The R.C.H.M.E./G.M.A.U. Joint Survey of Textile Mills in Greater Manchester

Abstract

This paper outlines progress during the first two years of the Greater Manchester Textile Mill Survey, which started in May 1985. A county-wide index to mill sites has been created, based on cartographic information, which aims to assist the assessment and comparison of large numbers of mills. A range of documentary research was undertaken and a representative sample of sites selected for individual study. The paper concludes with summaries of two selected sites in Ancoats, Manchester.     

P.H. Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh: a literary friendship

ABSTRACT

Tracing the relationship between P.H. [Patrick Henry] Pearse (1879–1916) and Thomas MacDonagh (1878–1916), this essay explores the impact their friendship had on their careers as writers and critics. Their work together in St Enda’s, the school for boys founded by Pearse in 1908, provides a significant context for this exploration. There, while working with MacDonagh, Pearse made drama an important part of school life and started writing plays for public performance. Meanwhile, their collaboration in putting together the St. Enda’s school journal, An Macaomh (1909–1913), helped to hone MacDonagh’s skills as a literary critic and to prepare for his later editorial role at the Irish Review (1911–1914). Attention then turns to how MacDonagh’s views on Irish literature and his translations from Old Irish influenced his friend’s development as both a critic and poet. Paticular consideration is paid to “Mise Éire”, one of Pearse’s best-known poems. Finally, similarities are considered between MacDonagh and the hero of The Wandering Hawk (1915–1916), Pearse’s unfinished, English-language, school story for children. Taken together, these various investigations reveal that, despite differing temperaments and at times divergent approaches to Irish writing, Pearse and MacDonagh enjoyed a mutually stimulating friendship that impacted positively on their literary careers.     

Training,education, management and prehistory in the Mediterranean: Work in progress on a European Union research project

Abstract

This paper presents the work in progress of TEMPER (Training, Education, Management and Prehistory in the Mediterranean), a research project conducted by a consortium of seven partner institutions in the UK, Greece, Malta, Israel, and Turkey. TEMPER is funded by the European Union, as part of their Euromed Heritage II programme [1] and is the only project funded by the programme focusing on our prehistoric cultural heritage. The aim of TEMPER is to make the prehistory of the Mediterranean more accessible. This will be achieved through the development of educational programmes at pilot sites around the Mediterranean, the development of management plans for pilot sites, the delivery of a related training programme and dissemination of the project results. The project runs from January 2002 to June 2004.     

John Lewyn of Durham: A North Country Master Mason of the 14th Century

Abstract

This paper examines the structural evidence for the claims made on the behalf of the 14th-century master mason, John Lewyn. It suggests that comparison of artistic detail, has limited usefulness when attempting to identify his work. Buildings which, on a superficial level, bear little resemblance to one another, can nevertheless be shown to have significant mutuality of concept when studied in depth. Thus, a close examination of John Lewyn's known works and contemporary buildings suggests that Lewyn was the dominant influence in the northern region during the later 14th century, and that he retained control of planning to a fine level, whilst allowing his deputies varying degrees of independence in the execution of detail.     

GEORGE A. LIDBERG JR. AND DEPRESSION-ERA ARCHAEOLOGY IN TENNESSEE

Abstract

The 1930s were a time of ferment for American archaeology that expanded through its inclusion in New Deal–era federal relief programs. The passage of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Act in 1933 and establishment of a salvage archaeology program in response to proposed impoundments made the TVA a major locus of archaeological activity in the eastern United States. One of those participants was George A. Lidberg Jr., a somewhat typical Works Progress Administration (WPA) supervisor, who like many TVA archaeologists was trained in the Midwest. Lidberg’s career was effectively ended by World War II. This paper presents biographical information on Lidberg and reviews the sites at which he worked. Such biographies are important in that they provide insights into the unprecedented challenges that faced the men and women responsible for implementing massive-scale federal work relief salvage programs in the Southeast.     

Varieties of mystical experience in William James and other moderns

ABSTRACT

In 1902, William James gave his Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, entitled The Varieties of Religious Experience, in which he claimed that such experience was a part of human nature, and was necessarily the foundation of all institutional religion. His work has often been singled out as leading to an increasingly private and individualistic understanding of religion, but this paper places his work in a broader movement of the early twentieth century that heralded a revival of interest in religious experience and, especially, mysticism. It explores the work of two English writers, W.R. Inge and Evelyn Underhill, in relation to James, and argues that the revival of interest in mysticism was a significant response to the intellectual challenges to faith in modernity.     

The Prophethood of Work and the Gospels of The Souls of Black Folk

Abstract

W. E. B. Du Bois, one of the most important American thinkers of the social and the political in the first half of the twentieth century, was involved in labor politics for much of his life, but while some scholars are now beginning to appreciate the extent to which Du Bois is also a thinker of the religious, no one has tried to connect his stance on questions of labor and his religious thought. Yet his early book, The Souls of Black Folk, presents, among other things, a complicated theology of labor. Du Bois criticizes the principle of submission glorified by white American Christianity, and imposed by white Christians on black slaves. At the same time, he confesses a veritable faith in "work, systematic and tireless," but only as it functions as part of a broader cultural renewal, itself dependent on what I describe as a "missiology of cultural knowledge." To accomplish this project, Du Bois must deploy an inegalitarian principle, separating manual laborers from intellectual or cultural laborers as fundamentally different kinds of human being. This principle is obviously in tension with the great struggles for equality in which Du Bois participated all his life. At the same time, Du Bois is not simply interested in consecrating work as such, but in explaining the connection that ties together labor, the aesthetic, and the religious. Our reading of Souls is informed by the hermeneutic practices modeled by Jacques Rancière in his political philosophy.     

Principles of Lightweight Structures in the Sculptural Conceptions of Naum Gabo

Abstract

The Russian-born artist Naum Gabo (1890–1977) often employed new materials and techniques which demonstrate how his spatial conceptions developed towards a sculptural expression of lightness, balance and equilibrium. These principles reverberate with concepts of optimum structures, in which minimum-weight design is achieved through removal of redundant material. Not only formal aspects of his sculptures correspond to this concept, but also Gabo's shared aesthetic and structural concerns with twentieth-century architecture and engineering, in terms of transparency, spatial openness, efficiency and lightweight design are consistent with this idea. Similar notions surfaced in prevailing interests in nature's sense of order and perfection as the basis of biologically-inspired design, which Gabo encountered especially in the work of the biologist D'Arcy Thompson and the art critic Herbert Read. This paper investigates the aesthetic and structural affinities Gabo's sculptures bear with these notions, highlighting how these informed his sculptural conceptions. His oeuvre demonstrates how his constructive technique enabled Gabo to convey an aesthetic that would be appropriate for a modern, industrial society. The aim of this paper is to offer a new way of looking at Gabo's sculptural aesthetic by identifying analogies with theoretical formulations of minimum weight frame-structures, as encountered in the theory of the scientist engineer A.G.M. Michell (1904). Consistent with his historical context, this work demonstrates how Gabo's sculptures convey an aesthetic of balance, equilibrium, and lightness precisely because his sculptural language is rooted in principles of optimum structures to which he responded in visual as well as structural terms.     

The Internationalism of German Castle Research: Bodo Ebhardt,His European Network,and the Construction of 'Castle Knowledge'

Abstract

Recent monographs and articles emphasize the strong impact of nationalism and racist thinking on archaeology. In contrast to the treatments which focus on single nation states and on archaeology as a politically legitimate science, this paper explores the tension between internationalism and racist premises in German castle research, and how it manifests itself in the construction of knowledge about medieval castles across national borders. I will focus on Bodo Ebhardt, Germany's most famous and influential castle researcher of the first half of the 20th century. The analysis of his scientific work, and of his personal contact with other European researchers as well as with German politicians and patrons, will shed light on the changes and continuities in his network, and in particular on his construction of the past that was influenced by the formation of this network, which, in turn, affected his assessment of medieval castles.     

The Shroud of Turin and the singlet oxygen fallacy

Abstract

This paper is critical of certain of the claims made by Allan A. Mills in his 1995 paper in ISR (‘Image formation on the Shroud of Turin: the reactive oxygen intermediates hypothesis’). It also refutes the notion that the negative image which appears on the Shroud of Lirey–Chambéry–Turin was produced as a result of the actions of a species of reactive oxygen (specifically singlet oxygen) as described by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas in their recent publication, ‘The second Messiah’.     

Upwardly Mobile Footnotes: German References in the Encyclopédie des gens du monde 1

Images should be released from the monopoly of art history and integrated into the study of history itself. For culture, in the strict sense of the term, is an essential aspect of political history, especially in a state as centralised as 18th- and 19th-century France. This is the context in which visual images of Napoleon should be explored. Under the Directory, he began shrewdly to exploit paintings and engravings in his first campaign to win over public opinion, rapidly achieving renown by putting a face to his name. The development and profusion of images under the Consulate and Empire reveal the way, or ways, in which Napoleon sought to present himself to contemporaries and posterity. They also illustrate his main objectives: the strengthening of his power and the consolidation of his dynasty. The number and variety of these images suggest that he was acutely aware of his lack of legitimacy. Napoleon himself realised just how much he resembled a 'colossus with feet of clay'. In order to base this colossus on firmer foundations he set to work all the means at his disposal, not least painting and sculpture.     

An engineering career as industrial mission: Jack Keiser in post-war Britain

ABSTRACT

British mechanical engineer Jack Keiser’s postwar career in industrial education was simultaneously a career in justice work and Christian industrial mission. This paper examines the Christian critique of industry Keiser developed early in his career, as he transitioned in 1949–1950 into his life’s work in firm-based industrial education, and asks how historians of technology might interpret a critique that characterized industry in hyperbolic terms as enslaving or demonic. Keiser’s was part of an international critique connected to three important post-war Christian institutions: Student Christian Movement, the Industrial Mission Movement, and the World Council of Churches. He engaged with justice at both an intimate and a cosmic level, intimately through face-to-face relationships with apprentices and trainees under his supervision, and cosmically by engaging with the biblical prophets through whom God called for justice.     

THE PREHISTORY OF MR. ELI LILLY

Abstract

The disciplinary mythology of North American archaeology grudgingly acknowledges Eli Lilly’s financial support for research. At the same time it systematically devalues and even deletes his role as a productive scholar, the author of original works on the prehistory of Indiana, the creator of an effective archaeological seminar on the prehistory of Indiana and the Eastern United States, and the guiding force in the establishment of several enduring archaeological institutions. This paper documents the scholarly contributions of Eli Lilly. It shows how his mind and management skills were even more important to the development of archaeological research in the Midcontinent than was his financial support for many important archaeological research projects.     

Recent French archaeological work In Syria and Jordan

Abstract

The French connection with the late antique and Byzantine archaeology of the Levant is now more than a century old. Between 1864 and 1877 Melchoir de Vogue published his great Syrie Centrale: architecture civile et religieuse, a work which revealed for the first time the great richness of the archaeological record for the period. With its superb drawings and elegant plans it remains indispensable, especially since it describes some buildings, like the praetorium at Mismiyya, south of Damascus, which have long since disappeared. In these days when so much worthless nineteenth-century travel literature about the Middle East has been reprinted, it is sad that this masterpiece remains unavailable. The French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon from 1921 onwards gave a great impetus to these studies. Although most attention was given to great classical sites like Palmyra or Crusader ones like Crac des Chevaliers, late antiquity was not neglected and there was a growing interest in the deserted towns of the limestone hills of the north from J. Mattern, li travers les villes mortes de Haute Syre (Beirut 1944) and J. Lassus' study of the ecclesiastical architecture, Sanctuaires chretiens de Syrie (1947). This activity culminated in G. Tchalenko's great work Les villages antiques de fa Syrie du Nord (1958) which was based on field work done before 1939.     

On the Values of Biblical Law and their Contemporary Application

Abstract

In God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2011), Jonathan Burnside sets himself a dual task: on the one hand (and primarily), to examine historically many biblical texts whose subject-matter has counterparts in modern law, and to identify their values; on the other to argue for the relevance of these texts to public debate on such issues in modern law. His semiotic methodology has much in common with my own (as he has graciously acknowledged). In this paper, stimulated by his work, I seek to sketch the academic context from which it arises, and pose some further questions prompted by reflection on his work.     

The White Paper: Wilder Penfield,the Stream of Consciousness,and the Physiology of Mind

ABSTRACT

Wilder Penfield is justly famous for his contributions to our understanding of epilepsy and of the structure-function relationship of the brain. His theory on the relationship of the brain and mind is less well known. Based on the effects of the electrical stimulation of the cortex in conscious patients, Penfield believed that consciousness and mind are functions of what he referred to as the centrencephalic integrating system. This functional system comprised bidirectional pathways between the upper brainstem, the thalami, and the cerebral cortex of both hemispheres, and was the physical substrate from which memory, perception, initiative, will, and judgment arose. It was the source of the stream of consciousness and the physical basis of mind. This paper reviews how Penfield arrived at this conception of the mind-brain relationship. Although Penfield ultimately felt that he had failed in his attempt to unify brain and mind, his work shed new light on the relationship of memory to the mesial temporal structures and to the temporal cortex; and his association of consciousness and the brainstem preceded the conceptualization of the reticular activating system by a generation. In these, as in so many aspects of neurobiology, Penfield was prescient.     

REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPHS OF CLARENCE B. MOORE’S EXPEDITION TO THE OUACHITA RIVER VALLEY,LOUISIANA, 1908–1909

Abstract

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Clarence Bloomfield Moore spent approximately 30 years visiting, excavating, and reporting on archaeological sites across the southeastern United States. During the latter 25 years of his research, Moore employed the sternwheel steamer Gopher as his primary mode of transportation. From early November 1908 until late April 1909, Moore and the Gopher, along with an experienced excavation team, the boat’s captain and crew, and several technical experts, examined sites along the Ouachita River in Louisiana and Arkansas. One of the members of this expedition was Arthur W. Clime, whose widow, Celia Clime, donated a number of photographs to the Smithsonian Institution that depict scenes from the Ouachita River work. These photographs of Clarence Moore’s field research are unique in that they provide an important glimpse into some of the earliest archaeological work conducted in Louisiana and into the field techniques employed by Moore.