Cloth and Community: The Local Trade in Resist-Dyed and Block-Printed Textiles in Kachchh District,Gujarat

Abstract

The Khatris are an hereditary caste of dyers and block-printers in Kachchh district, Gujarat. This article reviews the traditional market for the Khatris' textiles, discussing in detail items made for specific client castes, chiefly the farmers and herders of Kachchh. It analyzes factors that have affected this traditional market in the post-colonial period, such as the wholesale industrialization of manufacture and changing patterns of agriculture. It goes on to identify the emergence of new, globalized markets and how the Khatris are developing new products in response to those markets.     

顾野王《舆地志》的著录、征引与内容——以唐宋文献为中心的考察

顾野王《舆地志》在唐代流传较广,多为具有南方背景的学者所利用。宋代以来,伴随着各类书籍的大量征引及其地理信息的失效,《舆地志》逐渐淡出了主流书籍的行列,最终散佚。据现存佚文,其成书时间应在天嘉元年(560年)后,记叙范围似不涉及外国与四夷。《舆地志》在具有六朝文学色彩的同时,也保留了不少较为实用的地理信息。其文本在传抄过程中被不断修改,这可能是佚文中的年号、政区多有抵牾的原因。     

The Rose and the Wine: Dispute as a Literary Device in Classical Persian Literature

As everyone knows, alcoholic drinks, including wine, are forbidden by Islam. Readers of Persian poetry often wonder how is it possible that Persian wine literature is one of the richest in the world and whether the poets and authors ever address the illicitness of the wine in their works. This article examines how one author, Zangī Bukhārī, presents a catalogue of positive and negative qualities of wine in his Gul u mul (“The Rose and the Wine”). Through the genre of debate (munāzara), he shows how a courtly audience may have tried to justify the drinking of wine. The article examines the formal generic characteristics of such debates, showing how the form of the debate is rather appropriate to let forbidden objects or ideas, in this case the wine, speak for themselves thus defending their position in an Islamic society. entertaining in is richness in metaphors and imagery used by the wine and the rose to voice their superiority to each other, but it also addresses a rather controversial topic in an uncontroversial style.     

敍事與嘲調:宋元説話伎藝的兩脈

考察歷代相關文獻關於"説話"伎藝的宗旨、形態的記述,宋元説話伎藝並不必然地只包括故事講説,它實由俳優的語言表演伎藝發展而來,應有敍事、嘲調兩條發展脈絡,並由此變化出説話伎藝的不同形態,分屬於敍事類説話伎藝和嘲調類説話伎藝。敍事、嘲調分别體現了宋元説話伎藝兩脈表演的宗旨、形態和方式。這一理析既有利於認識宋元説話伎藝作爲語言表演伎藝的淵源和全貌,也有利於認識宋元小説、戲曲和説唱伎藝的形態及其關聯。     

Tracing the Line of Europa: Migration,Genealogy, and the Power of Holy Origins in Ancient Greek Narrative Knowledge and Cultural Memory

This essay explores the place of the mythical heroine Europa in the narrative knowledge and cultural memory of ancient Greece and modern Europe. Early Greek sources make reference to several women named Europa, only one of whom is Agenor's (or Phoenix's) daughter abducted by Zeus who made her the member of a divine lineage. However, during the fifth-century BCE, the diverse “Europa” figures came to be identified with the Phoenician princess; and the foundations were laid for the abduction story to take on its modern notion as founding myth of Europe. This elevation to founding myth can, in part, be attributed to Europa's membership in a family of eponymous founders. From the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods, Europa's kin gradually grew as various myths were integrated with each other—myths, which shaped identities by creating memory through storytelling. Mythical family bonds came to be seen as biological facts and served both to consolidate local identities and to affirm a Panhellenic identity in times when inner and outer boundaries had to be negotiated as a consequence of migration, colonization, or warfare. The high degree of migration and the dense genealogical network in the narratives of Europa's kin allowed many different groups to lay claim to this narrative knowledge and in doing so, created new myths and cults, interpretations and evaluations of a family well-established in the Greek mind on account of its holy origins. Thus foundation myths surrounding Europa helped to define cultural and ethnic space shaped by migration and the dialectics of unity and plurality. As such, these myths remain relevant to Europe today.     

Textiles as the Face of Modernity: Artistry and Industry in Mid-Century America

This article examines the rise of a new profession of textile designer-intermediary in mid-twentieth-century America in light of the nation’s advancements in textile production, design, display and promotion. Unlike William Morris’s nineteenth-century call for a return to handcrafts to combat the evils of the British Industrial Revolution, American textiles were promoted as the face of modernity to reflect and exploit the miracles of technology. Emerging from these developments came the ‘Super Designers’ and ‘Techno-Craftsmen’, as designers Jack Lenor Larsen and Boris Kroll referred to them, who united handcraft sensibilities with good design and mass production.¹ These traits were also shared by weavers such as Anni Albers, Dorothy Liebes and Marianne Strengell, and designers of printed textiles such as Alexander Girard and Alvin Lustig. Despite an increasing reliance on mechanization, their textiles provided a human element — through texture, colour, pattern and connections to the past — to foil the threat of robotic mass production and mindless monotony. Working as corporate heads, industrial consultants, cultural ambassadors and textile collectors and connoisseurs, these designers emphasized in their work and writing the value of well-designed textiles for both visual and utilitarian purposes, collectively advancing contemporary textiles as ideal representatives of modern American design.     

Revisiting Old Friends: The Production,Distribution and Use of Peterborough Ware in Britain

Peterborough Ware is now recognized as the dominant ceramic tradition of the middle Neolithic in southern Britain during the period 3400–2800 BC, part of a wider north European family of Impressed Wares. Drawing on an extensive inventory of 600 recorded assemblages constructed by enriching previous lists with the results of development‐driven research carried out over the last 20 years or so, this paper reviews the production, distribution and use of Peterborough Ware. Support is found for the traditional sub‐division of the Peterborough Ware series into three sub‐styles: Ebbsfleet, Mortlake and Fengate Wares on the basis of the materials used, forms, and the decorative schemes preferred in each. The overall distribution of Peterborough Ware focuses on south‐eastern Britain although there are important assemblages from areas to the west and north, especially those composed of Mortlake Ware. The range of contexts in which Peterborough Ware was deposited is wide, but suggests a backward‐looking attitude in which the users of this style of pottery were trying to connect with their past.     

北宋中期越窑瓷业技术传播及相关问题研究——兼论核心区越窑瓷业衰落原因

北宋中期,以浙江慈溪上林湖为中心的越窑瓷业核心区窑址数量急剧减少,窑场规模缩小。与之相对,浙江其他地区却发现了大量这一时期的窑业遗存。研究显示,限于多方面因素的制约,北宋中期以上林湖为中心的越窑核心产区不再适宜大规模的瓷业生产,而这直接迫使制瓷工匠作出选择,或许其中一部分工匠开始另辟他地继续从事窑业生产,从而在浙江范围内出现了众多这一时期的窑址。此外,在瓷业技术的传入过程中,制瓷工匠也结合当地的自然和社会环境,在继承的基础上进行了自我创新。     

清代前期棉花棉布的运销

本文通过对清代前期棉花、棉布在全国各地运销情况的历史考察,说明在清代前期,全国绝大部分州县的棉花、棉布是自给不足,或者是自给有余的,人们都要依靠棉花或者棉布市场。正是大多数人的这种需求,才形成了棉花、棉布在省际间、县际间、城乡间、乡村间的流通。这也是棉花、棉布流通的最基本条件。     

Variability of Ceramic Production and Consumption on the Greek Mainland During the Middle Stages of the Late Bronze Age: The Waterpots from the Menelaion,Sparta

The article examines pottery groups manufactured in non‐Mycenaean traditions from the site of the Menelaion in Laconia (southern Peloponnese, Greece) during the middle stages of the Late Bronze Age. Pottery traditions are first defined using macroscopic study of surface and break features. Two distinct handmade traditions, and another one employing the wheel but with some links to traditional handmade pottery manufactured on the island of Aegina, were recognized and subjected to petrographic analysis. Its results confirmed that potters’ choices regarding clay preparation were different in the case of each identified tradition, being most distinct for the largest group of handmade undecorated water jars. The study highlights survival of pottery traditions with roots in the Middle Helladic period well into the Late Bronze Age, a fact that has not received appropriate attention in the scholarly discourse. It captures the very last stage of their existence, as just a few decades later the production and consumption are entirely dominated by Mycenaean pottery.     

Polis and Oikos: The Art of Politics in the Greek City-State

ABSTRACT

The Greek city-state has traditionally been viewed as an entity that was divided into two distinct spheres (oikos and polis) and governed by two distinct arts (oikonomia and politikê technê). The aim of this article is to show that this image of the Greek city-state is not very accurate. The relationship between the oikos and the polis was not exclusive in classical poleis. Particularly in Athens during the democratic period, the polis was depicted as a family writ large, and to the extent that oikos was seen as an entity of its own, it was a part of the polis, not excluded from or opposed to it. My aim is to show that the art of the household and the art of politics were not distinct arts as has been claimed in modern political theory. Furthermore, although the collapse of the classical city-state during the Hellenistic era entailed a privatization of the household, it was not until modern times, from the late eighteenth century onwards—when the concept of the natural right to life and property became firmly established in juridical and political discourses—that the private sphere attained genuine autonomy.     

The Transmigration of Rights: Women,Movement and the Grassroots in Latin American and Caribbean Communities

In order to better understand both the global and local contours and impact of transnationalism as a political and cultural force, this article suggests the need for an exploration of shifting gender roles and expectations as they are becoming manifest in situated arenas. The awkwardness of transposing an international rights discourse into local communities and settings deeply infused with tradition, or onto grassroots nationalist movements that work to resist foreign impositions is a widely recognized concern. At the same time, the influence of diaspora populations is seen to leaven and situate global discourse for local movements in a sending country and translates more local interests into global concerns in important and effective ways. Transnational feminist discourse now often concerns itself with the different strategies employed by diasporas, the strategic uses of global discourse, and the meaningful efforts to resist it. Through illustrations drawn from a study of women refugees in El Salvador, the Haitian democracy movement, and a rural Brazilian women's organization, this article links the experience of transmigration to women's mobilizing efforts and the proliferation of rights discourses.     

The First Crusade and the Latin east as seen from Venice: the account of the Translatio sancti Nicolai

The Translatio sancti Nicolai is the earliest Venetian source to describe the deeds of the first crusaders from Venice. It is most likely based on an eyewitness account of the events that was later rewritten in order to provide the historical context for the translation of St Nicholas's relics to Venice. This source ambivalently depicts the nature of the crusader battles, both emphasizing the spiritual value of this fight, mainly seen as a way to fulfil the sequela Christi , and highlighting the significant economic implications of the Christian conquest of the Holy Land.