Introduction

Author(s):  
Umberto Albarella ◽  
Keith Dobney

In terms of human–animal relationships, pigs are perhaps one of the most iconic but also paradoxical domestic animals. On the one hand, they are praised for their fecundity, their intelligence, and their ability to eat almost anything, but on the other hand, they are unfairly derided for their apparent slovenliness, unclean ways, and gluttonous behaviour. In complete contrast, their ancestor (the wild boar) is perceived as a noble beast of the forest whose courage and ferocity has been famed and feared throughout human history. The relationship of wild boar and pig with humans has been a long and varied one. Archaeological evidence clearly shows that wild boar were important prey animals for early hunter-gatherers across wide areas of Eurasia for millennia. During the early Holocene, however, this simple predator–prey relation evolved into something much more complex as wild boar, along with several other mammal species, became key players in one of the most dramatic episodes in human history: the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture, involving the domestication of plants and animals. From that moment, wild boar turned into pigs and became much more than mere components of human subsistence strategies. They were key entities in the complex cultural development of some human societies around the world and played an important role in the history of human dispersal. Interestingly, the consumption of pork also became (and still remains) perhaps the most celebrated, and widespread, case of dietary proscription. In terms of their relationships with humans, pigs are victims of their own success. Even more than wolves, they are highly adaptable and generalized omnivores, which means that they have a range of possible relationships with humans that is perhaps wider and more complex than for most other animal species. In fact, the biology and behaviour of pigs present a number of special challenges to their study, in addition to offering opportunities to further understand aspects of human history. The concept of this book grew out of an international workshop, entitled ‘Pigs and Humans’, held over the weekend of 26–28 September 2003, at Walworth Castle, County Durham, UK.

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tautvydas Vėželis

This article examines the problem of overcoming nihilism in Heidegger’s dialogue with Jünger. It is suggested that nihilism is manifested in various forms and is the deep logic of the whole history of European civilization. One of the main aims of this paper is to outline the relationship of nihilism and Nothing in Heidegger’s dispute with Jünger, viewing how Heidegger distinguishes his approach from Jünger’s point of view. Heidegger, on the one hand, treats nihilism as consummation of the Western metaphysical tradition, on the other hand, identifies Nothing itself as the shadow of Being, which cannot be overcome in the traditional dialectical thinking manner.


1949 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. E. Seiler

The results of a field survey of herpes zoster over a period of 18 months are described and the difficulties of such a survey mentioned.A total of 246 patients with herpes zoster, only 16% of whom had attended hospital, is reported. It is calculated that the yearly incidence in the population was approximately 2 per 1000.Full investigation and ‘follow up’ was undertaken in 184 cases. These are classified according to the site of the zoster—the dorsal, supra-orbital and cervical regions being affected in almost 90%, the dorsal region alone accounting for 53·3%.Herpes generalisatus occurred in 7, or 38%, of the cases, recurrent herpes zoster in 6, or 3·3%, while there was one case of motor paralysis affecting lower limb.The majority of patients were apparently well at the onset of the zoster, but 27 had some associated disease; 5 gave a history of trauma prior to the onset and 2 were related to pregnancy.The seasonal and geographical distribution is given and, while the numbers are too small for statistical analysis, the disease in 1947 showed two peaks of higher incidence, the one in May and the other in October. Crowding or density of population did not appear to be important, and the disease occurred sporadically rather than in epidemic form.There was a higher proportion of female cases, but when related to the population as a whole no sex differentiation was observed. Of the patients 60% were over 45 years of age.There was no evidence that housing conditions or occupation were of aetiological significance or that the disease was more common among any particular section of the community.Eleven patients had been associated with other cases of herpes zoster before developing the disease, while 3 gave a suggestive history of prior contact with chickenpox.A condition indistinguishable from chickenpox occurred among the contacts of 10 patients, 12 individuals being affected, and there was one instance of concurrent herpes zoster and chickenpox. Other infections such as mumps, measles and rubella, while as common in association with the onset of herpes zoster, were not so frequently found as the chickenpox condition amongst contacts of the disease.The results of the survey as regards the relationship of chickenpox and herpes zoster are discussed. It is considered that the evidence does not favour a significant association with chickenpox prior to the onset of herpes zoster, but that the facts are consistent with the view that a condition indistinguishable from chickenpox may follow contact with herpes zoster. It is suggested, however, that this may be a generalized manifestation of the virus of zoster rather than true chickenpox.


Author(s):  
Mischa Honeck

Waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates rarely got a chance to relive the lighter days of his youth. One such moment came on July 28, 2010—a day of celebration at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. The year marked the one-hundredth birthday of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), and Gates’s keynote address set the tone for a big patriotic show featuring flags, paratroopers, antiaircraft cannons firing blank shots, and a flyover of F-16 jets. Despite the jubilant occasion, the Pentagon chief had not come to spin campfire yarn. Amid the cheers of almost fifty thousand Scouts gathered at the army installation, Gates, an Eagle Scout from 1958, reaffirmed the movement’s intergenerational contract that promised a relationship of mutual allegiance between boys and men. “I believe that today, as for the past 100 years, there is no finer program for preparing American boys for citizenship and leadership than the Boy Scouts of America.” Reciting the themes of crisis, anxiety, and salvation that supporters of the nation’s foremost youth organization had evoked since its founding, Gates extolled scouting as the best remedy for an America “where the young are increasingly physically unfit and society as a whole languishes in ignoble moral ease.” While many youths had degenerated into “couch potatoes,” the BSA continued to make men and leaders, men of “integrity and decency … ​moral courage” and “strong character—the kind of person who built this country and made it into the greatest democracy and the greatest economic powerhouse in the history of the world.” More was at stake than the fate of the nation. “The future of the world itself,” said Gates, depended on the “kind of citizens our young people” would become. Only with the ...


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 216-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Lee

Purpose – The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that civilization, is superior to the state of humanity during its long history of hunting and gathering. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a series of recent studies that assert a baseline of primordial violence by hunters and gatherers. In challenging this position the author draws on four decades of ethnographic and historical research on hunting and gathering peoples. Design/methodology/approach – At the empirical heart of this question is the evidence pro- and con- for high rates of violent death in pre-farming human populations. The author evaluates the ethnographic and historical evidence for warfare in recorded hunting and gathering societies, and the archaeological evidence for warfare in pre-history prior to the advent of agriculture. Findings – The view of Steven Pinker and others of high rates of lethal violence in hunters and gatherers is not sustained. In contrast to early farmers, their foraging precursors lived more lightly on the land and had other ways of resolving conflict. With little or no fixed property they could easily disperse to diffuse conflict. The evidence points to markedly lower levels of violence for foragers compared to post-Neolithic societies. Research limitations/implications – This conclusion raises serious caveats about the grand evolutionary theory asserted by Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham and others. Instead of being “killer apes” in the Pleistocene and Holocene, the evidence indicates that early humans lived as relatively peaceful hunter-gathers for some 7,000 generations, from the emergence of Homo sapiens up until the invention of agriculture. Therefore there is a major gap between the purported violence of the chimp-like ancestors and the documented violence of post-Neolithic humanity. Originality/value – This is a critical analysis of published claims by authors who contend that ancient and recent hunter-gatherers typically committed high levels of violent acts. It reveals a number of serious flaws in their arguments and use of data.


1966 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. R. Allchin

To the outside observer the history of Hindu sectarianism often appears as a disorganized tangle, lacking clarity and precision. The whole process is made if anything more complex by the ill-defined relationship of sect and non-sect. As Renou remarks: Though no statistics are available, even for the present day, we have grounds for supposing that the most active sects were themselves only isolated groups within the great body of believers. From another point of view, however, the history is more understandable. A considerable part of sectarian activity during the past 1,500 years has been concerned with the spread and regional development of a single great devotional movement. Seen from this position, the uniformity and theological coherence of the sects, whether they be called Vaiṣṇavite, Śaivite, or by some other name, is remarkable and often overrides the no less real disparities of doctrine or detail at another level. Again, in this process regional variations have arisen in no small measure as a result of the popular character of the writings of particular saints. Thus, for example, Basava or Purandara Dāsa hold pride of place in the Karnāṭka, the one Vīra Śaiva, the other Vaiṣṇava; in Mahārāṣṇra devotion has in no small part been moulded by the thought of Jāân Dev or Tukā Rām; in the Pañjāb by Nānak; and in the Hindī region by Kabīr Dās, Tulsī Dās, and Sūr Dās. Throughout north India the influences which lay behind the movement were largely, but by no means exclusively, Vaiṣṇavite; yet other streams contributed, Śaivite, Buddhist, Tāntrika, Yogī, etc.


In the same way that it is possible to understand warfare as organized violence with political ends, it is also useful to think of it as a particular condition of a society: a set of radically transforming experiences of individuals and communities; an unpredictable and chaotic process that defines identities and produces new forms of common life; and the creative space of a particular culture marked by different types of relationships between the members of a community. As can be seen from several historiographical traditions, there is a direct relationship between warfare and the process of state building: the state makes war and war makes the state. The regime established in America from the end of the 15th century to the 19th century can be explained by this relationship between institutional construction and the practice of violence. Like any empire of its time, the Spanish monarchy founded its authority, part of its legitimacy, its fiscal and administrative organization, its bureaucracy, its control systems, and its trade opportunities on the ground of warfare, and with these characteristics informed the slow and problematic processes of conquest, colonization, and subjection of the New World. Approaching Spanish America through both warfare and the military offers two major advantages: on the one hand, learning the history of its institutional, social, political, economic, and cultural development, and on the other, identifying the prolific historiography that has studied it. This bibliographical selection expresses both fields: the history of warfare in Spanish America and its changing historiography. The characteristics, pretensions, contradictions, and flaws of the Spanish institutional framework that for three centuries expanded from the Caribbean and came to dominate immense regions of North, Central, and South America until it entered into crisis and collapsed, leading to the emergence of national states, can be understood from its capacity to mobilize economic and human resources for warfare. Likewise, these very diverse armed forces involved in such processes were historical expressions of the societies that produced them. The studies in this bibliography express the historical complexity of Spanish America from the perspective of organization and experience of warfare. Although the sections are thematic, as far as possible the selection seeks to include in each case the broad spectrum of the three centuries of colonial domination; the sections referring to War Experiences do evolve with a more chronological criterion from conquests to independences and the emergence of national states.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-210
Author(s):  
Halina Walentowicz ◽  

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a special personage in the history of Enlightenment philosophy and European thought in general. This is so, because, on the one hand, he propounded ideas that were typical for the Enlightenment and greatly influenced his contemporaries—after all, it was he who inspired Kant with the idea of the autonomy of the will as a source of moral and juridical law, a conception which became the foundation of Kantian practical philosophy—but on the other criticised many popular ideas of his day, which from our contemporary perspective appear to have been the superstitions of the Enlightenment period. Rousseau rejected the uncritical apology of (universalistically understood) reason together with the “ethical universalism” professed by rationalists since Socrates. In his claim that human history ran in a circle (from nature in its primeval purity to nature as the expression of civilisational decay), he contested the Enlightenment’s widespread belief that it was a linear, continuous, cumulative and by nature unchangeably progressive process. Because of his transgression of the Enlightenment paradigm, Rousseau is sometimes considered to have been the first modern philosopher. And, in my opinion, rightly so, because his thought stood ahead of its time, and in many ways anticipated contemporary philosophy. I believe that especially the Frankfurt School owes a lot to his achievements. Rousseau’s thought already carried the main seeds of critical theory: the intertwinement of progress and regression over human history, emphasis on the mastering of nature and the destruction of the human element in the course of civilisational evolution, a social-historical (and not purely theoretical, as in Kant’s case) critique of reason for the sake of reason and not from the position of irrationality. Long before Max Horkheimer and his associates at the Institute of Social Research, and even ahead of Sigmund Freud, he saw reasons to ambivalently evaluate the results of human self-creation and to highlight the regressive tendencies present in human history.


Ars Adriatica ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 253
Author(s):  
Nataša Lah

Taking into account the fact that, throughout history, certain artworks have been considered as “worth of watching” (according to the Greek etymon ἀξιοϑέατος / aksioteatos), preservation, or theorizing, while others were not, one is led to investigate the various types of evaluative descriptions. Those artworks that are more valuable than others, or simply valuable in themselves on the basis of rather specific features, have always represented the paradigmatic model for the evaluator, thus revealing the identitary nature of value as different from one epoch to another. Our aim has been to discern, with regard to this starting point, the way in which the process of evaluating artworks fits the general matrix of the universal theory of value, with its clearly distinguished levels of evaluation, beginning with value descriptions, continuing through the features of evaluation or abstract qualities of values extracted from these descriptions, and ending with value norms or systems of accepted generalizations in evaluation. Value standpoints in such an evaluation matrix represent dispositions or preferences in procedures, which reflect the norms or signifying concepts of the time. Corresponding procedures, or applications of the hierarchicized signification of artworks, are manifested in all known forms of artwork assessment: attribution, institutionalization, and setting of priorities in terms of exhibition, conservation, acquisition, restoration, and so on. Research in the history of European art-historical ideas has corroborated the hypothesis that, prior to the late 18th century, clear normative patterns were applied when it came to the evaluation of artworks. However, with the emergence of early Romanticism, this could no longer be done in the traditional way. Before the period in question, visual art was created (regardless of some stylistic discrepancies between individual authors) and classified according to well-defined thematic areas and functions. Such qualifications made it possible to distinguish clearly between major stylistic periods, creating the impression of development regardless of the later evaluative classifications of individual cycles in historical production thus understood. A comparison between the axiological matrix and the features of individual historical periods has revealed, on the one hand, a stable relationship between the functionally nomological features of artistic productions and the cultural instrumentalizations of art, and on the other a stable relationship between the overtly semantic conceptualizations in the epoch of modernism and the ostensibly structural mode of artistic expression. In the postmodern period, all that was once understood as the stylistic language of form, or the autonomy of the artefact, has been transformed in the evasive media multiplication of the postindustrial epoch into a whole series of reproductive languages, replicas, transfers, copies, or simulacra, and forced into a relationship of permanent detachment with regard to the “original” (source). Thus, instead of an artwork in context, the context itself is now presented as an artwork, structured all over again according to some of the possible principles in the theoretical choice of interpretation. The impossibility of defining precisely the boundaries of the medium, and its increasing dematerialization, have made it more difficult to apply universal evaluative criteria to a particular artwork, which has led to a conflict between cultural evaluation and the subjection of experience to the semantic functions of evaluations. Nevertheless, recent research on perception in the field of neuroscience has indicated that the sensory perception of the external world and the assignation of meaning to those perceptions indeed happen simultaneously, and that these processes cannot take place separated from one another. The conclusion shows that the modern evaluation conflicts are largely a consequence of an irreversible and entropic state of culture in the 21st century. We should therefore aim at a revision, not so much of the hitherto accepted and standardized values, but rather of the present systems of evaluation and the ensuing evaluative descriptions of art.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (42) ◽  
pp. 182-202
Author(s):  
Mai Faraj Tawfique ◽  

En vue de résumé, et en suivant les propos de Robbe-Grillet, nous dirons que le concept du Nouveau Roman ne constitue pas une Théorie, ni une école, ni même un groupe d'écrivains optant pour la même démarche. Il n'y a là qu'une appellation commode englobant tous ceux qui cherchent de nouvelles formes romanesques, capables d'exprimer ou de créer de nouvelles relations entre l'homme et le monde, tous ceux qui ont décidés à inventer le romen. C'est à-dire à inventer- l'homme comme le croit Alain. Robbe- Grillet. Modern French novel has gained a distinctive status in the history of French literature during the first half of the twentieth century. This is due to many factors including the new literary descriptive objective style adopted by novelists like Alain Robbe – Grillet that has long been regarded as the outstanding writer of the nouveau roman, as well as its major spokesman, a representative writer and a leading theoretician of the new novel that has broken the classical rules of the one hero and evolved, through questioning the relationship of man and the world and reevaluating the limits of contemporary fiction , into creating a new form of narrative.


Author(s):  
Leonor Cabral Matos Silva

Team 10 and Lisbon share a piece of history: namely, a few elements of Team 10, such as Alison and Peter Smithson, Amâncio Miranda Guedes, Giancarlo de Carlo and Jullian de la Fuente, and the Lisbon School of Architecture (or the “Lisbon School”). This text is about the specifics of this conjunction. This paper explores the short but necessary question of whether there was a last formal Team 10 meeting in Lisbon in 1981, and from that point on, it goes back to present: (1) a disclosure of the history of the word ‘revision’ within the teaching of architecture in the school, one which portraits the coming of the Team 10 elements just mentioned; it then (2) outlines the relationship of Team 10 elements with the Lisbon School, namely highlighting, on the one side, the school’s official attitude of support, and on the other side, the pedagogical grounds’ relative disinterest; and finally (3), the text suggests there is no clear answer to the question of whether there had been a formal Team 10 final meeting in Lisbon in 1981. Therefore, in conclusion, it delivers an argument about Lisbon being more than an informal gathering derived from a reunion intention; it considers this a happening that might just now emerge from the unspoken history of architecture as nothing more than a delicate moment, although it was Team 10’s last significant moment.


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