Lost Cause Research Articles

The Trials of John Joseph Henry: The Politics of “Revolutionary Services” in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT John Joseph Henry's Account of the … Campaign Against Quebec in 1775 (1812) recollects a revolutionary campaign to indict the leaders of Jeffersonian America. Historians value the text as a record of this early campaign—which left Henry permanently disabled—but the narrative focuses on the present. Henry evokes a brief moment of national (and individual) health to indict current national and state leaders who preserved unbroken bodies only by keeping themselves safe: these men, who never served, now attack those who did, purging from office Federalist veterans (such as Henry, a district judge). Their impeachment of Henry was a partisan persecution, he believed, proving to him the struggle for liberty was a “lost cause” in Jefferson's America. If he had imagined that those who “never looked an enemy in the eye” would cast “ancient veterans” aside, Henry wrote ruefully, he would “never have drawn a trigger.”

Does Literature Matter Today? Thoughts of the Outside

The paper celebrates the publication of Ranjan Ghosh and J. Hillis Miller's Thinking Literature across Continents as a significant event in the age of neoliberalism. It argues that, in spite of the different premises and the resulting interpretative procedures respectively championed by the two co-authors, both of them anchor their readings of literary texts in a concept of literature that is diametrically opposed to neoliberal rationality, and both impassionedly safeguard human values and experiences that resist the technologisation and marketisation of the humanities and aesthetic education. While Ghosh's readings of literature offer lightning flashes of thought from the outside of the Western tradition, signalling a new culture of reading as well as a new manner of appreciation of the other, Miller dedicatedly speaks and thinks against the hegemony of neoliberal reason, opening our eyes to the kind of change our teaching or reading of literature can trigger in the world, and the role aesthetic education should and can play at a time when the humanities are considered ‘a lost cause’.

World War I and Southern Modernism by David A. Davis (review)

Reviewed by: World War I and Southern Modernism by David A. Davis Joy Landeira David A. Davis. World War I and Southern Modernism. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2018. 233 p. After setting an icy tone with Robert Penn Warren's epigraph, "World War I changed everything. It was a great shock to the whole country, but the war broke open a frozen culture like the southern world," David A. Davis not only demonstrates how WWI cracked the South's frozen culture, but convincingly delineates how it "played a pivotal role in the emergence of Modernism." Both a cultural and literary phenomenon, Southern Modernism's experimentation, awareness of rural versus urban discontinuity, critique of the past, and exposure to modernity characterize this unstoppable movement. No longer valorizing the "lost cause" of the civil war, the Southern Renaissance--or Renasence—between the two World Wars (1920–40) challenged established frigid and rigid social structures, particularly the treatment of African Americans and women, and the glacial expectations of cotton growing and poverty. Combining literary technique with critical perspective, writers including Faulkner, both Fitzgeralds, Frances Newman, and Zora Neale Hurston observed the effects of modernity in the South and warmed to new ideas, technologies, social practices and divergent cultures. The key word to understanding Southern Modernism is disruption—disruption of the frozen culture, and disruption of literary tradition. After 1848, modernism ushered in an urban heat wave radiating from European capitals in Paris, London, Madrid and Vienna that sparked new perspectives and ignited a blaze of literary conflagration that reflected similar outbreaks and variants of urban modernism in Mexico and Latin America as well. Out of the nineteenth century's smoldering and moldering cinders, modernity disrupted old forms and instigated new approaches. Futurist and vanguardist dictums to "make it new" kindled fresh attitudes in US urban centers from New York, to Chicago, to Detroit to California and even sprung to life in the South with the New Negro movement, the New Southern Woman, and the New Mechanical Order. [End Page 203] The South's old ice age with its subordination of black Americans didn't just melt away. African American soldiers had defended their nation, and yet were expected to return to the same segregated and disenfranchised states they had left. The war incited a confrontational period for civil rights and for African American modernism—in particular, the Harlem Renaissance. Davis interprets three literary texts that fictionalize the experience of returning veterans. Victor R. Daly's Not Only war: A Story of Two Great Conflicts is the only novel written by a black American veteran. The titular conflicts are the war in France and the experience of being a Southern black. Walter White's The Fire in the Flint depicts racial violence, lynching, torching and murder in an attempt to illustrate social inequalities and promote civil rights. The exploitation of blacks and the effects of the war in Home to Harlem, by Claude McKay, one of Harlem's leading black radicals, profiles the international black experience of racial oppression. Some urban proximal sites of modernity like Harlem promised a cosmopolitan modernist space, but offered another sort of exile and fugitive experience. The freedom found in urban centers did not extend to the small towns and the South, revealing more hypocrisy and white supremacy, and the mandate to use writing as combat. For women, too, the war disrupted domestic life and fragmented society. To mirror these changes, linear narrative gives way to fragmented, nonlinear experiments. Social changes and the instability of identity and female roles inspire women's modernist writing. The "New Southern Woman" displaces the archetypal nineteenth century Southern belle. A particularly astute reading of Jonah's Gourd Vine illuminates how Zora Neale Hurston conveys the sense of disruption and "whirling cacophony of wartime" through disjointed montage and disembodied voices. By blending history, sociological profiles and literary textual analysis throughout World War I and Southern Modernism, David A. Davis upholds his clearly stated argument that World War I played "a pivotal role in the emergence of southern modernism." Factual evaluations of societal and economic sectors underscore the theme of disruption that begets modernism. WWI meant profitability, particularly in the South where President Woodrow...

A lost cause.

A lost cause.

Private pain versus public shame: González Sinde’s female lawyer in La suerte dormida/Sleeping Luck (2003)

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the representation of a female lawyer whose personal tragedy encourages her to become a heroine lawyer for the socially disadvantaged. It explores a female filmmaker’s account of a woman lawyer fighting for a lost cause and examines in what way the public/private, law/justice and reason/emotion dichotomies are played out in her public performance and private life. Central to my discussion will be the significance of emotion in filmmaking, law and social justice. I use Carl Plantinga’s seminal work on the emotional experience of the spectator and his cognitive-perceptual account of the viewing process, and combine it with a fruitful discussion of the genre of female lawyer films, as theorized by Cynthia Lucia and Orit Kamir in two pioneering studies on female lawyer films. This article fills a significant critical gap in the field of Spanish law and film. Positioned at the intersection between law, film and emotion, it gives space to a productive cross-fertilization of theories of spectatorship and the female lawyer film.

Hood's Texas Brigade: The Soldiers and Families of the Confederacy's Most Celebrated Unit by Susannah J. Ural

Reviewed by: Hood's Texas Brigade: The Soldiers and Families of the Confederacy's Most Celebrated Unit by Susannah J. Ural Daniel E. Sutherland (bio) Hood's Texas Brigade: The Soldiers and Families of the Confederacy's Most Celebrated Unit. By Susannah J. Ural. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Pp. 384. Cloth, $48.00.) Civil War unit histories have been around for a long time. Veterans created them to preserve their wartime memories, and historians have since found them useful in explaining important campaigns and battles. True, some people regard the genre as old-fashioned and restrictive, but a new type of unit history has recently emerged that may spark a revival. The revival began in 2014, with Lesley J. Gordon's innovative A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut's Civil War. As much social as military history, Gordon's book tells the story of a regiment of "cowards" against the backdrop of both home front and battlefield. Notably, too, Gordon carries the saga of her regiment into the postwar years. Susannah J. Ural has done much the same thing, even as she flips the script. Rather than a Union regiment, Ural writes about a Confederate brigade. Far from being known as the unit that ran away, her rebels are portrayed as among the bravest and most loyal soldiers in the war. That said, Ural mirrors Gordon in having written a splendid bit of history. Ural's Texas Brigade may be defined, she says, by its steadfast devotion to the Confederate cause. Despite the rigors of campaigning, the slaughter of the battlefield, and the plight of loved ones at home, the brigade rarely flinched or faltered. Its men embodied the spirit of their longtime commander, John Bell Hood, who, despite suffering a crippling wound to one arm and losing a leg, remained in the field and stubbornly refused to admit defeat. Anyone who doubts the strength of Confederate nationalism, Ural insists, need only consider the history of this elite unit. [End Page 710] Equally important, the vast majority of these men had quite ordinary backgrounds. Indeed, Ural tells us, much of the brigade's cohesiveness and aggressiveness may be explained by the middle-class status of its recruits, their belief in the Jacksonian notion of the self-made man, and, despite having few slaveholders in their ranks, a conviction that Republican political policies would destroy their way of life. Geography also helped. So certain were these men that neither the destructiveness of war nor the dangers of emancipation would ever reach Texas that they evidenced an almost rabid desire, even against the Confederate government's wishes, to rush to Virginia and join the fight. Not that they were all Texans. In fact, at no time did the brigade consist solely of Lone Star volunteers. Originally it included three Texas infantry regiments (the First, Fourth, and Fifth), the Eighteenth Georgia, and Wade Hampton's legion from South Carolina. When the latter two units were reassigned in late 1862, the void was filled by the Third Arkansas. That would be the final composition of the brigade. Yet individual regiments are almost irrelevant to Ural's narrative, so strongly is it anchored in the experiences of individuals. Such men as Andrew Erskine, James R. Loughridge, and Thomas J. Goree are the focus of their brigade's story, or at least part of it. Also to be heard are Ann Erskine, Felicia Loughridge, and Sarah K. Goree, for the families and friends of these men are an essential part of what motivated the brigade. The men remained steadfast to the Confederate cause, Ural submits, because their devotion was matched by that of their communities. As letters flowed back and forth between home front and battlefield, this shared faith in the Confederate nation became mutually reinforcing. Of course, there is some good, old-fashioned military history embedded in all this discussion of motivation, loyalty, and the will to fight. Ural offers meticulous tactical accounts of the brigade's combat experience, most notably at Gaines's Mill (its first significant action), Second Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and the Wilderness. The names alone suggest how battle-tested the brigade became and why it earned the...

Response to Professor Farber's 'Regulatory Review in Anti-Regulatory Times'

This is a response to an article by Professor Dan Farber presented in a symposium about the Trump Administration and Administrative Law at Chicago-Kent School of Law. After agreeing with Professor Farber’s description, analysis and critique of the Trump Administration’s use and abuse of cost benefit analysis as an aid in making regulatory decisions, Professor Pierce makes four points: (1) President Trump will fail to implement his deregulatory agenda; (2) EPA’s proposed rule on transparency of scientific evidence is a good start on an important project; (3) the Clean Power Plan is a lost cause; and, (4) The Trump Administration may unintentionally end the practice of applying cost benefit analysis to regulatory decisions.

"Free Play" in Poetry

"Free Play" in Poetry Daniel Brown (bio) A good poet once told me that when he sits down to write, he has nothing in mind (unless you count the knowledge that he's sitting down to write). If he's lucky, some words will emerge from this void. If he's doubly lucky, a subject will emerge from these words. If he's lucky cubed, he'll find the subject worth pursuing—at which point he'll have an incipient poem on, and in, his hands. If we're to take Robert Frost at his word (something one does at one's own risk), he too came to his writing desk—a lapboard, actually—with nothing in mind. A poem began as he said in a letter of 1916 to Louis Untermeyer, with only "a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness." In an achieved poem, "an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." This might seem an unlikely account of how Frost actually got a poem going. When he started to write a certain well-known poem, did he really have a lump in his throat but not a birch in his head? In his 1939 essay "The Figure a Poem Makes," he in fact says something quite different about his poems' inceptions: that they begin with his "remembering something I didn't know I knew." They begin, that is to say, not with an emotion, as quoted in the first account, but with what comes after an emotion: a thought. So Frost was amenable, on some days anyway, to a poet's knowing something about a poem's content before he begins it. But he was adamant about what a poet shouldn't know in advance: how his poem was going to end. It was, as he said in "The Figure . . .," but "a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for the [End Page 304] last." A poem, rather, "must be a revelation, or a series of revelations, as much for the poet as for the reader." The idea that a poet should learn where his poem is going in the course of its getting there is a commonplace (if not a shibboleth) these days. The idea is often stated as such, as in the familiar writing workshop injunction to "let the poem tell you where it wants to go." Sometimes it's given a personal twist, as in James Merrill's saying he found it too boring to know a poem's destination ahead of time. Sometimes it's couched as a recommendation that the writer of a poem be passively, even Zen-ishly, receptive to impressions and inspirations as he or she goes along. Sometimes the idea is set within a larger theory of poetic creation, as in Richard Hugo's "Triggering Town" concept, with its dictum that "Your words . . . will generate your meanings." However it's presented, the idea is that a poem's path shouldn't be "thought of first," but should find its way in making its way. I hasten to say that I have no problem with this idea: how could I, given the many fine poems that have been written in accordance with it. But I don't think the idea is inviolable as a guide to a poem's creation. I think fine poems can be written even—maybe even especially—when something of their progress is known in advance. This view wouldn't seem to be widely held. In fact, when I try to think of poets I can cite in support of it, only two come to mind, though they're both worth attending to. One of them, Philip Larkin, said that if he didn't know the ending of a poem a third of the way into his writing of it, he'd toss the poem as a lost cause. My second witness would be seen by most as even more authoritative than Larkin, though what can be placed into evidence is not his testimony—he has nothing to say, pro or con, about knowing a poem's path...

Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River by Thomas W. Cutrer

Reviewed by: Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River by Thomas W. Cutrer James M. Bartek (bio) Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River. By Thomas W. Cutrer. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Pp. xi, 608. $40.00 cloth) Thomas W. Cutrer, emeritus professor of history at the University of Arizona, has at last completed his magnum opus, a military history of the trans-Mississippi theater of the U.S. Civil War. His stated purpose is to "establish the foundation and build the framework" on which future historians might build more detailed studies exploring the economic, political, and social aspects of the war in the region(p. xii). The potential of the trans-Mississippi region to contribute to Confederate victory was vast. Grain, livestock, and additional recruits for the army promised to add substantially to the cause. These recruits notably also included the Native Americans of the Indian Territory, many of whom legitimately supported the Confederate cause, and others who were pressured to do so by dint of proximity. Texas offered the only international border and a potential alliance via the French puppet emperor Maximilian in Mexico, while a brisk trade in cotton was conducted across the Rio Grande. Beyond Texas and seemingly ripe for the taking, New Mexico and California offered the prospect of precious metals and an outlet to the Pacific trade. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the potential of the trans-Mississippi [End Page 264] region went unrealized. The southern dream of creating a transcontinental empire was snuffed out early on with the Union victory over General Henry Hopkins Sibley's Army of New Mexico, and the region as a whole was beset by a host of problems. A shortage of war materiel left Confederate forces destitute, poor infrastructure hindered military operations for both sides, and the Mississippi proved an almost impassable barrier for Confederates. For most Confederate soldiers in the trans-Mississippi region, this was perfectly agreeable as they were adamantly opposed to fighting in the far-flung reaches of Virginia. With the fall of Vicksburg, timely communication with Richmond ceased. The region became, as the title of the book suggests, a theater of a separate war. Edmund Kirby Smith assumed the role of de facto dictator, forced to act as magistrate and general, and more successful in the former role than the latter. Smith in fact was par for the course in the theater. It was, as Cutrer asserts, too often a dumping ground for the less talented and incompetent who, for various political or familial reasons, could not be outright dismissed. Political infighting between commanders hampered operations, as did the lack of a clear strategic vision for the territory on either side. General Ulysses S. Grant thought operations in the region a waste of manpower, particularly the disastrous Red River Campaign in Louisiana, and Confederate president Jefferson Davis saw it mostly as a resource to be exploited for operations in the east. In the end, Confederates held the territory by forfeit, and even won the last battle of the war in Texas. The modest scale of military operations in the theater belied the brutality that attended them, as a pronounced viciousness defined this separate war. Endemic guerrilla warfare, especially in Missouri, resulted in a scale of civilian suffering that had no counterpart in the east, while the strong presence of African American Union troops guaranteed racial atrocities on the part of Confederates. Nor did the ongoing clash between whites and Native Americans cease, as the great Dakota uprising of 1862 in Minnesota and continuing hostilities [End Page 265] with the Native peoples in the Southwest attested. For all Indians, the consequences of the war in the West would prove disastrous. Cutrer set out to write a comprehensive military history of the trans-Mississippi theatre, and in this he has succeeded admirably. His work is the first general treatment since Alvin Josephy's excellent The Civil War in the American West more than twenty-five years ago, and joins an increasing number of studies on this heretofore neglected but important facet of the conflict. James M. Bartek JAMES M. BARTEK teaches...

Tejano Tiger: José de los Santos Benavides and the Texas–Mexico Borderlands, 1823–1891 by Jerry Thompson

Reviewed by: Tejano Tiger: José de los Santos Benavides and the Texas–Mexico Borderlands, 1823–1891 by Jerry Thompson Raúl A. Ramos Tejano Tiger: José de los Santos Benavides and the Texas–Mexico Borderlands, 1823–1891. By Jerry Thompson. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 2017. Pp. 412. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index.) As a political and military leader from the Texas border town of Laredo, Santos Benavides maneuvered with equal ease in the halls of power on both sides of the Rio Grande. Benavides maintained those connections through conflict and cooperation between nations over a period spanning the Republic of Texas, the U.S.-Mexico War, the U.S. Civil War, the French intervention in Mexico, and finally Texas state politics in the late nineteenth century. Historian Jerry Thompson situates Benavides within this border landscape, weaving this biography among these significant events. Given his extensive research and writing on Tejanos in the Civil War, early politics in Laredo, and in his award-winning biography of Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, Thompson is the ideal author to situate Benavides within these narratives. The result is a clear-eyed treatment that provides yet more insight into the historical dynamics of the border. Given the direct confrontations between Benavides and Cortina as regional leaders on different sides of the U.S. Civil War and Mexican politics, Thompson presents Benavides as supporter of state (as opposed to federal) authority. A significant portion of the biography details Benavides' position as a colonel in the Confederate Army engaged in patrolling the Rio Grande between Brownsville and Eagle Pass. Operating under Colonel John "Rip" Ford, Benavides and his soldiers protected cotton shipments to Mexico meant to circumvent the Union blockade and held back attacks from Cortina that threatened Confederate control of the border. Thompson's extensive coverage of his activities reveals new understanding of the deep engagement and significant role played by Benavides during the Civil War. A corollary to Benavides's service to the Confederacy was his long-time friendship with Governor Santiago Vidaurri of Nuevo León, who also supported the Confederate cause. Benavides became a critical supporter of Vidaurri, lending military and political aid during Mexico's evolving conflicts around Benito Juárez during the French intervention. Thompson's examination of correspondence between Benavides and Vidaurri picks up on the sometimes contradictory positions Benavides took when his allies clashed, as Juárez and Vidaurri did. Following Reconstruction, Benavides entered state politics, serving three terms as a Texas state representative for Laredo and the surrounding area. Here again, Benavides used his astute political instincts to build support from the rural areas without a majority in Laredo. Thompson lays out the partisan divide within the Democratic Party in Laredo, between supporters of Benavides and of his rival Raymond Martin. As a legislator, Thompson describes Benavides by noting, "Despite flashes of enlightened [End Page 458] liberalism, Santos often backed legislation that was reactionary and repressive" (274). Santos Benavides continued to maintain close relations across the border in hopes of facilitating renewed alliances and material progress, and he became a de facto ambassador to Mexico through his connections to the government of Porfirio Díaz. By finally putting together the myriad influences Benavides had on both sides of the border and across historical eras, Thompson reveals the importance of the borderlands and the complex political landscape borderlanders had to confront. For readers interested in the history of Texas, the West and the American Civil War, this biography provides an important addition to those narratives. For Chicano/a historians, Thompson provides a new perspective on the duality inherent in being Tejano in the nineteenth century. Benavides's opposition to Cortina and Martin reveals a different path taken by someone who defined himself as equally American and Mexican for his entire life. Raúl A. Ramos University of Houston Copyright © 2018 The Texas State Historical Association

Hood's Texas Brigade: The Soldiers and Families of the Confederacy's Most Celebrated Unit by Susannah J. Ural

Reviewed by: Hood's Texas Brigade: The Soldiers and Families of the Confederacy's Most Celebrated Unitby Susannah J. Ural Steven E. Woodworth Hood's Texas Brigade: The Soldiers and Families of the Confederacy's Most Celebrated Unit. By Susannah J. Ural. Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017. Pp. xvi, 382. $48.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-6759-5.) The oft-repeated claim that social history enriches, rather than replaces, traditional military history proves true in Susannah J. Ural's clear, highly readable narrative. Hood's Texas Brigade: The Soldiers and Families of the Confederacy's Most Celebrated Unitis an excellent military history of the brigade that also looks back at the thoughts, challenges, and struggles of the loved ones left behind in Texas. In so doing, it helps explain why the brigade became the Confederacy's most celebrated unit. The members of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Texas Infantry regiments enlisted specifically to fight in Virginia. Most of them came from upper- and [End Page 1010]middle-class families and were fiercely committed to the Confederate cause. Ural sees in this commitment, both by soldiers and by their families, part of the reason for the brigade's unusual combat success, along with their desire to live up to the popular belief that Texans were experienced and formidable fighters. Recruited as companies in towns across East Texas, formed into regiments, and shipped east separately, the First, Fourth, and Fifth Texas regiments came together as a brigade near Dumfries in northern Virginia in the late fall of 1861. Brigaded with them were the Eighteenth Georgia Infantry and the infantry battalion of Wade Hampton's South Carolina Legion. Later these two non-Texas units were replaced in the brigade by the Third Arkansas Infantry. The brigade's first commander was the bombastic Texas politician Louis T. Wigfall. Fortunately for the troops, Wigfall went into the Confederate senate before serious fighting started, and the brigade fought its first battles under the command of the former colonel of the Fourth Texas, now Brigadier General John B. Hood. It first won glory in the June 1862 battle of Gaines's Mill, where it broke the Union line in a bloody assault. Later that summer the brigade again broke Union lines at the second battle of Manassas, and its counterattack helped save General Robert E. Lee's left at Antietam. Each victory came at high cost, and new recruits from Texas only partially made up for the constant drain in numbers. Families back in Texas suffered severe emotional blows in the loss of multiple family members. The Texas Brigade's next hard fight was at Gettysburg, where for the first time it was checked, being turned back from the crest of Little Round Top. Again its casualties were heavy, including Hood, who had moved up to division command. The brigade suffered severe losses in September 1863 at Chickamauga and in the fruitless campaign in East Tennessee. Morale was further undermined when beloved brigade commander Jerome B. Robertson was court-martialed for offending a favorite of the corps commander. Wintering in East Tennessee and enduring a lack of good leadership, the brigade suffered its lowest morale, but confidence in and commitment to the Confederacy never flagged in the great majority of its soldiers. In the campaigns of 1864, the Texas Brigade dramatically saved Lee's army at the Wilderness, at the cost of two-thirds of its remaining numbers, and then suffered another bloodletting in the battle of Darbytown Road. Only about six hundred men were left to surrender at Appomattox. After the war, brigade veterans formed an association to support each other and the families of their late comrades. Ural shows how the Confederate commitment of both soldiers and their families at home sustained morale so as to make the brigade an unusually effective combat unit and to keep the great majority of its surviving, unmaimed members with the colors until the very end. Her book is a useful and welcome addition to the literature of the Civil War. Steven E. Woodworth Texas Christian University Copyright © 2018 The Southern Historical Association

The lost cause: failed French ultimata and the restoration of papal rule in Rome in 1849

In one of history’s ironies, the republic that arose in Rome out of Europe’s revolutionary wave in 1848 was crushed by the new republic that had formed in France at the same time. In an additional irony, the destruction of the Roman Republic and the restoration of the papal theocracy were overseen by the internationally renowned champion of constitutional rights and freedom, Alexis de Tocqueville, then France’s foreign minister. This article sheds new light on this dramatic series of events through an examination of the French diplomatic correspondence, which reveals growing dismay at the direction in which events were unfolding. The correspondence also gives a sense of how close the French came to abandoning the pope, a decision that could have changed the course of Italian and French, as well as Church history.

Repairing the Disjointed Narrative of Ballarat's Theatre Royal

Repairing the Disjointed Narrative of Ballarat's Theatre Royal

Raising levels of school student engagement and retention in rural, regional and disadvantaged areas: is it a lost cause?

ABSTRACTThis paper reports on the views of key members of the educational community about student engagement and retention in rural, regional and disadvantaged areas of the Australian state of Tasmania. It provides insights into the attributed reasons for the longstanding low levels of student retention in Tasmania, and the possible ways to militate against the widely censured problem of students leaving school too soon. The paper draws from principles of Bronfenbrenner’s model of ecology to situate the 25 participants who formed the sample of the study in the exosystem of the environment of the young people whose educational attainment and retention in schools is the focus of this work. Data analysis generated three major themes: families and the socio-cultural environment; teachers and teaching; and the school system. The study’s findings play an important role in prompting us to question when, and if, the dire situation of student dropout in the state and in similar contexts worldwide will begin to be reversed. Implications of the work include the need to develop and sustain a strong policy environment in which high-quality education and schooling success are contextualised as key features to which members across the systems and sections of society can contribute.

‘What’s left of the flag’: the Confederate and Jacobite ‘lost cause’ myths, and the construction of mythic identities through conflict commemoration

ABSTRACT The use of battlefields and associated conflict sites provide tantalising hooks upon which to hang tapestries of grand narratives relating to regional and national identities, often defined by what the identities are not. This paper examines the unlikely connection between Jacobite and Confederate romanticism, and how battlefields, conflict related sites, and symbolic material culture are mobilised through active commemoration by some heritage groups in support of a created, mythic identity of a ‘Southern Celt’. Furthermore, it examines the production of a mythic history that whitewashes and recasts the Confederacy, the reality of the Civil War, and the Confederate Flag, while at the same time minimising, hiding, or ignoring competing narratives.

Traumatic cardiac arrest with cranial damage: Is resuscitation a lost cause?

Purpose: Traumatic cardiac arrest (TCA) is known for its almost always-fatal issue (Gräsner, 2011). Cranial trauma (CT) presence is an aggravating factor. Indeed, neurological sequellae are often recorded among survivors in which CT was recorded (Imen, 2015). This study objective is to describe TCA victims in which we recorded CT, their care and survival.

From abalone to advocacy.

Three months ago, as I stood on the edge of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., I allowed myself a few moments to appreciate what I was about to do. With a few deep breaths, I reminded myself that I was probably facing an uphill battle; took one last look at the Capitol; and, with three other graduate students, began a whirlwind tour of 12 congressional offices to push for policies to address climate change. ![Figure][1] ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER > “It became obvious to me that I needed to become a stronger advocate.” A year ago, I would have laughed at the suggestion that I meet with my elected representatives, whose names I certainly could not have provided. My academic goals were focused and familiar: Finish my Ph.D. studying abalone disease, do a postdoc, and become a professor at a research-intensive university. I was exploring climate change advocacy through a pilot program for graduate students, which involved seminars and a summer internship, but I considered this “extra,” not a core part of my work. After the upheaval in U.S. politics that unfolded last year, and which continues to develop, it became obvious to me that I needed to become a stronger advocate. So, when the climate advocacy program I was involved in offered funding for an extra project shortly after the presidential election, I decided it was time to step up. A number of my Ph.D. student colleagues study climate change in some way, so I proposed that we take a trip to Washington, D.C., to meet with policymakers and climate experts. Three students signed on immediately, and my dean contributed additional support once he learned of the trip. After a 2-month whirlwind of planning, the four of us boarded a plane with our pitches memorized. One of our first meetings—which was also one of our best—was with a congressional staffer from a suburban district in Pennsylvania, where Lyme disease is widespread. My colleague who studied tick-borne diseases explained how climate change will increase the prevalence of Lyme disease in the congressperson's district. The staffer told us that this was exactly the kind of science he could use to help shape policies. The meetings didn't all go as well as that one. In one case, we advocated for a climate plan that, it turned out, the congressperson was already firmly against because of its economic implications, which made for a relatively unproductive meeting. Nonetheless, it served as a useful learning experience. We adjusted our approach for the rest of our meetings and suggested various policy proposals to address climate change, without picking favorites; framed ourselves as experts in science, not policy; and urged action on any plans that addressed carbon emissions and could receive bipartisan support. We saw firsthand that we can be more effective if we talk with—rather than at—others, recognize our weaknesses along with our strengths, and seek more advice than we provide. I know that our visits didn't singlehandedly turn around the government's climate change policies, but I'm glad to be doing my part to advocate for a cause I deeply believe in. My experience in Washington, D.C., has also radically changed my career plans. Before, I was a biologist who did small-scale community outreach, such as visiting high school classes. Now, I see outreach and advocacy as the focus of my research and career. I am refocusing my Ph.D. research toward studying how animals respond to environmental change and how this knowledge can help abalone farmers. When I graduate, I plan to focus my research in areas such as how diseases and temperature change might affect global abalone fisheries, which will help fisheries and conservation managers create better, more sustainable policies. Last November, I felt defeated—like science didn't matter anymore and working on climate change resiliency was a lost cause. Now, I feel more energized than ever to fight for it. When I share my experience with other graduate students, they often lament that they don't have time to engage outside the lab. My response is simple: Find the time. The planet is worth it. [1]: pending:yes

The War on Poverty Then and Now: A Plan Toward Ultimate Victory

Despite officially declaring war on poverty (WOP) in 1964, America still deals with significantly high rates of poverty. The persistence of poverty in the New World is puzzling and has prompted talks of a lost cause among scholars and political leaders. This article describes the scope of poverty in America and its impact on children, revisits the Great Society agenda, and draws analogies between wars and the metaphorical WOP. It is argued that the WOP is not over yet, but has been through dormant phases conditioned by austerity policies since the early 1980s. A plan toward ultimate victory is proposed.

Editor's Letter

Editor's Letter

17~18세기 도감의 고가(雇價) 마련과 군문재원(軍門財源)의 활용

Examined in this article is the fact that newly established “Gun’yeong” Military headquarters in the 17th and 18th centuries were utilized not only as military entities but also as financial resources. There are evidences which show us that some of the military headquarters’ budget were diverted to the Dogam offices (temporarily established ones for specific projects like dynastic rituals or large scale constructions by the government), allowing in the process the headquarters’ own budget to be utilized by several Dogam offices, which had nothing to do with the headquarters’ functions. BR Until 1674 Dogam offices were financially supported by other governmental offices or even local districts as well, but never by military headquarters. But later, although the size of the Dogam budget varied by its mission and its functions, they began to be funded by military headquarters and at times the overall size of (headquarters’) funding rose to almost 50% of the Dogam office’s entire budget.BR This was probably because the Gun’yeong military headquarters had many resources to tap into in the first place, and the “Northern campaign” was turning into a lost cause coming into king Sukjong’s reign. And the changing climate (literally) was accommodating such change in the government’s practice of funding some of its own offices, as severe draughts hit Joseon at the time and made it imperative for the government to divert military budgets to other purposes such as lifting heavy stresses off of the population. We can say that the Gun’yeong Amun military headquarters after king Sukjong’s days were no longer expanding their budgets in preparation for the upcoming Northern campaign, and were beginning to use their reserve resources to aid dynastic relief projects or constructions, serving as de facto financial offices.