bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Multifunctional Material: Bistable Metal–Cyanide Polymer of Rubidium Manganese Hexacyanoferrate
Authors: Tokoro Hiroko , Ohkoshi Shin-ichi
Published: October 2014

Since phase-transition phenomena in solid-state materials can change the magnetic, electrical, and optical properties with external stimuli, they are attracting widespread attention from the viewpoints of both fundamental science and practical applications. We have synthesized various cyano-bridged metal complexes possessing anomalous bistabilities that exhibit unprecedented phase transition phenomena. This paper focuses on rubidium manganese hexacyanoferrate, RbxMn[Fe(CN)6](x+2)/3·zH2O, which is a Prussian blue analogue. Here, the unique functionalities of rubidium manganese hexacyanoferrate are described: a charge-transfer-induced phase transition, control of the thermal hysteresis loop, and a huge thermal hysteresis with a hidden stable phase are presented as thermally-induced phase-transition phenomena, while a photoinduced phase collapse is described as a novel photoinduced phase-transition phenomenon. A one-shot-laser-induced charge-transfer phase transition is displayed as a photoinduced phase-transition phenomenon at ambient temperature. Moreover, second harmonic generation (SHG) and magnetization-induced second harmonic generation (MSHG) are provided as correlation effects between the optical and dielectrical properties. Finally, a one-shot-laser-induced photo-demagnetization and reversible photomagnetic switching between ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism are demonstrated as photomagnetic effects.
1,3,5-[(tBu2MeSi)2Si]3C6H3: Isolable Si-centered Triradical with a High-spin Quartet Ground State
Authors: Nozawa Takeshi , Ichinohe Masaaki , Sekiguchi Akira
Published: October 2014

Reductive deiodination of 1,3,5-tris[2,2-di-tert-butyl-1-(di-tert-butylmethylsilyl)-1-iodo-2-methyldisilanyl]benzene (1) with KC8 results in the formation of isolable Si-centered triradical 1,3,5-[(tBu2MeSi)2Si]3C6H3 (2), which was characterized by X-ray crystallography and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. The quartet ground state for triradical 2 was established using EPR spectroscopy by Curie plots (5–60 K) for the characteristic Δm = 2 and Δm = 3 transitions.
Funding for history and heritage projects
Authors: Best Brin
Published: October 2014

Brin Best explains how to plan innovative historical and heritage projects that inspire grantmaking bodies and participating pupils.
On the Sauce: Cratinus, Cyclopean Poetics, and the Roiling Sea of Epic
Authors: Telò Mario
Published: October 2014

This paper suggests that in the play Odysseis , Cratinus turns Polyphemus into a figure of the Archilochean satirist and thus into an icon of his comic mode. The extant fragments of the play present a web of interlocking marine and culinary images rich in self-reflexive meaning. The intertextual analysis of these images—both at the level of metaphor and phonic materialità —reveals that Cratinus appropriates Polyphemus’s sublime abjection to depict the Archilochean stance of his comic self as the disturbing eruption of the Iliadic past into the world of the Odyssey .
Poetic Cargo: Intertextuality in Meleager’s Message to Phanion ( AP 12.53)
Authors: Rosenmeyer Patricia
Published: October 2014

Scholars have read Meleager AP 12.53, in which ships carry news to his beloved Phanion, as a reflection of a real event in the poet’s life, but I interpret this epigram as a self-reflexive celebration of Meleager’s poetic skill. Adapting erotic and maritime motifs from Sappho, Pindar, Nossis, and Posidippus, as well as the propemptikon format, this poem anticipates not its poet’s arrival, but delivery of the poem itself: when Meleager announces that he “voyages on foot” (ποσσ δ πεζοπόρον), he puns on the idea of metrical feet. The propemptikon motif and metrical pun are later adopted by Roman poets
Caesar Perpetuus ?: Cyclical Behavior in Lucan’s Caesar Similes
Authors: Chen Howard S.
Published: October 2014

Examination of three similes in Lucan’s Bellum Civile shows that Caesar functions according to a cyclical model in which a violent release of energy is followed by a state of exhaustion, which then leads to regeneration in preparation for another outburst. Although the repetition of this process would render him invulnerable, the same similes also suggest that the cycle could be broken—a situation that would ensure Caesar’s demise. These hypothetical outcomes thus serve as opposing templates through which Caesar’s fate in the narrative proper may be evaluated.
ATU 974 The Homecoming Husband , the Returns of Odysseus, and the End of Odyssey 21
Authors: Ready Jonathan L.
Published: October 2014

The end of Odyssey 21 alludes either to other archaic-era renditions of The Homecoming Husband or to other archaic-era stories about Odysseus’s return (or to both). As Odysseus reveals himself by stringing his bow and performing a feat of archery, the poet cites another way in which the hero of these stories can reveal himself: by singing a song.
The Hippocratics on Male Erotic Desire
Authors: Berrey Marquis
Published: October 2014

Hippocratic authors recognized a broad class of threats to male reproductive health: the act of intercourse itself, environmental factors, the spread of disease from elsewhere in the body, and direct harm to the genitalia potentially impaired male reproductive health. They recommended purely physical therapies to male patients by viewing men as erotically desirous by nature. Their model of the desiring male body also pervaded contemporary religious modes of healing, where divine forces could inspire innate male erotic desire. Hippocratic physicians' view of impersonal desire limited their success in the medical marketplace.
The Indian Ocean in the Long Eighteenth Century
Authors: Parthasarathi Prasannan , Riello Giorgio
Published: October 2014

This article considers the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century, a period often seen as a moment of transition for the Ocean as an economic space. It argues that notwithstanding the increasing European presence, the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean world remained quintessentially Asian. The trade of cotton and the flow of American silver expanded an already developed system of trade and exchange. This article concludes by reflecting on the chronological and spatial boundaries of the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century and considers the field of Indian Ocean studies in relation to global and Atlantic histories.
Art History and Double Consciousness: Visual Culture and Eighteenth-Century Maritime Britain
Authors: Quilley Geoff
Published: October 2014

This article addresses eighteenth-century maritime visual culture and its historiography by questioning fundamental fractures within it and the implications of these for the disciplines of history and art history. Using the Abolitionist print of the Brooks slave ship as a starting point alongside Paul Gilroy’s formulation of “double consciousness,” it questions the bypassing of the Black Atlantic and the wider maritime sphere within the history of eighteenth-century British art and argues for a revision of the periodization, classification, disciplinary boundaries, and ideological parameters by which it has been defined, to take full account of the significance of the maritime sphere.
Temporality, Isolation, and Violence in the Early Modern English Maritime World
Authors: Norton Matthew
Published: October 2014

Semiotic and institutional developments relating to the governance of the English oceanic empire during the second half of the seventeenth century significantly increased state agents’ power to control isolated, violent maritime encounters. The paper describes these developments in relation to piracy, privateering, and the control of seamen and argues that they have a common mechanism of social control: the manipulation of temporality. By creating capacities for the institutionalized reinterpretation of isolated acts of maritime violence, these developments reshaped the temporal horizons of such encounters by making future accountability to state agents, state categories of meaning, and state processes of adjudication more likely.
Navigating Mobility: Gender, Class, and Space at Sea, 1760–1810
Authors: Crabtree Sarah
Published: October 2014

This article examines the relationship between gender, class, & space during the closing decades of the “Age of Sail” (1760–1810). Using onboard diaries of male and female Quaker itinerant ministers, it explores the relationships between cabin and steerage passengers as well as those between passengers, captain, and crew. It argues that many passengers attempted to recreate the gendered and classed divisions observed on land as a way of engineering stability and security—two feelings lost to the disorientation of a transatlantic voyage. Thus, far from being a space of exception, life at sea proved to replicate and reinforce the social space of land.
Distribution and Conservation Status of Sparganium (Typhaceae) in the Canadian Prairie Provinces
Authors: Ito Yu , Cota-Sánchez J. Hugo
Published: October 2014

We revised the distribution and conservation status of Sparganium L. for the Canadian Prairie Provinces ( cpp ) based on herbarium voucher specimens. In the region, we recognized eight species: Sparganium americanum , S. angustifolium , S. emersum , S. eurycarpum , S. fluctuans , S. glomeratum , S. hyperboreum , and S. natans . Among these, Sparganium americanum , S. fluctuans , S. glomeratum , and S. hyperboreum are in the rare category, with conservation rankings of Critically Endangered, Vulnerable, and Endangered. Following an exhaustive herbarium specimen examination, we discovered additional collections of S. glomeratum , revealing its circumpolar distribution in North America, hence rejecting its status as introduced. In all, we were able to update the geographic distribution and rarity status of Sparganium in the cpp , especially for S. americanum and S. glomeratum . This study demonstrates that herbarium databases are powerful in identifying regions deserving conservation priority based on high diversity and high concentrations of rare or narrowly distributed species. This information facilitates the development of management strategies for the protection of unusual species assemblages.
Distribution and Population Density of Jackrabbits in South Dakota
Authors: Dieter Charles D. , Schaible Dustin J.
Published: October 2014

Distribution of white-tailed jackrabbit ( Lepus townsendii ) and black-tailed jackrabbit ( L. californicus ) populations have been thought to be shifting throughout the Northern Great Plains. Anecdotal reports of population declines of white-tailed jackrabbits in recent years have created concern for wildlife managers. We established 21 spotlight line transects (64.4 km) across South Dakota to evaluate jackrabbit distribution as well as to facilitate future survey efforts. We conducted surveys during 2004 and 2005 to obtain baseline information about jackrabbit distribution and population density throughout the state. We observed white-tailed jackrabbits throughout the state, and estimated the highest population density in the northwestern part of the state and lowest in east-central South Dakota. We only observed black-tailed jackrabbits at very low densities in south-central South Dakota in Tripp and Gregory Counties.
Weather Variables Affecting Canada Goose Harvest in Nebraska
Authors: Johnson Heather M. , Vrtiska Mark P.
Published: October 2014

Improved understanding of factors influencing annual variation in harvest of Canada geese ( Branta canadensis ) would assist managers in setting hunting seasons and managing subpopulations of geese. To understand the influence of weather on harvest of Canada geese in Nebraska, we tested for relationships between annual harvest of Canada geese in Nebraska and various weather variables from North Dakota and South Dakota from 1999 to 2011. We categorized harvest data into groups by year of either high (>79,442 Canada geese harvested) or low harvest (<79,442 Canada geese harvested). We compared these groups to determine if differences in weather severity, using a Weather Severity Index ( wsi ), affected Nebraska’s annual harvest. Timing and extent of greater wsi scores and snowfall in the Dakotas were associated with higher harvest in Nebraska. For years that had an earlier onset of severe weather conditions in North and South Dakota, we also found a corresponding increase in harvest of Canada geese in Nebraska. We recommend managers promulgate hunting regulations and habitat management practices that correspond with the greatest likelihood of weather conditions favorable for migration to effectively manage Canada geese in Nebraska and elsewhere in the Central Flyway.
Climate Change Survey Measures: Exploring Perceived Bias and Question Interpretation
Authors: Abdel-Monem Tarik , PytlikZillig Lisa M. , Bernadt Tonya K. , Wall Nicole A.
Published: October 2014

Climate change has become an important yet politically divisive topic in recent years. Further complicating the issue are assertions that climate change–related public opinion surveys used by social scientists are biased or otherwise problematic. We conducted a pilot study to explore questions concerning bias and interpretation of climate change surveys. Our study sample was composed of adult residents of Nebraska ( n = 115). We augmented our survey findings with cognitive interviews of a subsample of respondents ( n = 20). We assessed study participants’ attitudes about climate change, and perceptions of bias and interpretation of survey questions drawn from previously used survey instruments and national polls. Among our study sample, we found little support for perceived bias within the survey items employed. However, interview findings indicated that particular survey language may have elicited unexpected associations among respondents. We discussed implications for further research.
Women’s Continued Underrepresentation in Elective Office
Authors: Aguiar Gary , Redlin Meredith
Published: October 2014

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, women continue to be dramatically underrepresented in elective office in the United States. Two decades after the much-ballyhooed “Year of the Woman” of 1992, the United States ranks below most advanced democracies. Here we revisit a question posed over a decade ago: “Why do women so rarely serve in midwestern state legislatures?” Our investigation is framed around three sets of factors: (1) electoral systems, (2) the political opportunity structure, and (3) individual candidates’ attributes. Drawing on data from 2010 general election candidates in the upper Midwest, we test for the latter two sets of factors. Our analysis confirms other studies that women are just as likely to be elected as men. However, we found fewer women serve in public office because fewer women are candidates. We conclude with a proposal to integrate research from feminist scholars to unravel probable reasons for this lack of participation.
Attitudes toward Immigrants in Nebraska
Authors: Ceballos Miguel , Yakushko Oksana
Published: October 2014

We examined the relative effects of three theories of prejudice: perceptions of threat, contact with immigrants, and a cosmopolitanism outlook, in predicting attitudes toward immigrants in Nebraska, a state experiencing a substantial rise in immigrant populations. We found perceived threat was associated with unfavorable attitudes toward immigrants while contact with immigrants and a cosmopolitan outlook were associated with favorable attitudes. Furthermore, we found that the presence of a perceived threat of immigrants is more likely to increase negative attitudes toward immigrants than does contact with immigrants or a cosmopolitan attitude in increasing positive attitudes toward immigrants. Additionally, we found the absence of perceived threat has a stronger effect on attitudes (positively) than does its presence (negatively) in the case of respondents’ view that immigrants contribute to an increase in crime. The effect of the presence of contact and a cosmopolitan outlook on attitudes toward immigrants is at least as great (positively) as the effect of their absence (negatively). We discuss implications for the changing attitudes toward immigrants in the state and differences between state and national attitudes.
Simply Reproducing Reality—: Brecht, Benjamin, and Renger-Patzsch on Photography
Authors: Gelderloos Carl
Published: October 2014

This article reads Albert Renger-Patzsch’s photographic theory and practice in the context of Benjamin’s and Brecht’s dismissals of his work in order to recover the paradoxical interplay between documentation and perceptual training central to debates about photography as a specifically modern medium during the 1920s. I argue that, rather than evincing a naïve faith in verisimilitude, Renger-Patzsch mobilized ideas of visual analogy, formal play, and embodied vision to foreground the camera’s potential for disrupting perceptual habits. Returning to this moment of Weimar photographic theory can help recover deeper aesthetic tensions among formal, documentary, and critical demands made of the medium.
The Racial Yardstick: “Ethnotheism” and Official Nazi Views on Religion
Authors: Koehne Samuel
Published: October 2014

This paper examines the topic of Nazism and religion in a new way, by considering the official explanations that were offered to party members and the German public in the two commentaries on the Nazi Program. Through a detailed analysis of these commentaries and the origins of the program, it is argued that the official Nazi position on religion has to be understood principally as anti-Jewish. The paper proposes a redefinition of the terms of debate to “ethnotheism” or religion defined by race, and the perceived moral or spiritual characteristics that the Nazis believed to be inherent in race.
The Meaning of Working Through the East
Authors: Powell Larson
Published: October 2014

This article argues for a reconsideration of Adorno’s “The Meaning of Working through the Past” in light of recent scholarship on Germany and Eastern Europe in World War II, including Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands . Adorno’s influential essay is shown to be marked by the spatial politics of the Cold War. A redefinition of the “spatial turn” through Luhmann’s sociology is proposed; space may be understood as a form of historical and cultural semantics. The place of space in Adorno’s other work is discussed. Respecifying Adorno’s model of memory helps re-specify recent tendencies to its global generalization.
Ostalgie Revisited: The Musealization of Halle-Neustadt
Authors: Cliver Gwyneth
Published: October 2014

This article analyzes artistic, promotional, and theatrical efforts to musealize Halle-Neustadt in the 2000s, in an attempt to attract visitors and rejuvenate a shrinking city, by simultaneously displaying its socialist design as a desired object of observation and encouraging new creative activity. The article also asserts that this musealization may not simply be dismissed as popular Ostalgie . If musealization can be categorized as an example of Ostalgie in this instance, then only according to a more nuanced notion of the phenomenon than a simple desire for GDR commodity culture.
Yun Ch’i-ho’s Alienation by Way of Inclusion: A Korean International Student and Christian Reform in the “New” South, 1888–1893
Authors: Urban Andrew
Published: October 2014

This article explores Yun Ch’i-ho’s studies and social life at Vanderbilt University and Emory College between 1888 and 1893, and the expectations surrounding white Methodists’ investment in his mission to bring Christian and national reform to Korea. Yun’s diary entries document the tensions that existed between late nineteenth-century articulations of white supremacy and, conversely, missionaries’ idealized framing of Christianity as a universally accessible means for uplift, which any race or nation could pursue equally. Yun offers a unique perspective on the era’s global politics of racial identification and on what the alliances and institutional relationships that missionary work necessitated meant personally.
“Burning Hides What It Burns”: Retrospective Narration and the Protoqueer Asian American Child in Alexander Chee’s Edinburgh
Authors: Sohn Stephen Hong
Published: October 2014

This article explores the growth and maturation of the protoqueer Asian American child as depicted in Alexander Chee’s debut novel Edinburgh (2001). The novel crucially intervenes in and expands existing discourses of childhood, offering up the possibility of alternative inheritances and mythical progenitors. Further still, the process of retrospective storytelling enacts a recovery process that situates the queer Asian American adult alongside a collective community threatened with erasure. In this sense, narrative perspective acts to reconceive social formation through a comparatively configured and asymmetrically presented chronicle of survivorships.
Eternal Present: Retroactive Diplomas in Canada and the US
Authors: Inouye Karen M.
Published: October 2014

Through an examination of recent events—specifically retroactive graduation ceremonies and related legislative and educational policies in the United States and Canada—this essay concerns the most recent incarnation of wartime incarceration. It explores how and why this 1940s moment continues to shape public policy despite the redress movement and the 1988 Civil Liberties Act.
Julian, Arles, and the Eagle
Authors: Woods David
Published: October 2014

Early during the reign of Julian the Apostate as Augustus (360–363), the mint at Arles began adding a small eagle to the reverse of the coins that it produced, whether in gold, silver, or bronze. However, it had discontinued this practice by the start of the reign of his successor Jovian. This eagle has been variously explained as a symbolic reference to Julian’s paganism, as a symbol of Roman imperial power, or as a reference to some real incident involving an eagle. It is argued here that it was really an issue mark, with no connection to any other features within the relevant reverse designs, and that its significance can be understood only in the context of the traditional choice of issue marks at Arles. Since Arles seems to have allowed mint officials to sign their names upon their product in the form of monograms, it is argued that the addition of the eagle to the coins may represent a slight variation of this practice. In this context, the eagle is best understood as a visual pun upon the name of a senior mint official, probably the procurator monetae himself, named Aquila or something similar.
The Severitas of Constantine: Imperial Virtues in Panegyrici Latini 7(6) and 6(7)
Authors: Ware Catherine
Published: October 2014

Praise of an emperor’s virtues was the core of a panegyric. The range of qualities that could function as imperial virtues under particular circumstances allowed for a complex vocabulary of praise and could provide a highly nuanced portrait of the emperor. This paper examines firstly how virtues are used to establish and develop the character of the emperor Constantine in the panegyrics of 307 and 310 CE (Pan. Lat. 7(6) and 6(7)), and secondly how the description of Constantine’s harshness on campaign (Pan. Lat. 6(7)) draws on the rhetorical tradition of didactic and exemplary writing to demonstrate that an emperor must be capable of displaying severitas rather than clementia when it is in the public interest.
Greek Glory, Constantinian Legend: Praxagoras’ Athenian Agenda in Zosimos New History ?
Authors: Krallis Dimitris
Published: October 2014

This paper argues that chapters 22–28 from the second book of Zosimos’ New History can no longer be treated as historical. Rather they draw from a source that appears to have modeled Constantine’s war against Licinius on the battles of Salamis and Hydaspes, while at the same time casting Licinius as an oriental despot—a Roman Xerxes of sorts—fighting against the forces of Hellas. The deployment by the pagan Zosimos of material rather positively disposed towards Constantine forces us to reopen the question of the New History ’s sources and consider the possibility that book two of this work preserves elements from the oeuvre of a yet unidentified pro-Constantinian author. Here I suggest that this man may in fact be Praxagoras of Athens, who, according to Photios, wrote two books on the Kings of Athens , a Life of Constantine , and six books on the Life of Alexander , all lost to us. A pagan apologist of Constantine may therefore be implicated in Zosimos’ peculiarly Hellenic and surprisingly even-keeled account of this emperor’s wars against Licinius.
Modeling a Martyrial Worldview: Prudentius’ Pedagogical Ekphrasis and Christianization
Authors: Fruchtman Diane
Published: October 2014

Christianization required the construction of a worldview capable of adapting to transformations of the physical, political, and social landscape. This article argues that Prudentius attempted to cultivate such a worldview in his readers by teaching them how to interpret their surroundings through the lens of Christ-imitation and martyrdom. Through an extended ekphrasis, Prudentius demonstrates the role of interpretation in the construction of martyrdom—a mother’s interpretation of her son’s suffering in Peristephanon 10 both cements her son’s martyrdom and opens the possibility for her own, although she does not die. Prudentius uses her example to guide his contemporaries to develop their own martyrial Christian worldviews.
Gregory of Tours and the Paternity of Chlothar II: Strategies of Legitimation in the Merovingian Kingdoms
Authors: Dailey E. T.
Published: October 2014

Taking the succession of the young Chlothar II as a case study, this article investigates the methods of legitimation and delegitimation available to a king’s supporters and detractors in the Merovingian kingdoms. Through a close reading of the Histories of Gregory of Tours, which is the principal source for these events, this study suggests that Gregory himself attempted to undermine Chlothar’s position by raising doubts about the boy’s paternity and by calling attention to the transparent efforts of his mother, Queen Fredegund, to establish her son’s legitimacy (as well as her own marital fidelity). These efforts included the appropriation of certain customs such as the naming, baptism, and baptismal sponsorship of heirs. The example of Chlothar II’s contested succession illustrates how elites within Merovingian society established or removed a king from the throne by arguing over membership to the ruling family—a process that left the family itself secure. Insights are then made into the political theory and system that enabled such stability, including the role of female agency therein.
Antony’s Vision of Death?: Athanasius of Alexandria, Palladius of Helenopolis, and Egyptian Mortuary Religion
Authors: Zecher Jonathan L.
Published: October 2014

This study presents a comparative analysis of a vision that both Athanasius of Alexandria (in his Life of Antony) and Palladius of Helenopolis (in his Lausiac History) report of the monk Antony, renowned as first and greatest standard-bearer of Christian anchoretic asceticism, as it emerged in late antique Egypt. Based on comparison of vocabulary, imagery, and literary framing, contextualized against late-Roman Egyptian mortuary practices and beliefs, it will be shown that the vision recounted originates not with Palladius or Athanasius, but that both record, independently, an oral tradition originating with the monk Antony or his circle. It is probable that Palladius records faithfully a version that he learned from Cronius (or, Cronides), a longtime compatriot of Antony, and that Athanasius offers a subtly modified version. Athanasius’ version is distinguished by its lack of distinctively Egyptian elements, which are present in Palladius. Both theological and cultural explanations will be tentatively offered for this situation.
A Two-Sided Mold and the Entrepreneurial Spirit of Pilgrimage Souvenir Production in Late Antique Syria–Palestine
Authors: Cline Rangar H.
Published: October 2014

This article offers a new interpretation of a two-sided mold reportedly found near Jerusalem. It argues that the mold was used in the off-site manufacture of clay or soft-metallic souvenirs that could be sold to pilgrims at the cult sites themselves or further afield. It provides a reconsideration of the iconography of the mold, arguing that one side features the unique iconography of Aphrodite of Aphaca, whose shrine was reportedly destroyed under Constantine. It further asserts that the mold’s other side depicts the angels at Mamre in a manner reflective of the site’s cultic topography and designed to appeal to the diverse pagans, Jews, and Christians reported to have visited the site in the fourth century. It thus challenges previous interpreters who have seen the mold’s Mamre image as exclusively Christian and argues that its divergent religious imagery reveals the economic motivation of pilgrimage souvenir manufacture. Based on the mold’s depictions of Aphrodite of Aphaca and Mamre, the literary sources describing the sites, and the visual style of the mold, it contends the object should be dated between the early and mid-fourth century.
External Influence and Democratization: The Revenge of Geopolitics
Authors: Nodia Ghia
Published: October 2014

Abstract: Discussion of democracy promotion is usually isolated from that of geopolitics. It is seen as an affair between democratic countries on the one hand and governments or civil societies of autocratic and semi-autocratic states on the other. The recent crisis in Ukraine has demonstrated the inseparability of democracy promotion and power politics, especially in faultline regions where democratic and autocratic states and political cultures compete for influence. While a political choice in favor of democratic world and organizations like the European Union does not guarantee democratic consolidation, it positively correlates with the level of political freedom within a given country.
Growth, Security, and Democracy in Africa
Authors: Joseph Richard
Published: October 2014

Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced great oscillations in democratic progress and retreat. Authoritarian modernization has taken root, notably in Ethiopia and Rwanda. No paradigm captures the complexity and volatility. Some argue that autocratic governance produces development outcomes while competitive clientelism encourages corruption and social distress. Nigeria presents a paradox of reform and dysfunction, of growth and discordant development, of minority affluence and mass poverty. The northern region has undergone economic and political decline. The failure to defeat Boko Haram reflects the prebendalist corrosion of state institutions. The February 2015 election is a dismaying hurdle for the Nigerian system of conglomerate governance.
External Influence and Democratization: Structure vs. Choice
Authors: Levitsky Steven , Way Lucan
Published: October 2014

Abstract: The essays by Ghia Nodia and Jakob Tolstrup suggest that our focus on the structural character of linkage and leverage needs to be tempered by greater attention to the role of leadership and contingency in the success of democracy in the former Soviet Union. While we agree that policy choice can sometimes affect democratization and the strength of ties to the West, it generally does so only within certain structural parameters. Leadership matters much less at the extremes of high and low linkage. And even in “faultline” cases such as Belarus and Ukraine, the impact of short-term or policy-driven shifts should not be overstated.
From Politics to Protest
Authors: Krastev Ivan
Published: October 2014

Abstract: From 2009 through 2014, political protests erupted in more than 70 countries around the world, in both democracies and non-democracies. In most cases, the protests were not led by a political party or a trade union, and the protesters themselves were openly anti-institutional, mistrustful of both the market and the state, and lacked a coherent ideology. In this article, the author claims that though these “movements of mistrust” do not claim power and do not offer political alternative to the status quo, they do represent an effective strategy of citizen empowerment in the age of globalization, when the power of citizens derives mainly from their ability to disrupt.
Manipulating Term Limits in Latin America
Authors: Corrales Javier , Penfold Michael
Published: October 2014

During the last decade many Latin American countries have changed their constitutions to allow presidential reelection. This is a significant shift from the previous standard surrounding constitutional design, prevalent in the 1980s, which favored limiting consecutive reelection. This paper explores whether this new trend towards presidential reelection is undermining the quality of democracy by expanding incumbency advantage, or is instead improving the accountability of presidents seeking reelection. To assess this debate, we first examine the evolution of the different rules governing presidential reelection in Latin America and look at the frequency and manner in which incumbent presidents in the region have tried to change these rules. Next, using our own database of 125 presidential elections in eighteen countries between 1953 and 2012, we analyze election outcomes. We find that the right to reelection increases the electoral advantage of incumbents to the detriment of accountability. We conclude by offering some possible institutional responses that might help ameliorate the incumbent’s advantage.
Euroskepticism Arrives: The Missing Debate
Authors: Espada João Carlos
Published: October 2014

Abstract: Looking at the worrying rise of Euroskeptic and some extremist parties in the European Parliament elections of May 2014, this article recalls Ralf Dahrendorf’s distinction between constitutional and normal politics, noting also his reliance on Karl Popper. It then argues that the EU should deconstitutionalize the issue of central versus local power by abandoning the dogma of “more Europe” and making it possible to advocate fewer powers for Brussels without thereby having to become anti-EU. Mainstream parties in Europe must be willing to host views that favor decentralization. Britain’s desire for a renegotiation of its status within the EU should be treated as an opportunity to put greater flexibility into EU political life. Germany should be the first country to grasp and carry forward this opportunity.
India's Watershed Vote: Behind Modi’s Victory
Authors: Sridharan Eswaran
Published: October 2014

Abstract: This article analyses the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in India’s 2014 election. It focuses on possible reasons for the pro-BJP swing, looking at turnout, regional concentration of BJP votes, voting patterns of key social segments, the Modi factor, and the campaign, against the backdrop of a slowing economy, inflation, and corruption. It concludes that the BJP swing was not so much a vote for Hindu nationalism as for the promise of effective leadership for growth and jobs that struck a chord with the electorate’s rising expectations, and that it is too early to pronounce a fundamental shift of party system.
India's Watershed Vote: What It Means for the Economy
Authors: Kumar Rajiv
Published: October 2014

Abstract: One would expect the BJP’s landslide victory in India’s 2014 election to herald an equally sharp shift in the government’s positions across all dimensions of public policy, including economic policy. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, however, I argue that we will probably not see any discontinuity in economic policy during the new government’s first five-year term. At the same time, it is undeniable that a business-as-usual approach will not enable India to meet its societal goals or the challenge of finding productive employment for the twelve-million new people who enter the workforce each year. The sooner Prime Minister Narendra Modi spells out his vision and policy framework for India’s economy, the better able he will be to direct the country’s financial and human resources in the desired directions.
External Influence and Democratization: Gatekeepers and Linkages
Authors: Tolstrup Jakob
Published: October 2014

Abstract: Recently, scholarly interest for the external dimension of regime change has risen considerably. However, we still poorly understand what makes external actors able (or unable) to push a country toward democracy or autocracy. I argue that the prevalent theory on external influences, Levitsky and Way’s leverage-linkage theory, is insufficient as it does not capture how domestic elites (“gatekeeper elites”) can increase or decrease ties with this or that external actor. Through an empirical analysis of Russian and European influences in Ukraine and Belarus I show that gatekeepers can explain why politically consequential ties wax or wane in a given country and I argue that this has important implications for democracy promotion.
Academic Citation Practice: A Sinking Sheep?
Authors: Rekdal Ole Bjørn
Published: October 2014

An explosion in access to electronic databases and digital information is changing the way we view source citation. While the original purpose of referencing—showing the reader exactly where the author got his or her input—is clearly more important than ever, citation is increasingly taking on other roles, ones that have little to do with good scientific practice or effective communication of knowledge. One of the results is that myths and urban legends continue to flourish in academia, despite that we have never had better tools for preventing such misinformation.
Unwrapping the Bundle: An Examination of Research Libraries and the “Big Deal”
Authors: Strieb Karla L. , Blixrud Julia C.
Published: October 2014

This study presents and analyzes the findings of a 2012 survey of member libraries belonging to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) about publishers’ large journal bundles and compares the results to earlier surveys. The data illuminate five research questions: market penetration, journal bundle construction, collection format shifts, pricing models, and license terms. The structure of the product is still immature, particularly in defining content and developing sustainable pricing models. The typical “bundle” is something less than the full publisher’s list. Neither market studies nor market forces have produced a sustainable new strategy for pricing and selling e-journals. Finally, the data reveal a complex history of managing license terms.
The Measureable Effects of Closing a Branch Library: Circulation, Instruction, and Service Perception
Authors: Lange Jessica , Lannon Amber , McKinnon Dawn
Published: October 2014

This article explores the closing of the Howard Ross Library of Management at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. We hypothesized that closing a branch library would result in a decline in the use of library services. We measured library service using circulation statistics, library instruction workshop statistics, and data from the online survey LibQUAL+®. Our hypothesis was supported for instruction but was not proved for circulation statistics nor for service perception as evaluated using LibQUAL+®.
Do We Speak the Same Language?: A Study of Faculty Perceptions of Information Literacy
Authors: Cope Jonathan , Sanabria Jesús E.
Published: October 2014

The authors analyze twenty in-depth interviews with faculty members about how they perceive information literacy (IL) to examine two key factors: how disciplinary background influences conceptions of IL among faculty members in academic departments and how the instructors’ perception of information literacy differs from that of professionals in library and information science. The investigators analyzed these interviews by utilizing a phenomenological method. The faculty members were interviewed at a four-year college, the College of Staten Island, and at a community college, the Bronx Community College, both part of the City University of New York.
The Halo of Education in Abraham Cahan’s “The Imported Bridegroom” and The Rise of David Levinsky
Authors: Shiffman Dan
Published: October 2014

While there is little question that learning plays a major role in Jewish American experience, the ongoing fascination with Jewish achievement has taken critical focus away from the full complexity of their encounters with education. The work of Jewish Daily Forward editor Abraham Cahan (1860–1951) offers one generative starting point from which to build a more rounded perspective of Jewish Americans’ engagement with learning. In Two of Cahan’s most well-known works, “The Imported Bridegroom” (1898) and The Rise of David Levinsky (1917), the protagonists are less interested in actually studying texts or earning degrees than they are in pursuing an ethereal notion of higher learning. Education is imagined as a way to transcend the emptiness of life driven by ambition and the accumulation of wealth. While underscoring Jewish American veneration of higher education, these texts portray the difficulty of finding spiritual sanctuary within an American culture of competition and self-fashioning. Moreover, Cahan’s writing challenges simplified perceptions of education as a springboard to Jewish success.
Jews in Soviet Cinema: The Film Commissar by Aleksandr Askol’dov
Authors: Khiterer Victoria
Published: October 2014

The article analyzes the film Commissar (1967) by screenwriter and director Aleksandr Askol’dov. This is a unique film on a Jewish theme for the Soviet screen, which discusses Russian-Jewish relations during the civil war. Although it shows these relations in a completely benevolent light, and a Jewish family helps a pregnant Russian Commissar Klavdiia Vavilova, the movie was banned for over twenty years. Askol’dov demonstrated his personal courage in producing a Jewish themed movie in the hostile atmosphere of state antisemitism in the Soviet Union. However, we should admit that his knowledge about Jews and Jewish life was rather limited. As a devout Orthodox Christian, Askol’dov used many Christian symbols in showing Jewish life, and he depicted the Jewish characters in the movie using stereotypes from Russian literature and culture. The movie acquired a second life during Perestroika, when films that had been shelved for many years were released for the public. In spite of its limited comprehension of Jewish life, the film received recognition due to its humanistic message, the strong performances of the popular Soviet actors, and the artistic camerawork.
The Life and Times of Fr. Junípero Serra: A Pan-Borderlands Perspective
Authors: Thomas David Hurst
Published: October 2014

The year 2013 marked the tercentennial of Fr. Junípero Serra’s birth. That same year, historian Steven Hackel anointed Serra (1713-1784) California’s Founding Father, thereby echoing the glory attached to such American greats as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. But Hackel also noted that Serra remains “America’s least understood founder,” with a legacy that is today decidedly “divisive … contentious and contested.”
Mediation through Militarization: Indigenous Soldiers and Transcultural Middlemen of the Rio Doce Divisions, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1808-1850
Authors: Bieber Judy
Published: October 2014

In 1825, a Maxakali Indian and soldier named Inocencio walked several hundred miles from northeastern Minas Gerais to the royal court in Rio de Janeiro, seeking an audience with Emperor Dom Pedro I. Accompanying him were 14 Indians from the vicinity of Belmonte, a town located on the border of Bahia and Minas Gerais. The journey, requiring several weeks, took Inocencio through thickly forested hilly terrain with few established roads.
Reforming Catholicism: Papal Power in Guatemala during the 1920s and 1930s
Authors: Hernández Bonar L.
Published: October 2014

The status of Catholicism in Guatemala is truly deplorable,” remarked one Vatican diplomat as he gathered information about the Catholic Church in Guatemala in the 1920s. Its sorry condition, another papal representative contended, originated from the Liberal reform of the 1870s.
The Traje De Tehuana as National Icon: Gender, Ethnicity, and Fashion in Mexico
Authors: Chassen-López Francie
Published: October 2014

“Is fashion in fact such a trifling thing? Or is it, as I prefer to think, rather an indication of deeper phenomena—of the energies, possibilities, demands, andjoie de vivreof a given society, economy and civilization?” So wrote Fernand Braudel inThe Structures of Everyday Life.
Determining the Authorship of the Crónica Mexicayotl: Two Hypotheses
Authors: Peperstraete Sylvie , Kruell Gabriel Kenrick
Published: October 2014

Since the seventeenth century, theCrónica Mexicayotl, an invaluable account documenting the Mexica Tenochca history, has been attributed either to Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtle-huanitzin, to Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc, or sometimes to both. To examine these attributions, we focus here on the way the document as we know it today was written, pointing out the fact that it was made by assembling material from several heterogeneous sources, among which we find the famous and now lostCrónica X. Important passages allow us to emphasize the role played by Tezozomoc in the composition of the originalCrónica Mexicayotl, and to propose with reference to the later version that has reached us, that a considerable number of insertions can be attributed to Chimalpahin. In that regard we present two different hypotheses regarding the relationship of theCrónica Mexicayotlto other works, as well as to the authors Tezozomoc and Chimalpahin.
The Islamic World , 1893–1908
Authors: Dajani (al-Daoudi) Amjad Muhsen S.
Published: October 2014

This article introduces the Islamic World , a major Pan-Islamic Victorian periodical published during the Hamidean period. It was printed in Liverpool in 1893 and was edited by Sheikh Abdullah Quilliam, the first and last Grand Sheikh of the British Isles appointed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The Islamic World was unique as a Muslim publication because it had an international focus with a global circulation that reached over 200 cities around the world. Scholarly discussions of Sheikh Quilliam’s contributions to British Islam have overlooked the Islamic World ; scholars tend to minimally refer to it as one of Quilliam’s academic publications, ignoring its broader importance and message. This article seeks to expand knowledge of this internationally prominent, Pan-Islamic Victorian publication.
RSVP Bibliography, 2011–2013
Authors: Malone Katherine
Published: October 2014

The RSVP Bibliography catalogues essays, books, master’s theses, and doctoral dissertations published in the field of Victorian periodicals between December 2011 and December 2013. The bibliography focuses on newspapers and magazines published in Great Britain and the British Empire, 1837-1901, with some attention to transnational journalism and the long nineteenth century as they relate to the Victorian press.
Imperial Authority and Passivity in the South Pacific: George Manville Fenn’s “The Blackbird Trap”
Authors: Elleray Michelle
Published: October 2014

In George Manville Fenn’s “The Blackbird Trap,” blackbirding—the labor trade operative in the nineteenth-century Pacific—is presented as a form of slavery that imperial authorities are unable to stop, despite Britain’s vaunted anti-slavery stance. The story is anomalous in its publication context of the Boy’s Own Paper , for the boy hero is unable to prevent blackbirding of the Islanders, and the perpetrator is never formally brought to justice. Positioning Fenn’s fictional narrative in the context of historical events and Tracey Banivanua-Mar’s analyses of colonial violence, this article explores how the apparent failures—both of the boy hero and imperial authority—can be read as enabling for the settler nation.