Clark Kent Research Articles

An Enlightenment Problem for Millianism

According to a Millian theory of names, co-referring names are intersubstitutable salva veritate in all contexts, including the that-clauses of belief reports. This leads the Millian to famously argue, among other things, that if Lois Lane believes that Superman can fly then she also believes that Clark Kent can fly. Although the Millian provides an ingenious account that explains our strong anti-substitution intuitions in such cases, this paper argues that the Millian account leads to a new problem of enlightenment in identity reports. Specifically, a believer A may come to discover that two names refer to the same individual S, but whether A is enlightened about the identity of S will depend on the number of guises through which A holds contradictory beliefs about S.

In Praise of Clark Kent: Creative Metacognition and the Importance of Teaching Kids When (Not) to Be Creative

Despite creativity's many benefits and positive outcomes, there are still both explicit and implicit teacher biases against creative students. We argue that teachers do not dislike creativity but rather dislike inappropriate creativity that can come from students at poorly chosen times. After reviewing the literature on metacognition and creativity, we propose the adapted construct of creative metacognition (CMC), a combination of self-knowledge (knowing one's own creative strengths and limitations) and contextual knowledge (knowing when, where, how, and why to be creative). We end with ways that teachers can raise students’ CMC.

Does Clark Kent tweet? Identity work and agency in institutional maintenance

We study the effects of the use of Twitter on the practices of journalists of newspapers and news websites. Interviews complemented by observation and secondary data show that Twitter puts a strain on journalistic practices. The journalistic logic, however, is maintained as journalists experience three micro-processes. First, they experience institutional disorientation as the institutional pillars that provided stability in their habitual practices are shaken. Second, they cope with identity fragmentation through identity work. Finally they enact their dominant professional identity by skillfully interpreting journalistic norms in a situated context. Our findings have three implications for institutional theory. First, we offer a new understanding of how actors face internal conflicts and disembeddedness through identity work. Second, we highlight the importance of materiality and technology in institutional dynamics. Finally, we expand the understanding of the historical contingency of institutions by relating the identified mechanisms to post-modernity.

Human Nature and Pop Culture

Human Nature and Pop Culture

The Roots and Routes of Michael Jackson’s Global Identity

In 2011, the realm of American popular culture experienced a jolt when an American icon decided to go global. In DC Comics issue #900, Superman renounced his US citizenship. A stalwart of “the American way,” Superman decided that his mission for justice should encompass people and phenomena beyond the territorial boundaries of the U.S. after feeling morally compelled to support non-violent protesters in Iran. The repercussions of Superman’s actions created complications for US foreign policy, and forced the aegis of American heroism to officially differentiate his stance from that of the US government. Yet while Superman continues to see the world as increasingly interconnected and strives to become a global citizen, DC Comics publishers Jim Lee and Dan Didio insist that Superman remains committed to his American base. After all, Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, grew up in the heart of Americana. It is not only fictional icons who represent some facet of “all-American” identity who have become cosmopolitan subjects in our ever more connected world, but real ones as well. While few have taken the drastic step of renouncing their US citizenship, American icons such as Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey have been influenced by the global circulation of their products as well as their persons. Yet, although the frequency with which people and media increasingly cross borders reveals that transnationalism constitutes a deep-rooted and striking feature of American identity (Appadurai 1996; Grewal 2005), national identity remains a prevalent frame as a social reality and an object of analysis for its specific formations and expressions (Bernal 2004), complicated as it is by race, class, and gender. Like Superman, Michael Jackson is an American icon who went global. His ability to fuse together West African, African American, and Anglo–European musical influences as well as choreography styles from the American inner city, Fred Astaire, and French mime Marcel Marceau lent Jackson’s craft a broadly inclusive appeal. From Sweden to South Korea, footage from Jackson’s world tours shows fans cheering, chanting, weeping, and fainting as he performed, despite controversies surrounding him. His geographic mobility developed his transnational perspective; at many stops on his world tours he would also visit hospitals and orphanages to which he donated money, gifts, and resources. In 1992 he established the Heal the World foundation which airlifted 46 tons of supplies to war-torn Sarajevo. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Jackson donated an estimated $300 million to charity in his lifetime. Of his philanthropy Jackson commented, “I just couldn’t see myself not being touched by the things I have seen, like that village in China, and the things I have seen in Africa and Russia and Germany and Israel” (Shmuley 2009, 138). These experiences shaped his messages in songs such as “Heal the World,” “They Don’t Care About Us,” and “Earth Song” (see also Vogel 2011). Since his 2009 death, fans have commemorated Jackson by erecting statues of him in England, China, Russia and India. However, Jackson was an American icon and it was his status in the U.S. that launched his global iconicity. Indeed, the day af ter Jackson died, the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington D.C. called for a moment of silence for the American pop star. Yet what are the precise contours and components of Jackson’s American iconicity? And how do we understand the nuances of his racial identity 1 The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiated a Global Development Program andOprahWinfrey opened an academy for girls in South Africa.

The Light That Came to Lucille Clifton: Beyond Lucille and Lucifer

beginning / was word, asserts speaker of poem testament, who identifies herself as (Clifton, Good Woman 213). (1) Despite fact that biblical text to which she alludes goes on to proclaim the Word was God (John 1.1), Lucille Clifton draws no such parallels. (2) / lucille clifton / hereby testify, speaker continues in language reminiscent of courtroom testimonies and in style and rhythm akin to practice of testifying at Christian tent revivals, that in that there was and in that there was and in that there was sigh and in that sigh there was world. sigh and i in room. (213) Here, testament documents an unearthly spiritual encounter with a light and a voice, but an encounter that also highlights speaker's connection to world, as evidenced by phrase a sigh. A sigh, of course, indicates sorrow or fatigue and, connected as it is to world in poem, may indicate heaviness on part of voice concerning of speaker. This pairing of spiritual and earthly makes sense; from beginning of her career, Lucille Clifton was heavily invested in exploring relationship between spiritual and historical, and her own spirituality was one way she made sense of and of oppressive historical circumstances. testament should come as no surprise, then, to reader already familiar with rich spiritual of poet, who throughout her career drew on variety of philosophical traditions including Hindu, Native American, Buddhist, Jewish, and Christian. What is clear in testament, however, is that what endures after and are gone is only the word. If speaker of testament was alone / in room when she had this experience, there is no witness other than poem. poem becomes sacred because it documents an encounter with divine, and poet becomes bearer of the word. Clifton's testament is significant, therefore, in that it sets poet up as spiritual authority early in her career, role that is later developed more fully years later. In fact, published as they were in 1980, poems in section of Two-Headed Woman titled the that came to lucille were most likely written just after Clifton's encounter in 1970s with divine source known to her as The Ones (Mercy 51). Withheld from publication for nearly three decades, the from Ones appearing in Mercy (2004) documents this experience. That Clifton waited so long to publish the message may indicate that she remained hopeful that human would triumph over its own worst tendencies toward self-destruction and ruin. In Book of Light (1993), for example, she celebrates human body with Clark Kent poems in volume, even against backdrop of Persian Gulf War (1990 to 1991) and conservative backlash of 90s. After events of 9/11, however, that hope seems to have disappeared. Giving up making of poems and Christianity in same gesture, Clifton transcribes rather than fashions new sacred text in the message, text that proposes new moral code, with Clifton occupying role of guide and bearer of Word. In 1980s and throughout 1990s, however, Clifton was still trying to engage with world of testament in ways that celebrated inherited sacred texts and spiritual traditions, such as Bible and Christianity, although she often revised those texts to challenge social hierarchies they condoned. In fact, central focus of Clifton's work across span of her career was Bible and narratives it contains; over 150 of her more than 500 poems feature biblical characters or incorporate biblical imagery. (3) Clifton's ten-poem tree of life sequence in Quilting (1991) and eight-poem brothers sequence in Book of Light in particular take up Garden of Eden trope as way to reclaim biblical figure of Lucifer. …

Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero (review)

Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and Creation of Superhero, by Danny Fingeroth, foreword by Stan Lee. New York: Continuum, 2007. 184 pp. $28.95 (c ); $19.95 (p). Amidst a slew of recent scholarly works on superhero comics, Danny Fingeroth's Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and Creation of Superhero marks a solid contribution. Just as Clark Kent parades as a mild-mannered average reporter for Daily Planet with a meager pair of Buddy Holly-style glasses as his disguise, Jewish influence over superhero comics and resultant iconic, mega-market industry has also remained hidden beneath our very noses, and apparently plain sight. According to Fingeroth, this disguise has worked almost too well. Through careful scholarship and impressive interviews with some of leading creators of comic book superheroes, he argues it was not simply a matter of coincidence that progenitors of such characters as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and X-Men were Jewish. Despite this, Fingeroth explicitly states that he is in no way saying that [superhero] creators intended such [Jewish] meaning or content (p. 19). Thus, he is able to make substantial assertions that directly contradict those of such comic book icons as Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, and Bob Kane, who maintain that their Jewish heritage did not find its way into their creations. The fact that Fingeroth positions his thesis stark contrast to these legends (with exception of Stan Lee, who seems to find Jewish link to superheroes more than plausible) makes Disguised as Clark Kent a significant addition to study of superhero comics. Fingeroth methodically and logically lays out historical evidence, initiating his investigation with a seemingly simple question: What's so Jewish about superheroes, anyway? The answers, which make up vast majority of his book, are numerous. Indeed, impetus for Fingeroths entire project is need to discover whether there was anything particularly Jewish about superheroes general or any superhero particular (p. 25). The first and perhaps most important superhero to begin with is, of course, Superman. Two youngjewish men from Cleveland named Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster created Man of Steel, a fact well documented. Fingeroth regards this not just as a curious fact, however, but also as an invitation to examine Superman's connection to same traditions as those of his creator. In fact, Fingeroth sees Superman as a sort of wish fulfillment of Jewish (American) Dream to become the quintessential American, unafraid to speak truth to power, especially to types of petty tyrants that people face on a day-to-day basis (p. 49). As ultimate immigrant, Superman harkens back to many biblical figures, but one most apt, Fingeroth claims, is Moses. Additionally, Superman's outsider status, his preternatural willingness to do good, his noninterest overabundant wealth, and perhaps most important, his all-important secret identity compose not only America's idealization of individual (p. 48) but also Jewish immigrant's hope to invent new self. . . this new world (p. 49). Superman, then, becomes an archetype for superheroes to come. Once he establishes Superman connection to Jewishness, Fingeroth moves on to later iterations of superhero figure. As with Superman, author takes great care to establish Batman's Jewish heritage. Bob Kane, controversial creator of Batman, apparently diminished role of his ancestry whenever possible. Fingeroth relies heavily on a biographical reading of Batman through lens of Kane, and at times it feels like a bit of a stretch. …

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist (review)

Reviewed by: Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist Tiel Lundy Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, DVD, directed by Andrew D. Cooke: Montilla Pictures, original release 2007, DVD/Bluray 2010. Comic book superheroes have a penchant for sartorial show. Both Spiderman and Superman sport the garish combination of bright red and blue long underwear. Batman’s costume, though more muted in hue, is no less flashy for its many accessories—fire-retardant cape, utility belt, and Bat-a-rang. Far more understated is the Spirit (a.k.a. Denny Colt), the 1940s creation of artist Will Eisner (1917–2005). Attired in the standard businessman’s suit and tie, the Spirit’s only superhero garb consists of a mask, gloves, and modish fedora. (Indeed, to call the Spirit a “superhero” is a misnomer itself, the term not yet a part of the comic book lexicon.) That the Spirit wears even the minimal requirements of a costume reflects Eisner’s reluctant concession to the industry’s demand for “costume characters.” The Spirit, then, seems a fitting extension of its creator who, though achieving heroic status in the comic book community, remained an unassuming, if self-assured, innovator for his sixty-year career. It is hard to overstate Eisner’s importance to graphic narrative—or, what he dubbed “sequential art”—and practitioners of the form speak of him in nothing less than worshipful terms. A highly self-conscious and theoretical artist, Eisner had, at all times, a clear sense of purpose. Comics, he said, were “an art and literary form,” possessing their own “grammar” of complex elements and patterns (Will Eisner, foreword to Comics and Sequential Art [Tamarac, FL: Poorhouse Press, 1985], pp. 5, 8). Film director Andrew D. Cooke and his brother, writer and producer Jon B. Cooke, plainly admire Eisner, and their 2007 documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist pays homage to Eisner’s life and aesthetics. Celebrating the dynamic, even vertiginous quality of Eisner’s images, the filmmakers wisely get out of the way and let Eisner’s noir-fantasy art be the focus. Set in the shadowy “Central City,” The Spirit’s diegesis expresses an essentially pessimistic vision: populated by hapless thugs and criminal masterminds (both male and female), Central City is a libidinous world steeped in violence and tragedy. While The Spirit is undoubtedly informed by a 1940s noir aesthetic, Eisner was the first to acknowledge his debt to an earlier generation of comic book artists like George Herriman (Krazy Kat) and Milton Caniff (Terry and The Pirates), the latter of whom impressed Eisner, as he reveals in Cooke’s documentary, with his “ability to stage the stories” and express a “high degree of drama” through the use of shadows. Fellow artist and Eisner contemporary Joe Kubert calls Caniff, Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), and Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) the “three saints” of comic art in the 1930s and 40s. Open appreciation [End Page 193] for one’s artistic predecessors has long been a part of the culture of comics, and the film portrays the industry as one large extended family. Of the many artists working in comics in the early days, the vast majority were Jewish. Jules Feiffer, Bob Kane (born Kahn), Joe Kubert, Gil Kane (né Eli Katz), Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg), Al Feldstein, and Harvey Kurtzman: almost all of them were the children of Jewish immigrants. But if young Jewish boys reading the comics were looking for clearly identifiable Jewish role models, they were disappointed. Friend and artist Jules Feiffer points out in Cooke’s film that Jewish artists were creating characters with the names of Bruce Wayne, Denny Colt, and Clark Kent. There were no “Izzimos or Yosis in the world of comics,” Feiffer says. “They were just drawn by Izzimo and Yosi, but they all assimilated themselves on the comics page.” Although The Spirit did not engage directly the themes of Jewish identity and faith that Eisner’s 1978 graphic novel A Contract With God would, it did, nonetheless, demonstrate its author’s early concerns about the most pressing issue for Jews in the mid-twentieth century—Nazi Germany—openly mocking Hitler well before the U.S. had even...

The Clark Kent Effect: What is the Role of Familiarity and Eyeglasses in Recognizing Disguised Faces?

The Clark Kent Effect: What is the Role of Familiarity and Eyeglasses in Recognizing Disguised Faces?

Recovering What Is Said With Empty Names

As our data will show, negative existential sentences containing socalled empty names evoke the same strong semantic intuitions in ordinary speakers and philosophers alike.(1)(a) Santa Claus does not exist.(b) Superman does not exist.(c) Clark Kent does not exist.Uttering the sentences in (1) seems to say something truth-evaluable, to say something true, and to say something different for each sentence. A semantic theory ought to explain these semantic intuitions.The intuitions elicited by (1) are in apparent conflict with the Millian view of proper names. According to Millianism, the meaning (or ‘semantic value’) of a proper name is just its referent. But empty names, such as ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘Superman’, appear to lack a referent. If they do, then Millianism entails that they have no meaning.

From Giorgione-sentences to simple sentences

As Quine (1953) taught us, from (1) and (2) we cannot infer (3): (1) Giorgione was so-called because of his size (2) Giorgione was Barbarelli (3) Barbarelli was so-called because of his size. Why? In this paper I discuss and dismiss two possible answers. The first answer (section 1) rests on the view that in a sentence like (1)—a Giorgione-sentence—the name ‘Giorgione’ plays a dual role, i.e. it is both used and mentioned, and, since it is mentioned, it cannot be substituted salva veritate by the coreferential name ‘Barbarelli’. The second answer (section 2) dismisses the dual role of the name. It proposes the view that the name ‘Giorgione’ is picked out by the pronoun ‘so’ working like a demonstrative. In section 3 I present a plausible Perry-inspired account—i.e. I take on board Perry's distinction between an utterance's referential truth conditions and its reflexive truth conditions—which enables us to solve Frege-inspired puzzles concerning cognitive significance. Finally, in section 4, I discuss and defend the view that in a Giorgione-sentence ‘so’ works as an anaphoric pronoun coindexed with the name ‘Giorgione’. This anaphoric link and coindexation, though, appears at a reflexive level. This solution rests on the view that at the surface level the name is merely used while at the reflexive level, it is mentioned. 1 1 The picture I propose is neutral vis-à-vis any particular theory of quotation. For my argument to work, it is sufficient that the NPs appear within quotation marks at the cognitive level. I also show how the account proposed elegantly deals with so-called simple sentences of the form “Clark Kent, unlike Superman, can’t fly”, “Superman is stronger/more successful/…than Clark Kent”. In these sentences, codesignative NPs do not seem to be substitutable salva veritate. As in Giorgione-sentences, it is shown that their apparent non-substitutability is best dealt with at the reflexive level. The picture I’ll end up proposing endorses the welcome consequence that in Giorgione-sentences, unlike in simple sentences, codesignative names cannot be replaced salva veritate. Yet in simple sentences the intuitions concerning their alleged non-substitutivity are dealt with at the reflexive level. Thus, these intuitions force us neither to invoke special modes of presentation entering the proposition expressed nor to enrich our ontology and claim that coreferential names can refer to different entities in various contexts.

Simple Sentences, Substitution, and Intuitions * By JENNIFER SAUL

Philosophers of language have long recognized that in opaque contexts, such as those involving propositional attitude reports, substitution of co-referring names may not preserve truth value. For example, the name ‘Clark Kent’ cannot be substituted for ‘Superman’ in a context like: 1. Lois believes that Superman can fly without a change in truth value. In an earlier paper (Saul 1997), Jennifer Saul demonstrated that substitution failure could also occur in ‘simple sentences’ where none of the ordinary opacity-producing conditions existed, such as: 2. Superman leaps more tall buildings than Clark Kent does. Accounts focusing on opacity were unable to explain our ‘anti-substitution intuitions’ in such cases. In Simple Sentences, Substitution, and Intuitions, Saul extends her earlier work. She provides a comprehensive presentation and criticism of recent accounts of simple sentence substitution failure, and proposes a new approach drawing on psychological evidence about cognitive processing. Saul's purpose is not merely to solve the substitution puzzle cases, but to make a significant methodological point about the use of intuitions in philosophy of language.

The Next Catastrophe: Ready or Not?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. For a more detailed discussion of these themes, see Anne Witkowsky and Christine Wormuth, “Managing the Next Domestic Catastrophe: Ready or Not?” CSIS Report (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2008), http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080909_wormuth_managingcatastrophe_web.pdf 2. See The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, special report prepared at the request of President George. W. Bush, February 2006, http://www.whitehouse.gov/reports/katrina-lessons-learned/; Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, 109th Cong., 2nd sess., 2006, H. Rep. 109–396; Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, 109th Cong., 2nd sess., 2006, S. Rep. 109–322. 3. Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law 107–296, 107th Cong., 2nd sess. (November 15, 2002); Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-5,” February 28, 2003, paragraph 4, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030228-9.html; Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, Public Law 109–295, 109th Cong., 2nd sess. (October 4, 2006). 4. Department of Homeland Security, “National Response Framework”, January 2008, p. 25, http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/nrf-core.pdf. 5. Eric Lipton, Christopher Drew, Scott Shane, and David Rohde, “Breakdowns Marked Path From Hurricane to Anarchy,” New York Times, September 11, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/national/nationalspecial/11response.html 6. George W. Bush, “President Discusses Hurricane Relief in Address to the Nation,” speech, Jackson Square, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 15, 2005. 7. William Perry, Ashton Carter, and Michael May, “After the Bomb,” New York Times, June 12, 2007. 8. Although the title and content of the DOD planning guidance document has evolved substantially in recent years, for many years this document has played a critical role in translating strategy into the planning, programming and budgeting system. In the past, DHS has issued an integrated planning guidance document that has attempted to link strategic objectives to its five year budget, but the document's impact on the overall DHS planning, programming, and budgeting system has been modest at best. 9. Chris Logan, “2007 State Homeland Security Directors Survey,” Issue Brief (Washington D.C.: National Governors Association, December 18, 2007), p. 7, http://www.nga.org/Files/pdf/0712HOMELANDSURVEY.PDF 10. See Stephen Flynn, America the Vulnerable: How Our Government is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism (New York: Harper Collins, 2004); Clark Kent Ervin, Open Target: Where America is Vulnerable to Attack (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Richard A. Clarke, Rand Beers, et al., The Forgotten Homeland, A Century Foundation Task Force Report (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2006), http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=PB&pubid=569 . Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristine WormuthChristine Wormuth is a senior fellow in the International Security Program at CSIS and principal author of Managing the Next Domestic Catastrophe: Ready or Not?(2008). She can be reached at CWormuth@csis.org

Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero by Danny Fingeroth. Foreword by Stan Lee

Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and Creation of Superhero Danny Fingeroth. Foreword by Stan Lee: New York: Continuum, 2007. If we accept Hebrew Bible as historical source, persons of identity have forever debated how that identity is or should be parsed into its components of ethnicity, nationality, and religion. In past decade, writers have renewed this dialectic through a sharpening focus on ethnicity as a strand of superhero comics. Michael Chabon's novel, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) explored angst and feelings of impotence over Hitler's Europe. Gerard Jones's Men of Tomorrow (2005) roots birth of comics not only creators but also somewhat shadowy enterprises of Harry Donenfield and Jack Liebowitz. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein's Up, Up, and Oy Veh! (2006) sifts through superhero comics to celebrate story analogues and religious impulses. Danny Fingeroth, who knows comics scholarship well, brings to this ethno-religious arena unique background that informed Superman on Couch (2004), which explained appeals and evolution of different story types superhero comics. Like his earlier book, Disguised as Clark Kent shows a deep familiarity with principals and particulars of comics as a trade involving many hands and minds. Fingeroth's previous career at Marvel, creating stories for Dark Hawk, Hulk, X-Men, and serving as Group Editor for SpiderMan Comics, lends his treatments a rare authority. How many authors can cite, as Fingeroth does, precisely relevant interview materials with seminal figures like Will Eisner? A reader also finds here a personal dimension rare comics scholarship. Fingeroth, self identified as a New York Jew with eastern European roots, is trying to reconstruct culture of persons from a recently lost world of immigrants foreign and so strange as to take on air of fairy tales (22). Rather than listing important Jews comics as a tribal celebration, Fingeroth aspires to present superhero fantasy's Jewish inflections, as he puts it, trying to separate them from elements found predecessors such as Gilgamesh, Hercules, Zorro, or Lone Ranger. He realizes that this story is strongly interpretive rather than straightforwardly factual. Even Stan Lee (Stanley Martin Lieber), who writes book's Foreword, emphasizes that Fingeroth's attribution of ethnic values is speculations and conclusions (11). Lee and his cohorts felt in front of our minds that we were just trying to make best action-adventure comics we could (10-11)-not attempting to portray or project Jewishness and certainly not noticing it. In other words, they saw themselves as assimilated and making popular American stories process. Conceding this sort of resistance, Chapter 1, Secret Identities, collects a number of these denials by creators. As regards their creative intent, is relevant to mark a difference, employed by Fingeroth, between portrayalwhere there is congruency between creator's conscious intention and creative product-and expression, where symbolic values (and symptoms) may be projected absence of, and perhaps contrary to conscious purpose. Jules Feiffer made point well his New York Times obituary for Jerry Siegel, The Minsk Theory of Krypton, suggesting it wasn't Krypton that Superman really came from; was planet Minsk or Lodz or Vilna or Warsaw (qtd. Disguised, 24). At time of Superman's genesis, Siegel likely saw himself stretching Utopian science fiction (published his own magazine, Science Fiction: Advance Guard of Civilization), but Feiffer and Fingeroth argue for psychic layers of secret superhero birth linked to existential fears shared by 1930s Jews. Siegel himself gravitated toward such a perspective 1975 when he spoke of his great urge to help downtrodden masses, who included the helpless, oppressed Jews Nazi Germany (qtd. …

Urban Free Flow: A Poetics of Parkour

Urban Free Flow: A Poetics of Parkour

NO Deadly Signal

Reminiscent of mild-mannered Clark Kent, the glycolytic enzyme glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) has an alter ego with potent and deadly effects. When translocated to the nucleus, GAPDH has been associated with transcriptional regulation, and Hara et al. present results implicating it in control of apoptosis. A yeast two-hybrid screen for proteins interacting with GAPDH turned up Siah1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase. In transfected cells, the authors detected interaction of the proteins and increased localization of GAPDH to the nucleus, an effect that required the nuclear localization signal of Siah1. In human embryonic kidney cells undergoing apoptosis in response to staurosporine, the authors detected modification of GAPDH by mass spectrometry and went on to show in vitro that modification of GAPDH by S -nitrosylation (often a consequence of increased generation of nitric oxide within cells) enhanced association with Siah1. These events appear to be important in regulation of apoptosis. In a macrophage cell line undergoing apoptosis in response to lipopolysaccharide, GAPDH became S -nitrosylated and associated with endogenous GAPDH, and the complex moved to the nucleus. All of these effects were blocked by an inhibitor of the nitric oxide-generating enzyme iNOS (inducible nitric oxide synthase). Depletion of GAPDH with small interfering RNA (siRNA) blocked the appearance of phosphorylated histone H2B, a marker associated with apoptosis. In cerebellar granular neurons undergoing apoptosis in response to activation of glutamate receptors, similar effects were observed. Increased binding of Siah1 to GAPDH was blocked in cells from neuronal NOS (nNOS) knockout mice, and depletion of either GAPDH or Siah1 from wild-type cells with siRNA inhibited apoptosis. Exactly how nuclear Siah1 promotes apoptosis remains to be explored, but its action appears to require its RING finger domain, indicating that Siah1-mediated ubiquitination and consequent degradation of nuclear proteins is one likely mechanism. Nitric oxide-mediated modification of metabolic enzymes has been shown to contribute to cell death through energy depletion. Hara et al. propose that this may be a slower process and one associated more closely with necrosis, whereas the faster nuclear actions of GAPDH, which reflect translocation of only a small portion of cytoplasmic enzyme, appear to be independent of effects on glycolysis. M. R. Hara, N. Agrawal, S. F. Kim, M. B. Cascio, M. Fujimuro, Y. Ozeki, M. Takahashi, J. H. Cheah, S. K. Tankou, L. D. Hester, C. D. Ferris, S. D. Hayward, S. H. Snyder, A. Sawa, S -nitrosylated GAPDH initiates apoptotic cell death by nuclear translocation following Siah1 binding. Nat. Cell Biol. 7 , 665-674 (2005). [PubMed]

J. Clark Kent. Whig's Progress: Tom Wharton between Revolutions. Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004; distributed by Associated University Presses. Pp. 318. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8386-3997-6.

J. Clark Kent. Whig's Progress: Tom Wharton between Revolutions. Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004; distributed by Associated University Presses. Pp. 318. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8386-3997-6. - Volume 44 Issue 3

What's in two names?

As first pointed out by Saul (1997a), the co-referential names in sentences like (1) and (2) defy substitution salva veritate: (1) 'Clark Kent went into the phone booth, and Superman came out' ; (2) 'I never made it to Karl-Marx-Stadt, but I visited Chemnitz last year'. This paper elaborates and compares two solutions to Saul's substitution problem, both of which turn on an asymmetry between names that share their bearers. According to the first solution there is a semantic distinction between neutral names (like 'Superman' and 'Karl-Marx-Stadt') and restricted names (like 'Clark Kent' and 'Chemnlitz'). According to the second solution, only neutral names are properly used, whereas the use of (what would be) restricted names involves code-switching and pragmatic re-interpretation. As it turns out, the semantic approach deals more easily with changing names as in (2), whereas the pragmatic account is more adequate in explaining hidden identity cases like (1).

Then Came Disaster: France and the United States, 1918-1940, and: Marketing Marianne: French Propaganda in America, 1900-1940 (review)

Reviewed by: Then Came Disaster: France and the United States, 1918–1940, and: Marketing Marianne: French Propaganda in America, 1900–1940 John C. Cairns Then Came Disaster: France and the United States, 1918–1940. By Marvin R. Zahniser. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002. ISBN 0-275-97716-1. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Index. Pp. xvii, 249. $69.95. Marketing Marianne: French Propaganda in America, 1900–1940. By Robert J. Young. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8135-3377-5. Notes. Index. Pp. xxii, 247. $60.00. "On my arrival in the United States," Tocqueville observed, "I was struck with surprise on discovering how common was a high degree of merit among the governed, and how rare it was among the governing." The best part of two succeeding centuries has not done a great deal to soften this unvarnished French dictum, nor to abate a certain tension in Franco-American high politics. Though Americans continue to despatch their youth to France almost as a rite of passage, the consequences of this pilgrimaging remain ambiguous. Less than forty years ago, Crane Brinton judged that "the prospects for immediate and considerable betterment in Franco-American relations are slim indeed." Who would recast that formula today? Maybe no two great nations have more persistently nurtured their grande querelle. Aspects of this encounter in the early twentieth century are examined in these two books: imperilled France seeking the sympathy and support of the United States; the United States feeling its way toward the responsibilities of power. Most Americans know little of France, Marvin R. Zahniser believes, and find even that annoying. The French disaster of 1940 remains the focal point of American contempt for France (vide the opprobrium loosed, in high places and low, in 2003). His title suggests the long Franco-American prelude to 1940; he tells the story briefly, weaving through the 1920s and 1930s. Occasionally a set piece is inserted: a short introduction to Hitler; a discussion of Roosevelt's mind and method; a perceptive ramble through the career of U.S. Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, assigning to him and his master responsibility for raising false hope of American aid. Once he cuts to the impending disaster, his account fills out at the political level. The blow-by-blow of the May-June campaign is properly avoided. Rather, he comments on the attitudes and activities of selected dramatis personae: Reynaud, Churchill, Roosevelt, Bullitt. Curiously, a sizeable calendar of events, May-July, is popped in—almost, one might guess, in a despairing attempt to bring a little order to the intractable realities of the time. When Profesor Zahniser discusses reaction to the catastrophe, one thing leads to another. The text wanders around a bit in the fields of an introversive [End Page 988] American culture, high and low, making reference to diverse phenomena such as the Andrews Sisters, Cab Calloway, Reinhold Niebuhr, Seabiscuit, Ted Williams, Clark Kent, John L. Lewis, Edmund Wilson, Spicy Adventure Stories, and the like. The recollection serves to situate the dire fact that what befell France "did not long remain on American minds" (p. 188). For decision makers, however, it was different. American leaders now focussed intensely on the plight of Europe, their own security and rearmament. Thus, the apparent self-absorption of the masses notwithstanding, the French disaster became "America's fire bell in the night" (p. 193). What had happened that spring would "cast a very long shadow," at the time and in the half-century to come (p. 208). Having attached brief notes on the subsequent lives of some of the principal actors, Professor Zahniser concludes with the admonition that "evil must be met" (p. 215)—a line written, perhaps, after September 11. In all, one must say this is a slightly idiosyncratic work, informative but breaking no new ground. Relevant English-language literature is drawn on, but virtually none of the French. Some British and American archival papers are used. One might guess it is a teacher's book, spelling out certain ABCs, rendering moral judgments, occasionally repeating weary caricatures ("Better Hitler Than Blum") (p. 13), and inevitably from time to time, as in the classroom, misdating events, misusing words, mixing images...

Legacy of rage: Jewish masculinity, violence, and culture

In books, television programs, and films, Jewish men are often depicted as erudite, comedic, malleable, and non-threatening - somewhere between Clark Kent and the early Woody Allen. Yet as Warren Rosenberg shows in this illuminating study, this widespread cultural image is not only overly simplistic, it is at odds with a legacy of Jewish male violence that goes back to the first chapters of Genesis when Cain slew Abel. From Biblical depictions of heroic wariors like King David to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem (a fierce man of clay created by Cabalistic magic) to the fictional Alexander Portnoy, Jewish ideas of manhood reflect a simultaneous resistance and attraction to violence. According to Rosenberg, it is an ambivalence shaped by millennia of oppression as well as by the clash of Western ideas of masculinity with Eastern European rabbirical injunctions against violent action. The result has been not only gender confusion, but a suppressed rage evident in a broad range of texts created by Jewish men, from nineteenth-century Yiddish stories to contemporary Hollywood films. Isaac Babel, Henry Roth, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, David Mamet, Barry Levinson, and Steven Spielberg are just some of the writers and filmmakers whose lives and works are marked by this legacy of rage. Yet if the need to affirm masculinity through violence remains an unacknowledged aspect of Jewish male identity, Rosenberg argues, it is not a historical inevitability. As the work of Cynthia Ozick and Tony Kushner suggests, it is possible to construct new ideas of Jewish manhood by exposing the hidden fallacies of the old.