The Interdisciplinary Nature-Induced Disaster Index: Eldgjá, Laki, and How to Evaluate Historical Sources in an Interdisciplinary Framework

The integration of archives of society with archives of nature has helped scholars to date extreme events precisely. This approach has led to collaboration between the natural sciences and the humanities. While it has helped to highlight the dimensions of nature-induced disasters and their societal consequences, it has often led to rather monocausal explanations, promoting nature as the prime agent in history. The field is currently experiencing a shift away from monocausal explanations. Cultural factors need to be examined as well in order to analyze their contribution to disasters properly. To aid in this endeavor, we introduce the “Interdisciplinary Nature-Induced Disaster index” (INID-index), a tool to successfully integrate historical material into research on natural extreme events and their impacts on past societies. Eldgjá (ca. 934–940 CE) and Laki (1783–1784 CE)—the two major Icelandic eruptions of the Common Era—will be used as case studies to demonstrate the benefits of the index. A third contrasting study on a volcanic event in around 913 CE highlights the desiderata that the index can indicate, and its limitations. We consider this paper an offer to make transparent the questions that historians ask themselves and an example of a way to increase understanding across disciplinary cultures.

Baldat Ulit: el origen de Valladolid a través de su topónimo

The toponym Valladolid has been subject of debate and controversy from the 19th century to the present due to the difficulty of unraveling its origin and meaning. The reasons for rejecting the viability of the two most consolidated hypotheses, one of Arab derivation, Balad Walīd, and another with Latin and Celtic elements, Vallis Tolitum, are explained, and Baldat Ulit is presented as the alternative according to the oldest preserved documentation, the rules of phonetic evolution in the Ibero-Romance languages, ​​and the historical, material and cultural context of the Valladolid, both its area and town, during the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th centuries. El topónimo Valladolid ha sido objeto de cierto debate y controversia desde el siglo XIX hasta la actualidad debido a la dificultad de desentrañar su origen y significado. Se exponen los motivos para rechazar la viabilidad de las dos hipótesis más consolidadas, una de fundamentación árabe, Balad Walīd, y otra con elementos latinos y célticos, Vallis Tolitum, y se presenta Baldat Ulit como la alternativa basándose en la documentación más antigua conservada, en las normas de la evolución fonética en las lenguas iberorromances y en el contexto histórico, material y cultural de Valladolid, tanto su zona como el núcleo de población, durante los siglos VIII, IX, X y XI.

Gender and Pan-Species Democracy in the Anthropocene

There are diverse historical trajectories in human societies’ relationships with the non-human world. While many small place-based groups have tried to retain egalitarian partnerships with other species and ecosystems, larger societies have made major transitions. In religious terms, they have moved from worshipping female, male or androgynous non-human deities, to valorising pantheons of deities that, over time, became semi-human and then human in form. Reflecting Durkheimian changes in social and political arrangements, movements towards patriarchy led to declining importance in female deities, and the eventual primacy of single male Gods. With these changes came dualistic beliefs separating Culture from Nature, gendering these as male and female, and asserting male dominion over both Nature and women. These beliefs supported activities that have led to the current environmental crisis: unrestrained growth; hegemonic expansion; colonialism, and unsustainable exploitation of the non-human world. These are essentially issues of inequality: between genders, between human groups, and between human societies and other living kinds. This paper draws on a series of ethnographic research projects (since 1992) exploring human-environmental relationships, primarily in Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, and on a larger comparative study, over many years, of a range of ethnographic, archaeological, theological, and historical material from around the world. It considers contemporary debates challenging Nature-Culture dualism and promoting ‘rights for Nature’ or—rejecting anthropocentricity to recognize an indivisible world—for the non-human communities with whom we co-inhabit ecosystems. Proposing new ways to configure ethical debates, it suggests that non-human rights are, like women’s rights, fundamentally concerned with power relations, social status, and access to material resources, to the extent that the achievement of ‘pan-species democracy’ and greater equality between living kinds goes hand-in-hand with social, political and religious equality between genders.

Is there a demand for “suggestion” and “counter-suggestion” concepts in modern social science?

Рассматриваются некоторые идеи Б.Ф. Поршнева, изложенные в его статье 50-летней давности «Контрсуггестия и история», характеризуется их место в истории идей от-носительно динамики социальных изменений, анализируемой, в частности, в трудах отечественных ученых прошлого. Обосновывается настоятельность введения в глоссарий современных социальных наук концепта «суггестия» и понятия «контрсуггестия», показана их релевантность на широком историческом материале и полях взаимодействия социальных субъектов. Отмечено, что суггестия и противостоящая ей контрсуггестия пронизывают массовые настроения и влияют на все общественные отношения, особенно в кризисные моменты. Обращается внимание на феномен инфодемии, усугубляющей, по заключению Всемирной организации здравоохранения, проявления пандемии коронавируса, а также на его корреляцию с суггестией. The article considers a number of ideas by B.F. Porshnev set forth 50 years ago in his article "Counter-suggestion and History", as well as its role in the history of ideas, especially in connection to the dynamics of social changes analyzed, in particular, in the works by Russian historians. The urgency of introducing the concept of "Suggestion" and the notion of "Сounter- Suggestion" into the glossary of modern social sciences is justified, as well as their relevance is shown in a wide range of historical material and fields of interaction of social subjects. It is noted that Suggestion and opposing Сounter-Suggestion permeate mass moods and affect all social relations, especially in crisis moments. Attention is drawn to the phenomenon of infodemia, which, according to the World Health Organization, exacerbates the manifestations of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as its correlation with suggestion.

"Friend / Foe" - intergenerational relationships between Russian historians of the first quarter of the XX century.

The article is devoted to the analysis of intergenerational relations of historians of the late XIX early XX century and young historians, students of the Institute of Red Professors. On the example of the text of the review by A.A. Kizevetter for a collection of works by young historians edited by M.N. Pokrovsky highlighted the key problems through which the conflict of generations of historians is revealed within the scientific community of the first quarter of the twentieth century. The first problem is that A.A. Kiesewetter, like other historians of the older generation, assessed the young generation of historians through the prism of a personal attitude towards M.N. Pokrovsky, hence the negative attitude towards the works of historians. The second problem is the disagreement with young researchers in assessing the activities of historians of the senior school. The third is the inaccuracy in the interpretation of historical sources and, most importantly, the categorical nature of young historians. According to A.A. Kiesewetter, young researchers lacked the critical thinking necessary when working with historical material. Pre-revolutionary historiography was rejected as obsolete. The situation of the socio-cultural crisis and the revolution of 1917 created the basis for the formation of a generational conflict. The pre-revolutionary system of evolutionary development and conflict-free transfer of experience was destroyed, and as a result, dialogue between generations did not work out. Each of the generations tried to prove its own significance in scientific activity.

Archaeology, Greco-Roman

Greco-Roman archaeology is an indispensable source of scholarship for biblical scholars. Those who work in a largely textual discipline benefit from conversation with archaeologists to situate literary data within its historical material contexts. Greco-Roman archaeology can also provide insight into the economic, social, political, and religious lives of persons in the ancient world, including marginalized persons whose lives are often obscured by elite literary material. Lastly, Greco-Roman archaeology and biblical studies have intertwined histories and entanglements with colonialism, and comparative work helps to uncover those legacies, especially where they are still operative in the present. While biblical scholars might long for evidence that directly connects to specific individuals in the earliest Christ communities (and thus to the texts of the New Testament), archaeological evidence most often provides evidence for context and not positivist truth claims. Biblical scholars looking, for example, for a particular building where Paul might have slept or where the first Christ communities may have met will be disappointed by the archaeological evidence. Though this evidence is rich and diverse and specific, it does not tell us about the particular individuals biblical scholars so often seek. In other words, the questions biblical scholars ask of Greco-Roman archaeology are often unanswerable. A better use of Greco-Roman archaeology is to guide biblical scholars in asking better questions and learning about the social, economic, and material context from which texts and communities emerge.

Ukrainian Naval history as a component of the maritime code of the nation

This study is based on the information from different textbooks and manuals on the Naval and Navigation History. The Ukrainian publications on the history of navigation and naval history of Ukraine intended for teaching this subject in higher educational institutions are considered. The primary purposes of this study are: firstly, the emphasis is on the argumentation and reliability of historical constructions depending on the maritime professionalism of the researcher; secondly, the visualisation of historical material is presented clearly in the form of both photographs and relevant informative tables, which facilitate the perception of information, and in some cases replace a large number of narrative texts; thirdly, the author’s version of the structuring of the naval history of Ukraine was developed in tabular form. The study uses the statistical, chronological, and comparative approaches. As results, several tables and visual information were compiled, which could replace descriptive verbal historical texts. The connection between the national history of navigation and the Maritime Code of the Nation is established. The conclusion on the security of the state from the maritime threats was made due to the motivation of its defenders due to the professional study of the naval history of Ukraine.

Reading runes with the sun. A geosemiotic analysis of the Rök runestone

In the field of runestone research, the importance of multimodal understanding has been downplayed although it is obvious that several semiotic resources interact when it comes to carving a stone and erecting it in the landscape. This study examines if it is possible to deal with the methodological challenges of a historical material and make a multimodal approach deepen our understanding of the Rök runestone, one of the most famous and enigmatic Viking Age runestones. The study applies Scollon and Scollon’s geosemiotic framework (2003). Through an investigation of how the visual semiotics interacts with place semiotics and interaction order, it turns out that the marked reading direction of the lines of the inscription symbolizes the movement of the sun, and that the change of font size in two lines probably mimics the change of solar brightness at sunrise and sunset. Further, it is suggested that the big crosses of cipher runes and the small crosses between some information units may represent the sun and stars, respectively. The conclusion is that the monument was risen for the enactment of a counsel of the gods with the aim of securing the rhythm of celestial light. Finally, implications for multimodal research are discussed.

Agapius of Manbiǧ, Qusṭā ibn Lūqā and the Graeco-Roman Past

This article looks at the routes by which knowledge of the Greco-Roman past was transmitted from late antiquity by Christian communities living under Muslim rule. The process involved translation from Greek to Syriac and from Greek and Syriac to Arabic. Once in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Abbasid Middle East, this historical material could be used by Muslim scholars to work into their histories of the pre-Islamic Middle East. This article also shows that historical texts could easily cross interconfessional lines and that their transmission, although handled very differently to scientific texts, was still part of the broader transfer of late antique culture to the Islamic Empire that is commonly referred to as the Graeco-Arabic translation movement.

Development of Physics Comic 'History of Physics Series: The Development of Atom'

The quality of education can be improved by developing learning methods, curriculum development, and learning media development. One of them is learning media in the form of comics. This research aims to develop physics comics and analyze the validity of learning media of physics comics on the historical material of atomic development. The research was conducted using the R&D research model (Research and Development) with the 4-D model (Define-Design-Develop-Disseminate). Based on the stages, obtained learning media products that were declared eligible after validation by two high school physics teachers and an expert lecturer gained the average validity in the media component of 90.0%, the display of 89.2%, the material by 90.7%, and the language by 95.4%. In general, the student's responses to the use of physical comic learning media include comic physics can increase motivation in learning (88.6%), students prefer that physics learning uses comic media (88.9%), through comic media, students are introduced to atomic inventors (88.9%), and physics comics can help to understand the historical material of atomic development (83.3%). Based on the study results, learning media of physics comics on the historical material of atomic development deserves to be used in physics. The implication of this study can help other researchers as a reference related to the development of comic physics learning media.