A new approach to the tympanum of Neuilly-en-Donjon

Romanesque sculpture can be profitably studied by trying to create the thought processes of those responsible for designing the programs. In particular, the thought pattern of associating various biblical stories which contain the same or similar words can be applied to the program of the little church of Neuilly-en-Donjon (Allier). It is clear that the various stories depicted are related to one another by sound - for example the Adoration of the Magi and the fall of Simon Magus and Mary Magdalen at the house of Simon the Pharisee. However, just as the genius of a monastic author such as Bernard of Clairvaux was the thematic unity he could use to organize these aural associations, so does the importance of the program at Neuilly derive from the sophisticated thematic unity of the program around the theological virtue of faith. From this study, we can learn not only to appreciate the genius of the designer of the program at Neuilly but also to attempt to unlock other secrets of Romanesque sculpure by applying this or other elements of contemporary thought processes to the parts of a program.     

对话与反省——《豆棚闲话》叙事研究

《豆棚闲话》是一部叙事手段独特而高明的话本小说。与以往的话本小说不同,其叙述者是明确的个人,因此也使叙述具有个性化色彩;其叙述过程中叙述者发生了转换,因此产生了对话的叙事方式。而对话的叙事方式使《豆棚闲话》的叙事充满了不确定性,即有不同的声音却没有固定的或者是主导的看法。而作者正是要通过各种不同的观点,重新审视一些约定俗成的问题。这种反省精神和明清之际思潮相一致,且领时代之先。     

THE PRESENT STATE AND TASKS OF COMPLEX MAPPING IN THE USSR

Recent developments in the Soviet Union's program of national thematic mapping and regional complex mapping are reviewed. A comprehensive mapping program along these lines, formulated in 1969 by GUGK, the government planning agency, has not been implemented. National thematic maps in the Soviet Union continue to be compiled by individual government agencies without coordination and without uniformity in legend and design, so that comparability is made difficult. The only thematic GUGK maps now being prepared are concerned with two long-term regional development programs in the Soviet Union–the rural development plan for the Nonchernozem zone of the European RSFSR and the construction of the Baykal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad in the Soviet Far East. The need for a comprehensive and coordinated program of national thematic maps and regional atlases or map series is once again stressed in connection with economic planning and environmental problems, and a program of continuously updated regional atlases, based on digital data banks, is proposed. Suggestions are also made for the coordination of thematic maps at the international level.     

Hallucinations and Pathological Visual Perceptions in Maupassant's Fantastical Short Stories- A Neurological Approach

Maupassant excelled as a realist writer of the nineteenth century, with fantastical short stories being an outstanding example of his literary genius. We have analysed four of his fantastical stories from a neurological point of view. In “Le Horla,” his masterpiece, we have found nightmares, sleep paralysis, a hemianopic pattern of loss and recovery of vision, and palinopsia. In “Qui sait” and in “La main” there is also an illusory movement of the objects in the visual field, although in a dreamlike complex pattern. In “Lui,” autoscopy and hypnagogic hallucinations emerge as fantastical key elements.

The writer suffered from severe migraine and neurosyphilis involving the optic nerve, which led to his death by general paralysis of the insane (GPI). Visual loss and visual hallucinations affected the author in his last years, before a delirant state confined him to a nursing home. Our original hypothesis, which stated that he could have translated his sensorial experiences coming from this source to his works, had to be revised by analyzing some of his earliest works, notably “Le Docteur Héraclius Gloss” and “La main d’écorché” (1875). We found hallucinatory symptoms, adopting the form of autoscopy and other elaborated visual misperceptions, in stories written at age 25, when Maupassant was allegedly healthy. Therefore, we hypothesize that they may be related to his hypersensitive disposition, assuming that no pathology is necessary to experience such vivid experiences. In addition, Maupassant's abuse of drugs, as illustrated in “Rêves,” could have provided an additional element to outline his painstaking visual depictions. All these factors, in addition to his up-to-date neurological knowledge and attendance at Charcot's lectures at “La Salpêtrière,” armed the author for repetitive and enriched hallucinatory experiences, which were transferred relentlessly into his works from the beginning of his career.     

Hallucinations and pathological visual perceptions in Maupassant's fantastical short stories--a neurological approach

Maupassant excelled as a realist writer of the nineteenth century, with fantastical short stories being an outstanding example of his literary genius. We have analysed four of his fantastical stories from a neurological point of view. In "Le Horla," his masterpiece, we have found nightmares, sleep paralysis, a hemianopic pattern of loss and recovery of vision, and palinopsia. In "Qui sait" and in "La main" there is also an illusory movement of the objects in the visual field, although in a dreamlike complex pattern. In "Lui," autoscopy and hypnagogic hallucinations emerge as fantastical key elements. The writer suffered from severe migraine and neurosyphilis involving the optic nerve, which led to his death by general paralysis of the insane (GPI). Visual loss and visual hallucinations affected the author in his last years, before a delirant state confined him to a nursing home. Our original hypothesis, which stated that he could have translated his sensorial experiences coming from this source to his works, had to be revised by analyzing some of his earliest works, notably "Le Docteur Héraclius Gloss" and "La main d'écorché" (1875). We found hallucinatory symptoms, adopting the form of autoscopy and other elaborated visual misperceptions, in stories written at age 25, when Maupassant was allegedly healthy. Therefore, we hypothesize that they may be related to his hypersensitive disposition, assuming that no pathology is necessary to experience such vivid experiences. In addition, Maupassant's abuse of drugs, as illustrated in "Rêves," could have provided an additional element to outline his painstaking visual depictions. All these factors, in addition to his up-to-date neurological knowledge and attendance at Charcot's lectures at "La Salpêtrière," armed the author for repetitive and enriched hallucinatory experiences, which were transferred relentlessly into his works from the beginning of his career.     

Grimspound

Abstract

During the summer meeting held at Hereford in 1990, the Association visited Shobdon. General concern was voiced as to the deteriorating condition of the ‘arches’, not least by our vice-president, Professor George Zarnecki.

The first publication of the Association, issued in 1844, volume 1 of the Archaeological Journal, contained a paper by Thomas Wright on the Romanesque sculpture of Shobdon, and when the decision was made to adopt one of the illustrations from this article as the new cover device to celebrate our 150th Anniversary (see Fig. I), it was thought highly appropriate to ask Professor Zarnecki to comment on the importance of the ‘arches’ and their present state.     

Simon McBurney’s Ambitious Pursuit of the Pure Maths Play

Abstract

When Simon McBurney set out to create a play about the fabled relationship between Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy and the self-taught Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, he was immediately confronted by the question of how to engage the mathematics authentically. Undaunted by his own uneasiness with the subject, McBurney incorporated a host of experts into the rehearsal process, calling on mathematical educators, expositors, and Fields medalists to come work with the company. While on the surface maths and drama make an incongruous pair, the result was a vibrant collaboration. The final product — the award-winning play A Disappearing Number — shines an interesting light on the surprising similarity between the creative process in mathematics and the creative process in theatre, especially as manifested by the company at Complicite.     

What's nature got to do with it? A situated historical perspective on socio-natural commodities

Nature(s) have been commodified since the early days of capitalism, but through processes and socio-natural relationships mediated by their times, histories and localities. While the conditions under which nature's commodities are being trademarked today may be new, their potential for commodification is not. Commodifications of nature should not come as a surprise to environmental social scientists and activists. In this article, I argue that commodification of ‘nature's products, places and processes’ produces new sorts of socio-natures. Situated histories of rubber are particularly relevant because, like carbon, ecosystem services and other recently commodified natures, rubber sits comfortably on the line between a fictitious commodity and a commodity produced explicitly for market: the latex alone has almost no use value, and to give it any exchange value, it requires processing. Yet analytically, it is still considered a ‘natural commodity’, different from ‘synthetic rubber’ and other tradable tree latexes in qualities and socio-natural characteristics. However, it is the social relations constituting rubber's production and trade in various rainforest and agro-forestry environments that have given it a positive or negative connotation, rather than its natural properties or the ecological contexts within which it has been produced. By situating rubber in three of its globally important temporal and spatial contexts, I show how it has been subjected to fairy-tale-like stories that masked and naturalized its commodity lives of the moment. Understanding how history is told or remains untold is thus an essential part of the politics of knowledge production, but also of human experience and mobilization for change. It should be part of any political ecology analysis.     

工业小区分类引导研究——以无锡市为例

工业小区是乡镇企业发展的重要载体,发挥着巨大的产业集聚作用,改变了原来乡镇企业分散发展的一些弊端,受到政府和学者的重视。工业小区在发展中也出现了发展定位和方向不明确、环境与资源压力大等问题,制约着工业小区作用的进一步发挥。以乡镇企业较为发达的无锡市为例进行研究,从空间开发适宜性、土地供给保障、水环境约束强度等几个方面,对工业小区的发展基础进行客观评价,结合工业小区的经济发展水平进行评估,最终将工业小区划分为整合提升园区、优化配套园区和控制转型园区三种类型,并根据各个园区特点指出其发展方向、重点,以期对工业小区的未来发展起到引导作用。     

民族英雄的尺度：《白话本国史》教科书案研究

1935年,国民党上海市党部以吕思勉《白话本国史》"丑诋岳飞,推崇秦桧"为由而责令修改;有人以此控告商务印书馆与吕思勉,法院决定不起诉。《白话本国史》中的岳飞叙述,不利于在民族危机中激发民族意识来抵抗日本侵略;但其中反军阀思想,有利于国民党加强中央权力,又为南京政府所需要。该案的处理方式反映了国民党政府对民族英雄叙述的尺度:尊崇岳飞为民族英雄,突出其反抗外族侵略的一面,希望借助其抗金形象来振发国民志气;同时把岳飞叙述限制于抗金事迹中,弱化其武将身份,警惕其对军阀政治的影响,以加强国家统一。     

Reflecting on heritage and power: dynamics,strategies and appropriations in the Catalan Pyrenees and the French Alps

In this article we will explore the way in which different agents appropriate and use heritage to compete in specific power scenarios. We approach heritage discourses and practices as defining specific political arenas within which power relations are reconfigured. The protection of spaces and places as well as the processes of patrimonialisation that take place inside specific localities give rise to the emergence of new ways of exercising power. We will examine two ethnographic cases from South European mountain areas: the Parc National des Écrins in the French Alps and a Romanesque church in the Catalan Pyrenees. An analysis of both the protected area and the constructed heritage will enable us to focus on heritage as being produced, identified and valued within specific logics and value systems. We examine the dynamics that heritage and heritage policies produce in each context as well as the interest they promote. Heritage both organises different fields of forces and is appropriated by politicians, experts, and economic actors. We will discuss the entanglements, forces and dynamics that are activated and played out as a result of heritage processes in the larger process of contemporary political transformations.     

Mural and Other Paintings,in English Churches

In 1825 Lewis Nockalls Cottingham removed Romanesque carvings from the spandrels of the great west window at Rochester Cathedral as part of a comprehensive programme of restoration and repair. The architect's preliminary drawings for this project (held by Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University in New York) permit the accurate reconstruction of these spandrels, and this reconstruction, in turn, reveals some of the principles which guided this important early nineteenth-century restorer. It can be shown that in attempting to clarify the several styles of medieval building at Rochester, Cottingham repressed some features which he saw as hybrids and emphasized others which he judged insufficiently prominent. This desire to make the fabric history more clearly legible as a sequence of stylistic cues reflected recent advances in the writing of architectural history, in particular the taxonometric approach pioneered by Thomas Rickman.     

The End of Queer (as we knew it): Globalization and the making of a gay-friendly South Africa

In J. K. Gibson-Graham's The End of Capitalism (as we knew it), the authors (Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson) provocatively deploy queer theory to further their project of telling non-capitalist stories of globalization. In short, they reject the narrative that globalization is always and only penetrative in the hope that global capital will ‘lose its erection’ and ‘other openings’ in the body of capitalism can be considered. I adopt their strategy of looking at stories of globalization. But, while they are concerned with the homophobia of economic theorizing, I consider the gay-friendly discourse of post-apartheid South Africa. Recent expressions of official tolerance by various nation-states around the globe have been dismissed as the mere appropriation of difference by hegemonic forces. Against such interpretations, I look at the ways in which the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ in post-apartheid South Africa's constitutional Equality Clause can instead be read as a queer globalization. Based on this reading, I problematize the presumption that queer globalizations take place beyond the realm of the hegemonic and point to the need for queer theorists to think through the political ramifications of homosexuality's repositioning as saviour rather than scapegoat of certain nation-states.     

Laughing at a saint? Miracle and irony in the Vita Gangulfi prima

This article examines the Vita Gangulfi prima, a text which was frequently copied and widely circulated in the Middle Ages. It argues that the text can be understood as an ironic discourse on miracle stories in hagiographical texts: the central message of the Vita is that meek and penitential living leads to sanctity, and not the enjoyment of stories about miracles. At the same time, the Vita presents the reader to some extent with a performance of this idea. The reader who sees through to the Vita's ironic intent is encouraged to laugh at the saint and thereby comes to comprehend the very sin for which the various characters in the Vita are punished, while the text simultaneously depicts penitence as the way out of this sinfulness. The Vita's critique of miracle stories made an eccentric contribution to a discourse which was also carried on in a number of other hagiographical texts of the early tenth century.     

BLUEBEARD'S FORBIDDEN ROOM: GENDER IMAGES IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S VISUAL AND LITERARY ART

Regionalization tendencies have often been regarded, in academic and political debates, as a serious challenge for Canadian federalism and the national unity of Canada. This article argues that regionalism—and increased regionalization processes in the context of neoliberal globalization tendencies—is not a contradictory force that threatens federalism and national unity, but that it is and has historically been a decisive feature of Canadian civic nationalism from the beginning of the nation-building project. As a consequence, and for better or worse, processes of devolution under the current politico-economic regime will stabilize Canadian national unity rather than undermine it: regionalization can strengthen civic nationalism in Canada by adding a cultural dimension as a vehicle that negotiates between individual citizens, identity groups, and state institutions. Regionalisms—such as Québécois nationalism—are malleable structures of belonging and provide institutional frameworks (e.g., informal constitutions) and forums of dialogue that enrich the political culture of federalism. We conclude that increased regionalization can help to strengthen Canadian (and other forms of) civic nationalism by preventing them from slipping into monistic unitarism.     

EVIDENCE FOR CHURCH ORIENTATION BY MAGNETIC COMPASS IN TWELFTH-CENTURY DENMARK

The orientations of some 570 Romanesque churches (one-third of the total) from four regions in Denmark show significant differences in the claimed east-west orientation, being typically rotated 5-15° clockwise from true east-west. Magnetic declination was predominantly easterly between AD 1000 and 1600; the church deviations probably originate from sometimes using a magnetic compass, other simple and plausible causes for this ‘skewness’, for example orientation by the sun at specific periods of the year or astronomical alignment, being hard to design. Hence, some 25% of the churches were probably oriented by means of a magnetic compass. As a tool for dating, the orientations have not yet been successful due to statistical scatter. Church building in Denmark boomed in the twelfth century. The early history of the compass is somewhat uncertain. The first European reference known is from about 1190-1200, while the oldest Norse source is from about 1225 (Landnámabók), saying that the lodestone was not known before. Danish churches thus bring new information about the early use of the magnetic compass in Europe.