This article, set in El Paso, Texas, in 1908, concerns immigration inspector Robert L. Dodd who was accused and administratively removed by the federal Immigration Bureau for facilitating the introduction of undocumented Japanese immigrants into the United States. The article examines the government’s case against Dodd and argues that his dismissal was not only a miscarriage of justice but also may have been structured to scapegoat Dodd as part of the ongoing efforts in the Progressive Era toward civil service reforms within federal service.

Maya Blue is a unique hybrid pigment created by combining organic indigo with the inorganic clay mineral palygorskite. First used for architectonic decoration in the Terminal Preclassic, it became widespread in the Late Classic on figurines, murals, and elite ceramics. Unlike indigo, it is notable for its durability and resistance to degradation by acids, alkalines, organic solvents and fading. The authors analyzed 17 samples of Maya Blue on pottery from the Late-Terminal Classic periods, a.d. 680–860, from Buenavista del Cayo, Belize. Using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), it was determined that the palygorskite in these samples likely came from Sacalum, Yucatan, some 375 km away. The authors suggest several routes by which palygorskite might have been transported from Yucatán to Buenavista. The pigment or knowledge of how to produce it likely was conveyed through high-status exchanges rather than commercial trade. Maya Blue held significant cultural and religious importance. It symbolized water and rain and was associated with the god Chaahk. Maya Blue appeared initially at Buenavista on architecture and rare imported ceramics but its use gradually increased on locally produced Belize Valley wares. Use at Buenavista peaked in the early 9th century before disappearing around a.d. 860. The study demonstrates the potential of trace element analysis in identifying long-distance social interactions in ancient Mesoamerica.

In winter of 1900, the famed nature writer Ernest Thompson Seton lived briefly in a log cabin built in the middle of the National Zoological Park, located just north of the White House. The small lodging was placed between the muddied bison paddocks and the denuded deer and antelope yards.

In a famous essay, Michel Foucault introduced the term “author-function” into scholarly discourse, and later scholars of authorship in antiquity have applied the term in different ways to different concepts. Some scholars center the notion of authorship around authority, while others look to the notion of authorizing a work as a finished literary work. This article seeks to retrieve a suggestion in Foucault’s essay that the author-function can fruitfully be understood under the notion of Foucault’s French term appropriation, that is, making something belong to a person, for purposes of punishment or praise. This article applies all three notions of the author-function in scholarly use to the complex testimonium on the authorship of the Gospel of Mark by Papias in Eusebius, Church History 3.39.15, and concludes that Foucault’s own construal of his term explains best the intricacies of this ancient statement of gospel authorship.

This article introduces the Voice Leaf, an outsider among Baschet’s numerous sound sculptures because of the use of the performative voice. Conceived in 1965 by French pioneers Bernard and François Baschet, the sculpture for voice consists of a stainless steel sheet folded as a leaf using origami technique. This article explores how voice and sculpture interplay acoustically by evaluating the voice’s agency and the sculpture’s aural dynamic gain. In this mutualist relationship, multiple senses are mobilised: aural, visual and haptic. The voice harboured in the sculptural leaf gains materiality and a resonance altered by the sculpture’s intrinsic properties. The article draws from conversations at the Structures Sonores Baschet Association open day with chairperson Pierre Cuffini and former workshop and acoustics research director Frédéric Fradet, as well as an interview with multidisciplinary artist and long-term collaborator of Bernard Baschet, Sophie Chénet.

This article provides a critical examination of the Moscow Mechanism, a rapid-response tool within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Originally established in 1991 and rarely invoked during its first three decades of existence, the Mechanism has experienced a reinvigoration since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, having been triggered six times, four of which were in response to alleged violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law during the conflict. Drawing on the authors’ experience as experts in these four missions, the article offers a historical overview, explains the Mechanism’s procedural dynamics and assesses its unique features. Through a comprehensive analysis of its repeated use in respect of Ukraine, the article highlights both the strengths and limitations of the Moscow Mechanism, ultimately arguing that recent developments have revealed its full potential as an instrument for advancing international justice and accountability.

Migration played a significant role in shaping the Native populations of the southwest United States and northwest Mexico. Large-scale migrations into and across the region were underlain by small-scale (intraregional) population shifts affected by environmental fluctuations (declines and improvements) and social phenomena such as aggregation and the spread of sociopolitical spheres of influence within the region. We compare projectile point types, mortuary patterns, and biodistance information from Early Agricultural period (2100 BC–AD 50) sites to identify subtle differences in population composition associated with the arrival and spread of maize across the region. Small-scale migrations occurring around the foundation of farming communities in the Sonoran Desert may have established the basis of broad regional connectivity, shared historical ties, and subsequent migration patterns and practices. Rooted in early farming traditions and a shared language family, we argue that farmers expanded north and east from the borderlands, then eventually returned to ancestral homelands when environmental and incursive pressures pushed them back south.

This paper analyses the tension between the double focus on critique and alterity within decolonial discourses. We argue that an excess of critical thinking could lead to scepticism, whereas an overemphasis on alterity could result in dogmatism. Consequently, since both approaches end up obstructing epistemic decolonization, we argue that it is necessary to strike a balance between critique and alterity; a balance that does not resolve the tension, but seeks to reveal its underlying relation. The first section locates decolonial theory within the framework of critical theory. We highlight how Quijano, Dussel and Mignolo invoke the critical tradition, whilst simultaneously claiming that a radical departure from it is necessary. Turning more explicitly to Dussel in Section 2, we explain Dussel’s analectics as a method to localize discourses, in which globally excluded perspectives are foregrounded. In the third section, we defend Dussel’s universalism and rationalism against criticisms from Castro-Gómez and Vallega by interpreting him as a relational thinker. Ultimately, the paper concludes that the success of epistemic decolonization hinges on its ability to reconcile classic notions of universality and rationality in a manner that avoids dogmatism and scepticism, namely by a continual grounding of philosophical discourse in material life.

This article assesses the state of research on the Tropologion of late antique Jerusalem. It is argued that the external and internal evidence points to a date of its redaction not before the later sixth century; this pertains both to the annual cycle, which presupposes the definitive introduction of Christmas in Jerusalem under emperor Justinian, and to the Oktoechos part of ordinary Sundays; also the famous chants for the veneration of the Cross, in part received in East and West, may be relatively late creations. While the reference of the book title to the ‘canon of the Anastasis’ implies a certain canonicity of the repertoire, its contents was subject to significant change; the role of particularly the Armenian tradition still requires further investigation. In any case, the history of the Hagiopolite Tropologion and its influence can only be written as a decidedly regional history.

This article is a discussion with supporting commentary, exploring the complex interplay and role of experimentation in various British Black music genres. We consider these as rich sources of cultural production, what we term the ‘Black Box’. As part of this Black Box discussion, we consider the researcher’s role in studying cultural production at global, national, regional and community levels. We critique the tendency of Western markets to both commodify and homogenise as well as raise concerns about perpetuating forms of neo-colonialism, especially with the increased importance of Africa, particularly styles such as afrobeats. Our discussion highlights the paradox of late corporate capitalism’s short-term focus, and we consider whether there is potential for a technological infrastructure to create genuine cultural and economic growth, that also challenges Eurocentric and Anglo-American dominance of the music industry. Within this flux, the importance of experimentation and the emergence of micro-genres facilitated by the internet advances a global dispersal of new sounds. However, this diversity is shadowed by the continued relevance of major label structures and the role of streaming platforms in controlling and mediating artist–fan relationships.

Sometimes male ostriches emit a low guttural sound that sounds strangely like a lion. On the plains in South Africa, these sounds aimed at female ostriches might confuse an unknowing listener. But on a ship bound from South Africa to Galveston, Texas in February 1887, these lion-esque sounds would not have been heard. Instead, as these dozens of ostriches crossed the Atlantic, their vocalizations were probably a quiet chirp, despite each bird weighing well over 100 pounds. Each ostrich had a more solitary existence on the ship than they had experienced in the wild or on a South African farm. On the Atlantic, they lived in single padded stalls near the middle of the hold, with paddocks between the stalls to offer some exercise and perhaps some interaction among the birds.1