Of stumps and stipes: comparisons between the cultures and identities of Yorkshire cricket and mycology at the turn of the twentieth century

Mycology, the study of fungi, is a relatively young and underexplored discipline with a strong culture of field collection and study. The Yorkshire Mycological Committee (YMC) of the Yorkshire Naturalist's Union, formed in 1892, became the first permanent mycological organization within Great Britain. Well renowned and highly competent, the members of the YMC espoused a distinctive philosophy and practice of science that led them into a drawn-out conflict with the newly established British Mycological Society that continues to impact the practice of British field mycology today. This paper explores the philosophy, practice, and hierarchy of the Yorkshire mycologists and fungal collectors through the lens of their regional identity. To do so, it examines similarities and differences between the Yorkshire expressions of mycology and cricket around the turn of the twentieth century, with the latter already well established as a major vehicle for expressions of the region's identity. It argues that both activities stem from a distinct Yorkshire identity and culture that both superseded and intersected with other factors such as class and authority. In doing so, it highlights the importance of provincial identities and scientific movements in informing and influencing wider disciplinary philosophies and practices.

Failed Legacies of Colonial Linguistics: Lessons from Tamil Books in French India and French Guiana

The archives of French India and French Guiana, two colonies that were failing by the mid-nineteenth century, elucidate the legacy of colonial linguistics by drawing attention to the ideological and technological natures of colonial printing and the far-reaching and longstanding consequences of the European objectification of Indian vernaculars. Torn between religious, commercial, and imperialist agendas, the French in India both promoted Catholicism and advanced the scientific study of Tamil, the majority language spoken in the colonial headquarters of Pondicherry. There, a little known press operated by the Paris Foreign Missions shipped seventy-one dictionaries, grammars, and theological works printed in Tamil and French to Catholic schools undergoing secularization in French Guiana, a colony with several thousand Tamil indentured laborers. I analyze the books’ lexical, orthographic, and typographical forms, metalinguistic commentaries, publicity tactics, citational practices, and circulation histories by drawing on seldom-discussed materials from the Archives nationales d'outre-mer in Aix-en-Provence, France. I propose a theoretical framework to investigate how technology intersects with the historical relationship between language and colonialism, and argue that printing rivalries contributed to Orientalist knowledge production by institutionalizing semiotic and language ideologies about the nature of “perfectible” and “erroneous” signs. My comparative approach highlights the interdiscursive features of different genres and historical periods of Tamil documentation, and underscores how texts that emerged out of disparate religious and scientific movements questioned the veracity of knowledge and fidelity of sources. Such metalinguistic labor exposed the evolving stances of French Indologists toward Dravidian and Indo-Aryan linguistics and promoted religious and secular interests in educational and immigration policies.

Disenchantment or Conflict? Egil Asprem and ‘Science and Religion’ Discourses

In his The Problem of Disenchantment, Egil Asprem offers an interesting view of discourses on science and religion. Despite the dominance of ‘conflicts’ in public perception, the ‘independence’ approach might be more deeply rooted in modern culture. Asprem studies ‘scientific’ movements that oppose disenchantment. In this paper i raise the question of why quantum physics was successful, whereas other revisions of ‘science’ were not. Of the natural theologies discussed, this paper offers some comments on ‘emergence’ and on ‘quantum mysticism’. Asprem presents himself as a methodological naturalist; a position that is in principle open to the study of parapsychology and other ‘spiritual’ claims. He considers theism to be incompatible with such a methodological naturalism, whereas I suggest that an epistemically agnostic theism is also appropriate, combining methodological naturalism and disenchantment.

Down from the Pedestal! —A Chronological Look at the Philosophy of SLA

<p><em>Second language acquisition (SLA) is viewed as the appropriation of several voices reflecting different perspectives. To make a major shift in our understanding of what the domain of SLA should be and what kind of theory should be developed entails thorough understanding of what happens in the history of SLA and relinquishing our absolute trust in the epistemology of a given school of thought. The purpose of present paper is to have a chronological review of the three main schools of scientific movements in SLA in harmony with their related philosophy.</em></p><p><em><strong> </strong></em></p> <p> </p> <p> </p>

Skinner's Radicale Behaviorisme en het Connectionisme Een vergelijking

In the literature, it has been stated several times that there is a relation between the radical behaviorism of Skinner and connectionism; specifically, a lot of similarities are mentioned. This paper summarizes the findings of an extensive research project examining this relation. Apart from similarities in the field of the learning of verbal behavior, some important differences in this field are addressed as well. Furthermore, it is argued that the comparison in this field should be considered within a broader perspective of general similarities and differences. Behaviorism and connectionism differ profoundly in the basic principles that are adopted: what are real entities, and what can be subject of research? These differences are crucial and make these two scientific movements incompatible.

Russian Ethnographers in the Service of Empire, 1856-1862

Several young Russian and Ukrainian writers responded to the era of Great Reforms by taking up a new enterprise: literary ethnography. Their ethnographic expeditions and reports of 1856 to 1862 manifested new political, cultural and social scientific movements within the empire. They not only investigated obstacles to forging a diverse, multinational population into a common empire, they also called the attention of educated Russians and the Russian state to cultural legacies of the countryside. Some were deemed worthy of preservation; others seemed inconsistent with modern ways. They sought a new socio-political path for the public. In these ways they began to link the various peoples in the empire, the imperial state and educated Russia at a time of social and political disclocation.