6. WHY WE NEED TO MOVE FROM TRUTH‐FUNCTIONALITY TO PERFORMATIVITY IN HISTORIOGRAPHY

The central challenge of the philosophy of history and historiography is to find a principled way to rank different interpretations of the past without assuming their truth in terms of correspondence. The narrativist insight of the narrative philosophy of historiography was to correctly question historical realism. It analyzed texts and showed that they cannot reflect the past as it is. However, the rejection of the truth‐functional evaluation threatens to lead to an “anything goes” approach in terms of cognitive evaluation of historiography. In any case, no adequate theory of evaluation has so far been developed, although clearly not all historiographical interpretations are acceptable. Postnarrativist philosophy of historiography suggests that any history book includes a content‐synthesizing unit, but that it is problematic to think that it is “narrative” that structures texts. It is better to think of historiography texts as presenting reasoning for views and theses about the past. Arguments for these theses should be considered not as being true but as more or less appropriate, fitting, or warranted. The historian aims to produce as highly rationally warranted and compelling a thesis of the past as possible; its rational appropriateness depends on three dimensions of cognitive evaluation: the epistemic, the rhetorical, and the discursive.     

清乾隆至道光年间的聊城商业——以山陕会馆碑刻资料为中心的考察

聊城是清代中叶山东运河沿线的重要转运码头,经由该城转运的商品以绸缎、布匹、皮毛、纸张、茶叶等为大宗。绸缎、纸张、茶叶等南来商品的转销范围大致包括鲁北、冀南、豫东以及山西;棉布和皮毛制品则为东昌本地所产,主要销往西北和口外。依据会馆抽厘率折算,乾隆初年山陕商人在聊城的经营规模每年仅数十万两,嘉庆时增至一百数十万两,道光年间即便从低折算也达到210万两。全城合计,嘉庆年间聊城的商业规模已达每年200万两;道光年间以1‰的抽厘率折算为300万两,若以0.3‰的抽厘率折算则高达1000万两。     

Tell Abraq during the second and first millennia BC: site layout,spatial organisation,and economy

Research recommenced at Tell Abraq in 2007, carried out by Bryn Mawr College with an international team in co‐operation with the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. Between 2007 and 2010 fieldwork was limited to documenting sections of the previous excavations and one small sounding while our attention focused mainly on the nearby shell‐midden site of Hamriya and the fortified Iron Age settlement site of Muweilah. Since 2010, large‐scale excavations have been conducted which have fundamentally altered our understanding of the layout of the settlement and its economic relations during the second and first millennia BC. In this report, we detail the results of this work and present preliminary interpretations.     

中国古代透闪石—阳起石玉器白化机制研究述要

出土透闪石—阳起石玉器呈现部分白化和全器白化现象,其时代涵盖史前至近代,地域跨越中国全境。目前白化动力成因研究颇为零散,迄今尚未从"面"上进行系统总结。为此,本研究拟从玉料加工成器之前的自然(风化)白化、玉料加工成器之后的加热白化和自然(受沁)白化等三方面对白化的性状特征和形成机制进行细致梳理和探讨,总结透闪石—阳起石玉火烧变白过程的热力学机制,探讨自然成因的多样形式以及不同形式的内在白化机制,藉此有助于判断和揭示白化玉器背后的人类行为和自然行为。     

Emancipatory or Neoliberal Food Politics? Exploring the “Politics of Collectivity” of Buying Groups in the Search for Egalitarian Food Democracies

In the context of apolitical tendencies in food studies, this paper explores how alternative food networks can contribute to developing emancipatory food politics rather than constitute a tool to reproduce neoliberal subjectivities. For this purpose, I contend that the post‐political literature offers a useful approach to examining the concept of food politics by developing a more robust theoretical framework, permitting the establishment of linkages with broader contemporary processes of social change. The analysis of an action‐research process with buying groups in Spain is used to examine the “politics of collectivity” at play, that is, how these initiatives institutionalise “the political”. Specifically I explore the motivations mobilised to construct place‐based ethical repertoires and unveil how these groups govern the relationality of consumption practices in the pursuit of broader processes of change. I conclude by discussing the contribution of these initiatives to building egalitarian food democracies.     

The Dancers Who Became Transformed into Wood: the mai masks of the Iatmul,Papua New Guinea

Borrowing, exchanging, and violent appropriation of ritual artefacts have been actions that have contributed to the development of cultural diversity within a particular frame of variations in the Middle Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. The mai masks of the Iatmul, already mentioned by Bateson, are the well‐documented result of a violent appropriation, as indigenous evidence shows. However, the ‘model’ which served for the mai were ritual dancers captured in the Alexander Mountains. These dancers displayed heavily painted faces (but no masks) and rich body decoration. In the process of making the powerful ‘model’ into one of their own, the Iatmul artists transformed the painted faces into carvings according to their preferred material of artistic expressions, wood, and their predilection for the interplay of elevated and deepened surfaces. As this article shows, the creation of mai as (enlivened) persons needs the establishment of socio‐cosmological relationships in which ancestral spirits and ‘natural’ substances are crucially involved. Thus, apart from sculpting as making, actions of growing are essential for turning the masks into beings endowed with ancestral power.