Core Assertion Research Articles

Governing transit and irregular migration: informality and formal policies

ABSTRACT Informality has attracted significant attention in migration studies, yet a fresh look is needed given the succession of world crises over the past 15 years and the increasing use of informality to deal with them. This special issue considers informality as practices of governance that supplement, substitute, replace or operate beyond formal rules. It focuses on dissecting the governance of transit and irregular migration in the liminal space between formal policies and informal practices, and focuses on three major questions: Why and how has migration governance experienced informality’s expansion in policies and practices? What are the drivers, sites, temporalities, and implications of such an expansion? How do power relations among different stakeholders affect such governance compared to normative and institutional logics? This special issue ventures beyond existing constatations that the formal and informal are entangled. A core assertion is that informality can be a deeper structuring force, because informal interactions repeat over time, creating alternative or supplementary forms of governance beyond formal institutions. This collection of articles is original in shedding light on such governance from the perspective of world politics and political regimes, little discussed thus far in systematic ways. It is also at the forefront of theorizing on how stakeholders use mechanisms of power to govern polycentrically, that is from multiple centres related to each other but not hierarchically subordinated. This collection provides novel perspectives on socio-spatial and temporal aspects of informality’s use in such governance. Building on extensive fieldwork and data-driven secondary research, this collection covers Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, post-socialist countries in Eastern Europe, including Belarus and Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Turkey and Iraq in the Middle East, and Albania in the Balkans, as well as Thailand and Myanmar in Asia.

Thermodynamic Field Theory

The theory proposed here presents a straightforward concept that challenges the conventional understanding of heat. The current definition of heat describes it as the transfer of kinetic energy between the particles composing substances or from an energy source to an object. In other words, when we pour coffee into a coffee mug and the mug gets hot, it is allegedly because the particles in the coffee transfer their kinetic energy to the particles in the mug. This alleged transfer of kinetic energy happens at a microscopic scale so far removed from our capacity to observe that we can only analyse it by its statistical effects; but until recent years, there has been no experiment that could confirm or deny the validity of this conjecture. According to this classical model, heat should in principle be completely independent from gravity, but based on this assumption, the corrections of general relativity predict an increase in gravity as the temperature of an object increases. The core assertion of this theory is that heat is not adequately defined by the conventional notion; instead, it is a relativistic effect altering spacetime itself. According to this proposal, the mechanical changes in the motion of microscopic particles associated with temperature fluctuations really correspond to spacetime alterations. This implies that changes in heat are synonymous with alterations in spacetime dimensions. Therefore, when temperature increases and substances expand, we should observe the opposite of what is predicted by general relativity, we should see an increase in the rates of time and space, akin to a decrease in gravity. Conversely, heightened coldness implies decreased space and a dilation in time rate. This seemingly counterintuitive relationship between temperature and gravity may challenge conventional understanding, but unlike the current definition, this conjecture is supported by experimental evidence that will be presented on the experiment section.

Investigating Hybridity in “AMERICANAH” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Mixing of cultures is common in the contemporary world and this phenomenon causes cultural, racial, and linguistic hybridity. Hybridity affects human beings. Migrants confront abusive behavior due to cultural hybridity. Hence, the concept of cultural hybridity is explored in this article. This study analyzes the novel "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, through the lens of the ‘Theory of Hybridity’ presented by Homi. K. Bhabha. The analyzed novel is about an Afro-American, Ifemelu, who feels hesitant to adopt both cultures. The current study displays Ifemelu’s dilemma of choosing between her friends or lover in America. It is a descriptive and text-based study and makes an attempt to answer how cultural hybridity affects the protagonist’s life. The conclusion sums up that Ifemelu’s character suffers from identity crisis and marginalization due to cultural hybridity. The study verifies the negative effects of cultural hybridity that are the core assertion of the theory of Bhabha.
 Keywords: Hybridity, mimicry, third world, Post-colonial, ambivalence, Identity crisis, Homi Bhaba

Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature's Most Enigmatic Heroine by Blaisdell Bob (review)

Slavonic and East European Review, 99, 2, 2021 Reviews Blaisdell, Bob. Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature’s Most Enigmatic Heroine. Pegasus Books, New York and London, 2020. xxiii + 389 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Works cited. Index. $29.95. Creating Anna Karenina is, as the title suggests, the biography of a book. After C. J. G. Turner’s 1993 A Karenina Companion (Waterloo, ON), it offers the second detailed English-language history of the inspiration, composition and reception of what Tolstoi considered his first genuine novel. Where Turner provided a textually focused (and certainly a more concise) overview of the novel’s production and reception, Bob Blaisdell ambitiously follows events in Tolstoi’s personal and emotional life as his novel developed. Thus Creating Anna Karenina is also a biography of Tolstoi and his family members during the period between 1872, when Lev Nikolaevich completed his children’s primer, the Azbuka, and December 1877, when the first full edition of Anna Karenina (including the controversial eighth chapter which Tolstoi’s editor Mikhail Katkov had refused to publish) went on sale in book form. This halfdecade was by any standards a challenging time. Three children were born to the Tolstois, and three died; after nine successive pregnancies, Sofia Tolstaia’s health declined; Tolstoi himself underwent successive mental and physical crises, while poor harvests wracked his new land acquisitions in Southern Russia. Once Anna Karenina was published, Tolstoi’s creative direction shifted radically towards self-critical nonfiction like the 1882 Confession. Small wonder that Tolstoi frequently procrastinated or excoriated his novel, calling it ‘repulsive and disgusting’. Creating Anna Karenina is also a close reading of the novel and its characters in order of the original instalments. Blaisdell’s core assertion is that the tasks of writing Anna Karenina, and of punishing its heroine, prevented Tolstoi from punishing himself. The fictional Anna’s spiral into self-harm alerted Tolstoi to his own suicidal urges. This is a conclusion already posited elsewhere by Gary Saul Morson; Blaisdell cites the passage in Confession where Tolstoi admitted his compulsion to hang or shoot himself. Anna’s death, he argues, is simultaneously a rehearsal and a rebuttal of self-murder: Tolstoi ‘wrote out his own suicide [in Anna]… and thereby prevented it from really happening’ (p. 366). Blaisdell’s admiration for the novel and his vigorous interpretations of its text, both praised by Boris Dralyuk in his brief foreword, richly repay in enthusiasm what this approach loses in objectivity. Repeatedly, Blaisdell pictures himself (and the reader) in the position of Tolstoi’s earliest audiences: whether the (apparently unimpressed) acquaintances whom Tolstoi invited to listen to a first draft of the first chapter in March 1874, or readers of the SEER, 99, 2, APRIL 2021 336 Russian Herald, where the novel appeared serially between January 1875 and May 1877. ‘Can we imagine ourselves well-off educated Russians […]?’ Blaisdell challenges his readers, envisioning Tolstoi’s contemporaries ‘poring over’ or even ‘devouring’ the latest Anna Karenina segment in that ‘fat issue of the Russian Herald that has been delivered in the mail’ (p. 152). Speculative as these images are, Blaisdell manages to reinforce the materiality of Tolstoi’s literary community with abundant citations from contemporary and later critics, as well as the correspondence, diaries and memoirs of Tolstoi, Sofia Tolstaia and their children. He is not uncritical of these sources, noting Sofia’s tendency to rewrite history in her own favour, often (not without great provocation) implicitly critiquing her husband’s behaviour. Of Tolstoi himself, he comments insightfully that the writer ‘almost always eventually renounced not only others’ ideas but the best ideas he himself ever had’ (p. 48). The critic Nikolai Strakhov emerges as the single most dedicated and consistent supporter of Tolstoi (and of Anna Karenina), becoming the novel’s earliest cheerleader and its author’s unpaid amanuensis. It is hard not to warm to Strakhov when we are told ‘he could fall off his chair in amazement and insist that the great chapters he had just heard read to him were sublime — and he would be right’ (p. 113). Blaisdell rightly emphasizes Tolstoi’s lifelong devotion to pedagogical reform — even when this distracted him from writing...

Using the Lessons of Copyright's Excess to Analyze the Political Economy of Section 203 Termination Rights

Glynn Lunney’s recent book Copyright’s Excess: Money and Music in the Recording Industry provides many important, even stunning insights about copyright law and policy, primarily from the standpoint of economic analysis. To highlight just one example of many, Lunney does an outstanding job assembling data to support a core assertion— more money does not mean more music.

The Call to Play: New Work and Labor at Artsadmin

February 2010. The lights are off. As I adjust to the dark I can make out shapes of others scattered around the room. Disoriented and uncertain I wait for some sign or direction of what to do. The air is thick with anticipation, but as time drags it becomes clear that no instructions are coming. Then it begins all around me. Sat in the dark in a workshop in the courtroom studio of Toynbee Studios, I begin to feel anxious. I see the outline of another body in front of me and I panic. I should do something. I reach for anything that might keep things working, that might keep play going. Does anyone want to dance, I ask. I waltz. I sense someone dancing behind me.In what follows I think through my participation in a 2010 workshop led by Anne Bean, recounted in part above, to understand better the role of play in the conditions of production for theatre and performance under capital. Bean is an interdisciplinary artist, belonging to (or claimed by) multiple experimental art scenes, including visual, performance, and sound art, who has been a central figure of European live art since the 1970s. The workshop, which was conducted largely in the dark and focused on the aestheticization of cooperation through an emphasis on its participants doing play was held at Artsadmin's Toynbee Studios, the influential UK arts producing organization's home in East London. This article puts my account of Bean's workshop in conversation with Victorian economist Arnold Toynbee's demand for a new capitalist morality. Toynbee's appeal was, of course, not directed at me or the other workshop participants disoriented and uncertain in the dark. But, I argue, the situation of play that arose in Bean's workshop is a contemporary iteration of what Toynbee called agospel of life,a term referring to a commitment to self and civic betterment at the core of a burgeoning capitalist morality. The connection between the shaping of Victorian labor practices and the staging of cooperation between participants in Bean's contemporary workshop is the basis for this essay's core assertion: that the value of play as a counterpoint to work within practices and discourses of theatre and performance needs considerable rethinking.

Do IT freelancers increase their entrepreneurial behavior and performance by using IT self-efficacy and social capital? Evidence from Bangladesh

This study applies entrepreneurship theory and social capital perspective to IT freelancing to facilitate a better understanding of it. Our model hypothesizes that both IT self-efficacy and social capital obtained through social media interactions contribute to IT freelancers’ entrepreneurial behavior and then this entrepreneurial behavior influences their performance. We collected primary data from one of the leading online freelancing marketplaces, oDesk.com (currently Upwork.com). Our empirical findings confirm the core assertion of our research model. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed. Directions for future research are also provided.

Video analyses for research and professional development: the teaching for robust understanding (TRU) framework

This paper provides an overview of the teaching for robust understanding (TRU) Framework, its origins, and its evolving use. The core assertion underlying the TRU Framework is that there are five dimensions of activities along which a classroom must do well, if students are to emerge from that classroom being knowledgeable and resourceful disciplinary thinkers and problem solvers. The main focus of TRU is not on what the teacher does, but on the opportunities the environment affords students for deep engagement with mathematical content. This paper’s use of the TRU framework to highlight salient aspects of three classroom videos affords a compare-and-contrast with other analytic frameworks, highlighting the importance of both the focus on student experience and the mathematics-specific character of the analysis. This is also the first paper on the framework that introduces a family of TRU-related tools for purposes of professional development.

Changing with the Times: An Integrated View of Identity, Legitimacy, and New Venture Life Cycles

To acquire resources, new ventures need to be perceived as legitimate. For this to occur, a venture must meet the expectations of various audiences with differing norms, standards, and values as the venture evolves and grows. We investigate how the organizational identity of a technology venture must adapt to meet the expectations of critical resource providers at each stage of its organizational life cycle. In so doing, we provide a temporal perspective on the interactions among identity, organizational legitimacy, institutional environments, and entrepreneurial resource acquisition for technology ventures. The core assertion from this conceptual analysis is that entrepreneurial ventures confront multiple legitimacy thresholds as they evolve and grow. We identify and discuss three key insights related to entrepreneurs’ efforts to cross those thresholds at different organizational life cycle stages: institutional pluralism, venture-identity embeddedness, and legitimacy buffering.

Pesos and Politics: Business, Elites, and Government in Mexico, 1854–1940 by Mark Wasserman

Reviewed by: Pesos and Politics: Business, Elites, and Government in Mexico, 1854–1940 by Mark Wasserman Ted Beatty Mark Wasserman. Pesos and Politics: Business, Elites, and Government in Mexico, 1854–1940. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. xv + 257 pp. ISBN 9780804791540, $55.00 (cloth). Pesos and Politics extends the longstanding view that political deals were central to both the economic growth and political stability that characterized the “Porfiriato,” that late–nineteenth-century era in Mexico governed by President Porfirio Díaz from 1876 to 1911. Moreover, Wasserman extends the argument through the next thirty years—roughly ten of revolution and civil conflict, and twenty of reconstruction and reconsolidation, running to 1940. This, too, follows recent trends among at least some scholars, who have argued that the revolution, dramatic and traumatic as it was, changed the dominant system less than we might have supposed. Whatever changes the revolution wrought (and they were substantial), there was much that did not change, and at the center of this lay “an evolving elite-foreign enterprise system” (p. 181) that shaped modern Mexico. This is not an entirely novel argument, as Wasserman acknowledges, but this book effectively presents it in concise, accessible form. The substantive chapters of the book present the main actors of this system in turn, beginning with Mexican entrepreneurs (chapter 2) and then turning to foreign business in the form of railroads (chapter 3), landowners (chapters 4 and 5), and mining corporations (chapters 6 and 7). Through these chapters, Wasserman pursues several important threads that run against views still widely accepted by historians. For example, the book argues that the Mexican state exercised considerable autonomy in its ability to control (or at least shape) the environment for foreign business (illustrated here by a nice account of the railroad consolidation), that the behaviors of Mexican and foreign businessmen and corporations differed relatively little from each other, and that foreign investment was not typically profitable, nor necessarily pernicious to Mexican interests, including (even) those of laborers. These points will not get a sympathetic hearing from some readers, but are supported by the recent work of others, and are compelling in the context of the evidence presented here. In short, this book offers a fine overview of the now common understanding of the political economy of Mexico through this decisive long period—arguably, the formative period for modern Mexico. However, a reader using this book as a first entry into the issues should be aware of several caveats. First, the core of this argument has been long accepted by most historians, whether under the guise of Porfirian politics, científico camarillas, crony capitalism, or vertical political integration. There are some important and subtle distinctions [End Page 233] between the ways in which historians have characterized the interrelationship of business and politics, but the core assertion has remained relatively constant. In other words, this book builds on a foundation of well-established secondary literature, fleshed out with significant new material to illustrate the components of the system. Second, despite arguing that the book traces the elite-foreign enterprise system to local and regional as well as national levels, it focuses overwhelmingly on the biggest players in the nation, and especially in the north. The federal state, railroad corporations, a handful of landowners who controlled millions of hectares, mining companies that rivaled the largest anywhere in the Western Hemisphere— these are the exemplars for the central arguments of the book. The caveat, of course, is first that these are exactly the cases one would expect to best illustrate the interrelations between business and the state, and second that the scale of these enterprises made them outliers (as Wasserman admits). On one hand, the book argues— rightly—that this small set of gargantuan and influential enterprises were less monolithic and more complex in their impact on business, politics, and society than most historians have asserted. On the other hand, we get no glimpse here of the broad world of mid-sized and small enterprises that either long existed or were newly emerging in the fertile, if highly contested, environment of the pre-and post-revolutionary eras. Third, it is not entirely clear whether the central argument here...

Dynamic circuit motifs underlying rhythmic gain control, gating and integration.

Brain circuitry processes information by rapidly and selectively engaging functional neuronal networks. The dynamic formation of networks is often evident in rhythmically synchronized neuronal activity and tightly correlates with perceptual, cognitive and motor performances. But how synchronized neuronal activity contributes to network formation and how it relates to the computation of behaviorally relevant information has remained difficult to discern. Here we structure recent empirical advances that link synchronized activity to the activation of so-called dynamic circuit motifs. These motifs explicitly relate (1) synaptic and cellular properties of circuits to (2) identified timescales of rhythmic activation and to (3) canonical circuit computations implemented by rhythmically synchronized circuits. We survey the ubiquitous evidence of specific cell and circuit properties underlying synchronized activity across theta, alpha, beta and gamma frequency bands and show that their activation likely implements gain control, context-dependent gating and state-specific integration of synaptic inputs. This evidence gives rise to the dynamic circuit motifs hypothesis of synchronized activation states, with its core assertion that activation states are linked to uniquely identifiable local circuit structures that are recruited during the formation of functional networks to perform specific computational operations.

A Theory of African American Offending

Analyzing the National Survey of American Life, which includes 3,570 Blacks, this research is the first to test core hypotheses of Unnever and Gabbidon’s Theory of African American Offending. A core assertion of Unnever and Gabbidon’s theory, which specifically and only focuses on Blacks, is that their offending is associated with the degree to which they encounter racial injustices. This article focuses on two forms of racial injustice that are prominently highlighted by Unnever and Gabbidon—racial discrimination and racist stereotypes. The results reveal that Blacks who experience racial discrimination and “buy into” the pejorative stereotype that they are violent are more likely to offend, as they experience heightened states of low self-control, anger, and depression. The data also show that experiences with racial injustices increase the likelihood that Blacks will become dependent on substances/alcohol. These findings were generated while including other correlates of arrests, including demographic characteristics, whether Blacks identify with other Blacks, the number of relatives in jail or prison, and strength of family bonds. The theoretical importance of these findings is discussed.

Reflections on the omission of social capital from enterprise education and business start training

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the case for the inclusion, in enterprise education, of training and/or guidance in the acquisition and use of social capital. Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers the reasons, not just why social capital should be included as a factor at least as important as financial capital, but also the possible reasons why so far it has largely been omitted – and then explores the implications behind that omission. Findings – The core assertion of the paper is that, despite its clear relevance, social capital is rarely included in enterprise education because the basis for much enterprise education is a traditional business plan menu which is in turn based on big business thinking. Practical implications – The implications of this are not just that social capital should be given a key place in enterprise education but that, before this can happen, the different nature of small business needs to be accepted and the basis of small business training adjusted accordingly. Originality/value – To date a lot of enterprise education and training has been based on the assumption that the traditional components of a business plan form a suitable agenda for enterprise education – either because it is directly based on a business plan or drawn from the same sort of thinking. The paper questions the validity of that assumption which excludes important factors such as social capital.

Research Note—Effects of Individual Self-Protection, Industry Self-Regulation, and Government Regulation on Privacy Concerns: A Study of Location-Based Services

This study seeks to clarify the nature of control in the context of information privacy to generate insights into the effects of different privacy assurance approaches on context-specific concerns for information privacy. We theorize that such effects are exhibited through mediation by perceived control over personal information and develop arguments in support of the interaction effects involving different privacy assurance approaches (individual self-protection, industry self-regulation, and government legislation). We test the research model in the context of location-based services using data obtained from 178 individuals in Singapore. In general, the results support our core assertion that perceived control over personal information is a key factor affecting context-specific concerns for information privacy. In addition to enhancing our theoretical understanding of the link between control and privacy concerns, these findings have important implications for service providers and consumers as well as for regulatory bodies and technology developers.

Reframing the Business Case for Diversity: A Values and Virtues Perspective

We provide an ethical evaluation of the debate on managing diversity within teams and organizations between equality and business case scholars. Our core assertion is that equality and business case perspectives on diversity from an ethical reading appear stuck as they are based on two different moral perspectives that are difficult to reconcile with each other. More specifically, we point out how the arguments of equality scholars correspond with moral reasoning grounded in deontology, whereas the foundations of the business case perspective are crafted by utilitarian arguments. We show that the problems associated with each diversity perspective correspond with the traditional concerns with the two moral perspectives. To resolve this stalemate position, we argue that the equality versus business case debate needs to be approached from a third, less well-known moral perspective (i.e. virtue ethics). We posit that a focus on virtues can enhance equality by reducing prejudice and illustrate this by applying it to the HRM domains of recruitment and selection and of performance management. Subsequently, we argue that values are key to aligning virtues with each other and with corporate strategy, delineate our values and virtues perspective on diversity, and argue why and how it can enhance organizational performance.

Narrative Competence and the Enhancement of Literacy


 This essay argues for narrative competence as an underlying skill neglected in educational policy makers’ calls for enhanced literacy through improved reading, writing, numeracy and working with digital technology. This argument is presented in three parts. First, a genealogy of the narrative is presented by looking at understandings of narratives with respect to changes in technology and socio-cultural relations. Three technological forms of the narrative are examined: the oral, written and image based narrative. Second, revisiting Bernstein, narrative competency is connected to pedagogic practice. The focus is upon code recognition and the rhythm of narrative in a classroom context. Third, a proposal is made to develop narrative competence as a research programme capable of exploring literacy in an age of open learning. The core assertion of this essay is that when narrative is understood in a multi-directional, multi-voiced and multi-punctual sense, opportunities are created for a pedagogic practice that is in tune with the demands placed upon youth and their relationship to changing technologies. This makes the exploration of connections between narrative competence, pedagogic practice and technology the central focus of this essay.

Trauma, Gender Identity and Sexuality: Discourses of Fragmentation

Trauma, Gender Identity and Sexuality: Discourses of Fragmentation* Lynne Layton In the past several years, a number of discourses—among them cultural criticism, psychoanalytic theories of the self, trauma research, and avant garde art—have arisen to discuss the fragmentation of the self, and these discourses can be quite contradictory. In literature departments, Lacan’s critique of the ego and his dictum that the self is essentially fragmented were taken over into culture criticism in the seventies. Early on, in work such as that of Screen theorists, this criticism focused primarily on the pain of fragmentation. A core assertion of Laura Mulvey’s groundbreaking Lacanian film criticism was that film and other apparatuses of culture conspire to allow a male subject to fantasize that he is not essentially fragmented, allow him to take an imaginary unified ego for the whole of his being. While maintaining this fantasy guarantees that he not have to face his pain, the price of his unity and sovereignty is paid by women and other Others, whose subjectivity goes unrecognized. The theory, which posits male narcissism as a societal norm, suggests that the only way to assure respect for difference and diversity is to acknowledge that we are fragmented beings, that no one has the Phallus (Rose 1985; Silverman 1992). More recently, other strains of poststructuralist thought (such as Derrida’s and Barthes’ notions of the free play of signifiers) have crossed with Lacanian theory or with British Cultural Studies to produce cultural criticism that celebrates diversity, ambiguity, and fragmentation. Theorists as different as Judith Butler, Constance Penley, E. Ann Kaplan, and Ellen G. Friedman posit the fragmentation of the subject as a strategy of resistance and/or a guarantee of indeterminacy, [End Page 107] especially gender indeterminacy. Whereas Mulvey and Rose argue that the symbolic system violently fragments the female subject, in much recent cultural criticism the pain of this fragmented subject is forgotten or bracketed and she is rather figured as able to subvert the system by enjoying, rearranging, and playing with her fragments. 1 Much of contemporary Anglo-American psychoanalytic theory focuses on self disorders (see, for example, Kohut and Kernberg). So, in psychology departments, too, people are discussing fragmentation (although, to my knowledge, they are not discussing Lacan). Here, fragmentation is not posited as a feature of normal development. And the agent of fragmentation is neither metaphysical nor linguistic systems, but rather specific interactions with other people, primarily early caretakers. In Kohut’s work, the self fragments when not properly mirrored or when traumatically disappointed by an idealized other. In Kernberg’s work, the self fragments when frustrated in its attempts to negotiate needs for independence and dependence, separateness and attachment. The mechanism central to fragmentation is splitting, an early defense that operates to keep separate good and bad affects, good and bad self-representations, and good and bad object representations. In an environment that is not too unpredictable or harsh, a child comes to integrate good and bad experiences, can tolerate ambivalent feelings, ambivalent cognitions, can experience the self and other as primarily good though at times disappointing. If the environment is harsh, particularly with regard to interactions around dependence and independence, the child continues splitting in order to preserve enough of a sense of a good object to keep developing. In this situation, the child’s inner and outer world fragment, become black and white in all arenas. There are rigidly good and rigidly bad self representations: the person oscillates between self-depreciation and grandiosity. There are rigidly good and rigidly bad object representations: the person alternately idealizes and devalues the other. Cognitions tend to be black and white. Good moods alternate with very dark bad moods, and each seems to come out of the blue. When in one state about the [End Page 108] self or other, the person can barely remember having ever felt differently. High correlations have been found between diagnoses of self disorder and histories of abuse (Herman, Perry, and van der Kolk). The literature on those who have been repeatedly traumatized describes an internal world peopled by victims, abusers, and saviors, of expectations of the world that can only echo what exists in the internal...

Anachronisms of Renaissance Postmodernism: On the Textuality Hypothesis in Jonathan Goldberg's Voice Terminal Echo

Voice Terminal Echo: Postmodernism and English Renaissance Texts' is not, as its subtitle might suggest on a first glance, a comparative study of postmodernist and Renaissance texts or cultural artifacts. Jonathan Goldberg's project is both more and less radical than such an essay would have been. It's more radical because seriously to compare the formal features of Ragtime with those of The Unfortunate Traveler, or to weigh Bacon's essays against Barthes's, would tend to require that the analyst write from a position of historical objectivity;' and more especially with a distance on postmodernism, which Goldberg is far too convinced a postmodern, by his own definition, to assume. It's less radical because such a comparative study as the one hoped for is in fact rather rare, whereas Goldberg's essay, for all its apparent novelty, falls all too readily into a received academic genre, the essentially modernist category of critical books that apply a particular -ism to selected works from the literary canon. The -ism in question is not postmodernism but the aspect thereof called poststructuralism, and it is Goldberg's accomplishment in Voice Terminal Echo to have processed this complicated movement into a simple and compatible set of axioms, all rotating about a core assertion as to the irreducibility or non referentiality of textuality, which constitutes the main message

Charge Reduction: An Intermediary Stage in the Process of Labelling Criminal Defendants

Charge Reduction: An Intermediary Stage in the Process of Labelling Criminal Defendants