All Articles

Discovering Plum, Watermelon and Grape Cultivars Founded in a Middle Age Site of Sassari (Sardinia, Italy) through a Computer Image Analysis Approach

The discovery of several waterlogged plant remains in a Middle Ages context (1330-1360 AD) in Sassari (NS, Sardinia, Italy) enabled the characterisation of archaeological plum fruit stones and watermelon and grape seeds through computer image analysis. Digital seed/endocarp images were acquired by a...
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The discovery of several waterlogged plant remains in a Middle Ages context (1330-1360 AD) in Sassari (NS, Sardinia, Italy) enabled the characterisation of archaeological plum fruit stones and watermelon and grape seeds through computer image analysis. Digital seed/endocarp images were acquired by a flatbed scanner and processed and analysed by applying computerised image analysis techniques. The morphometric data were statistically elaborated using stepwise linear discriminant analysis (LDA), allowing comparisons among archaeological remains, wild populations and autochthonous cultivars. Archaeological samples of plum were compared with 21 autochthonous cultivars of Prunus domestica from Sardinia, while archaeological watermelon seeds were compared with 36 seed lots of Citrullus from Europe, Africa and Asia. Moreover, archaeological grape seeds were compared with 51 autochthonous traditional cultivars of Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera from Sardinia, 16 cultivars from Tuscany, six cultivars from Liguria, and eight cultivars from Catalonia (Spain). Archaeological plum remains showed morphological affinity with five cultivars of Sardinia. Seed features of the archaeological watermelon remains demonstrated affiliation with a proper sweet dessert watermelon, Citrullus lanatus, and similarity with some Sardinian cultivars. Regarding the archaeological remains of grape, morphometric comparisons showed a high similarity with autochthonous cultivars from Catalonia and Liguria. This study provides new information about ancient fruit cultivated and consumed during the Middle Ages in Sardinia.
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Legitimation Strategies to Enchant the New American “War On Terror”: Implications in Ben Affleck’s Testimony

This article accounts for the process of legitimization as a mere instrument of control in society where symbolic power is manifested. By conducting a critical discourse analysis in combination with frameworks for analyzing legitimating devices in discourse as developed by Theo van Leeuwen (2007) an...
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This article accounts for the process of legitimization as a mere instrument of control in society where symbolic power is manifested. By conducting a critical discourse analysis in combination with frameworks for analyzing legitimating devices in discourse as developed by Theo van Leeuwen (2007) and Antonio Reyes (2011), this study scrutinizes the legitimation strategies used in Ben Affleck’s speech before the American House Foreign Affairs Committee on Congo crisis (2011). The paper also investigates the linguistic devices leaned on by this social actor to advance particular political ends. The results from the qualitative analysis have shown that this activist establishes links with his audience outlining common values firmly grounded on US history, cultural tradition and political ideologies. His reasoning constructs specific understandings of US involvement in the new “war on terror” legitimized through (1) hypothetical future, (2) rationality, (3) voices of expertise and (4) altruism.
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Cultural Institutions as Formative Elements in the Work of Behrens, Utzon and Kahn

This paper is concerned with the role of human institutions as generators of architectural form, with reference to the writings and works of Peter Behrens, Jorn Utzon, and Louis Kahn. In contrast with the narrow functionalist approach promoted by some of their contemporaries, these architects regard...
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This paper is concerned with the role of human institutions as generators of architectural form, with reference to the writings and works of Peter Behrens, Jorn Utzon, and Louis Kahn. In contrast with the narrow functionalist approach promoted by some of their contemporaries, these architects regarded human institutions as living entities that ought to have a determinative influence on the design of the buildings constructed to house them. The paper considers these architects’ assumptions regarding the concept of ‘institution’ within a broad social and political context and offers some suggestions for a more systematic investigation in that respect.The paper begins with a brief outline of functionalist theory, then turns to the theatre as a primary cultural activity and the prominent place it held in Behrens’s thinking during the opening years of the 20th century. Affinities are explored between Behrens’s concept of the theatre and Utzon’s subsequent treatment of the theatre as a central civic institution in his design for the Sydney Opera House. A parallel is seen in Louis Kahn’s insistence that an architectural project should begin with a vision of the human institution which the project is to serve, a perception of their role that was present in utopian and radical schemes from the 19th century onwards. The concluding sections of the paper raise some questions about the doctrines of Behrens, Utzon, and (especially) Kahn, by considering how institutions are adapted to their socio-political settings and how they affect architectural outcomes in practice.
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PROFILE ECOCRITICISM AND ANCIENT ENVIRONMENTS

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Objects of Affection? Materialising Courtship, Love and Sex in Ireland, C.1800-1830

This article uses a collection of mementos curated by Robert James Tennent, a middle-class man to interrogate how objects materialised love and sex in Ireland. It problematises readings of courtship tokens as simple objects of affection, and considers how individuals engaged in culturally-sanctioned...
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This article uses a collection of mementos curated by Robert James Tennent, a middle-class man to interrogate how objects materialised love and sex in Ireland. It problematises readings of courtship tokens as simple objects of affection, and considers how individuals engaged in culturally-sanctioned courtship practices in extra-licit ways. Gifts and tokens took on new meanings when they were accessioned into the personal archives of their owners and catalogued as mementos of past relationships. Read as a collection of courtship mementos and a homemade pornographic archive, this article argues that the collection provides an unique insight into the curation of sexual memory.
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Sedge Foodplants Growing in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, and Cyperus Esculentus Tubers (Patrysuintjies) as a C4 Superfood

Since it was established that the early hominins of the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa ate 13C-enriched foods that may have included sedges with C4 photosynthetic pathways, much work has focused on the reconstruction of hominin dietary ecologies in both southern and eastern Africa. Through the ...
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Since it was established that the early hominins of the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa ate 13C-enriched foods that may have included sedges with C4 photosynthetic pathways, much work has focused on the reconstruction of hominin dietary ecologies in both southern and eastern Africa. Through the years emphasis was placed on Cyperus papyrus as a possible source, even inspiring an ‘aquatic diet’ hypothesis for all hominins. Baboon feeding habits and sedge regimes observed in South Africa’s ‘Lowveld’ have provided a proxy for the dietary ecology of the southern ‘Highveld’ hominins, and from the Cradle of Humankind sedges, amongst other plants, have been collected for nutritional studies. To date, however, there has been no attempt to compile an inventory of the sedge species currently growing in the demarcated area of the Cradle of Humankind. Here I list 29 Cyperaceae taxa currently recorded as growing in the Cradle of Humankind. I show that, contrary to previous inference, most of them have C4 photosynthetic pathways and do not need aquatic ecologies or permanent wetland settings. I discuss and provide photographic records for the six species identified as current baboon and human foodplants, and highlight Cyperus esculentus as a possible nutritious and prolific C4-sedge-USO food source for southern African hominins based on its energy, protein and fat/lipid profile.
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Emigration State: Race, Citizenship and Settler Imperialism in Modern British History, c. 1850–1972

What role did migration play in the making of modern Britain? We now have a good sense of how ethnicity, class, religion and gender structured immigrants' experience and what impact they had on Britain's culture, society and economy. But as Nancy Green pointed out almost two decades ago, scholars of...
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What role did migration play in the making of modern Britain? We now have a good sense of how ethnicity, class, religion and gender structured immigrants' experience and what impact they had on Britain's culture, society and economy. But as Nancy Green pointed out almost two decades ago, scholars of migration must focus on exit as well as entry. Such a call to study ‘the politics of exit’ is especially apposite in the case of the UK. For in every decade between 1850 and 1980 (with the exception of the 1930s), the UK experienced net emigration year on year. This article analyses this outflow of migrants to reveal a new vision of the UK as an ‘emigration state’. The article employs this concept to make a new argument about the formation of migration policy in the UK and offers a revised account of the geographical boundaries of the modern British state.
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Moving ‘out’ to be ‘in’: the suburbanization of London Jewry, 1900–1939

Abstract Between 1900 and 1939, Jewish Londoners departed the East End for the suburbs. Relocation, however, was not always the result of individual agency. Many Jews became the object of institutional strategies to coerce and persuade them to disperse away from inner-city areas. Simultaneous to thi...
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Abstract Between 1900 and 1939, Jewish Londoners departed the East End for the suburbs. Relocation, however, was not always the result of individual agency. Many Jews became the object of institutional strategies to coerce and persuade them to disperse away from inner-city areas. Simultaneous to this was the emergence of a dominant pro-suburban rhetoric within and beyond Jewish cultural circles, which aimed to raise aspirations towards middle-class lifestyles. This striking suburban ‘urge’ amongst London Jewry, managed by the community's elite institutions and leaders, was far more than a phenomenon running parallel to wider British society. As this article argues, it was a decisive response to an insidious culture of intolerance and antisemitism.
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The Imperial Afterlife of Warren Hastings, 1818–1947

This article examines the ‘afterlife’ or posthumous reputation of Warren Hastings, one of the most important and controversial figures in the foundation of British India. Exploring a wide range of sources, it argues that Hastings was a symbolic figure through which generations of imperial commen...
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This article examines the ‘afterlife’ or posthumous reputation of Warren Hastings, one of the most important and controversial figures in the foundation of British India. Exploring a wide range of sources, it argues that Hastings was a symbolic figure through which generations of imperial commentators vented the political and moral concerns of their own day. Accordingly, it uses his afterlife as a key indicator of the rise and fall of imperial sentiment and confidence in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Britain. Hastings’s afterlife can be divided into three distinct phases. In the first, between 1818 and 1890, the image of Hastings as a flawed hero – an empire-builder who committed crimes – was propelled into popular memory. In the second, between 1890 and 1915, Hastings was transformed into an untouchable imperial icon. Driven by contemporary concerns, a group of ex-Indian officials attempted to vindicate Hastings’s actions and exculpate his ‘crimes’. The third section explores the apotheosis of Hastings’s reputation amidst the growing uncertainty over the future of British India between 1915 and 1947. Following the elevation of a deeply controversial figure into an imperial hero, this article explores the methods and motivations behind the propagation of heroic reputations, demonstrating that our understanding of imperial figures has been mediated through the vagaries of contemporary politics.
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A God Who Can Laugh: Aspects of Hinduism in the Works of E.M Forster and Edward Thompson

The article explores aspects of Hinduism in some writings by British writers E.M.Forster and Edward Thompson in the early twentieth century, and tries to read nuance into the Orientalist project of mapping India. Unlike some writers like Kipling who wrote in the period of high imperialism and create...
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The article explores aspects of Hinduism in some writings by British writers E.M.Forster and Edward Thompson in the early twentieth century, and tries to read nuance into the Orientalist project of mapping India. Unlike some writers like Kipling who wrote in the period of high imperialism and created colonial and racial stereotypes, Forster and Thompson seem to be aware of the complexities of Hinduism, of a God who can laugh and play. This article discusses Forster and Thompson’s understanding of and views on Hinduism.
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