Initial Archaeological Survey of the ex-USS <Emphasis Type="Italic">Independence</Emphasis> (CVL-22)

The Boeing Company, collaborating with NOAA to address innovative ways to make ocean observations, provided their autonomous underwater vehicle, Echo Ranger, to conduct the first deep-water archaeological survey of the scuttled aircraft carrier USS Independence in the waters of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in March 2015. While a preliminary effort, and not comprehensive, the survey confirmed that a sonar feature (previously not proven to be an archaeological feature) charted at the location was Independence, and provided details on the condition of the wreck. At the same time, new information from declassified government reports provided more detail on Independence’s use as a naval test craft for radiological decontamination as well as its use as a repository for radioactive materials at the time of its scuttling in 1951. The wreck is historically significant, but also of archaeological significance as an artifact of the early years of the atomic age and of the Cold War. This article summarizes Independence’s contexts, its nuclear history, and the results of the survey of the wreck site.     

Introduction: Some Significances of the Two Cultures Debate

The notion of the existence of two opposed cultures, one literary and one scientific, has a long pedigree going back to nineteenth century. However, it was C.P. Snow's formulation of the idea in 1959 and F.R. Leavis's 1962 critique, which brought it to the fore in cultural discourse, where it has more or less remained ever since. The papers in this special double issue of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews examine the debate and its legacies from a variety of perspectives, while this introduction seeks to contextualise the issues raised and draw some contemporary lessons.     

Mrs. Murray - Aynsley sent from Kashmir a description of “Masock”, a game played by Cinghalese fisher-boys near Colombo,in Ceylon

This paper examines the mutability of the ‘meaning’ of folklore, as articulated by Lauri Honko. The paper aims to illustrate the amorphous and ambiguous nature of customs and traditions by considering the multiple ‘meanings’ ascribed to a contemporary British folkloric custom: the Cumbrian coin-tree.     

Anthropology of French Canada

Gerald L. Gold and Marc‐Adelard Tremblay, eds. Communities and Culture in French Canada. Toronto: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston of Canada, 1973. xvi + 364 pp. Maps, tables, appendixes, bibliographies, indexes, and notes. $6.50 (paper).     

The bittersweet harvest of the green revolution

Keith Griffin. The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: An Essay on the Green Revolution. Cambridge‐. Harvard University Press, 1974. xv + 264 pp. Tables and index. $11.00.     

Poromoi Tamu and the Case of the Drowning Village: History, Lost Places and the Stories We Tell

Archaeological excavations at an ancestral village site within rainforest in Papua New Guinea has revealed buried cultural evidence that can be explained in a number of ways. While interpretations based on Western archaeological methods suggest regional landscape dynamics informed by geomorphological processes, Indigenous Rumu oral traditions suggest an interpretation of the site’s stratigraphy based on the workings of spiritual forces. The role of story-telling and new information in site interpretation and understanding is explored in light of these different yet complementary accounts.     

Early European Experience in Marine Spatial Planning: Planning the German Exclusive Economic Zone

Marine spatial planning is emerging as an integrated, resource management-led approach to governing the use of the seas. Recent initiatives include those of some north European countries, including Germany, which has now completed a plan for its federal offshore territory. In this article, an analysis is presented of this pioneering plan and the consultation process behind its production, with a particular emphasis on the treatment of different sectoral interests around which the plan was structured. This revealed the attempts to coordinate not only the different demands at sea by means of allocation of areas and cross-sectoral considerations, but also the uneven representation of activities with certain interests gaining strongly and others effectively marginalized. This study provides early empirical evidence of the tensions involved in the attempt to adopt a spatial approach to marine governance. This new domain for planning is situated in the overlapping, but distinct domains of marine management and spatial planning. The conceptual backgrounds of both are drawn upon in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and in suggesting how marine plans might gain by giving close attention to the broader principles of marine and strategic planning.     

THE DIALECTICS OF JAMESON'S DIALECTICS

This review essay attempts to understand the book under review against the background of Jameson's previous writings. Failing to do so would invite misunderstanding since there are few contemporary theorists whose writing forms so much of a unity. Jameson's book can be divided into three parts. The first and most important part deals with dialectics, the second with politics, and the third with philosophy of history. In the first part Jameson argues that dialectics best captures our relationship to the sociocultural and historical world we are living in. The second part makes clear that Jameson is not prepared to water down his own Marxist politics in order to spare the liberal sensibilities of his political opponents. In the third part Jameson develops his own philosophy of history, mainly in a dialogue with Ricoeur. Dialectics is his main weapon in his discussion with Ricoeur, and it becomes clear that the Spinozism of dialectics allows for a better understanding of history and of historical writing than does Ricoeur's phenomenological approach. The book is an impressive testimony to the powers of dialectical thought and to its indispensability for a proper grasp of historical writing.