The patron function in eighteenth-century book dedications: the case of Croatian religious writing

This paper analyses book dedications in a specific genre, religious writing, in a linguistically small and peripheral region of the Habsburg Empire, endeavouring thereby to open up new comparative perspectives in the understanding of the system of patronage. After a review of the most frequent problems encompassed by recent research, the specific features of the concrete original research corpus are elaborated, with an emphasis on problems hitherto less investigated: the correlation of the dedication and other paratextual parts of the book; the practice of dedicating works to saints of the Catholic Church, which relativises the understanding of the dedication as a form of the exchange of authorial work for material benefits; and the functionalisation of the name of the patron, which enables the creation of the concept of the patron function. The analysis supports the understanding of patronage as a dynamic system that rested upon the human interactions possible in the given and specific spatial and temporal contexts.     

Isotopic Composition of Lead in Copper Ores and a Copper Artefact from the La Profunda Mine (León,Spain)

This paper continues the characterization of the lead isotopic fingerprint of ancient copper mines in the north‐west of Spain. In this work, the lead isotopic compositions found in copper ores from the La Profunda mine are presented. Azurites and malachites sampled from this deposit were subjected to lead isotope analysis by multicollector ICP–MS. The results showed a clear radiogenic lead signature compatible with the presence of uranium‐rich minerals (such as zeunerite) in the same mining complex. Moreover, a rare copper artefact, found in the galleries of the mine during its modern exploitation, was also analysed and showed that local mineral was used for its manufacturing.     

The reflection of human activity in the sediments of Iwankowskie Lake from Subatlantic Phase (Polish Outer Carpathians)

The paper presents the analysis of organic and mineral sediments filling the depression, which developed over the landslide located at the slope (767–773 m a.s.l.) of Lubań ridge decscending to the Ochotnica river valley in the Polish Flysch Carpathians. The landslide formed in an early stage of the Subatlantic Phase (2490 ± 35 BP). The top of peat is dated at 1360 ± 50 years BP and is covered by 72 cm of clayey silts with some sandy intercalations, which indicate slopewash after deforestation. The pollen of ruderal plants and Cerealia (undiff.) reflect agricultural activity in the surroundings. The fragments of charcoal indicate the age of the forest clearance to the first half of the 17^th century. The late forest clearance at the elevated north exposed slopes followed 200–300 years later in relation to the foundation of the village at the valley floor.     

British Romantic Poets and the African Plight

The enslavement of Africans did strike the young, hopeful and radical Romantic poets of nineteenth-century England as the most blatant example of human oppression and the clearest example of humans being deprived of liberty. Although their poetry refers to and draws on the imagery of African slavery, the major poetic figures of the Romantic Movement in England rarely spoke directly against the slave trade and colonial slavery. Thus the issue of slavery, the transatlantic trade, and Britain's role in it, though well established in the nineteenth-century historical context, remained a subject only partially explored by the English Romantic poets, who were, at the time, more preoccupied with British domestic policy and the enslavement of their own nation.     

Rethinking Twentieth‐Century Guadalajara

This paper discusses the impact of the conference ‘Las Olvidadas: Gender and Women's History in Post‐Revolutionary Mexico’ that took place at Yale University in May 2001, into my own work on women's political mobilisations. It points out from where I departed and how it changed my perspective from women's history to gender history by focusing on women workers in the tortilla industry, a union cacicazgo (political bossism), civic culture, narratives, cultural memory and female political trajectories after the granting of women's suffrage in 1953 in Jalisco.