bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Nonproliferation Regime Period
Authors: Koch Lisa Langdon
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines nuclear decisions in Pakistan, South Africa, and Brazil. The nonproliferation regime period began in the aftermath of the shock of India’s 1974 nuclear fission test. The response from the international community led to the deepening, and later expansion, of the nonproliferation regime. In each of the three cases, anticipation of the future effects of the regime and opposition to what country elites viewed as discrimination by the nuclear weapons states affected state behavior. The influence of the military affected nuclear decision-making in Pakistan and Brazil, while the nuclear scientific organization was more influential in South Africa. Both Pakistan and South Africa succeeded in producing a nuclear arsenal, while Brazil’s leaders never made the decision to weaponize.
Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs
Authors: Koch Lisa Langdon
Published: May 2023

This concluding chapter explores nuclear decision-making and development in Iran. One should not study the decision to start a nuclear weapons program as if the state’s ultimate goal is to quickly produce the weapons. Not only do nuclear aspirants pursue different goals, but changing circumstances may also lead a state to later deviate from the original goal. And because the outcomes produced by nuclear decisions may not be reached for months or years after the decision is made, examining the conditions at the time of the outcome will be misleading. Instead one should seek to understand the conditions at the time of the decision that paved the way to the outcome. This shift in focus could allow states to more productively respond to changes in their adversaries’ or allies’ nuclear weapons development and to create better nonproliferation policy tools.
The Twitters of the Machine
Authors: Powers John
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines the Bolex H-16 camera, the technology most emblematic of the avant-garde. It highlights two discourses that were prominent in small-gauge film culture: the Bolex as a chronographically precise scientific instrument and as marked by a portability that required filmmakers to regulate their bodies physically while shooting. Through inventive approaches to time-lapse cinematography and embodied shooting styles, the avant-garde interpreted these discourses as invitations to explore the dialectics of control in art making by putting the precarity of the human body into dynamic tension with the Bolex’s mechanical precision. Films by Marie Menken, Andrew Noren, M. M. Serra, Gary Beydler, Henry Hills, Robert Fulton, Abigail Child, Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson, and Carolee Schneemann, many of which draw from developments in performance, painting, contact improvisation, and the martial arts, demonstrate that experimental filmmakers remodeled the Bolex for an avant-garde film culture that valued intermedial investigations of the body’s contingencies.
Autocracy and Oligarchy in Russia
Authors: Remington Thomas F.
Published: May 2023

Income inequality in Russia is extreme, and wealth inequality is higher than in any other country in the world. Russia’s economic inequality has resulted not only from the privatization of state assets in the 1990s, but also from the continuing exploitation of opportunities to profiteer from corrupt and cronyistic relations between those controlling rent-extracting assets, both in state and in private sector activity, and those in power. The regime has refrained from limiting the influence of oligarchs as a group. Beginning in the early 1990s, the regime made concessions to powerful economic interests to maintain power, and this alliance has persisted since then. Together with a growing economic reliance on natural resources, regime policies have led to a diminishing middle class, extreme wealth concentration at the top, and economic precariousness for much of the population. To maintain power, the regime has suppressed all democratic institutions and turned to ultranationalism and aggression.
Market Transition and Inequality in China
Authors: Remington Thomas F.
Published: May 2023

China’s economic liberalization bears both similarities to and differences from Russia’s. As in Russia, China’s liberalization created numerous opportunities to manipulate the rules of the transition and to extract rents, creating wide gaps between winners and losers. Although economic growth has raised incomes for the population, the growth flows most to those at the top. Total economic inequality—when hidden incomes are included—is rising. Despite awareness of the problem of inequality, China’s regime has avoided taking the difficult policy measures needed to ensure a more inclusive model of economic growth. Instead, corruption and cronyism remain rampant. As in Russia, the current regime has foreclosed any movement toward democracy, instead turning toward personalist, authoritarian rule and an expansionist foreign policy.
The Knowledge Version in Assertion
Authors: Williams John N.
Published: May 2023

Chapter 9 argues that some but not all assertions of the form p and I do not know that p are absurd or irrational. This goes against the view that the norm of assertion is to assert only what one knows. Various arguments for this view are considered and criticized. In reality, there are different types of assertions, distinguished by different aims and governed by different norms, which are often practical rather than epistemic.
How to be a plant
Authors: Gilbert Gregory S. , Parker Ingrid M.
Published: May 2023

Plants are primary producers, converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into sugars through photosynthesis. Plant pathogens take advantage of this energy source, and because the plant immune system is not comprised of specialized cells or organs, every plant cell must defend itself. The plant vascular system moves water and mineral nutrients through xylem; powered by transpiration, water is drawn up from the root, through the stem, and out stomates in the leaf. Phloem distributes carbon-rich compounds throughout the plant from source to sink. Plants are modular, producing an indeterminate number of repeating units of leaves, stems, and roots, with new cells generated in meristems. Asexual (clonal) reproduction may occur in plants via fragmentation, apomixis, or other mechanisms. Sexual reproduction occurs in vascular plants via seeds, which in Angiosperms are produced inside fruits that in turn develop from flowers. Plant life histories range from reproducing once in a lifetime (semelparous) to reproducing repeatedly (iteroparous). Plant hormones govern cell growth and division, physiological processes, phenology, and senescence, and can be manipulated by pathogens to disrupt normal growth patterns. Plant taxonomy emphasizes plant families as useful groupings that often share important chemical traits and other features.
How to be a bacterium
Authors: Gilbert Gregory S. , Parker Ingrid M.
Published: May 2023

Plant-associated bacteria are heterotrophic prokaryotes, forming a diversity of types of symbioses with plants. Bacteria reproduce through binary fission, and they achieve large population sizes very rapidly through exponential growth. Bacteria often grow in biofilms on plants or in soil, incorporating extracellular polysaccharides as structure. Quorum-sensing in bacterial colonies coordinates gene expression. Phytoplasmas are wall-less bacteria that form obligate symbioses inside plant cells, and can often disrupt plant growth. Bacterial growth is affected by temperature, moisture, and pH; bacteria can be obligately aerobic, obligately anaerobic, or facultatively anaerobic. Many bacteria carry extrachromosomal plasmids that include genes useful in pathogenicity or tolerance to antibiotics. Plasmids can spread among unrelated bacteria, creating high rates of horizontal gene transfer; this results in a reticulate pattern of evolution. Bacteria have a diversity of secretory systems that are used not only to secrete enzymes to break down complex resources but to transfer toxins or other chemical into other bacteria or into plant host cells.
Evolution
Authors: Gilbert Gregory S. , Parker Ingrid M.
Published: May 2023

Evolutionary biology includes microevolution, which incorporates genetics into the study of traits, and macroevolution, which focuses on patterns of traits across the history of life. Evolution proceeds via both random changes in allele frequency through genetic drift and non-random changes through natural selection. Genetic drift is important in small populations and through bottlenecks such as colonization events, including pathogen colonization of a new host. Genetic drift and gene flow together influence genetic structure. Natural selection shapes heritable traits in ways that maximize host fitness; directional, stabilizing, and disruptive selection each have consequences for trait evolution and maintenance of genetic diversity. Pathogen virulence is subject to an evolutionary trade-off between within-host fitness and between-host transmission, and the evolution of virulence ultimately depends on the details of pathogen life history. Plants also face trade-offs in the evolution of defenses due to costs of resistance. Pathogen host range varies from specialist to generalist; traits conferring high fitness on one host may involve trade-offs in ability to colonize other hosts. Coevolution involves reciprocal selection between hosts and pathogens and can be described as an escalating “arms race” of novel weapons and counter-weapons, or “trench warfare” of back-and-forth advances between host and pathogen. According to the Red Queen Hypothesis, coevolution promotes the evolution of sexual reproduction. Coevolutionary dynamics vary spatially and populations are connected by gene flow, creating a Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution. Many traits influencing plant–pathogen interactions are evolutionarily conserved, creating a phylogenetic signal in traits and in pathogen host ranges.
The plant microbiome
Authors: Gilbert Gregory S. , Parker Ingrid M.
Published: May 2023

The assemblage of microbes that inhabit the plant as symbionts comprises the plant microbiome. The activities of plant roots have a great effect on the density and composition of bacteria and fungi growing around them, known as the rhizosphere effect. Plant–microbe and microbe–microbe interactions in the rhizosphere have large impacts on plant health. Rhizobia are symbiotic bacteria that fix nitrogen in association with legumes, relying on a complex signaling process that results in the production of root nodules. Mycorrhizae are plant–fungal symbioses that extend the capacity of roots to absorb nutrients and water; the four major groups are ectomycorrhizae, arbuscular mycorrhizae, ericoid mycorrhizae, and orchid mycorrhizae. Common mycorrhizal networks connect plants and result in the transfer of signals, carbon, and nutrients among individuals and even among species. Endophytic fungi and bacteria colonize all parts of plants including the phylloplane; endophytes may be commensals, parasites, or mutualists, with a variety of impacts on the hosts. Endophytes may be horizontally transmitted or vertically transmitted, colonizing seeds and then growing in the next generation of plants. Microbes in the plant microbiome interact with each other through parasitism, predation, competition, antibiosis, and sometimes syntrophy. Such microbe–microbe interactions shape access to the plant by plant pathogens.
A Kantian Conception of Kantian Freedom
Authors: Emmett Kelin
Published: May 2023

This chapter argues against the view of Kantian freedom encapsulated in Henry Allison’s Incorporation Thesis, which has gained widespread support among Kantians. According to Allison, Kant thought that all action, even heteronomous action, requires an act of freedom. So construed, Kant’s disagreement with Hume was not simply about the freedom required for moral agency, but for all agency more generally, so that even if Kant’s argument for the categorical imperative were to fail, our agency could still be free in a morally neutral and limited sense. This chapter argues that this view is unable to meet the criterion necessary for its successful defense, and that attempts to do so face a trilemma as well as collapse Kant’s distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives. It concludes that Kant locates freedom in the capacity to will autonomously—in accordance with the categorical imperative.
Bread as Freedom
Authors: Zylberman Ariel
Published: May 2023

Although Kant holds that the state should support the poor, nowhere does he explicitly offer an argument for this conclusion. The aim of this chapter is to develop a freedom-based reconstruction of such an argument: the state’s duty is required for our freedom as rational animals and as active citizens in a republican state. The proposed interpretation contrasts with received ones which have sought to ground the state’s duty in beneficence, prudence, or property. If the proposed interpretation is correct, it highlights two aspects of Kant’s understanding of freedom that are often ignored, namely, how our freedom is essentially animal and social.
Constitutivity, Freedom, and Normativity—The Case of Logic
Authors: Lu-Adler Huaping
Published: May 2023

If for a rule to be normative the relevant agent must be free to act otherwise, if a rule being constitutive of an act entails that every execution of such an act necessarily accords with the rule, and if logical rules are constitutive of thinking, can these rules be normative? This question, thanks to Clinton Tolley’s work, is unavoidable for anyone who still wishes to defend a normative reading of Kant’s logic. This chapter continues my previous response to Tolley’s challenge, now focusing on the supposed connection between (imperatival) normativity and freedom (not as liberty of indifference, but as rational self-determination). It emphasizes that, for Kant, the question is whether/how the specific rules presented in his logic are normative. The chapter uses historical as well as textual materials to reconstruct his answer to this question and to explain why it is inevitably bound up with the issue of freedom.
Re-curating the Portrait Gallery of International Law
Authors: Tallgren Immi
Published: May 2023

This chapter introduces the objectives of the volume and its experimental setting—a new exhibition in an imaginary ‘Portrait Gallery of International Law’, a metaphor for international law’s collective self-portrait with ancestors. It presents the interrogations: whose lives, which accomplishments, and what kind of events continue to matter in international law (histories), are worthy of attention, and why? Which histories remain absent, whose portraits are not commissioned, and why? Discussing how international law histories have addressed (or not) ‘women’ and their contributions, the chapter introduces the genres of women’s feminist and gender histories and their delayed emergence in international law. It addresses ‘portraiture’ both as a visual culture and in the broader discourses of historiographical, biographical, and literary creation and representation. It highlights the volume’s key query: why do histories of international law continue to tacitly reproduce the gendered, racialized, and classed discriminations? Why is so little attention of researchers accorded to social contexts and consequences of international lawyering? Could the silences and professed ‘epistemological impossibilities’ serve in obscuring uncomfortable continuities and complicities? Instead of a mere issue of research methodology or approach, the invisibility of women (and others marginalized) is also a consequence of the continuously restricted access to power and knowledge, the inherited capital of international law and its knowledge production. The chapter describes the volume’s ‘making of’ and tentatively situates that process as an alternative, multidisciplinary, pluralist but intimately situated authorship of critical history. It concludes with a floorplan of the exhibition, the portraits, and their contributors.
Olympe de Gouges
Authors: Lagerwall Anne , Verdebout Agatha
Published: May 2023

Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) was a French playwright and political essayist. She is mostly remembered for her pledges in favour of gender equality and against slavery. Guillotined as a result of her opposition to Robespierre’s Reign of Terror after being condemned by the Criminal Revolutionary Tribunal, she has become a symbol of feminist resistance in France and beyond. Yet, her legacy is rarely acknowledged in international law. This chapter intends to underline her precursory role in feminist re-writing, through an analysis of her Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (1791) whose style and substance remain remarkable after more than two centuries. It also seeks to understand why de Gouges is scarcely remembered by international lawyers past the symbol that she has become and suggests that this can be partly explained by the way in which her work is rooted in theory and culture.
Homelands of Mary Ann Shadd
Authors: Case Sarah Riley
Published: May 2023

This portrait of Mary Ann Shadd (1823–1893) is a photographic image of a bronze bust commemorating her life. The bust was created by Artis Lane, an artist and descendant of the Shadd family, and can be found in the BME (British Methodist Episcopal) Freedom Park of Chatham, Ontario, where generations of the Shadd family have lived. Mary Ann Shadd was a Black abolitionist who moved between the United States and British colonies to the north during the nineteenth century, including Chatham. The transatlantic slave trade was abolished during her lifetime. Before and after abolition, she and other African diasporic peoples crossed borders erected by states and empires in search of a homeland, safe from the oppression they faced. Shadd believed Chatham was one such homeland, although her community would not escape racial oppression there. The author of the chapter portraying Shadd’s life took this photograph during a pilgrimage to Chatham—as the author is herself an African descendant whose ancestors were enslaved in the British Caribbean, and she is inspired by Mary Ann Shadd’s contributions to a long-lasting, transnational Black radical tradition.
Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix
Authors: Mégret Frédéric
Published: May 2023

Ghénia Avril de Sainte Croix is a forgotten figure today and was certainly no international lawyer. Yet as an early French feminist, pacifist, and member of the International Abolitionist Federation and the International Council of Women, she was involved in the League’s burgeoning efforts to deal with women’s trafficking. As such, she evolved in inter-war circles that were crucial in crafting a certain humanitarian and social sensitivity for international law. Her emphasis on abolishing prostitution had begun in France but continued internationally in ways that show the potential continuity of domestic and international social struggles. That legacy continues to manifest itself with us, even as it needs to be reassessed critically.
Canonizing the Memory of Annie Ruth Jiagge in the Global Efforts towards Gender Equality
Authors: Addaney Michael
Published: May 2023

An influential lawyer, judge, and women’s rights activist, from Ghana, who served her generation through over half a century of dedicated public service. Mrs Jiagge is remembered at the United Nations for the significant role she played in advancing the rights, status, and role of women over a period of three decades from 1962 to 1996. As a leading member of the bar in Ghana, she was selected in 1962 to serve on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and later elected as Rapporteur of the Commission in 1966 and became its President in 1968. For a decade, she was a driving force on the Commission employing her vision of full equal rights for all women globally in the shaping of the draft Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Forgotten Female Actors in Private International Law
Authors: Banu Roxana
Published: May 2023

The International Social Service (ISS) is an international NGO comprising of a network of national entities throughout the world and a General Secretariat in Geneva. Since 1924 the ISS has helped millions of families navigate complex socio-legal problems as a result of migration. Women were the lifeblood of this organization from the very beginning: setting the vision, raising funds across all branches, lobbying a male-dominated international scene in Geneva, London, and New York, and leading transnational research teams at the intersection of private international law and international social work. The conventional historiographies of public and private international law (PrIL) fail to record both the ISS’s unique perspective in the international law arena as a social work organization and the pioneering work of its female actors in many transnational socio-legal projects. This chapter starts to fill that void.
Lea Meriggi
Authors: Forlati Serena
Published: May 2023

This chapter focuses on the life and work of Lea Meriggi, the first woman to become Full Professor of International Law in Italy. While providing an account of her professional career in Germany and Italy and of her scientific work, the chapter also discusses her challenging personal life, as a single mother in the 1940s, her links to Nazism, and the role she played in the attempt of the University of Ferrara to confer Hans Frank a honorary degree in 1943. The chapter may also provide the opportunity for a broader reflection on the relationship between (international) law, academia, and power.
Gezina van der Molen
Authors: Nouwen Sarah MH , Werner Wouter
Published: May 2023

In many of her roles she was the first woman in a man’s world: the first woman to obtain a doctorate at the Free University of Amsterdam; the first female professor at that university; the first woman to be appointed as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Gezina van der Molen was also a prominent figure in the Dutch resistance and controversial for her work as Chairwoman of the ‘Committee for War Foster Children’. Initially heavily inspired by the religious and moral principles of Neo-Calvinism, but through her increasing encounter with plurality Van der Molen faced a dilemma that still confronts international lawyers today: given that there are many different readings of what justice requires, who should be able to determine its meaning in concrete circumstances?
Kalliopi Koufa
Authors: Papadaki Marilena
Published: May 2023

Kalliopi Koufa (1936–) was the first Greek woman Professor of International Law (1989) at the Law Faculty of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with an active involvement in both national and international juridical and political institutions of her time. Having dealt with a wide spectrum of contemporary theoretical and practical international legal problems, her life and multiple engagement can be considered an example of the expansion and diversification of international law, as a result of the intensification and complexity of international relations after the Second World War. Koufa defines herself as an apolitical person ‘interested only in the science of international law’ to which—in multiple male-dominated environments—she has made a significant academic and practical contribution, as this portrait reveals.
Zheng Yuxiu and the Diplomacy of Nationalism and Feminism
Authors: Kuo Margaret
Published: May 2023

Zheng Yuxiu (1896–1959) is best remembered as China’s first woman lawyer and judge. Her pioneering career in international law and diplomacy encompassed important developments in Chinese feminism, nationalism, and constitutionalism. After graduating from the Sorbonne in 1924, Zheng practiced law in Shanghai and was appointed to be a judge. In 1929–1930, she served as a member of the Legislative Yuan in Nanjing, where her work in drafting the Chinese Civil Code helped bring about gender equality under law for Chinese women. In the 1930s and 1940s, she dedicated her work to restoring China’s sovereignty and to abrogating its unequal treaties under international law.
The Role of International Law in Paulina Luisi’s Activism
Authors: Mamolea Andrei
Published: May 2023

Considered the ‘mother’ of Latin American feminism, Paulina Luisi (1875–1950) is well known for her efforts to build a more inclusive international feminism after the First World War. Less well known, is the role that domestic and international law played in this project. Very early in her activism, Luisi identified knowledge acquired through lived experience as indispensable for good government and consequently advocated for greater representation of women, social workers, and marginalized peoples, in the making of domestic and international law. To this end, she constructed a transatlantic network of activists and amplified its voice as an expert at the League of Nations, while, simultaneously, she criticized international organizations that blocked reform and provided cover for authoritarianism, attributes she associated with Pan-American organizations. During the 1930s, Luisi’s dissatisfaction with Pan-Americanism led her to emphasize the need for a constant transnational grassroots mobilization.
Political Cognitivism
Authors: Peter Fabienne
Published: May 2023

In the previous chapter, I argued that fact-based conceptions of political legitimacy run into an accessibility problem. But what if it’s possible to establish, with sufficient robustness, what the right political decision is in a given situation? Is such epistemic access significant for political legitimacy? Belief-based conceptions answer yes. Belief-based conceptions of political legitimacy take political decisions to be legitimate in virtue of according with cognitive political authority. Cognitive political authority is the permission to make binding political decisions that arises from a superior grasp of what the right political decision is in a given situation. I explain that cognitive political authority can be a ground of political legitimacy because of what I call our epistemic accountability. But I also argue that belief-based conceptions run into an important objection. I call it the epistemic underdetermination objection.
Epistemic Norms of Political Deliberation
Authors: Peter Fabienne
Published: May 2023

The epistemic accountability conception highlights that epistemic considerations matter for political legitimacy. The validity of contributions to political deliberation doesn’t just depend on whether someone has standing to contribute and on purely practical considerations. It also depends on the epistemic status of those contributions. This means that well-ordered political deliberation is subject to some epistemic norms. In this chapter, I first introduce the general idea. I then discuss candidate epistemic norms. I argue that political deliberation shouldn’t be subject to a truth norm or a knowledge norm. But it should be subject to a justified belief norm. I also discuss procedural epistemic norms: a responsiveness norm and an epistemic justice norm.
Translation Theories
Authors: Figueira Dorothy M.
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines the various translation theories and methodologies that inform our readings of the reception of this Sanskrit examined in this volume. It looks at how these theories permitted seemingly contradictory messages. It also asks a more general hermeneutical question regarding translation itself. How much transformation can a text undergo before it becomes interpretation? Translation here is understood as a fundamental hermeneutical event. This chapter outlines the history of translation theory, focusing on issues of equivalence, accuracy, fidelity, commensurability, and falsification. It summarizes the thoughts on translation by major theorists on translation in both India and the West.
European Linguists, Philosophers, and Intellectual Rabble-Rousers
Authors: Figueira Dorothy M.
Published: May 2023

To guide us in our understanding of the significant role the Gītā played in the development of Western philosophical thought, we examine the Gītā’s discovery in the West at the hands of European philosophers and Sanskritists (W. Humboldt, A.W. Schlegel, Hegel, Cousin). Schlegel’s 1823 Latin translation of Gītā and the commentary it engendered was caught up in nineteenth-century debates regarding the nature of language. Schlegel’s Latin translation inspired conflicting approaches to the idea of translation as a means of abetting European political trends and hegemonic designs. Humboldt defended Schlegel and the various attacks made upon his translation. Hegel’s response was particularly virulent; it was constructed to prioritize his own philosophy and offer a critique of the Romantic fascination with India. Hegel also refused to accept India as a source of philosophical force and orientation. Through his distortion of Schlegel’s Latin translation, Hegel successfully brought about a general dismissal of Indian philosophy from the history of philosophy. Cousin, his disciple, followed suit, relegating the Gītā to the realm of mysticism, and thereby marginalizing it. Both Hegel and Cousin manipulated the translation of the Gītā to build a and fatalist vision of Indian thought. Their critical detour from Enlightenment universalism within the hermeneutic tradition had the effect of opening up a revivalism of Romantic irrationalism legitimated by philosophical and philological discourse.
The Nazi Kṣatriya Ethos
Authors: Figueira Dorothy M.
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines German Gītā scholarship surrounding the two World Wars. It examines how nineteenth- and twentieth-century German historians of religion and Indologists (Holtzmann, Garbe, Jacobi, Oldenberg, Otto) used the methodology of biblical scholarship to strip away the accretions and discover the original Gītā, believed to be tied to their joint Indo-Aryan identity. In the process, they discovered in the Gītā a kṣatriya ethos that became the focus of subsequent scholarship, culminating in the work of J.W. Hauer, the chief Nazi Indologist whose glorification of the kṣatriya would find an avid reader in Himmler who cited the Gītā to legitimize SS atrocities.
Is This What Krishna Meant?
Authors: Figueira Dorothy M.
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines the exoticism of two significant twentieth-century figures, T.S. Eliot and J. Robert Oppenheimer, during World War II. Eliot, who had been a serious student of Sanskrit, addressed key themes of the Gītā in The Waste Land, his plays, and in a poem on Indian soldiers written during the war. This chapter juxtaposes Eliot’s reception of the Gītā to that of his contemporary Oppenheimer, who was devoted to the Sanskrit poem as a guide to life and specifically as an inspiration for him during his directorship of the Manhattan Project. The Gītā was instrumental in helping Oppenheimer bring the Atomic Bomb implementation to completion.
What Disability Is Not
Authors: Begon Jessica
Published: May 2023

How should disability be understood? I outline central features of accounts of disability on which there is a broad philosophical consensus. I reject both medical and social models, and adopt a hybrid account, according to which disability involves a restriction in our abilities resulting from anomalous physical or cognitive functioning (impairment), in combination with external contextual factors. In other words, we should take account of both physical and cognitive difference itself, and what it means to function atypically in a particular context. Yet this leaves an important question unanswered: which inabilities are disabilities? Here I consider and reject various competing answers to this question. Thus, disabling opportunity losses are not those entailed by ‘normal’ species functioning, those that undermine well-being, or those considered relevant by disability activists. These approaches lead to accounts of disability that are either underspecified or ubiquitous, and so prove inadequate in the context of justice.
Extensions of the Syllogism in Medieval Logic
Authors: Mancosu Paolo , Mugnai Massimo
Published: May 2023

Although during the Middle Ages attempts to employ syllogisms to prove theorems in geometry yielded uninteresting results, there are aspects of medieval logic that are important for the development of the relationship between logic and mathematics. According to Latin grammarians, ‘oblique’ terms were those that were in cases other than the nominative. Often oblique terms refer to relations. Several medieval logicians attempt to fit relational propositions into the patterns of traditional syllogisms. Ockham, Buridan, and Albert of Saxony, for example, extend the syllogism to include relations. Another type of extension is the inclusion of the so-called ‘expository syllogism,’ that is, an analogue of the principle of existential generalization in contemporary logic. Despite these attempts, however, medieval logicians tried to bring inferences containing relations back to applications of the dictum de omni, limiting themselves to exploiting the monotonicity properties of the quantifiers ‘all’ and ‘some.’
Conclusion
Authors: Mancosu Paolo , Mugnai Massimo
Published: May 2023

The problem of the relation between syllogistic arguments and mathematical proofs spills over into the twentieth century. For instance, Moritz Schlick in his Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (1918, 1925) continued to defend the idea that all of mathematics can be presented using syllogisms in Barbara. The conclusion raises the inevitable question: Why did it take so long to realize that syllogisms are insufficient to account for the logic of mathematics? Among the causes highlighted in this chapter is the fact that in the Western world from antiquity to the Renaissance, logic and mathematics developed as two quite independent disciplines. It is only with the seventeenth century that things began to change and the renewed interaction between logic and mathematics led to a more profound understating of the logic of relations.
Recalling Rome
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

The chapter reviews the evidence for collections of verse inscriptions from Rome, known as syllogae, that circulated in Anglo-Saxon England and in Francia in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, and discusses the ways in which these collections could act as itineraries for readers who had never travelled to Rome. It discusses the importance of inscriptions for imparting knowledge of the city of Rome and its churches, and as exemplars for verses for local buildings, and for reinforcing the importance of Rome in the minds of the faithful in distant places. Sylloges found in a manuscript written in Francia in the second quarter of the ninth century and later associated with Lorsch are analysed, especially the fourth Lorsch sylloge that records numerous inscriptions from St Peter’s, including one quoted by Hadrian in a letter to Charlemagne written in 793. Two epigrams in that collection are shown to have special resonance for Charlemagne and his queen, Hildegard, and can probably be dated to the king’s visits to Rome in 774 and 781. Another closely contemporary Frankish manuscript, made for Archbishop Arn of Salzburg, c.800, contains an itinerary of St Peter’s basilica concentrating on the oratories and transept on the south side. The itineraries contained in a similarly dated manuscript from Einseideln likewise reveal a contemporary Frankish vision of Rome.
Charlemagne, St Peter’s, and the Imperial Coronation
Authors: Story Joanna
Published: May 2023

This chapter returns the analysis to St Peter’s basilica, focusing on Charlemagne’s imperial coronation at Christmas 800 and on the inscriptions that were visible there to Frankish viewers. It argues that the form, script, and materials of the epitaph made for Hadrian reflects ideas about empire that were current in the 790s in Carolingian court circles, and that the inscription probably arrived in Rome before the end of 796. It discusses the sources for the early years of the pontificate of Leo III, and the build-up to the attempted assassination of the pope in 799, which precipitated his flight from Italy to Charlemagne in Francia, and the events leading to the imperial coronation in Rome the following year. Contemporary texts and manuscripts are discussed, including Theodulf’s debt to the verse of Corippus describing earlier imperial ceremonial in Constantinople. Inscriptions in St Peter’s associated with Constantine are discussed in the context of Carolingian understanding of the antiquity of that building and its connection to the first Christian emperor. Carolingian manuscripts are the first to record some of these inscriptions, and modifications to those texts, possibly done in the fifteenth century, serve to illuminate the internal struggles of the late medieval Church and the arguments surrounding the veracity of the document known as the Donation of Constantine that underpinned the temporal powers of the Church. The chapter also analyses antiquarian sources for the famous Lateran mosaic, much discussed in the sixteenth century because of its supposed connection to the Donation, which showed Pope Leo and Charlemagne kneeling at the feet of St Peter. This chapter closes with a discussion about the role of materiality and spatial intertextuality in the patronage of inscriptions set within sacred spaces and how a building can shape the content, form, and audience engagement with such texts.
Political Soundings
Authors: Kolb-Neuhaus Roberto
Published: May 2023

Though passionately committed to socialist ideals throughout his life as a composer and actively participating in political initiatives, Revueltas maintained a degree of autonomy regarding organizations such as the Communist Party in the opposition, as well as official institutions such as the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, where he was employed. Even as an elected leader of the LEAR and member of the official delegation visiting Republican Spain, he refused to fully align with institutionalized activism. This autonomy is also reflected in his music, apparently vindicating the belief in its capacity to embody a manner of “political emotion” that is independent of rational discourse. This is suggested in his attempts to embody his political message through music alone, intentionally unlinking it from word and image, such as notoriously in the case of Esquinas and Sensemayá. Unusual for a political composer, he composed very few works in which the political is associated with figurative expression. This chapter introduces a discussion of agency regarding a composer who wishes to speak from within the perspective of his class-bound social subject as well as the aesthetics derived from this controversial aspiration.
Breaking Down False Consciousness
Authors: Kolb-Neuhaus Roberto
Published: May 2023

Revueltas’ continuous cross-references to a wide array of compositional styles through montage and collage bewildered more than one at the time (and still does today). Planos, which mixes stylistic referents quite freely and even provocatively, is a prominent example of a critical stance regarding values and practices that were standard in the field of modern art music, such as a “personal style” and stylistic unity. Previous approaches have overlooked the obvious satire in the work’s subtitle, “Geometric Dance,” poking fun at positivism and exoticism—Planos is neither “geometric” nor suitable for dance. Establishing a dialogue with two other analyses performed by Alejandro Cardona and José Luis Castillo, the present approach identifies Revueltas’ mostly satirical references to pentatonic primitivism, aggressively juxtaposed with derivatives of pregones (street cries), used by the composer to mark this score politically. The score thus appears to sound a debate between nationalist self-exoticization and a political definition of cultural identity. A program note with handwritten examples of such street cries symbolically used in other scores by Revueltas lends support to this interpretation. The study is complemented by a discussion of Revueltas’ link to Stravinsky, defined not as representing the canon but, as in the case of the Mexican, as a composer challenging the Eurocentric canon from the periphery.
Colorines (1932)
Authors: Kolb-Neuhaus Roberto
Published: May 2023

The picturesque title Colorines, the name of tropical trees known for their bright red flowers, is only one further example of Revueltas’ use of satirical titles poking fun at nationalist expectations at home and exoticizing expectations abroad. Such reception is aggressively sabotaged through wildly disruptive satirical collages in the opening section of the piece, an intent that is further corroborated in its closing section. As in other early works of Revueltas, satire is relieved through a musical eulogy of the composer’s favorite subject, a sounding of the common people in the streets. In this case, he resorts to a manner of fraternal dialogue with Stravinsky’s Petrushka, musically alluding to the latter’s street organ players. He juxtaposes this reference with his own abstractions of pregones, the street vendor’s cries. The approach to Colorines’ aggressive collages benefits from definitions proposed by Burkholder, Rancière’s dialectic montage, and Graver’s secessionist avant-gardism.
A Life in Urdu
Authors: Russell Ralph
Published: May 2023

This book brings together writing by Ralph Russell, the eminent 20th century scholar of Urdu, which illuminates his life-long engagement with Urdu speakers and their literature. He learnt Urdu as a young man sent to India for war service in 1941, went on to study its literature in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he taught for 30 years, spent extended periods in South Asia working alongside Urdu-speaking scholars, and became a widely acknowledged authority on Ghalib. Written in his lively, accessible style, it provides a unique introduction for those new to Urdu literature, and unusual insights for those familiar with it. Part 1—autobiographical. It describes how he first came in contact with Urdu speakers during World War 2, his studies at SOAS, and later encounters which reflect his interest in everyone he met. Part 2—essays on key figures in Urdu literature. Poets in the 18th and 19th Centuries, early novelists and short story writers, popular literature, memoirs by remarkable women, all set against social and political contexts; plus an essay describing his approach to translating Ghalib’s ghazals. Part 3—essays on language and literary history. The Progressive Writer’s Movement; Aziz Ahmad; the relationship between Hindi and Urdu; and his well-known article ‘How Not to Write the History of Urdu Literature’. The Foreword by Marion Molteno, his student and literary executor, introduces his life and work. The Afterword brings together appreciations by some of the hundreds of people who were influenced by him. The Editor’s Note explains the criteria of selection and gives notes on sources.
Analysis of Factors Contributing to Antenatal Corticosteroid Administration in Threatened Preterm Labor [ID: 1375840]
Authors: Haas David , Gidia Nadia , Ibrahim Sherrine , McKinzie Alexandra
Published: May 2023

INTRODUCTION:

Antenatal corticosteroids (ACS) are recommended for pregnant persons at risk for imminent preterm delivery within 7 days. Many diagnosed with threatened preterm labor (tPTL) are given ACS but do not deliver until term. The objective of this study was to analyze characteristics of those seen for tPTL who receive ACS to better understand clinical decision-making.

METHODS:

This retrospective cohort study consisted of patients seen in triage at an urban hospital caring for underserved patients in 2021 for tPTL during pregnancy. Demographic variables (maternal age, race and ethnicity, prior preterm delivery) and obstetric variables (cervical dilation, effacement, membrane rupture, tocolytic administration) were evaluated against the primary outcome of ACS administration.

RESULTS:

Two hundred ninety pregnant people with 372 unique encounters for tPTL were identified. The mean gestational age at presentation was 33.5 weeks. 107 patients in 111 encounters received ACS, which was associated with lower body mass index (BMI), greater cervical dilation and effacement, membrane rupture, and more frequent contractions (all P<.01). Logistic regression, limited to first encounter in triage, found that BMI (odds ratio 0.91, 95% CI 0.87–0.95), cervical dilation 2 cm or greater (2.49, 1.12–5.35), and cervical effacement 50% or higher (4.80, 2.25–10.24) were significantly associated with patients receiving ACS. Forty-four percent of those receiving ACS delivered within 7 days, compared to 11% of those who did not receive ACS (P<.001).

CONCLUSION:

Greater cervical dilation and effacement and a lower BMI were associated with ACS administration, although most patients receiving ACS did not deliver within 7 days. These findings will contribute to developing a clinical decision model for administering ACS.
Effect of Gestational Weight Gain on Length of Induction of Labor [ID: 1377561]
Authors: Brewton Anna , Fortner Kimberly , Mastronardi Alicia , Paudel Alissa , Young Megan
Published: May 2023

INTRODUCTION:

Review of institutional data found an association between maternal obesity and increased cesarean delivery (CD) among nulliparous, term, single, vertex (NTSV) pregnancies. To identify modifiable risk factors for CD, we evaluated the relationship of gestational weight gain (GWG) to length of induction of labor.

METHODS:

From January 2020 to May 2021, NTSV inductions were identified via retrospective chart review (IRB#4954). Gestational weight gain according to prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) was categorized using ACOG standards as appropriate, insufficient, or excessive. Time of initial induction agent to delivery time equated to total induction time. Chi square, t test, and regression analyses were performed where appropriate.

RESULTS:

Of 1,031 inductions, 244 (24%) patients had appropriate, 160 (15%) had insufficient, and 627 (61%) had excessive GWG. 366 (36%) had prepregnancy BMI greater than 30. Average total induction times for appropriate, insufficient, and excessive GWG were 1,179, 1,072, and 1,286 minutes, respectively. Excessive GWG was a positive predictor of length of induction (P<.001). Additionally, those with excessive GWG labored significantly longer with ruptured membranes (84 minutes) than those with appropriate GWG (P=.006).

CONCLUSION:

Excessive GWG correlated with 107 additional minutes in the induction process and more time with ruptured membranes. These data emphasize the importance of appropriate GWG particularly in patients beginning pregnancy with obesity. Patients with obesity otherwise have worse pregnancy outcomes; therefore, nutrition and exercise counseling during prenatal care could be advantageous. These data also help inform counseling and preparation on labor units, particularly as inductions become more prevalent.