bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Money and its Uses in the Javanese States of the Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries A.D.
Authors: Christie Jan Wisseman
Published: June 2005

Coins appeared relatively late in the history of maritime Southeast Asia. No indigenous coins have so far been dated to before the very end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century A.D. These early gold and silver (or silver alloy) coins, which seem to be unique to the region, have so far been found on the Malay peninsula, on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali, and in the Philippines. The prototypes for these coins were almost certainly first minted in the Javanese state of Mataram, and the spread of their use was apparently linked to the expansion of this state's influence in the maritime trade networks. As the early Asian sea trade boom began to affect the domestic marketing patterns of Java, after the beginning of the tenth century, the need for large numbers of smaller denomination coins grew more pressing. Chinese copper cash were first imported, and then copied, in order to meet this demand.
Women and Wage Labour in the Medieval Islamic West: Legal Issues in an Economic Context
Authors: Shatzmiller Maya
Published: June 2005

The evidence of the late medieval period, 11th-15th centuries, indicates that women's participation in the labour market was both considerable and diversified. This paper studies whether and how women's wage labour was affected, controlled and regulated by laws, courts and judges, by using an array of the Mālikī legal sources from Muslim Spain and North Africa. It shows the existence of a legal approach straddling a strict application of the law of the ijāra, with adjustments to family law and admission of customary law, but more importantly, an approach inspired and adapted to the framework of women's property rights and therefore beneficial to them.
Gender, Loyalty, and the Reproduction of the Wang Zhaojun Legend: Some Social Ramifications of Drama in the Late Ming
Authors: Besio Kimberly
Published: June 2005

Scholars have long noted a heightened concern over female virtue in late Ming literati society; more recently, this social trend has been connected with the boom in print production of drama, and many other types of popular and elite texts, which occurred during the Jiajing through Wanli periods. Ming print circulation of the legend of Wang Zhaojun, a palace woman of the Han dynasty who was given in marriage to a northern leader, further illuminates these connections. Through detailed analysis of the text, and its reproduction during the late Ming, and through comparison with other versions of the story also in circulation during this period, this essay argues that the zaju play, Autumn in the Han Palace, was at the center of a significant reconfiguration of the Wang Zhaojun legend — one in which both the exquisitely tragic beauty of her departure across the Han border, and her loyalty to the emperor are foregrounded. Further, this reconfiguration was conditioned by, and in turn conditioned, late Ming social constructions of woman as both cultural and commercial commodity.
Man Versus Woman
Authors: Toivari Jaana
Published: June 2005

This essay discusses various male-female disputes which are recorded in texts originating from the workmen's community of Deir el-Medina. The material is considered within a frame of reference adapted from legal anthropology. Thus both legal as well as other systems of social control are taken into account in the examination of the different means by which interpersonal conflicts were settled.
A Woman Timar Holder in Ankara Province During the Second Half of the 16th Century
Authors: Reindl-Kiel Hedda
Published: June 2005

This article, in essence a microscopic study of an area around Ankara deals with a long lasting family quarrel about a Timar property (associated with military service during wartime) focusing on the question of hereditary rights for women. The family involved can be traced back almost two hundred and fifty years: in the sixteenth century they were modest Timar holders, but had once belonged to the wealthy ahi-patricians of Ankara. The remarkably rich archival material also allows us to track the different structures of the Timar in course of time. The development of the court proceedings reveals that the legal position was not unequivocal, especially concerning the succession rights of women during this period. The final decision in favour of Şakire, the heroine of the story, is primarily examined in the article in the context of social changes during the 16th century, when succession rights of women in rural as well as in urban strata of society underwent alterations. The picture which emerges is that of continuous change in the social status of Muslim-Turkish women, a status which too often has been regarded as static and unchangeable.
Islamic Revival and Modernity: the Contemporary Movements and the Historical Paradigms
Authors: Lapidus Ira
Published: June 2005

The contemporary Islamic movements are both a response to the conditions of modernity — to the centralization of state power and the development of capitalist economies — and a cultural expression of modernity. The emphasis upon Islamic values is not intended as a return to some past era but represents an effort to cope with contemporary problems by renewed commitment to the basic principles, though not the historical details, of Islam. Contemporary movements have predecessors in a similar wave of 18th and 19th century Islamic revival responding to the breakdown of Muslim empires and the economic and colonial intrusions of Europe. Behind these movements lie earlier reformist teachings and the example of the Prophet Muhammad himself, a lasting paradigm for how Muslims cope with changing worldly realities.
From Comparative Sociology to Global History: Britain and India in the Pre-History of Modernity
Authors: Washbrook David
Published: June 2005

The concept of Modernity is presently very problematic in the social sciences. Included in those problems is a tendency to hypostasise ‘the West’ as possessed of an originary and authentic culture and history, which distinguished it absolutely from all Other and Traditional cultures and histories. These distinctive qualities laid a unique pathway to Modernity, which subsequently became ‘universally’ available to the rest of the world. This paper explores historical conditions in Britain and India at one of the key moments of Modernity's ‘emergence’: the mechanisation of cotton textile manufacturing. It argues that Britain's modernisation is inconceivable except in a broader global context of which India already comprised a vital part. And, reciprocally, that India's role in the construction of Britain's Modernity, so far from opening up possibilities of it following the same course itself, conveyed imperatives which took its society towards a reverse process of ‘Traditionalisation.’
Peasants and “Modern” Leasing Strategies in Ancient Egypt
Authors: Eyre Christopher
Published: June 2005

This paper argues that continuity in the socio-economic history of Egypt from the pharaonic period to modern times is more than an ideological construct, and that the reality of that continuity provides a valuable caution against approaches which compartmentalise periods and stress history as a process of linear development. The paper focuses on issues of land tenure as evidence of the relationship between farmers, agricultural production and the market, and of the degree of political penetration of the rural economy. Data from the Graeco-Roman period, the Ottoman period, and modern Egypt are used as a basis for the assessment of the meagre relevant data from the pharaonic period.
Historicising “Modernity” in Southeast Asia
Authors: Watson Andaya Barbara
Published: June 2005

The term “modernity” implies Western influence and the weakening of beliefs and practices associated with traditional culture. Although it is increasingly used in reference to contemporary Southeast Asia because of the region's current economic growth, there seems little room for historical perspectives. This paper takes up the idea that if we broaden our understanding of modernity in Southeast Asia so that it is not restricted to recent history, we may see evidence of a modern spirit in earlier times. Although being modern became increasingly linked to Europe, Southeast Asians never rejected their own past. However the eclectic nature of “modernity” in Southeast Asia was undermined as “modern” ideas and practices came increasingly from Europe, to be inevitably associated with Europe's political and economic control.
China and “Modernity”: the Uses of the Study of Chinese History in the Past and the Present
Authors: Zurndorfer Harriet
Published: June 2005

The central focus of this paper is the lack of impact Euro-centric theories of development have made on twentieth century historical writing by leading Chinese and Japanese scholars. The author reviews publications by three important historians, Naitō Konan, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, and Yü Ying-shih, all of whom attempt to locate China's first experience with “modernity” prior to nineteenth or twentieth century encounters with the West. Although all three historians differ in their interpretation of the concept “modernity,” they find Chinese culture a central feature in the identification of this concept. Furthermore, all three writers rely upon historical evidence, in particular economic and social data, to counter claims of China's history as a process of linear development.
“Modern” Features in Old Assyrian Trade
Authors: Veenhof Klaas
Published: June 2005

This contribution presents evidence for “modern” features in Old Assyrian trade (ca. 19th century B.C.), i.e. features not attested in earlier commercial records from ancient Mesopotamia or elsewhere and/or usually considered innovations of classical or early medieval times. It focuses on contractual and legal rules for long-term partnerships (a first step towards company law) and for coping with insolvent, absent or unwilling debtors. It also analyses the implications of bonds in the name of “the (anonymous) creditor,” occasionally designated as “the bearer of the bond,” the earliest evidence of and the first step towards the creation of commercial “bearerâ–™s cheques.”
Fear of Gynarchy in an Age of Chaos: Kong Qi's Reflections on Life in South China under Mongol Rule
Authors: Smith Paul
Published: June 2005

Over the long term, the Mongol conquest of the Southern Song in 1276 was less destructive to members of the local South Chinese elite than was the failure of the Yuan regime to establish strong and durable institutions of dynastic rule. For not long after the elite survivors of the Sino-Mongol wars had returned to a comfortable prosperity under Yuan rule, their children were buffetted by the instability and civil wars that engulfed Yuan society from the late 1330s to the collapse of the dynasty in 1368. The Kongs of Liyang typify many of the most salient features of elite life in South China under the compressed Yuan dynastic cycle: the orphaned son of a minor Song official who immediately capitulated to the Mongols, by the 1320s Kong Wensheng had translated talent, pedigree, and his position as a respected clerk in provincial government into such accoutrements of elite Yuan life as a library, sojourning literati guests, and a steady flow of slaves and bondservants thrown onto the market by penury and natural disaster. The prosperity built up by men like Kong Wensheng unravelled in the last tumultuous decades of the Yuan, an era of chaos that is captured by Wensheng's son Kong Qi in his Frank Recollections of the Zhizheng Era of ca. 1365. Even as it exemplifies many aspects of the compressed Yuan dynastic cycle, this collection of cautionary anecdotes and observations is also colored by Kong Qi's special circumstances as a minor son and a uxorilocal husband, circumstances that incline Kong Qi to blame the perils of his family, his society, and ultimately his dynasty on women's usurpation of male-centered institutions of public authority to create their own private gynarchies. Kong's jeremiads against usurpatious women in turn raise the possibility that during the Yuan, if not at all times, women exercised far more power and autonomy than normative prescriptions would suggest.
Fractionalized Estates in a Centralized Regime: the Holdings of Al-Ashraf Qāytbāy and Qānṣūh Al-Ghawrī According to Their Waqf Deeds
Authors: Petry Carl
Published: June 2005

The article examines two cases of estate management from the late Mamlūk period in Egypt: shares in rural properties appropriated from former state lands by Sultans al-Ashraf Qāytbāy (872-901/1468-96) and Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī (906-22/1501-16) as indicated in their charitable endowment (waqf) deeds. Its objectives are: first, to plot the location of these property shares and thereby to determine whether any clustering or other geographic patterns are discernible. What does the location of sites suggest about the concept of property accumulation, the security of rural landholdings in the Delta and Nile Valley, and a proprietor's sense of his holdings as a coherent entity? Second, what are the implications of fractionalized shares for the operations of Egypt's fiscal and land administrative bureaus under the Mamlūk regime? The phenomenon of estate holding by shares facilitated the sultans' attempts to create private sources of revenues they could exploit to ward off bankruptcy in the face of their troops' fiscal demands.
The Co-Operative Temper: A Third Dramatic Role in Sophoclean Tragedy
Authors:   Carter
Published: June 2005

This article identifies and defines a recurrent figure in Sophoclean tragedy, which I call the co-operator, distinct from the more familiar hero and adviser figures. This figure is distinguished primarily by his role (sic: the figure is typically male), which is to be someone on whom the hero must depend. He acts without obligation and frequently against expectation. This behaviour can therefore only be explained in terms of the character of the co-operator: a propensity to respect and sympathise with the hero. I use the term 'role' to mean the dramatic function assumed by a figure within the plot. A character can assume a role, or discard it, at various stages in a play. Hence, not all the co-operators begin as co-operators. An extreme example of a drama in which roles can be fluid is Antigone, which I discuss towards the end of the article. Significant variation on the theme of the co-operator is also found in the role of Hyllus in the exodos of Trachiniae.
The Drinking Theatre: Staged Symposia in Greek Comedy
Authors: Konstantakos Ioannis
Published: June 2005

Staged symposia, like those found in some comedies of Plautus (As., Mos., Per., St.), were presented also in Greek comedy: this is indicated by a large number of fragments which present characters drinking and performing sympotic rituals on stage. Sympotic scenes formed a favourite comic spectacle in the 4th century and apparently occurred already in Old Comedy (e.g. Pherekrates' Korianno). Plautus' staged banquets may well have been inspired by Greek scenes of this sort. The lunch-party of the women at the beginning of Menander's Synaristosai can be seen as a variation of the traditional comic banquet-scene; so also certain scenes of Aristophanes (the slaves' drinking-scene in Eq. 85 ff.; the imaginary symposium in V. 120848). The comic symposia must have been acted either on the ekkyklema or simply 'on stage', i.e. on the regular performance area for the actors, in front of the scenic façade; by convention, events which would normally take place indoors could be set outside the house in the theatre. An appendix discusses the number of actors in 4th-century comedy: a fourth speaking performer was most probably available for the largest part of the 4th century.
ARGUMENTS BY WOMEN IN EARLY CHINESE TEXTS
Authors: Raphals Lisa
Published: June 2005

A corpus of ethical and political arguments specifically attributed to women in Warring States and Han texts are philosophically comparable to the arguments of the Masters texts, but are not associated with teaching lineages. These hierarchical persuasions and instructive arguments cannot be attributed to ministers. They suggest new perspectives on contemporary discussions of the nature of philosophical debate, adversariality, and authority in Warring States China.
NAMING THE FIRST NEW WOMAN
Authors: Ying Hu
Published: June 2005

Hailed as the first female medical doctor of China, the exemplary new citizen of the burgeoning Chinese nation, and a model of Christian conversion, Kang Aide is a figure to whom others attributed tremendous representational power as well as different meanings. Comparing three versions of her story, one by late Qing reformers represented by Liang Qichao (1873-1929), one by American missionaries, and one by herself, this paper traces the enactment of modernity at a particular historical moment, an enactment fraught with ambiguity and contested at the very moment of its conception.
THROUGH THE PRISM OF MALE WRITING: REPRESENTATION OF LESBIAN LOVE IN MING-QING LITERATURE
Authors: Wu H. Laura
Published: June 2005

Representation of lesbian relations in Ming-Qing vernacular literature is foremost a male discourse. A close look into this discourse will help gauge the contemporary social stance, especially the male stance, towards lesbianism. This paper examines textual strategies and the narrative norm of portraying lesbian love and sex in twelve Ming-Qing texts. The normative pattern extracted from these texts suggests a consensus in the male position that favors suppression of lesbianism via trivializing or heterosexualizing passions and romance between women. Male writing on lesbianism thus seems to function as containment of homosexuality for the benefit of the institutions of heterosexual sex and marriage.
FIGHTING FOR LOVE: MALE JEALOUSY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CHINA
Authors: Paderni Paola
Published: June 2005

This article considers male jealousy as reflected in judicial sources, thus placing it in historical context. Men who lived in an increasingly difficult and complex world committed acts of violence because of jealousy, driven by a sense of honor, by love and by desire for a woman. Magistrates handling these cases were forced to recognize that jealousy, considered in Chinese literary tradition a typically female and dangerous sentiment, is a powerful force conditioning male behavior.
SUBLIME LOVE AND THE ETHICS OF EQUALITY IN A HOMOEROTIC NOVEL OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: PRECIOUS MIRROR OF BOY ACTRESSES
Authors: McMahon Keith
Published: June 2005

Precious Mirror of Boy Actresses is the most serious piece of fiction about male love since the late Ming and the lengthiest of all in Chinese literary history. It is remarkable in its extension of the egalitarian implications of the qing aesthetic that it inherits from the late Ming and from earlier Qing literature such as Dream of the Red Chamber. In the homoerotic relationship it idealizes, lovers who are rigidly separated in terms of status nevertheless experience a sublime love which necessarily results in the liberation of the man of lower status. The novel makes unique use of the qing aesthetic's idealization of the feminine to arrive at this ethically pragmatic conclusion whereby liberation is achieved. The foregrounding of this sublime love and the qing-perfected characters who embody it, moreover, link the novel with other works of the period which portray a China that is ultimately a stable and invulnerable entity. Thus Precious Mirror's interpretation of qing carries a historical significance in spite of the novel's obliviousness of the social and political turmoil of China in the mid-nineteenth century.
Concealment, Revelation, And Gender: The Veil Of Moses in The Bible And in Christian Art
Authors: Britt Brian
Published: June 2005

Moses's wearing of a veil (Exod 34:25-39) remains a puzzling and relatively obscure biblical episode. This article interprets Moses's veil as a sign of divine communication and prophecy. Through analysis of the passage, commentary, and images from the history of art, I trace the legacy of the veil as a symbol of the problem of divine revelation itself. For written commentary and artistic tradition, I argue that the veil is concealed, repressed, and transformed in order to ease an anxiety about the veil that is also an anxiety about the text. Christian interpreters (following 2 Cor 3:7-18) associate the veil with Jewish blindness to the gospel. In artistic tradition, the veil of Moses is often linked to the allegorical female Synagogue, who wears a blindfold. The veil, which originally enables Moses to act as a prophet, is thus concealed by religious polemic and linked to the Christian feminization of Jewishness. At the same time, the ambiguity and uncanniness of the veil images evoke the mysterious quality of Exodus 34:29-35. The veil of Moses may thus be seen as a meta-text that alternates between presence and absence, concealment and revelation.
Christ aux Outrages by Henry De Groux: Fin de Siècle Religion, Art Criticism, and the Sociology of the Crowd
Authors: Davenport Nancy
Published: June 2005

The Belgian symbolist painter, Henry De Groux (1866-1930), produced in his life one masterwork, Christ aux Outrages (1888-1889), a vast painting (293-363 cm.) which both embodies his own tormented nature and that of many similarly unsettled fin de siècle Catholics in that age of Positivism, secularization, European sabre rattling, and anarchism. Following its success in the Salon Triennal in Brussels, Henry De Groux, financed by King Leopold II of the Belgians, brought his painting to Paris in 1890 where it was exhibited in the Salon des Arts Liberaux, after being rejected by the salon jury. The image of a timorous, bound, and defenseless Christ and a savagely screaming mob of women, dogs, and children repelled faint-hearted academically-minded critics concerned with religious art and moved the ardent and orthodox. While these writers of religious orientation had their own reasons for praise and blame, this research considers the connection between the painting and the dominant concern among socialists such as Gustave Le Bon in Le Psychologie des Foules (1895) and novelists such as Emile Zola in Germinal and other of his novel for "Crowd Theory." It is the fearful and irrepressible crowd attacking Christ, it is argued, that gave Christ aux Outrages its peculiar significance in fin de siècle Paris.
More on the Sculpture of the West Front of Bath Abbey: Christ of the Charter and Antichrist
Authors: Luxford Julian
Published: June 2005

The iconography of the early sixteenth century sculptural program of Bath Abbey's west front has been shown in a previous article (Religion and the Arts, 4.3 (2000), 313-36) to represent an allegory of spiritual ascent through the virtue of humility and descent through the vice of pride, as explained in chapter seven of the Rule of St Benedict. The current article focuses upon two sculptures largely overlooked by the earlier study, the iconography and positioning of which further substantiates the proposed meaning of the program. One sculpture represents Christ as the Man of Sorrows, holding the Charter of Human Redemption (a devotional text widespread in England during the late Middle Ages). The other represents Antichrist, who was a subject of much speculation during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is argued that Christ, standing on the north side of the west front, constitutes an additional symbol of humility, while Antichrist, standing on the south, makes another reference to pride. The iconography of these figures is further analyzed for its intrinsic interest, that of Antichrist being unusual, Christ holding the Charter of Human Redemption all but unique.
What is Real. A Reply to Ockham's Ontological Program
Authors: Amerini Fabrizio
Published: June 2005

When Ockham's logic arrives in Italy, some Dominican philosophers bring into question Ockham's ontological reductionist program. Among them, Franciscus de Prato and Stephanus de Reate pay a great attention to refute Ockham's claim that no universal exists in the extra-mental world. In order to reject Ockham's program, they start by reconsidering the notion of 'real', then the range of application of the rational and the real distinction. Generally, their strategy consists in re-addressing against Ockham some arguments extracted from Hervaeus Natalis's works. Franciscus's and Stephanus's basic idea is that some universals are not acts of cognition, but extra-mental, predicable things. Such things are not separable from singulars, nonetheless they are not the same as those singulars. Consequently, it is not necessary to allow, as Ockham does, that if two things are not really identical, they are really different and hence really separable. According to them, it is possible to hold that two things are not really identical without holding that they are also really non-identical and hence really different. Basically, their reply relies on a different notion of the relation of identity. Identity is regarded as an intersection of classes of things, so that it is possible to say that two things are really identical without saying that they also are the same thing. Franciscus and Stephanus, however, do not seem to achieve completely their aim.
Duns Scotus's Parisian Question on the Formal Distinction
Authors: Dumont Stephen
Published: June 2005

The degree of realism that Duns Scotus understood his formal distinction to have implied is a matter of dispute going back to the fourteenth century. Both modern and medieval commentators alike have seen Scotus's later, Parisian treament of the formal distinction as less realist in the sense that it would deny any extra-mentally separate formalities or realities. This less realist reading depends in large part on a question known to scholars only in the highly corrupt edition of Luke Wadding, where it is printed as the first of the otherwise spurious Quaestiones miscellaneae de formalitatibus. The present study examines this question in detail. Cited by Scotus's contemporaries as the Quaestio logica Scoti, we establish that it was a special disputation held by Scotus at Paris in response to criticisms of his use of the formal distinction in God, identify its known manuscripts, and provide an analysis based upon a corrected text, showing in particular the total unreliability of the Wadding edition. Our analysis shows that the Logica Scoti does not absolutely prohibit an assertion of formalities as correlates of the formal distinction, even in the divine Person, so long as their non-identity is properly qualified. That is, the positing of formalities does not of itself entail an unqualified or absolute distinction.
Johannes Sharpe's Ontology and Semantics: Oxford Realism Revisited
Authors: Conti Alessandro
Published: June 2005

The German Johannes Sharpe is the most important and original author of the so called "Oxford Realists": his semantic and metaphysical theories are the end product of the two main medieval philosophical traditions, realism and nominalism, for he contributed to the new form of realism inaugurated by Wyclif, but was receptive to many nominalist criticisms. Starting from the main thesis of Wyclif's metaphysics, that the universal and individual are really identical but formally distinct, Oxford Realists introduced a new type of predication, based on a partial identity between the entities for which the subject and predicate stood, called predication by essence, and then redefined the traditional post-Aristotelian categories of essential and accidental predication in terms of this partial identity. Sharpe substantially shares the metaphysical view and principles of the other Oxford Realists, but he elaborates a completely different semantics, since he accepts the nominalist principle of the autonomy of thought in relation to the world, and Ockham's explanation for the universality of concepts. Unfortunately, this semantic approach partially undermines his defence of realism, since it deprives Sharpe of any compelling semantic and epistemological reasons to posit universalia in re. Therefore, Sharpe's main ontological theses certainly are sensible and reasonable, but, paradoxically, within his philosophical system they cannot in any way be considered as absolutely consistent.
Scotus's Realist Conception of the Categories: His Legacy to Late Medieval Debates
Authors: Pini Giorgio
Published: June 2005

Scotus claims that the extramental world is divided into ten distinct kinds of essences, no one of which can be reduced to another one. Although by the end of the thirteenth century this claim was not new, Scotus's way of articulating it into a comprehensive metaphysical doctrine resulted into a ground-breaking contribution to what became known as 'late medieval realism'. This paper shows how Scotus's view of the categories as ten kinds of irreducible essences should be seen as a development and correction of his predecessors' (including Thomas Aquinas's and Henry of Ghent's) views. The main elements of Scotus's doctrine are his application of the real distinction to the categories, his view of inherence as a categorial item separated from accidents, and his distinction between absolute and non-absolute accidents. Finally, although Scotus's doctrine of the univocity of being seems to pose a challenge to his claim that categories are irreducible to each other and do not have anything in common, this paper shows how Scotus's doctrine of univocity and his realist conception of the categories can be reconciled as two theories that describe the world from different points of view.
The Problem of Universals and Wyclif's Alleged "Ultrarealism"
Authors: Spade Paul Vincent
Published: June 2005

John Wyclif has been described as "ultrarealist" in his theory of universals. This paper attempts a preliminary assessment of that judgment and argues that, pending further study, we have no reason to accept it. It is certainly true that Wyclif is extremely vocal and insistent about his realism, but it is not obvious that the actual content of his view is especially extreme. The paper distinguishes two common medieval notions of a universal, the Aristotelian/Porphyrian one in terms of predication and the Boethian one in terms of being metaphysically common to many. On neither approach does Wyclif 's theory of universals postulate new and non-standard entities besides those recognized by more usual versions of realism. Again pending further study, neither do Wyclif 's views appear to assign philosophically extreme or novel roles to the entities he does recognize as universal. On the contrary, by at least one measure, his theory of universals is less extreme than Walter Burley's, as Wyclif himself observes. For Wyclif, the universal is numerically identical with its singulars, but numerical identity is governed by something weaker than the Indiscernibility of identicals.
The Abuse of Religion and Ecology: the Visha Hindu Parishad and Tehri Dam
Authors: Mawdsley Emma
Published: June 2005

A number of commentators have suggested various cautions and caveats about assuming a positive relationship between Hinduism and the environment. The main points of contention are the limitations of textual exegesis; the environmentally damaging consequences of some Hindu beliefs and practices; and questions over whether any religion provides an adequate or appropriate basis from which to address contemporary environmental challenges. This paper explores a rather different and very problematic relationship that is being drawn, by some, between Hinduism and the environment. It focuses on the recent involvement of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) in protests against Tehri Dam. Neglecting the social and environmental problems that motivate other protestors, the VHP has sought to frame the dam as a communal issue—a threat by "outsiders"/Muslims to the holy river Ganges, and "therefore" to the Hindu religion, and "thus" the nation. The paper argues that, in the context of an increasingly aggressive Hindu nationalism, environmental issues and movements are by no means immune from the dangerous and divisive religious politics that are being played out in contemporary India.
The Conspicious Body: Capitalism, Consumerism, Class and Consumption
Authors: Carolan Michael
Published: June 2005

A little over a century ago, Thorstein Veblen introduced us to the now commonplace term "conspicuous consumption": the idea that we consume, at least in part, in order to display to others our social power. While the conceptual utility of this term is just as valid today as it was the day Veblen penned it, further elaboration is now required to account for shifting cultural and economic imperatives. In this paper, I argue that we are entering a new era of conspicuous consumption; an era where surrounding oneself with "nice things" is becoming increasingly insufficient for our modern sensibilities in our quest to display status and power. Rather, we are progressively striving to become the "nice thing" itself—to literally embody conspicuous consumption. I locate this conspicuous body within evolving historical tensions of consumer capitalism; tensions which the conspicuous body attempts to resolve (but not without social, cultural, and ecological consequences). This paper also represents an attempt to introduce into the socio-environmental literature the body as a legitimate topic of inquiry. While the body has recently experienced an increase in attention by some social and cultural scholars, such interest has been lost among most environmental sociologists; a surprising point, particularly given the fact that through the body, self and the environment become embodied.
The Fowls of Heaven and the Fate of the Earth: Assessing the Early Modern Revolution in Natural History
Authors: Miller Gordon
Published: June 2005

In recent years scholars have begun to question in various ways the traditional notion of the Scientific Revolution, which has long been seen as a fountainhead of modern Western approaches to nature. One line of questioning involves the suggestion that there were significant, and perhaps revolutionary, developments during the early modern era not only in the realms of astronomy and physics but also in the field of natural history. This article takes up this suggestion and begins by examining the seventeenth-century transformation of natural history in relation to the work of two representative English naturalists—Edward Topsell and John Ray—by looking specifically at their contrasting ornithological descriptions of cranes. It then analyzes how the different theological orientations of these two devout naturalists shaped their natural histories and contributed to the shift from a symbolic to a literalistic understanding of natural entities. This change of mind is examined in light of the phenomenon of secularization and the loss of "the dimension of depth" and in relation to the promise and problems of a utilitarian orientation to the natural environment, with observations on cranes as they have migrated through history in the thought of some leading naturalists and across some changing natural habitats.
From Climate Change to Sustainability: An Essay on Sustainable Development, Legal and Ethical Choices
Authors: Voigt Christina
Published: June 2005

This paper discusses some fundamental impediments to implementing the complex concept of sustainable development within the international legal framework in general, and the climate change regime in particular. It argues that sustainable development should primarily be seen as a normative concept, closely linked to an idea of environmental justice that incorporates the interests not only of present humans but also of future generations and the non-human environment. The paper explores the relationship between sustainability as a moral idea and sustainability as located in a legal context. It argues for the evolution of a coherent system of ethics and law of sustainability, with particular relevance to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale. The importance of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research is emphasised. It is suggested that the fundamental challenges posed by a globally changing climate might function as an important impulse to "cross-faculty" research and innovative thinking. The results of such thinking might in turn inform international action in tackling climate change. Although the investigation cannot be exhaustive, this paper aims to serve as an impetus for multidisciplinary research and further discourse on the reconciliation of society and the environment, law and ethics.
Knowing Me, Knowing You: Aboriginal and European Concepts of Nature as Self and Other
Authors: Strang Veronica
Published: June 2005

Based on long-term fieldwork with Aboriginal groups, Euro-Australian pastoralists and other land users in Far North Queensland, this paper considers the ways in which indigenous relations to land conflate concepts of Nature and the Self, enabling subjective identification with elements of the environment and supporting long-term affective relationships with place. It observes that indigenous cultural landscapes are deeply encoded with projections of social identity: this location in the immediate environment facilitates the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and identity and supports beliefs in human spiritual transcendence of mortality. The paper suggests that Aboriginal relations to land are therefore implicitly founded on interdependent precepts of social and environmental sustainability. In contrast, Euro-Australian pastoralists' cultural landscapes, and constructs of Nature, though situated within more complex relations with place, remain dominated by patriarchal and historically adversarial visions of Nature as a feminine "wild-ness" or "otherness" requiring the civilising control of (male) Culture and rationality. Human spiritual being and continuity is conceptualised as above or outside Nature, impeding the location of selfhood and collective continuity within the immediate environment. In tandem with mobile and highly individuated forms of social identity, this positions Nature as "other". There is thus a subjective separation between the individualised life of the self, and the life of Nature/other that, despite an explicit discourse in which ecological well-being is valorised, inhibits affective connection with place and confounds sustainability.
P. Bodmer II (p66): Three Fragments Identified
Authors: Head Peter
Published: June 2005

This article identifies by text and location three small unidentified fragments of P. Bodmer II (P66). Each identification adds to our knowledge of this document. In two places this has significance for the textual criticism of the New Testament.
Athenian Curiosity (Acts 17:21)
Authors: Gray Patrick
Published: June 2005

Whereas commentators regularly note that Luke, through Paul, employs ambiguous language at the beginning of his address before the Areopagus in Acts 17, the link between Paul's reference to his audience as δεισιδαιμονεστεροζ in v. 22 and Luke's mention of the Athenians' insatiable curiosity in the preceding verse has gone heretofore unnoticed. This study discusses the popular stereotype of the busybody in Greek and Roman literature and the ways in which it sheds new light on the opening and closing of the speech.
The Urban Earthquake Imagery and Divine Judgement in John's Apocalypse
Authors: Murray James
Published: June 2005

This paper seeks to explain a Johannine innovation in first century apocalyptic: the urban earthquake. Assuming that John's Apocalypse is best understood against a backdrop of the historical and political setting of first century proconsular Asia, the paper presents three facts of provincial life under the Julio-Claudian Principate which, when seen together, suggest the significance of John's urban earthquake: 1. the cities of Asia were renown as the victims of devastating earthquakes; 2. the cities provided an infrastructure for Roman control; and 3. the cities were beneficiaries of publicly announced and memorialized imperial earthquake relief. In short, the apocalyptic urban earthquake demonstrates the victory of God over Caesar, for the cities which once were saved from seismic destruction by imperial benefaction, now experience a divine judgement against which Caesar can offer no help.
Towards a Cognitive Science of New Religious Movements
Authors: Upal M. Afzal
Published: June 2005

Traditionally cognitive scientists have had little to say about religion (and even less to say about new religious movements (NRMs)) partly because religion is arguably a social phenomenon (Bainbridge et al. 1994) and partly because of the pervasive scientific bias of relegating religion to the heap of the irrational, the illogical, and 'a fading vestige of the prescientific times' (Lewis 2003). While sociologists of religion have been studying NRMs, their analysis has been limited to the macro-level. Recent trends in sociology and economics focused on the so called rational choice theories (Iannaccone 1998) and in cognitive sciences of religion (Barrett 2000; Boyer 2001) offer the hope of moving in the direction of a more complete explanation of emergence of new religious movements by providing both macro and micro level analyses. I believe that a closer interaction between these two developments is possible, indeed necessary, for the development of a scientific theory of NRMs that weds the macro and the micro levels. I illustrate the benefits of this approach by focusing on a hitherto ignored phenomenon, the emergence of charismatic leaders who inspire new religious movements. The primary aim of this paper is to identify the contextual factors (both social and cognitive) that cause self-interested utility maximizing agents to take actions that result in new religious movements (NRM). Our secondary aim is to identify factors that cause other self interested utility maximizing agents to align themselves with NRM founders and become the believers. I illustrate how various tools of cognitive science including computer modeling can help in this regard.
Children's Acceptance of Conflicting Testimony: The Case of Death
Authors: Harris Paul , Giménez Marta
Published: June 2005

Children aged 7 and 11 years were interviewed about death in the context of two different narratives. Each narrative described the death of a grandparent but one narrative provided a secular context whereas the other provided a religious context. Following each narrative, children were asked to judge whether various bodily and mental processes continue to function after death, and to justify their judgment. Children displayed two different conceptions of death. They often acknowledged that functioning ceases at death and offered appropriate biological justifications for that judgment. However, they also claimed that functioning continues after death and offered appropriate religious justifications. The tendency to claim that functioning continues after death was more frequent among older children than younger children, more frequent in the context of the religious narrative as opposed to the secular narrative and more frequent with respect to mental processes than bodily processes. Particularly among older children, two distinct conceptions of death appear to co-exist: a biological conception in which death implies the cessation of living processes and a metaphysical conception in which death marks the beginning of the afterlife.
Embodiment in Religious Knowledge
Authors: Barsalou Lawrence , Barbey Aron , Simmons W. Kyle , Santos Ava
Published: June 2005

Increasing evidence suggests that mundane knowledge about objects, people, and events is grounded in the brain's modality-specific systems. The modality-specific representations that become active to represent these entities in actual experience are later used to simulate them in their absence. In particular, simulations of perception, action, and mental states often appear to underlie the representation of knowledge, making it embodied and situated. Findings that support this conclusion are briefly reviewed from cognitive psychology, social psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. A similar representational process may underlie religious knowledge. In support of this conjecture, embodied knowledge appears central to three aspects of religious experience: religious visions, religious beliefs, and religious rituals. In religious visions, the process of simulation offers a natural account of how these experiences are produced. In religious beliefs, knowledge about the body and the environment are typically central in religious frameworks, and are likely to affect the perception of daily experience. In religious rituals, embodiments appear central to conveying religious ideas metaphorically and to establishing them in memory. To the extent that religious knowledge is like non-religious knowledge, embodiment is likely to play central roles.
Religious Practice, Brain, and Belief
Authors: Livingston Kenneth
Published: June 2005

It is a common assertion that there is a fundamental epistemological divide between religious and secular ways of knowing. The claim is that knowledge of the sacred rests on faith, while knowledge of the natural world rests on the evidence of our senses. A review of both the psychological and the neurophysiological literatures suggests, to the contrary, that for many people, religious experiences provide powerful reasons to believe in the supernatural. Examples are given from reports of mystical or transcendent experiences to show that those experiences are taken as evidence in support of religious belief, both by those who have the experiences, and by those who are connected in various ways to the believer. A large body of research shows that such experiences can be linked directly to particular neurophysiological events, but it is argued that this is not sufficient to support a simple reductionist analysis. Studies are described that make it clear that anomalous experiences do not become meaningful until interpreted through the lens of prior belief, and that existing religious doctrine is the most common source of that interpretive framework. It is argued that religious systems tend to promote practices that increase the likelihood of religious experiences that are easily interpreted as evidence in support of core beliefs of the tradition. There is thus an evolving synergy between the experienced and the doctrinal, but it is a synergy that is at bottom supported by ordinary processes of induction and deduction, operating on distinctive kinds of evidence.
The Emotional Coherence of Religion
Authors: Thagard Paul
Published: June 2005

This paper uses a psychological/computational theory of emotional coherence to explain several aspects of religious belief and practice. After reviewing evidence for the importance of emotion to religious thought and cognition in general, it describes psychological and social mechanisms of emotional cognition. These mechanisms are relevant to explaining the acquisition and maintenance of religious belief, and also shed light on such practices as prayer and other rituals. These psychological explanations are contrasted with ones based on biological evolution.
Pretending as Imaginative Rehearsal for Cultural Conformity
Authors: Bogdan Radu
Published: June 2005

Pretend play and pretense develop in distinct phases of childhood as ontogenetically adaptive responses to pressures specific to those phases, and may have evolved in different periods of human ancestry. These are pressures to assimilate cultural artifacts, norms, roles, and behavioral scripts. The playful and creative elements in both forms of pretending are dictated by the variable, open-ended, and evolving nature and function of the cultural tasks they handle. The resulting creativity of the adult intellect is likely to be a distant and indirect by-product of temporary and specific ontogenetic responses to temporary and specific ontogenetic challenges, particularly cultural ones.