American Academics Research Articles

William James in Russian Culture by Joan Delaney s> Grossman Ruth Rishchin (review)

144 SEER, 84, I, 2oo6 effortsto reassertculturaland linguisticidentityin orderto enterthe European community. Despite its high ambition and the authors' stated position in-between the East and the West, the project seems largely untouched by the complexities and conflictedrealityof the region. The legacy of socialismcreatesan urgency that can hardly be underestimated in any explorations of Eastern Europe. And it is socialism which the budding scholars of post-socialist studies fail to addressin theoreticaland historicalterms. When EasternEuropeanslook West, they see culturalspaceswith not only contemporary, i.e. post-socialist, post-Communist or post-authoritarian,but also complex historical dimensions. When American academics of Eastern European origin (or those with an interest in the region) look East, they see themselves in the mirror of their intellectual formation. While promising engagement with a critique of ethnocentric politics, the volume remains anchored in the older and predictable geographies of identities. But perhaps this internal conflict in itself could be productive in creating an intellectual opening for much needed discussion of the Eastern European question and for recalibratingthe Westerngaze. Cultural Studies E. CHMIELEWSKA School ofLiteratures, Languages andCultures University ofEdinburgh FilmStudies D. OSTROWSKA School ofLiteratures, Languages andCultures University ofEdinburgh Grossman,Joan Delaney and Rishchin, Ruth (eds). William JamesinRussian Culture. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, Boulder, CO, New York and Oxford, 2003. xi + 259 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. Priceunknown. THIS focused, well-organized collection of studies by English- and Russianspeaking scholars fills a gap and lays a foundation. It is some time since Alexander Etkind'scontroversialbooks alerted studentsof modernism to the strongtwo-wayflow of ideas and imagesbetween psychology and the arts.His 'James and Konovalov: The Varietiesof ReligiousExperience and Russian Theology between Revolutions', together with A Poole's 'WilliamJames in the Moscow Psychological Society: Pragmatism,Pluralism,Personalism'are, as it were, the core of the book, detailing reception, impact, influence, controversyand the chronology of Russian translationsofJames's works. The excellence of the volume as a whole, however, is in the contextualizing ofJames's linkswith Russianculture:fromthe percipienteditors'introduction through considerations of 'The European Connection' (Linda Simon); of James as a reader of Dostoevskii and Tolstoi (Robin Feuer Miller, Donna Tussing Orwin and Andrew Wachtel); of early interest aroused by James's ideas amongst multi-lingualpoets and thinkerssuch as Ivan Konevskoi and Viacheslav Ivanov, who did not have to wait for translations(Joan Delaney Grossmanand Gennady Obatnin);of the predictablynegative reaction of Lev REVIEWS I45 Shestov to the optimistic pragmatism of James's 'Will to believe' (Brian Horrowitz); of the exploitation of Jamesian ideas by Gor'kii and, more particularly,by Bogdanov in the exercise of 'god-building' (BarryP. Scherr); and of the revival of interest in post-Soviet Russia (Edith W. Clowes), on to David Joravsky's judicious afterword. Joravsky highlights two significant dismissalsof James, by Lenin in I908 and by Zenkovskiiin I948, the firstof which sets the patternfor Soviet rejectionof 'capitalistpragmatism'while the second warned against interpreting the Orthodox Christian teaching of 'activity in the world' 'in the spirit of that primitive pragmatism which has been expressed with such seductive naivete by William James' (p. 233). James's combination 'of psychological science and philosophical inquiry within the imagination of a romantic writer, each element of the complex union constantlychallenging and provokingthe other' (p. 226) was, nevertheless , tremendouslyappealingto thinkingRussiansof the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries.Joravsky'safterwordfirmlyre-establishesthe connection with imaginativeliteratureat a time when the linkbetween suchliteratureand psychological science was at its closest and the one learned from the other:as, for example, James learned from Tolstoi and Dostoevski and Konevskoi and Viacheslav Ivanov learned from James. James's interest in psychic research and spiritismprovides a timely reminder of how 'normal', even 'advanced' the practice of seance and table-turning must have seemed to the likes of Valerli Briusov. Florenskii,familiarwith F. W. H. Myers rather than James from Lopatin'slectures at Moscow University, even feared back in 1904 that the State might 'impose' spiritismas a positivist surrogatefor religion, a new way of controllingmen's minds. Likeall good books, thisone leaves the readerhungryformore. There is no mention, for instance, of WilliamJames's brother, Henry. Was he, perhaps, little read in Russia -or is it that he might have merited a companion volume? Department ofRussian Studies AVRIL PYMAN University ofDurham Masalskis...

Intellectuals and anti-intellectualism in twentieth-century American public discourse

Abstract At the close of a synoptic article on ‘The Rise of American Intellectual History’, John Higham recommended that his fellow scholars tum their attention to ‘widespread popular attitudes’, and trace the ‘rise, decline, or modification’ of concepts such as democracy, nationalism, individualism, class consciousness, race prejudice and anti-intellectualism1. Higham's piece appeared in The American Historical Review in 1951; it is not surprising that he included anti-intellectualism on the list, given its extensive use as a descriptive and a prescriptive term by his contemporaries.2 As were many American academics at mid-century, John Higham was troubled by the perceived growth of anti-intellectualism in public life; and he hoped to employ the tools of historical analysis to understand and, perhaps, to counter this trend.

E-Journal Proliferation in Emerging Economies: The Case of Latin America

In recent years, Latin America has been one of the world's fastest growing areas for Internet connectivity. While numerous studies have examined the factors contributing to this communications explosion, this article concentrates upon one of its effects—the proliferation of freely available, scholarly, peer-reviewed electronic journals in the fields of literary, cultural and area studies. This article argues that in the field of Latin American studies, the majority of e-journals are being produced in Latin American countries, rather than in the US or the UK for example. It is Latin American academics, rather than their US and UK counterparts, who are embracing new technologies and the opportunities facilitated for effective dissemination of research. In order to understand this marked move towards electronic scholarly journals, this article outlines the state of Internet connectivity in the region, the financial and material constraints and other restrictions placed upon academic publication, and the lack of international visibility of Latin American scholarly print journals. While questions need to be addressed as to the future sustainability and preservation of these free journals, many of them managed by individual academics and funded by their universities, this article argues that electronic publishing offers Latin American academics an unprecedented opportunity to disseminate their research. Furthermore, this model gives international academics immediate, free access to important research that is emerging from the continent, which is the subject of study. Such access has the potential to revolutionize the way that international academics approach Latin American studies and to encourage a greater degree of international academic debate.

The effects of mentoring on academic careers over time: Testing performance and political perspectives

Mentors have been associated with protégé career success. In this study, two perspectives on the means by which mentoring advances careers were compared. The performance perspective implies that the effects of mentoring on career advancement operate through performance whereas the political perspective assumes direct effects. Hypotheses derived from the perspectives were tested at early and middle-career stages in a sample of American academics. The amount of mentoring as measured by the number of traditional mentors and other developers predicted achieved rank and the relationship was not mediated by publication productivity. This finding supports the political perspective. In addition, the presence of an outside developer was associated with more publications and having an emotionally-close relationship was associated with higher salary.

Postfeminism in the British Frame

This article explores postfeminism and its impact upon British cultural politics and popular media. It was developed from a paper delivered at Interrogating Postfeminism, an international conference Ashby co-organised at UEA (2004), and was published as part of a special issue of Cinema Journal (edited by Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra) to mark significant debates from that conference. It appears alongside companion pieces by leading American academics, Chris Holmlund and Linda Mizejewski, and path-breaking British feminist, Charlotte Brunsdon, examining different aspects of postfeminist culture. The article traces the ways in which feminist politics have been undercut by Blairite political and popular discourses in favour of a rebranded, 'cooler' postfeminist agenda which stresses more consensual, positive attitudes to identity politics and obscures on-going social conflicts. To illustrate this shift, it discusses the critically and commercially successfully British film Bend it Like Beckham within the contexts of 'Blair's babes', 'girl power' and 'Cool Britannia'.

Saint Marx, Literalism and American Academic Revolutionary Marxism

It would be churlish to be other than pleased when someone as prominent as Richard A. Brosio – the doyen of American revolutionary Marxism – should go to the trouble of reviewing my book and even to call it “worthwhile” along with a number of other praiseworthy epithets. And if the title of my response is a little facile and facetious the message is anything but. The points I wish to make have been accumulating over my short career and now fall out like so many lost coins to be refound, counted and reinvested. A warning then: if I sound a little miffed Richard Brosio should not take it to heart entirely as the criticisms I am about to raise in this response are more of a broadcast directed at those, especially American academics, who appropriate the label “revolutionary Marxists” and apply it themselves self-consciously. The process of canonisation in academia is a vital part of “disciple” and “discipline” probably to be uncovered in the scholastic ruins of the medieval university. And the popular saying “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” goes some way to explaining the importance of imitation and copying behaviour not only as a form of pedagogy but also as a form of academic self-stylization. There are many different aspects to this process from the unconscious adoption of mannerisms and habits to the more sophisticated modelling of one’s writing and thinking. So we have (unashameably) little Wittgensteinians, little Heideggerians and little Marxians. (I was a little Wittgensteinian when I was growing up.) We need them! This is, in part, social reproduction in the academy. We hear of it with students who are educated by professor so-and-so, or examined by professor such-and-such. Academic genealogies. After all many of us after the PhD never attain the same levels of scholarship again. Increasingly, government and state pressures are such that they direct us and our students to “useful knowledge” defined for us by national research agendas and funding patterns. Yet there is a sense where we should question our relationships to those thinkers we value, to examine the nature

Derrida: Notes Toward a Memoir

We had quarreled some years back, so I was no longer in the loop. Still, I had known of Derrida's illness for about year and was not altogether surprised to see the announcement of his death in the New York Times. Indeed the placement of the obituary on the first page struck me as altogether appropriate, kind of vindication of the intellectual labors and enthusiasms of the generation, my own, which had discovered his work in the age prior to its academic respectability. There was, after all, time, the early seventies, when the urgent task in American academia seemed to be to bring Derrida, and the whole Franco-German nexus that was to form the core of what would soon be misnamed theory, into English. The term deconstruction, of course, is now omnipresent in the culture. (Auden's line, on the death of Freud, about a whole climate of feeling comes to mind). And for years, I had found myself subliminally noting deconstructive touches on the op. ed. page of one prominent newspaper or another, trying to imagine in which elite university an author might have been exposed to Derrida's thought and picked up, say, particular penchant for chiasmus that had worked its way from long-since forgotten course on literature to his or her present writing. I was convinced that one could no more not be marked by an encounter with his thought than I had been. I was wrong, of course. The derisory, almost muckraking tone of the Times obituary felt like an ambush. The insistence that Derrida had never succeeded in coming up with anything less murky as characterization of deconstruction than its own impossibility showed, above all, deep hostility to the entire effort. Surely one might have served up, as guide to the uninitiated, say, Val6ry's quip that philosophy was literary genre among others, and the comedy (or tragedy) of philosophy was that philosophers were the last ones to realize it. That (and numerous other luminous one-liners) might have been found throughout the early Derrida, but one would, to be sure, have to have wanted to find them. It was, finally, the failure to reveal any inkling of new style of readerly complexity, the new obliqueness of coherence with which Derrida electrified much of generation of literary scholars, that was most disappointing. As though at certain level of obliqueness the screen

Classifying Universities and Their Departments: A Social World Perspective

The prevailing ways of classifying higher education institutions rely upon structural characteristics. In this article, a cultural means of institutional classification is introduced by adopting a perspective that conceptualizes universities and their departments as "social worlds." In the analysis, the social world perspective is grounded by how faculty members conceive of career success and failure in the contexts of their departmental environments. Based on interviews with professors about their careers, a delimited set of social worlds is postulated to compose a cultural system of classifying American academe.

Conjunctural Traces: Said’s “Inventory”

Previous articleNext article No AccessConjunctural Traces: Said’s “Inventory”Harry Harootunian Harry Harootunian Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Inquiry Volume 31, Number 2Winter 2005 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/430973 Views: 120Total views on this site © 2005 by The University of Chicago.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Financial scandals, accounting change and the role of accounting academics: A perspective from North America

This paper examines the responses of North American academics to the recent wave of accounting and audit scandals, pointing out that the main response has either been to appeal to a moralistic concept of ethics or to portray them as isolated incidents or indicative of problems elsewhere (e.g. relating to investment advice). We suggest that these responses fail to address the social and political context of accounting. Drawing on Bourdieu's framework for analysing academic work, the paper locates North American accounting academia, even though it is quite fragmented and diverse, in the Corporate University, and the allegiances of North American accounting academics to the accounting industry. However, recent scandals also provide an opportunity to intervene effectively and produce meaningful change. Through collective action, perhaps through the Association for Integrity in Accounting, we offer suggestions for interventions to produce substantive and worthwhile changes in teaching and research.

A Re-Examination of Racioethnic Imbalance of IS Doctorates: Changing the Face of the IS Classroom

There is an extremely low percentage of minority faculty in the IS field. This global trend is highly conspicuous-- a minority of blacks compared to a majority of white academics in England, a minority of Aborigines compared to a majority of white academics in Australia, a minority of blacks compared to a majority of white academics in Canada, and for the purpose of our study, a minority of Native American, Hispanic American, and African American academics compared to a majority of white academics in the United States. Between 1995-2000, not only do AACSB reports indicate a continuous decline in minority business doctorates, but the accreditation body reports that the IS discipline shows a significant under-representation of minority faculty. In this study, we argue that mentoring under-represented groups in the discipline offers the field a myriad of avenues to change the “face” of the classroom and reduce this gap. We examine the absence of racioethnicity and mentoring in the IS field and offer lessons learned from The Ph.D. Project Model for engendering change and mentoring within the IS community. Using data from a six-year period, we discuss diversity issues, lessons learned, and recommendations from mentoring a group of under-represented IS doctoral students.

Multiculturalism and the humanities

The article proposes a departure from the first form of multiculturalism that became predominant from the 1970's in American academia with the 'cultural wars' about curriculum reform and the alleged Eurocentrism and 'white male' exclusivism of the so-called 'canon' of liberal education in the humanities. As distinct from this narrow form of affirmative multiculturalism various theoretical and methodological approaches to socio-cultural diversity in the humanities are distinguished and evaluated, namely 1) liberal multiculturalism (the traditionalist, conventional approach), 2) affirmative multiculturalism (the narrow, activist African-American and Feminist approach), 3) cultural relativism (the descriptive, uncritical approach) , and 4) critical multiculturalism (a contextualised, critical and self-reflective approach). In conclusion, it is argued that critical multiculturalism can meet the challenges that the appropriation of socio-cultural diversity entails for the humanities. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.18(2) 2004: 150-162

Professor Kingsfield Goes to Delhi: American Academics, the Ford Foundation, and the Development of Legal Education in India

On January 26, 1950 the Constitution of India came into effect. Nearly two and one-half years after winning independence from Britain, India enacted one of the most detailed, rights-based constitutions ever seen in the history of the world. The passage of such a democratic constitution was inspirational - not just for a country that endured centuries' of both informal and formal colonial rule, but also for those in the West. Many American observers, in particular, looked upon with awe as this economically poor, yet fiercely independent nation sought to embrace political and legal principles that had long been valued within the United States. The Ford Foundation - one of the world's leading philanthropic institutions based in the U.S. - soon also became infatuated with the promise and overall idea of India. For Ford, India exhibited great potential: its political and military leaders opted for democracy rather than dictatorship; its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a dynamic, Western-educated figure committed to economic development and modernization; and it retained English as a main national language, thereby giving Americans, who so desired, a better opportunity to work more easily within the country. For these and as we shall see other reasons, the Ford Foundation began to take a serious interest in India. One area that Ford especially focused on involved the development of legal education. Policymakers at Ford Headquarters in New York as well as at Ford's New Delhi office believed that for Indian democracy to succeed, the country needed to have well-established, rule-based institutions administered by those educated in the legal principles of equity, due process, and individual rights. These officials consulted with a number of Indian legal elites, several of whom had studied in the United States, and together these Americans and Indians concluded that law schools in India would be the ideal place to promote such legal principles. After all, having Indians educated in Western legal doctrine was critical for maintaining Weberian, democratic institutions; and the hope was that this in turn would lead to greater public respect for the rule of law. Beginning in the 1950s, Ford thus began spending millions of dollars and decades of energy working with Indians to create strong schools of law. One of the first steps Ford took in its initiative was to hire a number of respected American law professors as consultants. These academics were charged with traveling to India, assessing the legal educational environment, and providing recommendations to both Ford and the government of India for how to improve the country's legal education system. Given that many of India's elite had routinely praised the American law school model, Ford worked under the reasonable assumption that U.S. academics would be in the best position to advise their Indian counterparts. As I will discuss, however, this assumption proved at best to be questionable. To date, no work has presented the views of the academic consultants hired by Ford. For decades these reports were confidential and the consultants were equally reluctant to talk about their opinions. But perhaps because enough time has passed and Ford's involvement in this area has waned, I was granted access to all of Ford's documents on legal education in India. I also was able to interview key American scholars who served as advisors to Ford. In this study I trace the role American academics played in shaping Indian legal education. As I show, the belief held by both Ford and its Indian partners that the American law school model could successfully be exported to India soon came to be rejected by many of these U.S. professor-consultants. A consensus developed among these American academics that India's distinctive history, traditions, and legal profession - not to mention its economic struggles and political climate - would make it difficult for the American law school model to thrive in this environment. And to their surprise, these consultants found that Indian legal scholars, who were not affiliated with Ford, had their own innovative ideas on how to improve the country's legal education system.

Is Scientific Paradigm Important for Pharmacy Education?

One of the most profound changes in higher education in the last century has been the rapid differentiation and proliferation of academic disciplines. While generally welcomed and inevitable, some scholars in the early 1900s argued that disciplinary specialization translated into “scholarly disintegration” of American academics and a decline in the standards of intellectual excellence. As a result, many attempts have been made to understand how disciplines differ; the most notable of these has been to differentiate preparadigmatic from paradigmatic disciplines. The concept of paradigm considers the degree of consensus or sharing of beliefs within a scientific field about which problems require investigation, which methods are appropriate to their study, which findings are considered “proven,” and which concepts should be taught to undergraduate and graduate students. For the last 50 years, studies have examined the practical implications of disciplinary progress. This paper explores the concept of paradig...

Empire of the Young: The Legacies of State Agricultural Policy on Local Capitalism and Social Support Networks in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire

While most American academics and policymakers are familiar with the problems facing the growing elderly population in the United States, many are surprised to learn of the troubles confronting the aged in Africa. In stark contrast to the mythic image of the tightly-knit extended family, where grandparents are lovingly cared for as a respected and integral part of the family unit, is the unforgiving reality of hunger, ill health, and loneliness that is the daily existence for many elderly Africans. It is critical that the problems of the aged in Africa and other parts of the developing world be examined, but we must recognize that these problems do not signify a simple convergence toward a common social ill across the globe. Rather, the nature of inter-generational solidarity varies, sometimes dramatically, over time and across contexts. This study employs a comparative analysis to reveal important differences in the nature of inter-generational solidarity over time between two similar sub-regions in neighboring Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa, and asks what explains those differences.

The Soul of Latin America: The Cultural and Political Tradition

In The Soul of Latin America, Howard J. Wiarda attempts to understand the political tradition of this region, searching for roots of its difference from the United States. To achieve this, the author reaches back to the foundation of Latin American civilization and stresses the importance of differences in culture, economies, class structure, and institutions. He avoids monocausal explanations and considers the integration of politics with other social formations. Through this comparative method, he points out that while the legal tradition, democracy, liberalism, and pluralism are characteristic of the United States, Latin America is distinguished by a feudal heritage, medieval and neoscholastic traditions, corporativism, and centralism.The author reviews ideologies of European origin and their reception in Latin America, where they were added onto this Latin American tradition, until we arrive at the present-day democratic transition. The ideologies considered include the role of liberalism in the independence movements and the constitutional forms and representative structures adopted by the founding fathers. He analyzes the struggle between reform and tradition that was part of the positivist movement of the middle of the nineteenth century, underscoring the role of strong caudillos and oligarchic regimes that lent political stability and economic growth to the region. He also discusses American intervention in Central America and the Caribbean, including the Spanish-American War of 1898.Nationalism has deep roots in Latin America, and its manifestation is exemplified in the work of José Martí, José Enrique Rodó, and the Hispanismo movement. The author analyzes Latin America’s response to U.S. hegemony under the appearance of leftist nationalism. He explores Marxism, indigenismo, and the APRA as antecedents to this leftist democracy, finally arriving at the Cuban Revolution. Corporativism, another politico-cultural characteristic of the region (and the Iberian Peninsula), is a theme that the author explores throughout the book.Wiarda labels the period from 1930 to 1980 as one of “Conflictive Society.” The ideologies of this period explain the processes of political and religious change that terminate with the bureaucratic authoritarian and corporative regimes and that removed the military from power. This allowed a timid advance of democracy led by civil society. Political transitions in Spain and Portugal give context to these ideas. By 2000, only Cuba remained outside of the process of democratization. For the author, democracy in Latin America was neither the result of a gradual and universal political process, nor part of Samuel P. Huntington’s “Third Wave” of democratization; rather, it was a response on the part of elites to the particular conditions of the 1970s and 1980s. This allows him to speak of a democracy modified by adjectives and to maintain a skeptic posture with regard to the future.Wiarda’s clear style and measured elegance enrich his explanation of political- ideological acts. As a political scientist, he believes that Latin America’s political ideas and culture find their fullest dimension within a broader vision of culture. His careful selection of examples demonstrates neatly these distinct political processes and allows a general vision, without falling into a proliferation of names and data what would distort the text.The bibliography serves to orient newcomers to the field and the general public. The specialist will also notice in Wiarda’s reflections and in his study of various occurrences, the value of the crucial business he undertakes. The text is an example of those studies of political ideas that explain the trajectories followed by the “two Americas,” corroborating the old saying that one cannot respect that which one does not know.This type of book is the result of a life’s worth of research, teaching, and reading. The scope of the task explains the delay in its appearance, written in the rich tradition of American academia, where we might recall the valuable work of Miguel Jorrín, John Martz, and Harold David. I believe, therefore, that this book by Wiarda, the product of more than 40 years of devotion to the study of Latin America, will offer North American and Iberoamerican readers a vision of the subject that is broad, impartial, and profound.

Beyond French Feminisms: Debates on Women, Politics and Culture in France, 1981-2001 ed. by Roger Célestin, Eliane Dalmolin, and Isabelle de Courtivron (review)

130Women in French Studies Reviews History, Culture, Language Roger Célestin, Eliane Dalmolin, and Isabelle de Colrtivron, Eds. Beyond French Feminisms: Debates on Women, Politics and Culture in France, 1981-2001. New York-Houndmills, England: palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Pp. 342. ISBN: 0-312-24019-8. (Cloth) $79.95; ISBN: 0-312-24040-6. (Paper) $26.95. There is good news for those eager for an overview of current debates about women and gender in France. The fine essays in Beyond French Feminisms provide several interlocking frameworks in which to situate these issues: the differences between contemporary women's concerns and those ofthe 1970s "new French feminisms;" the varied social, political, and creative arenas in which French women are now active but whose discourses overlap ; and, the vexed relationship between the French and American women's movements, past and present. As the "Introduction" argues eloquently, from the Mitterrand years through the 2002 elections, a crisis in French identity (sparked by events surrounding immigration, racism, anti-Semitism, and economic decline) redefined cultural tensions: universalisme versus différentialisme or communautarisme became the discursive poles that organized discussions of "women's roles and representations" (12). Claiming these philosophical clashes crystallized around the parité debate of the 1990s, the editors look to contemporary women's literary and artistic production as well for evidence of fresh perspectives on sex, sexuality, and gender. The collection is structured around three themes: "Politics and Society"; "Arts and Literature"; and, "France-USA." The essays on parité (Agacinski, Sineau, Fauré, Fraisse) address the positive political and intellectual consequences of reconciling the Republican ideal ofthe abstract "human" with a recognition ofgender differences, and Fraisse in particular pushes for women's economic and domestic parité as well. Another piece looks at how the ethnic and national variables that now constitute France's "gendered mosaic" are destabilizing the concept ofa unified "Frenchness" (Rosello). Several articles examine sexuality from the angles of the symbolic violence "ingrained in women's bodies" (Bourdieu); the PaCS same-sex domestic partnership, which was opposed on "family" grounds but which can, paradoxically, use "universalist " arguments to reframe the notion oífiliation (Fassin); reproductive gains in abortion rights and the "morning-after" pill (Mossuz-Lavau); and, the sexual politics ofGay Pride parades, which erase "ordinary" women's bodies (Nahoum-Grappe). Finally, two essays explore the power of language as expressed through masculinized professional titles (Groult) and the verbal violence aimed at women politicians (Chiennes de Garde manifesto). Book Reviews1 3 1 Part Two is equally rich. If the 1990s fiction of Francophone women writers living in France is involved with transnational and bicultural issues (Cazenave); twenty-first century French women's novels focus on "raw" explorations ofthe body (Cusset); women's poetry is more than ever "out in the world" (Etienne); women's visual and performance art centers on "renegotiat[ing] the materiality and the boundaries of the body" (Chadwick, 112); and, theater engages with diverse forms of boundary transgression (Cixous), it is in film that French women have effected the most visible changes. By "hybridizing" genres, contesting artistic hierarchies, and opening up female roles (Sellier), and by portraying women who violently exercise their sexuality and subjectivity, as epitomized in the works ofCatherine Breillat (Gillain), women are defying cinematic conventions and "reappropriat[ing] a feminine realm in which soul and body are no longer split from one another" (Gillain, 240). All the essays in this section also provide excellent bibliographies and filmographies. Lastly, favorable (Badinter) and scathing (Scott) critiques of Mona Ozouf's controversial Les Mots des femmes, along with Ozouf's response, together with an analysis ofthe totalizing strategies that demonizeAmerican-style feminism as "Other" to "the construct of French internal coherence" underlying nationalist discourse (Mathy), point up trans-Atlantic ideological conflicts regarding the nature of feminist historical inquiry and relations between the sexes. The concluding (and longest) essay (Moses) probes the discrepancy between the narrow theoretical "French feminism" American academics— mostly literary critics drawn to philosophical and psychoanalytic inquiry—"constructed " in the 1970s and the full range of material and empirical problems French women were (and are) in reality struggling with. I have one quibble: the essays within each section are arranged alphabetically by author, with the result that...

Born To Procreate: Women and Childbirth in France from the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century by Rolande Graves (review)

Book Reviews1 3 1 Part Two is equally rich. If the 1990s fiction of Francophone women writers living in France is involved with transnational and bicultural issues (Cazenave); twenty-first century French women's novels focus on "raw" explorations ofthe body (Cusset); women's poetry is more than ever "out in the world" (Etienne); women's visual and performance art centers on "renegotiat[ing] the materiality and the boundaries of the body" (Chadwick, 112); and, theater engages with diverse forms of boundary transgression (Cixous), it is in film that French women have effected the most visible changes. By "hybridizing" genres, contesting artistic hierarchies, and opening up female roles (Sellier), and by portraying women who violently exercise their sexuality and subjectivity, as epitomized in the works ofCatherine Breillat (Gillain), women are defying cinematic conventions and "reappropriat[ing] a feminine realm in which soul and body are no longer split from one another" (Gillain, 240). All the essays in this section also provide excellent bibliographies and filmographies. Lastly, favorable (Badinter) and scathing (Scott) critiques of Mona Ozouf's controversial Les Mots des femmes, along with Ozouf's response, together with an analysis ofthe totalizing strategies that demonizeAmerican-style feminism as "Other" to "the construct of French internal coherence" underlying nationalist discourse (Mathy), point up trans-Atlantic ideological conflicts regarding the nature of feminist historical inquiry and relations between the sexes. The concluding (and longest) essay (Moses) probes the discrepancy between the narrow theoretical "French feminism" American academics— mostly literary critics drawn to philosophical and psychoanalytic inquiry—"constructed " in the 1970s and the full range of material and empirical problems French women were (and are) in reality struggling with. I have one quibble: the essays within each section are arranged alphabetically by author, with the result that the topics keep changing as one reads. It is therefore hard to sustain a comparison of differing approaches to the same issue. In another vein, as the editors themselves note in the post-script to their introduction, "real-time" events (such as the forceful emergence ofthe right and far-right in the 2002 French elections) sometimes outstrip even the most current cultural assessments. Nonetheless, this does not in any way diminish the usefulness of this book. The overall quality of the essays is superb, making Beyond French Feminisms an intellectual and pedagogical resource that will serve us for a long time to come. Elissa GelfandMount Holyoke College Rolande Graves. Born to procreate: Women and Childbirth in France from the Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001. Pp 162. ISBN: 0-8204-4907-5. $49.95. In Born to Procreate, Graves lays out the history ofmidwifery and the development ofobstetric medicine from medieval times through the eighteenth century. The book begins with an overview of scientific knowledge during the Middle 132Women in French Studies Ages. While medical doctors published numerous treatises on the female anatomy, beliefs stemming from superstition and the Church continued to override rational explanations for reproduction: "To these theories must be added the philosophical debates on the power or influence of God and the stars on the sperm at the time of conception" (27). Other common beliefs included the notion of menstruation as a necessary purification of the body; or that menstruation was a means to shed the overabundance of blood in the woman's body. Such perceptions continued to pervade the scientific realm for centuries to come. Graves traces the evolution of obstetrical manuals, including those written by sages femmes. Ambroise Paré, cited as one of the more influential doctors, published manuals which provide extensive information from his own experience with parturient women. They also describe and attempt to explain the occurrence of deformed babies, stillbirths and common complications of childbirth. Here too, superstition underlies the explanations of unusual births: "Paré recommends that women not look at monstrous things during intercourse or prior the 'formation' ofthe baby. . . . Twisted hands or feet, humps or other deformities are the direct result of the bad habits of the mother. . ." such as wearing clothes that are too tight (56). Because knowledge regarding reproduction remained largely unchanged from the Middle Ages through the sixteenth century, pregnant women were often treated based on misinformation...

The Politics of (Mis)recognition: Islamic Law Pedagogy in American Academia

Journal Article The Politics of (Mis)recognition: Islamic Law Pedagogy in American Academia Get access Lama Abu-odeh Lama Abu-odeh *Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, LL.B., University of Jordan; LL.M., University of Bristol, UK; MA Philosophy, University of York, York, UK; S.J.D., Harvard Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Journal of Comparative Law, Volume 52, Issue 4, Autumn 2004, Pages 789–824, https://doi.org/10.2307/4144466 Published: 01 October 2004

American influence on Japanese human geography: A focus on the quantitative and GIS revolutions

Japanese geography has been greatly influenced by American academia since the Second World War. The first wave was the quantitative revolution, which occurred at the end of the 1950s. Sophisticated analytical techniques and fine spatial models were introduced to Japanese geography and used in empirical studies, especially in the field of urban/transportation geography in the 1970s. The second wave was the new geography in the 1980s, including behavioral, radical and humanistic approaches. The third wave was the GIS revolution in the 1990s, which has been promoting a problem-solving approach focusing on policy matters. In this paper, I discuss how American geography has impacted on the development of Japanese human geography during this half century.