Of Dice and Women: Gambling and Exchange in Native North America

Although archaeologists have had success in documenting the movement and distribution of trade goods, they often fail to specify the actual social mechanisms by which such goods are shunted across archaeological landscapes. A thesis is developed that in Native North America gambling was one common mechanism for intergroup exchange. Particular attention is paid to dice games that, according to ethnographic accounts, were often played primarily by women. Building upon the pioneering compilation by Stewart Culin, game paraphernalia, playing rules, as well as odds and payoffs associated with wagering are described and mapped. The social and mythological contexts of dice games are also reviewed. Results indicate that making hitherto neglected links among exchange, gender, and gambling promises novel and more culturally informed ways of approaching the archaeological record.     

Controlling Bodies: The Punishment of Multiracialized Sexual Relations

Geographies of sexuality have paid minimal attention to interracial relations. To rectify this, we examine the genealogy of the criminalization and punishment of 'interracial' relations. Drawing on three historical moments in the evolution of race relations in Anglo-America, we argue that the criminalization of these relations has historically been grounded in material relations and not in abstract ideals of racial purity or fears of racial degeneration. Using a strategy of 'unnatural discourse,' we suggest that as the American capitalist system expanded, the punishment of multiracialized sexual relations has generated and retained important ideological functions that have never been far removed from their material base.     

Of Sheep and Scribbling: Women and Writing in (Mostly) Early Modern England

Books reviewed in this article: Kevin Pask, The Emergence of the English Author: Scripting the Life of the Poet in Early Modern England Carol Barash, English Women’s Poetry 1649-1714: Politics, Community and Linguistic Authority Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind Helen Wilcox (ed.), Women and Literature in Britain 1500-1700 Jeni Williams, Interpreting Nightingales: Gender, Class and Histories     

The Good of Wrath: Supernatural Punishment and the Evolution of Cooperation

Abstract

Human cooperation remains a puzzle because it persists even in contexts where traditional theories predict it should not do so (i.e. among unrelated strangers, who never meet again and where reputation effects are absent). The leading explanation argues that cooperation occurs only if non-cooperators are punished. However, punishment is costly, so ‘second-order’ non-cooperators may arise who defect from contributing to punishment, thus unravelling this solution. We propose an alternative: during our history, the fear of supernatural punishment (whether real or not) deterred defectors and may therefore represent an adaptive trait favoured by natural selection. Supernatural beliefs are universal among human societies, commonly connected to taboos for public goods, so it seems plausible that they serve an important function in fostering cooperation. This hypothesis offers an explanation for (a) geographic variation in religious practices as solutions to local cooperation problems; and (b) the power of political appeals to religion to elicit cooperation.     

试论地方治理的特殊性——宋人对“蜀乱”的认识与辨析

"蜀人好乱"之说起源于南朝,在宋代尤其是北宋仍是社会各界的主流认识。但随着形势的发展,巴蜀社会稳定、地位不断提升,以蜀人为主的一部分士大夫从乱蜀者、蜀中及全国形势、治蜀政策等多个方面,极力批判蜀人好乱之说,为蜀人辩诬。明清以来,蜀人好乱之说更为流行,宋人的辨析无疑在巴蜀史上成为独特的现象,其深厚的历史及思想文化内涵值得人们反思。     

死刑与儒家的公平正义——中国传统法律有关宽宥的限度

清朝命案刑科题本的近代读者,不得不佩服清代县长调查和审判命案时所表现的勤勉和称职。因此,从县长的立场来看,审理每一件命案不仅要有效率,同时也必须兼顾人道的考量。本篇文章分析四件因为「护亲情切」而杀死人的案例,充分显示县长如何运用娴熟的技巧,把明确及不明确的案情片段结合起来,做出既符合清代法律规定也顾及当时道德标准的判决。官僚体制为求效率,在执行律法时似乎会和儒家的仁义道德产生矛盾。但作者认为,清代处理命案的法律制度,已足以解决该项问题。     

Television Programs For Women in The United Arab Emirates and The City Of Milwaukee,U.S.A

To know more about the role of the television in dealing with women's problems in both United Arab Emirates (UAE) television and television in Milwaukee, Wisconsin U.S.A., a comparative analytical study was made for such programs in both countries. The researcher believes that developing local women's programs can benefit from the experiences of others, along with comparative studies between women's programs on UAE television and Milwaukee television. The study covers public television programs during the period from September 15 to October 30, 1997. The investigation relies on the survey and content analysis methods. These methods are usually adopted to survey and compare television programs in studies similar to this one.     

Gender, Public Space and Social Segregation in Cairo: Of Taxi Drivers, Prostitutes and Professional Women

Abstract:  Cairo's cityscape has transformed rapidly as a result of the neoliberal policies that Egypt adopted in the early 1990s. This article examines the spatial negotiations of class in liberalizing Cairo. While much scholarly attention has been devoted to the impact of neoliberal policies on global cities of the South, few studies have adopted an ethnographic focus to examine the everyday negotiations of such transformations. I examine the ways young female upper-middle-class professionals navigate Cairo's public spaces, both the safe spaces of the upscale coffee shops and the open spaces of the streets. Their urban trajectories can be read as the footsteps of the social segregation that has increasingly come to mark Cairo's cityscape. I conclude that the bodies of upper-middle-class women have become a battleground for new class configurations and contestations, literally embodying both power and fragility of Cairo's upper-middle class in Egypt's new liberal age.     

The Geography of Crime and Punishment in the Russian Federation

A UK-based team of two geographers and a criminologist presents the results of its ongoing investigation of the geography of Russia's prison system, which in 2011 is in the early stages of transition from housing inmates in communal barracks (regardless of the severity of their crimes) to one more similar to that in the United States, in which facilities are differentiated to accommodate the entire spectrum of inmates from those housed in maximum security prisons (cellblocks) to minimum security institutions ("colony settlements"). The authors seek to determine whether a Soviet-era spatial bias in the location of facilities persists in presentday Russia by comparing the location of prisons across regions with the distribution of the country's population as well as the per capita incidence of recorded crimes and serious crimes.     

耐刑、徒刑关系考

秦及汉初,不仅司寇、隶臣妾、鬼薪白粲等较轻徒刑可以附加耐刑,即使城旦舂这样的重徒刑也可以附加此刑,律文中经常出现的“完城旦舂”实际就是“耐城旦舂”,学界所谓“完成旦舂”不附加任何刑的观点是值得商榷的。而且无论耐刑还是徒刑,均不能作为独立刑使用,二者必须互相结合,才能施加于罪犯身上。法律条文中的“耐”和“鬼薪白粲”、“隶臣妾”、“司寇”等刑名,其实是耐刑 徒刑的省略语。自汉文帝法律改革到南北朝后期,人们经常将徒刑罪称为“耐罪”,就是徒刑和耐刑必须结合的反映。     

秦律宫刑非淫刑辨

秦简中关于宫刑的资料,只见于《法律答问》中的一条：可(何)谓“赎鬼薪鋈足”?可(何)谓“赎宫”?臣邦真戎君长,爵当上造以上,有罪当赎,其为群盗,令赎鬼薪鋈足;其有府(腐)罪。【赎宫】,其它罪比群盗亦如此。     

Women and Rural Development Policies: The Changing Agenda

The aim of this paper is to review and evaluate policies directed at rural women in the Third World, as reflected in WID research and policy documents. This review covers the assumptions behind the advocacy of direct assistance to rural women, the goals that are sought in providing such assistance and the means advocated to achieve them. An attempt is made to show how the agenda of mainstream WID research and policy formulation has closely followed, reflected and responded to changing international priorities in matters of development assistance in a manner that leaves crucial redistributive and political issues tangentially addressed and unresolved.     

张家山汉简《具律》的流变及“斩右趾”罪的弃市问题——读江陵张家山《二年律令·具律》札记

江陵张家山247号墓出土《二年律令》竹简中《具律》的发现对厘清失传已久的《具律》流变极有帮助。尤其是《具律》的筒明确记载了汉初肉刑的刑等及科罚,解决了帝时期废“斩右趾”肉刑为死刑的问题。