bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Xin , Trust, and Confucius’ Ethics
Authors: Wee Cecilia
Published: February 2012

Confucius frequently employs the term xin 信 in the Analects . The frequency of his usage suggests that xin has a significant place within his ethics. The main aim of this article is to offer an account of the roles played by xin within Confucius’ ethics. To have a clear understanding of these roles, however, one needs first to understand what Confucius encompasses within his notion of xin . The article begins by delineating the Confucian conception of xin , as presented in the Analects . The notion of xin is often taken to be isomorphic with the notion of trust. I argue that Confucius’ notion of xin does not quite map onto the notion of trust as usually understood in contemporary Western contexts. To understand better what Confucian xin amounts to, I compare and contrast the Confucian conception of xin with contemporary Western accounts of trust by Baier, McLeod, and Mullin. This comparison helps elucidate what xin is as well as how xin relates to morality. With this in hand, the roles that Confucius ascribes to xin in social and political contexts are then delineated.
On Buddhistic Ontology: A Comparative Study of Mou Zongsan and Kyoto School Philosophy
Authors: Asakura Tomomi
Published: February 2012

Mou Zongsan's notion of "Buddhistic ontology" is interpreted here in its fundamental difference from his own previous metaphysical scheme, in the light of the Kyoto School philosophers' similar attempts to resolve the Kantian antinomy of practical reason. This is an alternative both to the analysis provided by previous interpreters of Mou's Buddhistic philosophy, such as Hans-Rudolf Kantor and N. Serina Chan, and to the comparative studies of Mou's theories with Kyoto School philosophy by Ng Yu-kwan. Previous researchers considered Mou's Buddhist philosophy in continuity with moral metaphysics. However, this idea of ontology , inspired by Tiantai perfect teaching, is essentially different from the Qixinlun -inspired scheme of "twofold ontology." The implications of this problematic idea, however, were not pursued by Mou himself, but by the next generation of philosophers, such as Wing-cheuk Chan and Ng Yu-kwan. A comparison with Kyoto School philosophy enables us to clarify how the idea of Buddhism-inspired ontology is a radical criticism against Kantian philosophy, and how it shows similarity to Nishitani's Heidegger-inspired interpretation of Buddhism, which seeks to affirm the being of all things without reserve.
Copyright and Publication Status of Pre-1978 Dissertations: A Content Analysis Approach
Authors: Clement Gail , Levine Melissa
Published: February 2012

We investigated whether American dissertations that were deposited in university libraries or disseminated on microfilm prior to 1978 were "published" for copyright purposes. This question has direct bearing on the copyright status of these works today. In the absence of a directly relevant legal decision to clarify the matter, the authors examined how the former community of practice interpreted the law in the context of dissertation dissemination. A content analysis of written communications by members of this community indicates that both forms of dissertation dissemination were considered to be legal publication under the 1909 Copyright Act.
All Together Now: Getting Faculty, Administrators, and Staff Engaged in Information Literacy Assessment
Authors: Oakleaf Megan , Millet Michelle S. , Kraus Leah
Published: February 2012

Trinity University has established effective strategies for engaging faculty, administrators, and staff in information literacy instruction and assessment. Succeeding in an area in which many libraries struggle, the Coates Library at Trinity University offers a model for libraries seeking to actively engage their campuses through 1) establishing a common definition of information literacy; 2) developing workshops and grants; and 3) engaging in campus-wide information literacy assessment using rubrics. Furthermore, a survey of Trinity faculty, administrators, and staff reveals facilitators and impediments to campus acceptance of collaborative information literacy activities that can inform the evaluation efforts of librarians at other institutions.
A Review of Open Access Self-Archiving Mandate Policies
Authors: Xia Jingfeng , Gilchrist Sarah B. , Smith Nathaniel X.P. , Kingery Justin A. , Radecki Jennifer R. , Wilhelm Marcia L. , Harrison Keith C. , Ashby Michael L. , Mahn Alyson J.
Published: February 2012

This article reviews the history of open access (OA) policies and examines the current status of mandate policy implementations. It finds that hundreds of policies have been proposed and adopted at various organizational levels and many of them have shown a positive effect on the rate of repository content accumulation. However, it also detects policies showing little or no visible impact on repository development, and attempts to analyze the effects of different types of policies, with varied levels of success. It concludes that an open access mandate policy, by itself, will not change existing practices of scholarly self-archiving.
"Research Papers Have Always Seemed Very Daunting": Information Literacy Narratives and the Student Research Experience
Authors: Detmering Robert , Johnson Anna Marie
Published: February 2012

Taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws on narrative theory, composition scholarship, and investigations into the affective dimensions of the research process, this article discusses stories written by college students about their experiences locating, evaluating, and using information in the context of academic research. These narratives provide insight into how students conceptualize the research process and perceive their often tenuous roles as researchers. A textual analysis of a selection of student narratives is included, demonstrating how narrative not only enhances our understanding of the research experience but also enables students to raise larger questions about authenticity and power in the classroom.
Evaluating Open Source Software for Use in Library Initiatives: A Case Study Involving Electronic Publishing
Authors: Samuels Ruth Gallegos , Griffy Henry
Published: February 2012

This article discusses best practices for evaluating open source software for use in library projects, based on the authors' experience evaluating electronic publishing solutions. First, it presents a brief review of the literature, emphasizing the need to evaluate open source solutions carefully in order to minimize Total Cost of Ownership. Next, it describes the process used to conduct a comparative evaluation between two open source electronic publishing systems, highlighting aspects of the methodology not described elsewhere. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of reporting the results of an evaluation to decision-makers.
Causes of Anaemia Among Reproductive Age Women: An Intervention Study in the Eastern Region of India
Authors: Unisa Sayeed , Chattopadhyay Aparajita , Ganguly Sujata , Roy Tarun Kumar
Published: February 2012

An attempt is made to understand the correlates of anaemia and examine the response to iron supplementation in some selected villages in West Bengal where anaemia among women is high. Estimates are derived by cyanmethemoglobin method to determine correlates of anaemia. Changes in haemoglobin after oral iron supplementation among women were monitored. Relationships among the variables were analyzed using the SPSS version 14.0 software. Analysis of various micro-level factors demonstrate that women who suffer from severe to moderate anaemia differ considerably in terms of socio-economic, dietary and anthropometric measurements from women who experience moderate to normal levels of anaemia. The lowest haemoglobin level was noticed among the <30 year old women. This is the child bearing and rearing period, making them more prone to anaemia. High rates of live births, heavy workload, poor diet and menstrual disorder are probably responsible for this anaemic condition among women. Uniform improvement in haemoglobin concentration after iron supplementation was not found among women who were at different levels of anaemia before iron supplementation.
The Selectivity of Migration and Poverty Traps in Rural Brazil
Authors: Golgher André Braz
Published: February 2012

There are different phenomena that may have an impact on poverty levels, and migration is one of them. In part, this happens due to the selectivity of migration, which we discuss theoretically and empirically in this paper. We propose a theoretical model, based on the Roy and the human capital models, which gives particular attention to the poorest individuals. Based on the mathematical equations of this theoretical model, we present some simulations that address different aspects that may possibly promote the existence of territorial poverty traps. Moreover, with the use of multinomial logistic models, we observe a general tendency of negative selection for migrants in rural/rural flows and a positive one in rural/urban and longer steps of migration. That is, poor migrants in rural areas have a limited range of options whether and/or where to migrate and are partially trapped in their origin.
"This Is London": Cosmopolitan Nationalism and the Discourse of Resilience in the Case of the 7/7 Terrorist Attacks
Authors: Bean Hamilton , Keränen Lisa , Durfy Margaret
Published: February 2012

This essay analyzes competing discourses of resilience across United States and United Kingdom online news and blog coverage following the 2005 London 7/7 subway bombings. More specifically, it tracks how dominant articulations of resilience reflect an emerging Anglo-American sensibility that created constraints and possibilities for British national identity and security policy. We argue that the prevailing construction of Londoners as resilient represents a budding form of cosmopolitan nationalism that may have paved the way for the adoption of resilience as an official plank of U.S. and U.K. security policy. We conclude by examining the potential socio-political consequences of the discursive cultivation of resilience and explore its dialectical relation to vulnerability.
Oppositional Ethos: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Vernacular Persona
Authors: Brooks Maegan Parker
Published: February 2012

Based on the recovery and analysis of nearly two dozen of her speeches, this essay locates Fannie Lou Hamer's rhetorical influence in the vernacular persona she constructed. Closer consideration of how Hamer strategically wove various vernacular threads into a coherent persona that worked toward her rhetorical purposes encourages a renewed appreciation of her speaking career. This article also demonstrates the fecundity of grounding vernacular analyses in texts and using this frame to better understand the rhetorical strategies of previously overlooked advocates.
Municipal Housekeeping in the American West: Bertha Knight Landes's Entrance into Politics
Authors: Lewis Tiffany
Published: February 2012

As Seattle's mayor in 1926, Bertha Landes made history as the first woman elected to lead a large city in the United States. To respond to the complicated demands of female political leadership in the early twentieth century American West, Landes pragmatically appealed to expectations of both public men and domestic women by making arguments from both sameness and difference. Using a rhetoric of municipal housekeeping to justify her entrance into political office, Landes paradoxically asserted beliefs about the difference between men and women in leadership, while simultaneously suggesting her political service did not differ from a man's. Although her municipal housekeeping arguments essentialized women as moral and different, they also assisted her entrance into politics and attested to women's suitability for political leadership. She simultaneously employed a rhetoric of Western masculinity and sameness that reified masculine conceptions of political leadership, and suggested that women's roles in the nation functioned similarly to men's roles, thus expanding the role of women in politics beyond exclusively municipal housekeepers. This analysis not only illustrates the use of sameness and difference arguments in elective office, but also how they oxymoronically functioned together.
Civic Rhetoric—Meeting the Communal Interplay of the Provincial and the Cosmopolitan: Barack Obama's Notre Dame Speech, May 17, 2009
Authors: Arnett Ronald C.
Published: February 2012

President Obama's commencement address on the University of Notre Dame campus evoked substantial controversy, providing public demonstration of rhetorical differences and demands generated by differing provincial and cosmopolitan positions. I contend that public civic rhetoric, in an era of narrative and virtue contention, must address the creative interplay of both provincial and cosmopolitan perspectives. In this essay I examine reactions to the Obama address from news sources connected with the local Catholic diocese, as well as the South Bend and University of Notre Dame newspapers. I argue that Obama's address is an example of a public civic speech that openly engaged the interplay of provincial and cosmopolitan understandings of a controversial communal common center. Obama's Notre Dame speech framed discourse that walks within a world of tension and difference on the public stage, highlighting the communal rhetorical constitution of a speech moment shaped through the interplay of provincial and cosmopolitan commitments.
(E)raced Men: Complicity and Responsibility in the Rhetorics of Barack Obama
Authors: McPhail Mark Lawrence , McPhail Roger
Published: February 2012

The dynamic tensions that mark contemporary discussions of race gravitate persistently between historical realities and symbolic fictions. Nowhere is this tension more powerfully and provocatively revealed and concealed than in the rhetoric of Barack Obama. Our essay interrogates this simultaneity by juxtaposing rhetorics of race and responsibility in two of Obama's speeches: his June 15, 2008, Father's Day speech before the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois, and his Remarks to the NAACP Centennial Convention on July 17, 2009.
Obama's Rhetorical Signature: Cosmopolitan Civil Religion in the Presidential Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009
Authors: Frank David A.
Published: February 2012

Drawing on his two books, Dreams from my Father and The Audacity of Hope , the prophetic African American Christian mythic system, and a rhetoric of argumentative reason, Barack Obama developed literary, mythic, and rhetorical signatures during his campaign for president. His signatures recast binary oppositions and answered questions of identity with a set of dissociations, rhetorical acts intended to transform the relationship between contraries. In his inaugural address, Obama adapts these signatures to the assumption of power as president by recalling and rescuing the cosmopolitan expression of American civil religion.
If You Build It, They Will Assess It (or, An Open Letter to George Kuh, with Love and Respect)
Authors: Olivas Michael A.
Published: February 2012

In the scholarship of evaluating student assessment, no group does it as well as the Indiana University scholars engaged in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). More than 1,400 institutions employ the NSSE as a tool for better understanding their students'involvement, integration, and engagement. However, this special issue of The Review of Higher Education raises genuine concerns in the design and psychometrics of the SSE instruments. The authors carefully set out the structural flaws they have identified and offer thoughtful suggestions to improve the project. The preface urges NSSE respondents to these respectful critiques to show the same sensibility that the featured authors have shown to NSSE, beginning by acknowledging the critical literature.
A Reconceptualization of CCSSE's Benchmarks of Student Engagement
Authors: Nora Amaury , Crisp Gloria , Matthews Cissy
Published: February 2012

As a great deal of importance is now placed on student engagement, it is just as imperative to establish the soundness of constructs underlying those survey instruments and benchmarks used in providing indicators of such. This study investigates the dimensionalities of student engagement among community college students as measured by the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) and tests the degree of predictive validity of its five benchmarks on academic performance. Moreover, the researchers propose a reconceptualization of a theoretical framework on student engagement, one that focuses predominantly on both behavioral and attitudinal facets.
Experiencing the Unexpected: Toward a Model of College Diversity Experiences and Attitude Change
Authors: Bowman Nicholas A. , Brandenberger Jay W.
Published: February 2012

Although numerous studies have examined the relationship between college diversity experiences and student outcomes, very little attention has been paid to the mechanism(s) underlying this development. This paper proposes a model of the psychological process through which college diversity experiences affect student attitudes and examines that model empirically using a sample of 387 students who completed service-learning courses. Structural equation modeling analyses indicate that diversity interactions are associated with “experiencing the unexpected,” which then contributes both to a subjective sense of belief challenge and to attitude change. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
Integrating Fantasy and Reality in Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Authors: Reisman Mara
Published: February 2012

In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit , Jeanette Winterson problematizes separating history from storytelling. By narratively juxtaposing reality (Jeanette's history) with fairytale stories and fantastic spaces, Winterson complicates the truths of each setting, disrupts the binary imperative, and reveals the spaces where change can occur. The biblical, fantasy, and personal narratives are the sites in Oranges where wall-like belief systems are scrutinized and where meaning and identity are affirmed, contested, and then either reaffirmed or deconstructed. Whether the narrative's power is ultimately reaffirmed or disrupted, these remain sites of instability. By describing battles for interpretive power like the one that occurs over Jeanette's Fuzzy Felt depiction of Daniel in the lions' den, Winterson shows the fluidity of meaning and exposes what is ideologically at stake in these established narratives. Winterson also emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between stories and reality. This article explores the multiple functions of the fantasy stories in order to demonstrate their social importance within the novel and their cultural influence outside the novel.
Figures of Flight and Entrapment in Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak!
Authors: Chen Wilson C.
Published: February 2012

Despite the existence of a rich, continually growing body of scholarship on Edwidge Danticat's short-story cycle Krik? Krak! , still under-examined is the theme of flight. This article explores Danticat's development of the theme by presenting a reading of "A Wall of Fire Rising" in relation to the preceding story, "Nineteen Thirty-Seven," and also in connection with the flying Africans legend, Haitian revolutionary folklore, and twentieth-century literary representations of flight such as Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World and Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon . By engaging with these narrative traditions of flight, Danticat is able to establish key linkages across African and Haitian diasporic history, investigate new forms of bondage and entrapment, and also rethink a politics of resistance through a framework of gender.
Promoting Vulgarity by Teaching Slang in the Classroom
Authors: Fein David A.
Published: February 2012

We, as language teachers, tend to avoid the teaching of slang for a number of reasons. An argument can be made, however, for integrating a certain amount of carefully chosen slang terms into language teaching at every level, thereby expanding our students' linguistic horizons and better preparing them for study abroad.
A Geography of Appalachian Identity
Authors: Cooper Christopher A. , Knotts H. Gibbs , Elders Katy L.
Published: February 2012

Las definiciones sobre la región de los Apalaches varían considerablemente. En este trabajo desarrollamos un entendimiento teóricamente fundado y con bases empíricas de los Apalaches, centrándonos en el proceso social de la identidad regional. Nuestra medida de la identidad de los Apalaches se basa en el número relativo de empresas en una ciudad que incluyen la palabra "Apalaches" en su nombre. A partir de este análisis, encontramos que la zona central de la identidad de los Apalaches se encuentra en el este de Tennessee, el oeste de Carolina del Norte, el este de Kentucky, el sur de West Virginia y el suroeste de Virginia. También exploramos los factores predictivos de la identidad de los Apalaches y determinamos que el nivel de pobreza, porcentaje de Negros, elevación, y la densidad de población predicen la identidad de los Apalaches. Este trabajo debe ser de interés para los científicos sociales interesados en el estudio de la identidad regional, tanto dentro como fuera de los Apalaches.
The 2007 Mid-South Summer Drought and Heat Wave in Historical Perspective
Authors: Goodrich Gregory B. , Thompson J. Kyle , Wingard Stanley D. , Batson Kylie J.
Published: February 2012

La sequía y la ola de calor del verano de 2007 que abrasó Kentucky y Tennessee afectaron a los inversionistas en la agricultura, el turismo y las industrias de abastecimiento de agua, entro otros. La ola de sequía y calor también generó gran cantidad de cobertura por parte de los medios de comunicación y fue reportada como una de las peores en la historia. Pero, ¿cómo la sequía y la ola de calor del verano de 2007 que afectó a la zona del Medio-Sur, en comparación con las notables sequías de los años 1930, 1940 y 1950? Utilizando datos de división climática y datos compuestos para los estados de Kentucky y Tennessee, se realizó un análisis estadístico que nos ha permitido colocar la sequía y la ola de calor del verano de 2007 en una perspectiva histórica adecuada. Si bien la sequía de 2007 estuvo entre las peores de todos los tiempos en la historia de Tennessee, ha habido muchos periodos de sequía más notables en Kentucky.
Representing the Immigrant: Social Movements, Political Discourse, and Immigration in the U.S. South
Authors: Winders Jamie
Published: February 2012

Este artículo examina las formas en que la figura del inmigrante es entendida y manejada en los discursos políticos y movimientos sociales en torno a la inmigración en el Sur. Partiendo de movimientos relacionados a inmigrantes y discusiones académicas sobre inmigración en el Sur, se busca cómo diferentes movimientos políticos y discursos imaginan y actúan sobre “el inmigrante Latino” dentro y entre localidades sureñas. Para dar sentido a estas diferentes representaciones, el artículo ofrece una tipología que se enfoca en los discursos de (1) humanidad compartidos en organizaciones de derechos de inmigrantes, (2) discriminación racial compartidos en coaliciones negro-moreno, (3) la opresión de clase compartidos en los movimientos de justicia de los trabajadores, y (4) diferencia sobre inmigrantes en la legislación anti-inmigración. Analizando cómo cada enfoque representa “el inmigrante”, el artículo reflexiona sobre las formas en que estos movimientos y discursos crean igualdad y diferencia entre residentes permanentes e inmigrantes, y las implicaciones para una política más amplia sobre inclusión de inmigrantes a través de los Estados Unidos.
Drop by Drop: Greenaway's Shakespearean Transformations
Authors: Piazza Antonella , Izzo Maria
Published: February 2012

This article focuses on the literal and metaphorical tempests that transform The Tempest into Peter Greenaway's 1991 film Prospero's Books . Drawing on Shakespeare's own recurring use of the sea as an element of annihilation and rebirth, the essay first examines Greenaway's use of water imagery in the opening shipwreck of his film. Joining the unconventional bath-bound storm is a maelstrom of literary, cinematic and classically artistic imagery, centred on Prospero's twenty-four titular books. Greenaway's deliberate emphasis on 'the text as text' combines with the film's explosion of images to create a hypertext of sorts: viewers are plunged into an almost infinite stream of associations and combinations, which they are free to surf. This tempest-tossed assortment of material - from seventeenth-century playtext, through classical art and baroque excess, to the most advanced digital filmmaking technology on offer in 1991 - produces a film conscious of its place on the threshold of change. Locating itself at the end of a process of technological advancement begun in early modernity, the film endlessly recycles, manipulates and creates, subjecting its own constitutive elements to their own sea-change, into something rich and strange.
"Taking back the night": Hospitality in The Changeling on Film
Authors: Lehmann Courtney
Published: February 2012

Arguing that paranoiac society is experiencing a 'crisis of hospitality', this essay examines the extent to which Beatrice-Joanna 'takes back the night' in three filmed Changelings - using Derrida's separation of hospitality into 'traditional' (conditional, contractual, patriarchal) and 'absolute' (unconditional, radical; a devil's bargain) categories, and Jan Patočka's conception of 'Night' as a means of reclaiming the self from the circumscribed values of the day. Marcus Thompson's Middleton's Changeling (1998) removes any sign of Beatrice-Joanna's consent to De Flores, submitting her wholly to patriarchal 'hospitality' and ultimately causing her disassociation from the self. Jay Stern's The Changeling (2007) does the opposite, creating a consensual romance that subverts the class and gender norms of traditional hospitality - Beatrice-Joanna does not so much take back the night as take it on. Sarah Harding's Compulsion combines Thompson's risqué sexuality and Stern's love story to form a complex picture of rape, consent and female agency, in which its Beatrice-Joanna and De Flores (Anjika and Flowers) occupy the frontiers between traditional and absolute hospitality, alternating between the roles of host, guest and hostage.
"Caring" Capitalism and the Duplicity of Critique
Authors: Vrasti Wanda
Published: February 2012

How do individuals become emotionally invested in neoliberal ideology? Why do people passionately attach themselves to formations that are ultimately domineering and destructive? This paper brings together Foucauldian governmentality critique with autonomist Marxist writings on post-Fordist capitalism to contribute to the on-going conversation on the social reproduction of neoliberal capital. While, both bodies of theory grant subjectivity a constitutive role, neither takes seriously enough the power of neoliberal ideology to put forth credible affective structures and the ability of individuals to derive genuine pleasure from them. While Foucauldian approaches exaggerate the role of economic rationality in capitalism thus inviting an easy retreat into individualist and consumerist resistance tactics, autonomist thinkers are overly confident that the communicative and cooperative dispositions demanded from the post Fordist workforce already contain the potential to "become common." Seeing how neither of these promises has yet materialized, I propose a more humble and subtle critical practice that borrows from Foucault's "critical ontology of ourselves."
Holding The City Hostage: Popular Sectors and Elites in San Miguel, El Salvador, 1875
Authors: Lauria Santiago Aldo A.
Published: February 2012

During the past 20 years, historians have made great strides in studying the engagement of rural communities with the formation of nations and states in nineteenth-century Latin America. The formation of citizenship, popular liberalism, local pueblo sovereignty, and alternative nationalisms and the influence of local struggles on state institutions have all been plotted, from very local communities to regions. However, the recent emphasis on the integration of peasant communities into regional and national history has largely failed to highlight the importance of provincial cities, even as it gives ample evidence of how important they became as bridges between the local, the regional, and the national.
La Madre Matiana: Prophetess and Nation in Mexican Satire
Authors: Wright-Ros Edward
Published: February 2012

On July 1, 1917, a publication calling itself La Madre Matiana hit the newsstands in Mexico City. The newspaper promised a bold take on politics and society, and its masthead revealed a mission both madcap and grandiose: A prophetic, truth-telling newspaper; it will block the sun with a finger, bark at the moon, and serenade the morning star. This earnest but rather comical statement of endeavor appeared in each issue, and Mexicans of the time would have seen in addition an irreverent parody in the publication's name. The periodical's founder, Angel Prieto, had appropriated a clairvoyant character from popular lore to serve as his paper's alter ego. He chose well—the prophecies of madre Matiana had provoked Mexicans for over half a century and gained renewed prominence during the Mexican Revolution. In the years leading up to the newspaper's emergence, various publications had revisited the Matiana legacy.
Making the Invisible Engineer Visible: DuPont and the Recognition of Nuclear Expertise
Authors: Johnston Sean F.
Published: February 2012

Between 1942 and the late 1950s, atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were industrialized, initially to generate plutonium for the first atomic weapons and later to serve as copious sources of neutrons, radioisotopes and electrical power. These facilities entrained a new breed of engineering specialist adept at designing, operating and maintaining them. From the beginning, large companies supplied the engineering labor for this new technology, and played an important role in defining the nature of their nuclear expertise. In the USA, the most influential company of the period was DuPont, which assumed responsibility for the first plutonium production reactors at Oak Ridge TN and Hanford WA between 1942-6, and of the postwar production facilities at Savannah River SC 1950-87. This paper explores the transition of authority from so-called “atomic scientists” to nuclear engineers at these sites, and the role played by DuPont in consolidating this new technical profession.
Ghost Dancing and the Iron Horse: Surviving through Tradition and Technology
Authors: Ruuska Alex
Published: February 2012

This article explores how railroad technologies, so critical in constructing the imagined nation of the nineteenth-century United States, were simultaneously shaped by multiple social groups including the native communities of North America. This analysis demonstrates how Native Americans’ resistance to and use of railroad technologies contributed to the revitalization and construction of ritual practices and pan-Indian identities associated with the 1890s Ghost Dance. Using case studies of the Northern Paiutes of western Nevada and the Sioux nations of South Dakota, Native Americans’ utilization of railroad technologies are examined during two periods of encroachment, revealing shifting attitudes and practices towards Euroamerican ideas and material culture as a means of protesting against western expansionism and the cultural of capitalism driving the massive reconfiguration of the landscape, cultures and peoples of North America during the last four decades of the nineteenth century.
The Architects of Rock and Roll: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland
Authors: Horning Susan Schmid
Published: February 2012

A review of “The Architects of Rock and Roll” exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. The exhibit is dedicated to three creative individuals whose contributions to rock and roll were bound up in the technology of radio, recording, and performance: disc jockey Alan Freed, recording engineer and producer Sam Phillips, and guitarist/recording pioneer Les Paul. The review also critically assesses the display of recording and reproduction devices dating from an early Edison cylinder to an Apple iPod, entitled “Listen to the Music: Rock and Roll and the Evolution of Audio Technology.” The article concludes with a brief description of the new Rock Hall Library and Archives, a state-of-the-art research facility set to open to the public in 2012.
Once More to the Mountain
Authors: Williams Rosalind H. , McFarland Charles W.
Published: February 2012

A half-century after a 1959 family vacation in the Bernese Alps, an American brother and sister repeat the trip as an homage to their now-deceased parents. As they do, family memories become intertwined with more general observations about the history of technology—not only visible and obvious differences in material devices and systems over fifty years, but also more pervasive if less visible changes involving American manufacturing, the political and military priorities of the cold war, and envirotechnical changes affecting even high mountains. Ultimately the trip reaffirms the significance of continuity as well as change in understanding both personal and collective history.
Designing the Nation: The Belgian Railway Project, 1830–1837
Authors: De Block Greet
Published: February 2012

In contrast to the strategy of most European countries, the first railways in Belgium were not introduced during an experimental phase with local lines, but conceived as a coherent infrastructural frame facilitating transnational transport, as well as unifying and injecting Belgian regions with industrialization. This was inspired by Saint-Simonian ideals. As the Belgian railway network was the translation of both national and international aspirations, this article ties into the growing body of literature on networked technologies operating on these geopolitical scales. The history of network planning in Belgium complements this literature on (inter)national railway systems by focusing on the earlier nineteenth century. Methodologically, the network is examined from the viewpoint of the “heterogeneous engineering” that produced the infrastructure plans, thus going beyond the traditional view by using the material dimension of railway design to analyze the conception of infrastructure as actual nation-building, or the organization of territory and society.
“Standardization through Mechanization”: Germ-Free Life and the Engineering of the Ideal Laboratory Animal
Authors: Kirk Robert G. W.
Published: February 2012

This article examines efforts to establish germ-free animals as ideal laboratory animals, tracing the development of germ-free technology by James Reyniers (1908–67) and Philip Trexler (1911–) at the University of Notre Dame. Despite capturing the scientific imagination between 1942 and the late 1950s, germ-free animals never became the generic tools that Reyniers hoped. This article shows how Reyniers failed to establish germ-free animals because the tension between standardization and the need for novelty was not successfully managed. However, Trexler adapted techniques of producing germ-free life to produce more successful Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) animals. Now so ubiquitous as to be invisible, SPF animals succeeded where germ-free animals failed because they embodied a standard that could be reconfigured to suit local research agendas, while also remaining highly defined and capable of representing natural forms of life. SPF animals became the ideal laboratory animal, used around the world.
Furry Cartography: Performing Species
Authors: Carlson Marla
Published: February 2012

This essay traces vectors of desire that organize contemporary relationships between human and nonhuman species. Stalking Cat, tattooed and surgically altered to resemble a tiger, exemplifies a flight toward altered embodiment encompassing both the perpetual performance that body modification makes possible and the temporary, more limited performance that occurs within furry fandom. Temple Grandin helps to delineate another flight directed toward a posthumanist life-world that does away with the notion that animals do not think and that all humans think in the same way, or at least should do so. Drawing upon Braidotti's feminist reworking of Deleuze and Guattari, the analysis maps out the overlapping networks of performance and brings into focus the psychic and commercial snares that continually adapt in order to recapture and contain the desires moving through these maps.
A Piece "More Curious Than All the Rest": Re-Encountering Pre-Colonial Pacific Island Theatre, 1769-1855
Authors: Looser Diana
Published: February 2012

This essay interrogates the supposition that there was no tradition of "theatrical performance" in the pre-colonial Pacific repertoire. Drawing upon documentary accounts from a range of early foreign explorers, beachcombers, mutineers, folklorists, missionaries, and military personnel throughout the region, it provides evidence of four dramatic performances from the Society Islands, the Marshall Islands, and the Cook Islands that took place between the 1770s and the 1850s. As indigenous performances encapsulated within Euro-American written records, the evidence is highly mediated, and so each instance of presentation and documentation is read as taking place within an "ethnographic moment" of mutual, intercultural translation and interpretation. The final section of the essay assesses possible implications of this historical reconstruction for contemporary Pacific theatre, with a particular focus on artists who have turned to archival records for inspiration, reading the cross-cultural interactions of the past to stimulate alternative forms of intercultural theatrical engagement in the present.
The Black Body in Translation: Polish Productions of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in the 1960s
Authors: Jakubiak Katarzyna
Published: February 2012

This essay explores the cultural implications of blackface in four Polish-language productions of A Raisin in the Sun in the context of Poland's cold war politics of the 1960s. Drawing on Derrida's theory of translation as performance and Butler's notions of constructed corporeality, the essay examines blackface as an element of the interracial translation of the black body, taking place concurrently with the textual translation from English into Polish. The essay traces the tensions between these two kinds of translation to two major sources: the state's attempts to redefine Otherness along class rather than racial lines, and the theatres' desires to safeguard the historically precarious definition of Polish racial identity. Despite the multiple misrepresentations of blackness that these tensions produced, the essay argues that the cross-casting strategies utilized in the productions nevertheless managed to challenge Polish cultural codes of racial difference by emphasizing the materiality of the actors' bodies.
Differing interpretations of reconciliation in South Africa: a discussion of the home for all campaign
Authors: Matthews Sally
Published: February 2012

The theme of reconciliation remains an important one in South African politics. The issue of reconciliation was recently highlighted by South African Human Rights Commission chairperson, Jody Kollapen. According to Kollapen, in South Africa we have a problematic narrow interpretation of reconciliation, one that presents reconciliation and transformation as being in opposition to one another. This paper explores some of the debates about reconciliation as a process and then relates these to the Home for All Campaign. This Campaign was aimed at encouraging white South Africans to acknowledge the injustices of the past and to commit themselves to healing divisions and reducing inequalities in contemporary South Africa. It conceived of reconciliation as a process in which the onus is on white South Africans to take the initiative in reconciling with black South Africans. The Campaign received much publicity and provoked debate but never managed to gain the support of a significant number of white South Africans. In this paper, I explore the reasons for the Campaign's failure to meet all of its objectives, relating this to contemporary South African discourse on reconciliation. I argue that the Campaign's interpretation of reconciliation was valuable and necessary and that it remains imperative in South Africa that white South Africans critically reflect upon past and present privileges and take the initiative in processes of inter-racial reconciliation.
The spatial politics of xenophobia: everyday practices of Congolese migrants in Johannesburg
Authors: Greenburg Jennifer
Published: February 2012

The scale and brutality of the May 2008 xenophobic attacks in South Africa elicited among domestic and international onlookers a sense of horror and shock. These attacks were prefigured by multiple instances of xenophobic violence throughout the country in the preceding years. This paper argues that it is necessary to understand some of the forces underlying these attacks through the situated practices of migrants. This article focuses on some of the everyday practices of migrants in South African cities surrounding access to housing as well as more general experiences of violence, exclusion, and mobility within the city. Focusing on migrant perceptions of safety within the city, volatility of housing conditions, the racialisation of space through resurgent forms of cultural racism, state surveillance through identity documentation and policing, and the role of Pentecostal churches in renegotiating belonging in the city, this paper offers some first steps toward developing an analysis of xenophobia attentive to everyday practice and points to potential areas for future research. This paper asks what sorts of challenges the foregoing analysis presents to existing analyses of African cities, in particular the work of AbdouMaliq Simone.
‘The people shall speak’?: The ward system and constrained participatory democracy: a case study of Chochocho, Mpumalanga
Authors: Malabela Musawenkosi , Ally Shireen
Published: February 2012

Ward councillors and committees are the fulcrum on which a democratic commitment to participatory local government, and its attendant developmental aims, pivot. Yet, ward councillors are often the targets of localised protests that are now endemic as a critique of the pace and accomplishments of democratic developmentalism. If participatory structures issuing from the slogan ‘the people shall govern’ were intended to allow people to voice their grievances and realise their aspirations, why do so many local communities turn to protest instead? This article investigates the workings of the ward system through an intensive case study of one ward in Chochocho, Manzini (a rural trust area in Mpumalanga province), where qualitative in-depth interviews as well as observation revealed that while the communication function attendant to democratic governance has been decentralised, this has not been accompanied by a similar decentralisation of the capacity of the community to control more directly access to, and decisions over, resource and development priorities. As the councillor has little influence over decision-making regarding the allocation of developmental resources, the result is not only ineffective service delivery in the community, and a growing equivalence between ward structures and that of the local ANC branch, but as a result, a deep sense of frustration that feeds scepticism about participation amongst community members. It is this diminution of participation from the rhetoric of ‘people shall govern’ to the reality of ‘the people shall speak’ that animates the contestations over the ward system as an effective space of participation for local communities.
The Quilt as (Non-)Commodity in William S. Yellow Robe Jr.'s The Star Quilter
Authors: Weagel Deborah
Published: February 2012

In his play The Star Quilter , Willliam S. Yellow Robe Jr. explores some of the dichotomies and tensions that exist between Native and white cultures. He contrasts the perspectives of Assiniboine quiltmaker Mona Gray with those of an Anglo woman, LuAnne Jorgensen, through quilts and quiltmaking. Mona's interest in patchwork star quilts differs from that of LuAnne, who views the textiles as commodities, material objects to be bought and sold. In addition to discussing the significance of star quilts among Native peoples, this article proposes that Mona's quilts are more than commodities in society: they become conceptual devices that link her to family members, present her personal autobiography, and express her genuine love and concern for others.
How and When Does Customer Orientation Influence Frontline Employee Job Outcomes? A Meta-Analytic Evaluation
Authors: Zablah Alex R. , Franke George R. , Brown Tom J. , Bartholomew Darrell E.
Published: February 2012

Previous research has conceptualized and modeled customer orientation (CO) in one of two ways: as a psychological phenomenon antecedent to critical job states (i.e., stress and engagement) or as frontline employee behaviors that are caused by these same job states. Building on meta-analytic data, this study finds greater support for the causal relationships implied by a psychological construal of the construct and reveals that CO influences frontline employees' job outcomes through its effects on stress and engagement. Moderation analyses also indicate that CO's influence on model variables is stronger when frontline employees' customer workloads increase and is weaker as the need for customer persuasion increases. These findings contradict widely held assumptions rooted in a behavioral view of CO—namely, that CO is a consequence of job states, a proximate determinant of job outcomes, and most beneficial when ample opportunity for customer engagement exists. Overall, the results support a broadened perspective that recognizes that CO improves job outcomes because it enhances frontline employees' psychological welfare in addition to being good for business. These findings suggest that managers should consider CO an important criterion in frontline employee decisions, recognize CO as beneficial when limited opportunity for customer engagement exists, and avoid efforts to curtail CO's costs at the frontline employee level.
Suppression of a MEF2-KLF6 Survival Pathway by PKA Signaling Promotes Apoptosis in Embryonic Hippocampal Neurons
Authors: Salma Jahan , McDermott John C.
Published: February 2012

In the mammalian nervous system, regulation of transcription factor activity is a crucial determinant of neuronal cell survival, differentiation, and death. The myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) transcription factors have been implicated in cellular processes underlying neuronal survival and differentiation. A core component of the MEF2 complex is the MEF2D subunit. Recently, we reported that cAMP-dependent protein kinase (cAMP/PKA) signaling negatively regulates MEF2D function in myogenic cells. Here, we assessed whether cAMP signaling converges on the prosurvival role of MEF2D in Sprague Dawley rat embryonic (E18) hippocampal neurons. Initially, we observed that experimental induction of cAMP/PKA signaling promotes apoptosis in primary hippocampal neurons as indicated by TUNEL and FACS analysis. Luciferase reporter gene assays revealed that PKA potently represses MEF2Dtrans-activation properties in neurons. This effect was largely reversed by engineered neutralizing mutations of PKA phospho-acceptor sites on MEF2D (S121/190A). Krüppel-like factor 6 (KLF6) was identified as a key transcriptional target of MEF2 in hippocampal neurons, and siRNA-mediated knockdown of KLF6 expression promotes neuronal cell death and also antagonizes the prosurvival role of MEF2D. These observations have important implications for understanding the pathways controlling cell survival and death in the mammalian nervous system.