Umkomasia (megasporophyll): part 1 of a reassessment of Gondwana Triassic plant genera and a reclassification of some previously attributed

The genus Umkomasia, a megasporophyll, belonging to the pteridosperms (seed ferns) in the family Umkomasiaceae (Corystospermaceae), is reassessed comprehensively worldwide. All previous records are analysed. Certain fertile structures previously attributed are reclassified. Umkomasia is shown to be restricted to the Triassic of Gondwana where it is associated with the genus Pteruchus, a microsporophyll, and the genus Dicroidium, a vegetative leaf. It is well represented from Argentina, Australia and southern Africa where the Molteno Formation is by far the most comprehensively sampled with eight species described. Two specimens from the upper Permian of India attributed to Umkomasia are reclassified as cf. Arberiopsis sp. A whorled fertile structure from Antarctica, previously assigned to Umkomasia, is reclassified in a new genus as Axsmithia uniramia. Another compression fossil and the permineralized Umkomasia resinosa remain as valid records from Antarctica. The material described as Umkomasia from the Triassic of China is reclassified as Stenorachis asiatica. The Lower Jurassic record from Germany is placed in a new genus as Kirchmuellia franconica. The records of Umkomasia sp. from the Rhaetic of Germany are reclassified as cf. Kirchmuellia sp. and the single specimen from the Jurassic of Libya as genus et sp. indet. The Lower Cretaceous record from Mongolia has been reclassified by other researchers as Doylea mongolica. A pictorial key to Umkomasia species is provided, geographic and stratigraphic distributions are tabulated.     

AGA,AMIO AND LOTO: PERSPECTIVES ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE SELF IN SAMOA

The article concerns the Shore/Freeman controversy about the terms aga and amio. Shore sees aga as the Samoan category for ‘culture’ and amio as the category for ‘nature’ in the Hobbesian sense. Freeman says that Shore has his terms backwards. I argue that Freeman is correct in his assertion that aga cannot be equated with ‘culture‘. However, Freeman wrongly defines aga as innate essence. In fact aga is the term for identity, which in Samoa is external and social. Amio is best understood as a derivative of that part of the self which Samoans call the loto and which we call subjectivity.     

Exploring children's foodscapes

In this article, we discuss children's becoming as food consumers in the intersection of various foodscapes. We draw from a project, Children as co-researchers of foodscapes, where we have been working with children as co-researchers, using basically ethnographic methods, and as co-designers in a collaborative design effort. This article focuses on the findings from a theoretically inspired perspective, using the concept of foodscapes. These are food-related structures of different kinds, which evolve as the child explores them and where children as food consumers are generated. In this article, we highlight the scapes of taste, routines, people, things, commerce, child (as opposed to adult) and health and give brief accounts of the way the children related to them. Finally, we turn to the benefits of working with foodscapes for a better understanding of children's becoming as food consumers in the intersection of various foodscapes. This article is based on data gathered by the children, but also on our fieldwork notes and observations following the children in their foodscapes.     

Recent Books in the Field of Medieval Literature

The main objective of this article is to analyze the relationship between the novísimos poets—Pedro Gimferrer, Luis Antonio de Villena, Leopoldo María Panero, and Guillermo Carnero, among others—and the avant-garde movements in Spain. If during the forties the garcilasismo opposed the avant-garde, in the seventies, with the novísimos, the -ismos returned to be considered not as a radical change but as one more stage in the evolution of Spanish poetry. The -ismos are now considered not as a subversive departure from the past, but as part of Spanish artistic heritage and tradition, thus reconciling tradition and modernity or even converting the vanguard into literary tradition. The -ismos are described not as an absolute novelty but simply as a process of innovation in the same way, with their own poetic precedents, as the garcilasistas and the neoromantics of the past.     

Wills,deeds, acts: women's civic gift-giving in Ottoman Istanbul

The waqf (plural awqaf) is the Islamic pious endowment founded for charitable purposes. The Ottoman waqf, especially between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, became a gift-giving practice of solidarity in which women played an active role in founding and maintaining endowments as benefactors. These endowments served almost exclusively civic public services. While there has been considerable research on women and waqf, by moving beyond interpreting the ostensible motives that are always intertwined with women's role as ‘family caretakers’ or ‘devout Muslims’, we attempt to suggest that, interpreted as acts of piety, awqaf, and especially those that were founded as organized spaces known as külliyes, became institutions by which women were able to cultivate (in themselves and others) civic identities, and articulate civic solidarities as citizens of their cities. This image of women as civic gift-givers recasts them as active citizens of Ottoman cities, especially Istanbul.     

Textual and Exegetical Issues in Vergil's Fifth and Seventh Eclogues

(I) At 5. 3 read considimus instead of consedimus, (II) at 8 certet instead of certat, (III) at 38 pupurea instead of purpureo, (IV) at 66 understand altaria as apposition to duas tibi, Daphni as well, (V) at 7. 5 take pares not as a predicative, but as governing cantare (‘equally competent at singing’) reflecting Theocr. 8. 4. (VI) Arguing against identifying Micon (29–30) with Corydon I take si proprium hoc fuerit (31) as expressing Corydon's own hope as a hunter, (VII) I modify the usual interpretation of Thyrsis' response (33–35), (VIII) find the idea that Thyrsis impersonates Galatea in 41–44 improbable and (IX) at 64 prefer the ancient reading Veneris instead of corylos.     

THE HISTORIAN AS A PUBLIC MORALIST: ON THE ROMAN ORIGINS OF A SCHOLARLY PERSONA

In her recent book, Virtus Romana, Catalina Balmaceda provides a fascinating analysis of the concept of virtus in Roman historiography. Although virtus, which translates as courage or more generally as virtue, meant different things to different Roman historians, Balmaceda shows that disagreement was never about whether historians should provide readers with examples of virtue. Historians' differences of opinion focused rather on where such models were to be found and what they should look like. This review essay summarizes Balmaceda's main arguments, raises a question about historians' own virtus, and draws some implications from the book for the study of scholarly personae. Did the persona of the historian as a public moralist, such as is known from nineteenth‐century Europe, originate in ancient Rome?     

Review articles

Colette is not generally included in recent narratives of twentieth-century French neoclassicism. However, her contemporaries of various political and aesthetic persuasions considered Colette to be a classique of the first order. This article explores classification as classique by critics sympathetic to Charles Maurras and the aesthetics of the Action française as well as left-leaning critics associated with André Gide and the group surrounding the Nouvelle Revue française. The article shows that it is Colette's strong association with a particular type of femininity that allows her to be thought of as classique by critics of such different political and aesthetic commitments. The article also examines examples of resistance to Colette's categorisation as classique, and attempts to assert the modernity of her work, coining the term classique moderne as a way of bringing together diverse attempts to explain the harmony between classicism and modernity in Colette's work. The article suggests that Colette's incorporation in the canon of the classique is part of a larger solidifying of the role of femininity in French identity at that moment.     

Religion,secularisation and nationalism in Quebec and the Basque Country: a comparative approach

This article analyses the relationship between religion, secularisation and nationalism in Quebec and the Basque Country using a comparative approach. I will first outline the ethnic‐religious origin of these nationalist movements. Second, I will examine the extent to which the ‘new’ secular and violent nationalism (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna and Front de Libération du Québec) that emerged in the 1960s was fuelled in its origin by a transfer of sacrality. Third, I will address an aspect that has led some theorists to view religion and nationalism as analogous phenomena, in which nationalism is construed as a religion of blood sacrifice. Fourth, I will examine another aspect that leads to this view of religion and nationalism as analogous phenomena, as the latter also provides a framework of transcendent meaning through an imaginary of continuity between the different generations. The article concludes with a series of general considerations on the relations between nationalism, secularisation and religion.     

Children's perceptions of the natural environment: a South African perspective

This qualitative study explored the ways in which adolescents perceive the natural environment. Focus group interviews were conducted with 32 participants between the ages of 13 and 14 attending a school in a low-income area in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The findings revealed five key meanings which emerged from the themes the participants discussed, i.e. nature as a threatened place, ‘culture of inconsideration’ towards nature, nature as external to the self, nature as the dangerous other, and intrinsic care for nature. Nature as the dangerous other persisted as an overarching meaning which emerged from the participants' responses. Thus, the participants perceived the natural environment through the lens of safety as natural areas in their community are characterised by crime, violence, and pollution.     

Eighteen Histories in Brief and its influence in Japan

ABSTRACT

Eighteen Histories in Brief (Shiba shilue 十八史略) was a concise general history text created in the Yuan dynasty, which developed into many editions and achieved widespread popularity by the Ming dynasty. After being introduced to Japan, Eighteen Histories in Brief became as well known as historical classics such as the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji 史记) and the Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government (Zizhi tongjian 资治通鉴). During the Meiji Restoration period, a demand for abbreviated histories arose in Japan. This was seen in the large-scale publication of many new editions of Eighteen Histories in Brief. Continuations to the book, as well as histories in brief of Japanese and Western history were also widely published. This had a profound impact on Japanese society, culture, and historiography, with a legacy extending into the contemporary period.     

Lulik: Taboo,Animism, or Transgressive Sacred? An Exploration of Identity,Morality, and Power in Timor‐Leste

This article explores the continued significance of lulik for people living in the central highlands of Timor‐Leste today, lulik being a term frequently translated as ‘sacred’. In contrast to the straightforward definition of lulik as the sacred property of religious places or objects set apart from everyday life, it shows that lulik is understood as a potency that animates the environment and that is concentrated in specific sites in the landscape, in ancestral objects and houses. As a vital energy that sustains life, yet that is connected to prohibitions, danger, and restrictions, lulik shares an affinity with similar phenomena found in Melanesia, Polynesia, and Southeast Asia (such as mana, tapu, or semangat). Engaging with recently reinvigorated approaches to animism and Durkheim's notion of the sacred, this article examines how lulik that emerges when distinctions between human and non‐human entities are collapsed. The analysis of how Funar residents maintain a distance from this transgressive force leads to an exploration of how lulik is connected to the constitution of the self, and how lulik is mobilized as a source of power and morality.     

Deconstructing/Reconstructing Ethnicity

Abstract. Ethnicity is here viewed as a continuum, varying widely in terms of salience, intensity and meaning, along which several types of ethnicity can be distinguished. Domination ethnicity is where a nation imposes monocultural control – it can be regarded as a form of ethnicity. Enclosure ethnicity has three variants – dormant ethnicity, cultural confinement, and inward-looking ethnicity. Competition ethnicity competes over resources of the state and development. Finally, optional ethnicity is of low intensity and is light, volitional and fluid, as in the case of ethnic entrepreneurs and symbolic ethnicity. What is considered as well are the dynamics of ethnicity, shifting from one mode to another. The politics of ethnicity is here taken up in terms of emancipation and domination. Perspectives on ethnicity are framed by the changing meanings of ethnicity over time. The final question concerns the endgames of ethnicity, or the paths of change of different types of ethnicity, and how each relates to ethnic conflict regulation.     

An Italian city-state geared for war: urban knights and the cavallata of Todi

The prominent presence of noble families in towns is generally accepted as a distinguishing feature of medieval Italy's communal city-states. Paradoxically, the nobility, as the exclusive supplier of trained and fully equipped cavalrymen, would retain a pivotal position in the communal armies when, in the Duecento, their political power was questioned. In this article a detailed study has been made of the nobility's role in the organisation of the [ac]cavallata (the public obligation to maintain warhorses) as well as in the militia (cavalry service) of the Umbrian town of Todi in the decades around 1300, when Todi as a city-state reached the zenith of its power. It is argued that in Todi cavallata and militia did not coincide in all respects, and also that both institutions were to some extent open to members of the sizeable class of the sergentes. The sergentes were responsible for the ‘rural’ part of the cavallata, and they provided the cavalry of the communal army with light horsemen.     

Reassessment of the Silurian problematicum Rutgersella as another post-Ediacaran vendobiont

Retallack, G.J., 1.7.2015. Reassessment of the Silurian problematicum Rutgersella as another post-Ediacaran vendobiont. Alcheringa 39, 573–588. ISSN 0311-5518

Rutgersella is a problematic fossil from the early Silurian (Llandovery) Shawangunk Formation of New Jersey, at first interpreted as a jellyfish comparable with Ediacaran fossils, such as Dickinsonia. Three proposed species of Rutgersella from the same locality are here regarded as growth or reproductive variants of a single species, R. truexi. Sedimentary structures, associated trace fossils and petrographic examination now show that they were sessile organisms of intertidal mudflats. These fossils have been dismissed as pyrite suns, but thin-sections show that they were weakly pyritized, organic structures, with a quilted hollow internal structure, similar to Seilacher’s constructional and taxonomic concept of Vendobionta. As for Cambrian Swartpuntia, and Devonian Protonympha, Rutgersella may be a post-Ediacaran vendobiont. The biological affinities of Rutgersella are problematic, but are compared with coenocytic green algae, cellular slime moulds, puffball-like fungal fruiting bodies and foliose lichens.

Gregory J. Retallack [gregr@uoregon.edu], Department of Geological Sciences, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1272, USA.     

Reform Spirit and Regional Theaters

The rise of local theaters during the latter half of the 19th century was due to a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic causes. The decline of Kunqu opera as a performing art tailored to the taste of the gentry society, artistic innovations in regional theaters – particularly that of Jingju opera – as well as a more commercialized economy all contributed to this development. Moreover, reformist impulses among many literati-playwrights at the turn of the 20th century provided momentum, leading to the formation of the reform movement in Chinese theater (xiqu). Although influence from Japan and the West played an important part in the process, Yu Zhi (1809–1874) can be regarded as a “forerunner,” who promoted regional theaters as a tool for social reform. Through an examination of him and his “benevolent plays” in the Shuji tang jinyue collection, this study sheds light on his effort to reform society through xiqu, as well as possible connections with the later xiqu reform movement.     

The possible influence of post-harvest objectives on Cucurbita maxima subspecies maxima and subspecies andreana evolution under cultivation at the Argentinean Northwest: an archaeological example

This paper investigates the possible links between postharvest activities and methods of plant husbandry or management of Cucurbita maxima ssp. maxima and C. maxima ssp. andreana in the prehispanic Argentinean Northwest area. Microscopic methods were used to assess the micromorphological characteristics of modern specimens of South American Cucurbita and Lagenaria species to obtain diagnostic anatomical traits. These traits were then used as criteria for identifying archaeological Cucurbitaceae rind remains from domestic to funerary contexts of the Pampa Grande archaeological site (1720 ± 50 bp, cal. 259–433 ad). Following the taxonomic identification of the archaeological plant remains, they were futher assessed for signs of human selection or possible cultivation, including: rind thickness, qualitative characters (lobbing, wartiness and colour) and postharvest traits (artificial shape, charring, staining and decoration of sherds). The results indicate the presence of Lagenaria siceraria together with spontaneous, intermediate and domestic C. maxima morphotypes. Different subspecies maxima morphtypes were recognized: those intended as food, having thin pericarps to facilitate consumption and those intended also as food, but as containers too, as in Lagenaria, in which the rinds are thickened and lignified. The latter morphotype may possibly represent a strategy of postharvest intensification, but not through new processing techniques, but through the development of landraces with a longer fruit shelf life, resulting from changing husbandry criteria to selective pressures over cultivated stands.     

Upper Ordovician Phacopida (Trilobita) from Tasmania

Eastonian trilobite faunas of the Gordon Group in Tasmania include the new species Ceraurinella oepiki, Erratencrinurus trippi, and Pliomerina trisulcata, as well as a reedocalymeninid probably allied to Sarrabesia Hammann & Leone, 1997. Ceraurinella and Erratencrinurus have not previously been reported from Australia, the former being predominantly Laurentian but also known from NE China, the Himalaya, and Vietnam, and the latter mostly Baltic/Laurentian. Peri-Gondwanan species of Ceraurinella appear to form a clade, within which Tasmanian and Indian (central Himalayan) taxa are closest relatives.     

Is Francesco Patrizi’s L’Amorosa Filosofia a heterodox reading of the Symposium?

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on L’Amorosa Filosofia, perhaps the most compelling response to Ficino’s De Amore produced in the sixteenth century, as it is centered on the notion of love as philautia, based upon a naturalistic and psychological interpretation. The learned lady Tarquinia Molza, the most important interlocutor of Francesco Patrizi, affirms that love, from its beginnings in the inner self to its end, when reaching the divine, cannot but be a phenomenon that engages the sense of touch, showing a naturalistic attitude toward the body and an interest in the mediation between matter and spirit. Contrary to popular notions of self-love as selfish and callous, an honest man must necessarily love himself first in order to love others. In The Praise of Folly, Erasmus also tackles the concept, making Folly praise Philautia as a fundamental means for happiness. More relevant to Patrizi’s work, in Mario Equicola’s De Natura de Amore, there is a long digression on the virtues of self-love.     

Taxonomy and historical inertia: Clidastes (Squamata: Mosasauridae) as a case study of problematic paleobiological taxonomy

I review the taxonomic history of two problematic mosasaur species, Clidastes liodontus and Clidastes moorevillensis. The genus Clidastes is thought to represent an early radiation of a diverse clade known as the Mosasaurinae. However, most phylogenetic analyses recover the genus as paraphyletic with respect to more highly nested mosasaurines such as Mosasaurus, Prognathodon, and Globidens. The fragmentary holotype of Clidastes liodontus was never figured or fully described, and was destroyed in World War II. Over 20 years after destruction of the holotype, relatively complete specimens were referred to Clidastes liodontus based upon a single, variable character. Another taxon, originally designated Clidastes liodontus moorevillensis in a master’s thesis and then elevated to Clidastes moorevillensis in a separate dissertation, has never been formally described and lacks definitive diagnostic characters that differentiate it from the contemporary concept of Clidastes liodontus. Clidastes provides an excellent example of how historical inertia in taxonomic nomenclature can build over decades and skew our interpretations of the diversity, paleobiology, biogeography, and biostratigraphy of a taxon. Clidastes liodontus is a nomen dubium and Clidastes moorevillensis a nomen nudum. I recommend that both names be abandoned. Removal of those names frees us from a burdensome taxonomy and eliminates cognitive biases that hinder objective understanding and exploration of early-diverging mosasaurines, and is a necessary first step toward a taxonomic revision of the lineage(s) involved.