bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Real of Law
Authors: Dhar Anup
Published: August 2020

The essay takes a narrow angle view of the relationship between law and psychoanalysis, through the concept of the Real in Lacanian psychoanalysis; the Real as distinguished from ‘reality’; where (everyday) reality is a ‘phantasy construction’ (as against realist readings of reality) and Real is that which is either marking (i) the inassimilable or (ii) the foreclosed (Verwerfung); in this chapter, the inassimilable or the foreclosed of Law. Building on Freud’s reply (dated September 1932) to Einstein on ‘war’, the essay argues that while we have hitherto pitted ‘right’ against ‘might’, law against force and have assumed that it is the discourse of right(s) that counters the discourse of might, and it is law that counters the perpetration of force, Freud shows how the discourse of right(s) and Law is also premised on the foreclosure of a ‘fundamental signifier’: ‘community might’ and how subsequent transitions (that is, humanizations), in the discourse of right(s) and law keeps the signifier ‘community might’ crypted. Freud thus questions the assumed transformation from might to right; he shows it to be a transition from one kind of might (individual might) to another kind of might (community might). Partha Chatterjee’s The Prince and the Sannyasi (2011) helps us instantiate the question of the Real of Law: Real as inassimilable and as foreclosed; including the Discourse of Law as the (im)possible neurotic suture of eros and the Discourse of Law as a delusional veil over the secret support of the praxis of law: community might. The chapter shows how perhaps it was community might that had operated as ground, affect, and drive for an ‘unusual trial’ in Bengal in the 1930s and a judgment which looked to be a discourse of (not-so-sound) evidence, and (not-so-sound) interpretation around questions of identity and a ‘crucial event whose reconstruction formed the core of the [identity] dispute in court’.
Violence, Desire, and Death Penalty
Authors: Bindal Amit
Published: August 2020

The essay investigates the often less explored relationship between desire and death penalty. It argues that no critique of the regimes of violence can be effective unless there is a re-moulding of our psychic imaginations and psychic investments within structures of violence. The question is whether we recognize these outpourings and outrages of violence in ourselves as well? In this context the effort of the essay is to demonstrate that how the institution of punishment and death penalty at its acme reflects as well as institutes violence leading to the formation of modern subjectivity. The essay borrows from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacques Derrida in order to fully grasp the meaning of abolition of death penalty. By mapping the traces of violent supplements in the institutions of law it argues that ‘abolition’ cannot just mean abolition of death penalty from statute books. The struggle for abolition must extend itself to abolition of the psychic traces of violence which are hidden in the veil of legality and unconscious of human subjectivity.
Negated Agency, Silenced Voice, and the Continued Negotiations in the Spaces Within
Authors: Jain Khushboo
Published: August 2020

Childhood is believed to be a stage that requires protection, both in national and international policymaking realms. This essay looks at a few such intersections where lives of certain ‘categories’ of children have been gravely affected by laws meant for their protection and rehabilitation. Through detailed exploration of the making of the anti-child labour law and the category of railway children, this essay argues that repeatedly rehashed state plans of action to address child labour or children in railways situation are dysfunctional because they have abysmally failed to address it with the depth, diversity, and comprehensiveness required. This essay, touching upon case studies of child labour rescue raids conducted by the state in collaboration with NGOs and ethnographic accounts of children who have been rescued, and children who have defined their life and work in their own ways, attempts to explore how ‘childhood’ and ‘child agency’ have become a contested site between children, the existing state and NGO/legal activist/child rights groups discourses on child protection.
Introduction
Authors: Joseph Sophy K.
Published: August 2020

This chapter introduces issues and arguments addressed in this book. The issues can be flagged only by explaining political and economic background that the agrarian sector has witnessed in independent India. Issues of accessibility, affordability, and availability of basic raw materials and seeds and varieties of farmers became prominent after international intellectual property regime attributed rights over plant genetic resources to breeders. Withdrawal of the state coupled with commercialization of seeds and varieties at the hands of multinational companies has posed serious threat to Indian farmers. These are explained at the backdrop of discussions on the political economy of seeds and varieties during the period of transition from planned economic development to liberalization. International conventions and their impact on Indian policy regime has been explained to analyse the influence of international trade lobby in regulating Indian agrarian sector.
Reflections on Indian Legislations on Farmers’ Rights
Authors: Joseph Sophy K.
Published: August 2020

Legal regime that deals with farmers’ rights in India suffers from multiple legal and institutional obstacles, particularly because of lack of harmony between these legal frameworks. Some of the ongoing developments such as the proposed Seeds Bill further add to these already existing inconsistencies. This chapter summarizes interfacing legal discourses on farmers’ rights. It argues that the effective realization of farmers’ rights in India depends upon the ongoing efforts on framing a legal regime for the protection of traditional knowledge and the extent of coordination between all these related statutory frameworks. Both the PPVFR Act and the Biodiversity Act provide for benefit-sharing under their respective provisions. Both the acts interface in dealing with the same subject matter of benefit-sharing in case of access and utilization of resources. This raises an issue of ‘multiple regime complex’ and even if this provision materializes, the farmers end up confused regarding which is a better forum to seek remedy.
The Way Forward
Authors: Joseph Sophy K.
Published: August 2020

While the Indian economy was growing at a fast pace, the agricultural sector was experiencing stagnation and the relative share of the agricultural sector in the national economy began to decline steadily. The suicide notes of farmers also state that one of the reasons for their tragic death is increase in prices of seeds. While analysing these factors together, it is evident that the privatisation and exclusive rights regime together hasn’t improved the living and working conditions of farmers. This requires a rethinking on the best practices that would pave way forward for the agrarian population of the country. This chapter would analyse Policy documents on Agrarian planning embarked on institutional reforms coupled with industrial measures. The promotion of major reforms, such as land reforms, cooperatives, neighbourhood groups, community seed banks etc. indicated towards distribution of assets of various kinds, from land to inputs relating farming. This chapter takes a look at such solutions and discusses its possibilities to ensure better living and working conditions for Indian farmers.
Conclusion
Authors: Joseph Sophy K.
Published: August 2020

This chapter argues that the present global and national legal framework to commercialize seeds and varieties lacks vision in ensuring food security and customary rights for farmers. The monopolization of plant genetic resources is beneficial to plant breeders and large farmers in terms of access to resources and utilization of technology and research and development. The farmers’ freedom to save, share, and resow seeds needs to be protected to keep the plant germplasm alive. There shouldn’t be subordination of customary rights of farmers to any exclusive regime that restrains accessibility to, affordability of, and availability of resources for food security and sovereignty. The conclusion proves the argument of erosion of customary rights of farmers during the period of liberalization. In order to establish the statement, analysis of the economic and legal policy changes as against the international interference with economic rights regime is summarized in this chapter.
Being Naga in Ukhrul and Chandel, Manipur
Authors: Goswami Namrata
Published: August 2020

In the fourth chapter, I take the reader to Manipur to Naga-inhabited areas like Ukhrul and Chandel (Manipur) to learn about how the communities there view the decades old Naga conflict. This chapter includes my interviews with civil society, armed rebels as well as the young students for whom the stories of the conflict have been a part of their existence since the time they were born. I show how the local folklore includes songs and story-telling about men and women leaving home to become a part of the Naga armed movement.
Then They Came for Us
Authors: Goswami Namrata
Published: August 2020

The eight chapter discusses life for a common Naga having to live under the jurisdiction of draconian state acts like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 amended in 1972. I narrate the story of the village of Oinam that still continues to suffer from the scars of a military combing operation called Operation Blue Bird in 1987. The excesses committed by Assam Rifles on that fatal day are now recounted in Naga folklore and sung in such deep sadness of people being shot dead with no concrete evidence that it sends shivers down you even now; that a democratic country like India could be that brutal in its remote parts away from media focus.
Life of a polymath: his autobiography and biography
Authors: Malagaris George
Published: August 2020

Born in Khwarazm in 973, Biruni displayed an early interest in the pursuit of knowledge, which remained with him for several decades, during extensive travels and residence in Central Asia, Iran, and India. Biruni’s upbringing and education stimulated his youthful appetite for science and truth. After the political upheaval in his homeland, he spent some years in Iran seeking his livelihood with uncertain patronage before the opportunity arose to return to Khwarazm, where he joined the new government. Upon the overthrow of his patron and the subsequent Ghaznavid invasion, Biruni was drawn into the orbit of Sultan Mahmud’s court. He passed his mature years primarily in Ghazna, which occasioned extensive travels in northwest India. The death of Sultan Mahmud enabled Biruni’s brief return to Central Asia, although he continued to reside in the Ghaznavid capital. The polymath passed away in Ghazna in 1048.
An approach to truth: aspects of his thought
Authors: Malagaris George
Published: August 2020

This thematic discussion of Biruni’s thought examines his general approach as well as elements which distinguish him as a person and scholar. When treating such a polymath, it is often necessary for us to go beyond our common presuppositions to grasp the range of knowledge traversed by this great thinker, who felt as much at ease with spherical trigonometry and geology as with history, literature, and cultural study. Attention to languages was a recurring feature in Biruni’s writing, whether on Khwarazmian, Arabic, Persian, or Sanskrit. His engagement with the human sciences showed at an early period and persisted even when he explored mathematics and pharmacology. The stars and our planet, its formation and substances, remained a major focus for him, alongside his secondary concern for astrology and wonders.
Friends and rivals: knowledge, institutions, and relationships
Authors: Malagaris George
Published: August 2020

Biruni appreciated that his research rested on intellectual achievements that originated many centuries earlier and required ongoing support to thrive. He often mentioned that Arabic science sprang from Near Eastern and Hellenistic traditions. In the medieval Islamic world, patrons promoted institutions of learning and developed relationships with clients, among them scholars with special capabilities, such as Biruni. Biruni saw himself as a participant in an interregional discourse which incorporated the thought of Muslim and non-Muslim peoples alike, with their multitude of ideas and languages. Yet, not all went harmoniously and disputes could resonate negatively far into the future, as in the case of Biruni’s debate with Ibn Sina. Whether on the institutional or individual level, or through affective or antagonistic relations, these dynamics of intellectual ferment reveal a social history of intellectual formation in Biruni’s age.
Whatever Happened to Sin?
Authors: Siker Jeffrey
Published: August 2020

The topic of sin has received relatively little attention in popular discourse over the last couple of generations. Instead, sin has mostly been reinterpreted as a series of psychological and social conditions from which individuals suffer. Thus, the sin of gluttony is revisioned as an eating disorder. The sin of sloth becomes attention deficit disorder, and so on. The social dynamics underlying human failures have been emphasized over individual responsibility, as treatments and medications for individual behaviors once deemed “sinful” have risen to the fore. How do we read the New Testament’s many references to sin and sinful behavior in light of modern tendencies to play down sin as moral failure?
Sin in the Letters of Paul and Deutero-Paul
Authors: Siker Jeffrey
Published: August 2020

The Apostle Paul presents Jesus as God’s sinless sacrifice to atone for the sins of humanity. For Paul, human sin comes in two primary forms: the sin of idolatry (Gentiles) and the sin of disobedience (Jews). Jesus provides an example of human obedience to God in contrast to the disobedience and sinfulness of Adam and his descendants. Thus, for Paul, Jesus is the “new Adam” who demonstrates the righteousness of God, who pours out his mercy on humanity even amidst their ongoing sinfulness. Before Paul’s conversion/call to believe in the crucified and risen Jesus as God’s son, Paul was a Torah-observant Pharisee who counted himself blameless as to righteousness under the law. But after Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus, Paul came to believe that righteousness and forgiveness of sin was to be found only through the life-giving Spirit of the crucified messiah Jesus, for Jew and Gentile alike.
Sin Then and Now
Authors: Siker Jeffrey
Published: August 2020

This chapter summarizes the preceding chapters and, in the process, explores both continuities and discontinuities between understandings of sin in the New Testament and today. In particular, issues related to the atoning death of Jesus as God’s sinless sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins to all who believe come to the fore. While many modern Christians continue to emphasize the language of substitutionary atonement for human sin, others have called into question an emphasis on the language of bloody sacrifice, proposing instead a vision of Jesus as a model of exemplary faith. Another issue concerns the supersessionist approach of early Christians to the Jewish faith out of which they sprung, and whether the Gospel of John’s linkage between sin and disbelief in Jesus remains a legitimate expression of Christian faith.
Shuffling On
Authors: Carlin Richard , Bloom Ken
Published: August 2020

This chapter discusses the aftermath of the success of Shuffle Along; Eubie’s ten-year relationship with lead actress Lottie Gee and the strains it put on his marriage and his partnership with Sissle; and the first touring companies. It also describes how Josephine Baker joined the main company in Boston and made a success as a comic chorus girl and the troupe’s grand reception in Chicago after their successful Boston run. Furthermore, the chapter examines white critics’ discomfort with the success enjoyed by the show’s writers and their concerns about black actors breaking from stereotypical roles; Blake’s triumphant return to Baltimore and his mother’s continuing disapproval of his secular career; Sissle and Blake’s recordings for Victor Records; growing tensions with Miller and Lyles that led to a breakup of their partnership; and how Sissle and Blake’s next show, In Bamville, hit the road to mixed receptions.
Lean Times to Revival
Authors: Carlin Richard , Bloom Ken
Published: August 2020

This chapter explores the beginnings of the rediscovery of early jazz and blues musicians by a dedicated band of collector/scholars; Rudi Blesh and Harriet Jans’s research on early ragtime that led them to Eubie; Blake’s partnership with Flournoy Miller to write Hit the Stride (not produced) and Brown Skin Models of 1955, staged as a touring show by Miller’s brother Irvin; and Flournoy Miller and Noble Sissle’s continuing attempts to revive the original Shuffle Along. The chapter also examines the ragtime revival that led to Blake recording two albums for 20th Century Fox with a small Dixieland jazz-flavored ensemble; his appearance at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival; and how he met ragtime revivalist Bob Darch, leading to a few appearances and a mid-1960s recording. Finally, the chapter discusses John Hammond’s interest in recording Blake and how the recording and success of The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake kick-started Eubie’s late career.
Final Years
Authors: Carlin Richard , Bloom Ken
Published: August 2020

The final chapter examines Eubie’s revived career on stage and record in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, the chapter discusses key figures who played a role in promoting his career, including historian Robert Kimball; composer/pianist William Bolcom and his wife, singer Joan Morris; recording engineer Carl Seltzer, who partnered with Eubie in forming Eubie Blake Music (Eubie’s record label and publishing company); and lawyer Elliot Hoffman, who championed and protected Blake’s work. The chapter also explores the impact of the mental decline and deaths of Noble Sissle and Andy Razaf on Eubie; Julianne Boyd’s production of a new musical review, Eubie!, which brought his return to Broadway; the show’s development and casting, including bringing Maurice and Gregory Hines to Broadway and their subsequent success; and difficulties dealing with the show’s producer, Ashton Springer. Finally, the chapter relates Eubie’s complex feelings about racism; his work with two biographers, African American journalist Lawrence Carter and jazz writer Al Rose; Rose’s fights with Elliot Hoffman over the writing and publication of his biography; late accolades; and Eubie’s final performances and death.
Creative Processes
Authors: Carter Tim
Published: August 2020

A striking amount of material survives to document the creation of what became known as Oklahoma!—including Hammerstein’s sketches and drafts for the libretto (first completed in November 1942), his subsequent work on the lyrics for the songs, and Rodgers’s music manuscripts. These sources reveal how they worked both together and separately in particularly, if differently, creative ways. They also help generate a chronology of the early stages of the show’s genesis that raises further questions about later accounts of it, not least in terms of the dream-ballet at the end of act 1, for which Agnes de Mille claimed significant credit. In addition, the orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett reveal what he added in terms of instrumental color and, at times, new musical notes.
Heading for Broadway
Authors: Carter Tim
Published: August 2020

Although there was a complete libretto for what became Oklahoma! when the typical five weeks of rehearsals began on 8 February 1943, plus a number of the songs, there was still much work to do. The principal cast was fixed, including Alfred Drake (Curly), Joan Roberts (Laurey), Celeste Holm (Ado Annie), and Joseph Buloff (Ali Hakim), but others still needed to be recruited (Howard da Silva as Jud Fry). Some roles were expanded (Gertie Cummings) and others dropped (Lotta Gonzales, who was to have ended up marrying Ali Hakim). Act 1 was fixed early on, but act 2 was subject to constant revision even during the tryouts in New Haven and Boston (when the show was titled Away We Go!). In part this was due to problems of staging, but Rodgers and Hammerstein also remained unclear on the musical contents until the week before the Broadway opening, on 31 March 1943.
Some Musical (and Other) Readings
Authors: Carter Tim
Published: August 2020

The “landmark” status of Oklahoma! prompts examining it through a series of case studies in terms of how musicals work in dramatic terms (not least given their inherent lack of verisimilitude); the problems of reconciling convention with innovation; the way the show plays with pastoral tropes; its connection with notions of Manifest Destiny; the treatment of characters according to gender and ethnicity; the role of Oklahoma! as wartime propaganda; and the question of how close the Broadway musical might come to being a form of “American opera.” These issues reveal the cultural work that the show did in 1943, and still does today.
To Thine Own Self Be True? Integrity and Concern for Truth
Authors: Scherkoske Greg
Published: August 2020

Most accounts of integrity in the philosophical literature see the virtue as having little to do with truth. At most, typically, one sort of integrity—intellectual integrity—is supposed to exhibit a close connection with truth seeking; a concern for truth is (nearly) absent from other sorts of integrity (e.g., personal integrity, professional integrity, artistic integrity, etc.). This is puzzling, not least because of long-standing connections between integrity, honesty, and sincerity. Against these accounts, I argue that integrity is best understood as a complex character trait that concerns a person’s relation to her own judgment. Understood this way, the proper concern for one’s judgment that is characteristic of the person of integrity essentially involves responsiveness to facts and evidence and a concern for truth. I close by considering advantages of this account.
Honesty as Ethical Communicative Practice
Authors: Fritz Janie Harden
Published: August 2020

Honesty is a central concept in interpersonal communication ethics, typically studied through the lens of self-disclosure in close relationships. Expanding the self-disclosure construct to encompass multiple types of messages occurring in public and private relationships offers additional insights. Across relational contexts, at least two aspects of human communication are relevant to honesty: the content dimension, which references factual information carried by a message; and the relationship dimension, which provides the implied stance or attitude toward the other and/or the relationship. This dimension provides interpretive nuance for the content dimension, its implications for honesty shaped by culture and context. This chapter considers five themes relevant to communication research—self-disclosure and restraint, Grice’s theory of conversational implicature, message design logic, communication competence, and civility, authority, and love—and explore the implications of each content area for honesty in human relationships.
Justifications as a Threat to Honesty
Authors: Leib Margarita , Shalvi Shaul
Published: August 2020

People often face tempting situations in which they can secure profit in dishonest ways. Here we survey a variety of justification processes that free people to engage in dishonesty. We distinguish two main categories: (1) self-serving justifications, in which one justifies one’s actions by processing information in a self-benefiting way; and (2) socially motivated justifications, in which one justifies unethical acts by reference to an additional, socially beneficial factor. We close with a discussion of the ethical hazard of corrupt collaboration (i.e., joint unethical acts). Corrupt collaboration is a major challenge to institutions and societies as it places individuals in a dilemma: collaborate with peers or follow ethical rules of conduct. Recent work suggests that in such situations, people prefer collaboration over honesty. We discuss the dynamics of corrupt collaboration, the ways in which these toxic relationships emerge and spread, and how we can curb such behavior and encourage honest, ethical conduct.
Developing Truth Seekers
Authors: Dow Philip E.
Published: August 2020

This chapter argues that because truth is both innately valuable and directly connected to human flourishing, the development of truth seekers within the context of formal K–12 education should be a principal aim of a healthy society. It is further argued that while the fruits of truth are profoundly satisfying, truth seeking is neither easy, nor natural, nor widespread. To develop the sort of truth seeking needed to support both individual growth and human progress, we need a truth-centered vision for education—a vision that aims to develop in students the deeply rooted and virtuous traits of intellectual character that flow from a love for truth and produce the kind of intellectual and moral goods that result in human flourishing.
The Role of Leadership
Authors: Barno David , Bensahel Nora
Published: August 2020

This chapter explores the role of leadership in military adaptation, which may be the most important factor of all. Adaptable tactical leaders must rapidly assess the battlefield and identify the need for change, remain willing to abandon accepted procedures when required, and candidly advocate for organizational change when needed. At the theater level, adaptive leaders face more challenges in identifying the need for change. They need to actively seek out ideas from throughout the chain of command, and to lead rapid battlefield change within their formations. The chapter examines the successful tactical adaptability of Captain John Abizaid during the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the failed tactical adaptability of Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade in 1965 during the Vietnam War. It also examines the successful theater adaptability of Field Marshall William Slim during the Burma campaign of World War II, and the failed theater adaptability of General William Westmoreland in Vietnam War.
The Challenges of Future War
Authors: Barno David , Bensahel Nora
Published: August 2020

This chapter argues that it will be increasingly difficult for the US military to predict and adapt to the character of its future conflicts, because of growing strategic uncertainty, the addition of two new domains of warfare (outer space and cyberspace), and the scale and increasing speed of change. The gap between predicted wars and actual wars—what the authors call the adaptation gap—is likely to continue to grow. The adaptability that the US military will need to bridge that growing gap will become ever more important, even as it becomes ever more difficult.
Improving Adaptability in the US Military
Authors: Barno David , Bensahel Nora
Published: August 2020

In this final chapter, the authors recommend ways to improve the adaptability of the US military so it is prepared to prevail in the wars of the 21st century. To improve adaptability in doctrine, the recommendations include adopting adaptation as a principle of war, integrating free play in training exercises, and training under sustained analog conditions. To improve adaptability in technology, the recommendations include strengthening rapid-adaptation organizations, chartering a rapid-adaptation skunkworks, and sponsoring an annual rapid-adaptation competition. To improve adaptability in leadership, the recommendations include evaluating adaptability in annual fitness reports, strengthening mission command, reforming professional military education, and sending more officers to advanced civil schooling. The authors also recommend that the Department of Defense expand its focus on talent management, getting younger voices in front of senior leaders, increasing the role of combatant commanders in ensuring adaptability, and chartering a Defense Adaptation Board.
Quality and Class or Malls and Music Video
Authors: Kessler Kelly
Published: August 2020

With network musical castoffs like Fame and The Muppet Show hitting it big in syndication and viewers defecting to public TV, the eighties proved challenging for ABC, CBS, and NBC. Simultaneously, viewers lucky enough to live in early-served cable markets could circumvent the networks altogether. Seeing the writing on the wall, the networks jumped into the cable arena with a string of niche performing arts channels, with CBS Cable, Alpha Repertory Theatre Service (ARTS), and The Entertainment Channel (TEC) providing viewers a new cache of musical programming. The resultant interplay between television’s heavy hitters, video distributors, and Broadway royalty like the Nederlanders highlights this as a time of high stakes for various forms of musical entertainment. That said, it was MTV and its embrace of teens and the music video tie-ins of popular dance films like Footloose and Flashdance that won the battle for the cable-based musical market.
Humanism and the Invention of Homophony
Authors: Long Megan Kaes
Published: August 2020

This chapter takes a broad view of sixteenth-century homophonic genres to argue that homophony is a potent solution for several aesthetic problems motivated by the demands of humanism. The frottola reflects the transformation of an improvised tradition into a literate one: composers designed flexible musical frameworks that accommodated varied courtly poems but that sacrificed musical trajectories for poetic ones. Midcentury musique mesurée arose from a philosophical movement rather than a musical one; its rhythmic experimentation interacts in elegant ways with its harmonic trajectories. The Lutheran cantional brings homophony to the sacred realm; the demands of rote learning and the character of borrowed melodies overrode the development of a metrically motivated text-setting schemes. Though these repertoires set texts in three languages and span one hundred years, they share an interest in vernacular poetry and text comprehensibility. And they encourage the same kinds of listening strategies manifested in the balletto repertoire.
Booms
Authors: Maree Claire
Published: August 2020

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to this book’s central argument that speech and/or writing produced by queerqueen personalities is ventriloquilized and entextualized by transcribers, ghost writers, editors, and/or producers through language-labor practices. The chapter traces the recycling of the visual and sonic image of the queerqueen figure in contemporary popular culture from the 1950s. It proposes that, though processes of mass commodification, the trope of the (sometimes) cross-dressing (sometimes) cross-speaking queerqueen has been recycled in print, audiovisual, and digital media through recurring cultural “booms.” These “booms” position queerqueen speech as a new phenomenon and shape the commodification of it within the historical and cultural context that forms the background to Japanese popular cultural productions. This chapter outlines how one can trace the entextualization of “queer linguistic excess” and its containment through analysis of the (re)production of “actual” conversations by “authentic” queerqueens as written text.
Queen-Personality-Talk
Authors: Maree Claire
Published: August 2020

Chapter 3 explores shifting processes of enregisterment through analysis of onē-kyara-kotoba (queen-personality-talk) as written into impact-captions in lifestyle television during the queen-personality boom (middle of the first decade of the 2000s). In makeover media of this period, queen-personalities were proof that readers and viewers alike could remake themselves into a newer and better “me” by applying hard work and dedication to fashion, cosmetics, culinary skills, and interpersonal relationships. Manipulation of language resources and metapragmatic stereotypes of femininity and masculinity are fundamental to processes through which the desire to transform is created. Taking the lifestyle variety television show onēMANS (NTV) as the main focus, the chapter analyzes how the look and the sound of the queerqueen is recontextualized into a heteronormative framework through manipulation of font, animation, color, and orthographic stylization in impact-captions. Editorial interventions inscribe the sonic qualities of queen-personality talk in ways that simultaneously celebrate their transformational power and threaten to expose their (in)authenticity.
Heave-ho
Authors: Maree Claire
Published: August 2020

Chapter 6 examines nostalgia and dissent as contradictory companions to queerqueen excess. It provides a critical analysis of Miwa Akihiro’s performances at the annual New Year’s Eve songfest (NHK) in the context of post-3/11 Japan. A queer icon and renowned chanson artist performing since the 1950s, Miwa is said to experience his sixth media “boom” following his songfest performance in 2012. This “boom” is contingent on a strategical recontextualization of Miwa’s philosophy of aesthetics, which is informed by his wartime experiences and the atomic bombing of his hometown of Nagasaki. Nostalgic invocation of motherly love and a visual distancing from his television persona enables a performance of dissent. The performative voice of the iconic “original” queerqueen is distanced from heteronormative imaginations of queer excess and from the ongoing post-3/11 nuclear crisis. Recontextualized, the queerqueen voice is mobilized in a call for a return to the “normality” of pre-crisis familiarity.
Cyclical Movements through Popular Culture
Authors: Maree Claire
Published: August 2020

Chapter 7 elucidates the main arguments of the book: First, that practices of transcription and media technologies that facilitate the (re)tracing of recorded speech have been central to the process of boom-making through which queerqueen styles cross from the subcultural to the mainstream. Furthermore, that queerqueen styles are configured as “authentic” speech that is produced spontaneously without scripting and then “faithfully” (re)traced into text. Such packaging elides collaborative processes of writing and editorial interventions practiced by producers, editors, stenographers, and professional writers, while also maintaining their trace in the text itself. The queerqueen in mainstream media is curtailed by transphobic and homophobic discourses through which their desire is reproduced as excessive. Tropes of self-censorship regiment what can be heard and/or seen and that which must be muted and/or covered. To limit queerqueen figures to heteronormative respectability is to expose the sexualized nature of gendered norms of talk in Japanese.
How Constitutional Rights Matter
Authors: Chilton Adam , Versteeg Mila
Published: August 2020

How Constitutional Rights Matter explores whether constitutionalizing rights improves respect for those rights in practice. Drawing on global statistical analyses, case studies in Colombia, Myanmar, Poland, Russia, and Tunisia, and survey experiments in Turkey and the United States, this book advances three claims. First, enshrining rights in constitutions does not automatically ensure that those rights will be respected in practice. For rights to matter, rights violations need to be politically costly, which can happen when citizens mobilize against governments that encroach upon their rights. Successfully resisting the government, however, is no small feat for unconnected groups of citizens, and governments can often get away with constitutional rights violations. Second, some rights are more likely to be enforced than others. The reason is that some rights come with natural constituencies that are able to mobilize for their enforcement. This is the case for rights that are practiced by and within organizations, or “organizational rights,” such as the rights to religious freedom, unionize, and form political parties. Because religious groups, trade unions, and political parties are highly organized, they are well equipped to use the constitution to resist rights violations. Indeed, we find that these organizational rights are systematically associated with better practices. By contrast, rights that are practiced on an individual basis, such as free speech or the prohibition of torture, usually lack constituencies to enforce them, which makes it easier for governments to violate them. Third, even highly organized groups armed with the constitution face an uphill battle. Although such groups may be able to successfully resist repressive practices, they often can only delay governments that are truly dedicated to rights repression.
Research Methods
Authors: Chilton Adam S. , Versteeg Mila
Published: August 2020

This chapter describes the methodological challenges involved in answering the question whether constitutional rights matter. While there is no easy way to overcome these challenges, the approach of this book is to use a range of methods to study this topic. This book’s primary method is large-N statistical analysis. But because no single quantitative research design is likely to isolate the causal effects of constitutional rights, it supplements large-N analysis with case studies and survey experiments. By using a range of methods, we can triangulate onto a more accurate understanding of the effect of constitutional rights than any single method could provide. This chapter also reflects upon the challenges involved in measuring human rights violations and describes the data we use to capture rights violations.
“And Introducing Elvis Presley”
Authors: Palmer Landon
Published: August 2020

Chapter 1 offers a case study that illuminates how norms of studio-era film production came to be negotiated with the multimedia context of the 1950s and early 1960s. In exploring the production of “Elvis movies” from 1956 to 1961, this chapter examines how Hollywood transformed Presley the rock ’n’ roll star into a singular screen attraction. Producer Hal Wallis, a veteran of the studio era, sought a balance between the cyclical, generic structure of the former star system with the new opportunities for cross-platform promotion portended by the media landscape of the 1950s. Presley’s rebel-oriented 1950s films put on display what modern media fame meant in the second half of the 1950s and suggest a hierarchical relationship between television and film. Subsequently, Presley’s 1960s work enacted an assembly-line integration of feature film and LP record production, demonstrating how Wallis’s star-making formula during the studio era translated to a cross-platform context. In this way, Hollywood adapted to the “electronic age” of the 1950s while maintaining strict control over the output of a star’s labor, reconfiguring the power structures of the star system by aligning media industries into the synchronous production of a multimedia star image.
Onstage/Onscreen
Authors: Palmer Landon
Published: August 2020

The link between alternative film production and rock culture continued in the subgenre of the music festival documentary, which came into being through the direct cinema documentary movement. The transition from the recording studio to the live stage was a defining one for rock culture at the end of the 1960s, and the aesthetics of presenting dynamic concert performances—communicated widely by audio and moving image representations of concerts—displayed ideals of rock authenticity. Exploring four feature documentary projects organized around the countercultural space of the rock festival, my third chapter demonstrates how emergent means of nonfiction film production shaped the onscreen spectacle of a rock musician performing live onstage. Through concert documentaries, a rock star no longer had to go to the studio lot to appear onscreen; instead, their stage labor could be preserved and extended through new camera and sound recording technologies. However, while the technologies (and filmmakers’ philosophies) that informed direct cinema seemed to offer a uniquely uncompromised means for representing rock culture onscreen, the production histories of concert documentaries also reveal how rock stars’ control over their own representation was not distributed equally, ranging from the option of refusing to be filmed to the power to determine whether a film project even saw the light of day. Produced in the absence of major film studios, arrangements of power between filmmakers, rock stars, and festival organizers existed on a case-by-case basis, and rock stars operated on a spectrum between observed subjects and controlling gatekeepers of moving image depictions of their performances.
Grand Illusion
Authors: Cruz Gabriela
Published: August 2020

Grand Illusion is a new history of grand opera as an art of illusion facilitated by the introduction of gaslight illumination at the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris) in the 1820s. It contends that gas lighting and the technologies of illusion used in the theater after the 1820s spurred the development of a new lyrical art, attentive to the conditions of darkness and radiance, and inspired by the model of phantasmagoria. Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno have used the concept of phantasmagoria to arrive at a philosophical understanding of modern life as total spectacle, in which the appearance of things supplants their reality. The book argues that the Académie became an early laboratory for this historical process of commodification, for the transformation of opera into an audio-visual spectacle delivering dream-like images. It shows that this transformation began in Paris and then defined opera after the mid-century. In the hands of Giacomo Meyerbeer (Robert le diable, L’Africaine), Richard Wagner (Der fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde), and Giuseppe Verdi (Aida), opera became an expanded form of phantasmagoria.
Gaslight and Phantasmagoria at the Opéra
Authors: Cruz Gabriela
Published: August 2020

Phantasmagoric, evanescent figurations began competing for attention on the operatic stage following the introduction of gas lighting to the Salle Le Peletier in 1822. Gaslight provided a new environment for the creation of optical illusions in the theater, introducing darkness as a dramaturgical means of facilitating dreamlike perceptivity. In this environment, opera was re-mediated in light of phantasmagoria, the eighteenth-century art of conjuring ghosts developed by Paul Philidor and Etienne Robertson, to become a medium for the production of illusions. Louis Daguerre deployed his new art of the diorama at the Opéra beginning in the 1820s.
The Diorama, Apparitions, and Dream Image in Robert le diable
Authors: Cruz Gabriela
Published: August 2020

The far-reaching transformation of grand opera into a modern medium of spectacle was inaugurated by Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable. In the Act III ballet, with the theater darkened, the dead left their graves, and, phantom-like, haunted the stage. Those “ghosts” of deceased nuns clad in white ushered in a new genre, the ballet blanc, while another phantom—Robert’s mother—bestowed on grand opera the gift of lyric spectrality when Alice, in Act V, relayed the woman’s last words. Parisian mélomanes regarded this moment of song with special reverence after the 1830s and, arguably, its lyrical qualities guided efforts to reform singing in the 1830s and 40s. But, at the same time, Robert ushered in a new understanding in Paris of opera as an art of dream-like states: indeed, it was the visual procedures of phantasmagoria and diorama that inspired the radical change in Meyerbeer’s art of composition.
The Poetics of Sensation in L’Africaine and Tristan und Isolde
Authors: Cruz Gabriela
Published: August 2020

Chapter 5 investigates Meyerbeer’s and Wagner’s treatments of operatic perception and sensation in L’Africaine, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde. The discussion highlights the preoccupation with pleasure and innervation that the two composers shared during the late 1850s and 60s. The music dramaturgies of Wagner and Meyerbeer centered on exotic tress and poisonous blossoms are discussed in parallel, not to show, as others have done, what Wagner learned from Meyerbeer and improved upon, but rather to draw attention to the works’ shared preoccupation with enhanced perception and the role of dreamlike experience in the theater. This shared preoccupation is considered in light of Charles Baudelaire’s poetics of modernity.
City, State
Authors: Hirschl Ran
Published: August 2020

More than half of the world’s population lives in cities; by 2050, it will be more than three quarters. Projections suggest that megacities of 50 million or even 100 million inhabitants will emerge by the end of the century, mostly in the Global South. This shift marks a major and unprecedented transformation of the organization of society, both spatially and geopolitically. Our constitutional institutions and imagination, however, have failed to keep pace with this new reality. Cities have remained virtually absent from constitutional law and constitutional thought, not to mention from comparative constitutional studies more generally. As the world is urbanizing at an extraordinary rate, this book argues, new thinking about constitutionalism and urbanization is desperately needed. In six chapters, the book considers the reasons for the “constitutional blind spot” concerning the metropolis, probes the constitutional relationship between states and (mega)cities worldwide, examines patterns of constitutional change and stalemate in city status, and aims to carve a new place for the city in constitutional thought, constitutional law, and constitutional practice.
Introduction
Authors: Hirschl Ran
Published: August 2020

This introductory chapter illustrates that, in many settings worldwide, hardwired constitutional arrangements reflect outdated concepts of spatial governance featuring constitutional division of competences adopted in a pre-megacity era and increasingly detached from twenty-first-century realities. Consequently, cities do not exist constitutionally. And with few exceptions, cities remain subjugated by a Westphalian constitutional order and by the state’s innate inclination to maintain jurisdictional primacy over its territory. National constitutions’ entrenched nature and innately statist outlook render the city systemically weak and to a large degree underrepresented. As extensive urbanization marches on, an ever-widening gap emerges between what is expected of a modern metropolis, and what cities can actually deliver in the absence of adequate standing, representation, taxation powers, or robust policy-making authority.
The Sound of Constitutional Silence
Authors: Hirschl Ran
Published: August 2020

This chapter examines four introductory dimensions of the political and constitutional discourse around cities. The first is the tremendous interest in cities throughout much of the human sciences as contrasted with the silence of public law in general, and of comparative constitutional law in particular. Next, the chapter takes a look at the dominant statist stance embedded in constitutional law, in particular as it addresses sovereignty and spatial governance of the polity. A brief account of what national constitutions actually say about cities, and more significantly what they do not is then given. Finally, the chapter turns to the tendency in political discourse on collective identity to understand the “local” almost exclusively at the national or regional levels, rather than distinguishing urban interests from those of the state. Taken together, the four angles of city constitutional (non)status examined here highlight the bewildering silence of contemporary constitutional discourse with respect to cities and urbanization, as well as the strong statist outlook embedded in national constitutional orders, effectively rendering the metropolis a constitutionally non-tenable entity.