Improvements in Archaeomagnetic Dating in Western Europe from the Late Bronze to the Late Iron Ages: An Alternative to the Problem of the Hallstattian Radiocarbon Plateau

We present a new curve of the directional secular variation of the geomagnetic field in Western Europe between 1500 bce and 200 ce . Its computation relies on a Bayesian framework. The fast secular variation during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages makes archaeomagnetic dating efficient with a respective precision of 150–200 and 60–100 years during these periods. The Bayesian method also provides posterior date distributions that refine the dating of reference data, especially during the period of the Hallstattian radiocarbon plateau. Archaeomagnetism becomes a valuable alternative to radiocarbon and will help to improve the archaeological chronologies.     

Packaging of Identity and Identifiable Packages: A study of women–commodity negotiation through product packaging

In the age of post-Fordist flexible production, a consumer realizes her/his identity in part through the act of consumption. The visual aspect of commodity–consumer negotiation acquires importance, as commodities must be visually differentiated to attract the gaze of a particular consuming group. The act of visual differentiation is achieved through symbolic packaging, which creates a cognitive link between commodity and consumer. I draw from Baudrillard, who states that in postmodern consumption the sign value of products becomes more important than their actual usefulness (use value). Baudrillard, however, overlooks the importance of gender, race and space in this visual mediation. Through an empirical study of the packaging of women's skin and hair products in two different stores catering to two different income groups in Worcester, Massachusetts, I indicate how gendered identities that are created are complex, porous and materially rooted in space. The geographic situatedness of the exercise checks overgeneralizations allowing it to be studied as an object–subject mediation in a particular spatial context.     

Habermas’s Theological Turn and European Integration

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas’s recent work is defined by two trends: an engagement with the realm of the sacred and a concern for the future of the European Union. Despite the apparent lack of connection between these themes, I argue that the early history of European integration has important implications for Habermas’s conclusions about the place of faith in public life. Although Habermas’s work on religion suggests that the sacred contains important normative resources for postsecular democracies, he continues to bar explicitly religious justifications from discourse within state institutions. I question this exclusion of faith by reconstructing the role that political Catholicism played in the foundation of the European project. By focusing on two of the most important actors involved in the creation of the first European Community, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, I show how explicitly religious reasons can broaden political perspectives, resulting in the creation of new, inclusive, postnational forms of communal life. Pushing Habermas to accept the implications of his theological turn, I argue that pluralistic, nondogmatic and nonauthoritarian religious claims should be allowed to enter into the formal public sphere through a discursively determined interpretation of secular translation.     

《寻羊冒险记》的艺术开拓——村上春树小说论

《寻羊冒险记》是村上春树青春三部曲的压轴之作,为作家带来了不可动摇的文坛地位。《且听风吟》和《1973年的弹子球》先后奠定了村上小说文本的语言风格,这部作品则在语言的叙事性与作品的故事性有机结合的领域,显示了作家的艺术开拓与创造精神。“羊”所体现的象征意义尤为读者和批评界所称道。     

Human corpse manipulation and the body as symbol: A case study from the Eastern Pampa–Patagonia transition (Argentina) during the Final Late Holocene

Human body manipulation and secondary burials are widespread funerary practices in many areas of the world. The archaeology of the Pampas and North-Eastern Patagonia, Argentina, is no exception. In this paper, archaeological case studies from the lower basin of the Colorado River during the Final Late Holocene (ca. 1000–250 years BP) are presented and discussed. Secondary burials were recovered that indicated an intentional manipulation of bodies. Evidences of cut marks and the coloring of bone surfaces were recorded. The bundles were composed of individuals of both sexes and diverse age categories. The Pampean region and North-Eastern Patagonia witnessed significant hunter–gatherer population dynamics during the last 1000 years BP. Climatic, ecologic, demographic, and economic explanations have been proposed as the background to these changes. In this paper, it is argued that accompanying these factors, as part of a broader socio-cultural scenario, were significant social interaction networks and processes of social complementarity between groups. In this context, it is proposed that the complexity observed in relation to the handling of bodies is part of a worldview in which the body was seen as material culture – as a symbol – that played an important role for the community in group identity maintenance in a cultural context undergoing significant organizational changes.     

符号化的空间与空间的符号化——网络实体消费空间的建构与扩散

本文以消费社会和网络社会为背景,从鲍德里亚的消费社会理论出发,运用符号学方法,对南京"淘淘巷"网络实体街区这一消费空间的建构与扩散机制进行了分析。指出符号是消费空间特色塑造的重要路径,但消费空间的扩散并非简单的符号复制过程。揭示了网络实体消费空间作为一种半组织性的社会空间,其内涵的社会关系和运行的内在机制才是它得以存在的内因。网络实体街区这一消费空间是一种超越符号的存在,并非完全归结于符号的消费。     

“庄子是谁”四说献疑

＂庄子是谁＂,即历史上那个叫做＂庄子＂的人究竟是《庄子》中哪些内容的作者这一问题,是一个非常棘手的历史难题。对此,学界主要有四种认识：其一,庄子乃内篇的作者;其二,庄子乃外杂篇的作者;其三,庄子乃《庄子》中一部分内容的作者;其四,庄子乃《庄子》一书的作者。然而,这四说的主要依据,包括内篇精深外杂浅俗说、内篇与外杂篇必有一伪说、刘笑敢来自汉语词汇发展规律的证明等,都存在一定的漏洞。以上四说的漏洞,意味着＂庄子是谁＂的问题并没有真正得以解决。因此,基于一种相对审慎的考虑,不妨将庄子看作《庄子》文本统一组织下的一个作者符号。     

论遗产的价值

肇始于法国的遗产保护运动已有两百余年的历史,而遗产价值却一直是个近乎扑朔迷离的话题。与一般商品相比,遗产有何特殊的价值与使用价值,遗产价值如何衡量及其对对现代社会的意义都有待于思考。从某种意义上看,过去之于现在,是古为今用的过程,亦是遗产价值从神圣走向世俗的关键缘由。无论是遗产保护热、遗产研究热,还是遗产旅游热,都在判断、建构、计算与赋予这四个面相上论证着遗产的价值,进而揭示遗产价值表象下人类集团的精神实践活动。     

In Defence of the Secular? Islamisation,Christians and (New) Politics in Urbane Malaysia

Besides the clarion call for a “new politics” by opposition political parties, a significant catalyst that arguably swayed Christian electoral choices in the landmark Malaysian general elections of March 2008 was the counsel by religious leaders to safeguard “the secular state”. This action was prompted by recent high profile controversial legal cases that were perceived to be a serious erosion of the freedom of religion clause guaranteed in the secularist Federal Constitution. In this essay, I not only examine the recent antecedents of this course of action but also delve into the more distant past in order to draw out how the apparently impervious categories of “religion” and “the secular” have been implicated in the structuring of social and political imaginaries in Malaysia.     

Full‐Vector Archaeomagnetic Dating of a Medieval Limekiln at Pinilla Del Valle Site (Madrid,Spain)

Archaeomagnetic dating based on the full geomagnetic field vector was carried out on a limekiln excavated at Pinilla del Valle archaeological site (Madrid, Spain). The limekiln tradition in this area is largely documented by historical sources for recent centuries but the date of the studied kiln's last use was unknown. The combination of mean archaeomagnetic directional and absolute archaeointensity results shows that the kiln was last used between ad 1296 and 1413, in good agreement with two independent radiocarbon dates. This study provides the first archaeomagnetic evidence that the local limekiln tradition dates back to at least late medieval times. Furthermore, the inclusion of these data in the Iberian secular variation curve and geomagnetic field models will help to improve the archaeomagnetic dating technique.