Gulliver meets Descartes: early modern concepts of age-related memory loss

Age-related memory loss was a marginal issue in medical discussions during early modern times and until well into the second half of the 17th century. There are many possible explanations: the lack of similar traditions in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, insufficient physiological and morphological knowledge of the brain, and the underlying conflict between idealistic and materialistic perspectives on the functions of the soul and the conditions of these in old age. After these boundaries had been pushed back by the influence of Cartesianism and Iatromechanism, the problem of age-related memory loss was increasingly regarded as a physical illness and began to receive more attention. This trend first occurred in medicine, before spreading to the literary world, where the novel "Gulliver's Travels" is one clear and famous example.     

发明过程分析

总体而言,经济史是无意识过程的历史 ——列维一斯特劳斯 虽然技术发明毫无疑问对人类的文化进程至关重要,但是人们可能难以完全认同莱斯利·怀特的说法：“技术是文化系统的全部基石。”一位早期评论家并未告诉我们“没有技术,人类就会灭亡”,而是告诉我们“没有想象力,人类就会灭亡”,虽然前面一种说法也很有道理。     

"A fine new child": the Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic and Harlem's African American communities, 1946-1958

In 1946, the Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic, a small outpatient facility run by volunteers, opened in Central Harlem. Lafargue lasted for almost thirteen years, providing the underserved black Harlemites with what might be later termed community mental health care. This article explores what the clinic meant to the African Americans who created, supported, and made use of its community-based services. While white humanitarianism often played a large role in creating such institutions, this clinic would not have existed without the help and support of both Harlem's black left and the increasingly activist African American church of the "long civil rights era." Not only did St. Philip's Church provide a physical home for the clinic, it also helped to integrate it into black Harlem, creating a patient community. The article concludes with a lengthy examination of these patients' clinical experiences. Relying upon patient case files, the article provides a unique snapshot of the psychologization of postwar American culture. Not only does the author detail the ways in which the largely working class patient community used this facility clinic, he also explores how the patients engaged with modern psychodynamic concepts in forming their own complex understandings of selfhood and mental health.     

作为社会科学的考古学

学者和公众一般认为,考古学就是为寻找最早的家马、文字或者城市等诸如此类遗存而进行的不懈努力。习以为常,大众媒体上出现的考古类文章往往只是与历史特殊性有关的复原和重建。这种倾向歪曲了考古学这门在最近几十年取得巨大进展的科学学科。我们认为现代考古学的发展在广义的社会学领域作出了极为重要的贡献,这种进展主要基于以下两个方面的主要趋势：其一是全球范围内大量田野工作新资料的积累;其二是利用实物证据对古代社会动力机制进行可靠重建的新方法和新理念的不断发展。     

反思与重构:遗产、博物馆再审视——劳拉简·史密斯教授专访

随着批评遗产研究的兴起,国际学界对遗产、博物馆实践进行了深刻的反思。澳大利亚国立大学劳拉简·史密斯教授认为,考古学家和其他学科的专家都需要重新审视自己在遗产实践中的角色及其学术话语带来的政治影响,倾听社区和其他利益相关者的声音;博物馆工作也应寻求与相关利益群体更深层的互动,认识到参观者往往有着复杂的身份认同与情感诉求,避免将之视为简单的被教育对象,要为他们提供激发情感共鸣和自我反思的资源;描述和探讨不同文化语境中的遗产话语是迫切需要的研究课题,亚洲的遗产活动和思维对于遗产的多样性发展具有重要意义,批评遗产研究的"批评"概念需要多元文化思考,遗产理论发展和遗产学专业教育也需要对遗产的多元化理解。     

"A matter of physical health and strength”: disciplining the female body and reproducing the Czech national community in the mid-nineteenth century

An 1850 article “Uzavírání sňatku” (“Marriage”) by Czech physician Jan ?pott outlined the requirements for those who considered themselves part of the Czech national community. ?pott stressed that those concerned with the future national existence had to educate themselves and each other to create healthy offspring. I examine ?pott’s article with regard to contemporary ideas about fitness, the role of women, the need to discipline the female body, as well as the importance of education in reproducing the community. This article’s analysis - set in the broader context of the history of women, medicine, and nationalisms - shows that nation-oriented education could be perceived as a way to ensure the nation’s future existence while simultaneously emphasizing the responsibility of individuals, and particularly women, for the reproduction of the community. ?pott’s propositions are significant to other nineteenth-century national movements and to postnational contexts where national fitness is a concern.     

Integration and ethnic spatial concentration: the changing distribution of the Anglo-Jewish community

"This paper identifies the changing locational patterns of the Jewish community in Britain during the past century. Two major trends are identified. At the national level there has been movement out of many small provincial communities to the large urban centres, particularly Greater London and Manchester. Within the city, there has been movement out of the traditional inner city ghettos to the suburbs, thus reflecting the upward socio-economic mobility and integration of what was an immigrant group. Both these trends closely mirror the general patterns of population movement in Britain during the twentieth century." The lack of reliable data for the Jewish population is noted, and a methodology is suggested for identifying the changing locational patterns and intensity of Jewish community life. The method is applied to the case of Greater London.