Viewing animal bodies: truths,practical aesthetics and ethical considerability in UK livestock breeding

This paper focuses on the production of aesthetic ‘truths’ in UK livestock breeding, drawing on detailed qualitative research with breeders and breed societies. It extends emerging interest in the aesthetic in human geographical research, examining how aesthetic judgements about non-human animals depend, in part, on the agency of the animal and their inter-subjective relations with humans in specific places. Aesthetic evaluation further produces implicit judgements about animals' ethical considerability, at the same time obscuring the effects of such judgements on their framing and treatment. Aesthetic evaluation is thus related to sets of material and ethical interests. The paper develops a more-than-human reading of Foucault's biopower, which explores how truths about visual evaluations of animals become established. Two empirical perspectives explore, first, a ‘relational practical aesthetic’ for evaluating beef cattle and sheep, exploring the implications of the aesthetic framing of specific animals and, second, the tensions involved in looking at animals when different aesthetic truths conflict and when traditions of aesthetic evaluation encounter genetic modes of evaluation. The paper concludes by discussing the ethical implications of ongoing transformations of evaluative modes in livestock breeding, suggesting that shifts away from inter-subjective modes of aesthetic evaluation further diminish the ethical status of animals.     

蔡国始封与蔡姓始祖溯源

关于西周时期蔡国的始封问题,至今仍是史学界所关注的一个重要学术课题,它既涉及到对周初的大分封,又涉及周初“三监”的一些历史的探索。根据所见到的历史文献以及相关考古资料的分析,西周初年武王伐纣之后,封蔡叔度为蔡国之君,并委任为“二监”之一。但此时,蔡叔度并未就国,只是在中央王朝委派的“三监”任职,后来由于“三监”叛周,遂被流放至死。其子蔡仲由于能“克慎”、“改行”而被复封于蔡,成为实际上就国的第一代国君。     

中国古代文明和国家起源研究中的几个问题

近年来新出土的《容成氏》等战国竹书,在增加和扩充史料的同时,我们也应意识到它们依然是有其局限性的,重建上古史还得靠以考古学为基础的多学科的结合。而考古学本身也有自己的局限性,它也需要借鉴人类学的理论以及技术的、经济的、环境的、人口学的等等知识。将酋邦理论、社会分层理论与聚落形态学理论相结合是研究的趋势和方向,但理论贵在创新。因而,结合中国考古新发现,从中国的材料出发,创建出符合中国历史实际的理论,才是最上乘的文明和国家起源研究。依据近年来对山西襄汾陶寺和河南新密古城寨的考古发现,将早期文明与初始国家出现的时间,划定在龙山文化时代,应该说是有着充分事实依据的。与此相关,将中国古代的国家形态划分为邦国—王国—帝国,要比称之为古国—方国—帝国,更约定俗成更合理一些。     

唐代渤海国釉陶器的类型及相关问题探讨

文章介绍了唐代渤海国遗址和墓葬中出土的釉陶器的类型及特征,并将其与中原唐三彩中的同类器物进行比较,进而论述了渤海国釉陶器的等级、渊源等问题。     

Dynasty and diaspora in the Latin East: the case of the Sourdevals

Though primarily a pious exercise, the First Crusade formed part of a broader medieval ‘aristocratic diaspora’ – a movement often attributed to those from Normandy – and offered enterprising figures the chance of a new life in the East. This article examines how one such figure, the Italo-Norman Robert of Sourdeval, whose wider kinship group was also found throughout the Anglo-Norman world, forged a career in the newly formed Crusader States. It outlines how his descendants continued, and built upon, Robert’s foundations, securing influence in the Latin East during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by demonstrating an impressive ability to cross political divides, forge political relationships, and use periods of turmoil to their advantage. Through this family, therefore, important insights can be gained into the dynastic strategies deployed by crusading nobles seeking to forge positions of power, but also, more broadly, into the nature of the so-called Norman diaspora.     

The Struggle for Identity: A Personal Reflection

This article explores Agamben's revisionist presentation of the anarchy of the Son and the void of power in the Trinity in his genealogy of economy and government in the West. It argues for a reading that sustains the actual self-depiction of orthodox theology on these points of doctrine in order to evaluate and critique orthodoxy's impact on politics in the West. Only after a thorough assessment of orthodoxy's doctrinal self-understanding can Agamben's reading of potential or suppressed meaning in orthodoxy be appreciated and possibly applied.     

“So bigge as bigge may be”: tracking size and shape change in domestic livestock in London (AD 1220–1900)

This study presents the analysis of 7966 individual cattle, sheep, pig and domestic hen bone measurements from 105 sites excavated in London dating to the period AD 1220–1900. Multiple episodes of size change are identified, although the speed and timing varies by species. The earliest evidence for size change in cattle and sheep occurs in the early 14th century and may be connected to the need to restock livestock populations following the outbreaks of murrain in the first half of that century. Subsequent size increases in livestock size may have occurred as a combined consequence of agricultural innovations in the wake of the Black Death, the increasing commercialisation of animal farming, as the meat requirements of an expanding London grew, and the rise of the ethic of improvement.     

试析上博简《孔子诗论》中的“蝇”字

本对上海博物馆所藏战国楚简《孔子诗论》篇中“蝇”字的字形进行了分析,认为这种特殊的写法是由于字形讹变造成的。     

鄯善王国的畜牧业

作为汉晋时期西域主要的绿洲城郭国之一,鄯善王国的牧业经济也十分发达,不仅为丝路交通提供了充足的畜力资源,而且在王国的政治、社会和经济生活中占有重要地位。当地的牧业经济以畜牧业为主,大致可分为牧养和厩养两种方式。鄯善王国有王室专属的畜群,并对畜群造册登记,设置专门的官吏进行管理。鄯善王还常以敕谕的形式直接参与畜牧事务的管理。各类牲畜不仅是王国重要的税收来源,而且还在民间的商贸活动中充当着货币的角色。     

牧区天灾与美国"牧畜王国"的衰落

美国的第二次工业革命在内战以后迅速兴起。工业社会的勃兴和城市人口的剧增使美国原有的肉类生产远远满足不了国内外市场的需求。这种巨大的需求推动了美国西部的牧业开发。内战以后,在密西西比河以西至太平洋沿岸,牧牛业和牧羊业迅速发展起来,形成一个疆域辽阔的“牧畜王国”。西部牧区成为美国新的重要肉产品生产基地,放牧业成了当时最赚钱的行业之一。“牧畜王国”繁荣兴旺了二十余年,到1885年以后盛极而衰。在导致“牧畜王国”衰落的诸多因素中,牧区天灾是一个重要的因素。牧场主们竭草而牧的掠夺式经营更加重了牧区天灾的危害性。