The 'folded flan' coinage of eastern Arabia: Some preliminary comments

In recent years a small number of peculiar coins has emerged from the southern shores of the Persian/Arabian Gulf imitating Athenian tetradrachms of the old style and sharing the oddity of being struck on a flan that had been folded before striking. This paper contains an overview of the pieces known so far and attempts to present some preliminary conclusions, while still awaiting a comprehensive study of this and related ancient coinages of the Arabian peninsula.     

《时贤本事曲子集》新考订

北宋杨绘的《时贤本事曲子集》(以下简称《本事》)①,是中国词学史上第一部词话专著.作为开山之作,其重要性不言而喻.然而,遗憾的是,这部词话早已亡佚,后人只能从他书转引中窥知一二.     

张元幹词风格浅论

张元斡是两宋之交重要的词人,南渡后他一方面因个性和时代的关系,在词作中承袭了苏轼词对主体情性的突出和高扬,将个人的情感抒发拓宽到对国家民族、时政的感慨,给词坛带来了新的气象;另一方面受传统词学观念的影响,尤其是受到北宋末期周邦彦等人富丽精工、沉郁顿挫的词风的熏染,在词中大量用典,引用或化用前人诗句、诗意,精于练字遣词,结构回环曲折,更多地呈现出婉约的风格。主要原因是他以真性情贯注其中,加上高洁的人品、丰富的学识、曲折的经历,自然形成了磊落之气,以气驭词,使词的风格随着具体情性的变化,在不同的题材里呈现出不同的面貌。从以上角度评价他上承东坡,下启稼轩应该更为合理,而不仅仅局限于词风的豪放和词境的开拓。     

Some notes on water supply in South India

This Article investigates the assertion by many Indian agronomists that methods of water management advocated by various Research Institutes are not being applied in the field. The sample village studies on the coastal plain around Madras and in the Cumbum Valley to the West of Madurai were carried out in 1969. Particular reference is also made to the Coimbatore Agricultural Research Centre in Tamilnad and the value of informed leadership in the villages of South India. “Although India can boast of her gigantic feats in the storage of water for irrigation and the distribution thereof in well planned channel systems, her performance in the actual application within the field continues to be outdated”. — (A. P. Bhattacharya¹).     

The consequences of nationalism: A scholarly exchange

The main thrust of the scholarship on nationalism has so far been concerned with its origins. But nationalism also has effects. Whether it underpins the nation-building efforts of states, is mobilised by counter-state forces or is used in everyday life, nationalism might implicate a wide range of substantive outcomes, including political regimes, public goods provision, citizenship and immigration laws, and different patterns of conflict. Yet—with a few notable exceptions—the consequences of nationalism have received significantly less scholarly attention. In response, the aim of this Exchange is to create a new dialogue between different strands of scholarship around what we know and do not know about the consequences of nationalism. We organise this Exchange around the following questions: (1) What is nationalism? (2) How can we measure nationalism? (3) What are the consequences of nationalism? (4) What are new research frontiers?     

The unavoidable salience of gender: notes from Australian childcare work

This article explores the gendering of work in Australian childcare settings from a post-gender perspective. Much early childhood research focuses on encouraging men into the field, seeing their presence as beneficial to the perceived worth of childcare work. Such research ignores how women’s gendered experiences, as the overwhelming majority of the workforce, are already shaping the field, creating an image of this work apparently unpalatable to most men. I show how gendered relations have a profound impact, even in mono-gendered spaces like childcare, to the continuing disadvantage of women. Workers caught within binary understandings of gender appear to draw on normative gendered discourses to understand the social and economic positioning of the field, rather than more emancipatory framings. This article argues that perspectives that actively question biomedical understandings of gender can be useful in understanding and challenging the gendering of particular societal spaces, such as childcare services.