The unbearable weight of music: The intermezzo

The affordances of musical experience, its capacity to become our mode of being-in-the-world, especially in ritual situations, can be turned against us into an aversive sonic attack that bends the social arc into a liminality without end, a time in between that goes nowhere. And when this happens, we have entered the realm of music torture, a relatively recent innovation in that dark art that was ushered into the world in full force at the beginning of the 21st century. Music became part of a regime of no-touch torture inflicted upon detainees in the ‘global war on terror’, itself a war without end. In this article, the author argues for an ontomusicology that understands music as ritual and ritual as music – in this case, ritual that inverts Victor Turner’s notion of communitas, with all of its attendant modes of being-with, into a solitary mode of existence with no hope of escape, a musical ritual torture, a perpetual intermezzo.     

Commercializing Science in Europe: The Cambridge Biotechnology Cluster

The article examines the variety of linkages firms have established with university science. These include using universities as a source of ideas for start-ups, scientific collaboration between firms and laboratories, the role of scientists on the scientific advisory boards of firms, and the role of universities in supplying firms with a labour market for talented scientists. These linkages are plentiful across Cambridge area biotechnology firms. However, and perhaps surprisingly, our evidence shows that a key actor, the University of Cambridge does not dominate the scientific linkages of the area's firms. A large percentage of Cambridge's firms do not derive from its university. The majority of scientific collaborations are not with University of Cambridge laboratories, nor do Cambridge scientists dominate the scientific advisory boards of firms. Moreover, the majority of scientists within area biotechnology firms appear not to have left University of Cambridge laboratories to move to industry.     

Gustaf Dalman, Anti-Semitism, and the Language of Jesus Debate

The theory that Jesus of Nazareth spoke and taught exclusively in Aramaic rather than Hebrew achieved its present dominant position just over a century ago due largely to the labour of Gustaf Dalman. His primary motivation was not the recovery of the historical Jesus, however, but to support his deep commitment to the Protestant movement to convert Jews. This movement did not escape the impact of escalating anti-Semitism in society, intensified by rapid progress towards German national unification. One Christian response to anti-Semitism was to "extract" Jesus from Judaism by contrasting him with "Jewish" attitudes and values held by Jewish spiritual authorities. Dalman's contribution was to extract Jesus from the ethnically exclusive Hebrew language by insisting that he spoke only the more widely used lingua franca of the region, Aramaic. By overstating his case and going beyond the evidence, Dalman revealed his indebtedness to the anti-Semitic spirit of his age.     

The limits of cultural nationalism: Italian Switzerland from a risorgimento perspective*

ABSTRACT. This article critiques the ‘cultural turn’ in Italian Risorgimento historiography by examining Italian Switzerland, and specifically Ticino. This area paradoxically aided and abetted Italian patriots, especially Giuseppe Mazzini, yet rejected becoming part of the Italian national project. This paradox is heightened by the fact that the vast majority of the Italian nationalist literary canon, as identified by Alberto Maria Banti, was republished in Ticino. The paradox is explained in terms of the conflict between long‐standing traditions of local autonomy and the idea of any form of uniform or centralised control, as originally represented by the Cisalpine Republic and then by both versions (Napoleonic and Piedmontese) of the Kingdom of Italy. However, I also use Banti's cultural concepts to demonstrate the creation of a powerful counter‐myth of Italian Swiss nationalism in the character of William Tell.     

A Case of Marked Bilateral Asymmetry in the Upper Limbs of an Upper Palaeolithic Male from Barma Grande (Liguria), Italy

Barma Grande 2, a male skeleton of upper palaeolithic age from Balzi Rossi (Liguria, Italy), shows a marked degree of upper limb bilateral asymmetry. Similar cases of asymmetry in palaeolithic hominid fossils have variously been attributed to high levels of behavioural asymmetry (related to handedness) or a pathologically induced alteration of upper limb skeletal remodelling processes. As in many of these cases, the skeleton from Barma Grande lacks any indications of trauma or pathology in the smaller left limb. Consideration of the morphology of the preserved upper limb elements and a comparative analysis of asymmetry in normal and pathological male palaeolithic fossils and normal recent human samples suggests that the asymmetry in Barma Grande 2 was a secondary effect of trauma or pathology in the left side. The degree and pattern of asymmetry in numerous humeral and ulnar measurements indicates an adult onset of altered loading patterns. Several possible aetiological factors are considered, with the most probable being an entrapment neuropathy, direct trauma to one or more muscles about the shoulder, or possibly glenohumeral joint instability. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.