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We consider here how a generalized signaling game may self-assemble as the saliences of the agents evolve by reinforcement on those sources of information that in fact lead to successful action. On the present account, generalized signaling games self-assemble even as the agents coevolve meaningful representations and successful dispositions for using those representations. We will see how reinforcement on successful information sources also provides a mechanism whereby simpler games might compose to form more complex games. Along the way, we consider how an old game might be appropriated to a new context by reinforcement on successful associations between old and new saliences.

Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Timothy Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human agents either, he concludes that no interpretation of evidential probabilities in terms of credence is adequate. I argue to the contrary. My overarching aim is to show on behalf of Bayesians how one can still interpret evidential probabilities in terms of ideally rational credence and how one can maintain a tight connection between evidential probabilities and ideally rational credence even if the former cannot be interpreted in terms of the latter. By achieving this aim I illuminate the limits and prospects of Bayesianism.

Philosophers of well-being have tended to adopt a foundationalist approach to the question of theory and measurement, according to which theories are conceptually prior to measures. By contrast, social scientists have tended to adopt operationalist commitments, according to which they develop and refine well-being measures independently of any philosophical foundation. Unfortunately, neither approach helps us overcome the problem of coordinating between how we characterize well-being and how we measure it. Instead, we should adopt a coherentist approach to well-being science.

The received view of computation is methodologically bifurcated: it offers different accounts of computation in the mathematical and physical cases. But little in the way of argument has been given for this approach. This paper rectifies the situation by arguing that the alternative, a unified account, is untenable. Furthermore, once these issues are brought into sharper relief we can see that work remains to be done to illuminate the relationship between physical and mathematical computation.

Callender claims that `time is the great informer' (Callender 2017, chapter 7), meaning that the direction(s) in which our `best' physical theories inform are temporal. This is intended to be a metaphysical claim, and as such expresses a relationship between the physical world and information-gathering systems such as ourselves. This paper gives two counterexamples to this claim, illustrating the fact that time and informative strength doubly dissociate, so the claim cannot be about physical theories in general. The first is a case where physical theories inform in directions that we have no reason to regard as temporal. The second is a case where our best physical theories fail to inform in directions that we have independent (pre-theoretic) reasons to regard as temporal. Taking these two cases into account suggests that the connection Callender makes between time and informativeness is perspectival. The second case demonstrates that, although scientists often seek information in temporal directions, the behaviour of the physical world can present serious difficulties for finding it. In response, this paper proposes a perspectival reading of Callender's claim, according to which the connection between time and informative strength has more to do with the aims and objectives of science than the workings of the physical world.

We propose a new account of calibration according to which calibrating a technique shows that the technique does what it is supposed to do. To motivate our account, we examine an early 20th century debate about chlorophyll chemistry and Mikhail Tswett’s use of chromatographic adsorption analysis to study it. We argue that Tswett’s experiments established that his technique was reliable in the special case of chlorophyll without relying on either a theory or a standard calibration experiment. We suggest that Tswett broke the Experimenters’ Regress by appealing to material facts in the common ground for chemists at the time.

There is widespread excitement in the literature about the method of arbitrary functions: many take it to show that it is from the dynamics of systems that the objectivity of probabilities emerge. In this paper, I differentiate three ways in which a probability function might be objective, and I argue that the method of arbitrary functions cannot help us show that dynamics objectivise probabilities in any of these senses.

We discuss the proposal by Sebens and Carroll to derive the Born rule in Everettian quantum mechanics from a principle they call ‘ESP-QM’. We argue that the proposal fails: ESP-QM is not, as Sebens and Carroll argue, a ‘less general version’ of an independently plausible principle, ESP, and can only be motivated by the empirical success of quantum mechanics, including use of the Born rule. Therefore, ESP-QM cannot have the status of a meta-theoretical principle of reasoning and provides no viable basis for deriving the Born rule.

This article investigates the development of the Spanish–Italian mercury cartel from the end of World War II to the mid-1950s. Previous literature has singled out the cartel as one of the most robust international cartels of the twentieth century, but as this article shows, the cartel broke down toward the end of the 1940s, and although briefly reestablished in 1954, it quickly dissolved again. Building on access to original source material from archives in Spain, Italy, the United States, and United Kingdom, we investigate the underlying reasons why the cartel broke down, and how and why it was eventually reestablished. Because both the main Italian and the Spanish mercury producers were state-owned, this article pays special attention to the influence of the political relations between Spain and Italy on the development of the cartel. The study of the mercury cartel is used as a prism to investigate the point where industry strategies meet government strategies. This article thus contributes to two major strands of literature, both to the business history literature on international cartels in the post-1945 world and to the diplomatic history literature on the intricate relationship between Spain and Italy in the early phase of the Cold War.

Bei der Durchsicht des Nachlasses von Rudolf Tomaschek (1895-1966) fand ich ein 30 Seiten umfassendes Typoskript seines damaligen Assistenten Hugo Watzlawek (1912-1995) aus dem Jahr 1944 mit dem Titel „Interatomare Energie“. Heute würde man eher von „inneratomarer Energie“, oder von „Kernenergie“ sprechen, da der Inhalt des Typoskripts „technische Kernphysik“ einschließlich ihrer potentiellen militärischen Anwendungen betrifft. Der Text bietet einen ungefilterten, erstaunlich kenntnisreichen, aber in vielem auch erschreckenden Einblick in die technokratische Gedankenwelt sowie den Wissensstand und Anwendungshorizont eines „technischen Kernphysikers“ im „Dritten Reich“, der unter Verweis auf konkurrierende amerikanische Forschungen 1944 nachdrücklich um weitere Mittel für kernphysikalische und -technische Forschung sowie für die Entwicklung von Kernwaffen bittet. Der vorliegende Aufsatz kommentiert und kontextualisiert das Typoskript; meine ebenfalls online gestellte annotierte Transkription des Typoskriptes bietet ungekürzten Zugang zum Originaltext samt knapper, für dessen Verständnis notwendiger historischer und technischer Erläuterungen., Projekt DEAL

Now that Justin Trudeau’s “independent” Senate has had a full term to orient itself, how do we characterize the emerging relationship between it and the House of Commons? To answer this question, this article examines quantitative and qualitative changes in the Senate’s impact on legislation since 2015. I look first of all at quantitative changes in Senate-Commons interaction, as assessed through the Senate’s strong challenges to the Commons, more normal legislative review, and proactive policy influence. I then turn to qualitative case studies of Bills C-14, C-48, and C-69 to provide a more in-depth assessment of Senate review of legislation related to its core institutional mission. Overall, I argue that the newly independent Senate has been a much more assertive participant in the legislative process, but ultimately has been very mindful of reputational considerations and avoided going beyond “moderate” review. As a result, there are lingering questions about the practical significance of Trudeau’s reforms.

In modern Danish, the most frequently used pronoun for generic reference is man, developed from the noun man(d) ‘man’. Recently, though, the second person singular pronoun du has gained ground, in parallel to similar recent developments in other languages. A large-scale, longitudinal study of the LANCHART corpus of spoken Danish has documented a rise in the use of generic du in Copenhagen (and later in the rest of Denmark) during the period from the early 1970s, where generic du was practically non-existent, till the late 1980s where du comprised around 25% of all pronouns with generic meaning. However, recordings from the 2000s show that the use of du has peaked and is now decreasing or stabilizing at a lower level.This article focuses on intra-individual and intra-conversational variation within the LANCHART corpus with the aim of uncovering the pragmatic effect of using du instead of other generic pronouns. All passages in the recordings have been coded according to macro speech act, activity type, type of interaction and genre as well as enunciation. The results of a statistical analysis using mixed models show a number of correlations as to the use of generic du (in comparison with man), and by and large support the claim that generic du is used as a resource for construing involvement, arguably by exploiting the ambiguity of du between a generic and a specific second person meaning. These quantitative results make up the point of departure for corroborating qualitative analyses of the discourse framing of the use of generic pronouns.

This study examines the affirmativesyes, yeaandayin Early Modern English, more specifically in the period 1560 to 1760. Affirmatives have an obvious role as responses to yes/no questions in dialogues, and so this study demanded the kind of dialogical material provided by theCorpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760. I examine the meanings and contexts of usage of each affirmative: their distribution across time and text-types, their collocates and their occurrence after positive and negative questions. The results challenge a number of issues and claims in the literature, including when the “Germanic pattern” (involvingyesandyeaafter positive or negative questions) dissolved, whetheryeaoraywere dialectal, and the timing of the rise ofayand the fall ofyea.

Beginning with publications in the early 1980s there have been attempts to use syntactic data to determine the highest-order subgroups of Austronesian. These efforts fall into two categories: those which claim that the voice affixes of Philippine-type languages originally had exclusively nominalizing functions, and those which claim that the affixes themselves were innovated after the separation of Rukai from the ancestor of all other Austronesian languages. Although these ideas lay dormant for some years, recently both have been revived in renewed efforts to show that the Austronesian family tree is not ‘rake-like’ in its highest nodes, but shows extensive embedding of subgroups that can be justified by successive layers of syntactic innovations. This paper questions the methodological soundness of both types of arguments on the grounds that they appeal to negative evidence, and logically any such appeal can do no better than reach an inference of indeterminate status rather than the positive conclusions that have been proposed.

The present study provides an overview of the quotative utterances made with itta (past form of iu ‘to say’) and itte ita (the combination of iu and the past form of the -te iru construction) in naturally occurring conversations in Japanese. The examination of approximately 13 hours of conversations shows that itta is used in 91.1% of first-person quotations (‘I said that…’). In second-person (‘you said that…’) and third-person (‘he/she said that…’) quotations, itte ita is used in 90.0%, and 77.3% of the cases, respectively. The present study argues that the high percentage of itte ita for second- and third-person quotative utterances is due to the fact that the -te iru construction, which is included in itte ita, is used as an evidential marker. The present study also analyzes the deviant cases from the dominant pattern (i.e. using itta for third-person utterances), and demonstrates how -te iru’s evidential function is utilized manipulatively in conversation.

This paper investigates the sluicing-like constructions (SLCs) in Isbukun Bunun, a language which always places its wh-words at the left-peripheral position, and it is argued that genuine sluicing is not available in this language. The evidence in favor of the pseudo-sluicing analysis draws on the behavior of how-phrases, the failure of implicit discourse anaphoric arguments and the absence of sloppy identity reading in Isbukun SLCs. These properties are otherwise hard to accommodate in a movement and deletion approach but rather follow from the view that SLCs in Isbukun Bunun are derived from independent syntactic operations including pro-drop.

This paper argues that fragment question (FQ) in Mandarin Chinese is derived from topic movement and TP deletion, contributing to the growing body of evidence that sentence fragments are syntactically full clauses (Merchant 2004). Structurally, an FQ consists of a topic-like constituent followed by a particle ne, which functions as a topic marker and as a constituent question particle simultaneously. The fragment is argued to move to the SpecTopP rather than SpecFocP (Wei 2013), because FQ exhibits topic properties and respects island effects such as the complex NP island and the adjunct island. However, it is insensitive to islands such as the sentential subject island and left branch condition. We propose that the absence of island effect can be attributed to the pied-piping of the entire topic-like island to the SpecTopP. In addition, the proposed analysis not only captures the ineligible FQs caused by intervention effect within the passive structures but also the eligible FQs induced by preposition drop in the language.

Due to their largely non-routinized forms and their not being retrievable in computerised corpus searches, refusals have hitherto not been examined from a diachronic perspective. The present paper presents an inventory of refusal strategies in Early Modern English drama texts. Five comedies from two periods (1560–1599 and 1720–1760), respectively, taken from the Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 (Kytö and Culpeper 2006) were examined manually and analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The analysis lead to an alternative classification of refusals which differs considerably from the frequently used taxonomy by Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (1990). The proposed classification takes into account three levels of analysis: the propositional content of the utterance, the functional super-strategy, and the speaker’s stance. The development of refusal within the period under investigation partially matches findings regarding related speech acts that show a development towards increased indirectness (Culpeper and Demmen 2011, Pakkala-Weckström 2008, Del Lungo Camiciotti 2008).

This study demonstrates that two types of language ideologies (linguistic nationalism and feminine language normativity) influence how Japanese contemporary novels represent non-Japanese characters’ speech. It investigates the role of gender and observes that novelists only infrequently assign highly gendered utterance-final forms to non-Japanese characters when they speak in Japanese. This tendency is more salient among the representations of male non-Japanese characters. Masculine expressions seem to belong to a set of linguistic resources that are considered available only to the Japanese. This exclusivism, i.e., linguistic nationalism, might explain the lack of highly masculine forms among non-Japanese characters in novels. As for the relatively frequent assignment of gendered language for female characters, the normativity of feminine language makes it part of the basic language of all female speakers including non-Japanese individuals. In addition, feminine expressions are not as strongly associated with authenticity as masculine expressions.

The article aims at showing how far the technologies of audiovisual registration affect not only the ontology of images but also our sense of realism in politics and history. As argue Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, historical events have become “tele-events” after the birth of these technologies. Our handling with images has changed accordingly. As argues Pietro Montani, we no longer consider them as “copies” of real objects but rather as “occasions” for initiating processes of “validation” of history. Hannah Arendt’s opposition between the ancient concept of history being based on praxis and the modern concept of history as “fabrication” (poiesis) of the humankind must be therefore reconsidered. History is rather the negotiation between these two attitudes (praxis and poiesis): cinema might be one of the exemplary sources of this negotiation, as epitomized by the documentary work in the audiovisual archives conducted by Esfir Shub (1927) and Harun Farocki (1992). Representation (Louis Martin) becomes thus a dynamical power of imagination dealing with historical and political reality; consequently, the “ideal spectator”, just as the “ideal reader” for novels (Umberto Eco), is charged with a new task of actualizing the sense of images with regard to their historical and political references.

This paper defends three claims about concrete or physical models: (i) these models remain important in science and engineering, (ii) they are often essentially idealized, in a sense to be ...

Absolutism about mass within Newtonian gravity claims that mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses. Comparativism denies this. Defenders of comparativism promise to recover all the ...

I consider how complex logical operations might self-assemble in a signalling-game context via composition of simpler underlying dispositions. On the one hand, agents may take advantage of pre-evolved dispositions; on the other hand, they may co-evolve dispositions as they simultaneously learn to combine them to display more complex behaviour. In either case, the evolution of complex logical operations can be more efficient than evolving such capacities from scratch. Showing how complex phenomena like these might evolve provides an additional path to the possibility of evolving more or less rich notions of compositionality. This helps provide another facet of the evolutionary story of how sufficiently rich, human-level cognitive or linguistic capacities may arise from simpler precursors.

It seems like we care about at least two features of our credence function: gradational-accuracy (high credences in truths, low credences in falsehoods) and verisimilitude (investing higher...

I argue that philosophical issues concerning reductive explanations help constrain the construction of quantum theories with appropriate state spaces. I illustrate this general proposal with two examples of restricting attention to physical states in quantum theories: regular states and symmetry-invariant states.

Post-revolutionary Spanish America barely features in existing scholarship on nineteenth-century British political and social thought. But the region was widely discussed, and raised distinctive issues about republican government, the effects of colonial rule, and the operation of absolute power. This article examines how the British debated the autarchic dictatorship erected in newly independent Paraguay. Their attempts to make sense of this spectacular experiment in government, and its architect Dr Francia, helped to crystallize public attitudes towards the condition of Spanish America in the 1820s and 1830s. Francia's broader significance, however, was as a token in wider debates about the proper limits of republican and constitutional principles, and about the merits of arbitrary directive rule in less developed polities. For his admirers, he cast light on how other comparable regimes had gone wrong.

This article examines the connected histories of racial science and colonial geography in Island Southeast Asia. By focusing on the island of Timor, it explores colonial boundaries as modes of arranging racial classifications, and racial typologies as forms of articulating political geography. Portuguese physical anthropologist António Mendes Correia's work on the ethnology of East Timor is examined as expressive of these productive connections. Correia's classificatory work ingeniously blended political geography and racial taxonomy. Between 1916 and 1945, mainly based on data from the Portuguese enclave of Oecussi and Ambeno, he claimed a distinct Malayan racial type for the whole colony of ‘Portuguese Timor’. Over the years he developed an anthropogeographical theory that simultaneously aimed to reclassify East Timor and to revise the racial cartography of the Malay Archipelago, including Wallace's famous ethnological line.

El presente artículo cuestiona la premisa según la cual los procesos constituyentes participativos y democráticos necesariamente producen constituciones que contribuyen a profundizar la democracia. Si bien muchas de las nuevas cartas políticas presentan ampliaciones importantes a la participación, no todas ellas le abren las puertas a la oposición, ni garantizan su ejercicio. Apoyado en el estudio de los procesos constituyentes llevados a cabo en la región andina desde 1991, el artículo propone dos rutas constituyentes con resultados diferentes. Por un lado, una asamblea diversa y simétrica, donde predomine la estrategia de la negociación entre las partes, debe conducir a una constitución que sirva de plataforma para profundizar la democracia, entendida en su doble dimensión (inclusión y oposición). Por el contrario, una asamblea dominada por un actor o coalición mayoritaria que imponga su propio proyecto constitucional puede tener consecuencias favorables en cuanto a la inclusión, pero también impactos negativos en las dimensiones de la competencia y la oposición, ambas cruciales para la democracia. This article throws into question the idea according to which democratic and participatory constitution making processes necessarily produce constitutions that lead to democratic deepening. While many new constitutions create wider avenues for political participation, not all of them open the door to the opposition, nor guarantee its exercise. By studying the constitution making processes in the Andean region since 1991, this article puts forth two different routes to constitution making that yield different results. On the one hand, a diverse and symmetric assembly where negotiation becomes the dominant strategy should yield a constitution favorable to democracy, deepening in its double dimension (inclusion and opposition). On the other hand, an assembly dominated by one majoritarian actor or coalition that can impose its own constitutional project, may yield positive outcomes in terms of inclusion, while having a negative impact on the dimensions of competition and contestation, both critical for democracy.

El artículo presenta un balance de la participación del movimiento evangélico-pentecostal en la política electoral colombiana, en el periodo 1991-2014. Describe la génesis de la participación electoral de este movimiento religioso y da cuenta de la trayectoria de sus principales líderes y organizaciones políticas (partidos o movimientos). Presenta las estrategias que estos han implementado para aprovechar su autoridad religiosa en el campo electoral. Finalmente, hace un balance de los logros del movimiento pentecostal en la política electoral y de las razones que han impedido la consolidación de un único movimiento político que represente los intereses de este movimiento religioso. This article presents a balance upon the participation of the evangelic-Pentecostal movement in the Colombian electoral politics between 1991-2014. It describes the genesis of the electoral participation of this religious movement telling about the track record of its main leaders and political organizations (parties or movements). It presents the strategies implemented to benefit from its religious authority in the electoral field. It finally brings about a balance of achievements of the Pentecostal movement within the electoral politics and any reasons preventing the consolidation of a sole political movement representing the interests of this religious movement. Este artigo apresenta um balanço da participação do movimento evangélico-pentecostal na política eleitoral desse movimento religioso e mostra a trajetória de seus principais líderes e organizações políticas (partidos ou movimentos). Apresenta as estratégias que estes vêm implantando para aproveitar sua autoridade religiosa no campo eleitoral. Finalmente, faz um balanço das conquistas do movimento pentecostal na política eleitoral e das razões que têm impedido a consolidação de um único movimento político que represente os interesses desse movimento religioso.

The ‘cosmological constant problem’ (CCP) has historically been understood as describing a conflict between cosmological observations in the framework of general relativity (GR) and theoret...

In the philosophical literature concerning scientific experimentation, the notion of robustness has been solely discussed in relation to experimental results. In this article, I propose a novel sense of experimental robustness that applies to experimental procedures. I call the foregoing sense of robustness 'procedure robustness' (PR) and characterize it as the capacity of an experimental procedure to maintain its intended function invariant during the experimental process despite possible variations in its inputs. I argue that PR is a precondition for what I call 'result robustness' (RR), which refers to the traditional sense of experimental robustness, namely, the existence of convergent experimental results obtained through different and independent means of detection. Furthermore, I argue, PR and RR constitute useful experimental strategies in the context of high-energy physics experiments, but these strategies are not without limitations.

Can the second law of thermodynamics explain our mental experience of the direction of time? According to an influential approach, the past hypothesis of universal low entropy (required to ...

This article centres on a trial held in Madrid in 1614 involving a group identified as ‘vagrants’ of ‘Armenian’ and ‘Greek’ background. In order to tease out the ways in which the presence of foreigners challenged the institutions and citizens, this article approaches these defendants as relationally defined actors in the urban dynamic. It reveals the tactics marginal groups employed vis-à-vis strategic attempts by the municipal government to control foreigners by assigning them identities based on ethnicity. This case-study thus calls into question notions of vagrancy and identification based on ethnicity (‘Armenian’ and ‘Greek’, in particular) in Madrid under Phillip III and IV. In doing so, it shows marginality to be a key yet elusive site for cultural encounters and collaboration in early modern Europe, in which multilingual and culturally fluid social actors related to the Armenian diaspora played a central role.

In this paper, we argue that the new demarcation problem does not need to be framed as the problem of defining a set of necessary and jointly sufficient criteria for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable roles that non-epistemic values can play in science. We introduce an alternative way of framing the problem and defend an open-ended list of criteria that can be used in demarcation. Applying such criteria requires context-specific work that clarifies which principles should be used, and possibly leads to the identification of new principles – which then can be added to the open-ended list. We illustrate our approach by examining a context where distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable value influences in science is both needed and tricky: transdisciplinary research. publishedVersion

Idealization is commonly understood as distortion: representing things differently than how they actually are. In this paper, we outline an alternative artifactual approach that does not make misrepresentation central for the analysis of idealization. We examine the contrast between the Hodgkin-Huxley (1952a, b, c) and the Heimburg-Jackson (2005, 2006) models of the nerve impulse from the artifactual perspective, and argue that, since the two models draw upon different epistemic resources and research programs, it is often difficult to tell which features of a system the central assumptions involved are supposed to distort. Many idealizations are holistic in nature. They cannot be locally undone without dismantling the model, as they occupy a central position in the entire research program. Nor is their holistic character mainly related to the use of mathematical and statistical modeling techniques as portrayed by Rice (2018, 2019). We suggest that holistic idealizations are implicit theoretical and representational assumptions that can only be understood in relation to the conceptual and representational tools exploited in modeling and experimental practices. Such holistic idealizations play a pivotal role not just in individual models, but also in defining research programs.

This article examines the life and works of Hossein Kazemzadeh Iranshahr, focusing on the evolution of his thought from an ardent nationalist to a cosmopolitan mystic. It offers a detailed account of the spiritual transformation that Iranshahr went through around 1920 in Europe—a topic that has never been addressed in existing scholarship. It contextualizes his esoteric views, especially the influence of Theosophy on his thought in the context of the so-called “Occult Revival” in Weimar Germany. Finally, it discusses how Iranshahr's emerging spiritual worldview impacted his intellectual outlook, especially his views on religion, nationalism, civilization, and race.

Azerbaijani national identity emerged in post-Persian Russian-ruled East Caucasia at the end of the nineteenth century, and was finally forged during the early Soviet period. After the fiasco of the short-lived independence period of 1918–20, Azerbaijan became Soviet. Soviet power then instrumentalized Azerbaijan for political and ideological penetration into Iran by galvanizing local separatist movements. Azerbaijani Iranology was shaped within Soviet oriental studies and put into service of Azerbaijani nation-building. Exiled Iranian communists found asylum in Baku, joined local research institutions, wrote the first Persian academic and school textbooks, and contributed to the translation of classic Persian poetry into Azerbaijani. Soviet Azerbaijani Iranologists were sent as translators to the Soviet missions to Iran and Afghanistan. After Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991, its Iranological infrastructure was represented by several departments at the National Academy of Sciences and the Iranian Studies Program at Baku State University. While the number of Persian classes at schools during the last three decades diminished, a new generation of post-Soviet Iranologists—those who studied in Iran—emerged. While Soviet Azerbaijani Iranologists never created a solid bilingual dictionary of Persian, several Persian–Azerbaijani and Azerbaijani–Persian dictionaries were published in the 2010s. Post-Soviet Azerbaijani Iranology is still trying to find its place within humanities in the transitional nation.

This article focuses on how two Spanish American Creole writers perceived their port city as a symbol of national prestige, devoted patriotism, and utilitarian significance, at a time when the military and economic status of the port was undergoing transformational changes. It centers on the works of two eighteenth-century Cuban writers, José Martín Félix de Arrate’s Llave del Nuevo Mundo, antemural de las Indias Occidentales: La Habana descripta (1761) and Ignacio José de Urrutia y Montoya’s Teatro histórico, jurídico y político-militar de la Isla Fernandina de Cuba y principalmente de su capital La Habana (1791), to show the ways in which these authors articulated their love for their country while endowing the port and the port city with local political power and cultural prestige. This sense of “topophilia,” a concept described by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan as the “affective bond between people and place,” is what guided the aforementioned authors’ geographic view of the port.

This article analyzes student mobilization and public discourse on higher education during the June 2013 protests in Brazil in an effort to situate the protests historically. I argue that higher education was a major, yet overlooked, component of the 2013 protests, and that concerns over the failings and shortcomings of Brazil’s university system had deeper roots in institutional problems and student discourses on education, society, and democracy. These historical inequalities combined with institutional memories that offered students models and examples of past mobilization and allowed them to tie their present-day concerns to past examples of student politics. I consider the ways in which the often-overlooked question of educational reform offers insights into ongoing social inequalities in Brazil, the failure of various regimes to address structural issues, and how students in 2013 looked to the past while simultaneously drawing on their own particular educational contingencies. This article situates 2013 historically while exploring the ways in which higher education in the twenty-first century has transformed, even as it remains an important part of political and social struggles between society and the state. Finally, this article explores how the 2013 protests in Brazil reflect ongoing struggles to define the role of the state in society, not just in Brazil but in the Americas more generally.

In 1989, the acclaimed Iranian novelist Moniru Ravanipur (b. 1954) sent ripples through her homeland with a book that spoke out about the plight of a remote village, fighting for survival in the face of the country's rapid modernization. Ahl-egharq, or The Drowned, tells the story of the author's birthplace, Jofreh, on the Persian Gulf; an isolated village where life is shaped by myth-telling, rituals, and a reliance on the sea. The 2019 publication of Ravanipur's novel in English translation gives occasion to critically reflect on its place in the canon of modern Persian fiction.

This article examines two approaches to postdictatorship cinema: trauma theory, which has been especially popular in reading this corpus, and semiotics, which has regained popularity in film analysis in general but is not often employed when analyzing postdictatorship films. The article claims that, though highly productive in the 1990s, trauma theory has become less fruitful after decades of continuous scholarship and after the emergence of administrations that have made the representation of the dictatorship the center of their public policies, such as kirchnerismo in Argentina (2003–2015). While trauma theory yields ahistorical analyses, a semiotic approach that takes into account how indexical, iconic, and symbolic signs merge in the cinematic field allows for historical interpretations that are more adequate for reading postdictatorship films, especially after 2003. The article first outlines the main tenets of the two approaches (trauma theory and semiotics), then assesses their suitability for historical interpretation via a brief analysis of Andres no quiere dormir la siesta , a 2009 Argentine film on the country’s last dictatorship. Resumen Este articulo se propone examinar dos aproximaciones al cine postdictatorial: la teoria del trauma, que ha sido especialmente popular para leer este corpus, y la semiotica, un acercamiento que ha vuelto a ganar popularidad en el analisis filmico en general pero que no es frecuentemente utilizado en la interpretacion de este tipo de peliculas. El articulo argumenta que la teoria del trauma, aunque productiva en los anos noventa, se ha vuelto menos fructifera despues de varias decadas de produccion academica constante y de la emergencia de gobiernos que, como el kirchnerismo en Argentina (2003–2015), han puesto la representacion de la dictadura en el centro de sus politicas publicas. Mientras que la teoria del trauma resulta insuficiente para leer historicamente el cine postdictatorial, una lectura semiotica de como los componentes indiciales, iconicos y simbolicos se combinan en la imagen cinematografica resulta mas apropiada para llevar a cabo una interpretacion historica, especialmente despues del 2003. Luego de delinear estas dos aproximaciones, el articulo las reevalua mediante un breve analisis de una pelicula argentina reciente sobre la dictadura militar, Andres no quiere dormir la siesta.

The criminal laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran are organized around the right of the victim. In cases of murder and other intentional injuries, the judiciary recognizes the victim's next of kin or the victim as a private plaintiff with the right to retribution (qisas). The injured party confronts the perpetrator in court and decides whether to demand retaliation or forgo it in lieu of a monetary compensation (diya). If they choose qisas, they are legally bound to witness the punishment. In cases of forbearance, the maximum sentence that the state can levy for murder is three to ten years. While the rates of capital punishment in Iran continue to be among the highest in the world, the majority of murder cases culminate in forgiveness. Why would an aggrieved party forgive when the law gives them the right to retribution?

It is common in the academic reception of the legacy of Edward Said to limit the analysis of his theorization of a contrapuntal perspective on colonial history to the dominant theme of Said’s published writings. Nevertheless, alternative narratives emerge in unpublished texts preserved in the Edward W. Said Papers at Columbia University. Archival research reveals that Said actually proposes a heterophonic, instead of contrapuntal, perspective in early drafts for Culture and Imperialism (1993). Said’s legacy itself requires a heterophonic reading to analyze the overlap and interactions of these variations in his writings.

In order to analyze the gender performance and empowerment of Brazilian female drug traffickers, this article compares the character of Marta in Patrícia Melo’s novel 'Inferno' (2000) with the testimonies of four real female drug traffickers collected in MV Bill and Celso Athayde’s book 'Falcão: Mulheres e o tráfico' (2007). It argues that while female drug traffickers highlight their experience and use their kinship relations, Marta’s access to power and gender transgression are temporary because her community and other drug traffickers do not support her. The article also proposes the term “the most desired positions” to replace “hegemonic masculinities” because of the prominence that cisgender and trans women have begun to have in the world of drug trade. Resumo Com o propósito de analisar a performance de gênero e o empoderamento de mulheres traficantes brasileiras, este ensaio compara a personagem de Marta no romance 'Inferno' (2000) da autora Patrícia Melo com os testemunhos de quatro mulheres traficantes que foram recolhidos no livro 'Falcão: Mulheres e o tráfico' (2007) de MV Bill e Celso Athayde. O ensaio argumenta que, enquanto as mulheres traficantes salientam sua experiência e uso de relações de parentesco, o acesso de Marta ao poder e sua transgressão de gênero são temporários porque sua comunidade e outros traficantes não a apoiam. O ensaio também propõe usar o termo “posições mais desejadas” para substituir a expressão “masculinidades hegemônicas” devido à prominência que as mulheres trans e cisgênero começaram a ter no mundo do tráfico de narcóticos.

This article explores Latin American genomic studies of mestizaje and the way mestizaje’s inherent contradiction between equality and hierarchy—a contradiction typical of liberalism—is managed in genomics. In Latin America, ideologies and practices of mestizaje may be seen as an antidote to hierarchies of race and class, but also as a terrain for the enactment of these hierarchies. Mestizaje mediates this contradiction between equality and hierarchy first by deploying the idea of sexual intimacy and family kinship across racial difference, and second by representing blackness and indigeneity as spatially peripheral and temporally backward-looking, thus naturalizing them as other. Multiculturalism can be seen as a recent variant on these themes, as well as a departure from them. Recent genomics research in Latin America strongly reiterates these ideas, while also adding some new twists. Despite its apparent connection with progressive politics and policies (antiracism, better health for all, protection of human rights for victims of oppression), genomics here appears as a mainly conservative force. Resumen Este articulo aborda las investigaciones genomicas latinoamericanas del mestizaje y como la contradiccion inherente del mestizaje entre la igualdad y la jerarquia—una contradiccion tipica del liberalismo—se maneja en la genomica. En America Latina las ideologias y practicas del mestizaje pueden ser entendidas como un antidoto a las jerarquias de raza y clase, pero tambien como el terreno en el cual se reproducen estas jerarquias. El mestizaje media esta contradiccion entre la igualdad y la jerarquia primero al usar la idea de que la intimidad sexual y el parentesco atraviesan las diferencias racializadas; y segundo al representar lo negro y lo indigena como espacialmente perifericos y temporalmente atrasados, de esta manera naturalizandolos como Otro. Se puede entender el multiculturalismo como una variante reciente de estos temas, asi como una divergencia de ellos. En la ciencia genomica latinoamericana, investigaciones recientes reiteran fuertemente estas ideas, a la vez agregandoles nuevas acepciones. A pesar de su aparente vinculo con las politicas sociales progresivas (anti-racismo, mejor salud para todos, proteccion de los derechos humanos para las victimas de la violencia), en este caso la genomica se presenta como una fuerza mas que todo conservadora.

This essay reviews the following works: Ancient Maya Pottery: Classification, Analysis, and Interpretation. Edited by James John Aimers. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013. Pp. vii + 293. $79.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780813042367. The Huasteca: Culture, History, and Interregional Exchange. Edited by Katherine A. Faust and Kim N. Richter. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 241. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780806147048. Excavations in Residential Areas of Tikal: Group 7F-1. By William A. Haviland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2015. Pp. xi + 133. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781934536810. Politics of the Maya Court: Hierarchy and Change in the Late Classic Period. By Sarah E. Jackson. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 248. $29.95 hardback. ISBN: 9780806143415. The Ancient Maya Marketplace: The Archaeology of Transient Space. Edited by Eleanor M. King. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 325. $60.54 cloth. ISBN: 9780816500413. The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court: Reflections on the Murals of Bonampak. By Mary Miller and Claudia Brittenham. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 285. $54.05 cloth. ISBN: 9780292744363. Maya Lords and Lordship: The Formation of Colonial Society in Yucatan, 1350–1600. By Sergio Quezada. Translated by Terry Rugeley. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 248. $34.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780806144221. Place and Identity in Classic Maya Narratives. By Alexandre Tokovinine. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection/Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 180. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780884023920.

Books of etiquette emerged in Cuba during the nineteenth century as a tool that the creole class used to impose themselves as the model of an imagined national subject. Also known as manuals of urbanity and good manners, these texts projected the aspirations of the creole elite. They served as technologies to craft a kind of body—bourgeois, white, heterosexual, Cuban—molded to inhabit the new urban spatial configurations that the modernizing tendencies of the early century brought forth. I examine the synergistic ways in which manuals of conduct and their driving ideology, urbanity, developed in close relationship with the ornate—another major technology of government and differentiation of bodies through space. Politics of the ornate aimed to transform Havana into an elegant capital which was modern and colonial at once, and make its image “decent,” that is, clean from sensory references to black and female marginal bodies. I examine the discursive connections between the ornate and urbanity to unpack how modern bourgeois respectability was negotiated in a symbolic realm and through the regulation of sensations and emotions. Resumen Los manuales de conducta surgieron durante el siglo XIX cubano como un instrumento de la elite criolla en ascenso, para imponerse como modelo de un sujeto nacional imaginado en construccion. Estos textos, tambien llamados de “urbanidad y buenas maneras” fueron importantes simbolos de las aspiraciones de la elite criolla, en tanto tecnologias para la conformacion de un tipo de cuerpo —burgues, blanco, heterosexual, cubano— moldeado para habitar las nuevas configuraciones espaciales urbanas que trajeron consigo las tendencias modernizadoras de inicios de siglo. El presente articulo examina las formas sinergicas en que los manuales de conducta, y su ideologia motora, la urbanidad, se desarrollaron en estrecha relacion con otra importante tecnologia de gobierno y diferenciacion de cuerpos en el espacio: el ornato. Bajo la premisa de adecentar, las politicas de ornato tenian como objetivo transformar La Habana en una elegante capital, colonial y moderna a la vez, concebida como una imagen limpia de referencias sensoriales a cuerpos negros y femeninos marginales. Al examinar las conexiones discursivas entre el ornato y la urbanidad se evidencian las formas en que la respetabilidad moderna burguesa se negociaba, no solo en un plano simbolico sino tambien a traves de la regulacion de las sensaciones y emociones.

Resumen El articulo estudia los argumentos para crear una historia alternativa de las representaciones del paramilitarismo en Mexico. Retrocediendo a la novela Astucia, de Luis G. Inclan, quien desarrollo un modelo del hombre de su tiempo: el Coronel Astucia. Este personaje participo en la formacion de un cartel y actividades paramilitares con el proposito de buscar justicia a traves del bandidaje social. Inclan fabula el lado oscuro de Mexico en su primer siglo, ofreciendo un rechazo de las narrativas de creacion de estado que los conservadores y liberales proveian. Podemos observar la naturaleza circular del bandidaje en Mexico y como sirve de contrapunto a las narraciones tradicionales de soberania. Ante el nuevo levantamiento armado en Michoacan, que ha producido grupos de autodefensa, este ensayo compara el discurso de Astucia con el de Nazario Moreno, difunto lider de la Familia Michoacana. Se argumenta que la necesidad de limitar el crecimiento del capital empuja a los bandidos sociales a producir discursos que ensamblan una politica del consumo, como una forma de producir la imagen de que el bandido confrontara la desigualdad economica. Abstract This article studies the arguments for an alternative history of paramilitary representations in Mexico, drawing back to Luis G. Inclan’s Astucia, which developed a history of a paragon of his time: Coronel Astucia. This character participated in cartel formation and paramilitary activities in order to seek justice through social banditry. Inclan develops a fable of the dark side of Mexico in its first century. He offers a rejection of the state-building narratives that conservatives and liberals provided. We can look into the circular nature of banditry in Mexico, and how it serves as a counterpoint to traditional narratives of sovereignty. As Michoacan has again risen in arms, organizing in self-defense groups, this essay compares Astucia’s discourse to that of Nazario Moreno, defunct leader of the Familia Michoacana. It argues that the need to limit capital building draws social bandits to strengthen discourses that construct a politics of consumption, as a means to produce the image of the bandit as confronting economic inequality.

This article examines how Zeyā al-Din Barani may have imagined that contemporary audiences would consume his Tārikh-e Firuz Shāhi. Would it only be read visually or also read aloud (directed at the ear rather than the eye), and thus be received aurally, or would it even be performed in front of a larger audience? The plot and protagonists of Barani's story on Moʿezz al-Din Keyqobād present a tragedy that develops around a sultan doomed to fail. An examination of the set-up of Barani's narrative reveals that it contains numerous textual devices that would enable a storyteller to perform the story, using the text as a kind of tumār. As tragedies are written for the stage, not the study, these features of the text indicate that matters of orality, which are crucial for many genres of premodern Persianate courtly literature, are also relevant to the Tārikh-e Firuz Shāhi.