bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Viewing Diasporas from the Pacific: What Pacific Ethnographies Offer Pacific Diaspora Studies
Authors: Gershon Ilana
Published: August 2007

This article explores what long-standing analytical traditions in Pacific ethnographies can offer Pacific diaspora studies. In particular, I advocate researchers' reconceptualizing their unit of analysis when interrogating the relationships between families and diasporas, and argue that family networks fashion diasporas' longevity and tangibility. Emphasizing families' social organization encourages Pacific diaspora studies to focus on how and when cultural differences have effects.
The Trouble with RAMSI: Reexamining the Roots of Conflict in Solomon Islands
Authors: Hameiri Shahar
Published: August 2007

While the debate that has followed the intervention by the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (ramsi) has centered on the suitability of the failed state label to Solomon Islands, I argue that this debate is misdirected because the concept of state failure itself is accepted uncritically. Examining what is meant by state failure is crucial, because (a) it has assumed an almost commonsensical mantle, which obscures its particular political and ideological underpinnings; and (b) it has considerable conceptual limitations that render it a problematic framework for explaining the roots and possible trajectories of the conflict in Solomon Islands. State failure is essentially a descriptive category with limited explanatory capacity, grounded in a depoliticized and ahistorical theorization of institutions, state, and society. At its core is an unhelpful preoccupation with state capacity as measured against a hypothetical legal-rational good-governance model. Conflicts are understood in this framework as the result of poor governance or recalcitrant social forces. ramsi, consequently, has sought to strengthen the institutional capacity of Solomon Islands as the key to conflict resolution as well as a preventative long-term peace-building initiative. In contrast, I argue that unless we develop a clearer understanding of the causes and dynamics of conflict, ramsi's state-building approach is likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate tensions in Solomon Islands. This approach involves a shift in emphasis away from the current fixation on institutional capacity audits associated with the failed state concept, toward a more constructive theorization of the historically contingent relationship between changing patterns of economic development and social conflict.
Imagining Oceania: Indigenous and Foreign Representations of a Sea of Islands
Authors: Jolly Margaret
Published: August 2007

This paper considers the relation of indigenous and foreign in how "the Pacific" and the "Pacific Rim" have been and are imagined. First, I ponder the power of cartography through the lens of two maps derived from the eighteenth century and speculate as to how such maps differed from indigenous genealogies of places and peoples. Second, I explore the origins and the lasting significance of the partitioning of the Pacific into the spatiotemporal regions of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, and consider some indigenous uses of these foreign constructs. Third, I reflect on how academic and policy representations of the Pacific "region" and "rim" have been shaped by geopolitical concerns and developmentalism starting in the 1970s, from the viewpoint of Australia (and in a more fleeting way, the United States). Fourth, through a brief exegesis of the influential writings of Epeli Hau'ofa, I consider his alternative vision of Oceania as a "sea of islands." Finally, I confront the specter of new ethnological typifications derived from a reading of "roots" and "routes" as dichotomy rather than dialectic, and stress the need for refocusing on the relations and creative exchanges between Islanders living in and between region and rim.
A Fishy Romance: Chiefly Power and the Geopolitics of Desire
Authors: Young Leslie Heather E
Published: August 2007

What can fish stories tell us about how people live with the complexities of rapid environmental transformations and the local effects of national, globalized, and neoliberal desires for resources? To answer this, I take the Tä'atu fish harvesting ritual and accompanying oral narrative to be an "ecography" that addresses human intimacies and changes on a small atoll in Tonga. This type of analysis draws on traditional ecological, political, and sociological knowledge, as well as geography, history, and cultural symbols, to give a deeper understanding of place and the contemporary experience of people intimate with the local environment as source of food and livelihood. When examined in the light of today's drastically depleted stocks of Pacific pelagic fishes such as skipjack tuna, the ecography of the Tä'atu provides a benchmark for a shift in a human–fish relationship that provided Polynesians with practical and poetic sustenance for hundreds if not thousands of years. At the same time, the myth of the Tä'atu highlights the historic political importance of desire, beauty, and their confluence with bounty, in the production of generations of chiefly privilege and cultural practice. Imbricated with the shifts in human–fish and beauty–bounty relations are lessons for the contemporary chiefly–commoner relationship in Tonga, the last nation to claim status as an uninterrupted Polynesian kingdom, as well as laments for the loss of independence an important food resource offered. Today, as in the past, the Tä'atu is a fishy tale about the geopolitics of various desires.
Making a Case for Tongan as an Endangered Language
Authors: Otsuka Yuko
Published: August 2007

This paper examines the sociolinguistic situation in Tonga and discusses its relevance to language maintenance in Polynesia. The environment surrounding Tongan is not visibly ominous: it is an official language of an independent state and is spoken by a sizable population in a predominantly monolingual community. Tongan represents an instance of language shift as a result of globalization, wherein a speech community voluntarily gives up its indigenous language(s) for another, more socioeconomically beneficial language, in this case, English. The paper proposes that language endangerment should be understood in terms of a unit larger than the nation-state. This is particularly relevant in the Polynesian context, in which international borders are obscured by transnational migrants. The paper also discusses some positive roles the diasporic communities may potentially play in language maintenance.
Revisiting the Entitlement Approach to Famine: Taking a Closer Look at the Supply Factor – A Critical Survey of the Literature
Authors: Alemu. Getnet
Published: August 2007

Sen's (1981b) entitlement approach conceptualises famine as the characteristics of some people not having enough food to eat but not of there being not enough food to eat. Famine from this perspective is one that occurs without a decline in the macro level supply of food and, hence, it is all about demand failure/shift in the demand structure. The grand contribution of this approach can be summed up in two: it throws light on the possible misleading suggestions encompassed in the popular belief that famine is caused by just shortage of food, and has also generated a huge debate since. In this paper it is argued that it is highly unlikely to assume that all famines have the same genesis. There are mainly two types of famine: famine without decline in the aggregate food supply and famine with food availability decline at macro level. The former is considered as discrete event caused by demand failure as a result of exogenous factors which are termed as precipitating factors while the latter can be taken as a process caused by supply failures resulting from structural, institutional, and policy related issues which are termed as underlying vulnerability factors. The study categorises the understanding of famine in two nexuses: demand failure-famine as a discrete event and supply failure-famine as a process; it also shows that Sen's entitlement approach can best fit to a famine caused by demand failure. Understanding all famines as an event has a serious danger not only for its explanation but also for designing policies to deny famine a future. The overall argument of this paper is that an event is just a historical reality and an analysis of an event with a weak grasp of history disregarding matters such as what constitutes the onset of famine certainly lacks a penetrating insight into the understanding famine.
Impact of Human-Wildlife Conflict Resolution on Wildlife Conservation and Socioeconomic Welfare of Pastoral Communities: A Case Study of Samburu Pastoralists, Samburu District, Kenya
Authors: Esilaba Moses O , Maara N. T , Tangus J. K
Published: August 2007

Human-wildlife conflicts have escalated in semi-arid lands because of changes in various aspects, including land use, arable farming and sedentary life style of pastoralists in semi-arid lands, inadequate wildlife control and ban on hunting of wild animals. The objective of the study was to assess the impact of human-wildlife conflicts on wildlife conservation as an alternative source of income to improve the welfare of the pastoralists. The study was carried out in Kirisia, Lorroki and Baragoi divisions. Survey was conducted among households and the data gathered were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The results indicated that human-wildlife conflicts have great impact on wildlife conservation and socioeconomic welfare of pastoralists. The study highlighted the need for the government to revise existing policies on wildlife conservation and management in Kenya.
Technical Efficiency, Efficiency Change, Technical Progress and Productivity Growth in the National Health Systems of Continental African Countries
Authors: Kirigia Joses M , Asbu Eyob Z , Greene William , Emrouznejad Ali
Published: August 2007

In May 2006, the Ministers of Health of all the countries on the African continent, at a special session of the African Union, undertook to institutionalise efficiency monitoring within their respective national health information management systems. The specific objectives of this study were: (i) to assess the technical efficiency of National Health Systems (NHSs) of African countries for measuring male and female life expectancies, and (ii) to assess changes in health productivity over time with a view to analysing changes in efficiency and changes in technology. The analysis was based on a five-year panel data (1999-2003) from all the 53 countries of continental Africa. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) − a non-parametric linear programming approach − was employed to assess the technical efficiency. Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (MTFP) was used to analyse efficiency and productivity change over time among the 53 countries' national health systems. The data consisted of two outputs (male and female life expectancies) and two inputs (per capital total health expenditure and adult literacy). The DEA revealed that 49 (92.5%) countries' NHSs were run inefficiently in 1999 and 2000; 50 (94.3%), 48 (90.6%) and 47 (88.7%) operated inefficiently in 2001, 2002, and 2003 respectively. All the 53 countries' national health systems registered improvements in total factor productivity attributable mainly to technical progress. Fifty-two countries did not experience any change in scale efficiency, while thirty (56.6%) countries' national health systems had a Pure Efficiency Change (PEFFCH) index of less than one, signifying that those countries' NHSs pure efficiency contributed negatively to productivity change. All the 53 countries' national health systems registered improvements in total factor productivity, attributable mainly to technical progress. Over half of the countries' national health systems had a pure efficiency index of less than one, signifying that those countries' NHSs pure efficiency contributed negatively to productivity change. African countries may need to critically evaluate the utility of institutionalising Malmquist TFP type of analyses to monitor changes in health systems economic efficiency and productivity over time.
Educational Provision for the Academically Gifted: Rhetoric or Reality? Case of Primary Schools in Nyandarua District, Kenya
Authors: Ndirangu. Mathenge wa , Mwangi J. K , Changeiywo J
Published: August 2007

Some gifted people have made invaluable contributions to the world that shaped the destiny of humanity. Identification and development of gifts and talents of gifted children has been viewed as critical in tapping this valuable human resource. This study investigated the extent to which children who had demonstrated evidence of high academic capability are assisted in Kenyan primary schools to nurture their gifting. The study revealed varied practices but showed that a lot remains to be done. The findings of the study provide a useful empirical basis for action by policymakers, curriculum developers, education administrators, teachers, parents and other people interested in educational welfare of gifted children.
Doppelgängers, Misogyny, and the San Francisco System: The Occupation Narratives of Ōe Kenzaburō
Authors: Hillenbrand Margaret
Published: August 2007

Ōe Kenzaburō's status as the left-wing conscience of postwar Japan was consolidated long before his Nobel prize of 1994. Several works dating from the late 1950s, however, give the lie to this radicalism and suggest instead a tendency toward the reactionary. In particular, Ōe's politico-sexual series on occupied Japan—ﬁve narratives that center on a love triangle between a Japanese youth, his prostitute mistress, and her Euro-American patron—veer noticeably toward misogyny in their representation of Japan under Pax Americana. Although this series of texts purports to be a call to arms to Japanese male youth during the intense debates over the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, a closer inspection reveals that Ōe's hidden preoccupation is with his female characters, who become scapegoats for "crimes" of complicity with Japan's conquerors that were, in fact, extremely widespread.
How to Write a Second Restoration: The Political Novel and Meiji Historiography
Authors: Hill Christopher
Published: August 2007

The Meiji political novel was closely connected to contemporary changes in techniques for the representation of history. Suehiro Tetchō's novel Setchūbai (Plum blossoms in snow, 1886) shares many of the concerns of the historiography of its time, in particular the desire to explain the place of 1868 in Japanese history. The novel positions 1868 as a step in the establishment of democracy in Japan, to be followed by the founding of a liberal parliament in 1890. At the same time, the novel's philosophy of history disqualiﬁes fundamental dissent from the reformist programs espoused by the Meiji government and liberals alike.
Taxonomy and Ontology in Psychiatry: A Survey of Recent Literature
Authors: Broome Matthew R
Published: August 2007

Abstract: In this paper, recent publications in the field of psychiatric nosology, classification, and diagnosis are reviewed. An attempt is made to group such writings into three broad themes: "essentialist/realist," "anti-essentialist/pragmatic," and "eliminative." The conceptual nature of these groupings is explored, and similarities between some elements of biological psychiatry and phenomenological psychiatry are outlined. The paper attempts to undercut current ways of thinking about psychiatric disorders by drawing on John McDowell's criticism of the idea of a value-free objective standpoint, and further relates our difficulties in thinking about mental disorders to McDowell's wider diagnosis of problems in contemporary philosophy.
Competence to Make Treatment Decisions in Anorexia Nervosa: Thinking Processes and Values
Authors: Tan Jacinta , Stewart Anne , Fitzpatrick Ray , Hope R. A
Published: August 2007

Abstract: This paper explores the ethical and conceptual implications of the findings from an empirical study (reported elsewhere) of decision-making capacity in anorexia nervosa. In the study, ten female patients aged thirteen to twenty-one years with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, and eight sets of parents, took part in semistructured interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to identify aspects of thinking that might be relevant to the issue of competence to refuse treatment. All the patient-participants were also tested using the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool—Treatment test of competence. This is a formalized, structured, interviewer-administered test of competence, which is a widely accepted clinical tool for determining capacity. The young women also completed five brief, self-administered questionnaires to assess their levels of psychopathology. The issues identified from the interviews are described under two headings: difficulties with thought processing and changes in values. The results suggest that competence to refuse treatment may be compromised in people with anorexia nervosa in ways that are not captured by traditional legal approaches.
Bruckner and the Politics of Memory: Repentance and Resistance in Contemporary France
Authors: Bracher Nathan
Published: August 2007

Pascal Bruckner's stinging indictment of the "the tyranny of penitence" has made a timely contribution to the debate over history and memory that has long constituted a major given of French politics. The practical ramifications of his arguments can be found in the closely watched performances of public memory marking the first day in office of newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy, who conspicuously broke with Chirac's habit of national contrition. Sarkozy's memorial gestures announce a new approach to the politics of commemoration in France. However, this new approach to the nation's past has also been inspired by the positions articulated in the recent books of Max Gallo and even by a rejuvenated Gaullist discourse of unity and grandeur in the Resistance. Both Gallo and Sarkozy delivered speeches at the Cascade du Bois de Boulogne, where 35 young résistants were massacred by the Germans after having been betrayed by their collaborationist compatriots. Although "classic" in their eulogy of the résistants's idealism and courage, these speeches were innovative, first in stressing the political and social diversity of these Resistance martyrs, and second, in clearly stigmatizing the historical crimes committed by certain French citizens all while portraying the young résistants as having sacrificed their lives to an ideal of civilization and freedom that was France's true heritage. As Bruckner has recently argued, the memory of World War II still concerns the entire French nation: as such, it can transcend the traumatic memories particular to such and such groups by providing a common set of historical references and even shared memories. Voiced most incisively by Pascal Bruckner, the insistence on France's need for an unblinkered approach to the past that refuses to engage in self-flagellation provides a common set of historical references, fosters support for the basic precepts of the French Republic, and creates shared memories without turning a blind eye to crimes and injustices and has unquestionably received a positive response from the sixth president of the Fifth Republic.
The Ambivalences of Vulgarity
Authors: Bruckner Pascal , Kelly Mary Byrd
Published: August 2007

Pascal Bruckner is one of France's leading "public intellectuals" and novelists, whose work has elicited praise and stirred controversy for almost three decades. This issue of South Central Review includes two essays by Pascal Bruckner, as well as appreciations of is work and contributions by the French "New Philospher" Andre Glucksmann, Luc Ferry, a philosopher and former Minister of Eduction under Jacques Chirac, the French novelist Serge Koster, and Paul Berman, Writer in Residence at New York University and regular contributor to the New Republic, the Village Voice, and other publications. It also includes scholarly contributions dealing with Bruckner's essays and fiction by two American scholars, Ralph Schoolcraft, Nathan Bracher, and one by the South American scholar and poet Eduardo Espina. Bruckner's contributions to the issue examine two controversial topics, European Anti-Americanism and the concept of vulgarity. From Bruckner's perspective, European anti-Americanism constitutes first and foremost a kind of Girardian scapegoating, where all the ills of modernity as well as other flaws—both of which Europe shares—are blamed on the "other". The reasons are several in Bruckner's diagnosis. The most obvious is a resentment and envy of American power and influence. More central is a deep seated European self-loathing that manifests itself in a misguided idealization of formerly colonized people and an overwhelming sense of guilt over the horrors and abuses of Europe's recent past. Bruckner's second contribution, again following a Girardian logic, examines "vulgarity" as a consequence of a "loss of degree" a failure of a legitimate and legitimizing cultural hierarchy that defines social and cultural virtues and makes them broadly acceptable. When cultural hierarchy is absent or in a state of dissolution "vulgarity" extends its reach, and traditional notions of "good" and "bad" become inoperable, and are even subject to inversion.
The Paradoxes of Anti-Americanism
Authors: Bruckner Pascal
Published: August 2007

Pascal Bruckner is one of France's leading "public intellectuals" and novelists, whose work has elicited praise and stirred controversy for almost three decades. This issue of South Central Review includes two essays by Pascal Bruckner, as well as appreciations of is work and contributions by the French "New Philospher" Andre Glucksmann, Luc Ferry, a philosopher and former Minister of Eduction under Jacques Chirac, the French novelist Serge Koster, and Paul Berman, Writer in Residence at New York University and regular contributor to the New Republic, the Village Voice, and other publications. It also includes scholarly contributions dealing with Bruckner's essays and fiction by two American scholars, Ralph Schoolcraft, Nathan Bracher, and one by the South American scholar and poet Eduardo Espina. Bruckner's contributions to the issue examine two controversial topics, European Anti-Americanism and the concept of vulgarity. From Bruckner's perspective, European anti-Americanism constitutes first and foremost a kind of Girardian scapegoating, where all the ills of modernity as well as other flaws—both of which Europe shares—are blamed on the "other". The reasons are several in Bruckner's diagnosis. The most obvious is a resentment and envy of American power and influence. More central is a deep seated European self-loathing that manifests itself in a misguided idealization of formerly colonized people and an overwhelming sense of guilt over the horrors and abuses of Europe's recent past. Bruckner's second contribution, again following a Girardian logic, examines "vulgarity" as a consequence of a "loss of degree" a failure of a legitimate and legitimizing cultural hierarchy that defines social and cultural virtues and makes them broadly acceptable. When cultural hierarchy is absent or in a state of dissolution "vulgarity" extends its reach, and traditional notions of "good" and "bad" become inoperable, and are even subject to inversion.
On the Duty of Thinking: Pascal Bruckner and Latin America
Authors: Espina Eduardo , Sorenson Travis
Published: August 2007

Even though some of his books have been translated into Spanish, received good reviews in important publications, such as the monthly Mexican journal Letras Libres, Pascal Bruckner is not a very well read writer among Latin American intellectuals. Due to the publication of La euforia perpetua/Sobre el deber de ser feliz (Perpetual Euphoria: Essay on the Duty of Happiness) and La tentación de la inocencia (The Temptation of Innocence: Living in the Age of Entitlement) he has been invited to participate in two of the most prestigious books fairs in South America, one in Caracas, Venezuela, and the other in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but he is still a marginal figure. This incongruity can be explained. In the Spanish part of the continent where intellectuals had grown up reading the French cannon both past and recent, from Sartre and Bataille to Julia Kristeva and Derrida, anyone would expect Bruckner to be a very well known writer. Nevertheless, the circumstances have changed and French essayists since the end of the pre-and post-fall-of-communism period are being read very little. Perceived as too right wing conservative by the left wing conservatives, Bruckner is avoided by the Latin American leftist intelligencia. In the midst of a decidedly unscrupulous ideological opportunism, the verdicts of intellectual rigor cannot be accepted and read. The conflict is there: the Latin American left-wing is recycling anachronic proclamations and Bruckner offers a way of thinking that attacks the unfulfilled aspects of reality without falling into Manichaeistic ideological alibis.
Scenarios of Desire in the Fiction of Pascal Bruckner
Authors: Schoolcraft Ralph W
Published: August 2007

Pascal Bruckner's polyvalent novels constitute a compendium of discourses on desire, stretching from antiquity to the present. Our discussion focuses on a French legacy that features Laclos, Rousseau, Charles Fourier, Benjamin Constant, and René Girard through a reading of Bruckner's Lunes de fiel (1981). In particular, we identify several scenarios of desire whose failure is dissected in the course of the narrative. From the elective affinities of Romanticism to the exotic attraction of the other, from today's conventional bourgeois couples to serial lovers, all forms of monogamous relationship are set aside. In imitation of Constant's Adolphe, one protagonist (Franz) invests in "desiring desire," while a second (Didier) is characterized by his susceptibility to mimetic or triangular desire. The essay demonstrates also how Bruckner's essays on contemporary society (sexuality, consumerism, bourgeois worldviews) are rearticulated within his fictional frameworks, with a noteworthy shift from Rousseau's promises to the quirky critiques of Fourier. Finally, a look at the novel's narrative technique reveals a practice of mise-en-abyme where the author's apparent absence from the text is parried through a sleight-of-hand not unlike that of the novel's villain Franz.
The Fockerized Jew?: Questioning Jewishness as Cool in American Popular Entertainment
Authors: Baskind Samantha
Published: August 2007

This essay examines the recent upsurge in overt Jewish identity in American popular culture, using the film Meet the Parents (2000) and its sequel Meet the Fockers (2004) as a case study to demonstrate how the Jewish Jew is no longer avoided and when portrayed does not fall victim to stereotyping. While looking at these two films together, I describe a broader evolution in media from the de-ethnicized Jew, and for that matter the de-ethnicized Jewish actor, to performers flaunting (and thereby celebrating) Jewishness in a Christian-centric society that has found acceptance of the Other. The paper also questions what about Jewishness is cool and describes how viewer subjectivities influence the perception of coolness.
From Ugly Duckling to Cool Fashion Icon: Sarah Jessica Parker's Blonde Ambitions
Authors: Byers Michele , Krieger Rosalin
Published: August 2007

Sarah Jessica Parker is a cool Jew, or so we argue in this essay. That is, the actress and the role that made her most famous—Sex and the City's iconic Carrie Bradshaw—offer fans a particular kind of pleasure that comes from identifying with an actor and character who are presented as, if not explicitly Jewish, then Jewish to those in the know. We argue, however, that Parker's ascent to superstar status necessitated a shift in the way her physical body has been produced, a shift away from those physical traits that might be read as explicitly or stereotypically Jewish. In this way her career mirrors the deep ambivalence we feel about postmodern identity and its dual promises of privilege: the privilege of uniqueness and the myth that we can all somehow attain the universal.
Jewish/Queer: Thresholds of Vulnerable Identities in Tony Kushner's Angels in America
Authors: Omer-Sherman Ranen
Published: August 2007

For many, it has long seemed apparent that in his two-part "gay fantasia," Angels in America, Kushner aspired to forge some vital but unspoken alliance between Judaism and gay struggle. For many, this remains one of the play's most interesting and yet not altogether coherent arguments. Yet when one considers the myriad of ways that Judaism always presumes a community of believers and more importantly, ethical adherents bound to one another and God by covenant, the politics of Angels cannot be isolated from its relation to Judaism's understanding of the sacred status of the stranger. By considering Judaism's intrinsic relation to "prophecy" as a rigorous mission of social progress, the coherence of Kushner's vision of men and angels emerges with greater clarity. In recasting the biblical outsider as AIDS victim, Kushner sought to reconfigure the encoded tribalism of liberation, to ensure that the prophetic message of the sacred texts was restated in the most inclusive terms possible.
"That Was Nifty": Willow Rosenberg Saves the World in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Authors: Pateman Matthew
Published: August 2007

The extent to which ethnicity permeates an understanding of identity in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is apparent from the ways in which species difference stands in for racial or ethnic difference. However, among its many points of contact with ethnicity, one that is especially curious is the case of Willow Rosenberg's disappearing Jewishness. As a character, she shifts from nerd, to poster-child for geek-chic, she suffers from major addiction, is a lesbian and ends up as something approaching a goddess. She is also, intermittently, Jewish. The paper encourages a reading of Willow that sees her as cool and occasionally as Jewish but not necessarily as Jewish cool. To that extent, Buffy the Vampire Slayer can be read as an index of shifting sensibilities in relation to representations of Jews in popular culture whereby old stereotypes and perceptions are largely ignored, but there are not yet the necessary store of images and discourses available for young Jewish womanhood.
Oppositional Culture and the "New Jew" Brand: From Plotz to Heeb to Lost Tribe
Authors: Roth Laurence
Published: August 2007

This essay considers how an amateur literary production, Plotz: The Zine for the Vaclempt, helped to construct both an oppositional and an eminently marketable form of contemporary Jewish identity. Barbara Rushkoff, née Kligman, the wit behind Plotz, yoked zine writing practices and attitudes with Jewish humor and thereby repositioned Jewishness in her zine as a kind of "alt-Jewishness," another type of oppositional culture within zine subcultures of the 1990s. Plotz's cultural significance is evident in the direct and indirect emulations of Rushkoff's formula in Heeb: The New Jew Review and in the visual and editorial packaging of Lost Tribe, an anthology of "Jewish Fiction From the Edge." Both developed that formula into a market brand, thus enabling fans of American Jewishness to buy, and to buy into, the values and practices that currently lend cultural legitimacy and social prestige to Jewish identity.
"Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Race": Jewish Stereotypes, Media Images, Cultural Hybridity
Authors: Schrank Bernice
Published: August 2007

This paper explores the growing acceptability of the "Jewish" nose amongst women in Hollywood and in television as an indicator of Jewish acceptability. At a time when cosmetic surgery to alter appearances of media stars as well as ordinary people has become a growth industry, rhinoplasty ("nose jobs"), so popular amongst Jewish women in the 1950s and 1960s, has declined amongst Jewish women. It is not just that such Jewish superstars as Barbra Streisand have refused the standardization of a nose job. It is also that identifiably Jewish stars have made their names playing non-Jewish roles, as is the case with Sarah Jessica Parker, the apparently ethnically standardized star of Sex and the City. This paper theorizes that the change from unacceptability to acceptability is based on an increasingly successful challenge to the American myth of melting pot sameness by the politics of ethnic difference, based on a realization by the dominant culture of the reality of ethnic hybridity and erasure.
Punk, Jews, and the Holocaust\-\-The English Story
Authors: Stratton Jon
Published: August 2007

Punk in England is usually thought of as being related to a critique of stadium rock or to the disillusionment of a generation that saw nothing in the future but drudgery. In this article I argue that punk has more profound connections. Punk in England was driven by two Jewish managers, Malcolm McLaren and Bernie Rhodes, but, more important, punk's general politics of nihilism express in a cultural context the shock and trauma of the Holocaust. After almost three decades of near-silence, by the late 1970s the Holocaust was beginning to be named and talked about. The horror of this event on not just Jews but Western society more generally, as the acknowledgment of the genocide began to undermine the historical acceptance of Enlightenment assumptions about progress, science, and the moral righteousness of Western civilization, led to an existential crisis best expressed in punk. Whereas in the United States many punk performers were Jewish, in England the Jewish connections are to be found in the managers and in the lyrics.
Can America Nation-Build?
Authors: Brownlee Jason
Published: August 2007

Post-9/11 security concerns and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq have renewed scholarly interest in nation-building as a form of externally fostered democratization. The selected works assess Iraq and its precursors, seeking general lessons for establishing new democracies. They principally conclude that successful nation-building depends on sustained commitments of time, materiel, and manpower. Although this thesis improves upon earlier studies of democracy promotion, which often treated intentions as determinative, it does not fully reckon with the effect of antecedent conditions on external intervention. As this review addresses, American efforts at nation-building have historically been enabled or constrained by local political institutions. Rather than autonomously reengineering the target society, nation-builders have buttressed bureaucracies and parliaments where they were already available (Germany, Japan) and foundered in countries that lacked such institutions (Somalia, Haiti). In sum, nation-building has been most effective when pursued least ambitiously, amid functioning states with prior experience in constitutional government.
Firms, Governments, and WTO Adjudication: Japan's Selection of WTO Disputes
Authors: Davis Christina L. , Shirato Yuki
Published: August 2007

What explains the selection of cases for WTO adjudication? This article explores the business conditions under which industries lobby their home government to use the WTO adjudication process and the political factors that influence government decisions. It explains the industry pattern of selection for international trade disputes as a function of the velocity of the business environment. While WTO adjudication is seen as costly and slow, a positive ruling brings broad benefits in terms of deterrence against future discrimination. Firms in static industries will invest in WTO dispute settlement to achieve these benefits, but firms in industries shaped by dynamic competition have high opportunity costs that make them less willing to pursue adjudication. This argument accounts for why there are fewer WTO cases about electronics industry issues than there are likely incidences of protectionist measures. Since Japan is a leading exporter and provides a government report with unique data on potential WTO disputes, it was chosen to test the argument in greater depth. Interviews with Japanese business officials and statistical analysis of an original data set provide support for the argument. The authors conclude that the passive attitude toward WTO adjudication by Japan's largest export industry, electronics, and the sensitivity of Japan's diplomatic relations with China have constrained the cases that Japan files. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of the WTO for dispute settlement is conditional upon the time horizon of the industry and the political relations among members.
Transformation of Immigrant Integration: Civic Integration and Antidiscrimination in the Netherlands, France, and Germany
Authors: Joppke Christian
Published: August 2007

This article argues that, beginning in the mid-1990s, there has been a transformation of immigrant integration policies in Western Europe, away from distinct “national models” and toward convergent policies of “civic integration” for newcomers and “antidiscrimination” for settled immigrants and their descendants. This convergence is demonstrated by a least-likely case comparison of the Netherlands, France, and Germany—states that had pursued sharply different lines in the past. The author fleshes out the conflicting, even contradictory logics of antidiscrimination and civic integration and grounds them in opposite variants of liberalism, an “old” liberalism of nondiscrimination and equal opportunity and a “new” liberalism of power and disciplining, respectively.
How “Free” is Free Riding in Civil Wars?: Violence, Insurgency, and the Collective Action Problem
Authors: Kalyvas Stathis N. , Kocher Matthew Adam
Published: August 2007

That rebels face a collective action problem is one of the most widely shared assumptions in the literature on civil wars. The authors argue that the collective action paradigm can be both descriptively inaccurate and analytically misleading when it comes to civil wars. They question both pillars of the paradigm as applied to the study of civil wars, namely, the free-riding incentive generated by the public goods dimension of insurgency and the risks of individual participation in insurgent collective action. The authors argue, instead, that although insurgent collective action may entail the expectation of future collective benefits, public (rather than just private) costs tend to predominate in the short term. Moreover, the costs of nonparticipation and free riding may equal or even exceed those of participation. The authors support these claims by triangulating three types of evidence: historical evidence from counterinsurgency operations in several civil wars; data from the Vietnam War's Phoenix Program; and regional evidence from the Greek Civil War. They conclude by drawing implications for the study of civil wars.
Transnational Rebels: Neighboring States as Sanctuary for Rebel Groups
Authors: Salehyan Idean
Published: August 2007

To what extent do international factors affect domestic conflict processes? How do external conditions affect the state's repressive capabilities and the opportunities for opposition groups to mobilize, launch an insurgency, and sustain it? This article argues that because state strength is limited by international boundaries, rebel groups often organize transnationally in order to evade repression. External bases, refugee communities, and characteristics of neighboring states are expected to increase the likelihood of civil war onset and continuation. Importantly, external mobilization is difficult for states to monitor and verify, a factor that exacerbates bargaining problems and increases the probability of armed conflict. These claims are tested through a quantitative analysis of civil conflicts from 1951 to 1999. Results suggest that weak neighbors, rival neighbors, and refugee diasporas contribute to rebellion and that conflicts endure longer when rebels have access to external bases.
Homogenized LED-illumination using microlens arrays for a pocket-sized projector
Authors: Pan Jui-Wen , Wang Chih-Ming , Lan Hsiao-Chin , Sun Wen-Shin , Chang Jenq-Yang
Published: August 2007

We present an LED-based ultra-mini DMD projector with a size of 75
mm×67 mm×42 mm. A compact homogenizer consisting of a
double-side microlens array and two condensers was proposed to reduce
the size of the pocket-sized projector. The homogenizer not only
allowed for a reduction in the total track length of the system, but
also reduced the angle of the rays emitted from the LED with the micro
field lens array. The double-side well-aligned 124×146
microlens array was fabricated using backside alignment and hot
embossing techniques. The microlens array was square-arranged and the
fill-factor was extremely high. The uniformity and total throughput of
this projector were higher than those of the current pocket-sized
projectors. Moreover, the optical performances of the projector such
as color difference and the LED alignment tolerance were also measured
and discussed.
Increased Concentrations of Antibody-Bound Circulatory Cell-Free DNA in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Authors: Zhong Xiao-Yan , von Mühlenen Ines , Li Ying , Kang Anjeung , Gupta Anurag Kumar , Tyndall Alan , Holzgreve Wolfgang , Hahn Sinuhe , Hasler Paul
Published: August 2007

Background: Increased concentrations of cell-free DNA have been found in several disorders and have been interpreted as evidence of increased rates of cell death or turnover. Evidence from in vitro and animal experiments suggests that DNA may play a role in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: We measured cell-free DNA in plasma and serum from patients with RA and healthy controls by use of quantitative PCR for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) DNA. We used protein G Sepharose™ bead adsorption of plasma and elution to isolate antibody-bound DNA.

Results: In paired plasma and serum samples of 16 healthy controls the median GAPDH copies were 4500 genome equivalents (GE)/mL plasma (range 319–21 000) and in 26 RA patients 17 000 GE/mL plasma (2100–2 375 000, P = 0.0001). In the serum from normal controls the median GAPDH copies were 35 000 GE/mL (1700–239 000) and from RA patients 222 000 GE/mL (21 000–2 375 000, P = 0.004). A median of 81% of the cell-free DNA in RA was associated with antibody compared with 9% in healthy controls (P = 0.001). The concentrations of DNA did not vary with the type of therapy patients received.

Conclusions: These results provide new evidence for a role of cell-free DNA-antibody complexes in the etiology of RA, suggest new avenues for basic research, and may prove to be relevant to diagnosis and assessment of therapy.
T-Cell Regulatory Gene CTLA-4 Polymorphism/Haplotype Association with Autoimmune Pancreatitis
Authors: Chang Ming-Chu , Chang Yu-Ting , Tien Yu-Wen , Liang Po-Chin , Jan I-Shiow , Wei Shu-Chen , Wong Jau-Min
Published: August 2007

Background: Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is a distinct disease entity of chronic pancreatitis. Cytotoxic T lymphocyte–associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) is a key negative regulator of the T-cell immune response, and its gene is highly polymorphic. Many positive associations between cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA4) single-nucleotide polymorphisms and various autoimmune diseases have been identified. We investigated possible genetic associations of CTLA4 in a Chinese population with AIP.

Methods: We performed genotyping for CTLA4 (49 A/G, −318 C/T, and CT60 A/G) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α promoter (−857 C/T, −863 C/A, and −1031 C/T) by use of PCR sequence-specific primers and direct sequencing, respectively, in 46 patients with AIP, 78 patients with chronic calcifying pancreatitis (CCP), and 200 healthy individuals.

Results: We found a significant increase in CTLA4 49A carriers in patients with AIP compared with healthy individuals (78.3% vs 48%; P <0.0001). The frequency of CTLA4 49A was also significantly higher in patients with AIP compared with CCP (78.3% vs 37.1%; P <0.0001). CTLA4 49A conferred a higher risk of AIP [with CCP, odds ratio (OR) 7.20; P <0.0001]. The −318C/+49A/CT60G haplotype was associated with a higher susceptibility to AIP (OR 8.53; P = 0.001). The TNF-α promoter −863A was associated with extrapancreatic involvement in patients with AIP.

Conclusion: CTLA-4 49A polymorphism and −318C/+49A/CT60G haplotype are associated with AIP in a Chinese population.
Cultural values in commercials: Reaching and representing the multicultural market?
Authors: Koeman Joyce
Published: August 2007

Advertisers in the Netherlands and Flanders are discovering marketing opportunities to market to specific target groups such as children and adolescents, and their growing numbers in the ethnic minority population. There have been relatively few empirical studies on the portrayal of these audience segments. In light of the first steps in ethnic marketing theory and practice in the Netherlands and Flanders, this study questions how advertising campaigns actually deal with ethnicity and the multicultural market. This issue is tackled by means of a quantitative and comparative content analysis of Dutch, Flemish, American, Turkish, and Chinese television commercials. The first section of this article sketches a theoretical framework for the measurement of cultural values and the representation of ethnic minorities in commercials. On the one hand it draws on previous cross-cultural research examining the individualism/collectivism dimension of culture (cf. Hofstede, 1991; Schwartz, 1992; Gudykunst, 1998) and on the other hand on advertising research concerned with both content-related, and style characteristics of commercials (e. g., De Pelsmacker and Geuens, 1997). In the second section, the methodology is discussed through an examination of the sample and coding instrument. The results section reveals both similarities and differences in the use of values and communication styles in commercials from individualistic as well as collectivistic cultures. Finally, the conclusions of this study are discussed and recommendations for further research are presented.
Religion online: The shaping of multidimensional interpretations of muslimhood on Maroc.nl
Authors: Summeren Cindy van
Published: August 2007

The present study shows that the Internet functions as a gratifying context for the exchange of knowledge and values related to religious matters among youngsters (primarily Moroccan) in the Netherlands; they are in the midst of constructing a religious identity. Systematic content analysis complemented by qualitative research was carried out on Maroc.nl, a discussion forum primarily aimed at Moroccan youth. Inspired by Kemper's (1996) definitions of experiencing Islam, the recurrence of six dimensions of religious experience (i. e., the ritual, ideological, consequential, experiential, intellectual, and social) was looked into in 1,354 online messages. The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the nature and the relative visibility of each of these dimensions in the online discussions under study. In addition, a number of context-bound and issue-related characteristics of the message were assessed through qualitative analysis, in an effort to find out what key issues were mainly dealt with, what normative statements were made, and how the informants related to one another.
Direct method for the determination of phenolic hydroxyl groups in pulp
Authors: Liitiä Tiina , Tamminen Tarja
Published: August 2007

For evaluation of changes in phenolic lignin units during kraft pulping and bleaching, a direct method based on UV reflectance measurements of pulp handsheets was tested. Similar trends in total phenolic hydroxyl-group contents were evident when UV reflectance results for isolated lignins and pulp sheets were compared. This direct method gave reliable results after alkaline cooking, oxygen delignification, and bleaching stages followed by alkaline extraction (DE, ZE). However, the phenolic content obtained after peroxide bleaching (QP) was over-estimated. This may be due to alkali-induced reactions during pH adjustment of the sheets for measurement concomitant with ionisation of the phenolic hydroxyl groups. Otherwise, this direct method based on UV reflectance measurements is a promising new approach for determining the total content of phenolic lignin units in pulp sheets without isolating the lignin.