Eratosthenes’ Contribution to Ptolemy’s Map of the World

This article attempts to shed some light on the origins of Ptolemy’s map of the world, which remains a mystery. The premise is that Ptolemy and other ancient geographers largely drew on the same or a similar pool of sources and common beliefs. Similarities between them can, therefore, give us a key to understanding the prehistory of Ptolemy’s map. Comparison of distances on his map with those given by other sources leads to the conclusion that a large area of the map, approximately from the Bosporus to the Indus, reproduced Eratosthenes’ geographical system, with linear distances converted to angular degrees according to Eratosthenes’ own scale. It is argued that this area represents a remnant of an earlier version of Ptolemy’s map. Analysis of latitude and longitude reveals notable differences between Ptolemy’s map and Eratosthenes’ ideas concerning the latitude of Babylon and the Alexandrian prime meridian, and the impact this seems to have had on the shape of neighbouring regions is noted.     

集体化时期广东省农村工业的起步(1952～1984)

集体化时期广东省农村工业的发展历程说明:中国农村工业化的历史进程,不仅要注意到改革开放后乡镇企业的快速发展上,而且要考察集体化时期的农村工业化发展的历史。这其中包括:合作化与农村副业的兴起、社队企业与农村工业化的发展。全面梳理集体化和乡村工业之间的关系,能够为我们今天思索乡村的现代化之路提供借鉴。     

清代陋规及其对基层司法和地方民情的影响——从徽州讼费帐单谈起

徽州讼费帐单真实地印证了清代基层司法中名目繁多的陋规.陋规的索取者主要是书吏和衙役,其存在及泛滥的原因比较复杂,给清代基层司法和地方民情造成了恶劣影响.清统治者借助于陋规以对百姓起诉权进行控制的理念是错误的,其意图不可能实现.     

The agrarian history of Byzantium,from the origins to the twelfth century. The sources and problems

The relationship between conquerors and conquered in the Latin Empire of Constantinople has traditionally been understood as a relentlessly hostile one, particularly on the religious level. Whatever its merits, the dominance of this view has sometimes resulted in the gross misinterpretation of important pieces of evidence. This article examines two unusual liturgical texts that were treated by their discoverers as products of a Latin campaign of liturgical proselytism. The texts themselves are bilingual presentations of the Western rite of mass, with Greek and Latin text presented in an interlinear format. Most unusually, the Latin text is written in Greek characters. This article makes the case, due to internal evidence as well as the broader context of ecclesiastical relations in the Latin Empire, that these texts were created by Greek clerics rather than by Latin authorities, and that their purpose was entirely different from that imagined by their discoverers.     

Some Significant Recent Books in the Field of Mediaeval Literature

Although much has been written about André Breton’s concept of the Surrealist image, the present article examines a number of aspects that have so far escaped notice. In particular, it examines several antecedents of Pierre Reverdy’s theory of the image and compares the latter to that developed in the Manifeste du surréalisme. A close reading of the manifesto reveals the presence of a previously unknown model used by Breton in formulating his theory.     

战国时宋都彭城辨

钱穆著<战国时宋都彭城证>提出十五证并二事,以为战国时"宋都彭城,不都睢阳,断可定矣."查钱氏提出的诸证据没有一条是直接的,都为推测之论,而且存在很多问题,于直接说到战国时彭城属楚属齐的材料也没有提出很好的解释.通过对钱先生有关论述之辨析,及诸多反证之综合讨论,宋都彭城(今江苏徐州市)说实不可信."宋"与"相"古为双声叠韵字,"相城"实即"宋城"之异写,再参考其他一些旁证资料,说战国时宋国迁都于相城(今安徽淮北市),可能性要更大一些.     

On Meng Sen’s teaching and lecture notes of Ming and Qing history at Peking University during the 1930s

ABSTRACT

While teaching the histories of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Meng Sen (1869–1937), developed three textbooks in the 1930s: Lecture Notes on the Ming History (明史讲义 Mingshi jiangyi), Lecture Notes on the Qing History (清史讲义 Qingshi jiangyi), and Lecture Notes on the History of the Founding of the Manchu State (满洲开国史讲义 Manzhou kaiguo shi jiangyi). In these book titles, the term “history” refers specifically to “standard history.” In tracing Meng Sen’s original intention in producing these textbooks, all three works suggest the author’s desire to write history. He wrote Lecture Notes on the Ming History to prepare a future revision of the History of the Ming (明史 Mingshi); similarly he wrote Lecture Notes on the Qing History and Lecture Notes on the History of the Founding of the Manchu State with the intention to revise the Draft History of the Qing (清史稿 Qingshi gao). Meng Sen summarized Sima Guang’s (司马光, 1019–86) view of history as “imitating the good and avoiding the bad,” which he believed represented the “essential meaning of history.” Meng followed Sima Guang’s model in compiling the Lecture Notes on the Ming History and Lecture Notes on the Qing History, as shown in their style and format. By comparison, his writing of the Lecture Notes on the History of the Founding of the Manchu State attempted to merge the traditional annals–biographic style with narrative history from the West, or to pour old wine into a new bottle. Meng Sen presented his innovative efforts at Peking University, introducing young scholars to standards for history writing, and doing his utmost to guide and encourage his students; some of whom became noted scholars in the study of Ming and Qing histories.     

From Head‐hunter to Organ‐thief: Verisimilitude,Doubt, and Plausible Worlds in Indonesia and Beyond

In the last few years, occult head‐hunters – elusive figures that have haunted communities and the public imagination in Indonesia since at least colonial times – appear to have adopted a novel and troubling tactic. Instead of decapitating their victims and using the heads in construction rituals as they are said to have conventionally done, head‐hunters are now allegedly harvesting their victims’ organs to sell them on the global market of body parts. Based on a comparison of ethnographic material from North Maluku, a province in the eastern part of Indonesia, and news reports in regional and national papers, I trace how accounts about headhunting have morphed with narratives about organ theft. I argue that this plasticity is not a merely a change in symbolic ideas of the occult that reflects changing political and economic realities. Rather, I propose that their turn to organ theft enrols head‐hunters in a contemporary and global ‘travelling package’ that includes and entangles organ trafficking practices, media accounts, political imaginaries, and social anxieties within the same field of reality and possibility, a field of verisimilitude in which fiction and fact, rumour and reality, are fundamentally blurred. The article proposes a ‘more‐than‐representational’ approach to the organ‐stealing head‐hunter that sees him not just as a representation of particular political and historical circumstances but as a co‐producer of these circumstances, of particular political worlds and their attendant scales of anxiety. This approach, I argue, challenges the epistemological distinction between symbolic representation and political reality that informed (but also incommoded) the analyses of headhunting rumours in the 1980s and 1990s – and that continues to inform anthropological analyses of ‘the occult’ more generally.     

Ghosts,Memory, and the Right to the Divided City: Resisting Amnesia in Beirut City Centre

Violently divided cities are incubators of ethnic conflicts. Under the auspices of postwar reconstruction, these cities are supposedly disciplined into peace through the regeneration of the city centre, including privatization, commercial adaptation and gentrification strategies. Such dynamics render city centre space amnesiac, with no reference to the history of sectarian violence, and exclusivist by limiting public access. Rather than foster peacebuilding, city centre regeneration exposes the dangerous weakness of the neoliberal peace built on accommodating ethnic and socioeconomic divisions. This paper connects Lefebvre's right‐to‐the‐city to non‐sectarian social movements’ struggle to forge participatory democracy in Beirut's city centre. A key aspect of these movements’ activities is to reprogramme memory—cosmopolitan and inclusivist—into the city centre, a project supporting peacebuilding.