A NARRATIVE TURN: HUMAN AGENCY IN ROCK CARVINGS AT NÄMFORSEN,NORTHERN SWEDEN

The idea to create pictorial narratives seems to have occurred long after humans learned to produce iconic images, that is, depictions based on visual similarity to external objects. In Scandinavia, e.g. in Gärde, Sweden or Stykket and Bøla, Norway, early Mesolithic images (e.g. rock carvings from before c.5000 BCE) often feature animals that are solitary or without suggestion of causal or narrative relations to other figures, although they sometimes are grouped by proximity or are superimposed on each other. Notable is also the almost complete absence of human figures. However, in subsequent Neolithic configurations (after c.5000 BCE), there are renderings of human agents involved in various forms of interaction with each other or with animals, often within distinguishable ‘scenes’ or compositions. In this paper we outline the emergence of pictorial narratives in Scandinavian rock carvings. In particular, we focus on some of the first depictions of human agency as displayed in Nämforsen, Sweden (c.5000–1800 BCE). Further, we present an analysis of occurring human-animal relationships, interpretable as early attempts to create narrativizing images.     

The Visual Inheritance: Collections of Historical Photographs from Papua New Guinea

Knowledge about historical photographic collections of Papua New Guinea (PNG) is limited both in source communities and amongst scholars. This article aims to shed light on significant collections of PNG photographs, describing some of the collections, and pointing to their importance at both ends of the ‘exchange’. I discuss some limitations in present uses of these visual records and point to the need for repatriation initiatives. The poor knowledge of extant photographic collections among today’s Papua New Guineans is described, and I raise some thoughts about what this signals to archives and researchers. As examples, special mention is given to the collections of photographers Albert English, William Saville, Rudolf Pöch and Captain F.R. Barton. Finally, I comment on current challenges and future opportunities for the keepers of these historical collections. A list of the collections mentioned in the article can be found at the end.     

HOW WE LIVE WITH THE PAST NOW

Michael Roth's new collection of essays, written over the last two decades, is held together by its author's pervasive concern with human temporality: our individual and collective passages through time, recorded by the faculty of memory, which pose some of our most intractable problems. The essays treat, and indeed provide a map to, several adjacent areas of inquiry: the history of the psychopathology of memory in the long nineteenth century; the vicissitudes of the trauma‐concept from its relatively modest medical origins to its postmodern apotheosis; and photography as a medium and art form embroiled in our relationship with the past. Roth's major interventions are threefold. First, while persuaded of the value of the psychoanalytic version of the trauma‐concept, he critiques the so‐called traumatophilia of postmodern theorists who, usually with reference to the Holocaust, seek to invest trauma with ethical valences and powers of legitimation or even, as in the case of Agamben, raise it to ontological status. Second, through his fine‐grained account of Freud's convergence with and divergence from his French colleagues, especially Charcot and Janet, Roth argues that the stunning breakthrough of psychoanalysis was to take the past seriously, to recognize the inevitable penetration of the past into the present in the human psyche as well our affective investment in and need to narrativize the past. For Roth, Freud's continued relevance today resides in what he has taught us about living with the past. Finally, Roth begins to develop the concept of “piety” as an attitude toward the past that fuels the writing of history. He leaves the concept in rudimentary form, but his evocative remarks suggest the fruitfulness of developing it further.     

Learning to Innovate: Building Regional Technology Development Learning Networks in Midsized Cities

There has been increased attention to the importance of knowledge in economic success. The ability of a region to develop learning capabilities has been linked to knowledge-based success. However, conflicting perspectives exist about whether and how it is possible for policies and institutions in a lagging location to foster a learning region. This article examines this debate in the context of an effort to develop a second region of innovation (outside of Atlanta) in the US state of Georgia through a learning network called the Midsize Cities Technology Development Initiative. This initiative partnered four midsized cities in Georgia with four European midsized cities to stimulate benchmarking and learning. While traditional perspectives on economic development persist, some learning and reorientation of strategy was evident in the participating US cities. In stimulating these changes, significant roles were played by outsiders in brokering interaction and imparting fresh ideas, in strengthening ties to research and innovation capabilities in the core Atlanta metropolis, and in building new local institutions. A major new state-sponsored programme (the Centers of Innovation) with local presence in each of the four cities resulted from the effort. Still, it remains to be seen how learning will continue and whether a fully fledged second region of innovation will emerge in Georgia.