Reading menageries: using eighteenth-century print sources to historicise the sensorium of menagerie spectators and their encounters with exotic animals

Histories of exotic animal collection and display in Britain during the long eighteenth century have not been conventionally concerned with the sensory or bodily experiences of menagerie spectators. Olfactory, haptic and aural impressions – as well as the affective responses of laughter, disgust, anger and sympathy, are conspicuously absent in attempts to historicise animal collections. This paper principally argues that these often historically intangible and transient sensory experiences with animals were culturally significant acts or readings that produced meaning. To understand how spectators utilised their senses as an interpretive tool in reading menageries the article draws upon eighteenth-century understandings of the senses and bodily comfort. The manipulation of exotic animal bodies in menageries during the long eighteenth century had significant implications for British spectators. It is argued that their specific notions of Britishness in relationship to these captive animals from foreign climes articulated elite cultural notions of gender, climate and national character. In writing a sensory history of exotic animals in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain the author contextualises the reading of contemporary print material with the concomitant experience of the material animals to which this print matter referred. What emerges is a reminder that the act of reading should not be isolated from the production of knowledge through other embodied experiences since such a dichotomy is arguably problematic for historians.     

Lead Use on Roman Ships and its Environmental Effects

Underwater surveys along the Israeli coast have yielded numerous lead artefacts recovered from Roman shipwrecks, found due to sand shortage caused by nature and man. Unique site-formation processes resulted in intact and preserved assemblages of lead artefacts unaffected by prior salvage. These included hull sheathing, anchors, fishing gear, cooking equipment and containers. Most lead was in objects intended only for nautical use. The finds indicate that people on board ships were exposed to more lead than the general Roman population. Thus the Roman ship was a mobile source of lead pollution contaminating people and the marine environment.
© 2007 The Authors     

从营销环境看近代中国第一个铁厂的破产

洋务运动时期,贵州当地政府在镇远创办了中国最早的近代化重工业企业——青溪铁厂。然而,由于营销环境的缺失,青溪铁厂创办不久即以失败告终。     

近代中国买办的卑微心理分析

买办在近代中国新式企业活动中一直是一个活跃的也是最富有的群体。但买办一直"耻言身份",他们存在着一种卑微心理,这种心理的产生与当时的社会环境和个人出身有密切关系。这种心理的给买办们的事业带来极大影响,也一定程度地影响了中国近代化的进程。     

汉代黄河流域麦作发展的环境因素与技术影响

汉代冬小麦的推广与普及,具有自东向西的时空特点。麦作发展是区域自然环境与技术条件交互作用的结果,其中自然环境条件是影响汉代黄河流域冬麦普及过程的基本因素。不论是黄河下游地区冬麦种植的较早普及还是关中地区冬麦推广的迟滞,均首先与当地的自然环境有关。在黄河下游地区,人们利用冬麦的生长特性趋利避害,减少和防止河汛水患的影响,保障粮食生产,麦子得以广泛种植。在关中地区,干旱的困扰一度制约了冬麦的推广和普及。在自然因素推动下的汉代麦作推广与普及,促进了黄河流域抗旱耕作及粮食加工技术的发展,影响深远。     

经济发达地区地方性博物馆旅游发展研究--以广州南越王墓博物馆为例

本文以广州南越王墓博物馆为例,在游客行为分析的基础上,探讨了其发展规律和动因.作者采用结构性问卷调查的方法现场收集游客行为问卷,运用SPSS软件进行统计分析,并辅之以案例地博物馆游客结构的二手资料.在对所收集资料进行定性定量分析后,作者认为,南越王墓博物馆作为地方性博物馆,属于区域性的文化观光旅游产品,重游率低,潜在市场规模有限,且呈现随出游游客增加而不断萎缩的特点,因此形成持续下滑的接待曲线.与Butler旅游产品生命周期曲线对比发现,南越王墓博物馆缺少探查、参与、发展和巩固阶段,而直接进入衰退阶段.这一结论对于经济发达地区地方性博物馆旅游开发管理具有重要意义.     

水资源环境变迁与乡村社会控制--以清代汉中府的堰渠水利为中心

清代汉中府水资源环境的不断变迁,引发了诸如水利设施兴废、水利冲突等问题。在解决这些问题的过程中,乡村社会控制权日益显现出下移趋势。但自乾嘉以降,在水资源环境严重恶化的情况下,官府力量似乎又显得重要起来。这说明国家与社会之间呈现的是一种错综复杂的社会关系,不能用简单的二元对立模式给予教条性概括,必须考察具体的社会生态环境。     

相关性 共鸣度 同理心——博物馆企及观众的关键所在

"保持与当代社会的相关性"理应成为博物馆的发展要义。展览、教育等惟有搭建在"相关性"的基础之上,吸引观众关注,才有可能进一步引发他们共鸣,促使其感动、铭记,并最终激励他们的同理心,改变其思维和行为。这是环环相扣、层层推进的一体化进程,以达求博物馆传播的良性循环,真正企及观众。对博物馆如何通过展览、教育以达求"相关性""共鸣度""同理心"等企及观众的核心要义进行探讨,将促使博物馆真正讲好当下的故事,同时走近观众,进驻他们的心灵。     

The lit world: living with everyday urban automation

In this article, we develop and advance the concept of the lit world by bringing together literatures about everyday lighting, automation in everyday life and human perception, along with our ethnographic research into people’s experience of automated lighting in Melbourne, Australia. In doing so we formulate and argue for an approach to automation that situates it as part of everyday mundane worlds and acknowledges its entanglement with the emergent and experiential qualities of everyday environments as they unfold. We demonstrate this through the example of automated lighting, understood as a situated technology that has contingent effects and participates in the making of particular ways of seeing and feeling the world. We thereby argue for an account of automation that reaches beyond its potential for the management of human (and other) behaviour, to ask how the qualities and affordances of automated technologies might seep out of their intended domains, and create new perceptual and experiential opportunities. In a context where automation is increasingly prevalent in everyday life, such attention to the experience and use of automated technologies which already exist on a large scale is needed. Urban lighting is an example par excellence of automation in the world because it has a long history beyond the recent association of automated technologies with code and digital infrastructures. As scholars debate how automated technologies will become part of our future digital lives, understanding how people live in a lit world offers a starting point for considering how we might live with other anticipated algorithmic forms of automation.     

Built environment and tourism as road safety determinants in Benidorm (Spain)

The rise in the number of urban road accidents is a challenge shared by all European cities, which seek to improve mobility while reducing transport problems. In recent years, urban road accidents in Spain have been constantly increasing and now account for a larger share of the total number of road accidents. This paper aims to analyse the impact of urban factors on road accidents. For this purpose, a small-scale analysis of land use and road infrastructure has been conducted in the town of Benidorm, one of the main tourist destinations in Spain. In addition, a regression analysis has been carried out using a Negative Binomial distribution. The results show that factors such as the level of mixed land uses, population density and road infrastructure are related to urban road accidents. The findings also reveal that tourism environments have a positive impact on pedestrian road safety. Small-scale analyses, particularly those related to exclusively-oriented environments, such as tourism developments, should be studied in detail in order to promote safety, liveability and sustainability in our cities.