"Seeing" and "Hearing" in a Deaf–Blind World: Laura Bridgman's Legacy (Review Essay)

Books reviewed in this article:
Ernest Freeberg, The Education of Laura Bridgman: The First Deaf and Blind Person to Learn Language
Elisabeth Gitter, The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf–Blind Girl     

Comment

Comments by:
Nancy Scheper-Hughes and John Gledhill, Neo-cannibalism: Anthropologists in the Amazon
Francesca Merlan and Ian S. McIntosh, Reconciliation: The People's choice?
J.C.H. King and Laura Peers, 'Native museums'     

Review

Modern Papua New Guinea. Edited by Laura Zimmer‐Tamakoshi. Kirksville, Missouri: Thomas Jefferson University Press. 1998. Pp: vi + 424. Price: $40 cloth, $25 paper.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past: invasion, violence and imagination in indigenous Central Australia. By Diane Austin‐Broos . The Iban Diaries of Monica Freeman 1949–1951: Including Ethnographic Drawings and Sketches, Paintings, Photographs and Letters Edited by Laura P. Appell‐Warren     

Men’s History,Gender History,or Cultural History?

Books reviewed in this article: Shawn Johansen, Family Men: Middle–Class Fatherhood in Industrializing America Martin A. Berger, Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood Matthew Basso, Laura McCall and Dee Garceau (eds), Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West     

Recovering Lives from behind the Gloss of Ideology: Recent Histories of Elite and Middle‐Class Women in England and America

Books reviewed in this article: Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women's Lives in GeorgianEngland Jill Liddington, Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority Laura McCall and Donald Yacovone (eds), A Shared Experience: Men, Women and the History of Gender John Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle‐Class Homein Victorian England     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: P. H. Cullum and Katherine J. Lewis (eds), Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages Laura Gowing, Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth‐Century England Joan DeJean, The Reinvention of Obscenity: Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France Susan Broomhall, Women and the Book Trade in Sixteenth‐Century France     

Two approaches to third world agrarian class analysis

Lucas de Rouffignac, Ann. The Contemporary Peasantry in Mexico: A Class Analysis. New York: Praeger, 1985. xix + 203 pp. including bibliography and index. $30.95 cloth.

Stoler, Ann Laura. Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, 1870–1979. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. xii + 244 pp. including bibliography and index. $22.50 cloth.     

Procedures and complications in late-nineteenth-century experimental neuroanatomical research exemplified by articles of Henry Herbert Donaldson (1857–1938)

Henry Herbert Donaldson (1857–1938) was a leader in neurological research in the United States for several decades, beginning about 1890. A detailed account of three of his earliest publications shows the neuroanatomical procedures involved in the study of the relation of brain and intelligence during the late-nineteenth-century in America. Two of the articles, published in September 1890 and December 1891, were titled, “Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the Blind Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewy Bridgman (1829–1889)”; the third, published in August 1892, used the information from the first two to delimit the extent of the visual processing area of the human cortex. Donaldson’s procedures included brain cuttings and measures of macroscopic brain structures, histology of cellular structures, attempts to relate macroscopic brain structures with brain functions, data corrections, estimations, comparisons, and statistics. These procedures provide a view of the relative thoroughness, accuracy, and comparability of the various neuroanatomical techniques in use at that time and of Donaldson’s implementation of the techniques. Donaldson’s brain cutting techniques were much more comparable than his measurement techniques. The latter could be quite precise, but they were fraught with lack of standardized procedures that made corrections and estimations necessary when making data comparisons across studies. Donaldson emphasized these incompatibilities, implying a need for standardization. Statistical procedures were the least thorough and effective. His, and the field’s, total complement of statistical techniques consisted of mean and range, which severely limited his ability to make complicated assessments. This limitation was not necessarily supplemented by stringent control group comparisons.     

Comment

This comment responds to Hibba Abugadeiri's ‘The Scientisation of Culture: Colonial Medicine's Construction of Egyptian Womanhood, 1893–1929’ and Laura Bier's ‘Modernity and the Other Woman’: Gender and Citizenship in the Egyptian Press, 1952–1970’. Both articles contribute to our understandings of the connections between constructions of gender identity, national identity, and imperial identity. After directing some questions to each author individually, this comment examines the ways in which the two articles combine to raise questions about the power of the press in an emerging public sphere, the importance of claims to modernity in assertions of national independence and the complexity of identity formation in periods of intense political change.     

BOOKS IN SUMMARY

Book reviewed in this issue: Nation and History : Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the Second World War . Edited by Peter Brock, John D. Stanley, and Piotr J. Wróbel. War of No Pity : The Indian Mutiny and Victorian Trauma . by Christopher Herbert. Medieval History Writing and Crusading Ideology . Edited by Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen and Kurt Villads Jensen with Janne Malkki and Katja Ritari. Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment . by Peter Hanns Reill. History and Nation . Edited by Julia Rudolph. Women's History in Global Perspective , Volumes 1–3. Edited by Bonnie G. Smith. Haunted by Empire : Geographies of Intimacy in North American History . Edited by Ann Laura Stoler. Writing Early Modern History . Edited by Garthine Walker.     

Troublemakers: Laura Poitras and the problem of dissent

This review article considers three works by the distinguished documentary film‐maker Laura Poitras: My country, my country (2006); The oath (2010); and the recently released Citizenfour (2014), focusing on the whistle‐blower Edward Snowden. Poitras describes these works as a trilogy about American power after 9/11, but they are also about disobedience and resistance, or the problem of dissent. The article argues for the significance (and the virtue) of Poitras's project, as film maker and troublemaker, and for the necessity of what Solzhenitsyn calls civil valour.     

Neither confirm nor deny: WikiLeaks evidence and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in the judicial review of the Chagos Marine Protected Area (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The Chagos Islanders have faced various legal barriers in their campaign for the right of return to the Chagos Archipelago. Here, Laura Jeffery presents one more twist in this long winding road, namely how the courts regard WikiLeaks evidence revealing how British politicians hatched plans to turn these islands into a nature reserve, thus effectively maintaining the status quo of the existing no‐return policy.     

Iraq and Hubris: Avoiding History a Review Essay

Book reviewed in this article: Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War: Michael Isiko. and David Corn Blind into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq: James Fallows Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq: Stephen Zinzer The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife;s CIA Identity: Joseph Wilson The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration Used a Fake to Build the Case for War in Iraq: Peter Eisner and Knut Royce Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: or, How Not to Learn From the Past: Lloyd C. Gardner, Marilyn B. Young, Eds.     

Cretaceous foraminiferal biostratigraphy of Queensland

The distribution of foraminiferids within Aptian-Albian marine deposits of the Laura, Carpentaria, Eromanga, and Surat Basins in Queensland is described. The foraminiferal distribution patterns are largely a reflection of environmental differences which existed within the basins. Among the benthonic foraminiferids, two major faunal associations are recognized: the Ammobaculites association reflecting hyposaline, cool, shallow water conditions; and the Marssonella association indicating normal marine, open continental shelf environments. As the faunal content of these associations is markedly different, separate time-stratigraphic zonations are proposed: the Ammobaculites association is divided into the Textularia cushmani zone (early Aptian), T. cushmani-Bigenerina pitmani zone (late Aptian), B. pitmani zone (late Aptian), B. pitmani-Riyadhella crespinae zone (early Albian), and R. crespinae zone (early-late Albian); the Marssonella association contains the Anomalinoides intermedia zone (early-middle Albian in Queensland), and the A. cenomanica zone (late Albian in Queensland). Planktonic foraminiferids, which occur with both benthonic associations, are used to correlate the benthonic zonal schemes, and are themselves zoned separately: Hedbergella planispira zone (early-middle Albian), H. infracretacea zone (middle-early late Albian), and the H. delrioensis zone (late Albian). International stage correlations are based on certain foraminiferids and associated ammonites.

The distribution of foraminiferids in Queensland during the late Early Cretaceous suggests that 1, climate exerted a uniform influence over the region; 2, cool, hyposaline, shallow water conditions prevailed over much of Queensland; 3, open marine shelf conditions (of normal salinity) existed during the Albian in the Laura and northeastern Carpentaria Basins; and 4, during the Albian, at least, there was a northern seaway to the open ocean.     

比较研究中的陷阱--评劳拉·霍斯泰特勒《清朝殖民地事业》

近年来的西方中国学研究纷纷致力于以后现代主义、后殖民主义、中国中心论等视角来瓦解从前居统治地位的西方中心视角,目前又流行互动比较的视角,而且偏爱比较晚明前清与同时期欧洲的关系,但比较中总是忽略中国历史的连续性和整体性。美国学者霍斯泰特勒的《清朝殖民地事业》一书所作的中西历史比较研究,即存在这种不足,并且这种状况在西方学者中具有明显的普遍性。     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Michael W. Klein, Scott Schuh, and Robert K. Triest, Job Creation, Job Destruction, and International Competition
Carl Davidson and Steven J. Matusz, International Trade and Labor Markets: Theory, Evidence, and Policy Implications
William R. Black, Transportation: A Geographical Analysis
Bernard Fingleton, European Regional Growth
Bernard Fingleton, Ayda Eraydin, and Raffaele Paci, Regional Growth, SMEs and the Wider Europe
Julia Traistaru, Peter Nijkamp, and Laura Resmini, The Emerging Economic Geography in EU Accession Countries
Johannes Bröcker, Dirk Dohse, and Rüdiger Soltwedel, Innovation Clusters and Interregional Competition
Alan Hyde, Working in Silicon Valley: Economic and Legal Analysis of a High‐Velocity Labor Market
Robert Mark Silverman, Community‐Based Organizations: The Intersection of Social Capital and Local Context in Contemporary Urban Society
William A. V. Clark, Immigrants and the American Dream: Remaking the Middle Class
Barry G. Rabe, Statehouse and Greenhouse: The Emerging Politics of American Climate Change Policy
Amrita Daniere and Lois M. Takahashi, Rethinking Environmental Management in the Pacific Rim: Exploring Local Participation in Bangkok, Thailand
Center for Sustainable Environments, Northern Arizona University, with Terralingua and Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, Safeguarding the Uniqueness of the Colorado Plateau: An Ecoregional Assessment of Biocultural Diversity     

Pier Paolo Pasolini and the medium of song: Texts written for Laura Betti for the Giro a vuoto show

This article focuses on the outcome of an important episode within contemporary Italian culture: the encounter between the world of literature and song, and specifically examines the lyrics written by Pier Paolo Pasolini for the actress and singer Laura Betti for the Giro a Vuoto show, performed in 1960 in Milan. This essay intends to highlight the key elements of this encounter and the characteristic elements of these songs by virtue of textual and stylistic analysis, and provide remarks with regard to the relationship between music, text and singing performance. A study of this kind allows emphasis to be placed on the innovation originating from this distinctive collaboration which represents an important sign of change towards the emergence of a quality song within the mass market which would later come to be defined as canzone d’autore (singer-songwriter genre).     

Advancing the occult standard

History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d'Ailly. By Laura Ackerman Smoller (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), xii + 233 pp., $35.00 cloth.

The Jewish Alchemists: A History and Sourcebook. By Raphael Patai (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), xv + 617 pp., $35.00/£29.95 cloth.

Access to Western Esotericism. By Antoine Faivre (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), x + 369 pp., $19.95 cloth.     

Eternal Recurrence in The Blind Owl

This article analyzes the surprisingly consistent way in which Sadeq Hedayat's novella, The Blind Owl, represents the concept of eternal recurrence. Hedayat employs repetition in a unique manner. Neither narrator ever remarks upon or seems to notice that events, motifs, and similar or identical epithets and phrasings which arise in their own thoughts and utterances are repeating, but they rather encounter every repeated event or thought as if it had only just occurred for the first time. While I do not claim that Hedayat was in any meaningful way a ‘Nietzschean’ thinker, philosophical ideas from Nietzsche's works and those of the French thinkers who came after, most notably Klossowski and Deleuze, interact strikingly with The Blind Owl and seem to bring hitherto unnoticed dimensions of this important work to our attention. Notably, Hedayat depicts a struggle with nihilism that is informed by the philosophical questions surrounding what came to be known as existentialism, but in a manner that is not merely derivative of European models.