The strange case of the Freudian case history: the role of long case histories in the development of psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud's five long case histories have been the focus of seemingly endless fascination and criticism. This article examines how the long case-history genre developed and its impact on the professionalization of psychoanalysis. It argues that the long case histories, using a distinctive form that highlighted the peculiarities of psychoanalytic theory, served as exemplars in the discipline. In doing so, the article extends John Forrester's work on "thinking in cases" to show the practical implications of that style of reasoning. The article illustrates how the form disappeared once the theoretical basis of the movement was set. The genre never became institutionalized, although the content of the five long case histories did, because of Freud's accepted role as theoretician of psychoanalysis.     

Shifts in Neandertal mobility,technology and subsistence strategies in western France

We propose a reassessment of Neandertal mobility strategies by crossing technological and zooarchaeological data. A broad comparative approach to the Middle Paleolithic series from western France shows that the Levallois and laminar flaking systems, the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) shaping system and the Quina and discoidal-denticulate flaking systems, vary significantly in terms of duration of reduction sequences, blank versatility and tool maintenance. These technological systems, which prevail in this context over different time periods, reflect distinct mobility strategies as a response to differing hunting practices. This new approach to Middle Paleolithic technologies and related mobility patterns gives new insights into Mousterian diversity. It also highlights the determinant role played by large game hunting strategies in the organization of late Neandertal societies.     

Building economies from the bottom up: (mis)representations of poverty in the rural American Northwest

This paper examines interconnected processes of economic restructuring and representations of poor subjects that rely on imaginaries of race, ethnicity, class and rural space. We argue that poverty and privilege are mutually produced and so we focus on the representational practices of White leaders in persistently poor counties across the American Northwest. We draw from case study research to understand region-wide material and discursive processes that are contributing to economic distress and social marginalization. We interrogate the range of representational practices that White leaders employ to explain, deny and/or racialize poverty in their communities. We also draw attention to how poverty emerges from the intersection of political, economic and cultural processes operating across a range of scales and sites. We further analyze how representations of the poor and poverty rest on a host of imaginary landscapes about who belongs, who is an outsider and who has a right to a place and its services. We argue that these representations serve to invigorate neoliberal policies and silence a more critical debate about poverty in the USA.     

Congress as Principal: Exploring Bicameral Differences in Agent Oversight

Previous theoretical and empirical work suggests differences in the way the congressional chambers approach the responsibility of agent control. The Senate should, the literature hypothesizes, exercise greater and qualitatively more systematic, substantive, and preemptive oversight of agents than does the House. Yet little research on congressional oversight has focused upon bicameral differences in principal behavior. This paper begins to fill the void by examining House and Senate oversight of the Federal Reserve. Specifically, I look at three types of oversight activity: monitoring of, and signaling to, the agent, and the principal's alteration of its contract with the agent. Utilizing original data and a variety of statistical methods, I show that there exist few, if any, quantitative and qualitative differences in House and Senate behavior. I then discuss theoretical reasons for my unexpected findings.     

“If I were hungry,I would not tell you” (Ps 50, 12): Perspectives on the Care and Feeding of the Gods in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

In the Hebrew Bible, sacrifices are described as food for Yahweh and thus the sacrificial system corresponds with the general Ancient Near Eastern system of the “care and feeding of the gods” At the same time, human-divine commensality is problematized in narrative texts such as Judges 6 and 13, where the burnt offering is stressed as the only and necessarily different way the deity may consume food. Finally, some passages, such as Psalm 50, quoted above, explicitly reject the notion that sacrifices and offerings should be required as sustenance for Yahweh since he is the creator and owner of the world and everything in it.

This article offers a survey of various views on sacrifice as food for the deity in the Hebrew Bible and discusses these views in their Ancient Near Eastern context. It is suggested that the main understanding of sacrifice as meal in the Hebrew Bible is one that emphasizes difference through commensality and stresses the incompatibility of the human and the divine sphere through the social locus of the meal.