bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Let’s Twist Again: A High-Frequency Event-Study Analysis of Operation Twist and Its Implications for QE2
Authors: Swanson Eric T.
Published: February 2012

This paper undertakes a modern event-study analysis of Operation Twist and uses its estimated effects to assess what should be expected for the recent policy of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, dubbed “QE2.” The paper first shows that Operation Twist and QE2 are similar in magnitude. It then identifies six significant, discrete announcements in the course of Operation Twist that could have had a major effect on financial markets and shows that four did have statistically significant effects. The cumulative effect of these six announcements on longer-term Treasury yields is highly statistically significant but moderate, amounting to about 15 basis points (bp). This estimate is consistent both with time-series analysis undertaken not long after the event and with the lower end of empirical estimates of Treasury supply effects in the literature. The effects of Operation Twist on long-term agency and corporate bond yields are also statistically significant but smaller, about 13 bp for agency securities and 2 to 4 bp for corporates. Thus, the effects of Operation Twist seem to diminish substantially as one moves from Treasury securities toward private sector credit instruments.
"The New Machine": Discovering the Limits of ECCO
Authors: Spedding Patrick
Published: February 2012

This essay explores some of the difficulties faced by eighteenth-century scholars when conducting research using scanned text-bases, particularly Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). It begins with an explanation of some of the general problems that face the users of all scanned text-bases. These problems are illustrated in an account of research undertaken into the history of the condom and its representation in eighteenth-century texts. The failure of ECCO searches to produce meaningful results brings these problems into sharp focus, but also suggests novel ways in which they may be overcome.
New Model Armies: Re-contextualizing The Camp in Margaret Cavendish's Bell in Campo
Authors: Pasupathi Vimala C.
Published: February 2012

This paper examines the Amazonian army in Margaret Cavendish's Bell in Campo , a two-part closet play that stages divisions in England as a war between two allegorical entities, Faction and Reformation. Arguing against previous readings of the play's third armed collective as merely the female instruments of Caroline revisionism, I consider its pragmatic and pointed acknowledgment of the increasingly revolutionary role that military collectives played in the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Parliament's New Model Army was at the center of this shifting role, and was, I argue, a significant inspiration for Cavendish's female soldiers in Bell in Campo .
A Scottish Ecopoetics: Feminism and Environmentalism in the Works of Kathleen Jamie and Valerie Gillies
Authors: Severin Laura
Published: February 2012

The article examines the ongoing attempts of contemporary Scottish poets Kathleen Jamie (1962-) and Valerie Gillies (1948-) to develop a feminist and environmentalist nature poetry that re-envisions the connection between nature and humanity. These poets' artistic journeys have led them from traditional print-page poetry to challenging multimedia art forms that combine the visual and the written word, as in Jamie's combination of photography and the lyrical essay in Findings (2005) and Gillies's poetic collaborations with sculptors along the Tweed River (1998-2001). In the process, they have created a place-sensitive art that embodies a dialogical interaction with nature, reflective of an understanding of humanity's simultaneous separation from and continuity with nature. Their work suggests that a feminist environmental art requires an equally feminist aesthetics, one that breaks down boundaries—between various art forms, between art and nature, and art and society—in order to change perception and envision alternative ways of living.
"The Mamas Were Ripe": Ideologies of Motherhood and Public Resistance in a South African Township
Authors: Stevenson Judith
Published: February 2012

The article examines the women of the small black township of Munsieville, South Africa, located on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and how their political leadership and mobilization during the 1980s embodied the convergence of multiple ideologies of motherhood. This convergence created a paradigm shift in black women's understanding of themselves, influencing how they responded to state violence and racial injustice. The article analyzes a particular woman as emblematic of this transition to political action through her organizing a protest against the apartheid police, with its subsequent death of a youth, and her authorship of a political tract that accounts for her radicalization.
Poverty and Program Participation among Immigrant Children
Authors: Borjas George J.
Published: February 2012

Researchers have long known that poverty in childhood is linked with a range of negative adult socioeconomic outcomes, from lower educational achievement and behavioral problems to lower earnings in the labor market. But few researchers have explored whether exposure to a disadvantaged background affects immigrant children and native children differently. George Borjas uses Current Population Survey (CPS) data on two specific indicators of poverty—the poverty rate and the rate of participation in public assistance programs—to begin answering that question. He finds that immigrant children have significantly higher rates both of poverty and of program participation than do native children. Nearly half of immigrant children are being raised in households that receive some type of public assistance, compared with roughly one-third of native children. Although the shares of immigrant and native children living in poverty are lower, the rate for immigrant children is nonetheless about 15 percentage points higher than that for native children—about the same as the gap in public assistance. Poverty and program participation rates among different groups of immigrant children also vary widely, depending in part on place of birth (foreign- or U.S.-born), parents (immigrant or native), and national origin.
According to the CPS data, these native-immigrant differences persist into young adulthood. In particular, the program participation and poverty status of immigrant children is strongly correlated with their program participation and poverty status when they become young adults. But it is not possible, says Borjas, to tell whether the link results from a set of permanent factors associated with specific individuals or groups that tends to lead to "good" or "bad" outcomes systematically over time or from exposure during childhood to adverse socioeconomic outcomes, such as poverty or welfare dependency. Future research must explore the causal impact of childhood poverty on immigrant adult outcomes and why it might differ between immigrant and native families. Developing successful policies to address problems caused by the intergenerational breeding of poverty and program participation in the immigrant population depends on understanding this causal mechanism.
Grossman's The Smile of the Lamb : In Quest of Authentic Humanity
Authors: Gertz Nurith
Published: February 2012

The Arab has played an increasingly important role in Israeli literature. David Grossman's The Smile of the Lamb is shown in this article to break new ground in this area, by collapsing the dichotomies between Arabs and Israelis.
Word Foreignness in Modern Hebrew
Authors: Schwarzwald Ora (Rodrigue)
Published: February 2012

This paper focuses on the linguistic criteria that distinguish Hebrew words from foreign ones in modern Hebrew. Three major criteria play a principal role in determining the differences between the words: phonological, syllabic, or morphological. The phonological criterion involves foreign consonants and allophonic structure, violation of constraints on Hebrew consonant clusters, and violation of Hebrew stress patterns. The syllabic structure depends on word length and deviation from syllabic Hebrew word structure. The morphological criterion is the most complicated one and involves word class, violation of Hebrew stress patterns in inflection and derivation, the ending - a'ot , and orphanhood, which refers to the isolation of a form within the morphological Hebrew system. Some aspects of the generalizations have been described previously by Weiman. Changes that occurred in modern Hebrew since 1950, as well as certain inaccuracies in Weiman's analysis, may account for some of the differences in his analysis from the one presented here. This paper not only focuses on all of the factors involved in modern Hebrew loan words, but it can account for the distinction between loan and Hebrew elements. Although the discussion is linguistically oriented, it bears on psychological reality as well. A first attempt at showing that the linguistic criteria supply the necessary means for determining the perception of foreignness will be conducted.
דרן המשל המודרני בראשיתה של ההשכלה העברית: ללמוד מוסר השכל במשל ומליצה
Authors: Pelli Moshe
Published: February 2012

The fable was one of the most popular genre of the European Enlightenment as well as of the Hebrew Haskalah. Many fables were published in Hameasef , the first modern Hebrew journal (1783-1811) that opens the period of modern Hebrew literature. The fables published during the early period of Haskalah in Germany were recycled in textbooks and other publications. Some of them were original, but most of them were adaptations of the classical Aesopian fables or their Jewish equivalent, Mishlei Shualim by Berachyah Hanakdan. Haskalah fabulists did endow universal fables with some Jewish and Hebrew coloration either by adding a moral based on Proverbs or talmudic adage, or using biblical style and idiom, but they also adhered to the fables' general and universal moral teaching. This article follows up on the initial discussion in the chapter on the fable in my book, Sugot Vesugyot Besifrut Hahaskalah Haivrit (1999). The article now classifies the various fable phenomena in Hameasef into the Aesopian fables, narrative fables, fabulist stories, parables, poetic fables, and allegories. In each category, examples are cited and analyzed and the literary conventions of each are examined. The article then discusses the question of the adaptation of fables and the so-called 'original' fables, and examines the possible satiric function of the fable. The relation of the fable to the needs and aesthetics of Haskalah literature is discussed as well.
אנשי בראשית, תימנים בתיאטרון העברי: Yemenites in the Hebrew Theatre: Constructing and Deconstructing the Stereotypes
Authors: Urian Dan
Published: February 2012

This article is an archeological exploration of the representations of Yemenite figures in Hebrew drama and Israeli theatre during the twentieth century. It studies a repertoire that helps to illuminate transformations in the representation of an ethnic group in Eretz Israel. The study of the character of the Yemenite Jew in Hebrew drama and Israeli theatre necessitates familiarity with related fields because Hebrew culture is characterized by strong links between its various parts, such as those between theatre and other dramatic arts such as cinema and television. Accordingly, data from the cinematic and television repertoires that influenced the theatrical representations of the Yemenite Jews are described. Conversely, the article examines the ways in which cinema and television were affected by theatrical stagings of Yemenite characters. This paper argues that up to the establishment of the state of Israel most plays were treated as literature and were published to be read rather than performed on the stage. Therefore, the study of the Yemenite Jew in that period is mainly literary. In plays from the post-establishment period, the character of the Yemenite Jew in Hebrew theatre assumes the stereotypical dimensions of the Oriental Jew. For the immigrants from East and Central Europe, the Oriental represented the other, a stranger who awakens attraction, repulsion, and fear. Considered this way, the creators of Yemenite stereotype can be seen as the disciples of the colonialist heritage. In this article I draw from some of the theories of Stuart Hall and Richard Dyer to illuminate the position of Jewish Yemenite characters as others in Hebrew culture and especially in the theatre. The study of the repertoire delineates a few central directions in the representation of Yemenite Jews. Until the establishment of the state, the Yemenite Jews were culturally placed between "Arabs" and "Hebrew-Jews". From the 1950's, the period of the large immigration, they were categorized with the "Mizrachim." In the 1970's, a process of change affecting the stereotype of the Yemenite Jew began, due, in particular, to the emergence of Yemenite playwrights and their influence on the Israeli stage.
Between Realism and Modernism: Brenner's Poetics of Fragmentation
Authors: Hasak-Lowy Todd
Published: February 2012

This article first explains the fact that because of modern Hebrew literature's belated emergence as a national literature, numerous typically distinct periods or modes of fiction (in particular realism and modernism) were simultaneously available to Hebrew writers. After locating the ideological, nationalist underpinnings of realism's appeal for Hebrew writers from the Haskalah up through the turn of the twentieth century, the article turns its attention to Y. H. Brenner. Due to his fictional and non-fictional writings, Brenner is widely considered a central and foundational figure in early twentieth century Hebrew literature. His influential but elusive and often misunderstood narrative poetics are teased out of two texts which first appeared in 1911: the novel מכאן ומכאן ( Mi-kan umi-kan , From here and there), and an essay, הז-נר הארץ ישראלי ואביזר-הו (The land of Israel genre and its accouterments). Brenner's vision of Hebrew prose in Palestine points to a unique quality of this emerging national literature, as it, perhaps paradoxically, seems equally at home in realist and modernist modes of fiction. Moreover, throughout his forays into modernist modes of fiction, Brenner maintains the deep-seated beliefs that first pointed him toward realism, namely, that literature can play a role in rehabilitating Jewish society by addressing the problems that plague it.
Typesetting Pointed Hebrew by Computer
Authors: Hoenig Alan
Published: February 2012

This paper describes a public system for generating pointed texts in Hebrew by computer using a natural, intuitive, and easy input mechanism. The discussion includes the main features of this freely-available system, and includes many examples, all of which were produced by this system.
Bialik's Other Silence
Authors: Jelen Sheila E.
Published: February 2012

Chaim Nahman Bialik's (1873-1934) poetic " shtikah " or silence from 1911 to the time of his death in 1934 has been widely discussed and conjectured about from social, psychological, and literary perspectives. "Bialik's Other Silence" focuses on Bialik's vernacular "silence" in representative works of his fiction. To what extent did Bialik's essays express his intellectual support of the necessity for Hebrew speech as part of a nationalist and cultural mobilization of the Jewish people, while his fiction refused to "speak" Hebrew? In "Bialik's Other Silence," Bialik's debut story "Brawny Aryeh" (1899) and one of his final stories "A Fatted Ox or a Dinner of Herbs" (1931) are explored in order to understand the troubled relationship between dialogue and narrative in Bialik's fictional corpus. Throughout the discussion, the particular challenges of Hebrew literary production during the Hebrew revival, the Tehiyah , are explored as they pertain to the ideologies and politics inherited by its practitioners from the Haskalah , or the Jewish Enlightenment.
Two Perspectives on Abraham Regelson's "Hakukot Otiyotayich" (Engraved are Your Letters)
Authors: Katz Gideon , Nevo Gideon
Published: February 2012

"Hakukot Otiyotayich" (Engraved are your letters), the "amazing" song of praise to the Hebrew language by the Hebrew-American poet Abraham Regelson (1896-1980) has received very little critical attention, none of it from a major literary critic. The system that filters, absorbs, and canonizes Hebrew culture has consigned the poem, as well as Regelson's poetic corpus in general, to relatively minor critics who themselves were all but forgotten. The crowning glory of Regelson's poetry remains forgotten, absent, unknown. "Hakukot Otiyotayich" is a poem of dense and rich rhetoric, wound in a tight web of philosophical concepts and ideas. The present article proposes a rhetorical and philosophical analysis of this long (twenty stanzas) and complex composition, one of the most unique and extraordinary poems in modern Hebrew poetry.
Scripture, Wisdom, and Authority in 4QInstruction: Understanding the Use of Numbers 30:8-9 in 4Q416
Authors: Jefferies Daryl F.
Published: February 2012

The Qumran wisdom text 4QInstruction makes use of several passages found in Torah. Among the passages used are two verses from Numbers 30. This article examines the author's use of Num 30:8-9 in an effort to characterize how Scripture has been incorporated into this wisdom document. Possibilities considered are "paraphrase," "quotation," and "re-written Bible." Following descriptions of "re-written Bible" provided by Michael Segal, George Brooke, and Daniel Falk, it is concluded that the use of Numbers 30 at this particular point in 4QInstruction follows the tendencies of "re-written Bible." This determination shows that the author approached the source text from Numbers 30 as an authoritative starting point for his instruction. It further shows that the author saw his own work as an extension of biblical ideals.
An Unrecognized Voice: Intra-Textual and Intertextual Perspectives on Psalm 81
Authors: Emanuel David
Published: February 2012

Psalm 81 constitutes an Exodus psalm in which YHWH speaks directly to his people, admonishing them against worshipping foreign gods. As an incentive to obedience, YHWH recalls the punishments he inflicted against Israel's forefathers for disobeying this injunction, and promises blessings to those who obey him. In addition to the original meaning intended by the psalmist, Psalm 81 bears additional meanings and serves additional functions depending on the contexts in which it appears. Thus the individual meaning of the composition differs from the meaning it adopts within the complex of its neighbors, Psalms 80 and 82. Similarly, its function alters again when read together with its related intertexts. The present study constitutes a threefold literary reading of Psalm 81 that explores the changes in Psalm 81's meaning from its reading as an individual text, to its reading in light of the aforementioned contexts. Even though the present paper adopts a synchronic approach to intertextuality, it nevertheless raises the probability of either the psalmist or the authors of Psalm 81's intertexts purposefully reinterpreting their sources.
An Evaluation of Psalm 119 as Constrained Writing
Authors: Callaham Scott N.
Published: February 2012

Alphabetical acrostic poems in the Hebrew Bible frequently provoke adverse critical commentary for violating current literary aesthetic tastes. Both the format and the length of the most elaborate alphabetical acrostic—Psalm 119—challenge the interpreter's tolerance for repetition and sustained poetic musings on Torah, perhaps discouraging consideration of these dynamics as meaningful literary constraints. While the corpus of existing scholarly literature attests to penetrating analysis of thought progressions of each stanza in the psalm and the employment of Torah words, no systematic investigations of compositional virtuosity under the psalmist's chosen acrostic literary constraint currently exist. Employing "constrained writing" theory illuminated by reference to contemporary examples, the present study sketches the contours of constraint in Psalm 119. The study contrasts stanzas disclosing evidence of least and greatest constraint, then focuses upon the most constrained stanzas in an attempt to determine a hierarchy of literary constraint among them. The result is a more refined apprehension of the literary artistry of the Great Psalm.
Back for the Future, Forward for the Past: Tense and Time in Modern Hebrew
Authors: Newman Zelda Kahan
Published: February 2012

This paper points out that Modern Hebrew has metaphoric structuring for time in which the past is seen as something "in front of" the speaker, while the future is "behind" the speaker. It traces this metaphor from Biblical Hebrew to the Rabbinic Hebrew of Talmudic time and suggests that the theory of lexemic morphology can explain why these particular morphemes persist over time. Finally, it suggests an analogy with atomic half-lives: the further away, geographically and temporally, a linguistic item is from its source, the smaller the trace of the original item.
The Tablets of Testimony and a Reversal of Outcome in the Golden Calf Episode
Authors: Anderson Craig Evan
Published: February 2012

By examining the Golden Calf episode (Exod 31:18-34:35) through both lexical and structural analyses, this paper argues that four of the five blocks of text mentioning the tablets are the product of a late redactional addition to the underlying story. The addition of this tablet motif recalibrates the story around a framework of the presentation, destruction, re-creation, and final acceptance of the tablets. Moreover, this tablet addition offers a hopeful ending to the story thereby reversing the damning end of the underlying story. The damning underlying story seems to be the product of Hezekian (or Josianic) propaganda to explain the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, while the tablet addition seems to be the product of the Exilic/ Post-Exilic priestly circle who offer a picture of hope following catastrophe (the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in about 587 B.C.E. ).
Resolving the Crux of Judges 7:5B-7: A Critique of Two Traditional Approaches and the Reproposal of a Third
Authors: Hornkohl Aaron
Published: February 2012

The article summarizes and critiques the two dominant approaches to the exegetical crux of Judges 7:5b-7, namely the harmonizing approach and the text-critical approach, arguing that neither satisfactorily resolves the issues. It then reproposes an all but totally ignored reading known among the medieval rabbis, further supporting it with the recognition of a known syntactical feature of Hebrew grammar. The reading proposed in the article is superior to the dominant approaches because it avoids forced harmonization, on the one hand, and unwarranted textual emendation, on the other.
Hurled into the Heart of Darkness: Moral Luck and the Hebrew Literature of the Intifada
Authors: Mendelson-Maoz Adia
Published: February 2012

This paper proposes an ethical reading of literary works that describe the Israeli soldier in the Intifada. It examines the experiences of Israeli soldiers, the nature of the situation, and the protagonist's choices and identity, in the light of the philosophical concept of moral luck (following Nagel's categories), which is generally defined as a state where a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action even though a significant part of what he does depends on factors beyond his control. Reading representative works, I show that the Israeli soldiers in many literary works find themselves in a state of bad moral luck that is both circumstantial (stemming from the Occupation) and constitutive (stemming from the military socialization process). By covering moral and immoral protagonists, realistic and non-realistic prose, the paper examines the reflection of the complexity of the conflict and the place of the individual in a situation of national and political dispute.
Henry James on Safari in Ernest Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa
Authors: Jungman Robert E. , Tabor Carole
Published: February 2012

At the climax of Green Hills of Africa , Ernest Hemingway realizes that Africa means more to him than just a location to hunt, or even to write: it is the one place left where "it pleased me to live, to really live. Not just let my life pass." This insight seems based not only on the experiences recounted in the narrative up to that point, but also on the advice of Strether to Little Bilham at the heart of Henry James's The Ambassadors , where Strether tells his young friend, "Live all you can; it's a mistake not to."
" Duro: Bilingual Puns in "The Undefeated"
Authors: Hays Peter
Published: February 2012

Repetition of words, such as the obvious echoing of "like" in "Up in Michigan, "Cat in the Rain" and "Soldier's Home," occurs throughout Hemingway's oeuvre. Sometimes the echoing is not so readily apparent because what is repeated is the same word, but in a different language. For example, "rabbit" in For Whom the Bell Tolls , is echoed by the Spanish conejo . In "The Undefeated," Hemingway repeats the Spanish word " duro ," as well as its English translations and its cognates, particularly the Spanish durar and the French durer , to last. As he frequently wrote, " Il faut d'abord durer "—"Above all, one must endure."
Hemingway Encounters: A Biographer Reminisces
Authors: Donaldson Scott
Published: February 2012

In this memoir, Donaldson recalls informative and interesting meetings with several major figures in Hemingway studies, including Charles A. Fenton, Malcolm Cowley, Carlos Baker, Mary Hemingway, Michael S. Reynolds, Paul Smith, and Paul Montgomery. The essay is a lightly revised version of his kickoff address at the 2010 Hemingway Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Duns Scotus: Some Recent Research
Authors: Cross Richard
Published: February 2012

This article aims to give a brief survey of some of the major secondary literature on Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) from 1999 to the present, under the following headings: universals and individuation (including discussion of Scotus's analysis of different kinds of identity and distinction); modal theory (both the nature of modalities and their origin); cognitive psychology (the ontological status of conceptual content and the question of objects of thought internal to the mind); semantics (the ways in which words signify concepts and/or things); logic (the nature of Aristotle's Categories and the logic of counterfactuals); and divine command metaethics.
A Proposal for How to Realize Human Rights at the National and Regional Level: A Three-Pillar Strategy
Authors: Alizadeh Homayoun
Published: February 2012

This article proposes a "Three-Pillar Strategy" (TPS) as an overall human rights protection strategy for OHCHR field presences. The main idea is to integrate recommendations of UN treaty bodies (Pillar One), special procedures (Pillar Two), and the Universal Periodic Review process (Pillar Three) into UN Country Teams' (UNCTs) work and planning, and likewise to integrate UNCTs into the implementation process of the TPS. Within the One UN Concept, the TPS could be used as an entry point to support building and strengthening national human rights protection systems, including the administration of justice, legislative reform, national human rights institutions, and civil society.
Negotiating Mixed Race: Projection, Nostalgia, and the Rejection of Japanese-Brazilian Biracial Children
Authors: Rivas Zelideth María
Published: February 2012

Since their arrival in Brazil in 1908, the presence of Japanese immigrants has shaken Brazilian conceptions of race. Narratives of interracial marriages and biracial children in 1930s medical documents and short stories demonstrate the incorporation of the Japanese into Brazil and their subsequent marginalization within the Japanese community. This article compares and contrasts the shifting depictions of biracial Japanese-Brazilian children in Brazil by Brazilians and first generation Japanese immigrants in order to understand how their presence challenges and "negotiates" national identity. The process of othering and marginalizing biracial children upsets the hegemonic understandings of racial categorization in Brazil.
Doing Our Own Thinking for Ourselves: On Quentin Skinner's Genealogical Turn
Authors: Lane Melissa
Published: February 2012

In the original publication of "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas," Quentin Skinner enjoined that when it comes to seeking "answers" to questions, "we must learn to do our own thinking for ourselves." In this article, I focus on one of the most recent turns in Skinner's work, to a practice of genealogy. By disentangling various claims too often bundled together under the heading of "contingency," and by distinguishing Skinner's practice of genealogy from Nietzsche's, I argue that that Skinner's genealogical turn is at once less novel, more modest, and more productive than his own characterization of it makes it appear.
Georg Calixtus, Isaac Casaubon, and the Consensus of Antiquity
Authors: Callisen Christian Thorsten
Published: February 2012

This article explores the relationship between Georg Calixtus (1586-1656) and Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614). It does this in order to highlight an oversight in the existing literature concerning Calixtus, and to encourage scholars to revisit the work of Early Modern figures who have previously been considered only from modern disciplinary perspectives. By emphasizing the relationship between Calixtus and Casaubon, this article argues that Calixtus was potentially exposed to much broader circles of intellectual debate than has previously been considered, and that a re-evaluation of his work in light of these debates is therefore in order.
“Invisible Things on Visible Forms”: Pedagogy and Anagogy in Porphyry’s Περί ἀγαλμάτων
Authors: Krulak Todd C.
Published: February 2012

This study examines Porphyry of Tyre’s fragmentary work Περί ἀγαλμάτων (On Statues) and suggests that it was a pedagogical document designed to instruct budding philosophers in the adoption of a proper attitude towards the ritual image. This component of philosophical training was one way that the educated philosopher could distinguish himself or herself from the ignorant masses that viewed statues merely as carved stone. Philosophy was about more than the cementing of one’s social status, however; rather, psychic union with the divine was the ultimate goal of the late Platonist program and On Statues contributes to the attainment of this end. The treatise and the images described therein served to remind the philosopher of the true qualities of the gods. More important, however, is what the very existence of the document says about Porphyry’s view of the ritual image. A divine statue was no Tylorian construct, existing without any connection to the thing it represented, but had philosophical value and, further, had a very real connection to the gods. These claims will be fleshed out more fully through an examination of Platonic/Socratic and Plotinian theories about writing and statues, respectively.
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy: South African Disparities
Authors: Simkins Charles
Published: February 2012

Abstract: South Africa's 1994 transition to democracy was made possible by the change in the international landscape that resulted from the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. South Africa has two important "assets" that will help it to confront the poverty and inequality that beset the country. The first is majority support for democracy: In the 2008 Afrobarometer survey, two-thirds supported democracy, while 12 percent were indifferent, and 19 percent felt that nondemocratic government was sometimes preferable. The second asset is South Africa's relatively low level of corruption. Democratic stability and development are tied to economic growth. Without it, South Africa could be at risk for political and economic disaster.
Comparing the Arab Revolts: The Impact of Election Systems
Authors: Carey John M. , Reynolds Andrew
Published: February 2012

Abstract:
Among their other effects, the seismic political events of late 2010 and early 2011 have set off a wave of actual and proposed electoral reforms throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This wave has touched both countries where long-ruling authoritarian regimes have collapsed and those where existing regimes have (so far) managed to retain power. Throughout the region, even in places not at the center of the recent upheavals—Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority, for instance—the rules for deciding who will sit in parliament are the topic of intense debate. In all these cases we find the same core challenge for reformers and democratizers: How to open space for new parties and movements to challenge the old ones and gain a voice in the making of laws?
Do New Democracies Support Democracy? Reluctant India
Authors: Mehta Pratap Bhanu
Published: February 2012

Abstract:
What role will human rights and democracy play in India’s foreign policy? On the level of principle and ideology, at least, there is a potential for India to become a beacon for democracy, but to what extent will democracy and human rights actually become high-level items on India’s foreign-policy agenda? The likelihood is that India will continue to display a strong commitment the democratic ideals, but will do so without making democracy promotion an avowed element of its foreign policy. There is evidence that Indian and China are emerging as rival ideological models simply because India’s success will do so much to drive home the point that democracy and freedom can bring a huge development premium.
Morocco: Outfoxing the Opposition
Authors: Benchemsi Ahmed
Published: February 2012

On 1 July 2011, voters in Morocco cast ballots in a constitutional-reform referendum that the government claimed drew turnout of 73 percent and passed with a near-unanimous 98.5 percent majority. At first glance, the reforms look like major concessions. The king may not have abandoned all his powers, but he seems to have curtailed a significant part of them. More decisively, the new constitution seems to subject executive authority to the broad standards of human rights and, if not democracy, at least fairly balanced power sharing. But further inspection reveals that the monarchy may have succeeded in outfoxing its opponents by producing an elaborate constitutional smokescreen.
Mysticism, History, and a "New" Kabbalah: Gershom Scholem and the Contemporary Scene
Authors: Magid Shaul
Published: February 2012

The academic discipline of Jewish mysticism has become one of the most robust in the field of Jewish Studies. Rarely has there been a disciple in the academy that has been so dominated by one individual, in this case Gershom Scholem. Scholem not only initiated the field, he also drew its boundaries and set the terms of scholarly method and debate. And, he became a subject in the field as well as a contributor. This essay explores Scholem's ideas about contemporary Kabbalah and his "invested scholarship" as part of his larger cultural project of reconstructing Jewish existence through secularism and Zionism. I argue that Scholem's denial of the possibility of authentic Kabbalah in the contemporary world was founded on his commitment to secularism (in the form of Zionism) as the only way Jews — and Judaism — could survive. Ultra-Orthodoxy, the community where "authentic" Kabbalah was housed, was, for Scholem a relic of the past that would eventually disappear or become irrelevant. On this Scholem was mistaken. This essay explores the ways in which scholars of Kabbalah have emerged from Scholem's shadow in light of that fact and begun to take contemporary Kabbalah seriously. They have also challenged his larger historiographic and Zionist agenda and, by expanding the methods and theories deployed to analyze kabbalistic works, have shed new light on Kabbalah, not only as Jewish metaphysics but as a producer of cultural capital in Israel and the Diaspora.
Flipping the Field: The Next Generation of Newspaper Sports Journalists
Authors: Murray Ray , McGuire John , Ketterer Stan , Sowell Mike
Published: February 2012

Newspaper sports journalists training to enter the field will be asked to know different skills from their predecessors. Also, newspaper editors are concerned about the journalistic skills of their future employees. This research investigated job skills desired of the next generation of sports journalists within newspaper organizations. Through a factor analysis, four underlying dimensions were found: broadcasting skills, editing skills, reporting skills and sports knowledge. Mean scores showed reporting skills having the most importance.
Memorial Day to Memorial Library: The South Chicago Branch Library as Cultural Terrain, 1937-1947
Authors: Latham Joyce M.
Published: February 2012

For two decades following the stock market crash of 1929, reformists and radicals battled over the remaking of American culture. The American public library was one venue for the "cultural front." Librarians were among those white-collar workers experiencing explosive growth, and many joined with the CIO unionists to reshape the culture industry. The South Chicago Branch Library, an "experimental" interpretation of the traditional practice of library service, provided one arena of struggle in the city of Chicago.
Rising from the Ashes: The Impact of Proposition 13 on Public Libraries in California
Authors: White Cody
Published: February 2012

In 1978 Howard Jarvis was the driving force behind California’s Proposition 13, a direct ballot initiative that sought to reform the state’s property tax system. Officially titled the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, Proposition 13 passed on June 6 of that year and not only immediately cut property tax rates but also limited further increases within the state. As property taxes were and still are a primary source of funding for many public libraries, California librarians in the ensuing years struggled to maintain facilities, staff, and collections in the wake of the cuts. Librarians were also forced to expand their advocacy role in order to better quantify and convey the value of libraries to the public at large.
The “Librarian’s Dream-Prince”: Carl Van Vechten and America’s Modernist Cultural Archives Industry
Authors: MacLeod Kirsten
Published: February 2012

Carl Van Vechten (1880–1964) was an art critic and patron, a novelist, and a photographer from the early- to mid-twentieth century. His most important role, however, was as a collector and archivist of American modernism. This study examines the origins of Van Vechten’s penchant for collecting and archiving, how these interests informed his professional and amateur pursuits, and how they led him to contribute to the creation of a substantial and wide-ranging archival record of twentieth-century American cultural life.
Los estudios de paisaje y su importancia en México, 1970-2010
Authors: Urquijo Pedro S. , Bocco Gerardo
Published: February 2012

In this paper we analyze major research concerning the landscape concept in Mexico on the basis of a meta-analysis approach. Landscape is a polysemic concept, and may embrace different meanings depending on the academic arena in which it has been used, whether the social sciences or the natural sciences. Thus some confusion may have arisen concerning its proper use. This paper also contributes to a somewhat neglected area of Mexican geography: the theoretical reflection of our academic practice. The paper encompasses three sections, each with a historical contextualization, for what we consider to be the three major approaches to landscape analysis: the biophysical, the socio-cultural and the integrated.
Bolívar como personaje en la ficción dramática colombiana
Authors: Gómez Sánchez Darío
Published: February 2012

As in the Museo Nacional de Colombia, where in one gallery each of the seven portraits of Simón Bolívar are notably different in terms of physiognomy (to the point where one doubts that they are of the same subject), the Colombian plays that treat this historical figure approach the past in myriad ways. Several plays from 1839 to 1994 include "The Liberator" as a central figure and this article, after providing an overview of relevant dramatic production, focuses on three works that highlight approaches ranging from "historical factual" theatre to the deconstruction of the figure of Bolívar.
Edipo asesor de Benjamín Galemiri: Hacia una dramaturgia de la transición
Authors: Rizk Beatriz J.
Published: February 2012

Few authors have explored the effects of the past dictatorship with such thoroughness than the Chilean prolific playwright Benjamín Galemiri. In this article, we are dealing with his Edipo Asesor (2000) as a "transitional period" piece navigating among conditional forgetfulness of things past, the astounding affirmation of a way of life firmly entrenched in the most rampant neoliberalism, and the emergence of a collective consciousness activated from the potential expansion of power as a democratic space. It is, however, through the role of the new technocrats, brought about by the innovative and media-oriented neoliberal ideology, that Galimiri's Asesor becomes a paradigmatic figure in his efforts to conflate opportunism with "national interests," and mercantilist pragmatic views with the undeniable quest for glory, fame and possibly love.
El Niño Argentino de Mauricio Kartun y la producción de sentido político: el teatro como "ladrillazo a la vidriera"
Authors: Dubatti Jorge
Published: February 2012

This article proposes that the political thought of Mauricio Kartun is a fundamental key for the analysis of his political theatre. Beginning with the theoretical notions of "concepción de teatro" and "estructura racional," El Niño Argentino (2006) is analyzed in its relation to socialist thought. The metaphor of El Niño Argentino is referentially sent back to Argentina's immediate past, to the government of Carlos Menem and the peak of neoliberalism in Argentina of the 90s. Kartun no longer believes in "dramaturgia de la seguridad, de la confianza ciega," which relied on the discourse of the Socialist Party and on the "soberbia" of a truth that was once believed to be flawless, but rather he continues to reaffirm his socialist conviction, which makes him — in addition to a playwright who participates in the current political movement — an intellectual of Carta Abierta. El Niño Argentino is theatre of "denuncia" (not of "anuncia"), a theatre that unmasks the subjectivity of the Right (rooted in the origins of Argentina, brutal during the years of the dictatorship and during their rise in this last period, since 2001), but that does not offer a solution. This is a theatre of the Left that shows no sign of resignation or despair, and through the act of condemnation, searches with persistent desire, for a new sociability.
Survey And Excavation at Nysa on the Meander, 2009: The Gymnasium Portico and Palaestra
Authors: Beckmann Martin
Published: February 2012

En juillet et août 2009, une équipe de l’University of Western Ontario a entrepris une campagne de prospection et de fouilles de cinq semaines dans le secteur du gymnase, à Nysa sur le Méandre. La prospection par géoradar a permis non seulement de situer l’emplacement du portique et de certaines pièces adjacentes, mais aussi de faire la découverte (inattendue) de trois grandes structures dans le secteur de la palestre. L’objectif principal des fouilles qui s’ensuivirent était de déterminer la nature de ces mystérieuses structures. L’une d’elles a été identifiée comme une très grande et profonde citerne antérieure à la construction du gymnase au II e siècle de notre ère. Les deux autres, contemporaines du gymnase, sont des conduites d’eau surélevées, longues chacune de 90 m et peut-être de fonction décorative, parallèles aux portiques de chaque côté de la palestre. En outre, deux bases inscrites en marbre ont été récupérées, dont une concerne probablement Titus Aelius Alkibiadès, citoyen de l’époque d’Antonin le Pieux, notable déjà bien attesté dans plusieurs inscriptions locales. Ces résultats contribuent de manière significative à notre connaissance du tracé et de la chronologie du gymnase de Nysa.
Madame Bovary and the Möbius Strip: Mapping a "monde à part"
Authors: Lee Susanna
Published: February 2012

This article examines literary criticism's uses of the Möbius strip, concentrating on its associations with impasse, inaccessible meaning, and narrative dead ends. It juxtaposes the Möbius strip (1858) with Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857). Flaubert's novel resonated as real or realist despite its many symbolic dead ends and unrealistic descriptions. The Möbius strip, on the other hand, despite its evocative and provocative metaphoric quality, tends to lend theoretical texts an impression of intellectual preciousness or inapplicability. Comparing this impression to Madame Bovary 's apparent realism, I analyze how literary theory may be absorbing and perpetuating outside uncertainties about the discipline.
Perspectives of Adolescents and Young Adults with Cerebral Palsy on the Ethical and Social Challenges Encountered in Healthcare Services
Authors: Larivière-Bastien Danaë , Majnemer Annette , Shevell Michael , Racine Eric
Published: February 2012

Conflicts of interest. None to report

Healthcare is a context where individuals with disability confront important ethical and social challenges. Adolescents and young adults with cerebral palsy (CP) seem to face additional challenges but we have little insight into their perspectives. This qualitative study aimed to identify and better understand such challenges. We interviewed 14 participants with CP aged 18 to 25. Participants described a range of challenges experienced when using health services, including: lack of long-term follow-up, shortcomings in physical access to infrastructures, and situations of injustice. Challenges specific to medical consultations were reported (e.g., rude attitudes, belittlement, inadequate communication, lack of consideration). We discuss and explain further that: (1) the ethical principle of respect for persons needs to be concretely specified to improve current practices; (2) respect for autonomy calls for further direct empowerment of individuals with CP and, (3) gaps in dedicated healthcare resources for CP and the long-term needs associated should be addressed.
On the Twofoldness of Character
Authors: Smith Murray
Published: February 2012

Readers and viewers of fiction routinely speak of and respond to fictional characters in a similar, and sometimes identical, way to the manner in which they speak of and respond to real persons. This fact might appear to lend support to accounts of our engagement with fictions that give credence to the idea that we are subject to an illusion in the course of such engagement; we mistake fiction for reality, character for person. But in truth, our stance towards fictional characters is more complex and self-aware than this description suggests. I draw upon Richard Wollheim’s concept of twofoldness in order to show how our apprehension of fictional characters—realist and otherwise—is marked by a simultaneous awareness of them as both products of design and virtual persons. I defend the claim that twofoldness—advanced by Wollheim specifically as part of a theory of depiction—has pertinence for the representation of character across depictive and literary media, while noting the particular relevance it has for character in film.