The Unflinching Mr. Smith and the Nuclear Age**

This article focuses on the U.S. diplomat and nuclear arms control negotiator Gerald (Gerry) Coat Smith in order to cast new light on the importance of diplomats in the context of the set of international activities currently labelled as “science diplomacy.” Smith, a lawyer by training, was a key negotiator in many international agreements on post-WW2 atomic energy projects, from those on uranium prospecting and mining, to reactors technologies to later ones on non-proliferation and disarmament. His career in science (nuclear) diplomacy also epitomized the shortcomings of efforts to align other countries’ posture on nuclear affairs to U.S. wishes. In particular, the unswerving diplomat increasingly understood that strong-arm tactics to dissuade other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons would not limit proliferation. Not only did this inform later U.S. diplomacy approaches, but it lent itself to the ascendancy of the new notion of “soft power” as critical to the re-definition of international affairs.     

李家崖文化年代再议

李家崖文化典型器类与晚商早期商式铜、陶器的共存关系表明,李家崖文化的年代上限应为殷墟一期,该文化早期与朱开沟文化晚期部分器物形制接近,也表明两种文化之间年代紧密衔接。李家崖文化晚期出现的弧裆鬲与仿铜风格的鬲、鼎分属先周文化和殷商文化因素,据此可推定李家崖文化的年代下限为西周早期,相关文献中关于"鬼方"等北方部族的描述也与上述认识契合。     

洛阳新发现唐天宝三载石幢考释

2016年8月,洛阳匾额博物馆前施工时挖出一件唐代石幢的幢身,据其刻铭可知,该石幢立于唐天宝三载(744年),为彭城县尉张悌所立,其上所刻经文为《佛说业报差别经·施灯明功德品》。经考证,该石幢应为唐代佛寺灯台的幢形灯身。此外,张悌为比丘尼之"养男"的身份也为同类刻铭中少见,为研究唐人的日常生活提供了重要的实物材料。     

贵州遵义市播州杨氏土司墓葬形制研究

纵观播州杨氏土司墓葬的发展,其规模、结构、雕刻均有由繁至简的发展趋势,对昭穆制的遵循从严格走向了松散。腰坑葬俗是宋元明时期播州境内比较盛行的丧葬习俗,墓志亦是播州杨氏礼制遵循和身份等级体现的一个方面。墓前神道或拜台有自南宋中期的繁复到宋元明之交的简单到明末又归于复杂的发展轨迹,体现出时代的特征和墓葬装饰自内向外的转变。     

Iran's global reach: The Islamic Republic of Iran's policy,involvement, and activity in Africa

The aim of this study is to analyze the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI)'s policy toward and involvement in the African continent as a case study of the IRI's global policy and reach. The aspiration of the IRI's leadership for international standing and support coupled with a desire to export its revolutionary model and extend its influence beyond its borders have shaped its activity on many continents, including Africa. Africa's strategic location, past colonial experience, political position, rich resources, large Muslim population, and economic attractiveness have all contributed to shaping the IRI's activity within it. This study analyzes IRI's foreign policy in general and its implementation in Africa in particular, identifying the different historical phases of its activity in Africa, distinguishing between the various African regions, the main Iranian organizations involved therein, the means of and channels for Iranian involvement in Africa, and the reasons for IRI's gains and losses on that continent. The study shows how the Islamic regime has managed, during its 40 years of rule, through pragmatism and resilience, to gain influence and support, has endeavored to balance its losses, and has adapted to new circumstances in the African continent.     

1884—1939年中药材埠际贸易的变迁研究

中药材作为近代中国贸易格局中的重要商品之一,在口岸-腹地的经济互动中位置显要,研究中药材埠际贸易网络对理解其流通的历史具有重要意义。由于受到调查数据相对零散和研究方法相对传统的限制,该网络的复原少有实质性推进。本文主要利用中国旧海关史料的中药材埠际贸易数据,辅以其他对外贸易数据,对近代的中药材埠际贸易流通网络进行数据分析研究,发现中药材埠际贸易格局的演变与通商口岸开埠的空间进程密切相关。从19世纪末到20世纪20年代,中药材埠际贸易网络呈现逐渐加密的态势,1927年后,因为战争,中药材埠际贸易网络摧毁严重;同时,中药材国际贸易的区域分布却较为广阔,从以中国为中心的东亚区域延伸到欧洲、美洲部分地区。     

驰骋西北的平阳商帮

平阳商帮作为晋商的一支,明清两代是其发展的重要阶段,清末民初逐渐由繁盛走向衰落。平阳商帮经贸西路,其经营地点基本为丝绸之路沿线城市如西安、兰州、银川、武威、酒泉、西宁等,其经营行业涉及盐业、冶铁业、布业、烟业及茶叶等。明朝"开中法"的实施为平阳商人经贸西路拉开了序幕,丝路贸易的繁荣吸引平阳商人前去经商,"互通有无"的商业模式给平阳商人提供了商机,便利的交通亦是平阳商人经贸西路的重要条件。     

Becoming Cleopatra: the forgotten Zionism of Raphael Lemkin

The biography of Raphael Lemkin has emerged of late as a highly contested lieu de memoire in charged political debates in Europe, the United States and the Middle East about the meaning, past and present, of the Holocaust and genocide. At the same time, scholars have attempted to demythologize Lemkin by reinscribing his life into its pre-World War II Polish context. Yet thus far no one has identified the precise political activities and affiliations that shaped Lemkin’s concept of genocide. In this article, I show that Lemkin, far from being a Jewish Bundist, a Polish nationalist or an apolitical cosmopolitan, was an active member of the interwar Polish Zionist movement, from which he drew the ideas that inspired his idea of the crime of genocide. In the first part of this article, I use his published writings from the 1920s and 1930s in Hebrew, Yiddish and Polish to recover a rich Jewish political framework in which his concepts of barbarism and genocide first began to emerge. In the second section, I ask how this crucial dimension of Lemkin’s life and thought vanished from the historical record, and why it has yet to be recovered in spite of the boom in biographical scholarship. Finally, I suggest how the recovery of Lemkin’s Zionism helps to reframe the current political impasse in the historiography of Holocaust and genocide studies.     

Time,temporality, and woman–child relations

This is the second in a series of Viewpoints about a symposium on the intersections and antagonisms between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This article traces the various ways in which time and temporality were mobilised in symposium papers and discussions and considers the implications for efforts to conceptualise woman–child relations. In conclusion, the potentials and risks of focusing on temporality when theorising relations between those positioned as women and those positioned as children are considered.     

Embodied experiences in international volunteering: power-body relations and performative ontologies

In this paper we debate the interpretation of embodied experience on international volunteering placements. Drawing on six in-depth interviews with volunteers recently returned from Northern Thailand, we document the affects and emotions that play a key role in the formation of volunteer–host relations. We then present two interpretations of the data, conceptualising power-body relations in two different ways: from power’s affective and emotional literacy, to the body’s autonomous capacities. With these two interpretations at hand we then consider the performative nature of academic labour and make the case, following the work of feminist geographers J.K. Gibson-Graham, for a research praxis that does not set limits on subjectivity but rather excavates – and writes into being – the possible. We therefore argue for a conceptualisation and interpretation of embodied experience in volunteering as a site of potential transformation and transcendence of the inequalities that otherwise set the conditions of the volunteer–host encounter.