Extraordinary Courage Research Articles

Janet L. Langlois (1946–2021)

Janet L. Langlois (1946–2021)

Coronavirus and political “turbulence” in Ukraine in 2020

The purpose of the article: to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the socio-political life in Ukraine. Research methods: dialectical, analytical, descriptive, system-structural. The documentary basis of the study is a large array of informational and journalistic publications devoted to individual episodes and phenomena of fighting the pandemic and its consequences. In addition to scientific interest, the author of this article was inspired to write personal observations and impressions of the treatment of the disease in one of the hospitals in Dnipro, where he had the opportunity to feel the great danger of a terrible disease and see with his own eyes unsatisfactory material and technical condition of our hospitals. The author notes extraordinary courage of doctors and all medical staff who faithfully performed their duties and fought for life and health of each person. Scientific novelty: for the first time the socio-political development of the country in connection with the pandemic, which revealed many acute problems of Ukrainian society, is comprehensively shown. Main results: incompetence of the state apparatus and unwillingness of the state to give an adequate response to a serious challenge are revealed. Medical facilities, including hospitals, are unable to accept large numbers of patients, to provide them with appropriate treatment due to outdated equipment, lack of qualified staff, low salaries of medical staff, etc. Due to the U. Suprun’s reform, who served as the Minister of Health of Ukraine during 2016–2019, the old health care system was destroyed. As for the new system, it is created “in turbo mode” on the principle of “money follows the patient”. This system proved to be ineffective in the domestic realities; in fact it is antisocial, as basic medical services are inaccessible to a large number of Ukrainian citizens. On the other hand, the central government often provoked regions and communities into disobedience, creating conflicts, in particular when carrying out ill-conceived quarantine measures and compromising itself with double standards during the quarantine. All this has led to political turbulence in the political life of Ukraine, i. e. to a socio-political phenomenon similar to the movement of the aircraft, which due to oncoming stormy air waves begins to tremble and loses control. Type of article: analytical.

Deborah Zimmermann, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

Deborah Zimmermann, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, is chair of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) Foundation.

My Name Is Konisola by Alisa Siegel

Reviewed by: My Name Is Konisola by Alisa Siegel Miriam Larson Siegel, Alisa My Name Is Konisola. Second Story, 2020 [176p] Paper ed. ISBN 978-1-77260-119-0 $10.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4-6 In this true story, Konisola is nine when she and her mother, Abimbola, abruptly depart Nigeria for Canada in hope of finding safety away from an abusive family. Fortunately, they meet a Nigerian woman in line at the immigration checkpoint who agrees to let them stay with her for a few days. Then Abimbola falls seriously ill and must be hospitalized, and Konisola has to move to another house with another stranger, having no way to contact her mother except the name and number of a nurse. As the preface says, “this is a story . . . of how open-hearted strangers stepped into the life of a mother and a child,” and the fact that it is a true story (there’s a photo of Konisola and the nurse who adopts her on the final page) brings that point home with vividness. Unfortunately, the writing is flat and sometimes awkward, distancing the reader from Konisola’s emotional and challenging story. The book does provide some information about the asylum appeal process and the life-changing decisions made in immigration courts. Konisola’s brave mother, who fights through late-stage colon cancer to see her daughter adopted by a generous nurse is a remarkable hero of this tale, with Konisola a close second for her extraordinary courage. Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Scientific activity of professor Andriy Krasnov and its role in the development of modern geography

Purpose. Life, scientific and pedagogical way of А. М. Krasnov at the time of the formation of geography was unique, versatile, often contradictory, but clearly creative and innovative approach to everything that was within his interests. Despite some hasty results that harmed his general authority, the figure of A. M. Krasnov – the professor of Imperial Kharkiv University, the founder of Batumi Botanical Garden – is still of interest. Attention has veen paid to the period of his initial formation as a scientist, communication with V. I. Vernadsky, comparison of A. M. Krasnov’s works with works of other researchers, the implementation of the idea of plant introduction. Method. Authentic scientific works of A. M. Krasnov and his contemporaries have been used in the work. Through the use of historical and historiographical sources and comparative analysis there have been revealed those inconsistencies in his works which caused sharp criticism of reviewers. Results. Studies of the work of the first domestic doctor of geographical sciences Andriy Mykolayovych Krasnov have showed his passion for expeditionary research, charisma, thirst for knowledge, love of nature, rich innovative heritage. Attention has been paid to the initial stage of his life, when the interest in scientific, in particular, expeditionary research, which did not leave him during his life, emerged. Based on the study of the relationship between A. M. Krasnov and V. I. Vernadsky, a conclusion about his extraordinary character, ingrained sense of independence, but also passion, excessive emotionality, haste of conclusions has been made. The authors have given the generalized description of the state of the study of geography, which was considered an auxiliary science in the universities of the Russian Empire in the late XIX century, because for A. M. Krasnov it became a source of innovation. The article reveals the extraordinary scientific courage of A. M. Krasnov, who in his doctoral thesis considered the views of famous scientists on the causes of steppe plains. The analysis of А. М. Krasnov’s publications and other sources has proved that he became the creator of constructive geography, combined theoretical classes with practical ones in nature, initiated student scientific expeditions, founded a student geographical society and a geographical office. Possessing artistic and literary talent, he became one of the best promoters of exotic regions, visiting dozens of countries around the world. The authors have also traced the reasons why his scientific works were treated with skepticism and distrust. Scientific novelty and practical significance. Some details of the relationship between A. M. Krasnov and V. I. Vernadsky have been clarified. The reasons that led to the ignoring of the scientific achievement of A. M. Krasnov by contemporaries have been revealed. It is expedient to use these materials while writing the full scientific and pedagogical biography of professor A. M. Krasnov.

On Sands Stained Red: Ordinary Men and Extraordinary Courage on Omaha Beach

On June 6, 1944, at approximately 7:15 A.M., only 45 minutes after the initial allied landing craft hit the beaches of Normandy, France, to breach Hitler's Atlantic Wall, 1 st Lt. Bob Edlin and the men of 1 st Platoon, A Company, 2 nd Ranger Battalion approached the smoke-shrouded Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach in their LCA (Landing Craft Assault). Both A and B Companies' landing craft had spent the early hours of the morning trolling in a circling pattern a few miles off the coast of France awaiting orders to land. Those orders had now arrived.

Alice Paul: Claiming Power by J.D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry (review)

Reviewed by: Alice Paul: Claiming Power by J.D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry Alice Almond Shrock, Emerita Alice Paul: Claiming Power. By J.D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. ix + 395 pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. $34.95. For years, Alice Paul has been one of the most reviled and revered of American feminists. She inspired near-fanatical devotion from her sister suffragettes in the National Women’s Party (NWP). She also provoked harsh criticism and contempt from mainstream suffragists who considered her militant tactics scandalous and damaging to the cause. Such a controversial character demands a careful biography, and Paul has one in this book. Unfortunately, only one of the authors was able to complete the final text. The narrative benefits from oral history tapes collected by Amelia Fry between 1975 and 1982. But when Fry became ill her research files and partial draft were shelved until 2005 when J. D. Zahniser agreed to complete the analysis of Paul’s early life and suffrage years. Fry died in 2009. Paul was certainly not an easy subject to study. Though her suffrage campaigns thrust her into public view, she was intensely private and resisted discussing personal matters in interviews (including one attempted [End Page 46] by this reviewer). She culled NWP files to erase evidence of her life outside of suffrage. Thus, as Zahniser admits, “we will never know Alice Paul as fully as we would like.” Despite these constraints, this careful biography offers a more personal view of Paul than is available in earlier works that tend to focus on organizational strategies and leadership styles. From the first to the final paragraphs, Claiming Power clearly connects Paul’s Quaker roots to her suffrage work. Paul was reared in a Hicksite family and community that indelibly shaped her ideals. She absorbed the values of equality, integrity, simplicity, social justice and public service, and later embodied these same virtues in her steady self-sacrifice for the suffrage cause. Her notoriety as a suffragette tested the tolerance of her more conservative relatives and hometown; at the same time, she lost interest in the spiritual side of the community. Thus, “her relationship with her birthright community, and theirs with her, remained ambivalent.” Nevertheless, she remained true to core Quaker values and retained her membership in the Moorestown (N.J.) Meeting all her life. At times the dense textual details, such as information about collegiate clothing and housing, can become tedious. However, Claiming Power provides riveting and disturbing descriptions of Paul’s imprisonments, including her isolation in a psychopathic ward, forced sleep deprivation, voluntary hunger strikes, and repeated forcible feedings (at least 55 times in one month alone). Amazingly, she was willing and able to endure such brutal treatment in England, and then submit to it again in the United States. The trauma severely damaged Paul’s physical health; it took years to recover. But her determination never wavered. Paul’s political strategy and dramatic tactics revived a moribund suffrage movement in the U.S. and helped deliver the constitutional amendment formally giving women the vote in 1920, although women of color (including African-American, Native American) would be forced to wait until at least the 1960s for effective enfranchisement. This delay points to a problem in Paul’s vision: her focus on suffrage to the exclusion of all other reforms blinded her to the complexities of class and race, a subject not explored at length. Likewise, discussion of the post-1920 period is limited to a four-page epilogue, even though Paul persisted in “claiming power” for women until her death, especially through her creation and commitment to the Equal Rights Amendment. [End Page 47] Clearly, Alice Paul was a Quaker of extraordinary courage and self-will. Amelia Fry and J.D. Zahniser have provided a service for both Paul and their readers by presenting this richly detailed portrait that should be of interest to historians, political scientists, women’s studies scholars, feminists, and Quakers. [End Page 48] Alice Almond Shrock, Emerita Earlham College Copyright © 2015 Friends Historical Association

Free Speech in the Age of McCarthy: A Cautionary Tale

I am delighted to have the privilege of giving this lecture in honor of Justice Brennan. The year I spent as his law clerk-October Term 1972was one of the most challenging and rewarding of my life. Justice Brennan was man of extraordinary courage, insight, and vision. The idea of remembering him each year with lecture dedicated to his spirit is both fitting and inspiring. Why, then, lecture on the Age of McCarthy? This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Senator Joseph McCarthy's condemnation, and fifty years is always good time to take stock. Moreover, the Age of McCarthy bears some relation to the present. Though history never repeats itself precisely, it does repeat its general themes, and it is helpful to know our past if we are to cope well with our present. Finally, there has been disturbing movement recently to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy. In her new book, Slander, for example, Ann Coulter refers to McCarthyism as paranoid liberal fantas[y],' and in serious work, Arthur Herman argues that Joseph McCarthy was more right than wrong in terms of the larger picture.2 His mistake, Herman says, was to make a good point badly.3 I

Daughters of Africa Heed the Call for Justice, Peace, and Fullness of Life

AbstractIn this issue of IRM that focuses on “God of Life, lead us to justice and peace” I wish to reflect on how women in Africa have joined God of Life in saying “No” to senseless death as a way of life due to, among other things, endemic violence, insecurity, poverty, diseases, trauma, and leadership crisis. By focusing on narratives that depict African women's engagement in God's mission, I attempt to demonstrate their courage to act and to speak truth to power. Put differently, these women have heeded life‐giving messages of justice and peace in the scriptures that lead them daily to reimagining resurrection here and now against unspeakable corruption, arrogance, and total disregard for God's immeasurable gifts of love, forgiveness, kindness, unity, and fullness of life. These are ordinary women who act with extraordinary courage because they are tired of lies about themselves and about Africa. They have identified deeply entrenched injustices about women and about Africa that have condemned them to a life of endless struggle and misery. These women want more than justice and peace: They want life after birth in its abundance!

"Om jag ej får gå med byxsor kan jag inte lefva"

”If I Am Not Allowed to Wear Trousers I Cannot Live”. Therese Andreas Bruce and the Struggle for a Male Identity in Nineteenth-Century Sweden
 This article is a study of an autobiographical text written by Andreas Bruce (1808–1885) at the end of his life. He was born to an aristocratic family as a girl named Therese. At the age of sixteen, the young woman declared that it was absolutely necessary for her to live her life as a man. A distinguished doctor examined Therese, finding that she was a kind of hermaphrodite, more male than female. This article highlights that the main theme of the autobiography is the necessity for Bruce to prove to himself and other people that, although he is not ”a complete man”, he is capable of managing everything that a man is expected to endure, and to do so with extraordinary courage. In this sense, Bruce exemplifies Bourdieu’s thesis that virility is a highly relational quality constructed before other men and against femininity for fear of the female potential inside man himself. While Bruce is physically weaker than other men, he compensates through mental strength, acting in a consistently courageous manner. This, at least, is the image he wishes to project. The most serious threat to this image was his pregnancy, when he had been living as a man for about thirteen years. Bruce’s predicament was dire, but he was also alive to the possibilities of his unique situation and had the capacity to utilize them. His Christian convictions, which grew stronger towards the end of his life, also played an important role. It is ironic and regrettable that his tombstone was engraved with his female initials, rather than his male initials, in an act that was certainly not in compliance with Bruce’s desires.

Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Courage by Exceptional Men and Women in World War Two

Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Courage by Exceptional Men and Women in World War Two

Duty of Care to the Unconscious Patient - Approaching the Controversies of the Persistent Vegetative State by Fulfilling the Physician's Duty of Care (P07.274)

Objective: This article explains the contemporary challenges in managing the persistent vegetative state (PVS) and suggests an approach to the PVS. Background The PVS was first described as 9the syndrome without a name9 in 1972 and has been a source of confusion in diagnosis. It is difficult to determine prognosis. Multiple dilemmas exist in managing the patient. Extrinsic factors include cultural perceptions and media distortions. Design/Methods: By local at examples in the West, this article recognizes the ethical, philosophical and emotional dilemmas that both physicians and family face. With the motivation of affirming the right to care while respecting the right to die, the author discusses the appropriateness of the withdrawal of care by addressing the concept of medical futility and principles of medical ethics. Results: Management should be defined by the best interests of the patient and physician9s duty of care. Duty of care is achieved through neuro-palliative care that seeks to maximize quality end-of-life care for patients and families – where care is meant to affirm life and regard dying as a normal process, intending to neither hasten to postpone death and integrates psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care. Conclusions: With the prerequisites of diagnostic rigor, good communication and fulfillment of duty of care, the medical profession is in the best position to direct the care of such patients and deserves the trust and mandate of society to practice. Current doctors practicing in morally ambivalent cultures may not have the luxury of time or resources nor the extraordinary courage needed to contemplate these issues solitarily. Through the reinforcement of this deontological obligation to practice with sound science and respect for human dignity, affirming the right to care while respecting the right to die may be achieved by every doctor, and not just the morally courageous ones. Disclosure: Dr. Goh has nothing to disclose.

Second Thoughts on the Proposition “Literature Is the Study of Man”

钱谷融先生在20世纪五十年代撰文指出，高尔基建议把文学叫做“人学”，于是认为最早提出“文学是人学”命题的是高尔基；进入21世纪后，钱先生又说，“文学是人学”的发明权应归属于泰纳。本文认为：事实上，高尔基未曾提出过“文学是人学”的建议，泰纳也没有作过“文学是人学”的完整表达。不过，尽管如此，钱谷融先生在20世纪五十年代的政治与文学生态中，能提出“文学是人学”的命题，并阐释文学的“人性”品格，这既需要勇气，也需要才情，更具有非凡的意义。因此，在后来半个多世纪的文学创作和研究中，这一提法产生了极其巨大的积极影响和作用。不过，也应该看到，“文学是人学”这一命题缺乏其自圆其说的学理性依据，尤其站在新的世纪，以更高的标准对这一命题进行审视，其存在的局限性也是较为明显的，这就是：人是文学描写的中心，而不是文学描写对象的全部；人是评价文学的一个尺度，并不是评价文学的唯一尺度。文学还应遵循文学自身的特殊规律。 关键词: “文学是人学” 来源 时代背景 关系图式 In an essay written in the 1950s, Qian Gurong noted that Gorky once suggested calling literature “the study of man.” He went on to argue that Gorky was the first to have put forward this proposition. In the twenty‐first century, Qian added the comment that “Rights to the statement ‘Literature is the study of man’ should go to H. Taine.” In this paper, I argue that in fact, Gorky never suggested calling literature “the study of man,” nor did Taine ever say in so many words “Literature is the study of man.” Nevertheless, it certainly took extraordinary courage and talent for Qian Gurong to have put forward this proposition and expounded on the “humane” character of literature given the political and literary situation of China in the 1950s. His act was of more than usual significance, for it had an enormously positive influence on literary creation and research in the succeeding half century. At the same time, it is worth noting that the proposition “Literature is the study of man” is not justifiable in terms of the principles of logic. In the new century, as we examine this proposition more rigorously, we can see its deficiencies more clearly: that is, man is the center, rather than the sole object, of literary description; man is a measure, rather than the sole measure, of literary criticism. Besides, literature should follow its own particular laws.

Teresa de Avila: Lettered Woman (review)

Reviewed by: Teresa de Avila: Lettered Woman Gillian T. W. Ahlgren (bio) Teresa de Avila: Lettered Woman. By Bárbara Mujica, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009. 278 + xiv pp. cloth $45.00. Teresa de Avila: A Lettered Woman is an engaging exploration of Teresa as a person and reformer, as seen through the lens of her extant letters—over 450 of them. In this study, Mujica allows the letters to become the sole focus of inquiry, supported by Teresa's other works and various contextual aids. The beauty of the book is that for the first time, Teresa's letters are given the kind of attention and consideration they deserve. As Mujica explains at the outset, these letters "reveal her day-to-day struggles, her frustrations, her joy, her sense of humor, her temper, her compassion." (x) Although readers of Teresa's works have probably always thought of her as personable and expressive, Mujica's study provides more substance to Teresa's intentions, her perceptions, the lived experiences of the cloistered Carmelite women (whose idiosyncrasies can sometimes elude us through the walls of time and space), and the multitude of challenges they faced. In the end Mujica leaves us with a fine "portrait of extraordinary courage, ability, and shrewdness" (xi) that will challenge and inspire. The book is divided into six chapters. The first, "From Teresa de Ahumada to Saint Teresa," is biographical and contextual. The second, "Teresa de Jesús: Woman of Letters," is a review of the epistolary genre and Teresa's particular contributions, along with stylistic and rhetorical analysis. The third, "God's Warrior and Her Epistolary Weapons," is a detailed study of the guts of the Carmelite reform and the role Teresa's letters had in extending, protecting, and defending it. The fourth chapter, "Correspondence and Correspondents," reviews the extant letters and describes more qualitatively the relationships Teresa cultivated with four of Teresa's major correspondents (i.e., the four people who received the largest percentage of Teresa's remaining letters. Here, of course, we are left to lament in silence the tragic loss of Teresa's letters to John of the Cross). The fifth chapter, "Letter-Writing as Self-Representation," describes the various roles that Teresa had to adopt over the course of the Carmelite reform, from foundress to administrator, to "mother general," educator, legislator, and diplomat. It is in both the third chapter and this fifth chapter that Mujica engages more explicitly the issues of authority, diplomacy, and rhetorical strategy that have been of such keen interest over the past few decades of Teresian scholarship. Chapter Six, "Forging Sainthood: Teresa's Letters as Relics," looks at the posthumous influence of Teresa and the re-creation of her as a person and as a saint. In each chapter, readers are given carefully chosen citations of Teresa's letters along with thought-provoking analysis that leads to a greater sense of Teresa's overall influence, character, and contributions. There are a few occasions where I wish Mujica had continued to press the implications of some of her observations. For example, she notes on page 107: "It is significant that Teresa had had Jesuit confessors. She had probably made the Spiritual Exercises and so would have been familiar with the kind of collaborative arrangement between priest and directee intrinsic to Jesuit spiritual practice." Although Mujica develops a sense of Teresa's "collaborative relationship with [Jerónimo] Gracián" over the next few pages, there is probably more to be observed about how Teresa was able to take an Ignatian approach to spiritual direction [End Page 131] and develop it into a realm of mystical theology that the Jesuits themselves did not always reach, theoretically or practically. Reading Teresa through her letters, through Mujica's eyes, allows those already familiar with Teresa to engage in a deeper investigation of the theory and praxis of prayer and the mystical life or to explore new contextual aspects of religious reform. Mujica's admiration for Teresa's acumen, dedication, and strategic prowess brings an enthusiasm and energy to the text itself. Mujica makes observations with a sort of crisp precision that resonates with the assessments of others. Yet the engagement...

The Fatal Politics of the PRC's Great Leap Famine: the preface to Tombstone

What follows is the Preface to Tombstone (), Yang Jisheng's two-volume investigative study of China's Great Famine that claimed some 36 million lives in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The book was published in Hong Kong in 2008 and was banned on the mainland. The death toll was unprecedented and remains unmatched in Chinese or world history. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tried to cover up the terrible reality by classifying key information as secret and placing the blame elsewhere, as in the euphemism ‘the three years of natural disaster’. Yang Jisheng, an economist, journalist and Xinhua editor, has devoted more than two decades of his life to collecting data from official archives and interviewing survivors, witnesses and officials. The result is a thorough and powerful account of extraordinary inhumanity and magnificent courage that rivals Alexander Solzhenitsyn's study of the Soviet Gulag and Robert Conquest's history of Stalin's collectivization famine. Tombstone covers both diverse localities and the power center in Beijing to explain the dynamics of the catastrophe caused by CCP policies and practices under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Chief among these policies were the state monopoly of purchasing and marketing grain, the power of officials to seize grain from people's homes, compulsory collective mess halls that ‘imposed the dictatorship of the proletariat on every individual stomach’, and a full-scale collectivization that left villagers no means of saving themselves. Despite receiving reports of widespread famine and cannibalism, Mao touted alleged successes and attacked those who spoke the truth as counter-revolutionaries, thereby prolonging and intensifying the famine for another two years. On this basis Yang places the ultimate responsibility for 36 million deaths on China's political system. Tombstone is a monumental work that is also intended as a monument to Yang's own father (whose death by starvation is described in heartrending detail below) and to all the other 36 million innocent victims. At personal risk, Yang is trying to end ‘an amnesia imposed by those in power’. In the process he sheds unprecedented light on how a political system presented to the Chinese people as a ‘Road to Paradise’ instead turned into a ‘Road to Perdition’. Yang has condensed and updated the Chinese-language manuscript for foreign-language publication. The following Preface is part of an English translation currently in progress.

Teresa de Avila, lettered woman

In 1562, Teresa de Avila founded the Discalced Carmelites and launched a reform movement that would pit her against the Church hierarchy and the male officials of her own religious order. This new spirituality, which stressed interiority and a personal relationship with God, was considered dangerous and subversive. It provoked the suspicion of the Inquisition and the wrath of unreformed Carmelites, especially the Andalusian friars, who favored the lax practices of their traditional monasteries. The Inquisition investigated Teresa repeatedly, and the Carmelite General had her detained. But even during the most terrible periods of persecution, Teresa continued to fight for the reform using the weapon she wielded best: the pen. Teresa wrote hundreds, perhaps thousands, of letters to everyone from the king to prelates to mothers of novices. Teresa's epistolary writing reveals how she used her political acumen to dodge inquisitors and negotiate the thorny issues of the reform, facing off with the authorities - albeit with considerable tact - and reprimanding priests and nuns who failed to follow her orders. Her letters bring to light the different strategies she used - code names, secret routing - in order to communicate with nuns and male allies. They show how she manipulated language, varying her tone and rhetoric according to the recipient or slipping into deliberate vagueness in order to avoid divulging secrets. What emerges from her correspondence is a portrait of extraordinary courage, ability, and shrewdness. In the sixteenth century, the word letrado (lettered) referred to the learned men of the Church. Teresa treated letrados with great respect and always insisted on her own lack of learning. The irony is that although women could not be letradas, Teresa was, as her correspondence shows, 'lettered' in more ways than one.

Child of the Sit-Downs: The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger

Carlton Jackson begins his biography of the labor activist Genora Dollinger with the most personal of comparisons. Dollinger, he says, was a lot like Jackson's coal miner father: a “frontline worker,” deeply devoted to her union and tireless in her pursuit of social justice, yet too pragmatic and hardheaded to “intellectualize or philosophize the interests and well-being of workers into some kind of esoteric oblivion” (pp. xi, xiii). It is hard to imagine a biographer establishing a more intimate identification with his subject, and it leads Jackson astray. Most obviously, Jackson's framework may well fit his father's story better than it does Dollinger's. There is no doubt that she was fiercely committed to her union, the United Automobile Workers (uaw). Her greatest moment came during the epic 1937 Flint sit-down strike, when she battled policemen and company thugs as the head of the uaw's Women's Emergency Brigade. Without her extraordinary courage, the strike might well have collapsed, taking the fledgling union down with it. But Dollinger was a “frontline” auto worker for only four years, from 1942 to 1945. Her real avocation was as a working-class radical, a left-wing Socialist who in 1938 embraced Trotskyism. That commitment—not pragmatic, hardheaded unionism—guided her as she wound her way through many of the progressive causes of the postwar era—civil liberties, civil rights, and feminism foremost among them. All the while she continued her engagement with the uaw, fighting to make the union conform to the vision that brought her into the streets of Flint in the bitter winter of 1937. A well-lived life, to be sure, but one defined by precisely the sort of intellectual and philosophical engagement that Jackson says Dollinger eschewed.

Review: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men and Women of the Underground Railroad in the Indiana and Kentucky Borderland, by Sally Newkirk, Pamela Peters, and Cynthia Torp

Review Article| November 01 2008 Review: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men and Women of the Underground Railroad in the Indiana and Kentucky Borderland, by Sally Newkirk, Pamela Peters, and Cynthia Torp Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men and Women of the Underground Railroad in the Indiana and Kentucky Borderland. Sally Newkirk, curator and director; Pamela Peters and Cynthia Torp, curators. Carnegie Center for Art and History, New Albany, Indiana. Marty D. Matthews Marty D. Matthews North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The Public Historian (2008) 30 (4): 119–122. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2008.30.4.119 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Marty D. Matthews; Review: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men and Women of the Underground Railroad in the Indiana and Kentucky Borderland, by Sally Newkirk, Pamela Peters, and Cynthia Torp. The Public Historian 1 November 2008; 30 (4): 119–122. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2008.30.4.119 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe Public Historian Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2008 by The Regents of the University of California and the National Council on Public History2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Arunachala

Abstract"Arunachala" is a slightly edited version of chapter six of The Cave of the Heart, a Biography of Swami Abhishiktananda, published by Orbis Books in 2005. It tells of Abhishiktananda's heart being opened to the Vedic tradition by his encounter with Ramana Maharshi and how he subsequently realized that, just as Ramana had been drawn by the Mountain of Arunachala itself, so was he. In a curious sense he was, indeed, in love with a mountain. Abhishiktananda is an excellent subject for the discussion of the "inter-religious imagination" for three reasons: First, because he was a pioneer of extraordinary courage in exploring the boundaries of Hinduism and Christianity. Secondly, because despite having a good theological mind, he was more heart than head, and his determination to explore everything in the light of experience rather than theory give his conclusions an exceptional immediacy and value. Thirdly, because few people have ever experienced "double-belonging" so acutely: he was torn apart by the tension he felt between the two, a tension he only resolved towards the end of his life. The author refers to him initially as Henri in this essay, as he did not adopt the name of Abhishiktananda until 1950.

Hurricane Blues: Poems about Katrina and Rita

Reviewed by: Hurricane Blues: Poems about Katrina and Rita Paul A. Parrish (bio) Kolin, Philip C., and Susan Swartwout, eds. Hurricane Blues: Poems about Katrina and Rita. Cape Girardeau: Southeast Missouri State UP, 2006. Among the 108 poems in Hurricane Blues written by almost as many poets are these lines by Diane Elayne Dees, in a poem with the deceptively innocent title “Things To Do While You Wait for the Roofer”: Drive to New Orleans and marvel at how easily you can find a parking place now. Momentarily forget yourself and try to visit your old haunts. Count the refrigerators on each block. Go to Lakeview and see the empty houses, the cars left in parking lots, tossed together—giant playing pieces on a board game. Banks, restaurants, coffee shops, schools, churches, gas stations, grocery stores, pharmacies, gift shops— all dark, abandoned, boarded. . . . . . . . . . . . . Pour yourself a drink and watch the news. Get a grip on your rage. (159–60) As with “Things To Do While You Wait for the Roofer,” many poems in this impressive and compelling collection feature searing images and evocative rage—sometimes barely concealed, sometimes taking center stage—while still others introduce us to memorable figures—famous, infamous, and unknown—who are described, celebrated, derided, and memorialized as a result of the catastrophe visited on Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Gulf Coast by the hurricanes named Katrina and Rita. Philip C. Kolin and Susan Swartwout have put the collection together both as a way of capturing the history and as an effort to contribute to the healing. As they put it in their introduction: We want this collection not only to record history but to serve in some way as a balm, a relief effort toward the inevitable reconstruction of the region. Accordingly, all proceeds from Hurricane Blues will go toward the relief effort. This is poetry as bread, cast upon the surface of the waters. (14) [End Page 949] Following a touching and determined brief memoir by Darby Diane Beattie (a “Katrina survivor”), the collection presents the poems arranged under headings that follow the chronology of the experience of the hurricanes (especially Katrina) themselves: Looming; Landing; City Under Siege, Under Water; Aftermath; Mourning; Resolutions. The poets themselves are from around the country, confirming that the nation as a whole (not just Louisiana and Mississippi—though especially Louisiana and Mississippi) was wounded by the losses experiences during those awful days in 2005. Any collection involving some 100 writers is likely to have some unevenness, and Hurricane Blues is no different. Readers will find different poems differently engaging and accomplished, and, indeed, some poems are more memorable because of the candor or emotion and rhetoric than the quality of the verse. On the whole, however, the collection is impressive for its variety—of subjects, modes, and genres—and its compelling interests. Many of the poems are heart-wrenching, and the collection as a whole stands as a powerful reminder of experiences, emotions, responses, and testimonies that we cannot afford to treat as merely historical phenomena. Indeed, it is evident that some of the emotions remain vivid and raw, as the devastation of the experience is placed alongside the incompetence and insensitivities of governmental officials and agencies. Making the loss and the incompetence even more outrageous are the compelling examples of the extraordinary courage and heroism of the most ordinary of citizens. On occasion it is the “government” or “politicians” that are the object of ridicule: For close to a week I watched as the city became water and thousands huddled on rooftops or jammed into stadiums, and did nothing I felt like a government. (Tim Hurley, “Projection” 81) The politicians are more concerned with looting than rescuing or bottled water or diapers while the head of a nursing home fled leaving the patients to fend for themselves. Let the finger pointing begin (Martin Willitts, Jr., “Hurricane Katrina” 75) At times we are reminded of specific individuals who gained notoriety for action or inaction, including Michael D. Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”), and the payer of that compliment, President Bush: While the politicians drone and the...