With This Body I Thee Worship: Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity

Why do ancient writers tell us that sacred prostitutes massed on the citadel of ancient Corinth? What are we to make of Herodotus’ famous account of the ancient customs of Babylon? Beard and Henderson examine the formation of the discourse of sacred, or cultic, prostitution both in classical texts and modern scholarship. They take a sceptical position on the existence, in Greece and the Near East, of institutions traditionally envisaged as ‘sacred prostitution’ and explore the uses which have been, and are still, found for such myth-making with the bodies of women, whether in the form of a ‘marriage-market’ or of various kinds of ‘sacred prostitution’.     

Global firms in local information societies: Work and employment issues for Europe

The strategies of large firms have a major influence on the evolution of the global information society because they dominate the markets for information and communication technologies. This paper examines the user rather than the producer role of large firms, and focuses on the surrounding issues relating to evolving patterns of work and employment. Its discussion of these issues and their policy significance reflects the perspective of the EU on what is effectively a global agenda on the future of work in the information society.     

SUPPLY ARMS AND OPTIMAL SPATIAL STRUCTURE*

ABSTRACT. A multi-plant producer has sole access to a region, and each of the plants processes a raw material which is drawn from its own exclusive supply area. Under these conditions what spatial structure of production (in terms of plant scale, plant frequency, supply-area size and supply-area shape) will enable region-wide or multi-plant profit to be maximized? The form of this optimal structure is shown to vary with prevailing level of price, which is exogenously determined.