《一切经音义》与古籍整理研究

玄应和慧琳<一切经音义>前后相承,诠释了一千多部佛经中的词语,在某种程度上可以说是当时入藏佛经的缩影,据其所释某部佛经的词语可比勘唐宋传本与今传本的异同,而由其所释各部佛经则可略窥其时入藏全部佛经的概貌,且玄应和慧琳征引了经史子集数百种古籍来阐释佛典词语,其中有的可与现有传本互补对勘,有的则今已失传而为其所独有,更显珍贵.因而,玄应和慧琳所释音义在某种程度上可以说是先秦传承至唐宋古籍的渊薮,在古籍整理硏究方面具有重要的学术价值.     

崔骃、班固赋、颂作年献疑

陆侃如先生<中古文学系年>将崔驷<大将军临洛观赋>系于永元四年四月初,认为崔驷<西征赋>系<北征颂>之误,值得商榷.通过对这两篇作品的探讨,还可对傅毅卒年、崔驷离开窦宪军幕返乡时间作出相对明确的断定.通过考察影日藏弘仁本<文馆词林>中所收崔驷<四巡颂>中<南巡颂>,可得出崔驷<南巡颂>与班固<南巡颂>的作年相同的结论.在此基础上,又可进一步推定班固丁忧去官的大致时间.     

论经典注释的传意目标及其实质

经典注释活动是古代经典传承的重要方式之一.此类传承活动,须经过注释主体的理解、解释两个不同阶段,是一传意的过程.无论是在理解还是解释的过程中,受传意目标的影响,往往形成不同的注释结果及对此的评论.这既是学术的论争,也是以经典为依傍的学术发展路径.不同历史时期的经典注释目标,按主观性大小分为重主观性、重客观性、将主观性与客观性结合起来三类.任何一类目标的确立都是对前代的批判与否定.研究经典注释史不可轻信某一目标下的评论及断语,因为典籍注释均是主观性与客观性相统一的行为,只是存在客观性程度上的区别.     

Bone weight: new reference values based on a modern Portuguese identified skeletal collection

Skeletal weight and/or weight of the different bones of the human skeleton are currently used in a wide range of applications such as archaeological cremations and forensics. Still, few reference values are available that compare the mean weights for the different skeletal parts. In this paper we present new reference values for total skeletal weight, including the weight of the different skeletal bones based on a modern Portuguese Identified Skeletal Collection (CEI) curated in the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Coimbra (Portugal). The mean weight of the entire skeleton for the CEI pooled sample is 3323.8 ± 779.6 g. Sex and age differences were investigated. As expected, males display heavier bones, at a statistically significant level. The mean weight of the male skeletons is 3850 g, and 2797.6 g for the female sample. Age differences were found, especially for the female samples in the 29–39 versus 50–59 and/or >60 age groups, probably as a consequence of age‐related bone loss in post‐menopausal women. For the male sample, no clear age‐related trend was observed but for the unexpected result that the second highest bone weight recorded is in the oldest age group (>60 years). This could result from high mechanical loadings and thus greater bone robusticy and amount of cortical bone. The percentage of weight of the different parts of the skeleton was also calculated. These new values can be quite useful in the study of very fragmentary and/or commingled human remains, recovered from historic or forensic contexts, since the complete identification, by side, of the remains is not necessary. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Holy cow!: the miraculous cures of animals in late medieval England1

Interactions between saints and animals have been the focus of modern scholarship, yet an important aspect has been neglected, namely that of the saint as healer of animals, when a third party has requested help on behalf of the animal. This article therefore examines, through examples drawn from saints' Vitae and other sources, the types of animals for which saintly intervention was sought, the ailments from which they suffered, and the form which their cure took, in order to understand why medieval people turned to the saints when their animals were ill. An examination of this relationship between saint and animal will not only elucidate the role of saint as thaumaturge, but will also shed light on the veterinary aspect of animal welfare.     

The Use of Gasoline: Value, Oil, and the "American way of life"

Abstract:  While the critical literature has focused on the geography of oil production, the politics of "outrageous" gasoline prices in the United States provide a fertile path toward understanding the wider geography of petro-capitalism. Despite the deepening contradictions of US oil consumption, "pain at the pump" discourse projects a political sense of entitlement to low priced gasoline. I use a value-theoretical perspective to examine this politics as not only about the quantitative spectrum of price, but also the historical sedimentation of qualitative use-values inscribed in the commodity gasoline. Gasoline is analyzed both as a use-value among many within the postwar value of labor power and as a singular use-value fueling broader imaginaries of a national "American way of life." While use-value still represents an open site of cultural and political struggle infused within value itself, the case of gasoline illustrates how use-values are not automatically mobilized toward politically savory ends.     

Three geographers in an archive: positions, predilections and passing comment on transient lives

Despite the existence of research conducted by geographers eschewing or professing religious faith, the influence of researchers and their methods have yet to receive critical attention within the study of religion. The experience of three geographers working on a three-year research project suggests that it is vital to reflect upon the inter-subjective relationships and methodologies used to reconstruct the religious past. How do different subject positions influence our selections from historical records? We also consider whether the spatialities of putatively 'religious' archives, whether formally or informally constituted, make a difference to the construction of historiographical knowledge. In attempting to answer these questions, the paper argues that developing an awareness of different types of positionality, vis-à-vis religious faith and practice, combined with reflexivity, vis-à-vis methodology, can enrich the interpretative reconstruction of the religious past.     

Of scales, networks and assemblages: the League of Nations apparatus and the scalar sovereignty of the Government of India

Whilst greatly valuing recent critiques of the vertical imaginary and reified ontology of scale theory, and of the unfettered flows of network theory, this paper argues against a human geography without scale. Rather, four propositions from the theoretical literature are used to provide a tool-kit to analyse the practical negotiation of scalar politics, namely that: scales should be considered as effects, not frames or structures, of practice; networks must be considered in all their complexity and heterogeneity; networks can be interpreted as assemblages, the more re-territorialising and re-scaling of which can be analysed as apparatuses; and that state apparatuses work to create the impression that scales are ahistorical, hierarchical and possess exclusive relationships. These propositions are used to explore a period of history when the scalar constitution of the world was under intense debate. The interwar era saw the imperial scale clash with that of the international, both as ideological worldviews, and as a series of interacting institutions. The assemblages of internationalism and imperialism were embodied by apparatuses such as the League of Nations and the colonial Government of India respectively. Attempts by the League to encourage the abolition of tolerated brothels in an attempt to reduce the trafficking of women and children led to intense debates between the 1920s and 1930s over what constituted the legitimate domains of the international and the 'domestic'. These explicitly scalar debates were the product of League networks that threatened the scalar sovereignty of the Raj, most directly through the travelling Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East in 1931.     

Marine shell dates and surface lithic assemblages on the west coast of South Africa

Archaeological surface finds are difficult to date. There are several useful methods, but each requires special circumstances and has one drawback or another. On the west coast of South Africa marine shell are abundant on surface sites but they are rarely dated because they are perceived to be in disturbed context and in questionable association with artefacts. This paper attempts to rectify this misconception and shows that, although far from perfect, a large suite of surface dates can shed as much light as excavated data. On the Vredenburg Peninsula they help refute the hypothesis that two economically and culturally distinct populations shared this pre-colonial landscape since 2000 BP.     

Seasonality and intra-site variation of Neanderthal occupations in the Middle Palaeolithic locality of Payre (Ardèche,France) using dental wear analyses

The reconstruction of Palaeolithic subsistence and settlement systems at the Middle Palaeolithic site of Payre (France) is undertaken through the application of dental wear analyses combined to zooarchaeological, technological, and ecological indicators. Three archaeological levels were investigated. Level D, dated to MIS 5, could correspond to an occupation during the cold season. In levels G and F, dated to MIS 8-7, animals were probably hunted during a warmer season. According to dental wear analyses, it is likely that level F has actually recorded a succession of short occupations, contrary to what is observed in the levels G and D. Those differences in the duration of site occupation are discussed in the light of previous sedimentological, zooarchaeological, and technological studies.