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Modern Ideas (modern + idea)
Selected AbstractsInvestigation of coupling between surface processes and induced flow in the lower continental crust as a cause of intraplate seismicityEARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, Issue 12 2006Rob Westaway Abstract Many studies have highlighted the role of coupling between surface processes and flow in the lower continental crust in deforming the crust and creating topographic relief over Quaternary timescales. On the basis of the rheological knowledge gained, it is suggested that intraplate seismicity can also be caused by coupling between surface processes and flow in the lower continental crust. This view is shown to be a natural consequence of the modern idea that isostatic equilibrium is maintained by flow in the weak lower crust in response to erosion and sedimentation. It is supported by a general correlation between the vigour of surface processes and rates of intraplate seismicity, and by instances of seasonal seismicity that correlates with seasonal climate. Human interference in the environment can affect surface loading: for instance, deforestation for agriculture or urban development can cause increased erosion rates; global warming is expected to cause increased storminess (and thus increased erosion rates) and/or global sea-level rise. The possibility of increased rates of seismicity resulting from these processes should thus be considered in future hazard assessment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Liberal nationalism and the sovereign territorial ideal1NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 1 2006GENEVIÈVE NOOTENS ABSTRACT. Even if most liberals nowadays recognise that liberalism depends on some nationalist justification of popular sovereignty and state boundaries, they still underestimate the consequences of the fact that the sovereign territorial ideal is at the heart of the modern state. Therefore, their normative stance either oscillates between fairness and stability requirements (Kymlicka) or is built on a distinction between self-rule and self-determination that contradicts the normative import of the modern idea of the nation (Tamir). However, there exist counter-traditions that may be helpful in challenging the assumption on behalf of the sovereign territorial state. National cultural autonomy is one of these; it is used here to show how starting from different premises, one may escape the ,statist assumption' and work out a political framework which would be fairer to minorities. [source] The Conceptual History of Social JusticePOLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2005Ben Jackson Social justice is a crucial ideal in contemporary political thought. Yet the concept of social justice is a recent addition to our political vocabulary, and comparatively little is known about its introduction into political debate or its early theoretical trajectory. Some important research has begun to address this issue, adding a valuable historical perspective to present-day controversies about the concept. This article uses this literature to examine two questions. First, how does the modern idea of social justice differ from previous conceptualisations of justice? Second, why and when did social justice first emerge into political discourse? [source] Othello and the Geography of PersuasionENGLISH LITERARY RENAISSANCE, Issue 1 2010Catherine Nicholson Othello is a revealing commentary on the unstable geographic underpinnings of early modern English theories of persuasion, which vacillate between affirming the authority of the commonplace and recognizing the allure of the novel and the strange. Thomas Rymer attacks the play as a tissue of improbabilities: Rymer's rigidly Aristotelian critique has been dismissed as a willfully insensitive and racist misreading, but his insistence on conflating credibility with racial identity coincides with Othello's own representation of its hero as doubly far-fetched. Othello's strangeness is both the key to his eloquence and the root of his vulnerability to Iago's skillful deployment of insider knowledge and plausible fictions. The play's racial dynamics thus play out rhetorically: Brabantio's locally-specific likelihoods may yield to Othello's exotic figures of speech, but Iago's commonplaces triumph in the end. This contest between plausibility and extravagance doesn't merely echo the play's geographic plotting, it points to the inextricability of early modern ideas about eloquence and about place. (C.N.) [source] Citizenship and Female Catholic Militancy in 1920s SpainGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 3 2007Inmaculada Blasco Herranz The aim of this article is to offer a new interpretation of the role of women in the Catholic movement in 1920s Spain. It responds to historical analyses that view this mobilisation as the product of clerical manipulation and that consider its feminist aspects to be flawed. The new interpretation presented here is based on a notion of citizenship understood as both a process and as a form of identity construction, and which was configured historically as a result of the incorporation of modern ideas of women, the nation and religion. As a result, this analysis examines the relationship between Catholicism and modernity in greater complexity than the dichotomous views frequently encountered in Spanish historiography. [source] WHO WERE THE GLASSMAKERS?OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 3 2007STATUS, THEORY AND METHOD IN MID-SECOND MILLENNIUM GLASS PRODUCTION Summary. Glass was first produced in a regular and controlled manner in the Near East in the sixteenth century BC. This paper examines a wide variety of textual, archaeological and analytical sources to try and determine more about the makers of this first glass. It attempts to show how modern ideas about medieval glassmaking have been anachronistically applied to the second millennium BC, and readdresses this by turning instead to second millennium sources of evidence. Using these sources, it investigates the position of glass within Late Bronze Age society and the status of glassmakers themselves. It goes on to examine the evidence for ritual and experimental behaviour in LBA crafts and industries and applies this to ideas of technological innovation and change in the period. It looks at the alchemical nature of glass production and proposes new ways of attempting to understand the glassmakers themselves. [source] MORTUARY DISPLAY AND CULTURAL CONTACT: A CEMETERY AT KASTRI ON THASOSOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 4 2006SARA OWEN Summary. This article explores how the patterns of development within the local populations prior to Greek colonization, or even Greek contact, can elucidate the process of Greek colonization. Focusing upon the Thracian Early Iron Age cemetery of Kastri on Thasos, it suggests that past interpretations of such cemeteries as undifferentiated is due to the imposition of modern ideas of value. This article instead uses the criterion of diversity to suggest that the cemetery in fact has clear patterns of social differentiation in the first and last periods of use. Furthermore imports are restricted to graves of highest diversity in the last period of use (the early seventh century BC). This pattern is repeated over Early Iron Age Thrace, and is indicative of a social change within Thrace prior to Greek colonization which saw nascent Thracian elites seeking out imports from many areas in order to bolster their status. [source] Conditioning Factors for Fertility Decline in Bengal: History, Language Identity, and Openness to InnovationsPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 4 2000Alaka Malwade Basu This article argues that looking solely for the immediate causes of reproductive change may distort our understanding of policy options by failing to take into account the historical and cultural factors that affect not only the impact of policies and programs but their very nature and existence. The article examines the historical origins and spread of "modern" ideas in Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in India. It concludes that a colonial history in which education and modernization processes took hold very early among the elites in the larger Bengal region was paradoxically accompanied by a strong allegiance to the Bengali language. This strong sense of language identity has facilitated and reinforced the diffusion of modern ideas both within and between the two Bengali-speaking regions. Thus, to understand the fertility decline in Bangladesh, for example, one needs to look also at cultural boundaries. In this case, the cultural commonality through language facilitates the spread of new ideas across the two Bengals. In turn, the strong sense of language identity has facilitated mass mobilization more easily and intensely within the two Bengals. Shaped by these processes, Bangladesh and West Bengal today are more amenable to social change than many other parts of South Asia and the Middle East. [source] Cosmology: a matter of all and nothingASTRONOMY & GEOPHYSICS, Issue 4 2002John D Barrow John D Barrow gave the Gerald Whitrow Lecture for 2002. He reviews modern ideas about the Big Bang and the constants of Nature. Abstract The modern picture of the expanding Big Bang universe is described. Implications of the expansion for the evolution of life are highlighted, together with the new features contributed by the inflationary universe theory. Observational tests of inflation are described along with some of the possibilities introduced by new theories of strings and quantum gravity. These theories allow the numbers of dimensions of space and of time to be larger than the three and one we experience and permit the observed "constants" of Nature to vary slowly in time. We describe recent astronomical evidence that is consistent with small variations of the fine-structure constant and discuss some of its far-reaching implications. [source] A mind to blame: new views on involuntary acts,BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 5 2003Deborah W. Denno J.D., Ph.D. This article examines the legal implications linked to recent scientific research on human consciousness. The article contends that groundbreaking revelations about consciousness expose the frailties of the criminal law's traditional dual dichotomies of conscious versus unconscious thought processes and voluntary versus involuntary acts. These binary doctrines have no valid scientific foundation and clash with other key criminal law defenses, primarily insanity. As a result, courts may adjudicate like individuals very differently based upon their (often unclear) understanding of these doctrines and the science that underlies them. This article proposes a compromise approach by recommending that the criminal law's concept of voluntariness consist of three parts: (i) voluntary acts, (ii) involuntary acts, and (iii) semi-voluntary acts. The semi-voluntary acts category, which is new, incorporates modern ideas of consciousness and also advances the law. Using some actual criminal cases, this article applies this new three-part grouping and demonstrates how it enhances a more just outcome for defendants, victims, and society. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||