Constructing,promoting and controlling the littérature coloniale of interwar France: an anatomy of the Grand prix de littérature coloniale (1921–1938)

In creating the Grand prix de littérature coloniale (1921–1938) and appointing the award’s panel, the Minister of the Colonies, Albert Sarraut, endowed littérature coloniale with its first institution and ushered in new synergies between the political centre of the Empire and writers self-identifying as ‘colonial’. Pan-colonial in scope and bundling all overseas territories into a single entity that only made sense in relation to the metropolis, the form of literary colonialism that the metropolitan Grand prix promoted and its claim to universal authority over the textual representations of the Empire were contested by regional cultural awards mushrooming across French colonies and protectorates in the interwar period. The author argues that the fast-changing politics and policies of the Grand prix and the discourse surrounding its attribution were all weapons through which this battle for the ownership of colonial literature between the métropole and its periphery was fought, quickly outweighing discussions about aesthetic merit. They also show why metropolitan colonial literature and its regional variants gain from being analysed jointly, in their interrelatedness, by exploring understudied links between geographical space (both real and imagined) and the distribution of financial and symbolic capital across the French Empire during the interwar period.     

至正钱考

一、引言蒙古帝国在中国的最后的统治者元顺帝铸造的钱币是元代钱币学中最多最有趣的钱币之一。对于至正钱有很多众所周知的描述,然而对于其中一些钱币的铸造发行的时间以及铸局,钱币收藏家到现在没有得到一个公认的结论。主要原因是那段时间的史料非常有限,《元史》在明早期很短的时间内完成。我们开始寻找问题的答案。很遗憾报告的时间有限,不允许讨论细节问题,但我们将尽力把一些问题阐述清楚。《元史》中注释关于公元1350年的货币改革,中国建立专门的机构(提举司)后开始铸造至正通宝铜钱和印刷纸钞。①“十一年,置宝泉提举司,掌鼓铸至正…     

Probabilistic, Maximal Covering Location—Allocation Models forCongested Systems

When dealing with the design of service networks, such as health andemergency medical services, banking or distributed ticket-selling services, the location of servicecenters has a strong influence on the congestion at each of them, and, consequently, on thequality of service. In this paper, several probabilistic maximal coveringlocation—allocation models with constrained waiting time for queue length are presentedto consider service congestion. The first model considers the location of a given number ofsingle-server centers such that the maximum population is served within a standard distance, andnobody stands in line for longer than a given time or with more than a predetermined number ofother users. Several maximal coverage models are then formulated with one or more servers perservice center. A new heuristic is developed to solve the models and tested in a 30-node network.     

Athanasian Paganisation of Arius: Unprecedented Application of the Deification Theme

Athanasian contribution to the development of the deification theme and its subsequent influence on Christian spirituality remains significant. Athanasius certainly applied deification in his fight with Arianism. A generally acknowledged application of deification in Athanasius in an anti‐Arian context also finds additional support in a seemingly unexpected place—Athanasian criticism of pagan divinization, mostly concentrated in Against the Pagans. Relying on a traditional Christian apologetic approach for criticism of pagan divinization, Athanasius contextualizes the theology of Arius as the paganization of Christianity as well as proposes necessary prerequisites for Christian understanding of deification. This is an unprecedented application of deification in Christian theology where one Christian author portrays the teaching of another Christian author as pagan divinization.     

Trends and Sub-National Disparities in Neonatal Mortality in India from 1981 to 2011

Despite progress made in recent decades, infant and neonatal mortality rates (NMRs) in India have remained high compared to neighbouring developing countries. This study aims at establishing quantitative links between the relatively slow progress in fight against neonatal death at national level and strikingly varying mortality patterns at sub-national level. It appears that the tempo and quantum of reductions in neonatal mortality have been inconsistent across time, states, and urban and rural sub-populations. Decompositions have shown that the total NMR decrease in India, since the early 1980s has been largely driven by mortality changes in poorer states and rural areas, whereas compositional changes had negligible impact. The disparity in NMRs across the sub-populations which had been declining earlier stabilised in the 2000s. These disparities produce a heavy burden of avoidable death. While the mortality excess in poorer states and rural areas constitutes the core of bulk of excess deaths, some richer states, and urban areas, also show unexpected slower mortality decreases. However, the experience of the two states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu highlights the potential for declines in NMRs in low-income settings with sensible health and social policies.     

Who identifies with the “Russian World”? Geopolitical attitudes in southeastern Ukraine,Crimea, Abkhazia,South Ossetia,and Transnistria

Abstract

The concept of the Russian world (Russkii mir) re-entered geopolitical discourse after the end of the Soviet Union. Though it has long historical roots, the practical definition and geopolitical framing of the term has been debated and refined in Russian political and cultural circles during the years of the Putin presidency. Having both linguistic-cultural and geopolitical meanings, the concept of the Russian world remains controversial, and outside Russia it is often associated with Russian foreign policy actions. Examination of official texts from Vladimir Putin and articles from three Russian newspapers indicate complicated and multifaceted views of the significance and usage of the Russkii mir concept. Surveys in December 2014 in five sites on the fringes of Russia – in southeastern Ukraine, Crimea, and three Russian-supported de facto states (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria) – show significant differences between the Ukrainian sample points and the other locations about whether respondents believe that they live in the Russian world. In Ukraine, nationality (Russian vs. Ukrainian) is aligned with the answers, while overall, attitudes toward Russian foreign policy, level of trust in the Russian president, trust of Vladimir Putin, and liking Russians are positively related to beliefs about living in the Russian world. In Ukraine, the negative reactions to geopolitical speech acts and suspicions about Russian government actions overlap with and confuse historical linguistic-cultural linkages with Russia, but in the other settings, close security and economic ties reinforce a sense of being in the Russian “world.”     

Evidence from the Yana Palaeolithic site,Arctic Siberia,yields clues to the riddle of mammoth hunting

It has become commonplace to talk about humans hunting mammoths, and overhunting is thought to have been one of the causes of the mammoth extinction. However, definite evidence of mammoth kills by humans remains surprisingly scarce. Here we show convincing evidence of mammoth hunting in the Siberian Arctic between 29 000 and 27 000 ¹⁴C years BP. Our data set, from the Yana Upper Palaeolithic site (Siberian Arctic), includes the following: fragments of lithic points and ivory shaft embedded in two mammoth scapulae; two identical holes made by projectiles in a mammoth scapula and a pelvic bone; mammoth tongue bones found in the cultural layer far away from the main mammoth bone accumulation, indicating the consumption of fresh mammoth meat; and a narrow mammoth bone size distribution, implying hunting selection based on animal size. The data suggest that Palaeolithic Yana humans hunted mammoths sporadically, presumably when ivory was needed for making tools. Such non-intensive hunting practiced by humans over millennia would not be fatal to a sustainable mammoth population.