Utilitarian Objects Research Articles

SPINDLE-WHORLS FROM THE LATE TRYPILLIA SETTLEMENT TROIANIV

At the Troianiv settlement more than 200 ceramic whole and fragmened spindle-whorls (SW) have been found. The size of the SW from Troianiv can be roughly divided into large, medium and small, with a diameter of approximately 55, 40 and 30 mm respectively. The height of the SW is from 2.0 to 3.5 cm. The weight of the SW ranges from about 20 up to 45 g.
 The shape of the SW from Troianiv was not standardized. Their profiles are varied but they mostly come down to a conical or biconical shape.
 Most of the SW has no decoration, only 56 items are ornamented. Two basic techniques are used to decorate — crossed lines and small needles made by very fine needle-shape tool. Only conical part on the Troianiv SW was covered by decoration.
 There are two main schemes of ornamentation — the radial and the circular ones. Large number of the items has the pictographic images. Among them several types of drawings can be distinguished with the dominated sign that most likely acts as a symbol of vegetation. The plant symbols on the spears are in conjunction with the zigzag and cross signs. The analysis of Troianiv SW suggests that they were not only utilitarian objects but also used in cult practice.
 With the SW from the Late Trypillia and other Early Bronze Age (EBA) cultural groups Troianiv items is definite unity by morphological features and decoration. However, many ornamental elements are inherent in the decoration of the SW from the specific locally-chronological groups of Trypillya CII and may indicate the identity of particular social collectives with common traditions in the sacral sphere. The analogies to the Troianiv SW in different EBA cultural groups testify to the close intercultural links between Late Trypllia and neighboring cultures.

Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting

Ramsey famously condemned discounting “future enjoyments” as “ethically indefensible”. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion which, when social choice is utilitarian, implies giving equal weight to all individuals’ utilities. By contrast, Arrow (Contemporary economic issues. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1999a; Discounting and Intergenerational Effects, Resources for the Future Press, Washington DC, 1999b) accepted, perhaps reluctantly, what he called Koopmans’ (Econometrica 28(2):287–309, 1960) “strong argument” implying that no equitable preference ordering exists for a sufficiently unrestricted domain of infinite utility streams. Here we derive an equitable utilitarian objective for a finite population based on a version of the Vickrey–Harsanyi original position, where there is an equal probability of becoming each person. For a potentially infinite population facing an exogenous stochastic process of extinction, an equitable extinction biased original position requires equal conditional probabilities, given that the individual’s generation survives the extinction process. Such a position is well-defined if and only if survival probabilities decline fast enough for the expected total number of individuals who can ever live to be finite. Then, provided that each individual’s utility is bounded both above and below, maximizing expected “extinction discounted” total utility—as advocated, inter alia, by the Stern Review on climate change—provides a coherent and dynamically consistent equitable objective, even when the population size of each generation can be chosen.

Ecocritical Consciousness in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

The present study focuses on the eco critical elements in The Winter’s Tale (1610-1611) by William Shakespeare (1564 –1616), which is an outstanding example of the literary writing communicating ecological consciousness. Having examined William Shakespeare’s contribution to understanding nature it can be stated that nature is one of the key concepts of the author. He was highly aware of the nature and humans connection, importance of nature as both utilitarian and spiritual object. That is why Shakespeare’s concept of nature is colored with mainly positive tones. The most typical words for natural world are “fine” and “beauty”. In contrast to these words one can see the ugliness of the humans’ world – “foul”, that causes climate change, population growth, deforestation, biologically degrading cultivation practices. His creative approach to early modern ecologies licenses critical practices that extend the limits of his period's geophysical knowledge, and that suggests productive analogies with our ecological challenges. Recent ecocritics have been seizing such opportunities to help people rethink environmentally destructive economic and social paradigms

‘Made of English Thread’

This article examines The Fabric of India Exhibition which took place at The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London, from 3 October 2015 to 10 January 2016. The exhibition explored the expansive global history of Indian handmade textiles with a lavish display of splendid and decorative objects. The fulcrum of the exhibition was the complex story of the struggle for Indian Independence and the role of fabric within that, told through a few simple utilitarian objects. Two-thirds of the objects on display were selected from the V&A’s colonial-era collection. This article argues that it is possible to integrate uncomfortable histories into a grand and otherwise celebratory narrative to convey a strong political and emotional sub-narrative, and that key to this is an understanding of the collecting history of the objects. Furthermore, it contends that this colonial-era collection can be revitalised to bring the Indian voice onto the exhibition platform.

Women's Work and Women's Myths: Mothers and Children on Ivory Looms

Several surviving artifacts of Roman imperial date consist of two small plaques designed for connection by balks (rectangular beams) and cylindrical dowels. All but one of the surviving specimens are of ivory and were probably luxurious versions of utilitarian objects. All have decorative details; three particularly lavish specimens bear mythological narratives in relief on both sides of each plaque. The original function of these objects is controversial, but the strongest evidence supports their identification as looms for weaving narrow strips to be used as decorative trim. If this reconstruction is correct, then their intended owners were primarily women, and the viewers of them were the members of those women's private households. Although most of the craftsmen who carved these very technically demanding works were probably male, the iconography of the decorated examples may reflect the social roles of their owners. The relief-decorated specimens in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli and the Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Cologne appear to depict myths that concern childbirth and motherhood. This essay examines how the functions of these objects dictated the reading of their narrative content as their viewers interacted physically with them. The narratives delivered didactic, comforting, and stimulating messages.

Review: From the Grounds Up: Thomas Jefferson's Architecture and Design

From the Grounds Up: Thomas Jefferson's Architecture and Design Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 26 January–29 April 2018 Recalling the many accomplishments of his long public life, the polymath Thomas Jefferson instructed that his gravestone be inscribed with what he considered the three most important: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence of the Statute of Virginia Religious Freedom and Father of the University of Virginia.” To mark the bicentennial of the last of those achievements—the founding of the university on the edge of the courthouse town that stood in the shadow of Monticello—Jefferson scholar Richard Guy Wilson organized From the Grounds Up , an exhibition of drawings, books, letters, paintings, prints, models, tools, and architectural fragments that exemplified Jefferson's passion for architectural design and building. Just how absorbing those passions could be was revealed to a visitor to Monticello who stumbled around scaffolding in unplastered rooms. Rather than apologizing for the unfinished appearance of the house so many years after it was built, Jefferson stated that he fervently hoped that it would “remain so during my life, as architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements.”1 Although staged to commemorate the laying of the foundations for the first pavilion on the grounds of Jefferson's “academical village,” the exhibition did not focus solely on the design and construction of the university; rather, it served as an informed introduction to those sources that inspired his abiding interest in architecture (Figure 1). Jefferson was just as fascinated with the practical aspects of building as he was with the theoretical nature of design. Wilson emphasized this point by displaying utilitarian objects such as nails made by slaves in the nailery on Monticello's Mulberry Row, period tools, a brick fragment from Poplar Forest, and a door from the same place fabricated by the enslaved carpenter John Hemings. Like many of his contemporaries in the …

‘Memory objects’: Material objects and memories of home in the context of intra-African mobility

This article contributes to the intersection of material culture and mobility studies by exploring the role of objects in fostering nostalgia and emotionally linking migrants with their home world. ‘Memory objects’ are conceptualized as special personal belongings that elicit deliberate or involuntary memories of homeland, home culture, social relations and episodes in one’s pre-migration past. Focusing on intra-African migration, the study is based on in-depth interviews with a sample of 40 migrants from 13 African countries, temporarily or permanently based in South Africa. Contrary to the extant literature, initial findings indicate most participants did not value keepsakes or sentimental mementoes of home. However, it emerged that some had developed a special relationship with specific utilitarian objects, mostly received as gifts, which essentially turned into memory objects over time, precipitating memories and emotional attachment through routine usage and performative action. It is argued that more attention must be paid to socio-cultural values and other locally specific factors.

Aesthetico-Cultural Cosmopolitanism and French Youth: The Taste of the World by Vincenzo Cicchelli, and Sylvie Octobre

Reviewed by: Aesthetico-Cultural Cosmopolitanism and French Youth: The Taste of the World by Vincenzo Cicchelli, and Sylvie Octobre Virginie Ems-Bléneau Cicchelli, Vincenzo, and Sylvie Octobre. Aesthetico-Cultural Cosmopolitanism and French Youth: The Taste of the World. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. ISBN 978-3-319-66310-4. Pp. 405. This sociological study of France's youth maps out the intricate correlation between patterns of cultural consumption and degrees of cosmopolitanism. In this context, aesthetico-cultural cosmopolitanism refers to the level of interest and awareness that French youth show regarding (inter)national aesthetic products (literature, film, music, news, architecture, etc.), and the manner in which these products impact their understanding, or imaginary, of the world. Through their analysis of both a large-scale quantitative survey and of qualitative interviews, the authors have identified five aesthetico-cultural profiles. The majority of French youth falls within one of three types of cosmopolitanism: inadvertent cosmopolitans (34%) indiscriminately consume a variety of foreign contents dubbed or translated into French; specific cosmopolitans (32%) on the other hand are more selective as they seek out particular contents of a [End Page 209] culture or genre; like inadvertent cosmopolitans, cosmopolitan fans (17%) consume an array of cultural products, but this group is more likely to do so in the original language. What distinguishes these three types of cosmopolitanism is therefore the individual's intent to consume, as well as their level of engagement with foreign cultural products. By contrast, a smaller number French youth voiced a strong rejection of international contents (the national fans, 11%), or a lack of taste for cultural materials in general (the impossible cosmopolitans, 6%). Interestingly, the survey reveals that familiarity compels appreciation, as young people usually voiced dislike toward things they did not know, and appreciation for things they did. Even though this book is a sociological study of French Youth, many of its findings will resonate in other societies and disciplines. Language educators for example will find it interesting that"the desire to learn a foreign language is overwhelmingly linked to the joy of discovery" (143), and not to utilitarian objectives such as finding a job or passing a class. The authors did observe however that when the consumption of cultural products in their original language "becomes too onerous, [it] conflict[s] with the pleasure expected out of the activity" (141) and brings one to lose interest. Although this survey finds that French youth greatly derive their knowledge and understanding of the world from cultural media, interviewees often expressed their concerns as to the accuracy of representation, with certain forms considered more realistic (television series), and other more artistic or escapist (independent films, plastic arts, music). The authors note that those who possess the greatest cultural resources tend to question the veracity of aestheticocultural contents and become more critical of products they see as "disingenuously serv[ing] the interests of global capitalism, [...] or because [they are] deemed insufficient and overly one-dimensional" (262). Finally, while many young people see aesthetico-cultural cosmopolitanism as a means to"transcend one's social and cultural horizons" (269), this unbridled multiplication of cultural models can foster tensions and divisions, especially for individuals with a weak sense of cultural identity. The danger lies in pushing these fragile individuals to retreat into the national, have psychological breakdowns, or reject all forms of otherness. Virginie Ems-Bléneau Georgia Southern University Copyright © 2019 American Association of Teachers of French

Optimal Mirrleesian taxation in non-competitive labor markets

This study investigated optimal labor income taxation in non-competitive labor markets. Necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for constrained efficient allocations that are implementable via taxes. Not all allocations that can be implemented in a competitive setting satisfy the necessary conditions for implementation. If an allocation that maximizes a utilitarian objective is implementable then almost all workers face negative marginal tax rates. If the planner’s objective is Rawlsian, implementation is always possible with a well-chosen unemployment benefit financed by taxes on profits.

Acts of Neolithic ritualization associated with Levantine bovine figurines

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates a corpus of Neolithic clay bovine figurines recovered from archaeological sites in the Central and Southern Levant. Despite numerous investigations, their function as utilitarian versus ritual objects is still unclear. In order to assess this issue, the depositional contexts and physical characteristics of just over 500 figurines were examined. The results reveal formalized and repetitive contextual data for the majority of the figurines studied, as well as commonality in their form and modifications. With reference to analogues from later Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft texts, support is found for the identification of the bovine figurines as objects associated with acts of ritualization, especially sacrifice, tied to the veneration of aurochs in Pre-Ceramic Neolithic periods. Furthermore, a symbolic structure linking bulls, sun, fire, ash, purification, fertility and rebirth was identified, possibly tying the bovine figurines to later fire rituals that are celebrated worldwide.

A Surrealist Writer’s Diary of a Twenty-One-Month Anthropological Expedition

A Surrealist Writer’s Diary of a Twenty-One-Month Anthropological Expedition

Balancing Lexicographic Fairness and a Utilitarian Objective With Application to Kidney Exchange

In this work, we close an open theoretical problem regarding the price of fairness in modern kidney exchanges. We then propose a hybrid fairness rule that balances a lexicographic preference ordering over agents, with a utilitarian objective. This rule has one parameter which controls a bound on the price of fairness. We apply this rule to real data from a large kidney exchange and show that our hybrid rule produces more reliable outcomes than other fairness rules.

Balancing Lexicographic Fairness and a Utilitarian Objective With Application to Kidney Exchange

Balancing fairness and efficiency in resource allocation is a classical economic and computational problem. The price of fairness measures the worst-case loss of economic efficiency when using an inefficient but fair allocation rule; for indivisible goods in many settings, this price is unacceptably high. One such setting is kidney exchange, where needy patients swap willing but incompatible kidney donors. In this work, we close an open problem regarding the theoretical price of fairness in modern kidney exchanges. We then propose a general hybrid fairness rule that balances a strict lexicographic preference ordering over classes of agents, and a utilitarian objective that maximizes economic efficiency. We develop a utility function for this rule that favors disadvantaged groups lexicographically; but if cost to overall efficiency becomes too high, it switches to a utilitarian objective. This rule has only one parameter which is proportional to a bound on the price of fairness, and can be adjusted by policymakers. We apply this rule to real data from a large kidney exchange and show that our hybrid rule produces more reliable outcomes than other fairness rules.

MaddAddam, Biocapitalism, and Affective Things

This essay considers the ethical dimensions of Atwood’s recent speculative fiction, the MaddAddam trilogy (2003–14), alongside a framework that Nikolas Rose, Sunder Rajan, and others term as biocapitalism. The trilogy imagines the social, cultural, affective, and ecological implications of the convergence of capitalism and biotechnology. In the MaddAddam trilogy, the fantasy of human independence and invulnerability central to neoliberalism and biocapitalism is depicted at its devastating endgame, in which the unbridled commodification of life has resulted in its near annihilation. Atwood’s novels suggest that we ignore interdependence, affectivity, and responsibility to our peril, evoking a posthumanist perspective in the dramatization of a catastrophic anthropocentrism that regards organic matter – the world’s flora and fauna, the human body’s cellular data – as marketable, utilitarian objects.

Exploitation of aquatic resources for adornment and tool processing at Măgura ‘Buduiasca’ (‘Boldul lui Moş Ivănuş’) Neolithic settlement (southern Romania)

Măgura 'Buduiasca' (‘Boldul lui Moş Ivănuş’) settlement has an important place among the Prehistoric settlements from the Balkans. It is characterized by continuous habitation from the Early Neolithic through to the Early Chalcolithic allowing an understanding of the development of utilitarian objects and personal adornments in respect of the raw materials used and their processing patterns. One group consists of local bivalves (Unio sp.) which were exploited in an opportunistic manner: first as an important source of food and second as a source material for producing artefacts after recovery from domestic waste. The local gastropods shells (Lithoglyphus sp., Theodoxus danubialis, Esperiana sp., Ansius/Planorbis sp.) are without any nutritional value and used only as a source of raw materials. They could be collected during specialized expeditions organized for this purpose at certain times of the year. Imported elements are a third category which most likely arrived at Măgura ‘Buduiasca’ as finished objects. They provide evidence for complex exchange networks at this period in prehistory. Species like Mytilus or Cardium most likely come from the Black Sea, while Spondylus or Glycymeris may have their origins in the Mediterranean Sea. The presence of these raw materials demonstrates different transformation methods with their origin influencing the processing procedure: allogene valves for adornments, while Unio sp. are especially transformed into utilitarian tools.

The Limits of Creativity in Copyright

As the distinction between the digital and physical worlds continues to diminish, the necessity to reevaluate the bargain struck by the copyright regime increases in importance. Digitization brings increasingly more aspects of our world into the potential ambit of the copyright system. To understand whether and how the copyright system should apply in an increasingly digital world, it is first necessary to understand doctrinally how current copyright laws apply to new digital works. This Article corrects several errors that have appeared in the literature analyzing copyright law’s treatment of 3D printing and other digital manufacturing files. This Article incorporates an advanced technical understanding of digital manufacturing files and applies that understanding to copyright doctrine to clarify misunderstandings. The analysis briefly confirms that digital files created to manufacture creative objects are themselves clearly protected by copyright. On the other hand, and contrary to several assertions in the literature, most files created to manufacture purely utilitarian objects are not copyrightable because they lack a modicum of creativity. The lack of copyright protection for these files calls into question a number of assumptions, including whether they can be protected against even verbatim copying and whether open-source licenses involving these files can efficaciously bind downstream users. If digital manufacturing files of purely utilitarian objects do not enjoy copyright protection, creators may seek to embed additional, ancillary copyrightable material in the files to secure protection. This ancillary material serves as a lock-out code, which tries to prevent what would otherwise be lawful copying. This Article analyzes that phenomenon and discusses potential ways the law may react to it.

Finding class in the glass: Obsidian source as a costly signal

Various studies in the past have utilized a costly signaling model to understand the importance of foreign goods. With few exceptions, stone tools have been ignored in the discussion. Sourcing studies of lithic industries have often failed to acknowledge the social benefits of such trade for utilitarian objects that are also locally available with presumably lower acquisition costs. The Postclassic Aztatlán center of San Felipe Aztatán in Nayarit, Mexico is a particularly compelling case study for such an investigation. Here, both local and exotic obsidians are used abundantly, but the reason for this remains unclear. I propose that costly signaling may be the reason for the importation of these more costly lithics. To qualify this, I demonstrate that obsidian source can be easily differentiated visually with little effort despite similar appearance, making it a reliable signal of wealth and connections through visual sourcing experimentation. I then use Game Theory in the form of a Truth-Lying Game to illustrate the rational motivations for signaling as well as the deference to the presumed elevated rank of the signaler by the receiver. Through these analyses, I demonstrate the efficacy of obsidian source asa costly signal.

An integrated magnetic, geochemical and archeointensity investigation of casting debris from ancient metallurgical sites of Michoacán, Western Mesoamerica

The ability of baked clay-elaborated objects to record the temporal variations of both direction and intensity of the geomagnetic field at the time of their elaboration or last use has been widely used during the last decades to fill the gaps left by available time-discrete volcanic-rock logs for a better knowledge of the evolution of the geomagnetic field. Further refinement of the secular variation curves has motivated the search for alternative non-conventional materials as attractive targets for archeomagnetic studies. Both clay and copper have been used since pre-Hispanic times for the elaboration of a wide variety of ornamental and utilitarian objects in Mesoamerica. Previous studies carried out in Europe and Israel have shown the usefulness of copper slags as one of these non-conventional materials. We present the results of an integrated study carried out on ten copper slags from seven ancient metallurgical sites of Michoacan. The analysis included a series of rock magnetism experiments, scanning electron microscope analysis, archeointensity determinations following the Thellier-Coe method and their corresponding dating. Based on the results obtained the slag-set analyzed can be divided in two main groups: low Fe concentrations (associated with high Cu concentrations) for slags comprising the first group, and high Fe concentrations (associated with low Cu concentrations) for slags from second group. Slags from the first group are characterized by almost reversible thermomagnetic curves, while those corresponding to the second group show a quite irreversible behavior. A crystalline (vitreous) structure within the massive surface of the slags is observed for those coming from the second (first) group. These striking features could reflect significant differences in the metallurgical process followed at these sites, which according to archeological and historical evidences correspond to Colonial and pre-Hispanic usage metallurgical sites; first and second group, respectively. The good experimental behavior exhibited by these materials demonstrates the suitability of copper slag to obtaining absolute archeointensity data which can be used to improve the existing Mesoamerican archeomagnetic record. This in turn, can be used both for geomagnetic field modelling purposes and archeomagnetic dating.

The Morrosquillo Assemblage Revealed: Provenance and Context of a Refined Group of Ground-edge Stone Tools from the Caribbean Lowlands of Colombia

ABSTRACTPolished ground-edge stone tools exhibiting a wide range of shapes, sizes, and lithologies as well as aesthetic sophistication and exceptional quality occur in large numbers throughout the Caribbean lowlands of Colombia and beyond. The wealth of polished tools suggests an advanced and large-scale lithic industry. This paper provides context for a collection of over 300 tools collected as surface finds in an area centered on the Gulf of Morrosquillo on the central lowlands, and it is thus dubbed the Morrosquillo assemblage. Using a combination of geologic and archaeological evidence, these tools are traced to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the enclave of the Taironas for 1000 years, where the abundance of high-quality raw materials enabled the development of an impressive lithic industry. Thorough examination of the stone tools revealed that they were mostly utilitarian objects used in a variety of tasks; however, the large numbers of polished tools suggest that the tool makers were as concerned with aesthetic appearance as with utilitarian purposes, and some of the tools were apparently symbols of status. The presence of tools that appear to have been deliberately broken suggest that they probably were used in rituals or offering ceremonies.

Optimal (Under-)Pricing and Allocation of Publicly Provided Goods

This paper exploits the links between a private value distribution’s hazard rate, mean residual value, and eta functions in order to characterize posted-price rules for a public agency to allocate scarce units of an indivisible good under the utilitarian distributional objective of maximizing expected consumer surplus. Sufficient conditions on the monotonic and non-monotonic classes of the functions are established that identify either market assignment at the clearing price or lottery assignment with partial or complete under-pricing as the optimal allocation mechanism. The results are summarized across a wide range of parametric value distributions, and selected non-monotonic cases are evaluated numerically to determine the relative scarcity or abundance of the good necessary for market or non-market assignment to dominate.