Real Watershed Research Articles

H. P. Lovercraft and the anatomy of the nothingness: The Cthulhu Mythos

The so-called Cthulhu Mythos represents the most relevant contribution given to weird fiction by the American writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937). His cycle of mythical tales had a starting point, according to most critics, with the tale ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ (1926), that signals a turning moment toward the rendering in fiction of the most significant lovecraftian philosophical principle: the cosmicism, i.e. the author’s concern on mankind’s position in the cosmos, the state of civilization, the role of humanity in universal history, aimed at revealing the meaninglessness and nothingness of our existence, always threatened by the fulfillment of a superior, though not supernatural, design on a cosmic scale. ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ is also considered a remarkable step in Lovecraft’s grasp of the technical requirements of the novelette form, a real watershed between Lovecraft’s early and mature writings. My analysis will be conducted privileging the three following ‘islands of meaning’: 1. Style and techniques (about ‘The Call of Cthulhu’) 2. Symbols for Outsideness (about ‘The Call of Cthulhu’) 3. The Lovecraft mythos Lovecraft composed ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ between August and September 1926, a few months after the writer’s return to his beloved hometown, Providence, Rhode Island, after an unhappy interlude in New York. His return to Providence left important signs on the tale: he includes numerous hints to local historical figures 1 and places. The composition was inspired by two main facts: a dream Lovecraft had in 1920 and the earthquake that shook New England during the night between February 28 and March 1, 1925. The tale was published in the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales.

Coupled Reservoir Operation-Irrigation Scheduling by Dynamic Programming

This paper develops a forward dynamic programming (FDP) model to solve the problem of reservoir operation and irrigation scheduling. The typical scenario for application of the model is composed of a system of two reservoirs in parallel supplying water to as many as three irrigation districts. Two models are coupled. The interseasonal model defines seasonal deliveries from the reservoir system. The intraseasonal model uses area and water allocations generated from the interseasonal model to produce an irrigation scheduling for the individual farms in one of the irrigation districts in the reservoir system. Crop evapotranspiration, reservoir evaporation, and inflows are forecasted. Upon availability of the current values, the forecast is updated and the model runs to generate a more precise irrigation schedule. This feature permits the application of the model for real-time operation of the irrigation district. At the end of the season, the intraseasonal model is updated. The FDP model is applied to a real watershed with a 2-year planning horizon for the interseasonal and 6 months for the intraseasonal model.

Réflexions sur la démocratisation de l'enseignement. Analyse des politiques scolaires à La Réunion au tournant des années soixante

The départementalisation (i.e. the access to the status of département, the administrative division of France) that occured in Réunion in 1946 was an original form of decolonisation, and its consequences deserve special attention in the field of the educational policies that were carried out. Don't the 1960s eventually represent the real watershed in schooling and the genuine access to the départementalisation in school matters with a fifteen year delay, if not more on the official date ? Does such a spectacular yet late educational provision carried out during the 1960s permit a real démocratisation of éducation in this atypical département ? The analysis of educational policies in the view of indicators such as the number of pupils, the skill level and the numbers of teachers, the results at school exams, allows a concrète measurement of the incomparable boom that modifies the reunionese schooling system on a long-term basis. This quantitative progress is supported by a decisive effort from the French state. Yet this expansion is tempered by a more qualitative evaluation that takes into account school attendance, the qualification of teachers and above ail the selectivity of the educational system.

What a Catch! The Establishment of Cricket on Australian Commercial Television

The on-field performance of World Series Cricket (WSC), and especially its limited over matches, has generally been regarded as the trigger mechanism for the explosion of commercially televised sport in Australia. This paper argues, however, that it was the acceptance by the Trade Practices Commission (TPC) of a combined submission of the representative companies of WSC and the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) that was the real watershed in the nexus between sport and commercial television. The paper examines the ways in which this association was sold both to the TPC and to potential sponsors and how information was tailored for various audiences.

Muslims and the 1977 Indian Elections: A Watershed?

FIVE YEARS AGO, in the aftermath of the Third IndoPakistan War, A. B. Shah, a critical observer of India's largest minority community, concluded that contrary to what was expected by most observers the emergence of Bangladesh has made practically no difference to the outlook and attitude of Muslims in India.' By this he meant that they had not integrated into the mainstream of Indian politics and culture. Yet, paradoxically, it is commonly agreed among political scientists that Muslim voters (along with the Scheduled Castes or Harijans) had been a mainstay of Congress Party dominance from partition until 19772 (although in the Fourth general elections of 1967 the partial defection of Muslim voters contributed to the Congress Party's loss of control of several North Indian states).3 It is now being asserted again that these two minority groups deserted Congress en bloc in the 1977 elections and thereby brought about the downfall of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.4 If so, why did this major change of political allegiance happen? Have the minorities simply jumped from the frying pan into the fire, or are we now witnessing a real watershed in Hindu-Muslim communal relations which heralds a new era in which religion will cease to be a key cleavage in Indian politics? Muslim politicians and intellectuals, at least in South Asia, can be

A Carter Presidency and the Real Watershed

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Animal Rights

What do we owe to the lower animals, if anything? The issues raised by this question are among the most fascinating and fundamental in ethical theory. They provide a real watershed for the moral philosopher and, on perhaps the most widely professed view, a trenchant test of consistency in ethical practice. Among the virtues of these two challenging books is that they make painfully clear that there has been a paucity of clear and plausible argument in support of the nearly universal tendency of humans to eat animal flesh, and to visit varying degrees of pain, discomfort, and unfreedom on the animals in question in the process.When we are asked why it is all right to do this, given our strong belief that it is not all right for us to eat other humans, we tend to give answers that won't readily wash. We may say, for example, that animals are stupid; but we don't think it all right to eat stupid people, including people less apparently competent than many of the higher animals. Or we may say things that are patently untrue, such as that the other animals don't really feel pain anyway.

The Nature of the Early Royal Society: Part I

The foundation of the Royal Society marks an important step in the institutionalization of seventeenth-century British natural philosophy. The society's existence and activities provided a focus for the exchange of opinions, while its meetings and publications became forums for scientific debate. Some writers, however, have claimed much more than this for the society and have seen its establishment as marking a real watershed between, on the one hand, intellectually ‘conservative elements’ and, on the other, a set of ‘definite philosophical principles … inspiring … progressive minds’. Others have gone still further and argued not only that the society's activities ‘enormously’ accelerated ‘the development of natural sciences’, but that these activities were the result of the ‘working out of a conscious, deliberately-conceived ideal’. But views which see a single, logically consistent conception of the nature of the scientific enterprise informing the work and outlook of the Royal Society and its members involve a serious oversimplification of the complexity of natural philosophy in the late seventeenth century. Despite some important work published in recent years, we are still far from achieving a satisfactory understanding of the complicated web of traditions, sources, and intellectual systems that provided both an inspirational dynamic for the work of natural philosophers such as those in the Royal Society and patterns of expression through which their preoccupations could be articulated. Thus the many studies which have been devoted to establishing connexions between the scientific movement and patterns of religious or political belief have been flawed from the start by unreal assumptions about the degree of intellectual coherence presented by the natural philosophy of the time. And until we can present a more three-dimensional picture of what the 'scientific movement’ was in fact all about, and until wider agreement has been reached as to satisfactory definitions of various types of socio-theological attitude and behaviour, such studies are no more than attempts to tie together two unknowns by means of a rope of sand.

The Islamic Reformist Movement in North Africa

If my own experience is at all typical, probably most students concerned with the influence of Islam in the modern world occasionally experience total doubt about their approach to the subject. Can one still justify putting such emphasis on the role of Islam as a historical continuum? Rather, since the nineteenth century, the period of the intensive ‘impact of the west’, haven't there been so many institutional changes that we have reached a real watershed, a breaking point with past history and with past categories of thought designed to explain that history? Shouldn't we de-emphasise Islam as a vital factor in the equation of the modern Arab world and of North Africa? Isn't it a mistake to put so much emphasis on the Islamic heritage?

“In Her other Realms and Territories”

H* I *HE unfolding this latest addition to I the vocabulary of Commonwealth relations is not to be •*• confused with an earlier horticultural metaphor, which likened colonies to fruits which cling to the tree only till they ripen. Today the idea of growth is still retained; but we prefer to think rather of buds which blossom forth into full-grown flowers, while still keeping the link through the roots with all other off-shoots of the parent plant. In other words, there is now a general hope and expectation that colonies, when they reach independence, will not sever themselves entirely, but transfer into the new relationship of Commonwealth partners. It is possible that in the past we have been too much concerned with the Commonwealth as a given number of members, and have concentrated too often on seeking the will-o'-the-wisp of Commonwealth 'esprit de corps' amongst them. But there can be no real watershed in our concern between the dark days of Colonial Office rule and the sweetness and light of Commonwealth membership. It is increasingly obvious that the successes and failures of the independent Commonwealth member are preconditioned by the extent of experiences and achievements under colonial rule. To take merely one example, may it not be claimed that the reason why parliamentary democracy has failed or is under extreme pressure in Pakistan, the Sudan or Ghana, is because, under colonial rule, these countries never experienced articulate and freely-organized oppositions? The likelihood of several colonies achieving independence and electing to remain as members of the Commonwealth in the foreseeable future should