Conventional Explanations Research Articles

Toward an Understanding of Helene Johnson’s Hybrid Modernist Poetics

CLA JOURNAL 45 44 CLA JOURNAL Marie Sairsingh and allegorical form, contests conventional definitions and explanations provided by some scholars regarding the practice of Myal as a religious form, its derivation, provenance, and core historical and contemporary function in the life of AfroCaribbean peoples.Brodber’s thematization of post-slavery colonial existence,with a clear focus on Afro-spirituality illuminates the novel’s philosophical resonances, and make the argument for a reconfigured definition of the human within the frame of a new (Afro-spiritual) humanist paradigm. Works Cited Bogues, Anthony. Black Heretics Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals. Routledge, 2003. Brodber, Erna. Louisiana. New Beacon, 1994. ---. Myal. New Beacon, 1999. ---. The Second Generation of Freemen in Jamaica, 1907-1944. University Press of Florida, 2004. Chachine, Isaias Ezequiel. Community, Justice, and Freedom: Liberalism, Communitarianism, and African Contributions to Political Ethics. Coronet, 2008. Chavannes, Barry. Betwixt and Between: Explorations in an African-Caribbean Mindscape. Ian Randle, 2006. ---. Rastafari: Roots and Ideology. U of the West Indies P, 1995. Cornell, Drucilla and Kenneth Michael Panfilio. Symbolic Forms for a New Humanity: Cultural and Racial Reconfigurations of Critical Theory. Fordham University Press,2010. Harris, Wilson.“History, Fable and Myth in the Caribbean and Guianas.” Selected Essays of Wilson Harris: The Unfinished Genesis of the Imagination, edited by Andrew Bundy, Routledge, 1999, pp.152-66. ---.“The Life of Myth and its Possible Bearing on Erna Brodber’s Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home and Myal. Kunapipi vol. 12, 1990, pp. 86-92. Henry, Paget.“African and Afro-Caribbean Existential Philosophies.” Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy, edited by Lewis R. Gordon. Routledge, 1997, pp. 13-36. ---. Caliban’s Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy. Routledge, 2000. McNeal, Keith E. Trance and Modernity in the Southern Caribbean: African and Hindu Popular Religions in Trinidad and Tobago. University Press of Florida, 2011. Odjo, A. Lassissi. Between the Lines: Africa in Western Spirituality, Philosophy, and Literary Theory. Routledge, 2012. Stewart, Dianne M. Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience. Oxford University Press, 2005. Ten Kortenaar, Neil. Postcolonial Literature and the Impact of Literacy: Reading and Writing in African and Caribbean Fiction. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Winer, Lise, ed. Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad and Tobago. McGill-Queens University Press, 2008. Toward an Understanding of Helene Johnson’s Hybrid Modernist Poetics Robert Fillman Helene Johnson’s entire corpus consists of thirty-four poems published in periodicals and a few undated verses that have only recently found their way into print. For most of the twentieth century, she was a footnote in American literature. But in recent years, feminist scholars and scholars of the Harlem Renaissance have been increasingly drawn to Johnson’s work. In her time, she was praised by her New Negro contemporaries, published in nearly all of the major African American journals and anthologies of her day, and won several awards. In addition to her mastery of traditional verse forms, her reputation rests on her avant-garde representation of the distinctive features of African American culture of the 1920s and 1930s. Her poetry persistently engages social issues—including race politics, the subordination of women, and obstacles faced by the black working class. Her verse also explores the beauty and sensuous pleasures of the natural world. But as quickly as Johnson came on the scene, she disappeared. And unfortunately for us, her sudden departure has prevented critics from grasping the significance of her literary career, something this essay aims to remedy. Helene Johnson was born in Boston on July 7, 1906, to Ella Benson and George William Johnson.1 She was named after her grandmother Helen Pease Benson, but her family and friends called her “Helene,” a nickname given to her by an aunt. Though an only child who never knew her father (her parents separated shortly after her birth), Johnson grew up in a close-knit extended family household. Surrounded by her mother, maternal aunts, and female cousins—including fellow Harlem Renaissance writer, Dorothy West—Johnson experienced a childhood that emphasized education, female solidarity, and a love of the outdoors. The families combined their earnings and, as a result, the poet spent her formative years living in a...

Book Reviews

87 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XLI, No.1, Fall 2017 Book Reviews Edited by Nadia Barsoum CITY SCAPES OF VIOLENCE IN KARACHI: Publics and counterpublics edited by Nicholas Khan. UK, London Oxford University Press 2017, 252 pages. This book fundamentally concerns the relation of violence and language. The authors in these pages combine academic, contributions, creative non-fiction, literary works, journalistic analyses, social movements, texts and auto-ethnographies. They investigate the structural, political-economic, cultural, and geographic shaping of Karachi’s violence, and make comparative, synchronic, and diachronic connections in their particular case studies, biographical analyze, studies of particular localities, and analyses of the city as a whole. POLITICS AND STATE- SOCIETY RELATIONS IN INDIA by James Manor; New York Oxford University Press, 2017, 365 pages. This book revisits studies of key themes during the years of prime ministerial dominance, and then assesses the transition through the post-1989 period of hung parliaments to the present day. It examines the democratic process and state society relations during those two periods. It provides signposts as India navigates its way through a new phase THE SHIA REVIVAL: How Conflicts within Islam will reshape the Future by Vali Nasr. New York: W.W. Norton and company, Independent Publishers since 1923. This edition was updated in 2016, 310 pages. This book is not a work of historical scholarship. Its contribution is in the new ideas and arguments that it brings to an understanding of the Islamic world in the Middle East history and politics. It is written for the general audience. The author avoided the usual method of transliteration or citation of notes seen in scholarly works. The author used a simplified phonetic pattern closer to the Arabic, Persian or Urdu pronunciation, depending on the context of the discussion. The notes are meant for the most part to provide references for a striking piece of information or a quotation. 88 GUARDIANS OF THE ARAB STATE: When Militaries Intervene in Politics from Iraq to Mauritania by Florence Gaub. UK, London Oxford University Press 2017, 272 pages. this volume explains clearly and concisely how and why military organizations become involved in politics across the Middle East and North Africa, identifying four key factors: a high degree of organizational capacity, clear institutional interest, a forgiving population and weak civilian control. Looking at numerous case studies ranging from Mauritania to Iraq, the book finds that these factors are common to all Arab countries to have experienced coups in the last century. It also finds that the opposite is true in cases like Jordan, where strong civilian control and the absence of capacity, interest, or a positive public image made coup attempts futile. Gaub also convincingly argues that the reasons are structural rather than cultural, thereby proving a counter-narrative to conventional explanations which look at Arab coups along religious or historical lines. In essence, the questions addressed herein lead back to issues of weak statehood, legitimacy, and resource constraints—all problems the Arab world has struggled with since independence . Guardians of the Arab State picks up where previous literature on Middle Eastern military forces dropped the debate, and provides an updated and insightful analysis into the soul of Arab armies. YEMENS ENDURES: Civil War, Saudi Adventurism and the Future of Arabia by Ginny Hill. UK, London Oxford University Press 2017, 391 pages. Hill examines why is the oil-rich Saudi Arabia involved in a costly and merciless war against neighboring, Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East? Why, with billions of dollars of British and American weapons, have the Saudis lost the upper hand to the Houthi rebels? In this first authoritative account of the present conflict, Ginny Hill delves into a country still dominated by the pernicious influence of career dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, who masterminded patronage networks that kept the state weak, allowing conflict and inequality to flourish . After three decades, he was forced from office by street protests in 2011. In the chaos following his departure, civil war and regional interference plague the country. While the Saudis battle the Houthis—whom they believe are backed by Iran—ISIS, Al-Qaeda and separatist groups compete to exploit the broken state...

From St. Petersburg to Monte Carlo: A Resolution Rediscovered and Affirmed

The St. Petersburg paradox has served as an intriguing pedagogical device for almost 300 years, since it was first described by Daniel Bernoulli in 1738. Many explanations of the paradox have been offered, most involving either theories of individual behavior or the practical limitations of playing the game. We do not revisit any of the conventional explanations. Rather, we endeavor to demonstrate that the premise underlying the paradox – that the St. Petersburg game’s expected value is infinite – is mistaken. The analysis focuses on how the probability distribution of the game’s duration determines and limits the expected value. We do not claim precedence on so fundamental a resolution of the paradox. Our analysis is guided by the approach first described by the mathematician William Feller in 1945. We conduct a massive array of computer simulations within the framework suggested by Feller’s approach. The simulation results allow for an empirical evaluation of his coherent resolution.

The (geo)politics of land and foreign real estate investment in China: the case of Hong Kong FDI

Market reforms and the relaxation of rules governing inbound investment have contributed to the growth of foreign investment in Chinese real estate. Although the property sector remains one of the most tightly regulated, property developers from Greater China have enjoyed relative success in the mainland market. Conventional explanations of such investment outcomes have often drawn attention to economic complementaries and cultural proximities. By tracing the development of Hong Kong investment in China's real estate from the late 1970s to the present, this paper demonstrates the importance of considering (geo)politics at both the national and ground levels in analysing bilateral economic relations. The geopolitical prerogatives of national sovereignty structure economic interactions between the Chinese state and the Special Administrative Region, while popular politics from the ground level up interacts with state-level geopolitics to affect and change policy outcomes. The shifting dynamics demonstrate that the cultural meaning and value of foreign capital are not static or fixed but rather open to continuous re-negotiation and contestation.

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS: RESEARCHES OF IMPLICIT LEARNING

The article presents a review of researches of implicit learning. This phenomenon is defined as knowledge which is mostly unconscious and difficultly verbalized but has a significant impact on cognitive activity. The aim of current analysis of scientific literature is the description of effects, the search of relevant study method. The results have shown both inconsistencies in experimental materials and lack of the conventional scientific explanation for implicit learning. The conclusion is that more relevant theory is necessary to create methods and to explain the data. The following way of study has been proposed: implicit learning should be understood as an indivisible process of an interaction between the conscious and the unconscious.

The Rheology behind Stress-Induced Solidification in Native Silk Feedstocks.

The mechanism by which native silk feedstocks are converted to solid fibres in nature has attracted much interest. To address this question, the present work used rheology to investigate the gelation of Bombyx mori native silk feedstock. Exceeding a critical shear stress appeared to be more important than shear rate, during flow-induced initiation. Compositional changes (salts, pH etc.,) were not required, although their possible role in vivo is not excluded. Moreover, after successful initiation, gel strength continued to increase over a considerable time under effectively quiescent conditions, without requiring further application of the initial stimulus. Gelation by elevated temperature or freezing was also observed. Prior to gelation, literature suggests that silk protein adopts a random coil configuration, which argued against the conventional explanation of gelation, based on hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions. Instead, a new hypothesis is presented, based on entropically-driven loss of hydration, which appears to explain the apparently diverse methods by which silk feedstocks can be gelled.

Black Political Interests on Immigrant Rights: Evidence from Black Newspapers, 2000–2013

Historically, black leaders and institutions generally opposed immigration for economic reasons. Today, however, they largely support immigrant rights for reasons of principle and strategy. This article establishes and explores that change over time, using a content analysis of 1413 articles from black newspapers (2000–2013) to evaluate contemporary trends. The results indicate that a shift toward greater support for immigrant rights in the black press culminated in the years after 2007, despite the Great Recession that began in 2008, in which blacks suffered deep losses. This study highlights political factors, as opposed to the conventional economic explanations, as key determinants of the changing public discussion of immigration in black newspapers. It makes a case for further attention to the relationship between Republican resistance to immigrant rights and black support for those rights.

Inside Revolutionary Parties: Coalition-Building and Maintenance in Reformist Bolivia

This article explores the coalitional success of mass-mobilizing, reformist parties once they achieve power. Why are some of these parties more successful than others at managing the potentially conflicting interests of their diverse social bases? We argue that organizational strategies adopted early on matter greatly. The nature of the party’s core constituency, together with the linkage strategies undertaken by party leaders in crafting a coalition of support, shapes a party’s ability to maintain that coalition over time. When coalitional partners are intensively rather than extensively integrated, they are more likely to compromise over policy disagreements rather than defect when defection becomes attractive. We develop this theory by comparing the evolution of two Bolivian parties: the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement and the Movement Toward Socialism. Against conventional explanations that are overly dependent upon structural factors, our argument stresses the impact of strategic choices in shaping a party’s ability to maintain its coalition.

Highly siderophile elements were stripped from Earth's mantle by iron sulfide segregation.

Highly siderophile elements (HSEs) are strongly depleted in the bulk silicate Earth (BSE) but are present in near-chondritic relative abundances. The conventional explanation is that the HSEs were stripped from the mantle by the segregation of metal during core formation but were added back in near-chondritic proportions by late accretion, after core formation had ceased. Here we show that metal-silicate equilibration and segregation during Earth's core formation actually increased HSE mantle concentrations because HSE partition coefficients are relatively low at the high pressures of core formation within Earth. The pervasive exsolution and segregation of iron sulfide liquid from silicate liquid (the "Hadean matte") stripped magma oceans of HSEs during cooling and crystallization, before late accretion, and resulted in slightly suprachondritic palladium/iridium and ruthenium/iridium ratios.

On the effect of ocean tides and tesseral harmonics on spacecraft flybys of the Earth

The so-called flyby anomaly has encouraged several authors to analyze in detail the minor perturbative contributions to the trajectory of spacecraft performing a flyby manoeuvre. This anomaly consist of an unexplained increase or decrease of the asymptotic velocity of the spacecraft after a flyby of the Earth in the range of a few mm per second. Some order of magnitude estimations have been performed in recent years to dismiss many possible conventional effects as the source of such an anomaly but no explanation has been found yet. In this paper we perform a study of the perturbation induced by ocean tides in a flybying spacecraft by considering the time dependence of the location of the high tide as the Moon follows its orbit. We show that this effect implies a change of the spacecraft velocity of a few micrometers per second. We also consider the coupling of tesseral harmonics inhomogeneities and the rotation of the Earth and its impact of the spacecraft outgoing velocity. Significant corrections to the observed asymptotic velocities are found in this case but neither their sign nor their magnitude coincide with the anomalies. So, we can also rule this out as a conventional explanation.

Explaining White Opposition to Black Political Leadership: The Role of Fear of Racial Favoritism

Despite the election of America's first Black president, most non‐Hispanic Whites continue to oppose Black political leadership. The conventional explanation for White opposition is sheer racial prejudice, yet the available empirical evidence for this theory is inconsistent. I test an alternative theory that Whites perceive Black political leaders as a threat to their group's interests. Using a new survey measure and nationally representative panel data covering the 2008, 2010, and 2012 U.S. elections, I find that a majority of Whites perceive Black elected officials as likely to favor Blacks over Whites. Moreover, fear of racial favoritism predicts support for Barack Obama in both cross‐sectional models and fixed‐effects models of within‐person change, controlling for negative racial stereotypes. I replicate these findings using a separate cross‐sectional survey fielded after the 2014 election that controls for racial resentment. Collectively, these results suggest that perceptions of conflicting group interests—and not just prejudice—drive White opposition to Black political leadership.

Regulating Automakers for Climate Change: US Reforms in Global Context

AbstractUS President Barack Obama's first major domestic climate policy achievement was the enactment of a cluster of environmental policies regarding automotive firms, in particular significant increases in fuel economy standards. Considering automakers' long history of opposition to environmental regulations in the US, Obama's achievement poses an intriguing research puzzle: how was the US able to enact environmental policy regarding the automotive industry? This article considers conventional explanations of policy adoption but also examines whether globalization, including compliance with global regulations, as well as global competition that left US manufacturers in a weakened economic and political state, influenced firms to acquiesce to environmental regulation. This article finds that globalization concerns motivated nearly all firms to acquiesce to the new policies. Policy enactment was facilitated by conditions within the industry, including global competition and production, technological developments, compliance with carbon and fuel economy regulations across the globe, and the financial and political weakness of domestic firms. Conventional explanations also help to explain policy enactment. Where executive authority existed, President Obama enacted policy via the executive branch rather than working with Congress. Policies created by the passage of legislation in Congress were shaped by presidential leadership, partisan control and outside events. Finally, policymakers built coalitions of support among domestic automakers, labor, environmental and consumer groups, and the public. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

A New Understanding of God in the Japanese Context

The Republic of Korea has become a major Christian nation today. But in neighboring Japan, Christians are still quite a minority. Japanese people are indifferent to religion in general. They also see that religion has become a cause of war and terrorism in the modern world and think it is good that there is no religion to bring about such conflicts in Japan. The conventional explanation for this has been that the Japanese prefer a gentle spirituality based on East Asian passivity derived from Buddhism or from Shinto as a natural religion. However, not many are aware that at the root of the neglect of religion among the Japanese, there is also a historical factor concerning the relationship between politics and religion. Rulers of Japan were very deft in handling religion, undermining religions and using them for their own political goals. In order to promote a true understanding of God and acceptance of Christianity in the Japanese context, we cannot overlook this fact.

REGIONAL TRADE LIBERALISATION AS A PRISONERS’ DILEMMA GAME: UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF STRATEGIC FACTORS ON REGIONAL COOPERATION

African governments regularly advocate regionalism as a means for facilitating economic development, but the record of intergovernmental cooperation to implement regional initiatives has been disappointing. Conventional explanations for this record are based on a simplistic portrayal of the challenges of cooperation; if it is in the interest of governments to cooperate, they do, if not, they do not. This article uses an alternative framework, derived from a game-theoretic perspective to show that regional trade liberalisation initiatives do not succeed or fail simply because of the presence or absence of mutual gains from cooperation. I employ the ‘game theoretic’ analysis to illustrate that attempts by a group of self-interested governments to reap mutual gains from trade liberalisation encounter a strategic problem commonly known as the Prisoners’ Dilemma .The inability to overcome this type of problem explains why regional initiatives may fail despite their obvious potential for being mutually rewarding and enjoying the support of participant governments. This study uses the SADC trade liberalisation initiative to illuminate the collective action problem that typically afflicts similar initiatives and how it can be resolved. The aim is not just to present a new theoretical perspective on regional cooperation in Africa, but also to illuminate the practical challenges that must be addressed if African trade liberalisation initiatives are to succeed.

Variances in rateable values in rating practice in Zambia: the role of mental models in value assessment

Rating valuation is an essential process for local government taxation and revenue generation in Zambia. However, preliminary evidence indicates that the assessment of rateable value is problematic as the same statutory valuation process may lead to different value outcomes. This is especially evident when valuations are undertaken by public valuation surveyors on one side and private valuation surveyors on the other. This has resulted in disagreements in Rating Tribunal hearings at which private valuation surveyors represent the objectors. This paper questions why such differences arise. The paper finds that, besides information factors, a major cause is valuation surveyor-specific factors which, among others, include adoption of different methods and viewpoints. Therefore, the question arises: why do valuation surveyors have different viewpoints or “mental models” if the whole process is specified in the Rating Act of 1997? The study concludes that the Rating Act of 1997 is insufficiently specific concerning the actual calculation of the rateable value, leaving the interpretation of value to individual valuation surveyors. The paper argues that the explanation for differences in values can be found in understanding the “mental models” of valuation surveyors, hence going beyond conventional explanations.

Ultrafast magnetization and structural dynamics in the intercalated transition metal dichalcogenides Fe0.25TaS2 and Mn0.25TaS2

We measure magnetization and structural dynamics in two intercalant-ordered transition metal dichalcogenides: Fe0.25TaS2 and Mn0.25TaS2. The structurally equivalent materials allow us to probe the effect of orbital angular momentum which is active in Fe0.25TaS2 and absent in Mn0.25TaS2. Interestingly, we find that the magnetooptics dynamics are nearly indistinguishable in these two materials, in contradiction to conventional explanations of a spin–lattice mechanism. We compare our results to other materials where spin–lattice demagnetization has been put forth as a demagnetization channel.

The (Non)Politics of Emergency Political Intervention: The Racial Geography of Urban Crisis Management in Michigan

The following mixed method study investigates Michigan’s system of fiscal emergency management, which disproportionately impacts African Americans. According to conventional explanations, the overrepresentation of emergency political intervention (EPI) in black communities is a happenstance product of African American populations being concentrated in fiscally distressed urban areas. We first investigate this hypothetically spurious association using multivariate methods. While the State’s objective fiscal scoring of local political units explains a great deal in terms of the distribution of EPI, black population is also an independently significant predictor. When we control for fiscal score, the odds of intervention in a local political unit (e.g. city, township, school district) increase by 50% for every 10 percentage-point increase in the local black population. Second, a qualitative analysis of the EPI law and its application both supports our statistical findings and points to two explanations of the role of race in EPI. First, racial bias and segregation may have a direct impact on EPI distribution. Second, race may play an indirect role, insofar as its effects are intertwined in complex ways with other processes and mechanisms. Specifically, we emphasize the relationship between post-crisis patterns of urban value extraction and the racial logic of emergency fiscal intervention.

Surging progressives in the conservative mood

This article examines the conditional effects of income and urbanism on vote choice in an attempt to explain why both the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the progressive Japanese Communist Party (JCP) were successful in the 2014 Japanese Lower House election. Casting doubt on the conventional explanations, it argues that social division along income lines caused a polarization of voting in urban areas, which in turn allowed the two parties to prosper in the election. More specifically, Prime Minister Abe’s monetarist economic policies implemented during an economic downturn influenced the welfare of people differently according to income level, and consequently divided them into voters for the LDP and for the JCP. Using Japan as a case study, this research shows how an economic policy implemented during an economic downturn can create social and political divisions among people, which in turn impacts elections.

The labor force participation of Arab women in the United States

Synopsis The primary objective of this study is to extend conventional explanations of female labor force participation to examine the case of Arab women in the United States. With above-average levels of education, Arab women provide a good opportunity to empirically analyze conventional explanations for women's economic activity. Using data from 2008 to 2012 American Community Survey, we test the applicability of these explanations for Arab women by assessing the impact of human capital variables as well as family conditions and immigrant status in predicting labor force participation. Our analysis focuses on two questions: to what extent do existing theories explain differences in labor force participation within Arab women by nativity status, and to what degree do they explain differences from US-born White women? Our study found that Arab women rank the lowest in labor force participation relative to other women in the United States. With regard to the mechanisms responsible for this relationship, some of the findings that emerge from this study are consistent with the conventional explanations while some provide insight into the importance of family conditions and foreign-born status for Arab women's labor force participation.

Understanding the symmetric line shape in the 17O MAS spectra for hexagonal ice

Solid-state 17O Magic-Angle Spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra of 17O-enriched hexagonal ice, [17O]-Ih, between 173 and 253 K were presented. Marked changes in the line shape were clearly observed, indicating water molecular reorientation in the crystal structure. At 173 K, molecular motions were considered to be frozen and analysis of the 1D MAS spectrum yielded the following parameters: quadrupole coupling constant (CQ) = 6.6 ± 0.2 MHz and asymmetry parameter (ηQ) = 0.95 ± 0.05. At 232 K and above, contrary to the conventional explanation, pseudo-symmetric line shapes appeared in the 17O MAS NMR spectra arising from the contribution of second-order quadrupole interactions. As a chemical exchange model to describe these isotropic 17O MAS NMR spectra, a modified Ratcliffe model, which consider the effects of proton disorder, was proposed, and the resulting theoretical spectra could well reproduce the experimental spectra.