Broca and Charcot’s Research on Jacques Inaudi:The Psychological and Anthropological Study of a Mental Calculator

In the nineteenth century, French scientific institutions became interested in young “mental calculators,” arithmetical prodigies able to quickly and accurately perform complex mental calculations. The first scientists to study mental calculators were phrenologists who sought to prove the existence of a calculating organ in the frontal lobe. Paul Broca introduced one such mental calculator, Jacques Inaudi, to the Anthropological Society of Paris in 1880. Broca attributed extraordinary faculty for mental calculation to memory functioning (the psychological hypothesis) rather than physiological difference (the phrenological hypothesis). In 1892, prominent French Academy of Sciences member Jean-Martin Charcot produced a noteworthy study of Inaudi on the organization’s behalf. Charcot observed that Inaudi called upon auditory memory rather than visual memory in his mental calculations, unlike most mental calculators who preceded him. Like Broca, Charcot was skeptical of the phrenological hypothesis, though he noted that Inaudi’s skull was markedly plagiocephalic. Interestingly, anthropological examination of Inaudi is consistent with the themes of modern cognitive neuroscience. Thus, Charcot seems to have anticipated present research on the localization of mental calculation and memory for numbers.     

Is Europe 2020 Set to Fail? The Cultural Political Economy of the EU Grand Strategies

The European Union (EU) has been continuously rethinking its global position amidst emerging economic and geopolitical challenges and attempting to formulate strategies to increase its competitiveness. However, its long-standing policy implementation deficit is also recognized for its grand strategies, including the initially ambitious Lisbon Strategy. Is Europe 2020 set to fail as well? In this paper, we are arguing that strategic steering is essentially a discursive practice influenced by both semiotic and extra-semiotic factors. Hence, success or failure of a strategy essentially depends on ability to steer the discourse. Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory offers a theoretical framework against which limitations and potentials of strategic steering at the EU level can be analysed. While high levels of rationality and reflection capacities can improve strategic steering, it is limited by the increasing complexity. Recognizing limitations of direct and centralized interventions, we look for analytical and strategic solutions in sophisticated mechanisms of contextual steering: variation, selection and retention of strategic discourses. These mechanisms are integral to the “cultural political economy” approach. In the final part of the paper, we show how cultural political economy can explain the implementation shortcomings of the EU strategies.     

SLEEPING ABROAD BUT WORKING AT HOME: CROSS‐BORDER RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY BETWEEN TRANSNATIONALISM AND (RE)BORDERING

Cross‐border residential mobility (CBRM) has so far largely been approached from a transnational perspective. However, recent developments in border studies and transnationalism give rise to certain doubts. While border studies have come to include mental borders next to physical borderlands, transnationalism today refers not just to cross‐border movements but also to identities trans‐cending the national. But border studies have shown that the increased crossing of borders is not necessarily coupled with their diminished significance. CBRM is a particularly interesting phenomenon as it entails the continuous crossing of a physical border, but the question is whether it also implies the erosion of mental borders and the emergence of transnational ties. While drawing on experiences from parallel cases, my study focuses on Poles from Szczecin moving just across the boundary to Vorpommern, Germany. Some are integrating there, but their large majority appears to carry on with everyday life in Poland as before moving. This settlement has triggered considerable resentment among local Germans, who as a reaction mark the borderland discursively and physically. As my survey shows, while both groups regularly cross the physical border, many even among the cross‐border residents consider it as a necessary dividing line or prefer cooperation to be reserved to some activities. Hence, unlike longdistance migration leading either to diaspora identities or to gradual dissolution in the majority culture, CBRM appears as a specific form of international migration where the physical proximity allows such intensive links with the country of origin that transnational effects are mitigated.     

Parties and factions in the late middle ages: the case of the Hoeken and Kabeljauwen in The Hague (1483–1515)

The late medieval political history of Holland is dominated by two opposing parties of noblemen and citizens: the ‘Hoeken’ (Hooks) and ‘Kabeljauwen’ (Cod). From approximately 1350 until 1500 these two parties determined the political landscape in Holland on a provincial and local level. The situations of open conflict between the two parties, usually in times that the position of the count of Holland was weak, have been studied thoroughly in recent years. The networks of both parties during periods of relative peace, however, have been for the most part neglected. Here it is argued that it is vital to study the networks during periods of peace as well to be able to say what the nature was of both parties. An analysis of the networks of the ‘winners’, the Kabeljauwen in The Hague at the end of the fifteenth and start of the sixteenth century, serves as an example of how fruitful the analysis of party networks can be after, or in between, periods of open violence. The importance of the Kabeljauw networks for three decades after the end of open friction is demonstrated. Studies of parties and factions in late medieval Italy serve as a constant base of comparison throughout the paper.     

Tracking Hunter-Gatherer Impact on Vegetation in Last Interglacial and Holocene Europe: Proxies and Challenges

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - We review palaeoenvironmental proxies and combinations of these relevant for understanding hunter-gatherer niche construction activities in...