bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Constructing Another Kind of German: Catholic Commemorations of German Unification in Baden, 1870-1876
Authors: Hiort Pontus
Published: April 2007

This essay discusses how Badenese Catholics responded to the nationalist rhetoric surrounding German unification in 1871. Faced with a Protestant dominated commemorative discourse aimed at reinforcing the Protestant hegemony over the definition of Germanness, Catholics successfully contested this ideological message. By creating an alternative commemorative discourse, Catholics were able to manifest their own understanding of national identity instead of becoming subsumed in a new nation-state based on Protestant values. The uneasy coexistence of Protestant and Catholic versions of German identity suggests that confessional elements constituted integral parts of German nationalism and that Catholic and Protestant integration into the Kaiserreich should be viewed as a contested debate over the definition and legitimization of the new state.
Representing Islam: Female Subjects in Suzanne Fisher Staples's Novels
Authors: Bradford Clare
Published: April 2007

This article offers a reading of Suzanne Fisher Staples's novels Shabanu, Haveli, and Under the Persimmon Tree, drawing on postcolonial theory (in particular, Chandra Talpade Mohanty's essay "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" and Edward Said's Orientalism) to inform its analysis of the construction of girls and women in these texts. It argues that the novels' representations of Muslim girls are built on a naturalized contrast between liberal humanist paradigms of individualism and personal freedom, and homogenizing depictions of oppressed Muslim females, thus producing Orientalist distinctions between the West and the Orient.
Disorienting Reading
Authors: Donovan Ellen Butler
Published: April 2007

Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind (1989) and Haveli (1993) by Suzanne Fisher Staples depict the life of Shabanu, a contemporary Pakistani girl.  In this depiction, Staples offers a disorienting experience for her child and adolescent readers by using defamiliarization, the juxtaposition of the pre-industrial and industrial, and contraventions of typical plot resolutions and character development.  As a result, readers are prevented from seeing their own experience reflected in Shabanu's experience; consequently readers must rely on the exercise of their own generous imaginations to open the new perspectives and experiences portrayed in the novels.
Performance, Politics, and Poetry for Children: Interviews with Michael Rosen and Benjamin Zephaniah
Authors: Saguisag Lara , Rosen Michael , Zephaniah Benjamin
Published: April 2007

In these two separate interviews, poets and performers Michael Rosen and Benjamin Zephaniah consider their craft and influences. Both poets have made significant contributions to British children's poetry. Rosen's first book, Mind Your Own Business, is credited for pioneering urchin verse, a branch of poetry that challenges romantic representations of childhood. Zephaniah is part of a wave of British-Caribbean poets who injected new lifein to poetry for children with energetic performances and outspoken views on race and colonialism. In these interviews, both poets also offer incisive commentaries on the British education system, the use of mass media, and the presentation of politics in children's literature.
Disturbing the Peace: Lost Boundaries, Pinky, and Censorship in Atlanta, Georgia, 1949-1952
Authors: McGehee Margaret T
Published: April 2007

This article investigates the reasons behind Atlanta film censor Christine Smith's 1949 banning of Lost Boundaries (Alfred Werker) and her approval, with cuts, of Pinky (Elia Kazan), examining in particular the representations of segregation and integration in each film, the studio support behind the films, and the characterization of Pinky as a "woman's picture."
Countering Censorship: Edgar Dale and the Film Appreciation Movement
Authors: Nichols John
Published: April 2007

In 1933 Ohio State University education professor Edgar Dale published How to Appreciate Motion Pictures for use in high school film appreciation classes. Configuring the adolescent as a reformer, Dale's text offered an alternative to the Production Code's stark theory of film reception, which predicated censorship on immature film viewers.
Cinemagoing in Portsmouth during the 1930s
Authors: Sedgwick John
Published: April 2007

This paper uses the recently discovered box-office ledger of the first-run cinema the Regent in Portsmouth, U.K., to test the POPSTAT methodology for measuring film popularity in the general absence of such data. In order to do this a dataset of the film programs of all twenty-one cinemas screening films in the city in 1934 has been constructed from which a clear picture of film distribution and popularity emerges.
"The most explosive object to hit Britain since the V2!": The British Films of Hardy Kruger and Anglo-German Relations during the 1950s
Authors: Williams Melanie
Published: April 2007

This article investigates the brief British career of the German actor Hardy Kruger during the 1950s. It examines his popularity with British audiences, focusing on his appeal to younger cinemagoers, especially women. It also discusses how his star persona and screen performances reflected wider tensions in contemporary Anglo-German relations.
International Inflationary Episodes: A Survival Analysis
Authors: Abderrezak Ali
Published: April 2007

Instances of acute and sustained inflation pose a challenge in transition and developing economies, in particular as they tend to render economic development strategies vulnerable. Thus, a thorough understanding of inflationary episodes is critical. Using parametric hazard models, this examines the question of duration dependence of international inflationary episodes (IE) and also the influence of key covariates on the likelihood of their survival. From a sample of eleven historical high inflation episodes, fifteen recent hyperinflation cases, and forty-five international IE, the statistical evidence overall illustrates a case of positive duration dependence, indicating that IE are more likely to terminate as they grow older, and vice versa. The study's findings also suggest that variations in covariates including cumulative inflation geometric (annual) rate of inflation, and maximum (annual) inflation tend to have varying and statistically significant influence on the behavior of international IE durations. While not supporting the theoretical notion of an ever-increasing inflation rate or inflation bubble, the finding of positive duration dependence in IE is not a justification for a "laissez-faire" policy by central banks. In fact, significant redistribution of wealth and increased inefficiency will result from IE, and thus credible monetary and fiscal reforms are fundamental for achieving economic stabilization and sustainable growth.
Racing to the Bottom for FDI? The Changing Role of Labor Costs and Infrastructure
Authors: Amaro Andrea , Miles William
Published: April 2007

The opening of low wage nations to FDI has created much more competition for investment since the beginning of the 1990s. Observers in middle-income developing countries such as Brazil, Malaysia and Mexico, which have benefited from FDI, express fears of losing to new, lower wage destinations. Are such countries facing a dilemma, in which the very wage growth provided by FDI must be reversed to continue attracting investment? Or, are there alternative means of enticing multinational corporations, in particular physical infrastructure, which avoid a "race to the bottom" in terms of living standards and in fact aid in development goals? Empirical results indicate that while wages have become a more important determinant of FDI between the 1980s and 1990s, so has infrastructure quality.
Are Children and Parents Substitutes or Complements in the Family Labor Supply Decision in Bangladesh?
Authors: Amin Shahina , Quayes Shakil , Rives Janet M
Published: April 2007

This research uses logistic regression to determine whether a parent (father or mother) and a child are substitutes or complements in the family labor supply decision in Bangladesh. We look separately at models for children's market work and children's household work. For market work, we test our models for eight demographic groups of children, namely, younger and older, rural and urban, boys and girls. Our results show that for market work, fathers and children may be substitutes or complements in supplying labor, whereas mothers and children are complements for all groups of children. Our study of household work pertains to girls only, because boys do not engage in household work in sufficient numbers for analysis. We find almost no connections between parents' market work and daughters' household work status.
Unemployment Duration in Poor Developing Economies: Evidence from Urban Ethiopia
Authors: Dendir Seife
Published: April 2007

The literature investigating unemployment duration in developing countries is rather scarce. In this paper, parametric and semi-parametric models are estimated to analyze the determinants of unemployment duration in a developing country context. Data from a nationally representative urban household survey in Ethiopia are used. The data reveal that mean unemployment duration in urban Ethiopia is very long—3 years for completed spells and 4.7 years for incomplete spells. The econometric evidence shows that the hazard rate into employment is significantly affected by age, marital status, highest level of education attained, location and support mechanism while unemployed. Ethnic background and gender are not found to be important determinants. Appropriate tests show that these results are not driven by unobservable heterogeneities. The nonparametric hazard function and the baseline hazard retrieved from the semi-parametric estimation reveal a unique shape with alternating signs of duration dependence across a range of years.
Does Ownership Affect the Efficiency of African Banks?
Authors: Figueira Catarina , Nellis J. G , Parker David
Published: April 2007

In the last few years, there has been an extensive debate as to whether ownership matters for bank performance in less developed countries. This paper investigates whether privately-owned banks outperform state-owned banks and whether foreign ownership enhances bank performance. Based on a range of performance ratios as well as parametric and non-parametric estimations, the results show that in Africa, on average, privately-owned banks do not appear to outperform state-owned banks. However, where private ownership involves foreign ownership then this does seem to have a positive effect on bank performance. Both sets of results are affected by high variance in the data suggesting that in state-owned and privately-owned banks and in domestic and foreign-owned banks there are widely differing levels of efficiency. In addition, we also test for the effects of ownership taking into account environmental, including regulatory, variables. The study reports results for banking across Africa and in two separate regions, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. We also test for country-level effects.
Regional Divergence in India during the Era of Liberalization: A Sectoral Decomposition
Authors: Kar Sabyasachi , Sakthivel S
Published: April 2007

The objective of this paper is to understand and measure the contribution of various sectors towards the divergence of regional output in India in the era of liberalization. We have first described a framework that enables us to decompose the rate of divergence into the contribution made by various sectors. Next, we have used this framework to focus on the role of the agricultural, industrial and the services sectors of the Indian economy in bringing about changes in the level of regional inequality in the period following the liberalization of the economy. The results show that while the services and industrial sectors are largely responsible for the divergence during this period, the agricultural sector was offsetting some of the divergence.
Human Capital and Growth Empirics
Authors: Kumar Chandra Shekhar
Published: April 2007

In this paper I attempt to understand the empirics of human capital (schooling attainment here) and economic growth under the framework of neoclassical growth model and later endogenizing the technological progress as a function of stock value of human capital. Various econometric methodologies have been used to overcome estimation problems involved here - such as omitted variable bias, endogeneity of independent variables, and weak instruments problem. I used panel data method, Difference GMM method, and System GMM method respectively to overcome the above problems. In all the above estimation methodologies, the positive and significant effect of human capital is not observed. The paper concludes with the observations that significance of human capital may be understated, because of (i) inappropriate specification of human capital production function, (ii) inappropriate estimation methodologies, (iii) not controlling for variables related to governance, institutions, etc. Hence further research works on these points may help in appropriately estimating the significance of human capital in growth empirics.
Growth and Employment Empirics of Bangladesh
Authors: Rahman Matiur, M.A., Ph. D , Mustafa Muhammad , Islam Anisul , Guru-Gharana Kishor Kumar
Published: April 2007

This paper applies multivariate cointegration methodology and vector error-correction models to investigate the factors that are likely to contribute to economic growth and employment in Bangladesh. This paper concludes that exports, FDI and external remittances enhance both economic growth and employment in the short run. But the exchange rate depreciation seems contractionary, although the empirical evidence lacks abundance of clarity and robustness.
Does Foreign Direct Investment Enhance Private Capital Formation in Latin America? A Pooled Analysis for the 1981-2000 Period
Authors: Ramírez Miguel D
Published: April 2007

This paper analyzes the theoretical and empirical links between key economic variables such as foreign direct investment (FDI) and private investment spending in Latin America during the 1981-2000 period. The pooled model tests the complementarity hypothesis which suggests that increases in FDI raise the marginal productivity of private capital via the transfer of more advanced technology and managerial knowhow, thereby inducing higher rates of private investment spending. The paper also addresses the issue of whether changes in the real exchange rate (expenditure-switching policies) have a deflationary effect on the economies of Latin America. The findings suggest that (lagged) FDI, public investment spending, and real credit to the private sector have a positive and significant effect on private capital formation, while lagged changes in the real exchange rate, particularly its volatility, have a negative effect. Finally, the application of panel unit root tests on the stacked residuals of the pooled regressions suggest that the included variables have a stable, non-spurious (cointegrated) relationship.
The Changing Role of Technological Factors in Explaining Efficiency in Indian Firms
Authors: Ray Saon
Published: April 2007

The liberalization process undertaken by the Indian economy in recent times has thrown up many challenges. This paper investigates the factors explaining industrial efficiency in India and whether there has been a change in these factors since liberalization was ushered in 1991. This paper investigates the efficiency of firms during the period 1991 to 2001, using the concept of frontier production functions. Estimates of inefficiency have been obtained for 23 industry groups using the Capitaline Ole′ database for three years 1991, 1995 and 2001. We find that the variables relating to external competition and technology flow from outside such as royalty payments, exports and import of raw materials have become significant in the year 2001 which were not so in the year 1991.
Land Title, Tenure Security, Investment and Farm Output: Evidence from Guatemala
Authors: Schweigert Thomas
Published: April 2007

Having a title to land can be associated with increased farm output for two distinct reasons. On the one hand, access to credit may require the use of land, to which there is secure title, as collateral. The classical channel through which title affects output, however, is by increasing the landholders' tenure security and, thus, the incentive to make investments tied to the land, whether credit financed or not. The article uses household level data from Guatemala that control for the credit access channel and isolate the effect that titles are found to have higher output and yield. This can be explained as the result of greater willingness to invest family labor in the present so as to generate higher future output due to greater tenure security. Using ordered probit analysis, I find that having title substantially increases the probability that households perform quality labor tasks which are associated with higher output levels.
Torture, Tongues, and Treason
Authors: Britt-Arredondo Christopher
Published: April 2007

"Torture, Tongues, and Treason": It is difficult to write freely as an American about torture today. This difficulty arises from the fact that we Americans use two contradictory languages to speak about torture: the international language of human rights (by means of which we condemn torture), and the new Bush-speak on torture, (by means of which we sanction torture). This contradiction undermines the consistency of American political discourse; it permits systematic acts of cruelty to be confused with patriotic expressions of loyalty to the homeland; and it justifies abuse as an exceptional but necessary means to securing America's enduring freedom. At what point does inconsistency of this sort cease to be merely contradictory and become treasonous? Torturers, like censors, aim to control how their victims use language. Whereas torturers command their victims to speak in response to abuse; censors command their victims to keep silent about the abuse. By working in tandem, torturers and censors assure that their victims emit only the sounds and silences of the language of betrayal. As such, they effectively strip their victims of freedom of speech, transforming them into involuntary servants who must contradict and literally speak against themselves. But such forced betrayal is not a reflection of the victims' loss of freedom only; it also highlights the radical freedom enjoyed by torturers and censors. Insofar as this abusive freedom is a total freedom, it is consistent with the ambitions of a totalitarian regime. But when freedom is abused by agents of a republican regime in order precisely to defend the democratic freedoms of its citizens, the resulting contradictions constitute an act of betrayal. Indeed, the traitors that American torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cuba has helped to create are not among the victims only. There are traitors among the perpetrators too. To write on torture in America with these treasonous patriots in mind requires that one speak the language of betrayal with a split tongue, and betray the betrayal.
The Terrorist We Torture: The Tale of Abdul Hakim Murad
Authors: Athey Stephanie
Published: April 2007

"The Terrorist We Torture: The Tale of Abdul Hakim Murad": The case of Abdul Hakim Murad, who underwent torture in the Philippines before being transferred into American custody, is cited frequently in the literature by those who wish to use an example of torture "working." But Murad's case is not that straightforward. Various accounts collectively tell an inconsistent and incoherent story of Murad's guilt often relying on the near-repetition and recycling of unquestioned similar stories in the media. The result is a purpose-driven myth constructed over time to provide fodder for common, mistaken assumptions, and an official pro-torture argument. Ultimately, the Murad case says more about ourselves and the drive for a comforting narrative of how torture "works" than it does about the accused terrorist.
Torture: New Methods and Meanings
Authors: Calveiro Pilar , Nichols William , Hilde Thomas C
Published: April 2007

"Torture: New Methods and Meanings": This essay analyzes the functions of the disappearance and torture of people under the global reorganization of power. It indicates how flexibilization of the law opens the door to the legalization of these practices. It traces the disappearance of people and the unrestricted application of torture to a vast legal-illegal repressive network which seeks to reduce the restrictions of the law while at the same time transgressing it. This represents a new form of articulation between the State of Law and the State of Exception. However, despite the secrecy that enshrouds this illegal dimension of repression and punishment, there exists the material witness of its survivors—from Guantánamo and other clandestine disappearance and detention centers—discussed throughout the text. This allows for an approximate outline of the new form of repression and, from there, to trace certain preliminary features of global power and its current transformation.
Torture as a Greater Evil
Authors: González Castresana Carlos
Published: April 2007

"Torture as a Greater Evil": Human dignity has been for centuries the founding value of civilization and democracy. However, torture is increasingly being used as an investigative mean after 9/11 in spite of its proven inefficiency, and prestigious professors are recommending some levels of legalization. Torture is destroying our rule of law, corrupting our institutions, and spreading its stain to the whole society in which behalf it is supposedly being practiced. We need to come back to international and domestic rule of law, to this side of the threshold of decency, and this is the real lesser evil in the war on terror, the only way to successfully fight it in the long run.
Are there times when we have to accept torture? / Are We Really So Fearful?
Authors: Dorfman Ariel
Published: April 2007

"Are there times when we have to accept torture? // Are We Really So fearful?": Torture is justified by those who apply and perform it. This is the price, it is implied, that needs to be paid by the suffering few in order to guarantee happiness for the rest of society, the enormous majority given security and well being by those horrors inflicted in some dark cellar, some faraway pit, some abominable police station. But is this statement true? Are there times when we have to accept torture? Are we really so fearful? These are questions the playwright, novelist and essayist Ariel Dorfman asks in two essays.
Legitimacy, Identity, Violence And The Law
Authors: Hatfield Michael
Published: April 2007

"Legitimacy, Identity, Violence and the Law": Connecting the international publicity surrounding American torture to reductions in America's international political legitimacy, this essay explores how the legitimacy of the American legal system is also brought into question. Just as the political struggle over the appropriate use of torture is an American struggle for national moral identity and political legitimacy, the professional struggle over the legality of torture is a struggle for the moral identity and legitimacy of the legal system. Lawyers who defend the American government's right to torture perceive themselves as technicians and law as an objective science; thus, they conclude that they are not personally responsible for re-defining "torture" so as not to include torture. However, to the extent American lawyers reject the "objective technician" understanding of the profession, they must accept that the professional is political. Personal judgments as to the morality of torture drive professional reasoning as to its legality. Just as individual American citizens struggle politically against torture being committed in their name, individual American lawyers must struggle against torture being committed "in the name of" the legal system.
Introduction: On Torture
Authors: Hilde Thomas C
Published: April 2007

"Information and the Tortured Imagination": The logic of torture is such that the practice of torture necessarily entails its institutionalization. The way in which the moral argument for torture is structured also requires that torture's product—in the present case, information or intelligence—necessitates a re-description of reality—necessary to deflect any charge of brute oppression or sadism—that breaches the very logic of information-gathering, reducing it to absurdity. When such power of re-description lies in the hands of exclusive political actors, regardless of their intent, truth resides at the boundary of political tyranny formed out of a re-descriptive pseudo-reality. It is not simply the power to torture that is the sign of tyranny. It is the capacity to re-describe reality to fit immoral desires which include torture.
Information and the Tortured Imagination
Authors: Hilde Thomas C
Published: April 2007

"Information and the Tortured Imagination": The logic of torture is such that the practice of torture necessarily entails its institutionalization. The way in which the moral argument for torture is structured also requires that torture's product—in the present case, information or intelligence—necessitates a re-description of reality—necessary to deflect any charge of brute oppression or sadism—that breaches the very logic of information-gathering, reducing it to absurdity. When such power of re-description lies in the hands of exclusive political actors, regardless of their intent, truth resides at the boundary of political tyranny formed out of a re-descriptive pseudo-reality. It is not simply the power to torture that is the sign of tyranny. It is the capacity to re-describe reality to fit immoral desires which include torture.
The Torturers and Their Public
Authors: Lingis Alphonso
Published: April 2007

"The Torturers and Their Public": From ancient times art has glorified warriors and war. From Goya's "The Disasters of War" to the photographs of Nazi concentration camps and Abu Ghraib, art has exhibited the slaughter and torture involved in modern wars. This essay addresses the fact that the photographs of Abu Ghraib did not undermine the policy of the Iraqi invasion nor reverse public support of the war in the United States.
There Are No Tortures In Gaza
Authors: Ophir Adi
Published: April 2007

"There are No Tortures in Gaza": This short essay starts with a phenomenological observation of a paradigmatic case of torture. It portrays torture as an intimate, personal relation, a form of care for another, in which the torturer develops a special concern for and interest in the victim's body and soul, and in which violence does not burst but is meticulously calculated, measured, and (whether outlawed or not, prohibited or sanctioned by the law) always mindful of the law. Against this background, two episodes from the Occupied Palestinian Territories are discussed: the unintended, un-calculated, and aimless torture of Palestinian civilians at the checkpoints in the West Bank; targeted killings of Palestinian "terrorists" (or "fighters") and their "collateral damage" in Gaza. In the checkpoints torture becomes completely impersonal; in Gaza, the torture of suspects is replaced by a bureaucratic, impersonal relation to designated individuals, those "suspects" who have been targeted for killings by the special units of the IDF. In the paradigmatic case of torture, state terror is exercised in the shadow of a suspended law or on the other side of law, which is still defined by law; in targeted killings, state terror is exercised in a sphere entirely detached from the law, indifferent to it. The transition from the former to the latter in occupied Gaza may be representative of a phenomenon that recently takes place in other zones of emergencies across the globe.
Torture Makes The Man
Authors: Rejali Darius M
Published: April 2007

"Torture Makes the Man": This essay explores why we might think violence, and torture in particular, requires and generates a kind of manly strength. Briefly put, this is the view that only a real man knows what needs to be done and doing torture is the evidence that one is a real man. To understand the logic of this relationship, I go through some literature, now forgotten, about torture and manhood during the Franco-Algerian war, as well as some earlier nineteenth century discussions of torture and manhood. I argue in particular that Jean Lartéguy decisively modernized the theme of torture and manhood, particularly in his famous ticking time bomb example, and he set the terms in which most people now understand the relationship. Lartéguy thought that indeed torture made the man, but the point is that torture does not and cannot make the man—it leaves behind broken victims and burned out and traumatized interrogators, and that is all that it leaves behind.
Iron Maiden Landscapes: The Geopolitics of Colombia's Territorial Conquest
Authors: Serje de la Ossa Margarita Rosa , Caja Ashley , Natolini Rebecca , Moll Rexach Laura , Britt-Arredondo Christopher
Published: April 2007

"Iron Maiden Landscapes: The Geopolitics of Colombia's Territorial Conquest": This article focuses on a set of both national and international public policies that pivot around the 'Plan Colombia,' an intervention scheme inscribed within the parameters of the two main global wars of our time: the war on drugs and the war on terror. This US-Colombia initiative was designed to pacify and to incorporate into the global economy a series of areas in the Andes-Amazon conceived of as explosive and infested with drugs and terrorists; a 'pacification' that actually constitutes what may be considered a "peine forte et dure" addressed to the indigenous and mestizo inhabitants. This article seeks to document these practices so that the evidence speaks for itself. It exposes these interventions as a device for collective abuse, as a sort of social "iron maiden." Through containment and physical violence, chemical poisoning, different forms of terror and psychological pain and stress, forced confinement and displacement, neglect and humiliation, these "iron maiden" practices are effectively bleeding entire landscapes and populations. Through the analysis of these practices, the article proposes a reflection on the State: both in Colombia and as modern-colonial institution. It approaches the State from an ethnographic perspective: not as a totalizing set of abstract institutions, but as the visions, interests, and practices of particular groups. It explores in particular the relationship between the geopolitical imagination of the groups that have embodied the State in Colombia and the bloody history of the occupation and pacification of its National territory.
Totalitarian Lust: From Salò to Abu Ghraib
Authors: Subirats Eduardo , Britt-Arredondo Christopher
Published: April 2007

"Totalitarian Lust: From Salò to Abu Ghraib": As Dahlia Lithwick expressed it recently, the purpose of our open torture camps, scientific torture methods and torture laws is not to manipulate or destroy people, nor to win a war against a conceptually volatile representation of terrorism. The rationale of torture precisely in its most arbitrary, irrational and useless forms, as shown in Abu Ghraib or in Guantánamo, is the spectacle of an absolute power. This explains why torture nowadays (as it was in the era of the Inquisition under Spanish-Christian imperialism) has become a public fact, a media show, and even an academic debate (unlike other even more lethal topics such as the use of depleted or enriched uranium in postmodern missile warfare). Spectacle is not just a system of representations, as cultural studies scholars believed. Its function is the constitution of hard facts, powerful realities, and new orders. My essay points out the mere fact that in the history of modern civilization, as defined by the Christian theology (Eymerich), or by enlightened secular philosophy (Sade), torture has had and still has a moral and political function constitutive of any rational system of totalitarian power.
Torture in the Algerian War
Authors: Todorov Tzvetan , Denner Arthur
Published: April 2007

"Torture in the Algerian War": Patrick Rotman's book and TV program L'ennemi intime (2002) serves as a starting point for an analysis of the conditions in which ordinary men become torturers. These conditions include the lack of recognition for oneself, the feeling of total power aver another human being and the extreme circumstances of war.
Almost Friends: Post-Holocaust Comedy, Tragedy, and Friendship in Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated
Authors: Feuer Menachem
Published: April 2007

Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel, Everything is Illuminated , addresses the concern of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators with the possibility of reconciliation and how it relates to Holocaust memory. Through the use of characters that are grandchildren of survivors and perpetrators, and by contrasting two entirely different approaches to memory, one tragic and the other comic, Foer brings out the quandary of post-Holocaust reconciliation. This essay examines the dynamic relationship between the two main characters, Alex, a grandchild of perpetrators, and Jonathan, a grandchild of survivors, and their modes of remembering that vie with each other to the very end of the novel. The tension between them is underscored by Alex's desire to win Jonathan's friendship. Jonathan's ultimate refusal of friendship and reconciliation is examined in relation to Holocaust memory and the meaning of Holocaust representation, which, for Foer, should resist not only comedy but also full reconciliation.
The Jewish Calendar \-\- A Mix of Astronomy and Theology
Authors: Gartenhaus Solomon , Tubis Arnold
Published: April 2007

The lunisolar Jewish calendar is an example par excellence of "time engineering." It is based on the relation between the mean period of the lunar motion about the earth and the mean period of the earth about the sun (the tropical year). This relation is that, to six places of decimals, the number of days in 19 tropical years is equal to the number of days in 235 lunar cycles and is known as the metonic cycle. Moreover, the Jewish calendar, unlike our civil calendar, for example, is intertwined with the days of the week by virtue of the first day of Tishri (Rosh Hashanah) being allowed—for religious reasons—only to occur on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Because the metonic-cycle relation is not exact, there will eventually be a significant seasonal drift in holidays such as Passover unless the calendar construction is modified appropriately.
From Acculturation to Interaction: A New Perspective on the History of the Jews in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
Authors: Hödl Klaus
Published: April 2007

The article focuses on the question of Jewish identity in Vienna around the turn of the twentieth century. It departs from the thesis that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews cannot be described adequately by terms such as acculturation. Instead, attention should be paid to interactive processes between them. It will be shown that this can be done by replacing the model of "culture as text," which is a static concept, by a more dynamic notion of culture, such as "culture as performance." In applying the new perspective to the history of the Jewish–non-Jewish relationship, it is possible to reach new insights. This approach will be outlined by references to the Viennese Jewish museum, the Yiddish theatre in the Habsburg capital, and two well-known Jewish figures in late nineteenth-century Vienna, Joseph Samuel Bloch and Theodor Herzl.
Just A Jew Named Joe
Authors: Kellman Steven G.
Published: April 2007

Though heir to a long tradition of Jews in politics, Joseph Lieberman was the first Jew to be nominated by a major party for national office in the United States. As Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000, he received more popular votes than his opponent, Dick Cheney. Lieberman's persona as an observant modern Orthodox Jew appealed to many at a time when religion was increasingly prominent in public life. Projecting an aura of wholesomeness, moderation, and congeniality, he was the Jew as mensch , a man who, like Arthur Miller's Biff, succeeds in American society by making himself "well-liked." He was continuously in awe of his own success at fulfilling the American dream of equal opportunity. But by 2004, when politics became more polarized and his bid for the presidency foundered, Lieberman's Jewishness seemed irrelevant and his moderation a liability.
The Chosen: Defining American Judaism
Authors: McClymond Kathryn
Published: April 2007

While Chaim Potok's novel The Chosen remains one of the most popular works of Jewish fiction, it has not generally been regarded as a critical success. In contrast with authors such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, Potok is often charged with presenting a romanticized (rather than realistic) view of traditional American Jews in the mid-twentieth century. The article challenges this assessment, arguing that Potok's work is undervalued in part because he does not present the version of Judaism preferred by critics of his time. Traditional Jews, particularly Hasidic Jews, were viewed as a throwback to the past, not a significant modern American Jewish community. This assessment reveals a biased perspective on traditional Judaism, and it assumes that the key issue confronting mid-century Jews was assimilation. The Chosen presents an alternative to this common characterization of American Judaism, highlighting instead the variety of Jewish traditions in mid-century America, and how the conflicts between them contributed to the development of American Jewish identity.
R. B. Kitaj: The Tate Fiasco and Some Key History Paintings
Authors: Salus Carol
Published: April 2007

R. B. Kitaj, who had been one of the major figures in the European painting scene since 1960, was given a retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1994. This tribute, a great honor for any artist whether living or deceased, resulted in a disastrous reception by the London press. His critics' vitriolic opinions and the painter's responses are summarized in this article. Kitaj, the Diasporist, a term he coined for those like himself whom he sees as marginalized, is too "literary" and too Jewish for British taste. Painting, for Kitaj, who was an American expatriate for forty years, is a personal voyage, and a select sampling of his history canvases reveals his deep attachment and concern for the plights of family members and close friends during the Holocaust. These paintings, as interpreted in this article, indicate how Kitaj belongs to the tradition of the learned painter in an oeuvre devoted to historical remembrance.
Did Government Decentralization Cause China's Economic Miracle?
Authors: Cai Hongbin , Treisman Daniel
Published: April 2007

Many scholars attribute China's market reforms and the remarkable economic performance they have fostered in part to the country's political and fiscal decentralization. Political decentralization is said to have stimulated local policy experiments and restrained predatory central interventions. Fiscal decentralization is thought to have motivated local officials to promote development and harden enterprises' budget constraints. The locally diversified structure of the prereform economy is said to have facilitated liberalization. Reexamining these arguments, the authors find that none establishes a convincing link between political or fiscal decentralization and China's successes. They suggest an alternative view of the reform process in which growth-enhancing policies emerged from competition between promarket and conservative factions in Beijing.
Original Sin, Good Works, and Property Rights in Russia
Authors: Frye Timothy
Published: April 2007

Are property rights obtained through dubious means forever tainted with original sin, or can right holders make their ill-gotten gains legitimate by doing good works? This is a critical question for developing and transition countries, where privatization is often opaque and businesspeople may receive property, but remain unwilling to use it productively due to concerns about the vulnerability of their rights to political challenge. Using a survey of 660 businesspeople conducted in Russia in 2005, the author finds that the original sin of an illegal privatization is difficult to expunge. Contrary to a “Coasian” view of privatization, property rights transferred through a legally questionable privatization are seen as illegitimate long after privatization. Busi-nesspeople, however, can improve the legitimacy of property rights by doing good works, such as providing public goods and using their assets well. Finally, managers who provide public goods for their region are more likely to invest in their firms than those who do not. This suggests a possible political rationale for the provision of public goods by privatefirms.Thesefindingshave implications for studies of privatization, property rights, and business-state relations in transitions and developing countries.
The Role of Leaders in Democratic Deliberations: Results from a Field Experiment in São Tomé and Príncipe
Authors: Humphreys Macartan , Masters William A. , Sandbu Martin E.
Published: April 2007

Despite a widespread trend toward the adoption of increasingly participatory approaches to political decision making in developing countries, there is little or no evidence that these practices in fact return the benefits attributed to them. This article investigates one specific worry—that participatory decision-making processes may be vulnerable to manipulation by elites. The authors report on a field experiment, drawing on a unique nationwide experiment in democratic deliberation in São Tomé and Príncipe in which the discussion leaders were randomly assigned across meetings. The randomization procedure provides a rare opportunity to identify the impact of leaders on the outcomes of group deliberations. They find that leader effects were extremely large, in many cases accounting for over one-third of all variation in the outcomes of the national discussions. These results have important implications for the design of such deliberative practices. While the total effect of leadership cannot be assessed, it may still be possible to observe when leader influence occurs and to correct for leader effects in comparisons of outcomes across deliberations.
Inspiration, Coalition, and Substitution: External Influences on Postcommunist Transformations
Authors: Jacoby Wade
Published: April 2007

There has been a recent explosion of interest in the external influences on the political and economic transformations of postcommunist states. This article consolidates several analytical advances in this literature and distills three main functions of external actors, namely, to lengthen the time horizons ofpostcommunist politicians, to expand the circle of interested reformers, and t o deter opponents of reform. The article argues that a focus on external influences is a growth area for good conceptual work only if it addresses the union of foreign and domestic influences, rather than treating them as stylized alternative explanations. The central point is that outside actors should be considered as striving to influence the choices of existing domestic actors with whom they can be seen to form a kind of informal coalition. At bottom, outsiders do best through a combination of strategies: strengthening domestic actors already committed to their approach, winning over new domestic actors to their priorities, and preventing the unconvinced from obstructing reforms.
A Geographic Incremental Theory of Democratization: Territory, Aid, and Democracy in Postcommunist Regions
Authors: Lankina Tomila V. , Getachew Lullit
Published: April 2007

The article examines the impact of geographical proximity to the West and of Western aid on democracy in Russia's regions and advances ageographic incrementalisttheory of democratization. Even when national politicians exhibit authoritarian tendencies, diffusion processes and targeted foreign aid help advance democratization at the subnational level in postcommunist states and other settings. The authors make this case by conducting process-tracing case studies of democratic institution building in two northwestern border regions and statistical analysis of over one thousand projects that the European Union carried out in Russia's localities over fourteen years. They find that the EU shows commitment to democratic reform particularly in, but not limited to, regions located on its eastern frontier. Over time, this, as well as diffusion processes from the West, positively affects the democratic trajectory of the respective regions even if they had been more closed to begin with compared to other regions.
Broca's Area Supports Enhanced Visuospatial Cognition in Orchestral Musicians
Authors: Sluming Vanessa , Brooks Jonathan , Howard Matthew , Downes John Joseph , Roberts Neil
Published: April 2007

We provide neurobehavioral evidence supporting the transferable benefit of music training to alter brain function and enhance cognitive performance in a nonmusical visuospatial task in professional orchestral musicians. In particular, orchestral musicians' performance on a three-dimensional mental rotation (3DMR) task exhibited the behavioral profile normally only attained after significant practice, supporting the suggestion that these musicians already possessed well developed neural circuits to support 3DMR. Furthermore, functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that only orchestral musicians showed significantly increased activation in Broca's area, in addition to the well known visuospatial network, which was activated in both musicians and nonmusicians who were matched on age, sex, and verbal intelligence. We interpret these functional neuroimaging findings to reflect preferential recruitment of Broca's area, part of the neural substrate supporting sight reading and motor-sequence organization underpinning musical performance, to subserve 3DMR in musicians. Our data, therefore, provide convergent behavioral and neurofunctional evidence supporting the suggestion that development of the sight-reading skills of musical performance alters brain circuit organization which, in turn, confers a wider cognitive benefit, in particular, to nonmusical visuospatial cognition in professional orchestral musicians.
The Cortical Representation of Objects Rotating in Depth
Authors: Weigelt Sarah , Kourtzi Zoe , Kohler Axel , Singer Wolf , Muckli Lars
Published: April 2007

The perception of motion provides valuable interpolations of the visual scene. This fundamental capacity of the visual system is evident in apparent rotation: by presenting only two images of an object rotated in space, a vivid illusion of a smooth apparent motion in three dimensions can be induced. The unseen interpolated rotation views are filled in by the visual system. In the present study, we identified the cortical network responsible for this filling-in process. We argue that cross talk between areas of the ventral and dorsal visual pathways promote the illusion of smooth apparent rotation. Most interestingly, the network represents the unseen object views. Using functional magnetic resonance adaptation, we are able to show that the cortical network selectively adapts to the illusory object views. Our findings provide strong evidence for cortical representations of three-dimensional rotating objects that are view invariant with respect to the rotation path. Furthermore, our results confirm psychophysical investigations that unseen interpolated rotation views can be primed by apparent motion. By applying functional magnetic resonance adaptation, we show for the first time cortical adaptation to unseen objects. Together, our neuroimaging study advances the understanding of the cortical mechanisms mediating the influence of motion on object processing.