Some thoughts on art-historical dendrochronology

Imported timbers pose potential problems for the dendrochronologist. The problem is general and any particular dendrochronologist may run into difficulty when he attempts to correlate an exotic ring pattern against an indigenous chronology. Sufficient evidence exists to suspect that high quality oak boards and planks were extensively imported into England in medieval times. However, chronologies constructed from just such boards, namely the art-historical chronologies, have been treated as indigenous without being proven to be so. Almost identical comments can be made with respect to art-historical chronologies constructed by German workers using supposedly indigenous Flemish oak panels. This article explores how failure to allow for importation may well call into question the dating of these art-historical chronologies and in addition demonstrates how an art-historical dating system has been created wherein erroneous placement of the chronologies could escape detection (this latter aspect may well make the argument of general interest to scientists).     

After the graduation ceremony: Some thoughts on geography graduate careers

Abstract

An increase in the level of concern with geography graduate careers is needed. Geographers in higher education should undertake fuller and more detailed analysis of career patterns so that they can give careers advice and provide courses that give students some marketable skills. A brief survey of information currently available on geography graduate careers is followed by an analysis of the career patterns of geography graduates from the universities and a polytechnic. Suggestions are made for data improvement and for immediate action.     

关于旅游业现状的一点思考

<正>目前,全国旅游业有一些新的发展趋势,其中,积极和消极并存。下面,简单地提出一些,并作适当的分析和思考,以期引起大家对于目前旅游业的关注和重视。     

Nazism as modern magic: bronislaw malinowski's political anthropology

In the 1930s, the functionalist anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski embarked on a lecture tour of the United States in an attempt to alert the American public to the threat posed by Nazism. This article considers how Malinowski's public campaigning built on his anthropological studies, and suggests how the insights contained therein can still be an impetus to further augment our understanding of Nazism as a phenomenon.     

Anthropology as art, art as anthropology: Tate Modern, London

Conference reviewed:
Fieldworks: Dialogues between art and anthropology: Tate Modern, London, 26–28 September 2003     

Some thoughts on ibex on plinths in early South Arabian art

Ibex are an important iconographic element in the art of South Arabia. The origins, geographical distribution, chronology and divine affinities of ibex are considered, drawing on both archaeological and epigraphic sources.     

The tyranny of the definite article: Some thoughts on the art of intellectual history

This essay argues, following an insight of Burckhardt, that the philosophy of history is a ‘centaur’, and that it has a tendency to hinder rather than to encourage the practice of history. It challenges many of the presuppositions of Bevir's study, demonstrating that The Logic of the History of Ideas is not, in any meaningful sense, an historically minded work. The ‘logic’ of the essay looks to the arts, especially literature and music, as providing genuinely illuminating parallels to the discipline involved in the practice of intellectual history. History cannot be understood as a process of philosophical abstraction; pertinent examples are of its essence, and plurality is therefore central to its richly textured nature. It still has much to learn from the reflexive procedures of anthropology. By examining the idea of ‘tradition’ the essay demonstrates that ‘the past’ is never dead, and that the relationship between texts is a living process: the intellectual historian is him/herself an artist, and his/her task is no less demanding than that of the creative artist, and it is always humblingly provisional.     

The tyranny of the definite article: Some thoughts on the art of intellectual history

This essay argues, following an insight of Burckhardt, that the philosophy of history is a ‘centaur’, and that it has a tendency to hinder rather than to encourage the practice of history. It challenges many of the presuppositions of Bevir's study, demonstrating that The Logic of the History of Ideas is not, in any meaningful sense, an historically minded work. The ‘logic’ of the essay looks to the arts, especially literature and music, as providing genuinely illuminating parallels to the discipline involved in the practice of intellectual history. History cannot be understood as a process of philosophical abstraction; pertinent examples are of its essence, and plurality is therefore central to its richly textured nature. It still has much to learn from the reflexive procedures of anthropology. By examining the idea of ‘tradition’ the essay demonstrates that ‘the past’ is never dead, and that the relationship between texts is a living process: the intellectual historian is him/herself an artist, and his/her task is no less demanding than that of the creative artist, and it is always humblingly provisional.     

Piaget in Africa: Some thoughts concerning operational thinking among the Iteso

Barnabus Otaala. The Development of Operational Thinking in Primary School Children: An Examination of Some Aspects of Piaget's Theory among the Iteso Children of Uganda. New York: Teachers College Press, 1973. ix + 118 pp. Tables, appendixes, and references. $3.95 (paper).