‘There was never anythin’ like this!!!’ Valeska Gert's Performances in the Context of Weimar Culture

This paper explores Valeska Gert's contributions to dance against the backdrop of Weimar Germany. The first section considers the themes of her choreographies. Eschewing both idealism and abstraction, her work presented a gritty account of the realities of contemporary quotidian life, often featuring outcasts from bourgeois society. It also reflected a growing German interest in aspects of American culture, including sport and multi-ethnicity. Whereas many expressive dancers offered bucolic images of nature, Gert fully embraced modernity, including the process of urbanisation and technological developments. The paper's second section turns to stylistic features of Gert's dance, using an analysis of Alfred Meyer's poem about the dancer as a springboard for discussion. Consideration is given to the montage-like structure of many of Gert's works, her invocation of elements of ‘lower’ culture such as the street ballad, and her association with the carnival and grotesque. Her frequently shocking body images are viewed as subverting social conventions, in particular by presenting a radical take on femininity.     

Urban Open Space and Governance in Ancient Mesoamerica

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - Analyzing the nature of governance of early states and cities is a major challenge for archaeology today. Blanton and Fargher’s (Blanton and...     

Date,Rituals and Socio‐Cultural Identity in the North‐Western Roman Provinces

This article explores issues of socio‐cultural identity in the north‐western Roman provinces, using all the available archaeobotanical evidence of date (Phoenix dactylifera L.). This fruit does not conform to the general social distribution pattern of other Roman exotic food plant imports in this area, but instead indicates a strong ceremonial connection. Through an in‐depth contextual approach the role of date in both domestic and ceremonial sites is investigated to reach beyond the simple ‘date‐Roman‐ritual’ association. The results suggest strong temporal, spatial and contextual patterning and an overall rare occurrence and selective use of the fruit in certain rituals and mystic cults. Date may have been employed not necessarily as a food, and was probably an affordable luxury for some in their ritual pursuits. As such, date can now be regarded as part of specific ceremonial expressions rather than a standard ingredient of a normative ceremonial or ‘Roman’ identity.     

EMBEDDEDNESS AND THE (RE)MAKING OF RETAIL SPACE IN THE REALM OF MULTICHANNEL RETAILING: THE CASE OF MIGROS SANAL MARKET IN TURKEY

The purpose of this article is to investigate the value of the concept of embeddedness for economic geographers. Alongside the case study of the multichannel grocery retailing brand Migros in Turkey, the spatial impacts – in relational and physical terms – of digitalization and the integration of an online shop into the profile of a supermarket chain are investigated. In applying the concept of embeddedness the article seeks to understand these complex, diverse and uneven processes of (retail) restructurings that affect different dimensions and dynamics of networks, societies and spaces. In my case study I identify two dimensions of embeddedness processes: (1) embedding the online shop in the firm's routines and practices, whereby processes of transfer of knowledge and technology dominate; and (2) embedding online shopping in the customer's routines and practices, whereby processes of adaption to consumer culture dominate. These dimensions are reflexive and as such mirror ongoing negotiation processes between the two stakeholders. On one hand multichannel retailing thus not only alters where but also how people shop, and can result in new retail spaces like pick‐up stores. On the other hand it can be shown, that the “locations”, where online shopping of Migros is available, reproduce spatial variations of socio‐economic factors, such as income distribution or population density. As such, the concept of embeddedness is useful for economic geographers – also in the realm of e‐commerce – to unravel the interconnections of societal, organizational and spatial patterns as well as their variations across space. The study is based on qualitative interviews.