The intuitions of higher dimensional algebra for the study of structured space

Higher dimensional algebra frees mathematics from the restriction to a purely linear notation, in order to improve the modelling of geometry and so obtain more understanding and more modes of computation. It gives new tools for noncommutative, higher dimensional, local to global problems, through the notion of «algebraic inverse to subdivision». We explain the way these ideas arose for the writters, in extending first the classical notion of abstract group to abstract groupoid, in which composition is only partially defined, as in composing journeys, and which brings a spatial component to the usual group theory: An example from knot theory is used to explain how such algebra can be used to describe some structure of a space. The extension to dimension 2 uses compositions of squares in two directions, and the richness of the resulting algebra is shown by some 2-dimensional calculations. The difficulty of the jump from dimension 1 to dimension 2 is also illustrated by the comparison of the commutative square with the commutative cube-discussion of the latter requires new ideas. The importance of category theory is explained, and a range of current and potential applications of higher dimensional algebra indicated.     

The Great Physician: mainline Protestant ministers’ expectations of doctors, 1840–1900

I argue that mainline Protestant clergymen adapted to the scientific and cultural developments of the post-Darwin era by encouraging a separation of bodily healing and spiritual healing that was unprecedented in Christianity. I use ministers’ depictions of Jesus in their addresses to physicians to illustrate this change. In 1840 ministers insisted that doctors’ value lay in their willingness to mimic Jesus’s example by healing both bodies and souls. As doctors gained authority in the late 1800s, the clergyman’s new ideal doctor stayed abreast of scientific developments and stuck to healing bodies. Ministers increasingly portrayed Jesus as an exclusively spiritual healer.     

Creative geographies of ceramic artists: knowledges and experiences of landscape,practices of art and skill

This paper argues for a conception of art as an embodied and creative material practice. It draws on research conducted with seven professional ceramic artists who deal with landscape in their work to explore their processes of art-making through interview and (filmed) observation. It demonstrates the distributed range of embodied and relational more-than-artistic practices which inform how landscape is encountered, known and ultimately represented. It argues that artists’ self-expression in art is based upon material, social and political knowledges which interweave in artists’ lives. By studying ceramicists’ making this paper demonstrates both the non-conscious skill and the conscious technical knowledge needed to make art. It shows chance to have a triple role in practices of making, as something to work alongside, to work against and to draw on as a creative resource. This paper both argues for and demonstrates the value of an approach to art-making that frames it as a complex of both conscious, socio-cultural, technical knowledges and non-conscious skills which together (in)form works of (ceramic) art.     

The Twenty-First Century Federalist

It is unlikely a “third party” will arise to threaten the two-party duopoly that has governed American politics since 1828. It is, however, possible that a new political movement will arise within the Republican Party, stake out new ideological terrain, and make a bid for control of the party apparatus. Movements arise when parties fail to address public challenges, policy entrepreneurs recognize the opportunity, and resources are available to make a bid feasible. Today the two parties have failed to address the increasing fragmentation of American public life. They have, in fact, contributed to fragmentation by appealing to identity politics and by attempting to use the national government as a tool of legal and judicial force against their opponents. A new political movement centered on federalism—the restoration of state and local government and a balance of power between the states and the national government—offers the hope of allowing cultural pluralism to flourish within an overarching political unity. It remains for enterprising candidates to recognize the opportunity and donors to fund them.