Alien Harbour: Frank Hurley,Jules Verne,and the Early Dress-divers of Underwater Sydney

The underwater of Sydney Harbour has its own histories, visual and literary representations, and narrators, but its contributions to Australian culture are yet to be fully recognised. Among European narrators were dress-divers whose technologies enabled access to an otherwise alien, inhuman world. This article discusses early dress diving in Sydney Harbour, focusing on an account by the explorer, Frank Hurley (1885–1962), of diving at Shark Island in 1921. Hurley's account is compared to the experiences of the harbour's professional dress-divers. His departures from reality are read as a science-fictionalisation of Sydney's submarine realm influenced by Jules Verne (1828–1905).     

Book reviews

Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America. Edited by DIANA FANE. Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1996. Pp. 320.

New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America. By ILONA KATZEW, Curator. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery, 1996. Pp. 144.

Iglesia, Estado y economía. Sighs XVI al XIX. Edited by MARIA DEL PILAR MARTINEZ LOPEZ‐CANO. Mexico: UNAM/Instituto José María Luis Mora, 1995 Pp. 314.

El crédito a largo plazo en el siglo XVI. Ciudad de México (1550–1620). By MARIA DEL PILAR MARTINEZ LOPEZ‐CANO. Mexico: UNAM, 1995. Pp. 208.

The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, and Colonization. By WALTER D. MIGNOLO. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1995. Pp. xxii, 426.

Entre la retórica y la insurgencia: las ideas y los movimientos sociales en los Andes, Siglo XVIII. Compilado por CHARLES WALKER. Cuzco: Centra “Bartolomé de Las Casas”, 1996. Pp. 362.

Saberes andinos. Ciencia y tecnología en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú. Editado por MARCOS CUETO. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1995. Pp. 215.     

Cajal's Brief Experimentation with Hypnotic Suggestion

Spanish histologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, one of the most notable figures in Neuroscience, and winner, along with Camillo Golgi, of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries on the structure of the nervous system, did not escape experimenting with some of the psychiatric techniques available at the time, mainly hypnotic suggestion, albeit briefly. While a physician in his thirties, Cajal published a short article under the title, “Pains of labour considerably attenuated by hypnotic suggestion” in Gaceta Médica Catalana. That study may be Cajal's only documented case in the field of experimental psychology. We here provide an English translation of the original Spanish text, placing it historically within Cajal's involvement with some of the key scientific and philosophical issues at the time.     

Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of ancient Syrian pottery from six different archaeological sites

Syrian archaeological pottery sherds were collected for TL dating from six different archaeological sites named Al-Shermanieh, Tell Serah, Der Al-Hajar (south of Damascus), Tell Al-Shekdakah, Tell Al-Souwirieh (east of Damascus) and Khurbet Al-Kulieh (south west of Damascus). The samples were prepared by fine grain technique and the annual dose for each sample (pottery sherds and soil sample) was measured using an alpha spectrometer system for uranium and thorium contribution as well as with atomic absorption spectrometry for the potassium contents. The mean ages were found to be 5500 ± 150 years, 2950 ± 50 years, 1200 ± 50 years, 1300 ± 150 years, 3300 ± 100 years and 3400 ± 200 years for the examined pottery from the sites Al-Shermanieh, Tell Serah, Der Al-Hajar, Tell Al-Shekdakah, Tell Al-Souwirieh and Khurbet Al-Kulieh, respectively. The results were in good agreement with the ages estimated by archaeologists except for one sample which belongs to Der Al-Hjar site.     

Reflections on the Economic-Noneconomic Debate: A Radical Geographical Perspective from the European South

This paper expands upon the economic/noneconomic (cultural turn) debate in economic geography and proposes an alternative radical perspective through the lens of the European South. Based on the experience of Greece, the paper argues that no matter how important the cultural issues might be, the great political economy problems of distorted growth and incomplete development, sociospatial inequalities, and weak, incoherent and contradictory territorial policies continue to have a primary importance. The paper reviews some basic points of the cultural turn debate and then examines the orientations of radical spatioeconomic thought in postdictatorial (post-1974) Greece in arguing that this thought was mostly problem-driven, policy-oriented and focused upon the political economy of Greek socioeconomic and territorial restructuring. It is argued that a southern radical agenda has to be based more deliberately on holistic and inclusive interdisciplinary resyntheses in which cultural issues are given due attention, but not to the detriment of a radical understanding of the territorial workings of economy, society and power relations. The concluding suggestion of the paper is that it is a political turn , rather than a cultural turn, that is best suited to a radical interpretation of South European economic geographies.