bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Yielding Peaches and Women with Whips
Authors: Hedenborg White Manon 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter analyzes how Aleister Crowley’s ideas about Babalon and the Scarlet Woman—a title Crowley bestowed upon his most important female lovers and magical partners, designating them earthly representatives of Babalon—developed after 1909, when Crowley increasingly systematized his magical teachings. In 1912, Crowley became British head of Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an initiatory fraternity claiming to possess the secret of sexual magic, which subsequently became increasingly important to his magical practice. In 1920, Crowley cofounded a religious commune, the Abbey of Thelema, in Cefalù, Sicily, with his lover and disciple Leah Hirsig, who became Crowley’s Scarlet Woman. Later in life, Crowley developed Babalon’s function further in a number of texts. I argue that Crowley’s Babalon—by symbolizing assertive and transgressive feminine sexuality and the erotic threat to stable, bounded subjectivity—both reifies and challenges dominant perceptions of femininity and feminine sexuality in the early twentieth century.
Her Banner Is Unfolded
Authors: Hedenborg White Manon 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
The chapter introduces and discusses how Babalon was interpreted by the American rocket scientist and Thelemite John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons. In 1946, Parsons undertook a series of magical operations, aided by his lover Marjorie Cameron and L. Ron Hubbard, with the aim of manifesting Babalon on earth as a human woman. Likely influenced by libertarian socialist and feminist ideas, Parsons believed Babalon would incarnate as a messianic figure connected to female emancipation, religious freedom, and sexual liberation. A few years later, Parsons proclaimed himself the Antichrist and sought to promote a version of witchcraft that venerated Babalon alongside Lucifer. I argue that Parsons’s feminist vision of Babalon challenged hegemonic notions of femininity as passive and nurturing. Parsons emphasized Babalon and the Scarlet Woman as important figures in their own right rather than characters defined in relation to a male magician. However, Parsons also reproduced perceptions of femininity as intuitive and natural.
Intermezzo
Authors: Hedenborg White Manon 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter functions as a bridge between the previous chapters, which dealt with the historical esotericists who have described Babalon (primarily, Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons, and Kenneth Grant), and my research on the contemporary Thelemic and esoteric milieu, outlined in the subsequent chapters. Based on existing research in the field done by other scholars, the chapter provides a brief outline of the landscape and development of contemporary esotericism, with some reflections on the demographic composition, values, and behavior of contemporary Thelemites and esotericists. Attention is paid to how feminist ideas—which have influenced the broader Neopagan and occult milieus from the 1970s onward—appear to have gained increasing influence within Thelema from at least the 1990s.
Possession and Dispossession
Authors: Hedenborg White Manon 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter analyzes how bodily technologies are used to materialize a “Babalonian” body in written descriptions of rituals centered around Babalon. In several rituals, female esotericists utilize “technologies of femininity” (e.g., high heels, lingerie, makeup) to embody Babalon, whereas one male esotericist succumbs to ritual scarification in devotion to the goddess, explicitly describing this as analogous to feminine technologies. While feminist theorization has frequently referred to investment in feminine adornment and physical modification as trivial, subordinating, and restrictive, I stress that technology is implicated in all materializations of gender as well as ritual. Thus, I contend that the esotericists’ use of feminine technologies should be acknowledged as ritual techniques used by agential religious practitioners, while also producing a feminine body that is open, vulnerable, and partly restrained. Thus, the rituals discussed produce femininities that are neither exclusively determined by, nor completely independent of, the (heterosexual) male gaze.
“Like Fire and Powder”
Authors: Hedenborg White Manon 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter reviews the initial questions of the study, including how interpretations of Babalon relate to hegemonic notions of gender; and whether Babalon has the potential to function according to what Rosi Braidotti denotes as a “feminist figuration,” which indicates alternate ways of envisioning and inhabiting femininity. I conclude that the Babalon discourse appears to function in this way, providing a feminine symbolic that especially women and LGBTQ esotericists can identify with and indicating the desirability of nonmonogamous, nonreproductive, and sometimes also nonheterosexual modalities. This symbolic may not be equally accessible to all feminine subjects, because the Babalon discourse is historically situated and contingent on the social positionality of many contemporary esotericists. In summarizing the findings of this study, I assert that the Babalon discourse—lauding the propensity for erotic undoing—nonetheless profoundly challenges Western notions of bourgeois, masculine, and bounded subjectivity.
Authority and aggression
Authors: Kahlos Maijastina 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThis chapter discusses the various standpoints that imperial and ecclesiastical authorities had towards the coercion of religious dissidents, especially violence towards people and their cult places. Periodic outbursts of aggression between religious groups were sometimes aggravated and even instigated by church leaders, while sometimes they were settled and even condemned by them. Imperial authorities sought to keep the mechanisms of coercive rule under their own control. Therefore, they needed to suppress and punish other forms of aggression than their officially sanctioned violence. This chapter shows the variety of attitudes held by the imperial and ecclesiastical authorities and the responses to them. In regard to pagan shrines, there is evidence of maintenance, destruction, abandonment, and transformation of temples in Late Antiquity.
Reactions
Authors: Kahlos Maijastina 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThis chapter analyses the various ways in which people responded to the altered social and religious circumstances in the Christianizing empire. Many accommodated the dominant form of Christianity. Bishops usually spoke about conversion in a favourable manner. Some reservations were shown when a few recent converts became more militant than their fellow Christians. Outward religious conformity and feigned conversions were despised by both Christian and pagan writers. However, not everyone accommodated the changing circumstances. We have appeals from dissidents, even though these have not been preserved in equal quantity as the mainstream Christian literature. Many of the non-conforming religious practices shifted to private spaces, beyond the control of the ecclesiastical and imperial authorities. There seems to have been self-segregation among several Christian sects as well as some pagan Neoplatonist circles. Resistance could also be aggressive, in the form of verbal violence and polemical attacks as well as violent confrontations.
Economics of practices
Authors: Kahlos Maijastina 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThis chapter explores the economic aspects of religious dissidence, such as the confiscation of temples and churches, as well as competing philanthropic practices, civic euergetism, and ecclesiastical charity. In many instances, economic issues carried more weight than the solemn proclamations of emperors and church councils. When the emperor chose a cult or a group as something to support, he recognized that cult or religious group as a receiver of privileges and donations. The emperors’ economic support of Christian communities strengthened the position of the churches. The withdrawal of imperial support hit pagan cults that had traditionally been endowed with land, property, and exemptions from duties. Furthermore, late Roman society saw another great transformation in the economics of practices. The philanthropy of the Christian churches gradually replaced the traditional Graeco-Roman form of civic philanthropy in the fourth and fifth centuries.
Sacred places and spaces
Authors: Kahlos Maijastina 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThis chapter discusses not only the rivalry between Christians, pagans, and Jews in regard to sacred places and spaces, but also how these were shared. Even though many groups maintained the separateness and uniqueness of their sacred sites, they could easily move into locations held by other groups. Late antique people commuted between spaces or between different interpretations of the same space. Attention is also drawn to the contradictions between the triumphalist declarations made by church leaders about the destruction of cult places in some regions and the archaeological evidence, which reveals a less dramatic picture, such as the continuity of cult practices or the natural abandonment and decay of shrines. Furthermore, emperors issued laws to protect temples from attacks and plundering. They were regarded not only as cult places, but also as civic monuments, and they were valued as aesthetic objects.
Introduction
Authors: Lane Anthony N. S. 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
In 1541, at the Regensburg Colloquy, three leading Protestant theologians (Melanchthon, Bucer, and Pistorius) and three leading Catholic theologians (Eck, Gropper, and Pflug) debated with the aim of producing a joint statement of belief. The colloquy eventually failed, but it began with a statement on justification by faith agreed by all the parties, “Article 5,” which had led to an initial burst of optimism. But from the beginning there were two contrasting reactions to Article 5. Some, notably Calvin, maintained that it contained the substance of true doctrine; others, notably Luther, called it an inconsistent patchwork. These two rival assessments have both persisted over the centuries. The aim of this book is to decide between them.
Rahmat
Authors: Chiovenda Andrea 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
The chapter revolves around Rahmat, a young man, father of two, who lives in a rural village on the border with Pakistan. His case is different from the previous ones in that he embodies apparently all the characteristics that would be expected from an appropriate Pashtun masculinity. He is in fact a well-known and respected figure in his district. Under the surface, however, lies the conflicted personal history of a man who straddled the geographical border of the two countries to engage in drug trafficking and production, and who secretly longs to escape elsewhere to regain the sense of an ideal masculinity, of which he feels he was metaphorically robbed by the distortions of a war-ravaged social context. The sense of responsibility to embody the features of the “perfect” Pashtun man clashes with the inability to do so in the “right” way, due to the perceived degeneration of modern life in Afghanistan.
Flesh
Authors: Kozak Mariusz 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter connects the notion of affordances with phenomenological investigation to explore how the human body, with its perceptual and animate capabilities, co-creates time together with the sonic environment. The author employs Merleau-Ponty’s concept of flesh as an inextricable link between a subjective body and the objective world, and considers how time may be viewed as one of the forms that this link can take. Highlighting the similarities between affordances and flesh—arguing that the former describe the interaction between bodily and environmental capacities, while the latter discloses the structure of the system as a whole—the author returns to his earlier proposal that music, as a social and temporal affordance, allows us to consider the listener-music interaction as the very source of time. Time here is enacted when, engaged in this interaction, the body slips back-and-forth between its appearance as a physical object submerged in the world and its function as the seat of subjectivity.
Work-Related Benefits and Employment Protections
Authors: Hershkoff Helen , Loffredo Stephen 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter discusses federal statutes that impact the work lives of poor and low-income people. These statutes regulate some of the terms and conditions of employment, but do not guarantee rights to a job, to a livable wage, or to work as a pathway to economic mobility. The key federal statutes prohibit certain types of employment discrimination, and protect the right of workers to organize and take collective action to advance their common interests. The chapter pays special attention to the wage and hour protections afforded by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, addresses the rights conferred by the act, offers a critique of the federal minimum wage rate, and notes the emerging nationwide movement to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. The chapter also addresses federal programs that provide economic supports for low-income workers, apart from the assistance programs described in other chapters, including unemployment insurance, which replaces a percentage of wages for workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own; the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which reduce or eliminate payroll taxes for most workers with minor dependents, and can increase family income through refundable tax credits; and the Social Security program, which provides benefits to retired, aged, blind, or disabled workers and their families.
Health
Authors: Hershkoff Helen , Loffredo Stephen 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter addresses the issue of health care for low-income people. The United States, virtually alone among developed nations, does not offer universal access to health care, leaving many millions of individuals without health insurance or other means of obtaining necessary medical services. In 2010, Congress enacted the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)—popularly known as “Obamacare”—marking an important but incomplete response to the nation’s health care crisis. This chapter examines the ACA in detail, including its impact on Medicaid and Medicare, the major government health programs in the United States, its creation of Health Insurance Exchanges and tax credits to help low-income households obtain private health coverage, and the reform of private health insurance markets through a patient’s bill of rights, which, among other measures, prohibits insurance companies from refusing coverage for preexisting medical conditions. Perhaps the most critical aspect of the ACA was its expansion of Medicaid to cover virtually all low-income citizens (and certain immigrants) who do not qualify for other health coverage. Although several states opted out of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, the Medicaid program nevertheless remains the largest single provider of health coverage in the United States. This chapter also provides a detailed description of Medicaid, its eligibility criteria and scope of coverage; the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a government-funded health insurance program for children in households with too much income to qualify for Medicaid; and Medicare, the federal health insurance program for aged, blind, and disabled individuals.
Consumer Rights and Credit Protection
Authors: Hershkoff Helen , Loffredo Stephen 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter discusses consumer laws that protect—but in practice may hurt—low-income people, involving such matters as debt collection, consumer reporting, and lending. People with low income, people of color, and women face many legal, practical, and structural inequalities in commercial markets. In particular, minimum wage jobs do not lift full-time workers out of poverty, and many low-income people, vulnerable to predatory practices that exploit their financial instability, become trapped by debt. The U.S. Constitution does not specifically address many of these problems. The Equal Protection Clause in part protects against companies that refuse to do business because of a person’s race or gender; the Due Process Clauses provide some protection against companies that deploy judicially-sanctioned procedures to deprive a person of property without notice or an opportunity to raise objections; and the Eighth Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment—and jailing a person who is too poor to pay a debt, which can include an unpaid court fee, should certainly be seen as cruel and unusual punishment. Congress has enacted various laws to protect consumers from unfair and arbitrary treatment. Attention in this chapter is given to debt collection, consumer reporting, access to credit, and limits on garnishment. In addition, the chapter discusses the fringe economy, including the dangers that payday, auto title, and online lending present, as well as private loans used to finance higher education. The chapter also touches on tax collection by the federal government.
The Right to Vote
Authors: Hershkoff Helen , Loffredo Stephen 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
This chapter discusses the right to vote. Democracy demands that every vote count and that every voter be able to shape social and economic policy. Equality of participation, however, is seriously undermined by the outsized role that money plays in American electoral politics—making the exercise of the franchise even more important for persons who are poor or have low income. The chapter discusses the legal and practical barriers that low-income citizens face when they go to the polls, including demands for identification cards, the need to take time off from work, and long waiting periods at the ballot box in neighborhoods that are poor or populated by persons of color. The chapter sets out the constitutional basis for the right to vote, locating current restrictions in past practices that excluded the poor and unpropertied, and impeded the political rights of African Americans after emancipation. Discussion focuses on conditions that states have attached to the right to vote, on protections afforded under federal statutes, and rules governing voter registration campaigns.
The Special Case of Anesthesia
Authors: Wears Robert L. , Sutcliffe Kathleen M. 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
Anesthesia became the only medical specialty to undertake systematic and dramatic improvements in safety over time. Evidence suggests that this process began through the fortuitous engagement of engineers in anesthesia work, supported by respected leaders in the field. The goal was not simply to solve a problem. The aims were too deeply understand the nature of the technology, the work, and the complex interactions that take place in work as carried out. Oddly, healthcare more generally failed to emulate these efforts. This state of affairs may be attributed to the substantive influence of non-clinical safety scientists in anesthesia, and also to differences in widely accepted methodological and investigative research approaches.
Halting Steps
Authors: Wears Robert L. , Sutcliffe Kathleen M. 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
Early studies of medical harm appeared in the 1950s, with rates of injury little different from those reported 50 years later. Philosopher Ivan Illich criticized medicalization of everyday life, using annual deaths from auto accidents as an example. Malpractice concerns became entangled with safety, and the first malpractice crisis in the US came about due to advances, rather than deficiencies, in care. The Harvard Medical Practice Study (HMPS) renewed interest in medical harm as a cause of malpractice suits in a series of four papers in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. Although it was not a pre-defined outcome of the study, one paper by Lucian Leape reframed the problem as one of medical “error”; the other three did not use the term. Lucian Leape fortuitously drew on error research in cognitive psychology and other safety science work on “error” stemming from the research triggered by the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster and other accidents. He formulated those concepts in a form digestible by health professionals and published them in the widely read medical journal JAMA—Journal of the American Medical Association. The figure of 100,000 annual deaths was first circulated.
The Future of Patient Safety
Authors: Wears Robert L. , Sutcliffe Kathleen M. 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
Patient safety has been evolving and changing since its conception, and this evolution will inevitably continue as it competes for attention with other social problems and as healthcare struggles with conflicts among increasing workloads, performance and production pressures, technological innovation, and increasingly limited human and economic resources. Patient safety is, at present, a reform movement becalmed, captured by the industry it set out to reform. The authors see four possible futures: congealing into bureaucracy (already in progress), rebranding as something else (similar to quality improvement rebranding itself as patient safety), simply dying out, or fundamental reform. Fundamental reform is unfortunately the least likely possibility. It will require healthcare to relinquish its dominant position in patient safety and to develop substantive, equal partnerships with safety sciences.
Mahler's Seventh Symphony
Authors: Stoll Knecht Anna 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony stands out as one of the most provocative symphonic statements of the early twentieth century. This book offers a new interpretation of the Seventh based on a detailed study of Mahler’s compositional materials, combined with a close reading of the finished work. The Seventh has often been heard as “existing in the shadow” of the Sixth Symphony or as “too reminiscent” of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Focusing on sketches previously considered as “discarded,” this study reveals unexpected connections between the Seventh and both the Sixth and Meistersinger. These connections confirm that Mahler’s compositional project was firmly grounded in a dialogue with works from the past, and that this referential aspect should be taken as an important interpretive key to the work. Providing the first thorough analysis of the sketches and drafts for the Seventh, this book sheds new light on its complex compositional history. Each movement of the symphony is considered from a double perspective, genetic and analytic, showing how sketch studies and analytical approaches can interact with each other. The compositional materials raise the question of Mahler’s reception of Richard Wagner, and thus lead us to rethink issues concerning his own cultural identity. A close reading of the score enlightens these issues by exposing new facets of Mahler’s musical humor. The Seventh moves away from the tragedy of the Sixth toward comedy and shows, in a unique way within Mahler’s output, that humor can be taken as a form of transcendence.
Structure, Interpretation, and Genesis
Authors: Stoll Knecht Anna 
Published: November 2019

Abstract
How do genesis, structure, and interpretation relate to each other? This chapter first examines the structure of the Seventh in five movements, beginning with an overview of its tonal trajectory, before outlining its inner connections. The five movements of the Seventh are not unified by a program, but the subtle links that relate these movements to each other challenge the idea that the work lacks coherence. These inner connections are counterbalanced by a centrifugal force, pointing toward other works, inside and outside the Mahlerian corpus (Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, Wagner’s Meistersinger and Parsifal). The second section presents the web of interpretive leads pursued in this study. It concludes with some reflections about what constitutes the genesis of a work and how the genetic history relates to issues of interpretation.