Sociology,Religion, and Historians Revisited: Towards an Historical Sociology of Religion

Abstract

Two great movie directors were both born in 1930. One of them, Jean-Luc Godard, revolutionized filmmaking during his 30s and declined in creativity thereafter. In contrast, Clint Eastwood did not direct his first movie until he had passed the age of 40 and did not emerge as an important director until after he was 60. This dramatic difference in life cycles was not accidental, but was a characteristic example of a pattern that has been identified across the arts: Godard was a conceptual innovator who peaked early, whereas Eastwood was an experimental innovator who improved with experience. This article examines the goals, methods, and creative life cycles of Godard, Eastwood, and eight other directors who were the most important filmmakers of the second half of the twentieth century. Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Spielberg, and François Truffaut join Godard in the category of conceptual young geniuses, while Woody Allen, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, and Martin Scorsese are classed with Eastwood as experimental old masters. In an era in which conceptual innovators have dominated a number of artistic activities, the strong representation of experimental innovators among the greatest film directors is an interesting phenomenon.     

ESTIMATION PROBLEMS IN MODELS WITH SPATIAL WEIGHTING MATRICES WHICH HAVE BLOCKS OF EQUAL ELEMENTS*

ABSTRACT Spatial models whose weighting matrices have blocks of equal elements might be considered if units are viewed as equally distant within certain neighborhoods, but unrelated between neighborhoods. We give exact small sample results for such models that contain a spatially lagged‐dependent variable. We consider cases in which the data relate to one or more panels, for example, villages, schools, etc. Our results are consistent with large sample results given in Kelejian and Prucha (2002) but indicate a variety of issues they did not consider.     

Lithic raw material physical properties and use-wear accrual

Understanding the nature of the physical properties of lithic raw materials is a pre-requisite for developing more reliable interpretations of use-wear evidence and tool function. We use nanoindentation and use-wear experimentation as a way to measure differences in raw material surface hardness and roughness in order to show that differences in lithic material properties have implications for rates of use-wear accrual.     

Spillover effects in spatial models: Generalizations and extensions

In this paper, we consider two different cases of spillover effects: the first is a case where the model does not contain any additional endogenous regressors. Related to this, we give a variance formula that can be used to make inference for estimated spillover effects. In the second case, we extend the discussion of spillover effects to a model containing additional endogenous variables. We suggest approximations to the spillover effects that according to the results of our Monte Carlo experiment are quite accurate. However, our variance formula can not be determined unless the equations of the entire system are known. Suggestions for approximations in this case are left for future research.