Democratisation and Ethnic Conflict: The Kin Connection

Abstract. This article posits that individuation is a determining factor in making democratisation efforts workable or, where it is absent, ethnic conflict likely. Somalia serves as a case study. Since the Somali state has not been able to secure individuals' social welfare or their futures, citizens use genealogies, which chart trustworthiness, to construct social welfare safety-nets. There is also a moral dimension to genealogy. This is quite different from what occurs in the democratic West, where the state has guaranteed individuals a significant measure of social welfare security over time, and where identity can be considered situational. I argue that under conditions of uncertainty, such as have existed in Somalia, identity is not at all situational, but is fixed and fixes individuals in ethnic groups. The push to democratise can then lead to armed ethnic conflict.     

The Connection of Scotland with the Pilgrims of Grace

The largest and finest products of the Tournai school of brass engravers in the fourteenth century commemorate ecclesiastics and are to be found in northern Germany, to where it seems likely they were transported by the merchants of the important Hanse port of Lübeck. One of these, perhaps the finest brass ever produced by the school, commemorated two bishops of that city and lies in the cathedral. Two others, each to two bishops with the name of Bülow, are in the not very distant cathedral of Schwerin. We know of at least two others, formerly in cathedral churches at Schleswig and at Roskilde in Denmark.

The greatest use of these memorials was undoubtedly made however by the richer members of the merchant class themselves, made possible by their trade with Flanders through the major Kontor at Bruges. Although the number of these brasses surviving in the Baltic ports is disappointingly few there is record that considerable numbers were once there.     

The Flemish Connection: Cautions Regarding Some Building Materials Terminology

Abstract

‘That's a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said.

Lewis Carroll     

The Chaco Connection: Evaluating Bonito-Style Architecture in Outlier Communities

Because architecture shapes and is shaped by human actions and perceptions, architectural variability has the potential to provide information about relationships among prehistoric social groups. This study examines communicative and enculturative information contained in Bonito-style architecture constructed in Chaco Canyon and outlying communities during the late eleventh century A.D. Does the appearance of Bonito-style architecture at outliers constitute direct involvement on the part of a centralized, Chacoan entity or could local people have been emulating Bonito-style architecture they saw at Chaco or in neighboring communities? These questions have implications for existing models of Chacoan social organization. To investigate, a comparative architectural analysis uses data from 61 great houses in 55 outlier communities. Analysis is based on the premise that outlier similarity should reflect a unified, direct Chacoan source for Bonito-style architecture, and diversity should reflect the converse. Because highly visible, external architectural characteristics can be emulated, five internal, low-visibility great-house architectural attributes were selected for comparison. Results indicate substantial diversity is contained within the Chacoan world. A variety of relationships probably existed between outlier communities and Chaco Canyon, and a range of explanatory models is necessary. Bonito-style architecture is more likely to be associated with a struggle to legitimate social power than with spontaneous, cooperative communal activity. Competitive emulation may account for the appearance of Bonito-style architecture in outlier communities toward the local end of the outlier spectrum.     

The Highgate Cemetery Vampire Hunt: The Anglo-American Connection in Satanic Cult Lore

The purpose of this paper is the study and analysis of a fairly widespread false idea. I mean to take seriously one of these shreds of lore that are by and large known to everyone, and try to understand the traits that make it seductive and convincing. It seems to me that the main problem set by false ideas is that they are rooted in the collective consciousness.

The false idea chosen as an example asserts that the image of the murderer is retained on a victim's retina after death and can be retrieved through photography. In tribute to Edgar Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, I have chosen to designate this assertion as “The Tell-Tale Eye.” Our journey through this false idea will lead us towards a legend built around a technical process, that of photography, but also towards the seductiveness of a magical thought, in which it is the victim's own body that accuses the murderer.     

词的起结与过片

向来谈词者重艺而轻技,本文探索词创作中的起句与结句、过片两个技术问题,深入而明澈,于初习作词者颇有益。     

明末清初西湖小说与西湖诗词

明末清初西湖小说与西湖诗词有着共同的文化背景与地域色彩,西湖诗词能够自然贴切地融入小说叙事,创造出诗情画意的优美意境,提高了西湖小说的艺术品位,调节小说叙事的节奏,使其情节生动曲折又符合情理逻辑,还丰富了人物的思想感情与心理活动。     

The Ob' will enter the Caspian: the Yenisey-Ob'-Aral-Caspian Water Connection and the Energy Problem

An early 1949 version of Davydov's grandiose scheme for diverting water from the Yenisey and Ob' Rivers to Kazakhstan and Central Asia via the Turgay Gates and the Aral and Caspian Seas in order to stabilize the level of the Caspian, expand the irrigated acreage of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, generate abundant hydro-electric power, provide a cheap water transport route between Siberia and Central Asia, eliminate sukhovei (dry winds) at their source, and ameliorate the continental climate of Western Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia. The plan reflects the anthropocentric “transformation of nature” and the large-scale “great projects of communism” drives of the late Stalinist period. The translation was prepared by James R. Gibson of York University, Toronto.     

Inventing Revivalist Millennialism: Edwards and the Scottish Connection

Revivalism and millennialism are important concepts that influence contemporary evangelicalism. However it was in the Great Awakening that Jonathan Edwards and select Scottish ministers first connected revivalism and millennialism together in a new evangelical print culture. Evangelical ministers used publications and personal correspondence to hypothesise that the current Atlantic revivals were signs pointing towards Christ’s millennial kingdom. The 1740s stands as a unique decade where evangelical ministers created an influential synthesis of revivalism, social progress, and millennialism. The revivalist and millennial synthesis was a harbinger of the evangelical future for religious movements in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.     

志书资料取舍与志书体例的关系

首轮志书取舍资料存在着一些问题,如志书的经济部类缺乏完整的指标;建置沿革及其相关的内容多袭旧志,并没有吸收考古新发现;轻自然、重人的倾向明显等。为此,本建议续志应增加经济综合分析及居民消费结构等篇目,尽量吸收考古新发现,以争取尽可能多地保存资料。     

“八旗值月档”与清初《实录》的关系

本稿着力探讨了清初起居注官设立以前形成的八旗值月档的形成过程、性质及其与早期《实录》体史书的关系。认为八旗中旗色相同的二旗按月轮番记录制度,至迟在皇太极即位之初已被延续下来。值月档记载内容,从天聪五年档来看,包括有汗的起居言行为主的后金内部的各类日常事务。这些日录作为档案由书房(文馆)保管,以此为基础由巴克什编辑成专题档册;并和对外文书一起,作为《实录》等史书编纂时的基础资料来使用。值月档久已不存,但崇德元年的《太祖太后实录》,还有顺治年间的《太祖武皇帝实录》、《太宗文皇帝实录》与其有着密切关联。