In Memoriam William Wells Newell,Died at Wayland,Massachusetts, 21st January, 1907

CELTIC MYTH AND ARTHURIAN ROMANCE. By ROGER SHERMAN LOOMIS. New York: Columbia University Press, 1927. 9″x5?″. Pp. xii+371. 30s. Reviewed by Eleanor Hull.

BÉALOIDEAS : The Journal of the Folk-Lore of Ireland Society. Published by the Society at Room 78, University College, Dublin, 1927. Volume I, Parts i and ii. Pp. 205. 8vo. Ann. sub. 7s. 6d. Reviewed by Eleanor Hull.

LIA FÁIL. Dublin: 89 Talbot Street. Large 8vo. 5s. per vol. Reviewed by Eleanor Hull.

“THE PACK OF AUTOLYCUS,” or Strange and terrible news of Ghosts, Apparitions, Monstrous Births, Showers of Wheat, Judgments of God, and other Prodigious and Fearful happenings as told in Broadside Ballads of the years 1624–1693. Edited by HYDER EDWARD ROLLINS. Cambridge (Harvard) University Press, 1927. 4to. Pp. xvii+270. Ill. 2is. Reviewed by M. Gaster.

DIE HELLENISTISCHEN MYSTERIENRELIGIONEN nach ihren Grundgedanken und Wirkungen. By R. REITZENSTEIN. 3rd ed. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1927. 8vo. Pp. viii+438. 16s. Reviewed by M. Gaster.

THE NEGRO AND HIS SONGS. A Study of Typical Negro Songs in the South. By HOWARD W. ODUM and GUY B. JOHNSON. Chapel Hill, Carolina, U.S.A.: Univ. of North Carolina Press (Oxford Univ. Press), 1925. 9″ x 5?″. Pp. xii. + 306. 18s. 6d. Reviewed by A. R. Wright.

FOLK BELIEFS OF THE SOUTHERN NEGRO. By NEWBELL NILES PUCKETT. Chapel Hill, Carolina, U.S.A.: Univ. of North Carolina Press (Oxford Univ. Press), 1926. 9″x5?″. 9 ill. Pp. xvi+644. 22s. 6d. Reviewed by A. R. Wright.     

Explorers' Tales: Stanley Presumes – Again

In the early 1970s, Australia and Britain found themselves embroiled in an embarrassing diplomatic controversy over Australia's failure to provide an assisted passage to Jan Allen, a British citizen of Jamaican descent. Allen lodged a formal complaint with the British Race Relations Board, arguing he had been denied assistance on the grounds of his race. The Board was compelled to investigate the case, raising the possibility that British and Australian officials would face legal charges. This article outlines the complex diplomatic negotiations that surrounded the case and assesses its outcome. It argues that the controversy marked an important milestone in Australia-British relations, reinforcing the fact that British race patriotism could no longer mediate the self-identities and interrelations of the two countries. It contributed to Britain's decision to withdraw its support for the United Kingdom-Australia Assisted Passage Scheme and the eventual abolition of Australia's ‘White Australia’ policy     

Character and imperialism: The british financial administration of Egypt, 1878–1914

The main purpose of the article is to try to show how British governing elites constructed their world through a complex mental grid summed up in the word ‘character’ and how this impacted upon imperial governance. The latter theme is then illustrated through a detailed study of the financial policies of the small cadre of British officials who controlled Egyptian government in this period. They used the language of character to justify being in Egypt in the first place and it clearly influenced the financial policies they adopted. More fundamentally, as we shall see, the character grid gave them a very negative view of Egyptians and their society and made it impossible for them to recognise that nationalist claims for autonomy had any validity.     

Ichnofacies of the Stairway Sandstone fish-fossil beds (Middle Ordovician,Northern Territory,Australia)

The Stairway Sandstone is a 30–560 m thick succession of Middle Ordovician siliciclastic sedimentary rocks within the Amadeus Basin of central Australia, deposited in the epeiric Larapintine Sea of northern peri-Gondwana. The Stairway Sandstone is significant as one of only two known Gondwanan successions to yield articulated arandaspid (pteraspidomorph agnathan) fish. Herein we use the ichnology of the Stairway Sandstone to reveal insights into the shallow marine habitat of these early vertebrates, and compare it with that of other known pteraspidomorph-bearing localities from across Gondwana. The Stairway Sandstone contains a diverse Ordovician ichnofauna including 22 ichnotaxa of Arenicolites, Arthrophycus, Asterosoma, Cruziana, Didymaulichnus, Diplichnites, Diplocraterion, ?Gordia, Lockeia, Monocraterion, Monomorphichnus, Phycodes, Planolites, Rusophycus, Skolithos and Uchirites. These ichnofauna provide a well-preserved example of a typical Ordovician epeiric sea assemblage, recording the diverse ethologies of tracemakers in a very shallow marine environment of flashy sediment accumulation and regularly shifting sandy substrates. New conodont data refine the age of the Stairway Sandstone to the early Darriwilian, with ichnostratigraphic implications for the Cruziana rugosa group and Arthrophycus alleghaniensis.     

Challenging a Terrorist Tag in the Media: Framing the Politics of Resistance and an Iranian Opposition Group

Scholars have shown that media framing has a powerful effect on citizen perception and policy debates. Research has provided less insight into the ability of marginalized actors to promote their preferred frames in the media in a dynamic political context. The efforts of an exiled Iranian opposition group to get its name removed from official terror lists in the United States, United Kingdom, and EU provides a valuable platform to examine this problem. Using content analysis, I explore how the group promoted its frames in the opinion sections of major world news publications over nine years (2003–2012). I then examine the extent to which journalists aligned to its frames, as opposed to rival official frames, over time in the larger arena of news. The results support research showing that by nurturing small opportunities, marginalized political actors can expand media capacity and influence, but these effects are mediated at least in part by critical or focusing events that make rival frames less salient. The study sheds light on the complex relationship between activists, the government, and the media. It has implications for the ability of marginalized political actors to get their frames into public discourse. It also has implications for terror tagging and media coverage of other controversial issues.