Articles de revues sur le sujet « Chinese raw silk »

This article provides information about cocoon automatic- and mechanical cocoon-reeling machines in silk manufacturing enterprises of our republic, as well as the state of cocoon cultivation. The technological properties of the cocoon shells grown repeatedly in local conditions of the hybrids of Chinese silkworms and the compliance of the raw silk produced from them with the requirements of the international standard have been studied. The compensation period in raw silk production is analyzed from a theoretical point of view. The factors influencing the linear density of raw silk during reeling, the methods of controlling the linear density of raw silk produced in mechanical and automatic machines are solved theoretically and according to the results of practice, including the time spent to fill the broken cocoon threads and the amount of defective length determined in 100 grams of cocoon thread. The quality of raw silk that can be obtained from cocoons grown in different seasons was analyzed based on experimental results. It has been proven from a practical point of view that the probability of producing high-quality raw silk from the cocoons of the III-IV seasons is low.

This article explores thread thinning, roughness, total, and continuous length by individual unwinding of defective cocoons obtained by breeding domestic Navroz-1 cocoons and Chinese hybrids grown in our republic. It is justified that the output of various types of silk fabrics can be ensured by increasing the amount of raw silk by unwinding defective cocoons. To achieve this goal, the research was carried out in two ways: raw silk of high linear density (16.60 tex) was obtained using a mechanical cocoon-winding machine, and 10.75 and 13.33 tex were obtained by means of an automatic machine. Certain technological parameters and modes for machines are experimentally presented in the tables. The quality of raw silk with a high linear density, produced by a new method, was tested in accordance with the requirements of the current state standard, O‘zDST 3313:2018, and positive results were obtained, corresponding to class A obtained by means of a mechanical machine and class 2A obtained from an automatic machine. For the production of raw silk with a high linear density of 10.75 and 13.33 tex using automatic cocoon winding machines, appropriate changes were made in the control apparatus and theoretical calculations were carried out. The resulting raw silk of high linear density is recommended for use in the making of carpet threads; moreover, it can be used in the making of various silk suit fabrics.

The aim of the present research was to define the place of Siberia in the current Chinese concept of the Silk Road Economic Belt. The paper features the current state, potential benefits, and possibilities of integrating Siberia into the concept of the Silk Road Economic Belt. An analysis of the commodity structure of exports to China showed that the increasing capacity of transport routes and new highways will strengthen the export and resource role of Siberia. The process is bound to increase deforestation and the export of raw materials to China, especially in the absence of large-scale investments into industrial production. The authors questioned representatives of the Chinese delegation on the economic image of Siberia in China, the future of the bilateral economic interaction, and the needs of the Chinese economy. The concept of local economy proved beneficial on the municipal scale, while the New Angarstroy project will develop production enterprises in Siberia on the national scale, which will meet domestic demand and boost export to China. The Silk Road Fund, established within the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the Russian-Chinese Regional Development Investment Fund can be effectively used as material and financial resources for the economic development of Siberia. They can provide investment in infrastructure and enterprises that will be repaid in the medium and long term.

This article is about Chinese politics in Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region in the context of implementation of the “New Silk Road” strategy. Focus on stress factors that exist between the Uyghurs and Chinese government. The caused and motivation of Uyghur separatism are analyzed. Uyghur separatism express itself in different ways: terrorist attacks or international activity, contacts with Islamic organization or relations with Uyghur diasporas of the world. Although there is no new information about ethnic or religious confrontation, but the situation in XUAR does not disappear from the field of view of Beijing. Interest in supporting security in this region has only increased. Particular attention is paid to the “New Silk Road” which will pass through in Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region. Natural resources and geographic location of this region provide opportunities for economic improvement in western areas of China. XUAR used to be a raw material base, but after start of the project “New Silk Road” new enterprises began to open, infrastructure is actively developing, foreign investment is being attracted. All this changed perception of XUAR from the border land to important section of the “New Silk Road”. The new Chinese concept also reduces the relevance of the Uyghur issue in international relations. Neighboring countries interested in joining to the “New Silk Road” and Chinese investment. Because of this these countries are not so active in the Uyghur issue, which the Uyghur diasporas are trying to support. It should also be noted increased pressure on terrorist organization. Thatʼs why their connection with the East Turkestan Islamic movement has weakened. Keywords: China, “New Silk Road”, Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region, XUAR, Uyghur, separatism.

According to the history of sericulture, the domestication and utilization of the silkworm as a source of silk began in the Shang-tung province of China around 3000 BC, and silk weaving began 2700 BC. Only intimate members of the imperial family and women of high birth were allowed to work in the manufacture of cocoons and silk in ancient China, which was considered to be nearly holy. From ancient times, the Chinese have rigorously controlled the breeding of silkworms and the monopoly of silk, safeguarding the lucrative business with regulations that make it illegal to receive raw silk, disclose methods for producing cocoons, or even have the desire to export silk. This article deals with sericulture in general, its grain production, the role of papillonage in pedigree sericulture stations, where pre-breeding grain is prepared, super-elite and elite, in grain factories where hybrid or industrial grain is prepared for the production of industrial windows in farms and other farms.

As the old idiom “men’s farming and women’s weaving” lays out an original picture of a traditional Chinese family organization, the silk weaving industry in China has experienced a long history and formed a well-rounded, stabilized technical system. Since the modern times, with the introduction and application of new looms, raw materials and advanced techniques, Chinese silk industry has gradually completed modernization. This article, based on historical materials and comparative analysis, aims to explore the co-evolution of science, technology and social structure by analyzing the technological and social changes in the modern silk industry. It has been found that essentially stakeholders in either the upstream or downstream value chain of the industry will all influence how such business is shaped, and at the same time, be affected by the result of product and process innovation. This might result in the business prospect where small family based farmers tend to be reluctant to the technological changes in order to protect their own business interests locally.

The Space Economy means the entire range of actions and exploitation of resources that are of value and use to humans in the course of the exploration, understanding, management, and use of space. The article discusses the economic role of the moon in the context of the race between China and the USA for its resources and for hegemony in space. An expression of China’s growing importance in terms of technological and economic primacy in space is The Space Silk Road, the aim of which is to extend Chinese influence not just on earth. Within the framework of The Space Silk Road, priorities include areas such as quantum communication, robotics, AI, flight, and the promotion of civilian-military cooperation. The BeiDou constellation of satellites is a key aspect of the Space Silk Road. The moon is an important element in The Space Silk Road, as it is to be a point of departure for further space exploration. It also is in itself an element of the space economy because of its raw materials. China plans to establish a research station on the moon by 2030.

Taking the interaction between agricultural guidelines of the Mongol regime in China and textile handicraft in the 13th and 14th centuries as the main clue, this article analyzes the historical background of the policies of restoring and promoting agricultural production in the early Yuan Dynasty, reviews the policy content relevant to the planting or breeding of fiber raw materials for textile handicraft, and discusses the role of the relevant policies in promoting textile production and technological progress in the Yuan Dynasty. Studies have revealed that the guidelines adopted by the Yuan authority to promote the production and supply of textile raw materials such as ramie, silk and cotton were deeply influenced by traditional Chinese agricultural civilization，although the traditions of nomadic civilization were still reflected in these policies. Guidelines, while increasing the variety and quantity of levy in the Yuan Dynasty, served to maintain the rule of the Mongol regime and to consolidate the privileges of the nobility. Objectively, those guidelines also promoted the evolution of textile techniques at that time.

The article examines the place and role of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China in the economic project of the New Silk Road in the context of China's international relations. The importance of the XUAR for China at the beginning of the XXI century increases due to its economic and geostrategic characteristics. China's economic strategy contributes to its strengthening in the Central Asian region and strengthens its position in comparison with the capabilities of Russia and the United States. For China, this is not only a desire to achieve foreign economic goals, but also an opportunity to reduce the risks of the terrorist threat. Xinjiang is becoming not only a springboard for China's new economic policy in Central Asia, but also a link between the important route of goods, raw materials and investments from the Pacific Ocean to Europe. At the same time, the XUAR is a zone of long-term instability, which is expressed in the development of separatism, terrorism and extremism. The actions of the Chinese authorities are aimed at stabilizing the situation in the autonomous region. But sometimes this is achieved by force and contradicts the ethno-religious traditions of the local population. Thus, XUAR, which is part of the New Silk Road, is characterized not only as a promisingly developing region, but also represents a hotbed of significant risk.

ABSTRACT A preliminary survey of the microstructures and compositions of representative ceramic styles using minimally invasive analytical techniques provides a method of gaining insight into the materials and techniques of ceramic production dating from the eleventh to twelfth centuries C.E. at the archaeological site of Aktobe and from the 14-15th centuries C.E. at Aspara in southeastern Kazakhstan, both walled cities on the Silk Road trading corridor. The case is made for local production based on the argument of technological style or patterning of practices. Seven ceramic sherds representative of glazed earthenware and stoneware traditions were selected for study from excavations of Y. Akimbek and others that are maintained at the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Almaty. Fragments from serving bowls, a cup and bottle were studied by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), electron beam microprobe analysis (EPMA) and refiring tests of the bodies and glazes. This initial study aims to characterize the range of physical and chemical variability of ceramics either produced at or imported into Aktobe and Aspara. Most stylistic studies consider these ceramics to have been imported from the Silk Road trade routes that connected many Central Asian cities. The styles include an imitation lusterware bowl made with a ground chromite underglaze pigment, a copper turquoise and cobalt blue and black painted white slipped alkaline-glazed cup, two green lead-glazed copper bowls, an imitation three-color of Chinese sansai bowl, a four-color lead-glazed bowl with underglaze mottled red, gray and black painted slips on a white slipped background and a stoneware bottle. Comparison of the weight ratios of the glaze compositions to possible plant ash raw material sources is presented as a possible way of studying raw material variability; however, analysis is complicated by having two other possible sources that may have supplied fluxing agents, including, salts present in the clays and salts from evaporite deposits.

As transport system «Monojet» includes design ideas in the field of development of over ground suspended transport systems it will allow: - to master effectively vital space of Siberia, the Far East and North of the country; - to strengthen defence potential of the country: to create the network of defence objects connected by the transport system including high speed and lifting mobile means of military technique and troops delivery; - to revive native aircraft vehicles which are not in operation now and to stimulate the building of native civil aircraft construction; - to create possibilities for innovations in the field of science and technique; to ensure technological progress in order to solve the import replacing tasks; - to change in the world public opinion the reputation of the country as supplier of raw material proposing transport services ( to counterbalance, for example, Chinese «Silk Road») and new transport means for civil purposes; - to contribute to the growth and strengthening of patriotism and to provide the rising generation with fair working activity in the future by stimulating motivation of the youth technical creation.

The issues of resource policy, which will predetermine the future growth of industrialization and urbanization, the forward movement of China's market-oriented economy, and the growing involvement in international cooperation, have been studied. Acceleration of the process of socio-economic development largely depends on the state of agricultural sector. It is noted that the country intends to follow the policy of openness based on mutually beneficial partnerships with other States and foreign organizations in order to increase the efficiency of agro-industrial production, increase the income of peasants and increase the competitiveness of Chinese products on the world market, as well as modernization of agriculture. It is shown that solving the problems of agro-industrial complex will remain a priority task. Its innovative reform is envisaged, creating a long-term mechanism for the integration of the city and countryside according to the principle “Industry supports agriculture, the city helps to the countryside”. The countries of Central Asia and the People's Republic of China face a number of tasks aimed to further development of agricultural sector, increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the industry, improve the well-being of rural residents and boost the rural economy, expand sales markets and stimulate exports, and international trade in agricultural products. In this regard, China continues to work on improving the quality and safety of agricultural products, fulfills its obligations as a member of the WTO, increases the production of environmentally friendly agricultural raw materials and food products domestically and abroad, participating in bilateral and multilateral intergovernmental cooperation in agro-industrial sphere. The authors emphasize that the PRC is one of the most important strategic partners of Kazakhstan in view of economy as a whole and specifically on the growth and development of agricultural sector.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the state and prospects of Russian-Chinese regional cooperation, a historical overview of the main stages of more than a decade of Sino-Russian regional cooperation, which starts since the signing of the “Plan of Cooperation between the North-East of the People's Republic of China and the Far East of the Russian Federation and Eastern Siberia (2009-2018)” in 2009. The article considers the development of the Northeast region as a key national strategy of China, and the development of the Far East and Eastern Siberia as an important aspect of Russian policy; it analyses the policy documents of the Chinese Government aimed at making the North-East region an internationally competitive industrial base for the production of equipment, new raw materials and energy resources, vital commodities and agricultural production, as well as important national technologies; here is characterized by the federal target program for the economic and social development of the Far East and Transbaikalia approved by the Government of the Russian Federation and the “Strategy for the socio-economic development of the Far East and the Baikal region until 2025”, as well as the “Plan for cooperation between the northeast region of the People's Republic of China and the Far East and Eastern Siberia of the Russian Federation”, where regional cooperation is positioned as a logical choice for economic development. The article analyzes the results of regional cooperation: the construction of infrastructure and transport facilities connecting the ports of the two parties, the construction of industrial complexes, cooperation in the field of forestry and agriculture, etc. The article comments on the main problems of Sino-Russian regional cooperation and ways to solve them, defines the prospects for the development of this cooperation in the context of the “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China on cooperation to combine the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt”. The article concludes that in today's highly developed Sino-Russian strategic partnership, regional cooperation is very important for further strengthening economic ties between the two countries, deepening mutual understanding between the two peoples and promoting the comprehensive development of bilateral relations.

Introduction. Various collections of Mongolian xylographs and manuscripts may contain works on divination practice with eight khulils. What does the word khulil mean? Why does one use eight khulils? What are the texts devoted to the khulil divination? This article deals with the practice of khulil divination in Mongolia, while introducing a Mongolian text devoted to this form of divination. Results. The divination practice goes back to the oldest Chinese source on divination Yijing (I Ching, Book of Changes, about the seventh century BC). Divination is carried out with the help of the trigram, or the three dashes, which are the result of casting coins or of some other method. A combination of trigrams means a particular future. These three lines are called khulil in Mongolian (gua in Chinese). Divination by 8 gua, or 8 khulils, and 64 (8 × 8) or 512 (8 × 8 × 8) combinations is the most common form of divination in China. Later, each trigram was represented by a year of the 12-year animal cycle so that the ninth year was the beginning of the next cycle. Thus, each of the 8 years symbolizes a certain trigram, or khulil, according to the ordinal number of the latter. Granted the number of Mongolian manuscripts on khulil divination in various collections, this divination form was widely practiced by Mongolians. By way of introducing the literature on the subject, the present article presents the Russian translation of the initial fragment of manuscript MN 1145 originating from Ts. Damdinsuren museum in Ulaanbaatar. This is a Mongolian translation from Chinese made relatively late that has few traces of Mongolization or efforts of adaptation to nomadic realia. Besides concerns for the illnesses of relatives or issues of choosing a son-in-law or a bride, which are of a universal character, the most popular topics are questions about farming, such as: should one expect rain? what will be the harvest of grain and raw silk? Also, there are many questions related to promotion and career, e.g., passing exams for the degree of an official. The text contains numerous Sinicisms, including idioms, expressions, and names of Chinese astrological signs; there is also a reference to buying a jins, which points to the Manchu period. Notably, neither Tibetan items nor Buddhist deities are mentioned in the text.

The Handloom Industry plays a vital role in the socio – economic structure of Assam in terms of providing employment and production of clothes. At the same time preserve and propagate the rich cultural heritage of Assam. Weaving in Assam is as old as human civilization itself and the art of weaving are being passed from one generation to the next. The existence of high-quality weaving skill and production of fine textiles is well documented in great epics like Mahabharata and ancient treatise like Arthashastra1of Kautilya (Choudhry, 1987). Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang also gives rich description of existence of high-quality weaving products and their general liking of the Royal family and the nobility. Writing is the early 19th century, before the British annexed Assam, Francis Hamilton2 has given an accurate account of the state of weaving in Assam (Sarma, 2012). This Industry was directly patronized by the state, so much so that queens established weaving schools in the palace, to teach the art of weaving to the daughters of the noble widows and other female members of the household of executed prisoners were also employed by the art for spinning and weaving as a means of subsistence. The neo – vaishnavite movement of the Shri Sankardev was an equally potent force in the development in the art of weaving, especially of figured cloth. After annexation of Assam by the British3, the Handloom industry declined rapidly particularly in cities. Another British policy of de – industrialization of Assam, instead of export of cotton clothes and silk products, Assam became export of raw cotton and cocoon to fuel the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Despite, dwindling of textile weaving like all other arts with the fall of the Ahom rule, it never became extinct as many other branches of Assamese art. It is still a living art as much in demand as it had been in the medieval period (Goswami, 2012)

В статье рассматривается история слова 糸/шёлк в Китае и России. Установлено, что уже в эпоху Хуан-ди, или Жёлтого императора (黃帝), 2600 лет до н. э., в Китае существовало шёлковое производство. По легенде, шёлк придумала китайская императрица и жена Жёлтого дракона Лэй Цзу (嫘祖). Ткань получила название糸 [sī] ‘шёлк’. Это слово было заимствовано соседними народами: маньчжурское sirghe , монгольское sirkek . От них в VI веке название ткани в форме σῆρες было заимствовано византийцами, у которых его взяли латиняне: sericus, Sēres . В Византии или Риме с этой тканью и её названием в IX-X веках познакомились скандинавы, преобразовав его в silki. От них лексема попала к восточным славянам в форме шьлкъ , заменив прежнее слово паволока , у которого была диффузная семантика. У восточных славян возникли формы рус. шёлк , укр. шовк , белор. шоўк . С конца XVI века в России начинает развиваться производство шёлка, сначала на Северном Кавказе и в низовьях Волги, а затем в центре страны. Появилось большое количество терминов, связанных с этой промышленностью. Слово шёлк вошло в русский литературный язык, приобрело метафорические и метонимические переносные значения, стало широко использоваться во всех стилях языка, в разных художественных, публицистических, научных текстах. В истории отмечен Великий шёлковый путь, который проходил от китайского города Сианя до Средиземного моря. В XXI веке он нашёл своё продолжение в китайской стратегии «Один пояс - один путь». ____________________________ © Цзятун Вэн, 2022 The article examines the history of the word шёлк/糸 ‘silk’ in China and Russia. It has been established that already in the era of Huang Di, or the Yellow Emperor (黃帝), 2600 BC, there was silk production in China. According to legend, silk was invented by the Chinese Empress and the wife of the Yellow Dragon Lei Zu (嫘祖). The fabric was named糸 [sī] 'silk'. This word was borrowed by neighboring peoples: Manchu sirghe, Mongolian sirtek. From them in the VI century, the name of the fabric in the form σῆρες was borrowed by the Byzantines, from whom the Latins took it: sericus, Sēres. In Byzantium or Rome, Scandinavians got acquainted with this fabric and its name in the IX-X centuries, transforming it into silki. From them, the lexeme came to the Eastern Slavs in the form of шьлкъ , replacing the former word паволока , which had diffuse semantics. The Eastern Slavs had the forms of Rus. шёлк, Ukr. шовк, Byelorus. шоўк. Since the end of the XVI century, silk production has been developing in Russia, first in the North Caucasus and in the lower reaches of the Volga, and then in the center of the country. A large number of terms related to this industry have appeared. The word silk entered the Russian literary language, acquired metaphorical and metonymic figurative meanings, became widely used in all styles of the language, in various artistic, journalistic, scientific texts. The Great Silk Road, which ran from the Chinese city of Xi'an to the Mediterranean Sea, is marked in history. In the XXI century, it found its continuation in the Chinese strategy "One Belt- One Road".

The paper discusses the studies of Yury N. Roerich (1902–1960) in the field of Central Asian art. In his opinion, the Great Silk Road should be considered not only as a caravan road providing trade routes between the countries of the ancient and medieval world, but also as an important arterial system of cultural interchange. The Kushan Empire, founded by the Tochars, who adopted Buddhism as the dominant religion, played a special role in the development of the art of the Great Silk Road region. Buddhism began to spread along the arteries of the Great Silk Road, forming a belt of Buddhist culture of great extent, based on Indian art, rethought by the masters of local traditions. According to Yury N. Roerich, this process should be considered a unique historical and cultural phenomenon. In 1923–1928 Yury N. Roerich made a great journey as a member of his father’s Central Asian expedition. Part of the expedition ran along the ancient routes of the Great Silk Road. During the expedition, the scholar managed to explore dozens of Buddhist art masterpieces, described, and photographed some of them. Yury Roerich believed that Central Asia, the Western and Eastern Turkestan regions became a kind of melting pot, where the interconnected and synthesized Indian, Iranian, and Chinese artistic styles, influencing the Buddhist art of Tibet, as well as the Chinese art of the 13th–14th centuries of Yuan and Ming Dynasties.

The main part of this article provides a complete edition (description, transliteration, transcription, preliminary translation, annotation as well as the reproduction of the photographs) of forty-two fragments in different languages, circulated along the northern Silk Road, today in the territory of modern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (PR China) in pre-Mongolian times: Sanskrit, Tocharian A/B, Old Uyghur [hereafter: Uyghur]. Their common feature is the use of the standard North Turkestan Brāhmī and its Tocharian and Uyghur varieties. In terms of content, the fragments include extracts from Buddhist texts such as Abhidharmadīpavibhāṣaprabhāvr̥tti, Prajāpāramitā, Prasādapratibhodbhava, Prātimokṣasūtra, Pravāraṇasūtra, Saṃyuktāgama, Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra, Udānavarga. There are also some Tocharian B document fragments. Several of these texts are found on the back of Chinese scrolls. The Chinese texts have been identified. Where possible, a reconstruction of the relevant section of the scroll has been added. An introduction provides general background information. The lexis of the edited manuscripts is given in concordances.

The main part of this article provides a complete edition (description, transliteration, transcription, preliminary translation, annotation as well as the reproduction of the photographs) of forty-two fragments in different literary languages, circulated along the northern Silk Road, today in the territory of modern Xinjiang (PR China) in pre-Mongolian times: Sanskrit, Tocharian A/B, Old Uyghur [hereafter: Uyghur]. Their common feature is the use of the standard North Turkestan Brāhmī and its Tocharian and Uyghur varieties. In terms of content, the fragments include extracts from Buddhist texts such as Abhidharmadīpavibhāaprabhāvtti, Prajāpāramitā, Prasādapratibhodbhava, Prātimokasūtra, Pravāraasūtra, Sayuktāgama, Suvarabhāsottamasūtra, Udānavarga. There are also some Tocharian B document fragments. Several of these texts are found on the back of Chinese scrolls. The Chinese texts have been identified. Where possible, a reconstruction of the relevant section of the scroll has been added. An introduction provides general background information. The lexis of the edited manuscripts is given in concordances.

The article is devoted to the main problems of the revival of tea production in China in the XXI century. Tea in China is more than a drink. This is the most important element of history and culture, an important article of foreign trade since the time of the Great Silk Road, when there was the so-called Great Tea Road (茶道) — a caravan route that ran in the XVI-XIX centuries between Asia and Europe. In terms of trade turnover, it was the second after the Great Silk Road. Since the beginning of the 80s of the XX century, the promotion of tea culture in the country has been based on traditional foundations. The awakening of interest in tea culture was accompanied by an appeal to some traditional values of Chinese society and their rethinking in the new conditions, which is of great interest to the scientific community both in China and abroad. Currently, China ranks first in the world in terms of tea plantation area and total production, accounting for a fifth of the world's exports. Among the necessary measures for the development of the tea industry, it is necessary to create a modern infrastructure that ensures the optimal operation of tea plantations, the improvement of the technological process for processing tea collection, the creation of new factories for processing and packaging finished products, as well as new domestic tea brands.

The Singapore-Johor-Riau Growth Triangle established in the late 1980s is the first regional cooperation framework in Southeast Asia. However, such a promising framework ran into a dilemma after ten years of development. Main factors accounting for its unanticipated limited progress include uneven regional economic performance, divergent individual interests at all levels, rising social problems, and uncertain external environment. A thorough review of the growth triangle with special attention on the progress as well as the issues be inspiring for the further promotion of the regional cooperation, which requires dynamics both internal and external. The first category of dynamics includes the design of a unified administrative institution, coordination between public and private sectors, more liberal policies, the proper understanding of social and knowledgeable elements, the role of overseas Chinese and the utilization of historical legacies. The other category mainly underlines utilizing external stimuli outside the region, especially China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI).

This article presents findings of the comprehensive study of Chinese mirrors with inscriptions unearthed from the early Iron Age burial complexes of Korea and Japan and the search for their closest analogies. An analysis of the morphological features of these objects and the content of the inscriptions allows us to attribute them to four main types: mirrors with inscriptions containing the characters jia chang fu gui, riguang, zhaoming and qingbai. Similar mirrors were widespread in Han China from the middle of the 2nd century BC to the end of the 1st century AD. They also became widespread throughout Eurasia, including the territory from Ukraine in the west to Japan in the east, from Western Siberia in the north to Central Vietnam in the south. The identity of the ornamentation and inscriptions of mirrors from different regions suggests that they all were produced in a limited number of centres located within the borders of Han China and spread across the territory of Eurasia along the routes of the Great Silk Road, which ran mainly along the steppe belt to the west and along sea routes to the east and southeast of the continent and to nearby islands. On the territory of Korea and Japan these mirrors might serve as amulets and markers of high social status, the inscriptions themselves, most likely, were not clear to the majority of the ancient inhabitants of this territory, since hieroglyphic writing became widespread in Korea and Japan only in the 6th – 7th centuries.

IntroductionStudies on various types of digital-technology-based psychotherapies (DTPs) have indicated that they are effective for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom relief among adults. The intervention efficacy or effectiveness hierarchy, however, is still not clear. Therefore, we propose to conduct a network meta-analysis to assess the relative effectiveness of various types of DTPs. We aim to establish the differential effectiveness of these therapies in terms of symptom reduction and provide high-quality evidence for treating PTSD.Methods and analysesWe will search Embase, CINAHL, MEDLINE, HealthSTAR, the Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, PubMed, the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, clinical trials (eg, ClinicalTrials.gov) and other academic platforms for relevant studies, mainly in English and Chinese (as we plan to conduct a trial on PTSD patients in Wuhan, China, based on the results of this network meta-analysis), from inception to October 2020. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses investigating the effectiveness of any DTPs for PTSD patients for any controlled condition will be included. The number of intervention sessions and the research duration are unlimited; the effects for different durations will be tested via sensitivity analysis. For this project, the primary measure of outcome will be PTSD symptoms at the end of treatment using raw scores for one widely used PTSD scale, PCL-5. Secondary outcome measures will include (1) dropout rate; (2) effectiveness at longest follow-up, but not more than 12 months and (3) patients’ functional recovery ratio (such as the return-to-work ratio or percentage of sick leave). Bayesian network meta-analysis will be conducted for all relative outcome measures. We will perform subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis to see whether the results are influenced by study characteristics. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessments, Development, and Evaluation framework will be adopted to evaluate the quality of evidence contributing to network estimates of the primary outcome.Ethics and disseminationThe researchers of the primary trials already have had ethical approval for the data used in our study. We will present the results of this meta-analysis at academic conferences and publish them in peer-reviewed journals.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42020173253.

AbstractNatron-based glass was a vital part of material culture in the Mediterranean and Europe for nearly two millennia, but natron glass found elsewhere on the Eurasian Continent has not received adequate discussion, despite its influence on ancient Asian glass. Here we present a new interpretation of natron glass finds from both the West and the East. After establishing the compositional types and technological sequence of Mediterranean natron glass (eighth-second century BCE) using trace elements, we report the analysis of a mid-1st millennium BCE glass bead from Xinjiang, China, which was likely made with Levantine raw glass, and identify common types of stratified eye beads in Eurasia based on a compositional and typological comparison. Combining these findings, we propose that a considerable number of Mediterranean natron glass products had arrived in East Asia at least by the fifth century BCE, which may have been a contributing factor in the development of native Chinese glass-making. The swift diffusion of natron glass across Eurasia in the 1st millennium BCE was likely facilitated by a three-stage process involving maritime and overland networks and multiple forms of trade and exchange, indicating a highly adaptable and increasingly efficient transcontinental connection along the ‘Proto-Silk Road’.

The article looks into key challenges for Ukrainian economy caused by foreign trade intensification with China in 2020 when Ukraine’s exports to PRC increased by 98 per cent. The dynamics and main structural shifts in the UA-CN trade are analyzed. The structure of bilateral trade flows between the parties by degree of processing and value added is explored. It is revealed that Ukraine’s exports to China consists predominantly from raw materials and products of primary processing: mineral products (iron ore), cereals (maize), sunflower oil and its residues, ferrous metals, etc. The imports from China to Ukraine consists mainly from electrical machinery, mechanical appliances, articles of apparel, chemical products, iron and steel, etc. Comparative analysis of the commodity structure of Ukraine’s exports to PRC and to the EU is conducted. The analysis shows that, despite dominance of traditional and low value added goods in Ukrainian overall exports, the share of sophisticated manufactured goods in exports to the EU is much larger than in exports to China. It is substantiated that trade with China largely determines the raw material orientation of Ukraine's international specialization, while exports to developed countries are characterized by a relatively higher share of intermediate and consumer goods. To increase the efficiency of Ukraine’s foreign trade, it is considered that the best option is to focus on reducing dependence on imports from China by developing domestic production of appropriate consumer goods and increasing export flows to developed countries. The expediency of Ukraine's refusal to participate in the New Silk Road project is argued in favor of using the benefits of nearshoring strategy, which opens the opportunity to replace Chinese consumer goods in the EU market with Ukrainian ones under the EU-UA association agreement. The article briefly surveys some cases of successful implementation of this strategy by Ukrainian business, in particular the launch of exports of household appliances (electro-thermic coffee and tea makers, electric razors, washing machines, electric heaters) to the EU.

Silk worm cocoon is one of the non timber forest product which potential to develop in West Kalimantan. The aim of the research was to evaluate the best cocoon from silk worm consist of Chinese cocoon, Japanese cocoon and Hybrid cocoon with murbei leaf as a food source. The research was conducted in Silviculture laboratory in Forestry Faculty Tanjungpura University. The silk worm was preparation in laboratory condition until got instar III. When the silk worm got instar IV the sample of each silk worm from each types (Chinese, Japanese and Hybrid) with number 100 silk worm was separated for the evaluate on quality of the cocoon. The data of cocoon quality consist of the weight of fresh cocoon, the survival of silk worm, the amount of consumed the murbei leaf, percentage of cocoon skin and the percentage of fail cocoon. The quality of silk worm cocoon was based on SNI Standard from Balai Persuteraan Alam Indonesia. Result of the research showed that from the three type of silk worm cocoon, the silk worm from Chinese cocoon has the average values of percentage of skin cocoon around 22.1067% (included on Class B), cocoon weight was 0.9023 gram (included on Class D), and the percentage of fail cocoon was 22.50% (included on Class D). Meanwhile on silk worm from Japanese cocoon has the average values of percentage of skin cocoon around 18.9223% (included on Class C), cocoon weight was 1.21567 gram (included on Class C), and the percentage of fail cocoon was 5.4348% (included on Class C). Silk worm from Hybrid cocoon has the average values of percentage of skin cocoon around 22.8624% (included on Class B), cocoon weight was 1.3489 gram (included on Class C), and the percentage of fail cocoon was 4.1667% (included on Class C). The temperature for breeding the silk worm was 27-30 The best cocoon quality was achieved from hybrid types. Keywords: Chinese type, cocoon, Hybrid types, Japanese types, murbei, silkworm

The adoption of the World Heritage Convention (WHC) in 1972 was the response to a world asking for peace after the destruction caused by the two world conflicts, particularly to cultural heritage (CH). UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) act as enablers in establishing strong and effective relationships among countries, people, culture and history, while influencing and attracting these elements to promote a positive national image and fostering mutual understanding, which is the main objective of cultural diplomacy (CD). This holds true also for China and this institutes the need to investigate on how UNESCO World Heritage acts as a strategic asset in Chinese CD. This paper will provide an empirical framework addressing the position of WHS embedded in the Chinese CD. Discussion on the growing Chinese involvement of WHS in cultural projects fostering international relations and considerations on the potential impact and future development of this phenomenon with regards to China and the WHC are offered.

“Pursuant to War Department Letter orders dated Nov 24, 1942, [Lt. Col. W. Randolph Lovelace, II, Medical Corps], proceeded to the above‐named theatres to secure information on aviation medicine, oxygen equipment developed at Wright Field and the status of evacuation of sick and wounded by air” (Aero Medical Laboratory (AML) Report No. ENG‐M‐49‐697‐1B, 1 May 1943). Thus began Lt. Col. Randy Lovelace's whirlwind tour of U.S. Army airfields overseas, stretching from Trinidad to the Far East. Lt. Col. Lovelace was accompanied by Brig. Gen. David N.W. Grant (Air Surgeon for the USAAF), five TWA pilots, and representatives of Air Transport Command (ATC). They left Washington D.C. on Nov 25th 1942 and flew eastward in C‐87 and C‐47 military transports, making stops at 20 U.S. Army airfields in transit before arriving in Kunming, China on Dec 10th. Flying westward, they made 30 additional stops before arriving home on Dec 28th. Fifty air bases in 33 days! In route, Dr. Lovelace interviewed 60 American and British airmen, including flight surgeons, fighter pilots and bomber crewmen. Lovelace procured samples of captured enemy O2 equipment and also documented the conditions under which American O2 equipment was used and the problems encountered; e.g., O2 masks and supply lines filling with ice at high altitudes. Recall that in 1942, with very few exceptions, most military aircraft lacked pressurized cabins. Thus, dependable O2 equipment was required for any mission flown above 10,000 ft. He reported that when no enemy danger was present, B‐24 & B‐17 heavy bombers seldom flew above 25,000 ft; however, German flak was accurate up to 30,000 ft, necessitating ascent into the stratosphere. B‐25 medium bombers operated at 12,000 ft or lower, and P‐40 fighters were used for ground strafing and dog fighting up to 18,000 ft. Armed with only cameras, Mosquitoes & P‐38's flew photographic reconnaissance missions over Italy and Burma at 35,000 ft. The British RAF used three stripped‐down Spitfires to make repeated flights to 42,000–43,000 ft to shoot down German Ju‐87 pressurized photographic reconnaissance planes over Africa. In the process, RAF pilots suffered decompression sickness and oxygen want. Twelve recommendations were made by Lt. Col. Lovelace following his tour of duty: accelerate development and testing of pressure breathing O2 equipment; larger O2 supply for ball turret gunners in heavy bombers; improve O2 generating units; distribute CO detection kits to all theatres; conduct a survey of occurrence and location of burns incurred by aircrews in flight to learn how to avoid such burns; have the Wright field AML develop a pamphlet with brief instructions on aero medical and emergency procedures for all personnel flying abroad with ATC; standardize litter‐retaining equipment; flight test helicopter ambulances; add patient‐retaining safety belts for airplane ambulances; develop a refrigerator for storage and transport of serums, vaccines and whole blood; expedite research on dehydrated foods; and have the AML publish a monthly Air Surgeon's Bulletin for all flight surgeons that reports the latest information on aviation medicine.Support or Funding InformationUSF

Introduction“From every kind of man obedience I expect; I’m the Emperor of Japan.” (“Miyasama,” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical The Mikado, 1885)This commentary is facilitated by—surprisingly resilient—oriental stereotypes of an imagined Japan (think of Oscar Wilde’s assertion, in 1889, that Japan was a European invention). During the Victorian era, in Britain, there was a craze for all things oriental, particularly ceramics and “there was a craze for all things Japanese and no middle class drawing room was without its Japanese fan or teapot.“ (V&A Victorian). These pastoral depictions of the ‘oriental life’ included the figures of men and women in oriental garb, with fans, stilt shoes, kimono-like robes, and appropriate headdresses, engaging in garden-based activities, especially tea ceremony variations (Landow). In fact, tea itself, and the idea of a ceremony of serving it, had taken up a central role, even an obsession in middle- and upper-class Victorian life. Similarly, landscapes with wild seas, rugged rocks and stunted pines, wizened monks, pagodas and temples, and particular fauna and flora (cranes and other birds flying through clouds of peonies, cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums) were very popular motifs (see Martin and Koda). Rather than authenticity, these designs heightened the Western-based romantic stereotypes associated with a stylised form of Japanese life, conducted sedately under rule of the Japanese Imperial Court. In reality, prior to the Meiji period (1868–1912), the Emperor was largely removed from everyday concerns, residing as an isolated, holy figure in Kyoto, the traditional capital of Japan. Japan was instead ruled from Edo (modern day Tokyo) led by the Shogun and his generals, according to a strict Confucian influenced code (see Keene). In Japan, as elsewhere, the presence of feudal-style governance includes policies that determine much of everyday life, including restrictions on clothing (Rall 169). The Samurai code was no different, and included a series of protocols that restricted rank, movement, behaviour, and clothing. As Vincent has noted in the case of the ‘lace tax’ in Great Britain, these restrictions were designed to punish those who seek to penetrate the upper classes through their costume (28-30). In Japan, pre-Meiji sumptuary laws, for example, restricted the use of gold, and prohibited the use of a certain shade of red by merchant classes (V&A Kimono).Therefore, in the governance of pre-globalised societies, the importance of clothing and textile is evident; as Jones and Stallybrass comment: We need to understand the antimatedness of clothes, their ability to “pick up” subjects, to mould and shape them both physically and socially—to constitute subjects through their power as material memories […] Clothing is a worn world: a world of social relations put upon the wearer’s body. (2-3, emphasis added)The significant re-imagining of Japanese cultural and national identities are explored here through the cataclysmic impact of Western ideologies on Japanese cultural traditions. There are many ways to examine how indigenous cultures respond to European, British, or American (hereafter Western) influences, particularly in times of conflict (Wilk). Western ideology arrived in Japan after a long period of isolation (during which time Japan’s only contact was with Dutch traders) through the threat of military hostility and war. It is after this outside threat was realised that Japan’s adoption of military and industrial practices begins. The re-imagining of their national identity took many forms, and the inclusion of a Western-style military costuming as a schoolboy uniform became a highly visible indicator of Japan’s mission to protect its sovereign integrity. A brief history of Japan’s rise from a collection of isolated feudal states to a unified military power, in not only the Asian Pacific region but globally, demonstrates the speed at which they adopted the Western mode of warfare. Gunboats on Japan’s ShorelinesJapan was forcefully opened to the West in the 1850s by America under threat of First Name Perry’s ‘gunboat diplomacy’ (Hillsborough 7-8). Following this, Japan underwent a rapid period of modernisation, and an upsurge in nationalism and military expansion that was driven by a desire to catch up to the European powers present in the Pacific. Noted by Ian Ferguson in Civilization: The West and the Rest, Unsure, the Japanese decided […] to copy everything […] Japanese institutions were refashioned on Western models. The army drilled like Germans; the navy sailed like Britons. An American-style system of state elementary and middle schools was also introduced. (221, emphasis added)This was nothing short of a wide-scale reorganisation of Japan’s entire social structure and governance. Under the Emperor Meiji, who wrested power from the Shogunate and reclaimed it for the Imperial head, Japan steamed into an industrial revolution, achieving in a matter of years what had taken Europe over a century.Japan quickly became a major player-elect on the world stage. However, as an island nation, Japan lacked the essentials of both coal and iron with which to fashion not only industrial machinery but also military equipment, the machinery of war. In 1875 Japan forced Korea to open itself to foreign (read: Japanese) trade. In the same treaty, Korea was recognised as a sovereign nation, separate from Qing China (Tucker 1461). The necessity for raw materials then led to the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), a conflict between Japan and China that marked the emergence of Japan as a major world power. The Korean Peninsula had long been China’s most important client state, but its strategic location adjacent to the Japanese archipelago, and its natural resources of coal and iron, attracted Japan’s interest. Later, the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), allowed a victorious Japan to force Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in the Far East, becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. The Russo-Japanese War developed out of the rivalry between Russia and Japan for dominance in Korea and Manchuria, again in the struggle for natural resources (Tucker 1534-46).Japan’s victories, together with the county’s drive for resources, meant that Japan could now determine its role within the Asia-Pacific sphere of influence. As Japan’s military, and their adoption of Westernised combat, proved effective in maintaining national integrity, other social institutions also looked to the West (Ferguson 221). In an ironic twist—while Victorian and Continental fashion was busy adopting the exotic, oriental look (Martin and Koda)—the kimono, along with other essentials of Japanese fashions, were rapidly altered (both literally and figuratively) to suit new, warlike ideology. It should be noted that kimono literally means ‘things that you wear’ and which, prior to exposure to Western fashions, signified all worn clothing (Dalby 65-119). “Wearing Things” in Westernised JapanAs Japan modernised during the late 1800s the kimono was positioned as symbolising barbaric, pre-modern, ‘oriental’ Japan. Indeed, on 17 January 1887 the Meiji Empress issued a memorandum on the subject of women’s clothing in Japan: “She [the Empress] believed that western clothes were in fact closer to the dress of women in ancient Japan than the kimonos currently worn and urged that they be adopted as the standard clothes of the reign” (Keene 404). The resemblance between Western skirts and blouses and the simple skirt and separate top that had been worn in ancient times by a people descended from the sun goddess, Amaterasu wo mikami, was used to give authority and cultural authenticity to Japan’s modernisation projects. The Imperial Court, with its newly ennobled European style aristocrats, exchanged kimono silks for Victorian finery, and samurai armour for military pomp and splendour (Figure 1).Figure 1: The Meiji Emperor, Empress and Crown Prince resplendent in European fashions on an outing to Asukayama Park. Illustration: Toyohara Chikanobu, circa 1890.It is argued here that the function of a uniform is to prepare the body for service. Maids and butlers, nurses and courtesans, doctors, policemen, and soldiers are all distinguished by their garb. Prudence Black states: “as a technology, uniforms shape and code the body so they become a unit that belongs to a collective whole” (93). The requirement to discipline bodies through clothing, particularly through uniforms, is well documented (see Craik, Peoples, and Foucault). The need to distinguish enemies from allies on the battlefield requires adherence to a set of defined protocols, as referenced in military fashion compendiums (see Molloy). While the postcolonial adoption of Western-based clothing reflects a new form of subservience (Rall, Kuechler and Miller), in Japan, the indigenous garments were clearly designed in the interests of ideological allegiance. To understand the Japanese sartorial traditions, the kimono itself must be read as providing a strong disciplinary element. The traditional garment is designed to represent an upright and unbending column—where two meters of under bindings are used to discipline the body into shape are then topped with a further four meters of a stiffened silk obi wrapped around the waist and lower chest. To dress formally in such a garment requires helpers (see Dalby). The kimono both constructs and confines the women who wear it, and presses them into their roles as dutiful, upper-class daughters (see Craik). From the 1890s through to the 1930s, when Japan again enters a period of militarism, the myth of the kimono again changes as it is integrated into the build-up towards World War II.Decades later, when Japan re-established itself as a global economic power in the 1970s and 1980s, the kimono was re-authenticated as Japan’s ‘traditional’ garment. This time it was not the myth of a people descended from solar deities that was on display, but that of samurai strength and propriety for men, alongside an exaggerated femininity for women, invoking a powerful vision of Japanese sartorial tradition. This reworking of the kimono was only possible as the garment was already contained within the framework of Confucian family duty. However, in the lead up to World War II, Japanese military advancement demanded of its people soldiers that could win European-style wars. The quickest solution was to copy the military acumen and strategies of global warfare, and the costumes of the soldiery and seamen of Europe, including Great Britain (Ferguson). It was also acknowledged that soldiers were ‘made not born’ so the Japanese educational system was re-vamped to emulate those of its military rivals (McVeigh). It was in the uptake of schoolboy uniforms that this re-imagining of Japanese imperial strength took place.The Japanese Schoolboy UniformCentral to their rapid modernisation, Japan adopted a constitutional system of education that borrowed from American and French models (Tipton 68-69). The government viewed education as a “primary means of developing a sense of nation,” and at its core, was the imperial authorities’ obsession with defining “Japan and Japaneseness” (Tipton 68-69). Numerous reforms eventually saw, after an abolition of fees, nearly 100% attendance by both boys and girls, despite a lingering mind-set that educating women was “a waste of time” (Tipton 68-69). A boys’ uniform based on the French and Prussian military uniforms of the 1860s and 1870s respectively (Kinsella 217), was adopted in 1879 (McVeigh 47). This jacket, initially with Prussian cape and cap, consists of a square body, standing mandarin style collar and a buttoned front. It was through these education reforms, as visually symbolised by the adoption of military style school uniforms, that citizen making, education, and military training became interrelated aspects of Meiji modernisation (Kinsella 217). Known as the gakuran (gaku: to study; ran: meaning both orchid, and a pun on Horanda, meaning Holland, the only Western country with trading relations in pre-Meiji Japan), these jackets were a symbol of education, indicating European knowledge, power and influence and came to reflect all things European in Meiji Japan. By adopting these jackets two objectives were realised:through the magical power of imitation, Japan would, by adopting the clothing of the West, naturally rise in military power; and boys were uniformed to become not only educated as quasi-Europeans, but as fighting soldiers and sons (suns) of the nation.The gakuran jacket was first popularised by state-run schools, however, in the century and a half that the garment has been in use it has come to symbolise young Japanese masculinity as showcased in campus films, anime, manga, computer games, and as fashion is the preeminent garment for boybands and Japanese hipsters.While the gakuran is central to the rise of global militarism in Japan (McVeigh 51-53), the jacket would go on to form the basis of the Sun Yat Sen and Mao Suits as symbols of revolutionary China (see McVeigh). Supposedly, Sun Yat Sen saw the schoolboy jacket in Japan as a utilitarian garment and adopted it with a turn down collar (Cumming et al.). For Sun Yat Sen, the gakuran was the perfect mix of civilian (school boy) and military (the garment’s Prussian heritage) allowing him to walk a middle path between the demands of both. Furthermore, the garment allowed Sun to navigate between Western style suits and old-fashioned Qing dynasty styles (Gerth 116); one was associated with the imperialism of the National Products Movement, while the other represented the corruption of the old dynasty. In this way, the gakuran was further politicised from a national (Japanese) symbol to a global one. While military uniforms have always been political garments, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as the world was rocked by revolutions and war, civilian clothing also became a means of expressing political ideals (McVeigh 48-49). Note that Mahatma Ghandi’s clothing choices also evolved from wholly Western styles to traditional and emphasised domestic products (Gerth 116).Mao adopted this style circa 1927, further defining the style when he came to power by adding elements from the trousers, tunics, and black cotton shoes worn by peasants. The suit was further codified during the 1960s, reaching its height in the Cultural Revolution. While the gakuran has always been a scholarly black (see Figure 2), subtle differences in the colour palette differentiated the Chinese population—peasants and workers donned indigo blue Mao jackets, while the People’s Liberation Army Soldiers donned khaki green. This limited colour scheme somewhat paradoxically ensured that subtle hierarchical differences were maintained even whilst advocating egalitarian ideals (Davis 522). Both the Sun Yat Sen suit and the Mao jacket represented the rejection of bourgeois (Western) norms that objectified the female form in favour of a uniform society. Neo-Maoism and Mao fever of the early 1990s saw the Mao suit emerge again as a desirable piece of iconic/ironic youth fashion. Figure 2: An example of Gakuran uniform next to the girl’s equivalent on display at Ichikawa Gakuen School (Japan). Photo: Emerald King, 2015.There is a clear and vital link between the influence of the Prussian style Japanese schoolboy uniform on the later creation of the Mao jacket—that of the uniform as an integral piece of worn propaganda (Atkins).For Japan, the rapid deployment of new military and industrial technologies, as well as a sartorial need to present her leaders as modern (read: Western) demanded the adoption of European-style uniforms. The Imperial family had always been removed from Samurai battlefields, so the adoption of Western military costume allowed Japan’s rulers to present a uniform face to other global powers. When Japan found itself in conflict in the Asia Pacific Region, without an organised military, the first requirement was to completely reorganise their system of warfare from a feudal base and to train up national servicemen. Within an American-style compulsory education system, the European-based curriculum included training in mathematics, engineering and military history, as young Britons had for generations begun their education in Greek and Latin, with the study of Ancient Greek and Roman wars (Bantock). It is only in the classroom that ideological change on a mass scale can take place (Reference Please), a lesson not missed by later leaders such as Mao Zedong.ConclusionIn the 1880s, the Japanese leaders established their position in global politics by adopting clothing and practices from the West (Europeans, Britons, and Americans) in order to quickly re-shape their country’s educational system and military establishment. The prevailing military costume from foreign cultures not only disciplined their adopted European bodies, they enforced a new regime through dress (Rall 157-174). For boys, the gakuran symbolised the unity of education and militarism as central to Japanese masculinity. Wearing a uniform, as many authors suggest, furthers compliance (Craik, Nagasawa Kaiser and Hutton, and McVeigh). As conscription became a part of Japanese reality in World War II, the schoolboys just swapped their military-inspired school uniforms for genuine military garments.Re-imagining a Japanese schoolboy uniform from a European military costume might suit ideological purposes (Atkins), but there is more. The gakuran, as a uniform based on a close, but not fitted jacket, was the product of a process of advanced industrialisation in the garment-making industry also taking place in the 1800s:Between 1810 and 1830, technical calibrations invented by tailors working at the very highest level of the craft [in Britain] eventually made it possible for hundreds of suits to be cut up and made in advance [...] and the ready-to-wear idea was put into practice for men’s clothes […] originally for uniforms for the War of 1812. (Hollander 31) In this way, industrialisation became a means to mass production, which furthered militarisation, “the uniform is thus the clothing of the modern disciplinary society” (Black 102). There is a perfect resonance between Japan’s appetite for a modern military and their rise to an industrialised society, and their conquests in Asia Pacific supplied the necessary material resources that made such a rapid deployment possible. The Japanese schoolboy uniform was an integral part of the process of both industrialisation and militarisation, which instilled in the wearer a social role required by modern Japanese society in its rise for global power. Garments are never just clothing, but offer a “world of social relations put upon the wearer’s body” (Jones and Stallybrass 3-4).Today, both the Japanese kimono and the Japanese schoolboy uniform continue to interact with, and interrogate, global fashions as contemporary designers continue to call on the tropes of ‘military chic’ (Tonchi) and Japanese-inspired clothing (Kawamura). References Atkins, Jaqueline. Wearing Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain, and the United States. Princeton: Yale UP, 2005.Bantock, Geoffrey Herman. Culture, Industrialisation and Education. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1968.Black, Prudence. “The Discipline of Appearance: Military Style and Australian Flight Hostess Uniforms 1930–1964.” Fashion & War in Popular Culture. Ed. Denise N. Rall. Bristol: Intellect/U Chicago P, 2014. 91-106.Craik, Jenifer. Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression. Oxford: Berg, 2005.Cumming, Valerie, Cecil Williet Cunnington, and Phillis Emily Cunnington. “Mao Style.” The Dictionary of Fashion History. Eds. Valerie Cumming, Cecil Williet Cunnington, and Phillis Emily Cunnington. Oxford: Berg, 2010.Dalby, Liza, ed. Kimono: Fashioning Culture. London: Vintage, 2001.Davis, Edward L., ed. Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture. London: Routledge, 2005.Dees, Jan. Taisho Kimono: Speaking of Past and Present. Milan: Skira, 2009.Ferguson, N. Civilization: The West and the Rest. London: Penguin, 2011.Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin, 1997. Gerth, Karl. China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation, Cambridge: East Asian Harvard Monograph 224, 2003.Gilbert, W.S., and Arthur Sullivan. The Mikado or, The Town of Titipu. 1885. 16 Nov. 2015 ‹http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/mikado/mk_lib.pdf›. Hillsborough, Romulus. Samurai Revolution: The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen through the Eyes of the Shogun's Last Samurai. Vermont: Tuttle, 2014.Jones, Anne R., and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912. New York: Columbia UP, 2002.King, Emerald L. “Schoolboys and Kimono Ladies.” Presentation to the Un-Thinking Asian Migrations Conference, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 24-26 Aug. 2014. Kinsella, Sharon. “What’s Behind the Fetishism of Japanese School Uniforms?” Fashion Theory 6.2 (2002): 215-37. Kuechler, Susanne, and Daniel Miller, eds. Clothing as Material Culture. Oxford: Berg, 2005.Landow, George P. “Liberty and the Evolution of the Liberty Style.” 22 Aug. 2010. ‹http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/liberty/lstyle.html›.Martin, Richard, and Harold Koda. Orientalism: Vision of the East in Western Dress. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994.McVeigh, Brian J. Wearing Ideology: State, Schooling, and Self-Presentation in Japan. Oxford: Berg, 2000.Molloy, John. Military Fashion: A Comparative History of the Uniforms of the Great Armies from the 17th Century to the First World War. New York: Putnam, 1972.Peoples, Sharon. “Embodying the Military: Uniforms.” Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion 1.1 (2014): 7-21.Rall, Denise N. “Costume & Conquest: A Proximity Framework for Post-War Impacts on Clothing and Textile Art.” Fashion & War in Popular Culture, ed. Denise N. Rall. Bristol: Intellect/U Chicago P, 2014. 157-74. Tipton, Elise K. Modern Japan: A Social and Political History. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2016.Tucker, Spencer C., ed. A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013.V&A Kimono. Victoria and Albert Museum. “A History of the Kimono.” 2004. 2 Oct. 2015 ‹http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/a-history-of-the-kimono/›.V&A Victorian. Victoria and Albert Museum. “The Victorian Vision of China and Japan.” 10 Nov. 2015 ‹http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-victorian-vision-of-china-and-japan/›.Vincent, Susan J. The Anatomy of Fashion: Dressing the Body from the Renaissance to Today. Berg: Oxford, 2009.Wilde, Oscar. “The Decay of Lying.” 1889. In Intentions New York: Berentano’s 1905. 16 Nov. 2015 ‹http://virgil.org/dswo/courses/novel/wilde-lying.pdf›. Wilk, Richard. “Consumer Goods as a Dialogue about Development.” Cultural History 7 (1990) 79-100.

To Rodica, who died first / To Mircea, who continues me [I]In his book Picturing Health and Illness: Images of Identity and Difference, Sander L. Gilman argues that during the nineteenth century the healthy norm perceived as ugly not only those who were deformed, but also those who were ill, ageing, and/or experienced different bodily “loss of function” (53). In the nineteenth century, how much was medicine responsible for defining ugly as ill, deformed, and getting old, versus beautiful as healthy, and then, for the sake of the community’s health, firmly promoting these ideas? Furthermore, with the rise of photographic art, medicine was able to manipulate and control these ideas even more efficiently. According to Deborah Lupton, “The new technology of photography that developed from the mid-nineteenth century became a valuable strategy in the documentation of patterns of disease and illness, and the construction of the sites of dirtiness and contagion” (30). This essay focuses on the skin’s narrative as it presents its story when photographed. William Yang takes photos of his good friend, Allan, who is dying of AIDS. Of interests here is to discuss/approach the photographic art not from its scopophilic angle, that is, not from its perverse and pleasurable voyeuristic angle, but to analyze it side-by-side with Drew Leder’s notion of the “the remaining body.” He believes that in states of severe pain, one’s body “dys-appears,” “from the Greek prefix signifying ‘bad,’ ‘hard,’ or ‘ill,’” and he gives as example the English word “dysfunctional” (84). Yang’s photos offer variations of the “body that remains,” and, as we shall see, of the body that gradually did not remain. Through his work, Yang approaches visually the theme of the ars moriendi of the entropic body in pain as reminder of its mortal, gradually disabling fabric. [II] In the section of his work dedicated to AIDS, Gilman discusses only a collection of posters that have circulated in mass-media, which he researched at the National Library of Medicine at Bethesda, Maryland. Gilman thinks these posters function as the “still images of illness” (174). In other words, he believes these posters may have had an impact on the lay community, although not the intensified, urgent one, as he would have hoped. Because Gilman did not include a single photo of a patient dying of AIDS — although he understood this lack — I juxtapose one of the posters from his book with Yang’s photos taken of his dying friend, Allan, from his project entitled Sadness: A Monologue with Slides. Here I discuss the impact of Allan’s increasingly emaciated body versus the static, almost ineffective quality of the poster in order to consider the idea according to which “AIDS victims are living sculptures. … Both subject and object of art … they combine with their disease to overcome the narcissism of human consciousness. … It is an art of continuous transformation of subject into object and object into subject” (Siebers 220-21). Yang is an Australian artist with Chinese parentage. The images presented in this section originally appeared in print in Thomas W. Sokolowski’s and Rosalind Solomon’s collection of essays entitled Portraits in the Time of AIDS. According to the editors, Yang presented them as “monologues with slide projection in the theatre” (34) because the main actor of this one-man show is dying of AIDS. Yang’s work consists of seventeen slides with short texts written underneath them. In an attempt to respect the body that is dying, the texts are not recited, but the readers/spectators read them subvocally. The brilliance of this piece resides in its hushed tone, which parallels the act of dying when the patient’s body and mind become more and more tacit and lifeless. From one photo to another, and from one text to another, we discover Allan, although we never quite get to know him. The minitexts relate Allan’s story: how he was hospitalized at St. Vincent’s, known as “the AIDS ward” (35); how he decided to return home, into a studio shared with a dealer; how AIDS first attacked his lungs, and so he had to keep next to him “a large cylinder of oxygen as he was often out of breath” (37); how AIDS then affected his sight, and he developed a condition known as “CytoMegalo Virus — C.M.V. Retinctus” that gradually “destroyed the retina” of his eyes (39); how he decided “to go off medication” (46); and, how, finally “he went into a coma. I saw a nurse give him a glass of water but the water just ran out of his mouth” (50). To look at these photos time and time again is to be reminded of Albert Einstein’s vision of the passenger trapped in the train running with the speed of light. That passenger could not sense all that was happening in the train, and especially outside of it, because time moves in its cosmic, non-human, slippery dimension, and thus sensation could not profusely permeate his body. Juxtaposing Einstein’s vision with Allan’s decaying body, I read the latter’s body as if it were coiled up inside his mind just like a snail covers a part of its body under its hard shell. The photos are presented rapidly with no entr-acte in between; in a matter of minutes, time and space seem to collapse. There is no time for a prolonged reminiscence of Allan’s spent life. Allan is dying now, and he does not have time to remember his life. He barely has time to feel his body, a touch, or a kiss on his face, which seems to Yang “to have caved in” (47). Through this work, not only does Yang capture the disturbing moments of a friend dying, but he also touches on the “epidermis” of despair. This “epidermis” is both endotopic and exotopic, meaning that it starts within the patient and then it radiates/extends to his relatives and friends. Yang’s images of Allan dying give the impression that his body levitates, jutting out into space — but unfortunately without much meaning. On the other hand, the posters advertised for AIDS are simple, if not quite embarrassing and disrespectful given the gravity of this illness. They rarely touch on any aspects related to the illness itself, as they allude more to the immorality of homosexual acts. Gilman explains part of the rationale involved in the process of not presenting people dying of AIDS as follows: The image of the ‘positive’ body or the body with AIDS is strictly controlled in the world of the public health poster. Nowhere is an image of the ‘ugly’ or diseased body evoked directly, for any such evocation would refer back to the initial sense as a ‘gay’ disease. … Mens non sana in corpore insano cannot be the motto. For representing the ill body as a dying body is not possible. Such a body would point to ‘deviance from the norm’ in the form of illness. And this association with homosexuality and addiction labeled as illness must be suppressed. … All these images are images not of educating, but of control. (162) The poster chosen for illustration reads “LOVE AIDS PEOPLE,” with AIDS used as a verb and not as a noun; nonetheless, the construction’s subtlety is rather counterproductive. To a certain extent, this poster can be related to Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (1601-02). There, the Apostle touches the actual wound because he needs tactile proof to accept its existence. The act of touching, as well as the skin open by the wound, reveal the fact that “Skin lacks the depth, the interiority we want it to give us. … The flesh we crave as confirmation of our forms cannot do anything but turn us forever out even as we burrow into the holes we find there” (Phelan 42). But the poster presented below brings into focus verbally (therefore propagandistically) how one’s body might be destroyed because of AIDS. Furthermore, the symbol of the arrow is a recurrent motif in the art representing AIDS, especially in light of its religious association with the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (see for example David Wojnarowicz art works which offer a personal interpretation of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian). But if LOVE AIDS PEOPLE, and if gay men identify themselves with a martyr, then they might easily fall target to this twisted logic and think of themselves as victims. As Larry Kramer notes, gay men are tragic people partly because they feel responsible for an illness that has been affecting both the homosexual and heterosexual communities: “The continuing existence of HIV is essential for the functioning of the totalitarianism under which gay people now live. It works like this: HIV allows ‘them’ to sell us as sick. And that kills off our usefulness, both in our minds — their thinking we are sick — and in the eyes of the world — everyone thinking we are sick” (65).Gay men have always been a target since, allegedly, they are a menace to the institution of marriage, procreation, and to morality in general. Endocrinology studies have been conducted on gay men, but their results have not been able to say with certainty why some people prefer to engage in homosexual rather than heterosexual acts. According to Jennifer Terry, earlier studies from the 1930s aimed at determining distinct somatic features of homosexuals for the most part failed to produce any such evidence. Most of them focused on the overall physical structure of bodies, measuring skeletal features, pelvic angles and things like muscle density and hair distribution. (144) (Another useful resource is Holt N. Parker’s 2001 article “The Myth of the Heterosexual: Anthropology and Sexuality for Classicists.”) How and by whom are our sexual identities created? Does the presence of one specific anatomical organ delimit one person’s sexual identity? We have been trained into believing that there are only two genders, male and female, partly because of our binary way of thinking. Needless to say, just as in one color there are degrees of its intensity and saturation, so there are in us verbal, behavioral, and sexual tendencies that could make us look and act more or less masculine or feminine. Even more productive is to note the importance of power (control) and the erotic in our lives considering that the photos (and the minitexts) presenting Allan seem insufficient to initiate a dialogue by themselves. Because the eroticized body is what dies, that is, what is put at risk or could become powerless because of AIDS. The body that cannot touch and be touched anymore; the body that cannot control its needs and desires; and, ultimately, the body that is deprived of its pleasures and thus loses its erotic self. Therefore, AIDS is not only a way to redefine our erotic life, but also becomes a reason to question our hygiene practices. Elizabeth Grosz points out that “erotic pleasures are evanescent, they are forgotten almost as they occur” (195). But when erotic pleasures are controlled, as seems to be the case because of AIDS, have we intervened in such a manner as to program our intercourse? Admittedly, AIDS is predominantly linked with one’s sexuality and, hence, it could make one feel too self-aware about one’s needs, as well as rigid and self-conscious in an (intimate) act which, in essence, is all about losing oneself, being uninhibited. In the end, Allan’s sense of identity seems to be imprinted only in the camera’s objective lens. After he died, as Yang remembers, “I read his diaries […]. AIDS was a tragedy that was for sure, but as well he had an addictive personality and his day to day life was full of desperation. I hadn’t realize the extent of this and it came as a shock. Yet there were moments of clarity when his fresh test for life shone” (51). Yang does not say more about Allan’s intimate writings and, as he suggests, it was quite surprising for him to discover a richer, more intimate dimension of his friend. Still, until Allan’s diaries will be released to the public to offer us a more palpable view on his life, we rely exclusively on the selections of photos and minitexts accomplished by Yang, thus being aware that, no matter how exquisite they are, they could only say a few things about this enigmatic patient.[III] After exposing Allan’s gradually collapsing body, we may want to analyze to which extent is dying/death something that reveals our self-centricity. It is by now a truism to say that death is the final moment of our embodiment to which we are denied access. Nonetheless, we cannot stop thinking about (our) death, and the last passage of this essay proposes its own reflection on this subject. Norbert Elias argues that each one of us is a homo clausus (Latin for “closed, self-sufficient being”). He believes that this condition is a consequence of our living an advanced phase in our individualized life. Surprisingly, he relates this self-sufficiency to the ritual of dying. He believes that in highly industrialized societies, a patient may benefit from the most recent technical and medical equipment, but that that person usually dies alone, meaning without his family/relatives around him. On the other hand, as he goes on to argue, “families in less developed states … often go hand in hand with far greater inequalities of power between men and women. [The dying] take leave of the world publicly, within a circle of people most of whom have strong emotive value for them, and for whom they themselves have a such a value. They die unhygienically, but not alone” (87). Elias does not explore this idea in depth, so we are left to wonder what he meant by dying unhygienically, or if he thought that method was better in coping with death. Also, he never mentioned the exact countries/regions he had in mind when he made that remark; therefore, we are left unsatisfied by his comment. Nonetheless, as Elias reminds us, it is important to remember that the traditional death rituals were and are intimate moments (and they should remain like this). The homo clausus idea may be linked with a body that is reaching its final embodiment, and hence becoming a closing-in-itself body. However, how does a body transact and/or negotiate the moments of its final embodiment? The process of sinking in one’s body, to which I refer, is not a visually, aurally, or especially olfactorily pleasant experience. Our deceitful memory misdirects our emotional brains by indicating which subsystem is still functional and open and which has become useless, that is, closed. In this light, we should redefine Elias’s idea by saying that what appears to be a monolithic structure — a body: closed, sealed, and/or self-contained — is in fact a very fluid body; that death does not reveal our self-centricity because that reasoning may generate an absurd idea, namely, we die alone because we have spent a life alone. Consequently, the dying body becomes the margin par excellence, which, because it is completely out of control, does not stop from leaking and/or emitting smells. This theory is confirmed by a study conducted on dying patients, Dying Process: Patients' Experiences of Palliative Care (2000), where Julia Lawton notes that “on a number of occasions, staff kept aromatherapy oil burners running throughout the day and night in an attempt to veil the odour of excretia, vomit and rotting flesh. … I observed that smell created a boundary around a patient, repelling others away” (135). One has to close one’s eyes to vaguely imagine what it must feel like for the medical personnel to keep the vigil of the dying bodies. Nonetheless, the lay community is exposed to photographs of the dying only on rare occasions. According to Gilman, these images are not made public because “The classical model of ‘healthy/beauty’ and ‘illness/ugliness’ is part of a cultural baggage that accompanies any representation of the ill or healthy body” (118-19). While the skin is endowed with the capacity of regenerating itself after it has been wounded, thus effacing time, a photograph of a dying body seems to efface one’s memory of one’s accumulated experiences. Such a photograph makes its contents (that is, the time, location, personal context of the shooting) disappear since its details will eventually fade away. As a corollary, the absent body effaces its photographed version, leaving it few chances to be remembered. The theme of the ars moriendi, as presented in this essay, has demonstrated that what dies is not only one’s body, but also the echoed memory of its erotic self. ReferencesElias, Norbert. The Loneliness of Dying. New York: Blackwell, 1985. Gilman, Sander. Picturing Health and Illness: Images of Identity and Difference. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1995. Grosz, Elizabeth. Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies.New York: Routledge, 1995. Kramer, Larry. The Tragedy of Today’s Gay. New York: Penguin Group, 2005. Lawton, Julia. Dying Process: Patients' Experiences of Palliative Care. New York: Routledge, 2000. Leder, Drew. The Absent Body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Lupton, Deborah. The Imperative of Health: Public Health and the Regulated Body. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1995. Peggy Phelan. Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories. New York: Routledge, 1997. Siebers, Tobin. The Body Aesthetic: From Fine Art to Body Modification. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Jennifer Terry. “The Seductive Power of Science in the Making of Deviant Subjectivity.” Posthuman Bodies. Eds. Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1995: 135-162. Yang, William. “Allan from Sadness: A Monologue with Slides.” Portraits in the Time of AIDS. Eds. Thomas W. Sokolowski and Rosalind Solomon. New York: Grey Art Gallery & Study Center, 1988: 34-51.

As the name suggests, the humanities is largely a study of the human condition, in which history sits as a discipline concerned with the past. Environmental history is a new field that brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to consider the changing relationships between humans and the environment over time. Critiques of anthropocentrism that place humans at the centre of the universe or make assessments through an exclusive human perspective provide a challenge to scholars to rethink our traditional biases against the nonhuman world. The movement towards nonhumanism or posthumanism, however, does not seem to have had much of an impression on history as a discipline. What would a nonhumanist history look like if we re-centred the historical narrative around pigs? There are histories of pigs as food (see for example, The Cambridge History of Food which has a chapter on “Hogs”). There are food histories that feature pork in terms of its relationship to multiethnic identity (such as Donna Gabaccia’s We Are What We Eat) and examples made of pigs to promote ethical eating (Singer). Pigs are central to arguments about dietary rules and what motivates them (Soler; Dolander). Ancient pig DNA has also been employed in studies on human migration and colonisation (Larson et al.; Durham University). Pigs are also widely used in a range of products that would surprise many of us. In 2008, Christien Meindertsma spent three years researching the products made from a single pig. Among some of the more unexpected results were: ammunition, medicine, photographic paper, heart valves, brakes, chewing gum, porcelain, cosmetics, cigarettes, hair conditioner and even bio diesel. Likewise, Fergus Henderson, who coined the term ‘nose to tail eating’, uses a pig on the front cover of the book of that name to suggest the extraordinary and numerous potential of pigs’ bodies. However, my intention here is not to pursue a discussion of how parts of their bodies are used, rather to consider a reorientation of the historical narrative to place pigs at the centre of stories of our co-evolution, in order to see what their history might say about humans and our relationships with them. This is underpinned by recognition of the inter-relationality of humans and animals. The relationships between wild boar and pigs with humans has been long and diverse. In a book exploring 10,000 years of interaction, Anton Ervynck and Peter Rowley-Conwy argue that pigs have been central to complex cultural developments in human societies and they played an important role in human migration patterns. The book is firmly grounded within the disciplines of zoology, anthropology and archaeology and contributes to an understanding of the complex and changing relationship humans have historically shared with wild boar and domestic pigs. Naturalist Lyall Watson also explores human/pig relationships in The Whole Hog. The insights these approaches offer for the discipline of history are valuable (although overlooked) but, more importantly, such scholarship also challenges a humanist perspective that credits humans exclusively with historical change and suggests, moreover, that we did it alone. Pigs occupy a special place in this history because of their likeness to humans, revealed in their use in transplant technology, as well as because of the iconic and paradoxical status they occupy in our lives. As Ervynck and Rowley-Conwy explain, “On the one hand, they are praised for their fecundity, their intelligence, and their ability to eat almost anything, but on the other hand, they are unfairly derided for their apparent slovenliness, unclean ways, and gluttonous behaviour” (1). Scientist Niamh O’Connell was struck by the human parallels in the complex social structures which rule the lives of pigs and people when she began a research project on pig behaviour at the Agricultural Research Institute at Hillsborough in County Down (Cassidy). According to O’Connell, pigs adopt different philosophies and lifestyle strategies to get the most out of their life. “What is interesting from a human perspective is that low-ranking animals tend to adopt one of two strategies,” she says. “You have got the animals who accept their station in life and then you have got the other ones that are continually trying to climb, and as a consequence, their life is very stressed” (qtd. in Cassidy). The closeness of pigs to humans is the justification for their use in numerous experiments. In the so-called ‘pig test’, code named ‘Priscilla’, for instance, over 700 pigs dressed in military uniforms were used to study the effects of nuclear testing at the Nevada (USA) test site in the 1950s. In When Species Meet, Donna Haraway draws attention to the ambiguities and contradictions promoted by the divide between animals and humans, and between nature and culture. There is an ethical and critical dimension to this critique of human exceptionalism—the view that “humanity alone is not [connected to the] spatial and temporal web of interspecies dependencies” (11). There is also that danger that any examination of our interdependencies may just satisfy a humanist preoccupation with self-reflection and self-reproduction. Given that pigs cannot speak, will they just become the raw material to reproduce the world in human’s own image? As Haraway explains: “Productionism is about man the tool-maker and -user, whose highest technical production is himself […] Blinded by the sun, in thrall to the father, reproduced in the sacred image of the same, his rewards is that he is self-born, an auto telic copy. That is the mythos of enlightenment and transcendence” (67). Jared Diamond acknowledges the mutualistic relationship between pigs and humans in Guns, Germs and Steel and the complex co-evolutionary path between humans and domesticated animals but his account is human-centric. Human’s relationships with pigs helped to shape human history and power relations and they spread across the world with human expansion. But questioning their utility as food and their enslavement to this cause was not part of the account. Pigs have no voice in the histories we write of them and so they can appear as passive objects in their own pasts. Traces of their pasts are available in humanity’s use of them in, for example, the sties built for them and the cooking implements used to prepare meals from them. Relics include bones and viruses, DNA sequences and land use patterns. Historians are used to dealing with subjects that cannot speak back, but they have usually left ample evidence of what they have said. In the process of writing, historians attempt to perform the miracle, as Curthoys and Docker have suggested, of restoration; bringing the people and places that existed in the past back to life (7). Writing about pigs should also attempt to bring the animal to life, to understand not just their past but also our own culture. In putting forward the idea of an alternative history that starts with pigs, I am aware of both the limits to such a proposal, and that most people’s only contact with pigs is through the meat they buy at the supermarket. Calls for a ban on intensive pig farming (RSPCA, ABC, AACT) might indeed have shocked people who imagine their dinner comes from the type of family farm featured in the movie Babe. Baby pigs in factory farms would have been killed a long time before the film’s sheep dog show (usually at 3 to 4 months of age). In fact, because baby pigs do grow so fast, 48 different pigs were used to film the role of the central character in Babe. While Babe himself may not have been aware of the relationship pigs generally have to humans, the other animals were very cognisant of their function. People eat pigs, even if they change the name of the form it takes in order to do so:Cat: You know, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m not sure if you realize how much the other animals are laughing at you for this sheep dog business. Babe: Why would they do that? Cat: Well, they say that you’ve forgotten that you’re a pig. Isn't that silly? Babe: What do you mean? Cat: You know, why pigs are here. Babe: Why are any of us here? Cat: Well, the cow’s here to be milked, the dogs are here to help the Boss's husband with the sheep, and I’m here to be beautiful and affectionate to the boss. Babe: Yes? Cat: [sighs softly] The fact is that pigs don’t have a purpose, just like ducks don’t have a purpose. Babe: [confused] Uh, I—I don’t, uh ... Cat: Alright, for your own sake, I’ll be blunt. Why do the Bosses keep ducks? To eat them. So why do the Bosses keep a pig? The fact is that animals don’t seem to have a purpose really do have a purpose. The Bosses have to eat. It’s probably the most noble purpose of all, when you come to think about it. Babe: They eat pigs? Cat: Pork, they call it—or bacon. They only call them pigs when they’re alive (Noonan). Babe’s transformation into a working pig to round up the sheep makes him more useful. Ferdinand the duck tried to do the same thing by crowing but was replaced by an alarm clock. This is a common theme in children’s stories, recalling Charlotte’s campaign to praise Wilbur the pig in order to persuade the farmer to let him live in E. B. White’s much loved children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web. Wilbur is “some pig”, “terrific”, “radiant” and “humble”. In 1948, four years before Charlotte’s Web, White had published an essay “Death of a Pig”, in which he fails to save a sick pig that he had bought in order to fatten up and butcher. Babe tried to present an alternative reality from a pig’s perspective, but the little pig was only spared because he was more useful alive than dead. We could all ask the question why are any of us here, but humans do not have to contemplate being eaten to justify their existence. The reputation pigs have for being filthy animals encourages distaste. In another movie, Pulp Fiction, Vincent opts for flavour, but Jules’ denial of pig’s personalities condemns them to insignificance:Vincent: Want some bacon? Jules: No man, I don’t eat pork. Vincent: Are you Jewish? Jules: Nah, I ain’t Jewish, I just don’t dig on swine, that’s all. Vincent: Why not? Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don’t eat filthy animals. Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood. Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That’s a filthy animal. I ain’t eat nothin’ that ain’t got sense enough to disregard its own feces [sic]. Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces. Jules: I don’t eat dog either. Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal? Jules: I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way. Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true? Jules: Well we’d have to be talkin’ about one charming motherfuckin’ pig. I mean he’d have to be ten times more charmin’ than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I’m sayin’? In the 1960s television show Green Acres, Arnold was an exceptional pig who was allowed to do whatever he wanted. He was talented enough to write his own name and play the piano and his attempts at painting earned him the nickname “Porky Picasso”. These talents reflected values that are appreciated, and so he was. The term “pig” is, however, chiefly used a term of abuse, however, embodying traits we abhor—gluttony, obstinence, squealing, foraging, rooting, wallowing. Making a pig of yourself is rarely honoured. Making a pig of the humanities, however, could be a different story. As a historian I love to forage, although I use white gloves rather than a snout. I have rubbed my face and body on tree trunks in the service of forestry history and when the temperature rises I also enjoy wallowing, rolling from side to side rather than drawing a conclusion. More than this, however, pigs provide a valid means of understanding key historical transitions that define modern society. Significant themes in modern history—production, religion, the body, science, power, the national state, colonialism, gender, consumption, migration, memory—can all be understood through a history of our relationships with pigs. Pigs play an important role in everyday life, but their relationship to the economic, social, political and cultural matters discussed in general history texts—industrialisation, the growth of nation states, colonialism, feminism and so on—are generally ignored. However “natural” this place of pigs may seem, culture and tradition profoundly shape their history and their own contribution to those forces has been largely absent in history. What, then, would the contours of such a history that considered the intermeshing of humans and pigs look like? The intermeshing of pigs in early human history Agricultural economies based on domestic animals began independently in different parts of the world, facilitating increases in population and migration. Evidence for long-term genetic continuity between modern and ancient Chinese domestic pigs has been established by DNA sequences. Larson et al. have made an argument for five additional independent domestications of indigenous wild boar populations: in India, South East Asia and Taiwan, which they use to develop a picture of both pig evolution and the development and spread of early farmers in the Far East. Domestication itself involves transformation into something useful to animals. In the process, humans became transformed. The importance of the Fertile Crescent in human history has been well established. The area is attributed as the site for a series of developments that have defined human history—urbanisation, writing, empires, and civilisation. Those developments have been supported by innovations in food production and animal husbandry. Pig, goats, sheep and cows were all domesticated very early in the Fertile Crescent and remain four of the world’s most important domesticated mammals (Diamond 141). Another study of ancient pig DNA has concluded that the earliest domesticated pigs in Europe, believed to be descended from European wild boar, were introduced from the Middle East. The research, by archaeologists at Durham University, sheds new light on the colonisation of Europe by early farmers, who brought their animals with them. Keith Dobney explains:Many archaeologists believe that farming spread through the diffusion of ideas and cultural exchange, not with the direct migration of people. However, the discovery and analysis of ancient Middle Eastern pig remains across Europe reveals that although cultural exchange did happen, Europe was definitely colonised by Middle Eastern farmers. A combination of rising population and possible climate change in the ‘fertile crescent’, which put pressure on land and resources, made them look for new places to settle, plant their crops and breed their animals and so they rapidly spread west into Europe (ctd in ScienceDaily). Middle Eastern farmers colonised Europe with pigs and in the process transformed human history. Identity as a porcine theme Religious restrictions on the consumption of pigs come from the same area. Such restrictions exist in Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut) and in Muslim dietary laws (Halal). The basis of dietary laws has been the subject of much scholarship (Soler). Economic and health and hygiene factors have been used to explain the development of dietary laws historically. The significance of dietary laws, however, and the importance attached to them can be related to other purposes in defining and expressing religious and cultural identity. Dietary laws and their observance may have been an important factor in sustaining Jewish identity despite the dispersal of Jews in foreign lands since biblical times. In those situations, where a person eats in the home of someone who does not keep kosher, the lack of knowledge about your host’s ingredients and the food preparation techniques make it very difficult to keep kosher. Dietary laws require a certain amount of discipline and self-control, and the ability to make distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, pure and defiled, the sacred and the profane, in everyday life, thus elevating eating into a religious act. Alternatively, people who eat anything are often subject to moral judgments that may also lead to social stigmatisation and discrimination. One of the most powerful and persuasive discourses influencing current thinking about health and bodies is the construction of an ‘obesity epidemic’, critiqued by a range of authors (see for example, Wright & Harwood). As omnivores who appear indiscriminate when it comes to food, pigs provide an image of uncontrolled eating, made visible by the body as a “virtual confessor”, to use Elizabeth Grosz’s term. In Fat Pig, a production by the Sydney Theatre Company in 2006, women are reduced to being either fat pigs or shrieking shallow women. Fatuosity, a blog by PhD student Jackie Wykes drawing on her research on fat and sexual subjectivity, provides a review of the play to describe the misogyny involved: “It leaves no options for women—you can either be a lovely person but a fat pig who will end up alone; or you can be a shrill bitch but beautiful, and end up with an equally obnoxious and shallow male counterpart”. The elision of the divide between women and pigs enacted by such imagery also creates openings for new modes of analysis and new practices of intervention that further challenge humanist histories. Such interventions need to make visible other power relations embedded in assumptions about identity politics. Following the lead of feminists and postcolonial theorists who have challenged the binary oppositions central to western ideology and hierarchical power relations, critical animal theorists have also called into question the essentialist and dualist assumptions underpinning our views of animals (Best). A pig history of the humanities might restore the central role that pigs have played in human history and evolution, beyond their exploitation as food. Humans have constructed their story of the nature of pigs to suit themselves in terms that are specieist, racist, patriarchal and colonialist, and failed to grasp the connections between the oppression of humans and other animals. The past and the ways it is constructed through history reflect and shape contemporary conditions. In this sense, the past has a powerful impact on the present, and the way this is re-told, therefore, also needs to be situated, historicised and problematicised. The examination of history and society from the standpoint of (nonhuman) animals offers new insights on our relationships in the past, but it might also provide an alternative history that restores their agency and contributes to a different kind of future. 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