Publishing graduate student research in geography: the fundamentals

This paper offers practical advice on publishing graduate student research within the discipline of geography, addressing the following questions: why, when, where, what, how and with whom? Section ‘The paper chase’ delineates the importance of publishing, identifies potential material to publish, suggests venues in which to publish and offers pragmatic advice on how to negotiate the publishing process (with regard to peers, supervisors and editors). Section ‘In library resources’, discusses the effective use of library resources, demystifies the significance of impact factors and elucidates the history of Open Access publishing.     

Science, text and space: thoughts on the geography of reading

The idea of a 'geography of reading' provides a potential point of conversation between the cultural and scientific wings of our profession. Here I explore some dimensions of the geography of reading scientific texts. Drawing on a number of theoretical pronouncements – Gadamer's 'fusion of horizons', Said's 'travelling theory', Secord's 'geographies of reading', Beer's 'miscegenation of texts', Fish's 'interpretive communities' and Rupke's 'geographies of reception'– I focus on the spaces where scientific theories are encountered. The argument is that where scientific texts are read has an important bearing on how they are read. This realization points to a fundamental instability in scientific meaning and to the crucial significance of what might be called located hermeneutics. As a case study in the development of a cartographics of scientific meaning, I explore the different ways in which Darwin's fundamentally biogeographical theory of evolution by natural selection was construed in a number of different settings. The sites I have chosen to illustrate this are the scientific communities which congregated around the Charleston Museum of Natural History in South Carolina, the Wellington Philosophical Society and New Zealand Institute, and the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century. In each case the encounter with evolution theory, and the ways it was interpreted, are shown to have been shaped by local cultural politics, thereby disclosing the critical role that space plays in the production of scientific meaning.     

Composing our careers: Susan Hanson's contributions to geography and geographers

Susan Hanson's career exemplifies the notion that our lives are compositions rather than predictable, linear trajectories. In this essay I argue that Susan's career is an empowering example of a collage of woven-together life experiences, substantive research interests, feminist values and progressive professional practices. I illustrate these ideas through three compositions that I trace throughout Susan's career: networking gender; caring geography; and reproducing geography. Susan's work connects and validates the diverse elements of our lives through her scholarship, her commitment to feminist values and her disciplinary leadership.     

After the relevance debate: The teaching of social geography

Abstract

An examination of the recent relevance debate in geography shows that this debate has led to an explicit realisation of the significance of values, the addition of a rigorous political, social and economic dimension to social geography and a recognition of the importance of problem and policy perspectives. Three trends in modern social geography are identified — problem orientations, humanistic perspectives, and structural perspectives — and their impacts on taught courses and individual projects are assessed. Curriculum developments and problems are also discussed. Full incorporation of such schemes into the subject depends not only on published research findings, but also on the values and interests of individual teachers.     

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).     

Facing the future,surviving the present: strategies for women graduate students in geography

Abstract

Women graduate students in geography programs in US universities face a variety of constraints and opportunities as they work towards advanced degrees and struggle to find a place for themselves in academia. The themes discussed in this paper concern understanding and challenging power relationships, networking, developing communication skills and effective mentoring. The paper concludes with suggestions for positive action and change.     

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。     

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.     

由秦俑二号坑形制所引起的思考

本文通过对二号俑坑建筑形制的分析,认为:二号俑坑的门道有11条,但作用各不相同,其中6、7号门道使用时间较短,这可能与俑坑内东西向的格局有关。开间分为放置有俑的廊道和不放置俑马,仅起通道作用,用完后用夯土填实二种。第4过洞的形制与其周围的过洞形制不同,其埋藏的内涵可能也不同。第9过洞与第10、第11过洞用纵木隔开,互不相通。把它们作为一个军事单元的推断仍需要推敲。二号俑坑的互不相通的格局与其焚毁情况较轻的状况也应该有很大的联系。     

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).     

谈谈小子(臣臣子)簋铭的真伪及相关问题

上海博物馆藏小子(臣臣子)簋(<集成>3904)系真器伪铭.本文通过对其铭文字形、辞例的分析,认为该伪铭并非臆造,当有所本,且仿制较精,与真铭的距离不会太大.由于真铭所在的器物未见著录,我们仍可将小子(臣臣子)簋铭作为一篇早期记事金文来使用.小子(臣臣子)簋铭的时代当定在商代晚期或西周早期.     

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.