South Africa in the company of giants: the search for leadership in a transforming global order

South Africa, the continental economic giant and self‐appointed spokesman for African development, is finding its distinctive national voice. Emboldened by the invitation to join the BRICS grouping, its membership of the G20 and a second term on the UN Security Council, Pretoria is beginning to capitalize on the decade of continental and global activism undertaken by Thabo Mbeki to assume a position of leadership. Gone is the defensive posturing which characterized much of the ANC's post‐apartheid foreign policy, replaced by an unashamed claim to African leadership. The result is that South Africa is exercising a stronger hand in continental affairs, ranging from a significant contribution to state‐building in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, to an unprecedented assertiveness on Zimbabwe. But this new assertiveness remains constrained by three factors: the unresolved issue of identity, a host of domestic constraints linked to material capabilities and internal politics, and the divisive continental reaction to South African leadership. These factors continue to inhibit the country's ability to translate its international ambitions and global recognition into a concrete set of foreign policy achievements.     

Psychological anthropology so far: Amidst diversity,a search for the bigger issues

George D. Spindler, ed. The Making of Psychological Anthropology. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1978. xiv + 665 pp. Figures, tables, notes, references cited, photos, biographical sketches, indexes. $27.50 cloth, $10.95 paper.

Erika Bourguignon. Psychological Anthropology: An Introduction to Human Nature and Cultural Differences. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979. viii + 375 pp. Figures, notes, references cited, photos, indexes. $14.95.

Philip K. Bock. Continuities in Psychological Anthropology: A Historical Introduction. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1980. xii + 288 pp. Figures, tables, references cited, drawings, index. $15.00 cloth, $7.50 paper.     

Apprehending the Archangel Michael: hagiographic methods

Abstract

This essay examines the means by which hagiographies attempt to describe the presence and appearances of the Archangel Michael. It deals with several hagiographies at some length in order to demonstrate the ways in which each text persuades its audience of the Archangel's benign proximity. It examines, in particular, the hagiographies of the miracle at Chonae since the ‘pre-history’ of this cult is relatively clear and the shrine's activities during the Byzantine period were widely acclaimed. This essay also discusses other hagiographies, namely of the sanctuary at Monte Gargano and of the shrine described by Michael Psellus (1018–1081 ?). In examining these texts, certain structural similarities become apparent: access to the Archangel is made difficult by his unique angelic nature and this difficulty led to textual strategies that make Michael more firmly entrenched in the texts' levels of narrative. The hagiographies reveal Michael's elusive, elemental force active in a landscape, and work to bind the Archangel-notionally at least-to places in order to strengthen expectation of devotional return.     

Exchanging logoi for aloga: cultural capital and material capital in a letter of Michael Psellos

Abstract

In a letter to his friend Iasites (Sathas 171), Michael Psellos proposes to give the letter itself in exchange for a horse. Exploiting the polysemy of alogon and logos in Greek, Psellos is able to frame this playful representation of a gift exchange in a philosophical opposition between materiality and reason. This allows him to present his intellectual competences as an exclusive kind of cultural capital that deserves material support from other members of society.     

The search for a sixth sense: the cases for vestibular,muscle, and temperature senses

The five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, enumerated by Aristotle, were incremented in the early-nineteenth century by the muscle sense, multiple dimensions of touch, and a movement sense. Aristotle explicitly excluded a sixth sense, and five remains the number of senses in popular imagination. The division of touch into several sensations was entertained and rejected by Aristotle, but it was given anatomical, physiological and psychophysical support in the late-nineteenth century. A separate muscle sense was proposed in the late-eighteenth century, with experimental evidence to support it. However, before these developments, behavioral evidence of the vestibular (movement) sense was available from studies of vertigo, although it was not integrated with the anatomy and physiology of the labyrinth until the nineteenth century. The history of the search for a sixth sense is outlined, and the evidence adduced to support the divisions is assessed. Behavioral evidence generally has been accorded less weight than that from anatomy and physiology.     

A search for a solar cycle-temperature relationship in the middle atmosphere over Volgograd

The variation of temperature in the middle atmosphere (15–80 km) at Volgograd (49°N, 44°E) during an 11-year solar cycle (1971–1982) has been studied. The temperature of the stratosphere did not show any significant influence of the sunspot cycle, but the temperatures of the mesosphere showed a strong in-phase relationship with the solar cycle. Computed correlation and regression coefficients were positive and highly significant in this region. At 60 and 70km the temperature variations were almost linearly related to the sunspot number. Seasonal studies indicated that solar activity has a much stronger influence on temperature during the winter than during the summer.     

The search for a precise method of measurement in psychical experiments

Presents three brief case studies to show how cognition and psychic activity were explored as energetic and economic transactions in a variety of experimental settings. First, in the 1870's German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin began a search for an objective measurement of cognitive performance in which he engaged for several decades. His investigations resulted in a graphic representation of cognitive efficiency, the Arbeitscurve, delineating numbers of additions per time interval in close resemblance to representations of machine efficiency. Second, at the turn of the century American nutrition scientist and agronomist Wilbur Olin Atwater convinced himself in a series of precision measurements that the human motor was a perfectly closed input-output system and that any mental surplus in the form of cognitive energy transformation did not count as contradictions to the principle of the conservation of energy. Third, at the beginning of the 20th century and on the basis of Atwater's results, German psychiatrist Hans Berger stipulated a special form of psychic energy for mediating between the principle of the conservation of energy and mental causality. Berger attempted to quantify psychic energy as one factor of brain metabolism. In the three cases of precision investigations into psychic life presented here, the experimental space of psychophysiology turned mental activity into a form of machine-like behavior.     

寻梦金银滩

第一次看电影《金银滩》18岁的天空浪漫玫瑰色云彩,半世纪前的电影剖开青苹果硬核,心的绿野萌芽原始的冲动,梦的长鞭放牧生命的童贞。啊《,金银滩》的酥油灯拨亮混沌,去窥探云遮雾盖的人间百态,放逐灯火阑珊处的心猿意马,任蹄音敲醒那情窦初开……一对骏马交颈相依成诱惑,两只蝴蝶花丛追逐出启蒙,将被春风吻酥的最初快感,从欲说还羞的朦胧诗中传来。那肥美草原紧裹青春发育,雪山高耸乳峰呵纤细牧女腰肢,更有半个月亮掀开帐房一角,迎迓憧憬在灵与肉之间徘徊……啊,第一次看电影《金银滩》,阅尽蜇伏春潮的那个年代。总想将遥远拉近成零距离,引…