bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ethnic Categories and Cultural Differences
Authors: Fuhse Jan
Published: October 2021

Ethnic categories and cultural differences are rooted in the structure of social networks. The segregation of migrant groups in networks of personal relationships determines the extent to which cultural differences can be bridged and the salience of ethnic categories in multicultural societies. In line with relational sociology around Harrison White, the chapter develops a theoretical account of interethnic relations that examines the interplay of network patterns and meaning (categories and cultural differences). It draws on diverse theoretical strands from symbolic interactionism and social anthropology to Norbert Elias’s configurational sociology. This combination leads to conjectures about the ethnic pattering of networks and sociocultural constellations that resonate with empirical research from the sociology of migration.
Modern Resistance to Orthodox Medical Domination
Authors: Grossman Lewis A.
Published: October 2021

This chapter examines how, as the popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has risen since the 1970s, American law—once thoroughly dominated by the orthodox medical establishment—has accommodated this growth. To an underappreciated degree, CAM advocates have persuaded legislators and regulators to make American law more hospitable to unorthodox treatments. The chapter explores this phenomenon at both the federal and state levels. It then turns to the philosophically and organizationally related modern movements resisting orthodox medical compulsion. It does so first by discussing the modern antivaccination movement and then by considering the medical freedom activism that surged during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020—activism that bore striking resemblances to the Progressive-Era battle against “state medicine.”
The Right to Be Covered
Authors: Grossman Lewis A.
Published: October 2021

This chapter explores the paradoxical assertion of freedom of therapeutic choice in the context of reimbursed health care. Cries of “rationing!” and “death panel!” are directed at every suggestion of a limitation on government insurance coverage. This chapter traces the history of the notion of a “right to be reimbursed” for one’s therapeutic choices since the 1930s. It explores the persistent public insistence on “a right to choose one’s doctor” in insurance plans. It describes the history of drug formularies and patients’ resistance to them. The chapter focuses most intensively on the controversy surrounding the FDA’s November 2011 withdrawal of provisional approval of Avastin for the treatment of breast cancer. Conservatives and patient groups used the language of rights to attack this decision even though it did not remove the drug from the market; the protesters’ real fear was that insurance plans would stop reimbursing patients for this use.
Nightmare in Dallas—The Ebola Case
Authors: Saks Michael J. , Landsman Stephan
Published: October 2021

“Nightmare in Dallas—The Ebola Case” examines the Ebola-caused death of Thomas Eric Duncan in 2014. That case provides a paradigm of medical error in American hospitals. Mr. Duncan was the victim of a string of errors involving the use of vital information for treatment and ill-considered treatment initiatives. When confronted, the hospital tried first to deny its mistakes and then tried to blame various components of its staff and its electronic health records system before finally accepting responsibility—albeit as part of a media-attuned crisis management campaign. Only the harsh and unrelenting glare of media attention led to the admission of error. Traditional legal mechanisms of redress offered little help.
Injury Incidence
Authors: Saks Michael J. , Landsman Stephan
Published: October 2021

“Injury Incidence: Scope of the Problem” reviews the major empirical research on iatrogenic harm. Hospital-records studies find about 3% to 4% of patients suffer adverse events, about a third of which are attributable to negligence, equating to 250,000 or more deaths per year. These deaths and injuries are disaggregated into those attributable to treatment, infection, medication, and diagnosis. As research designs expand beyond medical records, and as settings extend beyond hospitals, the total increases. Direct-observation studies find about 10 times as many injurious adverse events. Methods involving more complex information-technology (Global Trigger) also find about 10 times as many. Adding to that, available data suggest that about as many adverse events occur outside of hospitals as inside. Finally, the chapter looks beyond inadvertent harms to intentional unnecessary treatment, much of which is understood as supply-sensitive care. These consume about 30% of healthcare expenditures.
Error Reporting
Authors: Saks Michael J. , Landsman Stephan
Published: October 2021

“Error Reporting: A Flawed Panacea” examines the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) proposed solution to the challenge of medical error—the reporting of medical errors in both public and nonpublic information systems. The IOM was attracted to reporting as a solution because of its limited cost and the success of the Aviation Safety Reporting System in the commercial aviation industry. What the IOM failed to recognize was the healthcare industry’s resistance to any sort of reporting, what some have referred to as a conspiracy of silence. Reporting has been thwarted in mechanisms ranging from the mortality and morbidity conferences to the statutorily required National Practitioner Data Bank intended to keep track of physician missteps of various kinds.
Incentives—Good, Bad, and Perverse
Authors: Saks Michael J. , Landsman Stephan
Published: October 2021

“Incentives—Good, Bad, and Perverse” has the goal of describing various innovative incentive-altering policies that could increase safety. The chapter begins by explaining some basics of economic influences on behavior (including perverse incentives) as well as the complicating influences of behavioral economics. Applications of these principles can alter the structure and contingencies of incentives and disincentives, and the choice architecture facing individuals and organizations, to improve the business case for investment in safety. The authors describe market-oriented reforms, Pigouvian taxation, denial of payment programs (of which three have already been instituted: for never-events, hospital-acquired conditions, and excess readmissions), enterprise liability, and enterprise insurance.
What Kills Humans
Authors: Howard Gary C.
Published: October 2021

Humans do not simply die; something goes wrong. Trauma and disease (extrinsic factors) kill many, but others die from the effects of aging (intrinsic factors). As humans have evolved and gained greater control of their environment, the things that kill us have changed. In the distant past, injuries, traumatic death, and infectious diseases killed most early humans. In the present, we succumb more and more to the diseases of plenty and aging (e.g., obesity, diabetes, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer). What really kills humans, and how exactly does it happen? Natural causes are a common answer, but that really begs the question: exactly what is natural causes?
Death of Cells
Authors: Howard Gary C.
Published: October 2021

Many cells have a normal life span, after which they simply wear out, die, and are discarded. These include skin cells, the cells that line the intestines, and blood cells. When things go wrong, cells in other organs die, but the entire organism does not necessarily die. For example, cell death in the brain or heart is serious because those organs have only a limited ability to regenerate. Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease involve a breakdown of the neuronal network and loss of specific neurons. Death shapes individual organisms during development. The best-known example is in insects. Caterpillars undergo metamorphosis to become butterflies. Under certain disease conditions, cells “commit suicide” by turning on pathways that lead to death. Those mechanisms include apoptosis, autophagy, necrosis, and necroptosis. In recent years, there has been considerable research into ways that these pathways might be manipulated therapeutically.
Programmed Cell Death in Humans
Authors: Howard Gary C.
Published: October 2021

The controlled death of specific cells is critical to human development. To develop from an embryo to an adult, specific cells must live, and others must die. Examples include our immune system, which must be refined by killing off immune cells that release antibodies that would attack our own tissues. Our fingers and toes would remain connected to each other by soft tissue without programmed cell death. In addition, certain cells are subject to a great deal of wear. They are killed off so that they can be replaced by new cells. Finally, programmed cell death (i.e., apoptosis, necrosis, and pyroptosis) is also an important defense against illness.
Death Is More than Dying
Authors: Howard Gary C.
Published: October 2021

Death is intimately intertwined with life. Death evolved with life some 3.5 billion years ago. Now more than 7 billion people live on Earth. All of us—indeed, every living organism on Earth—are the products of 3.5 billion years of evolution. We survived five major die-offs and countless smaller ones, in addition to the daily battles to remain alive. Somehow, we were always the smartest, quickest, strongest, or maybe just luckiest. More amazingly, in that time, life even learned how to harness death to help with reproduction and development and to defend against diseases. Programmed cell death is used to spread seeds, allow fruit to drop, extract nutrients from leaves before they change colors in the fall, and countless other actions. Importantly, it also helps to ensure that our immune system attacks only invaders and not our own tissues.
Introduction
Authors: Lindow John
Published: October 2021

The title, Old Norse Mythology recognizes the fact that the mythology in question is recorded almost exclusively in the manuscripts of Old Norse literary tradition—that is, in manuscripts primarily from thirteenth-century Iceland. Since Iceland had converted to Christianity in the year 1000CE, the scribes who recorded the myths were Christians, and the myths can hardly have been sacred in their eyes. Nevertheless, there were mythographers such as Snorri Sturluson, who composed Edda, a handbook of poetics that includes a synopsis of the mythology, and such as the anonymous redactor of what we now call the Poetic Edda, a collection of mythic and heroic poems, and myths are displaced into history in the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus. This chapter discusses the progression from the oral mythology of the Viking Age (c. 800-1100) to the written mythology of the Middle Ages.
The Analects: A Guide
Authors: Cline Erin M.
Published: October 2021

The Analects (Lunyu) is not only a collection of the teachings of Kongzi (Confucius) that describes how to follow the Way; it is a sacred text. This book examines why we ought to regard the Analects as a sacred text and what it means to do so. It explores what distinguishes sacred texts from other texts, and explores the history of the Analects and how it has been regarded in the Chinese tradition and in East Asia more broadly, from its composition and compilation to the evolution of its enduring status and influence. It also examines the content of the Analects concerning the sacred, including rituals, Tian (“Heaven”), de (“moral power”), different kinds of spirits, and its presentation of Kongzi not just as a teacher but also as an exemplar. It argues that we find a deep concern in the Analects with things we might call sacred, spiritual, or religious, but that are part of our everyday lives. All of these things, together, offer good reasons to study the Analects as a sacred text.
Is the Analects a Sacred Text?
Authors: Cline Erin M.
Published: October 2021

While many have not regarded the Confucian Analects as a sacred or religious text, the Analects bears the features of a sacred text. Exploring the origins of the word “sacred” and its contemporary usage and connection to words like “religious” and “spiritual,” this chapter treats “sacred” as a family resemblance concept. It explores the various features of the sacred, including those things (rituals, experiences, texts, people, deities) that are worthy of reverence, awe, and solemnity, and that elicit humility and gratitude. Like other sacred texts, the Analects has historically enjoyed an elevated status in a particular tradition and culture. It presents a particular person, Kongzi, not only as a transmitter of teachings but also as an exemplar of them who is worthy of reverence. In addition, the central ideas and teachings of the Analects are deeply sacred in nature.
Spirits and Tian in the Analects
Authors: Cline Erin M.
Published: October 2021

The importance of having reverence for different kinds of spiritual entities or forces is expressed throughout the text of the Analects, and those passages that discuss nature spirits, ancestral spirits, and Tian (“Heaven”) clearly reflect the importance of the sacred. This chapter explores the controversy among scholars of the Analects concerning how to interpret the view that we find in the text concerning different kinds of spirits and the mysterious entity known as Tian (“Heaven”). Through a close textual examination of all of the passages that discuss or mention these entities, and the discussions of traditional and contemporary commentators, this chapter probes distinctions such as theistic/atheistic, transcendent/immanent, and personal/impersonal, which are often used to describe Kongzi’s views on these matters, in order to understand how we ought to describe the distinctive view we find in the text.
Multitopia
Authors: Hazaz-Berger Hagar
Published: October 2021

The extensive literature on social protests offers almost no reference to the social protest field as a space of search for a personal meaning. This chapter attempts to explore the questions of searching for personal meaning in a social event, focusing on a central encampment in Tel-Aviv during the summer 2011 social protest in Israel. The findings suggest that people who came to the encampment were raising questions and looking for meaning in a space that allowed them to temporarily wonder outside of their normal life, a space the author describes as a “wondering space.” The people inside this space raise questions and search for meanings through spiritual practices, blurring or ignoring social categories and shaping identities through deconstruction and reconstruction of these categories. The author’s analysis suggests that the search for personal meaning in a social event can provide insights about the cracks in the Zionist utopia, reflecting the need to find personal utopias. This situation is described as “multitopia”—a multiutopian sphere, where every subject is looking for their own personal meaning, trying the bridge the ideological cracks in Israeli society.
The Meaning of Denial
Authors: Beit-Hallahmi Benjamin
Published: October 2021

Could denial be a source of meaning? The meaning of denying death is clear, and most religions have been doing it for millennia. Claiming an immortal soul and thus denying the annihilation of our individual consciousness is something humans have embraced for more than 100,000 years. This chapter examines a group known as Physical Immortality, that many considered more bizarre than other belief minorities, because it promises its adherents eternal life in the same physical body they are inhabiting in this life. The author’s observations of the group and its members taught him that while the beliefs were indeed unusual, the members were ordinary and normal. It turned out to be an early manifestation of New Age activities in Israel. The group did not develop a distinct identity in its members, which was one reason for its decline. What characterized most followers was a playful openness to building up the self through support, belonging, and positivity, even if expressed in absurdities.
The Zionist Absurd
Authors: Abulof Uriel
Published: October 2021

“If you have your ‘why?’ in life, you can get along with almost any ‘how?,’ ” argued Friedrich Nietzsche. Does the same apply to societies seeking meaning to ensure their collective existence? This chapter submits that it does, engaging contemporary Israel. The author argues that the political pursuit of moral meaning amounts to existential legitimation, or “nomization,” which can boost the nation’s resilience but, if failed, may end in an impasse of meaning, a political absurd. Israel has grown strong in many respects but existential fears, which have characterized Zionism from its onset, have not subsided. These existential fears and freedom—the realization of Zionism as but one solution to the modern Jewish condition—prompted Zionists to seek existential legitimation to the Jewish state. However, a growing sense that “the whole world is against us no matter what” has engendered the “Zionist absurd,” believing all Israel’s legitimation efforts are doomed, and thus substituting bad faith—essentialism, determinism, and fatalism—for freedom.
Conclusion
Authors: Lee Christina H.
Published: October 2021

This conclusion recapitulates the findings of the investigations of the previous chapters and offers possibilities for further research. It reinforces the notion that the examined santos were widely embraced by their followers during the early Spanish period because their devotions embedded narratives that memorialized the violent history of the loss of their land, the unbinding of their community, and, most grievously, the assault on their spiritual practices. The key legends and miracles that popularized the devotions to these saints all recall, in one way or another, specific events or circumstances in which a community believed it was subjected to indefensible harm.
Introduction
Authors: Lee Wayne E. , Preston David L. , Silbey David , Carlson Anthony E.
Published: October 2021

Introduces the problem of intercultural combat and how it changes the individual experience of battle. It also defines the partly overlapping categories of asymmetrical, unconventional, or irregular warfare. Intercultural warfare is a clash of mindsets as much as weapons. Intercultural combat defies expectations, and frequently presents a problem in sustaining a winning strategic narrative, since the two sides’ definitions of victory differ. This introduction sets the stage with a brief look at the colonial period and the role of Indians as “unexpected enemies.” In general Americans have always thought about war as likely to be against someone culturally similar. In reality, most American wars have been against cultural “others.”
Interlude I
Authors: Lee Wayne E. , Preston David L. , Silbey David , Carlson Anthony E.
Published: October 2021

Outlines the changes in military technology and army composition in the United States between the end of the French and Indian War and the Spanish American War in 1898. In contrast to the usual focus on the Amerian Civil War, this chapter points out that the majority of American wars were fought by small numbers of regulars, supplemented by state volunteers, and were generally in the service of expanding American territory across the continent. Both before and after the cataclysm of the Civil War the vast majority of conflicts that the United States engaged in were against Native Americans. The war against Spain in 1898 merely marked the overseas extension of those ambitions. Even so, the tiny standing army failed to institutionalize the lessons of such wars and continued to focus on expected enemies: a European invasion.
The Battle of Manila, February 4–5, 1899
Authors: Lee Wayne E. , Preston David L. , Silbey David , Carlson Anthony E.
Published: October 2021

Narrates the fighting between Filipino insurrectos and the American regular and volunteer troops deployed to the Philippines to fight the Spanish. Spanish surrender and American ambitions ultimately led to a conventional battle on the outskirts of Manila. The Battle of Manila marked a turning point in intercultural war. A conventional battle waged using symmetrical tactics, it was one of the encounters that showed decisively that, with some exceptions, non-western forces could no longer stand on the battlefield against a western power. In the battle itself, American racist attitudes combined with experience fighting Indians to dominate American tactics and the soldiers’ experience of combat. For their part, Filipino forces were defined in many ways by the patron system through which they were recruited, which undermined the overall cohesion and effectiveness of their army. The Americans won decisively at Manila, but then struggled to adapt when the Filipinos turned to guerrilla warfare.
Interlude II
Authors: Lee Wayne E. , Preston David L. , Silbey David , Carlson Anthony E.
Published: October 2021

Outlines the changes in military technology and army composition in the United States between the end of the the Spanish American War in 1898 and the end of the Cold War. Examines continued institutional military resistance to incorporating counterinsurgency or irregular war into its training and doctrine, despite repeated experiences with it around the world. Includes a brief examination of intercultural combat in the Vietnam War and then the deliberate forgetting of those lessons during the next two decades.
Makuan/Operation Dragon Strike, September 15–17, 2010
Authors: Lee Wayne E. , Preston David L. , Silbey David , Carlson Anthony E.
Published: October 2021

Narrates the American and Taliban experience of combat in the village of Makuan, during Operation DRAGON STRIKE, in the Zhari district of southern Afghanistan. Although by 2010 American troops were accustomed to Taliban tactics and the intercultural quality of combat in Afghanistan, and had developed exquisitely refined force packages and tactics in order to both destroy Taliban forces and try to win over Afghan villagers, the fight at Makuan shows how the experience of combat continued to challenge American hopes. Taliban use of IEDs generated casualties, introduced chaotic skirmishes, and disrupted the fragile working relationship of US forces and their Afghan National Army (ANA) allies.
The Other Face of Battle
Authors: Lee Wayne E. , Preston David L. , Silbey David , Carlson Anthony E.
Published: October 2021

Concludes the book by examining the consistent American experience of fighting intercultural and generally unexpected wars. In each case Americans have begun those wars generally dismissivenes of their opponent’s abilities, but have ended up depending on them as auxiliaries. Strategically speaking, American application of “more,” in the sense of more firepower, bigger guns, more exquisite technology, and so on, has not always equated to success. The experience of intercultural combat has also likely generated greater and more persistent individual psychic trauma among veterans. Lastly, despite the depth and breadth of this experience, the American institutional military is again turning away from the lessons of intercultural, asymmetric warfare, and focusing on future conventional combat against peer enemy states in “Large Scale Combat Operations” or LSCO. This continued focus on “expected” wars defies the historical evidence of unexpected enemies.
Luke’s Story, Part 1
Authors: Myers Alicia D.
Published: October 2021

This chapter focuses on the first of Luke’s two volumes, the Gospel. This chapter begins with a basic historical overview, giving attention to the growing consensus of interpreting Theophilus as a patron of Luke and Acts. The chapter then notes hierarchies of human traits in the Roman world, including class, gender, and bodies, before discussing how Luke uses and subverts these elements. Luke uses the ancient virtue of hospitality, important to the wider Greco-Roman world, but especially manifested in Abrahamic traditions in Jewish contexts. Luke employs Abrahamic themes to show God’s inclusion of humanity in the Kingdom. The chapter provides a literary overview of the Gospel before examining the major themes of special beginnings (Luke 1:5–58), Jesus’s inaugural teaching and mission to the marginalized, and Jesus’s death as a martyr that leads to his resurrection and ascension. It ends with a section on how the Gospel transitions into Acts.
John’s Story
Authors: Myers Alicia D.
Published: October 2021

This chapter examines John’s Gospel with some mention of 1–3 John and discusses theories of the Johannine community. After noting its basic background, the chapter pays special attention to the way John focuses on rightly recognizing Jesus, connecting this motif to other recognition type-scenes in ancient literature and the focus on discerning truth or wisdom in Hellenistic philosophies. The chapter offers brief definitions of major philosophical schools of thought and compares them to Jewish wisdom traditions. The focus on recognizing Jesus establishes the foundation for the Gospel’s extensive irony and intra-Jewish polemic. After a literary overview, the chapter explores key passages and themes including the prologue, Jesus’s signs and speeches, the problem of misrecognition and troubling characterization of the Jews, and Jesus’s death and resurrection. The chapter ends with a discussion of how debates over Jesus’s identity persist in contemporary contexts.
Apocryphal Gospels and Acts
Authors: Myers Alicia D.
Published: October 2021

This chapter introduces the continuing traditions of Christian writing in the apocryphal gospels and acts. Framed as part of the larger discussion of canon development, this chapter presents canonization as a process rather than an event and shows how extrabiblical works give insight into early Christian interpretations of Jesus and his earliest followers. As a type of fan fiction, the apocryphal writings illustrate early appreciation for the canonical Gospels and Acts as well as the variety of ways Christians applied these traditions in new contexts and times. Rather than exploring all these writings, this chapter introduces significant apocryphal gospels (Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Protoevangelium of James, Gospel of Thomas, portions of the Pilate Cycle, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Mary) and the most popular apocryphal acts (Acts of Paul including the Acts of Thecla, Acts of Peter, Acts of John, Acts of Andrew, Acts of Thomas).
Economics Lessons in History with Alexander Hamilton
Authors: Ruebeck Christopher S. , Lodge Mary Jo
Published: October 2021

There are two significant American economic stories to tell in Hamilton, both of which are woven through the personal story of Hamilton’s life and his duel with Burr, and both of which connect to the popularity of the musical: international trade and America’s credit. Those two larger topics remain important to today’s economists, economic policy makers, students of economics, and, indeed, all citizens. Intertwined with international trade is interpersonal trade, a subject to which Hamilton also contributed. A country’s credit has importance internationally as well as within its borders, in its connection to the structure of the banking system. This chapter examines how these economic concepts played out in Hamilton’s life as depicted in Chernow’s biography and how they are depicted in the musical. The musical has provided a means for audiences to better understand how the government affects the economics of the individual.
A “Model” American Musical
Authors: Liu Sissi
Published: October 2021

This chapter submits three properties that define Hamilton as a model American musical. First, it is a model cultural commodity on multiple political fronts: rendering race ambiguous, it appeals to the typical Broadway audience; promoting utopian fantasies, it enchants the underprivileged. Second, it puts forth a model history education tool that lauds white Founding Fathers, applauds American exceptionalism, and downplays atrocities suffered by its disenfranchised people. Last but not least, Hamilton facilitates the rise of model minorities—the elitist people-of-color who thrive in a neoliberal society where individuals do not necessarily operate on a level playing field. This essay proposes the term “model minorities”—both a critique of and reparation to “model minority,” a problematic term coined to refer to Asian Americans in the 1960s, to elucidate the key relationship between Hamilton and the minority population in the times of neoliberalism.
Hamilton and the Liminal Director
Authors: Kenny Alan Patrick , Lodge Mary Jo
Published: October 2021

This chapter explores how Thomas Kail, as director, has nurtured and developed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work, while simultaneously serving as an interpreter, editor, dramaturg, and cheerleader, and, indeed, as a liminal space between Miranda as actor and Miranda as writer. While many of these functions are standard today for directors of new work, and typically date back for musicals to directing greats like Jerome Robbins, Kail fulfilled all of these functions with the added challenge of Miranda as star. This essay explores how both Miranda’s and Kail’s shared history, and Kail’s reliance on the same collaborators from show to show has fostered his successful interactions with Miranda. It also examines how Kail shaped the development of Hamilton, as Miranda was writing it, and how Kail’s collaborative style and focus on script analysis can provide a model for future directors of musicals in development, particularly when working with a writer-performer.
Revolutionary Movement
Authors: Martincich Dustyn
Published: October 2021

This chapter explores Andy Blankenbuehler’s revolutionary use of ensemble choreography for Hamilton. By rethinking traditional functions of dance in musical theater productions, Blankenbuehler mobilizes the ensemble to drive the narrative by activating the liminal spaces in and between scenes to synthesize the score, movement, and design elements. Blankenbuehler’s choreography employs dance to define or give texture to transitions and fills narrative gaps in time and space. As Hamilton’s ensemblists move between portraying abstract emotional entities and portraying actual characters in the story, their movement becomes the primary indicator of the passage of time and connects necessary storytelling elements. Blankenbuehler’s choreographic choices in movement vocabulary, spatial composition, and styles that fuse dance genres, deems ensemblists vital in threading Hamilton’s visual, physical, lyrical, and rhythmic narrative together while engaging audiences with an effortless suggestion of spectacle.
Telling the Story of Hamilton in the Twenty-First Century
Authors: Hawkins Ella
Published: October 2021

The design for the original Broadway production of Hamilton has played a crucial role in establishing a relationship between the musical’s historical narrative and its thoroughly modern musical styles and notably diverse casting. Devised as “[p]eriod from the neck down, modern from the neck up,” Paul Tazewell’s costume design simultaneously represents the past and reflects the present. This chapter uses visual evidence (costume designs, photographs, and video recordings) and information from a new interview with Tazewell to locate the points at which historical and modern aesthetics intersect to tell the story of Hamilton. It explores how the costume design for the Broadway production functions as a storytelling device, creating an onstage world that straddles the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries. It then considers how variations in the tension between these eras contribute to the construction of specific characters in the musical.
Early Peopling of the Americas
Authors: Fuente Constanza de la , Moreno-Mayar J. Víctor , Raghavan Maanasa
Published: October 2021

Our current understanding of the early peopling of the Americas includes sources, numbers, timings, and routes of the early migrations into the Americas. This knowledge is held primarily in light of recent genome-wide ancient DNA studies. Within the Americas, models of the diversification of founder population(s) and past population structure are informed by ancient DNA from the continents. Finally, in ongoing and future research initiatives, there is a need for active community engagement and partnerships to ensure inclusivity and long-term sustainability.
Mitochondrial DNA Analysis and Pre-Hispanic Maya Migrations
Authors: Muñoz-Moreno Maria de Lourdes , Ochoa-Lugo Mirna Isabel , Pérez-Ramírez Gerardo , Beaty Kristine G. , Meza Adrián Martínez , Crawford Michael H.
Published: October 2021

The Maya civilization developed in Mesoamerica persisted approximately 3,000 years and was one of the most advanced of its time. Mayas had the only known full writing system, as well as highly developed mathematical and astronomical systems. They also developed sophisticated architecture and arts. The Maya area of settlement ranged from the Yucatan Peninsula through Guatemala, Belize, and part of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, as well as parts of Honduras and El Salvador. The Maya civilization reached its peak of power and influence in the Preclassic period, from 2000 BCE to 250 CE. Despite the profound impact of the Mayan civilization on Mesoamerica and neighboring populations, studies of genetic variation of ancient Maya populations in pre-European times are scarce. Therefore, this work examines evidence in ancient DNA from archaeological sites in the states of Yucatan, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, and Tabasco. We report data analysis from sequences of the mtDNA hypervariable region I (HV1) from bone remains found in excavations of archaeological sites of the Maya region and their relationship with ancient and contemporary communities in this region, including Central and South America, as well as with Asia and Beringia. We discuss the results in the light of the influence of climate change in the area and relate them to evidence from language change. Gene flow within the Maya area occurred with a directional flow to South America in the Preclassic and Classic eras of the Mesoamerican chronology. This is supported by historical documentation, that has shown that the ancestors of the Maya civilization entered the Yucatan Peninsula after the first movement of people from Northern Asia into the Americas, with later migrations of the Maya ancestors to Mesoamerica, through Central America and the Caribbean, and toward the northern portions of South America.
Diversity of Mexican Paternal Lineages Reflects Evidence of Migration and 500 Years of Admixture
Authors: Gómez R. , Schurr T. G. , Meraz-Ríos M. A.
Published: October 2021

This study examined Y-chromosome variation in 1614 mestizo Mexican males from different geographic regions to delineate the indigenous and colonial history of Mexico. The findings reveal a great diversity of paternal lineages within Mexican males, as well as a limited number of shared haplotypes among them. Native American haplogroups Q-L54 and Q-M3 were observed at varying frequencies in mestizos, and haplogroups of African origin were found at very low frequencies. On the other hand, we noted a significant genetic contribution from Spanish populations, in particular those from the Andalusian, Catalonian, and Basque regions of the Iberian Peninsula. In addition, we identified genetic contributions from Sephardic Jewish, North African, and Middle Eastern males to the mestizo Y-chromosome diversity, as well as genetic influences from the circum-Mediterranean regions of Spain. The results of this analysis provide new insights into the genetic landscape of the Mexican population and reveal important details about the sources of its genetic richness.
Out of Africa, Again
Authors: Hannoum Abdelmajid
Published: October 2021

This chapter examines the condition of African migrants who seek to cross to Europe. It looks at the causes that make them decide to cross “without papers,” in condition and take high risks, including the risk of death. The author argues that poverty by itself does not explain why many young Africans take the risk to cross, he instead argues that the youth are usually motivated by the desire to reinvent a new life in a Europe that exerts tremendous fascination on the imagination. The chapter also examines the consequences of the new flux of young African migrants.
Causes of Migration to and from the Ch’orti’ Maya Area of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador
Authors: Metz Brent E.
Published: October 2021

The Ch’orti’ Maya area, where the borders of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador meet, has seen many populations come and go over the past two millennia. Linguistic, archeological, cultural, and genetic research in the past three decades has changed the image of a stable demographic region to one of immigration and emigration, population mixing, and ethnic abandonment and re-articulation. The main attraction for immigration has been the extraction of natural resources, such as minerals and agricultural produce, particularly cocoa, indigo, livestock, tobacco, coffee, and sugarcane. The harsh exploitation by which invaders have harvested these resources has in turn driven native populations to migrate within and beyond the region. Epidemic diseases, population fluctuations, and climate change have also played major roles in migration and stasis. The longitudinal research for this history is based on ethnography, ethnohistory, review of official documents, and a compilation of secondary historical, demographic, and genetic sources. More genetic research would enhance our understanding of these processes, especially population mixing between various Maya and non-Maya groups at yet undetermined historical moments.
Major Impact of Massive Migration on Spread of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Strains
Authors: Mokrousov Igor
Published: October 2021

Dissemination of epidemic Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains is a global concern, and any world region may be at risk of their introduction. This is a well-known cliché, but the reality is more nuanced. Based on the analysis of East-Asian and Euro-American lineages of M. tuberculosis, three conclusions can be drawn. First, an ordinary human exchange is not sufficient for wide dissemination of an M. tuberculosis strain in a new location. In contrast, a massive influx of migrants dramatically changes the population structure (both human and the pathogen’s). Second, an emerging strain can emerge in its area of origin, but it will not necessarily be successful elsewhere. Third, a strain should be sufficiently prevalent in its country of origin to be efficiently imported to a new location. Summing up, the virulence of M. tuberculosis strains is conditional, but it is not an absolute feature, and the role of human migration in their spread is crucial.
The Internet and Social Media
Authors: Weiss Charles
Published: October 2021

This chapter traces the challenges to the Internet’s founding values of freedom of information, communication, and innovation back to its first years. The issues of security, privacy, and misinformation raised by the Information and Communications Revolution have roots in early decisions, taken either as conscious choices or as products of the pioneers’ libertarian spirit, and later reinforced by democratic governments’ determination to keep the Internet free of censorship and open to innovation. Despite early hopes that controlling information flows would be technically impossible, measures by authoritarian governments have become more sophisticated and effective, especially in China. At the same time, democracies agree on basic principles but disagree over privacy and data localization. These tensions were resolved pragmatically: an independent NGO operates the Internet, advised by both governments and a freewheeling forum. The spread of Chinese 5G technology is likely to challenge U.S. dominance of Internet operation, governance, and embodied values.
Cyberwarfare and Cybersecurity
Authors: Weiss Charles
Published: October 2021

Information warfare is part of the technology-based challenge by China and Russia to the post–World War II liberal order. Russia uses traditional and social media in a long-range, systematic, worldwide disinformation campaign to undermine Western democracies and alliances and the idea of objective truth. China seeks to dominate the technology, management, and policy of the future Internet through its competitive 5G technology, so as to surpass the United States politically and technologically. It exports the techno-authoritarian system of mass surveillance and artificial intelligence that it developed to control its Uyghur minority. Like a nuclear attack, a large-scale cyberattack could spiral out of control into a cyber-apocalypse in the absence of agreed guidelines. But to authoritarian governments, the free flow of information is also a form of cyberattack, complicating negotiations. It is critically important to develop internationally agreed norms for cyberwarfare, building on the Tallinn Manual and similar efforts. This will take time.
Frugal Innovations for the “Bottom of the Pyramid”
Authors: Weiss Charles
Published: October 2021

This chapter presents examples of innovative technologies for low-income and disadvantaged people. Such innovations often offer unattractive prospects for profit and require collaboration between private industry and governments or nonprofit organizations or foundations. Most innovations, from cars to computers, are first marketed to high-end consumers and later trickle down as lower-cost products for mass markets. For orphan technologies like a malaria vaccine or fly- and odor-less latrines, there is no “Cadillac” product to amortize research and market development costs, but focused R & D can produce simple, cheap, effective products. Sometimes, an existing product can be repurposed, as when a cell phone becomes a tool for mobile finance or a livestock deworming medicine becomes a cure for human elephantiasis. Other times, a brand-new intervention is needed, as with smokeless, fuel-efficient wood stoves. Big problems require big programs. The CGIAR supports a worldwide, near-billion-dollar-a-year network of international institutes for research on smallholder agriculture in low-income countries.
New Technologies, New Issues
Authors: Weiss Charles
Published: October 2021

Gene drivers and geoengineering promise great benefits but involve large risks. Yet, no norms govern their use. Both have global effects but could be implemented by governments, private firms, or individuals. There will be commercial and moral pressures to develop and deploy them. Geoengineering would create negative emissions that could mitigate climate change. Except for bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, even research and development on geoengineering would entail substantial environmental risks. Gene drivers would spread altered genes throughout a population, creating ecological risks for non-human organisms and permanently changing the genetic makeup of humanity. The scientific community has proposed principles to guide research and possible implementation of both technologies. Despite widespread agreement on general principles, fundamental disagreement remains between people favoring careful deployment, and those favoring moratoria or a complete ban. Binding treaties are unlikely. Norms based on adaptive management and the common human interest in survival are essential.
‘The Thought of Death Changes all our Ideas and Condemns all our Plans’
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: October 2021

The chapter highlights the variety of specifically Christian philosophical approaches to the question of the soul’s immortality. Leonard Lessius and Jean de Silhon, working within a broadly Aristotelian framework, argue that the purposiveness universally apparent in nature would be frustrated if humans were mortal. Descartes eschews such appeals to the divine purpose, but his dualist metaphysics offers grounds for belief in the soul’s capacity to survive death. He and Elisabeth of Bohemia discuss how far belief in a happier life after death should affect our pursuit of earthly happiness. Pascal rejects philosophical proofs of immortality, while insisting that we must take an existential stance that admits it as a possibility. Malebranche seeks to highlight the unreality of earthly goods, but, by distinguishing the physical from the intelligible body, he investigates the possibility of post-mortem forms of experience (sensations and attachments) that are in some sense continuous with those of this life.
Human Life as a State of Mediocrity in John Locke
Authors: Biase Giuliana Di
Published: October 2021

This chapter investigates the genesis and evolution of Locke’s idea of human life as a “state of mediocrity”. While this idea had ancient roots going back to the early Church fathers, it remained current in the seventeenth century where mediocrity was generally equated with a condition of partial ignorance and imperfection. Locke’s account of it is original; while life is a time of mediocrity, death opens the way to the extremes of eternal misery or eternal happiness. Initially, inspired by the Church fathers, Locke conceived of human life as a condition of intellectual mediocrity. Subsequently, and arguably prompted by his reading of the pessimistic outlooks of Nicole and Pascal, he redefined the state of mediocrity in more optimistic terms: humans are naturally suited to their mediocre state. A further development of his conception of mediocrity, again involving a partial rethinking of the human condition, can be found in the Essay, where Locke represents mediocrity as an imperfect state of insatiable desire. It is redeemed, however, by the ability of living human beings to attain perfect knowledge of morality.
Prevailing over Death
Authors: Schiavo Piero
Published: October 2021

The history of philosophy abounds in more or less faithful accounts of the deaths of its protagonists, generally understood as a testing ground of the truth and sincerity of their thought, in which the narration itself often conveys a judgement on the philosopher and a presentation of the principles of his doctrine. The objective of this contribution is to analyse a particular case of this history of philosophy sub specie mortis: the death of Democritus who, thanks to his knowledge, was temporarily able to delay his own death. The reception and interpretation of this anecdote regarding the death of Democritus is analysed through its citations and commentaries in works of the modern era. They include critical editions of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives, Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire, the sceptical-libertine reading proposed by Boureau-Deslandes, some of the first histories of philosophy written in the 17th and 18th centuries, and other texts that mention the myth, oscillating between enthusiasm and scepticism.
Less than Zero
Authors: Callanan John J.
Published: October 2021

This chapter examines the historical context of Kant’s opposition to suicide in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. I argue for an interpretation of his argument – generally thought unsuccessful – whereby Kant is assuming a premise that claims that the mathematical calculations of life’s anticipated pleasures and pains always produces a negative result. I claim that Kant’s broader rhetorical aim to counteract a cultural movement in 18th Century European society that promoted appeal to the passions as the justificatory grounds for moral actions.
‘Everyone Knows What Life is’
Authors: Hutchins Barnaby R.
Published: October 2021

The literature treats Descartes’s position on life as either reductionist or eliminativist. Here, I argue instead that Descartes treats life as an irreducible notion. This makes sense of some otherwise incongruous claims: Descartes makes explicit, if weak, metaphysical commitments to the existence both of a category of ‘life’ and of living creatures. He appears to recognize life, but has no way to account for it reductively. This is a problem for him, as long as we take his epistemology to be purely reductionist. However, his treatment of the union of mind and body suggests that he can allow nonreductionist knowledge. If we do take him to have nonreductionist knowledge of life, we can consider him to be a (very weak) kind of vitalist with respect to life itself, while still being an eliminativist about life when it comes to accounting for the operations of living bodies.