Silas Marner,Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine: George Eliot's Ethics of Care

‘Silas Marner, Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine’ reads Eliot's novel Silas Marner through the history of medicine, and particularly in the context of Marner's strange cataleptic trances which embody his alienation and suffering. Eliot, I argue, employs catalepsy in order to investigate ideas of illness and care, especially as that relates to professional medicine and to ideas of community. Focusing on cataleptic case histories and on Eliot's personal health concerns I show how issues of care become philosophical questions about ethical responsibility. It is through Silas Marner and his catalepsy, I conclude, that Victorian scholars can come to understand more about what that means within Eliot's canon and, more widely, in the mid-Victorian period. Overall, the article provides a unique reading of Silas Marner, drawing on significant new archival research on catalepsy and in Eliot's writing of illness narratives.     

Long-term agrarian landscapes in the Troodos foothills,Cyprus

We investigate the temporal and environmental relationships between the terraced hill slopes of Politiko-Koloiokremmos and the adjacent Bronze Age settlement of Politiko-Troullia in foothills of the Troodos Mountains, central Cyprus. Mapping of 102 stone walls on Koloiokremmos is compared with 66 walls farther afield on Cyprus to create a six-part terrace typology. Sherd counts from 174 2-m radius collection circles over approximately 20 ha on Troullia and Koloiokremmos were used to create interpolated sherd density surfaces revealing distinctly different patterns of land use for four major archaeological eras between the Cypriot Bronze Age and Medieval Period. We compared sherd density patterns according to terrace types, length, slope and vegetation cover determined by SAVI (Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index) from Ikonos and Quickbird satellite imagery.The most robust sherd patterning indicates Prehistoric Bronze Age settlement at Troullia, as confirmed by soil resistivity and excavation, and multi-period land use on Koloiokremmos immediately upslope of the village that may be associated with agricultural terracing. Scattered sherd concentrations indicate later use of this landscape as an agricultural hinterland for the Iron Age city of Tamassos. Sherds and a down slope spread of roof tiles from the Roman through Medieval periods suggest an isolated structure near the crest of Koloiokremmos. Longer terraces correlate with greater vegetation cover and are interpreted as agricultural, while shorter terraces, apparently for erosion control and arboriculture, are significantly related to Prehistoric Bronze Age sherd patterns. Our results suggest that coordinated analysis of archaeological, geographical and remotely sensed environmental data associated with terraced landscapes can be used to infer long-term patterns of agricultural land use.     

PATTERNS AND DETERMINANTS OF PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY IN STATE MANUFACTURING*

ABSTRACT This paper uses a stochastic frontier production-function model to measure and compare productivity efficiency in the manufacturing sector of states in the United States over the period 1959–1972. Based on this model we find considerable variations in productive efficiency across states. A large portion of the variation is found to be related to regional differences in labor-force characteristics, levels of urbanization and industrial structure. We also examine the relationship between productive efficiency and the subsequent growth of manufacturing and find some evidence of a weak relationship between efficiency and the growth of employment.