Cultural Resource Management and American Archaeology

Cultural resource management (CRM) work accounts for most of the archaeology conducted in the United States. A diverse and somewhat fragmented field, CRM has nonetheless achieved a degree of institutional and organizational maturity. CRM archaeology has produced important contributions to archaeological methodology and has established and refined knowledge of regional cultural-historical sequences and settlement and subsistence patterns. The current florescence of historical archaeology is attributable to CRM. Yet the maintenance of high quality in CRM is a pervasive and enduring problem. Academic institutions need to reestablish alliances with the CRM community. The future viability of CRM archaeology depends on factors both internal and external to the discipline: regulatory and statutory “reform,” agency funding levels, looting and other destructive forces, and Native American and other public involvement.     

Truth as historical recapitulation: the dead of Cape Town’s District One

In this essay, I reflect on the massive and dramatic re-emergence of the dead of Cape Town’s District One in 2003, and its aftermath. I discuss how the resurfacing of these ancestors helps us understand how heritage discourses operate in Cape Town, and how their agency forces us to consider what it means to live in the city during post-apartheid urban renewal. I argue that the agency of the District One dead hinges on their exposure of the internal workings of discourse and the associated disciplinary practices through which we experience Cape Town and its heritage. This story ends ambiguously. I discuss how, following the storage of the District One dead in the Prestwich Ossuary, the gaze on Cape Town was redirected away from the city’s past and towards its future; I explore how their reinterment foreclosed a series of discussions regarding the reconciliation of past events with the present realities of Cape Town. I argue, finally, that truth at District One can be understood as a form of historical recapitulation.     

古巴比伦婚姻习俗若干问题的再考察

长期以来,法制史家和亚述学家分别依据《汉穆拉比法典》有关婚姻的条款和古巴比伦时期有关婚姻的文献来研究古巴比伦时期的婚姻习俗,然而,他们的研究方法以及某些结论值得商榷。童养媳、婚约、聘金以及离婚权等问题的研究表明,只有将《汉穆拉比法典》有关婚姻的条款与古巴比伦时期的婚姻文献相结合,才能研究古巴比伦时期的婚姻习俗问题。上述问题的研究还表明,古巴比伦妇女在婚姻中处于被动地位,商品经济对婚姻影响很大。     

民法解释在处理旅游合同纠纷中的作用——以孟元诉中佳旅行社旅游合同纠纷案为例

现今旅游纠纷日益增多,而在我国旅游行政管理部门及司法实践中,普遍存在＂无法可依＂的认识误区,以及回避纠纷性质,重结果轻分析的倾向。《最高人民法院公报》公布的＂孟元诉中佳旅行社旅游合同纠纷案＂及其判决,虽然并未引起旅游业界、法学界的太多争议,但其在旅游合同性质认定及解除权问题上的认定,存在着一定的问题和瑕疵。本文从民法解释的角度重新审视该案,并对该案判决提出较为具体的不同意见,以呼吁业界通过解释现行民事立法,充分发挥其在解决旅游民事纠纷中的作用。     

The abandoned seafarer: Networks of care and capture in the global shipping economy

ABSTRACT

Despite its importance, life at sea, as well as the labour of those who toil in these waters, often remains murky to those on land. Based on ethnographic research onboard cargo ships and ashore at Mission to Seafarers (MtS) and other seafarer clubs this essay emphasizes the centrality of care and capture in shaping the global shipping economy. Drawing insights from an anthropological archive of capture, this essay highlight the multi-faceted ways in which care and capture define maritime labour on land and sea and where the ultimate form of captivity is abandonment.     

《劳动合同法》对导游用工涉及的法律关系的影响

本文通过对比分析《劳动合同法》颁布前后导游与旅行社、导游服务公司之间的法律关系,认为导游与旅行社或导游服务公司之间成立劳动关系,原先受民法调整的劳务关系将渐渐从导游执业中淡出,导游权益的保障会有一定程度的改善。     

Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments: the meaning and genesis of a jurispolitical pamphlet

At the heart of the criminal reform proposed in Cesare Beccaria’s 1764 Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments) are the principles of penal parsimony derived from a precise interpretation of the social contract. Punishment, being no more than a necessary evil devoid of any intrinsic virtue, must serve no more than a preventative function to the smallest possible extent; its application strictly bound by the principle of legality. Beccaria’s criminal philosophy, therefore, attempts to drastically reduce the power of the penal institution. After recounting its principal aspects, this article seeks to propose a new interpretation of Beccaria’s theory from the perspective of its historical context. The Italian Enlightenment philosopher did not so much express indignation against the barbarism of the Milanese penal system, but rather instigate a rebellion against the political dominance of its patriciate, whose power had long been validated by its juridical functions. In this respect, Beccaria sought to combat the political hegemony of the jurists, concluding his treatise by excluding juridical thought from, and thus removing the intellectual foundations of, the practice of criminal law.     

完善合同解除制度的必要性和条件

合同解除是我国合同法中的一项重要制度。合法有效的合同,既对当事人有严格的法律约束力,当事人又可以依据合同法中的规定解除有效成立的合同。这就要求合同当事人既要尊重合同的严肃性,又可以结合合同订立后的实际情况行使合同解除权。     

Seeds: Contracting the Audience in a Play about Science

Abstract

In pursuing the question ‘what can scientists learn from theatre?’ Particularly, ‘what can scientists, as scientists, learn from theatre?’ this paper argues that science lacks a normative framework that theatre is capable of providing. Despite science’s well-earned epistemic reputation, there is adequate reason to question its ethical reputation, particularly at the point where cutting edge scientific technology impacts society. I consider science as operating in four categories: the scientific method; the scientific hypothesis; the scientific experiment; and the scientist’s personal character. The realms of the scientist’s hypothesis and personal character are those where social pressures are reciprocally exerted, where imaginative play mentality and epistemic values are most in evidence. Theatre can examine these realms effectively because it is able to use narratives that appeal not only to logical and social moral judgements but to emotional and visceral responses, so as to situate science in the social context in which the pressures of law, funding, experimentation, society, and personal ambition converge in ‘the game of life’.

This can be seen in the theatrical process known as ‘contracting with the audience’. I point out a spectrum of traditional narrative tropes by which science makes “contracts with” audiences. The paper draws on theories of entrainment and theatrical game-play from Peter Stromberg and Philippe Gaulier, as well as my own practice and research into the process of contracting with the audience, to propose how to reach beyond tradition and to shift normalising contracts “outside the box”. To illustrate my proposition, I examine the play Seeds by Annabel Soutar as directed by Chris Abraham for Crow’s Theatre and Theatre Porte Parole. Seeds follows the controversial court battles of Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser against agricultural-biotech corporation Monsanto, which sued him for patent infringement of its Genetically Modified Organism Roundup Ready Canola. Seeds helps its audience define a public arena for discourse even as it brings to our attention the factors that make this difficult to do, while making an excellent contribution to the genre of ‘Documentary Theatre’. It is a successful contract with the audience that creates a public forum for discussion about contemporary ethical debates in science, thereby merging artistic ambiguity and scientific theory.