Economic Geography is the most complete, up-to-date textbook available on the important new field of spatial economics. This book fills a gap by providing advanced undergraduate and graduate students with the latest research and methodologies in an accessible and comprehensive way. It is an indispensable reference for researchers in economic geography, regional and urban economics, international trade, and applied econometrics, and can serve as a resource for economists in government. Economic Geography presents advances in economic theory that explain why, despite (...) the increasing mobility of commodities, ideas, and people, the diffusion of economic activity is very unequal and remains agglomerated in a limited number of spatial entities. The book complements theoretical analysis with detailed discussions of the empirics of the economics of agglomeration, offering a mix of theoretical and empirical research that gives a unique perspective on spatial disparities. It reveals how location continues to matter for trade and economic development, yet how economic integration is transforming the global economy into an economic space in which activities are performed within large metropolitan areas exchanging goods, skills, and information. Economic Geography examines the future implications of this evolution in the spatial economy and relates them to other major social and economic trends.Provides a complete introduction to economic geography Explains the latest theory and methodologies Covers the empirics of agglomeration, from spatial concentration measurement to structural estimations of economic geography models Includes history and background of the field Serves as a textbook for students and a resource for professionals. (shrink)

Although Jacques Rancière and Jürgen Habermas share several important commitments, they interpret various core concepts differently, viewing politics, democracy, communication, and disagreement in conflicting ways. Rancière articulates his democratic vision in opposition to important elements of Habermas’s approach. Critics contend that Habermas cannot account for the dynamics of command, exclusion, resistance, and aesthetic transformation involved in Rancière’s understanding of politics. In particular, the prominent roles Habermas affords to communicative rationality and consensus have led people to think that he cannot (...) grasp the radical forms of political disagreement Rancière describes. While some have viewed Rancière as offering a trenchant challenge to Habermas, I will contend that Rancière’s critique is less compelling than some have thought. Habermasian understandings of third personal speech and aesthetic expression are nuanced and adaptable enough to evade Rancière’s criticisms. I conclude by suggesting that Habermasian theorists have also developed crucial forms of social and political critique that Rancière’s theory systematically excludes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We are interested in the case of Friedrich Christoph Mayer, who in the 1720s, while at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, developed a system of the aurora borealis, as well as a mathematical method for calculating the height of the aurora from the geometrical characteristics of the auroral arc. Mayer, encountering a major contradiction in his system which placed the aurora at the height of the clouds, whereas his mathematical method led to an altitude (...) a hundred times higher, never applied his method to concrete cases to deduce the height of the aurora, and quickly lost interest in their detailed description, a task that was nevertheless assigned to him at the St. Petersburg Observatory. Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan suggests that Mayer’s abandonment was due to his lack of confidence in observations. We set Mayer’s case against that of Leonhard Euler who, working with Mayer and being aware of the great height of the aurora, later developed a system of the aurora borealis that was compatible with the observational fact. We put forward possible hypotheses to explain Mayer’s disinterest in observing the aurora and in the mathematical method he himself had developed. (shrink)

L’édition de l’ Histoire du marxisme n’aura pas lieu en France. Pourtant le projet que mena à bien Einaudi en Italie au tournant des années 1970-1980 était un projet franco-italien, et même international, impliquant entre autres Eric Hobsbawm et Perry Anderson, qui garderont une rancœur tenace envers leurs homologues français. Cet article retrace, archives et entretiens à l’appui, la généalogie de ce projet avorté, voire, à tout croire, sabordé. La réalité est plus nuancée, et impose de tenir compte des stratégies (...) fluctuantes d’acteurs institutionnels, du monde de l’édition et de l’université, au gré des modes parisiennes, des opportunités culturelles, et des adversités politiques en France et dans l’espace international. Une attention particulière est portée aux dilemmes des acteurs individuels, portant ou bloquant ce projet, d’abord Lucien Goldmann et ses réseaux européens de théoriciens critiques (École de Francfort, gramsciens, humanistes d’Europe de l’Est), puis Pierre Nora, François Furet, Jacques Le Goff avec une équipe d’historiens internationaux, tournée vers les États-Unis, d’Arno Mayer à Moshe Lewin. (shrink)

The rational design of theoretical minimal RNA rings predetermines AUG as the universal start codon. This design maximizes coded amino acid diversity over minimal sequence length, defining in silico theoretical minimal RNA rings, candidate ancestral genes. RNA rings code for 21 amino acids and a stop codon after three consecutive translation rounds, and form a degradation‐delaying stem‐loop hairpin. Twenty‐five RNA rings match these constraints, ten start with the universal initiation codon AUG. No first codon bias exists among remaining RNA rings. (...) RNA ring design predetermines AUG as initiation codon. This is the only explanation yet for AUG as start codon. RNA ring design determines additional RNA ring gene‐ and tRNA‐like properties described previously, because it presumably mimics constraints on life's primordial RNAs. (shrink)

This paper offers a new answer to an old question. Others have argued that exploitation is wrong because it is coercive, or degrading, or fails to protect the vulnerable. But these answers only work for certain cases; counterexamples are easily found. In this paper I identify a different answer to the question by placing exploitation within the larger family of wrongs to which it belongs. Exploitation is one species of wrongful gain, and exploiters always gain at the expense of others (...) by inflicting relative losses on disadvantaged parties. They do harm to their victims, even when their interactions are mutually advantageous, by failing to benefit the disadvantaged party as fairness requires. This failure is the essential wrong in every case of wrongful exploitation. At the end of the paper I assess how wrong this failure is as a way to gain at another's expense. (shrink)

Enlightenment - both the phenomenon specific to the eighteenth century and the continuing trend in Western thought - is an attempt to dispel ignorance, achieve mastery of a potentially hostile environment, and contain fear of the unknown by promoting science and rationality. Enlightenment is often accompanied and challenged by countercultures such as German Romanticism, which explored the nature of fear and deployed it as a corrective to the excesses of rationalism. The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism uncovers the formative (...) role this movement played in the development of dark or negative aesthetics. Recovering a missing chapter in the history of the aesthetics of fear, Paola Mayer illustrates that Romanticism was a crucial transitional phase between the eighteenth-century sublime and the early twentieth-century uncanny. Mayer puts literature and philosophy in dialogue, examining how German Romantic literature employed narratives of fear to radicalize and then subvert the status quo in society, culture, and science. She traces the development of this aesthetic from its inception with pre-Romantics such as Jean Paul Richter to its end in Joseph von Eichendorff's critical retrospective, and juxtaposes canonical authors such as E.T.A. Hoffmann - the father of the modern fantastic - with writers who have previously been ignored. Today, when the dark side of science looms in the foreground, The Aesthetics of Fear in German Romanticism points to the power of a literary movement to construct competing currents of thought. (shrink)

On 26 February 1616 Galileo was ordered to cease to defend heliocentrism in any way whatsoever. This order, called a precept, automatically applied to anything he might later attempt to publish on the subject. Issued at the end of his first trial by the Roman Inquisition, the precept became the spark that triggered his second trial in 1632–3 and figured importantly in the justification of his sentence. This precept has been a subject of controversy since the late nineteenth century for (...) its authenticity, legality and legitimacy. This paper addresses the first two points and establishes the facts of what probably happened in 1616. It does so by examining seven texts that bear on the event. All but one of these agree tolerably well that Galileo did indeed receive the precept in the strongest form. An examination of the singleton text in the context of how the Inquisition produced and kept its records as well as of its procedures and personnel shows that it is the least reliable source. This context also supports the argument that certainty about what happened is impossible to achieve. The theory that the document most damaging to Galileo was a forgery is also disposed of. Examination of the crucial phrase successive ac incontinenti in one of the documents supports the paper's suggestion that more caution is in order before accepting the currently nearly universal claim that the precept was improper in law. (shrink)

The way citizens regard and treat one another in everyday life, even when they are not engaged in straightforwardly “political” activities, matters for achieving democratic ideals. This claim provokes an underexamined unease in many. Here I articulate these concerns, which I argue are prompted by the approaches most often associated with these issues. Such theories, like democratic communitarianism, require problematic sorts of unity in everyday social life. To avoid these difficulties, I offer an alternative, called procedural democratic informal politics, which (...) allows democrats to evaluate everyday life without demanding questionable forms of unity within it. (shrink)

L'archéologie, par la documentation considérable qu'elle apporte sur l'expérience de la guerre et la réalité de la violence, renouvelle notre compréhension des conflits, depuis la Préhistoire jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Son approche anthropologique a en effet libéré la recherche des contraintes de l'histoire militaire et stratégique, les violences du XXe siècle conduisant la discipline vers de nouveaux enjeux liés à l'expertise médico-légale, à la récupération de la mémoire historique et au droit. Guerres et combats ne sont plus uniquement relatés par les archives (...) des vainqueurs, mais étudiés par l'archéologue en prenant en compte l'ensemble des documents mis au jour : champs de bataille, dépôts d'armes, restes humains, garnisons, camps de prisonniers ou d'internement... La propagande est déconstruite, images et objets sont contextualisés, le cadre économique et social du conflit est restitué, la réalité de la violence collective est analysée. Et les morts peuvent sortir de leur anonymat. Dans cet ouvrage, qui propose une grande variété d'éclairages sur les violences et les guerres, l'archéologie apparaît ainsi à la fois comme la science de la mémoire matérielle des hommes et comme un instrument au service de la longue histoire du savoir, des techniques et de la diversité culturelle qui fait la richesse de l'humanité. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que le langage? Un système de signes fixé, par exemple, dans les traités de grammaire. Mais, ne l'oublions pas, son existence est aussi conditionnée par les manières toujours variées, souvent fautives, dont les sujets parlants se l'approprient : c'est la dialectique du système et du style. Jean-Jacques Lecercle la place au cœur de sa linguistique alternative, dont il livre ici un exposé aussi succinct que lumineux. La langue, jamais totalement systématique, consiste en un ensemble de normes plus ou (...) moins stabilisées, soumises aux changements que leur impose le 'hors-norme' stylistique. Dès lors, elle n'est pas essentiellement un système idéal abstrait qui s'impose à nous de l'extérieur, mais une partie de la praxis, un phénomène à la fois historique, social, matériel et politique. Les signes et la grammaire sont d'abord des produits de l'activité humaine, faits et défaits en permanence par les locuteurs individuels. Si le sujet est effectivement 'interpellé' par des règles qui lui préexistent, il a aussi la possibilité de 'contre-interpeller' la langue et, ainsi, d'y introduire une dose irréductible de singularité et de variation."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Altum gurgitem Tigris premens: what is Tigris doing? Gronovius has no remark to the point. The context however points the way to interpretation. For in the list of four rivers, two others are given some word or phrase to characterize them: Hydaspes is gemmifer and Baetis is said to give his name to nearby lands. Thus altum gurgitem premens should refer to some characteristic act or condition of Tigris, not to a unique or casual occurrence. H. M. Kingery cannot be (...) right in saying that ‘the Tigris, noted for its swift current, is pictured here as checking its deep torrent, so as to water the plants that grow in or near its bed’. (shrink)

"Ökologie ist in den Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften derzeit von hoher begrifflicher Konjunktur. Damit stellt sich die Frage nach dem Gebrauch, dem Potential und der historischen wie medialen Verfasstheit verschiedener Konzepte von Ökologie und deren jeweilige Fassung von Natur, Organismus und Relationalität. Eine Analyse von Ernst Haeckels Genereller Morphologie und seiner Sarcode-Versuche arbeitet verschiedene Modellierungen von (Inter-)Relationalität, insbesondere Organismus-Außenwelt-Beziehungen in der Ökologie heraus. Ecology is a term that is much discussed in recent media and cultural studies. This raises the question of (...) the use, the potential and the historical and medial constitution of different concepts of ecology and their respective understandings of nature, organism and relationality. This paper presents an analysis of Ernst Haeckel’s General Morphology and his Sarcodes-experiments and elaborates different models of (inter-)relationality, especially relations between organisms and environment, in ecology. ". (shrink)

Galileo’s Sunspot Letters, published in 1613, underwent extensive censorship before publication. It seems likely that the Roman Inquisition had charge of the pre-publication review of Galileo’s work, rather than the usual organ, the Master of the Sacred Palace. A study of that process demonstrates that the issue to which the censors objected was Galileo’s use of the bible, not his allegiance to Copernicus. In the course of the first phase of Galileo’s trial, orchestrated by one of the most powerful Cardinal (...) Inquisitors, two propositions allegedly drawn from the book were judged either “formally heretical” or “at least erroneous in the faith.” These judgments might have come not from the published book but from the Inquisition’s censorship of its drafts. They supported Galileo’s silencing in 1616.Keywords: Galileo; Sunspot Letters; Roman Inquisition; Bible; Censorship; Heliocentrism. (shrink)

The Islam and human rights nexus is too often viewed as being static. In reality, the relationship is complex and mutable. In an era of unsettling changes to the status quo, perceptions of the Islam and human rights nexus have also proven to be sensitive to shifting political dynamics. In these circumstances, the position that Islam and human rights are inherently in conflict, which assumes two settled entities in a stable relationship, is becoming hard to sustain – as is the (...) position that human rights are ineluctably tied to Western civilization. Many Muslims are arguing that Islam and human rights are harmonious, and human rights contain principles that address some of Muslims' most pressing concerns. However, there are also factors – such as certain U.S. policies - that could work in the opposite direction, energizing Islamist hostility to human rights and confirming Muslims' suspicions that human rights are part of a nefarious Western plot. We must recognize that the Islam and human rights relationship is regularly readjusting in response to a changing environment, so that the issues addressed over the next decades will not likely be the same ones that Muslim societies and Islamic thinkers have been wrestling with to date. (shrink)

Based on a psychobiographical approach, this study addresses magical thinking across the life span of Paulo Coelho. Paulo Coelho, who was born in Brazil in the 1940s, has become one of the most sold and famous contemporary authors in the world. In his life, as well as in his books, which are mainly autobiographical accounts, magic and magical thinking, spirituality, meaningfulness, and the living of one’s dream, are key themes. The aim of this study was to explore magic and magical (...) thinking in Paulo Coelho’s life and creative works. The study uses a psychobiographical single case study approach within the methodological frame of Husserl’s phenomenology. The author, Paulo Coelho, was chosen as the subject of research. Documents providing both first person and third person perspectives were subjected to content analysis. The findings show that magical thinking played an important role in Coelho’s creative works and in his life, in the form, for example, of ascriptions of magic to key situations in his life, the performance of daily rituals, mystic interpretations of life events, and his deep religious faith. Magical thinking is usually regarded as indicative of pathological and inappropriate cognitive and psychological behaviour, especially when found in adults in a westernised culture. However, the analysis of Coelho’s life and works shows that magical thinking can be utilised creatively and be integrated into one’s life to enable personal development and growth while simultaneously providing fertile ground for creative production. In Paulo Coelho’s case, the intertwining of religion and magical thinking provided deep meaning that guided his personal development. (shrink)

This paper argues for a feminist genealogy of anti-nuclear protest art, around the nucleus of the women’s camp at Greenham Common, 1981–87, a coherent account of whose significance is missing from both feminist film history and left protest history. Drawing on Adrienne Rich’s poetics as a thread connecting the larger anti-nuclear and non-violent/anti-military feminist movement specifically to aesthetic and political formations that informed films made at and about Greenham, the paper constellates a number of experimental works in relation to the (...) well-known observational documentary Carry Greenham Home. Their legacy, and the concept of a Greenham genealogy, is apparent in Sally Potter’s anti-nuclear Cuban Missile Crisis-set drama Ginger & Rosa, whose imbrication of poetry, politics, and experimental film techniques argues for a Greenham poetics. In particular, this paper considers a feminist poetics of attending to the nuclear, re-visioning the atomic, molecular and core as both an ecopoetics and a refusal of heteropatriarchal structures, both necessary to a viable alternative political formation. In their granular detailing of both world and work, these feminist texts offer a rich and continuous history, practice and analysis of anti-nuclear protest art that demands the same attention as they enact. (shrink)