Methods of Field Research in the Diaries of Orientalists of the Last Third of the 19th Century (Based on the Materials by N.N. Miklouho-Maclay and N.F. Katanov)

This paper considers the descriptive-extensive method used by Russian orientalist ethnographers in their Eurasian studies during the era of “geographical race”, i.e., in the last third of the 19th century. In the Russian Empire, the Military Ministry, Imperial Geographical Society, and Academy of Sciences organized geographical and ethnological expeditions to Central Asia. Field diaries are the main sources for the study. They served as both a means of recording heterogeneous data received by the researcher on a certain day and documents that described the daily life and expeditionary results. For comparison, the materials of the first expedition to New Guinea by N.N. Miklouho-Maclay (1871–1872) and the journey to Tuva (1889) and Xinjiang (1890) by N.F. Katanov have been taken. The comparison is possible from several perspectives, including the preference given by both researchers to working alone or with a small group of assistants, stationary studies in the local community. The analysis of the expeditionary materials and equipment has shown that the activity of solitary researchers was inseparable from the foreign policy priorities of the Russian Empire. Furthermore, the materials collected were important for military intelligence, not only for the relevant branches of science. Therefore, the common view of N.N. Miklouho-Maclay and N.F. Katanov as pure scientists, who were distanced from the main political problems of their time, needs comprehensive revision

'New Historicism' and Rudolf Ankersmit's postmodernist historical concept

This paper reflects on the modern historiographical situation of perceiving comprehensive historical theories as an obstacle to highly specialized research. On the philosophical level, priority has been given to structuralism and language philosophy, thereby resulting in almost unlimited supremacy of the hermeneutic approach in culture, i.e., in the prevalence of textocentrism. The Dutch philosopher Rudolf Frank Ankersmit argues that postmodernism is both a theory of history and a “theory for history.” According to him, historicism is a theory of “historical forms”. Thus, the morphology of culture is directly related to historicism. The transformation of historical forms occurs in conditions when the distinction between the text and reality (represented in the text) is erased, and the reality becomes “superfluous” in the context of the overproduction of meanings and interpretations. Therefore, representation ousts the reality. The New Historicism movement emerged in the United States during the second half of the 1980s as a response of literary criticism to the “challenges” of cultural materialism, feminism, or social history. The historical context is considered by the representatives of the New Historiography project as a system of culture, i.e., social institutions and practices (including political ones) are interpreted as functions of this system, and not vice versa

Computing of gas flows in micro- and nanoscale channels on the base of the Boltzmann Kinetic equation

AbstractThe paper describes the methodology of computing gas flows in narrow micro- and nanoscale channels on the basis of finite-difference solution of the Boltzmann kinetic equation using the conservative projection method of collision integral calculation. Mathematical framework of the method is considered and the problem solving environment for calculation of the above mentioned flows is described. Examples of the flow calculations in the plane and 3D geometry are given