Lascivious Vines,Corrupted Virgins,and Crimes of Honor: Variations on the Wine Production Myth as Narrated in Early Persian Poetry

The Persian wine production myth centers on the relationship between a male vintner and his female vine and her daughters, the grapes. This myth, the earliest extant examples of which are found in qasīdas by the Samanid poets Rūdakī and Bashshār Marghazī and which was much developed by Manūchihrī and his contemporary Farrukhī, contains images of femininity, the mother–child bond, separation, violence, execution, and ultimate redemption. The grape harvest comes in the late summer and culminates in the Mihragān festival, a celebration focused on the grape and grape wine, at which poems containing versions of the wine production myth were recited. The present study maps the evolution of this myth over the span of a century through a close reading of eleven poems with specific reference to variations in narrative structure.     

Identification of pigments used in rock art paintings in Gode Roriso-Ethiopia using Micro-Raman spectroscopy

In this paper we present results on the rock art painting materials from the Gode Roriso rock shelter, located in the eastern Hararghe region of Ethiopia. This analysis included X-microfluorescence, Micro-Raman spectroscopy and microstratigraphy. As far as the results of the analysis are concerned, a white natural wax (beeswax), carbon black and iron oxides (a mixture of haematite and magnetite) along with charcoal particles (forming as a red colourant) have been applied on a natural substrate constituted of granite containing feldspar crystalline forms. Although very much a science-based piece of research, the results have far-reaching outcomes for understanding the sequencing of pigment application.     

The Nordic 'Cultural Industries': A Cross-National Assessment of the Place of the Cultural Industries in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden

ABSTRACT In this paper an attempt is made to measure the cultural industries in a cross‐national context. The paper starts with a discussion of the definition and delineation of the term the ‘cultural industries’. It is argued that a large range of goods and services may be considered to be cultural industry products and that it is important to place the production and exchange of such products in the context of an industrial systems approach. Following this the concept is operationalised using data on employment and firm activity from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Results are presented which suggest that overall growth in both employment and firm numbers has been especially strong in the cultural industries. However, interesting differences between the countries emerged from the data. Thus regional dimensions are then examined resulting in the finding that in all four countries cultural industries have a strong attraction to urban areas but an even stronger propensity to agglomerate. It is suggested that the spatial dynamics observed may be key to the development of the industries' competencies and success. In summary the paper presents results of extensive data analysis that show the cultural industries' important contribution to Scandinavian economies and labour markets.     

Putting Porter into Practice? Practices of Regional Cluster Building: Evidence from Sweden

In the last decade there has been an increased interest in the cluster approach as a tool for boosting regional competitiveness. In this article practices and processes of regional cluster building in Sweden are examined in order to better understand the key traits that seem to be common to successful regional cluster initiatives. It is argued that regional cluster building may be formed through long running policy processes that are crucially constituted by public and private actors' collective vision of what cluster policy involves and what a cluster can look like. Results from a study of 13 cluster initiatives in Sweden are presented. Out of these, four key examples are presented in detail to illustrate four distinct 'models' of cluster approaches that emerged: (a) industry-led initiatives to build competitiveness and competence within an existing base; (b) top-down public policy exercises in brand-building; (c) visionary projects to produce an industry cluster from 'thin air'; (d) small scale, geographically dispersed, natural resource based, temporal clusters that link or dip into global rather than national systems, sources of innovation and competitive advantage. The article closes with the presentation of a checklist of some common elements that successful cluster initiatives in Sweden have shared. It is hoped that they may trigger further research or be useful to policy-makers working in the area. It is concluded that though many questions and problems persist over the use of the cluster-approach it can be a useful tool for regional development.     

Beyond the Genome: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa and the Implications for Genome Editing

Genome editing — a plant-breeding technology that facilitates the manipulation of genetic traits within living organisms — has captured the imagination of scholars and professionals working on agricultural development in Africa. Echoing the arrival of genetically modified (GM) crops decades ago, genome editing is being heralded as a technology with the potential to revolutionize breeding based on enhanced precision, reduced cost and increased speed. This article makes two interventions. First, it identifies the discursive continuity linking genome editing and the earlier technology of genetic modification. Second, it offers a suite of recommendations regarding how lessons learned from GM crops might be integrated into future breeding programmes focused on genome editing. Ultimately, the authors argue that donors, policy makers and scientists should move beyond the genome towards systems-level thinking by prioritizing the co-development of technologies with farmers; using plant material that is unencumbered by intellectual property restrictions and therefore accessible to resource-poor farmers; and acknowledging that seeds are components of complex and dynamic agroecological production systems. If these lessons are not heeded, genome-editing projects are in danger of repeating mistakes of the past.     

Responding to the second ghetto: Chicago's Joe Smith and Sin Corner

World War Two and its aftermath transformed Chicago's African American community. The Great Migration entered a second and more intense phase as black migrants flooded into Northern cities. This massive relocation of Southern blacks resulted in the expansion and reformulation of Chicago's ghettoes on both the West and South Sides of the city. The question of a response to this Second Ghetto from African Americans themselves presents itself. White politicians, cultural elites and businessmen still controlled the city and could impose their will on its neighborhoods simply redrawing ghetto boundaries to reflect the new realities of the postwar era. The strange case of Joe Smith and Sin Corner sheds some light on black agency in the 1950s. The African American middle class had resources it commanded to try and protect itself from racial injustice. These resources, however, were based on class privileges not enjoyed by most in the African American community.     

The development of a new geospatial framework for the palaeoanthropological site of the Sterkfontein Caves,Cradle of Humankind,Gauteng, South Africa

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) provide an essential element in modern paleoanthropological inquiry through their ability to integrate a diverse range of data within a multidimensional spatial framework which can be used for data storage, analysis and modeling. One of the challenges of creating such a framework is the integration of legacy and new data (collected with digital technologies) at large sites with a long history of research. The Sterkfontein Caves, located in the Cradle of Humankind, is the richest Australopithecus-bearing locality in the world and has been the focus of intense palaeoanthropological research for the past 80 years. A diverse range of spatial data has been collected over this history and future integrative research necessitates the development of a unified, cohesive 3D GIS framework. In this paper we describe three phases of work undertaken to implement such a framework and discuss the next steps in its development and utilization for spatial analyses.     

Zechariah 5 and the priestly law

The bizarre imagery of Zechariah 5, and the relationship between the two visions contained therein has long been a source of bafflement to commentators. This article argues that the content of these visions is dependent on three texts from the priestly law: Leviticus 14, 19 and Numbers 5. The first of these texts provides the legal precedent for Zechariah's attacks on theft, fraud and perjury, while the action taken by God (the entry of the curse scroll into the house of the perjured thief, followed by its destruction and the removal of ''wickedness'') makes use of Numbers 5 and Leviticus 14 respectively.