A State Within the State: The Inquisition in Enlightenment Thought

ABSTRACT

Enlightenment thinkers wrote many pages against the Inquisition. In particular, they widely criticized the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions, which they regarded as the epitomes of cruelty and fanaticism. Both inquisitions were established at royal request and remained subjected to the authority of the kings until they were abolished at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Indeed, therein the kings nominated the grand inquisitors, who were invested with civil jurisdiction for reasons that were at least as much political as religious. However, Enlightenment writers almost always portrayed the Inquisition as the ultimate example of the many ills derived from clerical authority, ecclesiastical autonomy and monastic despotism. Kings and civil magistrates were, in fact, usually depicted as victims of inquisitorial power. This common portrayal of the Inquisition reveals that the Enlightenment idea of toleration was essentially constructed for reducing the power of churches to disturb public peace and challenge civil authority. Thus, this idea of toleration was in effect less capable of denouncing political intolerance, let alone of promoting the separation of church and state.     

Carboniferous postglacial faunas in the late Serpukhovian–Bashkirian interval of central-western Argentina

Cisterna, G.A., Sterren, A.F., López Gamundí, O. & Vergel, M.M., March 2017. Carboniferous postglacial faunas in the late Serpukhovian–Bashkirian interval of central-western Argentina. Alcheringa, ISSN 0311-5518.

Typical glacial–postglacial sequences associated with the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age (LPIA) are recognized in the Calingasta-Uspallata Basin, central-western Argentina, particularly in the Hoyada Verde and El Paso formations (late Serpukhovian–Bashkirian) at Barreal Hill (San Juan province). Brachiopods and bivalves accompanied by gastropods, conulariids, nautiloids, corals and ostracods constitute the marine assemblages of the El Paso Formation. They are assigned to the Aseptella–Tuberculatella/Rhipidomella–Micraphelia (AT/RM) fauna, characterized by two fossil assemblages: Aseptella–Tuberculatella, identified in the lower fossiliferous interval, and Rhipidomella–Micraphelia in the upper. The development of the different invertebrate assemblages within the El Paso Formation, and their relationship with coeval suite in the Hoyada Verde Formation, can be explained by a complex array of abiotic factors (substrate stability, turbidity, nutrient availability, variation in oxygen levels, poor circulation and salinity variations in the water column) that were directly related to glacial retreat dynamics and coastal configuration. A restricted palaeofjord setting is proposed for the depositional environment of the El Paso Formation in contrast to an exposed open marine coast with a gently sloping shelf for the Hoyada Verde Formation. The study of the postglacial fauna of the El Paso Formation and its relationship with the Levipustula fauna in the Calingasta-Uspallata Basin, help determine the main controls on the distribution of the postglacial faunas in other late Palaeozoic South American basins, such as the Tepuel Genoa Basin in Patagonia and the Tarija Basin in Bolivia.

Gabriela A. Cisterna [gabrielacisterna@conicet.gov.ar], CONICET-UNLAR, Av. Dr. Luis M. de la Fuente s/n, La Rioja, 5300, Argentina; Andrea F. Sterren [asterren@unc.edu.ar], CICTERRA (CONICET – Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), Av. Vélez Sarsfield 1611, X5016GCA, Córdoba, Argentina; Oscar López Gamundí [orlg2003@yahoo.com], P1C Consultants 1121 Banks Street, Houston, TX 77006, USA; María del Milagro Vergel [vergelmar@tucbbs.com.ar], CONICET – INSUGEO – Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituo Miguel Lillo (UNT), Miguel Lillo 205, 4000, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina.     

A People for the Patricians: Cuadros De Costumbres and State-Making on the Frontier in Colombia and Venezuela

This essay argues that the individual nature of the sketch of manners (cuadros de costumbres) imagined, in the midst of post-war politicisation of the popular classes, a dismantling of alliances of class and race to privilege a single possible image of community: the nation. By reconstructing the discourses – in particular of José María Vergara y Vergara and Ramón Páez – that facilitated the production of the llanero type in Venezuela and the Indian (indio) type in Colombia, this essay posits the sketcher as embodying a ‘patrician mindset’. As a product of it, the sketchers project their own personal histories onto their representations of the people and, in so doing, erases the frontier histories of these populations. By confounding the history of the nation with their own histories, Vergara y Vergara and Páez equated ‘patria’ with patrimony, producing peaceful populations as ‘pueblo’ (national people). Paradoxically, these idyllic portraits of the ‘pueblo’ belie an all but peaceful principle of authority that these post-independence patricians used to legitimise themselves.     

Reflections on the Transformation in Mexico

This article offers panoramic portrait of Mexican politics since the election victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena movement in July 2018. Along its path to overwhelming success, Morena presented a vision of a historic transformation of a thoroughly corrupted Mexican state. Morena’s opponents viewed its emergence with anxiety, as a radical, populist, leftist force. But the new regime has been extremely cautious, affirming existing geopolitical and security commitments and pursuing conservative macroeconomic policies. Working within these constraints, the López Obrador government has largely focused on a moral transformation of the state. The context of Morena’s victory was the ongoing collapse in the Mexican state’s monopoly of force and its historic complicity with criminal and paramilitary violence. The government’s post-election approach has included a public reckoning with state crimes, from 1968 to Ayotzinapa. But its primary strategy has been one of ostentatious political asceticism. Rhetorically, this encompasses ideas of ‘political love’ and ‘republican austerity’; in practical terms, it includes campaigns of public frugality and the performative vulnerability of the president himself. In closing, we analyse the proposed National Guard, arguably the centrepiece of Morena’s putative state transformation, a policy condemned by some as renewed militarisation in the name of utopian republicanism.     

Footpaths Marked by Changes in Geological Clasts as Indicators of Mobility in Tenerife,Canary Islands

Studies on the mobility of past populations are useful in the interpretation of trade and lifestyle. Preservation of ancient paths is uncommon. In Tenerife, a volcanic island of the Canary Archipelago, ancient paths are still preserved, due to the dry climatic conditions and the presence of extensive lava fields in inhospitable areas of the Island. The Guanches who inhabited this island before the Spanish conquest, those surviving in the highlands after the conquest, and modern goatherders, utilised a still identifiable net of paths to access the central mountains. Clasts in the beds of these paths have suffered variable abrasion, depending on the time during which the path was used and on the number of people and/or animals that have walked on it. We estimated roundness of 1819 clasts collected at different parts of the net of paths crossing different lava fields of known antiquity. Significant differences in roundness of clasts among different parts of the paths allowed an inference about the relative importance of each of the paths constituting the net. Therefore, assessment of roundness of the clasts of the beds of paths may aid in the understanding of the migrations of people.     

Inherited memory,social learning,and resilience: lessons from Spain's Great Blizzard of 1888

The snowstorms that affected the Cantabrian Mountains in the winter of 1888 caused unprecedented damage, and the absence of a “resilient approach” to this episode had several consequences worth further consideration. In this study, we explored interconnections between and among memory, social learning, and resilience by surveying the affected landscapes, conducting interviews with current residents, and reviewing historical sources such as press archives. The mixed method has enabled us to examine the construction and transmission of respondents' memories and to link those narratives to our reading of the presence or absence of risk mitigation actions—especially against snow avalanches. Our analysis has established that the 1888 snowstorms are remembered down the decades in ways that downplay risk, neglect social learning and changes to community practices and capacities to cope with uncertainties, and fail to shape preventive measures against future disasters. These insights have relevance for those interested in how archival research, field observations, and contemporaneous interviews can aid understandings of inherited memory, social learning, and resilience.     

由武威出土马胸勒的化学处理谈皮制文物的保护

采用甘油、聚乙二醇４０００、硅胶等对中国北方出土皮制品进行了保护处理,处理后皮件基本 柔软,且能随意展开,保持了原貌。     

Risk-senstive adaptive tactics: Models and evidence from subsistence studies in biology and anthropology

Risk-sensitive analysis of subsistence adaptations is warranted when (i) outcomes are to some degree unpredictable and (ii) they have nonlinear consequences for fitness and/or utility. Both conditions are likely to be common among peoples studied by ecologicll anthropologists and archaeologists. We develop a general conceptual model of risk. We then review and summarize the extensive empirical literatures from biology and anthropology for methodological insights and for their comparative potential. Risk-sensitive adaptive tactics are diverse and they are taxonomically widespread. However, the anthropological literature rarely makes use of formal models of risk-sensitive adaptation, while the biological literature lacks naturalistic observations of risk-sensitive behavior. Both anthropology and biology could benefit from greater interdisciplinary exchange.     

C. A. Macartney and Central Europe

C. A. Macartney (1895–1978) was a British historian with a life‐long interest in the history and politics of the peoples of East‐Central Europe and in particular, those of Hungary. He combined historical research with an advisory role in various policy‐making bodies. Macartney had little faith in the system of small nation states that resulted from the break‐up of the Austro‐Hungarian Monarchy. He called attention to the fact that the principle of self‐determination was applied unevenly by the peacemakers in Paris, and that the new states were unstable and thus consequently unable to resist pressures from Germany and Russia. While always forthright, Macartney was also often controversial. He became a proponent of various Hungarian interests and causes in Britain, a standpoint difficult to maintain during and immediately after World War II. Yet Macartney was not simply an appeaser. For him, the solution to the problems of the Danube Basin lay in the gradual eradication of overlapping nationalisms and the establishment of a supra‐national economic and political structure for the benefit of all the peoples concerned. His scholarly works conform to the highest standards of academic professionalism, and are to this day often the only source in English on the particular subject.