bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Culture on Sex Assignment and Gender Development in Intersex Patients
Authors: Kuhnle Ursula , Krahl Wolfgang
Published: February 2007

The appearance of the external genitalia is the
major determinant of the social sex, which is announced at or shortly
after birth. In the absence of normal development of the external
genitalia, definitive gender assignment and its announcement have to be
postponed. While over the past 20 years the pathogenesis of most disorders
causing abnormal development of the genitalia have been elucidated, our
knowledge regarding the impact of these defects upon the psychosexual
development is rather rudimentary. This information, however, is needed
not only to establish criteria for correct sex assignment but also
to design relevant outcome studies. Culture is an important part of
the context in which decisions are made on sex assignment of patients
with abnormalities of the external genitalia. Cultural differences in
dealing with intersexuality and intersex individuals not only influences
the patient's own psychosexual development but also medical decisions
regarding sex assignment and consecutive management. There is evidence
that attitudes concerning gender and sexuality, including the acceptance
of intersexuality, differ significantly between various cultures. Thus
cross-cultural studies might allow a new approach in dealing with
intersexed persons, their families, and their social background, a most
important aspect considering the recent discussions and criticisms of
patients and individuals affected with intersex disorders.
Rethinking Adaptation: The Niche-Construction Perspective
Authors: Day Rachel L , Laland Kevin N , Odling-Smee F. John
Published: February 2007

Niche construction refers to the capacity of organisms to construct, modify, and select important components of their local environments, such as nests, burrows, pupal cases, chemicals, and nutrients. A small but increasing number of evolutionary biologists regard niche construction as an evolutionary process in its own right, rather than as a mere product of natural selection. Through niche construction organisms not only influence the nature of their world, but also in part determine the selection pressures to which they and their descendants are exposed, and they do so in a non-random manner. Mathematical population genetics analyses have revealed that niche construction is likely to be evolutionarily consequential because of the feedback that it generates in the evolutionary process. A parallel movement has emerged in ecosystem ecology, where researchers stress the utility of regarding organisms as ecosystem engineers, who partly control energy and matter flows. From the niche construction standpoint, the evolving complementary match between organisms and environments is the product of reciprocal interacting processes of natural selection and niche construction. This essay reviews the arguments put forward in favor of the niche-construction perspective.
The Development of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health after World War II
Authors: Park Buhm Soon
Published: February 2007

This paper explores the rise of the National Institutes of
Health after World War II from the perspective of intramural scientists
working at the NIH's main campus in Bethesda. Several postwar social
circumstances—the local research tradition, the wartime experience
of civilian scientists, the doctor draft, and anti-nepotism rules in
academia—affected the recruitment of research-oriented scientists
into the NIH. These historically contingent factors were no less important
than the larger political, legislative context for the development of
the NIH intramural program as a prominent research institution.
The Neighborhood Context of Well-Being
Authors: Sampson Robert J
Published: February 2007

Health-related problems are strongly associated with
the social characteristics of communities and neighborhoods. We need
to treat community contexts as important units of analysis in their
own right, which in turn calls for new measurement strategies as well
as theoretical frameworks that do not simply treat the neighborhood
as a "trait" of the individual. Recent findings from the Project on
Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods support this thesis. Two
major themes merit special attention: (1) the importance of collective
efficacy for understanding health disparities in the modern city; and
(2) the salience of spatial dynamics that go beyond the confines of
local neighborhoods. Further efforts to explain the causes of variation
in collective processes associated with healthy communities may provide
innovative opportunities for preventive intervention.
Social Isolation and Health, with an Emphasis on Underlying Mechanisms
Authors: Cacioppo John T , Hawkley Louise C
Published: February 2007

Social isolation is a potent but little understood risk
factor for morbidity and mortality, and its negative consequences are most
profound among the elderly, the poor, and minorities, some of the fastest
growing segments of the U.S. population. A steadily increasing number
of people are living alone and are therefore more likely to experience
social isolation. We discuss four mechanisms—attractiveness,
health behavior, stress, and repair and maintenance—by which
perceived social isolation might affect health. Our studies show that
neither attractiveness nor health behaviors differ as a function of
social isolation, but stress and repair and maintenance do seem to
be factors. While socially isolated young adults did not report more
frequent everyday stressors, they rated everyday events as more intensely
stressful. They were also more likely to report passively coping with
stressors, and to show greater vascular resistance, a mechanism of blood
pressure control previously associated with passive coping and a risk
factor for hypertension. Finally, they exhibited less efficacious repair
and maintenance of physiological functioning, including slower wound
healing and poorer sleep efficiency.These mechanisms have implications
for designing appropriate interventions. We advocate a national health
care plan that promotes preventive medicine, recognizes the significance
of stress-related disorders, and supports the maintenance of social
connections across the life span.
Basho and the Aesthetics of Wandering: Recuperating Space, Recognizing Place, and Following the Ways of the Universe
Authors: Heyd Thomas
Published: February 2007

An appeal is made to the foot travels of Matsuo Basho, especially his 1689 journey to northern Japan, reflected in his Narrow Road to the Interior, as examples of wandering. It is suggested that while the travels of a poetwanderer such as Basho are notably distinct from shamanic travels in some respects, they are similar in other important ways, for example in their capacity to give perspective to our everyday experience. Based on BashoÕs example, three aspects of wandering are discussed that may be of aesthetic interest, and it is concluded that in the face of various technological and social developments in industrial societies that increasingly alienate us from our environment, wandering may help us to recover a sense of the depth of space, the real diversity of places, and our human lives in the larger context of nature.
Ibn Sina and Husserl on Intention and Intentionality
Authors: Banchetti-Robino Marina Paola
Published: February 2007

The concepts of intention and intentionality were particularly significant notions within the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic medieval philosophical traditions, and they regained philosophical importance in the twentieth century. The theories of intention and intentionality of the medieval Islamic philosopher and physician Ibn Sina and the phenomenological philosopher and mathematician Edmund Husserl are examined, compared, and contrasted here, showing that Ibn Sina's conception of intention is naturalistic and, in its naturalism, is influenced by the medical professional culture to which Ibn Sina belonged. As well, Husserl's anti-naturalistic conception of intentionality is influenced by his background as a mathematician and by his desire to ground mathematics and the empirical sciences in a truly scientific philosophy. In conclusion, an argument is presented for the superiority of the Husserlian transcendentalist account of intentionality over the Avicennian naturalistic account, on the grounds that the latter falls prey to psychologism and reductionism, the two specters that according to Husserl must haunt all naturalistic accounts of consciousness.
Dreams for Some and Nightmares for Others
Authors: Kaske Neal K
Published: February 2007

Through two dreams, past and current, an ideal online
information retrieval system is depicted, including full text online
access, real time reference assistance via the Internet, and automatic
summarization of all papers and chapters. This is the near future of
information retrieval and processing. Selected resources on automatic
summarization are reported and some thoughts on implications are
offered.
Cross-Cultural Communication: Implications for Effective Information Services In Academic Libraries
Authors: Wang Jian , Frank Donald G
Published: February 2007

International students and scholars on campuses in
the United States constitute a complex, diverse, and rapidly growing
population that must be served effectively by academic libraries. This
article examines cultural differences with a focus on communication
processes and styles, and recommends ways to accommodate cross-cultural
differences in information services. The article includes a survey of
relevant literature and draws on the results of a series of focus groups
conducted at Harvard University, the Georgia Institute of Technology,
Portland State University, and one of the annual conferences of the
American Library Association.
Motivating Students in Credit-based Information Literacy Courses: Theories and Practice
Authors: Jacobson Trudi , Xu Lijuan
Published: February 2007

abstract: Student motivation can have a significant impact on the
classroom atmosphere in information literacy courses. The authors
survey the education literature that has addressed methods for enhancing
motivation and also report from their own experiences. The ARCS Motivation
Model developed by John M. Keller serves as a foundation for four aspects
of instruction that affect motivation.
IDNA for Librarians: Assessing Instructional Development Needs
Authors: Ware Susan A
Published: February 2007

Library instruction has grown more complex as the information
literacy movement has flourished. Increasingly, librarians are adopting
active and collaborative teaching methods and seeking guidance in formal
instructional development programs. The Instructional Development
Needs Assessment (IDNA) survey, a product of the U. S. Department of
Energy, Technology Transfer Program, offers instructional development
planners a powerful needs assessment tool that actively involves potential
participants in the selection of program topics and levels of training. In
the IDNA study described in the article, librarians rated 115 teaching
tasks based on their assessment of task difficulty, importance in the
learning process, and frequency of performance. Sorting mean scores from
highest to lowest produced a prioritized list of instructional development
needs and desired levels of training. The results of this study show
IDNA to be a useful and convenient instructional needs assessment tool.
The Humanities: Who Won the '90s in Scholarly Book Publishing
Authors: Wiberley Stephen E
Published: February 2007

The study of prizes awarded to books in the 1990s by leading
humanities scholarly associations tells much about the disciplines,
publishing, and libraries during that decade. This article examines data
on prize-winners of the American Historical Association, the American
Musicological Society, the College Art Association, and the Modern
Language Association. For the prize-winners, it reports the distribution
of winners among publishers and universities; extent of cross-disciplinary
publishing; degree of co-authorship; trends in library acquisitions of
print versions; and accessibility of electronic versions. The University
of California Press and the faculty at the university's Berkeley campus
ranked first; the American Historical Association awarded nearly half
of its prizes to books classified outside history; there was little
co-authorship; library holdings appeared to decline over the decade;
and roughly 15 percent of prize-winners were available through netLibrary
by the summer of 2001.
A Brief History of the Future of Academic Libraries: Predictions and Speculations from the Literature of the Profession, 1975 to 2000--part one, 1975 to 1989
Authors: Sapp Gregg , Gilmour Ron
Published: February 2007

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the literature of academic librarianship was replete with articles predicting, anticipating, speculating, or cautioning about future possibilities for the field. The seminal works of F. W. Lancaster, who was one of the early predictors and enthusiasts of "paperless information systems," are the key points of departure for this literature. This article (which covers the period of time from roughly 1975 to 1989), as well as its second part (1990 to 1999), employs a citation-tracking method for gathering and reviewing this literature. Each work discussed in this article cites either Lancaster's work, or another work that cites it, so that the resulting literature review has grown from a common source of thought. The aim is to provide an analytical overview on how academic librarians saw and attempted to shape the future of their field during a period of unprecedented change.
Constructing Core Journal Lists: Mixing Science and Alchemy
Authors: Corby Katherine
Published: February 2007

Via an overview of core journal studies, emphasizing the
social sciences and education, this review looks for best practices in
both motivation and methodology. Selection decisions receive particular
focus. Lack of correlation between methods is indicative of the complexity
of the topic and the need for judgment in design and use.
The Usual Doesn't Work: Why We Need Problem-Based Learning
Authors: Spence Larry
Published: February 2007

Difficult to teach and learn, information literacy is a set of skills and knowledge that must be mastered through practice. Advances in the learning sciences reveal that students are not receptacles for wisdom deposits. They decide what they will learn. Problem-based learning exploits that insight. It calls for faculty/librarian collaborations. The following articles recount the steps in one such collaboration. Beginning with this article, they in turn, formulate the problem, design a plausible solution, apply that solution, and explore the implications of the process for libraries, librarians, and their resources.
Explaining Evil Behavior: Using Kant and M. Scott Peck to Solve the Puzzle of Understanding the Moral Psychology of Evil People
Authors: Ward David E.
Published: February 2007

I assume that we find it hard to understand, for example,
how a person could harm another person in cold blood. I then set out
Kant's reason's for thinking that, strictly speaking, evil behavior is
impossible: people may act on wicked desires but deliberate wrong-doing
is not a genuine phenomenon. However, Kant's view is at odds with our
common sense intuitions about morally evil behavior, namely, that such
behavior is possible, albeit difficult to understand. I then suggest how
Kant's analysis of the problem of evil behavior can help us to understand
under what conditions evil behavior would be possible. Next, I
introduce Peck's theory of how evil behavior can manifest itselfwhen a
person suffers from malignant narcissism—a complaint that involves
acting on principles which are not consciously acknowledged. I conclude
that Kant's views on evil can be understood with reference to Peck's
theory (and vice versa).
George W. Bush and the Unrhetorical Rhetorical Presidency
Authors: Crockett David A.
Published: February 2007

This essay applies Tulis's work on the rhetorical presidency to one
modern example—George W. Bush and his tax cut plan of 2001. In
his book The Rhetorical Presidency, Tulis examines Woodrow
Wilson's reinterpretation of presidential leadership, examining how
Wilson reimagined the presidency as an office dedicated primarily to
popular leadership through rhetoric. Since prior to the events of 9/11
George W. Bush's reputation was not that of a brilliant rhetorician, does
that mean Tulis's construct did not apply to him? In fact, no—for
the rhetorical presidency is at heart a constitutional problem, not
a problem of oratorical skill. The modern presidency-centered system
requires the president to be a policy activist and to resist compromise
as he sets rhetorical markers of success. Yet the other branches of
government still retain all of their traditional institutional weapons
to fight presidential success. Even though Bush was not known for being
a rhetorically gifted popular leader in his first months in office,
he still found himself operating according to the rules of Wilson's
rhetorical presidency. Thus, Bush experienced every potential weakness
of the rhetorical presidency identified by Tulis.
Time, Tropes, and Textuality: Reading Republicanism in Charles Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas"
Authors: Pfau Michael
Published: February 2007

By focusing on civic republicanism as the "problem of time" and on
the related critical concepts of "rhetorical timing," iconicity, and
imitation, this essay theorizes a hermeneutic republicanism. In practice
the essay treats Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas" as both a rhetorical
confrontation with, and representation of, the republican "problem of
time." The "Crime" is structured by organic tropes of political community
and its organizing temporal themes systematically ebb and flow iconically
to represent the life cycle of the republic within the life cycle of the
textual performance. The essay concludes with ruminations on the role
such a hermeneutic republicanism might play in ongoing scholarly debates.
Access, Equity, and the Privatization of College Counseling
Authors: McDonough Patricia M. , Korn Jessica S , Yamasaki Erika
Published: February 2007

This paper uses descriptive and multivariate regression analyses to
profile the professionals who are private college counselors, profile
the students who use these counselors, and assess the impact of
using private counseling services on the students' application
practices. The primary contribution of this research has been to
illuminate the existence, role, and impact of private college
counselors, with an emphasis on how they are changing the field of
college admissions and privatizing college counseling.
The Effects of Student-Faculty Interaction In the 1990s
Authors: Kuh George D , Hu Shouping
Published: February 2007

This study examined the effects of student-faculty interaction on student satisfaction and on a range of self-reported learning and personal development gains associated with attending college of 5,409 full-time undergraduates from 126 four-year colleges and universities. Findings show that the frequency of student-faculty interaction increased from first year through the senior year. Although its net effects were trivial, such interactions had substantial positive effects on studentsÕ efforts in other educationally purposeful activities, which had non-trivial effects on their estimated gains and satisfaction.
Women's Colleges in Massachusetts: Responses to Enrollment Declines
Authors: Gueverra Jonathan
Published: February 2007

This study examines enrollment declines (1980-1995) at three single-gender institutions in Massachusetts, asking two questions: What strategies did institutions use in responding to enrollment decline? What planning-related factors were instrumental in aiding recovery from enrollment decline? Each institution employed different response strategies and planning processes. Two institutions were able to reverse decline; the third could not. The paper explores the extent to which institutional leadership from faculty and administrators is necessary in recovery.
The Roles and Challenges of Deans
Authors: Montez Joni Mina , Wolverton Mimi , Gmelch Walter H
Published: February 2007

This paper examines the relationships between academic deans' roles, conflict, and ambiguity, and postulates that the same roles in which they engage today are regarded as challenges in the future which will not abate unless conflict and ambiguity are lessened. The authors discuss the implications of these issues and recommend strategies recommended for easing the burden of the deanship from personal, administrative, and positional perspectives.
The Rise and Demise of Deans of Men
Authors: Schwartz Robert Arthur
Published: February 2007

By examining historical events, it is possible to extrapolate trends and patterns that can facilitate the interpretation of issues in the present and the future. By looking at the developing of the position of dean of men and tracing the patterns of institutional response to change in and outside of the academy to this position, it is possible to anticipate how current trends in higher education may play out in the future.
Academic Life at the Franchise: Faculty Culture in a Rural Two-Year Branch Campus
Authors: Wolfe John R , Strange Charles Carney
Published: February 2007

This case study of faculty culture focused on the dynamics of a small, rural,
two-year branch campus of a large state university. It reports descriptive themes
concerning the isolation and rural location of the campus, its diminutive size,
faculty role perspectives, and factors related to faculty role implementation. It
provides a portrait of this campus and describes how faculty fulfill their roles
in such a setting.
Remembrance of Things Past: Trust and the Obligations of the Intellectual
Authors: Tierney William G
Published: February 2007

This article depicts what academe might look like in 2027, traces the roots of the problem, and suggests how to overcome them. He focuses in particular on
access and shared governance. The text considers how theories of social capital
and trust might inform the challenges that higher education faces, delineates
the parameters of organizational trust and trustworthiness, and concludes
with an outline of responsibilities that intellectuals have to meet to
ensure the trust extended to colleges and universities.
A New Threat of Terror in the Western Hemisphere
Authors: Weinstein Jeremy M
Published: February 2007

In its relations with Peru, the United States has historically placed
greatest emphasis on fighting the war on drugs. As Sendero Luminoso,
The Shining Path, led an insurgency against the Peruvian government in
the 1980s and 1990s, the United States provided ample support against
the terrorists located in the jungle, especially those participating
in the drug trade. But Peru's victory over terrorism then was due
more to improved police intelligence and increased public investment,
rather than success in the war on drugs. Now, in the midst of economic
troubles and a difficult transition back to democracy in Peru, the
Shining Path has made a resurgence. The United States again faces a
choice about how to proceed—to continue focusing on the war on
drugs or to provide sustained levels of investment in Peru's economy
and political institutions, thereby turning this war on terror into a
war on poverty.
Frances Sheridan's Faulkland, the Silenced, Emasculated, Ideal Male
Authors: Oliver Kathleen M
Published: February 2007

This paper argues for the feminine status of Orlando Faulkland in Frances Sheridan's Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph. In his constant display of excessive emotion; in his passivity and helplessness; in his silence and his being silenced; in his foreignness; and even in his one-time lapse of sexual control, the character displays his feminine standing within the novel. More particularly, his emasculation by various women within the novel confirms this status. Even Faulkland's so-called acts of masculine activity and power are undercut by signs of weakness and/or by their association with the genres of romance and comedy.
Origin and Transformation: Salomon Maimon and German-Jewish Enlightenment Culture
Authors: Barnouw Dagmar
Published: February 2007

Salomon Maimon's Lebensgeschichte (1792) presents a strange and
troubled man, a solitary wanderer between the darkness of Polish-Jewish
superstition and the light of German-Jewish reason. When he arrived
in Berlin in 1777, the 25 year-old Maimon had left behind his life in
the shtetl with its great material and intellectual poverty and
premature responsiblities. A rabbi and husband at age eleven, he had
experienced the near total lack of interest in a larger world, of teachers
and books that taught anything, the unquestioning authority of texts that
were impenetrable to reason, the absence of thoughtful social—not
to mention political—organization and conduct. In Berlin, he was
to develop into an intellectual with remarkably broad interests, insights
and erudition. But his early struggle to gain access to such learning had
impressed on him a sense of authenticity, a "true" self that, given his
difficult temperament and the social and political conditions of German-
Jewish Enlightenment culture, inexorably separated him from what he most
desired: an intellectual community that would accept him as he was. Maimon
the intellectual had attracted the interest and support of a number of
distinguished Berlin Enlightenment figures, Moses Mendelssohn, Ephraim
Veitel, Samuel Levy, David Friedlaender among them. Marcus Herz had sent
Maimon's Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie (1790)
to Kant, who thought it one of the best critiques of his work. Yet by
the time his Lebensgeschichte was published, Maimon had managed
to alienate all of them because of his lack of "civility." He could
not adapt to their grossbürgerlich sociability and they,
the posterchildren of the Enlightenment ideology of tolerance, were too
insecure in their minority status to tolerate Maimon's chaotic person and
subversive, "heretical" ideas. This conflict points to larger issues of
tolerance which are discussed in the context of a general German-Jewish
tension around 1800 between assimilation to German society and culture
and an enduring Jewish identity.
The Washing of the Word, the Washing of the World: Paul Celan and the Language of Sanctification
Authors: Hawkins Beth
Published: February 2007

In its communicative gesture to its listeners, in its movement
"toward something open, inhabitable, an approachable you, perhaps,
an approachable reality," Celan's poetry performs a sanctifying
function. Such a function, however, finds its origin in the unique
space of collapse and reconstruction, belief and despair, hope and
vehement rejection of hope-inducing saving devices. This essay traces
Celan's use of the term "waschen" (to wash) as a metaphor for his
interpretation of Kiddush HaShem (sanctification of the divine
name). Both a linguistic necessity and an ethical imperative, "waschen"
symbolically directs the already communicative gesture of the poem toward
the deliberate construction of an ethical system that accounts for and
is grounded in loss. The marker of this "system" in Celan's project is
"Schattensprache"—a language of the shadows—a language that
tends toward silence at the same time that it incorprates the compulsion
to speak and bear witness.
The Presentation of Jesus: Jewish Perspectives on Luke 2:22-24
Authors: Ward Seth
Published: February 2007

Luke's narrative of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:22-24)
conflates into one occasion the mother's sacrifice after childbirth and
the redemption of the firstborn. This paper traces the literature and
traditions of these rituals and finds no indication in Jewish sources
that these biblical mandates were ever performed together.
The Wroclaw Project
Authors: Arnold John , Stargardt Ute
Published: February 2007

This article describes a service learning course located in the city of Wroclaw (formerly Breslau) in southwestern Poland entitled "The Holocaust: Causes and Legacies," in which the cleanup/restoration of the city's "new" Jewish graveyard (opened in 1902) plays a vitally important part. The authors' description of the course is followed by a section dedicated to issues of organizing successful service learning courses located outside the United States. Details relating to their own experience in planning and managing this particular project are specific enough to serve as a model for educators interested in setting up service learning ventures of their own in Poland or joining Alma College in this particular endeavor. Others are of a sufficiently general nature to serve instructors in devising successful study abroad experiences for their students at any number of overseas sites.
Hebrew Key-Letters
Authors: Bar-Lev Zev
Published: February 2007

This article uses mostly ignored facts about Hebrew to propose a major addition to the theory of the Hebrew root (and root-morphemes generally), and a radical solution to the lexical problem in linguistics: the fact that native speakers of a language acquire and subsequently access tens of thousands of words (and that knowledge of a significant part of these words is required of foreign learners).
Initial single-consonant submorphemes are proposed as a new (quasi-) systematic structure within lexicon, most clearly seen in Hebrew. More specifically, it is proposed that 16 Hebrew initial consonants provide a semantic clue to the meaning of the root, in the form of a small set of basic meanings (one "original" one branching out to several basic ones). These clues help to learn and access a large vocabulary, whether for the native or non-native speaker.
The Status of the Israeli Constitution at the Present Time
Authors: Edelman Martin
Published: February 2007

Until recently, there was general agreement that Israel was one of the few nations in the contemporary world without a formal written, integrated constitution. The eleven Basic Laws enacted by the parliament were not seen as superior, fundamental laws restricting the authority of the sovereign Knesset. At most, they were seen as self-restricting Knesset enactments. Then in 1995, the Israeli Supreme Court held that it would henceforth consider the Basic Laws as Israel's constitution, and that the justices would exercise a judicial review power akin to that of the United States Supreme Court. Israel appears to be the only country with a written constitution promulgated by its judiciary. But not all Israelis have accepted the judicially promulgated constitution.
This article assesses the uniqueness of the Israeli situation. It first discusses the functions of written constitutions and why such documents have become part of what it means to be an independent nation in the contemporary world. It then discusses the special role of written constitutions in democracies and the various ways democracies have adopted constitutions. Against that background, the discussion turns to recent actions by the Supreme Court in the context of current Israeli politics to explain why the legitimacy of the constitution is still problematic.
X-Men as J Men: The Jewish Subtext of a Comic Book Movie
Authors: Baron Lawrence
Published: February 2007

The recent movie X-Men (2000) reflects the assimilationist
aims, ethnic anxieties, and liberal idealism of the first-generation
Jewish Americans who created the original superheroes featured in
Marvel Comic Books. Their rejection of Nazi racism, abhorrence of the
Holocaust, and support of the Civil Rights Movement motivated them to
make Magneto, the antagonist of the X-Men, a Jewish Holocaust
survivor who reasonably fears that a new race of mutants like himself
may face persecution and eventual extermination if they do not mount
a preemptive strike against paranoid humans intent on suppressing the
threat posed by beings with special powers. The X-Men follow a mutant who
advocates acculturation and the channeling of their superhuman abilities
to defend humankind. Bryan Singer, the Jewish director of the movie,
has retained the encounter with the Holocaust and the struggle against
bigotry as key themes in his film. He also has associated these themes
with other instances of past or present manifestations of mass hysteria
and discrimination in American politics. Thus, the movie can be understood
on two levels: superficially, it is a special effects, action adventure,
science fiction movie that appeals to teenagers; substantively, it is an
allegory about the continuing debate over whether the United States should
promote ethnic, racial, and religious equality and diversity or whether
it should become a more homogenous and less multicultural society.
Gender and Holocaust Docudramas: Gentile Heroines in Rescue Films
Authors: Fuchs Esther
Published: February 2007

This article considers the representation of women as rescuers of
Jews in Holocaust docudramas from the 1970s to the late 1990s. Though
based on historical fact, the cinematic productions in question tend
to create good/bad polarities, adhere to the convention of individual
character and middle-class feminine propriety as moral coherence,
and offer optimistic resolutions which confirm the religious notion
that good deeds are appropriately rewarded. The central argument is
that the documentary subtext of these productions is structured by a
narrative of heroism representing the Holocaust as a disturbance of a
fundamentally "good" European social order. This simplistic resolution
is underpinned by the androcentric endorsement of female celibacy and
monogamous heterosexuality as basic ingredients in what constitutes female
morality. Jewish victims in the meantime are stereotyped as helpless, in
some cases effeminate embodiments of dependency, religious incoherence,
and moral confusion. The result of this sort of representation is
an affirmation of Christian faith and European nationalism (Dutch,
French) vindicated as it were by the victory of good over evil and by
the appropriate rewarding of the "correct' moral choice.
Holocaust Pornography: Profaning the Sacred in Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS
Authors: Rapaport Lynn
Published: February 2007

Sado-masochistic iconography has long exploited Nazi imagery by
linking sex with power and violence. By using the 1974 sexploitation film
Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS as a case study, I explore what happens
to Holocaust memory when the Holocaust is eroticized. Based on a close
textual analysis of the film, in-depth interviews with the film's director
and stars, and a content analysis of a representative sample of 508 web
sites related to the film, I analyze the production and reception of the
film in light of the controversies surrounding Holocaust representation
in popular culture. I describe how cultural content, historical trauma,
and aesthetic form interplay in the film, and question why Holocaust
memory is being eroticized, genderered, and profaned.
Coming Out of the Ethnic Closet: Jewishness in the Films of Barry Levinson
Authors: Rosenberg Warren
Published: February 2007

A study of director and writer Barry Levinson's Baltimore films,
Diner, Tin Men, Avalon, and Liberty Heights,
demonstrates how his Jewish identity, repressed in films designed to reach
larger audiences, like Good Morning, Vietnam and Rainman,
slowly emerges in these more personal vehicles. The cultural moment of
the late 1990s allowed Levinson to move from universalizing Jewishness,
as in Avalon (1990), where the central family, never identified
as Jewish, represents the American immigrant experience in general, to
Liberty Heights (1999), where a particularized Jewish experience
is depicted. Yet the turn to "Jewishness" in the latter film is fueled by
conflicting images of Jewish masculinity that problematically intersect
with the African American characters in the film. Levinson sets his film
in 1950s Baltimore, raising questions about the kind of cultural work
the film was intended to accomplish in 1999.
Assessing Linguistic Diversity in Deaf Criminal Suspects
Authors: Miller Katrina R , Vernon McCay
Published: February 2007

Consistently providing sign language interpreters to deaf criminal suspects when conducting police interviews has been a problematic area for law enforcement. Successfully implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act requires that the criminal justice system assume not only the responsibility of providing qualified sign language interpreters but also that of working closely with interpreters to assess and accommodate a linguistically diverse population. This study focuses on how legal interpreters identify varying language levels in deaf suspects. This survey of forty-six professional sign language interpreters working in criminal justice settings reviews critical indicators that interpreters use in the assessment process, as well as ob-served barriers to the provision of effective communication within the criminal justice system structure.
Classifier Predicates and the Creation of Multiple Perspectives in South African Sign Language
Authors: Aarons Debra , Morgan Ruth Zilla
Published: February 2007

This article examines some of the options that South African Sign Language offers for the representation of multiple perspectives on an event. The authors focus on picture descriptions that use classifier predicates. They show that signers use constructed action in conjunction with classifier predicates to create simultaneous multiple perspectives on an event. Signers also use classifier predicates and constructed action sequentially to shift perspectives back and forth within an utterance. The authors conclude that the modality of space allows users of a sign language to apply several active articulators simultaneously to communicate multiple perspectives on an event; the differences in the representational repertoire of the articulators allow perspective changes to follow one another rapidly.
Redesigning Literature: The Cinematic Poetics of American Sign Language Poetry
Authors: Bauman H-Dirksen L
Published: February 2007

As literature and its criticism have evolved within speech and writing, the emergence of poetry in ASL raises important questions for anyone interested in the study of literature: Because ASL texts have no written form, can they rightfully be called "literature"? Would it be more accurate (though ironic) to speak of ASL texts as forms of "oral literature"? How does one even begin to discuss sign poetry? What lexicon should one use in identifying the poetic elements in a language without sound? This article explores the latter question concerning the lexicon of ASL poetics.
Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America
Authors: Restall Matthew
Published: February 2007

“I, Juan Garrido, black resident [de color negro vecino] of this city [Mexico], appear before Your Mercy and state that I am in need of making aprobanzato the perpetuity of the king [a perpetuad rey], a report on how I served Your Majesty in the conquest and pacification of this New Spain, from the time when the Marqués del Valle [Cortés] entered it; and in his company I was present at all the invasions and conquests and pacifications which were carried out, always with the said Marqués, all of which I did at my own expense without being given either salary or allotment of natives [repartimiento de indios] or anything else. As I am married and a resident of this city, where I have always lived; and also as I went with the Marqués del Valle to discover the islands which are in that part of the southern sea [the Pacific] where there was much hunger and privation; and also as I went to discover and pacify the islands of San Juan de Buriquén de Puerto Rico; and also as I went on the pacification and conquest of the island of Cuba with theadelantadoDiego Velázquez; in all these ways for thirty years have I served and continue to serve Your Majesty—for these reasons stated above do I petition Your Mercy. And also because I was the first to have the inspiration to sow maize here in New Spain and to see if it took; I did this and experimented at my own expense.”
Beholding the Miracle: Xavante Indians and Economic “Development” under Brazilian Military Rule
Authors: Garfield Seth
Published: February 2007

In 1978, the Brazilian military government launched a “community development project” for the Xavante Indians of Mato Grosso (“Projeto Xavante”) to promote mechanized rice production and livestock rearing, and to institute educational and health programs. As the project sought to foster indigenous self-sufficiency, the government Indian bureau,Fundaçaão Nacional do Índio(FUNAI) would deploy a team of technicians, agronomists, educators, and health care officials to train Xavante as agriculturists, machine operators, health care attendants, and bilingual teaching monitors. Under the administration of General Ismarth Araújo de Oliveira, FUNAI initially earmarked CR$8,635,207 for the Xavante Project and established a special coordinating unit in Barra do Garças, Mato Grosso, theAjudância Autônoma de Barra do Garças(AJABAG).
“Restoring Christian Social Order”: The Mexican Catholic Youth Association (1913-1932)
Authors: Espinosa David
Published: February 2007

[our goal] is nothing less that the coordination of the living forces of Mexican Catholic youth for the purpose of restoring Christian social order in Mexico …

(A.C.J.M.’s “General Statutes”)

The Mexican Catholic Youth Association emerged during the Mexican Revolution dedicated to the goal of creating lay activists with a Catholic vision for society. The history of this Jesuit organization provides insights into Church-State relations from the military phase of the Mexican Revolution to its consolidation in the 1920s and 1930s. The Church-State conflict is a basic issue in Mexico's political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the Church mobilizing forces wherever it could during these years dominated by anticlericalism. During the 1920s, the Mexican Catholic Youth Association (A.C.J.M.) was in the forefront of the Church's efforts to respond to the government's anticlerical policies. The A.C.J.M.’s subsequent estrangement from the top Church leadership also serves to highlight the complex relationship that existed between the Mexican bishops and the Catholic laity and the ideological divisions that existed within Mexico's Catholic community as a whole.
When the Priest Does Not Sympathize with el Pueblo: Clergy and Society in El Oriente Venezolano, 1843-1873
Authors: Morse Kimberly J.
Published: February 2007

When 22 Capuchin friars landed in Barcelona in 1843, they could not anticipate the troubles they faced in the years to come. As refugees from the Spanish Carlista wars, Gallegos and Catalans who did not even speak much Spanish, the friars must have been happy enough to serve a nation that did not want them dead—yet. In their contract with the Venezuelan government, the 22 Capuchin friars who labored in Venezuela'sOrientepromised to stay in Venezuela for at least ten years. In return, the Venezuelan government promised to pay them 400 pesos annually, to leave all spiritual matters in the hands of the missionaries, and to cede to the missionaries all authority in Indian mission matters.

If only things worked out that well. The Capuchin friars found themselves inextricably bound in complex relationships of race and class, often intertwined with matters of land and labor. Poverty and politics (or the politics of poverty) did not allow clergy to use their position as parish priests to maintain any degree of neutrality in the tug of war between the white elite and the poor, primarily Indians, ex-slaves, and the mixed race descendants of all groups. To the contrary, poverty and politics made clergy important players in the ongoing high stakes game of chess between the elite and the masses.
No Exit: The Rise and Demise of the Outside Fire Escape
Authors: Wermiel Sara E
Published: February 2007

The article traces the history of the fire escape - in its classic form, a system of iron balconies and ladders on the outside of a building, which is used for emergency exit - in the United States. It shows how this device was called into being by state and city laws in the latter half of the nineteenth century and how, when its drawbacks as a means of egress from large buildings became clear to lawmakers and property owners, was abandoned and replaced with another system: protected, interior stairs. The fire escape is an example of a publicly-constructed technology, in that its existence, development, and demise were controlled by local government rather than the market.
Fixing the Blame: Organizational Culture and the Quebec Bridge Collapse
Authors: Kranakis Eda
Published: February 2007

The collapse of the Quebec Bridge in 1907 remains "one of the world's major structural failures," writes Eda Kranakis in "Fixing the Blame: Organizational Culture and the Quebec Bridge Collapse," one still studied by engineering students as an object lesson. But the common understanding of what caused the partially completed bridge to collapse is flawed, Kranakis argues. The Royal Commission that investigated blamed errors in judgment by two engineers, Theodore Cooper and Peter Szlapka, shaping a view of events that has prevailed ever since. But its conclusions are belied by a mountain of evidence collected by the commission itself during the inquiry and contributed by engineers and public officials subsequently. "The combined weight of this evidence suggests, rather, that the errors behind the collapse were rooted in the project's organizational culture." Kranakis links organizational factors to three crucial technical errors that the commission found to be responsible for the bridge's collapse, and uses that discussion to lead into the broader question of how organizations influence engineering. "One of the ironies of the Quebec Bridge disaster," she concludes, "is that the important organizational lessons it offeredÑalthough understood by many engineers and public officials at the time of the eventÑhave since been forgotten because later analysts accepted the Royal Commission's narrow interpretation of error and causation."
Dung, Sludge, and Landfill: Biogas Technology in the Netherlands, 1970-2000
Authors: Raven Rob , Verbong Geert
Published: February 2007

Industrial societies are drowning in the torrent of waste created by our production methods, habits of consumption, and living patterns. In "Dung, Sludge, and Landfill: Biogas Technology in the Netherlands, 1970Ð2000," Rob Raven and Geert Verbong present case studies of three technologies among the many used in the management of the waste stream: the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor, a wastewater treatment system; anaerobic manure digestion; and landfill gas extraction. By following the different paths of development traced by these technologies, Raven and Verbong hope both to address the question of why some environmental technologies succeed while others fail and, more broadly, to "illuminate the complicated interplay between technological development and social context."
Black and White and Re(a)d All Over Again: Indigenous Minstrelsy in Contemporary Canadian and Australian Theatre
Authors: Gilbert Helen
Published: February 2007

This essay considers processes by which community identities are challenged by discussing the use of whiteface as an activist strategy in recent indigenous theatre in Canada and Australia. To understand whiteface, I employ Susan Gubar's notion of racechange, processes that test and even transgress racial borders. I also situate whiteface in relation to the history of blackface minstrelsy. Noting the ways these racial performances affirm the hierarchies of color and how power becomes invested in such color codings, the essay highlights indigenous employment of whiteface as a potential form of critical historiography. I then analyze how whiteface functions in two productions, Daniel David Moses's Almighty Voice and His Wife (1991) in Canada and the Queensland Theatre Company's 2000 revival of George Landen Dann's Fountains Beyond in Australia. My analysis posits that such indigenous performances of whiteface can affirm the identity of the marginalized other even as they destabilize the fixity of race and its meanings.