Scotland’s Electoral Geography Differed from the Rest of Britain’s in 2017 (and 2015) – Exploring its Contours

The rapid expansion in support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) between the 2010 and 2015 general elections substantially changed the country’s electoral geography, as again did its relative decline at the next election in 2017. At that last contest, however, the SNP won many seats with fewer than 40% of the votes cast, a situation very different from that in the rest of Great Britain. That difference – which had a considerable impact on the formation of a government in June 2017 – came about because of the nature of the competition in individual seats.     

Transcendent myths,mundane objects: setting the material scene in rock,soul, and country museums

The many varied myths of origins, aesthetic transcendence, and greatness that surround popular music continue to proliferate in a variety of forms. One comparatively recent type of institution producing such forms of mythology is the popular music museum. This article uses the familiar idea of the ‘experience economy’’ to examine how three popular music museums produce experiences through objects that, while they are deliberately cast as mundane and everyday, work to support widely-shared narratives of the musical traditions of which they are a part. I argue that they do so in the service of larger myths of popular music. In each case I examine, I show that the myths on display are specific to the music that forms that content of the exhibitions. I argue that the specific kinds of spectator experiences these museums seek to produce are designed to enhance the value of these museums and their collections through claims made on specific types of musical patrimony made material through carefully contextualized objects of display. As such, traditionalist myths of musical greatness and aesthetic transcendence are well-served by the forms of exhibition and display produced by these institutions.     

Pillar of Fire Theories

The pillar of fire was a unique phenomenon that led the Israelites at night through the wilderness for forty years. Many theories have been offered to explain this phenomenon such as it was mythical or metaphorical and never occurred. Other explanations include burning jets of natural gas, a brazier elevated on a pole, volcanic activity, brush fires, lightning, and a comet. The large and controlled shape of the pillar of fire, its appearance only at night for forty years, and its carefully directed path have been explained as miraculous. This article includes a scientific discussion of how the pillar might have been produced, reviews the many theories offered to explain the pillar of fire, and offers several new theories.     

Liberal Policy Debates and Their Consequences for African Americans

Marilyn E. Lashley and Melanie Njeri Jackson (Eds.), African Americans and the New Policy Consensus: Retreat of the Liberal State.     

The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100): An overview

Those communities that lived in Britain and Ireland ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100 represent particularly well-researched examples of the complex agrarian, nonurban, societies with high population densities that characterize the Pre-Roman Iron Age across temperate Europe. This paper provides a critical introduction to the extensive recent literature on the Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland. Evidence from the large number of salvage excavations and surveys, the application of a wide range of analytical techniques, and important changes in interpretative frameworks are transforming understandings of this period. After reviewing these developments, a chronological account of the period is outlined which attempts to integrate these new results. This suggests that current interpretations of social processes across Iron Age Europe in terms of state formation, urbanization, and core-periphery relations with Mediterranean civilization need revision.