bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Oblique shockwaves and expansion fans
Authors: Escudier Marcel
Published: January 2018

External supersonic gas flow in which changes in the fluid and flow properties are brought about by direction change is analysed in this chapter. In addition, it is shown that flow over a corner between two flat surfaces resulted in an oblique shockwave if the angle between the two surfaces is less than 180° (a concave corner). The analysis of flow through an oblique shockwave is based upon the superposition of the flowfield for a normal shock onto a uniform flow parallel to the shock. It is also shown that both weak and strong oblique shocks can occur. For an angle in excess of 180° (a convex corner), the flow is turned through an isentropic Prandtl-Meyer expansion fan. Analysis of a Prandtl-Meyer expansion fan starts from consideration of an infinitesimal flow deflection through a Mach wave.
Stood Weeping Outside the Tomb
Authors: Fisk Anna
Published: January 2018

This chapter concerns the task of mourning and re-membering in feminist scholarship, imaged through the Gospel narratives of Mary Magdalene weeping at the empty tomb of Jesus. It reads biblical scholar Jane Schaberg’s efforts at feminist historical reconstruction of Mary Magdalene’s witness to the resurrection, along with novelist Michèle Roberts’s reflections on the impossibility of feminist revisioning. Alongside this scholarly mourning, I tell my own Easter story, of my friend’s death in our early twenties. Fragments from feminist biblical scholarship and literature, placed alongside bits of autobiography are pieced together to produce a collage that maintains the necessity of mourning and the inevitable failure of feminist revisioning.
Forget it
Authors: Jeffers Ann
Published: January 2018

This chapter focuses on women’s rituals in the Hebrew Bible. While much work has been done recently on rituals, little attention has been paid so far to women’s rituals. Using a range of methodologies, from feminist hermeneutics to classics, ritual theory, memory studies, and reception, this chapter will attempt to unveil and understand the mechanisms which have marginalized women’s religious and ritualistic experiences. I will use the story of the Woman of Endor in 1 Samuel 28 as a test case and will show that the text’s patriarchal ideology may cover up a fuller political divinatory ritual akin to that of the Delphi oracle. In a second section, I will examine how the reception of this story in the work of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, a sixteenth-century painter from Amsterdam, also devalues and distorts women’s ritual through explicit associations with witchcraft as defined by the Malleus Maleficarum.
My Mother was a Wandering Aramaean
Authors: Schol-Wetter Anne-Mareike
Published: January 2018

This chapter explores the applicability of Rosi Braidotti’s theory of nomadic becoming to the Hebrew Bible by way of two examples: Lot’s unfortunate wife, and Ruth, the Moabite who became an Israelite. Nomadic theory is distinguished from most current feminist and postcolonial approaches by its dynamic understanding of identity and its emphasis on change and affirmation rather than oppression and loss. Framed as instances of ‘nomadic becoming’, Ruth and Lot’s wife can be seen to effectively undermine conventional approaches to (Israelite) identity as fixed and opposed to various ‘others’. Read as ‘nomadic figurations’, they prove Braidotti’s claim that minorities—in this case, women and ethnic outsiders—must lead the way towards an ethics that has overcome the opposition between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
The Politics of Remembrance
Authors: Ching Angela Wong Wai
Published: January 2018

The genealogies section of 1 Chronicles 1: 1 to 9: 34 is known as the ‘genealogical hall’ which shares the function of a traditional Chinese ancestral hall in which ancestors are to be remembered as a testimony to a unified origin of the clan. Similarly, when Israelites lost their temple and the land, the Chroniclers tried painstakingly to make sense of Israelite history by ‘registering’ (yahas) the lost tribes into the genealogies for a unified Israel for the future. When Paul Riceour asks the people to ‘re-member’, it is not just about not-forgetting but also keeping in mind of those who are members of our community who were lost to human tragedy. This chapter will study the meaning of writing back into history through the cross-textual readings of the genealogies hall of 1 Chronicles and the politics of memories for the traumatic Chinese events.
Can an Adulteress Save Jesus? the Pericope Adulterae, Feminist Interpretation, and the Limits of Narrative Agency
Authors: Knust Jennifer
Published: January 2018

The pericope adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) is often interpreted as an inherently feminist story, one that validates women’s humanity in the face of a patriarchal order determined to reduce sexual sinners and women more generally to the status of object. Reading this story within a framework of queer narratology, however, leads to a different point of view, one that challenges the consequences of seeking rescue from a god and a text that are both quite willing to forge male homosocial bonds at a woman’s expense. As the history of this story also shows, texts and their meanings remain unsettled and therefore open to further unpredictable and contingent elaboration. Pondering my own feminist commitments, I attempt to imagine a world and a story where a woman is a person and Jesus is in need of rescue. Perhaps such a world is possible. Or perhaps it is not.
Pinkwashing Paul, Excepting Jesus
Authors: Marchal Joseph A.
Published: January 2018

This chapter repurposes the critique of ‘pinkwashing’ in order to address the evasions of feminist and queer interpretations of biblical figures like Jesus and Paul. A practice highlighted within both feminist and queer politics, pinkwashing describes claims of inclusion or tolerance for women and, or as LGBT people, as an effort to evade or cover for violence, exploitation, or oppression. Such practices can also take the form of insisting upon the exceptionalism of a group or nation in comparison to apparently lesser or lower populations. Feminist interpreters have historically grappled with a similar phenomenon when colleagues have claimed an exceptionally tolerant Jesus by way of an anti-Jewish projection. When combined with more recent analyses, such history demonstrates the necessity of an intersectional approach to the politics of scholarly identification and respectability among feminist and queer biblical interpreters.
Embodied Temporalities
Authors: Buell Denise K.
Published: January 2018

This chapter aims to expand intersectional feminism temporally and beyond ‘the human’. By offering both positive and negative resources in early Christian traditions, those of us with expertise in ancient Christian materials using feminist lenses can engage with and contribute to current discussions in contemporary science and critical theory, especially feminist materialisms, that seek to transform our understandings of and practices of humanness. Specifically, this essay juxtaposes some ancient and contemporary ways of understanding health as well as practices aimed to treat conditions viewed as illness to suggest some of the benefits of engaging in cross-temporal feminisms. Moreover, the chapter suggests ways that feminist biblical interpretation can benefit from a materialist perspective, both via ancient materiality and current feminist materialisms
The Ancient Goddess, the Biblical Scholar, and the Religious Past
Authors: Stavrakopoulou Francesca
Published: January 2018

This discussion interrogates the ways in which the confessional, cultural, and ideological heritages of biblical studies have shaped and disfigured the scholarly analysis of ancient West Asian goddesses. Once dismissed as ‘deviant’ or ‘demoralizing’ elements of ‘nature religions’, goddesses have been (relatively) rehabilitated within biblical scholarship. But this article argues that problematic ideologies continue to underlie and frame scholarly discourse. In particular, the essay critiques the freighted interpretations of literary and iconographic portrayals of deities including Asherah and Anat, and challenges the essentializing, reductive tendencies of scholarship dealing with issues of gender, corporeality, and personhood. It is argued that the socio-cultural contexts of biblical scholarship directly index contemporary forms of Western androcentrism, heteronormativity, and constructs of gender, so that scholarly debates about goddesses and the ‘female’ body continue to limit, distort, and cheapen the assumed socio-religious and cultural value of divine women in their ancient contexts.
Seeing Double
Authors: Meyers Carol
Published: January 2018

The study of women in several disciplines reveals a disconnect between the images in normative texts and the information garnered from other sources. The social reality of women’s lives is thus best reconstructed using diverse sources. Archaeology is the main alternative source for studying Israelite women, and social science disciplines are involved in the interpretation of the archaeological data. Together, they provide a glimpse of the daily lives of ordinary women. Examining several aspects of everyday life—family size, household labour, and household religious activities—shows a more balanced situation of gendered power in households than is implied by many biblical texts.
‘Limping, Yet Made to Climb a Mountain!’ Re-Reading the Vashti Character in the Hiv And Aids South African Context
Authors: Masenya (Ngwan’A Mphahlele) Madipoane
Published: January 2018

The history of the Christian Bible’s reception in South Africa was part of a package that included among others, the importation of European patriarchy, land grabbing and its impoverishment of Africans and challenged masculinities of African men. The preceding factors, together with the history of the marginalization of African women in bible and theology, and how the Bible was and continues to be used in our HIV and AIDS contexts, have only made the proverbial limping animal to climb a mountain. Wa re o e bona a e hlotša, wa e nametša thaba (while limping, you still let it climb a mountain) simply means that a certain situation is being aggravated (by an external factor). In this chapter the preceding Northern Sotho proverb is used as a hermeneutical lens to present an HIV and AIDS gender sensitive re-reading of the Vashti character in the Hebrew Bible within the South African context.
Material World: Gender and the Bible in Evangelical Purity Culture
Authors: Moslener Sara
Published: January 2018

For evangelical adolescents living in the United States, the material world of commerce and sexuality is fraught with danger. Contemporary movements urge young people to embrace sexual purity and abstinence before marriage and eschew the secular pressures of modern life. And yet, the sacred text that is used to authorize these teachings betrays evangelicals’ long-standing ability to embrace the material world for spiritual purposes. Bibles marketed to teenage girls, including those produced by and for sexual purity campaigns, make use of prevailing trends in bible marketing. By packaging the message of sexual purity and traditional gender roles into a sleek modern day apparatus, American evangelicals present female sexual restraint as the avant-garde of contemporary, evangelical orthodoxy.
Muslim Liberative Approaches and Legal Dilemmas Towards Gender Justice
Authors: Kassam Zayn
Published: January 2018

For many Muslim women, their countries’ legal regimes are perceived as continuing to place them at a disadvantage due to their sex, primarily due to gendered assumptions based on the Qur’ān and the patriarchal social frameworks under which legal regimes were instituted and applied. The development of a discourse of gender justice rooted in authoritative Islamic texts finds its greatest challenge in translating into praxis, for which the legal sphere, in which patriarchal authority in the name is Islam is seemingly unshakably entrenched, is one of the arenas in which the challenge has to be met. This chapter examines how liberatory interpretations of the Qur’an and Islamic law work in conjunction with activism undertaken by Muslim women’s groups to redress gender inequities, drawing upon examples from North Africa, primarily Egypt and Morocco.
Female contributions to the peaceful nature of bonobo society
Authors: Furuichi Takeshi
Published: January 2018

Although chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) are closely related, their societies show surprisingly large differences in many aspects. Bonobo females, in comparison with chimpanzee females, are characterized by their gregariousness, close social association with one another, leadership and prolonged pseudo-estrus. Males are also different in their aggression between the two species; bonobo males are less aggressive than chimpanzee males and do not commit infanticide nor any other conspecific killing, which was reported in chimpanzees. This chapter investigates these differences between such closely related species and explains how bonobos achieve the peaceful nature of their society. The behavioral characteristics of female bonobos seem to contribute to the peaceful nature of bonobo society. Bien que les chimpanzés (Pan troglodytes) et les bonobos (Pan paniscus) soient deux espèces particulièrement proches et étroitement liées, de grandes différences peuvent être observées au sein de leur société. Les femelles bonobos, comparées aux femelles chimpanzés, se montrent plus grégaires, entretiennent des relations plus étroites les unes avec les autres, font preuve d’un certain leadership et présentent des périodes d’œstrus prolongées. Des différences comportementales sont également observées entre les mâles de ces deux espèces: les mâles bonobos apparaissent moins agressifs, ne commettant, à l’inverse des mâles chimpanzés, ni infanticide, ni meurtre intra-spécifique. La présente étude, consacrée donc aux différences entre ces deux espèces pourtant si proches, a pour but d’expliquer la nature pacifique des groupes de bonobos. Il semble ainsi que les femelles bonobos, par certains comportements caractéristiques, contribuent fortement à la structure non-violente de leur société.
Pan paniscusorPan ludens? Bonobos, playful attitude and social tolerance
Authors: Palagi Elisabetta , Demuru Elisa
Published: January 2018

Play, especially in its social form, is an enigmatic and multifunctional behaviour that is essential for the development and maintenance of a great variety of individual and social competences in many social species. Bonobos are recognized as one of the most playful species and they can be used as a model to evaluate the importance of social play at all ages, given that they play at high frequencies even as adults, thanks to their developmental delay. By summarizing what is known about play behaviour in bonobos and in other primate species, this chapter sheds light on the importance of social play in scaffolding the socio-emotional and communicative competence of individuals. Results obtained on bonobos allow the strong links between play in adults and social tolerance, a connection that becomes evident also in other species, including our own, to be revealed. Le jeu, en groupes spécialement, est un comportement énigmatique et multifonctionnel qui est essentiel au développement d’une grande variété de compétences individuelles et sociales dans plusieurs espèces sociales. Les bonobos sont reconnus comme une des espèces plus jouantes et peuvent être utilisés comme modèle pour évaluer l’importance du jeu social à touts les âges, donné qu’ils jouent beaucoup mêmes adultes, grâce à leur retard développemental. En résumant la connaissance des comportements de jeu par les bonobos et autres primates, nous visons souligner l’importance du jeu social dans l’échafaudage des compétences socio-émotionnelles et communicatives des individus. Les résultats obtenus à propos des bonobos nous permettent dévoiler les forts liens entre le jeu des adultes et la tolérances sociale, un lien qui devient évident dans d’autres espèces, la nôtre inclus.
Natural communication in bonobos: Insights into social awareness and the evolution of language
Authors: Clay Zanna , Genty Emilie
Published: January 2018

Our capacity for language is a central aspect of what it means to be human and sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Given that language does not fossilize, one way to understand how and when it first evolved is to examine the communicative capacities of our closest living relatives, the great apes. This chapter reviews recent research exploring natural communication in our least understood but closest living relative, the bonobo (Pan paniscus). It primarily focuses on what natural bonobo communication can tell us about their underlying social awareness and how this relates to the evolution of language. Examining vocal and gestural communication, we report findings that highlight considerable communicative complexity, flexibility, and intentionality which, cumulatively, suggest that many of the building blocks for language are deeply rooted in our primate past. Notre qualité de langage est un aspect central d’être humain, et nous sépare du reste de l’univers animal. Vu que le langage ne fige pas, les qualités communicatives des grands singes nous peuvent aider à expliquer comment et quand est-ce-que nos langues ont évolué. Ici nous révisons les recherches plus récentes explorant la communication naturelle chez notre plus proche relatif vivant, le bonobo (Pan paniscus). Nous nous concentrons sur ce que la communication naturelle des bonobos nous peut dire à propos de leur conscience sociale et comment cela se rapporte à l’évolution des langues. En examinant la communication vocale et gestuelle, nous signalons des trouvailles qui soulignent la complexité, la flexibilité et l’intentionnalité dans la communication. Ces aspects suggèrent que les fondations de notre langue sont enracinées dans notre passé primate.
Ecological variation in cognition: Insights from bonobos and chimpanzees
Authors: Rosati Alexandra G.
Published: January 2018

Bonobos and chimpanzees are closely related, yet they exhibit important differences in their wild socio-ecology. Whereas bonobos live in environments with less seasonal variation and more access to fallback foods, chimpanzees face more competition over spatially distributed, variable resources. This chapter argues that bonobo and chimpanzee cognition show psychological signatures of their divergent wild ecology. Current evidence shows that despite strong commonalities in many cognitive domains, apes express targeted differences in specific cognitive skills critical for wild foraging behaviours. In particular, bonobos exhibit less accurate spatial memory, reduced levels of patience and greater risk aversion than do chimpanzees. These results have implications for understanding the evolution of human cognition, as studies of apes are a critical tool for modelling the last common ancestor of humans with nonhuman apes. Linking comparative cognition to species’ natural foraging behaviour can begin to address the ultimate reason for why differences in cognition emerge across species. Les bonobos et les chimpanzés sont prochement liés, pourtant ils montrent d’importantes différences dans leur sociologie naturelle. Alors que les bonobos vivent dans des environnements avec peu de diversité de climat entre saisons et plus d’accès à des ressources de nourriture alternatives, les chimpanzés ménagent une compétition étalée spatialement et des ressources plus variées. Je soutiens que la cognition des chimpanzés et bonobos montre les signatures psychologiques de leur écologie naturelle divergente. Les témoignages courants montrent que, malgré les forts points communs dans en cognition, les grands singes expriment des différences au niveau de compétences cognitives importantes au butinage. En particulier, les bonobos démontrent une mémoire spatial moin précise, moin de patience, et plus d’aversion de risques que les chimpanzés. Ces résultats fournissent des signes dans l’étude de l’évolution de la cognition humaine. Les études des grands singe sont un outil d’importance majeure dans la modélisation du dernier ancêtre commun des humains et grands singes non-humains. Faire des liens cognitives comparatives entre le butinage des différentes espèces peut commencer à dévoiler les raisons pour les différences de cognition entre espèces.
Bonobos, chimpanzees and tools: Integrating species-specific psychological biases and socio-ecology
Authors: Call Josep
Published: January 2018

Over the years there has been some controversy regarding the comparison between chimpanzees and bonobos. Whereas some authors have stressed their differences, others have stressed their similarities. One striking difference between wild chimpanzees and bonobos is tool use, especially in foraging contexts. While several chimpanzee populations possess tool kits formed by multiple tools (and their associated techniques) to exploit embedded resources, bonobos display no such tool specialization. However, studies in the laboratory have shown that bonobos are perfectly capable of using tools. In fact, several studies devoted to investigate the cognitive abilities underlying tool use have failed to detect any substantial differences between the two species. This chapter explores three aspects that could explain the difference between chimpanzees and bonobos in their propensity to use tools in the wild: socio-ecological factors, social versus technical cognition, and personality profiles. Au cours du temps, il y a eu beaucoup de controverse en relation aux comparaisons entres les chimpanzés et les bonobos. Alors que certains auteurs ont stressé les différences entre eux, d’autres ont stressé les similarités. Une grande différence entre les chipmanzés et les bonobos sauvages est l’utilisation des outils, spécialement en butinage. Tandis que plusieurs populations de chimpanzés possèdent des boîtes à outils diverses (et leur techniques respectives) pour exploiter les ressources, les bonobos ne montrent pas une spécialisation pareille. Cependant, les études en laboratoir ont montré que les bonobos sont capables d’utiliser des outils. En faite, plusieurs études des facultés cognitives dans l’utilisation des outils n’ont pas pu détecter de différences substantielles entre les deux espèces. Je vais explorer trois aspects qui pourraient expliquer les différences entre les chimpanzés et les bonobos en ce qui concerne leur tendance naturelle à utiliser les outils: facteurs socio-écologiques, cognition social vs. technique, et profils de personnalité.
Social cognition and brain organization in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus)
Authors: Hopkins William D. , Stimpson Cheryl D. , Sherwood Chet C.
Published: January 2018

Bonobos and chimpanzees are two closely relates species of the genus Pan, yet they exhibit marked differences in anatomy, behaviour and cognition. For this reason, comparative studies on social behaviour, cognition and brain organization between these two species provide important insights into evolutionary models of human origins. This chapter summarizes studies on socio-communicative competencies and social cognition in chimpanzees and bonobos from the authors’ laboratory in comparison to previous reports. Additionally, recent data on species differences and similarities in brain organization in grey matter volume and distribution is presented. Some preliminary findings on microstructural brain organization such as neuropil space and cellular distribution in key neurotransmitters and neuropeptides involved in social behaviour and cognition is presented. Though these studies are in their infancy, the findings point to potentially important differences in brain organization that may underlie bonobo and chimpanzees’ differences in social behaviour, communication and cognition. Les bonobos et les chimpanzés sont deux espèces du genus Pan prochement liées, néanmoins ils montrent des différences anatomiques, comportementales et cognitives marquées. Pour cette raison, les études comparatives sur le comportement social, la cognition et l’organisation corticale entre ces deux espèces fournissent des idées sur les modèles évolutionnaires des origines humaines. Dans ce chapitre, nous résumons des études sur les compétences socio-communicatives et la cognition sociale chez les chimpanzés et les bonobos de notre laboratoire en comparaison avec des rapports précédents. En plus, nous présentons des données récentes sur les différences et similarités d’organisation corticale du volume et distribution de la matière grise entre espèces. Nous présentons plus de résultats préliminaires sur l’organisation corticale microstructurale comme l’espace neuropile et la division cellulaire dans des neurotransmetteurs clés et les neuropeptides impliqués dans le comportement social et la cognition. Bien que ces études sont dans leur enfance, les résultats montrent des différences d’organisation corticale importantes qui sont à la base des différences de comportement social, la communication et la cognition entre les bonobos et les chimpanzés.
The formation of Congo River and the origin of bonobos: A new hypothesis
Authors: Takemoto Hiroyuki , Kawamoto Yoshi , Furuichi Takeshi
Published: January 2018

The Congo River functions as a strong geographical barrier for many terrestrial mammals in the Congo Basin, separating forest habitat into right and left banks of the river. However, there has been little discussion on the biogeography of the Congo Basin because the history of the river has been obscured. Based on the recent information of the sea-floor sediments near the mouth of the river and the geophysical survey on the continent, this chapter proposes a plausible hypothesis on the Congo River formation and presents a consequent hypothesis on the divergence of bonobos (Pan paniscus) from other Pan populations. The present hypothesis is also helpful for understanding the distribution of other primates and other mammals in the basin. Furthermore, this hypothesis suggests that all hominid clades, including human, chimpanzee and gorilla, except bonobo, evolved in the area north or east of the Congo River. La rivière du Congo a la fonction d’une barrière géographique forte pour plusieurs mammifères dans le bassin du Congo, séparant l’habitat forêt dans les banques gauches et droites de la rivière. Cependant, il y a eu peu de discussions sur la biogégraphie du bassin du Congo, parce que l’histoire de la rivière a été voilée. Récemment, quelque données importantes qui peuvent avoir des liens avec la formation de la rivière du Congo ont été acquise, surtout par la recherche des sédiments du fond marin près de la bouche de la rivière et par l’enquête géographique du continent. À partir de cette nouvelle information, nous avons proposé une hypothèse plausible sur la formation de la rivière du Congo. Nous avons aussi présenté une hypothèse conséquente sur la divergence des bonobos (Pan paniscus) des autres populations Pan (voire Takemoto et al., 2015 pour la publication originale de cette étude). L’hypothèse présente nous aide aussi à comprendre la distribution des autre primates et des autres mammifères dans le bassin. De plus, cette hypothèse suggère que tous les hominidés clades, humains inclus, chimpanzés et gorilla à l’exception du bonobo, ont évolué dans la régions du nord ou de l’est de la rivière du Congo.
Geospatial information informs bonobo conservation efforts
Authors: Nackoney Janet , Hickey Jena , Williams David , Facheux Charly , Furuichi Takeshi , Dupain Jef
Published: January 2018

The endangered bonobo (Pan paniscus), endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is threatened by hunting and habitat loss. Two recent wars and ongoing conflicts in the DRC greatly challenge conservation efforts. This chapter demonstrates how spatial data and maps are used for monitoring threats and prioritizing locations to safeguard bonobo habitat, including identifying areas of highest conservation value to bonobos and collaboratively mapping community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) zones for reducing deforestation in key corridor areas. We also highlight the development of a range-wide model that analysed a variety of biotic and abiotic variables in conjunction with bonobo nest data to map suitable habitat. Approximately 28 per cent of the range was predicted suitable; of that, about 27.5 per cent was located in official protected areas. These examples highlight the importance of employing spatial data and models to support the development of dynamic conservation strategies that will help strengthen bonobo protection. Le bonobo en voie de disparition (Pan paniscus), endémique à la République Démocratique du Congo (DRC), est menacé par la chasse et la perte de l’habitat. Deux guerres récentes et les conflits en cours dans le DRC menacent les efforts de conservation. Ici, nous montrons comment les données spatiales et les cartes sont utilisées pour surveiller les menaces et prioriser les espaces pour protéger l’habitat bonobo, inclut identifier les zones de plus haute valeur de conservation aux bonobos. En plus, la déforestation est réduite par une cartographie collaborative communale de gestion de ressources dans les zones de couloirs essentiels. Nous soulignons le développement d’un modèle de toute la gamme qui a analysé un variété de variables biotiques et abiotiques en conjonction avec les données de nid bonobo pour tracer la carte d’un habitat adéquat. Environ 28 per cent de la gamme est prédit adéquat; de cela, environ 27.5 per cent est dans une zone officiellement protégée. Ces exemples soulignent l’importance d’utiliser les données spatiales et les modèles pour soutenir le développement de stratégies de conservations dynamiques qui aideront à renforcer la protection des bonobos.
The astronomical empire
Authors: Cullen Christopher
Published: January 2018

This chapter begins by sketching the historical and cultural foundations of the role played by astronomy in the self-presentation of the early imperial Chinese state, principally through its claim to have the right to structure the time of its subjects by issuing a luni-solar calendar. This claim was presented as fulfilling a need on the part of the population; we discuss how far this claim was an accurate perception of the power relations involved. There follows a preliminary account of the main components of such a calendar, and of how they formed an integrated whole. Finally there is an introductory review of the main written sources on li曆‎‘[astronomical] systems’ on which much of this book will be based.
The age of debates
Authors: Cullen Christopher
Published: January 2018

In this chapter, we look at a further aspect of the story revealed by the documents collected by Cai Yong and Liu Hong: the records of debates on technical matters during the first and second centuries CE, debates which were often held in the presence of large audiences of officials. We look at the issues that were raised in such debates, and at the varieties of evidence and arguments that the participants attempted to use to support their positions. First, however, we look at two instances where outsiders came to court to display their expertise, with somewhat different results. We shall see more of this kind of intervention in the next chapter 8, where Liu Hong becomes directly involved in evaluating the proposals made by those without official standing.
Liu Hong and the conquest of the moon
Authors: Cullen Christopher
Published: January 2018

In this chapter, we look at the work of Liu Hong, who emerges as the principal technical consultant involved in the later phases of the debates discussed in the last chapter, although it seems that he only had an official post concerned with celestial observation or calculation at the beginning of his career. He created the last great astronomical system that we shall discuss—the Qian xiang li ‘Uranic Manifestation’ system. This was the first system to give a complete account of the main irregularities of lunar motion, based on a subtle analysis of the mass of data gathered by the routine observations of Han sky-watchers in preceding centuries, and made it possible to predict when solar eclipses might take place. The methods used by Liu Hong set the pattern for the handling of such questions in later centuries.
Inclusion and Exclusion in the British State
Authors: Lumsden Alison
Published: January 2018

When we consider questions of literature and union, it is impossible to ignore Walter Scott, whose works have been read repeatedly in terms of their pro-union sympathies. However, recent re-evaluations have recognized more complex dynamics within his poetry and fiction. This chapter examines how Scott explores the ways in which key groups are excluded from concepts of union and the loss that such exclusion represents. By way of a discussion of Ivanhoe and The Fortunes of Nigel within the dynamics of exclusion and through the paradigms of space, place, and generic expectation, it posits a more ambivalent and cautious reading of Scott in relation to the modern nation state.
Union and Presbyterian Ulster Scots
Authors: Holmes Andrew R.
Published: January 2018

This chapter explores the relationship between literature and union among Presbyterian writers in nineteenth-century Ulster. It examines the work of the poet William McComb and the journalist James McKnight, who together were responsible for the publication of The Repealer Repulsed (1841), a collection of reportage and literary fancy written in response to Daniel O’Connell’s campaign to repeal the 1800 Act of Union. Their various publications employed a shared Ulster–Scottish Presbyterian heritage to express opposition to the imposition of English Protestant forms and principles, and to highlight the importance and distinctiveness of Presbyterian Scots and Ulster-Scots within the United Kingdom. It demonstrates that Presbyterian writers saw Robert Burns as only one part of a broader literary culture that they shared with Britain and that was usually expressed in standard English, included prose as well as poetry, employed a number of literary genres, and sometimes drew upon a shared Gaelic heritage.
Rogue Element
Authors: Macdonald Catriona M. M.
Published: January 2018

This chapter offers a revisionist critique of the career of the Scotsman Charles Rogers (1825–1890) and his role in the foundation of the Royal Historical Society, which serves to highlight how British historical practice was both formed and undone at the confluence of national traditions: how a strong associational dynamic perpetuated discrete national historiographies and professional and patronage networks, and how commerce, as much as university patronage, informed the professionalization of the discipline. It considers how, in both English and Scottish contexts in the late Victorian period, academic history was more contingently constructed than is sometimes thought. More broadly, it points to the limitations of the ‘unionist nationalism’ paradigm in an English context.
Once and Future Kingdoms
Authors: Mackenzie Donald
Published: January 2018

The first half of this chapter considers responses to kingdoms lost (whether to union or partition) in texts from Scott and Mickiewicz. Redgauntlet as Byronic Hero leads into Konrad Wallenrod, and the latter on to Mickiewicz’s responses (mythmaking, satiric, elegiac, and idyllic) to the failure of the Polish Insurrection of 1830–1. The second half considers, in texts from Ivanhoe to Kipling and Buchan, a myth of English history as organic assimilation into union. It sketches a historiographical context for that myth, and analyses challenges to it: the narrative within Puck of Pook’s Hill that climaxes in Magna Carta, or Buchan’s myth of Old England. Concepts of the elegiac, the duplex homo, historical mythmaking and the counter-kingdom organize both halves. Conrad is a point of reference; and the close brings the discussion under an Arthurian rubric of once and future kingdoms.
A. G. MacDonell’s England, their England
Authors: Young Brian
Published: January 2018

England, their England, a now forgotten bestseller, was one of a series of travelogues produced by survivors of the First World War during the 1930s in a country recovering its sense of purpose and identity; unusually, in this case it took the form of an autobiographical novel. A. G. MacDonell was an insider/outsider, a Scottish Wykehamist, a journalist and a partisan Liberal writing with astringent wit about the fusion of reactionary, self-serving Toryism and unprincipled Socialism that underpinned the National Government quietly pilloried throughout the book. He also glances disapprovingly at colonialism, both internal and external, as he berates a nation that has lost its sense of diplomatic purpose. A bucolic work, hovering uneasily between sentimentalism and satire, it insists that the real England is that of the shires (and particularly country cricket). But MacDonell’s strongest work was the much less pleasing Autobiography of a Cad, which merits reassessment accordingly.
Postscript
Authors: Carruthers Gerard
Published: January 2018

The interwar period marked a major turning point in the history of Scottish literature. The story of Scots before MacDiarmid’s recasting of it as synthetic Lallans was happily enmeshed in the experience of Britishness and of Britain’s imperial expansion overseas. As far back as the eighteenth century, Scots and English were viewed by Scots philologists as Saxon–British cognates. The emergence of an antithetical relationship of Scots and English was largely a twentieth-century phenomenon. Indeed, MacDiarmid entirely reconceptualized the relationship of Scottish literature to the post-1707 British state. A partner nation of enthusiastic imperialists was reimagined as an oppressed colony. Scottish literature, both its practitioners and its critics, embarked on a process of forgetting Scotland’s complicity in Britishness and Empire.
Darwin’s Theological Virtues
Authors: Williams James
Published: January 2018

This chapter considers the ethical dimensions of Darwin’s style under the headings of the theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. It argues that style, as the manner in which prose conducts itself, is analogous to virtue in something like the sense that ‘virtue ethics’ has described the term, the shape or telos of a way of life or behaviour. This approach to Darwin both sheds light on the natural and instinctual forms of his thought and permits us to grapple with a traditional problem for both evolution and literary criticism: the question of design. While no claim is made for Darwin as a Christian or religious writer and the ‘theological virtues’ are redescribed in intellectual and secular terms, the chapter ends by discussing some of the traces in Darwin’s style of the ethical questions it inherited from Scripture and theology.
Touch-and-go with Robert Louis Stevenson
Authors: Poole Adrian
Published: January 2018

Stevenson himself declared that ‘style is of the essence of thinking’, but detractors thought him all style and no substance, a brilliant but vacuous mimic, while even admirers worried about his ‘lightness of touch’, about his ‘buoyant, staccato, touch-and-go elasticity’ and ‘perfect mental athleticism’. This chapter argues that Stevenson thinks through a style that challenges readers by its deliberately abrupt transitions, its combination of gravity and levity, its juxtaposition of the learned and the popular, its glancing literary allusions and provocative use of Latin and Latinate diction. It notes the difference between the avowedly vagrant temper of Stevenson’s essays and the more apparently purposive movement of his travel writings, shadowed by their epic and allegorical forebears. It concludes with a reading of ‘Pastoral’, at the heart of Stevenson’s most accomplished single volume of essays, Memories and Portraits (1887).
Vernon Lee’s Handling of Words
Authors: Maxwell Catherine
Published: January 2018

Early schooled in writing by a pedagogy rooted in dialogic exchange, Vernon Lee (1856–1935) made the interactive relationship between writer and reader central to her critical prose. Her early essays showcase her already distinctive prose voice—markedly different from a professional academic masculine voice. Quick to establish a rapport, Lee is a sympathetic guide, skilfully steering her readers through arguments and expositions, but also stimulating and involving them through impressionistic description, association, and intricate dynamic passages full of open-ended verb forms. Published in the 1890s and early 1900s, many of the essays in her innovative book The Handling of Words and Other Studies in Literary Psychology (1923) show her fascination with the idea of style as a form of contact and transaction between writer and reader, with style creating the perceptual patterns that persuade readers to think and imagine in ways not naturally their own.
Vexing the Thoughtless
Authors: Collini Stefan
Published: January 2018

T. S. Eliot’s early criticism is, notoriously, marked by various forms of calculated outrageousness. This chapter maps the fine line that Eliot treads in his reviewing between offending and seducing his readers as he seeks not just to recommend, but also to model, a more rigorous and probing form of criticism than that normally to be found in the literary journalism of the time. It concentrates on the review-essays he wrote for the Athenaeum in 1919–20, the work which announced his arrival as a significant critical voice in literary London. It shows how the various characteristics of Eliot’s early critical prose—its ability to seem deeply scholarly though not in the least academic, its allusiveness, its appeal to self-evidence in the use of quotations—served, in effect, to discriminate among the various publics for such writing, where he avowedly aimed both to ‘stimulate the reflective’ and to ‘vex the thoughtless’.
Design Applications for Social Remembering
Authors: van den Hoven Elise , Broekhuijsen Mendel , Mols Ine
Published: January 2018

With the increasing availability of technology, the number of digital media people create, such as digital photos, has exploded. At the same time, the number of media they organize has decreased. Many personal media are created for mnemonic reasons, but are often not used as intended or desired. We see this as a design opportunity for supporting new experiences using personal digital media. Our people-centered design perspectives start in the real world, in people’s everyday lives, in which remembering is often a social and collaborative activity. This social activity involves multiple people in different situations, and includes digital media that can serve as memory cues. In this chapter, we present six concept designs for interactive products, specifically conceived to support everyday remembering activities that vary in their degree of socialness. From these concepts, five design characteristics emerge: social situation; type of event; social effect; media process; and media interaction.
Inference to the Best Explanation
Authors: Douven Igor
Published: January 2018

This chapter discusses how critics of Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) complain that the rule has never been properly articulated. Another common complaint is that whatever the precise formulation of the rule, we can do without it for it must be inferior to Bayes’ rule. It is here suggested that IBE is best thought of as a slogan that can be fleshed out in different ways, where different fleshings-out may have different merits and drawbacks, depending on the context of usage. Some reasons are given for believing that, in some contexts, versions of IBE outperform Bayes’ rule in all important respects.
Inference to the Best Explanation, Cleaned Up and Made Respectable
Authors: Schupbach Jonah N.
Published: January 2018

Despite decades of focused philosophical investigation, inference to the best explanation still lacks a precise articulation and compelling defense. The primary reason for this is that it is not at all clear what it means for a hypothesis to be the best available explanation of the evidence. This chapter first seeks to rectify this problem by developing a formal explication of the explanatory virtue of power. A resulting account of inference to the best explanation is then evaluated as a form of uncertain inference. Overall, the chapter offers a precise account and novel defense of one important version of inference to the best explanation.
Reasoning to the Best Explanation
Authors: Fumerton Richard
Published: January 2018

The primary purpose of this chapter is to explore the viability of reasoning to the best explanation as a fundamental source of epistemically rational beliefs and a potentially useful weapon for use in responding to the skeptic. After making some important distinctions among various forms of explanationism, I’ll reach a somewhat pessimistic conclusion about the prospects for explanationist epistemologies solving fundamental epistemological problems. Explanationist epistemologies don’t seem to be fundamental sources of epistemically rational beliefs. As a result, fundamental epistemological problems, such as the threat of skepticism, are not solved by appeals to reasoning to the best explanation. We must look elsewhere for philosophically satisfying responses to these problems.
Inference to the Best Explanation, Bayesianism, and Knowledge
Authors: Bird Alexander
Published: January 2018

How do we reconcile the claim of Bayesianism to be a correct normative theory of scientific reasoning with the explanationists’ claim that Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) provides a correct description of our inferential practices? This chapter articulates and defends a version of the heuristic defence of IBE. Three challenges remain that focus on the idea that IBE can lead to knowledge. Answering those challenges requires renouncing standard Bayesianism’s commitment to personalism, while also going beyond objective Bayesianism regarding the constraints on good priors. The result is a non-standard, super-objective Bayesianism that identifies probabilities with evaluations of plausibility in the light of the evidence.
Scepticism about Inference to the Best Explanation
Authors: Weintraub Ruth
Published: January 2018

Scepticism about inference to the best explanation is far less often discussed than scepticism about another ampliative form of inference, enumerative induction. Both of these inference forms are widely used, and scepticism about either can pose an important challenge. This chapter aims to redress the imbalance by giving scepticism about inference to the best explanation the attention it, too, deserves. The chapter’s conclusion is that inference to the best explanation, even to the observable, may be in a worse epistemic position than enumerative induction. The reason for this is that there are sceptical arguments that target inference to the best explanation which do not have inductive analogues, but the converse is not true.
External World Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation
Authors: Rinard Susanna
Published: January 2018

The chapter presents three problems for IBE responses to skepticism. First, that the external world skeptic should also be a skeptic about the past. IBE responses that appeal to features of our experiences over time—such as their continuity or regularity—will be dialectically ineffective against such a skeptic, since they suspend judgment on propositions about their past experiences. Second, the chapter raises doubts about the claim that postulating external, mind-independent physical objects is the best way to explain our experiences. It is suggested that an idealist alternative may constitute an even better explanation. Finally, the chapter outlines what is, in the author’s view, the central problem for IBE responses to skepticism by formulating a principle in the spirit of the principle of indifference, and using it to make a case for the claim that explanatory goodness is not a guide to the truth.