe. Using the recent archaeobotanical study of Insula VI.I from the city of Pompeii, as a case study, the status and role of millet in the Roman world is examined and placed within its economic, cultural and social background across time and space in the Roman world.     

出入“经”“史”:“古史三系说”之本意及蒙文通学术旨趣

蒙文通的古史研究在民国学界破旧立新的古史运动中有意无意地起到推波助澜之功效,《古史甄微》中打破上古一元的古史三系说,也暗合了当时"新史学"所高举的"古史多元观",蒙文通由此而日益受到民国学界的重视。但若回到蒙文通自身的学术脉络,不难发现,《古史甄微》旨在"羽翼经学":通过追溯三皇五帝说的起源,以地理、民族、文化的视角创立古史三系说,重建上古国史,澄清经史关系,以史证经,申明儒学在中国文化中的地位。     

语工意新觅佳境词丽义雅求至善--王文泸先生律诗《夜读》赏析

我同王文泸先生的交往虽不多,但对先生的为人风范和学识才华极为敬仰。对先生的更进一步了解是在我担任青海日报社常年法律顾问之后,进而对先生所著文章必先睹为快。近日又有幸从先生处索得他写深秋之夜孤灯夜读的旧体诗一首,诵读之后欣喜不已,便很冲动地用书法形式书写并装裱成幅,试图以书法的线条之美和用墨布局的章法造势,形成一种纵横交错、浓淡相宜的风格,进而表现出这首律诗意境之美;虽对自己的     

青海古代文化遗址时空分布特征

本文对青海古代各历史时期的文化遗址及文物进行了分析与探讨,提出了青海古代文化遗址有着分布的集中性、石器时代的完整性以及多元结构的民族文化特点;论证了以上特点是由地理环境及历史的各民族文化活动所致。     

从古代中国看琉球列岛的宝贝

中国商周时期已大量使用宝贝,将它们作为货币和财富。这些产于印度洋和太平洋暖热地区的海贝,是如何传到黄河流域的?本对此作了探讨,认为主要有三条搬运路线,并列举了考古发现方面的依据。