Critics Claim Research Articles

The Turn to Affect: A Critique

In this essay I plan to discuss the general turn to affect, particularly the turn to the neurosciences of emotion, that has recently taken place in the humanities and social sciences.2 The rise of interest in the emotions among historians has been well documented.3 My concern is somewhat different. I want to consider the turn to the emotions that has been occurring in a broad range of fields, including history, political theory, human geography, urban and environmental studies, architecture, literary studies, art history and criticism, media theory, and cultural studies. The work of Daniel Lord Smail, who has recently inaugurated neurohistory by arguing for the integration of history and the brain sciences, including the sciences of emotion, is a case in point.4 But my inquiry will also consider the claims of those cultural critics and others who, even before historians ventured into this terrain, in such newly designated fields as neuropolitics, neuro-

The short happy life of Celiant Corporation: Did managerialism at Lucent Technologies divert shareholder wealth to private equity investors?

Abstract Proponents of private equity investment in corporate ventures assert that private equity creates shareholder wealth by alleviating agency costs, improving venture governance, and allocating resources more efficiently. Critics claim private equity expropriates wealth from public company shareholders to private investors and managers. We use managerialism as a framework to examine these competing claims in the context of the power amplifier business at Lucent Technologies. Lucent spun off this business in 2001 into a company called Celiant Corporation, and then sold Celiant in a series of transactions in 2001 and 2002. We estimate that Lucent contributed assets to Celiant worth $330 million, but that the spin-off and sale of Celiant generated only $91 million for Lucent's shareholders. The apparent loss of over $200 million of shareholder wealth is consistent with a scenario in which Lucent managers and private equity investors used their superior information for personal gain.

O DIREITO EM UMA TEORIA DA JUSTIÇA DE RAWLS

A obra de Rawls é responsável pela reabilitação e revigoramento da filosofia política e da filosofia moral. Todavia, existe visivelmente, como alguns críticos afirmam, um certo déficit quanto ao tratamento dado ao direito. À luz disso, neste artigo, apresenta-se uma discussão sobre o direito em Uma Teoria da Justiça, principalmente no tocante ao sistema jurídico e seus conceitos correlatos. Assim, abordam-se os conceitos de justiça formal e estado de direito, tendo em vista a proteção das liberdades básicas.

Can Pietism Change the World? Reconsidering Hegel's Tutelage of 'Faith'

AbstractThe legacy of the ecclesial renewal movement known as Pietism is debated on questions of how it envisions the church's relation to the world. On the one hand, there are denominations today that invoke the legacy of Pietism as a resource in constructing a missional identity and a clear ethic of social engagement and transformation. On the other hand, there are critics, such as Karl Barth, who register Pietism as a phenomenon that fosters individualism rather than social-mindedness. Barth blames Pietism's inward concept of authority. This essay is an attempt to temper the claims of such critics through a close reading of the analysis of the 'faith' consciousness found in G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. In contrast to Barth, Hegel offers a reading of Pietism's inward concept of authority as forming dissatisfied social agents, rather than atomistic individuals fundamentally alienated from one another. On Hegel's account, the Pietist experiences an essential or spiritual belonging to the actual social world, yet she is continually dissatisfied with the external actualization of this spiritual relationship. Thus, Hegel provides a way for Pietist traditions to conceptually integrate the emphasis on inward experience with a clear ethic of social participation and responsible engagement.

The Use of Economic Analysis in Court Judgments: A Comparison between the United States, Australia and New Zealand

As a theoretical paradigm, the use of economics has dominated legal analysis both in academia and the courts in the United States for the last three decades. This popularity, though, does not extend to most other jurisdictions. Judge Richard Posner, one of the pioneers of the law and economics movement, developed a model comparing the structures of the legal profession in the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe to explain the lack of the use of law and economics in the latter two regions compared with the United States.This paper compares the use of economic analysis in judicial decisions in the United States with the extent of such use in two other common law jurisdictions: Australia and New Zealand. Judge Posner's model is used to examine the structure of the legal professions in Australia and New Zealand to predict the extent to which law and economics is used by each jurisdiction's respective judiciary. It is observed that Australian courts do not use economic analysis to any great extent, with senior members of the judiciary adopting an explicitly negative view of the value of economic reasoning in resolving legal disputes. Even those judges who attempt to apply economic tools to justify their decisions tend to do so in a simplistic fashion that does not draw on the full advantages such an approach offers and does nothing to counteract the claims of the paradigm's critics. New Zealand's judiciary has demonstrated a more receptive attitude, with little if any hostility expressed openly (unlike Australia), with notable senior members of the judiciary openly advocating for the courts to make greater use of economic reasoning in resolving legal disputes. These findings are in line with the expectations formed under Judge Posner's model.Further observations are made regarding the legal education systems in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, finding that law and economics is taught to a greater extent in line with the use of economic reasoning in the respective court system. While it is difficult to draw conclusions as to any causal relationship, an explanation is suggested that judicial attitudes, especially in Australia and New Zealand, have a strong influence on the extent to which law and economics is taught in law schools. Australia's and New Zealand's systems of legal education are much more focused, by necessity, on fundamental legal knowledge useful for a career in law, a restriction that does not exist to the same extent in the United States. The popularity of law and economics courses in Australia and New Zealand reflects the judicial attitudes observed in this paper's main analysis.

Authority, Disobedience and Dissent

In their recent collection of articles, Queer Spiritual Spaces: Sexuality and Sacred Places (Browne et al. 2010), scholars from a number of disciplines report on research into the “persistence of faith” among what they call, rather awkwardly, LGBTQI people1 who continue to practice and re-interpret forms of religion in contexts usually regarded as hostile to them. Sally Munt, the principal investigator for the project, refers to a “widespread suspicion” of religion in queer politics, with “concomitant reverence for liberal secularism or critical disidentification,” but claims that, nonetheless, “spirituality has been a persistent phenomenon, a sustained comfort and a source of creativity” for some queer folk (Munt 2010, 17). Many people who have found their sexuality falling outside normative parameters continue to reject religion—religious belief, religious texts, doctrines, practices, religious institutions, religious leaders, etc.— as a major, if not the primary, source of hostile teaching (the “primary institutional legitimator of discrimination” [Nelson and Longfellow 1994, 357])—which they continue to regard as so toxic as to threaten their very survival. In a kind of “baby out with the bathwater” response, such folk will often eschew the resources available to them from such religious sources, as they pursue answers to their own existential inquiries, and

Suffering in the Context of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Transcending Job through Wojtyla's Anthropology

The debate over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (EPAS) continues to ignore the philosophical anthropology on which certain critical claims rest. In this paper, I offer several anthropologically based arguments against one prominent justification for EPAS: the Argument from the Evil of Suffering. I demonstrate that the argument is, at its core, a utilitarian one, and that a sound rebuttal can be found by examining Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II's view of suffering as a transformative experience for the human person. Wojtyla both rejects the secular bioethics vision of meaningless, quantifiable suffering, but also offers to take Christian bioethics far beyond the story of Job and into the realm of phenomenological change. By focusing on participation of the suffering sick in community with others, and rejecting alienation, Christians can arrive at a more complete conception of suffering that embraces the complementarities of philosophy and theology.

Reconsidering the Last Part of Orlando Furioso: Romance to the Bitter End

This essay challenges the view that the last part of Orlando furioso takes an “epic” turn and abandons many of the “romance” features that characterize its first half. The essay does so by considering (1) the anachronism of projecting onto the Furioso a desire on Ariosto's part to upgrade the romance with which he began to an epic poem, given that the differences between romance and epic that modern critics claim are at work in Orlando furioso did not come to the fore as issues in Italian poetics until about fifty years after the poem's first composition; and (2) the persistence of romanzo matter and structure in the poem's last nine cantos. Modern interpreters who maintain that the Furioso becomes more epic in its last segment cite as evidence the more frequent imitation of the Aeneid, but in fact Ariosto modifies the Virgilian matter he grafts into his narrative to fit the language and ethos of chivalric romance.

Why Giorgio Agamben is an optimist

The article takes Giorgio Agamben’s declaration of his optimism with regard to the possibilities of global political transformation as a point of departure for the inquiry into the affirmative aspects of Agamben’s political thought, frequently overshadowed by his more famous critical claims. We reconstitute three principles grounding Agamben’s optimism that pertain respectively to the total crisis of the contemporary biopolitical apparatuses, the possibility of a radically different form-of-life on the basis of their residue and the minimalist character of this transformation that consists entirely in the subtraction of existence from these apparatuses. While the first two principles are unproblematic in the wider context of Agamben’s work, the third principle introduces the problematic of will that remains highly ambiguous in his philosophy. In the remainder of the article we address this ambiguity in an analysis of Agamben’s reading of Melville’s ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’ and conclude that Agamben’s optimism ultimately consists in the affirmation of absolute contingency, beyond both will and necessity.

Surrounded by Beasts: Bertha Young's Thwarted Fairy Tale

This essay reads Katherine Mansfield's short story ‘Bliss’ as a modernist fairy tale in which Bertha, like a typical heroine of that genre, is on an identity quest. The complex fissure in Bertha's psyche is not between heterosexuality and homosexuality, as many critics claim, but between the world of her fantasy and the reality that surrounds her, between her idealised ‘bliss’ and the actual, physical way that ‘bliss’ must be attained. Bertha perpetuates her fairy-tale state by forcing the world around her to conform to her vision. Harry, Pearl, Mug and Face Knight, and Eddie Warren all reflect the adult world which Bertha does not understand; they invade her home much like cats invade her garden. Like a Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood, Bertha is unwilling to see that the creatures who cross her path are wolves; however, their presence forcibly removes Bertha's veil of bliss. Mansfield's story, with its subversive fairy tale plot, characters, and themes, forces the reader to reassess how a Victorian childhood and patriarchal expectations might repress the sexuality of the modern woman.

Judging Children's Credibility–Cracks in the Culture of Disbelief, or Business as Usual?

The child complainant of sexual abuse is widely regarded as the paradigmatic vulnerable witness who is most likely to encounter difficulties in giving evidence. Most adversarial jurisdictions have introduced a range of statutory measures designed to protect and support child complainants throughout the legal process and to assist them to give evidence to the best of their ability. Nonetheless, critics claim child complainants still face a culture of disbelief, largely sustained by continuing adversarial practices intended to protect the rights of the accused. Tis accounts for persistent representations of children as tending to fabricate, exaggerate, or imagine the abuse that they allege, despite the recognition of their needs as complainant-witnesses. Such representations indicate a disjuncture between progress in policy and in law reform and the appearance that it is business as usual within the courts. Tis paper explores this disjuncture. It acknowledges that, while the terms for the reception of children's evidence into the courtroom have changed, the repositioning that has occurred has not yet eliminated misgivings toward children's evidence. The lightest of inferences can call up a history of doubt–a powerful reminder of the tenacity of the dynamics of discounting in sexual offenses. Even so, the paper argues that the judicial language used to describe child witnesses is more nuanced and balanced than in previous decades, suggesting a more complex appreciation of the child's capabilities is developing, one which holds the potential for an enhanced accommodation of the conflicting interests surrounding adversarialism and vulnerability.

Whither biodiversity in development? The integration of biodiversity in international and national poverty reduction policy

The link between biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation has been the subject of heated debate for the last decade. One thread of this multi-faceted issue has been concerned with a perceived lack of attention to biodiversity conservation within the international development agenda following the prioritization of poverty reduction—particularly, the emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and on national poverty reduction strategies. In this paper I explore whether biodiversity has indeed “fallen off” the development agenda, as critics claim, by reviewing the policies of official development assistance agencies and national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).

Response to Melanye T. Price's review of In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America

In In the Shadow of Du Bois, I argue that Du Bois' early political thought, as mainly expressed in The Souls of Black Folk, turns on three critical claims: 1) that African American politics is a practice of group leadership—thus, a practice of group rule, or governance, for Du Bois interprets leadership as a form of rule, or governance; 2) that African American politics should take the form of political expressivism, such that it expresses the spiritual identity of the black folk; and 3) that African American struggles to counter white supremacy are best understood as struggles against social exclusion. In her review of In the Shadow, Melanye Price notes that the “book emphasizes” claims 1 and 2, yet neglects to discuss its treatment of 3, which is no less critical to the book's argument and to which I will return.

Errors in Science and their Treatment in Teaching Science

This paper analyses the real origin and nature of scientific errors against claims of science critics, by examining a number of examples from the history of electricity and optics. This analysis leads to a conclusion that errors are a natural and unavoidable part of scientific process. If made available to students, through their science teachers, such a knowledge, would give students a deeper insight into the scientific process and remove their fear of making errors in their own laboratory work.

Offline: The following day, no one died

President Obama has become a hate figure for some AIDS activists. Médecins Sans Frontières, among others, claim that Obama is personally “denying and delaying AIDS treatment, ignoring evidence on how to defeat the pandemic”. These critics accuse Obama of breaking promises. One activist at the International AIDS Society's conference in Vienna last week said that he had “lied”. Meanwhile, some of Obama's political foes level an opposite attack. They argue that he has been too kind to factions on the political left (including AIDS activists), which (his critics claim) have held him hostage to causes that hurt his centrist credentials.

Economía y juego en Celestina

In this work, I explore the “deep structure” inherent in the text of Celestina. By “deep structure” I mean a playful structure with which we can systemize the relationships that occur between the characters and their decision-making, especially between Celestina and Calisto. My approach to this thesis is interdisciplinary; more specifically, I apply the critical claims offered by modern game theory and sociology, with the intention of bringing to light an aspect of the work which has been up to now largely disregarded by Celestina critics: the role of games. This analysis is accomplished while keeping in mind the political, sociocultural and economic background of the times in which the text is situated.

A Case for Criminal Negligence

I join the chorus of congratulations for Larry Alexander, Kim Ferzan, and Stephen Morse for the contributions their book makes to our understanding of the criminal law.1 The book seeks to achieve nothing less than a comprehensive theory of the crime and punishment, one that tries to reorient the thinking of scholars and policy makers toward a single theory of justice based on blameworthiness and retribution. Regardless of whether we are ultimately convinced by the conclusions, we can all admire the scholarly ambition and risk-taking the project requires, and appreciate the many insights the authors provide. I learned a lot from this book; it both advanced and unsettled my prior thinking on a whole range of topics. But ultimately the book failed to persuade me. I remain far from certain that a single theory can explain the criminal law; more doubtful than ever that, even if a single theory is possible, retributive theory is the right tool for the job; and skeptical that a unified theory is even desirable. Doing justice to the authors' larger thesis would require a review as long as the book, so my goals here are modest. In the next few pages I will address the authors' critical corollary claim that negligence does not form an appropriate basis for criminal liability, and explain why I think it is wrong, at least as a matter of first principles. I then raise some questions about the proposed practical application of the theory to a revised

After Critical Realism?

While recent scientific discoveries and theories can be taken to provide additional evidence for some of the central critical realist claims, overall critical realism seems to be in need of reassessment, revisions and further developments. First, I argue that here has been an inclination among critical realists to prefer the language and model of philosophy to falsifiable science, creating a predisposition towards somewhat sectarian practices. These tendencies also account for the relative lack of substantive research based on, or inspired by, critical realism. Second, I make a case for radicalising the critique of anthropomorphism and applying it to critical realism itself. Third, and in some contrast to the second point, I argue for rethinking the subject-object relationship and the concept of the intransitive dimension of science. The critique of anthropocentrism has been taken too far. We are implicated in and are a part of the object of our study. It even seems that we humans are a part of the process of the cosmos becoming conscious of itself, also through science.

Twilight is Not Good for Maidens: Gender, Sexuality, and the Family in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series

Dear, you should not stay so late, Twilight is not good for maidens; Should not loiter in the glen In the haunts of goblin men. --Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market Although regularly teach children's and young adult literature to undergraduate students, it took my son's babysitter to alert me to the phenomenon of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga, the now ubiquitous quartet of novels about 17-year-old Bella Swan and her vampire beau, Cullen. My babysitter, who suffers from dyslexia and therefore reads quite slowly, had nonetheless made her way through texts whose lengths rival the great Victorian novels. Indeed, this young woman's passionate investment in these stories brings to mind nineteenth-century readers clamoring at the docks for the latest installments of Dickens's work, and makes her one of a large community of girls and women who have made the Twilight series among the best selling young adult novels of all time. Over 50 million of the books have been sold, the first two of scheduled four film adaptations have been released, and the number of self-admittedly obsessed Team Edward fans continues to grow. Meanwhile, Meyer, the erstwhile unknown Mormon housewife who wrote the first installment of the series after dreaming about a vampire and a young girl in a meadow, was named one of Time magazine's most influential people of 2008. The tremendous success of the novels has surprised some critics, especially those feminist media and literary critics who argue that the series perpetuates outdated and troubling gender norms. Edward, these critics claim, is frequently controlling and domineering, saving the hapless Bella time and again from danger; Bella suffers from low self-esteem and seemingly has no close friends except for Edward, his family, and Jacob, a suitor-turned-werewolf; and, at the end of the series, she foregoes college in order to marry and bear, at great risk to her own life, a half-human and half-vampire child. Elizabeth Hand is representative of feminist critics when she argues in The Washington Post that there's something distinctly queasy about the male-female dynamic that emerges over the series' 2,446 pages. has been frozen at the age of 17. But he was born in 1901, and he doesn't behave anything like a real teenager. He talks and acts like an obsessively controlling adult (7). Numerous blogs and groups such as Feminist Mormon Housewives and the Facebook group Twilightmoms have also analyzed the gender dynamics of the series, even from inside the sometimes rabid fan community. Chelsea, writing on Feminist Mormon Housewives, posts, I find the message to young girls disturbing. That love is an irresistible force that precludes making any rational decisions. That it's OK (even noble) to sacrifice your personal safety if you 'really' love someone (n.p.). Claims such as these reveal the concern that many critics and readers feel about the books' tremendous popularity and the messages that they impart to girls about romance and women's roles in sexual relationships. Do the books promote retrograde ideas about female submission to male authority? Are the books particularly troubling in the genre of young adult (YA) literature, whose readers might not yet have developed the critical apparatus of the adult reader? The criticisms leveled against the series in the press indicate that it deserves a more in-depth discussion than it has yet received. The novels' gender ideology is ultimately and unapologetically patriarchal. However, focusing merely on and Bella's romance obscures larger themes that the novels also explore, and that add to the series' appeal and cultural significance, particularly within the genre of young adult fiction. Although and Bella are the center of the novel's narrative, the series is equally concerned with the contemporary American nuclear family, and a woman's role within that family. …

Blood Donation, Deferral, and Discrimination: FDA Donor Deferral Policy for Men Who Have Sex With Men

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy prohibits blood donation from men who have had sex with men (MSM) even one time since 1977. Growing moral criticism claims that this policy is discriminatory, a claim rejected by the FDA. An overview of U.S. blood donation, recent donor deferral policy, and the conventional ethical debate introduce the need for a different approach to analyzing discrimination claims. I draw on an institutional understanding of injustice to discern and describe five features of the MSM policy and its FDA context that contribute to its discriminatory effect. I note significant similarities in the 1980s policy of deferring Haitians, suggesting an historical pattern of discrimination in FDA deferral policy. Finally, I point to changes needed to move toward a nondiscriminatory deferral policy.