Continental Drift: Negotiating Male Performance in Canadian and American Cinema from the Late Sixties

Michel Brault's Entre la mer et l'eau douce (1967), one of the most accomplished feature films of the Quiet Revolution period, follows the journey of singer-songwriter Claude Fournier from the Charlevoix region to Montreal, where he drifts through a series of marginal jobs and love relationships before returning, disappointed, to his rural village. A portrait of “in-betweenness” in terms of identity, space and time, Brault's film tells the story of Quebec's increasing urbanization and of a people's collective entry into modernity, yet has received much less critical attention than other Quiet Revolution classics such as [Agrave] tout prendre and Le chat dans le sac. This article proposes a reading of this film that recognizes its importance as a key cinematic stepping stone in the Quebec national project, but also places it within a larger context of “coming-to-the-city” narratives. How does comparing Entre la mer et l'eau douce to English-Canadian and American classics which tackle similar themes (i.e., Goin' Down the Road, 1970; Midnight Cowboy, 1969) enable a larger discussion of the representation and appropriation of space, place and movement in the North America imaginary and Quebec's place therein?     

Assessing the distribution of Asian Palaeolithic sites: a predictive model of collagen degradation

Having previously shown that there is a statistically significant relationship between areas of low collagen degradation and the location of archaeological sites in Africa [K.M. Holmes, K.A. Robson Brown, W.P. Oates, M.J. Collins, Assessing the distribution of African Palaeolithic sites: a predictive model of collagen degradation, Journal of Archaeological Science 32 (2005) 157–166], we here test the applicability of the same model on Palaeolithic archaeological remains from Asia.     

Self-reflection,Egyptian Beliefs,Scythians and “Greek Ideas”: Reconsidering Greeks and Barbarians in Herodotus1

This article addresses the debate between Afrocentrists like Martin Bernal and classical scholars such as Mary Lefkowitz and Robert Palter concerning the origins of ancient Greek civilization. Focusing on the first half of Herodotus’ Histories, I argue that, although Greek cultural developments can be attributed to the Greeks themselves, Herodotus indicates that the conditions that made these developments possible were due to the prior Greek absorption of important aspects of Egyptian religion. Herodotus shows that the Greeks learned from the Egyptians to individualize their gods and to appreciate the humanity of women. This Egyptian influence, Herodotus suggests, is what allowed the Greeks, in contrast to the Scythians, to become an object to themselves within the context of stable city life. I conclude that this habit of self-reflection is the source of the uniquely Greek contribution to the art, philosophy, science and politics of the West.     

Prouille,Madrid, Rome: the evolution of the earliest Dominican Instituta for nuns

The lifestyles of the three earliest Dominican women's communities were formulated according to their specific historical conditions and exigencies during the years 1206–21. Initially, the women associated with the preaching mission of Diego of Osma and Dominic Guzman were based at Prouille in the Languedoc and followed the Augustinian Rule. The development of the first instituta for Dominican nuns was the result of 15 years of overseeing the lives of the sisters. However, enclosure, and the institutional requirement for its observance, only came about in 1220 with the establishment of San Sisto, when St Dominic wrote an instituta specifically intended for a cloistered nunnery. This paper retraces and elucidates the historical development of the first Dominican instituta for women, and considers the remarkable choice of the Augustinian Rule as the basis for an enclosed women's order.