bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The multistate life table method: An application to contraceptive switching behavior
Authors: Kuo Tzy-Mey , Suchindran C. M. , Koo Helen P.
Published: April 2008

In many demographic behaviors (e.g., those relating to marriage, contraception, migration, and health), people change among multiple statuses through time, sometimes leaving and then returning to the same status. Data on such behaviors are often collected in surveys as censored event histories. The multistate life table (MSLT) can be used to properly describe, in a single analysis, these complex transitions among multiple states measured in such data, but MSLT is rarely applied in the demographic literature because practical guidance is lacking on how to compute MSLTS with such data. We provide methods for computing MSLT quantities using censored event-history data: namely, transition intensities and probabilities, “state occupancy” probabilities and standard errors, average time spent in specified states, and average number of visits to specified states. Applying these methods to contraceptive use, we find high levels of switching back and forth, particularly between barrier methods and non-use, resulting in high rates of unintended pregnancy.
Clement of Alexandria's Predication of the Verb μαντευομαι of Heraclitus
Authors: Dinan Andrew
Published: April 2008

Clement's use of the verb is unique in early Christian literature. Whereas other early Christian authors predicate it of those who, in contrast to authentically inspired prophets, reprehensibly engaged in divination or indulged in mindless prognostication, Clement uses it to characterize the words of a few sages who had an extraordinary presentiment of Christian teachings. Clement predicates the word of Heraclitus because he regards the Ephesian philosopher as a prophetic figure who had remarkable insight and who bore authoritative testimony in cryptic fashion against his fellow Greeks.
Re-imagining Tatian: The Damaging Effects of Polemical Rhetoric
Authors: Koltun-Fromm Naomi
Published: April 2008

Tatian, a second-century Christian apologist, is best known on the one hand for his much admired and only extant text, the Oratio ad Graecos, and on the other for heresy. Starting with Irenaeus, Tatian develops a reputation particularly among the western Fathers for heresy and extreme asceticism—including sexual renunciation, vegetarianism, and abstention from alcohol. In the late fourth century Tatian reappears as the reputed (and heretical) author of the Diatessaron, possibly the gospel harmony most popular in the Syriac-speaking churches. In medieval Syriac Christian writings, due to a conflation of these two earlier associations, Tatian's reputation transforms itself yet again. Thus, due to his presumed now generic-heretical standing, these authors further accuse Tatian of removing the NT genealogies from his harmonized text thus undermining the human element in christological theory. Yet I think it can be demonstrated that these two reputations—the one of heretical encratism, and the other of heretical Christology—in fact reflect polemical constructions created to deflect external anti-Christian polemic and internal cross-Christian conflict onto another group rather than historical reality.
Crossing the Hurdle: Survival Strategies of Poor Women in Addis Ababa
Authors: Mulugeta Emebet
Published: April 2008

Using the livelihood approaches framework, the study attempts to see the poverty situation of women in selected areas of Addis Ababa. It also explores the various coping strategies the women utilize, and further compares the situation of women living in male-headed households with women heading households. A questionnaire and focus groups discussion guide have been used for data collection, and both qualitative and quantitative analyses have been carried out. The findings show that women in the study lack the necessary capitals that can enable them to achieve secured livelihood and to cope with poverty well. It further reveals that, compared to women living in male-headed households, female heads of households fare less well. The coping strategies most often used by the women are passive, followed by social network strategies, with female heads of households using the latter more.
Unknow Title Article ID 235710
Authors: Ndlovu-Gatsheni Sabelo J.
Published: April 2008

This article examines the complex politics of inclusion and exclusion in Zimbabwe dating back to the time of the liberation struggle. It focuses on two case studies of the forgotten Internal Settlement of 1978-1979, and the Patriotic Front-Zimbabwe African People's Union (PF-ZAPU) in the period 1980-1987 that was eventually swallowed by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in December 1987. Detailed analyses of these two case studies demonstrate the complexities of politics of inclusion and exclusion that culminated in a nation that is highly polarised and currently on the brink of violent conflict attended by unprecedented economic crisis.
Assumptions About Microenterprise Lending as a Precondition for Development: A Critical Review
Authors: Onyuma Samuel O.
Published: April 2008

There exists a current debate on whether provision of microenterprise credit to the poor could change the social equation and conditions in which the poor live. Proponents of microenterprise lending argue that targeted credit is a mechanism for poverty eradication, enhancing the poor people's existing socio-economic conditions and changing the relations between gender and class. However, critics argue that while a marginal increase in income and assets can enhance the well-being and socio-economic security of the poor, the increase may be too little to affect the pervasively entrenched political and economic relations. Literature tends to report positive impacts of microenterprise lending on the poor, creating the belief that it is a necessary condition for economic development. This article identifies the five assumptions inherent in the arguments in favour of microenterprise detriments development by exploring its possible benefits and detriments. The article argues that empowering the poor and attaining social and economic development requires more than provision of microenterprise loans. It calls for a holistic development strategies and other comprehensive programmes that address the Poor's lack of access to and control of productive resources, difficulties in accessing labour opportunities, formal education and work skills, and the gender disparities in developing countries.
An Analysis of the of Proximate Determinants of Fertility in Malawi, 1992-2004
Authors: Palamuleni Martin Enock
Published: April 2008

The paper examines trends in the proximate determinants of fertility in Malawi during the period 1992 to 2004 with the view of explaining the factors responsible for fertility decline in the country. The study uses the Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys of 1992, 2000 and 2004 and the Bongaarts model of Proximate Determinants. The analysis shows that there are increases in all three proximate determinants. The magnitude of change is greatest in contraceptive use, moderate in marriage but least in breast-feeding. The study show that postpartum infecundability has a far more dominant inhibiting effect on fertility than the other two proximate fertility determinants.
Women and Civil Society: Introduction
Authors: Winterer Caroline
Published: April 2008

This article introduces the forum, "Women and Civil Society." Four scholars-Philip Gould, Jeanne Boydston, Rosemarie Zagarri, and John Brooke-respond to, critique, and expand on the arguments made in Mary Kelley's book, Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education and Public Life in America's Republic (2006). The forum emerged from a roundtable held at the July 2006 annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, in Montréal, Canada. Each essay considers such topics as women's education and intellectual aspirations, the antebellum female academies, the idea of "civil society," and antebellum reform and political culture.
Civil Society and the Public Woman
Authors: Gould Philip
Published: April 2008

This essay examines the critical occasion of Mary Kelley's Learning to Stand and Speak (2006). It situates the book's major arguments in light of critical trends in both literary and historical studies, noting how the work registers important developments in the study of gender and culture in the early American republic. Especially important to the field is the book's central rubric of "civil society," which urges the interrogation of what we mean by the "public sphere" in post-Revolutionary and antebellum America. The book similarly raises crucial questions about literary and cultural nationalism, particularly as it has been expressed by the role of the "republican" woman. In addition to posing challenges about the national contours of republican womanhood, the book also demonstrates the extent to which sentimental culture was not merely a "domestic" construction but a more widely circulating discourse that affected a wide range of cultural practices and languages. This idea particularly affects the way in which literary scholars conceive of the gendered borders of antebellum literary history.
Civilizing Selves: Public Structures and Private Lives in Mary Kelley's Learning to Stand and Speak
Authors: Boydston Jeanne
Published: April 2008

"This essay is a reflection on Mary Kelley's Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic , which argues that women's private seminary and academy education was critical to the formation the a critical public discourse in the early republic and to women's participation in that discourse. The present essay seeks to extend and enlarge that analysis by focusing on two of Kelley's key concepts: "civil society" and "self-fashioning." The essay suggests that the "civil society" of the early American republic was far larger, more heterogeneous, and messier than most work on the subject acknowledges, that it included individuals and groups with tenuous positions in the new republic as well as members of the middling and elite classes. The struggle of white bourgeois women to become active participants in the making of public opinion was not merely a process of creating new gender identities, Boydston argues, but also of strengthening the bourgeois values of the societies they embraced against other groups vying for power in the making of a critical public arena.
Spheres, Sites, Subjectivity, History: Reframing Antebellum American Society
Authors: Brooke John L.
Published: April 2008

Mary Kelley's Learning to Stand and Speak is landmark in both the debate over the gendered "doctrine of separate spheres" and our understanding of civil space in antebellum America. Rather than situating women and men in "separate spheres, public and private," she offers a framework of "multiple sites in civil society." Drawn from critical theory, "discursive sites" or "sites of cultural production," describe circles of authors and readers sharing a common framework of language, understanding, and problematic. There is a multiplicity of these sites - or perhaps "publics"—in a modern culture, and Kelley situates them in "civil society," which she construes broadly as the domain protected by law, but excluding partisan and deliberative politics. The discursive sites that make up the sociology of civil society have both public and private dimensions, cutting across "separate spheres," and rendering them meaningless. Kelley and contributor Philip Gould see powerful continuities in the experience of women between the Revolution and the Civil War, and beyond. The contributions of Jeanne Boydston and Rosemarie Zagarri bring history into play in ways that complicate our abandonment of the doctrine of separate spheres, bringing into focus issues of class and generational experience. Boydston argues that the protection of law in antebellum America had sharp contours and boundaries, and thus "civil society" had a distinctly more limited, class-defined, reach than Kelley would suggest. Zagarri points to a profound generational divide in the 1820s, as American women responded to a "revolutionary backlash" limiting their place in public.
Too Many Tocquevilles: The Fable of Tocqueville's American Reception
Authors: Mancini Matthew J.
Published: April 2008

Robert Nisbet's influential "Many Tocquevilles" is shown to be lacking in evidence for its contentions about Tocqueville's reputation from 1870 to 1940 and about American intellectuals' interpretations of his works after 1940. The uncritical reception accorded to "Many Tocquevilles" led to distortions of Tocqueville's thought and an erasure of an important part of the historical record, resulting in significant harm to the field. Nisbet made his unsupported assertions to bolster conservative political positions. Tocqueville was widely read between 1870 and 1940. No evidence exists for Nisbet's claims about interpretations of Tocqueville's works supposedly made by subsequent American commentators.
History's Moral Turn
Authors: Cotkin George
Published: April 2008

History is in the midst of experiencing a "moral turn." This shift has resulted from the culture wars, challenges to objectivity and truth, and various world crises. Understanding moral issues through historical narratives requires a dialogue between historians and philosophers. Philosophers need to appreciate historians' attention to circumstance and context, while historians need to be familiar with philosophical concepts such as moral luck and virtue ethics. Rather than simply rendering judgments, history in a moral mode demonstrates the complexity behind agency, character, empathy, and moral decisions.
Isaiah Berlin's "Expressionism," or: "Ha! Du bist das Blökende!"
Authors: Norton Robert E.
Published: April 2008

Reply to Steven Lestition's article, "Countering, Transposing, or Negating the Enlightenment? A Response to Robert Norton," published in the Journal of the History of Ideas(2007), pp. 659-81.
The Jesus Hermaphrodite: Science and Sex Difference in Premodern Europe
Authors: DeVun Leah
Published: April 2008

This article traces the development of the hermaphrodite symbol in alchemical literature from the high Middle Ages to the early modern period. It argues that alchemical writers used themetaphor of hermaphroditism to describe the "philosophers' stone," a chemical agent believed to be a combination of contradictory elemental qualities. Such writers extended the hermaphrodite metaphor to Jesus, whome they conflated with the philosophers' stone, and whom they viewed as a combination of masculine and feminine, as well as human and divine, attributes. This article also explores the "Jesus Hermaphrodite" metaphor in the context of approaches toward intersex people during the period.
Amoralities Not for Turning: Response to Cotkin
Authors: O'Brien Michael
Published: April 2008

It is suggested that George Cotkin's essay is unpersuasive in its two central claims. Firstly, the evidence is not persuasive that there has been a discernible "moral turn" among historians in the last two decades; rather, it is argued that an engagement with morality has been fairly constant in historical scholarship since its ancient origins. Secondly, it is felt that Cotkin is evasive on whether he wishes historians merely to have opinions about the moralities of others in the past or to be moral agents themselves; the first position is thought to be tenable, the latter probably not.
"Science Cannot Stop With Science": Maurice Blondel and the Sciences
Authors: English Adam C.
Published: April 2008

Maurice Blondel, best known for his 1893 work on Action, offers a window on the world of philosophers who negotiated the scientific disciplines at the turn of the twentieth century. During this amazing era of discoveries, Blondel encouraged the bold, encyclopedic spirit of science as well as the new standards coming into use for accumulating and judging observational evidence. However, he warned of reductionism, determinism, and phenomenism, trends which could be avoided or corrected if the nature and scope of science were broadened. Such a broadening would introduce a more integrated and holistic understanding of the scientific quest.
Reading Medicine in the Codex de la Cruz Badiano
Authors: Gimmel Millie
Published: April 2008

This paper explores how the Codex de la Cruz Badiano illustrates the ability of indigenous Mexicans to appropriate European forms to their own ends, even when seemingly conforming to European traditions and theories. To fully appreciate the Codex readers must reevaluate the concepts of literacy and cultural assimilation in the light of the bicultural nature of sixteenth-century Mexico. The European "contamination" seen by many scholars might actually reflect indigenous ethnocentricity and misinterpretation of European texts, rather than the wholesale acceptance of European culture.
The Complexity of Moral History: Response to Cotkin
Authors: Jumonville Neil
Published: April 2008

Although moral history in the twentieth century was much less intense than in earlier centuries, it never entirely disappeared. Now it seems to have increased in the past two decades. Moral history, however, is a difficult genre to define. How many moral judgments on the part of the historian qualifies it as part of the category? What work is without some moral component? But whether or not George Cotkin is mistaken on a few minor matters, this is excellent, thought-provoking historiography that is a benefit to the discipline as a whole.
The Mystical Body of Society: Religion and Association in Nineteenth-Century French Political Thought
Authors: Behrent Michael C.
Published: April 2008

In this paper I explore the history of the notion that to believe in religion is to believe in society by tracing instances in which, in the discourse of this current within nineteenth-century French republicanism, the term religion entered into the same semantic field as the notions of society and association. I analyze several groups and individuals who sought to define religion by invoking "association" and "society": the Saint-Simonians, P.-J.-B. Buchez, Pierre Leroux, Jean-Marie Guyau, and Emile Durkheim. I conclude by suggesting that this way of thinking about religion not only illuminates the intellectual context in which Durkheim's religious sociology emerged, but also highlights a distinctly French social imaginary.
The Return of the Self-Made Man: Response to Cotkin
Authors: Livingston James
Published: April 2008

George Cotkin's paper is an earnest effort to resolve the supposed conflict between inherited historical circumstances and the enunciation of ethical principles-as if necessity and freedom, past and present, somehow exclude each other; as if "moral history" is something new; as if the injection of an authorial voice or point of view gets us beyond the absurdities of "objectivity." Clearly Cotkin has not been reading historical monographs published since, say, 1935. Is there a field not reanimated by the moral problems of exclusion, oppression, and obligation framed by the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and then the "new social movements" organized around questions of identity and sexuality?
Notes and Comments: Embellishing Omaha Beach
Authors: Salaita George D.
Published: April 2008

Great military events like the American landing on Omaha Beach in the early morning hours of D-Day, 6 June 1944, do not require embellishment. The invasion was especially horrendous for Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division. Too many facts about that unit have been unnecessarily embellished and misreported. Most books have credited the town of Bedford, Virginia, as the home of many in the company who perished that day, when in fact, more of the casualties came from the county of that same name, not the town. This article attempts to clarify that issue.
Across the Yalu: Rules of Engagement and the Communist Air Sanctuary during the Korean War
Authors: Werrell Kenneth P.
Published: April 2008

Many believe that the United States fought the Korean War with “its hands tied behind its back” because it had decided to restrict its air war to the Korean peninsula. In fact, breaches of this restriction by incursions into Chinese air space occurred more frequently than was generally acknowledged. Mostly deliberate, they were often encouraged and sometimes led by field grade officers. Pilots won fame and glory, while few were punished. Although the violations risked international incidents, they did not expand the war but helped the United Nations achieve air superiority and gave the Communists much less of a sanctuary than has been commonly believed. These infractions also set a dangerous precedent for the future.
Learning with an Ally: The U.S. Army and the Bundeswehr in the Cold War
Authors: Trauschweizer Ingo Wolfgang
Published: April 2008

This essay considers four critical areas of German-American defense cooperation during the Cold War: personal and material American aid for West German rearmament and its impact on the character of the German army, reorganization of German and American combat divisions in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the ultimately failed joint venture in tank design in the 1960s and the lack of cooperation in developing infantry fighting vehicles, and the impact of German tactical and operational concepts on post-Vietnam War U.S. Army doctrine. The essay will argue that in critical aspects, U.S. Army leaders adopted German modes of operation.
Max Jähns and the Writing of Military History in Imperial Germany
Authors: Larson Robert H.
Published: April 2008

This article examines the work of the late nineteenth-century German military historian Max Jähns. A career officer in the Prussian Army, he taught military history at the elite War Academy for fourteen years and was a prolific and highly respected author. Significantly, he focused not on operational history--for which the Imperial German Army was and remains well known--but on the place of military institutions and practices in the context of general history. This and the army’s positive response to his work shed new light on the evolution of the new military history and the Imperial German Army’s reaction to it.
The Politics of Remembrance: The Gold Star Mothers’ Pilgrimage and America’s Fading Memory of the Great War
Authors: Budreau Lisa M.
Published: April 2008

This essay investigates the American post-First World War commemorative experience and highlights the significance of the war’s aftermath on a diverse society, and the process by which a democracy remembers war. It examines the efficacy of government policy regarding the return of American war dead that triggered the Gold Star Mothers’ successful efforts to obtain a sponsored pilgrimage overseas. It then asks whether participants truly gained the closure desired. Collectively, these women offer a multidimensional model of ethnic, cultural, economic, and religious diversity prevalent in America during the interwar years while providing scope for exploring racial, gender, and political issues within the context of national mourning.
Progress and Retreat in Africa: Legislatures on the Rise?
Authors: Barkan Joel D.
Published: April 2008

Abstract: Although legislative performance is uneven across the African continent, the legislature is emerging as a “player” in some countries. It has begun to initiate and modify laws to a degree never seen during the era of neopatrimonial rule or even in the early years after the return of multiparty politics. And in some countries (Kenya, Malawi, and Nigeria), though not in others (Namibia and Uganda), it has blocked presidents from changing the constitution to repeal limits on presidential terms. In short, legislatures in Africa are beginning to matter. That said, there is no uniformity across Africa and we are only beginning to understand and explain the variations.
Is the Tide Turning?
Authors: Puddington Arch
Published: April 2008

Freedom appeared in a state of decline during 2007, according to the authoritative Freedom in the World survey issued annually by Freedom House. The most significant development was the decline in freedom in a number of strategically significant countries: Russia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and Venezuela. Globally, many countries showed evidence of problems with freedom of association, rule of law, effective governance, and corruption. Freedom House also pointed to a growing “pushback” against democracy in such countries as Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and China. Dictators are employing increasingly sophisticated methods to marginalize opposition parties, censor the press, and marginalize civil society.
Russia's Transition to Autocracy
Authors: Hassner Pierre
Published: April 2008

Under Putin’s rule, Russian policy has considerably hardened both domestically and internationally. It has gone from a mixture of oligarchy, democracy, and anarchy to a regime of autocracy with some fascist features, and from an effort to imitate and join the West to a verbal aggressiveness towards the United States and an effort to reassert Russia’s domination over its former empire. An important link between the two evolutions is to be found in the post-imperial nostalgia of the Russian population, in the neo-imperial ambition of its leaders, and in their fear of the spread of “color revolutions” among their neighbors.
Politics, Markets, and Society in Lula's Brazil
Authors: Sola Lourdes
Published: April 2008

Brazil under Lula offers a test case of how politicians and societal interests in developing countries react when economic growth and new possibilities change the name of the game from shock and scarcity to boom and prosperity. Contrary to what a reader of the dominant theoretical work on democratization might expect, Brazil’s experience of political democratization and economic liberalization under the adverse economic conditions of the 1980s and 1990s did not bring about a neoliberal "assault on the state."
China: From Prison to Freedom
Authors: Jianli Yang
Published: April 2008

We can hope that China’s autocratic rulers will take the initiative to grant their people political rights, but we cannot rely on them to do so. A democratic transition in China is most likely to occur through the growth of popular democratic forces. Our real hope lies with them. Our sacred duty is to nurture their growth.
Ecuador: Correa's Plebiscitary Presidency
Authors: Conaghan Catherine M.
Published: April 2008

With the election of Rafael Correa in 2006, Ecuador joined the ranks of Latin American countries that have taken the "Left Turn" in national politics. Correa views his presidency as an opportunity to effect profound political change by convoking a constituent assembly to write a new constitution. In the course of campaigning for the constituent assembly, Correa constructed a powerful hyper-plebiscitary presidency—a mode of governance marked by the president’s recurrent appeals to public opinion and special elections that enhances the legitimacy of the executive at the expense of congress. Using the informal and formal powers of his office, Correa was able to govern "over the heads" of existing institutions and greatly debilitate what remained of the political opposition.
Progress and Retreat in Africa: Challenges of a “Frontier” Region
Authors: Joseph Richard
Published: April 2008

Abstract: "Frontier Africa" captures the interplay of risk, reward and uncertainty of political and economic life. Economic growth and political advances are halted by disputed elections; high corruption erodes the capacity and legitimacy of state institutions; China is now a major actor that can undercut human rights and democracy efforts; and counter-terrorism emboldens autocratic rulers. In the end, basic needs of the masses of the people for healthcare, education, jobs, and physical security are unmet. The tragic aftermath of the 2007 presidential vote in Kenya demonstrates the continuing significance of personal rule, weak institutions, and electoral systems subject to partisan manipulation.
Public Opinion and Democratic Legitimacy
Authors: Chu Yun-han , Bratton Michael , Lagos Marta , Shastri Sandeep , Tessler Mark
Published: April 2008

This paper examines on a global scale how important it is for young democracies to deliver economic welfare to win the hearts of their citizens. A decoupling of popular support for democratic form of government from economic performance is believed to be conducive to the consolidation of young democracies. We found an encouraging global pattern that clearly shows evaluations of economic condition are relatively unimportant in explaining level of popular support for democracy. However, high-income East Asian countries register a glaring exception to this global generalization, suggesting that their distinctive trajectory of regime transition has imposed on democratic regimes an additional burden of sustaining a record of miraculous economic growth of the past.
Progress and Retreat in Africa: Presidents Untamed
Authors: Prempeh H. Kwasi
Published: April 2008

Abstract: Tolerance for presidential misrule and indefinite presidential tenure may have worn thin in Africa’s democratizing polities, but with voters still caring most about beating the twin scourges of underdevelopment and economic marginalization, belief in the beneficent uses of preponderant executive power continues to run strong. African polities must move beyond the fixation with "strong" leadership and focus instead on building credible and effective institutions at both the national and local levels. If anything, an imperial presidency magnifies the costs of having an incompetent or bad leader at the helm.
Essay: If You Build It, They Will Come: Developing a Sports Media Major
Authors: Krein Mark , Weir Tom
Published: April 2008

Consumer demand for sports media has never been stronger, yet sports media studies have long been a low priority in traditional journalism programs. For some reason professional sports writing and sports broadcast production has long been looked upon as the strange cousin of journalism: not really news, not really promotion, and not really considered “real media” except through some bizarre DNA configuration. After several years of success with a strong sports broadcasting club, Oklahoma State University recently established a B.A. and B.S. in Sports Media through the School of Journalism and Broadcasting to train undergraduates to work in this growing field.
Interactive Media and Sports Journalists: The Impact of Interactive Media on Sports Journalists
Authors: Wigley Shelley , Meirick Patrick C.
Published: April 2008

This research studied the impact of interactive media on sports journalists. Sports journalists at daily newspapers (N=393) participated in a Web-based survey. Results indicate that sports journalists working at civic-minded newspapers do not place more value on citizen input nor do they pay more attention to sports talk radio and Internet message boards as a source of information or fan opinion. This may indicate that all sports journalists, no matter the type of newspaper they work for, embrace the input of regular citizens. The study produced one counterintuitive finding in that sports journalists employed at civic-minded newspapers reported less interaction with the public.
NFL Agenda-setting: The NFL Programming Schedule: A Study of Agenda-setting
Authors: Fortunato John A.
Published: April 2008

In 2006 the NFL instituted substantial changes in the television programming schedule, including Monday Night Football moving to ESPN, NBC televising games on Sunday night with a flexible schedule component, and games being televised on the NFL Network. The agenda-setting theoretical model claims that media exposure and the emphasis of certain attributes of the topic can increase the public salience of the topic and those emphasized attributes. In sports the proper programming schedule can do more than transfer topic salience, but, in fact, help influence the behavior of audience viewing that translates into revenue for the networks and the sports league.
"A Little Yellow Bastard Boy": Paternal Rejection, Filial Insistence, and the Triumph of African American Cultural Aesthetics in Langston Hughes's "Mulatto"
Authors: Lamb Robert Paul
Published: April 2008

When Langston Hughes published "Mulatto" in his second poetry collection, Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), it was highly praised by both African American and white reviewers. But because it did not seem germane to the heated controversy caused by that volume—over whether the blues were an acceptable poetic form and whether Hughes's vernacular representations of African Americans were genuine or else racialist stereotypes—"Mulatto" has been mostly ignored by scholars ever since. This richly complex poem demands to be read in several contexts: Hughes's difficult relationship with his own father, his lifelong near obsession with biracialism, and the poem's deliberate intertextuality with Jean Toomer's Cane. Most important, Hughes's intricate and innovative employment of African American cultural aesthetics—call and response, signifying, and the blues—is essential to any meaningful reading of what is one of the finest poems ever written on the biracial experience in America.
Jean Rhys's Postmodern Narrative Authority: Selina's Patois in "Let Them Call It Jazz"
Authors: Czarnecki Kristin
Published: April 2008

In her 1962 short story, "Let Them Call It Jazz," Jean Rhys responds to literary modernism's linguistic dilemmas with a first-person mulatta narrator, Selina Davis, a Martiniquaise immigrant to London in the 1950—a departure in characterization for Rhys and a new narrative response to patriarchal assaults upon women and the poor. Born of Rhys's own intersecting cultural and linguistic experience, Selina's patois bridges modernism's narrative gap between white masquerade—the "black vernacular" adapted by white high modernists—and authentic black dialect—a source of controversy during the Harlem Renaissance. Selina's patois presents a complex new voice, one that challenges conventional sexual, racial, and class paradigms in its determination not to be silenced. Derived from the white Creole heroines of Rhys's modernist novels, Selina, telling her story in patois, encapsulates a postmodern narrative sensibility, transforming the previously marginalized female voice into one of greater authority.
"Beyond My Outrage or My Admiration": Postnational Critique in Robert Pinsky's An Explanation of America
Authors: Gwiazda Piotr
Published: April 2008

This paper examines Robert Pinsky's book-length poem An Explanation of America (1979) through the lens of postnational critique. Although at first glance the poem embodies Pinsky's commitment to the unitary idea of American nation and culture, it also provides a useful vantage point from which to explore late twentieth-century poetry's engagements with global and local frameworks. An Explanation of America upholds the value of patriotism as a form of social attachment, but also acknowledges the role of cosmopolitan consciousness in the construction of American identity. In doing so, the poem clarifies the issues of identity, alterity, and multiculturalism at the heart of current conversations about American postnation.
"The Real White Man is Waiting For Me": Ideology & Morality in Bessie Head's A Question of Power
Authors: Kim Sue J.
Published: April 2008

This essay explores how Bessie Head's best known novel explores the ideological valences of different models of morality and argues that the novel dissects and juxtaposes different notions of morality and subjectivity associated with various historical periods. Then, in the novel, a repressed "real" serves to debunk the rhetoric of the different modes of ideological morality, ultimately enabling a recuperation of notions of morality based on better understandings of what constitutes reality.
Meals and Mourning in Woolf's The Waves
Authors: Utell Janine
Published: April 2008

Food and meals serve as vehicles through which Virginia Woolf considers being and its end, death, and the ritual encounters with death that are themselves heightened moments of consciousness. This essay explores the ways in which Woolf uses meals in The Waves as moments in the mourning process. The six characters in The Waves are confronted with the inevitability of mortality and the difficulties of mourning. They seek to come to terms with grief through ritual moments which bring them together. Meals provide such ritual moments, the ritual spaces, for instances of awareness and community. The taking of food signifies the potentiality of communion and consolation, even as it reminds each individual of the always-present possibility of her own ultimate dissolution, her own end of being.
Disavowal, Defence and Voyeurism in the Narration of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cousin Phillis.
Authors: Koustinoudi Anna
Published: April 2008

Although Elizabeth Gaskell's novella Cousin Phillis purports to be a text about a woman, it is in essence a text about men and male fantasies of the female with the heroine's own body and discourse curiously remaining in the background in favour of those of the text's male characters, including the narrator's. What is more, Gaskell's heroine functions not only as an object of exchange within men's triangulated homosocial practices, but also as a pretext for the narrator's homoerotic attraction to the text's male figures, which he attempts to disavow via his seeming interest in the objectified, though daunting, figure of Phillis. Gaskell's employment of a chameleonic male narrator, who retrospectively oscillates between a homodiegetic and autodiegetic mode of narration triggers a duplicitous game of gazes, appearances and inter-subjective identifications, through which Gaskell not only interrogates Victorian gender roles and encoding, but also exposes gender to be a subject position, a shaky and unstable category.
A Singular Detective: Methodological and Aesthetic Proliferation of Justice in Carlo Emilio Gadda’s Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana
Authors: Amberson Deborah
Published: April 2008

In Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957), Carlo Emilio Gadda presents a philosopher-detective who overturns the rudimentary formula of the classical detective novel in order to stage an ethical tension between philosophical generality and singularity. This tension illuminates the foundation of Gadda's baroque style of non-substitutable terms, a style that seeks to recreate the proliferation of a singular reality. This article addresses the ramifications of an investigative methodology that contests the principle of equivalence and that positions itself within a proliferating narrative and aesthetic space, where the causes are always multiple and the punishment cannot tally with the crime.
Silenzio e verità ne La parola ebreo di Rosetta Loy
Authors: Cinelli Gianluca
Published: April 2008

Nell'articolo si presenta uno studio de La parola ebreo alla luce di una poetica in cui la rappresentazione dell'infanzia è il cardine fondamentale dell'introspezione autobiografica. Si analizza quindi la dialettica di discorso e silenzio, dalla quale emerge la verità autobiografica e storica di un passato su cui grava un senso di colpa inteso come destino (Benjamin). Con l'articolo sostengo che la soggettività rappresentata è l'articolazione storica di una intersoggettività ontologica (Heidegger), espressa nel confronto/opposizione fra un "noi" e un "loro", che solo retrospettivamente si fissa e produce come coscienza e discorso.
Tullia d’Aragona: Two New Sonnets
Authors: Baernstein P. Renee , Hairston Julia L
Published: April 2008

This article provides a transcription and translation of two new autograph sonnets of Tullia d'Aragona (1505/10-1556), dedicated to members of the Colonna family of Rome, which were recently discovered in the Archivio Colonna (Subiaco).The poems share themes and topoi typical of the poet's work--fame and immortality through verse, the threat of cruel fortune--and likely date from a later period of her career.Their dedications suggest a connection to Giovanna d'Aragona Colonna's mid-century efforts, both literary and otherwise, to rehabilitate the Colonna family from political disgrace, and particularly to advance her son Marcantonio Colonna's career.
Page, Stage, Screen: The Language of Silence in Maraini and Faenza’s La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa
Authors: Ryan-Scheutz Colleen
Published: April 2008

This paper explores the narrative synergies in the novel, theater, and film versions of Dacia Maraini's masterpiece La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa. Departing from the theoretical premise that patriarchal society and classic cinema organize representations of women around silence, absence, or castration, I discuss the ways in which Maraini's novel (1990), her theatrical text (1992), and Faenza's film (1997) present Marianna's deaf-mute universe not as a handicap but as a rich world, full of passion and intellect. In particular, I maintain that each artist uses Marianna's practices of reading, writing, and speech to overturn the concepts of mutilation, limitation, or lack in their texts.
Tagli, innesti, margini e cicatrici: Il ritorno di Renzo
Authors: Saccone Eduardo
Published: April 2008

Renzo, the protagonist of Manzoni's "I promessi sposi", travels twice to Milan and back home. Both journeys are important, but it is the investigation of the second homecoming in particular that seems to provide us with a telling allegory of the "juice of the whole story" : by showing the imperfect circle described by the character's journeys, as well as his reflection on the problematic relationship between happiness and memory.
Italo Calvino e la saggistica del magma: verso un’altra genealogia della leggerezza
Authors: Modena Letizia
Published: April 2008

Lo studio interroga il presunto disengagement postrutturalista di Italo Calvino e osserva come la poetica della leggerezza riaffermi la funzione etica della letteratura. Si ricostruisce il dialogo intertestuale tra i riscontri figurativi provenienti dalla saggistica socio-ideologica di Calvino (anni Cinquanta e Sessanta), e la riattivazione dei miti ovidiani di Perseo e Medusa (anni Ottanta). Si rintracciano così i prodromi contenutistici ed iconici della leggerezza e della pietrificazione, evidenziando l'itinerario genealogico delle immagini dell'ascesa e della paralisi che confluiranno nella sintesi ovidiana. L'analisi conclude postulando un'integrazione tra l'auspicio di un operato engagé e quello di una modalità alla Perseo.
Ulysses ’s Unanswered Questions
Authors: DiBattista Maria
Published: April 2008

Three enigmas confront Bloom near the end of "Ithaca." The first is "self-imposed" ("the cause of a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack emitted by the sentient material of a strainveined timber table"); the second is self-involved ("Who is M'Intosh?"); the third is self-evident ("Where was Moses when the lights went out?"). Only the self-involved enigma remains unsolved, by Bloom at least, leading us to suspect that there are certain mysteries that are—narratively as well as existentially—best left unanswered. This essay explores why this should be so.
Jean Patou’s American Mannequins: Early Fashion Shows and Modernism
Authors: Evans Caroline
Published: April 2008

In December 1924 the couturier Jean Patou brought six American fashion models from New York to Paris because, he claimed, the American mannequins' lean and leggy physique was needed to sell his clothes to his American clients. This paper focuses on the American mannequins' Paris debut alongside their French counterparts in Patou's February 1925 fashion show. It explores how Patou's presentation and marketing revealed a set of wider concerns about commerce, culture, gender, and work in the 1920s. The mathematics of fashion was translated into visual seduction on the catwalk as business methods became visual and were imprinted on women's bodies. In particular, Patou's modernist styling of the mannequins' bodies pictured both the Fordist aesthetics of 1920s fashion and the Taylorist management techniques that pervaded the couture houses. In this way, Patou's modernism, rather than belonging to the artistic avant garde, was part of the social and economic rationalization of the body in the early twentieth century.
American Valkyries: Richard Wagner, D. W. Griffith, and the Birth of Classical Cinema
Authors: Smith Matthew Wilson
Published: April 2008

Focusing on the period from 1910 to 1915, this article argues that Richard Wagner's work was crucial to the development of American cinema. Critics and artists not only advocated Wagner's composition techniques for film accompaniment, but also turned Wagner into an emblem for far broader reforms. These reforms included a greater integration of music and film, a conception of film as a high art, and a conception of film as a medium for national purification and bourgeoisification. These reforms, and their connection to Wagner, helped set the stage for the use of "The Ride of the Valkyries" in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915).
Open Your Eyes! Public Ordering and the Policing Gaze
Authors: Hall Sara
Published: April 2008

In November 1919, the Weimar Republic was a year old, yet no domestic consensus seemed in sight. The international military conflict had transformed into a war at home, where assassinations, street fighting, and protests disrupted public order. Through all this, law enforcement agencies in Berlin worked alongside other civic and private institutions to establish a sense of day-to-day normalcy and security. In the case discussed in this essay, a fictional manhunt known as "Augen auf!" or "Open Your Eyes!" sponsored by the Berliner Morgenpost, representatives of the newly reformed local criminal police helped to set the tone of the popular discourse on civility and sociability in the nascent democracy.
Sarah’s Laughter: Kafka’s Abraham
Authors: Danta Chris
Published: April 2008

"My laughter is a concrete wall," says Kafka to Gustav Janouch. In this paper, I claim that laughter offers us a way to appeal to our own bodies as a basis of doubt. I try to substantiate this general proposition by examining Kafka's identification with the story of Sarah laughing uncontrollably at God's promise of a child in Genesis 18. I argue that Kafka finds in the figure of Sarah's laughter not only a most poignant precursor to his own skepticism of the body, but also a basis to retell (in the Octavo Notebooks) the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.
Mengzi, Strategic Language, and the Shaping of Behavior
Authors: Geisz Steven F
Published: April 2008

This essay introduces a way of reading the Mengzi (Mencius) that complicates how we understand what Mengzi is recorded as saying. A pragmatic-strategic reading of the Mengzi is developed here, according to which Mengzi attends to and operates under important pragmatic constraints on speech. Based on a close reading of key passages, it is argued that truth-telling and descriptive accuracy are less important to Mengzi than guiding people along the Confucian path. This reading has implications for our understanding of Mengzi's philosophical positions and his methods of argumentation, as well as for our understanding of philosophical activity in general.
Being and Value: From the Perspective of Chinese-Western Comparative Philosophy
Authors: Yang Guorong
Published: April 2008

Things as concrete beings contain the dimension of value. Value achieves a conceptual realization in evaluation and transforms itself into actual being by virtue of practice, which in turn imparts a new significance to value, namely value as a human creation. Therefore, being and value are in an interactive dynamic unity, which constitutes the reality of the world and accordingly provides a ground for metaphysics to go beyond interpretation of the world to changing the world.