The Economic Degeneration of Masculinity in Rafael Chirbes's En la orilla

Rafael Chirbes's En la orilla has been proclaimed as “la novela de la crisis,” and it has garnered an impressive amount of distinction in the short length of time since its publication in May 2013. It was voted the 2013 novel of the year by readers of El País, and in January 2014 it won the Premio Francisco Umbral, as well as reaching its fifth edition. Unsparingly critical, En la orilla forms an integral part of the cultural requestioning of social values in the wake of the Spanish crisis, “la literatura de la crisis,” which stresses the human and material consequences of the suspension of human values stemming from the social endorsement of market imperialism. En la orilla thematizes the corrosion of moral character during Spain's economic boom, in its multiple forms, such as selfishness, disregard for the elderly, and arrant mercenariness, while also fictionalizing neoliberal Spain's exclusion of immigrants and the poor. Integral to Chiribes's historically contextualized critique of the recession, and the object of my study, is a perceptive vision of the historical degeneration of masculinity from the Second Republic, 1931–1936, to the present day. This article will first provide a brief overview of “la literatura de la crisis,” while the second part illumines the economic and ideological distortion of the father–son relationship in this novel.     

Structural Investigation of 18th-Century Ogival Masonry Domes: From Carlo Fontana to Bernardo Vittone

In this study a structural investigation on the ogival masonry domes is performed with particular attention to the significant debate between mathematicians and architects mainly of the French and Italian schools that characterized the 18th century. In this period, analytical approaches to investigate the static of dome structures were developed concurrently for the affirmation of the proportional methods, as reported in several architectural treatises in which graphical constructions for the design of masonry domes can be found. It is well known that Carlo Fontana, in 1694, was the first to show in detail the geometrical rules for the design of a masonry dome. Later, in 1760, the Italian architect Bernardo Antonio Vittone proposed some variations to the rules written by Fontana in order to increase the height of the dome and the slope of the meridian section at the intersection with the lantern. In this study, Vittone’s dome has been analyzed and compared with Fontana’s dome by means of an analytical approach that also considers the influence of the lantern at the top. The obtained results confirm that Vittone’s rules lead not only to architectural, but also structural improvements.     

Identification Technique for Soil-Structure Analysis of the Ghirlandina Tower

Historical towers, in particular medieval towers, are an important part of cultural heritage, and their preservation mandates monitoring and detailed analyses of vulnerability under seismic actions as well as of their long-term performance. Certain aspects of structural nature are linked to the masonry behavior as a unilateral material, and other are aspects related to the interaction with soft soil conditions. This study aims to contribute to the aspects of preservation by exploring the role of the soil-structure interaction in predicting the behavior of the structures, with specific reference to the well-documented case history of the medieval Ghirlandina Tower (Modena, Italy). A significant contribution comes from an experimental identification analysis, performed in the presence of ambient vibration. A novel finding is that the soil structure interaction cannot be neglected, in contrast to most published identification analyses that usually assume the structure to have rigid constraint at base.     

A Spanish Man‐o‐War in New Zealand? The 1864 wreck of Grafton and its lessons for pre‐Cook shipwreck claims

This paper considers the 1864 wreck of Grafton in the Auckland Islands, and its implications for wreck analysis and pre‐Cook exploration claims. The captain of Grafton, Thomas Musgrave, stated that the schooner was built from the wreck of a Spanish man‐o‐war, and archaeological analysis of the wreck found that the timbers are a tropical South American species, and had possibly been reused. The implications of this are clear; it is possible that timbers that originated in pre‐Cook (1769) ships lie in New Zealand, but without a full understanding of the historical and archaeological context of any such timbers, including their reuse in later ships, it is not possible to claim proof of pre‐Cook European exploration of New Zealand.     

Heritage transactions at the Festival of Pacific Arts

The Festival of Pacific Arts, hosted by a different Pacific Island state once every four years, is a prime site for the reproduction of the global discourse on heritage. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at the festival, this paper focuses on how the concept of heritage is employed at the festival as both an instrument of statecraft and a tool for the assertion of grass-roots political and economic agency. We conclude that heritage in the context of the festival is a form of cultural practice involving relationships of power and inequality, expressed in transactions of ownership and value transformations that have become over determined by economic logic and the concept of property.     

KARL POLANYI AND THE REALITY OF SOCIETY

This essay reconsiders Karl Polanyi's famous thesis about the “embeddedness” of the economy through an examination of two recent books: For a New West, a collection of previously unavailable essays by Polanyi, and Fred Block and Margaret R. Somers's The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's Critique. The guiding thread of this analysis is the claim that a constant in Polanyi's thought was his belief in what he called “the reality of society,” that is, that society exists as a social fact over and above the individuals that constitute it. The essay begins by tracing Polanyi's intellectual development, drawing primarily on the essays found in For a New West. Polanyi's quest to reconcile individual freedom with social solidarity led him first, in the years between the First and Second World Wars, to embrace liberal socialism, before his readings in anthropology persuaded him that traditional economies “embed” the economy in social relations and that the nineteenth‐century liberal project of a “disembedded” economy (through the so‐called free market) is a departure from this anthropological norm. The essay then examines and questions Block and Somers's claim that Polanyi maintained that the economy is always “already embedded,” arguing notably that Polanyi believed that the advent of market society entailed an economy that was actually disembedded from social relations, not merely one that was re‐embedded in an alternative set of institutions.     

Thinking Past Henri Lefebvre: Introducing “The Theory of Ground Rent and Rural Sociology”

This introduction to the translation of Henri Lefebvre's 1956 essay “The theory of ground rent and rural Sociology” moves through three stages. First, it suggests that Anglophone appropriations of Lefebvre have tended to focus too much on his urban writings, at the expense of understanding his early work on rural sociology, and failing to recognise how his urban focus emerged as a result of his interest in rural–urban transformation. Second, it provides a summary of his wider work on rural questions, including his unfinished work on a major treatise of rural sociology; and outlines the key themes of the present essay in relation to these other projects. Third, it connects Lefebvre's issues to wider debates in political economy and geography about aspects of the rural, land and ground rent, not least including the work of Antonio Gramsci and José Carlos Mariátegui.     

从“归纳”到“解释”:汉唐考古研究的趋势

政治史取向和类型学方法在保证汉唐考古取得很大成绩的同时,也制约了汉唐考古的研究范围、理论建设,并影响到汉唐考古研究者的知识结构和思维方式。新出土资料的减少迫使汉唐考古改变"能源型"发展模式,其他人文学科的发展则为汉唐考古向"技术型"转变带来机遇。汉唐考古研究者的主要工作从归纳总结考古资料,转变为以历史文献为基础,借鉴其他人文学科的方法论,对汉唐考古材料的内涵和意义进行解释,是汉唐考古研究的发展趋势。     

江苏邳州梁王城遗址西周墓地出土人骨研究

江苏邳州梁王城遗址西周墓地出土了67例西周人骨,对其性别、年龄、人口寿命、体质类型、身高情况的分析特别是对颅骨形态特征的研究表明,梁王城西周组居民属于蒙古人种,具有中颅型结合高颅、狭颅的特点,同时具有狭额、高眶、阔鼻、正颌的面部特征,并且具有长狭的下颌。梁王城西周组居民的颅型与现代亚洲蒙古人种的东亚类型最为接近;面部特征与东亚类型、北亚类型比较接近;体质形态与河南、陕西、甘肃、青海出土的同时代人骨存在一定差异,但这种差异小于梁王城西周组与梁王城大汶口组、殷墟中小墓III组、滕州前掌大B组之间的差异。     

Dynamical Assessment of the Work Conditions of Reinforcement Tie-Rods in Historical Masonry Structures

Tie-rods are essential structural elements, which have been employed for centuries in masonry historical buildings, either during the construction or in successive strengthening interventions, with the aim of containing dangerous horizontal actions. The actual work conditions of these tie-rods, which are strongly influenced by their load history, are difficult to be quantified theoretically, and an effective method for their measure is of great importance in order to ensure the efficiency of these elements during the time and the stability of the entire building. Common measurements are often carried out adopting models based upon significant simplifications, like, for example, hinges at the extremities. These assumptions, rarely represent the real work conditions for anchorages. In this work, a non-destructive testing method is presented, based upon sophisticated dynamical models that can take into consideration many of the circumstances neglected by the simplified models. Four case studies are extensively described, trying to embrace the most common situations in term of peculiar features of the building, structural configuration, and load history. The discussion of the results yields the safety margin of the rod with respect to the material failure and provides important indications about the overall stability of the whole building.