Deep Desire Research Articles

Deep desires

AbstractThis article seeks to get clear on an important feature of a theistic way of life: namely, the appeal to ‘deep desires’ as part of an ethical and spiritual life-orientation. My main thesis is that such appeals should primarily be seen as pertaining to our acquired second nature and the space of meaning it makes possible, rather than first nature or innateness. To appeal to the ‘depth’ of a desire, on this account, is to say something about its normative importance: it is something of profound significance for our human fulfilment about which we ought to be concerned, and it correlates with the normative ‘height’ of the object of desire. Thus, our deepest desire correlates with what is seen as the highest or most worthy object of our desire (or love), which the theist claims is God. This view is contrasted with subjectivist accounts where desires are seen as ‘deep’ in that they structure our identity. My account affirms that deep desires structure our identity, but they do so because of their perceived objective normative importance. I also seek to show how we should affirm Alasdair MacIntyre's claim that ‘the deepest desire of every [human] being, whether they acknowledge it or not, is to be at one with God’.

Ganssle's "Our deepest desires: How the Christian story fulfills human aspirations" (book review)

Ganssle's "Our deepest desires: How the Christian story fulfills human aspirations" (book review)

The white-seared landscape: Walkabout as iconic Australian counterculture

Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout, a 1971 Australian New Wave film, has ignited and continues to ignite a deep desire in its audience to ruminate and engage with Aboriginal political discourse. This seminal work emerged out of social unrest for the injustices performed on Aborigines at the time, and made a definitive mark on how Australian’s think about race relations, intercultural understanding, and the place of empathy and thoughtfulness in a shifting and vibrant political landscape. Through the film, Roeg highlights the importance of sacred land and cultural heritage to the Aboriginal people, and the obligation white Australia has to respect and appreciate such a deep and fundamental component of the continent’s history.

Without Faith, Tsar, and Fatherland

This book excerpt explores the impact of the February revolution on periodical publishing in wartime Russia. It briefly considers the publishing activities of various political parties, but the main focus is publications by and for the active-duty army. The new freedom of the press allowed for dozens of new publications produced by soldiers themselves. Numerous other entities, including the civil authorities and public and private organizations, also published papers intended for the army, often with a pro-war message. But worsening problems with transport and supplies made it difficult to satisfy soldiers’ deep desire for news.

Buñuel's Phantoms

Through studying select works by auteur Luis Bunuel, focusing in particular on his 1962 masterpiece El angel exterminador, this article explores cinematic time and the latent, spectral temporalities underlying the medium of film itself—delay, repetition, prolonged or extended time, time constrained or condensed, tempo-ral aporias or gaps, and the sensation of time as asynchronous with actuality. Bunuel’s works wield poetic constructions of time indebted to the surrealist ap-proach, and thus to rupturing order, sense, chronology, and linearity. Across these filmic constructions—what I will call here, meditations on time—there is an acute rendering of time as doubled, lost, and/or unsettled. Bunuel cinematically crafts temporal modes that fold, embed, and/or crystallize other times within them. At the heart of this essay is a deep desire to understand how Bunuel’s cin-ema operates both in and with time, and how it cultivates slowness and modes of deferral tethered to attention and captivation that hold us and make us aware of time’s inner-workings. I locate Bunuel’s oeuvre at the center of a modern cinema invested in philosophical ruminations on time—time’s proliferation, perforation, and entanglements of multiple temporalities, its spectral nature; films that ac-tively contemplate the time created and “sculpted,” to draw on Andrei Tarkovsky’s evocative phrase, by the act of filming and through the experience of film viewing that they invite.

Strength in numbers: A survival strategy that helps explain social bonding and commitment.

We seek strength in numbers as a survival strategy, so it seems unlikely that social bonds would make us want to intentionally die. However, our deep desire to be protected may explain our attraction to exaggerated notions of intentional self-sacrifice - even though research on suicide terrorists, kamikaze pilots, and cult members suggests they were not actually dying for their group.

Was ist Sehnsucht?

The searching after meaning arises from a deep desire of mankind. The question “What is desire?” is answered by various artists and thinkers who significantly shaped and developed intellectual history. Desire has been considered and defined differently during the various ages, whether as an attempt to compensate for a personal deficit or as a feeling of being drawn towards the opposite gender. This article also looks at the eras of Enlightenment and Romanticism, covering not only the understanding of desire, but also the different forms of expression used to treat the question of desire: for Example in the painting entitled “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” (translated into English) by Caspar David Friedrich and the symbol of “The Blue Flower” in the painting of Phillip Otto Runge, but also the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, we can see that the feeling of desire has continuously evolved. It arises from the soul of a primal desire which is the engine of all the creative activities.

Improving medication practices for persons with intellectual and developmental disability: Educating direct support staff using simulation, debriefing, and reflection.

Direct support professionals (DSPs) are increasingly active in medication administration for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, thus supplementing nursing and family caretakers. Providing workplace training for DSPs is often the duty of nursing personnel. This article presents empirical data and design suggestions for including simulations, debriefing, and written reflective practice during in-service training for DSPs in order to improve DSPs' skills and confidence related to medication administration. Quantitative study results demonstrate that DSPs acknowledge that their skill level and confidence rose significantly after hands-on simulations. The skill-level effect was statistically significant for general medication management -4.5 (p < 0.001) and gastrointestinal medication management -4.4 (p < 0.001). Qualitative findings show a deep desire by DSPs to not just be "pill poppers" but to understand the medical processes, causalities, and consequences of their medication administration. On the basis of our results, the authors make recommendations regarding how to combine DSP workplace simulations and debriefing with written reflective practice in DSP continuing education.

Finding Meaning in Silence.

Finding Meaning in Silence.

Who Are the Clients and What They Say about Prostitution in South-East Asia?

Investigating the clientele of prostitutes in order to have a better knowledge of their expectations and practices, to reveal the reasons for their behaviour, is not easy. This penetration of the intimate sphere of the person contradicts deep desires to preserve anonymity and to remain faceless. They want to enjoy clean consciences, by denying any acknowledgement of personal responsibility. This is one of the reasons why clients, although key players in the prostitution industry, have not received the attention of social researchers. Feminists regard this gap as a deliberate omission due to the tacit acceptance of male privilege in the control of sexual practices. Studies focus much more on supply than on demand because of the moral stigma surrounding the subject. There are methodological difficulties in identifying the diversity and heterogeneity of clients. Through 38 interviews with local and foreign clients of Asian prostitutes in Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong, and the testimonies of 15 Indonesian prostitutes, this paper to identifies the motivations, justifications, and profiles of men paying for sex. In the West, the subject in itself is taboo so there are few rewards to declare oneself “the client of a prostitute”. Our interviews show similar aversions in Asia. Anonymity avoids shame and the redefinition of commercial payment into various alternative narratives building on the unequal status of the women in economic, social, and cultural terms protects the male sexual privilege.

Government Intervention in Venture Capital in Canada: Toward Greater Transparency and Accountability

Guaranteed Annual Incomes (GAI) proposals attracted much support in the 1960s and early 70s but, for a variety of reasons, they slipped off mainstream policy agendas in the following decades. They were too expensive given new budgetary priorities and implementation was difficult for jurisdictional reasons. Over time, the concept of poverty shifted away from focusing on lack of income towards the lack of resources that cause exclusion and that prevent people from developing their capacities to fully participate in society. Concerns increasingly focused on siloed programs that provided one-size-fits-all benefits, ignoring individual and family diversity. New research paints a different picture of poverty, one where traditional GAI programs are less useful than had been previously assumed. In particular, most periods of lowincome are relatively short, requiring supports that can only be awkwardly met by traditional tax-based GAI designs. As well, for the minority of low-income people who are persistently poor, the best solutions involve integrated mixes of income supports and, often, a variety of services. Yet, despite all the factors above, interest in GAI schemes has increased in recent years. This Commentary briefly reviews current proposals and explains that the resurgence of interest in them likely lies in a deep desire to make things better, in the lack of progress to date in fighting poverty, and in frustration with the inability of existing policy tools to get results. However, the Commentary argues that the effective, and affordable, way ahead lies not in big GAI programs taken in isolation, but rather in the use of newly available technology and data sources to steadily improve three kinds of programming: 1) integrated services tailored to individual needs, such as skill-enhancing programs that are intended to address unique needs of those who are persistently poor; 2) supporting people who can save for occasional periods of low-income by allowing more flexible access to income supports over the course of one’s life; and, 3) GAI programming that extends existing measures, such as supports directed to children, seniors and those with disabilities. This bottom-up reform based on an evidence-driven approach would have a better chance of succeeding if GAIs are realigned to support this vision.

Toward a New Balance in Social Policy: The Future Role of Guaranteed Annual Income within the Safety Net

Guaranteed Annual Incomes (GAI) proposals attracted much support in the 1960s and early 70s but, for a variety of reasons, they slipped off mainstream policy agendas in the following decades. They were too expensive given new budgetary priorities and implementation was difficult for jurisdictional reasons. Over time, the concept of poverty shifted away from focusing on lack of income towards the lack of resources that cause exclusion and that prevent people from developing their capacities to fully participate in society. Concerns increasingly focused on siloed programs that provided one-size-fits-all benefits, ignoring individual and family diversity. New research paints a different picture of poverty, one where traditional GAI programs are less useful than had been previously assumed. In particular, most periods of lowincome are relatively short, requiring supports that can only be awkwardly met by traditional tax-based GAI designs. As well, for the minority of low-income people who are persistently poor, the best solutions involve integrated mixes of income supports and, often, a variety of services. Yet, despite all the factors above, interest in GAI schemes has increased in recent years. This Commentary briefly reviews current proposals and explains that the resurgence of interest in them likely lies in a deep desire to make things better, in the lack of progress to date in fighting poverty, and in frustration with the inability of existing policy tools to get results. However, the Commentary argues that the effective, and affordable, way ahead lies not in big GAI programs taken in isolation, but rather in the use of newly available technology and data sources to steadily improve three kinds of programming: 1) integrated services tailored to individual needs, such as skill-enhancing programs that are intended to address unique needs of those who are persistently poor; 2) supporting people who can save for occasional periods of low-income by allowing more flexible access to income supports over the course of one’s life; and, 3) GAI programming that extends existing measures, such as supports directed to children, seniors and those with disabilities. This bottom-up reform based on an evidence-driven approach would have a better chance of succeeding if GAIs are realigned to support this vision.

Profile of Bruce M. Alberts, 2016 Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science Awardee

On September 23, 2016, Bruce M. Alberts was presented with the Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science, which honored him for “fundamental discoveries in DNA replication and protein biochemistry; for visionary leadership in directing national and international scientific organizations to better people’s lives; and for passionate dedication to improving education in science and mathematics” (1). In presenting the award to Alberts, Lasker Awards Jury Chair Joseph Goldstein compared him to the renowned chef Julia Childs, citing their common “missionary spirit, boundless curiosity, endearing klutziness, and a deep desire to teach and to teach well” (1). What an inspired comparison! The only addendum I would make to that description is “brilliant biochemist and public servant extraordinaire.” Bruce Alberts in his office at UCSF, Mission Bay, October 2014. Image courtesy of Christopher Reiger (photographer). Bruce began his scientific career as a graduate student at Harvard, working with Paul Doty, where he embarked upon his lifelong quest to understand the molecular mechanism of DNA replication. Legend has it that he failed his initial doctoral thesis defense because of a stubborn conviction that DNA could be replicated by a single enzyme, DNA polymerase. After his thesis committee delivered that rude wake-up call, and 6 months of additional work, Bruce passed with flying colors. From that experience he learned that the best experiments are those that provide insight into the biological question being posed, even if the outcome is not the one he either expected or hoped for. Bruce embarked on his independent career in 1966, first at Princeton University and then at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Having abandoned the one-enzyme hypothesis, he took a cue from the genetics of bacteriophage T4, which implied that DNA replication required at least six gene products. Bruce set about developing techniques to isolate and … [↵][1]1Email: smt{at}princeton.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

The Pain in the Gift and the Gift in the Pain

If we are searching, over the past half-century or so, for the finest articulation of the Augustinian vision of God as the One who satisfies the deepest desire of our heart by way of uprooting desires that more often than not feel like our deepest desires, we would do well to sit at the feet of Gilbert Meilaender. Meilaender rightly suggests that it is only when we see as God does that we can fully recognize what in our created and/or fallen nature is in need of transformation. That said, even where God is not known as the deepest desire of the heart, happiness can be grasped as coming by way of the painful upending of desires. This is what eudaemonist virtue ethics should lead us to expect, even if it is not Christian—as this article seeks to illustrate by way of reflection on ancient Stoic oikeiosis on the one hand, and modern ecological consciousness on the other.

Samuel Richardson and the Theory of Tragedy: Clarissa's Caesuras by J. A. Smith

Reviewed by: Samuel Richardson and the Theory of Tragedy: Clarissa's Caesuras by J. A. Smith Jacob Sider Jost J. A. Smith. Samuel Richardson and the Theory of Tragedy: Clarissa's Caesuras. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016. Pp. 175. £60.00. At the publication of its first volumes in 1747, Clarissa billed itself as The History of a Young Lady, and scholars of our time have largely honored that subtitle by reading Richardson's magnum opus in historical terms: as a case study in eighteenth-century printing or reception study; as a witness to changing eighteenth-century ideas about religion, [End Page 66] gender roles, moral philosophy, or consumer culture; and as a chapter in the history of the English novel. Mr. Smith is not ignorant of the historiography of Clarissa. He is at home among Richardson's revisions and recastings of the novel's text, knows the printer-author's biography, and often buttresses his arguments about Clarissa with well-chosen parallels from its predecessor Pamela and successor Sir Charles Grandison. But this is a defiantly formalist, ahistorical reading: Mr. Smith argues that in order to comprehend the tragic force of Clarissa we must look not to Richardson's own theory of tragedy (as articulated in his critique of Rymer's idea of poetic justice in the novel's postscript) but rather to the twentieth-century tragic theories of Walter Benjamin and Jacques Lacan. Indeed, in its appeal to continental theory as a heuristic for understanding Richardson, Mr. Smith's study is itself refreshingly untimely, recalling William Warner's Clarissa and the Struggles of Interpretation (1979) and Terry Castle's Clarissa's Ciphers (1982), to the alliterative title of which its subtitle pays homage, even as it makes use of the intervening generation of textual and historicist criticism. Samuel Richardson and the Theory of Tragedy is organized around two central claims: first, that Clarissa is a refutation of "received notions" of eighteenth-century England, particularly the axioms that "a reformed rake makes the best husband" and that once a woman is "subdued" by seduction or rape, she remains "always subdued." Second, the novel's refutation of these insidious commonplaces is through tragedy. Posed thus baldly, the argument seems straightforward, even obvious: Richardson's readers wanted a conventional wish-fulfilling ending, but he killed off Clarissa in order to teach them, quite literally, a lesson. But Mr. Smith plays several elegant variations on this theme, showing how Richardson's straightforward didactic purpose expresses itself ingeniously in the form of his text. In his first chapter, Mr. Smith shows how "received notions" circulate in the novel, for instance when the Harlowes compulsively repeat a "language of the family" as though reiteration alone could give normative force to the clan's claims on Clarissa. The two chapters that follow argue that Clarissa's "mad papers" and Lovelace's inarticulacy and impotence in the face of Clarissa's post-rape resistance show the power of reiterated received notions brought to bay when faced with tragedy. Mr. Smith's final chapter and conclusion expand on what sort of tragedy this is. As in the tragic plots of German Baroque drama that fascinated Benjamin, Clarissa depicts a world abandoned by God in which signification breaks apart into undecidable allegories; like Antigone as read by Lacan, Clarissa follows her deepest desire (the desire to die) even when it conflicts with everything else in her life. Mr. Smith shows an impressive command of recent Clarissa scholarship, but a formalist-theoretical reading of this kind stands or falls on the strength of its own readings. These are often insightful and sometimes brilliant, as when Mr. Smith, who has been considering Lovelace's dream of holding Clarissa during her apotheosis and the contrast between the sublunary world and transcendent beyond in Nietzsche and Benjamin's readings of Raphael's Transfiguration, draws attention to the this-worldly materiality of Clarissa's coffin by comparing its arrival (announced, Belford writes, with "a sort of lumbering noise upon the stairs") to the piano delivery in Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box. But some readings are unconvincing: Mr. Smith's basic insight that the mad papers work by creating unexpected and...

Diary of Fire by Elías Miguel Muñoz

Reviewed by: Diary of Fire by Elías Miguel Muñoz Isabel Álvarez-Borland Muñoz, Elías Miguel. Diary of Fire. New Jersey: Tincture Lethe, 2016. Pp. 333. ISBN 978-1-59021-580-7. In Elías Miguel Muñoz latest book, Diary of Fire (2016), the narrator’s moving reflections structure a fictional diary that explores sexuality, childhood trauma, and family relationships. At the center of the memoir is the narrator’s deep desire to understand himself. This self-search however is deeply intertwined by the abuse the narrator suffered as a child and by his broken relationship with his father. Muñoz was born in Cuba in 1954, and emigrated with his parents to the United States when he was fourteen years old. Like many of his Cuban American writer peers who came over during adolescence, his writing shares a sensibility based on the division or rupture with a childhood that took place in a different language and in another geography. A sense of unresolved contradictions colors most of Muñoz’s previous works, a body of work that spans several genres: novel, poetry and literary criticism. With greater urgency, and now from the perspective of a writer in his early sixties, Muñoz’s Diary of Fire (2016) returns to the issues of self-understanding and to the individual’s need and right for living an authentic life. Diary of Fire fluctuates between past and present and between Cuba and the United States keeping the trauma of displacement and discovery of sexuality as important centers of the memoir. In so doing its speaks of the narrator, Camilo Macías, breaking away from his father’s homophobia, the scars of child abuse, and Camilo’s coming to terms with his sexual identity. Several chapters titled “Cuba in Silence” return to Camilo Macías and the traumatic events of his Cuban childhood. It is precisely the reader’s experience of witnessing both the present and the past of the narrative that adds significance to what is being read and renders poignancy as well as pathos to the events related. The prominent scar in this fictional diary is the abuse Camilo suffered in Cuba as a seven year-old child by a family friend, Eduardo, a thirty year-old man who lived near his home and who had won the confidence of his unsuspecting parents. It is those scenes that deal with molestation that seem to torture the narrator as he fights to erase them from his mind: “Memories brought anguish; they made him confront the horrors of what was done to him. Yet he kept reliving them, writing about them. “I write because I remember the pain,” he said. “And it’s still with me” (118). In fact, it is the frustrating memory of the sexual abuse that remains deep in Camilo’s unconscious and often reappears as the narrator tries to grapple and analyze what [End Page 498] exactly happened to him as a child. Camilo describes sordid instances of this abuse in a distanced tone that at times contrasts vividly with the horror of what is being related. Camilo’s child voice also recalls with grief the homophobia of his father and his verbal and sometimes physical abuse for suspecting the sexual preferences of his son. As a child, his spirit was broken by a father’s brutality and lack of approval. The family fits the Cuban stereotype, the father exudes machismo, the mother is pictured as understanding but unable to stop the father’s behavior. As someone betrayed by his country, the father is deeply hurt by historical circumstance and refuses to have any positive interactions with those around him. Sad scenes are narrated about how the father forbids Camilo to develop his artistic interests and how the child was forbidden to have friends who were not macho enough for his father. When the family decides to leave the island of Cuba as exiles, a time of loneliness and resentment against his father grows inside the child’s heart. The past lurks close as the Cuban memories of sexual prejudice and physical violence keep returning to Camilo’s mind. The present of the narrative relates...

Growing a Life: Teen Gardeners Harvest Food, Health, and Joy

” 2017 Children, Youth and Environments Children, Youth and Environments 27(1), 2017 Book Reviews Growing a Life: Teen Gardeners Harvest Food, Health, and Joy Illène Pevec (2016) New York: New Village Press, 407 pages $21.95 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-61332-017-4 Being with nature is good for us. Studies now indicate the many health benefits— reduced stress, better concentration, lowered blood pressure—are just a sampling of the positive impacts that spending time among plants and animals can have on a person (e.g., Kuo, 2015). Schools across the US and abroad are adding gardening programs with hopes of tapping into some of those benefits as well as introducing young people to healthier food choices and engaging them in hands-on learning about science. While many founders of school garden programs are inspired by their intuition, the influence of these gardens on diet, science comprehension, stewardship, and more have been examined and documented (e.g., Blair, 2009). While most previous studies have focused on children and adults, Pevec in Growing a Life solidifies the effectiveness of school gardening programs on the development and well-being of adolescents. People already working in such programs, whether they are educators or activists, will hear stories in this book they already know, but it brings them into focus and will provide these leaders with research-based evidence and justification to continue and grow their programs. Likewise, researchers in areas such as urban agriculture and therapeutic horticulture, as well as youth development and education investigators, will find compelling information in these youths’ stories. Pevec shares the stories of young people in a dozen gardening programs in four states: Colorado, New York, California and New Mexico. These include in-school and out-of-school programs, but they all revolve around gardening in its many different forms. In New York, youth are helping to plant green walls, while in New Mexico the young people are learning about and growing traditional Native American foods. The interviewed youth participating in these programs are typically low-income and ethnically diverse. Pevec states, What began for me as a deep desire to give children access to nature in their daily school life to explore, learn, and play grew to encompass multiple explorations in nutrition, transformative education, child and community health, child and nature relationships, and land use planning and public policy” (p. 15). Book Reviews 178 In order to understand the full scope of the impact the gardens had on the young people, Pevec designed her interviews around asking the youth to describe how gardening impacts their senses—what do they see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. This line of questioning opens up the young people to talk about things they have not necessarily thought about before and effectively taps into their deep emotional responses to their gardening experiences. During her interviews, Pevec does not shy away from her role of advocate and educator. While researchers often avoid engaging in a two-way conversation when conducting interviews for fear of contaminating the results, Pevec skillfully shares her knowledge with the young people. As I started reading Growing a Life, I was captivated by the rich and detailed accountings of the participants in the New York garden program. After a few chapters, I began to wonder how these stories would be woven together to tell the bigger picture of youth gardening, but I did not have a clear understanding of the book’s organization and trajectory. While not included in the book, I think the following brief chapter overviews will be helpful for readers. The first six chapters of the book are stories from the youth involved in the Green Bronx Machine. Through describing the context, as well as verbatim transcripts and poems, Pevec uses these stories to illustrate how garden involvement has relieved stress, imparted knowledge and activism, and inspired life goals for the participating urban youth. Chapter 7, “Gardens Grow Healthy Youth,” steps back and provides a review of youth development and psychology research and theory related to garden settings and positive, healthy development. Chapters 8 – 11 are each dedicated to describing and sharing stories from four garden programs in Colorado: ¡Cultiva!, Rocky Mountain School, Roaring Fork...

Wharton, Sex, and the Terrible Honesty of the 1920s

Abstract Reading Wharton's novels The Mother's Recompense and Twilight Sleep in relation to a broader cultural conversation about the supposedly new nature of honesty, “Wharton Sex, and the Terrible Honesty of the 1920s” interrogates one central tenet of this concept: that youth were understood to be more profoundly invested in honesty and its shocking provocations than were their elders. Warner Fabian's 1923 best seller, Flaming Youth, for example, proposes that part of the shock of the modern was youth's tendency to voice disconcerting, uncomfortable truths of the type Ann Douglas has explored and which early twentieth-century commentators such Fabian, Ben Lindsey and Wainwright Evans, and Frederick Lewis Allen presented as characteristics of a generation. Yet Wharton's vision disrupts this generational narrative by highlighting the younger generation's provocative postures of honesty, even while they engage in surreptitious affairs, display a willful blindness to troubling events, and exhibit self-denial in regard to their deepest desires. In all, youth of Wharton's 1920s fictions appear less than forthright about the most significant aspects of their lives, thereby complicating a central narrative that would divide generations via the matter of truth.

Wharton, Sex, and the Terrible Honesty of the 1920s

Abstract Reading Wharton's novels The Mother's Recompense and Twilight Sleep in relation to a broader cultural conversation about the supposedly new nature of honesty, “Wharton Sex, and the Terrible Honesty of the 1920s” interrogates one central tenet of this concept: that youth were understood to be more profoundly invested in honesty and its shocking provocations than were their elders. Warner Fabian's 1923 best seller, Flaming Youth, for example, proposes that part of the shock of the modern was youth's tendency to voice disconcerting, uncomfortable truths of the type Ann Douglas has explored and which early twentieth-century commentators such Fabian, Ben Lindsey and Wainwright Evans, and Frederick Lewis Allen presented as characteristics of a generation. Yet Wharton's vision disrupts this generational narrative by highlighting the younger generation's provocative postures of honesty, even while they engage in surreptitious affairs, display a willful blindness to troubling events, and exhibit self-denial in regard to their deepest desires. In all, youth of Wharton's 1920s fictions appear less than forthright about the most significant aspects of their lives, thereby complicating a central narrative that would divide generations via the matter of truth.

Indigenous cryptocurrency: Affective capitalism and rhetorics of sovereignty

Financial technologies embody and shape notions of social, as well as financial, worth. New digital ‘alt-finance’ systems, including the blockchain technology underlying Bitcoin and similar ‘cryptocurrencies,’ are no exception: technology, rhetoric, imagined users and non-users, and a long history of sociotechnical, political, and cultural relations are all elements in a dynamic assemblage with wide-ranging consequences. This paper examines the rise and fall of one alt-finance system: MazaCoin, a Bitcoin variant intended to benefit the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The story of MazaCoin is one of an attempt to unite two apparently divergent sociotechnical assemblages: (1) a libertarian, elite technology of cryptocurrency, and (2) a richly traditional indigenous community with a deep desire for cultural survivance, bound up in a precarious economy left behind in the wake of more than a century of genocide.