bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“As if in a Dream …”
Authors: Revel Nicole
Published: March 2007

The island of Palawan stretches northward from Borneo like a bridge to Luzon in the South China Sea. This tropical forest environment, rich in thousands of species of plants and animals, is home to about 50,000 people, known as the Palawan. Besides hunting with blowpipes, traps, spears, and dogs, these people also practice shifting cultivation. Hunting and gathering activities as well as work in the fields follow the alternation of two seasons, the “monsoon” and the “heat,” barat and bulag. As an integral ecosystem, swidden places a high value on mobility rather than on land property. Land tenure, and recourse to physical violence of all kinds are considered unethical behavior. Social life among the Palawan is governed by a bilateral or undifferentiated kinship system, a complex customary law based on rules and values dictated by “the tradition of the Ancestors,” Adat ät Kägunggurangan.
Romance and Epic in Cambodian Tradition
Authors: Thierry Solange
Published: March 2007

The romance customarily termed “classical” occupies a special place within Cambodian literature as a whole. The term betrays a certain Eurocentrism and is justified only because the written language of this type of text is neither the old Khmer of epigraphic inscriptions, nor modern Khmer, but the form of the language known as “middle Khmer,” which in theory designates the period from the fourteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century, and of which we have written records from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the romances as we know them. While these romances share one significant feature with Khmer literature as a whole, they are distinguished by other characteristics that are peculiar to them.
The Sultan Baybars
Authors: Sublet Jacqueline
Published: March 2007

This wasn't merely a man, it was the sultan Al-Malik, Al-Zâhir Rukn al-Dunia wal- Dîn Abü l-Fath Baybars whose swords were the keys to kingdoms, whose standards were like hills and the spears that rose above them were like fires whose duty it was to command men.

Between 1260 and 1277, the second half of the seventh century Hegira (the thirteenth century by the Christian calendar), the Bahri Mamluk empire, founded in 1256, was governed by the sultan Baybars, the fourth sovereign of his dynasty The Bahri's were former slaves from the borders of the Black Sea. They were succeeded in 1382 by the Circassian Mamluks, who were in turn supplanted in 1517 by the Ottomans. The empire comprised a vast territory including Egypt and the eastern part of present day Libya; the Near-East up to the Euphrates; rule over Nubia, Sudan and the north of Ethiopia; and sovereignty over the holy places of orthodox Islam: Mecca and Medina. The empire was threatened, from the east by the Mongols, who made inroads into Iraq and Syria on several occasions (although Egypt remained beyond their reach), and from the north by the Seljoukids of Asia Minor (Rûm). The interior, where the Crusaders held several strongholds was plagued by dissidents, notably the Isma'ilis, a movement derived from shi'ism.
“As Philolaos the Pythagorean Said”
Authors: Toth Imre
Published: March 2007

In his collection of anecdotes, Lives, Opinions, and Remarkable Sayings of the Most Famous Ancient Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius devotes a chapter to the life of Zeno of Elea. Zeno's reputation is based on his celebrated paradoxes, amply discussed by Aristotle: a moving body will never reach its (pre-defined) telos, since it first has to cover half (or more than half) the remaining distance; the faster will never catch up with the slower, since it first has to get to the point from which the slower has just left. Zeno's style is laconic, like that of an Aesop fable. Maxima e minimis: there is no superfluous word. Everything needed to arrive at the conclusion is explicitly stated.
Masterpiece and Mass Product
Authors: Wildung Dietrich
Published: March 2007

Spanning the course of three millennia, the art of ancient Egypt stands out for its unique continuity. The fundamental rules of Pharaonic art were established around 3000 bc. The proportions of the human body, the style of cubist representation in relief and painting, the division of a tomb or temple wall into strips, and the adaptation of diverse forms into simple hieroglyphic images remained the principle elements of Egyptian art until the Imperial Roman era.
The Unique and the Multiple in Africa
Authors: Adande Joseph C. E.
Published: March 2007

Among the tricky questions posed by artistic creation, some relate in particular to the capacity of human beings to reproduce things and to the right they have (or grant themselves) to act in this way. This activity, when aimed for example at identical reproduction, is called “copy” by art critics, historians, and those who take an interest in the aesthetics of objects. I will not attempt to discuss the subtleties involved in the use of different terms to describe the activity of the reproduction of works of art; when an artist “imitates,” is that copying? To what extent is the new work admissible? To what category do users and connoisseurs assign it? These and other questions will be answered in the wider context of my examination of the relationship between the unique and the multiple in African societies. The problems of an original's copy or replica are not viewed in the same light in all parts of the world, not only because of the dictum “truth on our side of the border, error on theirs” but above all because the status of the plastic work is not the same and its existence and validity are not governed by the same laws and customs. However, in all societies that create, the “copy” poses problems which Africa cannot elude and which arise there in a manner at once similar and different from that of contemporary Western societies.
The Fantasy of the Imperishable in the Modern Era
Authors: Sénéchal Philippe
Published: March 2007

At M. Bernard's I saw several magnificent paintings on porcelain by Monsieur Constantin. In two hundred years, Raphael's frescoes will be known only through Monsieur Constantin.

Stendhal, Voyage en France, 1837

If we compare the forms that the act of copying has assumed in various civilizations, we cannot fail to notice that a certain number of phenomena are specific to European culture since the Renaissance. Perhaps one of the most singular of these phenomena is the will to create and to possess imperishable reproductions of works that have been singled out, at a given moment, as the brightest jewels of Western art. The history of the fortune of Graeco-Roman sculptures has been masterfully related by Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny in Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, even if it would no doubt be worthwhile to give further consideration to the critical fortune of materials used for reproduction, and particularly to the particular prestige attached to bronze—from the Mantuan works of Antico to the reconstitutions of Greek Urbilder in bronze, instead of the plaster used earlier, which were executed at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as the two Doryphoros that Georg Römer realized from various ancient marble copies of Polyclitus's athlete. But, in fact, it was not only in modern Europe that copies were made in bronze. The production of copies using this alloy was particularly prevalent in imperial China after the rediscovery, in the second half of the eleventh century of our era, of a collection of archaic bronzes from the Shang era. This is why I prefer to call attention to a practice that appears to me, in contrast, to be unique to the Western world: the copying of renowned paintings in materials that are supposed to defy time.
The Struggle for a Second Independence
Authors: Mabogunje Akin L.
Published: March 2007

The twentieth century in Africa, more than elsewhere in the world, has been an era of startling and unprecedented changes. These changes have been most dramatic with respect to the sociopolitical organization of the continent. While at the beginning of the century, most of Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, had hardly emerged from prefeudal or feudal social formations, the advent of European colonialists, whose avarice for conquest and colonial territories was fueled by the blossoming technological capabilities of the Industrial Revolution and the expansionist market demand of a new and burgeoning capitalist economy in Europe, transformed the face of Africa forever.
African Civilizations between the Winds of East and West
Authors: Diop Babacar
Published: March 2007

Among the intellectuals who have significantly contributed to the discussion of Africa's place in the concert and/or shock of civilizations, Kwane Nkrumah, Cheikh Anta Diop, Samir Amin, Ali Mazrui, Amilcar Cabral could be found in a pertinent sampling. These different personalities indicate the linguistic and geographic diversity of a multidisciplinary and critical production.
Globalization and Diaspora
Authors: Condé Maryse
Published: March 2007

As James Caesar highlights in Reconstructing America, the word “globalization” seems sometimes to be synonymous with “Americanization” or “Americanism,” evoking negative images. Globalization may bring indigenous cultures to their death and cause national individualism to disappear into a shapeless muddle. On Americanism, Heidegger declared that it was “the future monstrosity of modern times.” This would be homogenization, the rubbing out of cultural specificity, life in one universe, one dimension. Extremists like Alexandre Kohève take it further still. It would be the end of history. Third world nations, particularly the Caribbean countries, would be predesignated victims of such an order, without power in political or economic realms, only making the front page of newspapers during cataclysm and natural catastrophes like Hugo, George, and Mitch. The tiny island of Montserrat, never before known to the West, rose to international fame when its volcano La Soufrière began to erupt. Rwanda would be known for genocide, and the Congo for a civil war and the assassination of its leader.
The African American as African
Authors: Asante Molefi Kete
Published: March 2007

One day a newly hatched eagle fell from its mother's clutches as she was flying over a chicken yard. The young eagle grew up in the chicken yard with young chickens and took on the habits, customs, and behavior of chickens. He ate like a chicken, walked like a chicken, and generally performed his daily routine like the birds who surrounded him. One day an eagle flew over the chicken yard, perhaps a parent eagle, looking for the lost eagle. Perched high on a tree's limb over-looking the chicken yard, the eagle saw the young eagle that had fallen out of its mother's clutches. The old eagle called to the young eagle, “Eagle, can you hear me?” The young eagle thought of himself as a chicken and did not respond to the call of the eagle in the tree. However, the old eagle continued to call out to him, “Eagle down there, hello.” Finally the eagle in the chicken yard thought, can that eagle in the tree be yelling to me? So he looked up at the tree and saw that the old eagle was beckoning to him to fly up to the tree's branch. The young eagle said, “I cannot fly. I am a chicken.” Insisting that he try to fly the old eagle said, “No, you are not a chicken you are an eagle and I know your parents, in fact, I am your mother and your father is waiting for me to bring you.”
Contemporary African Art
Authors: Sylla Abdou
Published: March 2007

It is always pretentious to treat African art as though a unitary vision of art as it is currently practiced in Africa were possible. This point of view in fact ignores or neglects African diversity: the individual plastic art experiments of African artists. These diversities, tied to the varied contexts and rapid changes that are steadily taking place everywhere, no longer permit such claims.
Contribution to an Analysis of the Daily Life of African Women
Authors: Boni Tanella
Published: March 2007

To speak of women in Africa is to take a number of symbolic relationships governing individuals’ lives into consideration. It is a fact that societies today are characterized by the massive presence of the phenomenon of urbanization. The women I am concerned with here are those who inhabit an urban environment or exist in relationship to one, since the city, real or imaginary, forms an integral part of the space in which women, whatever their origins, live and move.
Somali
Authors: Mansur Abdalla Omar
Published: March 2007

Before 1972 Somalia had no official writing system for its language. In spite of this, those who bred animals (camels, cattle, sheep, and goats) and who, owing to a lack of water in the country were forced to become nomads, had an authentic oral tradition that found its voice in a rich oral literature. This was well and truly oral in that it was composed, memorized, and passed on without having to resort to any type of writing or other means of communication or recording. Many of these genres are typical of any oral tradition: various dance or work songs, fairy stories and other tales, riddles, sayings, proverbs, and so on.
Writing and Life
Authors: Fletcher John
Published: March 2007

I'll say first why I write. It intrigues me, I wonder why I write. How it is that I write and why it's so important. I take this as an act of life. One thing that scares me as a writer is a Lari song “ndombi ku ndombi sadidi mukanda komanda diandi Matsoua Ndele.” That can be translated as “even a black can write, hey, things are progressing. “ In the beginning going to school was considered an enormous act, it was civilization, it was the very center of civilization, and writing a letter for a black person, a poor black, was a grandiose thing. It was in Matsoua's time, in the forties, that people sang this song in the pool to make rubber.
Sozaboy
Authors: Saro-Wiwa Ken
Published: March 2007

Sozaboy's language is what I call "rotten English," a mixture of Nigerian pidgin English, broken English and occasional flashes of good, even idiomatic English. This language is disordered and disorderly. Born of a mediocre education and severely limited opportunities, it borrows words, patterns and images freely from the mother-tongue and finds expressions in a very limited English vocabulary. To its speakers, it has the advantage of having no rules and no syntax. It thrives on lawlessness, and is part of the dislocated and discordant society in which Sozaboy must live, move and have not his being. (K. S.-W.)
Philosophical Sketches on African Becomings
Authors: Bidima Jean-Godefroy
Published: March 2007

When the “object” gazed at is called Africa and when the gazing subject is Africa, the observer cannot help but conclude that any gaze that is related to Africa is an intersection of gazes calling forth several questions: Who is looking at Africa? What is Africa looking at? Who looks at the one who is looking at Africa? Two problems emerge from this: the identification of the subject, and the discrimination among objects and themes produced by the limited scope of these gazes. If the gaze at (or of) Africa is an intersection of perspectives, these perspectives will only find stability if they are related to the African history that is in the making. This is a plural history, for geographic diversity, and the multiplicity of acting figures and sociopolitical organizations give African history a “changeable and diverse” character. Any evaluation of the relationship of Africans to their history must be an attempt, a sketch that makes no pretense of providing a unique and certain interpretation of the African lived experience (Erlebnis) by implementing the kind of controlling philosophy of history that fixes the beginning, the length, and the order of a people's history. It is more a question of restating, with the uncertainty that characterizes any evaluation of a specific history, the problem of the relationship of African history to its becomings. How, by which conditions and through which actors does this plural history speak its moments of creation today? At its heart, how does it articulate the conflicting overlap of the gravity of existing institutions and the audacity of creation? The exploration of these questions first centers around the often discussed theme of African identity (self). The stakes at this level involve the detachment of the conditions of a dynamic re-appropriation from this notion of identity - at the very moment when globalization is conjugating itself by turns in the imperative, the indicative, and the conditional. Next, the examination will focus on relationships to otherness (the other). How can intersubjective relations be declined differently?
The ‘Greek Man' or the Weight of the Roots
Authors: Bingen Jean
Published: March 2007

When I was preparing a paper about the problem Greek studies have with globalization of culture on the threshold of the twenty-first century, I was asked who the Greek man was, considered as a separate entity, and how future decades would see him. The question had all the appearance of a trap. The very idea of ‘the Greek man’ is disturbing, even though it is so commonplace that it is hard to trace it back to its origins. Of course it contains a well-established but ill-defined consensus around the Greeks as the first free, rational human beings to found a free polity, who furthermore presided over the creation of a literature without equal in Antiquity and an exceptional and innovative body of art. A more precise answer could also echo the prestigious and much discussed title of Werner Jaeger's indispensable and troubling volume: Paideia. Die Formung des griechischen Menschen (1934), and even become, rather insidiously because of its date and the last few words of the sub-title, a parasitic echo of the period when a mythical discourse evoked Aryans and non-Aryans. But we must take care not to place the thesis of Werner Jaeger, to whom I will return, in that company, since the title is less a reflection of a suspect mode of thought than a simple coincidence of choice of language. And the reason it turns up here is that Jaeger and Dodds, whom we shall meet later, are the two opposite poles of this paper, standing in Greek studies on either side of the bloodstained struggle that transformed Europe and the West's relationship with the rest of the world for ever.
On the Shoulders of Giants: Progress and Perspectives in Latin Studies
Authors: Conte Gian Biagio
Published: March 2007

Cornelius Nepos tells us that when Cato talked of wars, he did not mention the generals’ names, but stuck to events without ever glorifying the protagonists. He saw the military exploits themselves as important and not the pride they might inspire in noblemen who were often more concerned with their personal merit than the glory of the Roman people. However, he made a few exceptions to this rule, which, precisely because they were rare, made the individual selected appear more brilliant. I shall do likewise. I intend to present a survey that will give a full account of the body of knowledge that has been consolidated between the end of the war and today. I shall deliberately give more emphasis to general trends than to specific results, highlighting the overall picture rather than individuals as such. But, as I have indicated, I shall break my rule occasionally to point to the birth of a new idea or to show how cooperative work developed out of an individual's vision.
Endangered Languages, Multilingualism and Linguistics
Authors: Wurm Stephen A.
Published: March 2007

As the last century of the present millennium is drawing to a close and the first century of the next one is looming on the horizon, linguistics and the fate of many of the 6000 languages on our planet is poised on a watershed, looking at a changing future.
The History of Art between the 20th and the 21st Century
Authors: de Leeuw Ronald
Published: March 2007

With the new millennium approaching, to sketch the wider canvas of the state of art historical research at the end of the 20th century is hardly a realistic objective. For those who like to delve deeper into this matter, I heartily recommend Donald Preziosi's recent critical anthology, published by Oxford University Press, called ‘The Art of Art History’. Here you will find a survey of the major directions in art historical research since the days that Johann Joachim Winckelmann invented our profession, illustrated by appropriate texts chosen from over the whole period of the mid-18th to the late 20th century.
From Book to Text: Towards a Comparative History of Philologies
Authors: Jacob Christian , Vale Juliet
Published: March 2007

Our methods of research, duly elaborated hereafter, would benefit from being applied to the realm of the East. For that matter, the examination of Syriac, Armenian, Coptic or Arabic manuscripts does not differ in the least from that of a Greek or Latin manuscript. The rules developed by classical philologists are just as valid for the study of the Maxims of Phtahhotep and the Precepts of Kagemeni…

Alphonse Dain (1975), Les Manuscrits (Paris, Les Belles Lettres)

One of the objects of a comparative history of the scholarly practices in the West, the Far East, the Arab world and classical antiquity is the role of libraries in the constitution, transmission and transformations of the great textual corpora. To the institutional and social aspects of the politics of social memory should be added the range of intellectual and technical practices which have as their aim the conservation of this inheritance: material conservation and transmission - copying texts, restoring them, transferring them from one medium, one script and one language to another - but also work on the literal level and the meaning, the content and the form.
The Transmission of Greek Texts from the Author to the Editor of Today
Authors: Irigoin Jean
Published: March 2007

A recent publication was the starting point of this discussion, whose purpose is to demonstrate the interest of a comparative history of the philological traditions of diverse cultures.
Perceptions of History. In Pursuit of the Absolute in Passing Time
Authors: Roshwald Mordecai
Published: March 2007

The way human history has been perceived through the ages - by historians, theologians, philosophers, and ordinary mortals - is itself a topic for a historical study. Our attempt will be more modest, as we shall try to analyse some prominent examples of such perception. Our approach will be illuminated by the notions of the transient and the absolute, as they are attributed, in various ways, to the historical manifestations by historiographers and historiosophers.
Civilizations as ‘Aesthetic Absolute'. A Morphological Approach to Mittel-Europa
Authors: Mancini Silvia
Published: March 2007

‘What is important is to understand that every fact is already a theory. The blue of the sky already demonstrates the fundamental laws of chromatics. We should not look for anything behind these phenomena; they themselves are the theory’ Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen, n. 575

Because of the density of the aphorism, the quotation above implies more than the words seem to say explicitly. It refers to an apprehension of reality in a poetic and conceptual mode, a vision of the world and humanity opposed to the mechanistic one that emerged from eighteenth century rationalism. Indeed Goethe is a milestone in the history of the themes inherited from ancient traditions and the Renaissance that have in common the project of integrating ‘the science of humankind, the science of nature and a study of the destiny of humanity through the adventure of existence’.
The Yezidis, People of the Spoken Word in the midst of People of the Book
Authors: Khenchelaoui Zaïm
Published: March 2007

Among the Yezidis the cross-fertilization between the so-called religions of the Book and religions with an oral tradition is reaching a climax. Over the centuries layers of heterogeneous dogmas have been piled one upon another, creating one of the most astonishing syncretisms known to humanity. But in order to penetrate the mysteries of the centuries-old cross-breeding that brought about this situation, we need to try to define what Yezidism is. For we must remember that this is a religion whose mysterious origin and process of development have not yet been traced. Its first appearances on the stage of history are still shrouded in utter darkness.
Cultural Interbreeding between Korean Shamanism and Imported Religions
Authors: Hung-youn Cho
Published: March 2007

Korea has undergone so much transformation under modernization and industrialization to an extent that tourists visiting from anywhere in the world will not feel inconvenienced for lack of modern facilities. In this modern day and age, it is not easy for foreigners to meet shamans or see shamanistic rituals, even if they try to. The same thing can even be said of educated Koreans. In contrast, shamanists or those attached to shamanism hear shamans perform their rituals anytime and anyplace. There are an estimated 0.2 million shamans in Korea, though the statistics differ according to the researchers’ survey methods. This number surpasses that of all priests of any other established religions. These shamans take their position at the base or margins of Korean society, not readily visible from the surface.
Folk Religions in Modern Israel: Sacred Space in the Holy Land
Authors: Hasan-Rokem Galit
Published: March 2007

Israel is a country of many cultures and languages and of several religions. The majority of the population adheres to the Jewish religion. The Moslem and the Christian religions come next in size, in that order. Similarly to many other countries in the region, religion fills a more central role in the public sphere of Israel than in most Western countries. It also influences the private sphere immensely, as for example in the matter of marriages and funerals which in most cases are conducted by state employees who have been appointed by the religious establishments of each of the official religions. We are thus discussing religion in a context where it matters highly. Power, welfare and the very right to reside in the country are connected with religion. Symbols of statehood and collective identity are lent from religious texts, objects and rituals. The symbol of the state, the seven-armed golden candelabra, suggests the memory of the temples of Solomon and Herod where a similar one was standing.
Sai Baba: The Double Utilization of Written and Oral Traditions in a Modern South Asian Religious Movement
Authors: Srinivas Smriti
Published: March 2007

The Sai Baba movement, one of the most widespread and popular modern South Asian religious movements, owes its origin to a saint, Sai Baba of Shirdi (d.1918), who was probably born around 1838. Through his successor, Sathya Sai Baba (b. 1926), the movement has become a transnational phenomenon in the late twentieth century and has also expanded the main centers of its charisma, including today Shirdi town in the Indian state of Maharashtra and Puttaparthi town in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. While most of the available literature is hagiographical in nature, some aspects of the movement have been studied - the figures of Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba, the middle-class constituency of the Sathya Sai Baba movement, role of miracles, and the pedagogical role of movement, for instance. These studies are part of a growing interest in new religious and reformist movements in South Asia in the past century, their impacts on civil society and its institutions, and their relationships to the nation-state.
The Adaptation of Buddhism to the West
Authors: Lenoir Frédéric
Published: March 2007

Buddhism was not really known in the West until a little more than 150 years ago. Although since the thirteenth century there had been numerous contacts with local Buddhist traditions, the travellers and missionaries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance had not yet brought to light the history of Buddhism and its unity across this immense diversity of worship and doctrine, disseminated through most of the countries of Asia. Of course, since the seventeenth century some Europeans had guessed at the Indian origin of the Buddha and they succeeded in pinning down his historical existence after a fashion. In 1691 and 1693 Simon de la Loubère, Louis XIV's envoy at the court of the king of Siam, published remarkable research which established the possibility of a link between the different regions of Siam, Ceylon, Japan and China and conjured up the possible existence of a single founder long before Christ. But this far too isolated knowledge had scarcely any impact in Europe. It was only with the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 that orientalism was to enjoy a rapid and decisive expansion. The word ‘Buddhism’ appeared from the 1820s onwards, and with it the first conceptualization of a tree with many branchings. But it was not until the publication, in 1844, of Eugène Burnouf's magisterial Introduction l'histoire du buddhisme indien, that more detailed knowledge became available, thanks to a critical scrutiny of the most varied sources. The works of the French scholar and of other pioneers in Buddhist studies - mainly Alexander Csoma de Koros and Edmond Foucaux on Tibet, Jean-Pierre Abel-Remusat and Stanislas Julien on China, Christian Lassen and Spence Hardy on Ceylon - were to give rise to a tremendous craze for Buddhism in Europe. Since then there has been no break in the successive waves disseminating it right up to the present day, when the majority of Western countries appear to be so receptive to the message of the Buddha that for some years the media have been insistently questioning the reasons for this ‘Buddhist wave’.
Anthropology: Science and Philosophy
Authors: Ruiz Beatriz
Published: March 2007

Boas, according to Harris, put the matter very succinctly: ‘Anthropology is a science, but science is history’. Malinowski sought a scientific definition of culture in his turn. In a posthumous text entitled A Scientific Theory of Culture, he offered a minimal definition of ‘science’ for the humanistic scholar, which would thus be differentiated simultaneously from abstract thought and from common sense.
True or False Cures?
Authors: Gallini Clara
Published: March 2007

During the last century procedures for distinguishing between ‘human sciences’ and ‘natural sciences’ have seen a number of changes. Currently, the pre-eminence of the scientific-naturalist paradigm, which led the field throughout the nineteenth century, seems again under discussion on some fundamental issues. In particular, the boundaries between the two sciences - boundaries which were in no case rigid or absolute - are being tested, in a confrontation concerning the very statutes of both disciplines as well as their respective methods.
The Sexual Divison of Labor and the Working-class Family: Towards a Conceptual Synthesis of Class Relations and the Subordination of Women
Authors: Sen Gita , Sen Gita
Published: March 2007

This paper attempts to outline an argument that combines a non functionalist vision of the working-class family under capitalism with a discus sion of the sexual division of labor and the related subordination of women with in working-class families. It does this by posing the following questions: Is there a sexual division of labor peculiar to capitalism? What role do protective legisla tion and struggles for a family wage play in creating that division of labor? What are its effects on women? How can we understand the relations that define work ing class families? The answers to these questions are framed in the light of an examination of the existing debate in the literature.
Politics Beyond the Point of Production: Class Struggle and Regional Underdevelopment in Northern Ireland
Authors: Parson Don
Published: March 2007

This paper explores the "underdevelopment" of Northern Ireland as a product of class struggle. It is argued that in the post-World War II period there can be seen two phases of underdevelopment: the first is where the Northern Ireland working class, both Protestant and Catholic, refused the Keynesian development that was being offered by the subversion of the welfare state; the second is a "political strike" by capital-a refusal by capital to invest in the Province in an attempt to control and discipline the working class initiative. This initiative by the working class has taken place primarily in the "community" and not in the factory, i.e., "beyond the point of production." The paper concludes that development/underdevelopment must be seen not in terms of the "laws of motion" of the capitalist mode of production, but in terms of the contest of power between the working class and capital. Further, the two phases of underdevelopment are indicative of the changing strategies of capital and presupposes changing strategies for the working class.
Rethinking Scarcity: Neoclassicism, NeoMalthusianism, and NeoManrsm
Authors: Matthaei Julie
Published: March 2007

Neoclassical economic theory holds that scarcity is the inevitable and central economic problem, to which our present "free market economy" provides the optimal solution. Recently, this claim has been challenged by neoMathusians associated with the Zero Population Growth and Ecology movements, who argue that our practice of continued economic growth is inconsistent with the reality of scarcity. While the neoMalthusians have provided the basis of a critique both of neoclassical theory and of our present economic system, their acceptance of the neoclassical view of scarcity has prevented them from developing an adequate theory of their own. To understand scarcity, we must move our focus away from the relationship between people and resources and center on the social relationships which constitute the core of economic life. NeoMarxian theory provides the basis for such analysis; it can be used to show that while advanced capitalism has institutionalized scarcity, it has also developed the means for its eradication.
Fighting the Feminization of Poverty: Socialist-Feminist Analysis and Strategy
Authors: Sarvasy Wendy , Vanallen Judith
Published: March 2007

Socialist feminism provides a necessary corrective to the strict feminization of poverty analysis by incorporating analyses of race and class differences among women, of internal family politics shaped by the familistic ideology, and of the contradictory role of the welfare state. We use the concept of women's dual role to analyze the interconnections among the family, the labor market and the welfare state, and to examine the ways that gender and class struggles over the costs of reproduction of labor power are expressed as conflicts over welfare policies. We suggest five criteria for evaluating policy and use them to analyze two specific issues-the six-hour day and child support.
Competition and Racial Discrimination: The Employment Effects of Reagan's Labor Market Policies
Authors: Shulman Steven
Published: March 2007

Black-white inequality in employment has been increasing since 1982 despite rapid economic growth. This phenomenon is explained in terms of the interaction between discrimination, labor market structure and public policy. If the labor market is slack, competitive pressures will tend to increase employment discrimination due to shifts in the cost and compositional structures of discrimination. The policies of the Reagan administration have thereby contributed to a decline in the relative probability of black employment by keeping unemployment high, job competition intense and antidiscrimination efforts weak. Changes in the cyclical variability of the black-white unemployment rate differential lend empirical support to the argument.
Racial Inequality and Class Stratification: A Contribution to a Critique of Black Conservatism
Authors: Boston Thomas D.
Published: March 2007

This analysis challenges central propositions of black neoconservatives. To them class position, and not race, is the determining factor in life chances of blacks and racial inequality can be explained almost completely by differentials between blacks and whites in class position, family structure, human capital endowment, and other factors. This study analyzes the contemporary structure of black classes, its changes over time, and the interplay between racial subordination and racial protest in determining class stratification. I conclude that class position is a function of racial inequality.
The Decline of the Rate of Profit in the Postwar U.S. Economy: An Alternative Marxian Explanation
Authors: Moseley Fred
Published: March 2007

This paper presents an explanation of the decline of the rate of profit in the postwar U.S. economy which is based on Marx's distinction between productive labor and unproductive labor. According to this theory, the conventional rate of profit depends on the rate of surplus-value, the composition of capital, and the ratio of unproductive labor to productive labor. Estimates of these variables are presented which suggest that the main cause of the decline of the rate of profit was a very significant increase in the ratio of unproductive labor to productive labor. This explanation is contrasted with the "profit squeeze" explanations presented by Weisskopf and Wolff, and a post-period empirical test is conducted to evaluate the relative predictive ability of these competing explanations. The results of this test suggest that the alternative Marxian explanation presented here is the most consistent with the absence of a significant increase in the rate of profit in the past decade.
Unproductive Labor and the Contradictory Movement of the Rate of Profit: A Comment on Moseley
Authors: Cullenberg Stephen
Published: March 2007

This paper criticizes Moseley's claim that the cause in the fall in the conventional rate of profit in the postwar U.S. is due to the rise in unproductive labor over this period. I argue that Moseley employs a one-sided and static conception of unproductive labor. Unproductive labor is seen by Moseley to be simply a drag on surplus value production. In contrast, I argue that unproductive labor should be understood as both a drag and as an enhancement for the dynamic production of surplus value. I show in a model of the distribution of surplus value how the redistribution of unproductive labor can have contradictory effects on the value rate of profit.
Institutional Experiences in Psychotherapy with Drug-Addicted Patients and their Families: Substance, Drug and Group in the Opiate-Dependence Dynamic
Authors: Stefani Mario Degli , Cibin Mauro
Published: March 2007

Drug addiction is now almost universally acknowledged as an actual pathological entity, a disease rather than a behavioural disorder The therapeutic approach with regard to drug-addicted patients has a particular challenge, with the therapist having to deal with those disorders which are substance-induced as well as pathological disorders. The relationship between patient and therapist therefore requires flexibility in approach as well as the therapist needing to be highly sensitive to the immediate needs of the patient. The authors of this article have studied two psychotherapy groups for drug-addicted patients. They maintain that there is a need to introduce changes into the traditional techniques for both personality disorders and substance-induced behavioural changes.
Reinforcement and Containment in (Therapeutic) Groups
Authors: Battegay Raymond
Published: March 2007

The manifold interactions between the members of (therapeutic) groups lead to an actualization of past experiences with corresponding transferences as well as to a containment in the here and now. When the group is treated as a whole, narcissistic injuries may be experienced by the members that can culminate in a negative outcome of group psychotherapy. In groups led by a therapist focusing on both the participating individuals and the group situation, the narcissistic injuries in general do not reach so deep and can be contained by fostering cognitive sensitization and intellectual reflection. The density of interactions within the group confronts the triggered emotions with a containing social reality. Transferences to group members regarded as self-objects may also occur in the group leader The supervision of group psychotherapists, either singly or group style, may help the psychotherapists to liberate themselves from their narcissistic needs and thereby to gain more freedom themselves and allow more freedom to the group members whom they treat.
Therapeutic Factors in Group Analysis: Meeting Them in the Block Training Setting
Authors: Balmer Rudolf
Published: March 2007

Training in group analysis must give the future practitioner a deeply experienced and true understanding of how groups operate and how the therapeutic dynamics in group analysis work. As to block-training situations, two questions are to be asked: 1. Is the block setting adequate to achieve a really deep understanding of the therapeutic power of group analysis? and 2. what are the specific shapes, configurations and even deficits in the experience of therapeutic factors?
The External Space in Group Work
Authors: Walshe John
Published: March 2007

The creation of the external space is about a room: a space, with a physical boundary, containing chairs, a table and a certain harmony in decor It is defined in time. The space is carefully set in an external network of referral sources, secretaries, administrators and departmental colleagues. The central purpose in all of these arrangements is to assist in the creation of a reasonably safe and secure base for the group members and to prevent them from using a reality-based external-space difficulty as a defence. Within these arrangements seven or eight people are brought across the intermediate space into the internal space, where hopefully they will be able to explore their unconscious life, their relationships, and play a little.
Was Wittgenstein a Group Analyst?
Authors: Wyse Hymie
Published: March 2007

We watch Wittgenstein's development from the man in search of a correct language to the man who was amazed at the choreography of the market place.
How not to explain the Great Divide
Authors: Raven Diederick
Published: March 2007

Detailed micro-sociological in situ case studies of science in action construe the intellectual endeavour that goes on in a laboratory as an “external” iterative process of manipulation of materialized strings of symbols, known as immutable mobiles. This article accepts that a theory of thinking with “eyes and hands” represents a fundamental step forward in our description and explanation of any kind of intellectual undertaking. It does however want to challenge the way this idea has been used, in what is known as the autonomous communication theory (ACT), to deflate the problem of the Great Divide by construing the crucial difference between oral societies and Western knowledge-based society solely in terms of the kind of immutable mobiles that are available in these societies. A general outline of this theory is given and particular attention is paid to the alleged objectifying potentialities of writing and printing. It is argued that the explanatory structure of ACT is theoretically flawed and its empirical claims contradicted by both ethnographic and historiographic evidence. Whereas ACT construes literacy and printing as monolithic phenomena which can be understood in terms of some decontextualized technical characteristic, this article suggests that they are multifaceted and that their function crucially depends on the social practices in which they are embedded. Some implications of this theoretical insight for STS in general are explored briefly at the end of this article.
Lowered serum cholesterol, famine and aggression: a Darwinian hypothesis
Authors: Erickson Mark T.
Published: March 2007

Lowering serum cholesterol, which appears to reduce mortality due to cardiovascular disease, may also increase mortality due to violent causes, including homicide, suicide and accidents. In animal research, lowering cholesterol has been linked to increased aggression. These findings suggest a Darwinian interpretation. During evolutionary history a reduction in serum cholesterol was probably invariably associated with famine. In times of famine an increased propensity for aggression may be adaptive as the struggle for survival intensifies. Evidence suggests that lowering cholesterol reduces CNS serotonergic activity and reduced serotonergic activity is known to effect an increase in impulsive, aggressive behavior. Lowered serum cholesterol may then function as an internal signal of threatened starvation, adaptively increasing aggressive behavior through effects on serotonergic activity.
Complex societies and social theory
Authors: Scribano Adrián
Published: March 2007

A central issue in the social sciences today is the analysis of complex society, and topics like globalization, identity and self-identity, transformation of self and collective action become more and more important in social theory. This article intends to show (a) how the diagnosis of complexity affects the constitution of the topics at the heart of social theory and (b) what its major implications are from a theoretical and epistemic standpoint. Alberto Melucci and Anthony Giddens being among the most representative social scientists in this field, I examine each one's approaches and argue that we are in the presence of an “existential turn” in social theory.
A New Age of Personality: An Essay on the Psychology of our Times
Authors: Gauchet Marcel
Published: March 2007

The present historical epoch seems to be characterized by a general trend towards pacification. Conflicts of all kinds - internal and external, personal and collective - are becoming less central to social life. This reflects a new type of individualism, rather than further progress of individualism in the classical sense. Contemporary individuals are losing the sense of commitment and continuity that was needed to sustain conflicts. This development has far-reaching effects on the very nature of the social bond and raises questions about its future; the radicalization of individualism may find expression in overtly anti-statist attitudes, but it inevitably entails a latent strengthening of the state as a necessary link between desocialized individuals. The logic of contemporary hyperindividualism is also reflected in the growth of new pathological symptoms, related to identity problems as well as to the condition of solitude in society.
Globalization and Nationalism
Authors: Hall John A.
Published: March 2007

Many voices now proclaim that we live in a global age. Doubts are cast on this view in this paper, particularly insofar as it suggests that the nation-state has lost its functional salience for modernity. A first argument suggests, by means of varied figures and analytic consideration, that the world economy is far from globalized. A second argument adds to this an insistence of national diversity within capitalism. None of this is to suggest that nothing has changed. To the contrary, the internationalization of the world economy is now embedded more firmly than it was in the past - as the result of a stable geopolitical settlement.
Marine Reason
Authors: Murphy Peter
Published: March 2007

A study of the nature of philosophical reason, architecture, and politics as they are shaped by the influence of port cities and by the eternally returning movement of entry and exit through those cities. The examples of Piraeus, Venice, Rome, Marseilles, Königsberg and New York are considered.
The Salience of Race in Everyday Life
Authors: LEE JENNIFER
Published: March 2007

This article focuses on Black customers' shopping experiences in both Black and White neighborhoods, drawing on 75 in-depth interviews of Black shoppers in New York City and Philadelphia. Previous research focuses on the prejudicial attitudes of the business owners in predominantly Black neighborhoods, yet none of the studies include the customers' views. Customers report that most merchant-customer interactions in Black neighborhoods are positive rather than negative, and more poignantly, Blacks are treated worse when they shop in predominantly White neighborhoods. Black customers respond to the negative treatment by wearing their class, but this is no guarantee that they will be treated fairly.