bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Chris Searle: Funk Brother number one
Authors: Scott Jonathan
Published: September 2009

The working-class pedagogy, or ‘resistance education’ of Chris Searle; his identification of linguistic colonialism; his practice of critical literacy as embracing the lives, experiences and imaginations of his students; and the massive body of work, from Stepney Words onwards, in which he has set this down, comprise an unparalleled resource for radical educationalists seeking to develop the practice — and theory — of critical literacy and working-class pedagogy. Yet, while concepts such as linguistic colonialism have been elaborated to furnish the careers of more high-profile intellectuals and academics on the cultural Left, that same cultural Left, in its concern with a self-limiting identity politics, has sidelined the challenging, revolutionary implications of Searle’s approach and methods. In the process, Searle has been left ‘standing in the shadows’, much like the musicians who originally crafted the Motown sound — the Funk Brothers — and made that phenomenon possible.
Mozambique diary
Authors: Davidson Basil
Published: September 2009

Between 1977 and 1979, Chris Searle taught in the newly liberated Mozambique. His diary of working in a secondary school was published as We’re Building the New School! (London, Zed, 1981) and we reproduce here excerpts from its foreword by Basil Davidson, writing in January 1980.
Biomechanical and Biologic Augmentation for the Treatment of Massive Rotator Cuff Tears
Authors: Nho Shane J. , Delos Demetris , Yadav Hemang , Pensak Michael , Romeo Anthony A. , Warren Russell F. , MacGillivray John D.
Published: September 2009

Recent studies have reported that massive rotator cuff tears do not heal as predictably as, and may have diminished clinical outcomes compared with, smaller rotator cuff tears. An improved understanding of the biologic degeneration and the biomechanical alterations of massive rotator cuff tears should provide better strategies to optimize outcomes. The approach to patients with massive rotator cuff tears requires careful assessment of the patient and the extent of rotator cuff degeneration to determine the appropriate treatment. For a rotator cuff tear that is repairable, the goal is to produce a tension-free, anatomical repair that restores the footprint using soft tissue releases and various suturing techniques, including double-row, transosseous-equivalent suture bridges or the rip-stop stitch. For irreparable cuff tears, the surgeon may elect to proceed with 1 of 2 approaches: (1) palliative surgical treatment—that is, rotator cuff debridement, synovectomy, biceps tenotomy, tuberoplasty and/or nonanatomical repair with partial repair; or (2) salvage treatment with various tendon transfers. Even though the biomechanical constructs for rotator cuff repairs have been improved, the integrity of the repair still depends on biologic healing at the tendon-to-bone junction. There has been much interest in the development of a scaffold to bridge massive rotator cuff tears and adjuvant biologic modalities including growth factors and tenocyte-seeded scaffolds to augment tendon-to-bone healing. The treatment of rotator cuff disease has improved considerably, but massive rotator cuff tears continue to pose a challenging problem for orthopaedic surgeons.
Clinical and Radiologic Outcomes of Arthroscopic Glenoid Labrum Repair With the BioKnotless Suture Anchor
Authors: Oh Joo Han , Lee Ho Kyoo , Kim Jae Yoon , Kim Sae Hoon , Gong Hyun Sik
Published: September 2009

Background

Although arthroscopic glenoid labrum repair using the BioKnotless anchor is common, the benefits and efficacy have not been fully evaluated.

Hypothesis

BioKnotless suture anchor is a clinically and radiologically suitable material for arthroscopic labral repair.

Study Design

Case series; Level of evidence, 4.

Methods

Ninety-seven patients underwent arthroscopic glenoid labrum repair with BioKnotless anchor between July 2004 and December 2005. Thirty-seven patients had traumatic anterior instability and 60 patients had an isolated superior labrum, anterior-posterior (SLAP) lesion. The mean age at surgery was 36.0 years (range, 15–66); the average follow-up was 34.1 months (range, 24–54). Clinical outcomes were evaluated using range of motion and various functional evaluation scores including sports activity. Pain and patient satisfaction were measured using a visual analog scale (VAS). Computed tomography arthrography was conducted in 73 patients at least 1 year after surgery for radiologic evaluation.

Results

In patients with instability, the Western Ontario Shoulder Instability index and Rowe score improved from 53.2 to 85.9 and from 68.7 to 92.7, respectively. Return to normal recreation and sports were possible in 30 patients (81.1%); the mean satisfaction VAS was 9.2. There was 1 postoperative dislocation, and the apprehension test was positive in 1 case. Postoperative range of motion including external rotation was not different. In patients with a SLAP lesion, the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons score and Constant score improved from 67.3 to 96.0 and 79.1 to 96.8, respectively. Pain VAS decreased from 6.0 to 0.4, and the mean satisfaction VAS was 9.4. Return to normal recreation and sports were possible in 50 patients (83.3%). All labra were found to have firmly healed to bony glenoid rim without anchor-related osteolysis in postoperative CT arthrography.

Conclusion

Clinically and radiologically, the BioKnotless anchor appears to be an acceptable alternative for arthroscopic labrum repair, and a suitable material allowing the avoidance of certain troublesome drawbacks of the conventional knot-tying suture anchor.
Some Political Meanings of ‘Civilization’
Authors: Kapustin Boris
Published: September 2009

Since the early nineties, the term ‘civilization’ has undergone remarkable transformations and has assumed political and ideological functions it has not been fit for as a linchpin of the more than two-centuries-old academic discourse on ‘civilizations’. These transformations materialized in the political-ideological formations known as the ‘clash of civilizations’ and the ‘dialogue among civilizations’ which comprise a ‘civilizational discourse’ in many respects alternative to the academic one. This essay intends, firstly, to uncover the structural and thematic differences between the academic ‘civilizational discourse’ and its trendy alternative. Secondly, the essay aspires to demonstrate how complementary, at their methodological and ideological bases, the ‘clash of civilizations’ and the ‘dialogue among civilizations’ are, despite their highly-publicized antagonism. Thirdly, the article aims to highlight the actual political processes underway in our world which manifest themselves through and make use of the alternative ‘civilizational discourse’ as part of their modus operandi. The essay ties these processes with the global triumph of capitalism at the closure of the 20th century, and with the rise of the projects of authoritarian hegemony.
Remarks on Russian Philosophy, Soviet Philosophy, and Historicism
Authors: Rockmore Tom
Published: September 2009

This paper concerns two themes: my personal experience of Russian philosophy and Russian philosophers on the one hand, and historicism on the other. My account of my limited experience of Russian philosophers and philosophy will be mainly autobiographical. My remarks about historicism will concern a single aspect of the philosophical consequences of the Soviet experience for Russian philosophy. When I come to Russia, I am always surprised by the degree of interest in a historical approach to knowledge, an interest that, so far as I know, is unique to Russian philosophy. This difference in perspective as concerns the historical character of cognitive claims needs to be explained. It needs to be explained why contemporary Russian philosophers and contemporary Russian philosophy are so hospitable to a historical approach to knowledge, an approach which has always been rare, even unusual, elsewhere. My hypothesis, which I examine the paper, is that there is a deep link between contemporary Russian interest in a historical approach to knowledge and Soviet philosophy. In particular, there is a link to Marx, who is a historical thinker, and to pre-Soviet Russian philosophy, as distinguished from Marxism, which is basically a-historical.
The Place of Russian Philosophy in World Philosophical History — A Perspective
Authors: van der Zweerde Evert
Published: September 2009

This paper sketches the ambitious outlines of an assessment of the place of Russian philosophy in philosophical history ‘at large’, i.e. on a global and world-historical scale. At the same time, it indicates, rather modestly, a number of elements and aspects of such a project. A retrospective reflection and reconstruction is not only a recurrent phenomenon in philosophical culture (which, the author assumes, has become global), it also is, by virtue of its being a philosophical reflection, one among many possible perspectives. The central claim of the paper is that the key to an assessment of the world-historical place of Russian philosophy is to be found in the Soviet period, not only because it was, through its isolation policy and its subordination of philosophy to political and ideological goals, a determining factor for a large part of the 20th century, but also, and more importantly, because it has systematically distorted the perception of Russia's philosophical history, including of the Soviet episode itself. The very undoing of these distortions, however, risks becoming a distortion because of, on the one hand, a demonization of the Soviet factor and, on the other hand, a disregard for its philosophical and meta-philosophical relevance.
The Idea of Interdisciplinary Approach in Contemporary Epistemology
Authors: Kasavin Ilya T.
Published: September 2009

This paper presents some perspectives in contemporary epistemology, relating in particular to the links between contextualism and interdisciplinary approaches. The author considers the role played by different theories of context in the frame of a social epistemology.
New Models of Development and The Problem of Values
Authors: Stepin Vyacheslav S.
Published: September 2009

This paper presents a series of analysis of social transformations, from the standpoints of civilizations and formations. The idea of multiple models of development of civilization is exposed. The fundamental values underscoring the traditional and technogenic models are presented. The contemporary crises are studied in its link to globalization. It is argued that, in order to overcome these crises, a substantial transformation of the values of the techngenic civilisation is needed. The upraising values in the spheres of religion, politics, law and scientific rationality are seen as a first step towards a new model of development of our civilization.
Paradoxes in the Communist Theory of Marxism
Authors: Oizerman Theodor I.
Published: September 2009

In their work The German Ideology, the founders of Marxism assert that the prerequisite of post-capitalist (defined by them as communist) society is the universal development of human abilities and all social relations. But then on the same page, contrary to this statement, it is alleged that the abolition of private property is not only highly topical but it is also an imperative history-making task. In Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels explain that economic crises recurrently shaking capitalist society expose an apparent contradiction between the productive forces and the capitalist relations of production – therefore, these relations must be eliminated for the preservation of society. Nonetheless, the same treatise affirms that the bourgeoisie cannot exist without revolutionizing not only the productive forces but also the relations of production. But in this case it stands to reason to recognize that there is no conflict between productive forces and production relations, and, therefore, there is no crisis of the capitalist system, either. Paradoxes in the communist theory of Marxism stem not merely from erroneous conceptions but reveal the fact that Marxism as an ideology comes into conflict with its scientific social theory. Hence, these paradoxes disclose the relative independence of the social theory of Marxism from its ideological postulates.
Discrepancy Score Reliabilities in the WAIS-IV Standardization Sample
Authors: Glass Laura A. , Ryan Joseph J. , Charter Richard A.
Published: September 2009

In the present investigation, the authors provide internal consistency reliabilities for Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) subtest and Index discrepancy scores using the standardization sample as the data source. Reliabilities ranged from .55 to .88 for subtest discrepancy scores and .80 to .91for Index discrepancy scores. Thus, the reliabilities of the WAIS-IV subtest discrepancy scores did not reach the ≥ .90 criterion recommended for clinical decision-making, whereas four Index score coefficients reached this reliability standard. If the purpose is to generate hypotheses based on discrepancy scores, 23 of the 66 subtests and all of the Index reliabilities are ≥ .80.
Noninvasive Ventilation in Immunosuppressed Patients
Authors: Ñamendys-Silva Silvio A. , Hernández-Garay Marisol , Herrera-Gómez Angel
Published: September 2009

In immunosuppressed patients (ISP) with acute respiratory failure (ARF), invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) is associated with high mortality rate. Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) is a type of mechanical ventilation that does not require an artificial airway. It has seen increasing use in critically ill patients to avoid endotracheal intubation. Acute respiratory failure due to pulmonary infections is an important cause of illness in ISP and their treatment. Immunosuppressive treatments have showed an increase not only in the survival but also in the susceptibility to infection. Several authors have underlined the worst prognosis for neutropenic patients with ARF requiring endotracheal intubation and IMV. The NIV seems to be an interesting alternative in ISP because of the lower risk of complications; it prevents endotracheal intubation and its associated complications with survival benefits in this population.
“After Bush”
Authors: Denzin Norman K.
Published: September 2009

A short performance text interrogates the Bush Legacy in American politics.
NIV in acute hypoxic respiratory failure
Authors: Ferrer M.
Published: September 2009

Educational aims

This presentation will focus on the following issues:

The efficacy of noninvasive ventilation (NIV) in the management of:

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP)

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)

Other causes of acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure (AHRF)

The pathophysiological mechanisms of NIV in patients with AHRF.

Published randomised clinical trials suggest that patients with severe AHRF have in general a lower likelihood of needing tracheal intubation when NIV as a support for respiratory failure is added to the standard medical treatment. However, the effects of NIV on mortality are less evident, and the heterogeneity of the different published studies suggests that the efficacy may be different among different populations. Therefore, the results in the literature do not support the routine use of NIV in all patients with severe AHRF.
Characterization of the chromosomal inversion associated with the Koa mutation in the mouse revealed the cause of skeletal abnormalities
Authors: Katayama Kentaro , Miyamoto Sayaka , Furuno Aki , Akiyama Kouyou , Takahashi Sakino , Suzuki Hiroetsu , Tsuji Takehito , Kunieda Tetsuo
Published: September 2009

Background

Koala (Koa) is a dominant mutation in mice causing bushy muzzle and pinna, and is associated with a chromosomal inversion on the distal half of chromosome 15. To identify the gene responsible for the Koa phenotypes, we investigated phenotypes of Koa homozygous mice and determined the breakpoints of the inversion with a genetic method using recombination between two different chromosomal inversions.

Results

Skeletal preparation of Koa homozygotes showed marked deformity of the ribs and a wider skull with extended zygomatic arches, in addition to a general reduction in the lengths of long bones. They also had open eyelids at birth caused by a defect in the extension of eyelid anlagen during the embryonic stages. The proximal and distal breakpoints of the Koa inversion were determined to be 0.8-Mb distal to the Trsps1 gene and to 0.1-Mb distal to the Hoxc4 gene, respectively, as previously reported. The phenotypes of mice with the recombinant inverted chromosomes revealed the localization of the gene responsible the Koa phenotype in the vicinity of the proximal recombinant breakpoint. Expression of the Trsps1 gene in this region was significantly reduced in the Koa homozygous and heterozygous embryos.

Conclusion

While no gene was disrupted by the chromosomal inversion, an association between the Koa phenotype and the proximal recombinant breakpoint, phenotypic similarities with Trps1-deficient mice or human patients with TRSP1 mutations, and the reduced expression of the Trsps1 gene in Koa mice, indicated that the phenotypes of the Koa mice are caused by the altered expression of the Trps1 gene.
Upper limbs dysmetria caused by cervical spinal cord injury: a case report
Authors: Lin Hsun-Chang , Chen Chun-Hung , Khor Gim-Thean , Huang Poyin
Published: September 2009

Background

Upper limbs dysmetria caused by spinal cord injury is very rare. We will discuss the associated mechanism in our articles.

Case presentation

A 51-year-old male had sudden onset of weakness, dysmetria over bilateral upper limbs and ataxia after he fell accidentally. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed no specific findings. C-spine MRI revealed C1 myelopathy and C4-6 spinal cord compression by bulged disc. The symptoms subsided after surgical intervention.

Conclusion

Sudden onset of upper limbs dysmetria is a sign of dysfunction in cerebellum and its associated pathway. However, lesion in spinal cord can also cause cerebellar signs such as dysmetria.
Predictors of the early introduction of solid foods in infants: results of a cohort study
Authors: Scott Jane A , Binns Colin W , Graham Kathleen I , Oddy Wendy H
Published: September 2009

Background

The early introduction of solid foods before 4 months of age has been associated with an increased risk of diarrhoea in infancy and a greater risk of wheeze and increased percentage body fat and weight in childhood. The purpose of this study was to identify the level of compliance with national recommendations related to the timing of the introduction of solid foods and to describe the maternal and infant characteristics associated with the timing of the introduction of solids.

Methods

Subjects were 519 participants in the second longitudinal Perth Infant Feeding Study (PIFS II) recruited from two maternity hospitals in Perth, Western Australia in 2002/3. Data collected prior to, or shortly after discharge from hospital, and at 4, 10, 16, 22, 32, 40 and 52 weeks postpartum included timing of the introduction of solid foods and a variety of maternal and infant characteristics associated with the introduction of solid foods. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify those factors associated with the risk of introducing solid foods early, which for the purposes of this study was defined as being before 17 weeks.

Results

The median age of introduction of solid foods was 17.6 weeks. In total, 44% of infants had received solids before 17 weeks and 93% of infants had received their first solids before 26 weeks of age. The strongest independent predictors of the early introduction of solids were young maternal age, mother smoking prior to pregnancy and not fully breastfeeding at 4 weeks postpartum. In general, mothers introduced solids earlier than recommended because they perceived their baby to either need them or be ready for them.

Conclusion

This study showed a high level of non-compliance among Australian mothers with the infant feeding recommendation related to the timing of solids that was current at the time. In order to improve compliance health professionals need to be aware of those groups least likely to comply with recommendations and their reasons for non-compliance. Infant feeding recommendations need to be evidence-based, uniformly supported by professionals and widely, clearly and consistently articulated if higher rates of compliance are to be achieved in the future.
Alcohol consumption and carotid artery structure in Korean adults aged 50 years and older
Authors: Lee Young-Hoon , Shin Min-Ho , Kweon Sun-Seog , Choi Sung-Woo , Kim Hye-Yeon , Ryu So-Yeon , Kim Bok-Hee , Rhee Jung-Ae , Choi Jin-Su
Published: September 2009

Background

Epidemiologic studies of the association between alcohol consumption and carotid artery structure have reported conflicting results. We investigated the association between alcohol consumption and carotid atherosclerosis by evaluating the effects of alcohol intake on carotid artery enlargement.

Methods

The study population consisted of 4302 community-dwelling Koreans (1577 men and 2725 women) aged 50 years and over. All the subjects had participated in the baseline survey of the Dong-gu Study conducted between 2007 and 2008. Daily alcohol consumption was determined by the number and frequency of alcoholic beverages consumed. We measured common carotid artery intima-media thickness (CCA-IMT), common carotid and bulb IMT (CB-IMT), carotid plaques, and the diameter of the common carotid artery (CCA-diameter) using high-resolution B-mode ultrasonography. We used analysis of covariance and multiple logistic regressions to determine the relationship between alcohol consumption and carotid artery parameters.

Results

CCA-IMT and CB-IMT were negatively correlated with alcohol consumption after controlling for cardiovascular risk factors in men (p for linear trend = 0.009 and = 0.038, respectively). The multivariate-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for carotid plaques was significantly higher in men who consumed >40.0 g/d (OR = 1.81, 95% CI = 1.13-2.91), although a significant positive correlation was observed between alcohol consumption and carotid plaques (p for linear trend = 0.027). Neither carotid IMT nor carotid plaques were correlated with alcohol intake in women. Alcohol intake was positively correlated with CCA-diameter adjusted for carotid IMT and plaques in the multivariate-adjusted model in both sexes (p for linear trend <0.001 for men and 0.020 for women).

Conclusion

The results of our study indicate that alcohol consumption is inversely related to carotid IMT and positively related to carotid plaques in men, but not women. However, alcohol intake is positively associated with CCA-diameter in both men and women. Additional large population-based prospective studies are needed to confirm the effects of alcohol consumption on carotid artery structure.
Factors affecting awareness of emergency contraception among college students in Kathmandu, Nepal
Authors: Adhikari Ramesh
Published: September 2009

Background

In Nepal, Emergency Contraception (EC) could play a critical role in reducing unintended pregnancies, but very few people aware about it. This paper aims to investigate the level of awareness and factors influencing awareness of EC among college students.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was carried out in April-May 2006. Structured self-administered questionnaires were administered to 1,137 college students (573 males and 564 females) in Kathmandu valley. The association between awareness of EC and the explanatory variables were first assessed in bivariate analysis using the Chi-square test. The associations were further explored using a multivariate logistic analysis.

Results

Only about two-thirds of college students (68%) had ever heard about EC. Bivariate analysis shows that males were more aware (72%) of EC than were females (64%). Similarly, the awareness level was significantly higher among younger, unmarried youth who were from outside Kathmandu Valley, who lived with friends, and who had received reproductive health (RH) education in school/college. The study also found that students' sex, permanent place of residence (district), and RH education are significant predictors of awareness of EC. Males are 1.5 times more likely to be aware of EC compared to females. Furthermore, students who lived in Kathmandu Valley were 41% less likely to be aware of EC than were students from outside Kathmandu Valley. On the other hand, those students who received RH education in school/college were almost nine times more likely to be aware of EC compared to those who did not receive such education.

Conclusion

Awareness of the EC is low among college students in Nepal. Health education initiatives should target students as they are more likely to be sexually active. There is a need to further educate students about EC which can help to reduce unintended pregnancies, many of which result in unsafe abortion and take a large toll on women's health.
Tumor necrosis factor alpha-dependent aggrecan cleavage and release of glycosaminoglycans in the meniscus is mediated by nitrous oxide-independent aggrecanase activity in vitro
Authors: Voigt Henning , Lemke Angelika K , Mentlein Rolf , Schünke Michael , Kurz Bodo
Published: September 2009

Introduction

Little is known about factors that induce meniscus damage. Since joint inflammation appears to be a causative factor for meniscal destruction, we investigated the influence of tumor necrosis factor (TNFα) on glycosaminoglycan (GAG) release and aggrecan cleavage in an in vitro model.

Methods

Meniscal explant disks (3 mm diameter × 1 mm thickness) were isolated from 2-year-old cattle. After 3 days of TNFα-treatment GAG release (DMMB assay), biosynthetic activity (sulfate incorporation), nitric oxide (NO) production (Griess assay), gene expression of matrix-degrading enzymes (quantitative RT-PCR, zymography), and immunostaining of the aggrecan fragment NITEGE were determined.

Results

TNFα induced release of GAG as well as production of NO in a dose-dependent manner, while sulfate incorporation was decreased. TNFα increased matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-3 and a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs (ADAMTS)-4 mRNA expression, whereas collagen type I was decreased, and aggrecan, collagen type II as well as MMP-1, -2, -13 and ADAMTS-5 were variably affected. Zymography also showed a TNFα-dependent increase in MMP-3 expression, but pre-dominantly in the pro-form. TNFα-dependent formation of the aggrecanase-specific aggrecan neoepitope NITEGE was induced. Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP)-3, but not TIMP-1 or -2 inhibited TNFα-dependent GAG release and NITEGE production, whereas inhibition of TNFα-dependent NO generation with the NO-synthetase inhibitor L-NMMA failed to inhibit GAG release and NITEGE production.

Conclusions

Our study shows that aggrecanase activity (a) is responsible for early TNFα-dependent aggrecan cleavage and GAG release in the meniscus and (b) might be involved in meniscal degeneration. Additionally, the meniscus is a TNFα-dependent source for MMP-3. However, the TNFα-dependent NO production seems not to be involved in release of proteoglycans under the given circumstances.
Paths to Revolution: The Old Regime Correspondence of Five Future Revolutionaries
Authors: Tackett Timothy
Published: September 2009

This study is based on a close reading of five of the relatively rare series of correspondence by future revolutionaries written during the ten to twenty years preceding 1789. It seeks to determine at what point these individuals began to make critical judgments about the political situation in the kingdom and to think of themselves as potential political players. It also asks what influences—cultural, social, political, or other—were most important in shaping their judgments. It concludes that while the five followed somewhat different itineraries, the period 1787–89 was critical in the emergence of a revolutionary mentality. The cultural and social experiences of the Old Regime were probably less important for these individuals than political circumstances that they never anticipated and over which they had no control.

Cette étude se base sur une lecture de cinq séries de correspondance rédigées par de futurs révolutionnaires pendant les dix à vingt années qui précèdent 1789. Il s'agit de déterminer à quel moment ces cinq personnes commencent à faire des jugements critiques sur la situation politique du royaume et à quel moment ils commencent à se considérer comme participants aux événements qui se déroulent. Il s'agit également de préciser les influences—culturelles, sociales, politiques ou autres—qui ont le plus transformé leurs opinions. On conclut que la période 1787–89 est belle et bien critique à la naissance d'une mentalité révolutionnaire—bien que chacun des cinq ait pu suivre un itinéraire quelque peu différent. Les expériences culturelles et sociales de l'Ancien Régime sont sans doute beaucoup moins importantes dans cette transformation que les circonstances politiques de la période prérévolutionnaire, circonstances que les cinq futurs révolutionnaires n'ont pas du tout anticipées.
Napoléon Bonaparte and the Emancipation Issue in Saint-Domingue, 1799–1803
Authors: Girard Philippe R.
Published: September 2009

It is generally assumed that the expedition that Napoléon Bonaparte sent to Saint-Domingue (Haiti) in December 1801 was largely prompted by lobbying on the part of exiled planters and that it aimed at restoring slavery in this colony. Yet a careful analysis of French, British, and American published and archival sources paints a much more nuanced picture. French officials, including Bonaparte and the expedition's first captain general, Victoire Leclerc, paid little attention to the wishes of the planters. Their policies were largely dictated by the difficult political and military environment prevalent in Saint-Domingue. Strategic requirements prompted them to adapt a moderate, pragmatic policy that preserved Toussaint-Louverture's semifree cultivator system, and they never called, either officially or in private, for an immediate restoration of slavery in Saint-Domingue.

On tient généralement pour acquis que Napoléon Bonaparte envoya l'expédition de Saint-Domingue à Haïti en décembre 1801 pour satisfaire le lobby des planteurs, et que le premier consul avait comme objectif le rétablissement de l'esclavage. En réalité, les écrits des colons, de même que les documents manuscrits conservés aux archives nationales, militaires et coloniales en France, en Angleterre et aux Etats-Unis, dressent un tableau beaucoup plus nuancé de la politique coloniale sous le Consulat. Bonaparte et le capitaine général de l'expédition, Victoire Leclerc, loin d'être inféodés aux demandes des colons, répondaient en fait aux difficultés politiques et militaires rencontrées pendant la reconquête de Saint-Domingue. Ces critères stratégiques les incitèrent à adopter une politique modérée et pragmatique préservant le système de semi-liberté agricole qui avait prévalu sous Toussaint Louverture et il n'y eut jamais, ni en public, ni en privé, de plan bien défini visant à rétablir immédiatement l'esclavage à Saint-Domingue.
Take Your Ritalin and Shut Up
Authors: Bousquet Marc
Published: September 2009

While David Horowitz's Student Bill of Rights is a false solution, is there a sense in which it grasps a real problem? While all the data shows that student intellectual freedoms aren't foreclosed from the Left, undergraduate curricular choice may be foreclosed in advance by the forces served by the political Right, in a kind of economic conscription that frames student choice within the scaffold of the business curriculum.

If faculty and student intellectual freedoms are interrelated in key ways, it is simply difficult to imagine that undergraduate intellectual freedom could be perfectly secure when the faculty's is not. As administrations struggle to supplant traditional faculty values and practices with “market-smart” and entrepreneurial arrangements, we should be exploring the senses in which the intellectual freedom of the undergraduate may be under similar attacks by similar forces.

With the active involvement of corporate partners, administrations are striving to commercialize, vocationalize, and militarize both curriculum and student culture itself. Furthermore, the role of higher education in sharply intensified exploitation means that we have to ask the same question of most students that we ask of faculty and graduate students: to what extent does the structured precariousness of their existence affect the very possibility of their exercising academic freedom irrespective of any formal guarantees?
Academic Freedom and the Composition Program
Authors: Brodkey Linda , Bauer Holly
Published: September 2009

Composition programs in American colleges and universities do not enjoy the rights and privileges of other fields and disciplines. The problems have to do with the status of an academic field beset by commonsense criticism of both its curriculum and pedagogy. Subject to frequent institutional reviews, writing programs are often expected to defend their academic practices from the advice of reviewers whose commonsense understanding of writing eschews process and practice in favor of product. Drawing on several reviews of the program in which they teach, the authors argue that the propensity to allow professors from a range of departments to decide what constitutes good writing and the best ways to teach it violates the intentions on which academic freedom at their university resides. They provide examples of reviews of their program that fail to take into account the pedagogical goals of the writing program. Such reviews rely on external criteria such as commonsense understandings of grammar and style instead of considering the program's stated pedagogical goals and learning outcomes. The essay concludes that institutional reviews of writing programs should acknowledge the review guidelines set by professional organizations in writing program administration and, further, that they be conducted by peers familiar with research and scholarship in the field of composition.
The Fate of Academic Freedom
Authors: Nelson Cary
Published: September 2009

Following a concise definition of academic freedom and a rejoinder to current conservative efforts to limit it by David Horowitz, the National Association of Scholars, and Stanley Fish, “The Fate of Academic Freedom” describes sixteen specific conditions emerging as major threats to the concept and the practice: (1) instrumentalization, (2) contingency, (3) authoritarian administration, (4) abuses of the national security state, (5) administration restrictions on the use of communication technology, (6) unwarranted research oversight, (7) neoliberal assaults on academic disciplines, (8) managerial ideology, (9) circumvention of shared governance, (10) globalization, (11) opposition to human rights, (12) inadequate grievance procedures, (13) religious intolerance, (14) political intolerance, (15) legal threats, and (16) claims of financial crisis. Definitions and examples of each of these trends are provided and their consequences explored. Readers are encouraged to test the list of emerging threats against their experience at their own institution(s). The essay concludes by mapping out strategies for resisting these trends.
Deadwood: Academic Freedom and Smart People
Authors: Robbins Bruce
Published: September 2009

“Deadwood: Academic Freedom and Smart People” offers a reading of the 2008 film Smart People as an allegory of what the humanities “do” as understood by the general public: the remembering of beloved but now distant or inaccessible things, such as the dead wife for whom the protagonist is in mourning, and using that remembrance to judge or refuse the present. The film suggests that the standpoint of the present must finally prevail, and yet that there is also a value in the characteristically crotchety (that is, critical) attitude toward the present that stems logically from this reverential attitude toward a neglected past. The question of how much value there is in the humanities' posture of perpetual critique—a posture embodied in the paradox of the “deadwood” professor who is successful precisely because of his failure—is crucial to the defense of academic freedom, the essay argues, given that academic freedom is not a constitutional right, but on the contrary depends on the public's goodwill, a goodwill that is perpetually at stake in struggles over common sense such as the struggle staged in Smart People. In other words, academics who want to defend their academic freedom need to extend their fight outside the walls of the academy, into the public sphere, and to take on the particular issues where academic opinion diverges most dramatically from ordinary opinion—for example, secularism and internationalism.
Academic Freedom/Academic Market
Authors: Watkins Evan
Published: September 2009

The principles of academic freedom as articulated in centrally influential documents such as the 1940 AAUP “Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure” assume the concept of merit as basic. The protections and the responsibilities of academic freedom and tenure are granted to faculty members who over time have demonstrated meritorious work in their specific fields of expertise. The proliferation of post-tenure reviews, however, suggests another model at work: academic freedom as grounded in free market principles rather than on long-term merit. The changes marked by the transition from merit to market models affect a considerable range of people, not only faculty, but also students and the general public, whose support is crucial to higher education. I argue that the economic costs of sustaining an academic freedom market are enormous, a burden borne primarily by groups marked as exogenous to the proper operation of the market who receive little or no benefit from its operations. Combinations of merit and market models usually offer the worst of both worlds, where the exclusionary force so often a part of the history of merit practices thereby becomes available to rationalize the exclusions imposed by an academic freedom market. Thus rather than attempt a return to merit-based principles of academic freedom, I argue in conclusion that it's worth exploring the possibility of building alternative collective forms of markets that can be responsive to the needs of all citizens who have a stake in the ideals of academic freedom.
Khomeini and the Iranian Revolution in the Egyptian Press
Authors: Hammad Hanan
Published: September 2009

This essay analyzes how the Egyptian press covered the Iranian Revolution and the Khomeini regime in 1978-81. It discusses which issues related to the revolution and the revolutionary regime were covered, as well as the attitudes of different groups of Egyptian politicians and intellectuals toward the revolution as these found expression in the press. It shows that secular and religious opposition groups differed with each other as much as they differed from the government in their perception of events in Iran.
Iranian Anti-Zionism and the Holocaust
Authors: Ahouie Mahdi
Published: September 2009

Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has, for the first time since the 1979 revolution, elaborated the Holocaust revisionism as a strategy in Iran's rhetorical war against Israel. Yet his comments on the Holocaust consist of two distinct parts: denying or questioning the extent of the Holocaust, on the one hand, and linking the creation of the Jewish state to the occurrence of the Holocaust in Europe, on the other. Principally this essay argues that the second part of Ahmadinejad's standpoint on the Holocaust—considering Israel as the West's compensation for that tragedy—has precedents in Iranian prerevolutionary political discourse. By reading through the utterances of several Iranian political thinkers and activists from different ideological backgrounds, this essay maintains that all these intellectuals have shown continuity in the line of their reasoning toward Israel over the past six decades.
Memory, Mourning, Memorializing
Authors: Ghamari-Tabrizi Behrooz
Published: September 2009

The eight-year Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) profoundly shaped postrevolutionary Iranian society. In the early years, the war united different dominant political factions and contributed to the solidification of the Islamic Republic. Its subsequent legacy, the “blood of martyrs” and hundreds of thousands of war veterans, however, has long been a point of contention between competing political elites. The photographs in this section—the hidden faces of the “martyrs” and of those who mourn them—and the reflection of life and light at the gravesites depict the continuing significance of the war in present day Iran. Melissa Hibbard and Hamid Rahmanian took the accompanying photos in Behesht-e Zahra (Zahra's Paradise), Tehran's gargantuan cemetery.
The Revolution and the Rural Poor
Authors: Salehi-Isfahani Djavad
Published: September 2009

Critics of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 often paint the picture of a failed revolution when they focus on the structure of employment or on income inequality, neither of which indicates improvement or deep social change. I argue here that the critics miss an important dimension of social change where the revolution has had its greatest impact on Iranian society, namely, the improvement and transformation of the lives of the poor, especially the rural poor, who were socially excluded before the revolution. Poverty is now substantially lower (poverty rates are very low by developing country standards), and rural families have much greater access to basic public services such as electricity, roads, schools, health facilities, and safe water. Some of the gains are the direct result of the revolutionary government's priorities, which shifted infrastructure investment toward villages. In particular, investment in rural health facilities is responsible for a spectacular decline in fertility, as well as child and maternal mortality. Other improvements may be unintended consequences of government action. The significant rise in the education of rural girls in the postrevolutionary era was definitely helped by greater access to schools and family planning services, but it was also in part the result of the strict enforcement of the Islamic dress code and of public behavior that enabled women to leave the confines of their homes to seek more education and look for work.
Postrevolutionary Persian Literature
Authors: Talattof Kamran
Published: September 2009

This essay offers a summary of literary activities since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, pointing out the most important poets, fiction writers, literary critics, literary journals, and literary as well as social events that have affected the production of literary shifts. In so doing, the article asserts that in the past three decades, despite fluctuations in the prominence of one or another genre, literary activities have continued to contribute to the formation of history, have influenced events, and have been influenced by societal changes.
Islamic Revolution and the Circulation of Visual Culture
Authors: Lotfalian Mazyar
Published: September 2009

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 influenced the production of visual culture in Iran. This article reflects on the postrevolutionary emerging languages of visual culture through its multiple channels of circulation. It argues that the circulation of these productions and an interconnection of media types help us understand the emerging sensus communis, a new possibility for a shared understanding of sense perception, that is coming out of various places, different technologies, and emerging forms.
Intellectual Life after the 1979 Revolution
Authors: Mirsepassi Ali
Published: September 2009

This essay presents a discussion of intellectual developments in the thirty years since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, along both religious and secular lines, as they have unfolded in the wake of the prerevolutionary heritage of both the constitutional revolution-Popular Front secular universal tradition and the intellectual turning of the 1960s and 1970s that ushered in a political model of religious authenticity as the organizing axis of popular resistance. The essay points out that in the wake of the Iranian Revolution a variety of evolving intellectual tendencies have adhered to a central notion of the West as the point of reference in all political discussion, whether as an image of adulation and condemnation. This tendency is linked to a more general pattern of privileging abstract philosophical modes of discourse over sociologically specific and contextually grounded research and analysis, a orientation that has had the counterproductive effect of widening a gulf between intellectuals and their work and the real desires, perceptions, and aspirations of the general Iranian public.
Contested Narratives of the Present
Authors: Akhavan Niki
Published: September 2009

This book review compares Mehdi Semati's Media, Culture, and Society in Iran: Living with Globalization and the Islamic State and Nasrin Alavi's We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs. Both works recognize the significance of media in shaping and understanding contemporary Iranian society. Semati's volume aims to critically challenge the models that have become commonplace in describing and assessing Iran, while Alavi's work provides a compact collection of the kind of narratives that Semati indicates are in dire need of interrogation.
Pay for Performance in Medicare: Evidentiary Irony and the Politics of Value
Authors: Tanenbaum Sandra J.
Published: September 2009

Pay for performance (P4P) is of growing importance in the Medicare program. Pay-for-performance policy has the support of political actors in both parties and in the legislative and executive branches; of experts, business, and consumer interests; and in a qualified way, of health care providers. The evidence that P4P improves quality or reduces cost, however, is scant, although P4P proponents claim that the program is evidence based. This article reviews the history of Medicare P4P, documents its widespread support, and evaluates both the evidence of its effectiveness and the expert discourse about that evidence. The article analyzes the political reasons for Medicare P4P's popularity despite its evidentiary deficiencies and emphasizes its role in the politics of value. Pay for performance allows Medicare policy makers to (1) reformulate intractable cost and quality problems as more malleable value problems; (2) offer an acceptable quid pro quo for payment negotiations with providers; and (3) reach a rare, if shallow, consensus based on the ideological ambiguity of P4P.
Imagining the Consequences of Human Biotechnology
Authors: Bhuiyan Md. Mahmudur Rahman
Published: September 2009

Given that there are huge uncertainties about how contemporary advances in human biotechnology are going to affect human life, different scholars try to understand the situation in different ways. This essay reviews four recent books devoted to fostering a fundamental ethical, philosophical, and practical understanding of the issues related to the use of genetic technologies in the human medical field. Each of these books sees these issues from different perspectives and provides different understandings of the issues through a distinct process of analysis. While the first three books provide significant theoretical insights about the consequences of contemporary biotechnological advances, explaining them from different philosophical perspectives and contexts, the fourth book shows how bioethics itself is being instrumentalized in the United States in favor of scientific and medical practices.