Reconnecting with nature: an ecofeminist view of environmental management

Current approaches to environmental management are critiqued as symptomatic of a capitalist system that rests on the appropriation and instrumental use of planetary resources. I argue that people need to find different ways of relating to our co‐members in the web of life. A set of ecofeminist philosophical principles is proposed on which to build that new relationship; the need to develop an ecocentric, as opposed to an anthropocentric, view whereby to be human is to be part of the more‐than‐human, the revaluation of epistemological frameworks to include what rationality currently denies and a focus on an ethic of care extended to the more‐than‐human as a moral imperative and as a call for action. These principles offer exciting possibilities to develop ecocentric connectivities within nature beyond the current limiting and damaging conceptions of environmental management.     

The Holly Bluff style

We recognize a new style of Mississippian-period art in the North American Southeast, calling it Holly Bluff. It is a two-dimensional style of representational art that appears solely on containers: marine shell cups and ceramic vessels. Iconographically, the style focuses on the depiction of zoomorphic supernatural powers of the Beneath World. Seriating the known corpus of images allows us to characterize three successive style phases, Holly Bluff I, II, and III. Using limited data, we source the style to the northern portion of the lower Mississippi Valley.     

Immunological diagnosis of multiple myeloma in a medieval bone

An inhibition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using monoclonal antibodies has been used to confirm the diagnosis of IgA type multiple myeloma in a small fragment (< 10 g) of cranium from a medieval female. Further testing by sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting showed that the IgA was mainly polymeric, suggesting that the individual would have suffered from a hyperviscosity syndrome. This is the first time that immunological assays have been used to diagnose multiple myeloma in ancient human tissue and have permitted speculation on associated clinical symptoms.     

Reading Thatcher

Shirley Letwin, The Anatomy of Thatcherism (London: Fontana, 1992) pp.377 $16.95 ISBN 0 00686243.

Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: Harper Collins, 1993) pp.914 $49.95 0 00 255049 0.

David Willetts, Modern Conservatism (London: Penguin, 1992) pp.216 $16.95 ISBN 0 14 015477 9.