Broader Theory Research Articles

Dying in a state of grace: memory, duality, and uncertainty in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace (1996) is examined in relation to her theorization of death and authorship in Negotiating With the Dead (2002). Broader theories of death, the author, and posthumous narration, as proposed by Roland Barthes, Alice Bennett, and others, are also employed. The novel is further linked to what Atwood herself calls a Jamesian form of ghost story, and is read alongside two stories by Henry James (‘The Jolly Corner’ (1908) and ‘The Middle Years’ (1893)). Elements of both the ghost story genre and the crime genre are shown to be used by Atwood to create a sense of uncertainty in the narrative structure of the novel. It is argued that this sense of uncertainty is part of Atwood's use of a sylleptic narrative structure to achieve an authorial position that keeps Author and scriptor simultaneously in play.

Brief Amici Curiae of 133 Academic Authors in Support of HathiTrust Digital Library

The HathiTrust digital library contains over 7.3 million potentially in-copyright books. The complaint in this case has demanded that the court impound the in-copyright books in this repository and enjoin the use of all 7.3 million of these books, although the Authors Guild and its co-plaintiffs have identified only 116 works in which they claim to hold copyrights. Relying on an exceptionally broad conception of associational standing, the plaintiffs have asserted an entitlement to litigate this case and to attain injunctive relief that goes far beyond what the law allows.The Authors Guild’s broad theory of associational standing is wrong for two reasons. First, the Copyright Act itself prohibits suits by non-rightsholders. The Guild does not claim to hold such an interest in its members’ copyrights; the district court therefore correctly held that the Authors Guild does not have associational standing to bring broad claims of infringement under the Act. Second, the Authors Guild’s theory of standing violates prudential limits on associational standing that have been developed carefully by courts over time. Article III courts have prohibited third party associations from pursuing claims when those claims would require more than the limited participation of individual association members. Because the works in the HathiTrust corpus likely implicate the rights of a very large number of third parties — including ourselves, co-authors, publishers, and other transferees — it would take involved participation by individual association members to prove who holds the rights in the works which the Guild claims to represent. Academic authors — whose works are likely more typical of those in the HathiTrust corpus than works of the Authors Guild and its members — would be harmed by the outcome that the Authors Guild seeks because we typically benefit from HathiTrust, both because it makes our books more accessible to the public than ever before and because we use HathiTrust in conducting our own research. HathiTrust’s fair use defense is more persuasive to us than the Authors Guild’s theory of infringement. If granted, the Guild’s request for an injunction to stop HathiTrust from making its corpus available would directly harm academic author interests. In short, a “win” for the Authors Guild would be a “loss” for academic authors. This divergence in the interests of academic authors and of the Guild and its members, which may also affect the fair use calculus, is an additional reason why this Court should limit the Guild’s standing to the copyrights it actually holds.

Theory and Metatheory in the Study of Dual Processing

In this article, we respond to the four comments on our target article. Some of the commentators suggest that we have formulated our proposals in a way that renders our account of dual-process theory untestable and less interesting than the broad theory that has been critiqued in recent literature. Our response is that there is a confusion of levels. Falsifiable predictions occur not at the level of paradigm or metatheory—where this debate is taking place—but rather in the instantiation of such a broad framework in task level models. Our proposal that many dual-processing characteristics are only correlated features does not weaken the testability of task-level dual-processing accounts. We also respond to arguments that types of processing are not qualitatively distinct and discuss specific evidence disputed by the commentators. Finally, we welcome the constructive comments of one commentator who provides strong arguments for the reality of the dual-process distinction.

“I don't reject the Catholic Church—the Catholic Church rejects me”: How Twenty- and Thirty-somethings in Poland Re-evaluate their Religion

Given measures of religious belief and participation, young adults in Poland are becoming increasingly disengaged from the Catholic Church. Broad theories of secularisation are less useful for making sense of this trend than an analysis of the role of Catholicism in Polish society in the twentieth century, which demonstrates the ways in which forms of belief are contingent upon wider social and political transformations. This article argues that, since 1989, attempts by the Catholic Church in Poland to influence public life through conservative social and political interventions have alienated young people who are looking for religious resources with which to make sense of their lives in a rapidly changing social milieu. Alongside disengagement from conservative, propositional forms of Catholic truth and rejection of direct authority, young people still possess ‘religious capital’ and look upon religious ideas to orientate their personal lives. However, disaffection from the propositional truths offered by the Church and disengagement from rituals and practices of ‘folk Catholicism’ at the level of the family and local parish have not led to widespread expressions of atheism among young people. Instead, there is a sacralisation of everyday life and there are attempts to use ‘religious capital’ to help young people make choices for life. The reconfigured ‘religious capital’ is often expressed through diffuse Catholic symbols and sentiment as well as the periodic use of major religious festivals as a means of finding access to some form of collective religious experience. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of these changes for the future religious landscape of Polish society.

Using King's Interacting Systems Theory to Link Emotional Intelligence and Nursing Practice

King's theory is a broad theory designed to provide a framework for nursing (I.M. King, 1981), whereas emotional intelligence (EI; J.D. Mayer & P. Salovey, 2004) is a theory that is specific for addressing potential competency in dealing with emotions and emotional information. J.D. Mayer, P. Salovey, D.R. Caruso, and G. Sitarenios (2001) defined EI as the "ability to recognize the meaning of emotions and their relationships and to use them as a basis for reasoning and problem solving" (p. 234). These researchers believed that EI is related to cognitive intellect through the ability to use reasoning by way of information to find meaning. J.D. Mayer and P. Salovey (2004) argued that the skills that comprise EI were likely enhanced through obtaining a liberal education infused with values exploration. J.D. Mayer, P. Salovey, D.R. Caruso, and G. Sitarenios (2001) contended that there are 4 branches of abilities that create EI: (a) the skill of perceiving emotion within oneself and others, (b) assimilation of an emotion to facilitate thinking, (c) understanding and knowledge of emotion, and (d) conscious regulation of emotion. Each level or branch builds upon the previous one, and awareness of what each branch offers the individual in enhancing relationships with others is a key component of healthy emotional interactions. This article will provide a theoretic foundation based upon King's interacting systems theory (IST; 1981) that embraces EI as a crucial component in the nurse's ability to provide holistic care for patients, peers, and themselves. King's IST underscores the necessity of nurses possessing abilities of EI as they care for others but does not fully describe a mechanism to understand and incorporate emotions within the complex nurse-patient interactions and communications that are part of the nursing process.

Argumentative Essay; Restraints

Technology, and health care is an evolving, and contentiously developing, with the time, which may lead to continuous emerging issues, that may disagree with the ethical considerations in the point view of some groups, cultures, or ethnicity, while others support the same issue and accept it as its, therefore nurses’ key role in making decisions about the use of physical restraint must be understood in terms of their initiation of restraint use and/or by their intimate involvement in the care of restrained patients (Goethals, Casterle, & Gastmans, 2012). Examination of the philosophical literature reveals that there are two broad theories of ethical decision-making, namely, utilitarianism (consequentialism) and deontology (non-consequentialism) (McBrien, 2007). So in this paper both of these point view will be investigated. As it was illustrated earlier in this paper, and based on the evaluation of both opponent, and proponents of restraint, the author of this paper agrees with the opponents of restraint, as it was illustrated that restraint is a very complex issue that underlines many ethical and legal issues and arguments, furthermore the patients autonomy, freedom, and respect of decision making should be considered, moreover as it was illustrated above that restraint has a very serious harm on patient physical and mental health, that in rare situation can lead to death, therefore the following are some recommendations, and considerations that should be illustrated in regard to restraint, that nurses must understand and realize, in order to maintain safety for either themselves or the patients.

Theoretical Framework for Corporate Disclosure Research

This paper discusses the theoretical frameworks for a corporate disclosure research. It then compares and contrasts views of what constitutes a theory. There was no single view of theory; there were differences in approaches and interpretations. The conception of a theory and its relationship with research is discussed as theory and research had a circular relationship building on each other. Quantitative and qualitative methods of research and their contribution to theory are assessed. Both were found to contribute to theory building, theory testing, substantiating, or refuting their propositions. Although, positive accounting theory has grown as one of the most significant accounting research program, the broad theories of accounting includes normative theory as well. The review of the literature revealed that there were a number of theories associated with corporate accounting and disclosure, amongst them were agency theory, signaling theory, the accountability theory, legitimacy theory, contingency theory, stakeholder theory, and resource dependency theory.

Explaining Democracy's Origins: Lessons from South Asia

Why, upon the 1947 Partition of British India, was India able to establish a stable democracy while structurally similar Pakistan created an unstable autocracy? The differential strengths of India and Pakistan's independence movements directly account for their divergent democratization trajectories. These movements were initially constructed to pursue historically conditioned class interests. An examination of these movements leads to a broader theory of democratic origins, which qualifies the prevailing notion that a country's democratization prospects can be attributed to its levels of economic development or inequality.

The Separation of Investments and Management

This Article offers a broad theory of what distinguishes investment funds from ordinary companies, with ramifications for how these funds are understood and regulated. The central claim is that investment funds (i.e., mutual funds, hedge funds, private equity funds and their cousins) are distinguished not by the assets they hold, but by their unique organizational structures. These structures separate investment assets and management assets into different entities with different owners. The investments belong to “funds,” while the management assets belong to “management companies.” This structure benefits investors in the funds in a rather paradoxical way: it limits their rights to control their managers and share in their managers’ profits and liabilities. Fund investors accept these limits because certain features common to most investment funds make them efficient. Those features include powerful investor exit rights and economies of scope and scale that encourage managers to operate multiple funds at the same time. These features diminish the importance of control and increase the importance of asset partitioning. This way of understanding investment funds sheds light on a number of key areas of contracting and regulation and refutes the claims of skeptics who say that fund investors would be better off if they employed their managers directly.

Social Entrepreneurship and Broader Theories: Shedding New Light on the ‘Bigger Picture’

This article documents the results of a research workshop bringing together six perspectives on social entrepreneurship. The idea was to challenge existing concepts of the economy, the firm, and entrepreneurship in order to shed new light on social entrepreneurship and on our existing theoretical frameworks. The first two contributions use a macro-perspective and discuss the notion of adaptive societies and the tragedies of disharmonization, respectively. Taking a management perspective, the next two focus on the limits of conventional assumptions in management theory, particularly human capital theory and resource-based view. The final two contributions follow an entrepreneurship perspective highlighting the usefulness of mobilization theory and the business model lens to social entrepreneurship. Despite this diversity, all contributions share the fact that they challenge narrow definitions of the unit of analysis in social entrepreneurship; they illustrate the aspect of social embeddedness, and they argue for an open-but-disciplined diversity of theories in social entrepreneurship research.

The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling

Morgan, David. The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. 280 pp. pbk $29.95 (US). ISBN: 978-052027223-1 In The Embodied Eye, Morgan addresses the fields of religious studies and art history with a broad visual culture theory. For religious studies, visual culture shifts the focus from religious symbols to the configuration of power relations surrounding the religious symbols. For art history, the study of religious visual culture reveals sight as always grounded in the other senses. Despite the broad gesture to all art and all religion, Morgan jumps right into the modern West in what is more a series of essays than a totalizing theory. Beginning with visual culture's role in the formation of society and the self, Morgan argues that modernity was characterized by the elevation of sight. Objectivity privileged seeing at a distance, and the ideal of reason was based in the eye's ability to see without the burden of the observer's interests interfering with the truth of the eye's object. Morgan emphasizes that the disciplined eye was always encumbered by the individual and social body's contribution to the act of seeing. In chapter one, Vision and Embodiment, Morgan argues with philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre who put shame at the centre of sight's embodiment. Sartre's original look, which defined consciousness through sight, described an observer spying on the Other. When the spying observer is found out, the Other reciprocates the and shames the spying observer. Morgan disagrees with Sartre's description of sight's foundation in shame. Following Adam Smith, Morgan argues that through seeing we participate in a community of feeling and develop sympathy for other humans. The embodied state of humans makes seeing a social bond. For scholars of visual culture, Morgan usefully outlines some broad methodological approaches that focus on sight's embodiment. There are a number of gazes that scholars should look out for in their work, including the unilateral, occlusive, reciprocal, and devotional gazes. Religion tends toward certain modes of seeing, like the reciprocal gaze, best exemplified by the Sanskrit term darsan, and the devotional gaze, in which the observer looks at the image like a lover. It is unclear, however, how an analysis of the gaze engages with other categories like performance, ritual, and texts. In chapter four, Icon and Interface, Morgan turns to the specific tensions endemic to religious visual culture. …

Working Memory and Emotion: Ruminations on a Theory of Depression

A broad theory of depression is proposed based on a blend of Hume's ( D. Hume, 1978 , A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Original work published 1739) concept of a valenced world and Damasio's (A. R. Damasio, 1994 , Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York, NY: Putnam) somatic marker hypothesis. It is proposed that behavior is governed by a hedonic detector system coupled to working memory. Depression is assumed to reflect a malfunction of the hedonic detector, involving the inappropriate setting of its positive−negative neutral point. This simple assumption allows a coherent account of depression that links the neurobiological, behavioral, and psychological evidence with a plausible evolutionary hypothesis. Alternative hypothesis are discussed, and methods of investigating the hedonic detector are suggested.

Restoring the Public Purpose to Private Corporations

At different points in time the American corporation has been acclaimed as an instrument of economic progress and critiqued for pursuing narrow interests of shareholders at the expense of employees and the public interest. We argue that the era of shareholder maximizing that emerged in the 1980s and has dominated since then has produced a set of perverse economic outcomes that have limited or stopped economic progress for the majority of the workforce and holds back an economic recovery capable of closing the jobs deficit and improving living standards. Building a more sustainable economy will, therefore, require replacing this narrow conception of the purpose of the firm a broader theory and with policy and institutional reforms that rebalance the power of investors, corporate executives, workers, and their representatives.

Breaking the Cycle: Extending the Persistent Pain Cycle Diagram Using an Affective Pictorial Metaphor

The persistent pain cycle diagram is a common feature of pain management literature. but how is it designed and is it fulfilling its potential in terms of providing information to motivate behavioral change? This article examines on-line persistent pain diagrams and critically discusses their purpose and design approach. By using broad information design theories by Karabeg and particular approaches to dialogic visual communications in business, this article argues the need for motivational as well as cognitive diagrams. It also outlines the design of a new persistent pain cycle that is currently being used with chronic pain patients in NHS Bradford, UK. This new cycle adopts and then visually extends an established verbal metaphor within acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in an attempt to increase the motivational aspects of the vicious circle diagram format.

Are Roman seal-boxes evidence for literacy?

Increasingly, individual classes of artefacts are being studied less in their own right and more to garner support for broader theories and arguments. Roman seal-boxes, for example, are now routinely used as proxy evidence for literacy because it is generally accepted that they were designed to protect wax seals attached to personal letters written on wooden stylus tablets. The most unequivocal expression of this position is found in the work of T. Derks and N. Roymans, who argue that the presence of seal-boxes, even in rural areas, is evidence for the penetration of Latin literacy.1 Their work has proved influential; it was used, for example, by R. Hingley to argue that The seal boxes on non-villa settlements may indicate that the population of the Lower Rhine were drawing upon aspects of Roman culture — Latin language and the technology of writing — through a creative engagement with the imperial system.2 Yet there had been very little prior research into seal-boxes themselves to support these ambitious theories (a point noted by Hingley himself3).

Global communication, the environment, and world risk society

Global environmental risks are set to play an increasingly prominent role in world affairs. As detailed by Ulrich Beck in his theory of the World Risk Society, such risks are an inevitable outcome of an increasingly globalized world, while their existence can also serve to deepen processes of global interconnectedness and cosmopolitanization. Global communication flows are integral to the construction and understanding of risk. While Beck acknowledges the centrality of media and communication, his analysis is largely at the level of broad social theory. This article critically examines some of his concepts in light of empirical work in communications scholarship, in particular his notions of ‘risk cultures’ and the ‘global public sphere’.

Creation and Authority: The Natural Law Foundations of Locke’s Account of Parental Authority

John Locke occupies a central place in the contemporary philosophical literature on parental authority, and his child-centered approach has inspired a number of recognizably Lockean theories of parenthood. But unlike the best historically informed scholarship on other aspects of Locke's thought, those interested in his account of parental rights have not yet tried to understand its connection to debates of the period or to Locke's broader theory of natural law. In particular, Locke's relation to the seventeenth-century conversation about the role of generation in grounding ‘paternal power’ is not well-known. Understanding this background is interesting in itself, but more importantly, it can provide us with a deeper appreciation of what Locke is actually saying, as well as a useful vantage-point for surveying current debates about parental rights.

Why Schumpeter has had so little influence on today’s main line economics, and why this may be changing

While Schumpeter’s broad theory of how capitalist economies worked articulated in his Theory of Economic Development received strong attention in his lifetime, it was neoclassical economic theory that took hold of the profession in the last half of the twentieth century, and today few economists even read Schumpeter. The first part of this essay considers the reasons why Schumpeter largely has been ignored. However, recent developments have increased the interests of economists in innovation and in innovation driven economic activity, and the time now may be ripe for a renaissance of Schumpeterian economics. The second part of this essay provides a sketch of what an economics text-book, written from a Schumpeterian perspective, might look like.

Digital signal processing in forensic acoustics cases

Forensic acoustics typically considers speaker identification, authenticity analysis, audio enhancement and transcript verification by analyzing and processing audio or speech signals. Other applications in forensic acoustics include different analyses of non-speech audio signals. This presentation will discuss three contentious litigation cases in which various digital processing techniques formed the foundation of scientifically-based conclusions. The first is a products liability case involving the death of a firefighter and his Personal Alert Safety System. When movement of a firefighter ceases, a high-pitched audible alert is emitted. When numbers of these devices were recorded, the task was to determine if the deceased firefighter’s device was included within the multiple devices examined. In the second case the order of the discharges of various caliber weapons based on a 9-1-1 call was determined via digital signal processing. The third study utilized processing techniques to differentiate and identify the type of sounds produced in a number of murder trials. These cases represent the varied challenges in forensic audio and acoustics investigations, and show the difficulty of applying broad theory to practice, the necessity for innovation in the field and the basis for establishing scientific reliability in order to secure admissibility into the courtroom.

Does the Political Environment Matter? Arab‐American Representation and September 11th

ObjectivesStudies of minority representation customarily focus on groups whose social position remains steady over the time period in question. We consider whether and how Arab‐American representation shifted following September 11th as the group's social status changed rapidly.MethodsWe analyze the determinants of Senate voting alongside the Arab‐American Institute from 2000 to 2008. We employ ordinary least square (OLS) regression models that account for the time series cross‐sectional (TSCS) nature of our panel data.ResultsOur findings suggest that Arab‐American representation significantly declined in the wake of September 11th, both among Democratic and Republican senators. As the political environment improved over time, representation slowly rose in subsequent years.ConclusionsWe show that the quality of Arab‐American representation declined after September 11th despite no significant change in either their size or in electoral outcomes. We also show that broad theories of minority representation apply to even small ethnic groups, as the determinants of Arab‐American representation parallel those of African Americans and Latinos.