Ever-changing Phenomenon Research Articles

Media and the Chinese Diaspora: Community, Consumption, and Transnational Imagination

AbstractThis article is concerned with the formation of a global diasporic Chinese mediasphere. In the first part, I will delineate the imbricative relationships between community, commerce, and cultural consumption of the Chinese media — what I perceive to be the three conceptual nodes constituting the analytical framework within which meanings of “Chineseness” are constructed and contested. In the second part, I will further argue that a global diasporic Chinese imagination is inherently transnational, and central to the formation of such transnational imaginary is what I refer to as the “transnational mediasphere” which, as I will demonstrate, is a global phenomenon nevertheless inflected with local concerns. I will end with some thoughts on how best to approach this extremely complex and ever-changing phenomenon, tentatively suggesting some points of entry into a place- and context-specific understanding of the production and consumption of the Chinese-language media and the crucial role it plays in the formation of a Chinese transnational imagination.

Identity and The Terrorist Threat

Many analysts would agree that terrorism is an ever-changing phenomenon. However, like all forms of human behavior, there are certain sociological and psychological elements of terrorism that remain constant. One such element is that of identity, which can serve to both inform and influence terrorist behavior through individuals' perceptions of themselves and their environment. This article relies on symbolic interactionism and five of its organizing concepts—symbols and objects, acts and social acts, meaning, role-taking and role-making, and the emergence of the self—to create an interpretative model for understanding terrorist behavior through identity theory. The conceptual framework is then used to examine the creation and maintenance of identities within three terrorist groups: the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Hamas, and the Tupamaros. Although these groups do not account for all of the terrorist attacks in the world, they do represent three diverse forms of terrorism (i.e., national, religious, and revolutionary) from three distinct regions of the globe (the West, the Middle East, and Latin America). Therefore, understanding their behavior through the identity prism can help to shed light on other terrorist groups—those that currently exist and those that have yet to emerge. Implications are proposed for the areas of law enforcement, public policy, research, and the model's general utility in assessing other forms of human behavior.

The evolution of medical education

Grillo's address brings into focus the issue of surgical education as it has progressed through evolutions and revolutions. The author's historical recapitulation needs little amplification and certainly generates a sense of pride in all who have participated in what Grillo rightly assigns the appellation “the best surgical training in the world.” But just as the sensitivity and resistance and consequent virulence of pathogenic bacteria are ever-changing phenomena, so are the problems and incursions faced by surgical education. In the current environment there are 2 major problems serving as stimuli for change in the content and process of surgical education.

From Sappho to De Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality

Why was a homosexual relationship between two adults unacceptable in ancient Greece? Why did the prohibition of incest extend to the limits of kinship in the Middle Ages? Why was the nineteenth century terrified of masturbation? Why have the brothels with their madams virtually disappeared-in-western Europe? Psychiatrists like Freud and biologists like Kinsey would have been taken aback by these kinds of intriguing questions. Surely, people do 'it' now in the same way as they always have? ' Their approach was understandable for a time in which historians had not yet made sexuality an object of research. In fact, it is virtually only in the last decade that historians have started to study sexual practices, a field that has been all too long the playground of psychologists, biologists, and doctors with their (often wrong) ideas. And it is only now becoming possible to see that sexuality is not a biological constant but an ever-changing phenomenon, that is being continuously shaped by people themselves. Historians, therefore, should not only pay attention to the social, economic, or religious sides of sexuality but they should 1 also, as Gert Hekma argues in his contribution to this book, : become interested in the preliminaries of sexual behaviour, in the design of sexual manners, and in the choreography and architecture of sexuality. Only then shall we have a reasonably firm basis for our opinions on this fascinating side of human existence. This collection of studies is intended as a contribution to the historical debate on sexuality that is only now getting under way. The origin of the book lies in the largest historical congress that has ever taken place in Holland: 'Balance and perspective; on the nature and function of the knowledge of the past' (22-4 May 1986). At this congress, organized on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the State University of Utrecht by a group of students from the Institute for History, numerous seminars were given on the most diverse aspects of history; the seminar on sexuality was assigned to the editor of this volume. He thought it a compelling task to illustrate the historical character of sexuality. For that reason, he made up the programme in such a way that successive papers discussed various aspects of sexuality in successive periods. When this plan attracted much attention during the congress and gave rise to many lively discussions, it seemed no more than reasonable to make the lectures accessible to a wider public. For this book all the papers have been revised and, in addition, some new contributions have been invited in order to give as varied as possible a picture of the history of sexuality. Successive contributors discuss homosexuality and lesbian love in antiquity, incest in the Middle Ages, sexual education and instruction in the Dutch Republic, voyeurism and French rococo art, de Sade, prostitution in fin-de-siecle Vienna, and mannish women of the Balkan mountains; an analysis of the rise of sexology closes the collection.

Capitalist accumulation in Kenya – straw men rule ok?

for Kenya seems to me to be relatively unambiguous, capitalism is an everchanging phenomenon. It may well be that despite this period of stagnation in the 1970s and despite the evident failure of the indigenous bourgeoisie to supplant foreign capital in the fifteen years since independence, we will yet see sustainable accumulation in Kenya, dominated by an indigenous industrial bourgeoisie. But, I believe, the evidence points the other way.

Mind, Brain and Biochemistry

MIND, BRAIN AND BIOCHEMISTRY M ~ lives in a fasc~nating,.k~leidoscopic world, and the microcosm that IS man IS Itself a wonderful complex of the changing and the abiding. There is constant change at every level of his physical and psychological makeup . Yet behind this ever-changing phenomenon there is a permanent substratum, a human person who undergoes these changes. Careful studies have shown that there is a constant turnover of much of the body's chemical components. On the neurophysiological level the pulsating brain has been called " an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern, though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of sub-patterns." 1 On the chemical level the unending array of mobile patterns is well known to biochemists. On the level of man's conscious life the constant flux is even more evident: sensory images, ideas, desires and emotions tumble over one another in rapid succession. The facts of change are so constant and obvious as to lead many to doubt the reality of anything permanent. Some scientists wonder whether there really is such a thing as a person, for they point out that even the so-called person seems to undergo marked changes, sometimes to the point of developing a psychosis. Schizophrenia, for example, suggests a split of personality. The schizophrenic reveals himself as one having a dual personality, at one time revealing the behavioral pattern of one personality, and at other times manifesting an entirely different personality. But, we may ask, is this a true split of the person? 1 C. S. Sherrington, Man on His Nature, !'lnd ed. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1958), p. 184. 519 520 ALBERT S. MORACZEWSKI It is clear that the psychologist and the ontologist do not mean the same thing when they employ the words " person " and "personality." The psychologist, on the one hand, looks for thought, emotion and habit patterns which lead to a consistent and predictable behavior. These for him constitute the "psychological person." The ontologist, on the other hand, perceives the ontological oneness, even the uniqueness, of an existing reality which remains unchanged ontologically throughout the constant physical and psychological variations. This existential reality, the ontological person, under certain conditions is capable of manifesting itself differently, not because of any radical change in its being, but because of modifications in its bodily or mental life. The " person " ontologically understood is the subject in which the changes occur. It remains identically itself throughout aberrations of mind and body. The ontological person, therefore, is the fundamental reality which originates with conception (or shortly thereafter) and remains unchanged until death. Obviously the behavioral changes associated with mental illness occur in the ontological person, but they are changes of the psychological person. Hence, a schizophrenic is one being, one rational, existent being, manifesting more than one emotional and behavioral pattern. The ontological person is an autonomous totality composed of numerous interdependent functional parts. All the parts live by the same life, the unique life of the person, and yet each part has its distinctive vital function. Certain functional parts are so thoroughly dependent upon others that the distinctiveness of specific functions and parts is not infrequently called into question. One important problem much discussed today and in the past concerns the relation of the mind to the brain. Is the mind, as some insist, nothing more than the brain in its functional capacity? If so, is an injured brain the same as an injured mind? Or is the mind a reality distinct from the brain? If so, how do they interact in normal thought, and where is the failure causing mental disease? These and other related MIND, BRAIN AND BIOCHEMISTRY 5~1 questions are acute issues today.2 In particular, the question of the relation of biochemistry to behavior has special relevance to the basic issue. If the mind is a reality distinct from the brain, how does a chemical compound interact with it? And if mental illness is nothing but a malfunctioning of the brain (whose function is ultimately dependent upon molecular activity ), how can psychotherapy, that is, a non-chemical treatment , be effective in reversing an abnormal brain...

The Role of Sampling in Farm-Management Research

HE ever-changing phenomena of how farmers make a living with the resources they have available cannot be brought into the laboratory for analysis and study as can the phenomena of many of the physical sciences; nor can such phenomena be investigated by controlled experiments as is the case with many of the natural sciences. Social science research depends upon the valid analysis of representative observations of continuing ever-changing complex processes. In farm management, one of the social sciences, representative sampling is essential to valid conclusions and generalizations.